The straight dope on what's going on in Hip-Hop, Media and Entertainment

Aug 26, 2003

Lawyers for Beanie Sigel have submitted a proposal seeking to enter the rapper into a drug and psychological counseling center.

The request came after U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick rejected a $1 million dollar bail package that would have freed Sigel until his trial for attempted murder.

Surrick gave the attorney's until tomorrow to submit an adequate formal treatment proposal to keep the rapper from behind bars.


Sigel has been in Federal custody for a month. He faces Federal weapon and drug charges stemming from an April incident, when he allegedly tossed a loaded handgun during a foot chase with police.

He was also charged with attempted murder in July, after he allegedly shot a man in the stomach and foot outside of a Philadelphia bar.

Sigel denies the charges, saying that he was present before the incident took place.

____________________________________
A California State appellate court upheld a $5.5 million dollar judgment against Death Row Records, in regard to a lawsuit filed by Kurupt's former managers.

Lamont and Kenneth Brumfield filed the lawsuit against the label, claiming that the label conspired to steal the artist and cheat them out of significant royalties.

The initial ruling in April awarded the Brumfield's $14 million, which the judged reduced.

Knight was also hit with a lawsuit by a California law firm, alleging that the imprisoned mogul fraudulently sold or gave away four properties in the Los Angeles area, to avoid paying almost $142,000 a judge ordered him to pay the firm.


Knight has been incarcerated since June 27. He was found guilty of violating his parole for striking a Hollywood area parking valet.
________________________________________
Ice Cube will executive produce and star in a new film, "Willie."

Casting has started on the drama, which is based on the true story of Willie Davis, who served as a full time janitor of Louisiana's Arthur Smith Junior High and was also the school's basketball coach.

Davis led the team to three district championships, touted an impressive 101-21 record and all of his starters earned straight A report cards.

Davis, who has been featured on HBO and in Sports Illustrated, is seeking to earn his college degree.

With the help of a donation from an unknown philanthropist who was moved by his story on HBO, Davis returned to college and has started started taking courses through Northwestern State University's Internet studies program.

"Willie" is the first of several films Ice Cube will produce under a deal between his Cube Vision productions and Revolution Studios.

Cube will also produce two other films under the deal with Revolution, the action film "Clash" and the roadtrip comedy "Are We There Yet?"

Filming for "Willie" starts in the fall.

____________________________________
"The question is, are you ready?" Alicia Keys, looking into a video camera, asked of her fans last month in New York. After taking photos for her new album both in front of and behind a piano, the singer was bubbling over with enthusiasm for her project, due November 18.

"My excitement level is through the roof right now," she gushed. "I came off the road, I had an amazing time on the road. I've been able to sit in the studio and get everything out of me as I've been hearing it and I'm excited about the new stuff. We're about to do it again."

A few weeks ago, Keys was very secretive about a collaboration on her album with two MCs who have never rhymed on a track together. Since the song has recently hit mixtapes and the radio, we now know the track is called "Streets of N.Y." and that the rappers whose identity she didn't want to reveal are Nas and Rakim. According to her manager Jeff Robinson, the cat wasn't supposed to be let out of the bag so soon.

"Somebody leaked that record out," Robinson said earlier this week. "Now that it's out, we're supporting it, but it's not her single.

"It was a collective wish list," he continued of the dream pairing of Rakim and Nas. "We were like, 'It would be dope if we could get Nas to come back on this record.' And at the time we were talking to Rakim's people. Then we were like, 'What if we put both of them together? The God and God's Son.' That's never been done before. If you gonna go New York, these are the two guys to do a New York anthem. I feel Rakim took it back. He got a burst of energy from 1989 or whatever."

On the record, Rakim gives his poetic words of wisdom, while Nas kicks his futuristic raps, comparing himself to Saddam Hussein "looking at his dead children's burnt remains."

"He [recorded his lyrics] way before Saddam's sons were killed," Robinson explained. "That's what made it ill. He was predicting."

As for what will be the first single, scheduled to drop at the end of September, Robinson said that's not such an easy decision.

"This new album is chock-full of singles," he said. "The choices [for a first single] are really hard. She's still creating songs. We're going to wait until she gets these last couple of mixes in then we'll all sit down and decide the single."

"Personally for me I don't want to be stuck in one box," Keys added about her LP, which still hasn't been named. "I wanna always spread my wings. That's how the songs on the album are. Every song on the album is a growth in some way. Even if it's something as simple as vocally. I feel my vocal growth is definitely something I've experienced. Seeing different places broadened my mind, seeing how people are so much alike. There's growth in my keys, my experimentation on sounds."

Besides Nas and Rakim, Keys also worked with Stokley Williams from Mint Condition, Dwayne Wiggins, Easy Mo Bee and Kanye West. She laid her tracks in the Big Apple.

"This is my home, this my place, this is where I live," Keys said about her hometown. "This is where I record. Everything I do, I stay planted in my home base. I got a New York state of mind, always."

Keys won't be staying planted in NYC for too much longer. She's scheduled to start performing in various cities at the beginning of October.

There may also be some movie projects on the horizon for the Grammy-winning songstress. Robinson said that Keys turned down several scripts in the past year because she wanted to concentrate on making her album before venturing off into Tinseltown. Now that she's just about done recording, she's a little more open to Hollywood.

Robinson has a few side projects coming up as well. There's a showcase for new and established singers he and his MBK Entertainment company put on in New York every month called R&B Live, where such luminaries as Keys, Macy Gray, Stephanie Mills, Vivian Green, Carl Thomas, Jermaine Dupri and Janet Jackson have either been onstage or in the audience. Robinson's also putting out a couple of new acts soon: an all-male group of 19-year-olds called Focus, which he likens to Mint Condition, and a male singer named Shawn Caine, whom he compares to Sam Cooke.