Rick Ross, through his legal counsel, has fired back at 50 Cent over a recent lawsuit that attempts to shift blame over a sex tape.
The 2010 Lestonia Leviston, 36, of Florida sued 50 Cent in Manhattan court for posting and promoting a sex tape with herself and her former boyfriend Maurice Murray in 2009.
Ross lawyer Xavier Donaldson fired back on behalf of the rapper.
“The recent lawsuit filed by Curtis Jackson against Mr. William Roberts is clearly another attempt to draw attention to his descending entertainment career and one of several desperate, last minute attempts he’s made to avoid and deflect legal and financial responsibility for his own actions related to the pending New York City civil trial in which he’s a defendant,” said Donaldson.
50 Cent was successful in having the Leviston suit dismissed by filing for bankruptcy for his SMS promotions, which is reportedly in 500k in debt. He was supposed to appear in court Tuesday to answer to the sex tape case.
Donaldson took exception to the new direction the case has taken. 50 Cent now charges that he obtained the video from Rozay and that he was merely reposting what was already in existence.
Donaldson: “The New York City lawsuit was filed against Curtis Jackson five years ago. Mr. Roberts was neither named as a defendant nor legally joined by Mr. Jackson in that suit. If and/or when Mr. Jackson properly serves Mr. Roberts, we will aggressively address and defend against these frivolous and futile claims.”
50 Cent has not responded to this new twist in the case.
When her 12-year-old stepson came home from getting a haircut, she says he was high on weed. To make matters worse, she says he’s failing every class, including GYM CLASS!?! His punishment came in the form of another haircut, a pretty famous one at that..
A truck owned by Walmart nearly killed actor Tracy Morgan, but the two entities have come to a legal resolution on a 2014 collision.
The crash, which happened in July of 2014, took the life of Tracy’s comedian friend James McNair and the actor with injuries he has yet to recover from in full. A Walmart driver, driving over 20 miles over the speed limit on the New Jersey Turnpike, careened his tractor-trailer into a limo bus that held Tracy Morgan’s group.
Tracy settled with Walmart for an undisclosed amount, which is likely several million.
“Walmart did right by me and my family, and for my associates and their families. I am grateful that the case was resolved amicably,” Morgan said in a written statement.
“While we know there is nothing that can change what happened, Walmart has been committed to doing what’s right to help ensure the well-being of all of those who were impacted by the accident,” said Walmart US president and CEO Greg Foran. “We are pleased to have reached an amicable settlement that ends this litigation.”
James McNair’s family reportedly received $10 million and insiders speculate Tracy’s settlement will be several times that amount.
“Our thoughts continue to go out to everyone that was involved in the accident. We are deeply sorry one of our trucks was involved,” Foran concluded.
San Antonio, TX spitta Wes Duce releases new single & video, “When Life Hits” from his forthcoming album, TYWD, (Thank You Wes Duce), which will be released this summer.
Chicago’s own Ralphy releases the video to his slow and sexy single “She Can’t Take It”. This song from his album, “Galaxy Debonair,” has a mesmerizing beat and the video captures its smooth sexiness. With the city providing a beautiful backdrop and Ralphy posted up for part of the video, there are also spicy bedroom scenes for other shots. It is clear, that even though Ralphy has told her he already has a girlfriend, the woman in the video has a problem “staying in her lane” and “being number 2”. She can’t seem to get enough of him and apparently he feels the same. This one has lots of sensual hugging, kissing and lovemaking and finishes with a twist that you won’t expect. Don’t miss out on watching this video -the perfect compliment to the song.
Following the release of the link single ‘Suicide Doors’, Skyzoo returns with the official first single off of Music For My Friends; “Luxury”. The track, featuring Buffalo newcomer Westside Gunn on the hook, is best described by Sky as “a New York trunk knocker”.
He further explains:
“The idea behind the record was to put together something that really felt like the city. Something that really felt like the NY that I know and grew up in. From the content to the beat, it feels like expensive cars driven by guys from down the block who figured out a way to get whatever they want and celebrate those realizations. That’s how the city looked and felt to me growing up, and I wanted to build something like that for this generation that still tied into the album’s overall theme of innocent ignorance and misguided desires”.
Skyzoo’s third solo album, “Music For My Friends”, hits stores June 23rd. Pre-order now on iTunes.
We’ve all got that one dime in our lives. She’s got the body of Athena, and could summon any man at the wave of her finger. For a beauty of this magnitude, Long Island’s Typ-iLL has crafted the honey head anthem for the ages with, “Blondie.” The track is equal parts seductive, and cunning, as you’re introduced to a brooding violin progression before getting pulled into a hypnotic head nod, courtesy of DITC’s legendary producer, Buckwild. Joined by BX representative, Daytona, both emcees casually vibe of each other’s energy, creating a track worthy of love from both the ladies, and the true heads. “Blondie,” is now available for purchase through iTunes and all other major digital retailers, so be sure to support and add this to your summer playlist! Stay tuned for Typ-iLL’s forthcoming, currently untitled LP, which will be produced entirely by, Statik Selektah.
The “One Love Hip-Hop Festival” will be bringing the likes of Nas, Raekwon, Wale, Machine Gun Kelly and J. Cole to Calgary, Canada on September 5th. The outdoor festival will be taking place at Shaw Millennium Park.
Organizer Faizel Dhalla said that it was important to choose headliners who had no “gangster, violent elements” to their careers.
“The representation of what this festival stands for had to be duplicated by the artists, Dhalla told the Calgary Herald. “This is a festival, that if you’re a parent and you have a 16-year-old kid, you’ll feel comfortable sending them because it’s a good, positive vibe.”
Dhalla is also hoping to make this festival an annual event.
Dreamville artists Bas and Cozz will also be gracing the stage as well as local artists Humble Giants and DJ Newboy.
Tickets go on sale May 29th on onelovefestival.ca and range from $79.95 to $129.95. The pre-sale begins on May 28th, but you will have to follow @OneLoveYYC on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to get the password for access.
If you were born in the 1970’s or 1980’s, prepare yourself. You’re about to experience a potent dose of nostalgia. If you’re a 90’s baby, get ready to mark a vital Hip Hop moment that took place before your time: House Party turns 25 this year.
That’s right the cult classic starring Christopher “Kid” Reid, Christopher “Play” Martin, Martin Lawrence, Tisha Campbell, A.J. Johnson, Full Force, and John Witherspoon hit movie theaters a quarter of a century ago. And yes, the impact of the 1990 comedy is still resonating in 2015.
From dance partners breaking out the “Kid n’ Play” footwork at the family reunion to “follow the drip” being the universally recognized response to seeing a man with a Jheri curl, director Reginald Hudlin’s tale of two high school students’ mission of throwing the ultimate blowout has left an undeniable mark on the culture.
Even the House Party sequel became an unforgettable time capsule of the fun days of the early 90’s. Besides featuring an all-star cast which included Reid, Martin, Lawrence, Campbell, Queen Latifah, Iman, and Whoopi Goldberg, the second installment of the House Party franchise centered around a pajama party for the ages.
Kid ‘n Play are now set to relive the House Party 2 theme at the first annual Everything Is Festival’s Pajama Jammy Jam. The creators of the gold-selling albums 2 Hype and Funhouse will also attend a screening of the original House Party. The movie will be followed by a performance from the duo along with legendary DJ Mix Master Mike behind the boards.
Before Pacific Northwest fans get to turn up to hits like “Rollin’ With Kid ‘n Play,” “Back to Basics,” and “Ain’t Gonna Hurt Nobody” on May 30, AllHipHop.com spoke with Play and Mike about their upcoming show, their thoughts on feel good Hip Hop, and of course House Party.
Flashback: Kid ‘N Play (via Everything Is Festival)
Kid ‘N Play is headlining the Everything Is Festival this year. How does it feel knowing you guys have been in the business for thirty years and people are still excited to see you perform?
Play: It feels good. It’s not like it was planned that way. Our inspiration when this thing began was using this as a vehicle to be able to get into as many women’s pants as I could. I didn’t have any master plan as to what things would look like up the road. I just wanted to do a single.
That ended up turning into a three decade career. That’s pretty amazing.
Play:What we mean for bad, God turns into good. We just kept it going. We didn’t know that it would be as well received and as large as it has been. It was just a whole crew of us – we had DJs and Hurby [“Luv Bug” Azor] – that really just wanted to have fun. That’s usually the definition of success – loving what you do and getting paid for it.
Your upcoming set is part of the Everything Is Festival’s Pajama Jammy Jam. That was the theme of House Party 2. Do you have a particular memorable moment from filming that movie?
Play: I always was in awe of what mankind is able to pull off. When you’re on a project like that, it starts off in your dressing room and clothes are made available to you. What is always amazing is when your escort comes to get you from your dressing room, you had read the script of what the scene is supposed to look like. Then when you enter into the location, you’re in awe of what has been created.
When you talk about the pajama party situation, what was amazing is that was supposed to be in the hall of a college. So just to see a big crowd of people enthusiastic to see you – and we’re happy to see them – and to see this thing that actually looks like a big hall at a college, but it’s not.
The same thing with soundstages. When you go and see what they’re able to create. That’s what always sticks out to me. Being able to see what has been built and it looks so real.
Mike, you have had an amazing career as well. You’re still performing and doing these shows. What does it mean for you that you’ve been in the game for so long and you’re still drawing in crowds?
Mike: For me, I’ve always had a passion for this whole thing. You’re so dedicated to the craft that you keep going and going. Then after a while you get rewarded with certain things and just say, “Wow.” And the blessing is, you get to do this for a living. Being able to do it almost 30 years is just a blessing.
I remember picking up my first Kid ‘n Play 12-inch. It was “Gittin’ Funky.” I thought, “Oh sh*t. This is raw, hardcore Hip Hop.” There’s Hip Hop and then there’s timeless Hip Hop. The stuff Kid ‘n Play made is more timeless. Your intentions are to make timeless music and timeless performances. So this is a blessing for me to do this and I’m approaching 30 years.
A photo posted by MIX MASTER MIKE (@mixmastermike) on
Kid ‘n Play – and Mike you worked a lot with the Beastie Boys – both groups are known for making party, good time rap music. There are a lot of Hip Hop fans that feel like acts today no longer represent that part of the culture. What are your feelings on the lack of rap artists that embrace that “feel good”, “party” type of music?
Play: I think that things have to go through their seasons and their periods. It hasn’t always been smooth, because sometimes Kid and I had to play the back to let different expressions of music take the forefront – the gangster thing, the sexual thing. But if you stay alive long enough, you get to see things come back again.
I think even with the gangster thing and social awareness, conscious rap we have to experience things and have balance. People want a good time. Hip Hop was birthed out of desperation. Hip Hop was birthed out of a fiscal crisis in the ‘70’s in New York.
People were going through bad times in the city of New York – the birthplace of it all, and they wanted escapism. They wanted to stop thinking about – at least for a little bit – the breaking up of homes, the lack of money, no more after school programs, the music programs being discontinued. People were getting desperate for some relief.
I think that’s happening again now, or we’re on the verge of that. You want to laugh. You need to laugh. You want to dance. You want to be able to say, “I love you.” You want to hear “I love you.” That’s what people want, and I think that’s what it’s getting to.
Unfortunately, there’s other ways to escape too like drugs and alcohol. The safe stuff can be the music. People that are good enough will take [the listeners] to another place and paint a mental picture of how things will be when we have money again, that pretty girl, that handsome man. A good DJ, like Mix Master, will be able to take them to those places to have a good time and put a pause on drama.
Mike: Like Play said, it’s escapism. When I get on stage I make it my intention to give people that experience, to take them away from what they’re going through. Because I was in those shoes too. When I first started it wasn’t all rosy. I ain’t gonna lie. I used to sell drugs, but luckily I found myself.
Everybody has something. They just have to tap into it. I was able to tap into DJing and putting music together. That was my release. That was my getaway. Now, I’m at this point where if I could change one person’s life or put a smile on somebody’s face, then I’ve done my job.
Play, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Rae Sremmurd, but they’ve been compared to Kid ‘n Play.
Play: I think Kid is more familiar with them than I am, but I have heard the name.
Are there any younger acts that have grabbed your attention?
Play: When I dip in and stick my head in every once in a while. Matter of fact I’m channel surfing MTV Jams and VH1 Soul. I kind of feel for today’s generation of entertainers. Especially, in the Hip Hop genre, because those who are old enough to know – even some today who are familiar with how the structure used to be – I think there’s a part of them that doesn’t like the fact that some of the old structure still doesn’t exist.
There was a time where you could do a music video, and you could live off that music video for anywhere from 3 – 6 months. Now a music video is old already in a week. Everything has such a very short shelf life, and it’s really kind of sad.
Just seeing one artist you might be feeling, but you don’t know if next week you’ll see them again. It reminds me of being in jail. You didn’t want to get to close to anybody you met in jail, because you didn’t know if the next morning [they would be there]. They’re up and out before you even wake up for call the next morning. That’s how it feels sometimes in this entertainment business.
Mike: We live in a society where it’s like snippets. Kids are so ADHD now that they listen to 15 seconds of a song and want to move on. I remember we used to go record shopping and bring home a bunch of records to listen to them from front to back. We’d read the production credits and look at the pictures. The kids don’t have that anymore. They won’t know what that feels like until there’s a another movement that’s gonna come back around.
Play: I remember a time where the cover was everything. The cover and the artwork were so important to albums and CDs. A very special part of getting signed to a label was doing your photo shoot. What’s supposed to be better isn’t necessarily best. But like I said, I stick my head in as much as possible just so I know.
Mike: I remember I used to buy records and would ask, “Who made those beats?” I discovered Hurby “Luv Bug” was working with Kid ‘n Play. I was like “Man, Hurby’s the sh*t.” I knew more about Hurby. It’s that education you get. People are now in a hurry to listen to 50 songs in one minute.
The theme for the Everything Is Festival party is Pajama Jammy Jam. The original cast of House Party reunited in January at Alicia Key’s Pajama Jammy Jam birthday party. What was that experience like?
Play: It was great. I got the chance to really experience some Brown Sugar between Swizz [Beatz] and Alicia – definitely that love for Hip Hop. It seems to be a nice essential part of their relationship. They have a competition between them where they always try to outdo each other with movie themes. He really outdid her with this one, because one of their favorite movies is House Party.
They turned their pool house into an actual disco. Everybody and their mother was there, so it seemed. They stayed true to the pajama theme. It was really a lot of fun and a lot of love. They’re a great couple.
Mike, you talked about how in some ways Hip Hop has regressed. But over the last 40 years Hip Hop has had some major milestone moments as well. One of those is your performance at The Kennedy Center Honors. What was that experience like for you?
Mike: For me growing up, GrandMixer DXT was one of the first people I saw scratch live on TV. So seeing him do that with Herbie Hancock was inspiring. Then 25 years later, I’m doing a tribute for Herbie Hancock and scratching the same part of “Rockit.” It was just crazy.
It was one of those moments where you’re numb to it. Then you see it on TV and people like your mom and dad are calling you saying, “You did a great job.” Then it all came together for me. I’m blessed. What can I say?
To be scratching, then you look up and the President and the First Lady are watching you and bobbing their heads, it’s just crazy. Its like, “I guess I came a long way.”
What can the people attending Everything Is Festival expect when they party with Kid ‘n Play and Mix Master Mike?
Play: Hopefully, a good time. What Kid and I have always tried to resonate is it is really about the friendship, the camaraderie, and the energy that comes from it. It’s not about Kid and Play. From what I’m hearing from Mike, he’s probably feeling the same way.
It’s a partnership between all the entities, and that includes the crowd. You can’t have a good show, we can’t have a good time, if the crowd isn’t in it. We feed off their energy and vice versa.
Sometimes I don’t even like a stage because it portrays “we’re higher than you” or “we’re better than you.” We really try to bring down that invisible wall, so that everybody can have a good time.
Mike: When I do shows, people ask me about riders – “What do you need?” I’m like, “What do I need? Just give me a bottle of water and a towel. And just have a good time.” Let’s show these kids a good time. And let’s have them talk about it for years to come – “That Pajama Party, that was a fun time.”
For information about the Everything Is Festival scheduled for May 28 – June 1 visit hollywoodtheatre.org.
After sharing the first single from his forthcoming full length, Wave[s], Mick Jenkins is now sharing the Nathan Smith-directed video for the second track released from the project. The director spoke to NPR about the impressive video for “P’s and Q’s” stating:
“For the ‘P’s & Q’s’ video, we wanted to shoot something with a constant flow of motion to compliment Mick’s unending verse. I created the idea of Mick walking through a scene of complete chaos yet being unaffected by everything. To create that effect, I had Mick walk backwards from left to right through the entire scene as people pelted him with various items. That way, once we reversed the footage, Mick would look like the only person moving forward and everything would lift off of his body, leaving the chaos behind. Everything in the shot – the fire, water, even the train – was in-camera. We did no VFX whatsoever and the actual shot only took 15 seconds to film at 240fps, or 10 times slower than real-time. At the end of the video, the water bottle that floats into Mick’s hand symbolizes that his words and lyrics hold the truth amongst all the other nonsense people are exposed to.”
Illest Record’s Hype Pacino teams up wit Young Dolph for the banga produced’s by Showdown Beats off of Hype’s latest mixtape Real R&B Muzik/Racks & Blow
The Wu-Tang Clan affiliate that made headlines after severing his penis is trying new ventures. After doing stand-up comedy to joke about his near-death experience, Christ Bearer is now looking to visit small countries to teach them about hip-hop culture and perform in hopes of motivating them to develop their own hip-hop scenes, according to his spokesperson.
These three nations that he is looking to travel to include Vanuatu, a mostly tribal country with a population of just 266,937, Nauru, even smaller than Vanuatu, with a population of just 9,378, the Federated States of Micronesia, a nation of just 106,104 spread over 607 islands. Christ Bearer, born Andre Johnson, will be accompanied by fellow group members from NorthStar and 71Raw.
But to embark on this journey he needs help from the public. He has launched a Kickstarter fund to collect over $16,000. According to his page, he needs $33, 240 in total but is hoping for the other half of the money to be given from sponsors.
But this isn’t the only thing he is working on. He is also kicking off the 16 Bars of Gold rap competition. According to the site, rappers will sign up by paying $10 to submit a verse and the winner will receive 50 percent of the takings.
Texas native Big Hud is back today with some new music entitled “Late Nights & Early Mornings”. The new work comes equipped with a smooth, southern instrumental courtesy of Peso Piddy, that’s perfect to ride out to, all while Big Hud delivers some effortless sounding bars. Take a listen to the track below.
Killa Kyleon hits it up with the latest installment of his #30Days30Deaths freestyle series. For Day 17 he sets his takes aim at Juvenile’s “400 Degreez”.
Barbee the “Caribbean Princess” recently sat down with Ed Lover to discuss her Jamaican roots and new music. She explained that she stays true to her roots by going back often and embracing her culture. While speaking to Lover, she cleared up the rumors about her alleged beef with Nicki Minaj. She said there is no bad blood between her and Nicki Minaj, but there was a little bit of controversy at one time. Barbee explained that she was invited to a video shoot with Sean Kingston to play the Dancehall Barbie and Nicki was to play the Hip-Hop Barbie. Everything was cool at the video shoot, but at the end of the day she wasn’t in the final video. She explained that those involved said various things, but she has no idea as to why she was not included in the video. She did state that she’s actually in Mavado’s music video with Minaj. Barbee closed on a high note letting her fans know that they can expect lots of new music, videos, hosting, and more collaborations from her. Check out the interview below!
