A sequel to Spike Lee's School Daze starring Alicia Keys and Kanye West would have been either colossally terrible or a cult classic. Or both! But Spike Lee is having trouble getting the project, which picks up a quarter century after the original, off the ground, despite have a great script. According to Spike, "The film takes place at the same college but 25 years later, but the powers that be didn't want to tell that story." [AA]

• No, Alicia Keys is not a home wrecker who ruined Swizz Beatz' marriage. [US]

• Perhaps Lil Wayne should leave the guitar-playing to the band. [BWE]

• Sarah Palin's relationship with African Americans in Alaska? Due to both demographics and, according to one organization in Alaska, zero interest on her part, there is no relationship to speak of. [PHB]

• Queen Latifah's going back to her hip hop roots. [Bossip]

• 50 Cent doesn't seem to respect Kanye West's foray into R&B too much. [MTV]

• All you have to do to gain Bill O'Reilly's respect is go on his show and let him bark at you for an hour! [BO]

• Solange, let the beef with Las Vegas go. They care enough about you to follow you around! [TMZ]

• Alicia Keys chats about Secret Life of Bees. [E!]

• Sometimes animal-rights activist Russell Simmons is well-aware that his clothes "are not especially animal friendly." Uh, knowing is half the battle? [BB]

• For the fanatics: Kanye's new album is already on presale at Amazon and Target. [EUR]

• Since Amy Winehouse was too busy being a crackhead, Alicia Keys has been given the task of creating the theme song for the next James Bond movie with Jack White. [EUR]

• The mainstream media might be avoiding the subject, but the National Enquirer is hell bent on bringing down John Edwards with this love child/mistress scandal. [MG]

• For undisclosed reasons, Ciara's debut film, an adaptation of the play, Mama I Want To Sing, is going straight to video. Here's a reason: it was probably really, really, really bad. [BS]

• A senior reporter for Univision is suing the network; she says that anchors with lighter complexions are taking her place. [TMZ]

Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, Chiwetel Ejiofor and others put on their formal gear yesterday for a benefit for Keep A Child Alive, Keys' charity for children orphaned by AIDS in Africa.

I read Secret Life of Bees about five years ago, and the fact that the only details I remember are a little white girl, honey, and the South should indicate how much it actually impacted me. But maybe that will make the story all the more exciting when/if I go see the movie in theaters. It stars Dakota Fanning (as the little white girl I remembered!) and Jennifer Hudson (as the little white girl's nanny…it's coming back to me now). Their characters run away from home to stay with three sisters — Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys, and Sophie Okonedo. Poor Fanning and Okonedo must have felt left out, not having a record deal and all.

As for J-Hud — why do her post-Oscar film roles seem to require her to sound kind of slow? But as long as her name's not Louise from St. Louis who's in love with Louis Vuitton, I can't complain. [BV]

Alicia Keys submitted an opinion piece for CNN in advance of the July 4th premiere of her documentary, Alicia in Africa, about her travels to the continent and her work there to fight the spread of AIDS.

My first visit to Africa completely changed my world view. I came to understand that AIDS was not simply a deadly disease but a force capable of orphaning children, uprooting communities and stifling economic progress.

What AIDS could not do was suffocate the hope of the remarkable people I met throughout Africa. If people who had suffered such unthinkable devastation could maintain hope, then I could certainly hope for an end to this pandemic in my lifetime.

With this goal in mind, [AIDS activist Leigh Blake] and I started Keep A Child Alive in 2003 and our clinic and orphan sites operate in six countries, supporting approximately 45,000 children and their families who have been victimized by AIDS.

This weekend marked the opening of the new MGM Grand at Foxwoods in Connecticut, and everybody who's anybody (just kidding — make that "some celebs who aren't special enough to be in Cannes right now") were in attendance. Diddy even had his own "den" at the opening gala, whatever that means. Check out more pictures after the jump — with Alicia Keys in jeans and Tichina Arnold and Kim Kardashian in evening gowns, I'm guessing something was lost in translation on the invite.

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• Alicia Keys has gone from schilling for Dove products to being the next spokesperson for Vitamin Water. The music biz just doesn't pay what it used to. [Bossip]

• Fantasia is lucky she wasn't actually competing on American Idol last night. That's all. [SB]

• Aww. I remember when Lil Kim and Lil Cease were part of one big, happy mafia. [AHH]

• Lil Wayne should be banned from interviews. [PH]

• A new movie called "Misunderstood" examines youth and masculinity in the black community. [EUR]

• Tyra Banks makes people crazy. Literally. [Jezebel]

• What's will all these recording artists appearing on soap operas? Snoop and Mary J. Blige went on One Life to Live recently, and now Ne-Yo ha plans to guest star on All My Children. I can't tell if it's the stars or the soap operas that are desperate. [SP]

• Mariah Carey got caught being lazy on Good Morning America today. [SR]

• And why is Chili still talking about her relationship with Usher? [C&D]

• It's sad when rappers have to latch onto Alicia Keys already-resolved controversy in order to get some press. [RTNY]

• Alicia Keys sings about a teenage love affair — not gangsta rap, thankfully. [CL]

• Foxy Brown's legal troubles aren't over. Of course they aren't. [NR]

• Orlando Brown, Raven-Symone's young co-star on That's So Raven, is missing. [Bossip]

• In case you're wondering why urban music is dying a slow death. [SB]

• Can Solange upstage Beyonce? Uh, no. [STR8NYC]

Oh, no! I'm sure Alicia Keys is weeping into her pillow right now, because 50 Cent has just announced that he no longer likes her or her sissy piano playing.

"I don’t like Alicia Keys no more…If she thinks what they consider [to be] gangsta music is [made] to bring black people down, then I think my s–t falls into that category. I don’t like people who don’t like me… I don’t think that [her] classical s–t is cool. I don’t give a f–k if you can classically play the piano. I haven’t been classically trained, because my upbringing, nobody put me in front of a piano at that time…I could f–king care less about the s–t. So she don’t like the music that embodies the harsh realities because they’re not her realities. She hasn’t been subjected to the same things."

Even if Alicia Keys is some paranoid conspiracy theorist, we should all take comfort in the fact that she's not living in 50 Cent's world of delusion. It's either that or I've gravely misunderstood the lyrics to his songs and the words he speaks on a regular basis. [E!]

As celebrities go, Alicia Keys is seen as pretty squeaky clean, even when she is being dogged by lesbian rumors and painted as a crazy conspiracy theorist. Nevertheless, she's been in the business of dispelling myths lately, from her recent television and radio tour explaining her odd "gangsta rap" theories to a wedding with her long-time collaborator and boyfriend-she-doesn't-talk-about, Kerry "Krucial" Brothers. Rumor has it the couple booked the Oheka Castle in Long Island for Fourth of July weekend for a wedding. [SP]

Alicia Keys made a lot of fans nervous recently, when an excerpt from a Blender interview in which she spouts some crazy conspiracy theories — "the government invented gangsta rap to encourage black men to kill each other" — started making the rounds. But she went on Ryan Seacrest's radio show yesterday to clear up some misconceptions that might have arisen. Here's what she said, in a nutshell:

- That she's a very positive person.
- Her only aim is to uplift people and spread love.
- She's not a conspiracy theorist.
- The government didn't create gangsta rap, just the term. And she thinks they could have done more at the time to do something about the problems the rappers were talking about.
- She doesn't know who killed Biggie and 2pac, but she thinks the media sensationalized their deaths and their rivalry.

Now if she could just explain those weird Dove commercials/mini-mini-series that come on during episodes of The Hills, I'll be all up to speed.

There goes our Alicia Keys crush:

… KEYS has bizarrely claimed the US government invented ‘gangsta rap’ to convince black people to kill each other.

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