50 says to Rick Ross: “this is the kind of attention that when it goes away, you go away. Oh shit!

“Our goal is to make sure that fans’ first taste of the new Death Row is stuff that’s fresh,” WIDEawake CEO Lara Lavi tells the Wall Street Journal. “There’s so much video and artwork and music that’s never been seen by fans…We’re going to put a Death Row online destination store site together. Suge doesn’t own this thing anymore” adds Lavi. “As long as we keep pulling it back to that, it makes it very hard to go forward, and it’s painful for the artists. I really want these artists to feel good. Mr. Knight is a business man. And I think he comes from a community with these artists, and they know each other and they’re going to continue to know each other. It’s not about what he influences but how we go forward as a team to create a new day for Death Row.”

“There is an irony to a singer/songwriter/entertainment lawyer/soccer mom now being the chief of this thing,” says Lavi, who also co-founded Very Juicy Records with her husband, producer Maurice Jones Jr. “I’ve been married for many, many years to an African-American man. I’ve had the blessing of being exposed to music that perhaps my upbringing would not have suggested would be possible. [We need] to have a healing process with the Death Row artists, and that is probably one of my first priorities…to systematically talk to the artists that have quality catalogs in the Death Row asset purchase and get things on a better level,” Lavi says. “They deserve better than this. Their product has been sitting in a bankruptcy proceeding for the past three years. Much of it hasn’t seen the light of day.”

Alternate cover:

Lil Wayne tears up when Katie Couric asked him about President Bush and Hurricane Katrina.

Queens, New York rapper Ja Rule will export his brand of Hip-Hop to Europe next month with high profile performances in Latvia and Romania. The rapper will appear in Riga during a stop in the Baltic State of Latvia, on February 5.

Ja Rule, born Jeffery Atkins, will perform at Essential night club, marking the second time he has appeared in Riga. Last February, Ja made an appearance in Riga during a stop to promote his album eighth solo album, The Mirror. On February 6, the rapper, who is set to star in the upcoming flick Don’t Fade Away (opposite Mischa Barton), will perform at the Bamboo Club. Ja Rule is currently in the studio working on his untitled upcoming solo album.

Source: Allhiphop