Radio Ro Blog

Eminem’s “Recovery” will blast in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart this week with 741,000 sold according to Nielsen SoundScan — the largest sales week for a single album since October 2008, when AC/DC’s “Black Ice” debuted with 784,000 in its first week. “Recovery” is the hip-hop king’s sixth straight No. 1 debut — and sixth overall chart-topper on the Billboard 200. His only set to miss the top spot was his “Slim Shady LP” debut, which bowed and peaked at No. 2 in 1999. Among hip-hop acts with the most No. 1 albums, only Jay-Z has earned more, with 11. “Recovery’s” debut week sales surpasses the first week of Eminem’s last set, “Relapse,” which began at No. 1 in 2009 with 608,000. It also beats the opening of 2005’s “Curtain Call: The Hits” which entered at No. 1 with 441,000 in 2005. Eminem’s new album also wows digitally, as downloads made up 255,000 of its first week. That’s the second-biggest digital week for an album in history. Only Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends” notched a larger frame, when it debuted with 288,000 downloads in the summer of 2008. The only dudes moving units is Em, Pimp Juice, & us… I guess that’s still kind of true if you replace Nelly with Little Wayne. Who else is selling albums like this in hip-hop? Nobody. Think about it. Unless you’re directly affiliated with Jay-z, Eminem, or Lil Wayne the chances of you selling albums on their level is slim to none. There are a handful of exceptions like T.I., well I’m kind of struggling to name anyone else here help me out…

Forbes just put up their annual Celebrity 100 list which ranks your favorite celebrities based on numerous factors including money, web presence, tv presence, and press among other things. This year we see few names in rap to make the list as well as some other very popular/rich celebrities. Here are a few that stood out below: Oprah Winfrey – $315 Million Jay-z – $63 Million Diddy – $30 Million Lil Wayne – $20 Million Akon – $21 Million Beyonce Knowles – $87 Million LeBron James – $43 Million Floyd Mayweather – $65 Million Tiger Woods – $105 Million Kobe Bryant – $48 Million Tyler Perry – $125 Million

As the numbers trickled out about the settlement from Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren’s divorce finalization the grand total of the settlement seemed almost unfathomable. Nordegren is set to receive somewhere in the neighborhood of $750 million. Sure there are kids involved, which entitles Nordegren to a bigger piece of the pie, but $750 million? The Kardashian sisters couldn’t burn $750 million in a lifetime, well, without putting in a pretty hefty effort. Yes, cheating on your wife with numerous women is a very scrupulous thing to do, but even say Tiger cheated on Elin with 75 different women that’s $10 million dollars a pop, which even one of the richest men in America seems a little steep. It would seem fair to have some sort of corollary to what the woman in the failed relationship could actually make in her lifetime, and give her a bump on that, especially, as it is in the case, the guy is at fault for mental distress and what not. Nordegren was a nanny before she met Woods, and it seems pretty unlikely that she was going to clear $750 million, even if she got a job on one of those “Super Nanny” shows. But the law is the law so for one day of his life, at least, it sucks to be Tiger Woods.

Mr. Gore’s in trouble for making an idiot move on a masseuse. An Oregon masseuse filed a complaint last year accusing Al Gore of sexual abuse following a nearly three-hour massage session at an upscale Portland hotel in 2006, reports the Portland Oregonian. The alleged incident took place at the Hotel Lucia Oct. 24, after the masseuse, 54, was called by the hotel to administer a late night massage to a “VIP” client, who was later identified as Gore, 62, the former U.S. Vice President, senator from Tennessee and Nobel Prize-winning advocate for the environment. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office in Portland confirmed Wednesday that the woman reported unwanted sexual contact by Gore to police in 2006, and the prosecutor’s office was briefed by the Portland Police Bureau in late 2006 and January 2007. “We were told the woman was not willing to be interviewed by the Portland Police Bureau and did not want a criminal investigation to proceed,” Multnomah County D.A. Michael Schrunk said. The woman was reportedly considering suing Gore before last month approaching the National Enquirer, asking for $1 million for her story. The unidentified woman, who has been a masseuse for 12 years, filed the accusations Jan. 8, 2009, alleging Gore, who checked into the hotel as Mr. Stone and was 30 minutes late for his 10:30 p.m. in-room appointment, sexually assaulted her in his hotel room by forcing repeated, unwanted sexual touches. “He pleaded, groped me, grabbed me, engulfed me in embrace, tongue kissed me, massaged me, grabbed my breasts,” the woman says in her detailed complaint to Portland police officers and posted by the Fox 12 Oregon TV station. At one point, she says Gore pinned her down, resulting in an injury to her left leg and knee, and which required medical care for several months. Gore, she says, was so persistent that she called him a “sex-crazed poodle” for being “out of control.” The woman, who says she notified two friends following Gore’s alleged groping, also saved the black pants she wore after discovering stains following the session. Since the alleged incident, the masseuse says she has been traumatized, has trouble sleeping at night, and that her work has been “more stressful and frightening since the incident.” She is also seeing a specialized counselor. The woman, who did not respond to several attempted follow-up interviews with police, revealed in the complaint that she grappled with her decision to come forward – even consulting with attorneys – but ultimately decided to do so to protect other women who may have experienced the same trauma. She told detectives she only wanted “justice” and that her complaint was not an attempt to receive money. Gore family spokeswoman Kalee Kreider told the Oregonian that the former Vice President has no comment regarding the allegations. After 40 years of marriage, Gore and his wife, Tipper, announced their separation June 1. The Gores also had no comment for PEOPLE.

Apparently Beanie Sigel is a little upset that Drake let Jay-Z get on his “Light Up” track and take a few subliminal shots at Beans & Roc-A-fella. Beanie is taking a page out of the Tupac & 50 Cent handbook by going at the friends of their enemies. He’s on some “Hit Em Up” shit.

Amber Rose admits that Kanye saved her: Kanye West’s on/off love interest Amber Rose has recently opened about her relationship with the controversial rapper and how he “saved her life”. Despite all the fame around her being known as Kanye’s girlfriend, the model claims that she doesn’t view herself as a celeb. She told YRB Magazine: “Honestly, Kanye saved my life, and I don’t even think about what I would have been. I just think about what I’m going be… I don’t look at myself as a celebrity. I’m just a dope chick from South Philly! I mean, it’s crazy when fans come up to me and cry and just want a hug from me.’” Source

Lil Boosie (real name Torrance Hatch) is no stranger to trouble with the law. Already incarcerated for probation violation on drug and gun charges, the Trill Entertainment rapper and two associates (one of them only 17 years old) were indicted on first-degree murder charges by a grand jury on Thursday, June 17. The men are accused of being involved in the shooting of 35-year-old Terry Boyd in his own house in October. District attorney Hiler Moore stated that the killing seemed to be “over turf” and that if Lil Boosie is convicted the death penalty is not out of the question. The same day, Hatch was also indicted on multiple drug and conspiracy charges for smuggling large amounts of codeine, ecstasy and marijuana into prison with intent to distribute. His girlfriend, a prison guard and a fellow inmate were also charged as co-conspirators. In addition to these charges, prosecutors believe the 27-year-old rapper may have been involved in at least five other slayings. “I’m innocent,” said the rapper when asked if he has anything to say to his fans. However, his lyrics indicate otherwise. The track “I Know” carries violent and aggressive messages, such as, “So put yo fist up in yo pockets and them bullets in the chamber” and “I’m itchin to kill, gimme a reason I will. I’ll end up grippin a steal.” Boosie was in the midst of releasing his last album, “Superbad: The Return of Boosie Bad Azz,” during his last set of legal troubles, but a follow-up may be a long time in coming. Source

Eminem recently had an interview with The New York Times. (It’s worth reading.) Here it is: On your new album, “Recovery,” which comes out on Monday, you assume a confessional tone and back off from the misogyny and demented violence you pushed in your earlier work. Would you agree? I think I’d have to go back and listen to it. Did I? Do you regret having written so many songs that refer to women as “bitches” and “hos” who exist solely for your pleasure? Anything I’ve ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time. But I think I’ve calmed down a bit. My overall look on things is a lot more mature than it used to be. Even your mother sued you for defamation. Is she still in Detroit, where she raised you as a single mom? I’m not sure, to be honest. It’d be very hard to repair that relationship. You’ve been accused of writing gay-bashing lyrics in the past. Would you like to see gay marriage approved in Michigan, where you live? I think if two people love each other, then what the hell? I think that everyone should have the chance to be equally miserable, if they want. Compared with other rappers, you are often praised for your complex rhyme schemes. Do you read poetry? I don’t think I’ve ever read poetry, ever. I’m not really book-smart. What does the title of your album refer to? What exactly are you recovering from? Vicodin, Valium and Ambien, and toward the end, which caused my overdose, methadone. I didn’t know it was methadone. I used to get pills wherever I could.I was just taking anything that anybody was giving to me. Where did you go to rehab? The first time I went it was in Brighton, Mich. The second time I didn’t go to rehab. I just went to a regular hospital. I detoxed in the hospital, and then I came home. I couldn’t go back to rehab. I felt like I was Bugs Bunny in rehab. What does that mean? When Bugs Bunny walks into rehab, people are going to turn and look. People at rehab were stealing my hats and pens and notebooks and asking for autographs. I couldn’t concentrate on my problem. Billboard magazine has ranked you as the best-selling artist of the past decade.What do you do with all your money? Save it. I save a lot of money by not buying drugs anymore. I invest. I always try to be smart. I try to treat all the money I’m making like it’s the last time I’m going to make it. Why haven’t you planned any kind of big tour for your new album,other than two concerts with Jay-Z in September? Touring is hard on the body.It used to be a big trigger for me with drinking and drugging. How do you stay sober? My kids, and also I see a rehab counselor once a week. I’ve been clean for two years. Happy Father’s Day, by the way. As a divorced father of three daughters, are you a good dad? Yes. My kids — I love them so much, and they’ve helped me through so many things. I wonder what they’ll think of your rousing new song,“W.T.P.,” which stands for a white-trash party. You tell the listener, “Hop in my minivan/let’s get rowdy.” Just going back to my white-trash roots.

There is something better than being in Oprah’s audience for her annual Favourite Things episode: working for her magazine, O. The queen of all media (and swag giveaways) had a gift for staff at her lifestyle mag: $10,000 US plus an iPad. “As a thank-you for their hard work and dedication, Oprah Winfrey surprised staff of O with an iPad and a cheque for $10,000 to commemorate the magazine’s 10th anniversary,” a representative of O told Reuters. It’s unknown how many O staffers scored a bonus, but through this gesture, the world now knows Winfrey’s love for the written word isn’t just reflected in her book club suggestions, — it can also be expressed through cold, hard cash. Considering her fortune is estimated by Forbes to be in the area of $2.3 billion, perhaps she can keep paying her word-love forward by, say, buying a few struggling magazines (we hear Newsweek is available). Source

A free outdoor show in New York City featuring Drake and Hanson was shut down when a crowd of nearly 20,000 fans became too much to control, PopEater reports. Organizers of the concert, which was presented by Paper magazine, had expected 10,000 or so people to gather at Manhattan’s South Street Seaport for the evening show. But as police told PopEater, nearly twice that number crammed themselves into the outdoor venue. In the crush, six people incurred minor injuries, PopEater reports. And some fans reportedly scaled buildings and began smashing bottles from the rooftops. Police were called to the scene by concert organizers around 7 p.m. — an hour after the concert’s opening act took the stage. Source

But there is one person that has yet to jump aboard the seemingly unstoppable Drake train: Andre 3000. “I really tried to do a song with Andre 3000, but I think it was meant for my second album,” Drake told VIBE on the eve of his release date. “Dre is one of those people that needs you to do a little more. He’s one of those people that believe in his craft so much that he needs you to do more than just be over hyped or just famous. In his mind, I have to prove myself and the truth is, I do. That’s just being real. I have a lot of work to do, so I actually respect him for that. I think on the second album I’ll probably only have two features. I have a few people in mind and Dre probably will be one of them.”

Denzel Washington has won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for “Fences.” It was his first Tony nomination and win. The play by American playwright August Wilson is set in the fifties and the sixth in Wilson’s ten-part Pittsburgh Cycle. The drama delves into the evolving African-American experience and examines the many layers of race relations. The show is the first Broadway revival of the play and opened at the Cort Theatre in on April 26, 2010 in a limited 13-week engagement. The Kenny Leon-directed show starred Washington as Troy Maxson and Viola Davis (who also won a leading actress Tony tonight) as his wife Rose. In 1987, the play earned the playwright Wilson the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and James Earl Jones won a Tony Award for Best Actor during its initial run. Source

Kid Cudi was arrested after an argument in a woman’s New York City apartment. The 26-year-old rapper, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, yanked the woman’s door off the hinges and smashed her cell phone against a wall, police told the New York Daily News. Cudi was charged with possession of a controlled substance and felony criminal mischief. The backpack rapper — a native of Cleveland — released his debut album Man on the Moon: The End of Day in 2009. He also co-stars on the HBO cable television comedy series How to Make It in America.

Fiddy is at it again!! In a recent interview, 50 Cent has called out Diddy, saying “his music sucks right now.” and “Nobody is buying his CD.” In addition to Diddy, Fiddy also weighed in on the Lil Kim and Nicki Minaj beef. “I think it’s other things irritating Kim outside of Nicki Minaj, just having momentum of new artists doesn’t offend artists that have established themselves long before that,” 50 Cent said in an interview with radio personality Lady La. “It’s obvious that she was inspired by some of Kim’s [rhymes], but that’s not bad. And it’s not a whole lot of female artists that you can make reference to so you’ll see those little influences even stronger and I think she’s hot, she’s got a good little thing going on right now as far as Nicki Minaj is concerned. I think it’s probably a little more irritating to see Puffy standing next to Nicki and for him to say that Ross reminds him of Biggie, because that’s desperation on his part because his music sucks right now. It’s the truth. It’s bad, so he’s gotta try and stay next to something else that has some momentum for him to be all right — from a business perspective, it seems like a cool move but not a cool move for hip-hop.”

In a recent interview with the NY Times, rapper Drake speaks on feeling unsafe in his own home and being used by Rihanna… In May 2009 he was robbed at gunpoint in a Toronto restaurant. He cooperated with the police investigation, in what some perceived as a violation of hip-hop’s no-snitching ethos. “I feel unsafe in Toronto at all times,” Drake said. “I’m a one of one. There’s no one else you can hate as much as me if you hate money, or you hate success.” On “Fireworks” there’s a verse about Rihanna, who asked him last year to write a song for her new album. “I was a pawn,” Drake said. The song he wrote for her never got released. “You know what she was doing to me? She was doing exactly what I’ve done to so many women throughout my life, which is show them quality time, then disappear,” he said. “I was like, wow, this feels terrible.”

BET has just confirmed that Kanye West will be making a return to this years BET awards. This will be his first award show appearance since the Taylor Swift incident at last years MTV Video Music Awards. Sorry to interrupt you Kanye…. but that was the most talked about award show disruption of all time fam, of all time…. even the President had an opinion on it. Hopefully he has some kind of ground breaking live performance planned that will have everybody in awe.

Slim Thug on Black Relationships: -”The way Black people think in general is messed up. Both men and women need to change their way of thinking. It’s hard to trust a Black woman [sometimes] because a lot of Black women’s mind frame is that the man gotta do everything for her⎯ he gotta pay for this, he gotta pay for that, and if it ain’t about money then a lot of them ain’t fucking with him. If that’s what you’re here for then I don’t want to be with you.” -”Most single Black women feel like they don’t want to settle for less. Their standards are too high right now. They have to understand that successful Black men are kind of extinct. We’re important. It’s hard to find us so Black women have to bow down and let it be known that they gotta start working hard; they gotta start cooking and being down for they man more. They can’t just be running around with their head up in the air and passing all of us.” -”I have a brother that dates a White woman and he always be fucking with me about it saying, “Y’all gotta go through all that shit [but] my White woman is fine. She don’t give me no problems, she do whatever I say and y’all gotta do all that arguing and fighting and worry about all this other shit.” -”My girl is Black and White. I guess the half White in her is where she still cooks and do all the shit that I say, so we make it. She just takes care of me and I like that. She don’t be begging and I don’t gotta buy her all this crazy ass shit. And she’s a smart girl too. She graduated from Columbia [University] and I like that about her so it’s cool. I’ve dated girls that will buy a $3,000 bag and don’t know how to pay it off on their credit cards. They walk around in these Louis Vuittons and red bottoms but they’re riding around in raggedy cars, so it’s just getting your priorities right.” -”White women treat they man like a king and Black women feel like they ain’t gotta do that shit. Black women need to stand by their man more. Don’t always put the pressure of if I’m fucking with you, you gotta buy me this and that. Black men are the ones that motherfuckers need [but] I think a lot of them need to step it up too. A Black man who gets a little bread will go make it rain in the club and be broke the next day or instead of him going to invest in a business he gonna go buy new jewelry or a new car and still live in the hood. Black peoples’ mentality is real fucked up in general [and] it’s affecting everything.” - “Black women need to be more genuine and be more 50/50 [but] It should be a fair exchange in a relationship period or eventually somebody is gonna feel like they’re getting fucked over whether it’s the woman or the man. I think that will help Black relationships out a lot.”

Drake and Nicki Minaj recently performed in Hartford CT for 93.7’s Hot Jam. Drake had a few things to say about the Lil Kim/Nicki beef: “I know you be calling women b*tches in sh*t but I can’t say you the baddest b*tch. I can’t do that because I respect you, I love you too much and you look too beautiful. So I just wanna say you the baddest WOMAN to do this rap sh*t. I don’t give a f*ck what Lil’ Kim or nobody else is talkin about, you’re tha baddest chick to ever do this sh*t! ” Nicki turned around laughing, then came back and hugged him. He told her “I love you.” Then he left the stage.

Rumors are swirling that a reported Nicki Minaj and Lil Kim beef is brewing especially after a recent Queen Bee concert. Lil Kim performed in Buffalo, New York Wednesday and got tongues wagging when she took off one of her trademark wigs and said, “I’m going to another level. I love the wigs and everything but I’m so above this. I’m so above this…I’ll be back!” While it’s debatable whether that was a subliminal diss to Minaj, Nicki’s response was more direct. She took to her Twitter around the time the video started circulating to say, “Raise ya hand if u don’t have 2 diss ppl to feel better about urself. Jealousy is a disease. It kills @ a fast pace. Kisses 2 my bad b*tches.” Source

The is-she or isn’t-she speculation is over. RadarOnline.com can exclusively confirm Mariah Carey is pregnant! The 40-year-old pop diva recently dropped out of her next film gig — a role in Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf — fueling rumors that she’s pregnant. Now a source close to Mariah and husband Nick Cannon tells RadarOnline.com the couple — who renewed their vows to celebrate their second anniversary in May — are expecting their first child. “They’re both very excited and very happy,” dished our insider. When contacted, Mariah’s longtime rep Cindi Berger gave RadarOnline.com a rather cryptic comment. “I’m not at liberty to discuss Mariah’s personal life at this time,” the publicist told RadarOnline.com, a statement that did not outwardly deny the pregnancy. Said our insider: “Mariah and Nick want to keep the pregnancy quiet as long as they can.” Which could explain why Mariah never got out of her Rolls Royce convertible during a road trip with Nick along the Malibu coastline on Saturday. She was hiding a baby bump! Mariah and Nick got married in 2008, after knowing each other only six weeks, at the songstress’ private island in the Bahamas.