As separate trial nears, Foxy Brown now faces harassment charges

Rapper Foxy Brown is receiving a double dose of bad legal news today. Not only is she facing new harassment charges in New Jersey, according to the New York Daily News, but she also appeared in a Manhattan court today to face assault charges from 2004.

In New York, Brown is charged with assaulting two workers in a nail salon after a disagreement about the cost of a manicure. But Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Melissa Jackson delayed the rapper's trial to August 28, granting a protection order to the salon workers.

In New Jersey, the New York Daily News said that a former personal assistant of Brown's complained that the rapper refused to pay the worker a week's worth of pay and threatened her. The harassment charges are a misdemeanor, and the paper said Brown is scheduled to appear in Jersey City Municipal Court today to hear the charges.

With luck, the 26-year-old rapper from Brooklyn will be able to hear them--literally. She recently underwent ear surgery to fix deafness, telling MTV.com last month: "I was deaf for an entire year. Completely deaf. The surgery was iffy. They didn't know if it would be a success, and it was."

"She's pretty much totally deaf now," Brown's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, had said in December 2005. "We have to write things back and forth."

Brown is no stranger to run-ins with the law. She was ordered to perform community service after spitting on two hotel workers in 1997, and drove without a license in Jamaica in 2000. Jamaican officials have threatened to arrest the rapper if she returns to the country.

Lil' Flip release leaked

Lil' Flip's entire, unreleased new album has been leaked to the Internet--just as the rapper was leaving his Sony record label, according to the New York Daily News.

"The album got leaked as we were leaving Sony," the rapper's manager said.

The rapper, who topped the US R&B and hip-hop charts with 2004's "Game Over (Flip)," left Sony after buying out his contract. The album, titled I Need Mine, was set for release last month before the rapper left the label--and before the unreleased tracks spread out online.

Lil' Flip, who owns the rights to the album's master recording, left Sony for Asylum Records/Warner Music Group.

Weezer on indefinite hiatus?

Weezer leader Rivers Cuomo is uncertain about the future of his alt-rock band.

"Really, for the moment, we are done," Weezer's songwriter, singer, guitarist, and frontman told MTV.com. "And I'm not certain we'll ever make a record again, unless it becomes really obvious to me that we need to do one."

The reclusive Cuomo said he hasn't ceased writing new songs, but the newly penned tunes aren't necessarily material he intends for his band, which broke onto the music scene 12 years ago with 1994's "Buddy Holly" and the band's self-titled album before a slight resurgence last year with the single "Beverly Hills."

"I certainly don't see them becoming Weezer songs, and I don't really see the point of a solo career," said Cuomo, who is living in Japan while the other three band members are in Los Angeles. "So we'll just have to see."

British rapper readies first album for October

Lady Sovereign, the 20-year-old female rapper from the United Kingdom, is getting ready for her invasion of the United States. Her debut album, Public Warning, is set for release in October on Def Jam Records. But before that, the record's first single, "Love Me or Hate Me"--which the rapper says combines electro-pop with the snotty, "DIY aesthetic" of punk rock--will hit radio on August 7.

Lady Sovereign grew up in England's Chalkhill Estates, which she claims is "one of North London's rougher housing developments." The rapper has already performed at the US's Coachella and Intonation festivals and has shared tour dates with UK rap group The Streets.

EMI loses another digital exec

Adam Klein, an executive at the helm of EMI Group's strategy involving digital distribution of its music, has left the company--and was possibly forced out, according to the Los Angeles Times. The paper cites two anonymous sources who said that higher-ups at EMI forced out Klein, who worked to develop EMI's hold in digital music.

Klein, EMI's executive vice president of strategy and business development, follows another digital-strategy executive out the door at EMI. Ted Cohen, former senior vice president for digital development and distribution who helped expand the reach of megabands such as Coldplay and Gorillaz, left the company in May in favor of a consulting practice.

The departures come amid the continued takeover standoff between EMI and Warner Music Group, both of which have rejected the other's takeover bids.