• 50 Cent says he'll allow his consistency to destroy his rap enemies — I think. He's even harder to understand with those new veneers. Cord says he sounds like he's wearing vampire teeth. [MTV]

• Beanie Sigel's going to jail for three months for failing his parole pee test. [XXL]

• Reggie Bush doesn't discourage Kim Kardashian from eating her beloved junk food. He likes her just the way she is! Plus, if she loses that ass, he's outta there. [People]

• College kids love them some blackface, man. [EUR]

• Apparently, Turkey is the place to be for African American students studying abroad. [TZ]

Jamal Woolard, a little-known Brooklyn based rapper also known as Gravy, has been picked from hundreds of hopefuls to star as late, great rapper the Notorious BIG (né Christopher Wallace) in the upcoming biopic Notorious.

Along with being an emcee himself and fulfilling the hefty requisite size requirement ("They don't call me Big for nothin'"), Woolard is experienced in yet another way that will surely offer authenticity to his role: he was once a victim of a shooting. In fact, The Hollywood Reporter considers that his most famous achievement to date: "…he's perhaps best known for being shot before a radio appearance outside the New York hip-hop station Hot 97 two years ago, after which he proceeded with the interview and became a part of hip-hop lore." Oh, he's also tough as shit.

• I'm sure Debra Lee and Reginald Hudlin loved this episode of The Boondocks. [SB]

• Seriously, what is going on with our youth? [WYFF4]

• J.Lo might quit the music biz to be a mom. I totally, totally support that decision. [MG]

• Beanie Sigel gets a Lindsay Lohan/Nicole Richie jail sentence. We all know they have bigger fish to fry in Philly. [MTV]

Despite rumors to the contrary, Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Las Vegas passed inspection and opened (in typical grand style) last night for LeBron James' 23rd birthday party. Lots of stars were in attendance, but expect more at tonight's New Year's Eve party — apparently, none of these people mind spending two nights in a row at Jay-Z's club. More pictures, including one of Rev. Al "Decency in Hip Hop" Sharpton throwing up the Roc sign with Memphis Bleek and Beanie Sigel, after the jump.

CONTINUED »

A guy like Beanie Sigel is the type Bill Cosby's usually complaining about in his speeches and books, but yesterday the two teamed up for an anti-violence march in Philadelphia. And the Cos had nice things to say about Sigel, who released an album last week.

“Here is a young man from the streets who came back to the streets as a man,” Cosby said of the rapper. “This is what we want from our young boys, to go from boys to men.” Beans, who shot an anti-violence public service announcement with Philly’s Fox 29 last week, believes that, as an artist who hails from the same mean streets that are now under siege, he is uniquely suited to reach at-risk youth. “I come from these things, the streets,” Beans told the crowd outside of M. Hall Stanton School. “I’m at a time in my life where I’m trying to make the transition from something negative to something positive.”

And despite the occasional passive theft of rental cars, Beans is making that transition quite nicely.

Last year, Bow Wow's solo album opened at No. 6 with 262,000 sold, and Omarion's solo venture opened at No. 1 with 119,000 sold. This year, the friends collaborated to make Face Off, which sold only 107,000 in it's first week and didn't even make it into the top 10 of the Billboard 200. This kind of reminds me of Ne-Yo's song "Make Me Better," but in reverse.

Check out who else had a less-than-stellar debut on the charts after the jump.

CONTINUED »

• 50 Cent got as disrespectful as ever on the radio recently. Nas and Jay-Z, not to mention Kelis and Beyonce, won't be amused. [SOHH]

• Beanie Sigel doesn't want children to live the live he promotes in the music he desperately needs them to buy. [MYFox]

• The public is thirsty for a different kind of black film. [HL]

• The well-known criminal trial in New York is divided by race. Just like most trials having anything at all to do with race. [ND]

• Columnists at the venerable New York Times are fighting over whether Ronald Reagan was a racist or at least appealed to racists in order to win elections. Uh, he was a Republican president, so we all know the latter is true. [E&P]

• Google tells the Anti-Defamation League it can't/won't censor anti-semitic or racist search engine results. And why should they? [Ynet]

• All Hip Hop lists the top 10 rappers-turned-actors. What, no Beanie Sigel? [AHH]

• If only all educators understood that black students can't handle themselves in class because their church traditions are so raucous, it would be a much happier place. [BC]

• Beanie Sigel has gotten out of criminal charges associated with his apparent reluctance to return or pay for a rented Nissan Altima. Phew! I was worried for a second, there. [AHH]

• A teacher in the UK investigates a four-year-old boy for racism. He's embittered and filled with hate because the black kids get special treatment during nap time. [Telegraph]

• And while we're discussing the UK, the head of Britain's black policeman's association is encouraging more racial profiling of black youth. [Metro]

• The struggle over skin tone among blacks rages on. But we're black, so we knew that already. [CS-T]

• Barack Obama has former gay supporters hopping mad over his association with homosexuality foe and "reformed" gay Donnie McClurkin. [QT]

How is Beanie Sigel going to remember his lines in Notorious — that is, if his destiny to portray Biggie onscreen is fulfilled — if he can't remember to turn in his rental car? A warrant is out for the rapper's arrest after a Philly rental car company called Payless complained that a car that was rented to him had not been returned for month. Beanie Sigel is clearly no stranger to warrants, but damn. He's messing up his film career!

[AP]

Nothing says "rapper" like the unabashed overestimation of one's creative talents. Take Beanie Sigel, for instance, who tried out for the role as Biggie in the biopic, Notorious, which has been plagued with casting issues.

"Yeah," Beanie smiled, while sitting in the Def Jam offices on Tuesday, describing what inspired him to go out for the part. "The fact that I'm a huge Big fan from the gate is why I did it.

"Then taking myself outside of myself and looking back, who else better to play that role, man?" he added. "That's not me being biased or tooting my own horn. I'm not comparing myself to Biggie career-wise or lyrically, but to pull that off, and have people believing that, I don't think nobody else could play that role better than I could. I know how much passion I'd put into it. I know how far I would go. I would treat that like Jamie [Foxx] did 'Ray.' "

I'm nearly positive there is someone out there who could do Biggie justice. And I'm even more positive that person is not Beanie Sigel.

[MTV]

You want to know what happens when someone like Beanie Sigel calls someone like Kanye West gay?

Very little, actually. Sometimes it's better to ignore people you're semi-scared of than to respond with a weird mixture of assertiveness and fear.

Mass gatherings of black students prove to be too intimidating for Harvard kids. [Gawker]

Jamie Foxx is producing a new sports-related sitcom just so he can sing the theme song. [Starpulse]

New music from Common. And I thought he was only about movies these days. [H&P]

Robin Thicke, who should dump Paula Patton and begin his life anew with Lindsay Lohan, believes in drug use as a form of celebration. [SOHH]

Beanie Sigel makes a great choice in attacking two artists who are more attractive, successful, and rich than he will ever be. [RU]