News
Page: 277
HipHopWired Featured Video
TSMC, the world’s leading chip manufacturer, has approached several United States-based chip designers for a new joint venture to oversee operations for Intel factories, according to a new report. If the deal goes through, TSMC, which is based in Taiwan, will take over half of Intel’s foundry division, reportedly at the request of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Reuters revealed that, via sources, TSMC has approached Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, and Qualcomm about a potential joint venture to run half of Intel’s foundry division, which creates a variety of chips made for specific customer needs. Intel’s stock price, which has been nosediving since last year, saw a spike in the market on Wednesday (March 12) after the Reuters report went wide.
In the ongoing tech wars surrounding the rapid development of AI tools and the items needed to run the massive computing demands of said programs, Intel’s stake in the chipmaking game was widely report to be slipping and reports point to the fact other chipmakers have far outpaced the one-time giant of the space, especially Nvidia in this case.
The outlet also learned via sources that the Trump administration formally requested that TSMC lend its expertise to rescue Intel from floundering further as President Donald Trump and his “America First” agenda continue to take shape across the nation. The prevailing thought is that this would be a beneficial partnership, albeit a reluctant one, as Trump has been clear in wanting the United States to be a leader in manufacturing its tech goods and passing premiums on other countries via tariffs and the like.
The deal would give TSMC a 50% stake and no more than that, but it would need to be approved by President Trump. The outlet adds that, via a quartet of sources, the deal would face some requisite challenges as TSMC has vastly different operating rules than Intel.
—
Photo: VCG / Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
Source: Kojima Productions / Debra Wilson / Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Debra Wilson is a legend in the world of video games, and gamers are letting one user on X, formerly Twitter, know that after he complained about the actress’s appearance in Death Stranding 2: On The Beach.
When you speak of Debra Wilson in the video game space, make sure you respect her name. Wilson’s likeness and voice have been credited in roughly 111 games over the years, including the Star Wars Jedi franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Diablo IV, and Avowed.
You can head here to check her entire resume.
Most recently, it was revealed during Hideo Kojima’s latest, and epic trailer for Death Stranding 2: On The Beach that Wilson would be in the game playing the role of “Doctor,” who has two right hands, in what is the most Kojima twist ever.
Following the reveal, while everyone was left excited for Kojima’s next video game magna opus, one person complained about Wilson being in the game.
One User On X Is Tired of Seeing Debra Wilson’s “Very Distinctive Face”
A user on the X who goes by the handle @Endymion shared a screenshot of Wilson from the trailer with the caption, “Oh my god enough of this woman being in everything man.”
He wasn’t done making an a** out of himself adding in a follow-up post, “And before anyone says anything else, she can act just fine I’m just tired of seeing her very distinctive face in everything.”
He continued, “Every time her face shows up in some game it’s a legit jump scare to me. And western devs will say, “it’s hard to translate a female actors face to a game”. And yet every fcking time this lady is in something every studio seems to get her likeness to a T. These mfers are gaslighting me bro I swear to god.”
Very interesting comments, especially the ones about Wilson’s looks.
Gamers Accuse The Debra Wilson Hater of Being Racist
Anyway, gamers formed like Voltron to take down the hater, making very salient points about actors/actresses who work in the video game industry and basically accusing him of racism for his comments about Wilson’s face.
“Very distinctive face.” Just fucking say it dude. It’s not like Elon will ban you for it anymore,” one user on X wrote in response to his post.
Another user on X wrote, “There’s no way you have an issue with Debra Wilson of all people. Why are you tired of seeing her face? What’s the real problem? I want a legit answer, none of that grifter bullshit you’re peddling either.”
Then there is the fact that Death Stranding 2: On The Beach also features Troy Baker, who happens to be in more games than Wilson. But @EndySimon wasn’t complaining about that. We wonder why he had nothing to say on that matter.
“Ten minute trailer and this dipshit finds the few seconds with a Black woman to complain about when Troy fucking Baker is ALSO in this trailer and he’s in WAY more games than Debra Are you starting to see the grift yet?,” another post on X read.
Debra Wilson will be protected at all costs.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
Source: Kojima Productions / Debra Wilson / Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Debra Wilson is a legend in the world of video games, and gamers are letting one user on X, formerly Twitter, know that after he complained about the actress’s appearance in Death Stranding 2: On The Beach.
When you speak of Debra Wilson in the video game space, make sure you respect her name. Wilson’s likeness and voice have been credited in roughly 111 games over the years, including the Star Wars Jedi franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Diablo IV, and Avowed.
You can head here to check her entire resume.
Most recently, it was revealed during Hideo Kojima’s latest, and epic trailer for Death Stranding 2: On The Beach that Wilson would be in the game playing the role of “Doctor,” who has two right hands, in what is the most Kojima twist ever.
Following the reveal, while everyone was left excited for Kojima’s next video game magna opus, one person complained about Wilson being in the game.
One User On X Is Tired of Seeing Debra Wilson’s “Very Distinctive Face”
A user on the X who goes by the handle @Endymion shared a screenshot of Wilson from the trailer with the caption, “Oh my god enough of this woman being in everything man.”
He wasn’t done making an a** out of himself adding in a follow-up post, “And before anyone says anything else, she can act just fine I’m just tired of seeing her very distinctive face in everything.”
He continued, “Every time her face shows up in some game it’s a legit jump scare to me. And western devs will say, “it’s hard to translate a female actors face to a game”. And yet every fcking time this lady is in something every studio seems to get her likeness to a T. These mfers are gaslighting me bro I swear to god.”
Very interesting comments, especially the ones about Wilson’s looks.
Gamers Accuse The Debra Wilson Hater of Being Racist
Anyway, gamers formed like Voltron to take down the hater, making very salient points about actors/actresses who work in the video game industry and basically accusing him of racism for his comments about Wilson’s face.
“Very distinctive face.” Just fucking say it dude. It’s not like Elon will ban you for it anymore,” one user on X wrote in response to his post.
Another user on X wrote, “There’s no way you have an issue with Debra Wilson of all people. Why are you tired of seeing her face? What’s the real problem? I want a legit answer, none of that grifter bullshit you’re peddling either.”
Then there is the fact that Death Stranding 2: On The Beach also features Troy Baker, who happens to be in more games than Wilson. But @EndySimon wasn’t complaining about that. We wonder why he had nothing to say on that matter.
“Ten minute trailer and this dipshit finds the few seconds with a Black woman to complain about when Troy fucking Baker is ALSO in this trailer and he’s in WAY more games than Debra Are you starting to see the grift yet?,” another post on X read.
Debra Wilson will be protected at all costs.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
Director Dan Reed is planning a third chapter in his ongoing Leaving Neverland series about allegations of sexual abuse against late pop icon Michael Jackson by dancer/choreographer Wade Robson and James Safechuck.
According to Variety, the second sequel will focus on the upcoming trial pitting Robson and Safechuck against Jackson’s companies over their allegations that the organizations neglected to protect them from the alleged abuse detailed in the bombshell 2019 two-part doc. In the original film, the men described in graphic detail how the late King of Pop allegedly molested them at his Neverland Ranch in California when they were both minors; Jackson’s estate has continuously and emphatically denied the allegations.
The reported third film will serve as the follow-up to the upcoming Leaving Neverland 2: Surviving Michael Jackson, which will premiere on Channel 4 in the U.K. on March 18 and on YouTube in the United States. The 50-minute movie will primarily focus on Robson and Safechuck fighting to have their lawsuit against Jackson’s estate go forward; the case is slated to go to trial next year.
“It’s taken an awful long time just to get to a trial date that looks as though it could actually happen,” Reed told Variety about his plan to have cameras in the courtroom, despite his belief that the Jackson estate will “find a way to try and sideswipe this whole thing and make sure it never goes to court… But who knows. Maybe justice will prevail and there’ll be a trial. And if there is a trial, I want to be there.”
While we will have to wait to see what will happen when the men have their day in court, Reed is aware that it’s possible that the judge in the case might not let cameras in their courtroom. “It’s really the judge’s discretion,” he said. Reed was allowed to film inside the Santa Monica Courthouse for several hearings depicted in Leaving Neverland 2, which mainly focuses on the legal back-and-forth leading up to Robson and Safechuck being granted a trial.
“It’s a bridge film in between what was a pretty high-profile start and what I hope will be a very dramatic ending,” Reed said. “We could have kept it to include all this material and the trial. But I think the trial will be so dramatic, and you won’t have time for all the stuff in between.”
The original Leaving Neverland won an Emmy for outstanding documentary or nonfiction special, even as it drew fire from Jackson’s family and estate and, in 2019, resulted in a $100 million lawsuit by the estate against HBO over claims that the documentary violated a 27-year-old non-disparagement clause the network signed to air a 1992 concert film for Jackson’s Dangerous World Tour; the case was sent to private arbitration that year and is still pending.
Jackson’s estate has consistently denied a series of allegations of sexual abuse against the singer who died in 2009, often noting that Jackson was acquitted in a 2005 criminal trial and has never been convicted or held liable for any such claims. The estate has also claimed that accusers are looking for a payday from an artist who cannot defend himself because defamation laws do not cover dead people.
As for why he’s planning the third chapter, Reed said that he hopes to keep telling Robson and Safechuck’s story because he thinks it will help viewers “realize that these are real people, with a real story, with real families who are doing this… They’re not just a couple of people who popped up because they saw a pot of gold. These are people who have really dedicated a decade, at least, of their lives to getting justice.”
On The Tonight Show Tuesday (March 11), Sting and Shaggy explained the current tumultuous state of the United States economy the best way they know how: through song. In a hilarious segment on the episode, the duo answered host Jimmy Fallon’s questions about the Donald Trump administration’s financial policies with lyrics from their own songs. […]
Venezuelan singer-songwriter Joaquina has signed a global publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music, the company tells Billboard. This marks her first worldwide administration agreement since her best new artist win at the Latin Grammys in 2023, which made her the youngest act to win that category at age 19. “I believe a huge part of […]
HipHopWired Featured Video
Yung Miami and Sean “Diddy” Combs were involved in a brief but intense romantic situation that observers openly coveted and applauded for the unattached way the pair carried their union and their openness about sex. After Yung Miami famously stated on her show that she was a fan of “golden showers,” the rapper and podcast host has since walked back that stance in a new interview.
Yung Miami was a guest on Stepping into the Shade Room with host Thembi Mawema, and the pair discussed a number of topics related to her career, her recent birthday celebration, and, of course, all things involving her former group, the City Girls.
Mawema, flipping the script, asked the “Rap Freaks” star some scandalous questions in a version of Miami’s Resha Roulette game and was questioned about the infamous moment in 2023 on Caresha Please with Trina where she expressed a love for “watersports.” However, it looks like Caresha was just poddin’ and talking mess.
‘I always go back to that interview and say, ‘Why the fuck did I say that?’” Miami says. She added, “I’m the type of person that’s like that. Like, I say some sh*t and then I’m just like, ‘What?’ I have a bubbly personality. I can tell y’all a thousand times, English, Spanish, and French [that] no man has ever peed on me.”
Last year, Miami clarified that she didn’t let Diddy perform a golden shower on her. However, the chatter persisted all the same.
Check out the full Yung Miami interview with Stepping into the Shade Room below. Hop to the 52-minute mark to see the comments mentioned above.
—
Photo: Getty
Drake has always been one to keep his eye on the pulse of music, and now, he’s showing love to an emerging pop star. The 6 God shouted out Gracie Abrams on his Instagram Story on Tuesday (March 11), which had social media buzzing.
Drizzy spotlighted Abrams’ “I Knew It, I Know You” from the singer’s sophomore album, The Secret of Us, and more specifically, the beat switch that he was feeling.
“[GOAT]’d beat switch on this,” he wrote. “Second half is [sad emoji, brain exploding emoji, blue heart emoji].”
Fans had plenty to say about the idea of Drake and Gracie aligning after seeing him praise the guitar-driven 2024 tune produced by Aaron Dessner.
“Well, at least he has good taste in music,” one person wrote to X. Another chimed in, “We live in the timeline where DRAKE posts about GRACIE ABRAMS!”
The OVO faithful have also found their way to the “I Knew It, I Know You” music video and flooded the comments section.
Drake has been showing love to the pop stars in recent weeks, as he shouted out fellow Canadian Tate McRae as well as Charli XCX on $ome $exy $ongs 4 U track “Small Town Fame.”
“B—h, I feel like Tate McRae/ Puttin’ Charli up her nose, X on her tongue, she been geekin’ hard/ She done had a Brat summer,” he raps.
Abrams released her The Secret of Us album last June. The 25-year-old’s sophomore LP peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and was Billboard‘s No. 16 album on our 50 Best Albums of 2024 list.
See Drake’s Instagram Story below.
https://twitter.com/chriscznn/status/1899614961288016211
Little Monsters everywhere are loving Lady Gaga‘s latest album Mayhem, but in a new interview, Mother Monster revealed that one of the most talked-about songs on the record almost didn’t make it into the final product.
Appearing on Las Culturistas With Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, Gaga revealed to the pair that she almost removed late-album standout “How Bad Do U Want Me” from the Mayhem tracklist. “Oh my god, I almost didn’t put that on the album,” she told the hosts. “I was not sure that I should put that on the record, and Michael [Polansky, her fiancé] was like, ‘You have to — your fans are going to love that song.’”
When both Rogers and Yang expressed their dismay at the thought of “How Bad” being cut, Gaga revealed that it’s not the only beloved pop song of hers to nearly get the axe. “Sometimes, when things are really super pop, I just get a weird reaction [to them],” she said. “I felt this way about [The Fame‘s] ‘Just Dance,’ so thank God I didn’t listen to myself then.”
In explaining “How Bad,” Gaga broke down how she’s always felt pigeonholed as “the bad girl” throughout her life, and how she wanted to break that cycle in her current relationship. “I’ve always been at war with this feeling that, if I am interested in someone, they’re actually longing for a ‘good girl,’ but they’re stuck with me,” she said. “There is no actual other good girl, the good girl is in their head, and they’re kind of comparing me the whole time.”
Elsewhere in the wide-ranging interview, Gaga, Rogers and Yang talked about the importance of Saturday Night Live as an institution for both up-and-coming artists and pop stars. In fact, Gaga revealed that before her hilarious performance of “D–k in a Box” with Andy Samberg at the SNL50 concert, she felt a lot of pressure to get it right.
“It’s so funny, at the SNL50 concert the other night, I was nervous to do ‘D–k in a Box,’” she said. “I feel like, if you’re a comedian, being asked to do ‘Who’s on First?’ is probably really [nerve-wracking], and to me, ‘D–k in a Box’ is a classic. So I was like, ‘Oh my god, why did I do this?’ But as I was walking through [Radio City Music Hall], I remembered the last time I had been there was with Tony [Bennett]. And Tony would have said, ‘If you are nervous, it’s because you care.’”
Check out Gaga’s full episode of Las Culturistas below:
A federal judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by R. Kelly’s former assistant against Netflix and Lifetime over how she was portrayed in the documentary “Surviving R. Kelly,” ruling that the networks are protected by the First Amendment.
The lawsuit from Diana Copeland, who says she worked for Kelly for more than a decade, claimed that the doc series “depicts her in a sinister and defamatory light” – including falsely suggesting that she had helped the now-convicted singer prey on young women.
But in a ruling Tuesday, Judge Stephanos Bibas said Copeland had failed to clear the “high bar” for filing libel cases over newsworthy subjects: “The First Amendment demands ‘adequate breathing space’ for the free flow of ideas, especially about public figures on matters of public controversy.”
Trending on Billboard
The judge dismissed the lawsuit, but gave Copeland a chance to refile an updated version of her lawsuit. In a statement to Billboard, her attorney said she would successfully do so: “In this new streaming world, platforms like Netflix and documentarians need to be held accountable for any damages caused to people by slander in their content.”
An attorney for Lifetime and Netflix did not immediately return a request for comment.
Released in early 2019 as a six-part documentary series, “Surviving R. Kelly” helped push the longstanding abuse allegations against Kelly back into the public eye. Later that same year, the singer was indicted by federal prosecutors on a slew of criminal charges, eventually resulting in convictions on racketeering, sex trafficking and child pornography and decades-long prison sentences.
Copeland sued last year, with her attorneys claiming that episodes of the Lifetime documentary, which was later added to Netflix’s catalog, “paint Ms. Copeland as Mr. Kelly’s co-conspirator and accomplice in victimizing children and young women.”
But in Tuesday’s decision dismissing those claims, Judge Bibas ruled that Copeland was a so-called public figure — a status that makes it very hard to win a defamation lawsuit.
Under landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings, someone like Copeland must show that Lifetime acted with “actual malice,” meaning the network either knew its claims were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. That difficult-to-meet standard is designed to prevent government officials, business execs and other powerful people from abusing libel suits to stifle free speech.
Copeland had argued that she was no celebrity and simply wanted to “lead a private life” despite her work for Kelly. But Judge Bibas pointed out that she had appeared on Good Morning America to discuss the allegations and defend her conduct: “By going on national TV to discuss Kelly, Copeland voluntarily injected herself into the public discourse [and] invited public attention, comment, and criticism.”
As a public figure, the judge said Copeland’s case would only succeed if she could show “actual malice” – and he said had not done so in her court filings.
“The actual-malice standard shields publishers from liability for mistakes, while still preserving defamation remedies where the publisher knew that he was publishing falsehoods or deliberately ignored the truth,” the judge wrote. “Copeland fails to clear that high bar. The complaint offers only conclusions and speculation of ill will, not allegations of actual malice.”
For similar reasons, the judge also tossed out other allegations of the case, including that the documentary inflicted emotional distress and misappropriated her name and likeness. But the entire ruling came “without prejudice,” meaning Copeland can refile her case with changes in an effort to fix the problems Judge Bibas identified: “Perhaps Copeland can cure these defects.”