Maybe Jay-Z was feeling lazy?
Call him the Michael Jordan of rap.
Jay-Z, who declared that 2003’s “The Black Album” would be his last, is coming out of retirement and releasing a new CD.
“Kingdom Come” will hit stores this fall, Entertainment Weekly reports.
“It was the worst retirement in history,” the 36-year-old rap icon tells the magazine.
Actually, his post-retirement career looked pretty good. In 2004, Jay-Z (real name: Shawn Carter) became president and CEO of Def Jam Recordings. He became part owner of the New Jersey Nets that same year.
He’s gone on a world tour and performed on hit records with Beyonce and others.
“Something, when you love it, is always tugging at you and itching, and I was putting it off and putting it off. I started fumbling around to see if it felt good,” he says of his comeback.
“If I wake up one day and the best material has passed me by – and that’s going to happen – then it’s time to move on. I’ve said what I wanted to say.”
Lyte of day
Rapper Lil’ Kim is set to give her first post-prison performance next month at VH1’s annual Hip-Hop Honors celebration, paying tribute to a pioneering female rapper, MC Lyte.
Lil’ Kim was convicted in 2005 for lying under oath about a gun battle outside a New York City radio station. She was released from a federal detention center on July 3, then spent 30 days under house arrest.
Last month, she poked fun at her incarceration by wearing an orange jumpsuit to the MTV Video Music Awards.
Hey, Cook, it’s done
Christie Brinkley has formally filed for divorce from Peter Cook, two months after reports surfaced about the architect’s alleged affair with an 18-year-old employee.
The 52-year-old supermodel announced in July that she and Cook, 47, her fourth husband, had separated. They were married in 1996, and have an 8-year-old daughter, Sailor.
His lawyer says Cook “was hopeful that he and Ms. Brinkley would be able to work their way through this problem and put their marriage back together, but obviously she has decided otherwise.”
Less sleep for McDreamy
Patrick Dempsey, who plays hunky Dr. Derek Sheperd – aka “Dr. McDreamy” – on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” is expecting a second child with his wife, Jillian.
Dempsey, 40, and his wife have a 4-year-old daughter, Talula Fyfe.
Committing Harry carry
Author J.K. Rowling says she won an argument with New York airport security to carry the manuscript of the final “Harry Potter” book back to London as carry-on baggage during last month’s terrorism scare.
“They let me take it on, thankfully, bound up in elastic bands,” Rowling wrote on her Web site this week.
“I don’t know what I would have done if they hadn’t – sailed home, probably.”
The birthday bunch
Actor Jackie Cooper is 84. Comedian Norm Crosby is 79. Actor-sportscaster Merlin Olsen is 66. Actor Tommy Lee Jones is 60. Movie director Oliver Stone is 60. Actor Josh Charles (“Sports Night”) is 35. Actress Amy Davidson (“8 Simple Rules”) is 27.