Month: April 2020

Since Kehlani’s debut album was released in 2017, fans have been eager for its full-length follow-up. Kehlani kept fans at bay with a handful of singles, including the recent numbers “Everybody’s Business” and “Toxic.” But finally, the singer revealed her sophomore album, It Was Good Until It Wasn’t, will arrive very soon. Kehlani trailed her album announcement with the thumping single “F&MU” alongside a sensual visual.

Directed by Hyphy Williamz, the single’s accompanying visual recreates the pheromone-fueled song through intimate choreography. An acronym for “F*ck And Make Up,” the new single features Kehlani’s slow-burning vocals divulging the steamy details of a romance. “We do petty things / Then mess up the sheets, yeah / You be runnin’ back once we let it go / I already know,” she croons.

Ahead of the single’s release, Kehlani found herself embroiled in online drama with fellow Bay Area artist Kamaiyah. The rapper detailed her beef shortly after Kehlani announced It Was Good Until It Wasn’t. The frustration seemed to stem from Kehlani removing Keyshia Cole’s verse from her hit track “All Me.” Kehlani addressed the scuffle on Twitter, taking the high road in a series of since-deleted tweets.

Watch the “F&MU” video above.

It Was Good Until It Wasn’t is out 5/8 via Atlantic. Pre-order it here.

Kehlani is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Late last year, it was reported that The Matrix 4 and John Wick 4 would have the same release date: May 21, 2021, a.k.a. Keanu Reeves Day. Yeah… about that.

In an interview with Collider, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum director Chad Stahelski, who worked as Reeves’ stunt double on The Matrix before becoming a stunt coordinator on the sequels, said there was some miscommunication about the whole “Matrix same-day” thing. “That was a fubar thing, couple wires got crossed between studios [and] that was a misquote from someone else about how they’re coming out on the same day,” he explained. The good news: you won’t have to choose which excellent Keanu Reeves movie to see first (in this house, every day is Keanu Reeves Day). The bad news: it might be awhile before John Wick 4: Rise of the Tick-Tock Man comes out.

“Between how much we want to expand the John Wick — let’s just call it a ‘franchise’, I guess — and the pandemic, I couldn’t tell you a release date for the next one. I mean, Matrix was only four weeks in when this all happened. So, Keanu’s gotta go finish his commitment up on The Matrix, which is a big deal and which I think will probably take him until the end of the year. Then we have to go into our prep mode… Release dates, who knows right now.”

Stahelski also revealed that he occasionally wakes up in the middle of the night, thinking, “Horses! How do I beat horses?!” but, he added, “I think I have a lot of really cool ideas for the next one that I think are different and shocking and fun and unique.”

As long as Keanu Reeves is mowing down bad guys in neon-lit rooms, I’m there opening night, whenever that is.

(Via Collider)

Ever since its semi-surprise release yesterday, Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage” remix featuring Beyonce has caused quite the stir online. While Megan Thee Stallion joined the chorus of fans both famous and otherwise who praised Beyonce’s verse, Queen Bey’s name check of subscription content service OnlyFans even prompted OnlyFans to reach out with an invitation for the multi-hyphenate entertainment juggernaut to join up. Now, thanks to The-Dream, credited as a co-writer on the remix, we know who penned the line, which is already on its way to becoming iconic.

It should come as no surprise, though, that the mind behind the shout-out was none other than Beyonce’s husband and occasional partner-in-rhyme Jay-Z. The-Dream confirmed as much in a comment on Instagram. After posting about the song on his feed, he replied to a fan’s comment about name-checking TikTok — the same line that precedes Beyonce’s shout out to Instagram’s after hours “Demon Time” stream and jokes about starting an OnlyFans. “@thekingdream writes @tiktok into the culture!” the fan wrote. The-Dream dashed his fan’s hopes, however, clarifying, “That’s a J line.”

So, that clears up the provenance of Beyonce’s OnlyFans name check but now, fans are only going to have more questions, like, “Is Jay-Z really logging into Instagram to watch strippers twerk?” and “Who all is he actually subscribing to on OnlyFans?” Unfortunately, answers to those ones are likely going to remain as secret as the release date of the next Carters album.

Listen to Megan Thee Stallion and Beyonce’s “Savage” remix above.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major effect on just about every industry on earth (and our entire way of life as we know it). It’s changed literally everything. Except for the human race’s insatiable desire to f*ck. Yes, you can take our music festivals, force us to get our weed delivered curbside, make us wear masks, and make our hearts fill with abject panic every time we need to make an essential grocery run, but nothing is going to stop us from getting horny.

If you’ve spent any time on social media since the quarantine began — and you have, we all have — you’ll know that people on every social media platform are being open about just how hot and bothered being kept inside is making them. And the stats support it. According to Market Watch, dating apps like Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, and Match.com are seeing a surge in activity, with users sending about 21% more messages and average times for video and voice calls spiking. People are so thirsty right now that the state of New York had to issue guidelines telling us not to rim each other, lest we risk passing the coronavirus on.

But amidst this crazed haze, sex workers are being hit hard by the lockdowns. Many are out of work, while others have been forced to navigate the sometimes unfamiliar waters of digital content creation. In the month of March, the popular subscription-based site OnlyFans reported a 75% increase of users, with 2.5 million new signups, 60,000 of which were new creators — who either flocked to the site because the COVID-19 lockdowns have made it impossible to practice sex work IRL or because they lost their regular gigs and need a steady stream of new income to stay afloat.

Strippers, sex educators, sex shop workers, porn stars, dancers — pretty much anyone who works in the sex industry or has a sex work-adjacent job is now out of work and unable to get assistance, even from Congress’ CARES Act, the $2 trillion relief bill that was designed to help people impacted financially by the coronavirus. According to Reason, the long-standing language written into business loans prevents anyone who earns their income from “live performances of a prurient sexual nature” or anyone who “derives directly or indirectly more than the minimum gross revenue through the sale of products or services, or the presentation of any depictions or displays, of a purist sexual nature” from taking advantage of the types of loans offered in the CARES act.

This isn’t a uniquely American problem, either. All over the world sex workers are being affected, even in countries with more open and legalized sex work, like Germany, which according to the NY Daily News, has as many as 200,000 legal sex workers. Some countries, like Australia and Japan, have made the progressive decision to offer some relief to sex workers, but in order to qualify for many of these benefits, workers often need to officially register as sex workers, which can create a paper trail that can affect future job prospects, according to The Washington Post.

To get an insider’s perspective on the rapid changes in the sex work industry, we chatted over the phone with three sex workers — Devin Ladner, Erica Solitaire, and Danika Maia — about the struggles of transitioning from in-person sex work to creating digital content, the changing needs of an increasingly lonely customer base, and some of the common misconceptions that people have about sex work in general, and how that leads to them receiving little support and relief in a time of global crisis.

Prior to the social distancing measures, what was the nature of your sex work?

Devin: I was a dancer/ stripper.

Erica: A stripper.

Danika: Dancing, camming, and OnlyFans.

How has the stay at home order impacted the income you bring home?

Devin: I lost all of my income. Prior to the quarantine, I had an Only Fans that I was operating but I was not doing it seriously, it was just kind of there. It wasn’t making a crazy amount of money or anything of that sort of thing — I think it was bringing in maybe like $300 to $400 a month. Quarantine happened and everything shut down and I panicked, I was scared I didn’t have any income coming in so I went from making about eight-nine thousand a month to making essentially nothing.

Erica: Our club shut down I think March 15th, so we’ve been closed for a little over a month now and it’s been super hard. It was really unfortunate because the busy season was just about to start, things were picking up. I use to work at this venue called Cheetahs, and we were sold the week before Thanksgiving, so I literally lost two of my dance venues within two months, or within the span of three months. I was working at Cheetahs, we got sold in November, that was my main source of income. I made OnlyFans in December, found a new venue, and then COVID hit, So I went really hard into internet media, creating content online by myself. Me, and my iPhone. I also made a cam account last week.

Danika: Before I decided to cam full time, I went to the AVN awards at the end of January and I and a lot of cam girls and porn girls that were there got coronavirus at AVN, so we were all sick for all of February. Afterward, I didn’t want to go to my restaurant, I was waitressing at a restaurant since the restaurant I was working at, Cheetahs, closed in November, and I was like “you know what this is the perfect time to commit to online sex work full time and change everything to Danika.” I was previously camming under a different name.

Have you been able to match your previous income through camming, OnlyFans, and other forms of online content creation?

Devin: Nowhere near, no. Even after completely throwing myself into online work. Online work is really hard, you have to create content every day, and you need to continually have an online presence and visibility. Lucky for me, I’m an out sex worker so that was something I was capable of doing. But if you’re not an out sex worker, and you’re more private — you’re kind of fucked. You really have to stay visible on the internet. It’s constant interaction, constant content creation, constant work, and I’m not even making $2,000 dollars a month.

Erica: It skyrocketed for a while, but comes in waves. It goes up and goes down. When it was very new and exciting for everyone at the beginning, things were good, also you had all these stay-at-home people who were still receiving income, so they’re just online and pick a couple of people to support and that’s that.

Danika: It’s two-fold. On one hand, yes, everybody is home and lonely and looking to spend money on that more intimate interaction, in terms of porn and sexual content, but there has also been a huge influx of people signing up to the sites to work because it’s such a free and consistent way of making money online, so I would say it’s stayed the same actually. While there are more users, there is also a bigger influx of workers online — because all the people doing in-person sex work have to transition to online, and people who have never worked in sex work before are like “Well fuck it, I can’t be a waitress or a bartender or a DJ, I guess I’ll do OnlyFans.”

Has COVID-19 made people more generous with tips? And compared to dancing, are the tips substantially less or more?

Devin: In my experience, camming and online work is way less money. It’s a lot of work for not a lot of money at all. Everyone has different boundaries and I don’t mind this, but it’s usually also a lot more explicit work for a lot less. When I was dancing I worked in New Orleans where its just a topless club, some touching is allowed, but it was nothing crazy and I wasn’t doing explicit acts or anything, and I was making good money and now I’m on the internet where things are always there, so no matter what I decide to do later on, these things will always exist on the internet.

Erica: That’s hard for me to answer since I’ve only had my OnlyFans since around January, so I don’t have that many months to compare it to. It also seems to depend on how much interaction I make with my subscribers and also the kind of content I’m creating too. I think because it was new for me and it was new for my subscribers, we were just trying to figure out how it all works.

I wouldn’t say that anyone came because of the virus, I just think they knew that the clubs were shut down, and they came to support me.

Danika: No, and also the people who are signed up as clients are potentially losing money on their end, their jobs maybe are not essential, so I’ve seen maybe a tightening of budgets. I wouldn’t say people aren’t giving an outpouring of support because they realize that cam girls are doing fine. But I have seen a lot of people on Twitter — especially sex worker Twitter — there has been a lot of support internally in the community, like “Hey if you’re new to online sex work, we’ll promote your OnlyFans, we’ll support your content sites.” A lot of sex workers have kids and have been asking for support from other sex workers and that has become a more generous outlet because we know we are in a better position than most.

Are the emotional needs of customers stronger than before the pandemic?

Devin: Before the pandemic, I briefly did cam work for a summer. I don’t know if it’s because of the pandemic or just online work in general, but there is definitely more of a higher emotional strain. But I think that’s just because of access to the internet. I think it’s this idea that you’re accessible, so people assume you’re accessible all the time.

It is definitely very emotional work. People are constantly messaging you or asking you for things, or expecting things. My good friend went into camming work, and its really hard in that way. You need to establish regulars and those regulars become entitled to your time, and your accessibility.

Erica: Probably! I’m one of the worst hustlers… I don’t cater to people, I’m very much a performer. You came to my venue, I’m not coming to your table, it’s the other way around. But everyone has their different flow, some girls are really good at catering to emotional needs, I’m not one of them, so to briefly answer — yeah. There are definitely a lot of people that are like “I just want to talk” or want my attention or want to tell me their life story, and I’m over here like, “My story is so deep that my empathy level has to stay on the surface.”

Danika: I would say that everybody is kind of keeping the same sort of level head. In the chats, we all talk about COVID, and how we’re lonely and bored, but the essence of the work is still the same. The one-on-ones are still the same, it’s not like panic loneliness where people are desperate for a connection.

How much longer under this current system do you think you can sustain yourself with this massive change to your income and workflow?

Devin: You know, I’m doing what I can and honestly what’s really sustaining me are old regulars from the club. I’ve gotten gifts a few times from old regulars that know that obviously we’re all struggling and want to make sure that I’m taken care of, which has been really sweet and that’s honestly the reason I’ve been okay and been able to pay some bills, but I don’t know if it’s sustainable.

I find myself staying up every night, trying to find new ways to market myself, or try different avenues — there are so many different avenues of sex work, maybe I just need to put myself in every single one of them. Going through a pandemic, it’s so difficult right now to constantly work, and it’s constant work, it doesn’t stop. I don’t know how long it’s sustainable, I know that some girls do it full time, but it’s different when you were used to living a certain way, and I’ve created my life around that way and now I have to downgrade and create a new life.

Erica: Right now we’re testing that. I will say that I’m really mad at myself that I didn’t do this sooner. Especially being out in the public eye, it’s been really helpful. Obviously girls make bank on it and I’m trying to get to that level. I could definitely manage on this, if I do it the right way. It’s still really new for me, this is a completely different type of media, so I just have to find it and work it to my advantage. Each month, as of now, there has been a 50% to 60% income earning increase for me

It’s stressful though. I’m an actor, a dancer, so it all depends on who is booking me when. It’s a different kind of ball game, it’s stressful because I have my IMDB and my OnlyFans link in the same space. I was having this conversation with my roommate last night, am I going to show my breasts on cam sites? When you’re in Europe, and you’re laying out on the beach, you can be topless, so why not?

Is the cut that OnlyFans take worse than the cut you experience as a dancer?

Devin: It’s 20%, so for making less it’s high. If I have a subscription price for $15 a month, I’ll only make $12 a month, and then they also take 20% out of the tips that you make. So it is high, but in clubs, it varies in different parts of the country.

Sometimes the cut is really small, there was a small club in Tampa that had a set fee that covered your house, your tipping, and everything, you just paid that and that was it. And it was very low. But most of the time you’re looking at a 60/40 cut, when I worked in the club I was used to making 60% and the club taking 40%.

Erica: In some scenarios, it’s the same, but it varies. Only Fans take 20% flat, clubs here can take 50%.

Some countries, Japan for instance, are providing aid to people who work in the legal sex industry. I’m sure you’re aware that protections and aid here in the states is almost nonexistent. People who work in the sex industry can’t apply for some small business loans, may not qualify for certain aid programs, did you expect a helping hand when COVID-19 hit?

Devin: I mean I guess its sad that I expected to be forgotten. When all those small business loans were happening, right in the beginning friends were saying “Here is all this financial aid, here are things to apply to” and I remember seeing the first clause, and it didn’t shock me. I didn’t expect anything. And every single one of those small business loans has one of those clauses and that’s not shocking to me.

I may have had a more emotional reaction if I didn’t receive the stimulus check. I pay a fuck ton of money in taxes, a lot of sex workers pay a fuck ton of money in taxes. I think if we would’ve been forgotten in that, it would’ve been really unfair. But I don’t expect much out of the nature of our country because of the way the country as a whole treats sex workers.

Danika: Sex workers are pretty much the only group that has been explicitly excluded from receiving the COVID-19 disaster relief loans for small businesses. It specifically says any business that makes their income via lewd content or a prurient sexual nature may not apply for these funds. That includes strip clubs, adult toy stores, anything of a sexual nature. Bars that have dancers, if they’re making their income from any kind of sexual adjacent activity, are not eligible to receive that support. But online sex work has costs, just like with any business.

You have to have a good laptop, you have to have a good webcam, you have to have decent clothes and lingerie, you have to have a roof over your head and a safe space where you can cam. A lot of people are not lucky enough to live in an environment where they can do this work safely. It might require you to move to a place where you live alone, I know I’ve been kicked out of an apartment for camming because I had religious roommates who didn’t like it. Sex workers get discriminated against because of the work they do. But if we’re not given support or if we’re specifically excluded it’s going to be detrimental to a lot of single moms and regular people who are doing nudes online.

What are some of the biggest misconceptions about the Sex Worker Industry, and what unique challenges do you face in your line of work?

Devin: I have a lot of respect for online sex workers, think about how what they do is the most stigmatized because their content is on the internet, so you get trolls, or people who want to out you, or want to hurt you. It’s easier to out you if they know how to hack they can find a way to tell your family or friends if you’re not completely out. It’s just always there and I had heard this through porn, a lot of porn stars have said that they love their industry but what was hard about leaving their industry was trying to find work afterward because of this thing that was attached to them now. It’s the same with online content, maybe you’re not as accessible but you’re still doing porn on the internet so your work is heavily stigmatized, and not nearly for the same amount of money that dancers are used to making.

Erica: That it’s really easy and anyone can do it, or that it’s not artistic, but it’s super artistic.

In terms of the challenges, staying different and unique, or staying true to your brand or the theme you’re going with is hard. Staying focused and staying motivated, because I have to be in my house and get motivated to get hot and stay in front of my phone and pose for an hour. When I’m performing at a venue I’ll get professional photography, it’s not really in my nature to do content creation on my own and then sell it to people!

Danika: So many! There are a million different ways to use OnlyFans, people think everyone is posting BJ videos on their timeline and that is absolutely not the case. There are so many levels of nudity, even non-nudity, some people use their OnlyFans for other kinds of content. A lot of men use OnlyFans for fitness content. That’s the model I’m trying to bring through a new platform I’ve started called Money Mama — where you can monetize your influence in a lot of different ways and provide direct value to your followers. The people who are already buying adult content are preconditioned to that model of buying content directly from providers, whereas more mainstream content consumption is via a subscription model, either Master Class or Netflix or Hulu or Amazon. It’s more “I’m paying for the subscription service” and then the creator actually doesn’t get that much out of it.

It’s weird to me that it’s become more associated with selling or whoring yourself out. I’m making content, you give me the money, and that can be applied to anything. TV, YouTube tutorials, whatever it is. If you’re taking the money and booking yourself, you’re not less of a creator than someone with an agent and a manager.

Also, there is a misconception that the only people who buy this content are total losers or perverts who can’t get free porn. Anyone can figure out how to get free porn… The people who buy adult content are more technologically advanced because they understand these different platforms, and services, and understand that the creator is getting more money than the actress that did a one-off video that is being watched endlessly on Pornhub.

These are people who understand the ideas of consent, and personal value in skill sharing.

When Deonna Purrazzo became one of the many workers laid off by WWE earlier this month, she responded positively, tweeting, “The people closest to me know this is something I’ve been struggling with wanting for the better part of the last year. Happy to say I gave this journey my best and MORE excited for the future!” In a new interview with Fightful, Purrazzo explained why she had been looking to leave the company.

Purrazzo signed with WWE in 2018. After competing in the Mae Young Classic, she wrestled most of her matches on NXT house shows. She never had a real angle on NXT TV and appeared on main roster programming as enhancement talent. “I feel like NXT is a culture of you’re grateful for what you get and you don’t ask for more,” Purrazzo said of how she was being used, “and I wasn’t grateful for what I got.”

Purrazzo said she worked hard to get to NXT, and once she got there, she thought of character and vignette ideas and “different ways that they could use me and use my potential and it did fall on deaf ears.” In a recent interview with the Conversations With Love podcast, Purrazzo’s friend and tag partner Chelsea Green, who still works for NXT, concurred that “Deonna has so much potential. She was not used in the capacity she should have been used in.”

Purrazzo said she had been thinking about asking for her release for months, and she was open about not wanting to be a jobber. According to Purrazzo, at least a few people who were cut from WWE had “expressed creative unhappiness” too, and she thinks that’s why she was let go.

I definitely feel like that’s frowned upon in NXT. For me, I feel like, and maybe it’s just making myself feel better, but that was probably a reason why I was let go. Because I said a month ago, “Hey, I’m not happy. If you’re not going to do something with me, let me go. Let me figure this out somewhere else.”

Purrazzo is already being proactive about her post-WWE career, starting a new interview series that premieres on Independent Wrestling TV tonight.

The spread of the coronavirus has resulted in concert tours and festivals being postponed across the country, but it has also led to the cancelation of other important events. For high schoolers, attending school online from home means that their annual prom events have been called off. While there is no virtual replacement for the teenage cornerstone experience that is prom night, Dua Lipa aims to remedy the potential FOMO by hosting her own virtual prom dance party.

The Grammy award-winning artist is linking up with iHeartRadio to co-host a virtual prom event for high school students across the country. Co-hosted by radio DJ JoJo Wright, the on-air dance party will feature a selection of celebrity-curated mixes. Artists like Diplo, Will.i.am, and Marshmello will share their own sets during the four-hour event, and Lewis Capaldi will perform a rendition of his ballad “Before You Go” for the first slow dance. Other than music, the prom event will include a “special” address from John Legend, Noah Cyrus, and more.

In a statement, co-host Wright detailed the virtual event. “Prom is such a significant milestone for high school students across the country,” Wright said. “Through the power of radio, we are excited to bring prom to the to the safety of our listeners living rooms, with some of the biggest names in music performing for the special occasion.”

Along with the music, Lipa will be incentivizing teenagers to dress their best by offering meet-and-greet opportunities to those who snap pictures of them sporting their prom-ready garments.

The virtual prom night begins streaming on May 8 at 8:00 p.m. local time. Listen to it here.

Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The NBA was seemingly thrown into a bit of a headspin on Thursday morning when Jabari Young of CNBC reported that agents and executives from around the league are reaching out to commissioner Adam Silver to cancel the remainder of the 2019-20 NBA season. In response, LeBron James, the most vocal and important voice among players, tweeted that these reports were “absolutely not true.”

James continued: “As soon as it’s safe we would like to finish our season. I’m ready and our team is ready. Nobody should be canceling anything.”

Not only is James a powerful player with close friends throughout the NBA as well as connections in the entertainment and agency worlds, he also previously served in the leadership of the NBA Players Association. Of course, the current president, Chris Paul, maintains a friendship with James as well, as does super-agent Rich Paul, who represents James and many of the league’s best players.

It’s safe to say James is as plugged into these conversations as anybody, and James did remain fair by acknowledging that nobody he knows is saying these things to Silver. That’s not the same thing as declining the possibility of such conversations entirely.

At the same time, Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry appeared on CNBC to respond to the network’s reporting about the possible cancelation of the season and seemed to land in James’ camp as well.

This all comes just days after reports began to bring up new possibilities such as Walt Disney World as a regular-season locale after Disney CEO Bob Iger reportedly met with the league’s decision-makers last week.

Previously on the Best and Worst of NXT: El Hijo del Fantasma made his WWE debut, Finn Bálor mysteriously disappeared, and Dexter Lumis proved that he’s a pretty good friend when he’s not stalking and murdering people.

If you’d like to read previous installments of the Best and Worst of NXT, you can do that here. Follow With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter, where everything and everyone is terrible.

And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for April 22, 2020.

Best: I’m On To You, Dexter Lumis

I don’t think I realized it until I typed them in the same paragraph, but if Finn Bálor mysteriously disappeared and Dexter Lumis happened to be there to step up and take a spot in the main event, Lumis totally abducted Bálor, right? I know they/we want to blame Imperium, but clandestine murders don’t seem to be the modus operandi of a mat-worshipping jumpsuit cult. But a former mental patient with mommy issues? 100%. Bálor’s disappearance and the multiple parking lot kidnappings, there’s too much True Crime happening at NXT to ignore the concurrent rise to prominence of a guy whose gimmick is, “obviously a serial killer.”

Anyway, Lumis gets a victory over Shane Thorne, who is once again not represented by MVP because WWE can’t seem to keep track of what’s happening on what show even when they’re using the same wrestlers and running the same venue every day.

Worst/Best: When You Try To Remember What Day Of The Week It Is In Quarantine

Speaking of Imperium, they accept the fact that Finn Bálor died on the way back to his home planet and attack NXT Kinda Sorta Interim Tag Team Champions Matt Riddle and Timothy Thatcher. Imperium interrupted a Newlywed Game parody hosted by Byron Saxton to cement themselves as NXT’s biggest babyfaces.

Two things that I feel must be said:

• Timothy Thatcher proves that Pete Dunne and Matt Riddle have a weird, special chemistry you can’t just reproduce by putting somebody else in Dunne’s spot. Even when he’s standing there doing nothing, Pete’s got an on-screen charisma that Thatcher doesn’t have yet. He’s also got a visible intelligence that makes his frustration at Riddle’s antics enjoyable, as opposed to Thatcher, who comes across on TV as the Godless amalgamation of Drew Gulak and Ralphus. No shade to Thatcher, who is great, but he can’t be expected to come in cold and carry Pete goddamn Dunne’s weight in a tag team of accidental best friends.
• There are few things WWE does as hard to watch as Byron Saxton Personality segments. 3:16 Day was bad enough, and now we’ve got him dressing like WCW Mike Awesome and asking Ringkampf members to tell him the craziest place they’ve ever made whoopie? Jesus Christ, guys.

This Week In The Largely Unnecessary Interim NXT Cruiserweight Championship Tournament

Sorry, copied in the wrong URL there.

There we go. Up first in the Fuck You Jordan Devlin Tournament this week is Isaiah ‘Swerve’ Scott versus El Hijo del Fantasma, who now looks much, much better in a purple version of his fiercely inferior WWE mask. Can’t have the brother diving around looking like 1996 Billy Zane, I guess. Although now that I said it, I wish they’d give somebody a Cal from Titanic gimmick. Just a rich, entitled asshole who had the worst cruise ever.

Swerve picks up the win here to get on the board, as the NXT1 Classic works better if you keep it competitive. Swerve needs it more right now as he’s still trying to find his footing as a character, and Fantasma’s busy fighting off kidnappers or whatever anyway. I hope nobody from his Afghanistan unit he thought he’d left for dead shows up and ruins his chances of becoming champion. Just a hypothetical.

Then we’ve got Drake Maverick vs. Tony Nese. My feelings are best described with the following GIF:

On one hand, the match was a lot of fun and Drake Maverick is excellent as a determined underdog who’s the smallest, weakest, and most emotionally unstable guy in the room, but is fighting so hard to keep his spot, prove he’s worth it, and provide for his family. Matches like these show why it’s ridiculous to sign a guy like Rockstar Spud and keep him on the bench for almost his entire WWE career, only bringing him out to take virginal hotel room roll-ups in his underwear and piss his pants for the lulz. He was great at doing those things, too, but he probably could’ve used that creative currency on something that didn’t constantly make him look like an incelibate dork.

On the other hand, it’s still super concerning to fire a guy, make him keep working for you during a global pandemic, and write a fictional story about his real life fears of unemployment. And if his release was just a work to build sympathy, it’s super duper concerning to let dozens of people go in real life and keep one of them around on the down low so “isn’t it sad to be fired during the collapse of society” can be a slightly more believable under-card plot.

So, more succinctly, “hooray! … question mark?”

Best: Johnny Gargano Loves His Suddenly Evil Wife

Candice LeRae, empowered by a tube of black lipstick and some lavender hair dye, has two new weapons: Johnny Gargano as her personal ring announcer — she hails from “Calia-fornia,” apparently — and the “Wicked Stepsister,” which she uses to end Kacy Catanzaro’s whole career.

First of all, holy shit. Second of all, I’m so happy Catanzaro is back, both because of her tremendous upside as a performer, and because there might not be another person in the world more prepared to eat that entire move. She’s little, pliable, and more than willing to fall on her face from great heights.

And just to say it, no matter how dumb I thought the blow-off to Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa was, Candice LeRae being taken seriously as an NXT Superstar is a bright, shiny, silver lining. I still think she should be able to operate independently of Johnny, but repurposing him as a corrupted Ricardo Rodriguez in love is pretty funny.

Speaking Of Ending Whole Careers

Charlotte Flair wins her first defense of her second NXT Women’s Championship, once again defeating Mia Yim in a rematch “five years in the making.” The first Flair vs. Yim match ended in 50 seconds, so this competitive 10-minute version is much better. Yim has evolved, sure, but it’s especially fun to go back and watch 2014 Charlotte Flair, who looks like a completely different wrestler. It’s like comparing Ramblin’ Ricky Rhodes to the Nature Boy.

Charlotte’s return to NXT is stressful in the same way John Cena or Brock Lesnar matches are where you can see that they’re very good at what they do, but you get in your head about WWE’s decision making process and everything starts feeling less like a wrestler winning a wrestling match and more like a corporate mandate. That can play in a character’s favor, though, as Cena and Lesnar (and pre-Crisis Roman Reigns) matches always cause a lot of conversation, for better or worse. I say this because Charlotte’s facing Io Shirai next week, and I really don’t want that to end like I think it will.

Also On This Episode

Dominik Dijakovic astutely points out that the establishment Johnny Gargano wants to revolt against “put him in about 46,000 straight TakeOvers,” and vows to (and I’m paraphrasing here) pick him up over his head and knee him in the eyeballs. Next week’s show will feature Dijak vs. John Wrestling, Finn Bálor returning from the trunk of Dexter Lumis’ car to address whatever happened, the formal debut of Karrion Kross and Scarlett Bordeaux (whose show is made up of that smoke the Street Profits have been asking for), and Bad Moonsault defending the NXT Women’s Championship against Best Moonsault. Also, an NXT Championship match that will set fire to comments sections and definitely not make everything worse.

Best: Keith Lee Throws A Priest

Finally this week we’ve got the North American Championship match between Keith Lee and Damian Priest. Between this coming a week before a stacked card and the NAC triple threat that happened a week before the USA Network version of “TakeOver,” the North American Championship has become a real “night one” main-eventer.

Regardless, here’s Keith Lee throwing a 6-foot-5, 250+ pound man from the “crowd” onto the apron like a loose sack of crap:

I want to see Keith Lee wrestle Drake Maverick, just to see how far he could throw him. I bet he could hit the lights with a Spirit Bomb. Lee wins this one by fending off a shot from Priest’s night stick — when Lee caught it Priest really could’ve just let go with one hand and smashed him in the face with the stick with the other, but it’s a good visual — and wins with a pair of “Spirit Bombs” that are just normal powerbombs. I don’t think it’s a Spirit Bomb unless you Last Ride them up, sit out, and bounce the motherfucker.

As a reminder, Keith Lee should remain North American Champion forever, or until he decides he should be NXT Champion proper, whichever comes first.

Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week

Dave M J

So why should I boo Johnny Gargano basically being a teenage girl watching a boy band when Candice is murdering ladies again?

SexCauldron

Sindel variant Candice reminds me of when MC Hammer started dressing as a gangsta rapper

Birdman

Looks like Swerve hit Fantasma with a…

*Puts sunglasses on*

Kill shot

troi

Shane Thorne vs Dexter Lumis winner gets to be thrown off a building in a Schwarzenegger movie

Mac&CheeseMainEvent

*Triple H talks to NXT locker room before the show*

Triple H: “Hey guys, I know these are hard times going on here but I just want to make sure you all stay safe and healthy and if there is anything you are concerned about let me know.”

Tony Nese: “Any idea about these luchadors randomly abducting people and then never hearing back from where they went?”

Triple H: “As I said it is surreal times, now if you excuse me I have to help put a ring on top of the WWE headquarters.”

Caz

“tope from the Gates of Hell!” – Mauro with the nod to LU, and that’s whats I appreciates abouts him

FeltLuke

It’s only a matter of time before Candace, Dakota, and Raquel form a mean girl stable.

LUNI_TUNZ

Who does Drake Maverick think he is? Sarah Logan?

EvilDucky

I don’t ever want to hear Dexter Lumis speak. He should be a silent monster for his entire career

Taylor Swish

Thanks Mia. At least someone in Florida knows how to wear a face covering.

That’s it for this week’s Best and Worst of NXT. We’re not sure you ever actually read this part or do what we ask (or if you even scroll down through the top 10 comments of the week), but hey, it would really help us if you commented down below and shared the column if you liked or laughed at anything. The world’s tough, and that makes this kind of thing a lot easier.

Join us here next week for [vaguely gestures].

On May 2, 1995, two events that would prove to be noteworthy parts of indie music history happened: Yo La Tengo released their album Electr-o-pura, and coincidentally, Lucy Dacus was born on the exact same day. Matador is gearing up to re-release the album for its 25th anniversary (on September 4), so they tapped Lucy Dacus (who is also signed to Matador) to cover the album’s penultimate track, “Tom Courtenay,” taking the song in a more intimate direction than the original.

In addition to her cover, Dacus also penned a lengthy essay about the album. In it, she explains her history with “Tom Courtenay,” saying of the song, “‘Tom Courtenay’ was the first Yo La Tengo song I learned on guitar. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew who Julie Christie was and loved the line, ‘As the music swells somehow stronger from adversity / our hero finds his inner peace.’ I didn’t know what the needle had to do with anything, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was like any good poem, leaving space for me, between images. Now, I think the song may be about obsession with media, equating the allure of the movies and movie stars to drug addiction. Who knows, that’s just my take.”

Watch Dacus perform her cover above, and read her essay below.

“I was born on May 2, 1995, the day that Electr-o-pura came out.

Fourteen years later, I started high school and made a new friend who wore a leather jacket and boots, who expressed confident opinions about music that I had never heard. I devoured every recommendation they gave me in an effort to align my tastes. I wanted to be cool, or at least not uncool. I found out about The Stooges, Philip Glass, and Sonic Youth through my effort to win their approval. I loved it all, and my parents hated every new discovery. Cool was loud.

One day my friend brought me a stack of CDs, all Yo La Tengo, and told me to take them home, listen to them, burn them, and return them. I did what I was told. I liked those records from the start, and more with every listen. I’d lay in bed listening to one of their records, pause the song I was listening to when I got too tired, then push play upon waking.

I remember my confusion upon listening to Electr-o-pura for the first time. I referenced the tracklist on the back of the CD so I could learn titles, but the printed song durations didn’t match up to what I was hearing. I wondered if there was some manufacturing error and I wasn’t hearing the songs I was supposed to hear. ‘Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)’ is listed as lasting just over three minutes when it’s actually 6:42. ‘Blue Line Swinger’ says it’s 3:15, but actually clocks in at 9:18. I know now from looking into it that Yo La Tengo intentionally misprinted the times, trying to combat short attention spans, hoping they would trick people into giving those long songs a chance. It tricked me, though I’m a sucker for long songs anyways. It’s interesting to think about how this move couldn’t be pulled today in a world of digitized music. And if people had short attention spans then, how short are they now? All to say, I liked that they were playful.

What kept me coming back to Yo La Tengo was their understanding of moods. I listened to bands that knew anger, bands that knew sadness, but I didn’t know of any other bands that could express a full life’s range of moods the way they can. From song to song, the music was anxious, celebratory, sorrowful, content, confused, etc. And even when they got loud or dissonant, it never felt hostile. The sounds could be harsh, even ugly, but they were joyful. Some songs could make me cry, but they were gentle, not malevolent. I was taking on someone else’s tastes, and in the process, discovering my own.

‘Tom Courtenay’ was the first Yo La Tengo song I learned on guitar. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew who Julie Christie was and loved the line, ‘As the music swells somehow stronger from adversity / our hero finds his inner peace.’ I didn’t know what the needle had to do with anything, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was like any good poem, leaving space for me, between images. Now, I think the song may be about obsession with media, equating the allure of the movies and movie stars to drug addiction. Who knows, that’s just my take.

Eventually when Matador asked to sign me, the fact that Yo La Tengo is on their roster was a major component of my decision. They’ve been putting out great albums every couple of years for over three decades, experimenting and exploring with what seems to be an uncompromised creativity. That is worth celebrating, especially now, when any opportunity for celebration is a blessing. Happy 25th birthday to Electr-o-pura, and thanks for the music, Yo La Tengo.”

The Electr-o-pura rerelease is out 9/4 via Matador. Pre-order it here.

Tory Lanez hasn’t let the coronavirus outbreak stop him from building his following. For the past month, he’s utilized the power of social media to keep his name buzzing with his Quarantine Radio livestreams on Instagram, which boosted his barely-promoted mixtape, The New Toronto 3 to No. 1 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart the week of its release. Now, he’s taking the show on the road — figuratively speaking — by joining the growing number of stars who have livestreamed their performances during the quarantine with his Social Distancing Tour.

Tory posted a whole trailer featuring clips from previous live shows to promote the “tour,” complete with stage dives, balcony climbing, and phone screens lit up (remember when it used to be cigarette lighters?) to convey the high-energy vibe of his live concerts. How he’ll translate that to a livestream remains to be seen, but thanks to partner app Big Room, it’s likely he’ll have a bit more production value than the average living room concert. Naturally, Tory plans on conducting a live chat during the concert as well, because that may be the main draw of his livestreams on Instagram and he knows it.

The Social Distancing Tour will livestream on YouTube Friday, May 1 at 4pm PT / 7pm ET / 12am BST.