INS Is Holding Rapper

In 1996, after five years in prison, rapper Slick Rick was desperate to make new music, return to his beloved Bronx streets and dote on his two children.

Now, though, the same crime that put him in prison has landed him behind bars again, and may lead to the British citizen’s deportation from the country he has called home since 1976.

“It was devastating,” the rapper said Friday in a phone interview from an immigration detention facility in Manatee County, Fla. “You believe you served your time for the mistake you made and that you’ve rehabilitated yourself, then to be back inside, it’s kind of hard.”

An immigration law that calls for the deportation of any noncitizen who serves more than five years in a U.S. prison has caught up to the rapper a full six years after he was released from prison, where he served five years and 14 days for a shooting that wounded two men.

With a sometimes cartoonish, always colorful style, the rapper first hit the scene in a big way in 1985 with “La Di Da Di” and the “The Show,” a pair of hit collaborations with Doug E. Fresh. Long before Jay-Z, Slick Rick infused his hip-hop with a pimp persona and made it one of the bedrock images of the genre. With heaps of jewelry and his trademark eye patch, the rhyming Lothario offered his worldview in such tracks as “Treat Her Like a Prostitute.” He took heat for his content, but his 1988 album “The Great Adventures of Slick Rick” was a platinum-seller that has taken on the status of a classic.

Rick, whose real name is Richard Walters, came to America in 1976 as an 11-year-old of British birth and Jamaican heritage, and he already had his eye patch--he wore it because of a glass shard that had injured his eye.

Though he was a legal resident, he never became a naturalized citizen, which was a major issue after he ran afoul of the law. He was convicted in 1991 of attempted murder for the N.Y. street showdown.

His supporters insist that the confrontation was a matter of defense against dangerous rivals. But authorities seized a cache of weapons in his trunk at the time of his arrest. Either way, Rick was convicted and sent to prison.

Aware of his immigration status, his attorneys secured a waiver from an INS judge in June 1995 to permit him to stay in the country, and seven months later he was released from prison. The INS, though, pursued the matter and in March 1997 negated the waiver. Attorneys began another appeal, but the rapper says he was unaware his name was on a warrant.

In Miami on June 1, Rick was arrested by INS agents screening passengers on a cruise ship that had hired him, Erykah Badu, Angie Stone, the Gap Band and others as entertainment for a Caribbean voyage. Deemed a flight risk, he has been in custody since.

A number of notables have lent their names to Rick’s bid for freedom, among them actor and rapper Will Smith, music mogul Russell Simmons, comedian Chris Rock, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and New York State Sen. David Paterson. “I have known Rick for over 15 years.... While I’m aware of his past problems, I’ve also had the pleasure to watch him develop into a good person,” Smith stated in a letter to the INS.

Alex Solomiany, a Miami-based immigration attorney, represents Rick and plans to meet again on Monday with immigration officials and then file a new petition in the U.S. District Court in Tampa. He says the rapper’s fate may take months or even a year to sort out. “We want him free while we fight this,” Solomiany said. “But that remains to be seen.”

“I don’t believe I’m a bad person,” Rick said. “The whole incident was years ago. I’ve been out and six years crime-free. All this now seems like an extreme measure.”