Comedian/actor Mike Epps and his soon-to-be ex-wife, Mechelle Epps, are going through a contentious divorce.
Mechelle says she was caught off guard when her husband of nearly a decade filed for divorce in January,
Mechelle Epps
"It was shocking to me," Mechelle told TMZ in February, about learning Mike wanted out of the marriage. "I didn't know we were separated since the summer time. We've been doing everything a married couple does up until January. I think when I saw him walking up and down the streets of New York with a mysterious girl, I think that did it."
Mechelle claims that Mike has cut her off from bank accounts and credit cards, leaving her with no income.
TMZ obtained court documents this week that show Mechelle is asking for $109,036 per month from Mike in spousal and child support.
They have two daughters, ages 10 and 12. According to Michelle, she spends several thousand dollars a month on their clothes and shoes, $72,000 a year for private schooling, an undisclosed amount to have their hair braided at an "expensive salon," $3,500 a month to pay her mom to be their nanny, plus food and vacations.
In addition, Mechelle wants $600 a month to cover the cost of her mom's Mercedes and sole possession of the home she and Mike once shared.
Mechelle believes the $1,308,432 she's asking for yearly is fair because Mike rakes in $3.5 million annually.
Wyclef Jean is heated at the L.A. County Sheriff's Department following an incident Tuesday, March 21, when he was temporarily handcuffed.
The former member ofThe Fugeesand two female passengers, one of them is his manager, were leaving the studio when they were pulled over at 1:30 a.m. in West Hollywood.
According to TMZ, the cops said the singer's vehicle and his red bandana fit the description of an armed robbery suspect.
LAPD another case of mistaken identity. Black man with red bandana robbed a gas station as I was in the studio working but im in handcuffs? pic.twitter.com/vjRfJUkooA
One of the female passengers began to film once Wyclef was cuffed.
"I'm in L.A. right now coming from the studio with T-Baby. And y'all see the police have handcuffs on me," 'Clef says. "They just took off my Haitian bandana. The LAPD have me in cuffs for absolutely nothing."
Wyclef was eventually allowed to leave. The person police were looking for was apprehended soon after the stop.
The singer later took to his Twitter account to detail what happened.
"I was asked by the police to Put my hands up. Then I was told do not move. I was instantly hand cuffed before being asked to identify myself. Nor was I told why I was being cuffed. In the process I said my name and told them they have wrong person," he wrote. "They proceeded to ignore me and I was treated like a criminal until other police showed up and pointed out they had wrong person. I am sure no father wants his sons or daughters to see him in Handcuffs especially if he is innocent. As some one who has law enforcers in my family, I was appalled by this behavior of the LAPD."
The Sheriff's Department toldTMZ that the stop was "lawful" and "reasonable" because there was an armed criminal on the loose and his description closely matched Wyclef.
As for why Wyclef was handcuffed, the Sheriff's claim he failed to follow commands, including not to put his hand near his waistband.
The department says they are "apologetic for any inconvenience this process caused Mr. Jean."
Wyclef's attorney wants LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, LAPD chief Charlie Beck and The LASD to open a formal investigation into racial profiling.
Badmon Joey Bada$$ was in Los Angeles recently and stopped by radio station Power 106 to drop a sick freestyle for the L.A. Leakers crew. Check it below.
Radric Davis pka Gucci Mane is one of the most interesting hip hop artists. His ear for music and discovering new talent is second to none.
The Bessemer, Alabama born, Atlanta raised rapper is also arguably the hardest worker in the game. That was proven during his two-year prison sentence. From 2014 to 2016, Gucci released so much new music that if you didn't know any better, you would have had no idea he was locked up.
Fans will now get the chance for an in-depth look into his life via his forthcoming book, "The Autobiography of Gucci Mane."
"The Autobiography of Gucci Mane" will arrive September 19, 2017, via publisher Simon & Schuster.
"For the first time Gucci Mane tells his story in his own words. It is the captivating life of an artist who forged an unlikely path to stardom and personal rebirth," reads the synopsis. "Gucci Mane began writing his memoir in a maximum-security federal prison. Released in 2016, he emerged radically transformed. He was sober, smiling, focused, and positive—a far cry from the Gucci Mane of years past."
A Donald Trump impersonator is looking for a huge financial windfall after filing a lawsuit against Joey Bada$$.
TMZ reports that Phillip Wilburn was performing while onstage with Joey at an MTV event in Los Angeles last September, when the rapper allegedly shoved him into the audience below.
Wilburn claims he was injured during the fall and shelled out$1000on medical expenses. He says he may need surgery, which would cost him another$25,000. In addition, Wilburn expects to lose$50,000because he can't perform due to his injuries.
Congratulations to Nicki Minaj for surpassing legendary soul singer Aretha Franklin to become the woman with the most Billboard Hot 100 songs of all-time.
With her last three singles, "No Frauds," Changed It" and "Regret In Your Tears" charting, that gives Nicki a total of 76 to Aretha's 73.
Nicki celebrated by sharing a twerk video with her 76 million Instagram followers.
"When u find out u just became the only woman in the history of billboard to have 76 Hot 100 billboard entries," she captioned the sexy clip.
Another new album release = another number one debut forDrake.
The Young Money Records recording artist's "More Life" playlist is projected by Billboard to move 500,000 to 550,000 equivalent album units in the week ending March 23. 200,000 to 250,000 of those are from traditional album sales. Good enough to earn the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart.
"More Life" is currently only available through digital retail outlets. Expect it to get an extra bump once physical and vinyl copies are released in the coming weeks.
With no end in sight regarding his $51 million breach of contract lawsuit against Cash Money Records and Birdman, Lil Wayne, continues to throw shots at the man he once considered a father figure.
The latest Stunna diss came during a performance at Mass Appeal's SXSW barbecue.
"In all honesty, I know y'all know I am going through some bullshit with my motherfucking career," Wayne told the audience. "And Niggas is trying to steal my career without letting me do or say a damn thing. But it's moments like this that make that bullshit [small]. I appreciate ya. If you think that I am stressing or letting this bullshit get get to me, please remember ... There's too much good pussy and too many great, loyal fans to worry about bullshit-ass Birdman."
It's been eleven years since Dave Chappelle walked away from his hugely successful sketch comedy television series, Chappelle's Show. Thankfully, he's returning to the airwaves via a three-part stand-up comedy special beginning Tuesday, March 21.
He's being paid handsomely for it, with Netflix handing over a $60 million dollar check for his services.
Dave recently sat down with Gayle King of CBS This Morning for an in depth conversation about his career and much more.
On leaving Chappelle's Show
I was talkin’ to a guy… he basically said to me that comedy is a reconciliation of paradox. And I think that that was a irreconcilable moment for me. That I was in this very successful place, but the emotional content of it didn’t feel anything like what I imagined success should feel like. It just didn’t feel right.
Does he miss Chappelle's Show?
Yeah ...But Chappelle’s Show’s like breakin’ up with a girl and you still like her. But in your mind you’re like, ‘That bitch is crazy. I’m not goin’ back.
Did fame scare him and cause him to temporarily go to South Africa?
Not so much that I'd get on a plane and go to Africa. Fame is not that kind of scary, but fame is a horrifying concept when it's aimed at you. At the end of the day you don't have that much control over it.
On his famous Prince sketch on Chappelle's Show
We tried to get Prince. We were like, 'Yeah we got this sketch and it's about you.' And Prince was like, 'No.' But then he saw the sketch and he loved it.
On why Key & Peele hurt his feelings
I fought the network very hard so that those conventions could come to fruition. So, like the first episode I do, that black white supremacist sketch. And it’s like, ‘Well, that’s 10 minutes long. It should be five minutes long.’ Why should it be five minutes long? Like, these types of conventions. I fought very hard. … So when I watch Key & Peele and I see they’re doing a format that I created, and at the end of the show, it says, ‘Created by Key & Peele,’ that hurts my feelings.
WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director James Comey confirmed Monday that the bureau is investigating possible links and coordination between Russia and associates of President Donald Trump as part of a broader probe of Russian interference in last year's presidential election.
The extraordinary revelation, and the first public confirmation of an investigation that began last summer, came at the outset of Comey's opening statement in a congressional hearing examining Russian meddling and possible connections between Moscow and Trump's campaign.
He acknowledged that the FBI does not ordinarily discuss ongoing investigations, but said he'd been authorized to do so given the extreme public interest in this case.
"This work is very complex, and there is no way for me to give you a timetable for when it will be done," Comey told the House intelligence committee.
The hearing, providing the most extensive public accounting of a matter that has dogged the Trump administration for its first two months, quickly broke along partisan lines. Democrats pressed for details on the status of the FBI's investigation, while Republicans repeatedly focused on news coverage and possible improper disclosures of classified information developed through surveillance.
Under questioning from the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, the FBI director also publicly contradicted a series of tweets from Trump that declared the Republican candidate's phones had been ordered tapped by President Barack Obama during the campaign.
"I have no confirmation that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI," Comey said. The same was true, he added, of the Justice Department.
Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!
Comey was the latest government official to reject Trump's claims, made without any evidence, that Obama had wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the campaign. Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican and chairman of the House intelligence committee, also rejected it earlier in the hearing.
Comey was testifying along with National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, who also disputed allegations that surfaced last year that British intelligence services were involved in the wiretapping.
Trump took to Twitter before the hearing began, accusing Democrats of making up allegations about his campaign associates' contact with Russia during the election. He said Congress and the FBI should be going after media leaks and maybe even Hillary Clinton instead.
The Democrats made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign. Big advantage in Electoral College & lost!
"The real story that Congress, the FBI and others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information. Must find leaker now!" Trump tweeted early Monday as news coverage on the Russia allegations dominated the morning's cable news.
Trump also suggested, without evidence, that Clinton's campaign was in contact with Russia and had possibly thwarted a federal investigation. U.S. intelligence officials have not publicly raised the possibility of contacts between the Clintons and Moscow. Officials investigating the matter have said they believe Moscow had hacked into Democrats' computers in a bid to help Trump's election bid.
Monday's hearing, one of several by congressional panels probing allegations of Russian meddling, could allow for the greatest public accounting to date of investigations that have shadowed the Trump administration in its first two months.
The top two lawmakers on the committee said Sunday that documents the Justice Department and FBI delivered late last week offered no evidence that the Obama administration had wiretapped Trump Tower, the president's New York City headquarters.
But the panel's ranking Democrat said the material offered circumstantial evidence that American citizens colluded with Russians in Moscow's efforts to interfere in the presidential election.
"There was circumstantial evidence of collusion; there is direct evidence, I think, of deception," Schiff said on NBC's "Meet the Press." ''There's certainly enough for us to conduct an investigation."
Nunes said: "For the first time the American people, and all the political parties now, are paying attention to the threat that Russia poses."
"We know that the Russians were trying to get involved in our campaign, like they have for many decades. They're also trying to get involved in campaigns around the globe and over in Europe," he said on "Fox News Sunday."
The Senate Intelligence Committee has scheduled a similar hearing for later in the month.
Though Comey would not discuss specific evidence, he went far beyond his testimony from a hearing in January, when he refused to confirm or deny the existence of any investigation exploring possible connections between Trump associates and Russia, consistent with the FBI's longstanding policy of not publicly discussing its work.
His appearances on Capitol Hill since then have occurred in classified settings, often with small groups of lawmakers, and he has made no public statements connected to the Trump campaign or Russia.
Any lack of detail from Comey on Monday would likely be contrasted with public comments he made last year when closing out an investigation into Clinton's email practices and then, shortly before Election Day, announcing that the probe would be revived following the discovery of additional emails.
Cold Summers Entertainment CEO, Lil Eto, continues his heavy grind in 2017. Following his collaborative EP with producer, "Omerta: The Film," he taps Jai Black for a new collaboration titled "Blessings." The track was produced by Chup.
Brooklyn, New York rapper Casanova was the latest guest on The Breakfast Club.
He talks about his criminal background, prison bids, getting arrested for a crime he didn't commit, turning his life around, signing to Memphis Bleek's label, collaborating with Chris Brown, being locked up with A$AP Rocky, Taxstone, meeting Jay Z.
Nardwuar the Human Serviette caught up with Desiigner at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin last week.
The two chopped it up about a number of topics including the rapper's Bajan roots, never having a bed growing up, Kanye West, his ad-libs and much more.
MomentsInTime.com is making huge amounts of money off ofTupac Shakurmemorabilia. The website, which has auctioned off numerous items once owned by the late, great rapper/actor/poet is now selling the handwritten lyrics from one of 'Pac's biggest hit songs, "Dear Mama."
TMZ reports that there are three pages total. Each one is being sold for $25,000 apiece.
The pages also contain the names of rappers 2Pac was possibly considering collaborating with. One sheet is said to be more graphic than the others.
A private collector in Poland acquired them from the studio where the song was recorded. Moments obtained them and is looking for a $75,000 payday.
No LimitG Herbo was at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference & Festival last week. Check out his recap of how things went down. Cameos by Southside and Frenchie.
(Associated Press) Rock n' roll was more than a new kind of music, but a new story to tell, one for kids with transistor radios in their hands and money in their pockets, beginning to raise questions their parents never had the luxury to ask.
Along with James Dean and J.D. Salinger and a handful of others in the 1950s, Chuck Berry — who was 90 when he died Saturday at his suburban St. Louis home — helped define the modern teenager. While Elvis Presley gave rock n' roll its libidinous, hip-shaking image, Berry was the auteur, setting the narrative for a generation no longer weighed down by hardship or war. Well before the rise of Bob Dylan, Berry wedded social commentary to the beat and rush of popular music.
"He was singing good lyrics, and intelligent lyrics, in the '50s when other people were singing, 'Oh, baby, I love you so,'" John Lennon once observed.
"Classic rock" begins with Chuck Berry, who had announced late last year that he would first new album since 1979, called "Chuck," sometime this year. His core repertoire was some three dozen songs, but his influence was incalculable, from the Beatles and Rolling Stones to virtually every garage band or arena act that called itself rock 'n roll.
In his late 20s before his first major hit, Berry crafted lyrics that spoke to young people of the day and remained fresh decades later. "Sweet Little Sixteen" captured rock 'n' roll fandom, an early and innocent ode to the young girls later known as "groupies." ''School Day" told of the sing-song trials of the classroom ("American history and practical math; you're studying hard, hoping to pass ...") and the liberation of rock 'n' roll once the day's final bell rang.
"Roll Over Beethoven" was an anthem to rock's history-making power, while "Rock and Roll Music" was a guidebook for all bands that followed ("It's got a back beat, you can't lose it"). "Back in the U.S.A." was a black man's straight-faced tribute to his country, at a time there was no guarantee Berry would be served at the drive-ins and corner cafes he was celebrating.
"Everything I wrote about wasn't about me, but about the people listening," he once said.
"Johnny B. Goode," the tale of a guitar-playing country boy whose mother tells him he'll be a star, was Berry's signature song, the archetypal narrative for would-be rockers and among the most ecstatic recordings in the music's history. Berry can hardly contain himself as the words hurry out ("Deep down Louisiana close to New Orleans/Way back up in the woods among the evergreens") and the downpour of guitar, drums and keyboards amplifies every call of "Go, Johnny Go!"
The song was inspired in part by Johnnie Johnson, the boogie-woogie piano man who collaborated on many Berry hits, but the story could have easily been Berry's, Presley's or countless others'. Commercial calculation made the song universal: Berry had meant to call Johnny a "colored boy," but changed "colored" to "country," enabling not only radio play, but musicians of any color to imagine themselves as stars.
"Chances are you have talent," Berry later wrote of the song. "But will the name and the light come to you? No! You have to go!"
Johnny B. Goode could only have been a guitarist. The guitar was rock 'n' roll's signature instrument and Berry the first guitar hero. His clarion sound, a melting pot of country flash and rhythm 'n blues drive, turned on at least a generation of musicians, among them the Stones' Keith Richards, who once acknowledged he had "lifted every lick" from Berry; the Beatles' George Harrison; Bruce Springsteen; and the Who's Pete Townshend.
When NASA launched the unmanned Voyager I in 1977, an album was stored on the craft that would explain music on Earth to extraterrestrials. The one rock song included was "Johnny B. Goode."
Country, pop and rock artists have recorded Berry songs, including the Beatles ("Roll Over Beethoven"), Emmylou Harris ("You Never Can Tell"), Buck Owens ("Johnny B. Goode") and AC/DC ("School Days"). The Rolling Stones' first single was a cover of Berry's "Come On" and they went on to perform and record "Around and Around," ''Let it Rock" and others. Berry riffs pop up in countless songs, from the Stones' ravenous "Brown Sugar" to the Eagles' mellow country-rock ballad "Peaceful Easy Feeling."
Some stars covered him too well. The Beach Boys borrowed the melody of "Sweet Little Sixteen" for their surf anthem "Surfin' U.S.A." without initially crediting Berry. The Beatles' "Come Together," written by Lennon, was close enough to Berry's "You Can't Catch Me" to inspire a lawsuit by music publisher Morris Levy. In an out of court settlement, Lennon agreed to record "You Can't Catch Me" for his 1975 "Rock n' Roll" album.
Berry himself was accused of theft. In 2000, Johnson sued Berry over royalties and credit he believed he was due for the songs they composed together over more than 20 years of collaboration. The lawsuit was dismissed two years later, but Richards was among those who believed Johnson had been cheated, writing in his memoir "Life" that Johnson set up the arrangements for Berry and was so essential to the music that many of Berry's songs were recorded in keys more suited for the piano.
He received a Grammy for lifetime achievement in 1984 and two years later became a charter member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with Presley, Buddy Holly, Little Richard and others. In the 1990s, Berry began giving monthly concerts in the intimate setting of the "Duck Room" of the Blueberry Hill club in St. Louis, drawing visitors from around the world. At times he was joined by his son, guitarist Charles Berry Jr., and daughter, Ingrid Berry Clay, on vocals and harmonica. He married their mother, Themetta Suggs, in 1948. They had four children.
Charles Edward Anderson Berry was born in St. Louis on Oct. 18, 1926. As a child he practiced a bent-leg stride that enabled him to slip under tables, a prelude to the trademark "duck walk" of his adult years. His mother, like Johnny B. Goode's, told him he would make it, and make it big.
Berry studied the mechanics of music and how it was transmitted. As a teenager, he loved to take radios apart and put them back together. Using a Nick Manoloff guitar chord book, he learned how to play the hits of the time. He was fascinated by chord progressions and rhythms, discovering that many songs borrowed heavily from the Gershwins' "I Got Rhythm."
He began his musical career at age 15 when he went on stage at a high school review to perform a cover of Jay McShann's "Confessin' the Blues." Berry would never forget the ovation he received.
"Long did the encouragement of that performance assist me in programming my songs and even their delivery while performing," he wrote in "Chuck Berry," a memoir published in 1986. "I added and deleted according to the audiences' response to different gestures, and chose songs to build an act that would constantly stimulate my audience."
Influenced by bandleader Louis Jordan and blues guitarist T-Bone Walker among others, hip to country music, novelty songs and the emerging teen audiences of the post-World War II era, Berry signed with Chicago's Chess Records in 1955 after hooking up with Johnson three years earlier. "Maybellene" reworked the country song "Ida Red" and rose into the top 10 of the national pop charts, a rare achievement for a black artist at that time. According to Berry, label owner Leonard Chess was taken by the novelty of a "hillbilly song sung by a black man," an inversion of Presley's covers of blues songs.
Several hits followed, including "Roll Over Beethoven," ''School Day" and "Sweet Little Sixteen." Among his other songs: "Memphis," ''Nadine," ''Let it Rock," ''Almost Grown" and the racy novelty number "My Ding-A-Ling," which topped the charts in 1972, his only No. 1 single.
Berry didn't care for hard drugs and spoke of drinking screwdrivers "without the driver." But he knew too well the outlaw life.
His troubles began in 1944, when a joy riding trip to Kansas City turned into a crime spree involving armed robberies and car theft. Berry served three years of a 10-year sentence at a reformatory.
In the early 1960s, his career was nearly destroyed when he was indicted for violating the Mann Act, which barred transportation of a minor across state lines for "immoral purposes." There were two trials: the first so racist that a guilty verdict was vacated, and the second leading to prison time, 1 1/2 years of a three-year term. Berry continued to record after getting out, and his legacy was duly honored by the Beatles and the Stones, but his hit-making days were essentially over.
"Down from stardom/then I fell/to this lowly prison cell," Berry wrote in his journal as his jail time began.
Tax charges came in 1979, based on Berry's insistence he receive concert fees in cash, and another three-year prison sentence, all but 120 days of which was suspended. Some former female employees sued him for allegedly videotaping them in the bathroom of his restaurant. The cases were settled in 1994, after Berry paid $1.3 million.
Openly money-minded, Berry was an entrepreneur with a St. Louis nightclub and, west of the city, property he dubbed Berry Park, which included a home, guitar-shaped swimming pool, restaurant, cottages and concert venue. He declined to have a regular band and instead used local musicians, willing to work cheap, wherever he performed. Springsteen was among those who had an early gig backing Berry.
Berry and his duck walk were seen in several teen exploitation flicks of the '50s. In the 1980s, Richards organized the well-received documentary "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll," featuring highlights from concerts at St. Louis' Fox Theatre to celebrate Berry's 60th birthday that included Eric Clapton, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, who recalled being told by his own mother that Berry, not he, was the true king of rock 'n' roll.
Burned by an industry that demanded a share of his songwriting credits, Berry was deeply suspicious of even his admirers, as anybody could tell from watching him give Richards the business in "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll." For the movie's concerts, he confounded Richards by playing songs in different keys and tempos than they had been in rehearsal. Richards would recall turning to his fellow musicians and shrugging, "Wing it, boys."
Berry also was the subject of countless essays and histories of rock music, but he was his own best biographer. In "Go, Go, Go," one of many songs to feature Johnny B. Goode, he celebrates his magic on stage, an act irresistible to young and old, boy and girl, dog and cat.
As promised Drake has delivered his highly anticipated "More Life" project. It features Giggs, Jorja Smith, Black Coffee, Travis Scott, Quavo, Kanye West, Young Thug, 2 Chainz and PARTYNEXTDOOR. You can purchase it now from iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/more-life/id1216986780
More Life Tracklist:
1. Free Smoke 2. No Long Talk (feat. Giggs) 3. Passionfruit 4. Jorja Interlude 5. Get It Together (feat. Black Coffee & Jorja Smith) 6. Madiba Riddim 7. Blem 8. 4422 (feat. Sampha) 9. Gyalchester 10. Skepta Interlude 11. Portland (feat. Quavo & Travis Scott) 12. Sacrificies (feat. 2 Chainz & Young Thug) 13. Nothings Into Somethings 14. Teenage Fever 15. Kmt (feat. Giggs) 16. Lose You 17. Can't Have Everything 18. Glow (feat. Kanye West) 19. Since Way Back (feat. PARTYNEXTDOOR) 20. Fake Love 21. Ice Melts 22. Do Not Disturb
}