Alicia Keys and Pharrell Williams appears at this year’s Keep a Child Alive Black Ball event in New York City to perform Pharrell’s recent collaborations ‘Blurred Lines’ and ‘Get Lucky’.
Keep a Child Alive’s Black Ball is a star-studded event where celebrity and philanthropy join hand in hand. The evening celebrates the work of Keep a Child Alive (KCA) and raises millions for children and families affected by HIV in Africa and India. The Black Ball hosts never-before-seen musical collaborations with KCA Global Ambassador, Alicia Keys, and other leading artists.
The STASHED caught up with Yo Gotti at the Epic Records offices in New York City to discuss his game plan with I Am, the direction of the album, recording with J. Cole, and how he plans on “getting a ring” like LeBron. Check out Part 1 of SESSIONS with Yo Gotti under the hood.
After months of hints, China announced Friday it will relax its decades-long one-child policy and abolish labor camps in an effort to improve human rights, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Officials had said earlier both controversial policies were under review, but that did not diminish the force of Friday’s announcement.
The biggest change could be the abolishment of the so-called “re-education through labor” system under which tens of thousands are imprisoned in China without trial.
“Reform through labor” was set up in the 1950s under Mao Zedong and modeled on Soviet gulags — a place where “counterrevolutionaries” and “class enemies” could be detained without trial.
Millions are believed to have died through overwork, suicide and harsh conditions until a system overhaul in the 1970s when Deng Xiaoping released prisoners accused of political and religious offenses.
According to the latest available figures from the Ministry of Justice, 160,000 people were held in 350 re-education through labor centers nationwide at the end of 2008. The United Nations has said the figure is possibly as high as 190,000 people.
As part of the reforms, China said it will reduce the number of crimes subject to the death penalty.
Even those who know little about China have likely heard about its one-child policy. China’s family planning laws require most families living in urban areas to have one child.
The policy will be slightly relaxed so that couples will be allowed to have two children if one of the parents was an only child, Xinhua reported. Currently, both parents must be sole children to be eligible for a second child.
Perri “Pebbles” Reid sets the record straight about the accusations made against her by TLC and addresses the way she was portrayed in the TLC movie in an exclusive interview on The Wendy Williams Show.
Spotted on Eben Gregory, who threw up an interesting excerpt from Floyd’s recent interview with Sister2Sister Magazine:
Undefeated boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. is opening up a bit more about about the most recent domestic abuse charges he’s been involved with (in 2010 it was reported that he was being sought by police for questioning after his former girlfriend, Josie Harris, filed a domestic battery report against him).
Sister 2 Sister: Oh, honey, when I said I was going to do Floyd Mayweather, they said, “He beats them women up,” and “He doesn’t care about women,” and all that. I think I heard that about you before I heard about how great you are.
Floyd Mayweather, Jr.: Okay, I just want to say, what I do for a living, I’m in a contact sport, right? And if they say someone had bodily harm done to ‘em, since I’m already a fighter, before even giving me a chance, they’re going to say. “He’s guilty.” Now, restraining a woman that’s on drugs and alcohol, have I ever done that? Yes, from going crazy.
Sister 2 Sister: When you say restraining, do you mean pushing them?
Toronto’s City Council voted Friday to strip embattled Mayor Rob Ford of his ability to appoint and dismiss his senior staff in an initial move aimed at usurping power from the controversial politician.
Despite admitting last week that he had smoked crack cocaine in a “drunken stupor” about a year ago, Ford has defiantly said he will not leave his job.
“Obviously, I can’t support this,” Ford told council members. “I perfectly understand where they’re coming from.”
“Council delegated those powers and council has the ability to take those powers away,” City Solicitor Anna Kinastowski said at one point in the meeting.
While fighting for his job Thursday, Ford added to his growing list of missteps.
Early in the day, a scrum of reporters approached Ford to ask him about new allegations of drunkenness, drug use and the verbal and physical abuse of aides.
In the course of answering, he denied a female staffer’s allegation that he sought to perform oral sex with graphic language of his own, stunning reporters.
Later in the day, he backtracked.
With his wife at his side, he went back before reporters to say he had been under “tremendous, tremendous stress” and was getting unspecified support from “a team of health care professionals.” But he called the latest allegations “100% lies.”
“When you attack my integrity as a father and as a husband, I see red. Today I acted on complete impulse in my remarks,” Ford said. He took no questions from reporters, who shouted sharp inquiries at him as he entered the office.
“Mayor Ford, why should we believe you? Why would you subject your family to this?” one asked.
“What’s the matter with you, Mr. Mayor?” another said.
L.A. emcee The Game is stepping up in a big way to help the victims of the Philippines typhoon. As part of his “The Robin Hood Project” Game partnered with actor/professional poker player Dan Bilzerian to donate $10,000 to assist with relief efforts.
The devastating storm that struck the Southeast Asian country has caused widespread damage. As of today 3,621 people are reported dead with 12,165 injured and 1,140 officially missing. Many citizens have been left homeless, sick, and starving.
“This hurts my heart knowing that many of those amongst the dead are little children,” wrote game on his Instagram page. “It is in these times where we as people of this world get the opportunity to unite with one another & give back, help aid, lend a hand, donate or just send prayers.”
Game started The Robin Hood Project as way to help people in need all around the world. His goal is to give away $1 million by Christmas of this year. Previous donations include $20,000 to Taylor Hammond, $10,000 to the family of Mia Chatman, and $10,000 to the family of Tiana Moreno.
After giving us a preview, Rihanna releases the final version of her new visual for her record off Unapologetic. Rihanna’s dark themed visual was shot in Thailand.
Big Sean releases a new blog and gives his opinion on risk….he also gives us behind the scenes footage during the week of the release of Hall Of Fame, which is in stores now.
Chris Brown is out of rehab … because he has something more pressing … community service.
TMZ first reported … Brown checked into a Malibu rehab facility for anger management 16 days ago … after a street brawl in Washington D.C. in which he allegedly punched a guy in the face.
At the time … we were told Brown could be in rehab for up to 3 months — sources told us “The rehab facility has been told to take him [Brown] apart and put him back together.”
Now … a little more than two weeks after entering the program … Brown has checked out.
Brown’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, tells TMZ his client needed to get out of the facility to start the community service he’s required to perform in the Rihanna case. As you may recall, the judge would not accept the hours Chris claimed he had done, and made him do it all over again.
Geragos would not say if rehab did the trick, but did tell us Chris will continue in outpatient therapy.
Street graffiti artist Banksy did a black and white piece in the Bronx (where Swizz Beatz grew up). In the video, Swizz speaks with Revolt TV on the piece.
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ tour made a stop in New York this week for three sold out shows at Madison Square Garden. In the above clip, Macklemore does a dope freestyle with the help of a loop machine and a backing band.
Today Aqua is a well-known producer making big money scoring TV shows. 3H is a well known A&R and manager with a mostly great track record. But ten years ago to the day, they were just 19-20 year old kids (!!!) who had a dream to “make it” and they definitely did. The two talked with Life + Times about the last song on The Black Album. Great story. Also today, Just Blazed talked with RevoltTV about producing the “Interlude”
Jeezy serves us a new record with Rocko & 2 Chainz off his upcoming project #ItsThaWorld 2 which is set to hit the net on November 27th. What’s better than Benihana?
Rick Ross hits the cover of The Source for the 5th time on their October/November issue, which hits the newsstands on November 26. You can read an excerpt from his cover story with Shaheem Reid, as well as some behind the scenes footage, below:
“It feel good as hell. When you look at these dope ass covers, just being on the bible, it still means that much to me,” Rozay says in the feature. “You understand? I’m going into my 6th album, my 5th cover just letting you know that every year they supported the team MMG. Get ready for the craziest Ricky Rozay story, as soon as you see me on the cover, pick it up, even if I’m not on the cover, still pick it up. It’s the culture.”
Last Tuesday, Troy Ave dropped by Shade 45 with Tony Touch to promote his new album New York City. Before he left the building, he did a freestyle over Pusha T’s “Numbers On The Board”.
Black Cobain was in NYC a few weeks ago on a promo run for his new mixtape Perfect Contradiction. During his stay, he stopped by Hot 97 with Peter Rosenberg, and he spit a freestyle for DJ Enuff. He also stopped by the LRG offices before he went to get some something to eat with his crew.
Rihanna gives us some behind the scenes footage from the visual for her single off Unapologetic. Rihanna shot the video a few weeks back in Thailand. I can’t wait to see the final product; let’s hope we get it soon.
Bun B made his debut on Juan Epstein’s podcast this week, and if you missed the show you can read the recap below:
Finally Bun B made his first appearance on Juan Epstein. Among a million other things, he tells an amazing Biggie story and speaks in detail about being left off of Drake’s “Miss Me”.
