Neil's Puppet Dreams (YouTube)

- The best present for the holidays? Ben Savage tweeting last night that he and Danielle Fishel are all in for a Boy Meets World sequel for Disney, titled Girl Meets World.

Topangaaaaa!

- Brad Pitt is not ashamed of that ridiculous Chanel No. 5 ad. In fact, he kind of liked how weird it was.

- Nicki Minaj is stirring up more trouble on American Idol, except this time she's gone after Steven Tyler, calling the Aerosmith singer racist for saying that she would have eliminated Bob Dylan from the show had he been auditioning. Um, to be fair? Dylan never would have made it past the first round, no matter who was judging. Though we're not sure if that makes Tyler racist.

-Neil Patrick Harris has a new web show, "Neil's Puppet Dreams." No, for real. And it is amazing.
http://youtu.be/q3bSbnAXrM4

Chris Brown and Rihanna: Back on track?

- Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj have caused producers to suspend American Idol auditions because the two new judges just can't get along. (Ms. Minaj said she'd knock the Glitter star "out.") Keith Urban is apparently staying out of this one.

- In addition to guest star Donald Glover, Girls creator Lena Dunham told Reuters that the second season of her HBO show will feature more women of color. "All I want to do is make women feel excited and included by the show," she said.

Stephen Colbert hangs with New York Cardinal Timothy Nolan (PatrickMcMullan)

- The Amazing Spider-Man's Andrew Garfield and girlfriend Emma Stone managed to turn an invasion on their privacy into a mitzvah when they used a weekend paparazzo swarm to show off handmade cardboard signs for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation and Gilda’s Club of New York City. Hopefully they weren't arrested as OWS protestors.

- Suri Cruise finished her very first week at Avenues, the new private school in NYC. Though "private" is a relative term when there are people waiting in the bushes to take photos of you during snack time.

- Nicki Minaj joined Keith Urban as an American Idol judge, spending her first days on the job fighting with Mariah Carey and beginning New York auditions. That's got to be worth $12 million, right?

- Stephen Colbert joined New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan onstage at Fordham University on Friday, telling the Jesuit school students that despite the flaws in the Roman Catholic hierarchy, he loved his Church, "warts and all." No, he wasn't in character. Stop being so cynical.

- Seth MacFarlane kicked off a "meh" premiere of Saturday Night Live, but maybe that's because his face just looks so damn punchable. The night's best sketch didn't involve the guest star at all, with an Obama-sponsored political ad.

Nicki Minaj/ President Barack Obama.

Last week, Nicki Minaj caused whiplash, turning our heads with her verse on on Lil Wayne’s latest mixtape, Dedication 4. "I’m a Republican voting for Mitt Romney/You lazy bitches is fucking up the economy,” she rapped, causing us to wonder whether this would hurt her chances for judging American Idol ... even if she was joking.

Now the hip-hop star is claiming that yes, she was just joking, especially when the POTUS gave her the benefit of the doubt on a recent radio shout-out.

When asked what he thought about Ms. Minaj's music, President Barack Obama told Orlando's Power 953, "I think she had a song on there, a little rap that said that, but she likes to play different characters. So I don’t know what’s going on there."

Ms. Minaj took this full-fledged support of her tunes, tweeting: "Ha! Thank you for understanding my creative humor & sarcasm Mr. President, the smart ones always do… *sends love & support*"

She followed this with several updates:
"Awesome! Now I can tell my grandchildren that the 1st black President of the United States took the time to address a Nicki Minaj question."
"My president is BLACK and my Fav is WINNING..... FUCKKKK YOUUUU!"
"Thanks haters! Lmaoooooooooooooooooooooooo. #BarbzWinAgain"
"ahahhahaahhahahahahhahahahhahahahahhahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

One Direction. (Getty Images)

Last night was the 2012 MTV Music Awards, for anyone who didn't spend the evening celebrating Fashion's Night Out or glued to Fox News, CNN or MSNBC. And it seemed like a lot of people tuned in ... at least half of our Twitter feed was dominated by messages about Kevin Hart, Pink, One Direction and, yes, Frank Ocean.

In a move that stunned audiences even more than her (apparent) love of Mitt Romney, Nicki Minaj cursed at Rihanna, telling the 25-year-old singer to "sit the fuck down" when RiRi tried to hug her. (Ms. Minaj's video "Starships" won Best Female Video of the year, beating out Rihanna's own "We Found Love.")

But what really set the Twitter tongues wagging--and competing with the DNC for most tweets per minute--was Odd Future's Frank Ocean. The now-solo artist performed "Thinkin' Bout You" from his new Channel Orange album, leading even Lady Gaga to mention how much she loved the rapper on Twitter.

Meanwhile KatyPerry  and One Direction made the tweens scream in adoration ... especially when Ms. Perry shared a chaste smooch with two of the boy band's members after they tweeted their appreciation for the pop star.

And who said Twitter didn't bring people together?

Simpler times: Madonna in 1984.

Even as Madonna brings her world tour to Yankee Stadium for shows on September 6 and 8, longtime fans will have a sneaking suspicion that she’s already sung her swan song.

It happened in 2001, at the opening of the Grammy Awards. Performing a recent single, the unimaginatively named “Music,” the long-reigning Queen of Pop writhed on top of a car while a screen behind her projected legitimately iconic images from her career thus far—more writhing, in a wedding gown at the Video Music Awards; aping Marilyn in the “Material Girl” video; that whole Sex period. By the time she stripped off her black leather jacket to reveal a T-shirt printed with “Material Girl,” the game was up. It was the end of history for Madonna. Having stolen from New York’s drag queens, the nation of Argentina, Björk and the infinitely patient Camille Paglia, there was no one left to rob but herself. The snake had found its own tail and wasn’t letting go. “Music” was her last number-one single in America.

The subsequent 11 years have been no kinder to a pop singer who made untold profits by scandalizing the entire population all at once. In 2003, for instance, Madonna restaged the notorious VMAs “Like a Virgin” performance in which she’d mimed masturbation; it was such a sensational act back in 1984 that a worthy callback required the additional services of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, both of whom planted kisses on Mama. The stunt got ink, but felt a little derivative, unworthy.

We haven’t even gotten to the Super Bowl performance, this year, during which the chanteuse came out in a gilded barge, like Cleopatra, to intone “Vogue,” then almost fell off a set of bleachers while performing, once again, “Music.” Madonna duetted with of-the-moment hip-hop act LMFAO, gave airtime to Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. (who stole the show with a raised middle finger—proving she had learned from the best), and ceded the entire finale to reality-show judge Cee Lo Green, who belted out “Like a Prayer” while the ostensible star sang backup. Nothing here was new—not the reliance on the energy of younger pop stars (Madonna has, in the past 10 years, collaborated with everyone from Missy Elliott to Justin Timberlake and Kanye West), not the ostensibly new song she debuted (a retread of flimsy early material like “Burning Up”), and not the dopey “political” edge (her song ended with a plea for #Worldpeace).

Madonna’s ongoing world tour, following the halftime show that most of us were inclined to view charitably, has been marred by endless grabs for attention; the well-chronicled political mishmash has featured the comparison of a French politician to Hitler, the onstage brandishing of pistols, a merited-or-not mockery of Lady Gaga, and Madonna’s own fans booing her. And then there was Elton John, who declared, “Her career is over, I can tell you that” and compared her to “a fairground stripper.”

Which isn’t to say that Mr. John is the most relevant pop star of the moment, either, but he has a point.

Past Madonna tours were controversial; recall how natural she seemed in her 1991 tour documentary Truth or Dare, still discovering her power to provoke. Back in the day, the attention felt somehow earned, if often strenuously so—the Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra said a mouthful, for instance; “Papa Don’t Preach” still carries a frisson; and the apostasy of the Catholic-baiting “Like a Prayer” made up for the relative thinness of the music. It was an equal exchange—she gave us something to talk about, we bought her albums and got up to dance (for inspiration), whenever she commanded.

By comparison, Madonna’s bids for controversy these days come off as desperate, the Newsweek cover stories of Top 40 radio.

Or was it always a little troll-y? It’s possible that no public act has ever been more calculated than Madonna’s repeated cursing on Letterman—rewatching the 1994 segment today, you can see there is no spontaneity whatsoever. Madonna dropped the f-bomb because she had determined it was time to prove that she could be naughtier than we even believed possible. Her Erotica album doesn’t really sound like the work of someone who’s actually ever had sex (much less cruised the Lower East Side in a limo, hunting for hookups, or partnered with Warren Beatty, Sean Penn, JFK Jr., et al.). The Vanity Fair spread with her newborn daughter invented the current tabloid vogue for baby photos, but the earth-mother shtick felt like as much of a pose as the Hindi-inflected look she threw on at awards ceremonies around the period, or the British accent she would soon pick up. In retrospect, the British accent was when the pose overwhelmed the artist. Until then, it was easy enough to go along with Madonna’s act. Certainly it was more interesting on a semiotic level than just marveling, yet again, at the dully marvelous vocal power of contemporaries like Mariah Carey and Toni Braxton.

And yet Madonna seemed to grow rageful at the limits of the concord she’d struck with her audience. Her mid-career albums Ray of Light (1998) and Music (2000) got the first legitimately respectful reviews of her oeuvre—and the first Grammy wins aside from a 1992 music-video prize. Having proven herself as an artist and not merely a provocateur, Madonna released, in 2003, a musically interesting, politically moronic album called American Life. A video depicted her tossing a bomb at George W. Bush. This was the album on which she rapped about how dissatisfied she was with her household staff and her “soy latte” with a “double shot-té.” Rightly or wrongly, her discovery of Jewish mysticism—remember “Esther”?—came off as yet another pose, if an expensive one.

Her 2005 album Confessions on a Dance Floor marked a retrenchment; the music was well-regarded precisely because it so closely mimed the spirit of the disco tunes that had initially made Madonna famous (with a bit of international house music mixed in). On tour in support of the album, Madonna ascended a glittering disco cross and wore a crown of thorns, to which the world replied with a mass eye-roll. What, precisely, was she even trying to say about the Catholic Church, 15 years after Like a Prayer? What was there left to communicate? The confessions weren’t forthcoming on Dance Floor, an album about having fun and waiting for boys to call and vaguely pushing oneself toward some undefined goal. (It’s worth noting that Confessions on a Dance Floor sold well, and that Madonna will always be able to count on an avid, if graying, fan base—in particular among gay men between 25 and 55 who grew up with her act.)

After a warmed-over hip-hop-ish album in 2008 came this year’s MDNA—a not-so-clever mash-up of her own name and the active ingredient in Ecstasy. One song features a rap bashing ex-husband Guy Ritchie; another bashes “some girls” who don’t have Madonna’s particular je ne sais quoi. There’s “Masterpiece,” a weak ballad from the Wallis Simpson bio-pic she directed. There’s a tune called “Gang Bang,” and a remix of the leadoff single “Give Me All Your Luvin’” produced by LMFAO. None of this has aged well, and the album came out in the spring.

Given Madonna’s undisciplined message, her buckshot approach to baiting controversy—if you throw every signifier out into the world, one is bound to hit—it’s perhaps no surprise that her lunch has been eaten by a crop of pop stars who absorbed her best moves and subtracted the air of breathless doggedness. Katy Perry has nailed the faux-naïf “Why are you paying attention to me?” quality. Rihanna captures the air of the profane. Nicki Minaj does the whole rapid-cycling-through-personae thing, albeit in fast-motion. And Lady Gaga, whose own popularity waxes and wanes in a Madonnavian manner, has adopted the sense of unashamed artifice, mixing in a bit more humor and perhaps a bit more heart, daring us, as Madonna once did, not to talk about her.

While Madonna performs old material and prematurely stale material and waves guns and twirls batons and invokes Godwin’s Law at Yankee Stadium, the world’s top pop acts will be in Los Angeles, at the MTV Video Music Awards. While the deal-makers who paid Madonna a reported $120 million over 10 years can count on strong attendance this one last go-round—she’s still Madonna, after all—the Madge business isn’t a growth industry. The last time Madonna performed at the VMAs was to reprise her past material and kiss Britney.

It turns out that Madonna’s 1987 album Who’s That Girl is the most appropriately titled of her career (certainly more so than Music). Some 30 years on, we’re no closer to finding out what makes this girl tick, what interests her beyond the glitter and flash of a camera. At this point, it may be time for her to take her own advice from one of her number-one singles, “Take a Bow.” “The show is over,” Madonna sang, back when the future seemed bright, or at least more full of possibility. “Say goodbye.”

Nicki Minaj and Mitt Romney. (YouTube)

Say what? Fans of Nicki Minaj might have thought they were beyond being shocked by the rap star's dirty lyrics and insanity garb. But that was before the Pink Friday singer came out on Lil Wayne's new mixtape ... as a Republican who plans on voting for Mitt Romney.

Ms. Minaj lent her vocals to the latest track, Dedication 4, singing: "I'm a Republican voting for Mitt Romney/You lazy bitches are fucking up the economy."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-jF6Fza1LFI

This kind of political statement is rare in the hip-hop community, and at first we assumed she meant the verse satirically. (Or perhaps the second line was meant as a response to the first.) But MTV News points out that the vocalist was tweeting her dissatisfaction with the president's policy toward health care long before this song dropped. (Though she might be confused over how Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan plan on dealing with the issue.)

“That should be a God given right! Even with Obama Care, too much involved," she wrote to the president. "Just give FREE health care to all. @barackobama What can we do?” and “@BarackObama I wouldn’t mind the millions they took if it was going to healthcare. Why should a poor person struggle to pay for MEDS sir?"

Talib Kwali tweeted that he doubted Nicki Minaj was actually conservative:

I doubt Nicki seriously supports Romney. Her lyrics ain't political. She just wants y'all to talk about her & she winning cuz it's working!

Meanwhile, we're still waiting to hear if the singer has signed on to judge American Idol, A deal that TMZ said was "99% done" at the end of August. The new lyrics are sure to throw a wrench into the works: Whether Ms. Minaj was serious or not, she'd be adding a new element divisive to Idol viewers, with her brazen statement during an election year.

Simpler times.

There will not be a single judge returning to American Idol year-over-year; Randy Jackson has been practically axed from the cast, reports TMZ, with his role reduced to that of "mentor." Mr. Jackson has been with the show since its first season in the summer of 2002; more recent additions Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez both decided to leave the show of their own accord this year.

Only Mariah Carey has been announced as a judge for the series, which has traditionally held auditions with a full complement of judges during the summer months. TMZ reports that the series wants four judges, and names bandied about have included Nick Jonas, Enrique Iglesias, Keith Urban, Katy Perry (who has said she turned the series down), and rising rap star Nicki Minaj, who TMZ says is very close to a deal. With the current reality-TV judge arms race among divas (Christina Aguilera on The Voice, Britney Spears on The X-Factor), the onus is on the heavyweight in the category to pick someone with a bit more star power than music producer--and repetitive and unconvincing public speaker--Mr. Jackson.

The quip caused Minaj, a headliner, to pull out of the concert just a few hours before her appearance, on the orders of her Young Money label-head, Lil' Wayne. Funkmaster Flex—the most famous DJ on Hot 97's roster—noted:

"We don't fuck with commercial artists no more. We don't give a shit if you commercial or pop and you afraid to touch down in Jersey."

He then went on to antagonize (or: "go in on") Ms. Minaj further, promising to ruin her career tonight on his show, which he often peppers with long rants on various matters of the day, punctuated by his trademark "bomb" sound effect. For tonight's show, he has promised to "stop the city," and it has since been revealed that Minaj will be a guest on his show this evening to confront the fracas.

Needless to say, this is an exciting moment in New York City radio, something probably rarer than it should be. At play, you have impossibly high expectations, and feuding across racial lines and gender lines, which is all beside the looming questions of what tastemakers argue belongs on radio versus what actually ends up on the radio, and what arguments about authenticity actually concern these days. Much of the public ennui surrounding all of this has found its way into Funkmaster Flex's Twitter feed over the course of the day: People—even those at the New York Times—have feelings about this, and strong ones.

7:39 PM

[BOMB]

[In unusually subdued voice.] "New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, what's going on? So, today, New York City, I'm going to talk to Nicki Minaj. And I'm going to ask her everything we need to know. And we're going to talk about this to the end."

"I was tight, yesterday. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, I was in a place. I was seeing a color, a shade of—it was like a combination of burgandy and orange, at the time, if you can visualize that."

"So: I then calmed down a little bit. Put another plan in action. Which we're going to get to today. So we're going to speak to Nicki Minaj in a little while. We're going to play this Chris Brown?"

[In trademark scream.] "ALRIGHT, IF YOU WERE AT SUMMER JAM HIT ME UP ON TWITTER AT FUNKMASTER FLEX. (You see how my whole voice thing changed?)"

9:23 PM

FF: Time-Out. Summer Jam is not based on morales. This show is built on who's bringing out celebrities, who's coming out, and who's getting dissed.

NM: But we're not coming out.

FF: I've already said to you: Rosenberg might not have picked the best moment to do it. That's the time for it. When you're getting read to perform. It's his opinion. He maybe shouldn't have given that opinion.

NM: I'm going to answer your question but you gotta stop talking.

FF: That's the first time you've ever told me that Wayne has ever overruled you. It happens. It's a label. We couldn't do anything to fix the situation.

NM: Flex.

FF: I'm here.

NM: Flex. I need you to breathe. You're not even listening and I need you to simma. For three hours, we emailed [Hot 97 manager Ebro Darden], and actually, my manager was the first person to tell me: Yo, you're not going on that stage. Wayne was the second person. For three hours, we could not get a resolution. [CEO of Hip Hop Since 1978] G. Roberson emailed me, and said: Hey, I need you on the phone. Ebro said 'Let me get to the bottom of this.' You know I love Ebro. After he sent that email, we never heard back.

FF: But you know something?

NM: Can I finish?

FF: Damn, okay.

NM: Flex. Flex. My label and program was reaching out to the manager.

FF: Now I understand the reason that you did it. And I'm listening to you. When you went to Twitter, and you did that, we felt that you were making an issue, and you were trying to put us on Front Street.

NM: Ohhhhh. Ohhh. Okay. He tried to embarrass me, but I can't embarrass you.

9:31 PM

NM:  Flex, if you're gonna just say wrong information blatantly like that, then ask me a question, because I'm not here to play games.

FF: That's a nice way of calling me a liar.

NM: Well, I want you to know that we wanted to do the show.

FF: Well, now that you said that....[Cuts in on Interview] [BOMB] We'll be back, we'll be back. I'm gonna rewind that.

9:39 PM

FF: Everyone was wondering if you were really gonna touch the stage. I'm just keeping it real with you. Nicki, look: There were people who were wondering if you were afraid to step on the stage. I'm not saying that's how I feel, but people feel that way.

NM: Do you see the kind of places I've gone to? Did you see how many people we were with yesterday? We were two-hundred deep. Let's not go there. There isn't a bitch alive—and when I say bitch, I include men, because you're a bitch when you act like that—that could scare me from performing a show. I get money. I get money. Flex...

FF: [Interrupting]

NM: Flex...I'm not even going to say what could've happened yesterday, and please don't interrupt. Relax. Relax. This is the real reason why I called you. You said something about my record sales.

FF: Yes, I did.

NM: And I want you to pull up your roster from everyone who was performing on your show. My first album sold 375,000 copies in its first week. My first album has gone on to sell 3.5 million records. My second album is at 900,000 worldwide, plus a three million selling single. If you don't know, call Matt Voss at Universal, Flex, do the math, m-a-t-h, that's one-point-two-million on my second album. Even without the single, I've sold. Three. Point. Five. Million. Albums. In Two Years. I want you before you ever open your mouth—it's so misleading, when I saw Foxy Brown, she said, Nic, why are they saying things about your sales when you've gone number one in four countries? You know who the last one to do that was, Flex? The person previous to me was Eminem in 2010.

FF: But you know what? We're not talking about LAST NIGHT, IN JERSEY, AT SUMMER JAM. I didn't go at you because you're a woman, I didn't go at you because of that, I went at you because you're an artist performing at Summer Jam. I'm not going at Wayne. What did you think? Did you think all that was gonna happen and nobody was gonna say nothing?

9:47 PM

FF: We're being attacked, by your team, so I'm expressing myself, I'm not going to go tit-for-tat with you.

NM: I appreciate that you owned that.

FF: I didn't say your albums are trash.

NM: I appreciate that. But let me say this: In the history of the hip hop world...there has been one, single, solitary human being in the history of the world. One female rapper to sell more albums than me in the first week.

FF: Nicki, I'm gonna reel this in for you. We're talking about album sales. A lot of the people that bought those albums last night were in Summer Jam.

NM: That's right. So I'm gonna have a free show, for my fans, sometime this summer, in New York.

FF: BUT DID WAYNE DO THE RIGHT THING?

NM: I need you to simma. Listen, Flex. I need you to calm down.

FF: DID LIL' WAYNE MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION? YES OR NO?

NM: I...I....

FF: UH-UH. YES OR NO. DID LIL' WAYNE MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION TO PULL YOU FROM THE SHOW?

NM: Capital Y. Capital E. Capital S. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

FF: YES? YES? ARE YOU SAYING YES?

NM: I just spelled it out for you. People are gonna know the truth. And every woman is going to know. People are laughing, Flex. They're gonna know the truth.

9:53 PM

FF: Hot 97 does a concert.

NM: Yes, but Flex...[Flex talks over her.]

FF: We're known around the world. And you're known around the world.

NM: Flex, I'm getting off the phone. All you're doing is talking over me. [Flex talks over her.]

FF: I am not talking over you. You are at fault and we are at fault too. We are both at fault. Egos were involved. Not just in the beginning part of it—and I will speak for myself as well—my ego, your ego, Wayne's ego, Ebro's ego, all of our egos were involved, and the people suffered and DID NOT SEE Nicki Minaj, Wayne, and DJ Khalid. And Foxy and Kim.

[BOMB]

10:01 PM

[BOMB]

FF: Look, you gotta kinda rock with me on this. I already said Rosenberg didn't pick the right time and place to say that. But Wayne should not have taken his artist.

NM: I love my team. And you gotta respect that.

FF: But now I take it to Wayne. And he should not have made that call. If people are on the phone when they already know that Nicki's not performing, we feel like we're up against the wall. But how're we gonna fix this? Wayne's wearing two hats. He's artist and label. Wayne was a featured guest. The fans didn't buy the tickets to see Wayne, they bought them to see Nicki Minaj. As the label guy, I was diappointed.

NM: I got it, I got your feelings. Are you gonna let me talk? You've already made your opinion clear, and nobody's opinions seem to be changing. I just want to apologize to my fans for what happened last night, and like I said on Twitter, I'm going to make it up to them with a free concert. And they said you know what Hot 97? When you want our team to come to your show, treat us with respect. And that's all we're asking. We're not asking for any special treatment. Just respect. And I'm very proud of my team, and the way they stood behind me—and I'm very happy to show my female fans in that audience, and even my gay fans in that audience, when I'm coming to your home, respect me. It's no longer comedy. Wayne doesn't take me as a joke.

FF: I'm asking you a question before you get off the phone. Last night's issues between all of us has not been just about last night. Can we agree?

NM: Yes! Flex, I'm telling you the response to that was it got to an all-time level of disrespect.

FF: Does Hot 97 deserve an apology Nicki?

NM: I stand behind it! No, no radio station that allows someone to disrespect me before I go on stage deserves an apology. And I know you respect it. Say it.

FF: No! (Laughs) You're trying to bully me. I know what you're trying to do.

NM: Flex, we're talking in circles.

FF: But can we agree that we'll respect each other?

NM: Yes. We can do that. All I ask is next time we go forward, we get respected. We need to know that the person who disrespected me is going to apologize—I don't need an apology, I just need....

FF: BUT CAN WE SAY YOU'RE GOING TO DO SUMMER JAM NEXT YEAR?

NM: I'm gonna have to talk to Wayne, and Baby, and....

10:14

FF: You know what, Nicki? I want to be honest with you. I think you're putting me in a position at this particular moment. You're putting me in a position [by asking Rosenberg to apologize]. I don't think I should get off the phone with you right now, I don't want to be in a position to say sorry.

NM: Were you wrong, or not?

FF: You know what, Nicki? I'm not wrong in defending my team.

NM: When you said something about the streets, and sales, I just want you to know that I'm never mad when you don't like something, but when you give facts to the world, they take what you say as the truth.

FF: That criticism comes with the game. Once the crossover stations, even if they take one of your gutterist hip hop records and play it, we've seen this with Tupac, Biggie, everybody, if we're going to have this conversation, Nicki, you are particularly sensitive to it.

NM: What, the whole pop thing?

FF: Yeah. They say it about every rapper.

NM: It's not about pop, Flex. It's about disrespecting an artist.

FF: Are we fleshed out? Are we cool?

NM: Just run the entire interview. Don't chop nothing else. I will tell you this one last thing: When I sat in the restaurant last night with my team, Beanie said, Nicki: Do you know what would happen if someone in Jamaica went on stage last night before I performed to the crowd? He said niggas would be in the hos-pit-al. But let me tell you: Nothing is worse than going home and having not played a gig. I just wanna leave with saying this: I'm gonna make this up to my fans. And I want my fans to know, nothing, no radio station, no one can alter our relationship. I have a very personal relationship with my fans, and I'm truly sorry that people's nights were ruined. You guys have no idea, I've gone through hell and back. I'm not a quitter. I show up and perform. I went with my team's decision, and I made history, and the next time I come out, people won't disrespect me. And for once, I feel like I've really really shown the world, I love and respect myself, and people aren't gonna go there any more. And you know what, Flex? Hit me on the email, it's all good.

FF: We rocked out, we're gonna continue to rock out. Okay?

NM: Okay. Just put up this whole interview and we're fine. Okay?

FF: (Laughs) Okay.

NM: Bye.

FF: Bye.

[BOMB]

Nicola Furlong

Tokyo media reports two Americans have been arrested in connection with the death of 21-year-old Irish student Nicola Furlong. Ms. Furlong was in Japan as part of University program. She was found dead in her hotel room earlier this week after she attended a concert given by hip-hop artist Nicki Minaj. Tokyo authorities believe Ms. Furlong was strangled then sexually assaulted.

Twenty-three-year-old James Blackston (possibly Blackstone--early reports vary) a.k.a. "King Tight," and an as-yet unnamed 19-year-old male were taken in after police suspected the pair gave "drinks with high alcoholic content to Furlong's friend, a 21-year-old Irishwoman, leading her to fall unconscious and then groping her inside a taxi," reports Japan's Mainichi News.

Until his arrest Mr. Blackston had an active social media presence, with a Twitter account under the screen name @KingTightBucc20 as well as a Myspace with the screen name "liltight." The Twitter account has disappeared but various cached tweets made it clear he had a working relationship with R&B singer Omarion, who once tweeted this photo of @KingTightBucc20.

"King Tight's" MySpace is private.

A strange 2-year-old blog post from an apparent admirer of Mr. Blackston's dancing indicated he may have performed in the video for Nicki Minaj's "Massive Attack," but that does not mean he was directly associated with the Nicki Minaj concert Ms. Furlong attended in Tokyo prior to her death.

The Irish Independent reports the 19-year-old arrested with Mr. Blackston was in the room when guest complaints led to the discovery of the deceased student. While both men reportedly denied sharing a taxi with Ms. Furlong and her friend, Tokyo authorities say there is security camera footage contradicting their denials.

Nicola Furlong's death has become a sensation in the Irish press. Her family issued a statement to the media yesterday, in which they said they were "devastated" and Ms. Furlong will "always be at the centre of our lives. She stood for everything that is good in life."