MINNEAPOLIS _ F-bombs, the N-word, lyrics about sex acts and cheerleaders shaking their exposed booties _ and still more _ are featured in a rap music video shot in the Patrick Henry High School gym by a Minneapolis-area performer who attended classes there and his Chicago partner.
A Minneapolis School District official said Thursday that the people who used the gym last month on a Sunday afternoon misrepresented their intentions when they applied to use the space.
District spokeswoman Gail Plewacki said Patrick Henry Principal Yusuf Abdullah asked the producers to remove from YouTube the video "Keep Me Going," which stars former Patrick Henry student P. Skud and Lil Bibby, of Chicago. The video's creator has so far declined, Plewacki said.
The applicants, who paid $300 for the gym time, said they were going to produce a "basketball promotion," Plewacki said. "Clearly, a basketball promotion was a misrepresentation. ... We were tremendously misled."
She emphasized that the lyrics and imagery in the video, which has been viewed more than 50,000 times since it was posted last Friday, "do not align with our values. ... We do not endorse the content, and we do not approve of the content."
Aspiring rapper P. Skud, whose actual name is Lavern Jamison, said he doesn't feel that he pulled a fast one on school officials and was unaware that they want the plug pulled on the video, which clearly shows the school's name and logo in the background of several scenes during the Nov. 20 shoot.
"The theme of the video is to never stop, to keep going," said Jamison, who put up $12,000 of his own money to get it made. "I was writing a story to motivate my little brother" who plays basketball at Osseo High School.
Jamison, 26, said he loved his 3 { years at Patrick Henry, before he graduated elsewhere. "I used to perform at Henry in talent shows," he said.
Should the producers, Chicago-based A Zae Production, refuse to take down the video, there is a "rigorous process" that the district can pursue to have YouTube remove it.
The video opens with teens entering the gym for a basketball game as P. Skud appears and the lyrics start with "Money, keep me going; drinking, keep me going."
The lines quickly turn raunchy, with crude references to sex, prostitutes and utterances of the F-bomb and the N-word.
Fans dance on bleachers during the basketball game, and on the sideline cheerleaders in short skirts at times expose and shake their bare buttocks for the camera.
Plewacki said allowing the school's identity to be revealed in the video violates the permit agreement. Plewacki said the people in the video are not current students of the north Minneapolis high school or otherwise affiliated with the district.
On the day of the video shoot, a maintenance person checked the permit, let the users in, left and then returned at the end of the two hours to check for damage and lock up.
"Our schools are public places," Plewacki said. "We like to have our spaces used by the public."
