Fabolous made headlines when he was arrested in twice in January
and once March of 2003, but the situation was no laughing matter to the rapper,
who filed a $5 million dollar lawsuit against the New York Police Department,
alleging he had been unfairly targeted.
Police pulled the
rapper over Fabolous police stopped his SUV for running a red light.
A subsequent search
of the vehicle found three guns in the car. Fabolous, the driver and another
passenger were charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
The incident happened
just one day after Fabolous was arrested in Manhattan for driving with a suspended
license.
The following month,
he was arrested for a third time after police discovered a loaded 9mm pistol
inside the Ford van that the rapper and four others were riding in.
All five men were arrested.
While the rapper could not talk in detail about the lawsuit
due to its pending status, he did say the entire fiasco could have damaged his
celebrity image.
“People could be like “I would f**k with Fab but
he got this gun charge and we don’t know the outcome of that we don’t
wan to associate our product with this guy,” Fabolous told AllHipHop.com.
“I could lose certain opportunities because of that. And worst of all
it gets publicized as ‘Fab’s caught with a gun.’ They don’t
publicize when the charges are dismissed. They don’t put that on the front
page. They don’t know about that until you speak it. That’s why
I did the lawsuit.”
Legal woes aside, Fabolous is exploring his entrepreneurial
side and recently launched a label, Street Family Entertainment.
The first act signed
to the new venture is Mike Shorey, who was featured on Fab’s song “Can’t
Let You Go,” which was featured on his album Street Dreams.
“We are building him and getting him ready as an artist
– emotionally, physically and mentally,” Fabolous said. “Everyone
is not built for this.”
Fab has yet to sign a rapper to the fledgling label, saying
they were focused on launching one artist at a time for the moment.
“We don’t want to take too much on hand before we
got ourselves in the door. To have to put somebody’s dream on hold is
a scary thing.”
Fabolous will release
his new album Real Talk on November 9th.
