Keith Murray forced to delay LP

In rapper Keith Murray's world of late, nothing seems to fit. The Def Squad member and solo artist, who remains a fugitive in Connecticut after failing to turn himself in Sept. 24 to begin a prison sentence on a 1996 assault-conviction, recently ran into another setback. While Murray maintains a low profile -- so low that representatives for his Jive Records label say that they haven't heard from him in a month -- his next album, It's A Beautiful Thing, has been pushed back to a Dec. 3 release date due to what label reps say are sample clearance-problems. "The album has been completed and mastered," Jive Records publicist Theola Borden said Friday afternoon. "But we're currently having difficulties getting clearance for some of the samples." Borden said she couldn't discuss which songs on It's A Beautiful Thing were having difficulty being cleared or which songs the samples were from, saying that the material is under negotiations. "We haven't heard from Keith in a long while," Borden continued, "and from the court papers I've seen, he's still a wanted man." Murray, 26, was scheduled to appear Sept. 24 at the New Britain, Conn., courthouse to begin his three-year sentence for assaulting a teen-age fan with a bar stool in 1995. He had appealed his sentencing all the way to the Connecticut Supreme Court, seeking leniency in exchange for attending anger-management classes. After the court certified his sentencing, the rapper was ordered to turn himself in to Judge Frank Iannotti at 10 a.m. Sept. 24. When he was still a no-show three hours later, the arrest warrant was ordered. New Britain police confirmed Friday that Murray still has not been picked up on that failure-to-appear warrant. While Borden said the label hadn't heard from Murray in a month, his management couldn't be reached for comment by press time. Murray's conviction stemmed from a May 24, 1995, bar brawl at a New Britain nightclub called The Sting. The rapper, on tour to support his 1994 solo debut, The Most Beautifullest Thing in This World, struck the then-16-year-old David Hughes over the head with a metal bar-stool. Court documents say Hughes was attempting to break up a fight between Murray and Hughes' brother Latif, a local promoter, according to the New Britain Herald newspaper.