New York native Fat Joe is giving back after the tragic fire that took place in the Bronx on Sunday.

On Tuesday (Jan. 11), the hip-hop veteran announced that he teamed up with the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City to launch a relief fundraiser benefiting those impacted by the fire, which set the Twin Parks North West building ablaze and left 19 people dead and 32 with life-threatening injuries. In addition to his own financial contribution, Fat Joe has called upon his longtime collaborators Jay-Z and DJ Khaled to donate.

Individuals can also support the cause by donating online at the official Mayor’s Fund website.

Twin Parks North West is an affordable housing complex with 120 units in the Fordham Heights community.

Fat Joe wrote in an Instagram post announcing the fundraiser, “I need all my people worldwide to come together for the families devastated by the fire in the Bronx. I’m donating and I’m asking everyone that has a Heart to donate.”

He continued, “These people are mostly immigrants that have nowhere to go they lost everything. It’s 10 degrees in the Bronx today! WE NEED YOUR HELP! Donate to this link: https://fatjoe.me/donatebronx.”

The hitmaker also hosted an emergency Bronx Relief Special on Instagram live at 7 p.m. ET, further urging individuals to donate.

Artist and former University of Nevada, Las Vegas basketball star Dylan Gonzalez has come forward claiming that Trey Songz raped her and caused her “unbearable PTSD.” She also has hired an attorney to represent her in a potential case against the singer.

In a statement shared to Instagram on Tuesday (Jan. 11), Gonzalez wrote, “With what seems like endlessly reoccurring news of the alleged sexual assaults committed by Trey Songz, I am forced to repeatedly relive in my mind, and suffer anew, the long-suppressed horror and unbearable PTSD of my rape by his very hands at a well known Las Vegas Hotel.”

Her post continued by sending “love, strength, and hope to all who are victims of sexual assault and its fatal nature. You are not alone.”

Gonzalez also encouraged victims of sexual abuse to come forward. “Suppression of our voices only emboldens our oppressors, and you cannot heal what you do not reveal,” she wrote.

After requesting “privacy, consideration and compassion while I fully commit to pursue the best course of action and all my legal options,” she directed all questions to her attorney, George Vrabeck.

See Gonzalez’s post here. She did not provide details as to when the incident occurred.

On New Year’s Eve, Gonzalez alluded to the accusation, tweeting, “Trey Songz is a rapist. Lord forgive me I Couldn’t hold that in another year.”

A Trey Songz rep has denied the accusation, telling TMZ, “Trey and his team are confident in the legal process and that there will be an abundance of exonerating information to come over the next few weeks.” A rep for Songz’s label Atlantic Records had no comment when reached by Billboard.

Gonzalez’s statement is not the first sexual assault accusation against Songz. In November, he was the subject of a sexual assault investigation — again in Las Vegas — following an incident at The Cosmopolitan after he celebrated his 37th birthday at Drai’s Nightclub.

Back in 2017, Keke Palmer detailed her own difficult encounter with Songz in a passionate video shared to social media.

Palmer claimed he tricked her into being in a music video while at a party in Miami, alleging that she hid in the closet to avoid being filmed, only to later find out Songz and his friends had taken a video of her without her permission. In future interviews, she claimed the singer was guilty of using “sexual intimidation” in coercing her into the video, Glamour reported in 2017.

Model Celina Powell and her friend Aliza came forward in the summer of 2020 while discussing “one of the nastiest things she’s ever done” in a No Jumper interview. Aliza alleged that she was urinated on by Songz without prior consent.

“I got peed on,” she said. “I didn’t know what was happening. He just did it.”

“He took my phone and my purse away for a whole day and held it over the balcony and was like ‘B—h, if you try and leave, I’m going to drop this sh–,’” she added. “He did the same thing to [Powell]. He just does the same sh–. He’s, like, weird.”

If you or someone you know is struggling as a result of sexual assault, please reach out to RAINN’s 24/7 National Sexual Assault Hotline here for confidential support and resources. 

“Creep,” but make it country. That was Normani‘s mission on Monday night’s episode of NBC’s new celebrity game show That’s My Jam.

In the clip, the former Fifth Harmony member reinvents TLC‘s 1992 R&B jam into a country-fried bop during a game of “Wheel of Impossible Karaoke” against Rita Ora.

“The 22nd of loneliness/ And we’ve been through so many things/ I love my man with all honesty/ But I know he’s cheating on me/ I look him in his eyes/ But all he tells me is lies to keep me near/ I’ll never leave him down, though I might mess around/ It’s only ’cause I need some affection/ Oh, so I creep, yeah, I just keep it on the down low/ With nobody else supposed to know,” she warbles, a noticeable twang in her voice, as Ora provides fun backing ad libs.

Elsewhere in the episode, Normani teamed up with Taraji P. Henson in a showdown against the “How to Be Lonely” singer and her real-life boyfriend, filmmake Taika Waititi, in a game of “Slay It Don’t Spray It,” in which Ora delivered a pitch-perfect (and lyrically precise) cover of ABBA‘s “Dancing Queen” to avoid being drenched with water. (On the other team, Henson gloriously bungled Jennifer Lopez‘s “Waiting for Tonight” and suffered the soaking-wet consequences, much to host Jimmy Fallon’s delight.)

Normani closed out 2021 atop Billboard‘s Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart thanks to the continuing success of her Cardi B collaboration “Wild Side.”

Watch the pop star’s countrified cover of “Creep” below.

Janet Jackson has been a longtime advocate for body confidence, and in her recent Allure cover story, the icon talked about her own journey to find that self-love within her.

“It was difficult at times being a woman and being told, ‘No, you can’t.’ Why? ‘Because women don’t do that,’” Jackson said of the cultural expectations of the 1980s.

She went on to discuss body image specifically, and noted that women have gotten “comfortable in their skin, in their size, in being full-figured and I love that, as opposed to back in the day.” She continued, “You had to always be thin and always look a certain way. And now it’s all accepted and it is all beautiful and I absolutely love that.”

Jackson went through learning to embrace her own body throughout her career. In the era of her 1986 album Control, Jackson rejected the sexualization of her body through clothing that covered her up. “I was never a girly girl. I was always a tomboy. So it was always about pants, suits, even as an early teenager. I remember when my brothers got their star on the Walk of Fame and other awards they got, and I look back on pictures and I always had on a suit with a tie, a bow tie, or suspenders,“ she said. “Always loving black and never wanting to expose any part of my body, I felt most comfortable to cover it up to here.”

However, in her 1993 album era for Janet, she took back the narrative surrounding her body with an album cover where she was implied to be topless. The Janet era was about “embracing me and trying to learn to love me for me, my body, all of that,” she said. “Trying to feel comfortable in embracing that. Throwing myself in the lion’s den. Just going for it, wanting to do something different.”

“It took a lot of work, a lot of work,” she continued. “It was something very tough, very difficult. But I’m glad I walked through it. I’m really glad I got in. It was a way of accepting and loving, accepting yourself and your body.”

Read the full cover story here.

The man suspected in connection to the murder of Memphis rapper Young Dolph is now in custody.

23-year-old Justin Johnson was taken into custody in Indiana around 3 p.m. local time on Tuesday (Jan. 11), following a “coordinated” manhunt by the U.S. Marshals Two Rivers Violent Fugitive Task Force and the Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force, according to Rolling Stone.

A week prior, an arrest warrant was issued for Johnson following the fatal shooting of the rapper, who was gunned down at a popular cookie shop in November in his hometown of Memphis.

A first-degree murder warrant was issued for Johnson in the shooting of Young Dolph, whose real name is Adolph Thornton Jr., the U.S. Marshals Service said in a news release. A $15,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest.

Police said two men exited a white Mercedes-Benz on November 17 and fired shots into a Memphis bakery where Young Dolph, 36, was buying cookies and killed him. A private funeral was held for him on Nov. 30 and a section of a street in the neighborhood where he grew up was renamed for him on Dec. 15.

 

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