Rapper: Street code bars talking to police

NEW YORK, April 20 (UPI) -- A code of ethics and business would prevent rap star Cam'ron from helping police, even if he were the victim, the rapper said in an interview in New York.

Cam'ron's revelation came in an interview with Anderson Cooper on how the hip-hop culture's idea of avoiding police undermined police efforts to solve murders, CBS said. Cooper's report airs Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes."

"If I knew the serial killer was living next door to me? I wouldn't call and tell anybody on him -- but I'd probably move," Cam'ron, whose real name is Cameron Giles, said.

When Cooper said he'd talk to police if victimized, Giles told him, "(You're) not going to be on the stage tonight in the middle of, say, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, with people with gold and platinum teeth and dreadlocks jumping up and down singing your songs, either."

Yes, it's business, Giles said, "but it's still also a code of ethics."

Rappers are concerned about maintaining their tough "street credibility," said Geoffrey Canada, an anti-violence advocate and educator from New York's Harlem. Fans look up to artists if they come from the "meanest streets of the urban ghetto" so they don't cooperate with police.