Nas threw a shot on “Queens Get the Money,” and you didn’t respond. You getting all Gandhi on us?

50 Cent: Man, Nas is cold as ice. Nas is the block of ice that sunk the Titanic… I didn’t even hear his record. I didn’t even hear what you talking about… I really don’t want to talk about Nas. I think he’s at one of those points to where his career’s finished, to be honest. He’s had some great moments and made good music in the past, but he no longer has the interest of the general public or myself.

50 Cent:The public will tell me that Curtis is a failure. And I sold 700,000 copies the first week. So what do I gotta do? Reach a million, at a minimum?!

That’s the bar you set. You’re the SoundScan Killer, remember?

50 Cent: Right, but if we’re gonna call that a failure, then somebody identify what a win is for me. All I need to know is what it is, and then I’ll go ’head and go. Musically, from my perspective, Curtis was exactly what I aimed for it to be. Or I wouldn’t have presented it to the public. I listen to my music before I put it out. I’m listening to it, and I’m hearing it, and I’m like, Yeah, this is what I wanna do now.

via XXL

A host of big names premiership footballers have been told they can’t fly to Miami to celebrate Christmas with US rappers Lil’ Wayne and Akon.

Chelsea’s Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba and two stars from Sunderland were personally invited to the £1million party later this month.

But their club managers, Phil Scolari and Roy Keane, are reported to have insisted that they stay in the country because of the traditional pile up of festive football fixtures.

“The party promises to be the biggest hip-hop bash ever thrown. Lil’ Wayne and Akon are each pouring hundreds of thousands of pounds into it,” a source told the Sun newspaper.

Kelly Lau Schumacher, 30, and Michael Schumacher, 34, were arrested late Monday, said Matt Robinson, a spokesman for police in Tracy. They had been taken into custody for questioning earlier in the day at their home in Tracy, where the emaciated boy was allegedly held against his will. A search of the home turned up evidence implicating the couple, Robinson said. Tracy is about 60 miles east of San Francisco.

They were charged with torture, kidnapping and child abuse, and were set to appear in court Thursday, officials said. Bail was set at $1.2 million for Michael Schumacher but his wife’s bail had not been set, authorities said. Police said they were searching for a third suspect but wouldn’t give details.

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When Ashley Dupre traveled to New York in search of a music career, she probably never expected it to unfold like this.

Dupre, who was the women involved in the Governor Elliot Spitzer prostitution scandal earlier this year, recently did an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC explaining that she wanted to leave her past behind. “[Prostitution] was a piece of me back then, and I’m no longer that person,” she stated. However, a past co-worker looks to shed more brutal truth on the highly paid escort.

Natalie McLennan, who recently penned the memoir about living the escort life in The Price, shares her experiences with Dupre while they both worked for the highly successful NY Confidential escort service. McLennan alleges Dupre was not only a participant, but also an instigator in sexual acts to arouse the opposite gender. During an outing at a night club McLennan states, “We started making out. … Our session started to draw a crowd, entirely male. … [Ashley] really knew how to get guys into a frenzy.” McLennan, who hints at sharing the sheets with the likes of Lenny Kravitz and Fred Durst, notes that Dupre was also into celebrity clients. In one late night event, McLennan alleges she and Dupre even attempted to get rapper Nas into bed with them, but to no success.

Later in the memoir, she describes Dupre had fallen victim to the fast life that included excessive drug and alcohol use. “Ashley’s face looked bloated. … She could barely keep her eyes open. She was obviously really high, and drunk. I felt guilty. … She was so young.” Dupre has stated she’s been clean from drugs since exiting the escort lifestyle.

In related news, Chris Lighty of Violator Management aided Dupre in setting up that prime time interview with Diane Sawyer. Besides this connection, Lighty has made it clear that Dupre is not in fact a client or artist of Violator Management amidst rumors last week. “Despite media reports, Chris Lighty and Violator Management do not represent Ashley Dupre. Lighty helped negotiate an interview for Dupre with Diane Sawyer, and has no further involvement in Dupre’s career,” Violator Management said in a statement yesterday evening.

HipHopDX

Besides their impressive resumes and political star-power, a few of President-elect Barack Obama’s top cabinet choices have something else in common — hoop dreams.

Though these days Eric H. Holder Jr., Susan E. Rice and Gen. James L. Jones, may be more comfortable handling policy memos than shooting free throws, at one point they were very much at home on the court.

And as the basketball-loving president-elect assembles his so-called team of rivals, it appears he may have – coincidentally — put together a pretty competitive group of players.

As a teenager, Mr. Holder, the president-elect’s nominee for Attorney General, was co-captain of the basketball team, the Peglegs, at Stuyvesant High School in New York. And he stayed on top of his game as an undergraduate and a law student at Columbia University. In an interview with The New York Times that was published Monday, he trash-talked his new boss a bit, saying of Mr. Obama and basketball skills, “I don’t know if he’s ready for my New York game.”

Ms. Rice, who long-ago traded the thrill of hitting a three-pointer for scoring big on the world stage, was a star player at National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C., where she also excelled in her studies. Her athleticism reportedly earned her the nickname, Spo, short for Sportin’. She’ll be the Obama administration’s ambassador to the United Nations.

And along with the announcement of Mr. Holder’s and Ms. Rice’s cabinet positions on Monday, Mr. Obama also called General Jones up from the bench to be his national security adviser. At 6-foot-4, Mr. Jones was a forward for the Georgetown Hoyas during his college years.

Though they may scrupulously avoid mixing metaphors in their new jobs — a Bush-era reference to a “slam dunk” comes to mind — their talents on the court, might earn them the distinction as the White House’s first “team of dribblers.”

Nearly superstitious, Mr. Obama became well known for playing hoops on the day of almost every primary contest. While that season may be past him, the White House carries its own series of quarterly tests, long before the next election cycle.

And, as everyone learned during the six-week lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary in May, Mr. Obama doesn’t excel at another sport — bowling. So the incoming Obama team may find, as the president-elect suggested long ago in Indiana, that the bowling alley in the White House might well become a victim of renovations to make way for a hoop court.

NYT

Naomi Campbell’s rage issues seem to have rubbed off on her billionaire beau, Vladimir Doronin. On Thursday, beachgoers at the Setai in Miami were aghast when the model’s Russian real estate mogul “punched a photographer in the gut.” The snapper was “standing a good distance away” our spy said, when “out of nowhere [Doronin] hit him twice in the stomach.” The incident didn’t rattle the lovebirds much - Campbell and Doronin were spotted Saturday night at Liv nightclub sitting with Diddy and Lenny Kravitz. A rep for Campbell didn’t return calls and Doronin could not be reached.

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