Sly Stone, front man for – funnily enough – funk legends Sly and the Family Stone has pleaded not guilty to charges of crack cocaine possession. The soul superstar had been travelling in a car when it was pulled over in Los Angeles for a traffic violation, with police finding rocks of crack in his clothes as well as in those of the driver. Stone, aged 68, has a long history of drug and weapons possession charges, but according to his lawyer, Peter Knecht, the cocaine did not belong to Stone in this case. “A lot of musicians hang out with people who have drugs,” he told reporters, arguing “you can’t punish a guy for what he did 40 years ago, 30 years ago.”
Stone has showed increasingly erratic behaviour over the last five years or so, including a ‘performance’ at the Coachella Festival in California last year in which he barely made it on stage, he was so whacked off his face and barely managed a few bizarre stage antics before being helped off to a booing crowd. He also infamously walked on stage during a tribute to him at the 2006 Grammy Awards, before walking off before the end of the song without singing or saying a word.
