Da Brat Headed for Da Slammer

Da Brat has just been disposed one helluva spanking.

An Atlanta judge today sentenced the Unrestricted rapper to 3 years in prison for bashing a woman with a rummy bottle at a Halloween party final year.

DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gail Flake too slapped the 34-year-old knocker, whose real name is Shawntae Harris, with seven years' probation and cc hours of community military service for the Oct. 31 incident, which occurred at mentor Jermaine Dupri's Studio 72 night club in Tucker, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta.

The hip-hopster and the victim, a waitress at the nightclub, apparently had an existing beef which boiled o'er. Police were called in after Da Brat was accused of slashing the employee's face with the glass bottle, sending her to the hospital.

Da Brat pleaded guilty to felony aggravated assault in the hopes of winning a light sentence or avoiding jail time altogether.

But the judge wasn't in a forgiving climate, noting that the victim suffered permanent facial scars.

The rapper and a half dozen family members all stony-broke down later on hearing the sentence.

"I love y'all," she said to her relatives as a deputy hauled her away, per the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

"We love you too," came the family reply.

Aside from the rum punch, Da Brat's strike sheet includes a pistol-whipping incident that earned her a year's probation and lots of community service, as well as pay a $1,000 fine.

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Rihanna Gives Katy Perry the Kiss-Off

This calendar week Rihanna's a bad miss gone good.

Her new single "Disturbia" hardly gave the singer a third No. 1 hit from Good Girl Gone Bad and ended Katy Perry's seven-week chart-topping stripe for "I Kissed a Girl."

Perry was the first female artist to hold the top spot for seven straight weeks since, ironically, Rihanna did it last summer with "Umbrella."

Rihanna's latest single made the two-spot jump to No. 1 subsequently selling a week-best 148,000 digital downloads. Impressively, her previous chart-topper "Take a Bow" remains atop the Hot 100 Airplay chart, making this one of the rare times in which an creative person simultaneously dominates the regular Hot hundred and the Hot hundred Airplay chart with different songs.

Good Girl Gone Bad originally scored just unitary chart-topper with "Umbrella," just Rihanna released a Reloaded version lowest June that contained the new hits "Take a Bow" and "Disturbia." As happens with bonus tracks on deluxe editions, fans often buy the individual tracks alternatively of the new version and this helps drive an artist's digital track sales.

Overall, Rihanna has scored four No. 1 hits, originally with "SOS" in 2006. This ties her with Beyonc� and Mariah Carey for the decade's most chart-toppers by a female artist.

Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" ultimately fell two floater to No. 3, with Chris Brown's "Forever" guardianship at lock at No. 2. M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" claimed the No. 5 spot, a career c. H. Best, thanks to an 11-spot jump. The song took flight thanks to digital sales following its use in the Pineapple Express trailer.

Yet once more, the Jonas Brothers had the week's biggest bow. Their title track exclusive "A Little Bit Longer" sold 131,000 downloads last week to enter the Hot 100 at No. 11 and the Digital Tracks chart at No. 2 behind Rihanna.

Equally impressive, the Brothers proceed to rewrite the record books. A few weeks back, they became the first group to land three Hot Digital Songs debuts on more than six-figure gross sales each. "A Little Bit Longer" and last week's "Tonight" (131,000 copies) have since extended that record to five songs.

Helping to make this the summer of Jonas, their new album A Little Bit Longer, released on Tuesday, is a surefire lock for No. 1 on next week's Billboard 200.

Overall, Perry wasn't the only artist to understand a chart-topping streak cut short. Keyshia Cole exhausted the last nine weeks atop the R&B/Hip-Hop chart with "Heaven Sent" ahead Lil Wayne's "A Milli" dethroned it this calendar week. Likewise, Disturbed's "Inside the Fire" was on a historic 14-week run at Mainstream Rock that Shinedown shut dispirited with "Devour."

The Hot Country Songs chart continues to be comparatively fluid, however, with Taylor Swift landing her second No. 1 with "Should've Said No." The young country darling River previous topped the area charts with "Our Song."

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Cat Stevens accepts damages over sexist libel

Yusuf Islam - the singer formally known as Cat Stevens - today recognised
substantial unrevealed libel indemnification over a claim that he was a male chauvinist
bigot wHO refused to speak to any women not wearing a veil.

The Muslim singer-songwriter's solicitor, Adam Tudor, told Mr Justice Eady at
London's High Court that the allegations, which appeared in March last year,
were entirely delusive .

"Mr Islam has never had whatsoever difficulties working with women, whether for
religious or any other reasons.

"In his normal life, women feature among some of the most influential people
in Mr Islam's squad."

Mr Tudor said that the article was distributed by the agency World
Entertainment News Network (WENN) to subscribers, including the website
Contactmusic.com, which boats 2.2 million page views a month.

It suggested that Mr Islam was so sexist and bigoted that he refused at an
awards ceremony to speak to - or fifty-fifty acknowledge - any women who were not
wearing a humeral veil.

It also suggested that his manager had stated: "Mr Islam doesn't talk with
women except his wife. Least of all if they don't endure a headscarf. Things
like that only happen via an intercessor."

Mr Tudor said this statement was simply never made.

"Unsurprisingly, the article caused Mr Islam considerable embarrassment and
distress, peculiarly given that it had the burden not only of creating an
utterly false effect of his attitude to women, merely because it cast
serious aspersions, quite a wrongly, on his religious faith, which is a matter
of the extreme importance to him."

He said that WENN and Contactmusic.com Ltd had already published apologies and
had agreed to pay solid damages - which were to be donated to the
charity Small Kindness - and Mr Islam's legal costs.

Mr Islam was not in royal court.

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