"If you stay ready, you aint gotta get ready..." --Will Smith

~~~

REDMAN SPEAKS!







~~~

THE NEW WILL SMITH MOVIE, 'HANCOCK'. WHY CAN'T A BLACK SUPERHERO BE ALL GOOD? HOLLYWOOD, YOU WASCALLY WABBIT, LOL:



~~~



LA COKA NOSTRA - THAT'S COKE VIDEO. INHAAAALE:



~~~

KANYE WEST ~ 'HOMECOMING':



~~~

PEACE TO SUPERNAT:



~~~

FAT JOE ALBUM RELEASE PARTY:



~~~

DEF JAM'S REASON FOR SUCCESS:



~~~

GUILTY SIMPSON: GET RICHES



~~~

THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMM.....

On November 30, 1994, Tupac Shakur was in Ron G's New York apartment laying down vocals for the popular mixtape DJ's next series. Shakur was then interrupted by a phone call from Jimmy Rosemond, then known as Jimmy Henchman.

"I was managing a kid by the name of Little Shawn, who was signed to Uptown Records," Rosemond explained. "And so [Uptown founder] Andre Harrell had asked me, 'Could we get Tupac on this record?' And I had called Tupac and said, 'Hey, do you wanna get on this record? Because Andre wants you on this record.' "

Rosemond says the story of Tupac's Quad Studios shooting that night has been twisted more times than a gangbanger's fingers. According to him, the scene wasn't nearly as empty as it has often been reported. Rosemond said there were plenty of people in attendance that night — including the Trackmasters and Harrell — but the story seems to always boil down to him and Bad Boy, he said. The Trackmasters and Harrell did not return interview requests made by MTV News by press time.

"What people don't understand is that Trackmasters were there, Puffy came down to say hi to me, and Andre Harrell — Andre Harrell was there," he said. "There was a guy by the name of Mark Sigel; he was the president of ICM at the time, ICM the agency talent group. You had Trackmasters, Little Shawn, Bryce Wilson — there was about 15 people there. So people in their mind, when they hear this story, they think it was just a bunch of guys, including me, trying to summon Tupac to the studio for no reason, on some hangout stuff. But it was all business. I was doing business that day as I have done, before then and after that. But as the story went on, the fairy tale of it got bigger, which really wasn't the truth."

And that fairy tale has been twisted even further in recent weeks. The Los Angeles Times published a story March 17 that claimed Rosemond masterminded the 1994 shooting and that Diddy and the Notorious B.I.G. knew it was going down. The story has since been debunked by TheSmokingGun.com, which reported that the article was based on forged documents, and the Times in turn printed a front-page apology.

Rosemond has vehemently denied having advance knowledge of Shakur's ambush, as the L.A. Times reported then retracted. But he said the story grew once the rapper put it to record, on "Against All Odds," and Rosemond had no chance to retaliate. He said he had his own theory about what happened in the lobby that night.

"It's odd for me to assess it only because there are so many rumors out there," he said. "There are so many guys that take blame for things that they haven't really done. And maybe some of them have; it isn't really for me to try to figure that out. I have my own theories in my head of what happened that night: When 'Pac came out the elevator [after being shot], he was conscious, he was talking, he was rolling up some weed. I didn't see five bullet holes in Tupac, as reported. You can ask Andre Harrell and all these people that was there."

In an interview Rosemond gave to Vibe magazine a few years ago, he recalled Shakur being discombobulated and shouting, asking Rosemond why he set him up. But when Shakur recorded "Against All Odds," implicating Rosemond in his shooting, the talent manager (for the Game and Gucci Mane) called the song "Tupac at his finest" and "shock treatment."

"When you listen to the record, he called out Jay-Z, he called out Nas, he called out Puffy, he called out almost everybody," Rosemond said. "I mean, this is Tupac at his finest. What I've learned of 'Pac, for him to do, and some rappers try it now, it's more of the shock treatment. At the time when he mentioned my name, it was the in thing to do. It was the in thing to call Puffy's name. It was the in thing to call Jay-Z's name during his rise. And what I want people to be clear about, when he did mention my name, I wasn't even on the streets. I was already away [in prison] dealing with some legal issues I had. So I wasn't even here, so by the time he mentioned my name on the record, there was no way I could defend that, ask him why he did that, or any of those things.

"Absolutely never [had I] even know about it, never heard about it — before, afterward — had nothing to with it," Rosemond added about the ambush. "Nobody that I know [was] associated with [the attack], and this is why I have confidently, in the last 14 years, told people that they can dig up whatever they want to dig up. And I've been very firm in what I've said to people: that I've had nothing to do with it."

~~~

T.I.: What Will A Year In Prison Mean For His Career? Possibly Not Much, Experts Say
Views 11,439

* Send to Friend
* Print

* del.icio.us
* Newsvine
* Digg

Though his sentence may give him more street cred, the rapper has to be careful not to lose momentum.

By Gil Kaufman

* Del.icio.us
* Digg
* Newsvine
* Send to Friend
* Print
* You Tell Us

As T.I. looks at serving up to a year in prison following his recent guilty plea on federal weapons charges, an obvious question is: What will it mean for his career? In addition to a string of platinum albums and hit singles, Tip was on the verge of seeing his acting career take off before his arrest in October, thanks to his role in "American Gangster."

And while he wouldn't be the first rapper to have his career put on hold by a prison sentence, the possible year-long stretch would come after T.I. has already served more than six months on house arrest. Though he's been using his time at home to work on his next album, Paper Trail, the confinement has mostly taken him out of the public eye since the fall.

As part of his sentence, T.I. (born Clifford Harris Jr.) must complete at least 1,000 hours of community service talking to kids about the ills of guns, drugs and gangs. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, if the rapper abides by the conditions of his plea agreement, he will likely serve less than the one year and one day sentence that was imposed. That will be determined in March 2009, the paper reports. He was also sentenced to a year of home confinement, minus the time he's already served locked down in his Atlanta-area home to date.

One of T.I.'s attorneys, Ed Garland, told the paper that his client is free to "perform, act in movies [and] carry on with his business until the end of the 12-month period," though he will be shadowed by a private security officer at all times who will report on him if he strays from the court-appointed conditions. Even if he is able to promote Paper Trail later this year, the prison sentence will take T.I. off the scene for a long stretch for the second time in two years, an eternity in the here-today-gone-tomorrow-morning rap game.

There's never a good time to go to prison. But, depending on the trajectory of their careers, some artists can survive, or even thrive, during their time away, according to Chaz Williams, CEO of Black Hand Entertainment and manager of incarcerated rapper Foxy Brown.

"It's bad for an artist to be taken away from their career for any amount of time, whether it's through sickness or any other unfortunate circumstance," said Williams. "The difference is that some artists are 'padded' better than others, depending on what level of their career they're at."

In contrast to Remy Ma — who appeared unprepared for her recent 20-plus year sentence in connection with the shooting of an acquaintance — Williams pointed out that T.I., thanks to his plea deal, may have up to a year to get his business affairs in order before entering prison.

"If I was in T.I.'s shoes, I would probably record an album and put it out in the fourth quarter [of 2008]," Williams said. "Do some remixes and get an EP and several videos done, so I have enough stuff to fuel my career at a certain level until I get out."

Unlike Foxy — whose career had hit a plateau before her incarceration last year, and, who, like Remy Ma, did not have as much time to prepare for her prison time — Williams said T.I.'s career won't likely be derailed by the prison time. The rapper did time in 2003, after being found guilty of violating his probation from an earlier drug conviction. Williams said Tip's image as someone familiar with the street drug trade and the violence that brings, for good or ill, is inseparable from his rap persona.

"I don't want to say it happened at a good time in his career, because there's never a good time to go to prison, but he has established himself with that mystique of his problems in the past, and it's part of who he is."

Noted hip-hop lawyer Stacey Richman — who has defended Lil Wayne, DMX, Busta Rhymes and Ja Rule on criminal charges involving guns and drugs — also said rappers can blunt the impact of a prison sentence by organizing their affairs before going away, noting that for some, for better or worse, it can almost confer hero status among fans who perceive them as "taking it like a man." The same could be said for other entertainers too.

"Look at Martha Stewart; [going to prison] was the greatest thing that ever happened to her," said Richman of the domestic diva, who launched a successful talk show after she did a five-month prison bid in 2004 for lying to investigators about a stock sale; some feel the sentence helped to humanize Stewart. "It opened her up to markets that she would never have reached before. As much as the government wants to appear to be cracking down, they take the risk of glorifying someone who they're trying to make an example of."

T.I.'s label and the producers and casting directors for the two movies T.I. has appeared in so far, "ATL" and "Gangster," declined to comment for this story. But according to director/screenwriter David Ayer, there are many headaches associated with casting a rapper with legal issues. He cast Compton MC the Game in his upcoming movie, "Street Kings," and the production had to work around Game's court schedule when the rapper became entangled in a gun case while the film was being made.

"We had an all-night shoot, and the next morning he had to go to court on gun charges," said Ayer, the writer of "Training Day." "And I thought, 'Thank God the court date didn't come up when we were scheduled to shoot!"

Ayer said he cast Game and Common in his movie because he's found that many rappers are "natural actors who really understand showbiz and film." The issue when choosing a rapper who might not be completely divorced from their street life, he said, really comes down to how comfortable you are with working around the legal issues. "It's about scheduling. If all of a sudden you have to work around the justice system, and it's competing for their time, or if they get locked up and their bond is revoked and they're not available?"

Asked if he would cast T.I. in a movie, Ayer said he would. If there were a conflict, he would have someone waiting in the wings should the rapper not be available because of his legal problems.

"No one can cast the guy right now, but I guarantee when he gets out, he will get some offers," Ayer said. "If you show up and do your job and you're a hard worker and you add something to the movie, whether it's street cred or a following or you're just a good, natural actor, you will be back."

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for troubled actors, whether it's Lindsay Lohan or T.I., is getting insured for a movie, but Ayer said if T.I. keeps working on studio films, he should have no problem getting covered. "I'm sure he's bondable, because all they care about is, 'Are they alive? Will they drop dead?' "

The other side, however, is that the movie business is all about momentum, Ayer said, and building off your last job, so when T.I. goes away, he will have a bit of starting over to do.

While incarceration can give artists a whole new universe of experience to tap into with their art, Richmond said the prospect of prison time is destructive to performers' psyche, as well as that of their family.

"So much of the art that is in this realm of music are the tales of the people that many aspects of society don't want to believe exist," she said. "It's speaking of the truth of it, and they can bring a whole new level of reality to a genre that is the folklore of society today. On the other hand, they are distracted from their career and can't focus on their art. It can be financially and emotionally devastating, and no matter who you are, when you're facing charges, the impact is overwhelming."


~~~

JAY ELECTRONICA, NOT READY YET?



Jay on stage is like Jay in person, and it turns out to be a blessing and a curse. As Jay’s 3d graphics of jotted words whiz by on the projector behind him, he puts his heart into his raps on the front of the stage. But his mic doesn’t work to well, and he doesn’t hold the it close enough. The sound guy in the back of the venue could care less and isn’t monitoring the levels, so he’s hard to understand for most. In-between songs he tried to talk to the audience as if they were in a conversation, but he hadn’t yet gained the respect from the crowd to earn talking time. He tries to tell a story that happened to him in elementary school but the crowd isn’t having it. Jay gets angry and threatens the crowd by saying Mos won’t perform if they don’t listen. This is where Jay’s emotions conflict with his performance. The crowd barely remains attentive until Erykah Badu comes out and sings the hook of one of Jay’s raps called “Victory is in My Clutches.” Jay talks some more, but this time the crowd listens as he proceeds to question the motives of mainstream media and rappers, asking them to step their game up. Among the names of rappers being thrown out, someone in the crowd yells out “Lil’ Wayne,” who Jay tries to defend as he describes the squalor of Lil’ Wayne’s neighborhood he grew up in. Jay continues to struggle with the audience’s reluctance, and shifts focus from himself to getting the crowd hyped for Mos Def’s performance next. You can sense his disappointment towards his reception as he wears his emotions on his sleeve. Jay leaves by angrily and confidently throwing down the mic as a picture of his face that is reminiscent of 50 Cent’s latest album cover fills the projection screen, the crowd is left more confused than dumbfounded. They weren’t ready.

~~~

Mindbender
Canadian Music Week Toronto ON, March 5 to 8
By Thomas Quinlan

Bumped out of his slot by an eager KRS-One, Mindbender found himself in the daunting position of following up the T'Cha. With house lights on and a big gap between sets, a frantic Mindbender took to the stage of the sparsely populated Opera House, busting out a few new songs from his two recently released albums. Mindbender's tension was palpable as he paced barefoot like a caged animal in his beige, zebra-patterned jean outfit, sunglasses and a plastic crown, which he proceeded to smash in rage. Despite an apathetic crowd, Mindbender put everything into this theatrically enjoyable performance.

~~~

I humbly, finally realized that I'm not where I need to be... yet. This is my year to become my true self.
thank you for watching me the last 30 years as it came together.
peace to Jay Electronica, time is meaningless on one level.
tonight, Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige, baby! Thank you to Now Magazine for the link!
see you in the present future!
love, Mindbender