Despite hearsay that several of Eminem’s childhood homes would be sold on eBay for upwards of $12 million, a report by the Associated Press confirmed there would be no sales. Initially there were three of the rapper’s former Detroit homes listed on the marketplace Web site. The owners of the home contracted a company to weed out phony bids on the rapper’s former dwelling. After the remaining bids were left, none failed to meet the minimum bid of $120,000. Proprietors of the second and third homes expect minimum bids of $500,000 and $2 million, respectively. In related Eminem news, his single “Lose Yourself,” from the 8 Mile Soundtrack, remains positioned atop the Billboard charts in the number one spot for the twelfth week in a row. The Detroit rapper’s next single will come from his six times platinum selling The Eminem Show, as he has recently filmed a video in California for “Superman.”

Nas has finally admitted that he and soul-songstress Kelis are indeed a couple. While the rapper was somewhat tightlipped, he admitted that he now has a new boo. " Yes, its true,” the QB rep said to AllHipHop.com of the eccentric songbird. “That’s my baby." In his normally reclusive manner, Nas dispelled rumors that Kelis was dating Sean “P.Diddy” Combs, but said that he has found the one. “You can say we found each other at the right time and we been looking for each other for a while.” The pair collaborated on “Hey Nas” with Claudette Ortiz from City High playing third wheel in the song. Nas and Kelis had been seen at several events together, including press dates and industry parties. Nas’ God’s Son is currently in stores and fans looking for Kelis’ next CD will have to wait as the siren wrangles between The Neptunes’ Startrak and Puffy’s Bad Boy.

Representatives at MCA have dispelled rumors that they haven’t been able to locate one of their marquee players – the GZA. "This is totally untrue, the GZA is doing fine promoting his new album and he is currently on tour," GZA’s publicist Valerie Lewis told AllHipHop.com. "He has a show tonight in San Diego." The RZA also confirmed with AllHipHop.com that GZA is alive and healthy. GZA is touring to support his latest album, Legend of the Liquid Sword. Rumors had circulated earlier in the day that MCA representatives could not find the rapper. GZA also recently wrapped up filming for his latest video, "Knock, Knock." Here are his upcoming tour dates where you can catch a live, healthy GZA performing: Tonight (Dec 16): Kanes, San Diego, CA Dec. 18: The Knitting Factory, Los, Angeles Dec. 19: Justice League, San Francisco

Contrary to published reports, Mobb Deep has not signed to Landspeed, but the Boston based indie will distribute a new project, titled Free Agents: The Mix Tape. "You’ll get somebody like Landspeed saying that ‘we just signed Mobb Deep,’" Havok told AllHipHop.com. "It will go down the chain and then we signed to Landspeed." "The whole situation with that was, we was planning to put it out on mixtape so we was like, ‘Let’s put it out on mixtape’ and get a lil independent distributor or whatever," Havok told AllHipHop.com. "Somebody said, ‘Get Landspeed to do it,’ So we said, ‘F**k it.’ Put the mixtape out through Landspeed. No big deal." Havok said that the Free Agents mixtape would feature some new songs, but most of it is remixes of their older material with freestyles over it. "I would never sign to Landspeed. Not to discredit them or nothing like that, but we are too big a group to sign to Landspeed. I’m not stupid." Free Agents: The Mix Tape is scheduled for release in Feb. 2003.

Ghostface Killah is being accused of ripping off a Bronx man’s music in Federal Court. Michael Artis filed a lawsuit against Ghostface in Federal District Court, Southern District of New York in September 2001, claiming that the song "Mighty Healthy," a cut on the Supreme Clientele album, was a complete rip off of his work. The lawsuit alleges Dennis Cole’s a/k/a Ghostface Killah stole music and passed it off as his own in a False Designation of Origin Claim. "Epic Records was notified of the Artis claim in early summer of 2001, but did nothing to redress the matter; thereafter, Artis filed a lawsuit in late September 2001," Artis’ attorney Alice T. Crowe, Esq., told AllHipHop.com in a written statement regarding the case. "Ironically, at the early stages of the lawsuit Dennis Cole’s lawyers would not accept court papers on his behalf; however, when Epic filed it’s lawsuit against Coles in late October of this year, Coles’ lawyer, who moved to withdraw as counsel for Coles, agreed to stay on the case to accept Epic’s legal papers against Coles." According to Crowe, Ghostface was "served with the Artis lawsuit in Florida when Coles paused momentarily to entertain the flirtations of a young strawberry blonde while he was performing on stage," serving him his court papers in front of hundreds of his fans. Ghostface threw the papers on stage and continued his performance. When he failed to appear or file a response to the lawsuit, Crowe filed a default motion against him. A lawyer appeared in court to respond to the lawsuit for Ghostface later filed a motion to withdraw as legal counsel, citing Ghostface’s management would not return his phone calls, saying he was difficult and uncooperative in the case. According to Crowe, Ghostface and Epic came to an agreement to release him from his recording contract and one of the provisions was that Ghost cooperated in defending the lawsuit. When Ghostface’s lawyer filed a motion to withdraw as counsel, Sony/Epic then filed a lawsuit against Ghostface citing he violated his written agreement to assist them with defending the infringement lawsuit launched in September. The suit names Sony Entertainment/Epic Records, The RZA, and Allah Mathematics as parties. Crowe’s said that the Epic lawsuit mirrors the Artis lawsuit, citing Coles for infringing upon Artis’s music and seeking damages against Ghostface for his actions.

This Friday (Dec 20), group Black Eyed Peas and Grassroots Productions will host their 4th Annual PeaPod Children’s Benefit concert. 100 percent of the proceeds will go to the children of Five Acres. The event, which will take place at the House Of Blues in Hollywood, California, will feature live performances from Black Eyed Peas, Planet Asia, Burning Star, Motiv8, Poet Name Life, DJ Able and Pjoe and Mystik. An unnamed surprise performer will also be present. "It is always a beautiful thing when entertainers or anybody who has a public platform can give back to the community and help bring attention and joy, especially to kids," Mystik told AllHipHop.com. "Every child deserves some happiness so if I can help I’m there!" Five Acres is the oldest child abuse and neglect prevention, treatment and education center in the San Gabriel Valley and one of the few in Los Angeles County accredited by the internationally recognized Council on Accreditation of Services for Families and Children (COA). Five Acres was founded in 1888. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. The doors open at 6p.m. Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster.com. For more info, call 213.896.0877.

Swollen Members have tapped producer/director Todd McFarlane, creator of the comic Spawn to direct the video for their newest single “Breath”. The video will also feature long time friend Nelly Furtado. “I’m a huge fan of his comic books, and I collect his toys, so we’re very excited about being able to make a video with Todd McFarlane,” Mad Child of Swollen Members told AllHipHop.com in a statement. “It’s a great honor to be able to work with him,” added Prevail. “He is the one who inspired me to get into comic books in the first place. He is a very talented visual artist, and we’re very excited to see what we can do together.” Todd McFarlane has previously delved into the world of music by creating award-winning music videos for such groups as Pearl Jam and Korn. He collaborated with Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam to create the animated video “Do The Evolution”. The video went on to receive more than 40 international artistic awards, and was nominated for a 1999 Grammy Award in the category of Best Short Form Music Video. Todd also produced Korn’s “Freak On A Leash” video, which went on to win a Grammy and two MTV Video Awards. Overseeing production for Todd McFarlane Entertainment will be company president and producer Terry Fitzgerald. "Being a fan of the band and fellow Canadian, I was intrigued when they called on us to work on this video, a mere month after picking up their new album here in Los Angeles," Fitzgerald said. “Breath”, the latest single from Swollen Members new album, Monsters In The Closet, is currently being serviced to radio and is gaining momentum across Canada. The video for “Breath” will be shot in mid-December for a premiere in January 2003.

Recent reports have stated that Nas ‘looked up’ to Hitler, but the rapper has stated that the comments were taken completely out of context. “I hate Hitler, because he hated my people…but, as an enemy, if you don’t respect a smart, evil genius you are going down,” Nas told AllHipHop.com. “Some people in the media are dummies. Its not surprising [to be taken out of context].” “When I think of mastermind, whether they were evil and fu**ed up or whether they were children of God, whether they were devils or angels. If you are going out of your enemy, you have to understand his diligence, his convictions and the things he does in order to win and take him out,” he expounded. Continuing, Nas said,” First of all, this [reporter] makes out my song [“Mastermind”]to be a song for Hitler. My music has nothing to do with Hitler. I hate Hitler. He hated my people. He killed my people as well as Jews and any other person that came after his army. This guy makes my song out to be something it has nothing to do with because he wanted his audience to say, ‘How do we discredit Nas? How do we get Nas to look like he’s crazy.’” Nas said that the media often has misconstrued other figures in African American history. “This type of publicity is the type of publicity that they used with Malcolm X and Farrakhan. It’s a way that writers become famous. It’s a way news channels get ratings. And they have a way of controlling my people.” “This is expected. When I say something small, its gonna be taken out of context,” he concluded.

The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network is calling upon Pres. Bush to ask for Senator Trent Lott’s resignation from the U.S. Senate. Lott made racist comments at a birthday party for 100 year-old Strom Thurmond. Thurmond was the oldest serving Senator in the U.S. government history when he retired last week. Lott declared that he was proud his state (Mississippi) had voted for the Thurmond ticket during the 1948 elections, declaring "If the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years either." "For Bush not to call for Trent Lott’s resignation is a terrible insult to black people’s intelligence," HHSN Founder Russell Simmons told AllHipHop.com. Lott apologized Thursday and President Bush said the apology was welcomed. "Any suggestion that the segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong," Bush declared. Lott has a history of being racist. Over four decades ago, Lott helped prevent his college fraternity from admitting blacks to any of it’s chapters. Chapters of the Sigma Nu’s were considering the admission of African-American’s into the chapters, when Lott was president of the intra-fraternity council at the University Of Mississippi. Lott was one of the most outspoken leaders, opposed to the integration of the fraternity’s and sororities. "Yes, you could say I favored segregation then," Lott told Time magazine in 1997. "The main thing was, I felt the federal government had no business sending in troops to tell the state what to do." "The civil rights movement was one of America’s finest hours," civil rights leader Jesse Jackson stated. "Strom Thurmond’s massive resistance to that movement, and his support in states like Mississippi, was one of one of history’s low points. Trent Lott must not be allowed to tarnish that truth." In 1981, when Lott was a congressman in Mississippi, he wrote "Racial discrimination does not always violate public policy." That was writting in a brief that unsuccessfully urged the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the IRS from taking away the Bob Jones University’s tax exemption status. "Strom Thurmond ran for President in 1948 as a staunch segregationist, and for Trent Lott in 2002 to express support for a presidential candidate at that time running on a policy based on bigotry and hatred is an insult to human dignity. We in the Hip-Hop community are opposed to all forms of racial segregation." The claim that Republicans represent black people and poor people is not valid if Bush will not call for his resignation," Simmons added. "This proves that he is insensitive to the on going racism that still exists in the Republican party." Meanwhile, the United States Air Force will honor Thurmond by naming its 100th C-17 airlifter after the Senate’s only centenarian.

Jermaine Dupri, the hit-making producer and CEO of SoSo Def Records who launched the careers of platinum selling artists such as Kris Kross , Lil Bow Wow and Da-Brat, was recently raided by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS descended upon two of Dupri’s Atlanta homes, reportedly seizing cars, furniture, and computers. According to current press reports, the IRS alleges that Dupri, whose real name is Jermaine Mauldin, owes $2,541,865. Dupri declined to comment to AllHipHop.com, but told MTV sources, “The numbers are wrong, and the truth will soon be shown.” Despite Dupri’s IRS woes, he has recently inked a new distribution deal with Arista Records. Dupri’s prodigy Bow-Wow, and the R&B quartet Jagged Edge will remain on Columbia Records. Dupri could not be reached for additional comment .

Rapper Fat Joe recently finalized a deal with Omega Luxury Wheels, making him the first rapper in history to launch what he described as "high end luxury rims. Named after his recently released album, "The Loyalty" rims for cars and trucks come in 20", 22", 24" and 26". Joe went one step further, making the rims the first ever to have Swavorski crystals embedded in the spokes. "I mean you see the ice on my Terror Squad piece," Joe told AllHipHop.com. "Wait until you see the new FJ rims, it’s incredible." “The Loyalty” will be premiered in his upcoming video “All I Need," which will be shot on December 17 and 18 in New York. The rims will also be featured in his upcoming appearance on the BET series “How We Living” slated to air in January. The rim will be available to the public at the end of Feb. 2003. For more information please contact Atlantic Wholesalers at 718-277-7373. In related news, Joe has a role in the upcoming crime thriller, "Empire," which also features Treach, John Leguizamo and Denise Richards.

After stringing hip-hop fiends out with a 5-mic fix on his latest release, Scarface has plans to lace his next project with a different kind of dope—rock ‘n roll. The Def Jam South President is seriously contemplating forming his own rock band, ala’ Ice-T and his controversial outfit Body Count of the early to mid ‘90s. “I’m trying to get there,” ‘Face told Allhiphop.com of Ice T’s vision when he put his unit together. With potential band names like Monster Head or Sick Ass Psycho Bastards, the Houston-bred emcee may already be there. “I’m just going to be on a big ass stick with black eyes, my face is going to be painted black and I’m going to have gloves on,” he said of his potential live shows. “Every time I make a public appearance, I’m going to be on my stick. They gonna’ be like ‘Oooh that got damn Monster Head.’” As a member of seminal rap group the Geto Boys, ‘Face’s lyrics were infused with abrasive language and stark themes, as opposed to the reflective tone found in his tracks today. ‘Face, however, says the inspiration for his rock group is no different than what his usual muse is. “I’m a sick ass psycho bastard in real life,” he said. “I have to draw that line between what I want the rest of the world to know about me and what I know about myself. I want to do some sick ass sh*t, but I think it should be done under the Monster Head imprint.” Fans looking to re-up on ‘Face’s hip-hop cook up, can catch his latest video for “Someday,” featuring Faith Evans and produced by The Neptunes.

Five months after Michael Jackson blasted Sony CEO Tommy Mottola for racism due to comments he made about an unnamed African-American artist, his brother Jermaine Jackson revealed the artist as Murder Inc mogul Irv Gotti on Connie Chung’s “Tonight” show on December 10. "Tommy Mottola referred to Irv Gotti as a ‘big fat black n#####,’" Jackson alleged on the program. Irv worked with Jennifer Lopez on a variety of records, including Lopez’s#### "I’m Real." Gotti said in the past that he had a "great relationship" with Mottola. In July, Michael Jackson lashed out at Tommy Mottola, stating the powerful head of Sony was "mean, he’s a racist and he’s very, very, very devilish." Jackson made the remarks at a rally in Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network headquarters in Harlem, New York City. At an anti-Sony rally, which protested the promotion of Jackson’s Invincible, the entertainer appeared riding a red double-decker tour bus chanting "down with Tommy Mottola." At the time, various movers and shakers in the music industry defended Mottola, including Russell Simmons, Steve Stoute and even the Reverend Al Sharpton said he was surprised by Jackson’s comments. "There are two things I know," Simmons told the Post. "Tommy Mottola is not a racist, and in black music, especially, you don’t need $30 million to make an album successful. If it’s a hit record, it’ll stick on its own." Sharpton also defended Mottola. "I have known Tommy for 15 or 20 years, and never once have I known him to say or do anything that would be considered racist." “The recording companies really, really do conspire against the artists — they steal, they cheat, they do everything they can,” Jackson said in a rare public appearance. ”(Especially) against the black artists,” Jackson said. Jermaine Jackson scolded various people in a press release in July and even threatened legal action against various comedians. "Industry types, such as Russell Simmons and Ricky Martin … [are] uninformed and should wait to hear the facts before making derisive statements about Michael," the statement read. "Comedians Dennis Miller and Robin Williams and others who bad-mouth and make comedic references to the scandalous [child molestation] allegations that he faced several years [ago] need to be reminded that not only was Michael not convicted of any crime, he was never charged nor was he ever indicted. Any statements to the contrary are libelous and subject to legal action." Gotti was not available for a comment at press time.

Naomi Campbell will appear in an upcoming advertising campaign for Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Wear clothing line. According to reports, the brand is looking to change their current image. "We wanted to change the direction that Roc-A-Wear was taking, by making things a little more iconic," marketing director Dana Hill told People magazine. "She will take Rocawear to a new level, where it can appeal to a more varied audience."