Lil Wayne reportedly refused to take the stage at Friday night's "Fashion Rocks" event because he didn't want his bag checked by security. So he bailed, then changed his mind and acted like a pain in the ass for the rest of the night.

Click through for the full entertaining story, as told by a senior production staffer.

CONTINUED »

The Video Music Awards aired on MTV last night for the 25th year in a row. I have come to two possible conclusions about the show. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
1) The VMAs are not good anymore.

2) I am too old to fully enjoy them.

For those of you who actually busied themselves doing something productive last night, here's a rundown of what you would have seen if you had more time on your hands: Lil Wayne hopping about the stage with T-Pain in an outfit that would have gotten him arrested in Rivera Beach and then hitting the stage again with Kid Rock, Kanye singing his new song "Love Lockdown" (people will be critical, and he will throw a tantrum), famous-in-the-UK host Russell Brand making a lot of political/chastity jokes and inspiring promise-ring-wearing Jordin Sparks to imply that those of us without promise rings are sluts, Rihanna performing twice, much to the delight of Chris Brown, MTV inexplicably scheduling good artists like Lupe Fiasco during commercial breaks, Christina Aguilera remixing Genie in a Bottle and then lip-syncing her new song, Jamie Foxx acting like an idiot, and a lithe Britney Spears woodenly accepting three pity awards. The end. Photos after the jump.

CONTINUED »

James Montgomery, panelist on MTV's video show (yes, it's gotten to the point where music televison has to set aside a half hour dedicated to actually playing music), FNMTV, wrote a column for MTV.com counting down his most memoral moments from the show's first season. This was the thing that struck him most about Lil Wayne when he met him: "Lil Wayne's hair smells like a mixture of stubbed-out Phillies Blunts and a gallon of cough syrup. I wish I were making this up." Yep, that sounds about right.

• De La Soul, Cypress Hill, Slick Rick and others will be honored at the next VH1 Hip Hop Honors' [SP]

• "A Love Supreme? John Coltrane, Lil Wayne and the Post-Trauma Blues" [CN]

• A look at the old Common, before the Gap ads. [TAN]

• Rohan Marley says his wife, Lauryn Hill, is on the comeback trail. So, that settles it: Pot does make people delusional. [XXL]

• Celebrities remember Bernie Mac. [MTV, HH]

• New theory: John Edwards' cover up cost Hillary Clinton the nomination. [ABC]

• Mr. T said he didn't mean to offend anyone with homophobic Snickers ad. [SP]

• India.Arie's Broadway debut will be delayed. Money woes. [SB]

• "I don’t watch anything where they go ‘action’ and ‘cut’ cause that means its not real. If I wanna see some acting, I can get 15 naked b*tches to act out a scene. I’m a real life nigga. Life’s too short for me to die tomorrow and the only thing I know about is the last episode of Law and Order.” — Lil Wayne [NB]

• Diddy and Cassie are not getting married, says Diddy. [People]

• Chris Brown is set to star in the one millionth dance competition show on television. [EUR]

• Something went terribly wrong between the time the wax statue of Tyra Banks at Madame Tussauds' DC location looks a lot better than the one in New York. The hair is spot on, though. [C&D]

• Lil Wayne messes with the Rolling Stones, gets sued. [Bossip]

The money, which often isn't as much as one might think, that recording artists make off of their music these days is enough to make the average person very happy, but not quite enough to fund the crazy, extravagant lifestyles that they like to publicly flaunt. Hence, the ubiquitous clothing lines, colognes, footwear lines, and other branding deals. In recent days there have been a flurry of such deals, from high brow to low brow

CONTINUED »

• So this is what desperate, has-been reality stars do with their TV winnings. While the shirtless sales pitch might get Alton some unwanted emails, it probably won't inspire anyone to buy his scooter. [TMZ]

• I will never drink a beverage called Booty Sweat. [C&D]

• David Banner's fake campaign ad he made to publicize his new album might have been more effective if someone had told him one doesn't run for the position of Secretary of Homeland Security. [SR]

• Something tells me Lil Wayne will never have a tattoo-related change of heart like Skateboard P. [NB]

• Whites and old people don't like Michelle Obama, black people love her, and no one knows (or cares?) enough about Cindy McCain to form an opinion one way or another. [Time]

• The past is coming back to haunt Jennifer Lopez and Diddy — it's been haunting Shyne for a while now. [SR]

• Keep Lil Wayne away from the homonyms! [BX]

• Wesley Snipes is trying to make a little money before his appeal fails and he has to go to jail. [EUR]

• Russell Simmons explains, in great detail, the custody arrangement between him and Kimora. He's happy with it. [PH]

• Rick Ross and Foxy Brown aren't getting married because, he says, he's "married to the money." Oh, sweet romance! [MTV]

So she sleepwalks through live performances, especially when she's singing a slow song (no more slow songs, please!). She's still looks fabulous, is wildly popular, and provides proof that rereleasing old CDs is great for business. Her album, Good Girl Gone Bad, jumped from No. 124 on the Billboard 200 to No. 7 after being rereleased with three new tracks.

Also, Coldplay, along with Lil Wayne, set a record this week for having the first two albums since 2000, when Britney Spears' Oops, I Did It Again came out the week before Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, to debut back-to-back with more than 700,000 units sold. And that was back when people actually bought albums.

CONTINUED »

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 »

• Hot off his album's huge debut week, Lil Wayne's forming a super group with T-Pain. Super? [NB]

• Is this what they mean by tears of a clown? [AHH]

• R. Kelly's lawyer felt compelled to tell Hannah Montana he's sorry for bring up her name during a sordid child porn trial. What, the makers of Little Man don't get an apology. [C&D]

• Noose shmoose. Racists have no creativity these days. [CST]

• Can the magic touch of Swizz Beatz resurrect Michael Jackson's career? In a word, no. [SP]

Shiny cough syrup abuser Lil Wayne’s new record, Tha Carter III, has sold one million copies in its first week out. It’s the first album since 50 Cent’s 2005 LP The Massacre to move a million units in just seven days. This is also the quickest Lil Wayne has ever come into so much money for buying cocaine. Congrats on having a life sans consequences, Weezy.

Lil Wayne on Al Sharpton in "Misunderstood:"

You see, you are no MLK/ You are no Jesse Jackson/ You are nobody to me/ You’re just another Don King with a perm/ Just a little more political/ And that just means you a little more un-human/ Than us humans/ And now let me be human by saying/ F**k Al Sharpton and anyone like him”

Al Sharpton('s rep) on Lil Wayne:

“While some of the rappers don’t like the fact that Rev. Sharpton has been leading marches against the degradation of women in music, a Gallup poll released last week revealed that Rev. Sharpton has a 50% approval rate among African-Americans. So why dignify a response to one rap artist who doesn’t even say anything substantive."

Whose side are you on?