LL says he won't re-sign with Def Jam

The love fest between LL Cool J and 50 Cent continues this week, but the legendary rapper says he has no love for his Def Jam label boss Jay-Z. In an interview with MTV News, LL said Fiddy--who will serve as executive producer on his next album--"has a great sensibility. He knows what I like. We're from Queens. We're seven years apart in age. He knows what I'm into. We come from the same experience, so the music reflects that. And let's face it, 50 reminds me of a place I was in a while ago. It's fun to work with somebody who rekindles those flames and makes me hungry again. It's definitely working."

As for Hova, LL said he won't re-sign with Def Jam as long as the Kingdom Come rapper is at the helm. He has one more album under his Def Jam contract. "How am I gonna re-sign with competition? I'm not an idiot. I can't depend on that man to promote my record while he's somewhere writing rhymes. I'm LL Cool J. I ain't doing that." Def Jam has released 11 LL studio albums since 1985, one of the longest runs between a hip-hop artist and a label.

Coldplay's Martin gives solo performance

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin showed up as a surprise guest at the Little Noise Sessions, a concert held last weekend at London's Union Chapel as a benefit for Mencap, a charity for the learning disabled. According to NME.com, Martin performed a solo set, unveiling a new Coldplay song and covering the likes of the Band, the Killers, and Bob Dylan. He kicked off the four-song set, accompanied by a violin player, with a version of The Band's "I Shall Be Released," and then jumped into a cover of The Killers' "When You Were Young," calling the Las Vegas rockers a "great band." Martin debuted a new Coldplay song that he had just written the night before. Martin played the song, called "Bucket for a Crown," at the piano, and joked afterwards, "If it's s***, we'll give it to The Killers, and if it's good, we'll keep it." Martin finished his short set with a version of Bob Dylan's "Buckets of Rain," which he dedicated to Lily Allen: "This is for Lily Allen. She's gorgeous, she's sweet. And if I wasn't married..." Allen later played a five-song set herself at the Union Chapel, performing her own "LDN," "Smile," and "The Littlest Things." She also covered the Kooks' "Naive."

ABBA museum to open in Sweden in 2008

An ABBA museum dedicated to the music, clothing, and history of the legendary Swedish pop group and its four members will open in Stockholm in 2008, organizers said today. The interactive museum will feature original outfits and instruments used by the group, handwritten song lyrics, a display of different awards, and "all other things we can think of and find," said Ulf Westman, an event consultant who is spearheading the project with his wife Ewa Wigenheim-Westman. The museum will also feature a studio where visitors can record their own ABBA songs and an interactive experience that "will re-create the feeling of being at Wembley stadium and seeing ABBA live with 50,000 others," Westman said.

Organizers are still searching for a suitable location for the museum but said it will open somewhere in central Stockholm during 2008. Wigenheim-Westman said the idea was inspired by the Beatles museum in London but that it took nearly two years to convince the former ABBA members--Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, and Anni-Frid Reuss--that it was a good idea. "It is nice that someone feels compelled to take on our musical history," the four members said in a joint statement. "We think this will be a fun and swinging museum to visit."

Country singer pleads guilty in bear-hunting incident

Country star Troy Lee Gentry pleaded guilty yesterday to a misdemeanor charge of falsely registering a captive bear as being killed in the wild. Gentry's plea helped him avoid a trial over a 2004 incident in which he allegedly killed a tame bear in a private enclosure but claimed that he did so in the wild. The 39-year-old Tennessee native, one half of the duo Montgomery Gentry, agreed to pay a $15,000 fine, give up hunting, fishing, and trapping in Minnesota for five years, and forfeit both the bear's hide and the bow he used to shoot the animal. Gentry declined to comment to the Minneapolis Star Tribune as he left the courthouse. Ron Meshbesher, his attorney, told the paper that Gentry pleaded guilty to "a simple charge having to do with improper tagging [of a game animal], and that's all it ever was."

Lee Marvin Greenly, 46, Gentry's local hunting guide, pleaded guilty at the same hearing to two felony charges of helping other hunters shoot bears at illegal baiting stations he maintained inside a national wildlife refuge near Sandstone in east-central Minnesota. Greenly faces a maximum prison sentence of five years for each count and a maximum fine of $400,000. Gentry told the court he bought a tame bear named "Cubby" from Greenly with the understanding they would videotape a hunt inside the bear's enclosure, which was surrounded by an electric fence. "Lee and I made a deal about harvesting this bear," Gentry testified. They also agreed to report it was killed in the wild 6 miles east of Sandstone instead of on Greenly's property south of the town.