Here’s why we’re taking our coffee black this morning:
- ESSENCE Festival headliner Prince has filed a lawsuit against 22 website owners for sharing bootlegs of his concerts and music. The singer is requesting $1 million in damages from each of the owners of websites and Facebook pages that enabled the free distribution of unauthorized recordings. The defendants are being accused of “massive infringement and bootlegging of Prince’s material” with each person committing “up to thousands of separate acts of infringement and bootlegging.” [The Guardian]
- Being Mary Jane heartthrob Omari Hardwick will star in Power, a new STARZ series. He plays a wealthy New York City club owner who moonlights as a drug kingpin. 50 Cent, who will executive produce the project, has a reoccurring role as the friend of Hardwick’s character. The eight-episode series will premiere at the opening night of the annual convention of international TV buyers in Cannes. [HollywoodReporter]
- Porsha Williams is set to make her music career debut with a five-song EP. The first single from the Real Housewives of Atlanta star, “Flatline,” is a ballad that exposes her feelings about the nasty divorce with ex-husband Kordell Stewart. “I’ve been working on this song throughout the whole divorce and the whole season, mapping out my emotions and putting things that I’ve gone through,” she explained to The Dish. “It’s really kind of a documentary of everything that I went through to become how I am now.” The single will be released early February. [BravoTV]
- Kevin Hart’s Ride Along has earned $21.2 million in its second weekend in theaters. The comedy-action film starring Hart and Ice Cube beat out I, Frankenstein which debuted this weekend. The film set records last weekend as the biggest January opening film to date. Hart’s upcoming movie About Last Night hits theaters on Valentine’s Day. [E! Online]