NYC NOW - November 16, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Democrats are asking New York's top court to overturn the state's congressional districts. Plus, embattled Rep. George Santos says he will not seek reelection. And finally, WNYC’s Jessy Edwards shares the story of a rapper at Rikers Island jail who is receiving acclaim that could make him an ongoing target for law enforcement.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. That inevitable gerrymandel will be challenged in court again. We'll cause more confusion and will cause embarrassment to the state of New York and its courts for launching the unnecessary fiasco that will follow. Democrats are asking New York's top court to overturn the state's 26 congressional districts, which were just put into place last year. The Court of Appeals heard arguments this week, over the Democrats' lawsuit.

The case focuses on whether the state's independent redistricting commission should get a second chance to draw New York's congressional map after it deadlocked last year. Aria Branch's lead attorney for the Democrats. It's clear that the IRC and the legislature can draw maps at the beginning of the decade, but they can also draw maps to remedy violations of law.

Last year, Republicans picked up three house seats in New York. A court-appointed expert drew the current map and the Republican Party says it should stay in place. Representative George Santos will not seek re-election. He announced his plans Thursday on X on the heels of a new report released by the House Ethics Committee. WNYC's Bridget Bergen has the details. The report found, quote, substantial evidence that Santos violated House ethics rules, campaign finance law, and potentially committed additional federal crimes. The bipartisan committee, which had been investigating the Queens and Long Island Republican for nearly nine months,

voted unanimously to adopt the report. They also referred it to the Department of Justice for, quote, further action as it deems appropriate. Santos blasted the report as an effort to smear him. His decision not to seek re-election comes as Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the House and officially kicks off a new phase in this battleground district that Santos had flipped to red after years of Democratic control.

Stay close. There's more after the break. A major goal for any musician is to produce a successful music video. But imagine doing it while locked up at one of the country's most infamous and dangerous jails. Tequan Jones did just that at Rikers Island. Now, as people in the music industry watch his star rise, some worry the acclaim could make him an ongoing target for law enforcement. WNYC's Jesse Edwards has a story. Hey, hello?

DeQuan Jones is calling me from his cell on Rikers Island. where he's locked in with a camera over his head. The Brownsville native says he's now confined to his cell most of the day as punishment for smuggling in contraband video equipment and making two viral music videos from behind bars. They say they got me a celebrity status. They basically said that they don't trust me in general population because of the videos.

The 27-year-old goes by the rap name Tay 627. Tay was sent to Rikers late last year after being arrested in a sweep of 34 alleged gang members on charges that included attempted gun possession. Tay had been making music for a couple of years and says he knew he was good. So, sitting in his cell one day, he got the idea to make a music video

that would show what life is like on Rikers Island. I was just saying that thinking, like, nobody ever did this before. Nobody, like, Zane or Lidavre, he'd been on Rikers Island before. A whole lot of other artists has been on Rikers Island before, but nobody made a whole music video. Tay says he spent days planning and shooting the videos.

Cell phones and film equipment are contraband at Rikers, and Tay is tight-lipped about how he pulled it off. How did you actually record everything? That's confidential for now on. I'm going to put it down real simple. It's like,

whatever they don't know, they can't say. They have to know something or verbally see something to say something. His first video, NYC's boldest, shows him wrapping inside a cell flanked by other men, standing and dancing, some holding plastic knives. One shot shows a violent brawl inside a cell with the number 22 painted above it. The video ends with a scene of men selling small bags of marijuana through an interior window. You know what you want?

What you want? You want, what you want? You may recognize the iconic 1999 forgot about Dre Beat, but the rapper isn't Dray. Tay, his lyrics speak of street life, shootings and police violence. We are up. He got shy in the chest, he was out of breath, that fell on his name. Taye's second video, released in July, is more of a party track. I'm trying to tell me stop.

I'm clubbed. While rapping about a special lady, the video shows him and others dancing in cells in communal areas, dressed in jewelry and designer clothes, and showing off for piles of snacks and and weed. One shot shows detainees mopping a badly flooded hallway in a housing unit. Tate says it's all real, both the grim conditions of the jail and the aspects of hip-hop luxury they've managed to cultivate behind bars. If you look at a video, I was wearing Christian Bior, Mike and Mary jeans. I was dripped out. I was wearing chains.

Everything I wanted in a video, I had marijuana, marijuana on the window, all that is real. That's extremely real. Tay says he tried to stay busy in Rikers to keep himself sane, and he wanted to include other detainees to help them get through too. I bring energy to a bad environment, the light won't come in. I'm not going to just sit here and feel down, feel bad. Everybody got a good side, a part of them, so I just bring that out. Tay says he used some of his contacts to get his videos in the hands of Picture Perfect,

a talent scout for one of the largest hip-hop websites, World Star Hip Hop. Picture Perfect made Cardi B's first music video, Bodak Yellow, and released rapper Ice Spice's first viral hit, Munch. Picture Perfect says Tay is different from other artists he meets every day. He not only put Tay on World Stars YouTube, he also decided to manage him. I think he's one of a kind. I just never thought in my mind that somebody could pull something like this off. A lot of those guys that are incarcerated that are not looking at a happy ending.

but just the drive that he has and the talent and the tenacity to record in such an unhappy situation, right? I can only see him being super successful, right, at the end of the day. The videos together got more than half a million views. They were boosted by G-Unit rapper Tony Yeo in a July episode of Drink Champs. Yo, this is a live video. That's why they want to shut down the island, man. That's crazy, man. I ain't a lot.

The video ain't that bad. The video is good. Still, Picture Perfect says he worried about the consequences of Tay releasing a music video from behind bars. In Atlanta, a debate is raging over whether prosecutors can use lyrics written by the rap star young thug as evidence in his trial on gang and racketeering charges. And last year, Mayor Eric Adams criticized drill rap for inciting violence. He said it shouldn't be allowed. on the internet. This is contributing to the violence that we're seeing all over this country.

It is one of those rivers that we have to damn. Hay says he doesn't consider his music to be drill rap, even though others do. But Eric Nielsen, a rap music expert at the University of Richmond, says the criticisms are unfair either way. The narrative of hip-hop as promoting violence is exactly wrong. hip-hop has been responsible for reducing violence and forgiving people opportunities who come from communities where those opportunities are rare. When the New York City Department of Correction became aware of Tays videos,

a spokesperson said officers stepped up tactical search operations and efforts to stop contraband from coming into the jail. She said they seized phones, weapons and drugs. Dr. Jabari Evans, a rapper and professor of race and media at the University of State South Carolina says Tay can expect that scrutiny to continue. I think in this society that we're in, virality can lead to an actual career in the case of someone like ice spikes. But I also know that visibility, while incarcerated, also breeds the wrong type of surveillance and the wrong type of attention. In September, Tay pleaded guilty to one charge

of attempted possession of a criminal weapon in the second degree. He was moved to an upstate prison to serve the rest of a three-year sentence. I haven't been able to speak to him since his move upstate. But he made it clear before his sentencing he wasn't about to give up. I don't like downfalls. So I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to make it work. It's going to happen with me. With Tay 6 and 7,

it's going to happen. Anything's possible. Tay will be eligible for release next year. When he gets out, he plans to release his first EP, NYC's boldest, and start performing. That's WNYC's Jesse Edwards. Thanks for listening to

NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day. I'm Junae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.