A day after his release from a New York City jail, Lil Wayne turned up courtside in red baseball cap and long dreadlocks to watch the unbeaten New Orleans Hornets edge the Miami Heat 96-93 on Friday night.
Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Carter Jr, was freed on Thursday after serving eight months in a gun case. Asked how it felt to be back, Wayne told the Times-Picayune: “Like I never left.”
Before his incarceration, the rapper recorded the recently released I Am Not a Human Being, a top debut on Billboard album charts.
Photo: REUTERS
The newspaper said the rapper flew earlier on Friday to Yuma County, Arizona, to check in for a three-year stint of unsupervised probation for a drug conviction.
Authorities said that case will be transferred to Florida, where the New Orleans native now lives.
Not to be outdone by the living the King of Pop is hoping to make a comeback from the grave. Sony Music on Friday released a brief “teaser” of a new Michael Jackson single and insisted that the vocals on an upcoming new album were genuinely those of the late Thriller singer.
But controversy over next month’s album release of Michael was stoked by a representative of Jackson’s father Joe, who said the perfectionist performer would never have wanted his unfinished material to be released.
A short clip on the official michaeljackson.com Web site for Breaking News — a song that Jackson is said to have recorded in 2007 — consisted of TV news soundbites on Jackson’s death in June last year, followed by a faint scream of less than two seconds.
The full song will be released today and Michael will be released on Dec. 14.
The new album is the latest commercial venture by Jackson’s official estate and the first album of new material from the singer since Invincible in 2001.
Sony has declined to say how much production work was done on the album after Jackson’s sudden death from a prescription drug overdose, or how many tracks it contains.
Earlier this week, celebrity Web site TMZ.com said that Jackson’s mother Katherine, and his two eldest children, Prince and Paris, believe that the voice on some of the album tracks is not Michael’s.
But a spokeswoman for Sony’s Epic Records said on Friday that the label has “complete confidence in the results of our extensive research as well as the accounts of those who were in the studio with Michael that the vocals on the new album are his own.”
The Jackson family’s misgivings follow an embarrassing debacle last year when This Is It, a new Jackson single touted as his first posthumous release, turned out to have been first recorded 18 years earlier under a different title by an obscure Puerto Rican singer.
Sony said Breaking News was recorded by Jackson at a friend’s place in New Jersey in 2007 and “recently brought to completion.”
Other tracks were recorded at studios in Las Vegas and Los Angeles with various unidentified collaborators, Sony Music said. At the time of his death, Jackson was reported to be working with hitmakers like R&B star Akon and Lady Gaga collaborator RedOne.
The executors of Jackson’s estate have sanctioned a number of projects to pay off the singer’s debts and to provide for his mother and children. They include a Jackson-themed Cirque du Soleil tour that will open in Montreal next October, and a dance videogame due in stores later this month.
Perhaps Jackson’s spirit isn’t resting well after the latest news from country singer Garth Brooks, who is going to be very busy next month.
Brooks sold more than 140,000 tickets on Saturday morning and his benefit concert for Nashville flood relief ballooned from one show to nine.
A news release says the day’s sales set a record for tickets sold in Tennessee, nearly doubling a concert held by Jackson in Knoxville that drew more than 72,000 fans.
Brooks initially retired about a decade ago to spend more time with his family, but demand for the best-selling solo artist in US history remains high. He came out of retirement late last year, announcing a series of shows in Las Vegas that quickly sold out.
He’ll now play six shows in nine days from Dec. 16 to Dec. 22. Tickets were US$25 apiece.
Former teen idol David Cassidy also made news last week, when he was arrested in Florida on suspicion of drunk driving after police said they found a half empty bottle of whiskey in his car. (Planet Pop assumes the police were pessimists.)
Cassidy, 60 years old, a singer and star of the 1970s TV series The Partridge Family, was spotted weaving in and out of traffic on the highway near Fort Pierce on Wednesday night, according to a report filed by the Florida Highway Patrol.
Police described the singer as unsteady on his feet, said he failed an alcohol breath test, and that they found a half empty bottle of bourbon on the back seat of his Mercedes car.
According to the police report, Cassidy said that he had drunk a glass of wine at lunchtime and that he had taken a painkiller for back pain earlier in the day.
Cassidy was booked for driving under the influence, briefly jailed and released on Thursday morning.
A spokeswoman for Cassidy said the singer had been advised by his lawyer to make no immediate comment. “David would, however, like to assure everyone that he is alright and thank his family, friends and fans for their love and support,” his publicist Jo-Ann Geffen said in a statement.
Cassidy’s long hair and baby face looks made him a worldwide teen heartthrob in the 1970s, with hits like Cherish and I think I Love You.
Since then he has appeared on Broadway, in US stage shows and the occasional movie.
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