NAMES IN THE NEWS : Ex-Staffers Rap M. C. Hammer

M. C. Hammer, whose “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em” is the biggest-selling rap album ever, is taking the rap from former employees.

“It was like modern-day slavery,” Kent Wilson, Hammer’s former turntable wizard, a.k.a. Lone Mixer, told Rolling Stone magazine in its Sept. 6 issue.

“He wanted to have total control over everybody at all times,” said Dontay Newman, a bodyguard who quit last year.

The magazine said nearly all 70 of Hammer’s entourage of singers, dancers, bodyguards and others must return directly to their hotel rooms after each show and stay there all night or get a $100 fine.

Penalties have also been meted out for missing dance steps onstage and failing to have luggage ready on travel days, the magazine said.

Hammer said the entourage has a curfew to keep its members out of trouble.

“We don’t put curfews on you to control your life--just curfews that kind of help save your life,” he said. “Everybody is not 25 or 30 years old here. We’ve got 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds, who we feel very responsible for.”