Rapper Beanie Sigel Shot In Altercation

Sigel underwent surgery after the shooting. He was shot in the back. The rapper has been in and out of legal woes recently, having just been released from prison in August.

The Philadelphia native was transferred to home confinement in September after initially being released into residential re-entry management. The most recent jail sentence for Sigel was two years on tax evasion charges.

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Real World's Davis Mallory Releases Diem Brown Tribute Song

Mallory told us the following about the track via email, "Diem Brown and I met right after I completed the Real World Denver in 2006. My mother's childhood friend has a daughter in Diem's sorority at FSU who introduced us over email prior to my filming the Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Inferno 3, Diem had just finished Fresh Meat and coached me over email through the show. She and I grew up just a few miles away from each other in bordering towns in Georgia, so we hit it off pretty fast.

"Her passing really hit me hard. I live in Nashville now and have been sharpening my songwriting/singing skills over the past several years, writing with BMI Songwriter of the Decade & Nashville Songwriter Hall of Famer Roger Murrah as well as many up-and-coming songwriter/artists here in Nashville.

"I had a songwriting session this past Monday at BMG with Ben Goldsmith and Tori Tullier and told my co-writers that I had an idea for a song with the lyric 'Beautiful Girls Aren't Supposed To Die Young.'

"Without informing them at the time that it was about Diem, we built this song 'Beautiful Girls (Diem's Song),' produced by Belmont student mixing engineer Jared Conrad, and bass guitarist/producer Jordan Hester."

Mallory has put together a music video for the clip and he and the songwriters are dedicating the clip to Diem's charity MedGift. Watch the video here.

Whitney Houston Biopic Preview Goes Online

Whitney will air on the network on the third anniversary of the pop icon's death, and in the wake of the network's ill-fated Aaliyah biopic. Whitney is directed by Angela Bassett, who herself has a biopic past, having played Tina Turner in the acclaimed What's Love Got to Do With It.

Now, we have our first preview of Whitney, which will star Yaya DaCosta as Houston and Arlen Escarpeta as Houston's abusive husband, Bobby Brown. Deborah Cox will handle all of the Houston vocals in film's songs. Watch the preview here.

Lil Wayne's Manager Reassures Fans

When a reporter asks if it's the 'end of an era," Bryant claimed that all is well. 'I wouldn't be smiling if there were problems, I wouldn't be out at the club enjoying myself," he added, flashing a wide grin.

The label has yet to issue a formal response, tweeting only '#CarterV," somewhat of an inscrutable statement. The reporter continued to press for more information about Tyga as Bryant got into his car, to which Bryant replied, 'Tyga's good, that's my brother." Read more here.

Beyonce Makes Grammys History

It only took one nomination for Beyonce to outnumber Parton, doing so in the Best Urban Contemporary Album category. Up until Friday's announcement, the two had been tied.

Last GRAMMY season, Beyonce tied with Dolly Parton's 46 nominations when she was up for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration with her feature on Jay Z's "Part II (On the Run)."

Parton's GRAMMY streak started back in 1970 when she was nominated for Best Country Vocal Performance By a Duo or Group with the Porter Wagoner-assisted "Just Someone I Used to Know." She kept racking in the nominations until she finally won her first GRAMMY in 1979 for Best Country Vocal Performance in the female category with "Higher & Higher."

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Sam Smith Releases 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' Video

In the video Smith stands in the midst of a soundstage, visibly surrounded by camera track and accompanied by only a grand piano, delivering his interpretation of the holiday song that so many have put their stamp on.

This is Smith's first new music in many months, as he has been occupied touring the world in support of his critically and commercially successful debut LP In The Lonely Hour.

Smith is nominated for 6 GRAMMYs, including Album of the Year, leading the nominations of the 57th Annual awards show and tied with Beyonce for the most nominations of any artist. Watch the video here.

Ordinance Passes To Keep Garth Brooks Booking Finances Secret

The village passed an ordinance to keep secret the details of booking Brooks' record-breaking concert run. The Chicago Tribune notes that this is an unusual move, and comes after the paper tried to uncover the details using a Freedom of Information Act request for papers concerning the September shows at Allstate Arena.

The reason cited by Rosemont mayor Brad Stephens is that releasing the financial information would put the city at a competitive disadvantage for future bookings at its venues. If acts were to find out what he paid to secure Garth Brooks' tour opening, they might try to drive up the price of their own concerts. Read more here.

Nicki Minaj Impersonates Beyonce and Kim Kardashian

The latest in a long line of singles from The Pinkprint, and "Bed of Lies" was Minaj's first performance shortly after midnight. Skylar Grey took her turn behind a large black piano to croon the song's hook before the rapper, donning tight red pants and top, presented a no-frills rendition of the track. She joined Grey at the piano prior to the final chorus as the singer stared straight into the camera, both smiling at each other once the song ended. A lovely, if uneventful start to Minaj's performance segment.

For performance two, Minaj started off with "Only," flanked by a pair of backup vocalists and calling out the "bad girls" in the audience to a chorus of cheers. She followed with another song excerpt, this time of "All Things Go," showing off her vocal ability alongside her rhymes. "This is the pinkprint," she ended, the perfect promotion for the upcoming album of the same name.

Minaj also got in on her own sketch, portraying Beyonce in an MTV nativity scene parody along with Kate McKinnon's Justin Bieber. Minaj's Beyonce played Jesus' mother Mary in the nativity, declaring that her newborn "woke up like dis" and was "flawless." Watch also if you'd like to see Franco's impersonation of RiFF RAFF, Taran Killam's Eminem and other musician parodies.

She appeared again as Kim Kardashian during Weekend Update, discussing the starlet's famous Paper magazine cover and what she was actually doing when she took the infamous nude photo for it. But that wasn't all; then, in a sketch in which Franco plays a part of the brain attempting to clear out old memories to make room for new ones, she played herself-after all, the brain in question had watched her "Anaconda" video tons of times. He just only remembers the first few lines. Watch it here.

Fabolous Debuts New Song 'Lituation'

On Twitter, Fabulous succinctly describes the song as 'something for the streets"�--and he's not wrong. The song sounds like the rapper's songs have sounded for more than a decade: grimy, gritty New York rap, with harsh percussion and brash horn samples.

The lyrics find Fabo showing off both his glamorous lifestyle and his facility with instantly quotable rhymes. Typically he builds lines around clever punchlines. Read about those and listen here.

Eric Church Releases Poignant 'Talladega' Video

As Church and his band are later seen performing on a racetrack, home video footage is shown of the man's life from a kid blowing out birthday candles to making snow angels.

"Talladega" is the latest single from Church's 2014 album The Outsiders. Church has been open about the song, saying that the song isn't about NASCAR, it's about moments in your life where you make a memory.

"It has nothing to do with that,"� Church told Billboard.biz of the song and its relation--or lack thereof--to auto racing. 'That is nothing more than the avenue through which the commentary took place. It's really about life. What you see on TV there has nothing to do really with racing. It's about that experience, whatever that is: the experience with the person next to you, and knowing that that's probably a finite time in your life. It's not gonna last forever." Watch the video here.

Ariana Grande, Sam Smith and Tim McGraw Lead Grammy Christmas

Ariana Grande, Pharrell, Mary J. Blige, Sam Smith and Tim McGraw performed their hits and shared their favorite holiday and Grammy memories.

Grande kicked off A Very GRAMMY Christmas with her new holiday single, "Santa Tell Me." Wearing all-white, Grande's performance of her new single "Santa Tell Me" had her playing the role of head elf, making sure everything is going right in Santa's workshop. But Grande may have been slacking since it seemed like those little helpers of Santa's were doing more dancing than toy-making.

Later, she returned to the stage for her new single "Best Mistake" featuring her boyfriend Big Sean who was doing his best James Bond impression in a nice looking tux.

The two didn't try to hide their love away, standing close, staring into each other's eyes and eventually walking off the stage hand in hand. Grande said that she gets "a little giggly" doing that song because it's "such a serious song, and to see him act so seriously makes me laugh."

And what does she want for Christmas? "Maybe some more sleep, that's all she could ask for." Read more and see photos here.

Beyonce, Beck, Ed Sheeran Up For Grammy Album Of The Year

This is Beyonce's second time being nominated for Album of the Year. She was previously nominated for 2008's Sasha Fierce, but did not win. Bey has the honor of being the most nominated female artist of all time with 52 nominations, narrowly beating out Dolly Parton who has 46 nominations. She has won a total of 17 gramophones.

Beck was previously nominated for Album of the Year in 1997 for his album Odelay and again in 2001 for Midnight Vulture. Though he did not take home either of those awards, he has won three GRAMMYs in his career including Best Alternative Music Performance for his album Mutations in 2000.

Ed Sheeran received a Best New Artist nomination last year, but lost out to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. This year he picked up three nominations including Best Pop Vocal for X. Read more here.

Run the Jewels' El-P Writes Steven Seagal Fanfiction

The AV Club, though, is the first to interview Run the Jewels about a conversation no one saw coming: Steven Seagal. And it isn't just any interview about the '90s action star of such classics as Hard to Kill, Under Siege and Above the Law. It is an interview where El-P reveals himself to be about the biggest Seagal fan of all time.

"Above The Law, Out For Justice, Marked For Death," El-P said. "All of the early classic Seagal films. I even followed him into his direct-to-DVD stage, where he was just obese and just stood still and often had people dub his lines--he would leave the production halfway through and just have people overdub his voice with a different actor. I just love the man."

How much does he love the man? Well, enough to write Steven Seagal fanfiction, that's how much. The story that El-P writes is from the perspective of a character named Sticks.

"I mean, the whole phenomenon of some Asian dude who's a ninja who uses pool cues so much that they call him Sticks, that he's just on call for any time there's ever any beef, and this guy just waits around all day long and doesn't do anything until someone comes in like Steven Seagal, and then they say 'Sticks!" and he has to fight Steven Seagal," the rapper explained.
Read more and see proof here.

Singled Out: BIG Something's Megalodon

I was hanging out with our lyricist who also happens to be one of my best buddies that I've known since kindergarten. His name is Paul Interdonato and he's one of the most interesting and eccentric people I know. The band was on break for the holidays and Paul and I always get together around that time of year to hang out and write songs. It's when we tend to come up with some of our best ideas for some reason. Usually the best songs just come effortlessly and naturally, where we don't have to spend too much time brainstorming or tweaking the ideas. They just flow right off the cuff from first line to the last and then they are complete.

"Megalodon" was one of those songs. The two of us were just hanging out, having a good time and there were some hip hop videos playing on TV in the background. I started messing around with my guitar and loop pedal which allows me to record and layer different parts and then loop them over and over. With the hip hop on in the background, I started looping this simple bass line � Daaaa naaa � Daaaa naaa � Daaaa naaaa �.Da Da Da �.. Daaaa naaa � It was slow and dark and dirty - almost menacing; kinda reminiscent of the theme music from Jaws. I think that's what triggered the image of a shark in Paul's imagination. For those that don't know what the title of the song "Megalodon" is referring to - its the scientific name for a massive pre-historic shark like creature that lived at the bottom of the ocean around the time of the dinosaurs. They were huge. Way way bigger than any shark that's around today.

From there I started to layer funk guitar parts on top of the bass line and Paul started singing "I can see her coming through the murkey water" and right there we had the first line of the song set in stone. He explained the image in his head - the helpless feeling of treading water lost at sea with no escape from this huge majestic force of nature that's making circles around you. "She got me if she wants me she's so majestic its paralyzing." I definitely felt where he was coming from. It could really be about anything that feels to big to overcome - large forces of nature or even habits of human nature that you feel like you can't escape. In the end I think this was a therapeutic song for both of us. I love the way it turned out. It's sort of become a reminder to stay on the right path and not get lost at sea.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself as you watch the video here and learn more about the album right here!

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