Rock the Bells Sets Thanksgiving Weekend Show With LL Cool J, SWV and Lil’ Kim

LL Cool J, SWV, Lil’ Kim and Method Man & Redman lead the lineup for the 2026 Rock the Bells Festival, scheduled for Nov. 29 at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. (Rock the Bells)

Rock the Bells has found a way to put LL Cool J, SWV, Lil’ Kim, Method Man & Redman, The LOX, LeToya Luckett and David Banner on the same Thanksgiving weekend bill.

The festival returns to Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on Nov. 29, with a lineup spanning several distinct periods of hip-hop and R&B, organizers announced Monday.

LL Cool J leads the bill alongside SWV, Lil’ Kim and Method Man & Redman.

D-Nice will curate another portion of the show featuring Luckett, Banner and The LOX — Jadakiss, Styles P and Sheek Louch.

Additional artists are expected to be announced later.

Rock the Bells and the Black Promoters Collective are producing the event. The concert is scheduled for the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend and will close out Hip-Hop History Month. Doors open at 6 p.m., with the show scheduled for 7.

“There’s something special about seeing artists and fans from different generations come together under one roof,” LL Cool J said in the announcement.

That description is unusually literal in this case.

SWV’s presence keeps the bill from becoming an all-rap nostalgia package, while the D-Nice segment effectively builds a second miniature lineup inside the larger show.

The LOX bring the Bad Boy and Ruff Ryders eras. Luckett adds a direct link to Destiny’s Child and her later solo R&B career. Banner represents the Southern rap explosion that changed the genre’s center of gravity during the 2000s.

Ticketmaster independently lists LL Cool J, Lil’ Kim, Method Man & Redman, SWV, D-Nice, Luckett, The LOX and Banner on the Nov. 29 event page.

The first ticket window begins Tuesday.

An exclusive presale starts Aug. 18 at 10 a.m. Eastern and ends Thursday, Aug. 20, at 10 a.m. Eastern.

Local, venue and promoter presales begin Thursday at 10 a.m. and run through 11:59 p.m. Eastern.

General sales begin Friday, Aug. 21, at 10 a.m. Eastern through Ticketmaster.

Organizers say more performers and community-focused programming will be announced before the festival.

For now, the lineup already amounts to a compact timeline of the music Rock the Bells was created to celebrate.

Netflix Drops ‘A Different World’ Trailer as Dwayne and Whitley’s Daughter Heads to Hillman

Maleah Joi Moon stars as Deborah Wayne in Netflix’s “A Different World” sequel, which follows the daughter of Dwayne Wayne and Whitley Gilbert during her freshman year at Hillman College. The series premieres Sept. 24.

Hillman has a new freshman class, but the Wayne family is back where it started.

Netflix released the full trailer Monday for its “A Different World” sequel series, showing Maleah Joi Moon as Deborah Wayne, the youngest daughter of Dwayne Wayne and Whitley Gilbert, trying to build a college life separate from two parents whose names already mean something on campus.

The 10-episode series premieres Sept. 24.

Kadeem Hardison returns as Dwayne and Jasmine Guy as Whitley, placing one of Black television’s best-known sitcom couples on the other side of the college experience this time around.

Their daughter is the student.

Netflix describes Deborah as free-spirited, well-intentioned and rebellious. She arrives at the fictional historically Black Hillman College for freshman year but quickly discovers that being the child of two prominent alumni makes it difficult to begin with a blank slate.

The trailer shows Dwayne and Whitley maintaining a close watch on her life, something Deborah appears determined to escape.

Her new circle includes roommate Rashida, played by Alijah Kai; Kojo, played by Chibuikem Uche; Amir, played by Jordan Aaron Hall; Hazel, played by Kennedi Reece; and Shaquille, played by Cornell Young IV.

Shaquille provides another direct link to the original cast.

He is the son of Ron Johnson, Dwayne’s longtime friend, with Darryl M. Bell returning as Ron. Deborah and Shaquille also arrive at Hillman with romantic history of their own.

The connections do not stop there.

 

Debbie Allen appears as Deborah’s academic adviser, Dr. Langhorne, while also serving as an executive producer and directing the premiere.

Allen’s involvement carries particular weight because she helped shape the original series after its first season. Netflix says she produced 122 episodes and directed 83 during its original run.

The trailer confirms an unusually deep roster of returning alumni.

Cree Summer is back as Freddie Brooks. Jenifer Lewis reprises Professor Davenport. Jada Pinkett Smith returns as Lena James.

Netflix has also announced Ajai Sanders as Gina Deveaux, Karen Malina White as Charmaine Brown, Charnele Brown as Dr. Kimberly Reese Boyer, Dawnn Lewis as Jaleesa Vinson-Taylor and Glynn Turman as Colonel Bradford Taylor.

That makes the project something more specific than a remake built around the title of an old sitcom.

This is a continuation of the original characters’ lives.

“It’s not just nostalgia. It’s like, ‘Where are they now?’” Allen told Netflix.

The distinction matters for a series whose original audience is being asked to watch Hillman through the eyes of its characters’ children.

“A Different World” ran for six seasons on NBC from 1987 to 1993. While the series was a comedy, it routinely moved beyond dating and dorm-room stories to address race, class, politics, HIV/AIDS, war and other subjects rarely centered in prime-time shows built around young Black characters at the time.

The sequel will consist of 10 single-camera half-hour episodes, according to Netflix. Felicia Pride, whose credits include “Bel-Air” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” serves as showrunner and executive producer. Original writers Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Rock Bythewood also return as executive producers.

The new cast has some notable throwback connections of its own.

Cliff “Method Man” Smith plays Coach Coles, while Tichina Arnold appears as Darlene Duvall. Raven Goodwin is Dr. Brooklyn Boyer.

Netflix says the trailer also teases an appearance by R&B singer Summer Walker.

And the show has already recruited another major name from ’90s Black pop culture for its music.

Brandy recorded the new version of the “A Different World” opening theme. Original cast member Dawnn Lewis, who co-wrote the song, is also among the actors returning.

Aretha Franklin performed the best-known version during the original show’s run.

That gives Netflix a delicate assignment.

The original “A Different World” was not simply popular because viewers liked Hillman. For many Black viewers, it made an HBCU campus the center of a national network television series at a time when that environment was rarely depicted with that depth.

The sequel cannot recreate what that meant in 1987.

It can, however, answer a question the new trailer embraces directly: What does Hillman look like when the students who once had to figure out adulthood for themselves are now the parents, professors and alumni watching another generation do it?

We find out Sept. 24.

Prosecutors Tell Jury Keffe D Planned Tupac Shakur Shooting

​Duane "Keffe D" Davis, shown in this booking photograph provided by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Davis is standing trial on murder charges in connection with the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur.

The prosecution of the only man ever charged in Tupac Shakur’s killing opened Monday with an unusual concession.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis is not accused of firing the gun.

The state’s case is that he did not have to.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal told jurors that Davis organized the Sept. 7, 1996, attack as retaliation after Shakur and members of his entourage beat Davis’ nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, at the MGM Grand.

“Duane Davis did not pull the trigger. But he did plan the shooting,” Palal told jurors.

Davis, 63, has pleaded not guilty to murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. He could face life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors say Davis spent roughly two hours after the casino fight arranging revenge, obtained a gun and joined three other men in a white Cadillac searching for Shakur and Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight.

The Cadillac eventually pulled alongside the black BMW Knight was driving near the Las Vegas Strip. Shakur was struck multiple times and died six days later at 25. Knight survived with a minor wound.

Police have never established publicly which man in the Cadillac fired the shots.

That question is important historically, but it is not necessarily the question jurors have to answer.

Under Nevada law, prosecutors can seek a murder conviction against someone accused of knowingly taking part in the crime even if that person did not personally pull the trigger. Prosecutors contend Davis supplied the weapon and participated in planning and carrying out the attack.

Much of their case will depend on something investigators did not have in 1996: years of statements from Davis himself.

Davis has discussed the shooting in interviews, with investigators and in his 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend.” Prosecutors played portions of his recorded statements Monday and displayed the book for jurors.

In those accounts, Davis placed himself in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac and described handing a gun to the men sitting behind him.

The other three men investigators have linked to the Cadillac — Anderson, Deandrae “Freaky” Smith and Terry “Bubble Up” Brown — have all died.

Davis is the only surviving alleged occupant.

That has made his public storytelling unusually important to a case that went nearly three decades without a prosecution. Police have said Davis was long considered a suspect but that his later statements helped revive an investigation that had gone cold.

Defense attorney Michael Sanft told jurors those statements are not the equivalent of proof.

Sanft challenged investigators for what he described as incomplete work and missing documentation and argued that Davis made claims in interviews and his book that law enforcement never independently verified.

“What they are telling you ... is really fiction,” Sanft told the jury.

Sanft’s name is confirmed by AP’s pretrial reporting, Las Vegas local coverage and court photography; a Reuters version of Monday’s story rendered the surname differently.

The first witnesses Monday took jurors back to the hours surrounding the shooting.

Retired Las Vegas police Officer Garry Dale testified that he and another officer stopped Knight’s BMW because it did not have a license plate. Shakur was riding with him.

The officers issued a warning and let them continue.

About 10 minutes later, Dale responded to the shooting and found emergency personnel removing Shakur from the BMW.

Former Las Vegas homicide detective Brent Becker described investigators’ difficulty getting witnesses to cooperate.

Ingrid Stokes, who was riding in another vehicle nearby, testified that she heard gunshots while stopped near Knight’s BMW. Her group sped away and nearly collided with a white four-door vehicle, she said.

Stokes testified that fear of retaliation and distrust of police made her reluctant to become involved.

Members of Shakur’s family, including his stepbrother Maurice “Mopreme” Shakur, were in the courtroom as prosecutors played Davis’ recorded statements.

The trial comes nearly 30 years after Shakur’s death and almost three years after a Clark County grand jury indicted Davis in 2023.

For decades, discussion of Shakur’s killing sprawled across books, documentaries, interviews and competing theories about who was responsible.

The criminal trial is considerably narrower.

Jurors do not have to resolve every question that has surrounded Tupac’s death since 1996.

They have to decide whether prosecutors can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Davis participated in arranging the killing — or whether, as the defense argues, the state has built its case around stories that cannot be trusted.