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Lauryn Hill closed last year celebrating the legacy of her iconic, and to-date, only album, "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" with a string of sold-out concerts for its 25th anniversary ... so what's next???

That was the million-dollar question when TMZ Hip Hop spoke with Ms. Hill and her son YG Marley in NYC as they were leaving the 'Tonight Show.'

L-Boogie fans blossomed into adulthood with 'Miseducation,' and renewed buzz about a possible sophomore album feels mighty timely!!!

Gunna just released his fifth album "One of Wun" at a time when hip hop is highly volatile -- rappers are feuding left and right, but he just wants to drop vibes!!!

TMZ Hip Hop got Gunna at LAX, while on a quick break from his 'Bittersweet' tour, and got a gauge on the reception from his latest project.

Gunna's new album is projected to do around 65,000 sales in its debut week. Not a bad showing at a time when Taylor Swift's 'Tortured Poets Department' has topped Billboard's album chart 4 weeks straight ... and Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" single became one of the biggest rap songs ever -- at least on Spotify, where it has a record-setting 100 million streams in 9 days.

Kanye West is saying sayonara to Yeezy's longtime Chief of Staff in what appears to be a mass exodus at the company ... and in this case, it's all about porn tainting the spirit.

Milo Yiannopoulos -- who's been the point man on all things Yeezy for nearly two years now --  confirms his split from Ye's enterprise to TMZ ... telling us, "I wish Ye every success in the future. I have some concerns about his new team, and hope he proceeds with caution."

It's unclear who exactly might be a part of Kanye's new team -- things are always kinda in flux there -- but clearly, they're not sitting well with Milo, and BTW ... that's not the only thing troubling him.

Stormy Daniels is getting trashed by Donald Trump's attorneys for claiming, under oath, she sees dead people, but a veteran ghost hunter says they're barking up the wrong haunted tree ... 'cause he's seen her skills, firsthand.

Here's the deal ... one of the porn star's side hustles is as a paranormal investigator, which came up in court last week as team Trump tried to use it to mock her and discredit her testimony.

David Childers has been in the paranormal field for nearly 30 years, and had a much different take as he watched the trial play out, because he's gone ghost hunting with Stormy on her show, "Spooky Babes" ... and he tells TMZ she's the real deal!

AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland's one of the most accomplished wrestlers in the world ... and he says he owes a lot of his success to years spent in the United States Army.

Swerve stopped by the TMZ office on Monday for a conversation with Babcock ... where he opened up on everything from becoming the first Black AEW world champ, to how his military service prepared him for life, including wrestling.

"Like two weeks after I graduated high school, I was going to basic training and that got me ready to like do stuff on my own. It's not going to get done if you don't do it, if you don't take the initiative to get up and just grind and go," Strickland said of the experience.

2:38 PM PT -- After the story broke, DJ Akademiks hopped on his Rumble stream to elaborate further and summarized things as a shakedown retaliation orchestrated by lawyer Tyrone Blackburn.

Ak says police and prosecutors have all seen the footage and declined to pursue charges ... in the words of Young Thug, he's ready to take it to trial!!!

DJ Akademiks may want to put that legal money he's always bragging about to good use ... a woman he publicly clashed with last year has now sued him for sexual assault.

Shaquille O'Neal stands on business ... and good luck moving the 7'1" Big Fella!!

TMZ Sports caught up with the 4-time NBA champion this week -- days after his on-air exchange with this year's NBA MVP Nikola Jokic -- and Shaq ain't backing down even a little!!

"Let me say something to all the people that are not smart enough to comprehend what I say," O'Neal told Babcock. "Never said I didn't like Joker, never said anything bad about the Joker. Joker is the best big man in a long time. I just said that I thought Shai Gilgeous-Alexander should've gotten the MVP."

11:29 AM PT -- Rory McIlroy's manager, Sean O'Flaherty, said in a statement Tuesday afternoon the golfer will not be commenting on Monday's filing, but he's adamant he wants to make "this difficult time" "as respectful and amicable as possible."

Rory McIlroy and his wife, Erica, are headed to Splitsville ... TMZ Sports has learned the PGA Tour star just filed for divorce.

Court records show the 35-year-old golfer submitted the documents in Florida on Monday ... some seven years after the couple first tied the knot.

Shaquille O'Neal let the candy out of the bag this week ... with the Big Fella (accidentally) revealing he's dropping a new gummie with "the biggest candy player in the world!"

With the NBA playoffs in full swing, Shaq was talking hoops with TMZ Sports on Monday when the Hall of Famer's hunger got the best of him, and he exposed a bag that read, "Shaq A Licious XL Gummies"

Are you coming out with candy, we asked?!

Sylvester Stallone is about to score a massive payday after putting his watch collection up for auction, because one of the timepieces could fetch a literal king's ransom.

As you might have heard, the 'Rocky' star is selling 11 watches from his personal collection through Sotheby's next month ... and one crown jewel, in particular, has a watch expert going bonkers 'cause it's incredibly rare (and damn expensive).

YouTube personality Nico Leonard van der Horst -- who knows all things watches -- tells TMZ ... he simply can't believe Sly is parting with his ultra-rare Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime.

Donald Trump's rant about the "wonderful" Hannibal Lecter isn't sitting well with one of the guys who helped make "The Silence of the Lambs," and he's taking a bite out of DT's rhetoric.

Edward Saxon -- part of the Oscar-winning trio that produced the film -- tells TMZ ... he has a pretty good idea why Trump might be so eager to split some fava beans and a nice Chianti with old Hannibal the Cannibal.

He says, "My guess is, Letcer feels like a kindred spirit. Part of it may be aspirational in that Lecter is brilliant and is able to see into people’s motivations and control them."

Magic Johnson claims he has no idea who the Lakers' next head coach will be ... but he definitely knows who it WON'T be -- Magic Johnson -- 'cause the Hall of Famer tells TMZ Sports those days are long gone.

The Purple and Gold are currently coach-less after parting ways with Darvin Ham following his second season at the helm ... and when we caught up with the legend last week, he didn't want to speculate on who could fill the seat he briefly held three decades back.

"I couldn't tell ya," Magic said when asked about the vacancy in Beverly Hills. "It's up to the Lakers and Jeanie [Buss] and Rob Pelinka. I hope they get a good one, though."

Flavor Flav's revving up the hype train for the U.S. women's water polo team, and one of its star players, Maggie Steffens, is still floored by how they landed the celeb endorsement.

Maggie, the team captain, and Flav joined us for a chat Monday on "TMZ Live" ... and she admitted she definitely didn't expect the rapper to answer her IG call for more support for her team.

Fact is, the team's won gold at the last 3 Olympic games -- but still needed something, or someone, to juice TV ratings this summer in Paris.

Hip Hop's birthplace, New York, is staging a different kind of battle involving rap lyrics -- while some prosecutors want to pin crimes on artists through their lyrics, but rappers and lawmakers are taking immediate action.

TMZ Hip Hop caught up with MCs Papoose and Torae following their impassioned appearance at the state Capitol in Albany, where they met with the Lieutenant Governor and other officials to campaign for Bill AB127.

The bill is intended to stop artists from having their lyrics used against them in court and Pap, Torae, Kevin Liles and other members of the Recording Academy all joined forces to raise the awareness.

They're both BK-bred from the true school of hip hop culture, and defenders of the nuanced and explicit detailing of crime-laden minority neighborhoods often heard in rap lyrics.

To be clear, they're advocating for MCs who rap about crimes ... not for people who are actually committing crimes. The bill aims to prevent prosecutors from using artists' lyrics against them in court.

We also got their take on the Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef, which from numbers alone, is hip hop's biggest battle to date.

Unlike some alarmed reactions to the lyrical battle ... Pap and Torae both feel you can't make an omelet without smashing eggs. In other words: rap is, and always will be, about competition, and the clash was, overall, good for hip hop.

Now that things have cooled off between K.Dot and the Canadian, Pap and Torae believe AB127 should be a priority for all MCs.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard is facing some serious backlash over her Mother's Day tribute -- and now, she's defending herself ... this while fending off serious threats online, TMZ has learned.

GRB tells TMZ ... her heartfelt tribute on TikTok -- which mentioned her late mother, Dee Dee, as well as other mother figures in her life -- was simply meant to acknowledge her stepmother Kristy and boyfriend Ken Urker's mom ... as they've done a lot for her in recent years.

We're told the post was in no way meant to be disrespectful to Dee -- whose name she invoked in her lengthy tribute, which a lot of people took offense to ... and yet, Gypsy's being inundated with hate as a result -- including some major threats on her safety.

Eric Wynalda -- a former soccer star for the U.S. Men's National Team -- has been named in a battery report involving a teenager ... but we're hearing he's calling BS on the claims.

Per a Vegas police report, obtained by TMZ, Wynalda -- who was coaching his son's club team in a recent tournament -- allegedly exchanged words with a player on the other team ... who claimed to cops that Wynalda called him a "bitch," insulted his mom and more.

The player told police he and the coach got face-to-face and he (meaning the kid) ended up shoving the coach ... which led to a fight breaking out between the two sides. The teenager alleges he got scratched amid all this ... but said he wasn't sure if it was EW or the players.