Windsor Wigger
I miss a lot of interesting stories while I'm away from home. Still, he's a high-school drop-out, a thief and has had trouble with Windsor and Detroit police. This kid may be a rap star yet.
Bad rap
Cops visit local rapper for allegedly harassing Eminem and his ex
By Roberta Pennington and Dalson Chen , Windsor Star
Published: Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Forget "Stan," the fictional obsessive fan Eminem raps about in his namesake song. Kyle Spratt may be the real thing.
The 18-year-old aspiring Windsor rapper lost his job, tainted his family's reputation and had both Detroit and Windsor police officers after him for stealing Kim Mathers' cellphone and contacting Mathers' ex-husband, Eminem.
"I'm just really desperate to get my music heard," Spratt said. "I'm not having a very good life ... and I feel that music could really help me if I made it, ever made it."
Mathers, it seems, is a regular player at Paradise Bingo, the family business where Spratt used to work, before he was fired for snatching up Mathers' cellphone while she was smoking outside.
The Spratt family gave the cellphone back shortly after it was taken about a month ago - but not before Spratt wrote down the personal numbers in its memory bank for Shady Records stars Eminem and Obie Trice.
A couple of weeks ago, Spratt finally decided to call up his rap idol and ask him to listen to a demo track.
"He was a real a**hole," Spratt said. "He pretended it wasn't him and he did a fake voice."
At first, the very short, one-sided conversation had Spratt wondering if he'd dialed the wrong guy. But then he received a call from Detroit Police, advising him to stop harassing Eminem.
Spratt recorded the conversations he had with both the Detroit police officer and Eminem and sampled the tracks in a rap song he wrote in tribute to his new hatred for the Detroit rapper, who's real name is Marshall Mathers.
The song, called Slim Sellout, was posted on Spratt's MySpace page and received 1,400 hits in two days.
But on Wednesday, the link to the song was mysteriously removed from Spratt's website and the high-school drop-out found himself face-to-face with Windsor police detectives standing at his door.
Windsor Police Insp. Greg Renaud said Detroit police had contacted the local force about three days ago, which is about the same time Spratt posted his song online.
"The reason they called originally was because the phone had been stolen and there was an allegation, apparently, although we haven't confirmed this, that the kid wanted to talk to Eminem and get some promotion and if he wasn't (going to get it) he was going to post the photos of Eminem's children on the web," Renaud said.
Spratt said the cops checked his computer but didn't find any photos. He said Kim Mathers misunderstood one of text messages he had sent her, leading to the suspicion of stolen photos.
"I was text messaging back and forth with Kim Mathers and she was being pretty rude to me, so I said something to the effect of, Wait until I get a hold of a paparazzi,'" Spratt said. "But, like, I was just trying to get her going. It did get her going. She assumed that I took pictures off her phone, which I did not....They said that Kim thinks that I'm going to put out pictures of her kids that were on the phone, which is not true. Kim was just doing that to stir the pot."
Spratt says he's getting his name out there any way he can. With no job, no money and no high school diploma, he says he's been driven to desperate lengths.
But so far, his antics, which he announced in an online Windsor hip hop community message board, has received little support from his peers.
Many said that Spratt's unlawful tactics to get noticed will only hurt the reputation of the local scene.
"You went about getting your name out completely wrong," AlerG wrote on the embassyentertainment.com forum.
Clarissa Guyton, head of promotions and photography for WindsorHipHip.com posted: "What are u thinkin spratt???? dang, you just made (Windsor hip hop) look like fools .... such a disgrace!"
Messages left with Eminem spokesman Dennis Dennehy of Interscope Records were not returned.
Renaud said the Mathers family will not be pressing charges because Spratt has already paid for his crime by losing his job.
"Obviously, he committed a criminal act to gain all this publicity and I don't think it's going to reflect very well on him," Renaud said. "On top of that, he ended up losing his job over it and he ended up embarrassing his family. I don't think there's anything good that came out of it. I'm hoping the kid learned his lesson."
Bad rap
Cops visit local rapper for allegedly harassing Eminem and his ex
By Roberta Pennington and Dalson Chen , Windsor Star
Published: Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Forget "Stan," the fictional obsessive fan Eminem raps about in his namesake song. Kyle Spratt may be the real thing.
The 18-year-old aspiring Windsor rapper lost his job, tainted his family's reputation and had both Detroit and Windsor police officers after him for stealing Kim Mathers' cellphone and contacting Mathers' ex-husband, Eminem.
"I'm just really desperate to get my music heard," Spratt said. "I'm not having a very good life ... and I feel that music could really help me if I made it, ever made it."
Mathers, it seems, is a regular player at Paradise Bingo, the family business where Spratt used to work, before he was fired for snatching up Mathers' cellphone while she was smoking outside.
The Spratt family gave the cellphone back shortly after it was taken about a month ago - but not before Spratt wrote down the personal numbers in its memory bank for Shady Records stars Eminem and Obie Trice.
A couple of weeks ago, Spratt finally decided to call up his rap idol and ask him to listen to a demo track.
"He was a real a**hole," Spratt said. "He pretended it wasn't him and he did a fake voice."
At first, the very short, one-sided conversation had Spratt wondering if he'd dialed the wrong guy. But then he received a call from Detroit Police, advising him to stop harassing Eminem.
Spratt recorded the conversations he had with both the Detroit police officer and Eminem and sampled the tracks in a rap song he wrote in tribute to his new hatred for the Detroit rapper, who's real name is Marshall Mathers.
The song, called Slim Sellout, was posted on Spratt's MySpace page and received 1,400 hits in two days.
But on Wednesday, the link to the song was mysteriously removed from Spratt's website and the high-school drop-out found himself face-to-face with Windsor police detectives standing at his door.
Windsor Police Insp. Greg Renaud said Detroit police had contacted the local force about three days ago, which is about the same time Spratt posted his song online.
"The reason they called originally was because the phone had been stolen and there was an allegation, apparently, although we haven't confirmed this, that the kid wanted to talk to Eminem and get some promotion and if he wasn't (going to get it) he was going to post the photos of Eminem's children on the web," Renaud said.
Spratt said the cops checked his computer but didn't find any photos. He said Kim Mathers misunderstood one of text messages he had sent her, leading to the suspicion of stolen photos.
"I was text messaging back and forth with Kim Mathers and she was being pretty rude to me, so I said something to the effect of, Wait until I get a hold of a paparazzi,'" Spratt said. "But, like, I was just trying to get her going. It did get her going. She assumed that I took pictures off her phone, which I did not....They said that Kim thinks that I'm going to put out pictures of her kids that were on the phone, which is not true. Kim was just doing that to stir the pot."
Spratt says he's getting his name out there any way he can. With no job, no money and no high school diploma, he says he's been driven to desperate lengths.
But so far, his antics, which he announced in an online Windsor hip hop community message board, has received little support from his peers.
Many said that Spratt's unlawful tactics to get noticed will only hurt the reputation of the local scene.
"You went about getting your name out completely wrong," AlerG wrote on the embassyentertainment.com forum.
Clarissa Guyton, head of promotions and photography for WindsorHipHip.com posted: "What are u thinkin spratt???? dang, you just made (Windsor hip hop) look like fools .... such a disgrace!"
Messages left with Eminem spokesman Dennis Dennehy of Interscope Records were not returned.
Renaud said the Mathers family will not be pressing charges because Spratt has already paid for his crime by losing his job.
"Obviously, he committed a criminal act to gain all this publicity and I don't think it's going to reflect very well on him," Renaud said. "On top of that, he ended up losing his job over it and he ended up embarrassing his family. I don't think there's anything good that came out of it. I'm hoping the kid learned his lesson."