• It's the 10th anniversary of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. I am getting old. [Root]

• One of Cullen Jones' goals is to inspire more black people to swim — and he is. [BVN]

• 50 Cent is allegedly not cooperating with the investigation of the fire that burned down the house his son and ex were living in. Way to look innocent! [SOHH]

• Faith gives her side of the Tupac saga in a new autobiography. [MI]

• Darryl from The Office will go to rehab to avoid going to jail on drug possession charges. Rehab sounds like a good plan. [US]

Rappers who are millionaires undoubtedly got to that level of financial success in part by making songs and living a lifestyle that calls attention to the fact that they're millionaires at every possible opportunity and in very possible way. As a result, it should come as no surprise that any of the rappers (and producers, and one singer) who made Forbes' biggest earners in hip hop list made it into the top 20. What might be a surprise is how many millions they actually made in the last 12 months. For instances, Chamillionaire more than lived up to his name.

Of course, the number one earner was 50 Cent, thanks to his Vitamin water windfall. Check out the list after the jump.

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• Q-Tip really doesn't care to read your comments about his music. Everybody's a critic, and he doesn't like it. [SB]

• Black Voices tells us where the black community needs improvement. Agree? [BV]

• 50 Cent is suing Taco Bell for using his name in their promotions without his permission. [MTV]

• How do we prepare our children for negative images of blacks from the past? [Racialicious]

• For the Gnarls Barkley fans. [CL]

• Kanye West does not have a ghost blogger. If you need proof, here is photographical evidence of him blogging. [CL]

• Rihanna wins best celebrity hair. When your last two hairdos have been copied as much as hers have, you deserve such a title. [SR]

• 50 Cent passed a drug test and can now take his son on vacation. The kid's mom failed hers, though. Oops. [RWS]

• Lip gloss isn't the only thing Lil Mama's got poppin'. [NB]

• Jesse Jackson might have called Barack Obama "the n-word" during the unaired portion of the soon-to-be infamous tape that is in Fox's possession. As soon as it leaks, which it inevitably will, we'll know the truth. Fabulous. [Gawker]

• Young Berg's music sucks. Oh, and so does he. [NB]

• 50 Cent's battle — it isn't even a child-support battle anymore — with his son's mother keeps getting uglier and uglier. [AHH]

• John McCain should work a little harder on those campaign ads and at least attempt to act as if he's living in the 21st century. [TS]

• This sounds like the worst barbecue ever. [C&D]

• Kanye West does comedy, promotion with Absolut. Drink responsibly. [AHH]

• The Hughes brothers are trying to create the next big crime show on HBO now that The Wire is gone. [C&D]

• 50 Cent is not content to let Lil Wayne be the big seller of 2008. [MTV]

• Really, Lauren London? [SR]

• Tyler Perry vacations with Oprah and Gayle. [CL]

At his show at New York’s Nokia Theater on Tuesday night, 50 Cent, the marble-mouthed rapper once suspected of burning down his ex-wife’s home, donned a US marine uniform – complete with cockeyed cap – for part of his set. ‘Twas an odd choice for a wartime concert, especially considering the fact that the getup was probably used to enhance Fiddy’s performance of “My Toy Soldier,” the less than patriotic lyrics of which are as follows:

CONTINUED »

Really, you can only be accused of setting your own $2.4 million dollar house on fire when your son is inside so many times before you take some sort of action, which is why 50 Cent has slapped the now-homeless, very upset mother of his son, Marquise, with a $20 million defamation suit.

On Shaniqua Tompkin's side, she was granted an order of protection from 50 Cent last Friday and did not let the impending lawsuit against her stop her from making accusations. "He always threatened me," she said. "If someone threatens you on Monday and you jump out of a second floor window on Friday, that's the facts, you decide." The fire department has ruled the fire that destroyed the house that 50 Cent owned and Tompkins lived in "suspicious," which is sort of an understatement. [People]

• The pin-making vendors who produced that stupid "Black House" pin have a history of repulsiveness. [Jezebel]

• Keep waiting for that phone call from the Obama camp, J-Hud. [Bossip]

• Speaking of Obama (for a change, right?), he delivered a personal apology to the two women that were barred by volunteers from standing behind him at a campaign event. [Politico]

• Don Cornelius has officially stepped off the Soul Train. It was a long ride. [BV]

• 50 Cent's now suing his baby mama for defamation. Yawn. [EUR]

Last year, one of the biggest music stories was the historic head-to-head battle between Kanye West and 50 Cent. Their fight? First-week record sales dominance. The victor? Kanye West, as if you could possibly forget. During its first week in stores last fall, Kanye's Graduation sold 957,000, a huge sum that was partly a result of the insane amount of hype surrounding his record release. These days, things are different. Our country has fallen on hard financial times, and supposedly people are spending less money on entertainment.

The best album debut so far this year was the 463,000 Mariah Carey's E=MC2 sold. It is in this climate that Lil Wayne released his long-awaited, but less-publicized-than-Graduation, album, Tha Carter III, and it is in this climate that the young rapper sold over a million records. Compare this to his previous biggest sales week, when he sold 258,000 copies of Tha Carter II in 2005. It seems that I, and many others, have sorely underestimated the power of Weezy. Record execs say one of the reasons for the huge sales is that the frequent leaks and changing release dates created a lot of hype that benefited the star. And maybe, in addition to Lil Wayne's core fans, he picked up quite a few TRLers who were swooning over "Lollipop." Oh, well. Even Kanye is impressed.

Also this week: Plies opens at No. 2, N.E.R.D. take the No. 7 spot, and Usher falls from No. 3 to No. 5.

CONTINUED »

UGLY CELEBRITY COURT BATTLES 50 Cent didn't burn down a house while his son slept in it. There are many things a man like Curtis is capable of, but that's probably not one of them. He also says that Shaniqua Tompkins, his son's mother, 'has "failed and refused to give the cell phone to Marquise," 50 alleges. "The only way [50] can communicate with his son is to call [Tompkins'] cell phone. On June 11 … [she] did permit [50] to speak with his son. However … she was hovering over Marquise, monitoring the conversation and, after a short while, she interrupted the conversation by taking the phone from Marquise and began yelling at [50]," who eventually hung up on her.' [NYDN]

I was browsing the internet disinterestedly last night when I came across a blog post about an online race, age, and sex morphing program on the UK's University of St. Andrew's website. Choosing a random celebrity, I entered 50 Cent's picture and made him more feminine (to your right), a white man, an East Asian man, and a West Asian man. Creepiness ensued. Then I entered Beyonce, who sort of looks the same no matter what race she's supposed to be, and before I got totally bored with the whole thing, I put in a picture of myself. It wasn't pretty, and not only because the morphing technology here isn't particularly impressive. Let's just say we all look the way we do for a reason.

Shooting victim, ex-con and rap mogul 50 Cent recently told Vibe magazine that he’s out of the groupie game. The “Wankster” mastermind says that every time a naked female fan hides out in his hotel room and tries to get a glimpse of his magic stick (this has happened more than once?), he summarily shows them the door.

CONTINUED »

• It's bad luck to crash into any Maybach while driving drunk, but when you crash into Diddy's you'll read about yourself on the gossip blogs. [RWS]

• Who would have thought that a house in the middle of a custody dispute mysteriously burning to the ground would complicate a situation so much?!? [SP]

• At least the hopelessly out-of-touch people on cable news can make fun of themselves. [TS]

• Kimora Lee denies being an "extreme diva." No one believes her. [CL]

• When keeping it real goes wrong: the news edition. [C&D]

• Hill Harper wants to uplift young black women. [BV]

• Michelle Williams really doesn't want to be single for the rest of her life. Who does? [Str8NYC]

• 50 Cent: I didn't set my mansion on fire when my son was in it! [XXL]

• A Paris court convicted Brigitte Bardot of "provoking discrimination and racial hatred." [CNN]

• Suge Knight has been ordered to sell all of Death Row's assets. Bidding starts at $24 million. [RWS]