Melle Mel, the rapper who found fame with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, has been arrested and charged with felony domestic violence, which he denies.
The rapper, real name Melvin Glover, was arrested on Monday, taken to Los Angeles county jail, and released after posting $50,000 bail. Glover, 62, will appear in court on 17 July.
The allegations are made by Jori Jordon, who Glover told Rolling Stone he has known for more than 20 years. He and Jordon attended an after party for the BET awards in Los Angeles, and later went to a hotel room together, where Jordon claims the attack happened.
“I’m just sitting there, chillin,’” she said. “Next thing you know, this man just goes ‘whack’ with four rings on his finger and hits me in my eye.” She said Glover damaged stitches she had around her eye after recent surgery.
Glover told Rolling Stone: “She said I punched her in the eye. She also said she had eye surgery a month ago. Had I punched her in the eye, especially with rings on, she would have had a cut eye. It would have been way worse. Something did happen to her eye, but I did not punch her. With me tussling with her and trying to get her away from me to get her out of the room, something happened.”
Beginning his music career in the late 1970s, Glover became a key figure in hip-hop as lead rapper in the pioneering group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, performing songs such as The Message and later, as a solo artist, White Lines (Don’t Do It) which reached No 7 in the UK and spent 60 weeks in the Top 100.
In May 2022, his former band mate Kidd Creole was sentenced to 16 years in prison for manslaughter, after the killing of a homeless man in New York City.
