PRINCETON, NJ—In what many students are already calling this year’s most shocking incident of organized rhyme, three members of the Princeton Tigertones were hospitalized Thursday morning after being serenaded and shot at from a moving vehicle.
Eyewitnesses report a black sedan pulling up alongside the singers on Elm Drive before belting out the chorus to Michael Jackson’s “Bad” and letting off a burst of tommy-gun fire into the group. Though all affected are expected to recover, their capo is rumored to have sworn revenge in a piercing soprano. Officials are recommending all students avoid arches under a cappella protection, or at least carry concealed earplugs.
While the perpetrators remain at large, authorities suspect The Nassoons, another well-established famiglia and long-standing rival of the Princeton Tigertones. Citing prior turf wars between the two groups—most notably the Blair Arch massacre of 2011, which took the lives of four Nassoons as well as seven bystanders—public safety officers pointed to the rhyme syndicate as the likely source of the attack.
Evidence suggests that the Tigertones have increased activity near Whitman College, a district historically controlled by the Nassoons. Could territorial encroachment have provoked the strike?
“I’da thought they’d be smarter than to go down to the Lower West Side,” one official speculated in an anonymous interview. “The ‘Tones crooned in the wrong neighborhood, and they got what was coming to ’em. They’re lucky they ain’t dead.”
Authorities have since ruled out the possibility of the strike being coordinated by Koleinu after receiving reports indicating the Tigertones ended production of bootleg Manuschewitz in 2010.
In response to allegations of administrative corruption and ineptitude, recently appointed Commissioner Christopher “Nails” Eisgruber reaffirmed his hardline stance against non-instrumentation at a press conference Monday afternoon.
“You know, I know, every student knows organized rhyme is destroying this fine campus from the inside,” Eisgruber announced, waving his .38 Colt. “It’s about time these a cappella mobsters hear some of my percussion, see?”
At press time the Commissioner had threatened to rearm the band if the hostilities continued.
— GAW ’16. Illustrated by RRF ’17.