AllHipHop Reports
With Nas confirming and celebrating his first son’s birth during a performance in Queensbridge earlier this week, Kelis has disclosed her own official statement on the child’s delivery.
Representatives for the singer confirmed that Knight arrived healthy with no complications, despite a long labor period.
"Kelis gave birth to Knight Jones last night on July 22nd around 9PM,” stated publicist Tracy Nguyen. “Weighing a healthy 7.8lbs, the beautiful baby boy and his mother are doing wonderful. This was a natural birth and Kelis has been in labor since early Monday morning around 2AM.”
A normally joyous occasion had been marred by reports that Kelis barred Nas from seeing the birth of his son.
While the supposed ban was not confirmed nor denied, Kelis’ representatives did verify the Queensbridge legend was not present.
“Knight was delivered in a NYC hospital with her mother and sister in the room,” Nguyen stated. “This is the mother's first child.”
Kelis and Nas were scheduled to attend a court hearing regarding their divorce, which was filed by Kelis back in April 2009.
Recently, lawyers for both parties have been disputing matters of spousal and child support, along with Nas’ current income wages.
Lawyers for Kelis claim Nas has made over $11 million courtesy of his lucrative 2006 Def Jam contract, and request the rapper pay upwards to $20,000 a month in child and spousal support.
Attorney’s for Nas argue that those income figures are grossly inflated, and request the singer only receive a child support stipend of $5000 monthly, and involve the rapper fully in the child’s raising.
At press time, a rescheduled court date hearing is pending.
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AllHipHop Reports
Twista’s foray into independence has proven to be successful, as his sixth studio album Category F5 has landed at #1 on Billboard’s Top Rap Albums chart and #8 on the Top 200 Albums Chart.
Category F5 was the first release in a new partnership between Twista’s Get Money Gang Entertainment (GMG) and EMI Label Services and Caroline Distribution. '
EMI provides the promotion, press, online marketing, tour services and other duties for Twista’s GMG imprint, which is run and co-owned by Twista’s manager Rawle Stewart and Henley Halem.
"It really says something when you sell more independently than you do on a major label,” Twista told AllHipHop.com in a statement. “I really have the fans, EMI and radio to thank for this great accomplishment in my career. Times are changing and I'm glad I chose to partner with EMI to help form a new business model that benefits all parties involved especially the artist."
Twista’s album continues EMI’s hot streak with the Hip-Hop genre, as it’s the label’s fourth #1 debut Hip-Hop/R&B album in a row this year.
EMI Label Services notched #1 album’s with Trina’s Still Da Baddest, Ice Cube’s Raw Footage, Bobby V.’s The Rebirth and now Twista’s Category F5.
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AllHipHop Reports
Hip-Hop star Nas revealed the name of his new son during a concert last night in New York, just hours after Kelis gave birth to the child.
A visibly intoxicated Nas gave a performance yesterday in the Queensbridge Housing Projects, the housing complex that has reared a number of rappers, including Marley Marl, Craig G., Mobb Deep, MC Shan and numerous others.
“This is like the best thing ever,” a tipsy Nas said flanked by rap legend Luv Bug Starski. “My Son’s name is Knight. That’s what I named the young God. Yall heard it first. Don’t believe nothing in the media.”
In a recent viral clip featuring former Nas affiliate Cormega and Tony Yayo going on a "tour" of Queens, the G-Unit member quipped that "You don’t see Nas around here."
While not identifying the clip directly, Nas took time to light-heartedly address that and similar accusations made that he doesn’t visit his old neighborhood.
"We’re out here, like my n***as Lox say, with no security," Nas stated. "In my hood, this is my motherf**king hood. My hood, n***a! Trust that! But much love, this is a beautiful thing."
The drama between Nas and Knight’s mother Kelis also continued yesterday (July 21).
A source close to Nas released a statement to AllHipHop.com revealing that Nas was not allowed to witness the actual birth of his child.
“It was his intention to be there for the birth, but unfortunately he has not been allowed to be present,” a source close to the rapper told AllHipHop.com. “While this is clearly heartbreaking to him, Nas continues to offer his support and love to his new baby boy and his mother.”
Nas and Kelis were supposed to be in court yesterday for a hearing related to their pending divorce.
They have been married for almost four years. Kelis filed for divorce in April, citing irreconcilable differences.
The former-couple are now involved in a nasty court battle over spousal and child support. Kelis is seeking almost $20,000 per-month in child support costs.
Nas has already countered that amount with an offer of $5,000 per month.
A new court date in regards to Nas and Kelis’ divorce proceedings was not immediately available.
Nas is currently headlining the popular Rock the Bells tour. His collaboration project Distant Relatives with Damian Marley is tentatively scheduled for an August 2009 release.
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BallerStatus Reports
Jay-Z did a little overseas press recently, addressing a few hot issues including rumors that he blocked Chris Brown from landing a Michael Jackson tribute and Game's recent disses.
In the interview, which will debut this weekend on Tim Westwood's BBC radio show, Jay denied rumors that he had Brown's scheduled Michael Jackson tribute at the BET Awards canceled.
"That's the silliest rumor I've ever heard," said the rapper/businessman. "First, let me categorically deny that. That's not even my style. If I got a problem with Chris Brown, I got a problem with Chris Brown. I haven't said anything -- I haven't said anything live, or behind the scenes. Whatever. I don't agree with what he did, and that's it."
"That's a sucker move, I wouldn't do it," Jay added.
The rapper did not have anything bad to say about Chris Brown as the interview continued in the short preview clip, saying "all of us are flawed human beings."
Westwood quickly moved on to other controversy, changing the topic to The Game, who Jay-Z mentioned in a freestyle during a recent show in Las Vegas, spawning numerous disses from the Compton rapper during his overseas tour.
Jay-Z pointed out that he spit the line: "I'm not talking about Game," asking how it could be a diss. Then, laughed it off before closing with "Tell groupie to get over it."
He also confirmed that the next single off his upcoming Blueprint 3 album would be "Run This Town," featuring Rihanna and Kanye West.
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PerezHilton.Com Reports
The director of the now infamous "banned" Sprite commercial is speaking exclusively to PerezHilton.com!
Apparently, the backlash from releasing the spec commercial has resulted in some other works being taken down off the internet as well. The director, Max Isaacson, wanted to say his peace about his piece and we found it to be very interesting.
He says:
"At the heart of it all these spots were meant to exist as something of a social experiment. It went much better than I had expected. I wanted to do two things: first to make the spots, which I thought were pretty entertaining ideas; and second to release it to the world and see how many people would believe that it was real. I made sure to put under the description that they were spec commercials, but that seemed to have little import.
To be honest I just wanted to get a rise out of everyone. I was kind of knocked off my ass when I spent an hour reading on the Huffington Post about whether or not the ads were pulled because it was an interracial couple. I mean that's about five seconds of spray! How could it be real let alone banned for racial issues. One commenter said that they knew someone on the censorship board, and I didn't even plant that one.
We shot those spots for no more than three thousand dollars, total. The only thing we had to shell out for was the five foot tall Sprite can. The kitchen is my kitchen and the bedroom is my roommates. Everyone donated their services, and were awesome I must add, but this was as by the seat of my pants as it could be, but I guess if you tell a big lie long enough etc. etc.
I'm not really sure what else to say. I'm sad that the videos have been pulled so quickly, it's been something of a roller coaster day. I wish that everyone involved could have come to some kind of an accord, especially since there was no offense meant towards Sprite or the Coca-Cola corporation. C'est la vie, I guess.
I guess at the end of the day I just have to thank my lucky stars and get working on the next project. Who knows maybe I can make something else that will get people going as much as this did.
By the way, thanks for being one of the only sites to keep this online. Nice to know they're out there.
Thanks,
Max Isaacson"
MSNBC Reports
SYDNEY - A man whose relatives say had been sniffing gasoline burst into flames after a police officer Tasered him as he ran at officials carrying a container of fuel, police said Tuesday.
The man, identified by his family as 36-year-old Ronald Mitchell, was in critical condition at a Perth hospital in Western Australia state following Monday's incident in Warburton, an Aboriginal community 950 miles northeast of Perth.
Western Australia police said they were responding to a complaint at a house when Mitchell ran outside carrying a cigarette lighter and a large plastic bottle containing what they believe was fuel. When he refused to stop running toward them, one officer Tasered him, police said in a statement.
The man was immediately engulfed in flames. The officer threw him to the ground and smothered the blaze with his hands, the statement said. Mitchell was charged with assault to prevent arrest and possession of a sniffing substance.
An 18-year-old woman threw rocks at the officer as he tried to help, and he was later treated for a cut on his head and burns to his hands, police said.
Police say man sniffed gas
The woman was charged with two counts of assaulting an officer, police Sgt. Graham Clifford said. Two others at the house were charged with possessing a sniffing substance.
Mitchell's sister, Morinda West, told The Australian newspaper that her brother had been sniffing gasoline and that when he ran out of the house he was carrying a lighter and an orange juice container full of gasoline.
Police spokeswoman Susan Usher said Mitchell appeared to have received third-degree burns to about ten percent of his body.
Western Australia Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan defended the officer's actions on Tuesday, calling Mitchell a known gasoline sniffer and violent offender.
"The police officers were concerned that they were going to be burnt so they deployed a Taser," O'Callaghan told reporters in Perth. "The only other choice they would have had is to use a police-issue firearm and the circumstances would almost certainly have been far more grave."
O'Callaghan also said that while Mitchell did burst into flames after the Taser was deployed, it wasn't immediately clear if the stun gun actually sparked the fire.
"There is a very strong possibility the fire was caused by the lighter in the hand of the offender," he said.
The officer who Tasered Mitchell was not suspended, Clifford said.
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KTLA Reports
ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was secretly videotaped in the nude while she was alone in a hotel room and the video was posted on the Internet, her attorney and the network said.
The blurry, five-minute video shows a nude blond woman standing in front of a hotel room mirror. It's unknown when or where it was shot.
Andrews' attorney, Marshall Grossman, says the 31-year-old reporter plans to seek criminal charges and file civil lawsuits against the unknown cameraman and anyone who publishes the material.
"While alone in the privacy of her hotel room, Erin Andrews was surreptitiously videotaped without her knowledge or consent," Grossman said in the statement. "She was the victim of a crime and is taking action to protect herself and help ensure that others are not similarly violated in the future."
A woman answering the phone Tuesday at Grossman's office said he would have no further comment.
Andrews has covered hockey, college football, college basketball and Major League Baseball for the network since 2004, often as a sideline reporter during games.
A former dance team member at the University of Florida, Andrews was something of an Internet sensation even before the video's circulation. She has been referred to as "Erin Pageviews" because of the traffic that video clips and photos of her generate, and Playboy magazine named her "sexiest sportscaster" in both 2008 and 2009.
She last appeared on the network as part of its ESPY Awards broadcast on Sunday, and is scheduled to be off until September, when she will be covering college football, ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said.
"Erin has been grievously wronged here," Krulewitz said. "Our people and resources are in full support of her as she deals with this abhorrent act."
It was not clear when the video first appeared on the Internet. Most of the links to it had been removed by Tuesday.
Ephraim Cohen, a spokesman for the video portal Dailymotion, could not confirm the video had actually appeared on his company's site, but said it may have been there months ago. He said a search for the name of the user who purportedly uploaded the video showed the person had opened an account in February, but had since closed it.
"As far as we can tell, the user took the account and the video down a while ago," he said.
Illegal videos often are posted to multiple sites such as
YouTube and Dailymotion, which remove them as soon as they are found. The videos also often circulate on peer-to-peer or file-sharing sites, much like illegal music downloads.
Graham Cluley, who writes a blog for the antivirus software maker Sophos, wrote that several links purporting to send Internet users to the Andrews video actually sent them to sites with malicious software and computer viruses.
He said the some of the hackers actually include a portion of the video on their sites, apparently hoping that the malware gets passed along as users share the link with friends.
"They keep on using (videos like this) because it works," Cluley said. "If more people thought with their head rather than with their trousers, maybe less of these viruses would spread on our computers."
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New York Times Reports
A civil lawsuit has been filed in Nevada against Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger by a woman accusing him of sexually assaulting her in a Lake Tahoe hotel room in July 2008.
Roethlisberger’s lawyer, David Cornwell, said Roethlisberger denied the charge. “Ben has never sexually assaulted anyone,” Cornwell said in a statement.
According to the civil complaint filed Friday in the Second Judicial District Court in Washoe County, Nev., the woman accused Roethlisberger of assault while he was a guest at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, where she is an employee. The suit, however, is also for libel and slander and is filed against nine defendants, including Roethlisberger. The eight others are reportedly employees at Harrah’s whom the woman accuses of defaming her following the assault and whom McNulty says did not adequately investigate her complaint.
Roethlisberger was in Lake Tahoe last July for a celebrity golf tournament. The woman said she was working on the penthouse floor at Harrah’s where Roethlisberger was staying when he assaulted her in his hotel room. She also asserts that she was hospitalized and suffered from depression.
A criminal complaint was not filed against Roethlisberger after the incident, although one could still be opened. She is seeking damages of at least $390,000.
“The timing of the lawsuit and the absence of a criminal complaint and a criminal investigation are the most compelling evidence of the absence of any criminal conduct,” Cornwell said. “If an investigation is commenced, Ben will cooperate fully and Ben will be fully exonerated.”
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AllHipHop Reports
50 Cent will embark upon a five-date book tour with Robert Greene, co-author of the rapper’s upcoming book The 50th Law. Greene, who authored the book The 48 Laws of Power and The 33 Strategies of War, will be featured on the tour conversing with 50 Cent about life, business and strategies to succeed. According to Pollstar, the tour will make stops in New York City (Town Hall, Sept. 8), Washington D.C. (Howard U., Sept. 9), Atlanta (The Tabernacle., Sept. 10), Royal Oak, Michigan (Royal Oak Music Theatre, Sept. 11) and Los Angeles (The Wiltern, Sept. 12). The 50th Law is due in stores in September.
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MTV Reports
In an interview Monday night on "Larry King Live," Joe Jackson, the father of Michael Jackson, refuted longstanding claims that he had abused his son, and said that he never made any mistakes raising him.
"[I] never, never have. ... I raised him just like you would raise your kids, you know?" Jackson told King. "But harm Michael, for what? I have no reason. That's my son. I loved him and I still love him."
In his now-infamous 2003 interview with journalist Martin Bashir, Michael Jackson claimed that, as a boy, he was routinely abused by his father, saying Joe would sit in a chair with a belt in his hand while he and his siblings rehearsed, and that "if you didn't do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you."
During his interview with King, Joe Jackson called those claims "a bunch of bull S," and said that the media was just trying to perpetuate stereotypes with reports of his abuse.
"The media keep hollering about saying that I beat Michael. That's not true. You know what this beat started — beat started in the slavery days," Jackson said. "Where they used to beat the slaves and then they used to torture them. That's where this beating started. These slave masters, and that's where that come from. ... Now, Michael was never beaten by me. I've never beaten at all."
Jackson said that he was a good father who raised Michael — and the rest of his children — the right way.
"Michael was raised properly," he said. "He didn't run the streets like most of those other kids that was in his neighborhood."
Jackson also told King that he wasn't hurt to learn that his son had left him out of a will he had drafted in 2002, instead placing his assets in a family trust that benefits his mother, Katherine, his three children and various charities.
"That's the way he wanted it," Jackson said. "And it's not going to hurt me that I was left out of his will. But it happened."
Jackson claimed that the reason he was excluded from the will had nothing to do with childhood abuse, but rather, because he was shut out of his son's life during his final years.
"Larry, I'm going to cut through the chase on this. I could never get to him," Jackson said. "I tried all I could and I could never get to him because he — I was barred away from him by securities and all that type of thing. I could not get to him."
Jackson then reiterated his claim that foul play was involved in his son's death.
"If a doctor's there that couldn't bring you back — and this doctor, he ran away," Jackson said. "They had to look for him three days to find him. So what do you think there that's happened? To me, that's foul play."
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