News, News, and More News

[Gina1201]

Jay-Z emerging from his rap retirement

NEW YORK - Call him the Michael Jordan of rap. Jay-Z, who declared that 2003's "The Black Album" would be his last, is coming out retirement and releasing a new CD.

"Kingdom Come" will hit stores this fall, Entertainment Weekly magazine reports in its new issue, due on newsstands Monday.

"It was the worst retirement in history," Jay told the magazine.

Actually, his post-retirement career looked pretty good. In 2004, the rap icon (real name: Shawn Carter) became president and CEO of Def Jam Recordings. He became part owner of the New Jersey Nets that same year. Also on his resume: Not-So-Secret Boyfriend of Beyonce.

Despite naysayers' doubts, the 36-year-old Jay-Z thought he was retired from music-making: "I believed it, yeah. I believed it for two years."

But since his "retirement," he's gone on a world tour, performed on hit records with Beyonce and other entertainers, and had a profile higher than most working rappers. There were rumblings that he was working on a new album. And in an interview with The Associated Press this summer, he said he was thinking about coming out of retirement.

He told Entertainment Weekly that he began tinkering in the studio over the summer.

"Something, when you love it, is always tugging at you and itching, and I was putting it off and putting it off. I started fumbling around to see if it felt good," he said.

The result: "Kingdom Come."

The disc is "more in the vein of `The Black Album' than `The Blueprint,'" he tells the magazine. "I've been experimenting with things, different types of music."

He's already recruited some A-list producer-collaborators: Timbaland, Kanye West and Dr. Dre. Even Coldplay frontman Chris Martin produced a track called "Beach Chair," he said.

So — for real now — when does he plan to retire?

"If I wake up one day and the best material has passed me by — and that's going to happen," he said, "then it's time to move on. I've said what I wanted to say."


Y'all should see my face. I am euphoric!!!

[Sophist08edLady]

Not surprised. With all his collabo's it was as if he never retired at all. I still can't wait for the album though!

[lovelyivy84]

That retirement thing was always a joke. Jay wasn't going anywhere!

[CrimsonTide4]

Originally Posted by lovelyivy84

That retirement thing was always a joke. Jay wasn't going anywhere!

Pretty much.

[jitterbug13]

YES!!!!!! Deltas Demand The Dynasty have done their job!!!!

It's not like he hasn't been in the studio the past year.

[mulattogyrl]

Should be interesting with both Jay-Z and Nas coming out in the next couple of months:

http://www.allhiphop.com/hiphopnews/?ID=6122

[jitterbug13]

NEW YORK, Sept 13 (Sept. 14) - Action star Dwayne "The Rock " Johnson has flatly ruled out any return to professional wrestling, saying his retirement is official -- and the days of his bullying ring character The Rock are numbered.

Johnson, 34, was one of the most popular wrestlers in the U.S. World Wrestling Entertainment circuit before he started making movies in 1999.

With a new movie and video game out this month, Johnson, who towers at 6-foot-five tall weighing about 250 pounds (114 kgs), said he would never return to wrestling.

"I have been out (of wrestling ) now for about three, four years. People always ask me (if I will go back) because I quietly got out," Johnson, a third generation wrestler, told Reuters in an interview in a Manhattan hotel.

"I never wanted to make a big splash or exodus...I just wanted to quietly get out and devote myself to acting."

Johnson said this shift in career meant the days of The Rock , a nickname he adopted in the ring, were numbered.

"When I first got into acting I never wanted to say from this day forward I only want to be know as Dwayne Johnson as that did not feel good to me or right," he said.

"But I wanted to hopefully -- and I am happy this is what has taken place naturally -- progress into Dwayne Rock Johnson or just Dwayne Johnson."

In his new film, "Gridiron Gang," on release in the United States this week, Johnson plays a probation officer who decides to shape a group of teenage felons at a juvenile detention camp into a football team.

"The clear distinction with this movie is...the message is very simple but powerful, that ever kid deserves a second chance," said Johnson who acknowledges he had a chaotic children but beams as he talks about his five-year-old daughter.

Playing a hero's role is also a shift from his character in the ring and from some of the villains roles he has played on screen with his film credits including "Doom," "The Rundown," "Walking Tall" and "Scorpion King."

Johnson is also on the side of good in the character he plays in a new video game, "Spyhunter: Nowhere to Run," which went on sale this month.

The game is the fourth in the Spyhunter series which began in 1983 as an arcade game.

Johnson, a keen gamer himself, appears as government super-spy Alex Decker who, for the first time, can step out of the spy vehicle in the game and into third person action.

He said there were ongoing talks about making the game into a movie but nothing was yet decided.

"The comedy has to be there. The action has to be there. Eventually we will find the right tone and fingers crossed we will get it made," he said.

[jitterbug13]

I know this is old news that they are dating, but I feel it has some valditidy to it now that People is reporting it.

Eddie Murphy's annual family vacation in Hawaii is always the same: just a little R&R for the actor and his five children, ages 4 to 16, at his favorite $10,700-a-night luxury suite at Maui's Four Seasons Hotel.

Except this year, he brought along someone new who's been spending a lot of time with him lately: singer Melanie Brown – also known to '90s pop fans as Scary Spice of the Spice Girls – and her 7-year-old daughter Phoenix Chi, PEOPLE reports in its new issue.

During the weeklong trip in late August, the party of eight bonded while lounging poolside in private cabanas and dining out together at the island's branch of Spago.

Brown even took the entire blended brood by herself to the beach one afternoon to go body surfing and boogie boarding. Says one onlooker: "There was a lot of togetherness between the families."

Could they be one big, happy family soon? Murphy – who divorced his wife of 12 years, Nicole Mitchell, in April – met the Leeds, England-bred Brown, who split from dancer Jimmy Gulzar in 2000, at a party in June. Since then they have kept their relationship quiet, but it's no secret that they're smitten.

At a Fourth of July BBQ Murphy hosted at his Beverly Hills home, the pair "were very loving and cute together," says a source.

And Murphy, 45, recently escorted Brown, 31, to his favorite haunt, L.A.'s Laugh Factory, where "they were very cozy," says a witness. Says Brown's mother, Andrea: "They are both very happy."

And quickly getting serious. The British singer is spending more time at her L.A. house to be close to the actor. Murphy – who is earning early Oscar buzz for his turn in Dreamgirls – already has his family on board.

"(Eddie) seems very happy with her, and that's what's important to me," says Murphy's big brother Charlie. "He's in a good place. If she does that (for him), then that's great."

[2Tuff2Quit]

Don't really don't know if this is "news" but this picture apparently came off of Marques Houston's myspace page.......

http://community.livejournal.com/ohn...75.html#cutid1

[jitterbug13]

*channeling Tia and Tamara*

EEEEEWWWWWW ROGER!!!!!!

Has anyone noticed how he has aged but his fan base is still the same age (teenagers)?

[teena]

I am going to sue someone for assault of the eyeballs.

[RedefinedDiva]

Is he on the toilet?

[2Tuff2Quit]

I don't want to think that he is taking a picture of himself while answering the call of nature....but......that is what it appears to be

[jitterbug13]

And why after I got of the Internet last night Sister Sister was on? And Roger's face was the first one I saw?

[mulattogyrl]

oh my why is that