Hip Hop music has always been scrutinized for its content and lyrics, but when the theme song to “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” causes a county to place their schools on lockdown, one has to believe that it was all made up. Turns out this story is true.
According to The Times of Beaver, Pa., (www.timesonline.com), a receptionist called to remind a 19 year old, Travis Clawson, a High School student in the Ambridge area, of an upcoming appointment but was forwarded to his voicemail. The voicemail greeting contained the theme song from “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”, however; it was in the students voice.
The receptionist misunderstood the words and assumed that Clawson was going to shoot people outside of the school. With the recent events of school shootings, it was only natural that she would contact the police.
The words that prompted her to alert the authorities were, “Chilin’ out maxin’ and relaxin’ all cool and all...shootin’ some b-ball outside of the school...” She misunderstood “b-ball” as Clawson saying, “people”. An honest mistake if you’re not familiar with Will Smith or “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”.
The words caused a countywide lockdown of the schools as police searched for Travis Clawson. Finally in custody, Clawson states that he was merely imitating the theme song for the hit TV show from the 1990’s. District Attorney, Anthony Berosh says, “it was determined after listening to the message closely that it did follow the Quincy Jones-penned song and Clawson was released.”
Although the whole thing was a mistake, the authorities state that their main concern was the safety of the children.
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