(AllHipHop News) Rap group Black Eyed Peas have been confirmed as this year's halftime entertainment for Super Bowl XLV, in an attempt to update the halftime game's image.
The Peas' performance on February 6th at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, Texas, is the first time an urban/Hip-Hop group has played during the Super Bowl's halftime show since 2004.
While rap artists like Nelly, Kid Rock and Diddy performed, scandal erupted when R&B singers Justin Timberlake ripped Janet Jackson's shirt open and exposed her bare breast, causing what was later dubbed "nipple gate."
The stunt caused nationwide outrage and in the ensuing aftermath, CBS was fined $500,000.
According to the Dallas Morning News, The Super Bowl is the biggest concert of the year, drawing over $107 million viewers.
The NFL has been criticized over the years for the choice of performances during the Super Bowl's after "nipple gate," which included artists like Paul McCartney, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and The Who.
The Black Eyed Peas' new album The Beginning is due in stores November 30th.
The first hearing in the case was held in Atlanta Friday and although Long DENIED ever having sex with any of the four men who have made allegations against him, both sides have expressed their desire to resolve the case without going to trial.
The first court hearing in the Bishop Eddie Long sexual misconduct case was held Friday, and the case is headed for settlement talks. Lawyers for the bishop and the four young men who have filed suits against him said they want to avoid a trial and resolve the dispute in mediation early next year.
During a status conference held Friday, lawyers for both sides gave a road map of what’s going to happen throughout the case, when it’s going to happen and why it’s going to happen.
On the way into the courthouse, Bishop Eddie Long’s attorney Craig Gillen, and the young accusers’ attorney, B.J. Bernstein, had little to say. But after a short status conference, one thing was clear: Both sides were ready to resolve the case.
“The number one thing is we are ready to move forward in this case,” said Bernstein.
Jamal Parris and three other young men have filed sexual misconduct lawsuits against the popular Bishop and his 10,000-seat New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. The lawsuits allege the bishop sent the three young men provocative pictures and lavished money and gifts on the then-teenagers, while having sex with the young men.
Bishop Long has filed an answer to all four lawsuits, claiming in bold letters on the first page the claims of sexual misconduct are not true.
In all four of the lawsuits, Bishop Long admitted he was a mentor to a number of young men, trying to build stability in their lives. He admitted to traveling with the young men and at times sharing a room with them.
In the lawsuit, Bishop Eddie Long admitted young men in the church called him “daddy” or sometimes “granddaddy,” and he specifically denied in every lawsuit that he ever had sex with any of the four young men.
Lawyers for both sides say they want to avoid a trial and resolve the dispute as quickly as possible.
During the status conference, both sides said they want to try to avoid trial, and have a mediator resolve the explosive allegations. Judge Johnny Panos set a February date for mediation. If the case is not settled in mediation, expect the first of possibly four separate trials in July or August.
Attorneys also said that during the course of the case, the court will hear from expert witnesses who will talk about the relationship that should be there between a professional, like a bishop, and a parishioner, like the young men who have filed suit against him.
A Florida debt collector contacted a St. Petersburg woman’s Facebook friends in an effort to get her to repay a $362 car loan. The woman, Melanie Beacham, promptly hit the collector, MarkOne Financial, with a civil suit in Pinellas County circuit court.
Though the suit was first filed in August, Beacham’s attorney amended it recently, and the story broke nationally yesterday. According to the filing, a MarkOne employee going by the name Jeff Happenstance contacted both Beacham and two of her friends. As you can see in the message above, Happenstance asked the friends to have Beacham contact him without making reference to her debt.
While you may never thought of it this way, Facebook is a perfect tool for tracking down debtors and the people they know. LinkedIn and Twitter are, too.
“Now Facebook does a debt collectors work for them,” Beacham’s attorney, Billy Howard, who specializes in debt collection harassment, told a Tampa TV station. “Now it’s not only family members, it’s all of your associates. It’s a very powerful tool for debt collectors to use.”
Debt collectors have long contacted family members and friends of debtors in attempts to locate them — and that behavior is protected by law. “Other than to obtain this location information about you, a debt collector generally is not permitted to discuss your debt with anyone other than you, your spouse, or your attorney,” a Federal Trade Commission FAQ explains.
MarkOne admitted in a statement that it emailed to The Atlantic that it does use Facebook to track people down:
MarkOne’s policy is to only use Facebook® to locate customers when the customer has a fully public profile, and when the customer has not responded to MarkOne through conventional means. Our policy is to respect privacy disclosure requirements and no negative or account information is shared with third parties.
While this policy strikes me as fairly reasonable, we shouldn’t miss the larger point: a debt collection firm has a policy on how to use Facebook to track people down. This is yet another indication that our online lives are tethered to our offline lives, and not just in the fun ways.
Facebook does not look kindly on debt collectors using their social graph to get people to settle up. Facebook told The Atlantic today that debt collectors using their service may be violating their rules. A spokesperson for the company emailed us the following unusually strong (and speculative) statement to us:
There are state and federal laws and FTC regulations that govern the actions of debt collectors. The collector in the St. Petersburg case likely violates a number of these laws and regulations and we encourage the victim to contact the FTC and her state Attorney General. In addition, Facebook policies prohibit any kind of threatening, intimidating, or hateful contact from one user to another. We encourage people to report such behavior to us, only accept friend requests from people that they know, and use privacy settings and our blocking feature to prevent unwanted contact.
Facebook is clearly signaling that they are taking this novel debt-collecting methodology seriously. And so am I. I seriously doubt that MarkOne is alone in making use of social media to attempt to settle debts.
Perhaps in light of the recent success of Jay-Z's Decoded and Eminem's The Way I Am, it appears that Nas' own lyrics book, Slave to a Page: The Book of Rhymes has finally been greenlighted for release.
The book, which some sources indicate has been in the works since 2003, will contain a collection of lyrics, photos and personal stories from the rapper. The title borrows from the hook of popular Nas single, "Made You Look."
Amazon.com indicates that the release date for the book is April 30, 2011.
Nas' camp has yet to confirm whether the release is official.
Actor Wesley Snipes was ordered on Friday to start serving a three-year prison sentence for failing to file income tax returns by a federal judge who rejected the Hollywood star's bid for a new trial.
"The defendant Snipes had a fair trial ... The time has come for the judgment to be enforced," U.S. District Judge Terrell Hodges said in his ruling.
Revoking bail for the 48-year-old star of the "Blade" trilogy, the judge ordered him to report to prison as directed by the U.S. Marshals Service or Bureau of Prisons.
It was not clear when or where Snipes would begin serving his time behind bars, however. His lawyer, Daniel Meachum, has said he would appeal if a new trial was denied.
Meachum told the Orlando Sentinel the ruling was shocking.
"Wesley is very disappointed but staying strong and positive," the newspaper quoted Meachum as saying.
Snipes had already lost his appeal of the prison sentence stemming from his 2008 conviction in Hodges' Ocala, Florida, court on three counts of "willful failure to file tax returns" for 1999 through 2001.
Snipes was found not guilty of five other counts in the high-profile felony tax case.
In seeking a new trial, Meachum had argued that jurors in the original trial were biased and that the prosecution's star witness had his own criminal problems.
At his sentencing, prosecutors said Snipes, a resident of Windermere, Florida, had earned more than $38 million since 1999 but had filed no tax returns or paid any taxes through October 2006.
Although he is best known for his roles in action films, Snipes has also had critical success in comedies like "White Men Can't Jump" in 1992. He played the lead in director Spike Lee's interracial drama "Jungle Fever" in 1991 and also played the jazz saxophonist in Lee's "Mo' Better Blues" in 1990.
Eric Thompson, a supervisor in the U.S. Marshals Service office in Orlando, Florida, said the Bureau of Prisons would notify Snipes and his lawyer of a surrender date.
"He'll probably get it by certified mail," Thompson said.
He declined to say what prison was likely to be selected for Snipes except to say that it would not be in Florida.
A listing for Snipes already posted on the Federal Bureau of Prisons website says his prisoner ID or registration number as 43355-018, his location is "in transit" and his release date is "unknown."
(AllHipHop News) Brooklyn, New York rapper Foxy Brown appeared in court yesterday (November 16th) and vowed to defend herself against a charge that she violated a court order by mooning her neighbor during a dispute in July.
Foxy is accused of violating a 2007 protective order filed by her Bed-Stuy neighbor Arlene Raymond, with whom she has infamously feuded since 2007, when Foxy was accused of hitting Raymond in the face with her Blackberry.
Tensions between the two allegedly boiled over this summer when the two had an exchange of words, during which Foxy allegedly called Raymond a "dirty b***h" and then flashed her bare bottom at the woman.
According to the New York Daily News, prosecutors have not offered Foxy any type of plea deal in the case, but her lawyer, Salvatore Strazzullo, stated that he wasn't interested in a plea deal for the rapper anyway.
“We want them to dismiss the case,” Strazzullo said. “It’s really a case of nonsense.”
Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice John Walsh ordered Brown back into court for a hearing on February 7, 2011.
“We’re gonna fight this,” Foxy Brown said outside of court.
“I got to see the footage of him walking on South Beach, down Collins Ave…[Tim: it got a little crazy out there.] Yeah, he played himself. You gotta come cross the bridge to Carol City, Lil’ Haiti, that’s where you get your issues. I mean, Washington Ave? Give me a break…..what’s crazy about that, you can see on that same footage, when they asked about my name, they still don’t really have a direct answer. And that ain’t gangster at all. If you really have an issue put it on the table and handle it like a G. Walking down Collins Ave…You played yourself, you’ll get that took from you.” -Rick Ross
Although Dre vows his rapping days are numbered, the Doc said he will always be involved with the music industry.
"I don't ever see myself retiring totally from music, because I have a genuine love and passion for it," he said. "But as far as me going into the mic booth, that sh*t is over. I'm always going to talent scout and try to find new artists to work with. But, yeah, that's it. I don't see myself doing it the way I'm doing it now. I'm in the studio at least five or six days a week for 16, 18 hours. I think I'm going to back off a little bit and spend some time with the family."
If you're thinking about trying to do a HOME INVASION on rapper Jacki O THINK AGAIN!!! Details are still sketchy, but MediaTakeOut.com received an eyewitness report that in the early morning hours of Nov.12 Miami rapper Jacki-O was ambushed by two masked assailants when they entered her home in Weston.
According to MediaTakeOut.com's insider, Jacki-O was home sleeping (together with other family members) when the suspects broke in triggering an alarm. Two men entered the southside of the rappers home, waving firearms and demanding money and jewels. But before police arrived, gunshots were heard leaving one suspect wounded! That suspect was later apprehended by police.
We're told that Jacki O was NOT charged with any crime.
"Waka was a bright-a** kid. Bright as h*ll. Honors. The sh*t that get me about him is that he does this language sh*t that he do. He's from New York. Yeah, he was here since a kid, but he's different from all the rest of my kids. If you hear the way he talk [compared] to everybody else, you know they come from New York. But [Waka] adapted everything about the South; he really do know here better than he know up there. He was a bright-a** kid. And then he just went astray."
It's been nine years and the great debate over Jay-Z vs. Nas still isn't over. Earlier today (November 15), Hov appeared on Peter Rosenberg and Cipha Sounds's podcast, "Juan Epstein," and during the interview, the Brooklyn legend said, despite popular opinion, that his 2001 diss record towards God's Son, "The Takeover" is better than Nasir's response track, "Ether." "I think in the history when we look back, and I don't mean no disrespect to Nas, I think when we look back it's not even close," he shared, adding, "I just think it was a better record."
Taylor Swift and Kanye West's epic feud will soon be spoofed by Vivid Entertainment as only they know how -- in porn.
Celebuzz spoke with Vivid's founder/co-chairman Steve Hirsch for the low down:
"We're always analyzing news stories for their movie potential," Hirsch said. "The Kanye/Taylor feud has high visibility, is filled with passion and is something we believe that fans of adult films would enjoy. We're reviewing script concepts and definitely want to include that famous moment at the VMA awards. We plan to go into production in the next two months."
Previously, Hirsch told Hollywood Life, "Of course, our take would be in parody form and could heat up the relationship between the two."
The specifics of the VMA moment's "re-creation" are still to be determined, as they're "not at that point yet."
In October, Vivid announced another parody based off the TLC show Sister Wives to much controversy.
According to the docs, T.I. won’t be allowed to leave the Northern District of Georgia — Atlanta, Gainesville, Rome and Newnan — unless he can prove it’s for “verified employment within the United States.” That means he can’t leave the country.
T.I. is also banned from leaving northern Georgia for more than seven calendar days per month or for more than seven days in a row.
And that’s not all … as long as T.I. is on probation, he can’t drive a vehicle, can’t own “any firearm, dangerous weapon, or other destructive device,” and must participate in a drug/alcohol testing and treatment program.
