LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The musicians looking for work at the city's famed Mariachi Plaza are singing a lot of ai-yai-yai's these days. With the number of gigs plummeting by more than half over the past two years, competition has gotten so cut-throat at the square that fistfights and shouting matches have erupted as musicians underbid each other to land scarce jobs. Now a group of veteran plaza musicians have banded together to form a type of mariachi labor union to stop what they call "mariachi pirates" from slashing prices to half the going rate.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Justin Timberlake apparently wasn't satisfied with just playing a social media impresario in the movies, so now he's becoming one in real life.

Parkrose High School's Ezekial Jones, 17, won the national Def Jam Rapstar "Get Schooled Video Contest" on Tuesday, earning him an exclusive meeting with Russell Simmons and Kevin Liles in New York City.

HOUSTON (AP) -- Veteran R&B diva Patti LaBelle says in a countersuit filed against a West Point cadet who claims she ordered her bodyguards to beat him up outside a Houston airport terminal that the altercation began after the cadet hurled racial insults at her.
But an attorney for the cadet, Richard King, denied his client ever said any racial slurs to LaBelle.

DETROIT (AP) -- A lawsuit filed in Detroit claims music star Lady Gaga is misleading her fans with an online pitch for donations for victims of the Japan earthquake.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The BET Awards honor various arts, but Sunday's ceremony was all about the music. There were more performances than awards during the 3 1/2-hour show at the Shrine Auditorium, where singer Chris Brown and rappers Lil Wayne, Rick Ross and DJ Khaled did double-duty, each taking the stage twice to perform.

The video is painful to watch, an artistic train wreck for all to see. The question is what Amy Winehouse is going to do next.
The five-time Grammy Award winner, whose battles with alcohol and drug abuse have long overshadowed her music career, had a very public meltdown on stage Saturday night in Belgrade, the first stop of her European summer concert tour.

ATLANTA (AP) -- Even though rapper Rick Ross lacked a father figure growing up, he found guidance through many of Tupac Shakur's songs that taught him how to approach life as a young man.
So when Ross was asked to perform at Shakur's 40th birthday concert celebration Thursday night, he didn't hesitate to take the stage to pay homage to the slain rapper he calls his role model.
"Tupac played father for a lot of dudes like me," Ross told a crowd of about 500 at the Atlanta Symphony Hall after he and Meek Mills performed their single "Tupac Back."

Negrodamus, known to the entertainment, comedy and present world as comedian, actor, writer and ringmaster (whose ever heard of a Black ringmaster?) Paul Mooney is coming to Portland for 6 shows in four nights.  And trust me, you are going to want to get to at least two of those shows. 

NEW YORK (AP) -- The first time Stevie Wonder performed at the Apollo, he was just a child, and he remembers being so nervous, he dropped his bongos on the stage floor.
Wonder had no such butterflies Monday night as he was honored during the famed theater's spring gala with induction into the Legends Hall of Fame, which includes Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald and James Brown.
Though Wonder was the main attraction, the audience was also wowed as he collaborated with a cast of friends and admirers including Tony Bennett, Chick Corea, Paul Shaffer and Doug E. Fresh.