Laden - Contributed
Upcoming dancehall artiste Laden says he is grateful for the exposure 'Digicel Rising Stars' gave him, but believes Big Ship Records is the major force behind his career.
Laden, whose real name is Okeefe Aarons, went by the name Jim Laden when he placed eighth in DigicelRising Stars in 2006. He says Rising Stars gave him a lot of exposure.
"It did a lot for me. Rising Stars gave me crazy promotion on TV, 24/7, doing my original stuff and people loving it. The name Laden, people can identify who it is," he told THE STAR.
After his stint on Rising Stars, he went to Montego Bay but realised that the area was not ideal for a career in music. From there, he moved to Kingston and started working at Shocking Vibes Limited. At Shocking Vibes, he recorded Gone A Lead on the Canta Rhythm and the theme song for World Cup 2007 with Devonte.
He started visiting Big Ship Records, where he says he made connections. In addition, he says they realised that he had potential. Soon after, he recorded Gal Coward on Stephen McGregor's Daybreak rhythm.
"I voice dat song when ah sick. I know keys and I can hold my notes, so I don't need auto-tune. I was hungry for it, so I bleach at the studio. I record it about three in the morning."
He added, "Right now, Big Ship is everything to my career. I have been recording songs for several producers and dem naah release dem. Stephen voice, mix and promote mi song dem as well."
With his signature intro, 'It's Laden ... What's going on', Laden has other songs that were done with Big Ship. These include, Don't You Like It, Do Your Thing, Really Like You and I'm Sorry, for which there is also a music video.
He says there are no immediate plans for an album but he is working on material to get his name known in the dancehall. While this is the case, he says he will not resort to violent lyrics.
"Yuh notice seh yuh nuh hear no gun tune so far. Wi jus' a try stay far from dat. I will be singing about the ladies all the time but no negative music," said Laden.
The 16th annual European reggae festival will be taking place once again from July 2nd to the 11th 2009 in Italy. 
Cold*lo**ed Crooner
Don't let that happy-go-lucky chubby exterior fool you, T-Pain don't play that! The Tallahassee tunesmith recently revealed his stone cold side in an interview with Blender:
"There's one [song] called 'Havoc.' It's a true story about when I got my chain snatched in New York the night before my first album dropped," T-Pain recalled. "Somebody snuck a gun in the club and stuck it in my stomach, but I wasn't going to give my chain up - it was my first chain. He pushed me back and as I was fallin' he snatched the chain and ran out the club. It was pretty weird. It's such an in-depth story, it's like a 5 minute song."
T-Pain hinted he may have resorted to deadly means to recover his chain, but eventually got the jewelry back. "He stole it to sell back to me ... but I didn't buy it back," the singer revealed. When Blender inquired whether the thief was still breathing, Pain's ominous reply was, "No, he's not alive."
Rebel Talking... T-Pain probably took the voicebox out and Auto-Tuned ol' boy to death.
We've seen Nelly and Travis Barker do it successfully, while others like Young Buck and Andre 3000 didn't do so well...
Either way, nothing seems to be slowing down the launch of clothing lines by various celebrities.
As they are popping up everywhere these days, are there any that you have found especially appealing or disappointing?
When the DrJays.com staff met with T.I. at Akoo's official launch party in NYC, he told us that he does not want the success of his line to solely rely on his name and fame.
He wants it to continue to stand alone as a hot, sought after brand and is willing to get his own hands dirty to achieve that.
While T.I. sounds like he is pretty involved with his brand, do you think too many celebs are just eager to make some extra cash, resulting in clothing that doesn't accurately reflect their own style?
From the stars who haven't jumped on the clothing line bandwagon just yet, which one do you think would have the hottest brand? It could be someone who has it in the works already, or has not mentioned it at all.
Amy Whinehouse loves St-Lucia so much that not only does she want to live there, she also wants to become the mother of a St-Lucian child!They made the discovery while Artyom Sidorkin, 28, from Russia, was undergoing surgery, the Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
He had been complaining of extreme pain in his chest and had been coughing up *lo** and his doctors suspected cancer.
"I blinked three times and thought I was seeing things," surgeon Vladimir Kamashev told the paper.
Medical staff believe Sidorkin had somehow inhaled a seed, which later sprouted inside his lung.
The spruce, which was touching the man's capillaries and causing severe pain, was removed.
"It was very painful. But to be honest I did not feel any foreign object inside me," Mr Sidorkin said.
When Resident Magistrate Glen Brown asked Regina Lewis who was charged with malicious destruction of property why she broke a glass at the offices of the Ministry of Health in Kingston, her response left the Corporate Area RM Court in both shock and stitches.
"Your Honour mi go round deh wid a man fi sell him a sex," she said. "Him neva waan pay me so mi fling a stone afta him and it bruk the glass, Your Honour."
The unkempt woman was not the least bothered by the laughter and gasps that met her response in court yesterday. She stood in the dock looking nonchalant for the most part.
RM Glen Brown handed down a 30-day sentence on Lewis for the charge.
If you look at the video, Movado was in no way trying to energize the crowd at Rip The Runway, having people such as myself wondering if he got nervous. And what's going on with singing the entire song similarly to the album version? Shouldn't he have mixed it up a little? Thought that was the purpose of a live perfomance... but anyways... Big up to Movado!!!! That was a great accomplishment.
here's the video and tell me some of your thoughts on it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P_BO2p5tro
With their flowing blonde hair, hourglass figures and slender, toned legs, they could easily pass for twins. Both look fabulous in their matching polka dot dresses and, as Janet and Jane Cunliffe happily recount, potential boyfriends often struggle to tell them apart.
Hardly surprising, as both weigh in at 8st and, save for a couple of inches in height (at 5ft 6in, Jane is two inches taller) and different eye colours (Jane's are brown, Janet's are blue) they are virtually identical.
But Janet and Jane are not twins. They aren't even sisters. They are mother and daughter. And, in what many will see as a depressing indictment of today's youth-obsessed society, Janet confesses to having spent more than £10,000 on plastic surgery in a desperate effort to bridge the 22-year age gap between herself and her daughter.
KINGSTON - Representatives of some hospitals revealed that more men have been fracturing their penises in recent months than any other time in Jamaica.
Checks with urologists in some of the country's major hospitals have revealed that the "noticeable increase" in the number of cases where men fracture their members is largely attributed to the men's obsession with daggerin', aka rough sex.
While promising to send data regarding to the increase in the cases at a later date, one urologist from the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) said he had treated, on average, some two cases of penile fracture each month, counting from December 2008.
"We've noticed an increase," the doctor said.
Facebook users have lower overall grades than non-users, according to a survey of college students who also ironically said the social networking site does not interfere with studying.
That disconnect between perception and reality does not necessarily mean that Facebook leads to less studying and worse grades -- the grades association could be caused by something else. However, it does raise more questions about how students spend their time outside class on activities such as Facebook, part-time jobs and extracurricular activities.
"I'm just saying that there's some kind of relationship there, and there's many third variables that need to be studied," said Aryn Karpinski, an education researcher at Ohio State University.
Her study found that Facebook user GPAs were in the 3.0 to 3.5 range on average, compared to 3.5 to 4.0 for non-users. Facebook users also studied anywhere from one to five hours per week, compared to non-users who studied 11 to 15 or more hours per week.
Farm manager Ben Nyaumbe was working at the weekend when the serpent, apparently hunting for livestock, struck in the Malindi area of Kenya's Indian Ocean coast.
'I stepped on a spongy thing on the ground and suddenly my leg was entangled with the body of a huge python,' he told the Daily Nation newspaper.
When the snake coiled itself round his upper body, Nyaumbe resorted to desperate measures: 'I had to bite it.'
The python dragged him up a tree, but when it eased its grip, Nyaumbe said he was able to take a mobile phone out of his pocket and phone for help.
When his supervisor came with a policeman, Nyaumbe smothered the snake's head with his shirt, while the rescuers tied it with a rope and pulled.
'We both came down, landing with a thud,' said Nyaumbe, who survived with damaged lips and bruising.
The snake, meanwhile, escaped from the three sacks its captors attempted to put it into.
The man is believed to be in his mid-twenties, dark-skinned, medium build and about 175 centimetres tall.
The police say he was wearing a green long-sleeved shirt, dark green pants and black shoes.
Snatched
Reports are that about 8 p.m., a woman was walking along the roadway when the man snatched her bag and ran.
The woman raised an alarm and persons gave chase.
He was held, beaten and stabbed several times.
The police were called and the injured man taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Ivonete Pereira, 58, was shot in the chest by one of two attackers who tried to rob the bus in Salvador, capital of the northeastern state of Bahia.
But she was saved by coiled notes worth 150 reals (around £45) tucked away inside the left side of her bra.
Ms Pereira had stowed the cash away as she knew the buses were a repeat target for robbers.
She had been travelling to her summer home in the nearby town of Lauro de Freitas when the attack happened.
When the bus passed through the Boca do Rio neighborhood, the robbers suddenly struck.
A shootout ensued with a police officer on the scene, during which a stray bullet hit Ms Pereira.
Her bra was stuffed with just enough cash to absorb most of the impact, although she still had to be taken to hospital to have the bullet removed.
A retired sergeant was killed during the shooting with the assailants, who managed to escape.
The unnamed couple, a 28-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman, were caught in the act late on Easter Sunday by traffic police on the E18 highway, some 25 miles west of Oslo.Officers who clocked the couple's silver Mazda 323 racing at 133 kilometres per hour in a 100 zone realised they were doing more than just breaking the speed limit, police told AFP.
"It was veering from one side to the other because the woman was sitting on the man's lap while he was driving and doing the act, shall we say," said Tor Stein Hagen, a superintendent with Soendre Buskerund district police.
"He couldn't see much because her back was in the way," he added.
"Why they did it on a highway with such a high risk we don't know."
After following the couple for nearly a kilometre, officers pulled the car over at a service station.
"We have taken away his driving licence because of the danger that he caused," Mr Hagen said.
Prosecutors will decide within the next week what his punishment will be, with police having filmed the incident to use as evidence against the driver.
Mr Hagen said he expected the man to face a fine of "several thousand Norwegian crowns" and a lengthy driving ban.
The US President is weak, the Spanish leader is dim, the German Chancellor is clinging on to Frances coat-tails and the head of the European Commission is irrelevant.
That, at any rate, is the world according to President Sarkozy, who has spent the week airing his unvarnished opinions of Barack Obama and an array of international politicians abruptly ending Frances honeymoon with the US and needling Washington on several strategic issues.
In the latest in a stream of accounts from the Élysée Palace, Mr Sarkozy was quoted yesterday as telling an all-party group of MPs that Mr Obama was inexperienced and indecisive. Obama has a subtle mind, very clever and very charismatic, the French President said. But he was elected two months ago and had never run a ministry. There are a certain number of things on which he has no position. And he is not always up to standard on decision-making and efficiency.
U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.
Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.
Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.
As part of its ongoing PharmaWater investigation about trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, AP identified 22 compounds that show up on two lists: the EPA monitors them as industrial chemicals that are released into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water under federal pollution laws, while the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as active pharmaceutical ingredients.
The data don't show precisely how much of the 271 million pounds comes from drugmakers versus other manufacturers; also, the figure is a massive undercount because of the limited federal government tracking.
To date, drugmakers have dismissed the suggestion that their manufacturing contributes significantly to what's being found in water. Federal drug and water regulators agree.
But some researchers say the lack of required testing amounts to a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy about whether drugmakers are contributing to water pollution.
"It doesn't pass the straight-face test to say pharmaceutical manufacturers are not emitting any of the compounds they're creating," said Kyla Bennett, who spent 10 years as an EPA enforcement officer before becoming an ecologist and environmental attorney.
Pilot studies in the U.S. and abroad are now confirming those doubts.
Last year, the AP reported that trace amounts of a wide range of pharmaceuticals including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones have been found in American drinking water supplies. Including recent findings in Dallas, Cleveland and Maryland's Prince George's and Montgomery counties, pharmaceuticals have been detected in the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans.
Most cities and water providers still do not test. Some scientists say that wherever researchers look, they will find pharma-tainted water.
Consumers are considered the biggest contributors to the contamination. We consume drugs, then excrete what our bodies don't absorb. Other times, we flush unused drugs down toilets. The AP also found that an estimated 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and contaminated packaging are thrown away each year by hospitals and long-term care facilities.
Researchers have found that even extremely diluted concentrations of drugs harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs. Some scientists say they are increasingly concerned that the consumption of c****inations of many drugs, even in small amounts, could harm humans over decades.
Utilities say the water is safe. Scientists, doctors and the EPA say there are no confirmed human risks associated with consuming minute concentrations of drugs. But those experts also agree that dangers cannot be ruled out, especially given the emerging research.
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Two common industrial chemicals that are also pharmaceuticals the antiseptics phenol and hydrogen peroxide account for 92 percent of the 271 million pounds identified as coming from drugmakers and other manufacturers. Both can be toxic and both are considered to be ubiquitous in the environment.
However, the list of 22 includes other troubling releases of chemicals that can be used to make drugs and other products: 8 million pounds of the skin bleaching cream hydroquinone, 3 million pounds of nicotine compounds that can be used in quit-smoking patches, 10,000 pounds of the antibiotic tetracycline hydrochloride. Others include treatments for head lice and worms.
Residues are often released into the environment when manufacturing equipment is cleaned.
A small fraction of pharmaceuticals also leach out of landfills where they are dumped. Pharmaceuticals released onto land include the chemo agent fluorouracil, the epilepsy medicine phenytoin and the sedative pentobarbital sodium. The overall amount may be considerable, given the volume of what has been buried 572 million pounds of the 22 monitored drugs since 1988.
In one case, government data shows that in Columbus, Ohio, pharmaceutical maker Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane Inc. discharged an estimated 2,285 pounds of lithium carbonate which is considered slightly toxic to aquatic invertebrates and freshwater fish to a local wastewater treatment plant between 1995 and 2006. Company spokeswoman Marybeth C. McGuire said the pharmaceutical plant, which uses lithium to make drugs for bipolar disorder, has violated no laws or regulations. McGuire said all the lithium discharged, an annual average of 190 pounds, was lost when residues stuck to mixing equipment were washed down the drain.
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Pharmaceutical company officials point out that active ingredients represent profits, so there's a huge incentive not to let any escape. They also say extremely strict manufacturing regulations albeit aimed at other chemicals help prevent leakage, and that whatever traces may get away are handled by onsite wastewater treatment.
"Manufacturers have to be in compliance with all relevant environmental laws," said Alan Goldhammer, a scientist and vice president at the industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Goldhammer conceded some drug residues could be released in wastewater, but stressed "it would not cause any environmental issues because it was not a toxic substance at the level that it was being released at."
Several big drugmakers were asked this simple question: Have you tested wastewater from your plants to find out whether any active pharmaceuticals are escaping, and if so what have you found?
No drugmaker answered directly.
"Based on research that we have reviewed from the past 20 years, pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities are not a significant source of pharmaceuticals that contribute to environmental risk," GlaxoSmithKline said in a statement.
AstraZeneca spokeswoman Kate Klemas said the company's manufacturing processes "are designed to avoid, or otherwise minimize the loss of product to the environment" and thus "ensure that any residual losses of pharmaceuticals to the environment that do occur are at levels that would be unlikely to pose a threat to human health or the environment."
One major manufacturer, Pfizer Inc., acknowledged that it tested some of its wastewater but outside the United States.
The company's director of hazard communication and environmental toxicology, Frank Mastrocco, said Pfizer has sampled effluent from some of its foreign drug factories. Without disclosing details, he said the results left Pfizer "confident that the current controls and processes in place at these facilities are adequately protective of human health and the environment."
It's not just the industry that isn't testing.
FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly noted that his agency is not responsible for what comes out on the waste end of drug factories. At the EPA, acting assistant administrator for water Mike Shapiro whose agency's Web site says pharmaceutical releases from manufacturing are "well defined and controlled" did not mention factories as a source of pharmaceutical pollution when asked by the AP how drugs get into drinking water.
"Pharmaceuticals get into water in many ways," he said in a written statement. "It's commonly believed the majority come from human and animal excretion. A portion also comes from flushing unused drugs down the toilet or drain; a practice EPA generally discourages."
His position echoes that of a line of federal drug and water regulators as well as drugmakers, who concluded in the 1990s before highly sensitive tests now used had been developed that manufacturing is not a meaningful source of pharmaceuticals in the environment.
Pharmaceutical makers typically are excused from having to submit an environmental review for new products, and the FDA has never rejected a drug application based on potential environmental impact. Also at play are pressures not to delay potentially lifesaving drugs. What's more, because the EPA hasn't concluded at what level, if any, pharmaceuticals are bad for the environment or harmful to people, drugmakers almost never have to report the release of pharmaceuticals they produce.
"The government could get a national snapshot of the water if they chose to," said Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, "and it seems logical that we would want to find out what's coming out of these plants."
Ajit Ghorpade, an environmental engineer who worked for several major pharmaceutical companies before his current job helping run a wastewater treatment plant, said drugmakers have no impetus to take measurements that the government doesn't require.
"Obviously nobody wants to spend the time or their dime to prove this," he said. "It's like asking me why I don't drive a hybrid car? Why should I? It's not required."
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After contacting the nation's leading drugmakers and filing public records requests, the AP found two federal agencies that have tested.
Both the EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey have studies under way comparing sewage at treatment plants that receive wastewater from drugmaking factories against sewage at treatment plants that do not.
Preliminary USGS results, slated for publication later this year, show that treated wastewater from sewage plants serving drug factories had significantly more medicine residues. Data from the EPA study show a disproportionate concentration in wastewater of an antibiotic that a major Michigan factory was producing at the time the samples were taken.
Meanwhile, other researchers recorded concentrations of codeine in the southern reaches of the Delaware River that were at least 10 times higher than the rest of the river.
The scientists from the Delaware River Basin Commission won't have to look far when they try to track down potential sources later this year. One mile from the sampling site, just off shore of Pennsville, N.J., there's a pipe that spits out treated wastewater from a municipal plant. The plant accepts sewage from a pharmaceutical factory owned by Siegfried Ltd. The factory makes codeine.
"We have implemented programs to not only reduce the volume of waste materials generated but to minimize the amount of pharmaceutical ingredients in the water," said Siegfried spokeswoman Rita van Eck.
Another codeine plant, run by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Noramco Inc., is about seven miles away. A Noramco spokesman acknowledged that the Wilmington, Del., factory had voluntarily tested its wastewater and found codeine in trace concentrations thousands of times greater than what was found in the Delaware River. "The amounts of codeine we measured in the wastewater, prior to releasing it to the City of Wilmington, are not considered to be hazardous to the environment," said a company spokesman.
In another instance, equipment-cleaning water sent down the drain of an Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc. factory in Denver consistently contains traces of warfarin, a *lo** thinner, according to results obtained under a public records act request. Officials at the company and the Denver Metro Wastewater Reclamation District said they believe the concentrations are safe.
Warfarin, which also is a common rat poison and pesticide, is so effective at inhibiting growth of aquatic plants and animals it's actually deliberately introduced to clean plants and tiny aquatic animals from ballast water of ships.
"With regard to wastewater management we are subject to a variety of federal, state and local regulation and oversight," said Joel Green, Upsher-Smith's vice president and general counsel. "And we work hard to maintain systems to promote compliance."
Baylor University professor Bryan Brooks, who has published more than a dozen studies related to pharmaceuticals in the environment, said assurances that drugmakers run clean shops are not enough.
"I have no reason to believe them or not believe them," he said. "We don't have peer-reviewed studies to support or not support their claims."
Overweight passengers hoping to travel on United Airlines may have to buy two tickets to fly the friendly skies.
The third largest U.S. airline announced Wednesday that it will join other carriers and start charging passengers for two seats if they can't properly fit into one.
United made the change as a result of the hundreds of complaints it receives each year from customers who "had to share their seat with the oversized guest," United Spokeswoman Robin Urbansky told Blo****erg.com.
According to the airline, the policy will be enforced only in the event that the passenger can't be relocated next to an empty seat. If the flight is full, the passenger will have to change their ticket to the next available flight and purchase a second seat for that flight.
United is the fifth major airline to adopt a policy of this kind.
The new rule applies to tickets purchased on or after March 4, 2009, for travel on or after April 15, 2009.
MADISON, Wis. A nurse was called out of surgery so a manager could tell her she was being laid off. Dean Health said the surgery was minor and the patient wasn't affected, but the manager who summoned the nurse from surgery violated medical protocol. Dean Health spokesman Paul Pitas said the incident happened at Dean's West Clinic in Madison on Wednesday or Thursday.
Pitas said there was a period of time in which a nurse wasn't present during the procedure. He said while there were other clinical staff present, the absence of a nurse is a violation of patient care procedures.
The Madison-based health care provider announced Wednesday that it planned to "immediately" lay off 90 employees.
Pitas declined to name the employees involved or what type of surgery the nurse was attending when she was called away.
"I already signed the deal." Juvenile tells Vibe.com last week.
"So for me, I'm gonna definitely say it's a go, I already received the check. Wayne is going to put that out, so for me and Wayne, it's a go" he continued.
"I don't know if the business been straightened out, but I know B.G.'s on board and he's willing to do it. I don't know where Turk stands on the business side."
The group, compromised of Wayne, Juvenile, B.G., Turk and producer Mannie Fresh, officially split in 2003 amid allegations of financial mismanagement.
They attempted a concert reunion last year at a New Orleans club but before they got a chance to jump on stage, shots rang out.
"It was going to be a big, historic moment," B.G. told MTV News.
Bolt, who stormed to three sprint gold medals in record times at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, told Germany's Bild tabloid: "When you're a child in Jamaica, you learn how to roll a joint.
"Everyone tried marijuana, including me, but I was really young."
But Bolt added that the recreational drug was no longer part of his lifestyle.
"Nobody in my family or those close to me smoke and I don't hang out with people who smoke."
The 22-year-old again rubbished suspicions of doping as he took Beijing by storm last summer.
"People can say what they want, I know I'm clean. That's the only thing that counts, not what other people say," he said.
"I was subject of so many anti-doping tests during the Olympic year, between 30 and 40."
Bolt will try to repeat his triple gold-winning performance at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin in August.
"I want to become a legend. I want to propel athletics to a new dimension," he said.
For years Lady Saw represented as the 'Queen of the Dancehall' but now the 'First Ladies' are taking control of the music and representing for their various labels.
In the last few months, the title of 'First Lady' has been growing in numbers with the women stepping up in the forefront of male dominated labels and groups.
The list of 'First Ladies' includes D' Angel as 'First Lady of the Dancehall', Raine Seville as the 'first lady of DASECA', Shema McGregor at the helm of the Big Ship as a female, Lisa Hype runs as lady of the Portmore Empire, newcomer Bambi as the first lady of Spragga Benz's Red Square group and countless others who are also using the name.
first lady of the dancehall
Usually representing the lone female in a male dominated arena, the title of 'first lady' is the latest marketing tool for the females and is seen as a show of respect to the female chosen to represent the label or group.
In her song, First Lady, D' Angel proclaims herself as the first lady of the dancehall, deejaying in the song, "D' Angel mi name, mi a di first lady, mi see nuff of dem a hype dem a di worst lady." For D' Angel, the title of first lady arose from her marriage to self-proclaimed 'King of the Dancehall' Beenie Man in 2007.
She told THE STAR, "I'm the first dancehall female artiste to be married, so that automatically makes me the first lady. We were the first dancehall couple to tie the knot. For me, it's just a title, it's not like it adds or detracts from my career." According to D' Angel, the inspiration for her First Lady song was inspired by simply being herself. She is currently anticipating the release of two new singles including a party song with Vegas and her follow-up single to Stronger titled I Am Not Ashamed.
Another prominent first lady is new singer Raine Seville who got the title two years ago when she started to work with the producing trio DASECA.
According to Seville, who has upcoming songs such as Really Over, Through With Love and By My Side, she was given the title by singjay/producer Serani and takes her role as the camp's first lady very seriously.
"It's a wonderful feeling to be the first lady of a camp that is making major moves in the music business. Serani is signed to Universal, Bugle is doing great things, Mavado and Alaine being introduced to the industry through DASECA, clearly they have an eye for talent and they must see major potential in me to give me such a title. It therefore means I have a responsibility to represent for females in general and be able to keep up with everything," Seville said.
Similar sentiments were expressed by Lisa Hype who felt it was her job to keep up the standards of Portmore Empire's head Vybz Kartel. Hype told THE STAR that she was given the title last year when she became a member of the Empire.
"It means that I have to be strong and uphold the principles of Kartel, to be able to represent him," she commented.
Source: Jamaica Star
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With Ja Rule lending his support to Rick Ross, along with a handful of other former 50 Cent rivals, the Murder Inc. MC recently spoke to 57thave.com about his verse.
On the Mafia Music Remix, Rule joins ousted G-Unit member The Game and Terror Squad leader Fat Joe. Jacking 50s flow from Magic Stick, Ja spits, Now I smell P**y/ P**y got lips but it dont talk to me/ thats why you my bitch and you on my dick/ cause I f**ked you up once/ f**ked you up twice/and you still talking shit/ what must I do to get through to you?/ kindly get off my dick.
Despite the obvious attack, the Queens-bred rapper insists that hes not trying to reprise an old battle. That beef is like 10 years old, Ja told 57thAve. How old is that beef like 5-6 years old? Im not rehashing the beef I just went and did the record with mof**king Rick Ross. And Ima always speak my mind and how I feel. [Watch Below]
I could give a f**k about Curly, he added. So its not like its a shock to nobody that Im on the record.
The Mafia Music remix will not be included on Ross Deeper Than Rap, which is out tomorrow. As of press time it is uncertain if it will be on the Boss Before I Self Destruct mixtape, following the albums release.
Black male unemployment highest since WWII
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"What's missing from national media coverage of this recession is plainly a great deal of [honesty] about who's losing their jobs. This is overwhelmingly a blue-collar, retail sales, low-level recession," said Andrew Sum, professor of economics and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Mass., which published the study.
"The Impacts of the 2007-2009 National Recession on Male Employment in the U.S. through January 2009; The Massive Concentration of Job Losses Among Males Especially Black Men and Blue Collar Workers" tracked employment losses in the recession across gender groups of workers overall, and in the four major ethnicities Asian, Black, Hispanic and White. Thestudy found that:
Males are 80 percent (3.1 million) of all people who have lost their jobs in America;
Black male unemployment rose by 6.4 percent. Between 2007 and January 2009, 482,000 Black men lost their jobs;
The unemployment gap between Black men and women is historically unprecedented, with Blacks the only group where the gap favors women. This gap stems from differences in job types and fields, such as health care, education, social services - and wellpaying jobs, which are saturated with women.
If you are a Black man working in trucking, manufacturing, construction or warehousing, you are getting clobbered, the document's lead author said. Through Febru- ary 2009, Black men who were employed a month before the recession started have lost their jobs at a rate five times greater than everybody c****ined.
"Here we are as a country that was priding itself on the fact that it elected a Black American president of the United States, and rightfully so. At the same time, this is the greatest recession loss of jobs by Black men since the end of World War II. Thishas never happened before, yet nobody on national TV has stood up and said this recession has been catastrophic for Black men," Sum said.
Entrepreneurship is way out
"This means we're in trouble," said Lavar Young, director of the Newark (N.J.) Comprehensive Center for Fathers, which helps men transition who have lost their jobs, homes, or are re-entering the work force after incarceration. Known as the Fatherhood Center, it provides mentoring, life skills, legal assistance, education and counseling classes.
According to Young, self-help and entrepreneurship is a sure route out of joblessness for Black men. "It's a low-cost investment and many times a high reward. In Newark, we have a thriving market when it comes to folks selling things, especially when stores are going up on their prices. We just encourage the men who attend our programs to turn their skills when they were out doing negative things into something positive," he told TheFinal Call.
For instance, he added, "One of our guys came to class selling socks for $4-$5 a pack. It won't ease all your pains and it's not a lot of money, but it will help you over that hump," at least through about six to eight months of training for a new skill.
Implications for stimulus
According to the study, the demographics of job loss in the U.S. have important implications for the design and implementation of the programs to be funded under the economic stimulus package and work force development policies at the national, state and local levels.
For Sum, one way to reduce joblessness is to try to get all of the stimulus money distributed as soon as possible to get people back to work, and specifically target projects toward infrastructure, manufacturing, transportation and training money for youth jobs.
In addition, the Obama administration, and recipients of stimulus funds must guarantee public postings of all job openings generated by federal stimulus dollars on web sites of one-stop centers.
'Do for self'
Cedric Muhammad, CEO of CM Cap and the Eclectic Economist Blog at www.cedricmuhammad. com, also advocates self-help to reduce unemployment among Black men. He believes that finding a niche and doing something for themselves is critically important for Black men because they practically have no other option.
"In some states they must employ themselves in cases where they have felony convictions, and are not able to obtain jobs in certain professions and industries. Those jobs where they may qualify for employment - construction or manufacturing for instance - are disappearing rapidly," he said.
Whenever Black men can, they should pool their financial resources because what a struggling individual cannot do, a struggling group can do, whether it is friend-to-friend, family-tofamily, or neighbor-to-neighbor, Muhammad continued. This can apply from so-called gangs to fraternities.
Unemployment underestimated
Algernon Austin, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy for the Economic Policy Institute, argued that looking at the unemployment rate does not capture the true picture of joblessness. For example, he said, the numbers are suppressed by various factors, such as the high Black male incarceration rate.
His goal is to get Black men and other disadvantaged racial minorities incorporated into the mainstream economy through programs and investments, and to promote success of small Blackowned businesses to help men overcome obstacles to hiring.
But solving the problem of putting Black men to work requires a sincere, national commitment on various levels. The government has to help invest in and develop Black communities, address discrimination in the labor market, address educational disadvantages, and be sure job creation reaches the Black community, Austin said. "The good news is that people are highly adaptable and the Black family has already transformed itself significantly," he added.
Anger, frustration
Abdul Muhammad, a lead instructor at the Fatherhood Center, told TheFinal Call that people should be concerned about the joblessness among Black men because it lends to the large number of single Black mothers who are head of households.
"Black men suffer the worst when it comes to health and nutrition and they're the first fired and last hired ... with our national program. What I'm finding outside of Newark is that Black men in all these cities are going through the same issues, which is the lack of employment, financial empowerment, and not being able to provide for themselves and live a conducive lifestyle," he said.
As a result, Abdul Muhammad continued, the men feel frustrated and denigrated to a point where they give up, and children suffer when a man, unable to provide for his family, turns away from being a responsible parent.
NOI program works
Ultimately, Abdul Muhammad said, society must allow Black men to become engaged through civic participation and economic opportunity.
Otherwise, it will continue to produce anger, animosity and the horrific numbers of Black men entering the prison system, advocates warn.
"I can speak personally for myself because as most of these guys that enter our organization or Black men in general, I've sat where they're sitting because I've done time in state prison myself. I understand their pain and their frustration but I was just thankful and blessed due to the teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad (of the Nation of Islam) to have the opportunity to learn how to utilize the self-improvement program that he and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan have provided for us as a people," Abdul Muhammad said.
The Putnam County Sheriff's Office wanted to send Doni Ray Brown, 23, and Timothy Wayne Fletcher, 25, to an undisclosed facility out of the area immediately after their Saturday arrest. The two made a first appearance late Saturday before Seventh Circuit Judge Edward E. Hedstrom, Lt. Johnny Greenwood said.
They did not yet have attorneys, Greenwood said.
The men had been missing since escaping the Putnam County Jail early Wednesday morning. Within hours, authorities say, they had stolen two vehicles and killed Fletcher's 66-year-old step-grandmother, Helen Googe, who owned one of the cars.
Greenwood said the men, alleged accomplices on a previous armed robbery, were accidentally placed in the same cell because of a jail records mistake. Fletcher made bail on the robbery, but was soon returned to jail for several counts of failure to appear on an aggravated assault charge. Brown was still being held for the robbery, and the two were reunited.
The cellmates escaped by ripping out a sink and toilet c****ination from the wall with a jack Fletcher apparently stole from a county van during a previous court appearance. They crawled through the hole in the wall, dug under a fence and got through a second barrier.
The two still face the earlier pending charges, and more are possible after an alleged crime spree that stretched up to Kentucky. A nationwide alert was issued after the car stolen from Googe was found there. The men are also accused of stealing a vehicle in Tennessee before returning to Florida.
Investigators found Brown and Fletcher after getting a tip the men were back in town.
NEW YORK A Somali teenager arrived to face what are believed to be the first piracy charges in the United States in more than a century, smiling but saying nothing as he was led into a federal building under heavy guard.
Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse, the sole surviving Somali pirate from the hostage-taking of an American ship captain, was to appear in a courtroom Tuesday on what were expected to be piracy and hostage-taking charges.
Handcuffed with a chain wrapped around his waist and about a dozen federal agents surrounding him, the slight teen seemed poised as he passed through the glare of dozens of news cameras in a drenching rainstorm. His left hand was heavily bandaged from the wound he suffered during the skirmish on the cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama.
A law enforcement official familiar with the case said Muse (moo-SAY') was being charged under two obscure federal laws that deal with piracy and hostage-taking. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the charges had not been announced.
The teenager was flown from Africa to a New York airport on the same day that his mother appealed to President Barack Obama for his release. She said her son was coaxed into piracy by "gangsters with money."
"I appeal to President Obama to pardon my teenager; I request him to release my son or at least allow me to see him and be with him during the trial," Adar Abdirahman Hassan said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from her home in Galkayo town in Somalia.
The boy's father, Abdiqadir Muse, said the pirates lied to his son, telling him they were going to get money. The family is penniless, he said.
"He just went with them without knowing what he was getting into," Muse said in a separate telephone interview with the AP through an interpreter.
He also said it was his son's first outing with the pirates after having been taken from his home about a week and a half before he surrendered at sea to U.S. officials.
The young pirate's age and real name remained unclear.
Court documents list his name as Abduhl Wali-i-Musi, which the boy's parents have said is incorrect. His parents said he is only 16; law enforcement said he is at least 18, meaning prosecutors will not have to take extra legal steps to try him in a U.S. court.
It is extraordinarily rare for the U.S. government to try teenagers with crimes, and the dispute over the defendant's age could present a challenge to prosecutors. Experts said that teenage defendants are entitled to greater protections under international law, and his age could factor into a prison sentence if he is convicted.
Experts say international law recognizes that people under 18 are less mature, and more easily manipulated by adults, the claim being put forth by the defendant's parents.
The government has not said how it knows the defendant is 18, but verifying his actual age could prove difficult because of the anarchy that has ruled Somalia for two decades.
Under international law, prosecutors must show the suspect belongs in federal court because the alleged crime would be a felony if it had been committed by an adult. They also must show it was a crime of violence and weapons were used.
Sandra Jenkins, a lawyer who has represented juveniles in federal court in New Orleans, said she expects the initial battle over his age will come when prosecutors claim he's an adult and a defense lawyer tries to convince a judge he's not. At that point, the defense would likely file a motion claiming the court is without jurisdiction, she said.
Muse's worried family asked the Minneapolis-based Somali Justice Advocacy Center to help get him a lawyer, said the organization's executive director, Omar Jamal.
"What we have is a confused teenager, overnight thrown into the highest level of the criminal justice system in the United States out of a country where there's no law at all," Jamal said. Muse speaks no English, he said.
The suspect was taken aboard a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Bainbridge, shortly before Navy SEAL snipers killed three pirates holding Maersk Alabama Capt. Richard Phillips, of Underhill, Vt.
The U.S. officials said the teenager was brought to New York to face trial in part because the FBI office here has a history of handling cases in Africa involving major crimes against Americans, such as the al-Qaida b****ings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998.
Ron Kuby, a New York-based civil rights lawyer, said he has been in discussions about forming a legal team to represent the Somali suspect.
"I think in this particular case, there's a grave question as to whether America was in violation of principles of truce in warfare on the high seas," said Kuby. "This man seemed to come onto the Bainbridge under a flag of truce to negotiate. He was then captured. There is a question whether he is lawfully in American custody and serious questions as to whether he can be prosecuted because of his age."
Almost five years since the death of Ol Dirty Bastard, a number of his associates have come together to pay their respects to the late Wu-Tang rapper on both CD and DVD.
All In Together Now Raw: A Tribute To The Ol Dirty Bastard, is set to hit shelves next month. The 10-track disc features appearances from The Rza, Masta Killa, Killah Army, 4th Disciple and Brooklyn Zu, among others.
Yet the disc was an afterthought to the film, according to Raison Allah, ODBs cousin and Brooklyn Zu MC who is responsible for both projects. Years ago I promised to keep Dirtys legacy alive so we formed Zu Films and started filming a documentary which tells his life story, he said in a press release. But with all the footage and interviews I still felt like something was missing; Dirty was all about the music. When word got out that we were working on a documentary, Wu fam started sending me so many tracks. We had so many dope tracks that we didnt want to wait until the soundtrack until the DVD to put them out.
We decided to put out a tribute album every other month until the documentary is released in November, he continued. Each tribute disc will include a short trailer to promote the upcoming DVD documentary.
Along with exploring the Brooklyn neighborhood that raised ODB, the doc, titled Dirty: One Word Can Change The World, also has a candid interview with the young girl that the rapper rescued from a car wreck when she was only 4-years-old. Now 13, the little girl says she remembers the accident vividly and the rappers act of courage.
As of press time there are no concrete release dates for either project.
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