Vibe Magazine readers have crowned Eminem as the best rapper alive, voting began with 64 rappers going up against each other, eventually leading to Eminem beating out Jay Z in the final two contestants.
In a statement the rapper said, “it’s obviously an honor to have won the fans’ support by being voted the Best Rapper Alive, I don’t think that there is any one rapper that is simply the best, though. Everyone who was in consideration and many others are the best at certain things, and at what they do. But since Vibe’s offering the distinction, hell yeah, I’ll accept!”
Vibe will be rolling out Eminem’s win in their November 2008 issue. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama will grace the cover of that issue.
“Vibe is thrilled we could put the debate about the Best Rapper Alive in the hands of the fans,” the mag’s music editor, Sean Fennessey, said. “Eminem isn’t just one of the most successful MCs of all time, he’s also one of the most beloved. The proof is in the voting.”
Agree or disagree? I think there is far better rappers out there than Eminem.
source: Eminem Is The Best Rapper Alive, According To Vibe Poll [mtv]
Marshal Mathers, also known as Eminem, was taken to the hospital for serious complications due to severe pneumonia. While most of us gorged ourselves on holiday feasts and chugged egg nog until we could tolerate in-laws and distant family members, Marshal spent his days in a Detroit hospital.
The heart issue that he has been battling with has nothing to do with his venture to the hospital according to sources close to the star. Reports also state that he has gained a few extra pounds. He hit the scales at just over 200 lbs. The normally chiseled and wife beater clad rapper is currently at home recovering.
So the guy beefed up around the worst time of the year to get weighed. I ballooned up 40 lbs before. I was knocked up though. Maybe Eminem is preggers to. I bet it is Casey Aldridge’s baby.
Source: Eminem — Not Slim Anymore; Big Health Scare! [TMZ] and Eminem Hospitalized [Hollywood Grind]
ET is reporting that several reliable sources have said the FBI and LAPD are investigating legitimate leads on a contract hit on Kevin Federline’s life. The FBI has made attempts to contact Kevin to inform of the potential danger, which is standard operating procedure when someone’s life is threatened. The FBI will not confirm or deny any investigation.
What the hell is going on? Someone wants K-Fed dead, and they’re willing to pay for it? This suspect list could be huge - Britney had tons of fans, at one point at least, and Kevin is unbelievably annoying. Good luck narrowing this one down.
What others are saying:
celebitchy says, “Maybe Britney used her pea-sized brain to figure out that five alimony payments at $20k each would be more than the going rate for having her ex offed. That would have been a bargain compared to years of ongoing payments.”
A Socialite’s Life says, “Britney, have you done lost your ever-loving mind? Don’t answer. That was a rhetorical question.”
dlisted says, “Hmmm….let’s round up the suspects!
1: Brit Brit
2: Chester the Cheetah (for messing with his girl)
3: Eminem
4: Shar Jackson
5: Chrissy Crocker”
Best Week Ever says, “So could Britney Spears - backed against a wall and facing the increasingly real prospect of losing her children - have had some kind of shady meeting in a dark bar where she chain-smoked cigarettes and said something like, “I want that bastard Kevin dead, y’all”? Or, having finally smoked himself totally retarded, is Kevin himself resorting to desperate measures to be taken seriously as a rapper? Either way, if there is some kind of contract killer looking to rid the world of K-Fed, godspeed.”
Source: “Was Someone Hired to Murder Kevin Federline? “ [Us Weekly]
Image courtesy of Picture Perfect, for use on Gone Hollywood
This commercial is pretty awful — and funny — all by itself . . .
. . . but I loved the opinion of ESPN’s Matthew Berry. You’ll never watch this commercial in the same way.
Here’s the good news for anyone who writes, produces or is some way creatively involved in commercials. No matter how poorly you do your job, there is no chance you come up with a commercial creepier than the “Viva Viagra” commercial. Have you seen this thing? Seriously? You can check it out at Viagra.com, actually, or just take my word for it.
It’s six middle-age guys, sitting in some sort of barn, all with musical instruments. They are “jamming,” or, as it was called in their day, “make music at cave.” They are also all singing. To the tune of “Viva Las Vegas,” they are singing “Viva Viagra.”
…
There are so many things wrong with this commercial, I can’t stand it.
We’ll start with the obvious. They’ve ruined a great song. “Viva Las Vegas” is one of the great all-time Elvis songs. And the King took a lot of pills, but never this blue one.
Why are they in some barn? At the end of the commercial they all leave, get in their trucks and leave. So this means they drove there, and drove there separately. What was that call like? “Hey, we’re getting the gang together at the barn to talk about our E.D. Bring your guitar.”
Why are they all smiling? I’m not saying it’s something to be embarrassed about, but you don’t have to be happy about it. You’re in the creepiest commercial ever. Stop smiling!
I’m not a woman. My dating record shows I have no idea what women think or want. But even I have to feel that if a woman heard these lyrics, she’d be turned off for the next decade.
The guy who sings the “lonesome toad who can’t wait” line is, in a curious bit of casting, very toad-like.
One of the guys has a standup bass guitar. Really? You dragged that huge thing to the woods?
If it’s not some bizarre support group where they sing about their problems then what is it? Are they a band? Practicing for a gig? Do they play senior citizen homes, singing about various male ailments. “Now we’d like to do a number about male pattern baldness. (Sung to the tune of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.”) “If you had one chance, to grab a wig … lose your hair …)
At the start of the commercial, the lead guys says “One … two … three …” as if they have played this song before. So it’s not something that happened spontaneously. No! They’ve rehearsed this. Practiced it. This is their song.
How come only the white guys get to sing?
Why does one guy, at the very end, point his hand in the air, like he’s just accomplished something amazing? Everyone else is saying goodbye, slapping each other high five, congratulating each other on getting through the commercial without vomiting on themselves, but one guy is just pointing proudly in the air. The way you would if you had just sank a 25-foot putt to win the Masters or hit the game-winning 3-pointer. Or, apparently, just done a bad Weird Al impression about E.D. Incidentally, that’s a good question. Where is Weird Al here? Parody lyrics to a good song? Weird Al should be all over this. Did even he find this distasteful? That should have been a red flag right there. When Weird Al says “no thanks, it’s too crass,” you stop and rethink. You dig?
Boggles the mind. It’s like a trainwreck. I can’t stop watching this commercial. Who thought this was a good idea? What was the casting sheet like? At what point do you say I don’t need the gig that bad?
Too funny.
Source: “TRUM: The creepiest commercial ever” [ESPN]
Blender has these 33 things you probably don’t know about 50 Cent.
1 • His mother dealt drugs to support him
Sabrina Jackson gave birth to Curtis on July 6, 1975. She was 15. “She wanted to provide for me, but she didn’t see Burger King as an option,” 50 says. “She found other means: hustling.” His grandmother would mind him for weeks on end. “My mama substituted presents for time: Every time I seen her, it was Christmas.”
2 • She told him he’d been an immaculate conception
“One day I asked her, ‘Mama, why don’t I have a father?’” he recalls. “She said, ‘You was an immaculate conception, like Jesus.’ She was just trying to make me feel special.”
3 • To this day, he’s never met his dad
“I don’t know who he was, and I have no interest in knowing,” he says. “I mean, it’s a source of regret. He could have helped me in life. But that period has passed.”
4 • Before he was 50 Cent, he was Boo-Boo
“My aunt used to say, ‘Come here, Boo-Boo!’ and it just stuck.” Was it hard to command respect on the streets with a name so cuddly? “It’s scarier that way,” 50 says. “If someone calls themselves Terminator, you’re like, ‘Yeah, right!’”
5 • In 1994, he was sentenced to prison for possession of 280 grams of crack and 4 ounces of heroin
To avoid hard time, he enrolled in New York’s Shock Incarceration program: boot camp for felons. For six months upstate, he awoke at 5:30 A.M., did push-ups on his knuckles and sawed trees.
6 • His mom swung both ways
50 Cent recalls: “I ain’t see males around my mom. My mama liked women. But I would never see anything that would make me think something sexual was going on. It didn’t dawn on me till later.”
7 • When 50 was 8, his mother was murdered
Sabrina kept her own apartment across town. In 1983, someone drugged her and turned on her gas oven, leaving her to die. “When they found her, her body was fucked up,” 50 later recalled. Today, he says, “My biggest loss was my mom. Everything that went wrong was wrong because she wasn’t there — if I wanted to go to the park and it started raining, it was raining ’cause my mother wasn’t there.”
Continue Reading ‘33 Things About 50 Cent’ After the Jump!
8 • He followed in her drug-dealing footsteps just four years later
With 50, his grandparents and eight aunts and uncles all under one roof, money was tight. “Hustling was the only option,” he explains. “I wasn’t thinking about a career. I was looking for instant gratification.”
9 • He says his aunts and uncles were his first customers …
“They’d have parties, and at the time, cocaine was like marijuana — it was common. I’d say, ‘Yo, I’ll go pick it up for you,’ then run to the side of the house where I put it in a little bag. It went from there to me hustling from 3 to 6 P.M. every day. My grandparents thought I was in an after-school program.”
10 • … but one uncle’s addiction almost got 50 killed
A complaint kept arising — his bags were light. He says he discovered his uncle Star had been dipping into his stash. “If the guys I had been selling light bags to thought I was cheating them on purpose, they would have killed me,” he later wrote in his autobiography. He beat his uncle with a giant wooden fork in reprisal. “To this day, Star and I don’t speak much.”
11 • Even without giant utensils, he packed a killer right hook
When 50 was 14, an older neighborhood dealer opened up a small boxing gym for local kids. “When I wasn’t killing time in school, I was sparring in the gym or selling crack on the strip,” 50 recalled. He took what he learned in the ring out onto the streets: “At the slightest infraction, I was punching someone in the face.”
12 • He lost his virginity at age 12
“It went well — I was 12 and she was 21!” he says, grinning. “I spent a night at my friend’s house, and his sister had her friend staying over, too. So I started to touch on her. I was a horny little dog, and I got away with it.”
13 • His secret stash spot? Women’s panties!
One morning, when he was 19, 50 was out hustling with the help of a girlfriend when the cops swooped in. “When they searched her, they found 36 vials of crack and 12 packs of heroin in her underwear,” he later recalled.
14 • The streets were 50’s business school. There were hostile takeovers …
At Shock, 50 met a stick-up kid from Brooklyn named Jah. “When we got out, I brought him into my area to rob all the dealers who weren’t part of my group. I said, ‘You can have all the money, just give me their pieces.’”
15 • … special promotions …
“I would take the pieces from Jah and give them away free with every purchase. So even if the fiends catch a sale with someone else, they would go, ‘Nah, I can get this for free!’”
16 • … and market saturation
“When there’s money to be made, there’s no hours, no going home,” 50 says. “In the music business, I adapt the same concepts. When it’s not 50 Cent’s album, it’s the G-Unit album. When it’s not Young Buck, it’s Lloyd Banks. I’m here constantly.”
17 • His next brush with the law involved a high-speed motor cycle chase — and cross-dressing
Shortly after his release, 50 was mis taken for a murder suspect who owned a motorcycle similar to his. When a squad car tried to stop 50 on Queens’s Guy Brewer Boulevard, he fled, escaping only after several squad cars and a helicopter had given chase. He snuck into his grandmother’s house, donned a dress and a wig, and slipped past patrolmen outside. “They must have been like, ‘Damn, that’s an ugly bitch,’” 50 jokes. The real murderer was apprehended later that day.
18 • He’s a pretty easygoing dad
Does 50 let 10-year-old Marquise listen to his music? “Of course. If I say something a little racy, I’ll be like, ‘You know what that means?’ and he’ll be like, ‘Yeah.’ He already knows. The kids know. The problem is that their parents aren’t asking them the questions. I went into his room the other night and he was on this porno site — big-booty girls. He was like, ‘I just clicked a link!’ Kids are gonna be kids, man.”
19 • A Queens hip-hop legend gave him his big break
The same year Marquise was born, in 1997, 50 Cent met Run-D.M.C.’s Jam Master Jay at a club. A childhood fan of Rakim, 50 had written only one rhyme, in 1995, for fun — “I don’t remember it exactly, but it was street,” he says. Jay was impressed by his singsong delivery and by his story, and brought 50 into his fold.
20 • Well, it was almost his big break
Things moved quickly: Jay brought 50 to the attention of Columbia Records, they signed him, he recorded an album, then … nothing. “When I met Jay, I wasn’t a starving artist,” 50 says. “But right after I committed to music, I starved.” To keep up with the bills, he returned to hustling.
21 • He became a papa in 1997 — and started working on his crack-game exit strategy
When then-girlfriend Shaniqua Tompkins gave birth to his son Marquise, 50 quit dealing. As he puts it: “My mama’s motivation to get into the game was my motivation to get out.”
22 • OK, scratch that. A paid assassin gave him his big break
On May 24, 2000, a gunman shot 50 Cent nine times in front of his grandmother’s house. In his autobiography, 50 hints that the hit came about because he’d insulted drug kingpin Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff, but when asked explicitly in interviews about McGriff’s involvement, 50 has demurred. Either way, he was hospitalized, Columbia dropped him — and, unbeknownst to him, his glorious future was guaranteed.
23 • His next mentor was … “Weird Al”?
With a head full of new rhymes and no label to release them, 50 Cent turned to New York’s mix-tape circuit. Instead of filling the samizdat titles with throwaway rhymes, he approached them like albums: “I wrote my freestyles in song format.” He also recorded parodies of hits. As he put it later, “I took the ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic approach.”
24 • After he got shot, he began wearing a bulletproof vest — and still wears one today
When 50 started booking shows, advertising his whereabouts made him nervous. “I wore a vest ’cause I knew it could pop off,” he explains. During 50’s first tour, Marquise wore one, too.
25 • Eminem heard one of 50’s mix tapes, flew him to L.A. and, with Dr. Dre, signed him to a million-dollar deal
“I was at the airport to go see them when my vest set off the metal detector,” 50 recalls. A TSA supervisor who’d heard his songs let him through anyway. “If they hadn’t let me take the vest, I probably wouldn’t have gone.”
26 • His is the fastest-selling debut of all time
In its first week, 2003’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ sold nearly 900,000 copies — and did it again in week two.
27 • He’s available for Bar mitzvahs!
“The last Bar Mitzvah I booked, I got paid $500,000 for 30 minutes,” 50 explains. “That’s not a fixed rate, but it’s in the ballpark.”
28 • He collects his own brand of sneakers
“I got 500 pairs,” he says. “All G-Unit. A bunch of different colors, limited editions. Tony Yayo is a size over me, but he’ll squeeze his feet into mine and borrow them.”
29 • He likes George Bush
After Kanye West railed on Dubya post-Katrina, 50 defended the prez, calling him a “gangsta.”
30 • He keeps his most revealing music for himself
On 2005’s “Hate It or Love It,” 50 rapped about his mother’s bisexuality — but that was an exception. “You don’t want to be too complex,” he says. “I have records that I wrote for myself, and they’re playing on my computer at home. Sort of like a diary. But I’m not gonna waste the public’s time with them.”
31 • He’s buddies with Robert de Niro
50’s burgeoning acting career has been respectable — the autobiographical Get Rich or Die Tryin’; the war flick Home of the Brave — if not spectacularly successful. But his biggest role yet is ahead of him, starring opposite De Niro in the upcoming thriller New Orleans. “He invited me to his house — gave me that De Niro look, sizing me up,” 50 says. “But I passed the test.”
32 • His new album has one hell of a guest list
Curtis, which 50 says will include several returns to the street-hardened, wisecracking “old 50,” also features collaborations with Akon, Nicole Scherzinger, Robin Thicke, Mary J. Blige and Justin Timberlake. “Basically,” 50 explains, “it’s one of my best pieces of work.”
33 • Next stop: retirement!
… Sort of. 50 has alluded to leaving rap behind once his five-record contract expires. “I’ll put out albums like Dre, every five years or every seven,” he clarifies. “I enjoy rapping, but there’s so much more out there.”
After a quarter century in the spotlight, rap may finally be dying from its excesses.
To judge by their lyrics, gangsta rappers are adept at seeing off rivals with a bullet and their women with a slap.
But America’s rappers are now trapped in a corner they don’t seem able to shoot their way out of, with either weapons or words.
Confronted with haemorrhaging sales, the most assertive popular music movement since the Sex Pistols has lost its swagger and is suffering a crisis of confidence.
This year rap and hip-hop sales are down 33 per cent, double the decline of the CD album market overall, which is under pressure from music download sites such as iTunes, where fans can buy individual songs.
In 2006, rap sold 59.1 million albums, down 21 per cent from 2005. Not one rap album made the American top 10 sellers of the year - a list headed by the saccharine tunes of the soundtrack to Disney’s made-for-television High School Musical. The bad boys of rap are now trailing the cowboys of country and the headbangers of heavy metal.
[...]
Rap has been deserted by many white fans and middle-class blacks, apparently tiring of the “gangsta” attitude to women, racism, violence and bling - the gold rings and medallions that have made hip-hop a byword for -vulgarity.
“The public has made a choice. They’re saying, ‘We do not want the nonsense that we see and hear on radio, and we are not putting our money there’,” said KRS-One, a rap legend from the Bronx. “Rap music is being boycotted by the American public because of the images that we are putting forward.”
Tom Vickers, a former talent spotter for Capitol/Mercury records said: “Rap has gradually degenerated from an art form into a ring tone. That’s why we’re seeing this backlash. There’s only so much bling the public can take.”
It took long enough.
Source: “Gangsta rap on death row as the US tunes out” (Sunday Telegraph)
MOVIES
–Female star: Jennifer Aniston
– Male star: Johnny Depp
– Leading lady: Cameron Diaz
– Leading man: Vince Vaughn
– Female action star: Halle Berry
– Male action star: Johnny Depp
– On-screen matchup: Johnny Depp & Keira Knightley
– Movie: “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”
– Movie drama: “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”
– Movie comedy: “Click”
– Family movie: “Cars”
MUSIC
– Female singer: Carrie Underwood
– Male singer: Kenny Chesney
– Group: Nickelback
– R&B song: “SexyBack” by Justin Timberlake
– Hip-hop song: “Shake That” by Eminem
– Pop song: “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira
– Country song: “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood
– Rock song: “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” by Bon Jovi
– Song from a movie: “Life is a Highway” by Rascal Flatts from “Cars”
– Remake: “Life is a Highway” by Rascal Flatts
TELEVISION
– Comedy: “Two and a Half Men”
– Animated comedy: “The Simpsons”
– Drama: “Grey’s Anatomy”
– Competition/Reality show: “American Idol”
– New Comedy: “The Class”
– New Drama: “Heroes”
– Female star: Eva Longoria
– Male star: Patrick Dempsey
– Talk show host: Ellen DeGeneres
OTHER
– Funny female star: Ellen DeGeneres
– Funny male star: Robin Williams
Eminem and Kimberley Mathers are divorced – again, according to the Detroit Free Press. Although I understand that Eminem would want his children’s mother back in the picture, I’d also think that he would learn the first time around with Kim. She’s a waste… IMHO.
The couple, who have been married to each other twice, reached an out-of-court settlement during a hearing at Macomb County Circuit Court on Tuesday. The pair agreed to share custody of their daughter, Hailie Jade Scott, who turns 11 on Christmas Day, the newspaper reports.
It’s not clear if Kim was granted the financial support and attorney fees she’d been seeking from the rapper, whose real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III.
The couple “conducted themselves with dignity and respect,” Chief Judge Antonio P. Viviano told Free Press. Eminem declined to comment after the hearing.
Eminem, 34, and Kim, 31, were married on Jan. 14 for the second time. Less than three months later, Eminem filed for divorce. Their first marriage lasted from 1999 to 2001.
In addition to Hailie Jade, the couple adopted Kim’s niece Alaina, 12. Kim also has a daughter, Whitney from a previous relationship.
Goodbye yellow brick road, hello hip hop. He’s kidding right? Tell me he’s kidding!
Elton John tells Rolling Stone magazine that he wants to record a hip-hop album with Grammy-winning producer Dr. Dre. “I want to work with Pharrell , Timbaland, Snoop, Kanye, Eminem and just see what happens,” John says in the Sept. 7 issue. “It may be a disaster, it could be fantastic, but you don’t know until you try.”
The 59-year-old says he is a fan of Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” and Tupac Shakur’s “California Love.” “I want to bring my songs and melodies to hip-hop beats,” John says. “I love these beats, but I have no idea how to get them.”
Here’s the good news for anyone who writes, produces or is some way creatively involved in commercials. No matter how poorly you do your job, there is no chance you come up with a commercial creepier than the “Viva Viagra” commercial. Have you seen this thing? Seriously? You can check it out at Viagra.com, actually, or just take my word for it.
