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Dru Hill is coming back!

NEW YORK — While B2K were driving adolescent girls into a tizzy across town at Madison Square Garden, Tamir "Nokio" Ruffin was sitting in Soundtrack Studios, remembering the days when his name used to roll off girls' lips with the frequency that the names Omarion, J-Boog, Lil' Fizz and Raz-B do today.

"It was crazy," Nokio said with a laugh after devouring a takeout seafood dinner. "This girl came running up to me yesterday for a hug and said, 'I was loving you way before I was loving B2K.' "

But there are no screaming girls at Soundtrack. The main room is temporarily submerged in silence.

"I can't believe we actually have an album coming out," Nokio said of the Dru Hill reunion disc, Dru World Order, due November 12. And not only are Nokio, Sisqó, Jazz and the gospel-singing Woody all back in the fold for their first LP since 1998's Enter the Dru, the guys have a new addition.

"His name is Scola, and he's been with us since day one," Nokio said. "He's the guy whose songs we were listening to in Baltimore, like, 'Yo, we need to make songs like that.' We was like, 'Yo, you our boy and you been here.'... We seen him coming up for so long, going from not being in the right situations, you just want to see everybody come up. Especially being from Baltimore. There aren't a lot of opportunities down there. You gonna see his face on the album cover, the girls are going to be screaming for [him]. He just brings a different element that we didn't have before."

Nokio said the original members first got back together during a Dru family tragedy, when Woody's mom died and the four of them performed at her funeral.

"We went up to the pulpit to sing a song together, and that was the first time everybody had the chance to look at each other like, 'Yo, I miss you, dog. What's up, man? What you been doing?' The communication was there, and it kept getting stronger and stronger. One day me and Sisqó were on the phone talking about doing a remix to one of the songs on his last album and that conversation turned into, 'Yo, we just need to go make an album — let's stop playing. I went down to his crib for eight months.' "

The duo called the rest of their squad in October and started writing. By the end of December, they had recorded a large chunk of their songs.

"My man is itching to get onstage bad," Nokio said of Sisqó, who has cut his cornrows down to a Caesar and is wearing his natural black hair color. "His voice is like it never was before, he's just ready to go. Ready to be at where we were in the beginning."

Dru Hill have indeed taken it back to their roots for their still-untitled first single, due in September.

"I should be your boyfriend/ 'Cause you know he's lying/ It might seem like I'm hating/ But I'm just relating," they harmonize over a mid-tempo track that's pampered with funk and strings.

"After we listened to it, the harmony, what we was saying, it was that Dru Hill record that reminded you of why you like Dru Hill," Nokio said. "It was good to be able to sit back and debate about it like, 'I don't know what record we gonna put out because we got so many records' rather than 'That is the only record we have. Let's put it out right now.' "

N.O.R.E. makes a guest appearance on the club banger "On Me," while Nokio himself is the star of a ballad he refers to as "the baby father anthem."

"I wrote that song on Christmas Eve that just passed," recalled Nokio, who sings, "While you're in bed with another man, I just want to talk to my child" on the track. "That was the first Christmas I [didn't] have no girl. Wasn't nobody there, wasn't nothing happening. I was like, 'Why I ain't got no girl? This ain't like me.' It made me think about all of the stuff I had done over the years to different girls."

"I called Scola up and started singing the first two lines," Nokio said, "and he was like, 'I don't know what you're going through, man, but keep going through it.' You'll listen to the album and a lot of it is girls, relationships and everything, ... but the undertone is you could see everything we went though. All the pain. All the nights we were sitting around not knowing what was going to happen. ... Dealing with the fans, 'Y'all ain't never coming back.' We put that all into the record."

Besides the Dru Hill album, which he produced most of, Nokio is staying busy with his A&R consultant gig at Def Jam, where he is overseeing projects by 3rd Storee and Lovher. He also has his own N-tity management and production companies, where he'll soon be laying tracks for DMX and Scarface.

 

3LW becomes 2LW !

It seems that three little women are now down to two.

On Wednesday (August 21), 3LW's Naturi Naughton, with her lawyer in tow, told New York City radio jock Wendy Williams that she has been forced out of the group.

With just over one month to go before the release of the trio's second album, A Girl Can Mack (see "3LW Working Overtime Before Macking" ), a number of canceled appearances had fueled rumors of discord between Naughton and the other members, Kiely Williams and Adrienne Bailon.

Naughton said she had received repeated complaints about her performance, her image and her loyalty to the group from 3LW's management, which, coincidentally, is run by Kiely's legal guardian, Michelle Williams — no relation to the Destiny's Child member.

Naturi, 18, said that the dealbreaker (or triobreaker, as it were) came when Kiely threw a plate of food into her face after a particularly heated argument in South Carolina, prompting her to immediately fly back to her hometown in New Jersey.

At press time, there is no official response from the remaining two-thirds of 3LW. Naughton claimed that an understudy has already been training to replace her.

The group's label, Epic Records, and their road manager declined to comment.

—Minya Oh

 

J.LO's Divorce After 8 Months of Marriage

What started out with fireworks has ended with a fizzle. The day after celebrating her 32nd birthday, actress/singer and all-around celebutante Jennifer Lopez filed for divorce from choreographer Cris Judd.

The divorce papers, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, cite "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for ending their 10-month union. But don't hold your breath for any knock-down drag-out battles between the pop star and her former backup dancer. The couple reached an "extremely amicable" settlement, according to Associated Press reports.

The details of the settlement, such as any monetary compensation Judd might receive, will remain a secret, due to confidentiality agreements signed by Judd and Lopez.

The couple met early last year on the set of J. Lo's "Love Don't Cost a Thing" video, just as the singer was ending her highly publicized relationship with Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. They married on September 29 and even collaborated on several projects — including Lopez's song "Alive" on the soundtrack to "Enough" and the video for her "Ain't It Funny" remix — before separating on June 2.

This is not Lopez's first attempt at wedded bliss — she married waiter Ojani Noa in 1997 and divorced him a year later.

Of late, Lopez has kept her mind off of her marital woes with a busy work schedule, recording a new album as well as preparing two new films. She is currently shooting "The Chambermaid" opposite Ralph Fiennes, and recently wrapped "Gigli," co-starring Ben Affleck.

Next up, J. Lo will re-partner with Affleck in the Kevin Smith film "Jersey Girl." As for the jilted Judd, if it's any consolation, things have worked out nicely for Noa, the first Mr. J. Lo. He's now the manager of her recently opened Pasadena, California, restaurant, Madre's.

 

Mystikal Rape Caught on Tape!

Allen Iverson is had now turned him self to authorities. Apparently Iverson turned up at his cousins

armed with a gun demanding his wife. Well it seems as if Iverson will be charged with weapon possesion.