NEW RAP ALBUM ATTACKS DEA PROBE

DALLAS--A record label whose founder was under investigation by the Drug
Enforcement Administration is releasing an album that taunts the DEA and
talks about killing informants, The Dallas Morning News reported Monday.

The boasts by Scarface, whose album is being released Tuesday, stem from a
letter by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., sent on behalf of the rapper's
label, Rap-A-Lot Records, and its owner James A. Prince, the newspaper said.

The investigation by the DEA and Houston police was frozen after Waters
wrote the letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, the newspaper reported.

However, the agency denies the investigation has been dropped.

"Can't be stopped, not even by a badge," one song declares. The song
mentions two DEA agents by name.

In another song, Scarface raps:

"I'm tellin' you dog, that even if you getting relief,

"how the (expletive) is you gonna live on these streets,

"if you got that jacket on your back

"You a rat."

Prince, who has not been charged as a result of the investigation, has said
his Houston-based company has done nothing illegal. Phone calls placed
Monday by The Associated Press to the offices of Prince and Waters were not
returned.

Prince has been arrested twice on minor drug and weapons charges that later
were dropped, and his label subsequently released a 1993 Geto Boys album
that contained lyrics in which the rappers threaten to shoot local police.
Prince complained on the best-selling album of a DEA "conspiracy" to target
his record label. A video from the album, "Crooked Officer," was banned by
MTV because it depicted the shooting of a police officer. In 1996, that song
and the group's other raps became a presidential campaign issue when
Republican candidate Bob Dole cited the Geto Boys as an example of declining
American mores.

The DEA investigation moved slowly until 1998, when the agency formed a task
force with Houston police. Several Rap-A-Lot employees were soon arrested.

Prince and his associates, according to Waters' August 1999 letter to Reno,
feared for their lives because of what they called racist police harassment
and use of excessive force. Waters, in an appeal to DEA officials, cited the
fact that the lead agent in the case, Jack Schumacher, had been previously
involved in six fatal police shootings.

Law officers say each shooting involving Schumacher was justified. One of
Schumacher's supervisors, James Nims, wrote in a September 1999 memo that
all of Prince's complaints were "completely false."

Schumacher, a 27 -year law enforcement veteran who directed the case through
more than 20 state and federal convictions as well as cocaine seizures in
Oklahoma City, Beaumont and Houston, was transferred last spring from active
investigation to a desk job, the newspaper said.

The head of the DEA's Houston division denied the investigation has been
shelved.

"The investigation has not been stopped," Agent Ernest L. Howard said,
adding that Schumacher was transferred because he was needed elsewhere.

The new album by Scarface, whose real name is Brad Jordan, is entitled "The
Last of a Dying Breed." Jordan, one of several Rap-A-Lot associates arrested
in a DEA inquiry, pleaded guilty in 1999 to misdemeanor marijuana charges in
connection with the case. However, on the CD, he says he does not sell drugs
and was framed, the News said.