With his third solo album, Deeper Than Rap, slated for an April 21st release, Rick Ross is gracing the cover of XXL magazine’s upcoming May issue.
On Denying Being A Correctional Officer
“Me not answering or addressing that situation has nothing to do with my career. I’ve accomplished enough, and I’ve made enough money for me to be good… Yes, it was me in those pictures. But I’ma tell you this. Me taking that job, I was doing my job. You understand what I mean?”
Although Meagan Good's main profession has been acting, it was recently revealed that she's been hitting the recording studio in-between long days on set.
The actress -- who's most recent films include "The Love Guru" and "Saw V" -- told Rap-Up.com that she's been recording for her debut album. However, she admitted the album is in the experiment stage.
"I've been recording some stuff here and there -- just experimenting, really focusing on getting up to par vocally," she said.
To get to that level, Good has been working on her voice, with a very high-profile producer -- The Dream. She says she's been working with the singer/songwriter for about two months.
As far as the kind of music the 27-year-old actress is going for: pop, not you're typical R&B sound most black singers would go after.
"I'm going for a more pop sound, actually. I did some stuff with some lesser-known producers," Good reveals.
According to Rap-Up, Good is still unsigned. But, she has been going into meetings with several labels, weighing her options. A title and release date was unknown at press time.
A spokesperson for producer Polow Da Don has confirmed that Chris Brown and Rihanna have recorded a duet. According to CNN, the unnamed song was tracked with Don just days after Brown, 19, was charged with two felonies over his alleged February 8 altercation with girlfriend Rihanna, 21.
Don's publicist said the singers — who reportedly reunited at a home owned by Diddy in Miami two weeks ago — completed the song earlier this week, though no other details were available on the track. A spokesperson for Don did not return requests for comment on the song, and spokespeople for Brown and Rihanna have declined to comment about the sessions.
"My heart goes out to both Chris and Rihanna for what has happened in the past," Polow said in a statement. "They are both great artists to work with, and I wish them well."
Brown was charged with assault and making criminal threats on March 5 and is due back in court on April 6 for his arraignment in the case.
On Wednesday, Us Magazine reported additional details on the song, quoting an unnamed source describing it as having a theme "about being stronger and growing stronger in a relationship. ... The song was originally created for Rihanna before the fight. However, it wasn't initially slated for Chris to be on the song."
The source added: "The funny thing is, the song expresses the emotions that both Chris and Rihanna are feeling at this moment — facing challenges and overcoming the ups and downs of a relationship in which you become stronger." The singers were described as being "very playful" in the studio during the session.
A month before the alleged incident, MTV News reported that the couple, who have been very private about their yearlong relationship, had actually already worked on their first original track together. The song, "Bad Girl," which leaked in January, was recorded for the soundtrack to "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and was produced by Polow but ultimately didn't make the final cut for the album.
"I came from a Jerry Bruckheimer meeting after seeing the movie, and they were telling us all the music they needed for all the scenes and the characters," Polow told MTV about his sit-down with the movie's producer. "So that night, I went to the studio and I was telling Chris about [the meeting]. And he was like, 'Let's get on it.' It was crazy, because Jerry Bruckheimer's dream was to have a song from Rihanna (for the movie), and I delivered Rihanna and Chris Brown in 24 hours. So they were like, 'Wow, that's crazy.' "
In the song, Rihanna talks about her shopping addiction, her penchant for bags and shoes and her not-so-thrifty purchasing habits. "Need no bargain, need no sale/ I want the best, I dress me well," she sings. Brown chimes in with a rap about his better half toward the end of the track. "She's a walking store, I'm talking about her clothes/ I just pause, I'm in awe, 'cause she's a fashion show."
At the time, Polow praised Brown's energy and work ethic, as well as Rihanna's unique voice and easygoing attitude and said, "We actually did a lot more records that hopefully will be coming soon."
BAGHDAD (AP) — A court convicted an Iraqi journalist of assault Thursday for hurling his shoes at George W. Bush and sentenced him to three years in prison, prompting an outburst from his family and calls for his release from Iraqis who consider him an icon for a nation decimated by war.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi, 30, defiantly shouted, "Long Live Iraq!" when the sentence was imposed, according to defense lawyers. Some of his relatives collapsed and had to be helped out of the courthouse. Others were forcibly removed by guards after shouting "Down with Bush!"
"This judiciary is unjust," al-Zeidi's brother, Dargham, said tearfully.
Other family members shouted insults against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who like al-Zeidi is a Shiite.
Although al-Zeidi received the minimum sentence — it could have been 15 years behind bars — his lawyers denounced the verdict and said they would appeal, possibly hoping a public outcry would aid their cause.
Al-Zeidi's brazen act during a Dec. 14 press conference by Bush and al-Maliki in Baghdad's Green Zone turned the young reporter into a folk hero across the Arab world, where the former U.S. president is reviled for invading Iraq in 2003 and for other policies.
Many Iraqis interviewed after the verdict believed the sentence was too harsh and that al-Zeidi was a hero for standing up to the American president. Supporters defended his act as a political statement in Arab culture, where throwing shoes at someone is considered an especially serious insult.
But protests on al-Zeidi's behalf have drawn few participants since December, and there was no sign of spontaneous rallies Thursday after the noontime verdict.
It appeared unlikely, therefore, that al-Maliki would recommend a presidential pardon for the journalist, at least anytime soon.
Al-Maliki was deeply embarrassed by the assault against an American president who had stood by him when some Arab leaders were quietly urging the U.S. to oust him. His aides had said the prime minister was personally offended by such an insult to a foreign guest.
The speed of the trial — two relatively brief hearings — is likely to feed widespread suspicion among Iraqis that al-Maliki's government orchestrated the process, although defense lawyers said they had no evidence of interference.
Spokesmen for Bush and for the State Department both called the verdict "a matter for the Iraqi judicial system."
During Thursday's proceedings, chief defense attorney Dhia al-Saadi moved that the charges be dismissed, saying al-Zeidi's act was "an expression of freedom" and not a crime.
"It was an act of throwing a shoe, not a rocket," he told the court. "It was meant as an insult to the occupation."
Al-Zeidi, wearing a beige suit over a brown shirt and brown leather shoes, then entered a plea of not guilty.
Judge Abdul-Amir al-Rubaie cleared the courtroom of all spectators and announced the verdict, which was relayed to reporters and family members by defense lawyers and a court official.
News of al-Zeidi's sentence drew quick reactions across the capital.
"Al-Zeidi should have been honored and not sent to prison," said Salam Omar, who owns a cell phone shop in eastern Baghdad.
Nasir al-Saadi, a lawmaker loyal to Shiite opposition leader Muqtada al-Sadr, said the court "should have adopted a more humane approach and released him."
"It is an illegitimate and unfair sentence because he hit the commander of an occupying force," said Ahmed al-Obeidi, who lives in Baghdad's Sunni district of Azamiyah.
An ABC News/BBC/NHK poll released Thursday found that 62 percent of Iraqis surveyed considered al-Zeidi a hero and only 24 percent considered him a criminal.
Support was highest among Sunni Arabs — 84 percent — and lowest among the Kurds at 38 percent, according to ABC.
ABC said the findings were based on 2,228 face-to-face interviews with a random national sample of Iraqis conducted Feb. 17-25. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The full survey will be released Monday ahead of the sixth anniversary of the war, ABC said.
The head of the Iraqi Journalists' Union, Mouyyad al-Lami, urged the government to pardon al-Zeidi, saying the young journalist "deserves a second chance to start a new life."
But Serwan Gharaib, a journalist in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, said al-Zeidi had violated journalistic ethics by exploiting his access to Bush.
"I may understand the suffering of the Iraqi people due to the occupation, but I do not understand the bizarre method of protest conducted by al-Zeidi," he said.
Al-Zeidi, a correspondent for a small Iraqi-owned television station based in Cairo, Egypt, has been in Iraqi custody since the incident.
When al-Zeidi threw his shoes at Bush, he shouted in Arabic: "This is your farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."
On Thursday, defense lawyers quoted al-Zeidi as telling them, "At that moment, I saw nothing but Bush, and I felt the blood of the innocents flowing under his feet while he was smiling that smile."
Bush quickly ducked to avoid being hit and was not injured. Guards wrestled al-Zeidi to the ground and dragged him away.
The trial began on Feb. 19 but was adjourned until Thursday after the defense argued that the assault charge was inapplicable because Bush was not in Baghdad on an official visit, having arrived unannounced and without an invitation.
On Thursday, the judge accepted a statement from al-Maliki's office that the visit was official.
Last month, a German student threw a shoe at Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao during a speech at Britain's Cambridge University. The student, Martin Jahnke, is free on bail until his trial in June on charges of disturbing public order.
NEW YORK - Saying he was “deeply sorry and ashamed,” Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty Thursday to pulling off perhaps the biggest swindle in Wall Street history and was immediately led off to jail in handcuffs to the applause of his seething victims in the courtroom.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin denied bail for Madoff, 70, and ordered him to jail, noting that he had the means to flee and an incentive to do so because of his age.
Madoff earlier spoke softly but firmly to the judge as he pleaded guilty to 11 charges in his first public comments about his crimes since the scandal broke in early December.
“I am actually grateful for this opportunity to publicly comment about my crimes, for which I am deeply sorry and ashamed,” he said.
“As the years went by, I realized my risk and this day would inevitably come. I cannot adequately express how sorry I am for my crimes.”
Madoff did not look at any of the three investors who spoke at the hearing, even when one turned in his direction and tried to address him.
The fraud, which prosecutors say may have totaled nearly $65 billion, turned a revered money man into an overnight global disgrace whose name became synonymous with the current economic meltdown.
Madoff described his crimes after he entered a guilty plea to all 11 counts he was charged with, including fraud, perjury, theft from an employee benefit plan, and two counts of international money laundering.
He told the judge that he believed the fraud would be short-term and that he could extricate himself.
Prosecutors say the disgraced financier, who has spent three months under house arrest in his $7 million in Manhattan penthouse, could face a maximum sentence of 150 years in prison at sentencing.
The plea came three months after the FBI claimed Madoff admitted to his sons that his once-revered investment fund was all a big lie — a Ponzi scheme that was in the billions of dollars. Since his arrest in December, the scandal has turned the 70-year-old former Nasdaq chairman into a pariah who has worn a bulletproof vest to court.
The scheme evaporated life fortunes, wiped out charities and apparently pushed at least two investors to commit suicide. Victims big and small were swindled by Madoff, from elderly Florida retirees to actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel.
After arguments began on whether Madoff should remain free on bail, his lawyer Ira Sorkin described the bail conditions and how Madoff had, “at his wife’s own expense,” paid for private security at his $7 million penthouse.
Loud laughter erupted among some of the more than 100 spectators crammed into the large courtroom on the 24th floor of the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan. The judge warned the spectators to remain silent.
George Nierenberg, the first of the three investors to speak, approached the podium glaring at Madoff, then said in the financier’s direction: “I don’t know if you had a chance to turn around and look at the victims.”
At the hint of a confrontation, a marshal sitting behind Madoff stood up, and the judge directed Nierenberg to speak directly to the bench.
The plea does not end the Madoff saga: Investigators are still undertaking the daunting task of unraveling how he pulled off the fraud for decades without being caught. They suspect that his family and top lieutenants who helped run his operation from its midtown Manhattan headquarters may have been involved.
Madoff’s plea was absent a cooperation agreement that would have required him to name potential co-conspirators. But in court documents, prosecutors have indicated that low-level employees were in on the scam and may be cooperating.
Court papers say Madoff hired many people with little or no training or experience in the securities industry to serve as a secretive “back office” for his investment advisory business. He generated or had employees generate “tens of thousands of account statements and other documents through the U.S. Postal Service, operating a massive Ponzi scheme,” prosecutors said.
The money was never invested, but was used by Madoff, his business and others, prosecutors said.
Authorities said he confessed to his family that he had carried out a $50 billion fraud. In court documents filed Tuesday, prosecutors raised the size of the fraud to $64.8 billion.
Experts say the actual loss was more likely much less and that higher numbers reflect false profits he promised investors. So far, authorities have located about $1 billion for jilted investors.
In addition to prison time, he said Madoff faces mandatory restitution to victims, forfeiture of ill-gotten gains and criminal fines.
