Posted July 25, 2008- Apparently, 50 Cent does not think all is fair in beef and guerilla warfare after all. On Wednesday (Aug. 23), 50 filed suit in Manhattan federal court claiming the fast food restaurant chain Taco Bell used his name in an advertising campaign without permission, subsequently “diluting the value of his good name.” Some time ago, Taco Bell issued a letter to the rapper asking him to change his name for a day. “We made a good faith, charitable offer to 50 Cent to change his name to either 79, 89, or 99 Cent for one day by rapping his order at a Taco Bell, and we would have been very pleased to make the $10,000 donation to the charity of his choice,” a spokesman for Taco Bell Corp said in a statement. However, according to the lawsuit, the letter was submitted to 50 only after it had first been sent to the media. “… Many customers believed that 50 Cent had agreed to endorse Taco Bell’s products. Indeed, postings on numerous Internet ‘blogs’ castigated 50 Cent for ‘selling out’ by his apparent endorsement of Taco Bell,” it states. 50 believes there was a ploy was to use his name without having to pay the multimillion dollar fee he might have charged.
Ashanti can officially represent for her native Long Island now that the R&B singer was seen Tuesday (Jul. 22) donning an orange blazer with the tourism patch for Nassau County. County executive Thomas Suozzi presented the fashion piece to Ashanti for her new position as one of nine “tourism ambassadors” for the New York suburb. “It was amazing to be asked, and I wanted to give something back to the community,” Ashanti said. No word on what her actual duties are, but apparently she didn’t have to ride the bus that took 16 visitors (including some from as far away as Australia, Japan, and Europe) on a tour of her ‘hood, reports EOnline.com.
Not only did Nas up seat Lil Wayne this week, taking the top spot on the Billboard chart with his Untitled, but he also was vocal in the upset on Fox News. Wednesday (Aug. 23) the rapper appeared at a podium outside of the channel’s NY headquarters with activist network ColorOfChange.org and boxes of over 620,000 petitions signed by people concerned about the way Fox presents the news (or “news,” according to Nas). “Fox poisons this country every time they air racist propaganda and try to call it news,” Nas said. “…We already knew that Fox is not a news network; they are a propaganda machine, but their racist attacks have gone way too far. Calling Michelle Obama [presidential candidate Barack Obama’s wife] ‘Barack's baby mama’ - is that acceptable? Bill O’Reilly [Fox News anchor] saying a ‘lynching party’ for Michelle Obama might be legit if she has the wrong political opinions. Is that acceptable? Is that flat-out racist?” Nas then in part answered the rhetorical questions by reading off lyrics to his “Sly Fox” track. RollingStone.com reports that ColorOfChange.org contacted Nas after seeing the song lyrics, claiming the song is in line with allegations the organization had already levied. O’Reilly (with whom Nas has a had a history of publicized beef) responded by saying, “The tactic is despicable… Fox leads the league in diversity, leads the league in helping minorities… our staff is all colors, all ideologies.” Of Nas he said, “He’s a vile guy. He doesn’t matter.”