State Champ Radio Current Events
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Source: San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images / Getty / Azealia Banks
If you’re white and are thinking about criticizing Beyoncé about her Cowboy Carter album, don’t you dare. Only one person can do that, and that person is Azealia Banks.
The hot-tempered rapper from Harlem had time for British pop star Lily Allen, who took to her favorite medium, Instagram Stories, to speak on what’s on her mind and call out Allen for what she is saying is “random racism,” being thrown out King Bey.
Azealia Banks reshared a story of Allen having the caucasity to say something about Beyoncé’s latest album, something Banks has already done.
Per HipHopDX:
“Shall we discuss that phone call to me – a few years ago – obviously off your face – crying and sobbing asking me to forgive you for randomly being racist?” she began, referring to the feud that the pair had eleven years ago that concluded with Banks telling Allen that her then-husband, Sam Cooper, “looks like a thumb.
She continued: “And I quote, well, I just figured since I’m a white girl and you’re just some Black girl that I could shit on you…”
Azealia Banks’ Criticism About Cowboy Carter
Banks’ IG attack on Allen comes after she called out Beyoncé in her signature style, claiming she “dozed off” while listening to it.
“Absolutely not,” she declared after joking that she might have to “eat her words” when it comes to previous criticism of Bey’s turn into the Country curve. “Themes r redundant. The lyrics really are forced. Album is too long… Plus who is this imaginary adversary sis thinks still wants to hump on [JAY-Z] in 2024?
“She’s gotta find new content. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY thinks he’s even remotely attractive …. LOL,” she added before finding positive things to say about the non-vocal aspects the album. “Great work from the band/producers/engineers. Cool and interesting work on the sonics. Might be her first sonically cool attempt at being arty…”
While both Allen and Banks have their issues with the project, Beyoncé is enjoying another hit album.
Just saying.
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Source: Gilbert Carrasquillo / Getty / Diddy
The boisterous mogul has been understandably S I L E N T following waves of sexual assault allegations, but with his latest post on IG, he could have possibly made his loudest statement yet.
Diddy’s life has been turned upside down after his ex-longtime girlfriend, singer/model Cassie Ventura, slapped him with a sexual assault lawsuit with eye-brow-raising accusations, opening the floodgates.
He did quickly settle with the “Me & U” singer, but that didn’t stop other alleged victims from coming out and accusing the music mogul of some disgusting behavior that has also swept up a lot of people in his orbit, including his son, Christian Combs who is now the target of a sexual assault.
Two days ago, the 54-year-old Bad Boy CEO shared a full-length clip from his 1998 single “Victory,” showing him ironically running from the law with the caption, “Bad Boy For Life.”
Variety reports that the post received over 200,000 likes since he shared it and features numerous shows of support from some celebrity friends, including his son.
Per Variety:
The comments were left open, and Christian Combs, who is reportedly being sued by a woman for sexual assault in 2022 — wrote “Who you know do it better!!” with three fire emojis. Multiple mid-level artists — including Ginuwine and Lil Scrappy, also weighed in with support. The clip was posted in both his Instagram story and as a stand-alone post; as of Saturday morning it had reached 200,000 likes.
This post marks the first time in a while since the accusations hit that Diddy has left the comment section on one of his posts open.
The Saga Continues For Diddy
He has also been popping up randomly around Miami following the raid on his homes and constant trolling from his longtime nemesis, 50 Cent, who has also been indirectly involved in the mess being that his baby mama, Daphne Joy, was named as an alleged “sex worker” in a lawsuit from producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones.
Joy clapped back at the G-Unit general, accusing him of rape and being an absent father after the “Wanksta” crafter said he was going to file for full custody of the former couple’s 11-year-old son, Sire Jackson.
The rapper, born Curtis Jackson, denies Joy’s claims.
In his latest trolling of Diddy, he used the new “pause” replacement, “No P.Diddy,” during his set at the Dreamville music festival.
Never change Fif.
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Source: Jamie McCarthy / Getty
Aoki Lee Simmons was spotted enjoying beach time with a much older beau, and her disgraced father Russell Simmons appeared supportive in social media posts.
Last week, Aoki Lee Simmons was spotted at the beach on the island of St. Barts in the company of restauranteur Vittorio Assaf, indulging in heavy public displays of affection including sharing kisses. The 21-year-old model and Harvard University graduate is the youngest daughter of rap mogul Russell Simmons and former model and entrepreneur Kimora Lee Simmons. Assad, 65, co-founded the Serafina Restaurant Group in New York City.
In the recently released photos, Simmons and Assaf could be seen frolicking, with the restauranteur taking pictures of Simmons in various poses. Notably, it was reported that the photographs of the excursion showed up on Aoki Lee Simmons’ Instagram page – with Assaf not being shown in any of them. “Girls (possibly mermaids!) on film,” she wrote in the caption of one photo, sporting an olive green bikini.
An unnamed source did confirm that the two were seeing each other in People Magazine, saying that they were “enjoying each others’ company.” Simmons also recently was in Assaf’s hometown of Milan, Italy during their fashion week in February.
Aoki would then talk about the pair in an Instagram Live session and referred to Assaf as her “boyfriend” while seeming to be intoxicated, which garnered some brushback from fans concerned over the wide age disparity between her and Assaf. “Shes actually giving little girl energy and it’s making it extremely creepy,” one person reportedly commented. Assaf made headlines in 2021 after his now ex-wife Charlotte Bonstrom left him for the ex-husband of her twin sister.
The relationship between Russell Simmons and his daughters has been rocky with Aoki even calling her dad out for abusive behavior online but the 66-year-old Def Jam Records founder seemed to be supportive of his youngest daughter’s new relationship in photos that he shared on his Instagram Stories over the weekend. “Happy Sunday,” he wrote with one photo of Aoki and her sister, Ming when they were children that he shared. He also shared a photo of himself and Aoki in another Instagram post, writing: “Throwback from last fathers day nyc …bode bikram yoga express class .. vegan lunch cryotherapy vitamin drip … all around amazing day ❤️ @aokileesimmons love you always”
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Source: FREDERIC J. BROWN / Getty / Halle Bailey
Halle Bailey continues to be booked and busy in Hollywood.
Deadline reports that The Color Purple star and one-half of the music duo Chloe x Halle is joining the cast of the upcoming Universal coming-of-age film directed by director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and producer Pharrell Williams (Hidden Figures).
According to the website, Bailey’s role in the project remains a mystery and will be joining Kelvin Harrison Jr. and The Holdovers Oscar winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
The film’s subject, Deadline reports, will be a musical that takes place in 1977 Virginia and draws inspiration from Williams’ childhood at Atlantis Apartments.
Handling the script for the project will be Martin Hynes (Toy Story 4) and Steven Levenson (Tick, Tick…Boom!). Williams and Mimi Valdés are producing under the i am OTHER banner alongside Gil Netter for Gil Netter Productions.
Halle Bailey Continues To Rack Up Movie Roles
Bailey’s involvement in this film comes from her performance in director Blitz Bazawule’s The Color Purple, in which she played Young Nettie in the movie based on the Broadway run of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
She also had snowflakes big mad when she starred in the live-action remake of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, which brought in over $569 million at the worldwide box office.
This is more positive news for Williams, who is currently the subject of a lawsuit from fellow Neptunes cofounder Chad Hugo.
Hugo claims Williams violated their agreement after attempting to secure the trademarks for The Neptunes’ name.
Williams “claims the move was not to ice out Hugo but to ensure no other people can get their slimy hands on The Neptunes name.”
Pusha-T, a longtime collaborator with the Neptunes, believes Hugo’s lawyer is trying to make money.
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Source: frankpeters / Getty
A group of criminals pulled off the biggest heist ever in Los Angeles. Thieves stole almost $30 million in cash from a holding facility on Easter Sunday.
As spotted on Raw Story, the burglars brought the plot from the Ocean’s Eleven to real life. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) say that the crew broke into a money holding facility in the neighborhood of Sylmar. According to a source who spoke to the Los Angeles Times, the unidentified individuals broke into the building’s roof and evaded the security system all together. Once inside, they reportedly accessed the vault without issue and made off with close to $30 million dollars in cash.
The perpetrators were so experienced that the staff at the facility didn’t notice the money missing right away. “It’s just mind blowing that you would never suspect it,” an anonymous employee told ABC News. “$30 million in the Valley, gone. How? Why? I’m still trying to process it. Was it an inside job? Was it just one person? Was it a group? You know, there’s a lot of questions.” The LAPD and FBI have confirmed they are working and “have a joint investigation into an alleged burglary that occurred on Sunday evening, March 31, 2024. No additional information related to the incident is being released,” the agencies confirmed in a joint statement.
You can view reporting live from the scene below.
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Source: Wirestock / Getty / NYC / Earthquake
No, you were not bugging; that was an earthquake you felt this morning.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the East Coast was seriously shaking this morning after a 4.8-magnitude earthquake centered near Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, 40 miles west of New York City.
It was the largest in the area since 1973, local news affiliate ABC7NY reports.
Per CBS News, the earthquake hit around approximately 10:20 a.m.
The website reports there are no signs of damage.
The quake could be felt throughout the entire tri-state area, from Philadelphia and as far as Baltimore. The immediate reactions of buildings shaking began pouring in from New Jersey, New York, and Long Island.
This quake is not the first to rattle the East Coast and New York. However, the last earthquake of that magnitude felt in New York City was in 1887, when a 5.0-magnitude quake rocked the city.
“A 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit west of Manhattan and has been felt throughout New York. My team is assessing impacts and any damage that may have occurred, and we will update the public throughout the day,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“Our preliminary reports do not indicate major life safety or infrastructure issues from the earthquake. We are performing thorough inspections of critical areas,” NYC Mayor Eric Adams said on X, while also giving guidance in case of aftershocks.
New Yorkers Are Shook
As expected, New Yorkers are still reacting to the 4.8 earthquake on social media, which is extremely rare on the East Coast.
As expected, there is plenty of shock from New Yorkers, who are not about the earthquake life like those on the West Coast, but with folks on X, no one takes anything seriously cause there is humor involved.
Lol, we can’t front, that’s very arrucate.
We hope everyone is good. You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
1. This is extremely accurate
2. We are foreign to these types of things B!
3. Listen, we do come together during events like this.
4. Wait a minute…
6. There was nothing “small” about that to us.
7. Here comes the folks on the west coast.
8. We gotta during a natural disaster, just saying.
10. Hey, we get it, they ain’t used to this sh*t either
12. Good question?
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Source: Scott Legato / Getty
It seems Rod Wave might have the fight of his life upon him. He was recently arrested on some serious weapons charges.
Variety magazine reports that the St. Petersburg, Florida, native got into some trouble Sunday, March 31. Local badges claim he had involvement in a shooting in Manatee County that left four individuals injured. According to a statement released by the police: “about 11 p.m., officers responded to shots fired in a large group of people gathered outside of 400 49 St. S. At this time it appears a group of men got into a verbal argument and exchanged gunfire outside of the location” the document reads.
Rod Wave was arrested in connection to the incident and charged on weapons charges including possession of the ammunition. His lawyers quickly refuted the claims on an Instagram post. “Rod was arrested and detained with absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing. The police claimed he was a felon in possession of ammunition” the caption read. “Not only was he not in possession of ammunition, a basic check of public records would have easily demonstrated to the police that he was not a convicted felon. The prosecutor and the judge immediately agreed that the evidence did not support the charge and set him free the same day.”
This was not the first time Rod Wave has been in trouble with the law. Back in 2022, he was arrested for allegedly strangling his ex-girlfriend. In an exclusive statement to Rolling Stone magazine his lawyer Bradford Cohen claimed it was a misunderstanding. Rod Wave has yet to publicly comment on the weapons charges.
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Source: Shareif Ziyadat / Getty / Diddy
Surviving Diddy, the documentary? It looks like those docs are coming.
Spotted on TMZ, multiple docs detailing Diddy’s federal probe that has led to the once highly sought-after mogul losing multiple bags and two of his homes being raided by the Feds are reportedly in the works.
According to the celebrity gossip site, it will happen “several times with several companies.”
Per TMZ:
Multiple industry sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ … producers at various production companies in Hollywood and the UK have been scrambling to put together long-form documentary films covering Diddy’s drama — everything from the civil lawsuits to the federal raids.
We’re told the outreach to ramp up production for most of the docs began immediately after the raids in L.A. and Miami — which isn’t surprising, as the feds’ execution of search warrants happened on live TV … making it more of a national spectacle, and prompting folks to pay close attention to all the fallout.
Sources speaking with TMZ claim at least five production companies have been reaching out to anyone close to Diddy who is willing to talk. Those include former dancers, Combs Bad Boy Records execs, and even producers on his iconic competition reality show, Making The Band.
TMZ reports that producers have contacted former Danity Kane member Aubrey O’Day, who has been very public about her dismay for her former mentor on her X account.
The website confirms ABC News Studios for Hulu is working on a documentary, while several UK-based studios are working on their documentaries.
Recent Developments
Things are still developing in the federal probe itself. Recently, footage from the raid has hit social media, and Misa Hylton, the mother of Justin Combs, took to Instagram to call out Homeland Security for using excessive force on her sons, Justin and Christain, during the raid.
Meanwhile, Diddy’s longtime nemesis, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, continues to antagonize Combs on social media, and most recently, his baby mama, Daphne Joy, whose name came up in a federal suit, alleging she is a “sex worker.”
Joy then accused the G-Unit general of rape and being an absent father after he claimed he was going to take her to court for full custody of their son.
The “Candy Shop” rapper has denied those allegations.
Will you be tuning in when the docs arrive? Who are we kidding? We know you will be watching.
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Source: The Washington Post / Getty
On Tuesday (April 2), GOP candidate and current commander-in-criminal-indictments Donald Trump took the xenophobic bigot tour he calls his presidential campaign to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he called brown people who entered the U.S. illegally “animals” and declared that they’re “not human.”
“A 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia was barbarically murdered by an illegal alien animal,” Trump said in reference to the violent death of Laken Riley, a nursing student at Augusta University who was found dead in a wooded area at the University of Georgia campus in Athens on Feb. 22, and who authorities believe was killed by an undocumented migrant from Venezuela.
“The Democrats said please don’t call them animals, they’re humans. I said no, they’re not humans, they’re not humans, they’re animals. And Nancy Pelosi told me that. She said, ‘Please don’t use the word animals, sir, when you’re talking about these people.’ I said, ‘I’ll use the word ‘animal’ because that’s what they are.’”
Since news of Riley’s death broke, MAGA conservatives have been exploiting her story to craft a racist narrative that migrants coming into the U.S. from our southern border are causing violent crime to spiral out of control because they can’t be bothered to do the bare minimum research it would take to know there haven’t been any surges in crimes in the cities most migrants have come to, and, in fact, in many of those cities, crime rates have fallen.
Trump, in his usual bigoted fashion, is taking things a step further and using this single case of a citizen allegedly being murdered by an illegal immigrant as an excuse to completely dehumanize migrants whether they have done anything wrong or not.
This is, after all, the same orangey-white nationalist who previously likened migrants to Hannibal Lecter and claimed many of them speak languages so foreign (as in “from the planet Mars”) that no linguists in the developed world can translate. And lest we forget, Trump entered the political arena generalizing Mexican immigrants as “rapists” who are “bringing drugs” and “bringing crime.” (Now, he’s out here slanging $60 Bibles and $400 “Air Treasons” because his own alleged crimes appear to have caught up with him financially.)
A vote for Trump is a vote for the normalization of outright bigotry. This much is clear.
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Source: Pacific Press / Getty
A columnist’s criticism of the New York Police Department’s handling of subway crime led to department heads blasting him and Mayor Eric Adams chiming in.
The topic of crime in New York City’s subways has been a heated one, and a new column taking the NYPD to task for not having plans to aid those mentally ill despite the increase in officers present has compelled the department to lash out in posts on social media, with Mayor Eric Adams also chiming in. The column in question was written by columnist Harry Siegel and published in the New York Daily News Saturday (March 30). Siegel criticized department chiefs for making television appearances downplaying the trouble and pointing to the amount of officers, especially after high-profile incidents including a person being shoved off the platform in East Harlem last week.
Siegel was attacked by NYPD Head of Transit Michael Kemper in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “Your readers deserve more accurate reporting. This article is filled with misleading and straight up false information,” Kemper wrote, adding that Siegel incorrectly listed 10 deaths that had occurred in the subway system this year instead of four.
The newspaper would issue a correction afterward, but that didn’t stop NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kay Daughtry from also leveling a personal insult toward Siegel. “We are the police. And you are a gadfly — who should consider revising their definition of madness to: reading a Siegel column expecting a useful takeaway,” Daughtry wrote. NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell would go on to blast Siegel’s column on Sunday, saying it “demonstrates the overall disdain for the NYPD.” He would also call Siegel “anti-cop” in an interview on 1010 WINS Monday. Siegel would admit his error but also fired back at the police brass in a post, calling it “Incredible cop talk.”
Mayor Adams offered his two cents after both police representatives spent three days haranguing Siegel during his weekly press briefing Tuesday (April 2), calling Siegel’s column “distasteful” as it was published on the day of Officer Jonathan Diller’s funeral out on Long Island. “What you saw from Chell and Daughtry, you saw a human reaction,” he said. Adams has been particularly sensitive after coming under fire in an interview with activist and lawyer Olayemi Olurin on The Breakfast Club where she took him to task for “fear-mongering” and the NYPD’s racial profiling.
