Claiming the phone call took place while he was on tour in 2005, Game explained his conversation with the "King of Pop."....
Watch "Better on the other Side" featuring Diddy, Chris Brown, Mario Winans and more
Reports says the Jackson family is said to be discussing the idea now. Michael Jackson's grave at Neverland could become a public attraction.
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Joe Jackson said he was asked a question about his record label last night and that's why he spoke of it.
Joe Jackson has also made it clear that Michael's three children belong in the care of him and his wife Katherine. He said the kids are happy at his house and they are around other children their age now.
Despite reports, Joe Jackson has denied that Michael Jackson will be buried at Neverland Ranch after his funeral...
Despite the decline in sales from 2005’s The Massacre to his last album, 2007’s Curtis, as well as a shift from gangsta rap’s overall popularity, 50 Cent still considers himself to be on top of the rap game. XXL recently caught up with the self-described “SoundScan Killer” to speak on his place in hip-hop’s current climate, how his sales stack up to Lil Wayne and the undeniable staying power of Jay-Z.
While he admits that mentor Eminem ranks higher than him on the list, Fif is quick to point out his dominance over Weezy. “What does that mean that you sold that,” he told XXL pertaining to Wayne’s last album, Tha Carter III, selling one million copies in its first week out last year. “So you gonna forget that I sold 10 million albums twice -12 million first album, 10 million next one. So what does that one million mean?“ [Watch Below]
50 believes fans are quick to forget his history; getting caught up in whoever is hot at the moment. “What you’re talking about is who is a buzz,” he explained. “A buzz is a song. So the next song that I release can turn me back into what you feel like is the hottest thing out here. So I mean if I’m showing you full capability of it than what makes you doubt that.”
50 points to fellow heavyweight Jay-Z, who he feels consistently finds a way to stay relevant. “There’s a respect that is well deserved on Jay-Z’s part because he’s had that cloud come over him and constantly worked his way through it, having so many projects come out and be successful and maintain meaning,” he said. “There’s a significance in it. Because they go, after countless amounts of hit records, they go ‘You think you can go out and do it again’. Ask me if I think he can do it again, ‘hell yeah,’ cause he did it how many times in front of us. What makes you think he can’t do it again”
“We get those moments where people decide to doubt and I’m fine with it,” he adds. “You know and then they’ll change their mind and I’ll tell em suck my dick, kiss my ass and everything else at the same time because they decided to doubt for that small time period.”
50 is currently prepping the release of his long-delayed fourth solo album, Before I Self Destruct. As of press time there is no solid date but it is rumored to be dropping in late fourth quarter.Tiny has two sons Clifford “King”, 4, and Major Harris, 1, by rapper T.I., who is currently incarcerated on federal gun charges for one-year and one-day, and a daughter, Zonnique Pullins, 13, from a previously relationship. Toya has a daughter, Regina Carter, 12, by rapper Lil Wayne.
The show airs tonight, June 30, at 10P.
Vibe, one of the nation’s leading popular music magazines, is closing immediately, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Word was broken early this afternoon by the Web site dailyfinance.com and spread to other music and media news sites. The spokeswoman, Tracy Nguyen, said the Vibe staff would be formally notified in a meeting at 2 p.m. She said she did not know how many people would be laid off as a result of the closure.
(Eminem featured on last offical printed cover)
The closure of Vibe leaves just one large-circulation music magazine, The Source, focusing on hip-hop and R&B. The Source has had its own troubles, going through a bankruptcy and emerging under new ownership last year. A rock-focused magazine, Blender, folded last year.
In a memo to staff members announcing the closure, Steve Aaron, chief of the Vibe Media Group, wrote that for months, the company tried in vain to either find new investors or “to restructure the huge debt on our small company.”
“The print advertising collapse hit Vibe hard, especially as key ad categories like automotive and fashion, which represented the bulk of our top 10 advertisers, have stopped advertising or gone out of business,” he wrote.
The musician Quincy Jones and the company then called Time Warner created Vibe in 1992. The Wicks Group, a private equity firm, bought it in 2006. Vibe reported circulation of 818,000 in the second half of last year, a healthy figure, but like many magazines it suffered from falling advertising. It announced in February that in July, it would cut its rate base — the circulation promised to advertisers — from 800,000 to 600,000.
Here is the final cover of VIBE magazine, and from what I'm told, it will not be available on newsstands. It kinda sucks for them huh? LOL Really would have been nice to put MJ on cover. But as you can see this was an immediate thing.
Here are the statements from Vibe's editor, and a staff memo from the CEO. From editor Danyel Smith:
On behalf the VIBE CONTENT staff (the best in this business), it is with great sadness, and with heads held high, that we leave the building today. We were assigning and editing a Michael Jackson tribute issue when we got the news. It's a tragic week in overall, but as the doors of VIBE Media Group close, on the eve of the magazine's sixteenth anniversary, it's a sad day for music, for hip hop in particular, and for the millions of readers and users who have loved and who continue to love the VIBE brand. We thank you, we have served you with joy, pride and excellence, and we will miss you.
Danyel Smith
the former Chief Content Officer VIBE Media Group
& Editor in Chief, VIBE
Staff memo from Vibe Media CEO Steve Aaron:
Dear VIBE Team:
It is with a heavy heart that I share some tough news, VMG is closing down effective today, June 30th.
It's been an 16 incredible years since VIBE's inception. There are very few magazines with the richness of history and breadth of talented visionaries who created the powerful lens in which VIBE viewed and shaped urban music and culture.
Ever since I first set foot in this courageous company, I've regarded myself as incredibly fortunate to be be involved with this remarkable brand and group of individuals whose performance has never been nothing short of outstanding. We finished 2008 in an improved position versus the prior year, and accomplished so much, including:
* Editorial Awards
* Editorial transformation into content dept
* New Ad accounts being broken
* The Most Mag Launch
* Award winning re-design
* Profitable digital operation
* VIBE.com growth and improvements and programs such as Best Rapper Ever, #1 Stan, etc
* Mobile VIBE launch
* Micro-site development Mostmag.com to start off.
* V Sessions
* Improved PR coverageUnfortunately, over the last several months, a confluence of events has obviously posed VMG to exceedingly serious challenges.
* The collapse of the capital markets has impacted us greatly. Over the past several months, we have actively pursued investment resources while working intensively with our bank to find a solution. But the deal market right now remains very poor and at the end of the day, the lack of investment resources to restructure the huge debt on our small company has made this outcome become a reality.
* The print advertising collapse hit VIBE hard, especially as key ad categories like automotive and fashion, which represented the bulk of our top 10 advertisers, have stopped advertising or gone out of business. It's also unfortunate that in a recession many companies reduce the multi-cultural campaigns. These facts, coupled with the continuing decline of the music industry not to mention the newsstand wholesaler consolidation in early 2009 all negatively impacted our business in a significant way.
* The relentless economic situation has depressed our growth initiatives on the digital front. To be clear, VMG has made significant improvement in this part of our business, but not at the accelerated pace required to offset the devastating effects of the most severe recession in our lifetime and the accompanying print losses.I want to thank you all for your hard work and commitment, and for all of the adventures along the way. I'll miss this place a lot, but I'll miss you all and the magic you create.
Vibe will be remembered as a shockingly brilliant content company that everyone can be proud of and I look forward with great excitement to all of future endeavors you all pursue.
With great affection and respect –
Steve Aaron
former CEO of VIBE Media Group
The question of whether Michael Jackson had a valid will at the time of his death just got a little more complicated.
Parents Joe and Katherine Jackson sought control of Michael's estate, claiming in court documents that the King of Pop died without a will. Hours later, one drafted in 2002 surfaced.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the document—which will no doubt be the centerpiece of a lengthy and ferocious legal battle in months to come—divides the superstar's estate among his mother, his three children (Prince Michael, Paris and Prince Michael II) and at least one charity.
It's unclear what custody arrangements, if any, Jackson made for his three children. But a court ruling yesterday gave temporary guardianship to Katherine.
At least one aspect of the will does appear to be clear: Joe Jackson wasn't named as an heir.
The will, drafted by Jackson's longtime attorney John Branca, may be filed in probate court as early as Thursday.
So far, the family is mum on the document.
"No will has been presented to family or us," Joe and Katherine's lawyer, L. Londell McMillan, told the Journal. "We will review any will when we see it."
Branca represented the singer from 1980 to 2006, and was rehired by Jackson just one week before his sudden death. Branca and music exec John McClain, a longtime friend of Jackson, are named as executors.
According to the Journal, while the pop icon died with roughly $500 million in debt, his assets are believed to dwarf that staggering figure by $200 million.
Among his more prized assets are a 50 percent stake in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which includes the bulk of the Beatles' canon, and Mijac, which controls Jackson's song rights.
From MTV...
Of all the artists, producers, entertainers and celebrities who have paid tribute to Michael Jackson since his death on Thursday, perhaps the person who knows his music best is the man who launched his career as the King of Pop: Quincy Jones.
Starting with Jackson's 1979 album, Off the Wall, Jones became the singer's longtime producer, and in a revealing, intimate blog post for the Los Angeles Times, Jones wrote about Jackson's dedication to his craft, their work in the studio and how an unlikely collaboration on the set of a big-screen musical led to one of the most successful creative partnerships in pop music history.
"In 1978, [director] Sidney Lumet pulled me kicking and screaming into doing the music for 'The Wiz,' and in hindsight I'm so glad he did," wrote Jones. "As the scarecrow, Michael dove into the filming of 'The Wiz' with everything that he had, not only learning his lines but those of everyone in the cast. Prior to filming, Michael and I were working at my home and he asked if I could help find him a producer to work with him on his first solo album from Epic."
Jones didn't volunteer his services until he saw Jackson on set struggling with a line — the correct pronunciation of "Socrates." "It was that wonderment that I saw in his eyes that locked me in," Jones wrote. "I knew that we could go into completely unexplored territory, a place that as a jazz musician gave me goose bumps."
And so Jones, Jackson and songwriter Rod Temperton began work on Off the Wall.
"[Michael] was so shy he'd sit down and sing behind the couch with his back to me while I sat there with my hands over my eyes with the lights off," wrote Jones.
Jackson may have been introverted in the studio, but after working with a vocal coach, the Off the Wall album ended up going platinum four times and scoring four top-10 hits. For the follow-up album, Jackson and Jones had four months to complete their work, but after quickly falling behind schedule, they found themselves with just two months to finish the record.
"I told Michael that we needed a black rock 'n' roll tune — a black 'My Sharona' — and a begging tune for the album," Jones wrote. "He came back with 'Beat It' and Rod came back with 'The Lady in My Life.' Rod also brought in 'Thriller' and Michael sang his heart out on it. At one point during the session the right speaker burst into flames, which none of us had ever seen before. How's that for a sign?"
They completed the album just hours before it was due. They gave it a final listen and were shocked to find that it sounded terrible. Jackson himself was in tears. The team took two days off, reshaped the album and shortened the intro to "Billie Jean." Thriller ended up going platinum 28 times, making it the biggest-selling non-compilation album in history.
"There will be a lot written about what came next in Michael's life, but for me all of that is just noise," Jones wrote in conclusion. "I promise you in 50, 75, 100 years, what will be remembered is the music. It's no accident that almost three decades later, no matter where I go in the world, in every club and karaoke bar, like clockwork, you hear 'Billie Jean,' 'Beat It,' 'Wanna Be Starting Something,' 'Rock With You' and 'Thriller.' "
Stemming from Brown’s assault of former girlfriend Rihanna, a protege of Jay-Z, a source told the New York Post he “wasn’t having it. He threatened to pull out of the show if Chris was involved, so BET dropped Chris.”
Brown’s rep was quick to step up, issuing a statement saying, “That’s not true — he was never confirmed to perform.”