[Chris Brown and DJ Khaled on set of "Take It To The Head.]
Not even a blown up tour bus can slow down DJ Khaled. The Cash Money artist is currently in Los Angeles starting his own fire shooting the visual for his single “Take It To The Head” featuring singer Chris Brown and a few more special friends. Stay tuned as MTV News brings you exclusive access to the star studded video shoot.
Carmelo Anthony got his groove back but Miami‘s big three was just too much for the New York Knicks. The Miami Heat took a 2-0 lead in their series against the Knicks winning 104-94 despite Anthony’s 30-point effort. Game 3 of the high intensity series shifts back to Madison Square Garden in New York on Thursday with more bad news for the Knicks. Following the game, power forward Amare Stoudemire injured his hand after hitting a fire extinguisher.
According to a report on ESPN paramedics were called to the Knicks locker room to treat Stoudemire for a cut to his hand. The injury required the hulking forward to receive stitches to his hand and soon after a hooded Stoudemire exited the Miami arena draped by a sling on his left arm.
In more NBA Playoffs action, Forward Danny Granger led the Indiana Pacers to a 78-93 win against the Orlando Magic splitting wins on their home court.
The MTV News Hip-Hop Playoffs sees Jay-Z’s #2 seeded Roc Nation crew continue to lead A$AP Mob in the Swagged Out Division. Rapper and mogul 50 Cent’s #6 seed G-Unit moved ahead of Wiz Khalifa and his #3 seed Taylor Gang for the first time with 50% of the votes.
The squad here at RapFix are looking forward to watching Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and the rest of the biggest stars lead their respective teams to victory. It’s the same way we look forward to rap’s biggest stars lead their teams to hip-hop dominance. So while the NBA sets forth to determine who the best ball team of the year is, RapFix is on a mission to find out who the best team in rap in our MTV News Hip-Hop Playoffs!
We examined the past year in hip-hop and identified the game’s 16 most dominant crews. Then we split them up into our either our Swagged-Out Conference or Baller Conference and created match-ups where you the fan can determine the winner based on your, votes.
A championship team is only as good as its weakest link, so we analyzed talent, sales success and overall influence to determine our 16 rap teams and come up with the proper seeding.
It’s not up to us, it’s up to you guys. Fans get to vote in order to determine who hip-hop’s ultimate crew of 2012 will be?
Orlando Magic Win Over Pacers, Wiz Khalifa’s Taylor Gang Leads G-Unit In Hip-Hop Playoffs
Be sure to check back with our RapFix blog daily as we update you on both the progress of your favorite rap crews and your favorite NBA teams. Game On!
Voting is open now! Be sure to use the hashtag #hiphopplayoffs
SWAGGED OUT CONFERENCE
A cast like the one in “Battleship” always has a string of news projects lined up by the time a movie premieres. When MTV News’ Josh Horowitz spoke with Taylor Kitsch, Rihanna, Brooklyn Decker and Alexander Skarsgård for “MTV First: Battleship,” each actor took some time to discuss their upcoming projects.
Taylor Kitsch had the biggest 2012 of any actor so far (he called it “subtle”), so it’s no surprise that the wheel are already in motion for his next film. He will be reteaming with his “Battleship” director Peter Berg for “Lone Survivor” based on the story of a true life SEAL mission. “[Berg and I] are doing ‘Lone [Survivor].’ We’re going to hit camera in September with [Mark] Wahlberg and Ben Foster right now.”
Even Kitsch’s co-star, Rihanna couldn’t help but comment on his next movie. ” ‘Lone Survivor‘? That’s awesome,” she said.
Unlike his co-stars, Skarsgård has a full-time series gig to worry about. Now in its fifth season at HBO, “True Blood” will keep him busy through the summer. “We’re still shooting. I have another three months of season five,” he said.
Change came to the set of “True Blood” recently, when it was announced that showrunner Alan Ball would be stepping down, but Skarsgård insisted that Ball would still be a presence on the show. “He’s going to be very much involved, after this as well. He’s stepping down as showrunner, but he’s still there,” he said.
Still new to the whole acting business, Decker was a little less forthcoming about what she has lined up next. “Hopefully something smaller this summer, we’ll see,” she teased.
What do you want to see the cast of “Battleship” in next? Let us know in the comments below and on Twitter!
There’s a war coming. Which side are you on: the giant mechanical aliens invading Earth with peg-shaped bombs and a massive armada at their disposal, or the crew of human resistance fighters populated by a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, the “Umbrella” singer, an ancient Swedish vampire, and Tim Riggins? Should be a no-brainer, people.
If you need further convincing, you can see all four of those heroes — actors Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna, Alexander Skarsgard and Taylor Kitsch, respectively — join together as one for “MTV First: Battleship,” airing right now on MTV and on MTV.com. See what Kitsch and the gang had to say about working with Peter Berg, bringing a board game to life, living it up in Hawaii and much more in the video below!
Remember the Halo Reach sniper rifle shot heard (and bounced) around Smith has previously described Dishonored as an action-stealth title in
the world? The one that ricocheted in such a crazy way that it
actually went through the head of the very fellow who fired it in the
first place? Bizarre as that situation may sound, it can serve as one of many crazy
ways to assassinate someone in Dishonored. During the tail end of
a recent hands-off demonstration, co-creative directors Harvey Smith and Raf
Colantonio briefly went quiet as a Bethesda staffer playing showed off a
particularly slick method of taking out multiple targets: Having the
player character, Corvo, slow down time before laying down a spring razor
trap and using his Blink ability to teleport a short distance
away just in time to see the trap detonate when time resumes
flowing at a normal rate. To get back to Reach’s unintentional
suicide, Smith explained, “Sometimes, when you activate Bend Time,
you can actually see the bullet in the air; you can actually then
Possess the guy who shot it and walk him around to the front. When
time resumes, the bullet kills him and he has this very shocked
expression on his face.”
terms of its overall genre, but he cites titles like Far Cry 2, Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex as examples of what he,
Colantonio, and the rest of the developers at Arkane are going for with their new creation: An
open-ended game driven more by systemic interaction than by
scripted spectacle. In other words, they want to simply provide a
suite of tools, and objective, and then let players go at it. Corvo has
a number of tools — including gear such guns, daggers, traps, grenades
and weird steampunk treasure detecting devices as well as more supernatural
abilities such as Bend Time, Possession, and Windblast — and his task is simply to find his targets and neutralize them. This can be as simple as
stabbing someone in the face; as odd as possessing fish and mice to
navigate through the sewers below until you find said target before
possessing him to make him jump out a window; or as elaborate and
non-lethal as arranging to have his identity stolen in order to condemn him to work in the very same salt mine that he owns.
Before Joss Whedon ventured off to make “The Avengers,” he got his friends together to film Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.” The first footage from the low-budget film debuted this past Sunday, and it looks extra Whedon-y.
Also, “Kill Bill” becomes one, and the Drapers pose for a family portrait in today’s Dailies!
» Look at this beautiful happy family. Surely there are nothing dysfunctional about them at all. [Vulture]
» If you have four hours to spare, here’s a (somewhat) chronological mash-up of “Kill Bill: Vol. 1″ and “Kill Bill: Vol. 2.” [Reddit]
» Expedia India has made this helpful cartoon to answer the question of Chuck Norris vs. Rajinikanth once and for all. [Twitch]
» Three new characters posters for “Snow White and the Huntsman” debuted, including one of Charlize Theron and a bird. [Collider]
» CBS News debuted the first footage from Joss Whedon’s Shakespearean tale “Much Ado About Nothing.” [The Playlist]
Welcome to the Dailies, where the MTV Movies team runs down all the film and television news, odds and ends that are fit to print! From awesome fan art to obscure casting news, this is your place to feast on all the movie leftovers you didn’t know you were hungry for.
Remember the Halo Reach sniper rifle shot heard (and bounced) around Smith has previously described Dishonored as an action-stealth title in
the world? The one that ricocheted in such a crazy way that it
actually went through the head of the very fellow who fired it in the
first place? Bizarre as that situation may sound, it can serve as one of many crazy
ways to assassinate someone in Dishonored. During the tail end of
a recent hands-off demonstration, co-creative directors Harvey Smith and Raf
Colantonio briefly went quiet as a Bethesda staffer playing showed off a
particularly slick method of taking out multiple targets: Having the
player character, Corvo, slow down time before laying down a spring razor
trap and using his Blink ability to teleport a short distance
away just in time to see the trap detonate when time resumes
flowing at a normal rate. To get back to Reach’s unintentional
suicide, Smith explained, “Sometimes, when you activate Bend Time,
you can actually see the bullet in the air; you can actually then
Possess the guy who shot it and walk him around to the front. When
time resumes, the bullet kills him and he has this very shocked
expression on his face.”
terms of its overall genre, but he cites titles like Far Cry 2, Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex as examples of what he,
Colantonio, and the rest of the developers at Arkane are going for with their new creation: An
open-ended game driven more by systemic interaction than by
scripted spectacle. In other words, they want to simply provide a
suite of tools, and objective, and then let players go at it. Corvo has
a number of tools — including gear such guns, daggers, traps, grenades
and weird steampunk treasure detecting devices as well as more supernatural
abilities such as Bend Time, Possession, and Windblast — and his task is simply to find his targets and neutralize them. This can be as simple as
stabbing someone in the face; as odd as possessing fish and mice to
navigate through the sewers below until you find said target before
possessing him to make him jump out a window; or as elaborate and
non-lethal as arranging to have his identity stolen in order to condemn him to work in the very same salt mine that he owns.
Few developers treat their fans better than Valve Software. With the recent unveiling of their new Portal 2 DLC, the company is giving even more power to players with the introduction of the “Perpetual Testing Initiative,” a level editor for last year’s critically acclaimed title.
Narrated by Aperture Science‘s own Cave Johnson, the new add-on to the excellent puzzle-solving physics romp will give players an expansive set of tools to design their own test chambers and mind bending puzzles with. Valve, in essence, has given fans the keys to the castle — something perfectly in keeping with the developer’s mission.
Valve demonstrates an incredible track record of nourishing and promoting user-created content, or as PC call it, “mods.” Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, and Team Fortress all began as projects fans built on Half-Life‘s original GoldSource engine (which in turn was build around id’s Doom engine). With Valve’s intervention, these “garage” productions went on to become global phenomena in the PC space (well, except perhaps for Day of Defeat) and are still enjoyed by thousands of people today.
With Valve’s track record of discovering talent, the most exciting thing about this new DLC isn’t that it’s just around the corner. No, instead the question that comes to mind is who next among Valve’s fans may be plucked to join the developer after creating something even the developer couldn’t have fathomed — it certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
By Kara Warner
Whitney Houston’s roller coaster relationship with Bobby Brown was made very public over the years and when the singer died in February, a few fingers immediately pointed at Brown. Brown has remained silent since Houston passed away, but he recently sat down for an interview on the “Today” show (airing later this week) where he denied introducing her to drugs.
Their relationship may have been tumultuous and their struggles with substance abuse well-documented, Bobby Brown insists that he is not the reason ex-wife Whitney Houston started doing drugs, a habit that she battled right up until her death in February.
Bobby Brown’s Sister Blames Ray J For Whitney Houston’s Cocaine Use
“I’m not the one that got Whitney on drugs, at all,” Brown told “Today” host Matt Lauer in an interview set to air on Wednesday and Thursday. “I’m not the reason she’s gone.” Brown admitted that when he learned of his ex’s death, he was saddened to hear she had started using cocaine again.
“I was hurt … because, you know, me being off of narcotics for the last seven years — I felt that she was, you know, I didn’t know she was struggling with it still. But at the same time, you know — listen, it’s a hard fight,” he said.
Whitney Houston’s Sister-In-Law Defends Bobby Brown On Oprah
Regarding his involvement in Houston’s drug use, Brown said that drugs were a part of Houston’s life before they met in 1991. “I smoked weed, I drank the beer, but no, I wasn’t the one that got Whitney on drugs at all,” he insisted. “It’s just, it’s just unexplainable, how one could [say that I] got her addicted to drugs. I’m not the reason she’s gone.”
The New Edition member said that Houston seemed to have “a glow about her” the last time he saw her over dinner at a restaurant with their daughter, Bobbi Kristina, which was about a week before she died.
“She just looked like she was in a good place,” he said.
By Gil Kaufman
Kanye West has been spotted all over New York City with Kim Kardashian in the past week, but he still managed to spare some time for a studio session with Justin Bieber. Kanye dropped into the session where Bieber was putting finishing touches on his upcoming album Believe due out June 19.
Bieber’s bodyguard Kenny Hamilton confirmed the superstar summit, tweeting out a photo of the pair working together on an unspecified song.
“Putting the finishing touches on the album and it’s gonna be special,” he wrote while posting an Instagram pic of West tapping away on a laptop in the studio with Bieber in the background. He followed with a post that appeared to be another enthusiastic response to the studio get-down, writing, “Also witnessed a current legend and one future legend make magic once again … I love this thing we call music!”
Bieber’s been giving his fans plenty of tantalizing sneak peeks over the past week. In addition to announcing the release date during an appearance on “The Voice,” he also brought along a teaser for his as-yet-unreleased “Boyfriend” video. After that glimpse, he was spotted shooting new scenes? for the highly anticipated clip in which he was kissing a mystery brunette on set.
“The concept of this video, I mean, it’s not like a steady concept,” Biebertold MTV News? while shooting the video back in March. “It’s not like ‘Justin follows this girl to this spot.’ No, it’s a bunch of amazing scenes: like a fire scene, we have an ice scene.
“It’s kind of like bouncing back and forth,” he said. “And then there’s scenes of me and just a bunch of girl dancers, and just some great shots, great artistic shots, great shots of me smiling. It’s fun.” He also tweeted out the cover art? on Friday, a simple black-and-white close-up of his face with the word “BELIEVE” stamped in a yellow caution-tape font underneath. The album will reportedly feature a song reacting to the paternity suit? filed by a 20-year-old California woman who claimed she became pregnant with Bieber’s baby after a brief bathroom hook-up at an October 2010 concert; the suit was dropped in November.
In addition to whatever Kanye and Bieber cooked up, the album will also feature a duet with Taylor Swift?, as well as magic made with Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine and Drake.
