Bring in the new year with hip-hop
Several concerts are being planned to help hip-hop fans bring in the new year.
Jay-Z and Puff Daddy will be among several acts performing at MTV's
New Year's Eve bash in New York City's Times Square, while Eminem
will be across town at The Tunnel. The legendary Run DMC and De La Soul
will team up for a show at Roseland Ballroom in New York City on Dec. 28,
while Foxy Brown and Busta Rhymes will start the new year off right
with a Jan. 1 performance at the New York Coliseum.
More news on Jay-Z, Biggie and Eve
www.the411online.com
All contents ©1994-2000 The 411 Online
News | Reviews | Interviews | Discussion | Coming Up | Flashbacks
In the Trunk | Radio | Best of '99 | Source Awards | Exhibit | Links | E-mail
Jay-Z fell short of his goal, but the 462,000 copies that his fourth album, Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter, sold in its first week still will be good enough to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, according to figures released by SoundScan on Wednesday.
Jigga had hoped to do what no hip-hop artist had done before -- sell 1 million albums in one week -- but his Hard Knock Life tour counterpart DMX actually came closer one week earlier. X, who sits at No. 2 this week with And Then There Was X, accomplished the feat in two weeks, eclipsing platinum status by adding 398,000 copies to his first-week sales of 698,000. Both artists were expected to make a run at the million mark, but bootlegging and slow post-holiday sales might have hurt Jay-Z. Meanwhile, Dr. Dre's 2001 made a surprising rally to take the No. 5 spot in its seventh week in release and quickly is nearing double-platinum.
Winston Salem-Journal reporter and Sporting News correspondent John Delong
predicts that Master P's sports agency is about to lose many of its clients because P continues to focus on his own attempts at a basketball career instead of concentrating on theirs.
In a recent column on the Charlotte Hornets, under the heading of "Fearless prediction,"
Delong writes, "(Hornets guard) Ricky Davis will fire his agent, Master P, shortly. Davis is one of several players around the league, including Denver's Ron Mercer, who apparently feels the rapper is more worried about himself than about their careers. You'll see a mass exodus from the P camp soon." 
Busta Rhymes and Eminem each were nominated in all three of the Grammy Awards' hip-hop categories, while The Roots got nods in two. And the nominees are...
Best Rap Solo Performance:
"Gimme Some More" -- Busta Rhymes;
"My Name Is" -- Eminem;
"Vivrant Thing" -- Q-Tip;
"Wild Wild West" -- Will Smith (featuring Dru Hill & Kool Moe Dee);
"Changes" - 2Pac.
Best Rap Album:
Extinction Level Event -- Busta Rhymes;
Da Real World -- Missy Elliott;
The Slim Shady LP -- Eminem;
I Am -- Nas;
Things Fall Apart -- The Roots.
Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group:
"What's It Gonna Be?!" -- Busta Rhymes featuring Janet Jackson;
"Satisfy You" - Puff Daddy featuring R. Kelly;
"Still D.R.E." - Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Dogg;
"Guilty Conscience" - Eminem & Dr. Dre;
"You Got Me" - The Roots featuring Erykah Badu.
Sean "Puffy" Combs testified before a Manhattan grand jury on Tuesday and
contested allegations that he played a role in a Dec. 27 shooting at a New
York nightclub that wounded three people. The grand jury will decide if Puffy is to be indicted on felony charges.
Four eyewitnesses also testified, including a female
security guard hired by the club, that Combs did not have a gun and hit the floor when shots rang out. Meanwhile, a bouncer injured in last month's shooting at Club New York has filed a $100 million lawsuit against Combs.
Julius Jones filed the suit against Puffy, his bodyguard, his chauffeur, Club New York, its owner Michael Bergos, and Bad Boy Records even though police have not charged Puff with the shooting. Jones allegedly was shot in the shoulder during the incident. And as if that isn't enough, Jennifer Lopez, who was on standby to testify before the grand jury Tuesday, reportedly is being advised by peers (as well as newspapers and magazines) to break up with Puffy before he damages her career. Her publicist denies rumors that Lopez has any career concerns, but the relationship might be on the rocks anyway. One source told MTV that Lopez is not returning Puffy's phone calls.
Apparently Method Man and Redman enjoyed their taste of professional wrestling.
The duo, whose video "Tear the Roof Off" featured their best tag team impression,
have joined several other hip-hop notables on the latest WWF compilation, tentatively titled WWF Raw. It will feature new tracks from Snoop Dogg, Run-DMC, Cash Money Millionaires, ODB, Mobb Deep, Mystikal, Kool Keith, Slick Rick, Dana Dane, Mack 10, C-Murder and others. The artists on the album, scheduled to drop Feb. 29, will take theme music from the stars of the WWF and turn it into original recordings. The subject matter won't necessarily revolve around wrestling.
The third time isn't any less of a charm for DMX.
X's third album, And Then There Was X, will debut
at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 after selling 698,403 copies.
While those sales fall short of the 1 million Def Jam hoped for,
the album has become DMX's third straight No. 1 debut and it's the
second straight year he will own Christmas week.
Last year, DMX also topped the chart with It's Dark And Hell Is Hot and
Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood.
Other debuts include 2Pac + Outlawz's Still I Rise at
No. 7 and Goodie Mob's World Party at No. 56. Jay-Z takes his shot at 1 million this week with
Vol. 3... Life And Times of S. Carter.
As with all albums touched by his talent,
Dr. Dre's latest, 2001, has reached platinum
status. The album, which was released Nov. 16 and
reunites Dre with the likes of Kurupt, Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg
sold more than 500,000 copies in its first week, debuting at No. 2,
and has steadily climbed to the 1 million mark. Dre released the instrumental version
of the album Tuesday.
According to EUR, TLC's T-Boz has revealed her ongoing romance with Mack 10.
During an interview with Launch, T-Boz let loose. "You know what? First of
all, he had the real approach. You can't come with all these games,
because I'm not checking for all
of that. Actually he wasn't even gonna try to talk to me because he
thought I was stuck up. 'I don't talk to that heifer in TLC, she probably
think she's all that.' Well, when we met -- being that we're both kind
of ghettofab -- I'm outspoken and so is he. He's my twin. He's
a boy version of me and I'm a girl version of him. So naturally,
as people we were meant to meet and be friends, anyway."
Noreaga's holiday weekend came to a less-than-festive close when he was
arrested Sunday night on drug charges.
New York's NY1 reports that Noreaga was arrested in the borough of Queens
Sunday night and charged with possession of marijuana.
Four other men were also reportedly arrested at the time, and Nore's
Mercedes was impounded by authorities.
Noreaga recently was in Queens to shoot his
latest video, "Blood Money Pt. 3," with L.L. Cool J, Fat Joe and Foxy Brown.
More than 83 percent of participants in a recent survey on Tupac.com still
believe that 2Pac might still be alive.
That's why the site is offering 
For those that can't wait for 
Chuck D will continue his role as hip-hop's world ambassador by engaging
in hip-hop's first official online East-meets-West chat today.
He and DJ Yutaka of Japan will sit down and
engage in a true meeting of the minds at thepalace.com from 6-8 p.m. EST.
Folks who tune in will have opportunities to win Rapstation.com sweatshirts
and DJ Yutaka's t-shirts.
The legacy of Notorious B.I.G. lives on as his
second posthumous album, Born Again, will debut at No. 1 on
next week's Billboard album chart.
According to sales figures released by SoundScan, Biggie's
latest sold more than 485,000 copies in its first week to bump
Celine Dion from the top spot. Not surprisingly, it was Bad Boy Records'
strongest debut of the year -- beating out Puff Daddy's Forever,
Mase's Double Up and the label's R&B stable -- due to strong street
promotion and warm radio and video reception for "Dead Wrong."
Meanwhile, a new video is being shot in New York City for the track "Notorious
B.I.G." that will feature cameos from Missy Elliott, Lil Kim and Lil Cease.