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Thursday, July 02, 2009

• Drake Explains 'Best I Ever Had' Video's Basketball Metaphor

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  After coaching Team Drake in the clip, the newly signed MC outlines his bigger game plan.By Shaheem Reid Drake Photo: MTV News Drake's new video for "Best I Ever Had," directed by Kanye West, premiered Wednesday night. In it, Drizzy coaches a basketball team of well-endowed female lovelies, clad in revealing pink uniforms, who face a more focused and skillful squad of women. Coach Drake doesn't seem heartbroken that his hoopers won't exactly draw comparisons to the Dream Team. "Some of us younger men, we refer to our affiliation with women like a roster," Drake said, explaining the clip's concept to MTV News. "You have key women in your life when you're single and doing your thing." "Best I Ever Had" is the first video from his debut LP, Thank Me Later, which he aims to release later this year, now that he's signed to Lil Wayne's Young Money label. Of course he does. He's red-hot right now, thanks to the mixtape So Far Gone. "I just gotta get this tour knocked out," he said earlier this week, smiling about going on the road as part of the America's Most Wanted Music Festival, which will feature Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy Tell'em and Young Jeezy. "I am working on [the album] right now. I've actually started. I was in the studio with Pharrell, and it's basically a pretty lax process for us. "Basically, So Far Gone worked," he continued, talking about his strategy for the highly anticipated LP. "So, let's just try to do it again. You know, let's try and act as if we were making a second disc to So Far Gone." Related Artists Drake
  Drake Explains 'Best I Ever Had' Video's Basketball Metaphor
• DEA Joins Michael Jackson Investigation

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  Federal agency to help police, as Jackson's former confidantes recount tales of his drug use.By Gil Kaufman Michael Jackson Photo: ucas Jackson/ Getty Images The Drug Enforcement Administration has joined the investigation into the death of Michael Jackson. According to The Associated Press, the agency — which is tasked with enforcing the nation's controlled-substances laws — has been asked by Los Angeles police to help investigate Jackson's doctors and his possible drug use prior to his death last Thursday (June 25) at the age of 50. A federal law-enforcement official with knowledge of the case, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed to MTV News that the DEA is now involved in the investigation. A number of stories have emerged concerning Jackson's alleged use and potential abuse of a number of prescription sedatives, antidepressants and pain medications, as well as allegations by a former nurse that Jackson desperately sought help obtaining the powerful surgical anesthetic Diprivan (also known as Propofol), which is not intended for private use, in order to use it as a sleep aid. The Los Angeles Police Department asked the DEA to join the ongoing probe into Jackson's death, hoping that the federal agency can provide some of its expertise in investigating drug abuse, illicit drug manufacturers known as "pill mills" and substances local police may not be familiar with, an unnamed official told the AP. To date, the LAPD has searched Jackson's home twice and removed bags of "medical evidence" and unnamed prescription medications. They also impounded the car of Jackson's private doctor, Conrad Murray, which also reportedly contained medical evidence pertinent to the case. Jackson had reportedly struggled with a dependence on pain medication in the past. On Thursday (July 2), one of his close friends, medium Uri Geller, told the AP that he tried in vain to get the singer to stop abusing painkillers and other prescription drugs. "When Michael asked for something, he got it. This was the great tragedy," said Geller, who lives in England and described a serious falling-out with Jackson over the issue several years ago. Geller, a performer who claims to have psychic abilities, said he often had to "shout at Michael, to scream at Michael" when he sought to confiscate the singer's stash of medication during Jackson's travels in England. "Most of the people around Michael could not say 'No!' to him," said Geller, who claimed he slept on the floors and sofas of Jackson's hotel rooms during visits to the U.K. in a bid to talk sense into his "sometimes-incoherent" friend. "He desperately needed someone there all the time who could say 'No!' and mean it, who could warn him of the dangers ... and tell him the truth. ... The big problem was that many people wanted to help Michael, to save his life, but we could not be there all the time." One reason Jackson allegedly relied on medication was to help him cope with the constant pressure and criticism from the media in his later years, when he was the subject of two different allegations that he sexually abused underage boys. "With his sanity buffeted and health wracked by global bullying non...
  DEA Joins Michael Jackson Investigation
• Exclusive: 50 Cent Previews Forever King Mixtape

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  'Act as if you're a king to be treated like a king,' 50 says in Mixtape Daily.By Shaheem Reid 50 Cent's <i>Forever King</i> mixtape Photo: Alberto Erazo & 50 Cent Forever King: A Mixtape Daily Exclusive 50 Cent is definitely up on everything. He looks at the Internet just like everybody else. Sitting in his New York office Thursday (July 2), 50 was looking at the Drake video, refusing to watch Game's apology to the G-Unit on MTVNews.com and answering calls from Leonardo DiCaprio's camp for a dinner with the movie star. All that, and he played his latest mixtape, Forever King for Mixtape Daily. He was originally going to call his latest mixtape Sincerely Yours: Southside Part 2, and on it he planned to rap over '90s R&B classics. But in the end he decided to throw in some additional flavor with his throwback stylings. "It was Sincerely Southside Part 2, but I changed it to Forever King because of the content," he explained. "I wanted to not just make all '90s music, I wanted to switch up the content a little bit. Also, calling it Sincerely Southside would cause an expectation based on Part 1. So I called it Forever King. In the past, you've had artists, when they feel they're on top their game, say they are, or would be considered, the King in New York City. So I feel on top of my game. It's actually one of the laws of power: Act as if you're a king to be treated like a king." The cover of the tape features 50's face digitally imposed with an iced-out skull. "When Michael Jackson passed, there was a piece of artwork that had 'King of Pop, King of Rap' with me and his pictures. That's what gave me the concept of the artwork." There's a real human skull that's got diamonds embedded in it," he said. "I saw the photo in Dubai. It's an artifact, it's priceless. That's a real skull they see. We used the effect to make it feel like it's a skull inside my face. And the Yankee hat would be my crown." The King gets anything but the royal red carpet rolled out for him in a track called "Put Da Work In." Over a slow beat, Fif tells shocking, pensive true stories about his childhood. "You know, my aunt killed my dog and never said sorry," he raps about one of his family members doing away with his pet canine. "N---as broke in my crib and stole my Atari/ Man, n---as could've asked, I would let them hold a cartridge." Fif just couldn't catch a break. "Instead of selling crack, I could've been Tiger Woods/ But they ain't got no f---in' golf courses in the 'hood.' The tempo gets faster as does the mood on the playfully disparaging "If You Leave." Fif raps over the 1991 classic "You Called and Told Me" by Jeff Redd (the man who discovered Mary J. Blige). As the beat builds up, Fif rhymes: "N---as know how I do./ Let's get mo' paper, mo' bread./ It's grind time./ I ain't f---in' 'round kid./ ...If there's a problem I get right to the root./ ... You talk too much, I'll put your a-- on mute." "If you're leaving, then leave/ On the way out leave my keys," 50 sarcastically says on the chorus while Redd's chorus of "you called and told that you wanted to leave" plays. "I got y'all back in Bentley's," he adds, referring to the legendary New York nightclub. "Dreaming" incorporates Christopher Williams' 1992 hit off the "New Jack City" soundtrack "Dreamin'." Here, the G-Unit general tells his aspirations of being rich away from drug dealing. "It's bigger than coke, bigger than dope," he promises in his rhyme. "My marijuana mentality went up in smoke." "Things You Do," uses Gina Thompson's "The Things You Do" and finds Fif having fun with fast women, while "Funny How Time Flies" is about him withstanding the hate he receives from rolling with one par...
  Exclusive: 50 Cent Previews Forever King Mixtape
• Game On 50 Cent Beef: 'I Did A Lot Of Dumb Things'

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  Plus: Killer Mike says nobody's bringing hardcore back because he's been keeping it street all along, in Mixtape Daily.By Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Jayson Rodriguez The Game Photo: MTV News The Overdose: A Mixtape Daily Exclusive Your boys are back at it. Hiatus is done. Today we had to put Firestarter on the back burner to bring you this testimonial from none other than the Game. Big Hurricane sat down with us in the lab where he's recording his R.E.D. Album. And, in addition to speaking about the project, he wanted to tell us and the entire world that there's no more 50 Cent beef. He's said it before, no doubt, but this time the Compton rhyme beast says he's dead serious — unless he changes his mind. Game compared his beef with Fif and the G-Unit to an airplane. (Is that private or commercial? Just kidding.) "I just got off that plane," Game said of the well-documented rift. "I didn't even get my baggage out the baggage claim." The MC says he wants to "apologize to 50 as a man." He also wants to apologize to the fans, Dr. Dre, Eminem and the head of Interscope, Jimmy Iovine. "Jimmy always says, 'Man, I told you guys not to break up the Beatles,' " Game said. "He says he told John Lennon the same thing a long time ago. But I was young, man. I was dumb. I did a lot of dumb things. I felt me and 50 clashed. I'm not gonna dis 50. I'm not gonna go back on the plane. He had his side, I had my side. I did what I felt was necessary for me and my career to have longevity and survive in hip-hop and music to be around when I'm Quincy Jones' age — not just be Quincy Jones' age, but be a Quincy Jones. Now, four albums in, I can honestly say from Banks to Buck to Dre to Yayo to whoever, if it would have kept going, endless paper. Millions of albums sold — because we were great together. Me and 50's chemistry was like how Method Man was to Redman when they get in. You know when Method Man gets with Redman, it's going down." True, the Unit, when they were a five-man squad (that's with Game and Buck), were absolutely unstoppable. We're still rocking that All Eyez on Us G-Unit Radio Part 5 mixtape. "It is what KRS-One was with Scott La Rock," Game added, describing his time with 50. "When you take Ralph Tresvant from New Edition and Bobby Brown goes this way, you might get a Bell Biv DeVoe, but you won't get no 'Candy Girl.' You won't get no 'Mr. Telephone Man.' You ain't gonna get no 'Hate It or Love It,' you won't get 'How We Do.' As a family, we had it. If we never [broke] up, I think Detox would have been out and we all would have been selling millions from Banks to Buck, Tony Yayo. I'm gonna apologize for my role." Just a few weeks ago, 50 told us he has no desire to entertain the Game. Maybe Dre or Iovine can get these guys together again? The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground 50 Cent says he wants to bring hardcore rap back to the forefront, and we know the sentiments Jay-Z expressed in "D.O.A." Killer Mike says he's not impressed. He's been keeping it street. "I don't wanna hear none of that bullsh-- from none of the n---as," Mike said. "I dropped I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind II last year. If you wanna hear hardcore hip-hop, go to the store, go get I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind II. You can listen from the first Biggie sample to the last song on the album, 'Good-Bye,' it's hardcore hip-hop. I don't wanna hear that bullsh--, these n---as who got millions of dollars talking about bringing sh-- back. They ain't bringing sh-- back. It's here — you looking at it. "Buy me," he continued. "When that Killer Mike drops, hardcore hip-hop will be back for t...
  Game On 50 Cent Beef: 'I Did A Lot Of Dumb Things'
• Michael Jackson's Alleged Addictions: Experts Weigh In

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  Doctors Drew Pinsky, Arnold M. Washton discuss Jackson's alleged psychological and pharmaceutical problems.By Gil Kaufman Michael Jackson Photo: Ron Galella/ WireImage It's the ultimate American dream: a meteoric rise from obscurity and struggle to worldwide fame and adulation. Untold riches, palatial estates, a fiercely loyal crew of hangers-on, private jets, screaming fans and limousines come with the territory. But so does seclusion, paranoia, loneliness and access to any and all vices the heart and mind can imagine. It's a dark side of celebrity that has come into focus all too well recently, from Eminem's admitted struggles with painkillers to Britney Spears' very public difficulties and, last Thursday, Michael Jackson's death at age 50 after decades of isolation, plastic surgery, multiple allegations of impropriety with young men and an allegedly fierce addiction to prescription medications. How does superstardom so quickly turn into a life-threatening fall from grace? By many accounts, Jackson, 50, was a lonely man, one whose lifelong fame had resulted in a secluded life inside a childlike fantasy world of his own making that few could understand. From his fascination with his own lost childhood and a Peter Pan-like existence to a proclivity for plastic surgery that had radically altered his facial features and skin color to the point where he barely resembled his former self, Jackson publicly struggled to find peace in a world where fans and the media incessantly thirsted for a peek into his mysterious kingdom. Dr. Drew Pinsky, star of VH1's "Celebrity Rehab" and an addiction specialist, said he has done extensive research on the link between celebrity and addiction, and said his findings indicate that being a superstar has little impact on someone's addictive tendencies. "It's the kind of person who strives to be a celebrity who has a high incidence of childhood trauma, addictive and narcissistic tendencies and who surround themselves with people who support that narcissism," he told MTV News. "And when that addiction emerges, it gets out of control and there's no way to cut it out. They spiral into severe consequences and situations where, if it was the rest of us, we would have someone who would tell us to stop." Pinsky said his research has shown that people who are addicted to the kind of opiates that Jackson allegedly struggled with — painkillers and other strong prescription sedatives and antidepressants — are almost always survivors of abuse. Jackson had stated in several interviews that he was the subject of physical and emotional abuse from his father, Joseph, who often teased him about his looks. "These people walk around every day feeling shattered, with an out-of-control sense of miserable worthlessness, and when they find their way to an opiate, for the first time in their lives they feel like everything is OK," Pinsky said, noting that patient confidentiality would not permit him to answer a question about whether he had ever treated Jackson, but that if someone had approached him about helping the star, he would "run for the hills" because he felt the situation might not have been treatable given the chaotic state of the singer's personal life. "But there's no doubt he was in pain." In a touching postmortem essay, former Los Angeles Times pop music critic Robert Hilburn recalled a nearly two-decade-long friendship with Jackson that ended in the mid-1980s at the peak of Jackson's career. Speaking to him in 1981, before Thriller would make him a worldwide icon, Hilburn asked the then 23-year-old singer —...
  Michael Jackson's Alleged Addictions: Experts Weigh In
• Michael Jackson Concert Rehearsal Footage Emerges -- Watch I...

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  Brief clip of 'They Don't Care About Us' was filmed two days before death.By Gil Kaufman Michael Jackson at last rehearsal at the Los Angeles Staples Center Photo: AEG/CBS News Earlier this week, the promoter of Michael Jackson's 50-date "This is It" residency at the O2 Arena in London said there was ample footage of a Jackson rehearsal for the planned series of shows, and that he hopes to release them. On Thursday (July 2), one week after Jackson, 50, died following cardiac arrest at a rented Los Angeles-area mansion on the eve of the July 13 start of the O2 run, MTV News obtained a clip of a rehearsal filmed just two days before Jackson's sudden passing. And though it is just a 90-second glimpse of the singer performing the controversial track "They Don't Care About Us," the brief bit of film does appear to show Jackson in solid shape, stomping around the stage, apparently singing in full voice and energetically dancing with an all-male troupe of backup performers. The footage, shot on June 23 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles — where a memorial service for Jackson reportedly will be held on July 7 — opens with Jackson performing some of his patented military-style, slow motion marching dance moves along with the male dancers, who are behind him on a slanted platform. It then cuts to the singer enthusiastically pulsating to a solo from his guitarist. Jackson gives one of his signature "Oh!" exclamations as the track changes tempo to a rousing royal fanfare overlaid with a snipped of the "I Have a Dream" speech from the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King. The singer and dancers straighten up and salute, then do a high-step march across the stage to a martial beat as Jackson does knee bend and shuffles in place alone center stage. After what appears to be an edit, the sound of a car horn blaring overtakes the music, the dancers put their hands out in a stop motion and the tempo shifts once again into a spare, funky track to which Jackson does a subtle shoulder shimmy walk to, landing him at the lip of the stage. It's clear the rehearsal is a casual run-through, as the dancers are wearing sweats and t-shirts and the typically meticulously dressed Jackson is clad in black pants, a grey jacket and a pattered red button-down shirt that is half-untucked. Near the end of the clip, the car horn blares again and an unseen director says "hold for applause, hold for applause" and a look of what appears to be relief washes over Jackson's face. While Jackson is hardly the frail, sickly performer that some reports have portrayed him as near the end of his life — with one observer on the set of the singer's mysterious "Dome Project" saying the pop star was so weak he needed help descending steps — he doesn't appear to be the whirling dervish of energy and jaw-dropping dance moves that he was in his prime. Granted, at 50, Jackson was nearly two decades removed from his heyday and the footage was shot at a rehearsal, but given that it was less than two weeks before the beginning of a showcase that was meant to put the singer back on top, Jackson appears to be moving at a curiously deliberate pace in the brief clip. The song featured in the clip appeared on his 1995 greatest-hits collection HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I and it was one of Jackson's most controversial late-period releases thanks what some deemed its anti-Semitic overtones. Among the lyrics were the lines, "Jew me, sue me, everybody do me/ Kick me, kike me, don't you black or white me," as well as "Skinhead, deadhead, everybody gone dead/ Hit me, kick me, you can never get me," which said at the time could be interpreted as being "pointedly crit...
  Michael Jackson Concert Rehearsal Footage Emerges -- Watch I...
• Michael Jackson's Video Legacy, In His Own Words

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  We spoke to the King of Pop in 1999 about revolutionizing the world of music videos.By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Alex Colletti Michael Jackson in December of 1999 Photo: MTV Michael Jackson revolutionized the world of music videos — he embraced the medium and took it to a new level by creating groundbreaking short films. Jackson spoke to MTV News back in 1999 about why he felt music videos are more than just commercials for the artist — they were an important part of the creative process for him. "The idea is to take it a step further and innovate, otherwise why am I doing it?" he said. "I don't want to be just another can in the assembly line. I want to create, do something that's totally different and unusual." Before talking about some of his greatest music-video achievements at length, he went on to say that "in my opinion, it has to be completely entertaining and has a linear sense of continuity. I like having a beginning, middle and an ending so that you can follow a story. I am very much involved in complete creating of the piece. It has to be from my soul." In 1983, Jackson changed the face of music videos with his John Landis-directed music video for "Thriller," off the album of the same name. "We're never serious on the set, so it's fun working with John 'cause I get to throw water balloons and stink bombs at him," he said. "That's a ritual for me — after we wrap on each video I throw a lot of stuff at everybody. My idea was to make a short film with conversation at the beginning and bookmark it with conversation at the end. Believe it or not, I'm afraid to watch scary movies. I always try to be a pioneer and innovator in whatever I do." While choreographing the video, Jackson wanted to make sure that dancing zombies would look natural, not cheesy. "It was a delicate thing to work on, 'cause I remember my original approach was, 'How do you make zombies and monsters dance without it being comical?' So I got into the room with Michael Peters and he and I together kind if imagined how these zombies move." Before Jackson released the video for "Thriller" in 1983, he released "Beat It." And surprisingly, he found his inspiration for the video from a McDonald's commercial. "I remember [Quincy Jones] telling me to write this song that I would enjoy with an edge. The song is so self-explanatory that it was so easy to make the short film," Jackson explained. "I had seen ... I think it was a McDonald's commercial. I said I want this director [Bob Giraldi] for this piece." In "Billie Jean," also released in 1983, Jackson made sure to include some of his signature dance moves. "It's kind of surreal and it's different. I didn't come up with that concept. I think it was a British fellow, Steve Barron. I thought he had wonderful ideas but I let him go with it," Jackson recalled. "The only part I wrote in the piece ... I said, 'Give me a section I can dance a little.' So that whole section where you see that long street, that's the only part I contributed." In 1991, Jackson released the controversial video for "Black or White" off his album, Dangerous, but looking back on the song eight years later, he didn't see any reason for the controversy. "I wanted to do a dance number [and] I told my sister Janet, I said, 'You remind me of a black panther.' I said, 'Why you don't do something where you transform into a black panther and you transform into yourself again?' She said, 'I like it,' but she didn't go with it," he explained. "The two of us, we always think alike. So I did it. And in the dance, I said, 'I want to do a dance number where I can let out my frustration about injustice and prejudice and racism and bigotry,' and within the dance I became upset and let go. I think at the time people were concerned with the violent content of the piece, but it's, like, easy to look at. It's simple." For complete coverage of the life, career and passing of the legendary entertainer, visit
  Michael Jackson's Video Legacy, In His Own Words

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