Who is Crispus Attucks? Those who paid attention in high-school history class will recall that Attucks, a black man, was the first person killed in the Revolutionary War. But for devotees of hip-hop, fashion and minority issues, Crispus Attucks is the mystery man behind Urban Exposé, an irreverent Web site that gained a cult following for its caustic commentary on so-called urban entertainment media. His favorite targets: Black Entertainment Television's BET.com, (dossier) rap mogul Russell Simmons' 360hiphop.com, Urban Box Office and Hookt.com. The more Attucks skewered self-indulgent entrepreneurs and ultracool downtown media executives, the more people tried to uncover his identity.
In July the mystery seemed to have been solved when Inside.com published a story naming McClean Greaves as the man with the poison pen. Just one problem: Greaves was the wrong guy. True, he had founded one of the first notable black sites, Cafelosnegros.com. But as Greaves and his, ahem, lawyers explained to the Inside editors, he couldn't claim credit for Urban Exposé.
Last month the Washington Post ignited fresh speculation when it ran a feature on Attucks and the ups and downs of his 8-month-old site. The paper scored an interview and even ran a photo of him (with his back turned). Among other things, the article revealed that the provocateur hailed from Brooklyn, worked in the film industry and used his contacts to dig out the dirt on the urban entertainment business. Urban Exposé was a hobby - albeit one with profits near six figures, he claims. One thing the Post didn't reveal: Attucks' real name.
Now the truth can be told. Attucks - drumroll, please - is John Lee. Not surprisingly, the 28-year-old was a bad-boy in a previous incarnation. He was a member of the Masters of Deception, a hacker gang busted in the early '90s, and even appeared on the December 1994 cover of Wired magazine. Now Lee says he's decided to shut down his site because he's bored with it (not to mention many of the properties he taunted are no longer flying high).
What's next for Lee? He's writing movie scripts and doing consulting. "I am going on to pursue hopefully some other opportunities in the media space," he says. "I am also in the midst of developing a new property." Unlikely as it seems, one project is an online dating service. This time he'll have to be nice.
