[h1]Missing Obama Fried Chicken sign explained: Owner demanded $3K to be in Clipse video, director says[/h1]
BY
Jake Brooks
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, November 23rd 2009, 6:09 PM
Courtesy of MTV
The Obama Fried Chicken sign was missing from the Clipse video when it was shown on MTV - but not on its YouTube version.
Brooklyn's Obama Fried Chicken is at the center of controversy, again. This time its owner probably won't be accused of racism, but maybe greed.
Though the chicken joint is featured in the new video for rapper
Clipse's "Popular Demand," its name, which caused a bit of a scandal back in April, is not, according to
Brokelyn.com.
In the opening shot of the video on
MTV, Clipse can be seen entering Obama Fried Chicken, but when the camera pans back to where the sign normally would be, a blank yellow box appears instead.
Was it censorship?
Rik Cordero, the video's director, says no. He claims it came down to dollars and cents.
"The decision was made by the owner of the restaurant, who wouldn't sign our location agreement unless we paid him $3,000 cash," said Cordero, who decided not to cough up the cash for the rights to identify the restaurant. "Therefore, the sign had to be edited out for network television."
The same rules, however, do not apply to the video on
YouTube, where the sign can still be seen.
"I can't really knock the guy," Cordero said, "because taking out the sign has now given Obama Fried Chicken even more free promotion than if we had left it in."
Cordero said the treatment for the video, which focuses on the rapper's love of friend chicken, called for shooting at a fried chicken restaurant at the intersection of Rutland Road and Rockaway Parkway. This meant shooting at either Crown Fried Chicken or Obama Fried Chicken. He put it to a vote, and the crew and talent on set voted for
Obama.
"There was really no hidden meaning," he said about the decision.
