Florida Sentinel Bulletin

The big-screen remake of the 1976 film Sparkle just got a bit, er, more sparkly. EW has confirmed that Cee Lo Green, the Grammy-winning multi-platinum R&B singer and mentor on NBC’s The Voice, has joined the cast, which includes American Idol winner Jordin Sparks in the title role of an aspiring music star, and Whitney Houston as her mother.

Carmen Ejogo (Away We Go) and Tika Sumpter (The CW’s Gossip Girl) have also signed up to play Sparks’ sisters, Sister and Dolores; together, the trio rise together in the Motown-era music business as a Supremes-like group.

After losing a bid to get his charges from a nearly two decade old murder reduced to manslaughter, former Bad Boy rapper G-Dep is expected to be facing a possible sentence of 15 years-to-life.

Dep’s attorney Anthony Ricco had been trying to convince prosecutors to lessen the former rapper’s sentence do to the fact that his client turned himself in. The prosecution wasn’t buying it, giving Dep, born Travell Coleman, a minimum of 15 years if convicted at trial.

“His decision [to confess] was made for all the right reasons,” said Ricco. “The DA should ask themselves whether they made their decision for the right reasons.”

Last December Dep walked into a NYC police station and confessed to the 1993 shooting of John Henkel.

Rapper Petey Pablo was sentenced Monday to 35 months in prison on a federal gun charge.

Pablo, 38, whose real name is Moses Barrett III, pleaded guilty in March to possession of a stolen firearm after he was discovered with one at North Carolina airport.

The rapper was arrested at Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Sept. 11, 2010, when a security screener discovered a 9mm handgun in his carry-on luggage.

EL SEGUNDO, California — Big-voiced R&B diva Vesta Williams, perhaps best-known for her 1980s hits Don’t Blow A Good Thing and Congratulations, has been found dead of a possible drug overdose in a Southern California hotel room. She was 53.

Los Angeles County coroner’s Capt. John Kades says Williams was found dead at 6:15 p.m. Thursday in an El Segundo hotel room. An autopsy will determine the cause of death, but Kades says “this could be a drug overdose.”

Born Mary Vesta Williams in Coshocton, Ohio, on Dec. 1, 1957, she had hits with Once Bitten Twice Shy, ‘Sweet, Sweet Love and the torch song Congratulations, where she emotionally bids goodbye to her ex, about to marry someone else, on his wedding day.

Wanda Sykes being outrageous – that’s expected. But for the actress-comedian to be serious? That’s rare. Even when the issue is personal.

In this case, it was also health-related, when she admitted for the first time, to Ellen DeGeneres during an interview to air Monday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, that earlier this year she had breast cancer and then elected to have a mastectomy.

“I had breast cancer,” says Sykes, 47. “Yeah, I know it’s scary.”

A new NWA biopic is officially in the works according critically acclaimed director John Singleton.

As previously reported, the biopic was said to already be in the works and was being written by Andrea Berloff, a white woman noted for writing the screen play for Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center.

Now Singleton’s speaking out on the project and confirmed while doing press for the film Abduction that he and Ice Cube had discussed making the movie.

Morgan Freeman laid down the chips on the Tea Party in a new interview with Piers Morgan that is due to air Friday night.

The Oscar-winning actor sat down with the British TV host and, amongst other things, discussed his belief that the right wing Tea Party’s anti-Obama stance is rooted in racism.

When asked by Morgan whether Obama’s presidency has made racism in the United States better or worse, Freeman, who once played apartheid-defying South African president Nelson Mandela, frankly stated that his time in office has made it worse, as he has become a target of the right’s aggression.

“Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term,” the actor said. “What’s, what does that, what underlines that? ‘Screw the country. We’re going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here.'”

LONDON — The Black Eyed Peas will perform at next month’s Michael Jackson tribute concert in Wales.

They’ll join Christina Aguilera, Smokey Robinson and Cee Lo Green at the “Michael Forever” show.

Frontman Will.i.am — who worked with Jackson before the pop star’s death in 2009 — said Friday “we all owe Michael such a lot.” He said Jackson’s songs “have been an inspiration to my whole life and certainly formed the soundtrack to my childhood.”

The Oct. 8 concert at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium will be hosted by actor Jamie Foxx.

The show is not affiliated with Jackson’s estate, but his mother Katherine and other relatives are scheduled to attend. Organizers rescinded an offer to the band Kiss over singer Gene Simmons’ past criticism of Jackson.

In the last 10 years, John Singleton has made some unexpected choices, and perhaps as a result, his career has taken some unusual turns. Between 2001 and 2005 he revisited the ‘hood with Baby Boy, directed a big-league Hollywood sequel with 2 Fast 2 Furious, and helmed the drama Four Brothers, but it’s taken six years for him to return to the director’s chair with the new thriller Abduction.

According to online sources, Singleton has a variety of projects in development, but at the Los Angeles press day for “Abduction,” the filmmaker revealed that he may be reuniting with his

Boyz N the Hood star Ice Cube for a project that sounds close to both of their hearts.

“I can’t talk about it too prematurely about the stuff I’m doing because nothing’s come to fruition yet, but Cube and I are talking about doing the N.W.A. story,” Singleton said. “The script is really, really good, and so we’re just figuring it out. New Line really wants to make it.”