Death Row Records auctioned for $24 million
The New York-based Global Music Group Inc. said in a statement to The Associated Press on Monday that on June 24 it purchased Death Row, including its enviable back catalog and current artist contracts.
The purchase concluded the roller-coaster saga of one of hip-hop's most famous labels. Under owner Marion "Suge" Knight, Death Row sold tens of millions of albums in the heyday of early `90s rap — its artists often flashing the spoils of the high life in music videos — before collapsing in debt and mismanagement.
A former couple, Lydia and Michael Harris, claimed they helped found the label, and won a judgment of $107 million, which they tried to collect in 2006. Unable to pay, Death Row and Knight filed for bankruptcy in April 2006, claiming debts of more than $100 million.
In 2006, a federal judge ordered a bankruptcy trustee takeover of Death Row Records, saying the label had undergone gross mismanagement. Knight's decision to file for bankruptcy protection staved off a move by the court to appoint someone to take control of the record label and his assets.
Global Music Group, an independent label, takes ownership of albums including Dr. Dre's "The Chronic," Shakur's "All Eyez on Me" and Snoop Dogg's "Doggystyle."
Other assets are believed to include unreleased material from Shakur that could result in another posthumous release from the rapper.
Knight has a history of legal problems. He was convicted of assault in 1992 and placed on probation, then jailed for five years in 1996 for violating that probation.
He was returned to jail in 2003 for again violating parole, this time by punching a parking attendant at a Hollywood nightclub. He was released the next year.
In 2006 under questioning from his creditors, Knight denied having money tucked away in foreign countries. His bank account then contained just $11.
Global Music CEO Anthony Davi, Jr., said the label planned to get "the best economic results of the catalog and provide long term stewardship of the artists' work." The company plans to later announce details of its plans for Death Row.
80 Y/O STRIPPER STILL GOIN IN!
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- Tempest Storm is fuming. Her fingers tremble with frustration. They are aged, knotted by arthritis and speckled with purple spots under paper skin.
Tempest Storm at the Burlesque Hall of Fame's annual All-Star Burlesque Weekend in Las Vegas.
But the manicure of orange polish is flawless and new, and matches her signature tousled mane.
She brushes orange curls out of her face as she explains how she's been slighted.
She is the headliner, you know. She is a star. She is classy.
"I don't just get up there and rip my clothes off," she says.
Indeed, the 80-year-old burlesque queen takes her clothes off very slowly.
More than 50 years ago she was dubbed the "Girl with the Fabulous Front" and told by famous men she had the "Best Two Props in Hollywood."
Since then, Storm saw the art that made her famous on the brink of extinction. Her contemporaries -- Blaze Starr, Bettie Page, Lili St. Cyr -- have died or hung up the pasties.
But not Storm. She kept performing. Las Vegas, Reno, Palm Springs, Miami, Carnegie Hall.
Her act is a time capsule. She knows nothing of poles. She would never put her derriere in some man's face. Her prop of choice is a boa, perhaps the occasional divan.
It takes four numbers, she says adamantly, four numbers to get it all off. To do it classy.
But the producers of tonight's show, just kids, they want her to go faster. She gets just seven minutes.
"I did seven minutes when I started," she says.
They gave her trouble last year, too. They even cut her music before she finished.
There may not be a next time for this show, she says. The threat lasts just minutes.
"No, no. I'm not ready to hang up my G-string, yet. I've got too many fans that would be disappointed."
Dated Elvis, other celebrities
Stardom and fandom feature prominently in Tempest Storm's life -- and in her neat, two-bedroom Las Vegas apartment.
Visitors are greeted by photos of a young Elvis, her favorite rock 'n' roller and, she says, a former lover.
He met her after her show in Las Vegas and fiddled with her skirt as he introduced himself. The relationship ended about a year later because Elvis' manager didn't approve of him dating a stripper, she says.
But she could not change who she was. Stripping already had made her famous.
It put her in the room with Hollywood's heavyweights. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Mickey Rooney, Nat King Cole.
She dated some, just danced for others. The evidence is framed and displayed on tables and the living room wall.
That's Storm and Vic Damone. Storm teaching Walter Cronkite to dance. Storm and her fourth and last husband, Herb Jefferies, a star of black cowboy films who swept her off her feet in 1957 when such unions were instant scandals. They divorced in 1970.
"When I look at this picture I say, 'What the hell happened between this gorgeous couple?"' she says.
The moment is brief.
Storm is rarely wistful. She has no doubt she still is what she once was. Although she performs just handful of times a year, she would do more, if asked. She chides those who think age takes a toll on sex appeal.
"Ridiculous," she says.
There are just as many recent photos in the room: Storm and her daughter, a nurse in Indiana. Storm and her fiance, who died a few years ago. Storm and a beaming older gentlemen, just a fan who approached her for a photograph.
In others, the petite beauty with the long lashes and glamorous hair is alone, out of focus, in full makeup and smiling wide. In one, she is perched on her living room couch in a red hat and low-cut black suit.
"I took that picture of myself," she says proudly. "I have a self-timer. I took these, too."
Sharecropper's daughter fled abuse
"That stage saved me," she says as she leaves a sound check hours before the night's performance.
She had been expecting a much smaller space and she is relieved. She's a "walker," she explains. She needs room to move.
It is a direct and once-racy style, the signature work of Lillian Hunt, the choreographer at the Follies Theater in Los Angeles where Storm became a star.
She was Annie Blanche Banks then. The 22-year-old sharecropper's daughter had fled sexual abuse, two loveless marriages and poverty in small-town Georgia, she says.
She was working as a cocktail waitress but wanted to be a showgirl. First, she needed her teeth fixed.
"Do you think my bust is too big for this business?" she asked Hunt at her audition.
Hunt put her in the chorus line, told her not to gain a pound and called a dentist.
In Storm's telling, she didn't stay long in the background. She got a new name. ("I really don't feel like a Sunny Day.") She took to the spotlight quickly. Then and now, she blossomed to the chorus of hoots and cheers.
The trick is having a warm presence, an inviting smile, she says.
When she takes the stage, she lets her mind float back to "Georgie." She imagines herself as a little girl, in her best dress, running down the road to meet her daddy coming home from work.
"I feel that I am that little girl dressed up out there. I got a picture in my whole mind of it. I can see that little girl," she says.
On stage, the image is frozen there.
But it's not the end of the story Storm tells. If she plays out the memory, the little girl is stopped in her tracks as an aunt blurts out a truth that pains her today.
"That's not your real father."
Doesn't smoke or drink, gets religion on TV
On Sundays, Storm tunes in to a televangelist who tells her anyone can overcome odds. It's the only religion she's ever taken to.
She believes this is the lesson of her life. Be a survivor. Never stop doing what you love, it makes you who you are.
"If you want to get old, you'll get old," she says.
There have been men who disappointed her, financial strain, brain surgery.
After it all, she sits on her couch and exercises in front of the television on a small stationary bike. She doesn't smoke or drink or eat much.
"I'm just blessed, I think. And I know when to push myself away from the table."
If some might see all this as chasing after lost youth, she says she cares little. Younger dancers tell her she is an inspiration to them, and she has no reason not to believe them.
"I feel good about myself. And I enjoy it," she says. "I have fun when I'm onstage, and the audience loves it. Nobody ever said it's time to give it up. Why stop?"
Cheers and whistles
Indeed, no one is dreaming of telling Tempest Storm to give up stripping when she slithers onto the casino nightclub stage for her seven minutes.
"Something in the way she moves ..." pipes through the speakers. Her live drummer, the Ringo Starr on loan from the Beatles tribute show on the Strip, picks up the beat.
The burlesque queen emerges stage right. A slinky purple gown hangs off her shoulders. A rhinestone necklace envelops her decolletage. The snakelike boa pours into her hands.
For a few seconds, her face flashes her nerves.
And then she hears the cheers.
When she performs, Storm smiles, leans back and walks on her heels, leading with her pelvis. Her hands float back and forth as if in water, until they fall below her hips and sweep up in tandem with a full frontal thrust.
More cheers. Whistles.
The boa disappears stage right.
The next number picks up the tempo, letting Storm cock a hip on the down beats. She loses the gloves and steps off stage to put on the negligee. It's gone almost as quickly as it came.
And with two flicks of her orange fingernails, the dress goes, too.
Two-finger whistle. Hollers. Applause.
Staring up at the 80-year-old woman in fishnets, a sheer rhinestone bra and a G-string, a young woman turns to a young man and declares:
"I want to look like that when I'm her age."
I'm not saying I'm for Obama...nor am I saying that I'm not...but this sh!+ right here is ridiculous!!!
C'MON CHRIS FA REAL?
In Nigeria, what would you do? If you tuned into the rumors over the weekend, you know all about Jay-Z, Rihanna, Naomi Campbell and others in Nigeria for a concert festival. Well, Chris Brown was there too and I heard he had himself a good ol’ time. He reportedly sat at the bar for about 2 hours or more watching cartoons on his laptop with all his friends. LMAO! Somebody told me, they can’t fathom know he and Rihanna work it out- she is too mature! Chris did do the press rounds, but nobody filled him in on Nigeria or why he was there. Also, the people were reportedly clamoring over the Rihanna stuff but no confirmation.
Do we need a confirmation? Not really. We know what it is.
YOU CAN'T TEACH AN
OLD CRACK HEAD NEW TRICKS
Amy Winehouse was reportedly caught with coke in her nose. Her dad has admitted we’re going to watch Amy die. He says, "She will die. But it won't be from a drugs overdose. She will die from emphysema. That will be the most likely scenario if she doesn't check her behavior. We are talking about a long, slow, painful death - gasping for air. I would like all the people who would give her illegal substances to think about that." What’s he smoking
OLD CRACK HEAD NEW TRICKS
