D.J. Lenny M, a St. Marks music fixture known for selling his homemade mixtapes and CDs of what the Times calls "Reg Rockers, Club Rap and House Music," was suddenly arrested late last week by a number of undercover NYPD agents.
Local blog Down By The Hipster saw "several plain clothes officers confiscating all of Lenny's music and just about everything else from his small booth on the corner of St Marks and Third Avenue." They add, "Downtown is going to be eerily quiet tonight."
Could the reason for the sudden arrest be NYPD frustration over years of copyright violations, leading the NYPD to offer up a little remix smackdown of their own? I'd be doubtful of that, except for the fact that the officers confiscated "just about everything" from Lenny's booth.
Some woud say it's just another step in the ongoing trend of city agencies targeting the arts, or even just individuals like Lenny dabbling in there own practices of creative expression. One commenter on DBTH makes that observation, writing "New York City becomes less New York City every single moment..."
But of course, we have no further information as to what really went down between the NYPD task force and the D.J., so for now, we'll leave open the possibility that he spent the weekend in the slammer over some pirated Beyonce CDs.
