We hear it's hard to make it in the music biz these days, and sometimes you've got to go to great lengths to get to the top. Two aspiring rappers decided to put a little force towards their foray into hip hop, allegedly kidnapping and extorting a record producer after he backed out of a deal.
Ryan Mixon, 33, and Andres Lozano, 28, were meeting with 27-year-old amateur record producer John Fontein at the Pera Soho in Greenwich Village on Thursday night about getting $50,000 to make a record. Fontein decided against it at the last minute and tried to back out, but Mixon and Lozano weren't about to let him get away that easily—they wanted to be stars!
So they allegedly held Fontein at gunpoint and dragged him to the Fifth Ave Apple Store where they made him buy $3,800 worth of stuff (including warranties, because you can never be too careful). Once Mixon and Lozano were loaded up with lots of iGoodies, they allegedly told Fontein, who is the son of prominent Goldman Sachs broker Andrew Fontein, to bring them $50,000 in cash or they'd kill his girlfriend and family.
According to court papers, they then let Fontein go. And go he did, right to the cops the next morning, who set up a drop time with the hip-hop duo and then showed up to arrest them. They've been charged with kidnapping, robbery and extortion, among other things, but we're still looking forward to their first big single.
