Michael Jackson's Home Contained A Dozen Bottles Of Propofol

An L.A. County Coroner's Office investigator testifies during Dr. Conrad Murray's preliminary hearing that a litany of drugs were found at the residence.
By Mawuse Ziegbe


Michael Jackson
Photo: Sony/ AEG

The role of propofol has loomed large in Michael Jackson's sudden 2009 death, and according to an investigator, copious amounts of the surgical anesthetic were found in the superstar's home.

During the latest round of testimony at the preliminary manslaughter hearing for Jackson's physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, on Friday (January 7), an investigator for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office testified that a dozen bottles of propofol were discovered in Jackson's home, according to TMZ. One of the two bottles found in the singer's bedroom was empty, and investigators also found a slew of at least 10 other types of medication, including lorazepam, hydrocodone and lidocaine.

The mother of one of Murray's children, Nicole Alvarez, also testified and said the doctor sent several packages to her home from April to June 2009. While the packages' contents were not revealed in court, TMZ has reported that the parcels contained propofol and were sent from Murray's Las Vegas pharmacy.

Another one of Murray's girlfriends, Sade Anding, gave notable testimony. Anding said she received a five-minute phone call from Murray around 12:30 p.m., during which he abruptly stopped talking after exchanging brief small talk. Anding said she heard "coughing and voices," and the line sounded as if he had placed the phone in his pocket. However, according to phone records, the only time Murray called Anding that day was at 11:51 a.m., which would have meant that Murray waited about 25 minutes to call 911 once he recognized Jackson needed emergency assistance.

Murray has pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of involuntary manslaughter, and his lawyers are reportedly planning to claim Jackson killed himself by self-administering a lethal dose of propofol.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1655551/michael-jacksons-home-contained-dozen-bottles-propofol.jhtml

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Mindless Behavior Say Touring With Justin Bieber Was 'Crazy'

'Bieber, he's a great dude. He gave us advice backstage,' bandmember Roc Royal tells MTV News.
By Mawuse Ziegbe


Mindless Behavior
Photo: MTV News

According to Mindless Behavior, touring with Justin Bieber is a rowdy experience.

The rising quartet, which includes 13- and 14-year-old Philadelphia and Los Angeles natives Prodigy, Roc Royal, Princeton and Ray Ray, hit the road with Justin Bieber in December. When they stopped by the MTV News offices on Friday, they dished that opening up for the teen superstar meant rocking the stage for thousands while grappling with the Biebs' hard-core fanbase.

"It was crazy," plaited singer Ray Ray admitted. "He has a lot of fans."

Fellow Mindless singer Princeton — who fans may remember as that cute krumpin' kid from Gym Class Heroes' 2006 video for "Cupid's Chokehold/ Breakfast in America" — added that in addition to dodging legions of Beliebers, the boys had to bring it in massive arenas.

"Every night, 15,000 fans," the curly-haired crooner said, adding that the teen crew used the adrenaline to pump up their performances. "It made us nervous, but the minute we hit that stage — and the stage is big, by the way, like really big — but the minute we hit that stage the nerves just turned into great energy." Getting face time with concertgoers also helped to ease their nerves. "Before the show we always did meet-and-greets, so the fans were really nice and very supportive," Princeton explained.

With their peppy text-friendly jam "My Girl" gaining traction and their status as budding heartthrobs blossoming, the Mindless fellas got some tips from Bieber on how to handle their growing fame. Rapper Roc Royal said the "Baby" singer was really cool about doling out pop-star guidance.

"Bieber, he's a great dude. He gave us advice backstage. He's nice," Roc said. "He told us don't be nervous because it's just fans, and you love it."

Roc added that Bieber was always down for a laugh — even if it came at the expense of the Mindless guys' eardrums.

"[Our] favorite moments [were] when Bieber came into our room and we start playing," he smiled, recalling an instance in which the pop megastar barged into their rooms blasting an ear-shattering horn. "Like, he starts blowing the whistles in our rooms. [It's] like, 'Aw, man stop!'

"He came in on a Segway, and he was like [makes horn sound]. We were like, 'Ah!' " Roc continued. "Definitely those moments when we were backstage and we were in our sweats just having fun."

Pop-star mentorship aside, the boys insist that Bieber isn't going to get away with the reckless whistle-blowing. Ray Ray joked that the guys might just turn the intense energy of Bieber's fans against him. "We gonna put fans backstage so when he comes he gets attacked," he laughed.

Princeton had another idea: "Take his Segway!" he said, pretending to jack Justin's wheels, exclaiming, " 'What up, Biebs? Vrooom!' "

Did you see Mindless Behavior on tour with Justin Bieber? Tell us about it in the comments!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1656967/mindless-behavior-justin-bieber-tour.jhtml

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Deadmau5 Brings Dance Music To The 'Masses,' Wolfgang Gartner Says

'He has a major role in the younger generation to this music,' producer/DJ tells MTV News of his collaborator.
By Adam Stewart


deadmau5
Photo: Charley Gallay/ Getty Images

It's no secret that 2010 was a pivotal year for electronic dance music here in the States. With deadmau5 and Swedish House Mafia becoming household names, the genre's momentum shows no signs of slowing down. Using a conduit of collaboration, artists such as deadmau5 (a.k.a. Joel Zimmerman) have paired up with various underground acts to further the rapid expansion of the genre.

Perhaps one of the most notable movers and shakers of the year is now-Grammy-Award-nominated producer and DJ Wolfgang Gartner, who recently sat down to chat with MTV News about deadmau5 and dance music's rise to the top.

"He has a major role in the younger generation to this music," Gartner says, "but there have been certain artists that have been instrumental in helping it cross over and reach the mainstream — which I think is a good thing. I think rap artists using dance beats is a great thing. I think it just brings more people towards this music that we all love."

Thanks to several key moments, such as deadmau5 taking the helm as house DJ (well, technically "House Artist") for the 2010 VMAs, dance music has been thrown into the forefront of America's youth, a key demographic for any genre.

"Everybody knows who he is now and he's kind of exposing the masses to dance music. These little five-, six- and seven-year-old kids latch on to this 'mau5head' logo — they get into the music and he's bringing this tiny young generation into this music that probably wouldn't be exposed to it."

Gartner certainly doesn't mind the exposure either. Unless you were living under a rock for the past six months, you probably heard one of this past summer's hottest anthems, "Animal Rights," a collaborative effort brought forth by deadmau5 and Gartner.

"It was interesting because I kind of had a preconceived notion about how he would be to work [with]," said Gartner. "I think our sounds are really similar, so I figured he would work in a similar way to me, but the way that he writes music is actually completely different to me. But he achieves kind of the same sound through a completely different process."

Recorded in deadmau5's favorite Los Angeles studio — that would be rocker Tommy Lee's House — "Animal Rights" is a thumping progressive house anthem that melds Wolfgang's unmistakable harmonics and funk riffs with the driving bass line and wobbly synths that make deadmau5 one of the unique forces in the dance music world.

"[Deadmau5] writes these rich complex chord progressions and he does it by drawing these little bars on a grid, which is just amazing that you can do that and get that result," Gartner goes on to say. "It just proves you don't have to be able to play keyboards to write amazing music."

The two sound pioneers never cease to stop pushing the limits on what they are able to produce. Using drastically difference production approaches, deadmau5 and Gartner had the ability to play off each other's strengths while recording the track.

"I'd say the biggest thing is that I play everything in on a keyboard, like even my drums," says Gartner. "I play everything in live and he draws it in with notes on a mouse, which blew me away because his music is very musical."

What do you think 2011 will hold for deadmau5 and Gartner? Let us know in the comments below!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1654857/deadmau5-brings-dance-music-masses-wolfgang-gartner.jhtml

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Phil Mickelson Stabilizes on, Off Course

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SAN DIEGO -- After 19 PGA Tour seasons, 46 professional victories, four major championships, more than $60 million in career earnings and a public image that can pull more heart stings than Hallmark, Phil Mickelson should be a whole lot easier to figure.

But then he wouldn't be Phil.

Few -- in any -- people in golf have ever done unpredictability bigger and better than Mickelson. Start with the fact that he's a natural right-hander who plays golf lefty.

Over the years, Mickelson has lost events he should have won, and won others in which he probably should not have even been in contention. He has been heroic, steady and good. He has been his own worst enemy. He has been lampooned for talking too much about things he should not and applauded for insight and opinions on important issues inside the game. He has gambled and won, gambled and lost.

 

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Source: http://golf.fanhouse.com/2011/01/28/phil-mickelson-stabilizes-on-off-course/

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Charley Rosen: NBA Championship Odds

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Thirty teams but only one will win the last game of the season. Which teams, then, have the best chances of emerging as the 2011 champion?

Notwithstanding injuries and radical trades, these are my highly subjective odds-to-win-it-all with only those teams that are currently above .500 being considered.

Boston Celtics 1:2 -- This a veteran team with championship experience. They play intimidating body-to-body defense anchored by plenty of beef in the middle. Boston's offense is precise, unselfish, and resourceful with the key factor being the ability of Ray Allen to plug 3-balls to keep the defense spread. They also might be the hungriest team in the running.

San Antonio Spurs 1:1 -- The only team whose discipline at both ends can compare to Boston's. In the past, San Antonio's postseason success was hugely dependent upon the accuracy of their outside shooting. But Richard Jefferson has found his niche and his jumper, plus the bull's-eye shooting of undrafted rookie Gary Neal has been a significant factor off the bench. The clutch play of San Antonio's old reliables -- Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and (to a lesser extent) Tony Parker -- should not be underestimated. Nor should Gregg Popovich's strategy of limiting his starters' minutes until the minutes really count.

 

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Source: http://nba.fanhouse.com/2011/02/01/charley-rosen-nba-championship-odds/

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The Works: All-Star Game Alternatives

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Today in The Works: How to fix the All-Star Game. For real.

Do Something New

Every year, the All-Star Game happens, and every year, there are angry fans galore at the players selected. Some do so out of rank homer-ism; others, a inflated sense of morals and justice. Just as bad, though, is the stale nature of the game itself. For too long, the West was the best, and the East got slaughtered every year. Now, things are leveling out, but it could still use a shake-up.

Bigs vs. Smalls: Red Auerbach's Celtics teams used to play regular big vs. small scrimmages, which the guards and wings usually won on the strength of their quickness and passing. Those contests informed Don Nelson's entire coaching philosophy, for better or worse, and the NBA certainly looks like a game of speed and skill rather than brute force these days. On the other hand, tall stars increasingly find themselves playing outside of the paint -- whether it's Kevin Durant as a wing scorer or LeBron James as a do-everything beast.

Those new realities suggest that a contemporary matchup between big and small stars wouldn't necessarily go to the guards. Divide teams by the median height -- let's assume it's 6-foot-8, give or take an inch -- and enjoy the bizarre matchups like LeBron on Chris Paul, or Kevin Garnett on Kobe Bryant, or a swarming turnover-based attack by the smalls that leads to as many fast-break points as possible. It might be hard to set up systems in time to make this game as interesting as possible, but it's experiment worth trying. It'll entertain and teach us something about where basketball stands in the modern age.

 

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Source: http://nba.fanhouse.com/2011/01/31/the-works-all-star-game-alternatives/

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Usher, Ke$ha And More Help Dance Music Go Pop In 2010

But is it here to stay? Our music-industry experts weigh in.
By Akshay Bhansali


Ke$ha
Photo: Andreas Rentz/ Getty Images

In 2010, pop princesses, R&B icons and chart-dominating newcomers all danced to the same beat. Not only did dance music go pop, but pop music caught the club-music bug.

Between Katy Perry's "Firework," Ke$ha's "We R Who We R," Rihanna's "Only Girl (In the World)," Enrique Iglesias' "I Like It," Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love" and "OMG" and countless other singles, established artists definitely looked to dance beats for surefire hits. And two of this year's biggest success stories in music were Jason Derülo and Taio Cruz; could there be a soul left in this country who hasn't heard "Dynamite" or "In My Head"?

The love went both ways, with dance music's biggest stars finding mainstream success this year. Dance-music maestro deadmau5 took up house-artist duties at this year's VMAs, and Swedish House Mafia and Usher teamed up for a medley of their gems at the American Music Awards.

So how did this happen? We caught up with some music-industry experts to get their takes.

"You definitely saw tempos go up this year," Jon Caramanica of The New York Times told MTV News. "And I think what you had are a lot of producers who are really familiar with nightclub stuff. They are familiar with Europe. Things are happening on a more global scale now."

"I think everything from Europe, and sometimes even Asia, it comes to America, and we just adopt things a little bit slower," said Jared Eng of JustJared.com. "I think it was just a change. People like different types of music at different times. And dance was of this moment."

Noah Callahan of Complex magazine added: "I think 2010 saw the merging of the pop and dance genres. Pop artists realized that there were best practices that could be borrowed from dance music. And, ultimately, [all] pop music that has been made in the past 20 years had ended up being remixed for the club by dance artists. I think they basically just cut out the middleman and went straight there."

Dance music being introduced into the hip-hop and R&B realms was particularly notable this year.

"I think David Guetta kind of at the end of last year and the beginning of this year spearheaded it," said freelance writer Julianne Escobedo Shepherd. "He produced a lot of tracks. I think as trends go, people revile 'unst-unst.' But it's just coming back around. Big-room techno was a way for people to get decadent in a year that no one could get decadent."

"You have someone like will.i.am, who's like, 'Well, I spent all this time in Ibiza, and this is what they are doing,' and he wants to find a way to bring that into his music," Caramanica said of the Black Eyed Peas mastermind. "R&B especially became dance music. And especially with your Jason Derülos, Taio Cruzes. Guys like that would have literally been blocked at the border two years ago. That would not have made it through customs. And now all of a sudden they have #1 songs. I think will.i.am had a lot to do with that last year."

Elliott Wilson of RapRadar.com added: "It's actually even affected hip-hop. I was talking to Q-Tip, and his next record, I feel like that's gonna kind of go in that vein. I know that was also Jay-Z's thought process with Blueprint 3 at first, that he wanted to make a little bit more of a world music [vibe], a little more dancey. I think the kids today want to go to the clubs. They wanna have a good time. They wanna dance. So I think the artists of today are trying to kind of feed that audience."

"I think it's caught on this year because the people who've done it have been successful," offered Clover Hope of Vibe magazine. "Like 'OMG,' with usher, he didn't have success until he made a dance record. He had 'There Goes My Baby' and these really, like, adult-contemporary records that didn't really catch on. And then once you see that everybody is doing it and that people are liking it, they are like, 'OK, let me just try this out.' It's like Auto-Tune. Like, 'Let me see what I sound like on a record by David Guetta.' They end up liking it and doing more of it."

So does the club-music trend have staying power. According to our tastemakers, not so much.

"I do think it's a blip," Caramanica said. "I don't think that's gonna be something that lasts in America. I think this is gonna be a moment we'll all look back on and go, 'Wasn't that weird when Jason Derülo and Taio Cruz had #1 records?"

"At some point, these R&B artists will get kind of sick of it and be like, 'Let me go back to my soul background,' " Hope said. "When you actually have to say something, dance doesn't really lend itself to substance. And I think that R&B artists, they really want to talk about love and in a deep way, and to do that, you need to do, like, a soul or a traditional R&B record. I want to say that it's kind of a fad."

"I think music is very cyclical," Eng offered. "So I think dance music might be here for a little bit, but I'm sure it will phase out at some point."

Wilson called dance music "the sound of today. I think that people want more aggressive, faster beats, and I think that that probably has legs until at least next summer."

What do you think? Is dance music here to stay? Let us know in the comments!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1655031/usher-keha-more-help-dance-music-go-pop-2010.jhtml

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Beyonce Working With Kanye West Producer S1

'Power' producer tweets he's 'finishing up some monsters' after week in the studio with B.
By James Montgomery

Beyoncé's already taken inspiration from the likes of Michael Jackson and Lauryn Hill, hit the studio with a list of producers that includes Ne-Yo, Sean Garrett and Jim Jonsin, and now, she's hoping to capture the surge of Kanye West's "Power."

B — who's already hard at work on the follow-up to her massive I Am ... Sasha Fierce album — just wrapped a week in the studio with producer S1, the man who co-produced "Power" and has logged time with the likes of Ghostface Killah and Erykah Badu.

S1 broke the news via his Twitter account and also posted a photo of himself and B over on his official site. And from the sound of things, the sessions, which took place in New York City, were definitely eventful.

"A couple of meetings then back in the lab with Beyonce today," he wrote in one tweet. "Excited to see what we're gonna create today after last night's session.

"Not going to bed anytime soon. Beyonce got us in here working and I'm loving every bit of it," he wrote in another post. "Finishing up some monsters ... everything is sounding really great and big!"

There's still not much information about Beyoncé's new album, though in an interview with "Entertainment Tonight" last year, she said that, this time out, she's aiming to "make [her] own genre of music." In a follow-up interview with MTV News, she clarified that statement, explaining that she's "mixing every type of genre that I love" on the new album, and added, "I'm not in a box. It's not R&B. It's not typically pop. It's not rock. It's just everything I love all mixed together in my own little gumbo of music."

What do you think S1's work with Beyoncé will sound like? Tell us in the comments!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1655794/beyonce-new-music.jhtml

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Justin Timberlake 'Cleveland Show' Cameo To Air February 20

T-Pain and will.i.am also will voice characters in 'Terry Unmarried.'
By James Dinh


Theodore (voiced by T-Pain) and Bernard (voiced by will.i.am) with Rallo (voiced by Mike Henry) on "The Cleveland Show"
Photo: FOX

Justin Timberlake is no stranger to lending his voice to animated characters. The singer-turned-actor, who celebrated his birthday Monday (January 31), recently hit the big screen as Boo Boo Bear in the CGI film adaptation of "Yogi Bear." And in just a few weeks, fans will be able to catch JT voice a different kind of character in an upcoming episode of "The Cleveland Show," airing February 20 at 9:30 p.m. on Fox.

According to a press release, Timberlake's guest-starring episode will be called "Terry Unmarried" and revolve around two big revelations in Cleveland's personal life. Things take a turn when Cleveland discovers that his wife, Donna, never legally divorced her ex-husband, making their marriage illegitimate.

Soon after, he finds out that his best friend, Terry, is gay and has been dating a man named Paul (voiced by Timberlake). With the recent developments, the foursome decides to travel to Vermont for a double wedding ceremony. The episode also will feature Theodore (T-Pain) and Bernard (will.i.am) explaining to Cleveland's stepson Rallo why he should break a nasty habit.

In October, Fox reps confirmed to MTV News that Timberlake will voice two characters: Paul, the boyfriend of Terry, and a "singing booger," appropriately named Booger, who belongs to Rallo. Even though the episode has yet to air, the pop star has already earned himself a fan in "Cleveland" creator Rich Appel. Speaking with Us Weekly, the writer raved about the star's voice appearance, gushing, "Justin is just hysterical!"

Back in December, JT spoke about his decision to primarily focus on his long list of Hollywood projects. "They're looking at me like, 'Why aren't you staying with one path?' " the star told the Los Angeles Times, referring to fans' criticism to his shift in career avenues. "They look at me like I'm ungrateful for my music career because I want to do film."

Are you excited to see JT on "The Cleveland Show"? Tell us in the comments!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1656990/justin-timberlake-cleveland-show-cameo-air-february-20.jhtml

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