Mos Def Arrested

Mos Def was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct last night (August 31) after he held an unauthorised show outside New York City’s Radio City Hall, the venue for MTV’s Video Music Awards.

According to the NYPD, Mos Def, real name Dante Smith, pulled up outside the venue at around 10 p.m. in a flatbed truck and performed an impromptu show through a sound system and attracted a sizeable crowd.

Smith performed his political "Katrina Clap," a song attacking US President George W. Bush’s slow response to last year’s Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The police then forced the rapper to stop performing and they began making arrests.

The first officers on the scene allowed Mos to continue performing because he possessed a public performance permit.

Def’s publicist Carlene Donovan told MTV that her client had been handled harshly and said she plans to release a video of the incident onto the internet.

"Mos Def was unjustly arrested tonight while performing on a flatbed truck in New York City outside the Video Music Awards," Donovan told MTV. "Mos Def was not out to break any laws. His only goal was to heighten the awareness of a serious situation that still exists in our country. He does not want people to forget that although it’s one year later, the people and cities hit by the hurricane still need the help of the American people."

Mos Def was released from police custody in the early hours of this morning.