Rihanna Incident Upsets Rappers

02/11/09 12:33pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

Kanye West and Jay-Z have spoken out about the alleged incident involving Rihanna and Chris Brown that's said to have occurred early Sunday morning.

West said he was "completely devastated" during his Grammy performance after he heard about the incident.

"Rihanna is so important to our culture, to pop music," he said on Ryan Seacrest's radio show on Tuesday morning.

"I feel like she is the most important artist in music and has the most potential. Her taste level and her age... She has the potential to be the greatest artist of all time. In that sense, I feel like that's my baby sis. I would do anything and everything to help her in any situation."

Jay-Z, who appeared on Rihanna's mega-hit "Umbrella," is said to have been extremely angry when he heard about the incident.

"He hit the roof," a source told Us Weekly magazine. "Chris is a walking dead man. He messed with the wrong crew."

Rihanna and Brown cancelled their Grammy performances on Sunday after Brown, 19, was arrested for suspicion of making criminal threats. The charges stem from an alleged attack on a woman (who's widely believed to be Rihanna) in his car. Police can't name the victim due to a law that protects victims of domestic abuse from being named. Rihanna is cooperating with the police investigation.

Law enforcement sources confirmed to TMZ that the fight started after Brown received a text message from another woman while he was driving with Rihanna. The unnamed woman's text was apparently about hooking up with Brown later on.

TMZ reports that Brown allegedly hit Rihanna so hard that the singer's eyes were almost swollen shut for the multiple pictures that police took of her injuries at the scene. The alleged attack also apparently left the singer with contusions on her face, a split lip, a bloody nose and bite marks on her arms and fingers.

Radar Online reports that a witness saw Rihanna being treated at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Sunday.

It's alleged that Brown put his hands around Rihanna's neck, started screaming he was going to kill her and choked her unconscious, according to the Welt.de website.

But Rihanna's grandmother, Clara Brathwaite, told Barbados' Daily Nation newspaper on Monday that she didn't want people to worry because her granddaughter is "fine and she is doing well."

Rihanna has cancelled concerts in Indonesia on Thursday and Malaysia on Friday. People.com reported she pulled out of the Indonesia show "because of an assault case involving Rihanna's boyfriend."

Brown has already lost advertising deals with Wrigley Doublemint gum and the "Got Milk?" series. He's also pulled out of a number of events scheduled around the NBA All-Star game this weekend, and a 2007 Sesame Street episode featuring the singer will reportedly not air again.