Alicia Keys has done it for the 4th straight time…dropping another #1 album. “As I Am” sold a super impressive 742,400 copies in just it’s first week! That is remarkable in this time of slumping music sales due to the ever expanding internet.

Via MTV:

She’s released four albums over the course of her career, and all four have debuted at #1 on the Billboard top 200, including her most recent studio offering, As I Am, which first landed in record shops last week.

But a fourth #1 opening isn’t the only thing Keys is thankful for this week. With 742,400 As I Am copies sold, earns the distinction of being the singer’s best-performing debut. Her 2001 LP Songs in A Minor sold 235,800 copies to enter the top 200 at #1 while 2003′s The Diary of Alicia Keys scanned more than 618,300 copies; her 2005 Unplugged set sold close to 196,000 units. Plus, As I Am, according to the latest SoundScan totals, walked away with the chart’s peak position, with her closest competitor, Josh Groban‘s Christmas-themed Nëel, trailing at #2 with sales reported at 223,000.

All we can say is remarkable! Alicia that’s incredible. Alicia post a special message of thanks on her blog Krucialkeys.

To find out what other music artist did in sells this week check out MTV

Here’s how T.I.’s lawyers plan on fighting the weapons charges…

Via MTV:

T.I.‘s lawyers gave a hint of how they plan to defend their client through motions filed in court on Monday seeking to suppress evidence seized from the rapper’s vehicle during his October 13 arrest on federal weapons charges. The motions claim that the evidence against him and statements he made to authorities were illegally obtained. The Associated Press reports that attorneys for the rapper (born Clifford Harris) claim his car was searched without a warrant, consent or probable cause. They also claim that his detention might not have been appropriate, that statements he made to authorities might not have been voluntary and that agents may have failed to honor his rights. The motions don’t go into details on the basis for the legal challenges, but state that more information will be filled in later. A judge had not made a ruling on the challenges at press time. …

MTV

Steve Harvey’s ex wife Mary is suing him for “conning” her into signing a wack divorce settlement and other things.

Via TheSmokingGun:

The ex-wife of comedian Steve Harvey claims that she was conned into a quickie divorce engineered by the entertainer and his lawyer, who allegedly sought to keep private details about the star’s adultery, poor and neglectful parenting, and “physical and mental abuse” of his ex-spouse.

In a lawsuit filed against her ex-lawyer, Mary Harvey claims that she was defrauded by the comedian and the couple’s longtime attorney, who represented both sides in their November 2005 divorce. Harvey alleges that she was unaware of her right to independent counsel and, as a result, was severely shortchanged when it came to alimony, division of community property, and child support. In her District Court complaint, filed yesterday in Harris County, Texas, Harvey claims that the couple’s attorney, Ricky Anderson, told her she could not legally get more than $1000 monthly in child support for the couple’s son.

Harvey alleges that Anderson was actually looking out for Steve Harvey’s interests, and sought to protect his client’s “packaged, do-good, likeable, Christian-type image in the public eye.” Anderson and the comedian sought to “quickly and quietly dispose of the divorce” because there were “many things that Steve Harvey…did during the Harveys’ marriage that he did not want the public to know about,” Mary Harvey charges in her lawsuit, which was first reported by Courthouse News. Those “things,” the complaint alleges, included “Steve Harvey’s adultery, his abandonment of some of his children, his poor and neglectful parenting of the parties’ child, and physical and mental abuse of Plaintiff.”

To see the actual documents Mary filed click here

Source TheSmokingGun

Bishop Thomas Weeks III has denied Juanita Bynum’s recent account of the trouble and  abuse that supposedly existed in their marriage as she told in Essence Magazine’s December issue. He says her depiction of the troubled marriage is not true and exaggerated and used to vilify his character.

Here is what he had to say….

“Anyone who knows the truth about our marriage, knows what is in that magazine is a bunch of conjectures, misstatements, and dramatized events,” Weeks said in a statement released after a press conference at his church Wednesday.

Weeks said the interview made him look like a “villian” and that he is looking forward to being “vindicated” in the court system.

Bynum has accused Weeks of choking, beating and stomping her to the ground during an Aug. 21 attack in an Atlanta hotel parking lot. The pastor discusses the details of the incident in the magazine article.

Weeks has been charged with aggravated assault, terroristic threats and simple battery in connection with the incident. He later denied the account of abuse.

“I look forward to the mountain of evidence that will clear me at the upcoming trial,” Weeks said. “I am extremely disappointed that my wife, who swore to me, before she asked me to marry her, that she would never publicly embarrass me, that she would never let me fail, or see me suffer. I believed her.”

Source