Rapper 50 Cent has set off speculation that a name change could be coming after the release of his fourth major album, Before I Self Destruct. 50 sent a cryptic message on his Twitter.com page, stating “50 Cent is a person I created, soon it will be time to destroy him and become somebody else.” 50 Cent took his name from Kelvin “50 Cent” Martin, a notorious “stick-up kid” who hailed from Brooklyn, New York and was the subject of the documentary Infamous Times: The Original 50 Cent. In related news, 50 Cent’s book The 50th Law with author Robert Greene, landed in stores yesterday (September 8).
Fabolous recently took to Twitter.com, where he fired off a series of Tweets attacking superstar producer T-Pain. Fabolous mistakenly replied to a Tweet sent from a phony T-Pain Twitter account that stated “f**k Jay-Z and Fabolous too.” In addition to defending his own honor, Fabolous took up for fellow Brooklynite Jay-Z, who was dissed by T-Pain just days earlier in Las Vegas. Yesterday, a trending topic on the site was the “hash tag” “#tpainbetter.” That was followed by a number of insults, including #tpain better not meet me in Brooklyn” and..#tpainbetter audition to be a California Raisin….“He’s done. stop singin in the fan… that aint talent we can all do that.” When Fabolous found out the Tweet was from a fake account he stated: “thats jus a taste of what u’ll get if u f**k wit me via twitter, Back to my Twitter chillin.” T-Pain has yet to respond to Fabolous’ rant.
Lil’ Wayne’s 2008-2009 North American tour schedule grossed over $42 million dollars, making it the most lucrative Hip-Hop tour ever tracked by industry trade magazine, Billboard. Lil Wayne headlined 78 arena’s or amphitheater concerts from December 2008 to September 2009, drawing over 804,000 fans. Wayne’s $42 million topped Jay-Z’s 2008 tour with Mary J. Blige, which raked in $34.6 million off of 28 shows.
Rapper Speech DeBelle beat out 11 acts to win the esteemed Mercury Prize for her album Speech Therapy. The rapper, who hails from south London, won the Mercury Prize for releasing what critics felt was the best album in the past year. In addition to added exposure as a new artist, Speech DeBelle won £20,000. “I feel so good. It feels better than I imagined. My family’s here. My friends are here. I’m from south London – I don’t get emotional – I’m emotional. This proves if you believe in something and you think you can do it, you can achieve it,” Speech DeBelle said.
