50 Cent

Time to check back in with Kanye West and 50 Cent, hip-hop’s favorite rivals. It seems Kanye got into another scrap with a paparazzo outside a club in England early Friday morning (the first since his tussle with a cameraman in LA back in September). According to TMZ.com (via MTV.com), Kanye was leaving Newcastle’s Tup Tup club with four girls when a photographer got in his face. A minor fracas allegedly ensued, leaving the pap with a scraped nose and some bruised feelings. So many, in fact, that he had Kanye arrested later that night, though the charges were later dropped.

Never one to miss a good opportunity to rant (particularly when it’s warranted), Kanye had a few things to say about the incident on his blog, namely that there should be laws protecting celebrities like himself from ravenous photogs. “LET US NOT FORGET THE PAPS KILLED PRINCESS DIANA,” Kanye writes.  read more »

While Kanye West—50 Cent’s one-time rival—makes headlines for his actual music, Fiddy seems content to bask in the comfy glow of reality television (and tie-in consumerism). According to a press release on Nah Right (via Idolator), it seems MTV’s “50 Cent: The Money and the Power” (set to premiere on November 6) is a sort of hip-hop version of The Apprentice in which 50 plays The Trump and 14 “wannabe moguls” play Donald’s lowly apprentices. Except, in this case, the poor mini-moguls have to sleep in tents on the floor of some ratty Brooklyn warehouse—which, we kid you not, is called "Camp Curtis.  read more »

Bob Miller has unveiled the 23 titles that will make up his first list at HarperStudio, the imprint he started last spring at HarperCollins with the goal of finding a model for book publishing that doesn't rely on paying authors outsize advances or allowing retailers to return unsold stock. Mr. Miller's announcement, which he made this morning on HarperStudio's new blog, brings to an end several months of industry-wide speculation about just what kinds of projects he'd be able to sign up.

The most eye-catching title on the list is probably the collection of short, unpublished humor pieces by Mark Twain, which will be out in April.  read more »

Williamsburg and Greenpoint residents may soon feel like they are living on the set of a reality TV show. The cast of the Apprentice-style MTV show starring 50 Cent is moving into a three-story, newly renovated loft building on the Greenpoint waterfront, a well-placed source has informed us.

The series will follow 16 aspiring rap moguls as they compete in a series of challenges to determine their "savvy, street smarts, manipulation, power and the art of winning"--"the skills that took 50 Cent from the streets to corporate America." At the end of each episode, 50 Cent will eliminate a contestant. The winner will get a full scholarship to an undergraduate or graduate business program.  read more »

Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis have both reportedly paid a visit to the doctor shortly after Sex and the City's release, opting for a breast augmentation surgery and a varicose vein removal, respectively. [P6]

Barack and Michelle Obama appear on the cover of Us Weekly this week with Mrs. Obama depicted as a "down-to-earth mom." Never mind the fact that she graduated cum laude from Princeton followed by Harvard Law. [Us Weekly]

Exes Anne Hathaway and Raffaello Follieri stayed at separate residences in New York yesterday—Ms. Hathaway at Gramercy Park Hotel and Mr. Follieri at his rental in Trump Tower—but were reportedly planning to meet up for dinner at Cipriani's.  read more »

Six people are reportedly hospitalized after a "highly suspicious" fire burned down the multimillion-dollar Long Island home of rapper 50 Cent this morning, TMZ reports (click through for photos.).

Names of those who were involved in the fire have not been released, but the rapper's ex, Shaniqua Tompkins, and their 10-year-old son, Marquise, were in the house at the time of the fire.  read more »

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Who Didn’t Shoot 50 Cent?  read more »

Who Didn’t Shoot 50 Cent?    read more »

Who's winning the battle of the front pages?

The Daily News makes testimony about 50 Cent's shooting sound like one of those Parade magazine "How I Overcame My Goiter" celebrity profiles. But even a fuzzy and boring Fitty treatment beats blowing out the front page for a house ad for the Post's Scooby-Doo promotional comic book. Thirty-six pages of great family fun! Thirty-seven if you count Andrea Peyser! Mommy, what's a "randy Catholic schoolteacher"?  read more »

Winner: Daily News Overall standings: Daily News 14, New York Post 9

Apparently, once you purchase a $27 million penthouse, completing a massive renovation loses its luster.

Early this year, Alan Meltzer (at left in picture), co-founder and chief executive of Wind-up Entertainment, purchased a palatial 8,687-square-foot penthouse at celebrity-filled One Beacon Court.

But that left one question: what would he do with his penthouse apartment at 944 Park Avenue and the additional unit of raw space he purchased underneath? Buying at Beacon, Mr. Meltzer had no need to construct the 6,150-square-foot triplex on Park Avenue.

So he decided to start selling. Shortly after buying the 50th Floor apartment, Mr. Meltzer listed the two Park Avenue units as a 15-room penthouse triplex for $19.5 million, with broker Curtis Jackson of Brown Harris Stevens. Occupying the top three floors in this pre-war building, the apartment also included three planted terraces measuring an additional 2,300-square-feet.

But after only a month-and-a-half on the market, the pricey listing disappeared. The Meltzers had been living in the penthouse duplex since 1995, when they purchased it for $3 million. Eight years later, when the 3,405-square-foot space became available once floor below, Mr. Meltzer snatched it up for $6.5 million. He intended to create the triplex home before (like many high-end buyers before him), he fell for One Beacon Court. Indeed, the Cesar Pelli-designed tower has attracted numerous A-list buyers: including singer Beyonce Knowles, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, former G.E chief executive Jack Welch, hedge-fund executive Steven Cohen, and Renault Formula One managing director Flavio Briatore.

Instead of re-listing the entire apartment as a triplex, Mr. Meltzer put the raw space at 944 Park Avenue on the market with a $7.9 million price tag, listed again with Mr. Jackson of Brown Harris Stevens. The full-floor condo includes high ceilings, picture windows, and park and city views. Breaking up the units seems to have worked better, because the apartment recently sold for $7.2 million. Although under the asking price, it's still $700,000 more than Mr. Meltzer bought it for in 2003.

Most likely, when settled into the 58th Street luxury tower, Mr. Meltzer's duplex penthouse will end up on the market as well. But the picky record executive has had quite a history buying and selling in some of Manhattan's finest buildings.

Mr. Meltzer had flirted before with the idea of leaving his Park Avenue duplex behind for a condo just up the street. In 2000, he purchased New Jersey Senator Jon Corzine's 11-room spread at 515 Park Avenue for $18 million. About four months later he changed his mind, and flipped it for $18.2 million to a technology investor.  read more »

- Michael Calderone

It is the knee-jerk tendency to avoid new money here at the Transom. But usually, our nose only actually turns up at those who hold some illusions on the matter; for instance, those who try to play blue blood like they were born with it.

Curtis Jackson, who performs under the professional name of 50 Cent, and who performed a two-show stint with Marshall Mathers at Madison Square Garden on Monday and Tuesday nights, is not one of these poseurs. Although he's flashy, icy, and loud, he stays candid about his young and swelling bank account. "They call me new money, say I have no class / I'm from the bottom, I came up too fast," he raps on his recent hit, "How We Do."

"The hell if I care, I'm just here to get my cash / Bougie ass bitches, you can kiss my ass!" Consider it done!

New money or not, such honesty and defiance go a long away. As Mr. Jackson and Mr. Mathers, who performs under the name Eminem, took the stage on Monday evening, the Transom was sitting deep in the press box; it found their conviction convincing.

And they, evidently, were quite enthralled by us. The entire concert, particularly Mr. Mathers' nearly 2-hour set, was dominated by media imagery. From a 1950's-style opening video-biography, which beamed shots of his many magazine covers onto the Garden's tremendous screens, to his five-minute rant about the tabloids, the show looked as if it had been written specifically for the benefit of the press corps.

Jim Farber of the Daily News took careful notes from his seat so as to flesh out the pre-written "holding story," penned long before the paper's 12:30 a.m. closing deadline. Mr. Farber told The Transom that the Garden's usual press room had been taken over by Mr. Mathers' and Mr. Jackson's entourages, so time was even tighter than usual.

Luckily, the Daily News folks would not have all that much to change—every stop of the rappers' Anger Management tour had been almost identical, and the scripted jokes, songs, and skits had already been recounted in every newspaper in the country.

By the end of the show, the press box was near-deserted. The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones, who sneaked a low-key cigarette during Mr. Jackson's set, left halfway through to catch another show, and Mr. Farber had to take off early to make his deadline. Besides New York Times pop music critic Kelefa Sanneh, the only reporters remaining during Eminem's encore were from the Star-Ledger, Newsday, and, of course, High Times Magazine.  read more »

After the show, two members of Mr. Jackson's G-Unit rap crew, who use the professional names Lloyd Banks and Young Buck, went for a little joyride in a van with ten friends. The driver ran a red light at the corner of 8th Avenue and 41st Street. A nearby police car pulled the van over. According to All Hip Hop, the officers found a loaded .40 caliber and a .357 handgun in the van.

All twelve passengers were arrested on weapons charges. Still, Mr. Banks and Mr. Buck were released, without bail, and were back on stage the very next night. —Leon Neyfakh

O.K., it's been a few weeks now since the latest annual installment of The Village Voice Pazz & Jop  read more »