King of Pop Memorial Services Planned for July 7 at Staples Center

Los Angeles, CA – The passing of musical icon Michael Jackson has caused a gloom of despair to appear over the industry as of late. His untimely death has left many artists, not to mention his entire family, with feelings of grief and dismay. With the many outcries of fans across the world, the Jackson family is aware of the amount of people that would be in attendance for his public funeral. Due to the estimated amount of fans they anticipate to be in attendance, the family has decided to acquire the 20,000 capacity Staples Center for the memorial services to be held after the holiday weekend. In addition to the Staples Center, they have also acquired the Nokia Plaza located outside the Center to accomodate the crowd overflow where widescreen TVs will broadcast the service proceedings.

President and CEO, Randy Philips, of AEG, the company that runs the Staples Center, recently spoke with KNBC about the preparations into the memorial services. According to Phillips, the service has been scheduled to open to the public at 10am on Tuesday, July 7.

These were his comments:

“Details are still to be finalized when I meet with the Jackson family this afternoon. Everything is in preliminary stages except the place and time.”

According to several media outlets, the preparation into the funeral are already underway as earlier today the street directly in front of Staples was blocked by police with several media trucks occupying the pavement.

The Jackson family released a press statement on Wednesday dismissing false reports that the memorial services were to be held at the Neverland Ranch:

“Contrary to previous news reports, the Jackson family is officially stating that there will be no public or private viewing at Neverland. Plans are underway regarding a public memorial for Michael Jackson, and we will announce those plans shortly.”

Jackson’s memorial services is anticipated to draw thousands of people from all over the world as well as an unspecified number of artists and Hollywood names. At press time, it has not been stated whether or not the event will be televised.

Keep posted to 24hourhiphop.com for more updated news of Michael Jackson’s memorial services.

The Game Reflects on 50 Cent Feud

Los Angeles, CA – The infamous feud between The Game and 50 Cent has long since been history after Game officially left Aftermath sometime in 2006. The label change was a decision made between Dre and Game in order not to disrupt the flow of business between G-Unit, Shady, and Interscope.
After years of back and forth heated diss tracks and tension-fueled controversies between the two estranged artists, it seems as though Game has a newfound reason to apologize to 50. He compares his reign with 50 and G-Unit to be like an airplane and how the business ran so smoothly as millions of albums were being sold. He recently spoke to MTV News about his reflection on the decisions he’s made through life and how as a young artist some of those decisions, he admits, were rather ignorant on his part. He states that he has a list of people he would like to apologize to, some of those people just happen to be: Dr. Dre, Eminem, Jimmy Iovine, and 50 Cent.

These were his comments

“Jimmy always says, ‘Man, I told you guys not to break up the Beatles. 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, its going down.”

Game continues to reflect the times when G-Unit was an unstoppable 5 man squad taking shots at, literally, everyone. When he and Buck were aligned with 50, Yayo, and Banks, they had the world watching them, an experience you don’t forget.

“It is what KRS-One was with Scott La Rock, 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.”

And honestly, maybe Game has a good point on that note, if things would have went north for him and G-Unit, instead of south, maybe ‘Detox’ would have been on the shelves or close to release right now. It would be a shot in dark if 50 actually considered a G-Unit reunion between all 5 of the original members; maybe the Unit can return to the spot that they all once were, at the top of the world.

At press time, Game is currently working on his next album entitled ‘The R.E.D. Album’ His fourth album has been confirmed to be released under Interscope and currently scheduled to be released sometime in November.

Keep posted to 24hourhiphop.com for updated news on The Game.