• When the loose dress doesn’t hide the baby bump well enough, get your friends to leak the news to In Touch Weekly. [BWE]

• Queen Latifah is feeling needed by aging hip hop listeners.[SP]

• And also by the gay press. [QT]

• Maybe one day Vanessa Hudgens can have her nudity scandal so far behind her that blogs will only bring it up once in a blue moon. Vanessa Williams can tell her all about it. []

• The dress is too tight, in my opinion, but it does disprove all of those “Ashanti gained so much weight” rumors. [C&D]

You know when television’s premiere awards show has to resort to bringing out Kanye West, who was completely irrelevant to the proceedings, you know the show’s producers are feeling like the ceremony has gotten kind of boring and out of touch over the last few years. But it’s not the actual show that makes the awards a joke, it’s the nominees and the eventual winners.

When The Wire’s not even nominated, Jaime Pressly wins a best supporting actress award over the brilliant Vanessa Williams or Jenna Fischer from The Office and James Spader from Boston Legal wins best actor over, well, anyone (but particularly James Gandolfini), I have a hard time respecting the importance and meaning of an Emmy statue. Nevertheless, congrats to the winners — especially 30 Rock — whether they deserved their awards or not. More pics and a list of winners after the jump.

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• Michael Vick pleads not guilty and apologizes to his mom and his team, but leaves out the pit bulls. []
• I’d rather see DMC do this than Reverend Run. []
• I don’t like my childhood entertainment to be messed with in this way. [MF]
• You don’t reach Oprah’s level of success by being nice all the time, that’s for sure. [AT]
• The Queen of Excess meets Queen Latifah. [SR]

• A Chinese artist has been tapped to be lead sculptor on the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial project in DC, and people are up in arms. I’m not really offended. [DG]
• The guy’s being paid with proceeds from a benefit concert featuring Queen Latifah and Babyface. []
• Ebonics: the word that shall not be uttered in education circles. [HC]
• Racial politics in North Carolina? No way! [WJ]
• At least Sunday night wasn’t a total waste for Lil Wayne. []

The Emmy nominations are out, and to quote Isaiah Washington quoting the movie Network, “I’M MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!”

I’m mad as hell because the best show on television didn’t get nominated for a single award. Not a writing award. Not a directing award. Certainly not an acting award or what it mainly deserves, which is Best Drama Series. And it’s not just me pouting over my favorite show being ignored. Television critics who know far more about these things than I do routinely tout it as the best show television has seen in years. Maybe ever. And the one thing that sets it apart from the shows in the best drama category — Grey’s Anatomy, House, Boston Legal, Heroes, and The Sopranos — is that the cast is almost entirely black, the show is set in poverty-stricken inner city Baltimore, and the writers and producers don’t pull any punches or coddle the audience. Yeah, I’m talking about The Wire, and I shouldn’t be surprised that its being ignored in its fourth season. It was ignored in the previous three. Not that I had a lot of respect for this particular award show in the past, but now I’m completely done. Done!

I will swallow my bitterness for a moment to congratulate Grey’s Chandra Wilson, Ugly Betty’s Vanessa Williams, and Life Support’s Queen Latifah for their acting noms. Return of the bitterness: they probably won’t win.

[EW]

You might not know who the guy in this picture is now, but you probably will soon. Elijah Kelley stars as Seaweed in the new film adaptation of the Broadway musical adaptation of the 1988 film Hairspray, about dancing, obesity, and segregation in 1960s Baltimore. Whew. According to critics, Kelley gives a standout performance. Check out more pics from yesterday’s LA premiere, including a couple of Queen Latifah in an ill-advised platinum blond wig, after the jump.

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What woman, girl, or teenager didn’t make this song her anthem in 1997? Although it’s sad to see a pre-plastic surgery Lil’ Kim looking better in a platinum weave and blue lips than she could ever hope to look now and even sadder to see dear, departed Left Eye, the cameos from all of the now-defunct R&B groups and shots of a pre-nervous breakdown Maya Campbell, plus appearances by Queen Latifah, Missy, and Da Brat (for whom, it’s rumored, every night is ladies night — if you catch my drift), are priceless.

Oh, Queen Latifah. Doesn’t she know she can’t keep secrets from the paparazzi? She attended Missy Elliott’s less-than-star-studded 36th birthday bash in the Hamptons Saturday but refused to let the photogs snap any pictures of either her or her lady friend. Well, it looks like they captured at least one fuzzy shot as proof she attended the event with her date, friend — whatever. Check out some party pics taken under less covert circumstances after the jump.

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I think a re-release of this song with the remixed lyrics, “Who you callin’ a nappy-headed ho,” would be a great theme song for the Rutger’s Women’s Basketball team.

This 1993 Queen Latifah song is ever so relevant to the current hip hop debate but would be a highly unlikely hit if it were released today. Plus, with the current crop of female rappers, who would perform it? Remy Ma? I think not.

I’m shocked and amazed at the lack of major fashion don’ts last night, considering the crowd. Even Lil’ Kim, while I wouldn’t have chosen that outfit/makeup/hair necessarily, could have done much, much worse. I’m not saying there weren’t some questionable wardrobe and hair choices — I’m talking to Keyshia Cole and Vivica Fox specifically, here — but in general things were looking pretty good. More red carpet pics than you can handle after the jump.

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