LOS ANGELES – ALBUQUERQUE – HOUSTON

BEYONCÉ TO BE HONORED WITH BILLBOARD MILLENNIUM AWARD

Beyoncé Knowles will receive the Billboard Millennium Award at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards. The honor will recognize Beyoncé’s career achievements and her influence in the music industry, from her role as the frontwoman of Destiny’s Child to her three-chart-topping solo albums, which have collectively earned her 16 GRAMMY Awards and ASCAP’s Pop Songwriter of the Year Award. Bey will receive the honor at the May 22nd show, which airs on ABC at 8 Eastern from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

· Billboard named Beyoncé its Woman of the Year back in October of 2009 and Top Female Artist of the Decade in December of 2009.

· Beyoncé is putting the finishing touches on her fourth studio album, due out later this year. The album, whose debut single “Run the World (Girls)” premiered in April, will be her first since 2009′s I Am…Sasha Fierce, which sold 2.9-million copies, according to Nielsen Soundscan.

· The 2011 Billboard Music Awards will feature performances from Rihanna, the Black Eyed Peas, Lady Antebellum, Cee-Lo Green, Nicki Minaj, Pitbull and Taio Cruz.

JAY-Z AUCTIONS OFF INTERNSHIP FOR GOOD CAUSE

Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, and others will take part in an auction benefitting Mary J. Blige’s Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now (FFAWN) organization. As part of the auction, Jay-Z will be offering the opportunity to intern at his entertainment/record company Roc Nation. On top of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation internship, singer Christina Aguilera will be donating tickets to The Voice for the auction and pop star Lady Gaga will auction off a meet and greet at an upcoming Good Morning America appearance. The auction will be held through Charity Buzz, a luxury auction site that specializes in celebrity auctions.

· Bidding for Mary J. Blige’s FFAWN auction starts now and will end on June 1st. For more information and/or to make a bid visit CharityBuzz.com/FFAWN.

· FFAWN was created by Mary J. Blige and Steve Stoute in 2007 to “to inspire women from all walks of life to reach their individual potential.”

RICK ROSS EXPLAINS HIS LABEL SITUATION

Even though Rick Ross plans to record another album with Def Jam, he has a compilation album with Maybach Music coming out via Warner Brothers. The Miami boss says there’s no conflict from either side of his two label homes. Fans will be able to purchase first installment of Maybach Music’s compilation album, Self Made, on May 23rd.

JENNIFER LOPEZ EXCITED FOR THA CARTER IV

We’re counting down and patiently waiting until Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter IV will be available in stores. While the disc won’t arrive until June 21st, we’re asking celebrities if they are excited to hear it and if it’ll live up to the hype and J-Lo says it will. In related news, Jenny from the Block has released the alternate version of her new single, “I’m Into You,” which features Weezy. 

Click HERE to check the vid!

NAS WINS AN EMMY

AllHipHop.com reports Nas has won a National Sports Emmy for the ESPN documentary, Survival 1. The Queensbridge rapper not only produced and scored the music for the documentary, but he also narrated and directed the film, which follows the Liberian Amputee Soccer Team. Nas said in a statement, “After all these years of making music, I am honored to have this be the first award I ever won of this magnitude. An Emmy before a GRAMMY. Crazy [bleep].”

· The players were all victims of Liberia’s 14-year long civil war. Over 250-thousand people were killed and injured in the war.

BIG SEAN TO GIVE INDUSTRY ADVICE TO STUDENTS

We’ve just learned that Big Sean has agreed to appear at the SAE Institute to talk to students about the music industry. The rapper, who is signed to Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music label, will also check out recorded material prepared by the kids and offer up feedback. He is expected to speak at 11:45 AM today.

· In related news, the rapper is currently working on his new album, Finally Famous. The disc will be available on June 21st.

· SAE is often referred to as a world-renowned audio engineering school.

LADY GAGA AND KANYE WEST HEAD TO CANNES

Lady Gaga and Kanye West are set to perform at the Cannes Film Festival. Gaga landed in Paris on Tuesday to start promotion for her new album, Born This Way, which, like in the U-S, will be released in France on May 23rd. Gaga will head to Cannes to perform a live concert this afternoon on Canal Plus’ hit show Le Grand Journal. The 64th Annual Festival de Cannes kicked off today.

PHARRELL NAMED CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF KARMALOOP TV

Pharrell Williams has been named creative director for Karmaloop TV. According to Billboard.com, the network is set to launch later this year and will feature original shows as well as movies aimed at 18 to 34-year-olds who grew up with the Internet.

· Karmaloop CEO Greg Selkoe said Williams will help create a brand that will get “cutting-edge youth culture” excited about TV, as MTV did in the 1980s.

· Karmaloop TV is an extension of Karmaloop, a 10-year-old website that sells streetwear brands from around the world.

JERMAINE DUPRI SUED OVER MISSING CHILD SUPPORT

According to the Associated Press, an Atlanta-area woman is suing Jermaine Dupri over missed child support payments after a judge recently ordered him to pay her. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Margaret Dorsey told the GRAMMY-winning producer in March to pay over two-thousand dollars a month and an additional seven-thousand to Sarai Jones, based on the results of a paternity test. Jones’ attorney, Randy Kessler, said Jones hopes that she and Dupri “can work together to co-parent their beautiful baby girl,” who is 7 months old.

· Dupri’s mansion was up for foreclosure and set to be auctioned last week, but the sale was canceled at the last minute. He owes Georgia more than 493-thousand dollars in back taxes for 2007.

· Dupri has produced hits for artists including Usher and Mariah Carey, and had a seven-year relationship with R&B singer Janet Jackson that ended a couple years ago.

WHO IS TINIE TEMPAH?

Tinie Tempah is the man behind the hit single “Written in the Stars.” The U-K rapper had enormous success in his native land with his debut album Disc-Overy and now he is ready to bring his lyrical flow stateside. Tinie told us the back story behind his name.

“Yeah I mean I literally came up with the name Tinie Tempah in year eight which is like the eighth grade. And it was basically just me being obsessed with rappers and listening to rappers names and checking the meanings behind the names and I just thought I need the name of a really cool meaning but at the same time that’s really catchy.”

The 22-year-old added more about his unique name. “And you know it’s just two opposite things that make a perfect marriage almost that ying yang you know. I was against all the odds you know people literally said this was not possible but I still went for it, people told me to go right and I went left, and it all still managed to work for me. That is basically the sentiment behind the name Tinie Tempah.”

Tinie Tempah’s Disc-Overy album will be released on May 17th.

· Tinie Tempah was born Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu on November 7th, 1988. He is from South London. His first single in the U-K was “Pass Out,” which debuted at the top of the singles chart back in October.

DAVID GUETTA HACKED; SPAWNS HIT SINGLE

David Guetta’s latest single, “Where Them Girls At” featuring Flo Rida and Nicki Minaj, is already making noise on the charts. It sold more than 160-thosuand iTunes downloads in less than a week to soar to the top of the iTunes Dance Songs chart in the U-S and 10 other countries. The French DJ/producer is proud of the immediate success of the track, due to the circumstances of its release. Guetta was recently the victim of a computer hacking theft, which led him to rush the song out without radio promotion or a music video. Guetta is not taking the matter lightly, even hiring a Pentagon security specialist to track down the culprits.

· Guetta told MTV News about how the song was hacked saying, “Some hackers stole an a capella (version) of ‘Where Them Girls At,’ and I was really not ready, because I made a remix for Snoop Dogg and we released that record together, the ‘Sweat,’ record. I was not supposed to release the record so soon, and I was thinking of maybe using the Taio (Cruz) record as a first single. Hackers stole the a capella and someone produced some music around it and put my name on it and put it on the Net. So it was horrible, I really didn’t like the music. People thought it was me.”