Controversial N.O.R.E. "Cocaine Cowboys" Video Banned From MySpace

SOHH.com has the exclusive:

MySpace and N.O.R.E.recently locked horns as his video for "Cocaine Cowboys" was taken down from the popular networking site. SOHH recently caught up with the Queens bred rapper to get his side of the story.

"I moved to Miami last year and one of the first movies I saw when I got here was Cocaine Cowboys," Nore said when asked to explain the concept for the video. "I liked it and recorded a song in reference to the movie and I wanted to be true to it. I did the song and the people who did the movie approached us about doing a video. It wasn't my life I was depicting but the life in the movie. The drugs were not my drugs. The money is not my money. It's all from the film." [Watch "Cocaine Cowboys" Video Here]

Though Nore maintains that his video is no different from a Hollywood script or any other artistic expression, he does in fact understand why the wildly popular social networking site banned the video.

"I understand that certain people are going to have certain feelings about it. People are on [MySpace] pretending to be other individuals, portraying to be their big brothers or whatever and they're only 12 or 13-years-old. If they're that young, then I wouldn't want them to see it, but if they're 18-25, this is reality and they're going to have to face it anyway and make their own decision. They can later say that I appreciate Nore for bringing that to us or I don't. But I am a responsible adult and I do have kids so I understand. But I never heard of that before...being banned is dope."

When contacted, MySpace reps clarified to SOHH that Nore was not banned from the website but his video was taken down for failing to comply with the site's "Terms and Conditions." According to the agreement, MySpace has the right to take down footage that "may be offensive, illegal, or violate the rights, harm, or threaten the safety of any person."

UPDATE: 6/14/07 12:20PM
MTV News has picked up the story