Jay-Z Announces 2010 Tour Dates for BluePrint 3

Jay-Z has extended his Blueprint 3 tour well into 2010, with new dates announced across the U.S. in February and March of next year. The BP3 tour will include Young Jeezy opening all dates. Four more dates on the BP3 tour are scheduled for this month, including tomorrow night (11/7) in Fresno, CA. The new dates start February 22 in Houston, with shows announced up to March 26 in Los Angeles. More dates and cities are expected to be added.

Additionally, Jay’s current hit “Empire State Of Mind” will get a sequel, as an alternate version is slated to appear on Alicia Keys’ new album, Element Of Freedom. Due out December 15, Element Of Freedom will have a new verse from Jay-Z on “Empire State Of Mind Pt. 2,” according to multiple reports.
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Lil Wayne Pleads Guilty to Gun Charge, Sentenced 1 Year Behind Bars

The Grammy-winning rap artist Lil Wayne pleaded guilty on Thursday to attempted criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, a felony, and is to be sentenced to a year behind bars under a plea agreement with prosecutors, the Manhattan district attorney’s office announced.

In a 13th-floor courtroom in State Supreme Court, the rapper, whose given name is Dwayne M. Carter Jr., entered a guilty plea before Justice Charles H. Solomon, who reminded the defendant that the plea would have no bearing on charges that he is facing in other states.

Police said a gun was found on Lil Wayne’s tour bus in Manhattan in 2007. Lil Wayne acknowledged in court that there was a gun on the bus and identified it as a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
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Rihanna to Release “Rated R” album on Nov. 23

The pop star Rihanna is making headlines again, this time for the right reasons: on Tuesday, Island Def Jam Recordings said it would release her new studio album, “Rated R,” on Nov. 23. The album is her fourth full-length studio release and the first since an incident in February in which she was attacked by her companion, the R&B singer Chris Brown, during an argument. (Mr. Brown, who pleaded guilty to a felony count of assault, was given five years of probation.) In a news release, Island Def Jam said the album’s first single, “Russian Roulette,” written by the R&B singer Ne-Yo, would be available Tuesday on Rihanna’s official Web site. Other producers and writers on “Rated R” include Justin Timberlake, Stargate, Chase & Status, and The-Dream and Tricky Stewart.
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Gucci Mane to release album Dec 8, First single “Spotlight” featuring Usher

Two days after releasing a new three-part, 30-track mixtape, Gucci Mane has launched the campaign in support of his forthcoming sophomore effort, The State Vs. Radric Davis.

The Atlanta rapper unveiled both a December 8, 2009 street date for the So Icey/Asylum/Warner Bros. Records release, and the album’s official first single, “Spotlight” featuring Usher.

The song, produced by Polow da Don, follows the national radio success of Gucci’s warm-up single “Wasted,” featuring Plies.

Additional production credits on the album include Drumma Boy, Mannie Fresh and Sean Garrett, who, along with Gucci, contributed to singer Mario’s summer hit “Break Up.”
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Nas Owes the IRS $2.5 Million

Nas may make a lot of money (according to his estranged wife Kelis), but apparently some of that bread hasn’t been going towards taxes.

The Queens rap legend received a huge federal tax lien filed last month, of $2,584,206.31. Nas reportedly owes back-taxes for 2006 and 2007.

Meanwhile, Nas and Kelis are scheduled to go through with their divorce hearing on November 20.
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Diddy teams with Dr. Dre to release “Diddy Beats” Headphones

A Diddy and Dr. Dre collaboration? What happened to the whole East Coast vs. West Coast thing?

One might say that this is just business.

Diddy has been working with Dre and Interscope chairman Jimmy Iovine on his own line of Diddy Beats ear bud headphones. The product was developed through Monster, a company best known for its high-end audio cables, which previously introduced Dre’s own Beats By Dr. Dre headphones and is set to unveil Lady Gaga’s ‘Heartbeats’ audio line in the near future.

“We designed some ear buds called Diddy Beats that will be out next year,” Diddy said of his collaboration with Dre. “We also have an iPod speaker base for your house coming out. That experience as a whole was good, we [Dr. Dre and I] had a great chemistry with each other.”
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Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” Projected to Make $250 Million in 5 Days

I thought the idea of a Michael Jackson concert film based on rehearsal footage from his planned run of London shows was ghoulish and exploitative when first announced. The trailer for This Is It didn’t change my mind, but a great many people evidently see only the Michael Jackson of old. We already know the film has had remarkable pre-sales, with Fandango reporting it as #1 in ticket sales now, two weeks before opening. Now a report from AEG, the concert promoter and the film’s financier, claims that Sony is already in the black thanks to the pre-sale numbers. Furthermore, the same report pegs the film’s eventual gross as genuinely massive, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Nikki Finke has the AEG report, which predicts that This Is It will gross $250 million within 5 days. That’s a seriously insane claim; if the movie does that well it will, as an insider quoted by Finke put it, be in Spider-Man and Harry Potter territory. (And remember, it’s folks with a vested interest in the movie making the claim.) The idea of such success would be utterly outlandish if this was any figure other than Michael Jackson. But global audiences remain crazy for all things MJ, so the film is certainly going to bank well. Whether it banks ‘all-time’ numbers is another question.
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50 Cent’s ‘Behind the Music’ VH1 Episode Made Rating History

50 Cent’s Behind the Music episode on VH1 has reportedly made ratings history for the network.

According to Fif’s thisis50.com Website, the rapper’s show scored the highest premiere ratings since 2000’s Faith Hill program. 2.2 million viewers tuned in on Tuesday (October 13), making VH1 the most watched cable channel during that time period. 50’s show beat out other BTM episodes on Lil Wayne and T.I.

The VH1 Hip Hop Honors premiered directly after the G-Unit leader’s Behind the Music. The ceremony, which marked the 25th anniversary of Def Jam Recordings, was also one for the books. It had the highest ratings of the franchise’s six-year history.
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