The Ron Artest Life

It's the off-season for Ron Artest, so guess what he gets to do? That’s right! Artest gets to pursue his rap career! After opening some shows for Mike Jones and Mack 10 last month, he will be joining Young Jeezy on a few dates performing a four-song set featuring music from his upcoming album, Tru-Warier, on his Tru Warier Records imprint.

"When I was younger, I didn't have the funds to get into the studio. When I got in the NBA, I didn't realize I could make an album. But I started getting into the studio, then I built my own studio and started making songs and songs and said, man, I should just put out an album," Artest told Sacramento’s News 10 last month. "I got criticized when I was playing basketball. I got criticized when I was doing the music early on. People heard some songs and said he's not that good. When they hear the music now, they're not going to be able to say anything but good things."

As long as it’s not as bad as the song and video for "Oh Yeah", we think most folks will be safe.

Floyd Mayweather Hosts Charity Basketball Game

Last weekend, boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. held a charity basketball game and concert in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. On Friday, Mayweather hosted a concert at The Orbit Room that featured his label roster of Philthy Rich Records and... Ron Artest! On Saturday a charity basketball game at Creston High School pitted the Philthy Rich All-Stars against the And-1 Team.

"I was laying in bed, thinking, 'What can I do for my city that's different? I've fed the homeless, I've gone to the schools, I've brought them fights.' This is what I came up with," Mayweather told the Grand Rapids Press. “Grand Rapids is a great city and I think we need more events like this. Before the summer is up, we're going to bring back two more weekends of events like this. Both will be sports and entertainment because it's all about people buying tickets and enjoying themselves, and that's what I'm all about.”

We guess it’s a good thing Mayweather Jr. can get his mind off his dad dissing him and saying he would train Oscar De La Hoya to knock his son out.

Hines Ward to Help Mixed-Race South Koreans

When Hines Ward was awarded the MVP trophy for Super Bowl XL, Koreans went nuts. That’s because Ward is half Korean himself and lived in South Korea during his early childhood. When he returned to his mother’s homeland, he took note of the problems of prejudice and discrimination afflicting Koreans of mixed racial heritage, and wanted to do something to help, since, he is, after all, Korean and bi-racial.

Ward set up the Helping Hands Foundation by pledging $1.2 million to help the biracial children in Korea. Inspired by the launch, some local business have pledged $200,000 to the organization. The foundation plans to provide computers, books and other items to biracial children. The foundation will also offer a Young-hee Ward scholarship, named after Ward’s mother Kim Young-Hee, to students who have shown their devotion to service in their community.

Plans call for or all of this to get rolling in July.

Pujols Does the Restaurant Thing

St Louis Cardinals homerun sensation Albert Pujols may be on the DL (that’s baseball’s injury list, people!), but that doesn’t mean he won’t be busy. Last weekend, the slugger announced the upcoming opening of his first restaurant in the city, Pujols 5. There’s no word on what the menu would be.

"I've been wanting to do something like this, because I think it'd be great to spend time with families, friends and people, and it was just the right family," Pujols said at the press conference.

The restaurant will seat 500 people in 12,000 square feet, with 30 plasma TVs and speakers at each table so to patrons can listen to whatever event they want to follow on the TV screens. So we guess it’s not a place that you take someone who doesn’t like sports, yes?

Coco Gets Down With the Krispies

With a name like Coco Crisp, Red Sox outfielder should be getting calls from all types of cereal companies. But it wasn’t until recently that he actually inked a deal with one. Crisp signed an endorsement deal with Cocoa Krispies and apparently shot a couple of commercials for the brand last week. Are you coo-coo for Coco yet? Well check this; Crisp also recently launched a new record label, Big Money Connections. The first artist to release a project will be Infra-Redd who is DJ Quik's nephew and rapper Suga Free's hype man. Look for mixtapes to drop this summer featuring the rapper. Are you ready to shimmy, shimmy Coco puff?