The upcoming third season of Comedy Central’s Chappelle’s Show is apparently only half-baked.

Work on the hugely anticipated new season of Dave Chappelle’s sketch show is behind schedule due to its 31-year-old ringleader’s illness and lack of new material from his writing staff, according to the New York Post.

The new season was supposed to premiere Feb. 16. It will now begin airing sometime in late April or May, per the Post.

“Dave–and his entire production crew for that matter–got a bit of a late start on writing season three,” network spokeman Tony Fox told the newspaper.

Chappelle has reportedly been laid up with a nasty flu bug, adding to delays brought on by the lack of written material so far for season three. The Emmy-nominated comedy is currently on hiatus for the holidays and will resume production in January.

Last week, Paramount pushed back the season 2 DVD release–which had been slated to hit stores Feb. 8 to coincide with the new TV season–presumably due to the production slowdown. No new release date for the DVD has been set yet.

There was no immediate comment Monday from Comedy Central or Chappelle’s publicist.

Since the offbeat sketch show debuted in January 2003, it has steadily built a large following. By the end of season two, the half-hour show was often pulling in more than 3 million viewers. The DVD release of season one currently ranks as the all-time top-selling TV show on DVD.

In August, Chappelle reupped with Comedy Central in a massive two-year deal, valued at $50 million by the Hollywood Reporter. The deal also set a new Industry precedent–reportedly giving the funnyman a large cut of backend DVD sales.

In addition to his gig at Comedy Central, Chappelle had been working on a book for Hyperion. No word on the book’s status; there’s also no word on the rumored movie deal with Paramount for Chappelle to portray Rick James in a biopic.

Prior to work on his new TV season, Chappelle had been overseeing a feature film/DVD project combining sketch comedy with footage from a Brooklyn block party filmed in September that featured a reunited Fugees. A 10-person crew, directed by Michel Gondry, captured the Chappelle-conceived event.

Rapper Young Buck was charged on Monday with stabbing a fellow performer in a dispute over an autograph that touched off a melee at a Los Angeles-area hip-hop awards show last month, prosecutors said.

Young Buck, whose real name is David Darnell Brown, attacked rapper Jimmy James Johnson after Johnson was refused an autograph by Dr. Dre and then punched the rap impresario in the face, prosecutors said.

Dre, whose true name is Andre Young, was waiting to go onstage to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Nov. 15 Vibe Awards show in Santa Monica, California.

The dispute set off a chair-throwing brawl that spread through the audience of about 1,000, but did not halt the ceremony, which was later televised on network UPN.

Johnson was arrested and remains in custody on a suspected parole violation, prosecutors said.

Brown, 23, faces up to eight years in prison if convicted of the charges filed on Monday, prosecutors said. He remains free on $500,000 bail and was set to be arraigned on Monday.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A charity appearance by rap star Ludacris at Montgomery Mall was cut short Thursday evening after two small fights broke out.

Though scheduled for two hours, he was asked to leave by police after about 20 minutes when security could not control the crowd, the Montgomery Advertiser reported. Well over 100 people had been waiting for more than 30 minutes for the rapper to arrive.

“I would have liked to stay, but I understand I was part of the problem,” Ludacris, a College Park, Ga., native, told the newspaper.

“We expected a lot of people to show up but not to this degree,” said Kristy Jansen, marketing director at Montgomery Mall.

Montgomery police said no arrests were made and declined further comment.

Those who attended weren’t pleased.

“They clearly weren’t prepared for this or had no idea how big an artist he was,” said Tiffany Jones, of Montgomery, who had brought her two children to see the rapper. “Security was inadequate, and it was an unsafe environment.

Jay-Z has talked about retirement for much of his 10-year recording career. His 2003 release The Black Album was billed as his last, though since then he found time to tour, record albums with R. Kelly and Linkin Park and usher a feature film into theaters.

But now he has a desk job: The multiplatinum rapper has been named the president and CEO of Island/Def Jam records.

Jay-Z (aka Shawn Carter) will assume his post Jan. 3 and report to label chairman Antonio “L.A.” Reid. He’ll also continue to work at Roc-a-Fella Records, the label he co-founded that is affiliated with Island.

As much a businessman as an artist ? he also runs a successful clothing line, a vodka company and is a partner in the business group that purchased the NBA’s New Jersey Nets ? Jay-Z had hinted at a desire to become an industry mover and shaker like Berry Gordy, the man who founded Motown Records and turned it into a hit-making institution.

“My next thing is to open up the door for black people to become record executives,” he told the Chronicle this fall. “The music business is stale to me. I want to push the envelope and open it up for future generations.”

Just before dawn on a crisp November morning, federal agents converged on a two-story home in suburban Maplewood, N.J., and woke up Cynthia Brent. They told her to get dressed for court.

Brent, a soft-spoken accountant for rap label The Inc., was facing charges of laundering more than $1 million in drug money.

Over the next eight days, federal and local agents swept from New Jersey to Manhattan and Queens, making arrests in a probe linking one of rap music’s hottest labels to one of New York’s most notorious gangsters.

After filing charges against seven suspects, including rap star Ja Rule’s manager, federal prosecutors appear to be closing in on their ultimate targets: The Inc. founder Irv “Gotti” Lorenzo and convicted crack kingpin Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff.

Convicted criminals and artists alike long have boasted about the links between the industry and the drug underworld, but no major charges have ever been filed against a label as successful as The Inc, which has sold about 20 million records behind flagship artists Ja Rule and Ashanti.

Prosecutors have declined to discuss the case. But defense attorneys and law enforcement officials said Brent, Ja Rule manager Ron “Gutta” Robinson and two alleged McGriff associates are under pressure by the government to provide information about the rap mogul and McGriff.

The arrests signal that the investigation, after a yearlong lull, is “gaining momentum,” said one of the law enforcement officials, all of whom spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Longtime friends, Gotti and McGriff are suspected of laundering money from McGriff’s cocaine and heroin operation through Gotti’s platinum-selling label, according to court documents filed in support of search and property seizure warrants.

McGriff, 44, founder of one of the city’s most violent drug crews, allegedly returned to his old ways when he was released from prison in 1997. He had served about nine years for drug conspiracy.

A police official said investigators believe that once free, McGriff set about reviving his drug-dealing operation. They also suspect he and his associates could be responsible for a dramatic rise in homicides there, the official said.

The number of killings in the Queens neighborhood in which he operated defied a citywide downward trend last year by rising to 29, compared to just 13 a year earlier. So far this year — with McGriff behind bars for a minor gun possession conviction — killings total 16.

Cooperating witnesses have told investigators that McGriff admitted to the 2001 revenge slaying of up-and-coming rapper E-Money Bags in New York and arranged the Baltimore killing one month later of an informant in his drug organization. A security camera captured a luxury sport utility vehicle registered to a McGriff associate dropping off another shooting victim’s body at a Queens hospital in 1999, court papers said.

McGriff hasn’t been charged in any of the killings, and he’s denied any wrongdoing. His attorney, Robert Simels, said his client has become a scapegoat for unsolved murders based solely on his criminal history as boss of a former gang known as the Supreme Team.

“I think he’s a convenient person to point to because of the lore of the street,” said Simels, referring to the gang’s reputation in rap circles.

“When you hear talk of the south side, you hear talk of the Team,” rapper 50 Cent says in one song. “See (people) … respected ‘Preme.”

As for Gotti and his associates, they say they’re proud of their friendship with McGriff.

“That’s like my brother, I love this boy,” Ja Rule said when asked about McGriff in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

The Inc. was founded as Murder Inc. in 1997. Gotti changed his label’s name earlier this year to deflect negative publicity from the investigation. Its new single, Wonderful, featuring Ja Rule and Ashanti, was No. 2 on Billboard’s list of hot rap tracks last week.

Gerald Lefcourt, Gotti’s lawyer, insists The Inc. is a legitimate business financed by part owner Island Def Jam, a Universal Music label.

“All we see is government pressure on all kinds of people to provide negative information with no justification,” Lefcourt said.