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The Atlanta Hawks have issued an apology. The full release from the Hawks is below:

Regrettably, during the second quarter of our Saturday night game against Boston, a popular unedited hip-hop song chosen by our game operations staff was inadvertently played over the Philips Arena loudspeakers.

We are extremely disappointed in the song selected during that timeout and despite the fact that our regular sound person was not on hand Saturday night, a portion of the unedited version the particular song - "Party Up" by rapper DMX - could be heard throughout the building.

Without question, it never should have occurred. Obscenities and other inappropriate graphic language were clearly audible to our fans, and as a result of this, we are deeply sorry. It is never appropriate anytime something like this occurs, and with the numerous families in attendance Saturday night, this was a serious error in judgment.

The Atlanta Hawks organization would like to extend our personal apologies to each and every fan in attendance offended by Saturday's events, and we will address this serious matter internally with those responsible.

We should be held to a higher standard, and on this occasion, we dropped the ball. This was an unfortunate mistake that will never happen again.