Murderer back in custody spends less than 2 minutes in court

The convicted murderer who was mistakenly allowed to leave Cook County jail is now back in custody. (WGN - Chicago)

Convicted murderer Steven Robbins is back in Indiana this afternoon, three days following his mistaken release from the Cook County Jail after being brought to Chicago to dispose of an old case against him, according to the Cook County sheriff's office.

As of about 2 p.m. Robbins was handed over to authorities in Michigan City, Ind., where he will resume serving his 60-year murder sentence at the Indiana Department of Correction, according to Frank Bilecki, a spokesman for Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.

Before being driven to Indiana Robbins appeared midday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building court for less than two minutes before Judge Edward Harmening.

Robbins, wearing a black zip-up North Face jacket over a gray hoodie sweatshirt, dark blue jeans, and black and green gyms shoes, did not address the judge but leaned over a couple of times to whisper into Asst. Public Defender Todd Chatman’s ear. His hands were cuffed in front of him.

During the hearing Chatman emphasized to Harmening that Robbins was inadvertently let go, not that he escaped on his own accord.

“He had no intention to attempt to escape,’’ Chatman told the judge in open court.

Though an escape charge was dropped, the judge ruled the arrest warrant would stay on his record. Two sheriff’s deputies accompanied Robbins before the judge.

He was taken back into custody in Kankakee Friday night and on Saturday morning Robbins was held at the Cook County Sheriff's police lockup in Maywood prior to his court hearing, said Bilecki.

Robbins, 44, who was serving a 60-year sentence for murder in Indiana, was apprehended "without incident" about 10:55 p.m. Friday in the 400 block of Fraser Avenue in Kankakee, according to Bilecki.“He was found at the home of an acquaintance, watching TV,’’ said Bilecki. “They caught him totally off guard.''

Once they got into the home, sheriff’s authorities were trying to keep everyone calm, including a couple of young children who were there with Robbins.

Bilecki said Dart was on the scene and assisted in the arrest.

Authorities tracked Robbins through interviews with family and friends who helped provide his location, according to the sheriff's office. 

Earlier, Dart took responsibility for mistakenly letting Robbins walk out of County Jail after a local charge against him was dismissed.

“We let people down, no mistake about it,” Dart said in an interview at sheriff’s offices in Maywood. “Our office did not operate the way it should have, clearly.”

The FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service and Cook County Crimestoppers had raised $12,000 as a reward for information leading to Robbins’ capture, he said.

Dart said his office is still looking at where and how the system broke down to allow Robbins’ mistaken release from the jail,  but he said that officials at the  jail had no paperwork showing he was serving time in an Indiana prison for murder.

Like other indigent people, Robbins was outfitted with clothing from Goodwill – a long-sleeve brown shirt and brown pants – before being released out the front entrance, Dart said. He also likely was given bus fare.

Dart said the sheriff’s office uses an archaic system – entirely paper-driven – in handling the movement of an average of about 1,500 inmates every day. Some are entering the jail after their arrest and others are being bused to courthouses around the county for court appearances.

The sheriff said the warrant for Robbins’ arrest should have been quashed by prosecutors when armed violence charges were dismissed against him in 2007. In addition, he said prosecutors signed off on the sheriff’s office traveling to Indiana to pick up Robbins at the prison in Michigan City and bring him back on the outstanding warrant.

“We were able to get an extradition warrant on a case that didn’t exist,” Dart said. “That’s the first problem.”

Earlier, documents reviewed by the Tribune showed that paperwork filled out by Cook County sheriff’s officers this week made it clear that Robbins was serving a 60-year sentence for murder in Indiana and was to be returned to authorities there after being brought to Chicago to dispose of an old case against him.

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Hackers target Twitter, could affect 250,000 user accounts

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Anonymous hackers attacked Twitter this week and may have gained access to passwords and other information for as many as 250,000 user accounts, the microblog revealed late on Friday.

Twitter said in a blog post that the passwords were encrypted and that it had already reset them as a "precautionary measure," and that it was in the process of notifying affected users.

The blog post noted recent revelations of large-scale cyber attacks against the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, but unlike the two news organizations, Twitter did not provide any detail on the origin or methodology of the attacks.

"This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident," Twitter said. "The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked."

Privately held Twitter, which has 200 million active monthly users, said it was working with government and federal law enforcement officials to track down the attackers.

The company did not specifically link the attacks to China in the blog post, in contrast to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, which both said the hackers originated in China.

Twitter, the social network known for its 140-character messages, could not speculate on the origin of the attacks as its investigation was ongoing, said spokesman Jim Prosser.

"There is no evidence right now that would indicate that passwords were compromised," said Prosser.

The attack is not the first time that hackers have breached Twitter's systems and gained access to Twitter user information. Twitter signed a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission in 2010, subjecting the company to 10 years of independent privacy reviews, for failing to safeguard users' personal information.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Gary Hill and Lisa Shumaker)

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Why is Beckham sitting on the bench for nothing?

PARIS (AP) — David Beckham has won league championships in three countries on two continents, earns millions of dollars in endorsements and his name is practically synonymous with celebrity itself. He has his own cologne, for goodness sake. So why is he even bothering to sit on the bench for the Paris Saint-Germain football club?

His royal highness of football doesn't need the money — and he's said he'll donate his PSG salary to charity — but he does need to start thinking about life after the game. At 37, Beckham is practically a dinosaur for the sport, and he acknowledged in his welcoming press conference on Thursday that he probably won't be in the team's starting lineup.

Instead, Beckham may be beginning to put in place a plan for life after the final whistle. Ellis Cashmore, a sociologist who writes about sports and media culture at Staffordshire University, said that prolonged exposure is always useful to celebrities building empires. In that way, the deal with PSG does double work: It keeps his name in lights for longer and also garners extra attention for the charitable contribution.

"When he does stop playing, which is going to be quite soon, his overall brand appeal will inevitably decline because we will inevitably forget about this guy," he said. "I think he's probably thinking, I want to stay in the shop window for a bit longer."

But Cashmore also cautioned against being too cynical in assessing Beckham's motives: "The guy is an athlete. He wants to do what he loves to do."

Bruno Satin, an independent players' agent who was with IMG for a decade, also said that the move to PSG — even if it's to sit on the bench — is a step up for Beckham.

"For him, to be on the PSG team, it's a higher level than being on the Los Angeles Galaxy," he said. "For the world of football, for real football, the Los Angeles Galaxy is nothing on the map of football."

Some wondered if Beckham was trying to avoid the notoriously sticky fingers of the French state with his plans to donate his salary.

But Sandra Hodzic, a tax lawyer with Salans, said the deduction an individual can take on such contributions is limited. Instead, it would be smarter for PSG to directly donate the salary — and take a big tax break in the process.

Doing so would have an added benefit for the club: UEFA, the governing body for European football, mandates that clubs break even. The donation could allow PSG to essentially write off Beckham's entire salary — a huge help for a team notorious for mega-contracts.

Beckham, meanwhile, would be better off trying to avoid becoming a French tax resident at all. So far, Hodzic said, he is making all the right moves: His family is staying in London, he plans to live only part-time in the country for less than six months, and his primary source of income —whether or not he donates his salary — isn't being earned in France.

Beckham's agent did not return calls for comment on specifics of the contract.

Still, the charitable contribution has raised the question about what Beckham is getting out of the deal. For one, he likely is still getting a cut of rights to his image. Jerseys with his name on them were already selling out at the PSG store on the Champs-Elysees on Friday.

Cashmore, who wrote a book called "Beckham," calls him a "marketing phenomenon" and estimates that about 70 percent of Beckham's income comes from endorsement deals — with Adidas, for instance. That makes salary almost irrelevant — especially for a man estimated by the Sunday Times Rich List to be worth 160 million pounds ($253 million).

But the football feeds the endorsements, Cashmore says.

"It makes an awful lot of business sense to perpetuate, to prolong his active competitive football career," he said, especially with a team that's doing fairly well this year. "It makes an awful lot of sense for him to showcase himself because it will generate more income from his various other sponsorship and licensing activities."

But certainly this move, as any at this late-stage in his playing career, is being made with an eye on what will come next. Cashmore said that when Beckham signed with the L.A. Galaxy, there was an understanding that he would eventually become an ambassador for American soccer. That plan clearly fell by the wayside — perhaps because Major League Soccer decided it was just too expensive to keep on the star after his presence on American soil failed to generate more interest in the game.

It's possible, Cashmore said, that Beckham is looking for a similar deal after his stint at PSG, which is Qatari-owned. The tiny, wealthy nation is hosting the World Cup in 2022, and Beckham's contract with PSG will establish a relationship with it; from there, a role as, say, an ambassador for the tournament would seem more natural.

"For his after-career conversion, it's important to have links with major actors in the world of sports," said Satin. And Qatar is certainly one. It has poured money into PSG, drawing major names like striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic. It also funds the satellite network Al Jazeera, which could provide Beckham with a platform. And then there's the World Cup.

In the end, though, Satin said the clue to Beckham's thinking may be as simple as the eternal draw of Paris.

"PSG has become a glamorous club, a pretty nice club in a beautiful city," said Bruno Satin, an agent. "It's just two hours on the Eurostar (train) from London."

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AP Sports Writer Rob Harris contributed to this report from London.

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Last of 1940s hitmakers Andrews Sisters dies in California

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Patty Andrews, the last surviving member of popular The Andrews Sisters singing trio of the 1940s and 1950s, has died in California at the age of 94, her spokesman said on Wednesday.

Alan Eichler said Andrews died of natural causes at her home in the Northridge area of Los Angeles.

Patty Andrews was the youngest of the threesome who made up The Andrews Sisters, whose tight harmonies with “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” were hits.

The Andrews Sisters sold more than 75 million records and became household names in the 1940s when they entertained World War Two troops in Africa, the United States and Europe.

The sisters specialized in swing and played with some of the best-known big bands of the era, including those led by Glen Miller, Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey.

They also appeared in 16 films, including roles alongside Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in “Buck Privates” and “Hold that Ghost,” and with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in “Road to Rio.”

Born in Minnesota, the sisters started their careers by performing in local talent shows and moved to California after finding fame. LaVerne Andrews died of cancer in 1967, and Maxene Andrews died in 1995 of a heart attack.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Philip Barbara)

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New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.

For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.

Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have improved their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.

Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunchrooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. Food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has never before been federally regulated.

"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools and to 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.

The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.

The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.

"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.

Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.

The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.

Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said surveys by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.

"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.

The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.

A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories that kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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Chicago beer firm Crown Imports is caught in antitrust fight

An antitrust brouhaha in Washington has thrown the future of Crown Imports, a Chicago-based beer importer, into question.

The company, which ranks third in U.S. beer sales volume, is a joint venture between New York-based Constellation Brands Inc. and Mexico's Grupo Modelo, which makes Corona Extra, the leading imported beer in the U.S., and other brands. Crown sells Modelo brands as well as China's Tsingtao.

As part of its proposed sale to Anheuser-Busch InBev, Grupo Modelo agreed to sell its 50 percent stake in Crown to Constellation Brands for $1.85 billion. The separate transaction was meant to ease possible antitrust concerns that the merger would eliminate Crown Imports as a competitor.

But on Thursday the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against AB InBev to block its acquisition of Grupo Modelo. Antitrust officials said the merger would further increase the concentration of the U.S. beer market, leading to higher prices for American consumers.

The lawsuit said the sale of Modelo's interest in Crown Imports to its partner would only create "a facade of competition" between AB InBev and the importer.

"In reality, Defendants' proposed 'remedy' eliminates from the market Modelo — a particularly aggressive competitor — and replaces it with an entity wholly dependent on ABI," the Justice Department said in the lawsuit.

The suits cites as evidence part of an internal memo that Crown's chief executive, Bill Hackett, wrote to employees after the transactions were announced in June. According to the suit, Hackett wrote, "Our #1 competitor will now be our supplier ... it is not currently or will not, going forward, be 'business as usual.'"

Under the terms of the proposed merger with Modelo, AB InBev also had the option to terminate its agreement with Crown Imports after 10 years, giving it full control of Corona distribution.

Constellation Brands on Friday attacked the Justice Department, saying in a statement that the suit "demonstrates its incomplete understanding" of the proposed merger. Constellation and AB InBev have indicated that they plan to challenge the suit.

In a detailed defense, Constellation said its full control of Crown would improve competition, not harm it. According to the lawsuit, Modelo controls about 7 percent of U.S. beer sales, far behind AB InBev's market-leading 39 percent.

Constellation attempted to ease concerns that AB InBev's merger with Modelo would lead to higher prices. Hackett said in a statement: "Our Crown team independently develops, implements and refines pricing, promotional and sales strategies for each of our brands in the U.S."

The proposed beer merger had reduced uncertainty hanging over Crown Imports because the Modelo-Constellation joint venture was set to expire at the end of 2016. The Justice Department action creates a new level of uncertainty, said Benj Steinman, president of Beer Marketer's Insights, a beer industry trade publication.

"Crown's fate is hanging in the balance," Steinman said.

asachdev@tribune.com

Twitter@ameetsachdev

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Reward increased to $30,000 in Hadiya Pendleton slaying

As community members marched in memory of Hadiya Pendleton today, officials announced the reward for information in the slaying of the King College Prep sophomore has been increased to $30,000.

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and other police officials were expected to join several pastors at her high school, King College Prep, to announce the increased reward. After that, an anti-violence march in Hadiya's honor started at King, 4445 S. Drexel Blvd.

Hadiya had just finished her final exams at King College Prep, and was hanging out with friends from the school's volleyball team when she was gunned down Tuesday in Harsh Park, in the 4400 block of South Oakenwald Avenue. Thursday afternoon, police announced the reward for information leading to an arrest in the shooting had increased to $24,000, up from $11,000 announced Wednesday.

Dozens of adults and children marched this afternoon from King Prep High School to Harsh Park, the scene of the shooting.

They were escorted by at least six police vehicles as the crowd chanted, urging anyone with information about Pendleton's slaying to come forward.

"If you know who did this, turn them in!" shouted Melvin, a man who led the march but did not want to provide his last name out of fear of retaliation. "If you don't support this, next it might be you!"

When the march reached Harsh Park, Melvin urged Chicago police to hire more new officers, not just redistribute desk workers.

Raven Barnes, 18, a King College Prep senior who was friends with Hadiya, said she "always had a smile on her face."
 
"I never thought it would happen to Hadiya because she's one of the nicest people," Barnes said. "She didn't deserve it."
 
Hadiya recently broke up an "altercation" between Barnes and another girl, Barnes recalled. She said Hadiya convinced her to avoid the conflict and swear off fighting with other girls for good.
 
"She just was a person who hated violence," Barnes said. "She didn't want any violence ... ever. It's just so sad that violence took her life."

Darcell Igbo, who was Hadiya's volleyball coach since her freshman year, remembered her as "goofy" and always having a positive attitude. "She was one of the nice kids," he said.

Igbo recalled one game where he hollered Hadiya's name from the sidelines, and she looked toward him just before the ball smacked her in the leg.
 
"She just kind of shook it off," he said, chuckling. "She laughed at it. We all laughed at it."
 
Igbo said he hopes Hadiya's death raises awareness for the "senselessness" of the gun violence plaguing Chicago streets.
 
"I don't know how many more lives it's going to take," he said, tears streaming down his face. "It should only take one."

Hadiya and the others had sought shelter from a rainstorm under a canopy at the park around 2:20 p.m. Tuesday when a gunman jumped a fence, ran toward them and opened fire, police said.

As the teens scattered, Hadiya and two teenage boys were shot. Hadiya was hit in the back and pronounced dead at Comer Children's Hospital less than an hour after the shooting. The wounds suffered by the boys were not life-threatening.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy stressed that neither Hadiya nor anyone in the group she was with were involved with gangs. But it appears the gunman mistook the students for members of a rival gang, he said. The shooter was last seen fleeing in a white Nissan.

“These were good kids by everything that I learned," McCarthy said at a Wednesday news conference. "Wrong place at the wrong time.”

Pastor Courtney Maxwell, the family’s pastor, has offered $6,000, increasing the reward to $30,000, according to the statement. 

Hadiya was shot a little more than a week after performing with the King College Prep band in the Washington, D.C. area during President Barack Obama's inauguration festivities. The shooting occurred in a park about a mile north of Obama's Kenwood home.

The shooting has drawn the attention of both the White House, which is pushing for national gun control, and City Hall as Chicago closes on a violent January. Hadiya was the 42nd homicide victim this year in the city, where killings last year climbed above 500.

Hadiya's father, Nathaniel Pendleton, pleaded for someone to step forward and bring the 15-year-old's killer to justice.

"She was destined for great things," he said.

Hadiya was a majorette with the band at King, one of the city's elite selective-enrollment schools. She dreamed of going to Northwestern University and talked about becoming a pharmacist or a journalist, maybe a lawyer.

Police have reported no arrests.

Chicago Tribune reporter Patrick Svitek contributed.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

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Apple edges out Samsung for mobile phone sales lead in fourth quarter

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc became the top mobile phone seller for the first time in the lucrative U.S. market during the fourth quarter of 2012, outshining arch rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, a report by Strategy Analytics showed.

Apple's share of the U.S. mobile phone market, including feature phones and smartphones, jumped to 34 percent from 26 percent, while Samsung's share grew to 32.3 percent from 31.8 percent, the research firm said.

Samsung had been the top mobile phone vendor in the US since 2008, the firm said. Indeed, for the full year, Samsung still held the crown for mobile phone sales; it had a 31.8 percent share of the U.S. market in 2012, against Apple's 26.2 percent.

Apple investors have recently been anxious about the future growth prospects for the company amid intense competition from Samsung's cheaper phones, powered by Google's Android software, and signs the premium smartphone market may be close to saturation in developed markets.

Overall, mobile phone shipments rose 4 percent to 52 million units in the U.S. during the fourth quarter of 2012, driven by strong demand for 4G smartphones and 3G feature phones.

But in all of 2012, U.S. mobile phone shipments fell 11 percent to 166.9 million, Strategy Analytics said.

Apple sold 17.7 million iPhones in the U.S. in the fourth quarter, up 38 percent from the previous year, driven by aggressive marketing of its new iPhone 5 and steep carrier subsidies, the firm said. Samsung shipped 16.8 million phones during the same period.

In the international arena, Samsung Electronics, with a range of handsets, has overtaken Apple as the world's top smartphone seller.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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NFL's Goodell: Proper tackling, HGH key issues

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says the league needs to make football safer by doing more to eliminate blows to the head and knees and by suspending players for illegal hits.

During his annual news conference two days before the Super Bowl, Goodell also said Friday he wants a "new generation" of the Rooney Rule because "we didn't have the outcomes we wanted" when none of 15 recent coach and general manager jobs were given to a minority candidate.

Goodell hopes and expects testing for human growth hormone to start next season, even though the league and the players' union are still at an impasse after 18 months of back-and-forth.

He vowed to be "relentless" about keeping pay-for-pain bounties out of the game.

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Macklemore & Ryan Lewis score unlikely hit

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The rapper Macklemore thinks there’s a simple reason the hit “Thrift Shop” appears to be going viral: It dares to be different.

“There’s a certain sound that has kind of flooded the mainstream airwaves as far as hip-hop music,” he said a few hours after taping a performance on “Late Show with David Letterman” on Thursday night with producing partner Ryan Lewis. “The beat doesn’t sound anything like that, the lyrics are kind of completely polar opposite from what you hear from most commercial rap records and it’s got a hook that’s very catchy. So I think that you combine those three things and it equates to an original sounding song that’s refreshing to the audience that hears it.”

Listeners have responded with rare enthusiasm to the song about “poppin’ tags” to develop your own unique sense of swag. “Thrift Shop” sits atop the Billboard Hot 100 radio airplay chart, the Nielsen SoundScan Digital Songs chart and is the No. 1 song on Spotify for two consecutive weeks. Only one other song, Bruno Mars‘ “Locked Out of Heaven,” has reached the top of those lists simultaneously.

The Seattle-based duo has sold 2.3 million copies so far — a million in the last month alone — and sales continue to grow week to week. Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, said he and Lewis thought the song might appeal to a “niche demographic” and didn’t envision it becoming a single. The song’s sense of humor is key, but Haggerty says there’s also a deeper message about individuality and modern culture’s obsession with expensive fashion.

“The more expensive the better is kind of the American way and if you spent $ 600 for a sweatshirt, then that makes it better,” Haggerty said. “And I don’t necessarily think that’s the case. If it’s a $ 600 sweatshirt that’s fresh, that’s fantastic if it looks great. But to me to just pay a ridiculous amount of money for something just because of the logo isn’t creative and it’s just unfortunate that people equate spending money to style.”

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Online:

http://macklemore.com

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Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

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