EMERGENCE

Excerpt:

Invincible, a fiercely talented hip-hop emcee from Detroit, submitted a music video for her song "Ropes" to mtvU, the MTV channel that targets college students. If aired, it would be an especially prominent platform for any indie artist, especially one who -- as a gay Jewish woman from the Midwest -- eschews the stereotypes of her genre. Invincible was told that her video had a high likelihood of being accepted and was asked to send a reformatted version. She did -- at a cost of several hundred dollars. Just a couple weeks later, though, in mid-March, Invincible received an unusual email: MTV's content department officially approved the video for airing, but the standards department rejected it. She was advised that "Ropes" was "too problematic" with its "suicidal undertones."

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