AllHipHop Reports
On the eve of his first independent album release, rapper Trick Daddy is feeling very confident that he will continue to experience the same success as he did on a major label.
The Miami pioneer is gearing up for the release of his eighth studio release, Finally Famous, due out September 15.
The album will be the first release on Trick’s new imprint Dunk Ryder Records, which he launched after leaving his longtime recording home, Slip-N-Slide Records, in 2007.
While the move for independence seemed sudden to some fans, Trick reveals that it was a decision he had been pondering since the release of 2004’s Thug Matrimony.
The lack of promotional support behind his last Slip-N-Slide/Atlantic release, Back By Thug Demand, sealed his fate.
“You go from four videos and four singles, to two singles and videos, to one video and not even one magazine cover,” Trick explained. “Then you’re selling out at the store and your homeboy is excited. But when you sell out in stores, they ain’t got enough product. Something ain’t right. That means you missing out on money. My last album sales and marketing setup was so terrible; it got so bad that the stores wasn’t receiving the records they ordered.”
Now at the helm of his new movement, Trick is excited to deliver a collection of street tales that cover his vast experiences in and out of the Hip-Hop game, which he feels will connect with fans across the board.
“I got something for the ghettoes,” he said of Finally Famous. “I got something you can ride around and smoke to, I got a little something you can vibe and think too. I got something that’s gonna remind you who I am. I covered all the bases without the big features, without the big production, cause I got my producers and my own artists."
The album also serves as a preview of sorts for Trick’s literary debut. Later this year, he will unveil his new autobiography, Magic City: Trials of a Native Son.
“The album is actually the soundtrack for the book,” Trick revealed. “I’m telling you from discovering my first love of music to the first time I saw somebody use cocaine. I tell you everything I ever have been arrested for, I speak about going to prison. I tell you the first time I heard the words ‘free base,’ the first crack baby I remember seeing. “You’ll get my accounts of surviving three major hurricanes [and] two riots,” he continued.
“But we’re not getting anybody indicted. I’m not violating any street codes when telling my story,” Trick promised.
Following the release of Magic City, Trick Daddy will also pen a graphic novel series titles Nann, in which he appears as a super hero defending the hood from social ills, and fighting off the fraudulent rappers trying to take over the music industry.
He is also positioning himself to become the next spokesperson for Lupus research after recently revealing that he has battled the disease for the last ten years.
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CNN Reports
A gunman wearing "priest clothing" sparked a shootout with police in Jersey City, New Jersey, early Thursday that ended with five officers wounded and the shooter and another suspect dead, authorities said.
Two of the officers sustained serious injuries, officials said.
The shootings began around 5 a.m. as two officers monitored a vehicle suspected of being involved in a recent armed robbery.
When a man went to the car, police approached him.
The man, dressed in what Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy described as "priest clothing," pulled out a shotgun and fired, grazing one officer in the leg, authorities said.
The suspect then fled and holed up in a nearby apartment, apparently with another person, Police Chief Thomas Comey told reporters at a news conference.
Police called in backup, including officers from the Port Authority, and evacuated other residents of the building. As they moved in for a tactical entry into the apartment, they were met with gunfire, officials said.
Four more officers were wounded and the two suspects were killed in an exchange of gunfire there.
One suspect was "ready to go to war" in the way he was armed, Comey said.
"This individual came fully ready to go to war with us," the chief said at a news conference. "This is not a normal shotgun ... and he decided to put these cops under fire." Watch chief describe suspect "ready for war" »
Of the five officers wounded, one has been released from the hospital, while the officers who sustained critical injuries have been stabilized and were undergoing surgery, according to Dr. Nathaniel Holmes, Chief of Surgery of Jersey City Medical Center.
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CNN Reports
A 53-year-old French man was killed Thursday when a stage being built for a Madonna concert collapsed in Marseille, a fire department spokesman in the southern French city said.
Another two people, one British and one American, were severely injured in the accident at the Stade Velodrome, and four were lightly injured, officer David Goddin told CNN.
"At this point we don't know how it happened, but we are confident no one else is still under the rubble," Goddin said.
About 27 fire engines and 80 firefighters responded to the emergency when the stage collapsed at 5:15 p.m. (1515 GMT).
"There were a lot of open fractures, of injuries, it was a messy sight," one of the rescue workers told Agence-France Presse.
The deputy mayor of Marseille, Jose Allegrini, told the agency the 50-year-old U.S. singer's concert, planned for Sunday, had been cancelled.
Madonna had been due to play five concerts at the Stade Velodrome as part of her "Sticky and Sweet" tour.
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CNN Reports
Frank Hatley spent the past year in jail for being a deadbeat dad. But there's one problem -- Hatley doesn't have any children. And the "deadbeat" label doesn't fit the 50-year-old either, his supporters say.
After a hearing, Hatley was released from the Cook County Jail in south Georgia Wednesday afternoon, with the help of the Southern Center for Human Rights.
Superior Court Judge Dane Perkins ruled that Hatley was indigent and should not be jailed for not being able to make child support payments. Perkins postponed a decision on whether Hatley should have to make any more back payments on child-support for a child who is not his.
In June of last year, a judge ordered Hatley to jail for failing to reimburse the state for public assistance that was paid to support his "son," who, as the court was aware, is not actually his son.
Hatley's attorney Sarah Geraghty, who filed a motion for his release, called it a case of "blatant unfairness."
Hatley is a hard-working man who demonstrated his desire to pay what the court said he owed, even making payments from his unemployment checks, Geraghty told CNN.
On top of that, "the state has no legitimate reason to pursue Mr. Hatley for child support -- he doesn't have any children," she said.
The story dates back to 1986, when Hatley had a relationship with Essie Lee Morrison. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son.
Morrison told Hatley that the child was his, but the couple ended their relationship shortly after the boy's birth, according to court documents. The couple never married and never lived together, the documents state.
When the boy turned 2, Morrison applied for public support for her son. Under Georgia law, the state can go after the non-custodial parent to recoup the assistance.
For 13 years, Hatley made payments to the state until learning, in 2000, that the boy might not be his biological son. A DNA test that year confirmed that there was no chance he was the father, according to court documents.
Hatley returned to court and was relieved of any future child support reimbursement but was ordered to pay more than $16,000 that he had owed the state before the ruling.
Latesha Bradley, an attorney who represented Hatley in that hearing, told CNN the argument for keeping Hatley liable for the back payments was that he had signed a consent agreement with the office of child support services. The court agreed that Hatley had to comply with the consent agreement for the period that he believed the boy was his son.
Court documents show that Hatley for the most part continued to make payments. He was jailed for six months in 2006 for falling behind on payments during a period of unemployment, but afterward he resumed making payments and continued to do so even after he lost another job in 2008 and became homeless, court records state.
Last year, he again became unable to maintain the payments and was once again jailed.
The circumstances of Hatley's arrest didn't feel right to many, including Cook County Sheriff Johnny Daughtrey.
"I knew the gentleman's plight and didn't know how to help him," Daughtrey told CNN.
About two months ago, when attorneys from the Southern Center for Human Rights visited his jail, Daughtrey alerted them to Hatley's case.
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TimesOnline Reports
A powerful Mexican drug cartel has unleashed a killing spree against the authorities in a challenge to the leadership of the President in his home state.
The bodies of a dozen federal anti-drug agents were found on a mountain highway in Michoacán, the home state of Felipe Calderón, on Monday.
The killing of the agents was the worst loss of life in a single attack since President Calderón took office in 2006, taking the war between the narcotics gangs and the Government into uncharted territory.
Their murders were the boldest of at least ten reprisal attacks since Arnoldo Rueda Medina, nicknamed La Minsa, was arrested on Saturday. He is reputedly the second-in-command of La Familia cartel in Michoacán.
The surge in violence marks a potential shift in Mexico’s drug wars, which have claimed 11,000 lives during the presidency of Mr Calderón, who ordered the army to intervene.
Ciro Gomez Leyva, a columnist for the newspaper Milenio, described the killings as a Mexican version of the Tet offensive in Vietnam in 1968.
“In the war against the narcos, Saturday, July 11, seems like a kind of Tet offensive, the synchronised action by South Vietnamese guerrillas and the North Vietnamese Army against US troops at the end of January 1968 that, despite being characterised as a military disaster, created the perception that the otherwise invincible US Army would never win in Vietnam,” he wrote.
The perception that the war against drugs is being lost is pervasive. A poll published in Milenio said that only 28 per cent of Mexicans believed that the Government was winning, and more than half thought that it was losing.
Mr Calderón said: “The criminals will not be able to intimidate the federal Government. In this battle we will not give up, we will not hesitate, because what is at stake is Mexico’s peace and safety.”
Michoacán, on the Pacific coast, has become a battleground because it controls routes into the United States. It is also one of Mexico’s main producers of marijuana, opium poppies and synthetic drugs.
Mr Rueda was arrested in the Michoacán capital, Morelia. He is allegedly the right-hand-man to the reputed boss, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, known as El Mas Loco, or the Craziest One.
Within hours of the arrest, gunmen from La Familia, armed with rifles and grenades, ambushed federal forces in seven cities.
Some of the attacks took place near tourist sites such as the arts-and-crafts centre of Patzcuaro and Zitacuaro, which is famous for its monarch butterflies.
In the most brutal attack, eleven men and one woman agent were abducted while off duty.
Their bodies were found stacked on the highway with death threats that read: “La Familia, join its ranks or leave” and “Let’s see if you try to arrest another one”.
La Familia has penetrated the power structure, allegedly obtaining protection from police and politicians.
Seven mayors, one former mayor and a state prosecutor are being held after a federal police sweep of allegedly corrupt politicians in May.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Julio Godoy, the half brother of a state Governor. Mr Godoy was elected to Congress last week as a member of the Democratic Revolution Party.
Analysts said that the killings were not necessarily a sign of the cartel’s strength, but were an escalation of the battle to contain them.
“This marks an important change in the drug war in that they are attacking federal forces directly,” Jorge Chabat, a drug expert, said.
“It also suggests the capture of this person has affected the operations of the cartel. It was a major blow and this is a reaction out of weakness, not strength.”
In separate Mexican drug violence, six gunmen were killed on Tuesday in the northern city of Monterrey. Gunmen killed the mayor of Namiquipa in Coahuila and four police officers were kidnapped in Piedras Negras.
In Tabasco state on the Gulf coast, prosecutors charged five alleged Gulf cartel hitmen with allegedly killing two policemen and eighteen of their relatives in February and May.
A drugs trade worth billions and severed heads on the dance floor
• Every year Mexican cartels smuggle illegal drugs worth about $40 billion (£24 billion) into the United States, the world’s biggest market for narcotics. Mexico is a major source of heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana — and a key transit country for the vast amounts of cocaine that are transported over the border
• In 2008, 6,000 people died in drug violence in Mexico, according to President Calderón — almost double the 3,042 deaths that were recorded in 2007
• About 95 per cent of the killings were carried out using firearms from the US. Most of the drug violence takes place in a few cities near the US border, with drugs and people being trafficked to the north, and weapons to the south
• In December 2006, Mr Calderón announced the deployment of 36,000 troops to work with the federal police to fight the drug trade in nine states. The police are widely accused of corruption
• 53 per cent of Mexicans think the Government is losing the war with the drug cartels, according to a 2008 poll in a Mexican newspaper
• La Familia cartel achieved notoriety in 2006 when a member walked into a bar and threw five severed heads on to the dance floor
Sources: Reuters, Council on Foreign Relations
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RGF Reports
The remaining two members of Three 6 Mafia are continuing to capitalize on their crossover success with yet another unexpected new venture. DJ Paul and Juicy J have developed a new television project which will introduce the world to their love of cooking.
Cookin’ Ain’t Easy will find the two longtime friends and collaborators hosting a weekly dinner party for friends, fans and celebrity guests.
But prior to the arrival of the guests and the start of the meal, the show will also follow them as they prepare the meal to be served, giving viewers the opportunity to actually learn the week’s recipes.
“It is a completely fresh approach to a cooking show,” said veteran reality TV producer Adam Briles, who will executive produce the show. “You get much of the same take-away information that viewers expect from the genre, but it is served up in such a unique, relatable and funny way that it is just flat out entertaining.”
While DJ Paul and Juicy J’s antics are sure to keep fans attention, as they did with their 2007 MTV show Adventures in Hollyhood, the new show will also showcase Three 6 Mafia’s versatility in the kitchen.
“We’re not just cooking soul food like people might expect,” explained Juicy J. “We’re cooking Indian food, Italian, Asian, Middle Eastern food – all different inds of foods that people wouldn’t think we could cook. It’s a comedy, it’s funny and we love bringing people together for it.”
A launch date for Cookin’ Ain’t Easy has yet to be determined, as Mise En Scene Entertainment and the William Morris Endeavor Agency are shopping it to major cable networks now.
The show’s producer, Adam Briles, has produced shows like Survivor, The Contender and Out of the Wild: The Alaska Experiment.
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During happier times: Kesha Ni'Cole Nichols showed off her engagement ring as she attended an event with Richard Jefferson in New York on June 13.
It was supposed to be the best day of their lives.
Former New Jersey Nets star Richard Jefferson and onetime Nets dancer Kesha Ni'Cole Nichols were set to tie the knot at the Mandarin Oriental last Saturday, NYPost.com reports.
But in an unexpected turn of events, Jefferson bailed the night before their wedding.
The cold-footed fiancé ditched his stunning bride-to-be at such late notice that some guests had already shown up to the extravagant $2 million event that never took place.
Jefferson — who was traded to the San Antonio Spurs in June — dumped Nichols just before the weekend, according to sources.
Although Nichols, 29, immediately called her family and friends to alert them of the ill-timed news, the basketball pro waited much longer.
"He called about two hours before the wedding. It was nuts," said one Jefferson pal.
Although Jefferson never showed up to the hotel, he made sure to give his best friend his Black Amex credit card, with which the guests made good use of during the night.
A jilted Nichols, who was "not entirely caught off-guard," checked into the hotel and was upgraded to a suite on the 45th floor overlooking Central Park on what would have been her wedding night, according to a source at the hotel.
"She just wants to keep this as quiet as possible and move on," a Nichols family insider told FoxSports. "She's doing just fine."
Neither Jefferson nor Nichols have responded to requests for comment.
Source: New York Daily NewsRead more…
Will Lloyd Banks soon have his own reality show soon? He says not only is that close but there is a movie in the works. "We are in talks right now for my own reality show," Banks revealed in an interview with Hip Hop Canada. "I don't know man...if that becomes a go then I'll definitely take that approach. You'll definitely see me on the screen soon. I have some scripts and things on the table. I'm a writer also so I like to create my own thing too. As an artist I don't want to limit myself, I want to write the screen and produce it and everything too...Me as an artist and as a fan of hip-hop I'd be more excited to hear a Lloyd Banks album, than to see a Lloyd Banks movie. Maybe as I get older."The long-time G-Unit member went on, bringing up Dr. Dre and Eminem. "When these [Dr. Dre and Eminem's] albums came out, they were around my age, so it's hard to take me and put me in the shoes of some of these guys. They've already been in the game for over 10 years. Maybe down the line."
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AllHipHop Reports
Hip-Hop legend Ice Cube has partnered with TBS to premier the TV version of Are We There Yet?
TBS secured the 10 episode contract after a bidding war with USA and BET. The network also retains the option to order 90 more episodes.
Ali LeRoi, writer of the acclaimed Everybody Hates Chris sitcom, will handle scripting duties.
Executive producer credits are split between Cube, LeRoi, and Matt Alvarez. Debmar-Mercury, which backs the Tyle Perry sitcoms (House of Payne, Meet the Browns), will distribute the series.
“When we set out to expand on the television model that Tyler Perryhas turned into a runaway success at TBS, we knew we had to be in business with Ice Cube,” explained Debmar-Mercury representative Mort Marcus.
Although Cube has confirmed that he’ll made sporadic appearances on the show, it won’t be in his movie role as Nick, the protagonist father from the films.
Replacing him will be Terry Crew, who received kudos from critics and fans for his breakout role as the father on Everybody Hates Chris.
“Terry Crews is the perfect person to replace me as Nick,” Ice Cube disclosed in a statement. “His physical comedy is undeniable. [And] no one runs a show like Ali. We are dedicated to creating a new template for family comedy.”
The first, 2005 installment of Are We There Yet? grossed $82 million in theaters.
The new show will mark the third movie to TV adaption for partners Matt Alvarez and Ice Cube, following Barbershop: The Series and the animated version of Friday.
At press time, TBS’ Are We There Yet is slated to launch in June 2010.
Additionally, Ice Cube is preparing for the release of the comedic film Janky Promoters, which also stars Mike Epps and Young Jeezy.
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AllHipHop Reports
Will Smith's son Jaden will be featured opposite Jackie Chan in the upcoming remake of the 1984 movie Karate Kid.
Chan recently signed on to play the older kung-fu master in Kung-Fu Kid.
Chan's character guides Jaden Smith's and teaches him the art of Kung-Fu to confront local bullies.
The updated version of the movie is set in China, where shooting started Saturday (July 11) in Beijing.
The film shoot was kicked off by a traditional Chinese ceremony that featured Will Smith, who is also producer of the film.
The original version of Karate Kid starred Pat Morita as "Mr. Miyagi," while Ralph Macchio played "Daniel."
Jackie Chan has starred in a number of popular movies, including Rumble in the Bronx and the hit Rush Hour franchise, which shot by Hip-Hop video director, Brett Ratner.
Will Smith's son Jaden Smith has been featured in two blockbusters.
In 2006, he starred opposite his father in The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) and actor Keanu Reeves in The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008).
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50 Cent is gearing up for another battle, this time with fellow New York rapper, Jay-Z. Reports say that the G-Unit general will release his new "Before I Self Destruct" album on September 11th, the same day that Jay-Z is dropping his "Blueprint 3." 50 previously took on Kanye West in a highly publicised battle (which Kanye won) on September 11th of 2007. Kanye's "Graduation" album pushed close to 957,000 units the first week while 50's "Curtis" did around 691,000 (rollingstone).50 Cent - Ok, You're RightJay-Z - D.O.A. (Death Of Autotune)Read more…
TheHollywoodGossip And Bossip Report
We have all seen enough Aubrey O'Day pictures by now that these ones below should not come as a surprise. But still, there is something about a girl getting oiled up and having glitter blown on her lingerie-clad body that jumps out.
These photos of Aubrey undergoing such treatment and posing in a very suggestive manner in the process were taken during rehearsal for O'Day's stint in the Las Vegas show Peepshow, and were of course posted by Aubrey herself on Twitter.
Here is what she twitted…
“Look at how big my booty is getting. I’m so excited! Thick white girls unite!”
BallerStatus Reports
Swizz Beatz is getting more and more into art these days. Last year, he revealed some of his art collection to the New York Post, then recently he gave Eve a tattoo of a black window. Now, just Tuesday night (July 13), he created his own art piece ... of Michael Jackson.
The superproducer created a mixed-media portrait of a young Michael Jackson in memory of the late King of Pop, and posted it via Twitter.
He then titled his work "Remember the Time," thanks to a suggestion from one of his Twitter followers.
"R.I.P. MJ the great," said Swizzy. "I took some time out to do a dedication piece tonight instead of rocking in the studio."
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