(AllHipHop News) Swizz Beatz’ wife Mashonda has revealed details about the couples split and how she found out hit making producer was having an affair with R&B star Alicia Keys. In a new interview with Vibe.com, Mashonda reveals that Swizz Beatz admitted to having an affair with Alicia Keys on Mother’s Day in 2008, six months after she had already learned of the relationship. “I didn’t sleep for a whole year. I had to take pills to sleep because I’d wake up in the middle of the night crying,” Mashonda stated. “I couldn’t even look at my son some days because I didn’t have the strength and I never wanted him to feel my bad energy. It was a battle.”Alicia Keys is currently about five months pregnant with Swizz Beatz child. According to reports, the couple is engaged to be married. And despite a very public breakup and divorce from her ex-husband, Mashonda claims that she has never even spoken to Alicia Keys about the situation.“I wished we could have done it a different way. If she would just acknowledge me… I was begging for this person to just talk to me, woman to woman,” Mashonda lamented. As for Swizz, born Kaseem Dean, things in his new romance could not be better. In addition to being a father again with Keys, the pair seem to have chemistry in their careers as well. “Me and A.K., we just love music…when we in the studio, we work on a lot of things that ain’t planned,” Swizz Beatz told MTV News. “We was just in the studio vibing on some stuff for her album, vibing on some stuff for my album.”To read the full interview with Mashonda visit Vibe.com.

(AllHipHop News) Rapper Lil’ Wayne recently wrote to fans from jail and described his life behind bars on Rikers Island.”I wake up around 11 a.m. Have some coffee. Call my kids, and my wonderful mother. I then shower up. Read fan mail,” Lil Wayne wrote in a letter posted on weezythanxyou.com.After that, the hip-hop star has lunch, gets back on the phone, reads a book or jots down his thoughts.  After dinner, he makes one more trip to the phone and does some pushups.  “Then I listen to ESPN on the radio. Read the bible, then sleep. That’s my day,” he wrote.  The 27-year-old rapper, whose real name is Dwayne Carter, is serving a one-year sentence for having a loaded gun on his tour bus in New York City after a concert July 22, 2007.Cops who boarded Lil Wayne’s tour bus said they saw him toss the .40-caliber Springfield Armory semiautomatic handgun into a Louis Vuitton knapsack. There was no question the knapsack was his, cops said — it had his stuff in it, including a prescription bearing the name Dwayne Carter.Wayne also said that he had been listening to the radio a that he is still diligently working on his lyrics.“I’ve been writing and let me be the first to tell you that the lyrics that I’m writing are… well there’s no word that I can think of that properly defines them,” Lil Wayne wrote. “Amazing would be too typical and perfect would be unfair. I listen to the radio sometimes, emphasis on sometimes, and I hear the new music. I like some.”In addition, Wayne congratulated his fellow Young Money counterparts on their recent success. “I applaud my Young Money family for what they’re doing… this is what we’re supposed to do. Congrats to Drake and Nicki for all their recent success. Those 2 are going to have me retiring early,” Wayne confessed.  “I love my team.” According to reports, Lil Wayne will be released from prison in November.

(AllHipHop News) Rapper Jay-Z will headline Alicia Keys’ annual Black Ball charity event this September at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York.  Jay-Z will be joined by Alicia Keys and Sade during the event, which will raise funds for Keys’ charity Keep A Child Alive. The organization has been holding the Black Ball fundraiser since 2005. The charity event has raised over $10 million dollars since its inception. Keep a Child Alive is a non-profit dedicated to providing life-saving anti-retroviral treatment, care and support services to children and families whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India.

(AllHipHop News) Rock from the acclaimed group Heltah Skeltah has been found not guilty in an attempted murder case stemming from a shooting incident that left a pimp paralyzed.

Dru Ha, the CEO of Duck Down Records, made the announcement.

“Exhale for Rock & congratulations to his attorney Kenneth Montgomery for the NOT GUILTY VERDICT! Incredible job,” Dru Ha said via Twitter.

Rock was accused of being a moonlighting as a pimp at night and shooting a rival in January of 2008. He was eventually released on $125,000 bail and proclaimed his innocent in the alleged shooting, assault and the assertion that he is a pimp.

Despite the legal matters, Rock refused to sensationalize the case and released D.I.R.T. (Da Incredible Rap Team) with Heltah Skeltah rap partner Sean “Ruck” Price later in 2008.

Rock was party to a recent celebration of Duck Down’s 15th Anniversary on Tuesday at BB King’s Club in New York.

(AllHipHop News) Cam’ron has announced an August release date for his upcoming album Gunz N’ Butta featuring the Harlem native’s newest protégé, Vado. Vado, who is also from Harlem, co-wrote the 16-track album with Cam’ron, including the lead single “Speaking in Tungs.””It’s our first album and I promise it’s so much of a classic,” Vado told AllHipHop.com in a statement. “It’s like all the Boss of all Bosses tapes put together. We hit y’all from all angles—we hit y’all from the streets, for the ladies, for the club… It’s five stars, man.” After the August 31st release of Gunz N’ Butta, Vado will drop a solo mixtape titled Slime Flu. Gunz N’ Butta is being distributed by E1 Entertainment.

(AllHipHop News) Missy Elliott arrived in Jerusalem today (July 14th) for a controversial performance in Israel, despite an international boycott and a new standoff with a Libyan ship trying to deliver aid to Gaza.According to publicists for the platinum selling rapper and critically acclaimed producer, Missy Elliott is in town for two days. During her trip to Israel, Missy will visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem, followed by a trip to the Dead Sea.Missy Elliott is slated to hit the stage tomorrow night in Tel Aviv, alongside popular funk/Hip-Hop group Hadag Nahash at Gane HaTaarucha.Elliott’s performance in Tel Aviv has condemned by a variety of human rights groups, because of Israel’s ongoing dispute with the Palestinian government over land. Additionally, a variety of artists have cancelled their performances in Israel, which was intensified in six-weeks ago, when commandos raided a foreign aid ship headed for Gaza and killed nine Turkish activists. Missy Elliott’s trip comes amidst more tension in the Middle East, as Israeli warships are following the Amalthea, a Libyan aid ship heading to Gaza, vowing to defy any Israeli Navy orders change course. Artists who have canceled performances in Israel over the past four months include  Elvis Costello, Gorrillaz, Carlos Santana, the Klaxons and others. A variety of artists have ignored the boycott as well, including Elton John, Madonna and Paul McCartney.

(AllHipHop News) Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment is developing a movie for Sony that will be based on modern-day explorer/neuroscience professor Dr. S. Allen Counter. Counter is currently the director of the Harvard Foundation of Harvard University and has authored and produced a number of books about African’s and African-Americans.According to Variety, Will Smith is attached as a producer along with James Lassiter, Ken Stovitz and actress Debbie Allen. Will Smith has worked with Dr. Counter in the past and in recent months, the pair worked together to assist victims of a devastating earthquake that leveled the city of Port-Au-Prince and killed over 300,000 people in January. Dr. Counter is noted explorer who is also responsible for discovering a group of African-descended people in the Andes in 1993. Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment recently scored box office success with the release of The Karate Kid, which starred his son Jaden and has pulled in over $150 million dollars worldwide, since its release on June 11th.

Canadian rapper Drake revealed that he has started working on the follow

up to his chart-topping album Thank Me Later. “Started my new

album last night too…ok I’m done,” the rapper tweeted today (July

14th). According to Drake, he will be shooting the video for his third

single “Miss Me” featuring Lil Wayne tomorrow at 9:00 AM as well. Thank

Me Later is currently the #2 album in the country and has sold over

750,000 copies to date. Clipse’s Pusha T is planning to release a solo album in September titled Fear of God. According to reports, the entire mixtape was produced by Kanye West, sparking rumors that Pusha T could be joining the Chicago producer’s G.O.O.D. Music imprint as well. Pusha T announced the new mixtape would hit the streets on September 14th on a new freestyle circulating around the Internet titled “Bidding War.” The Clipse will be featured artists on this year’s Rock The Bells Tour which kicks off August 21st in Los Angeles and winds down August 29th in Washington, D.C. Veteran West coast rapper/producer Warren G. has announced the release of his 8th studio album, titled Regulate…G Funk Era: Part.2. The album is the sequel to Warren G.’s 1994 debut album of the same name, which went triple platinum based off the hit single “Regulate” featuring Nate Dogg.  Warren G. will debut new material on July 23rd, when he hit’s the stage at Club Level in Wenatchee, Washington.

DMX’s wife Tahera Simmons is preparing the release of her book about life with the megastar and has found her co-author.

Tashera enlisted Aliya S. King, an author that has written books for “American Gangster” Frank Lucas and Faith Evans. King also recently released a book called “Platinum” which chronicles the lives of rappers and their wives.

One character in the book resembles Tashera. “I’m all up in there (the book),” Tashera joked with King at an book release party on Monday.

“When I first met Aliya, I was in a state where I was trapped and she was the first person that kind of opened me up. She started asking me questions about what it was like to be in the light of a super star, rap star.” King wrote a story for VIBE magazine that chronicled the lives of Hip-Hop artists’ wives and it provided the ground work for the book.

Tashera Simmons said that King later came to her with the book and told her it was a fictitious tale that mirrored the real life accounts of these women and their men.

That is when the pair decided to join forces.

“I told her I am working on my book, “Strength of a Woman” and she told me to read (“Platinum”) and tell me what you think. It touched me. She’s writing my book now.””Strength of a Woman” does not have a release date.DMX was released from an Arizona prison facility July 6, 2010 after serving four out of six months for violating drug

probation. He has already started working with Swizz Beatz on new music.

Click here for the entire video at the release party for “Platinum.”

AllHipHop’s previous interview with Tashera Simmons.

(AllHipHop News) Rapper/actress Eve has a new outlook on love and marriage according to a new interview with Essence Magazine’s Sister 2 Sister publication. In February of 2010, Eve was caught in an international investigation surrounding her ex-boyfriend Teodorin Nguema Obiang, the son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.Federal agents accused Obiang of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars into the United States and setting up businesses in honor of his then-girlfriend, Eve. Eve has since broken up with Obiang and has been spotted out on the dating scene again in recent months with other men, including a man from Ghana, although that relationship was short lived. “I was going to Ghana for a while just because that’s where he is from. He’s an amazing man. We keep in touch every so often. He was a great guy, but I knew it wasn’t right. We definitely didn’t have the same things going on in our heads, as far as what it is we wanted as a life. He pretty much was down to do whatever I wanted to do and I don’t need that, you know? “Eve, who was once engaged to Bad Boy producer Stevie J., said that she is looking forward to being married, but has yet to find a suitable match. “I need somebody in my life that’s going to challenge me,” Eve said. “Like, I definitely want to be priority, but I don’t want a sap.”