Keys 'clarifies' gangsta rap remarks

Alicia Keys has attempted to clarify comments she made about gangsta rap in a magazine interview.

The singer told Blender that the musical genre was created by the US government to "convince black people to kill each other".

However, she later said she was "disappointed" with the outcry caused by the remarks, telling Ryan Seacrest's radio show: "Somehow it got misinterpreted that I was saying that the government was creating gangsta rap - and that's not what I was saying.

"What I was saying was that the term gangsta rap was so over-sloganised during that time... That's what I was trying to talk about.

"In so many ways, everyday people, as well as the government, could have really done so much more to sort of obliterate and eradicate the things that were going on in the communities at that time that forced the artists to discuss and talk about, so strongly, what they saw, what they lived with."

She added: "You're in an interview for half and hour, 45 minutes... and you're talking about these different thoughts and ideas and I think... there's a way that I didn't exactly clarify what I meant to the point where he (the journalist) could misinterpret it."

Blender spokeswoman Kate Cafaro told The Associated Press: "We stand by our story."