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Drake, T.I., 2 Chainz and a slew of other huge hip hop stars wouldn't have many of their hits without a producer, who says he was left out in the cold when the money started rolling in ... so he's suing.

Arsenio Archer says he teamed with London Holmes -- known in the biz as London on da Track -- and cranked out tons of hit tracks ... including "Section" by 2 Chainz, "Sneakin'" by Drake ft. 21 Savage, "I Don't Belong to You" by Keke Palmer ... as well as "Peanut Butter Jelly" and "About the Money" by T.I.

In docs, Archer says he co-produced all of those tracks -- and many, many more -- with London ... adding key melodies, vocals and arrangements. Still, Archer says London never got his permission to use his work ... and never fully compensated him.

He doesn't only blame London, by the way ... Archer's also suing a slew of record labels and publishing companies including Cash Money, Universal, Warner, Def Jam, Boozie Bad Azz Publishing, Young Jeezy Music and Sony/ATV. He is NOT suing any of the artists.

Archer's copyright infringement suit is seeking to get a full accounting of what his cut should be, and most importantly ... he wants the dough.

Bill Cosby was met by taunts, and a Helen Reddy classic, as he exited his sexual assault trial.

One woman made sure Cosby heard her roar outside the Montgomery County Courthouse in PA ... as she blasted "I Am Woman" on speakers. Cosby calmly walked past with comedian Joe Torry on his arm.

He never reacted visibly, but there's no doubt ... he had to hear the music and the jeers.

Earlier Thursday, Cosby seemed very relaxed as he entered court. He didn't look that way on his way out.

Accused NSA leaker Reality Winner wrote about Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and torching the White House ... according to prosecutors.

Winner entered a not guilty plea Thursday to one count of "willful retention and transmission of national defense information." During the hearing, prosecutors said 2 notebooks were found in Winner's home, and in one of them she'd written ... "I want to burn the White House down."

On other pages she'd listed names of Taliban and al Qaeda leaders, bin Laden ... according to prosecutors. 25-year-old Winner is accused of leaking at least one classified NSA document to a media outlet.

Katherine Jackson resurfaced late Wednesday night at a famous West Hollywood diner, setting off alarms for some very worried family members.

Katherine was seen leaving Mel's Diner Wednesday night -- at 11 PM, no less -- with 1 bodyguard and 2 women.

Katherine hasn't been seen in public since March, when she returned from her extended stay in London.

Some members of the Jackson family are very concerned because they said the matriarch would NEVER end up close to midnight on the Sunset Strip at a diner. They note Katherine loved her life when she was living at her Calabasas home with a chef hired by the Michael Jackson estate.

They say she would have scoffed at diner food, and think she's been pressured and fooled by certain members of Jackson's family to bolt from the fold and help them squeeze money from the estate.

Our sources say Katherine is now living in a hotel near her Calabasas home, and they believe it's all the doing of certain family members who want to keep Katherine isolated ... especially from her grandchildren.

4:25 PM PT -- XXXTentacion's Thursday night concert in Santa Ana, CA has been postponed. We're told the venue decided to postpone for safety concerns, on the heels of Wednesday's brawl. The show will be rescheduled.

The guy who KO'd XXXTentacion at his San Diego show is just jealous of the 19-year-old rapper's success ... and XXX believes there's NO reason to hire more bodyguards.

We spoke to him Thursday after the brutal cheap shot. Although his face seemed pretty swollen, XXX says his attacker got it worse. In the video, you can see security beat the living daylights out of the guy.

Still, police tell us the suspect somehow manged to flee the scene.

According to XXX, his attacker got past 12 security guards to get to him -- which, to him, means there's no point in paying more people to protect him.

One person was stabbed backstage. At the time we spoke to him, XXX thought that person was the attacker. Cops tell us that's not the case and the stabbing victim's injury is non-life threatening.

Cops still haven't named a suspect, and there's no evidence another rapper, Rob Stone, had anything to do with it -- despite an old beef with XXX, and the chants of fans after the fight.

Jessica Alba's company allegedly made false claims about its products and now it's paying the price.

Alba's Honest Company has agreed to fork over $1.55 mil to settle claims it misled customers into thinking its soaps and cleaning products didn't contain a certain chemical ... but they did.

According to the suit ... the actress' company marketed products as being free of sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS). Turns out it IS an ingredient in a different compound used in its products.

Kris Humphries knows when to pull out ... and the housing market rewarded him handsomely.

The Atlanta Hawks center just sold his Bev Hills pad for $8.25 million, which is a KILLING ... considering he bought the 3, bedroom, 4 bath house for $6.2 mil back in 2015.

The 3,336 square foot house sits on nearly an acre with unobstructed city and coastline views. The house features tons of glass walls, gourmet kitchen and a den with a wet bar.

2 Chainz is pointing the finger at the fire marshal for shutting down his new album listening party, and the event promoters are blaming cops ... but NYC officials are calling BS.

NYC Dept. of Buildings officials tell TMZ ... their reps were at the ASA Gallery in Soho Wednesday night, not fire marshals. They say the 2 Chainz event -- for his "Pretty Girls Like Trap Music" album -- was way over capacity, but promoters were told they could continue if they got occupancy down to 74.

Instead of complying, the promoters decided to cancel ... at least that's NYC's take. Chainz maintained on social media it was the fire marshal.

Sources connected to event organizers say they were told 200 people was the max -- and planned accordingly -- but cops were already there before the party began and turned away fans. We're told promoters tried to negotiate with cops, but THEY killed the party.

FDNY tells us they had nothing to do with it. 2 Chainz says he's looking for a bigger venue for take 2 on the party.

British police gunned down the London Bridge terrorists as they attacked an innocent bystander at Borough Market ... and the whole incident was captured by city surveillance cameras.

The new footage shows cops pulling up to the scene just as the terrorist were stabbing someone on the street. Within moments ... all 3 attackers were shot dead.

As we reported ... 8 people were killed and nearly 50 more injured in the London attack Saturday night.

Dave Chappelle made up with Flint, Michigan for skipping out on a previous benefit show by giving them every dime he made from his Wednesday night gig ... $50k.

Chappelle performed at The Whiting in Flint and had announced he was going to donate proceeds to a local charity. The only surprise was what charity would get the dough.

Turns out ... Dave gave everything to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint. He presented a check onstage to CEO Isaiah Oliver ... who tells TMZ the money will help children exposed to lead in Flint's water. Oliver says they're grateful for Dave's commitment.

Based on the reaction Chappelle got from the crowd, it's safe to say Flint forgives him for bailing on a water crisis benefit last year. Dave admitted, during his Netflix special, he accepted a last-minute invite from Chris Rock to go to the Oscars instead.

John McCain says he has a perfectly good excuse for that bizarre line of questioning during the Comey hearing Thursday ... he watched too much baseball the night before.

Twitter has been exploding with people mocking the 80-year-old AZ senator for strangely bringing up the Hillary Clinton investigation while everyone else wanted answers on Russia and Trump.

McCain accused Comey of applying a double standard by closing the Clinton investigation while leaving the Trump inquiry open. Comey's explanation was that the Clinton investigation ran its course while the Trump investigation had barely started when Trump fired him.

This seemed a rational explanation for everyone in the room, except for McCain who seemed baffled.

Now, McCain has issued a statement trying to explain (and also poking fun at himself) ... saying:

"I get the sense from Twitter that my line of questioning today went over people's heads. Maybe going forward I shouldn't stay up late watching the Diamondbacks night games."

For the record, the D-Backs played the Padres Wednesday night ... and won 7-4.

Ex-NFL player James Hardy III -- a 2nd round pick in 2008 -- was found dead in an Indiana river, officials confirm. He was 31.

The 6'6" wide receiver was drafted by the Buffalo Bills after a sensational junior year at Indiana University -- in which he was selected first team All-Big Ten.

Hardy's body was found in a log jam at the Maumee River on Wednesday afternoon -- after a City water filtration plant employee spotted him and called police.

Our sources tell us it appears Hardy had been in the water for several days. Police are investigating.

We're told Hardy's family had reported him missing on May 30.

Hardy had major issues after his NFL career. He was arrested in 2014 for attacking police officers and was later committed to a mental facility.

However, his friends remember him as a nice, outgoing and generous guy who was an incredible athlete.

Mary J. Blige is gonna have to cough up some emergency relief dough to her estranged husband while their divorce plays out, but he's gotta be disappointed by how much he's getting.

A judge has ordered Mary to pay Martin Isaacs $30,000 per month in temporary spousal support. Big number, no doubt, but way less than what he requested ... $129,319 per month.

The court found Martin was entitled to some dough to accommodate the standard of living he was used to while married to Mary, but also decided his dream number was unreasonable.

Mary will also have to pay retroactive spousal support dating back to September ... and his attorney fees -- that comes to $235k.

Former FBI Director James Comey's highly anticipated testimony had something for everyone -- supporters of President Trump, but also his detractors.

Comey told Sen. Richard Burr he had no doubts Russia attempted to interfere, and made cyber attacks on voter files and the DNC -- but he's also confident they were not able to alter a single vote in the 2016 election.

The biggest bombshell though was his explanation for why he took detailed notes after every meeting with President Trump. Comey said, "I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting and so I thought it really important to document."

He also got into whether the President leaned on him to back off Gen. Mike Flynn or the Russia investigation.

The hearing stopped everything in D.C. -- some interns were waiting in line since 3 AM to get into the hearing

XXXTentacion got sucker punched onstage and knocked out cold during his show in San Diego ... which turned into an all-out brawl that left one person stabbed.

The video of the attack is insane -- XXX was up on the mic performing Wednesday night when the attacker socked him out of nowhere. Security scrambled and beat the piss out of the unidentified puncher.

Law enforcement sources tell us the stabbing happened backstage after the initial punch.

XXX was eventually carried offstage. One of his tour managers tells us he was unconscious for at least 2 minutes. We're also told XXX and his camp believe the attacker was hiding backstage.

Cops say another fight broke out later in the parking lot as well. Fans at the venue seemed to blame rapper Rob Stone for the melee -- they chanted his name as soon as the fight started, but it's unclear if he's really involved.

No arrests have been made. We're also told cops wanna talk to XXX for a statement.

Meanwhile, XXX posted a video afterward blaming the venue and security for setting him up, and he's threatening to sue.