So I guess the rumor mill was right this time: Jay-Z has confirmed that he will be leaving his position as the President of Def Jam Records as soon as the clock strikes midnight on January 1, 2008. I’m not sure what endeavors he plans to pursue in the near future, but whatever he ends up doing, I’m sure it’ll be worth it.

“While we regret his decision to move on, we certainly respect it,” L.A. Reid said in a statement. “Since Jay joined us as President of Def Jam in 2005, we have all benefited from his leadership, sense of spirit and invaluable friendship. While he will continue to be one of our signature artists, he will nonetheless be missed in this executive capacity. The entire Island Def Jam family joins me in wishing him the very best in all of his future business endeavors.”

“It’s time for me to take on new challenges,” Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter said in a statement.

This should be interesting…

This face is PRICELESS! Larry King blows off some steam after Dr. Jan Adams, the plastic surgeon who purportedly performed a botched surgery on the late Dr. Donda West, walks off the show without saying a word about his case. Yes, Jan, we respect your legal hustle. But come on, why come all the way to Larry’s show just to let him know you’re not speaking? Something’s wrong here…

Peep the footage after the cut.

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According to MediaTakeOut.com, Jay-Z and Beyonce may finally be engaged… supposedly Jay refers to the “Irreplacable” diva as his fiance several times on his forthcoming album, American Gangster. I’m not too surprised though–we’ve known this was going to happen for several years now. If it’s true, congrats J & B!

This just in… according to HitsDailyDouble.com, Kanye West outsold 50 Cent this week by more than 270,000 albums. Graduation scanned 930,251 copies while Curtis  scanned a mere (by comparison) 659,682. The count is not final (Hits Daily Double is usually a little off), but I think we can all agree Kanye wins.

As for Curtis, he’s claiming that West’s label Def Jam Records rigged the sales charts. Nielsen SoundScan has reported that their tracking systems would have caught such foul play, thus refuting 50’s claims.

Just give up, Curtis. Drop the solo career and stick to energy drinks!

This image just leaked of a 50 Cent promotional van selling copies of the rapper’s new album, Curtis. Since Tuesday, Kanye West’s Graduation has lead the competition, outnumbering 50’s sales by more than 100k. Some stores are even reporting 2:1 Kanye-to-50 album sales.

Could 50 Cent be taking matter into his own hands? I wouldn’t be surprised if he bought 300,000 copies of Curtis just to earn the right to put out another solo album.

KILLEDTHAT.COM EXCLUSIVE: This year’s ScreamFest show started off like every other: heartthrobs Lloyd, T-Pain, and Young Joc performed their most recent hits, hyping the crowd up for performances by headliners Ciara and T.I. Here’s when it got interesting: Ciara–surprise, suprise–brought 50 Cent out to perform her new single, “Can’t Leave Him Alone”. The crowd went insane. Then 50 pulled the unexpected: he brought the majority of the G-Unit Fam out on stage, including Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo, and Mobb Deep. They all performed 50’s street smash “I Get Money”.

At that point, the crowd was bugging out with excitement. G-Unit members then left the stage with 50. A few minutes later, when T.I. comes back to perform a new song off his album, “Watch What You Say To Me,” which features Jay-Z, the Jigga man came out to spit his verse. During the verse, 50 Cent re-emerged from backstage and came up behind Jay-Z. Jay looked at 50 and proclaimed, “No worries. It’s all good.” They shook hands.

Then the completely unexpected happened. Kanye West ran on stage and the DJ played “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”. The energy was INSANE. Even 50, who has been in the news for the past few weeks calling out Kanye and several other hip-hop heads, found himself bumping his head to the joint. During the song, Diddy and Swizz Beatz both came out on stage to perform with ‘Ye.

Diddy put his arms around ‘Ye and 50 as Swizz Beatz performed “Money In The Bank”. And when you thought it couldn’t get any crazier, 50 Cent then threw up the ROC sign. WHAT?!!!!! We all know about the Kanye and 50 beefing. Could this be 50’s way of surrendering to ‘Ye after making his ridiculous promise…

“Let’s raise the stakes,” the 31-year-old rapper told hip-hop Web site SOHH.com in an interview posted Friday. “If Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent on September 11, I’ll no longer write music. I’ll write music and work with my other artists, but I won’t put out anymore solo albums.”

I smell regrets…

Check out exclusive photos of the event below, brought to you photographer Andrew Silberstein: