Big Sean's Hall Of Fame album isn't officially due out until August 27, but a few of his most dedicated followers are getting a chance to hear the LP in advance, when he personally visits seven fans in seven different cities over the next few days. On Friday, the Detroit rapper held his first intimate preview session, playing the album in its entirety for 18-year-old superfan Christian Ponisi, in Staten Island.

Christian, who has been a longtime fan of the G.O.O.D. Music rapper, graduated from high school this spring and will head off to college in the fall. He was born with spinal muscular atrophy, which confines him to a wheelchair, and initially, he attempted to reach out to Sean through the Make-A-Wish-Foundation. When that fell through, a determined Christian still managed to strike up a relationship with Sean via Twitter, and eventually he was invited out to join him on the set of an Adidas shoot. They've kept in touch since then.

"He was just so cool when I met him and he was repping so hard," Sean explained of their first encounter. "He had on Pow! chains, had every magazine [I was in], knew the words to every song and his family wheeled him up in a wheelchair, and [told me], 'This dude has to be your biggest fan."

"I felt like — who would enjoy hearing my album first more than him?" the Hall of Fame rapper added. "I just wanted to give him that experience, and go to his house and play the album. I ...

Chris Brown may be getting peppy on the set of his latest video.

Five jersey-donning, ab-flaunting models strutted around the set of "Love More," a song from his X album, featuring Nicki Minaj. And although the crew isn't smiling, their high ponies and sports gear suggest they might be doing some cheering later on. Pics from the video set in Los Angeles show Breezy in all-black with a nose ring, hair cut close to his head. He grasps a blue Solo cup and a cigarette, possibly taking a break from shooting.

"Love More" is about, well, loving more. Loving in a hotel room, loving in a car... you get the point. So the part with the cheer squad is still unclear. Maybe to cheer the loving pair on? The group of knee-socked, cut-off-wearing girls give out a retro vibe with fanny packs, pigtails and acid-washed denim. The ladies sport cropped black-and-white football jerseys.

Brown's last two videos had more of a cinematic feel to them. The first, "Fine China," followed Chris and his girlfriend as they hid their forbidden love from her father, with the clip ending in a street fight. The second, saw him jumping out of his gang's car, ditching violence altogether. Maybe there will be a showdown in "Love More," or maybe Brown will spread more peace.

And although Breezy looks serious in the set pics, the song does host some romp-happy lyrics. Are some steamy sex scenes on the way?

CHICAGO — Making their Lollapalooza debut on Friday (August 2) was a bittersweet moment for the men of Twenty One Pilots.

On the one hand, singer Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun were super psyched to get their names inscribed on the wall of fame for the legendary festival. And after playing a string of summer gatherings in fields and by the Alabama shore, they were excited to be performing in the middle of a major city.

"It's really cool because ... this is our first festival that's in a city, most festivals are set in the middle of nowhere in a field," said Joseph of their inaugural trip to perform and attend Lolla. "It's cool to feel that this festival isn't the only thing going on, you see other people working and other lives going forward and taxi cab drivers really pissed off because there's so much traffic."

On the other hand, Dun said the hurry-up-and-move-on nature of festivals means that they aren't going to get to see many other bands, with Joseph lamenting that, as they were speaking to MTV News, they were missing out on Robert DeLong's set.

Also, every time they take the stage for one of their high-energy shows, they can pretty much count on a phone call or text from their moms about their daredevil stage stunts.

"Live shows have been going on for so long, can you really do something that's never been done before?" Joseph asked about his tendency to climb the rigging of stages and sing from three stories above the crowd and Dun's ...

The Ying-Yang Twins deemed her the Jay Z made her name synonymous with the dance move on his Holy Grail track "Somewhereinamerica." And she all but declared herself the queen of twerking in her raucous video for "We Can't Stop." But when Big Sean recruited Miley Cyrus for his "Fire" video, off his Hall of Fame, due out August 27, he made sure there was not to be any twerking involved.

In fact, the clip, released on Friday (August 2), is a stylishly serene affair — apart from Miley breaking a red rose like a vase, not much actually happens in its almost three minutes. That's because Sean wanted there to be "a lot of metaphors," and he wanted Miley to bring them to life.

"I wanted somebody who was beautiful and I wanted to take her out of her element," Sean told MTV News recently. "People looking at her like she's twerking and all this stuff, but she's an awesome person, man. She symbolizes the beauty of a lot of women overcoming different relationships and being as beautiful as a flower."

Even if viewers don't understand every last metaphor, Miley's beauty is declared loud and clear. Her fit, Disney-princess-no-more body is on full display in barely-there shorts, a crop top and heels. Miley's seductive stances and sultry glares are interrupted solely by images of a red rose and a burning picture of the MC himself. After the rose shatters when Miley throws it on the grown, it later implodes into its original state, as ...

Nick Jonas proved that "healthy living" certainly does a body good after posting his surprising — and much-talked-about — shirtless selfie that sent the Internet ablaze, and for that, you can thank Kevin and Joe.

"It took one day to put it up," Nick told Ryan Seacrest's radio show. "I debated with my brothers and people in our band like, 'Should I do this?' They were like, 'You have to, you have to,' so I did it."

The photo, which Jonas said he only took once, currently has more than 213,000 likes on Instagram, with not only fans, but celebrities swooning over his washboard abs.

"The more shirtless selfies @NickJonas posts, the better my day gets," Neil Patrick Harris tweeted.

"No, I didn't really to be honest," Jonas said in response to whether he thought the picture would spark such reaction. "Like I said in the picture, I never do that, and there are a lot of people running around without their shirts on these days so I didn't want to just add to the noise, but I felt like as a diabetic its twice as hard to stay in shape...so I just wanted to be an inspiration to those people...it's been a pretty hilarious reaction"

Yet, there is still one question that many JoBro fans have been wondering: who took the now famous photo?

"That was the funniest part of the reaction people trying to figure out who took it," Jonas said. "And it was me, there is a self-timer setting on the camera app that I use, ...

"I probably went through five or six drafts of that letter over three days, even though it's only a few paragraphs; it's tough, deciding how much you want to let people in," Panic! at the Disco drummer Spencer Smith says. "I ended up leaving in more than I guess I thought I would, and in a lot of ways, it was freeing ... if you try to pull the wool over people's eyes, even if it works, it doesn't feel good inside."

He's talking, for the first time, about the letter he wrote to fans earlier this week, in which he revealed that, for year's he'd abused alcohol and prescription medications, and recently sought treatment for his addictions. And though he revealed much in that letter, it turns out he's still got plenty to say.

Next week, we'll be bringing you more of our interview — where Smith discusses how his addictions nearly got him kicked out of Panic!, and how he plans on remaining sober as the band returns to the road — but today, we'll start at the very beginning: the incident that drove his use of prescription pills into overdrive, and started him on his downward spiral.

"I didn't mention it in the letter, but two-and-a-half years ago, my dad was diagnosed with ALS. I was actually introduced to painkillers and Xanax a little bit before that, and then it just increased when that happened and I became aware of what he was dealing with," Smith says. "Initially I was taking them just like any other drug; ...

Since bursting onto the scene in late December of 2012, Trinidad James has made the best of his golden opportunity. The 25-year old Atlanta MC stepped into the spotlight with "All Gold Everything," one of the biggest street-anthems of recent years, but that doesn't mean making it big — and becoming MTV's Artist to Watch — was easy.

When MTV News caught up with James last month, he provided some advice to those taking the steps of the quote-unquote "come-up," or in his case the "turn-up."

"I had to do a lot of growing up, a lot of soul-searching. The industry is way more than what you think it is," he said, explaining that the rap game is no cake walk, and that he's had his own share of criticism.

"When you're actually really in it and you strive to be the person that you are, and not confined to you know whatever people want you to be, it's not easy, so I've been learning a lot and still am right now," he added.

He isn't alone in the process, though. James is currently touring with some of hip-hop's brightest stars in Wiz Khalifa, A$AP Rocky, B.o.B and Joey Bada$$ on the Under the Influence tour. "I met some new people that rock with me and are down for me," he said. "They got my head right."

In the end, he left us with some inspiring albeit vague advice: "Dream, believe and turn up. And you can take that however you want to."

Busta Rhymes has been interested in the dynamics at work behind secret societies for some time now, but even he thinks that hip-hop's fascination with the Illuminati is spiraling out of control. During his visit to "RapFix Live," Busta explained why he addressed the topic on his upcoming album E.L.E. 2, adding that it was surreal to hear Jay Z being questioned about it during a radio interview.

"I've always been intrigued by the concepts, ideas and the possible realities of secret societies, hierarchy governments and people that really pull the strings that you don't see," Busta explained. "That's been a lining in all of my albums, that's why they're called The Coming, When Disaster Strikes, E.L.E., Anarchy, etc."

"When you talk about these things and it stirs conversation that's one thing. But within the last four years, it became mainstream American dialog. When you can listen to Angie Martinez interview Jay Z on Hot 97 and ask if it's true that he's a member of the Illuminati...it's so funny to me to hear that on a radio station of that format, early in the afternoon, being asked to a fellow Brooklynite from Marcy Projects — that has gotten to a level of profound success and accomplishments — if he is an Illuminati member."

Busta, who says he's a "diligent researcher" of the subject, adds that it's important to have the conversation, but that conversation needs to be grounded in reality. "I think the perspectives need to be fined tuned, so that there is proper understanding. If that isn't ...

Kanye West has re-imagined as his very own dark twisted fantasy. The rapper put his stamp on the trailer of the Lindsay Lohan-starring noir. Calling it the "DONDA Remix," it includes a brand-new score and coloration.

Yeezy worked with editor Nate Brown, updating the look of the trailer, including making the colors brighter and changing up the graphics.

While the shots included in this updated trailer remain virtually the same as the original, the pacing feels different, thanks to the sounds of West and audio engineer Noah Goldstein.

The new track features a heavy piano and sparse beat. The pace builds, and more notes are added, as the drama of the trailer begins to crescendo. As the trailer nears its end, the volume gets louder and a scratchy effect etches into the piano beat. Instead of including the full credit marque like in the original trailer, Kanye's version ends with a sparse, all-white screen featuring the movie's website.

"The Canyons" was written by "American Psycho" scribe Bret Easton Ellis. The twosome teamed up on the promo video for West's Yeezus track "New Slaves," which re-imagined Ellis' iconic 1991 novel with reality stars Scott Disick and Kim Kardashian's bestie, Jonathan Cheban.

When MTV News spoke to Ellis about their collaboration on that project last week, he teased that he and Yeezy were hard at work on something else, but wouldn't say what it was. All he could reveal was, "And then Kanye and I have been meeting about writing a script for him and so that's a project that's kind of ...