Source: MakeWondersWorldwide / SplashNews / Splash News Beyoncé And Jay Z Photographed At Made In America Festival It’s that time of year again — when the coupled up Carters round up their kiddos and head to Philadelphia for Labor Day weekend to watch their friends, and some of their artists, perform at Made In America Festival. While many festival goers flock to Philly to watch the show, the VIP’s at the festival grounds flock to the D’USSE lounge — and that includes Beyoncé and Jay Z. Source: MakeWondersWorldwide / SplashNews / Splash News Bey was photographed toting around a D’USSE flask full of that ‘gnac — pretty much destroying all the speculation that she might be pregnant again. Well it’s good to see the Carters having a good time. Check out more photos below:
P hiladelphia-bred rapper Meek Mill is no stranger to philanthropy. In the past, the hip-hop star—whose real name is Robert Rihmeek Williams —has hosted toy giveaways and school drives benefiting children in his hometown. Williams is continuing his mission to inspire and empower the youth in Philly. According to CBS News , he recently unveiled renovated basketball courts in North Philadelphia. Meek Mill joined city officials Saturday afternoon to unveil renovated basketball courts in North Philadelphia. https://t.co/V3zacYqJFu — CBS Philly (@CBSPhilly) August 17, 2019 The project was a collaborative effort between Williams, Puma, Roc Nation and local organizations including the Strawberry Mansion Community Development Corporation, Mural Arts Philadelphia, and Philadelphia Parks and Recreation. The new courts—which are located at 33rd and Oxford—feature motivational quotes along the sidelines as well as Williams’ “Dreamchasers” logo. During the unveiling ceremony, the “Dreams and Nightmares” rapper thanked those who helped bring the project to fruition and played basketball with the children who were in attendance. Williams says he’s happy to have the platform and resources to give back to his community. “North Philly will always be home. When kids go to East Fairmount Park, they deserve to ball in the best conditions possible, so I’m glad they’ll have that opportunity now,” he said when announcing the project last year. Leaders of the initiative are beyond thankful for his continued commitment to uplift the youth in Philadelphia. “A lot of people make it, come back for a minute, get a little cameras and then they’re gone,” said Philadelphia City Council President Darrell Clarke in a statement. “My man, he keeps coming back and I’m loving it.” Williams has been making power moves beyond music this year. He was named co-owner of the sports apparel brand Lids and he has continued to fight for criminal justice reform by joining forces with lawmakers to propose a probation and parole reform bill . His 12-year gun and drug case recently came to an end. SEE ALSO: #BossMoves: Meek Mill Named Co-Owner Of The Sports Apparel Brand Lids Meek Mill And Lawmakers Propose Probation Reform Bill [ione_media_gallery src=”https://newsone.com” id=”3824556″ overlay=”true”]
Source: AlexSava / Getty 1 Dead, 5 Injured On Set Of Music Video In Philadelphia A 21-year-old man was reportedly shot dead, and five others injured, while filming a music video in Southwest Philly last night. According to reports, no arrests have been made and none of the victims has been identified at this time. From 6ABC : Police said one person is dead and five others are wounded after shots rang out moments before a rap video production was about to get underway on Sunday night in Southwest Philadelphia. It happened around 8 p.m. along the 2600 block of Carroll Street. Officers arrived at the scene to find six shooting victims. Police confirm a 21-year-old man was shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene. Another 23-year-old man was also found with a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition. “They were about to shoot a rap video when someone, a couple of people, came and shot one or more or persons,” said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross. “These all very young men. Sadly this is what we see over and over again, but you know hopefully we’ll get someone to step forward because these are the type of incidents where we do worry about retaliation.” Police said the group of about 10 men, all in their early 20s, were about to start filming when someone got out of a black car and began firing approximately 10 shots. Four other victims (two of which are also in critical condition) were reportedly shot in the finger, right leg and chest, leg, and neck and back. We are keeping these young men in our prayers.
Source: Mint Images / Getty The efforts of a Pennsylvania businessman were denied after he reportedly offered to pay off $22,467 of a school district’s lunch debt in order to thwart the reported plans of administrators who threatened to place students in foster care over the unpaid debts. Two weeks ago, a widely circulated letter sent to parents from the Wyoming Valley West school district disturbingly laid out a plan of action for parents with unpaid lunch debts. Text “RICKEY”to 71007 to join the Rickey Smiley Morning Show mobile club for exclusive news. ( Terms and conditions ). “Your child has been sent to school every day without money and without a breakfast and/or lunch,” the July 9 letter states. “This is a failure to provide your child with proper nutrition and you can be sent to Dependency Court for neglecting your child’s right to food.” “If you are taken to Dependency court, the result may be your child being removed from your home and placed in foster care,” the letter continues. “Please remit payment as soon as possible to avoid being reported to the proper authorities.” Sign Up For Our Newsletter! Close Thank you for subscribing! Please be sure to open and click your first newsletter so we can confirm your subscription. Email Submit In an op-ed for The Philadelphia Inquirer, La Colombe Coffee Roasters CEO Todd Carmichael shared his frustration over what he referred to as “shaming” and burdensome in the eyes of parents and local taxpayers. Michael stated that he received a firm “no” from the school’s school board president Joseph Mazur. “On Monday, we talked to School Board President Joseph Mazur to determine the best way to transfer the funds in order to wipe the slate clean and restore dignity to the 1,000 families who received these threatening letters,” Carmichael wrote. SEE ALSO: Apple Unveils Updated MacBook Air & MacBook Pro For Back-To-School Season “Shockingly, Mr. Mazur turned us down. I can’t explain or justify his actions. Let me be clear: we offered over $22,000 with no strings attached. And he said ‘No,’” Carmichael continued. “Mr. Mazur, I am offering to pay this debt in full. By saying no, you are not just shaming families who elected you, but you are placing this burden on WVW taxpayers, and that is completely unfair,” he added. Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey called the school district’s actions “callous” on Twitter and urged administrators to cease the threats of foster care. Moving forward, the School District has an obligation to find an appropriate way to collect these funds, instead of using threats — Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) July 19, 2019 The situation is shockingly similar to a story we reported on in May, where a school in Rhode Island served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to students with unpaid balances and denied the efforts of a local businesswoman who wanted to help pay off a fraction of the debt. Low-income students have again become collateral in the fight for who gets to eat and who is objectified for doing so. In the Wyoming Valley West School District, 64% of the students live below the poverty line, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. This story was originally posted on madamenoire.com . [ione_media_gallery src=”https://rickeysmileymorningshow.com” id=”2001700″ overlay=”true”] ALSO TRENDING ON RICKEYSMILEYMORNINGSHOW.COM : British Actress Cynthia Erivo Faces Backlash For Role As Harriet Tubman Since She Is Not An American Descendant Of Slavery “You Can’t Take Away 20…” Wendy Williams Gets Emotional Talking About Changing Her Last Name Nicole Murphy Apologizes For Kissing A Very Married Antoine Fuqua Follow @TheRSMS
Source: Gilbert Carrasquillo / Getty Meek Mill’s Drug And Gun Conviction Thrown Out By Appeal Court It’s been one helluva day for Meek Mill . Earlier this morning we reported that the Philly rapper inked a joint venture with Jay-Z and Roc Nation for his very own DreamChasers record label. Now, the AP is reporting that the drug and gun conviction that has plagued Meek for over a decade has FINALLY been thrown out! Three judges unanimously agreed that the new evidence in Meek’s case warranted his conviction be tossed a new trial be granted. This is HUGE life-changing news for Meek because it means that if he is found not guilty, he will no longer be under the cynical eye of the probation system and will no longer have to fear going back to prison for something as silly as popping a wheelie on a motor bike. To that end, the court tossed out the “parole violations” handed down by janky judge Genece Brinkley, and in a rare move, removed her from his case entirely. God is good.
Source: Donat Sorokin / Getty Philly Man Climbs Building To Save His Mother During A Fire According to ABC Philly , a Philadelphia man has become a local hero after scaling a West Philadelphia apartment building during a fire to save his mother. Jermaine, 35, is a roofer by trade, so he has some experience with tall buildings. “As kids we used to jump roofs,” he said. “Glad I had the practice.” Last week when the 19-story Westpark Apartments high-rise at 4445 Holden Street started filling with smoke, Jermaine got a call from his sister that their mother, 65-year-old Sheila, who is bed-ridden, couldn’t get out of her 15th floor apartment. So he sprang into action. After being blocked by the police when trying to enter the building, he decided to climb up and save her himself. “All for my mom’s safety, period. I wasn’t worried about mine at all. She can’t get out of the bed or walk around so if there’s a fire she needs help out,” he said. Jermaine actually DID make it all the way to his mom’s balcony and was assured by her that she was doing OK because the fire was contained. Instead of arresting Jermaine when he climbed back down, an officer actually let him go. “He understood the circumstances, he knew – when your adrenaline is pumping, and your mom is up there, you thinking she’s dying – you’d do anything you can,” Jermaine said according to ABC Philly.
Source: HOLLYWOOD, CA – SEPTEMBER 17: Lil Kim arrives for VH1’s Hip Hop Honors: The 90’s Game Changers at Paramount Studios on September 17, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Greg Doherty/Getty Images) Uploaded By Godspeed Lil Kim ‘s imprint on Hip-Hop history is well branded and well deserved and though she’s never been one to keep her mouth shut she refuses to speak to anyone who doesn’t put any respect on her name. Recently the OG Queen Bee took to Instagram Live to explain why she refused to do interviews for both Andy Cohen and the media in general. Revealing that she had some press set up for Thursday, Kim explained that she pulled out of all her obligations because “two of the major outlets wanted to be messy and my publicist and my manager made the executive decision to shut it down.” The “Lighters Up” rapper went on to state that “I refuse to f*ckin’ keep doing all of these interviews, publications and all of that sh*t if muthaf*ckas is not gonna respect who I am, what i’ve done, where i’m at now – put some f*ckin’ respect on my name, period.” According to Kim she was set up to appear on Access Hollywood , The Today Show and Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen , but apparently her team wasn’t feeling the direction one or all of these shows wanted to go with their interviews. Without going into specifics about what kind of “messy” Cohen (who she thought she had a cool relationship with) and others wanted to get into, the pint sized Brooklyn rapper stated that “If y’all don’t see me doing press, if y’all don’t see me doing certain things, it’s ’cause I’m fighting. I’m f**king fighting. I’m not f**king just about to have muthaf**kers not put respect on my name. So don’t act stupid. Don’t start asking all these dumb questions, ‘why she not doing this? why she not doing that?’ cause now y’all f*ckin’ know!” Well, we can’t blame her for pulling out of shows that she felt might’ve been looking to ask her questions she wasn’t comfortable answering. As for that long awaited follow up album to 2005’s The Naked Truth , Kim promises it’ll drop “real, real soon.” Check out Lil Kim’s IG statement below and let us know if you think she’s in the right to put the media on blast.
Source: Pose / FX Networks WARNING: Major spoilers ahead for episode 4 of “Pose:” If it felt that in the second season of Pose Candy Ferocity ( Angelica Ross ) was growing and developing into something bigger and better, you were not alone. While in the hit ballroom drama, Candy has always struggled, especially with choosing the correct category, she’d come a long way. Yes, she is still a mean girl who can read the girls and even threaten folks with that infamous hammer of hers, but she’s evolved a bit. She’s no longer the girl having strangers in basements inject faulty silicon in her rear, nor is she tagging behind former house mother Elektra Abundance Evangelista Wintour ( Dominique Jackson ) feeding off her scraps. Ms. Candy—as Pray Tell ( Billy Porter ) would say—had stepped up to become a co-mother, molding her own children and house, along with doing her damnedest to carve out her own lasting legacy. And as we jumped three years later to 1990 this season, we see how the girls—rather naively and annoyingly—have faith that Madonna’s hit song “Vogue” would bring them all from the shadows of this underground world into the bright lights of the Big Apple. As Candy said, she needed to the first one in the line of that mainstream gaze, because she has bigger dreams than winning trophies in the face category. She was destined to become a star in the outside world. She was looking to the future. Source: Pose / FX Networks Of course, we all wanted that for her, to see her rise and be successful like Angel (Indya Moore ), but in the fourth episode “ Never Knew Love Like This Before,” we realize that Candy “is never coming home.” Days after she’d gone missing, her bruised and bloody body was found, thrown in a seedy hotel closet like yesterday’s trash. See, Candy had to engage in survival sex work to keep her house afloat, but this time around, the danger too many vulnerable women like her face is what ended her life. Granted, it’s not like death is new to Pose . But the majority of those deaths have been from complications of AIDS, mostly taking the lives of Black and Latinx men. Meanwhile, many of the girls (outside of Blanca) seemed unscathed by the virus on-screen. But as Angelica Ross recently told me this season co-creator Ryan Murphy was clear that this season they would no longer be viewing these women’s world through “rose colored glasses.” But thankfully, her death wasn’t treated like an afterthought like Tara from True Blood or with blatant disregard like Missandei on Game of Thrones). As I recently pointed out for Shondaland , Candy’s storyline was treated with “the love, dignity and respect it deserved.” During Candy’s memorial, her fierce-as-ever ghost appeared in order to make amends with frenemies like Pray Tell, encourage Angel to carry on her torch to the next generation of trans girls like her and to reunite with her estranged parents who had refused to see their son as the woman she was born to be. Most importantly, Candy was no longer the butt of the ball’s jokes. In her final scene, she was able to fulfill her biggest goal before crossing over: To be the queen of the ballroom in a category she knew she could conquer, lip-syncing. But it’s important to point out that this stunning (and triggering moment) in television was also an example of art imitating life. In the iconic 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning , which Pose is heavily inspired by, Venus Xtravaganza’ promising life was ended short when her body was found in a “sleazy motel” four days after she’d been strangled. Like Candy, her killer was never caught. One would think that with time comes progress, but for trans women, specifically Black and Latinx trans women like Candy and Venus, that isn’t always the case. Yes, they are more visible in pop culture, but being seen doesn’t translate into safety. Just this year alone, eleven Black trans women in the U.S. have been murdered : Dana Martin. Jazzaline Ware. Ashanti Carmon. Claire Legato. Muhlaysia Booker. Michelle “Tamika” Washington. Paris Cameron. Chynal Lindsey. Chanel Scurlock. Zoe Spears. Brooklyn Lindsey. What’s even worse is that it’s estimated that the average lifespan for trans women is only 35-years-old. Think if that were the case for cisgender Black women. Think if every year you inch closer to 35, you inch closer to death. Every time you blow out your birthday candles you are reminded of ALL the years, happiness and dreams that will be robbed from you because you are brave enough to live your truth. That’s the real tragedy. All that potential, just lost. All of the gifts they can offer and receive from this world, gone. This is exactly what Candy’s fictional death represents—the dreams deferred of the real-life Black trans women we’ve lost and will continue to lose to this senseless, transphobic and crippling violence. Sadly, it’s happening on our watch. So if there was ever a time to stand up for Black trans women, it’s now. Now is the time to love and support our sisters by fighting for a better and more welcoming world that allows for them to live their fullest and longest lives. We owe them that. Most importantly, now is the time to ensure that when we say the names of the Candys of this world, we’re not just doing it in death, but celebrating them in life. RELATED NEWS: EXCLUSIVE: ‘Pose’s’ Angelica Ross On Why Black Transgender Women Deserve To See Themselves On The Screen #SayHerName: Another Black Trans Woman Was Shot And Killed, This Time in Philadelphia #SayHerName: Black Trans Woman Beaten In Viral Video Last Month Found Dead [ione_media_gallery src=”https://hellobeautiful.com” id=”3052266″ overlay=”true”]
Source: Erika Goldring / Getty The city of Philadelphia has some explaining to do. Unfortunately the city’s Streets departments made a small but noticeable mistake when they failed to capitalize the “b” in LaBelle on street signs during a naming ceremony in honor of the iconic singer held last Tuesday. Signs that read “Patti LaBelle Way” will be hung on Broad Street along a stretch of blocks that span between Locust and Spruce street near the city center. Text “RICKEY” to 71007 to join the Rickey Smiley Morning Show mobile club for exclusive news. ( Terms and conditions ). The singer thanked all of her fans and recalled the days her and her family walked along the same street as a young girl. However, LaBelle was photographed at the event holding a sign with the correct spelling of her name. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer , the city will install correct signage this week. A block of Philadelphia's Broad Street has been renamed Patti Labelle Way in honor of @MsPattiPatti https://t.co/qS8bVgf0ee — Variety (@Variety) July 3, 2019 Patti LaBelle, whose birth name is Patricia Louise Holt, was born and raised in Southwest Philadelphia and still calls the city home to this day. Her career has spanned over four decades, first as a member of the group the Blue Belles, then transitioning as the lead singer in Labelle. After branching out as a solo artist, she’s won two Grammy’s with a total of 13 nominations and has also delved into acting and entrepreneurship. Sign Up For Our Newsletter! Close Thank you for subscribing! Please be sure to open and click your first newsletter so we can confirm your subscription. Email Submit Her cooking skills were known and coveted among her industry peers and over the past six years she’s enjoyed monumental success with a cooking show and her own line of food products though her brand, Patti’s Good Life. “When people ask me about certain things, like why am I doing this dessert book or making this banana pudding, it’s because I love to see people’s faces after they taste my great desserts,” she said in a 2017 Vanity Fair interview. “And I’m making these for them. You know Patti Labelle is not eating all the things that she sells at Walmart, but of course I have to taste everything to make sure it’s right. It’s been in my blood, and I think that’s the way it’s going to end up.” This story was originally posted on MadameNoire.com . ALSO TRENDING ON RICKEYSMILEYMORNINGSHOW.COM : August Alsina Hospitalized After Singer Lost The Ability To Walk Tyler Perry Paid For Keke Palmer To See A Dermatologist To Battle Severe Acne [VIDEO] Take Her Phone: Apryl Jones Put The Game, Shaq, Kevin Durant & More On IG Live Blast [VIDEO] Follow @TheRSMS
