BREAKING: Fat Joe Headed To Prison For Tax Evasion, Apologizes To Family

Terror Squad leader Fat Joe has reportedly been sentenced to four months behind bars after appearing in court Monday (June 24) for a tax evasion-related case.

 

According to reports, Joey Crack appeared in Newark, New Jersey to receive his prison sentence.

Rapper "Fat Joe" has been sentenced to four months in prison after admitting he failed to file federal income taxes.The platinum-selling artist, whose real name is Joseph Cartagena (car-ta-GEE'-nah), apologized to his family and supporters before being sentenced Monday in federal court in Newark. He pleaded guilty in December 2012 to failing to pay taxes on more than $1 million of income in 2007 and in 2008. U.S. Magistrate Cathy Waldor said she took into consideration the government's allegation that Cartagena failed to taxes on some $3 million in income for years 2007 through 2010, an estimated tax loss to the government of $718,038. The Miami Beach resident was prosecuted in New Jersey because some of the companies he earns money from are incorporated in Somerville. (San Francisco Gate)

Around mid-May, Crack revealed his fate could be sealed at a court date this month.

"I can't really explain that 'cause I got a real court case going on, like facing jail time. But I guess after June 24. Hopefully, it goes well," Joe said on Wednesday (May 22) on "RapFix Live." You gotta understand we hire guys who are supposed have Harvard degrees to take care of us," he began to explain. "All the time you see artists, the first thing they did to you when you caught money was introduce you to a bunch of fancy guys with bow ties who are gonna take care of your money and all that and then you always see an artist or a celebrity or somebody like that goin' down for it and these guys never go down for it." (MTV)

Back in December, Joe's attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said he wanted to fully repay his debts.

The rapper -- who is is currently free on $250,000 bail -- will face up to two years in prison and a fine totaling $200,000 when he is sentenced on April 3, officials said. "Fat Joe," who was recently in the news because of a well-publicized beef with "50 Cent," maintains residences in both New Jersey and Miami Beach. "'Fat Joe' has taken responsibility for his tax failures. He hopes to repay his tax indebtedness," said the rapper's defense attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman. (NY Post)

Details of the hip-hop heavyweight's money woes surfaced online around mid-December.

Rap star "Fat Joe" has pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion. The performer, whose real name is Joseph Cartagena (car-ta-GEE'-nah) entered the plea Thursday to a charge of failing to pay taxes on more than $1 million of income in each of 2007 and 2008. The 42-year-old Miami Beach, Fla., resident appeared in federal court in New Jersey because some of the companies he earns money from are incorporated there. (SF Gate)

Bobby 'Blue' Bland Dead at 83

Bobby "Blue" Bland, a distinguished singer who blended Southern blues and soul in songs such as "Turn on Your Love Light" and "Further On Up the Road," died Sunday. He was 83.

Rodd Bland said his father died about 5:30 p.m. Sunday due to complications from an ongoing illness at his Memphis, Tenn., home surrounded by relatives.

Bland was known as the "the Sinatra of the blues" and heavily influenced by Nat King Cole, often recording with lavish arrangements to accompany his smooth vocals. He even openly imitated Frank Sinatra on the "Two Steps From the Blues" album cover, standing in front of a building with a coat thrown over his shoulder.

"He brought a certain level of class to the blues genre," said Lawrence "Boo" Mitchell, son of legendary musician and producer Willie Mitchell.

Bland was a contemporary of B.B. King's, serving as the blues great's valet and chauffer at one point, and was one of the last of the living connections to the roots of the genre. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

Born in Rosemark, Tenn., he moved to nearby Memphis as a teenager and, as the hall of fame noted, was "second in stature only to B.B. King as a product of Memphis' Beale Street blues scene."

After a stint in the Army, he recorded with Sam Phillips at Sun Records in the early 1950s with little to show for it. It wasn't until later that decade Bland began to find success.

He scored his first No. 1 on the R&B charts with "Further On Up the Road" in 1957. Then, beginning with "I'll Take Care of You" in early 1960, Bland released a dozen R&B hits in a row. That string included "Turn On Your Love Light" in 1961.

His "I Pity the Fool" in 1961 was recorded by many rock bands, including David Bowie and Eric Clapton, who has made "Further On Up the Road" part of his repertoire.

"He's always been the type of guy that if he could help you in any way, form or fashion, he would," Rodd Bland said.

Not Again! Chris Brown Accused Of Assaulting A Girl In A Nightclub

Looks like Chris Brown is going to be in court over assaulting a woman again.

According to TMZ, Chris assaulted a woman in a nightclub so severely, that she may need surgery.

Deanna Gines tells TMZ ... she was in the VIP section with Chris at Heat Ultra Lounge in Anaheim -- where he had just performed.  When the bar was about to close, she claims Chris shoved her to the ground.  Deanna tells us, the shove was deliberate and she fell hard on her knees. 

Deanna tells us she filed a police report, and a rep for the Anaheim PD says a female did indeed file a report for assault inside the club, but the rep won't disclose the name. Cops are investigating.  

Deanna says she went to the hospital and doctors told her she had torn ligaments in her right knee. She's going to see another doc later this week and she says she's already been told she may have to go under the knife.

Here's a photo, obtained by TMZ, of Deanna on crutches:

But Breezy's people are saying they don't know anything about Deanna's injuries.

Chris Brown's rep, Nicole Perna, tells TMZ, "I'm unaware of the incident, as is Chris' lawyer and his entire team.  He was in a great mood after Powerhouse."  Perna adds, "None of this makes sense."

Guess we'll find out soon enough!

And, as a bonus, Chris just took to twitter to subliminally address the issue:

The devil is always working. If it wasn't for my faith and my fans, I would've quit music along time ago.
— Chris Brown (@chrisbrown) June 24, 2013

I'm tired of it man....!
— Chris Brown (@chrisbrown) June 24, 2013

Jay-Z And Justin Timberlake's 'Holy Grail' Lyrics Revealed

Hov tackles the pitfalls of fame on the track, which is expected to be released on Tuesday.

Jay-Z famously doesn't write down any of his lyrics, but luckily, someone jotted them down for him, sharing online the lyrics to Hov and Justin Timberlake's unreleased "Holy Grail."

Judging from the lyrics — which were released via a Samsung app designed to deliver Jay's July 4 LP Magna Carta Holy Grail — Jay's tackling the pitfalls of fame on the track, which will reportedly be released Tuesday on iTunes.

"The bright lights is enticing/ But look what it did to Tyson/ All that money in one night/ 30 mil for one fight," the lyrics read, referencing famed Brooklyn boxing icon Mike Tyson.

To close the verse, Hov name drops Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain citing his 1994 suicide. Cobain's wife, Courtney Love said in a recent interview that she recently cleared Jay to use lyrics from Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Those lyrics appear on "Holy Grail," presumably sung by Timberlake. "And we all just/ Entertainers/ And we're stupid/ And contagious," the sheet reads.

In the final verse, Jay reflects on his family life, particularly the difficulty he has spending time publicly with his daughter. "Photo shoots with the paparazzi/ Can't even take my daughter for a walk/ See them by a corner store/ I'm cornered off,"

The lyric reveal is just the latest in MCHG ramp-ups. On Saturday, team Hov led fans through Brooklyn on a scavenger hunt and handed out binders with the full album track list to the winners. The book didn't list any of the album's features, but Jay has recently been photographed in the studio with Drake, Raekwon, Nas, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake.

Drake Talks Money, Says Rapper Aren't The Rich Ones

Drake spoke candidly about his attitude to money recently.

The Young Money rapper claimed that it was wrong to think of rappers as some of the richest people out there.

The rapper recently gave an interview with GQ, and exerts from the piece keep hotting up the internet.

This time, Drake’s views on wealth were discussed, and the rapper revealed that he did enjoy the status that money creates.

Drake also said that he had aimed to make $25 million by his 25th birthday, but now he’s set his eyes on a higher goal. Looking at the lives of the super wealthy -- Drake named Russian businessman, Roman Abramovitch -- he said that it actually took a great deal more money to support the kind of lifestyle that he aspired to.

"'Do you know that even if I had $250 million in the bank, I couldn't buy half of that?” Drake said. “Rappers aren't the really rich ones. We all have nice houses with studios and cars, but you need a piece of someone's business to be super wealthy.'"

Tupac Shakur Musical Bound for Broadway

Inspired by the late rap superstar's music, "Holler If Ya Hear Me" is currently being workshopped for a planned premiere during the 2013-14 season.

Paramount Tupac Shakur

NEW YORK -- A developmental workshop is underway in New York City for Holler If Ya Hear Me, a new musical inspired by the work of Tupac Shakur, which is being targeted for Broadway.

The show will be directed by Kenny Leon, known for his Broadway work on plays including A Raisin in the Sun with Sean Combs; Fences, with Denzel Washington and Viola Davis; and The Mountaintop, with Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett.

While no firm dates have been set for the long-gestating project, producers are aiming to premiere during the 2013-14 Broadway season.

A non-biographical original story, the show is set in the present day, on the inner-city streets of a Midwestern industrial city, chronicling the challenges faced by two childhood friends and their extended families. The story is inspired by and unfolds to the music of Shakur, the influential rapper who died in 1996 and has sold more than 75 million albums worldwide.

The musical has a book by Todd Kriedler and choreography by Tony Award winner Wayne Cilento (Wicked, The Who's Tommy). The design team includes David Gallo (sets), Reggie Ray (costumes) and Mike Baldassari (lighting). Music supervision is by Daryl Waters, a veteran of such musicals as Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk, The Color Purple and Memphis.

Lead producers on the project are the late music superstar's mother, Afeni Shakur, as well as Eric L. Gold, Chunsoo Shin and Jessica Green.

Pitbull Sizzles, Ke$ha Fizzles at Hollywood Bowl: Concert Review

Pitbull and Ke$ha embarking on a summer tour together might seem like a strange pairing until you remember that the pop artists share a record label -- and thus marketing dollars. Another potential benefit of sharing a bill in giant outdoor amphitheaters like the Hollywood Bowl is the cross-pollination of fans, ensuring that each section of the Ke$ha-Pitbull Venn diagram is holding a ticket. But Tuesday evening at the Bowl, the seats were filled primarily with raging Pitbull fans, who filed into the venue mid-way during Ke$ha’s hourlong set, which took place mostly in daylight.

If both artists can churn out Top 40 singles and sell albums with decent regularity, how does one draw a notably larger crowd when it comes to touring? The answers might lie in each artist’s presentation and how the overall image they’ve each generated is translated into a live performance.
For Ke$ha, that image is sex and essentially nothing else. Even as songs like “Blow” and “Crazy Kids” feel like raucous party anthems, the singer seems hell-bent on embodying this persona of an over-sexed, unnecessarily crass rebel whose music is secondary to her shouting things like, “Now will you guys please take your balls out and teabag your neighbor?” Her performance is a spectacle but perhaps not in the way pop is meant to be a spectacle where the visuals should lend new meaning to the music itself. There is no subtlety, no innuendo, no turn of phase. For instance: the track “Dirty Love,” off her recent album Warrior. As if not already abundantly clear in its message, did the song really need the alarmingly explicit visual of Ke$ha poking her finger into one of her dancer’s butts?


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From a stripper pole to dancers dressed like drag queens to a series of glittering leotards to an inflatable pink hippo, Ke$ha’s set lacked an overarching vision beyond provocation. When you perform a song like “Gold Trans Am,” how does pretending to weld your crotch while changing the already-blatant lyrics to “Get inside of my vagina” expand and augment a recorded version of the song? If anything, it makes the track seem more like a gimmick than it did before.


Pitbull, on the other hand, has created an image of a cool playboy, ever-clad in a black suit and constantly surrounded by gyrating dancers. But the Cuban singer’s headlining set, which featured almost no production except a light show, four dancers and a band, was far more open than Ke$ha’s. It allowed for a broader audience to embrace its aesthetic and message, although Pitbull’s means of doing so occasionally bordered on cheesy.

For Pitbull, the performance was about playing the hits -- his own or anyone else’s. Each track was introduced with an abridged cover or interlude with songs like Icona Pop’s “I Love It” or Black Eyed Peas' “I Got A Feeling.” Even Jennifer Lopez, who appeared onstage toward the end of the set, was on hand to perform her own new single “Live It Up” rather than guest on one of the several Pitbull songs on which she is featured. The idea was to transform the normally tame venue into a party, one that transcended demographic (although Pitbull’s Latin audience was strongly represented last night). “We make world music,” the rapper said at one point, after rattling off a list of Spanish-speaking countries. “We talk to the whole world.”

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From “International Love,” which received a guest appearance from Chris Brown, to “Don’t Stop The Party” to the Enrique Iglesias-led “Baby I Like It,” Pitbull’s set was massive and all-encompassing, generating an unabashed sense of fun in the crowd. That, in many ways, feels like the point of a pop show -- creating an atmosphere that allows your fans to celebrate music and experience a sense of release ... not encouraging everyone to take their balls out because it serves your own twisted agenda.

Pitbull, who called out Los Angeles twice as his “No. 1 market,” balanced his pop radio singles with his more Latin-inspired numbers, offering onstage banter in both languages throughout the set. Before he closed down the Bowl with “Give Me Everything” and actual fireworks, the smiling singer presented the crowd with his motto: “Pasos cortos, visión larga,” which translates to “Short steps, long vision.”

The two pop stars who took the stage at the Hollywood Bowl clearly have different ideas about artistic sustainability. Ke$ha revealed hers to be largely one-note, empty of anything beyond immediate shock value. But for Pitbull, this long vision consists of building himself up as an artist who's amiable and accessible to the crowd that supports his music. It’s a good lesson.

Set List:

Ke$ha:
Warrior
Crazy Kids
We R Who We R
Blow
Gold Trans Am
Dirty Love
Take It Off
C'Mon
Machine Gun Love
Blah Blah Blah
YLIMD
Tik Tok
Die Young