We already knew that Diddy and Comcast struck a deal for the mogul to launch his music channel, Revolt, but now another high profile celebrity is getting a chance. The Wall Street Journal reports that Earvin “Magic” Johnson will launch “Aspire,” a general interest channel targeting the African-American community, sometime this year.

Johnson said Aspire will feature original programming, movies and shows. The addition of Johnson’s channel is part of Comcast’s mission to launch 10 minority-owned networks within the next 10 years.

In typical Johnson fashion, he insisted that one of his goals for the channel is to provide as many opportunities for African-American’s in the entertainment business as possible.

You’ve got to love him; he hasn’t played ball in forever but the assists continue to rack up.

Harlem native Sean Combs, aka “Diddy,” the rapper (hahaha! just kidding!), businessman and media mogul wants to be even more ubiquitous than he is now. Today he spoke to Adweek about his new Ciroc vodka ad and his burgeoning empire, and he had a couple interesting things to say.

Diddy begins by explaining that his new liquor commercial uses the “rat pack” theme because “for years, people have called me the black Sinatra.” Of course they have. Your FishbowlNY editors are constantly dealing with people calling us the “still alive Ernest Hemingways,” so we know what he means. It gets so old.

The best part of the interview, however, is when Diddy explains his grand plan:

Read more

We’re big hip-hop fans here at FishbowlNY, so we greeted the new Forbes list of hip-hop’s top earners with great interest. The list – titled Cash Kings – accounts for earnings from May 2010 to May 2011, and measures the artist’s income from “record sales, digital downloads, films, merchandise sales, endorsements, books and other ventures.”

This year Brooklyn’s own Jay-Z topped the list, bringing in $37 million over the past year. He barely edged out Diddy, another New York native, who earned $35 million even though he’s never made a good song that didn’t include Biggie. Maybe people liked Loon after all. Kanye West rounds out the top three earners, raking in $16 million.

Check out the top 10 after the jump.

Read more