The Vancouver Titans have had a rather tumultuous season so far in the Overwatch League. Despite reaching the Grand Finals last season in dominant fashion they’ve been plagued with challenges to start their 2020 campaign. No team appears to have been impacted more by the switch to an online only environment than the Titans with the team moving to the Asian division of Overwatch League to try and allow players to compete from their homes in South Korea.
However, there were reports that many of the Titans players were unhappy with management throughout this process and rumors that the entire Grand Finals roster could leave if something didn’t change. On Wednesday the Titans made a decision regarding these rumors and put out a statement. It was as many feared. The Titans roster is undergoing a complete overhaul.
With the organization unable to meet the players expectations in Korea, and after much deliberation and conversation with the players, the difficult decision was made to move the team back to the North American division and both the players and management agreed that finding a new home for the players would be in everyone’s best interest.
The following players/staff have since agreed to mutually part ways with the team:
HyoJong “HakSal” Kim
Minsoo “Seominsoo” Seo
Seongjun “Slime” Kim
Chunghee “Stitch” Lee
Juseok “Twilight” Lee
JeHong “RyuJeHong” Yu
Yangwon “Yang1” Kweon (coach)
Jae Hong “Andante” Hwang (coach)
The team has also released Chan Hyeong “Fissure” Baek.
From all of us at the Vancouver Titans organization, we would like to thank these players and coaches for the positive memories we’ve had, of course highlighted with an appearance in the Overwatch League Grand Finals in our first season. These players were able to leave a lasting impression on fans from around the world. We wish them all the best as they move on in their careers.
This is extremely unfortunate. The Titans had the potential to be one of the best teams in Overwatch League with this roster and it really does feel like this is only happening due to circumstances out of everyone’s control. The miscommunication issues that the Titans and the players are having is largely due to the players being in Korea and the team being based in Vancouver. Obviously even in an online based eSport there are still going to be challenges when you have to deal with such as timezones and the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic effecting everywhere differently. Hopefully, this does end up being the best result for everyone.
These are all extremely talented players and I expect to see most if not all of them on rosters again. Maybe even within this season. The Titans, on the other hand, have a difficult task ahead of them. They need to re-create their entire roster and quick now that they’ve moved back over to the North American division. Putting together a team that can compete at an elite level while also accounting for team chemistry and fit is going to be quite a task. Let’s see if they can pull it off.
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Kamasi Washington announced that he played a big role in Michelle Obama’s new documentary: He scored the entirety of Obama’s Netflix film, Becoming. Washington’s score will also be released in soundtrack form, on May 15.
In a statement, Washington gushed over the opportunity to work with Obama:
“It was such a pleasure and honor to work on Becoming. Michelle Obama is such an amazing person and this film gives a very unique insight to who she is, how she thinks, and the way she navigates the world. It’s truly inspiring to see! Working with the film’s incredible director Nadia Hallgren to create a musical palette to support this amazing piece was truly a blessing. I’m so thankful to her for the opportunity to be a part of this. Barack and Michelle Obama’s time as President and First Lady had an impact on the history of this country and the world that is hard to put into words, but both Michelle Obama’s book and Nadia Hallgren’s film do an amazing job of it!”
“Working with Kamasi Washington on the musical score for Becoming was a dream come true. Not only is Kamasi a masterful musician, he also has a unique sensitivity that he pours into his music. His music reaches deeply into your soul. Mrs. Obama loves music, and when I read the line in her book ‘And heaven, as I envisioned it, had to be a place full of jazz,’ I knew immediately Kamasi was the artist that could interpret her experience musically. His sound is contemporary and timeless, a magical fit to her story.”
Becoming offers a rare and intimate look into the life of Michelle Obama. The film follows the former First Lady as she makes a 34-city tour across the country that highlights the power of community and diversity.
Watch the Becoming trailer above.
Becoming (Music From The Netflix Original Documentary) is out 5/15 via Young Turks. Pre-order it here.
When not beefing with wrestler Goldberg (“Goldberg… woof”), Macaulay Culkin is preparing to star in the latest season of American Horror Story. It was an unlikely, if welcome casting choice from creator Ryan Murphy, as the Home Alone star has only appeared in a handful of projects over the past decade (he was too busy writing pizza-themed Velvet Underground songs). What made Culkin agree to sign up?
Why, having “crazy, erotic sex” with Kathy Bates, of course.
“So, I have this very, very great insane part. And I asked to speak to him on the phone and he said OK,” Murphy told E! Online. “[When] I cast, I never let people read things, usually. I said, ‘OK, here’s the pitch.’ And I told them the character and I told him he has crazy, erotic sex with Kathy Bates and does other things. And he paused and he goes, ‘This sounds like the role I was born to play.’ So, he signed up right then and there.”
That’s also how Failure to Launchgot Terry Bradshaw. But can Culkin, who Murphy also called “fascinating and interesting,” top the Hall of Fame quarterback’s natural on-screen charisma? We’ll find out when American Horror Story season 10 (eventually) premieres.
While college campuses grapple with how best to invite students and faculty back for the fall semester, college football is low on the list of priorities. After all, the athletes have to be able to live and learn on campus in order to represent their schools on the football field — lest you forget the NCAA’s insistence they are student athletes and not employees. Yet in a new survey at The Athletic of several conference commissioners, Andy Staples and Stewart Mandel uncovered optimism that football could come back without the participation of every school.
After a precious few weeks where every state operated under the same guidelines, the United States is moving toward a summer and fall with scattered local regulations that differ from state to state. That means a conference like the ACC, which stretches from New York (not close to a full “reopening”) to South Carolina (already on its way there), will have trouble making decisions for all its member schools at once.
“We’re in 10 states. Theoretically, we could have half of our schools being allowed to play at a certain point and the other half not being allowed to play,” ACC commissioner John Swofford told The Athletic. “Hopefully, it won’t turn out that way, but it could in any combination of play and not play. Then we would have some decisions, as any conference would.”
The AAC is in a similarly polarized situation with regard to the geography of its schools, as Tulane resides in the heart of an epicenter while other schools are in regions with very little struggle with the virus.
“We’re going to have a long discussion with our ADs about this, but the sense I’m getting is that we would play if the vast majority of our teams could play,” AAC commissioner Mike Aresco said. “If maybe there was a team or two that couldn’t, I don’t think the teams that couldn’t play would want to hold back the entire group.”
While it would be incredibly bizarre to have some schools shepherd athletes back to school in an effort to subsidize the rest of their conference and the college football industry, the fact that commissioners are open to it shows it may be more likely than logic would indicate.
However, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott threw some ice on these possibilities: “We’re all members of the College Football Playoff, and if we’re going to have a Playoff at the end of the season, we need to have uniformity on how we have a season.”
It would certainly ruffle the feathers of, say, Washington if their local leaders’ aggressiveness in fighting the pandemic resulted in not being able to participate in the season. Despite what other commissioners say, in practice the idea seems far-fetched.
The logistics do not favor the expeditious return of college football, either. Swofford told The Athletic that athletes would need to return to campus by mid-July in order to pull off some semblance of a 2020 college football season. On the other hand, many schools are worried about whether they will have procedures and technology in place to bring any students back when the semester begins in August.
Said Swofford: “If an institution is not operating at all from an academic standpoint in some way shape or form, it seems foreign to me that there would be athletic contests going on involving that athletic institution’s teams. But I think there can be different definitions of what a campus being open might mean given these circumstances.”
At this point, there are a lot of perspectives, some with more urgency than others, but like anything in this crisis, very little clarity, let alone certainty.
Donovan Mitchell, Breanna Stewart, and Aaron Judge are among the dozens of pro athletes banding together to help #TheRealHeroes by sending out personalized messages to front-line health workers and dedicating their jerseys and uniforms to a real-life health-care hero.
The effort begins on May 6 when athletes will begin to share messages on social media customized to their chosen health-care worker. Other superstar athletes involved range from Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka of the WTA, to Drew Brees, to NHL legend Wayne Gretzky.
Here’s one of the videos, featuring Mitchell, who famously had the virus but has since recovered.
Without American sports providing a respite for front-line workers fighting the battle against the coronavirus, these athletes are reaching out to individuals in need of support at a dire time. Athletes will take their own jerseys or uniforms and replace their own name with that of their chosen hero, a nod to the fact that at a time like this, these folks are the ones who matter, despite not necessarily getting the individualized attention that we devote to celebrities and athletes.
Nurses, doctors, surgeons and emergency caregivers do not get to wear jerseys. Their work is not broadcast on television. They can be the invisible soldiers of this battle, so athletes from just about every major sports league in America are coming together to shine a light on these people that their efforts might be highlighted the right way.
If a hip-hop fan chose to argue that Eminem is the best rapper of all time, they would certainly have a strong case. Naturally, Eminem, who has been a prominent member of the hip-hop community for decades now, has his own thoughts on that debate. More specifically, he recently revealed which rapper he believes just may be “the greatest songwriter” ever.
Eminem has been hosting a SiriusXM show where he brings his “Music To Be Quarantined By” playlist on the air. On a recent broadcast, he was introducing Tupac’s song “If I Die Tonight,” and he said of the rap legend:
“This next song is from an artist I feel like might be the greatest songwriter of all time. Debate what you want about emcee skills and all that, because he had that, too. But this is one of them songs by Tupac that, to me, he was showing you, ‘I can write heartfelt sh*t and I can write lyrical crazy sh*t, too.’
‘They say p*ssy and paper is poetry, power and pistols. Plottin’ on murdering muthaf*ckas ‘fore they get you.’ Like, the play on the P-words and all that sh*t and how he was doing it was so crazy. Mixed with the feel that Tupac could give you, which is constantly why I feel like he was always saying, ‘Can you feel me?!’ Because you felt ‘Pac. You can’t just listen to ‘Pac: You feel ‘Pac. If you listen to him, you gon’ feel him. But anyways, this is Tupac, ‘If I Die Tonight.’”
After watching his version of the Fantastic Four epically bomb in 2015, followed by the very public loss of directing a Boba Fett movie for the Disney-acquired Lucasfilm, Josh Trank is back with the Tom Hardy-starring Capone, but the road between his fantastic flop and working with one of the top actors in Hollywood wasn’t an easy one.
In a lengthy interview with Polygon that took place over four years, Trank speaks candidly about what it was like going from the critical acclaim of his debut film Chronicle to watching a major blockbuster spiral out of control on his watch as it wreaked havoc on his professional and personal life. While gallons of digital ink have been spilled on Fantastic Four‘s doomed production, what hasn’t been written about is the emotional pressure Trank was under while dealing with Fox executives, a crumbling marriage, and death threats that forced the director to sleep with a gun next to his bed.
Thanks to his clout from Chronicle, Trank was able to secure the casting of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm with no questions asked from Fox. Unfortunately, close-minded comic book fans were not happy to learn that the classic character would be played by an African-American actor, and Trank soon found himself on the receiving end of several death threats. It should probably be noted that throughout the interview, Trank admits to a problem with obsessively reading online reactions to the detriment of his mental health, and this situation certainly didn’t help.
“I was getting threats on IMDb message boards saying they were going to shoot me,” Trank said. To find some level of ease, the director kept a loaded .38 Special on his nightstand.
“I was so fucking paranoid during that shoot,” said Trank. “If someone came into my house, I would have ended their f*cking life. When you’re in a head space where people want to get you, you think, ‘I’m going to defend myself.’” Trank returned the gun after wrapping production.
In the midst of Fantastic Four‘s troubled production in 2014, Trank was also secretly navigating a second job with Lucasfilm, who he had met with shortly after his success with Chronicle. Now that it was under the control of Disney, Lucasfilm was ready to move forward with new Star Wars movies and reached out to Trank, who pitched the studio on a standalone Boba Fett movie. Before he knew it, Kathleen Kennedy was announcing him as part of the Star Wars family. Within a year, Trank would be out the door once word got out that Fantastic Four was falling apart.
No one had seen the cut of Fantastic Four that would arrive in theaters (including Trank), but the he-said-she-said dispute was enough to shake her confidence. Trank said he and Kennedy agreed that the director should sit out his scheduled appearance at the 2015 Star Wars Celebration in April, but even then, he couldn’t pick the conversation back up. Fantastic Four, the Star Wars spinoff that wasn’t, all the other development deals — they were the end of something. Shortly after bowing out of the convention over a case of the “worst flu of my life,” as he tweeted, Trank told his managers he wouldn’t do Star Wars and wouldn’t look for more blockbuster work. Days later, the trades announced that the director was “fired” off his Star Wars movie.
To be clear, while Trank technically quit Star Wars, he’s also very upfront in saying he did it because he knew he was going to be fired. The writing was on the wall. But after years in what he refuses to call “Movie Jail,” he managed to build a rapport with Hardy and convince him to star in Capone, which focuses on the less glamorous later years of the gangster’s life. And in a Star Wars twist, the film has already received the approval of Rian Johnson who calls it “batshit bonkers in the best possible way.”
We’re still pretty far off from the day when we can all hop on international flights and return to carefree traveling, but nothing is going to stop us from dreaming about all the places we plan on going in the near(ish) future. Social distancing and safety measures will likely change the destinations many of us choose when planning trips, but if you like food, beer, or partying, one of the first stops on your post-coronavirus world tour has got to be Berlin. If it was good enough for David Bowie and Iggy Pop, it’s good enough for you.
It’s also good enough for hip-hop legend R.A. the Rugged Man. R.A., known worldwide as one of the rap game’s most fascinating characters, has called Berlin home for the past half-decade and might be the only person who knows it as well as our own Zach Johnston. The rapper also just recently dropped an album, All My Heroes Are Dead, on April 30. The spaghetti-Western themed project sports a star-studded lineup — including features by Ghostface Killah, Atmosphere, Ice-T, Brand Nubian, and Onyx — and honors the lyrical greats of hip-hop’s past.
Give it a spin while you check out the best Berlin has to offer according to R.A. The Rugged Man.
Berlin is known for its eclectic music scene and nightlife, what are some of the best clubs for catching live music?
Musik & Frieden always has good hip-hop artists. Also, Cassiopeia has been doing hip-hop shows forever and that’s actually surrounded by walls and a street of incredible graffiti. Berlin has a lot of hip-hop legends or underground kings on the regular. They appreciate the legends more in Europe than they do in the US.
Best place to grab an after-party late-night bite?
Anywhere that serves Turkish Kebabs
Usually, folks just hit up a Turkish kebab spot after a late night. They’re open all night or mad late and all the drunk people go and stuff their faces.
The best brunch is probably at Eierschale Dahlem, it’s an ill buffet with everything. The mother of my kids takes me and the babies there and its beautiful place, great food, live music always a good time.
Where in Berlin can we catch some delicious street food?
Hit up the Curry Wurst stands
I’m not a huge fan of it but the Germans love their damn currywurst. I guess if you’re trying to experiment and learn foods of different cultures hit one up. And then get it with French fries smothered in mayonnaise and ketchup, that’s how they do it out here.
One spot I loved when I was out with a friend recently was called Velvet. She told me to meet her there and the place distilled a fucking Christmas tree. I was curious so I tried it and it tasted incredible so I drank the fuck out of that Christmas tree all night and got fucked up.
What is one thing everyone should experience in Berlin?
Well most people like the wild nightlife and crazy sex and drugs and parties but, I’m an old man nerd nowadays, so there’s a film museum that has the entire history of German Cinema it’s over in Potsdamer Platz which is a cool little area with restaurants and couple spots.
Which neighborhood should you absolutely visit?
Kreuzberg
Berlin is so big. It depends on what you’re looking for, but most of the artsy people like to hang out in Kreuzberg.
What inspires you about Berlin?
Family
My two kids live here. They’re probably the only things that inspire me at all in this fucked up world.
Grill Royale is one of my favorite spots for steak and seafood and just to chill and relax next to the water. Always interesting people there too. One time Nena — who had that giant ’80s song “99 Luftballons” — was chilling there and invited us to kick it at her table with all the members of Blondie and Debbie Harry sitting next to me. That was a fun night.
What are some of your favorite things to do in Berlin when you have free time?
Catch a film
Like I said I’m a film nerd and Berlin has awesome movie stuff going on all the time. Some time they screen classic silent movies like The Golem or F.W. Murnau’s Faust or Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and they get full live orchestras to score the entire films live. Pretty incredible.
Somehow, there are still people in the world with the nerve to tell Rico Nasty to “tone it down.” It’s almost like those people don’t know that Rico’s loudness — in her personality, her looks, and her music — are the exact reason she’s popping right now. Her brash ferocity is a feature, not a bug, and it’s one that has made her Cardi B’s favorite, a lightning rod around which rebels and oddballs can congregate, and one of the freshest acts on offer in the hip-hop game today.
Fortunately, Rico doesn’t take the protestations of brands and sponsors personally, choosing to see their caveats as a chance to show off even more sides of her colorful, multifaceted personality. Doubling down on that good fortune, some brands are encouraging her to be as loud as she wants to be. For instance, the headphone manufacturer Skullcandy recently recruited Rico for its second partnership with the rambunctious rapper to promote its Mood Boost campaign, the proceeds of which are being donated to a mental health non-profit.
Rico — an Uproxx favorite if ever there was one — jumped on the phone to talk about not just the campaign, but life in quarantine, sticking up for her sisters in hip-hop, and her upcoming debut album, Nightmare Vacation, which has evolved to suit the circumstances, reflecting its creator’s ever-shifting but always authentic personality.
So what can you tell me about this initiative with Skullcandy?
I just love the way they let me be myself. I feel like throughout the campaign, they let me wear whatever I want to, they let me have my hair and my makeup just very Rico Nasty. And I do get requests to tone it down sometimes. So it’s really awesome when you get to go to a place and you know creatively can do whatever the f*ck you want.
But what I can say about this new one that we did this year was, the colors… it was so many different colors, and you guys know this about me, I love f*cking colors. I love neon colors. So when they were showing me all the different earbuds, all the different sh*t that they made, I just felt really involved in it.
That’s great. Who are these people who are specifically signing up to do work with Rico Nasty and asking you to tone it down?
I feel like when you’re a woman, you might have to deal with that more often than men. I tend to be very bold. I make a lot of bold statements. So when I said, “Tone it down,” it probably means like you want to see pastels. We want to see bright eye makeup, we don’t want to see black lines and sh*t like that. I really take it to heart, because I like when people want me to push the way I look. I think it’s cool.
I was on that Zoom call that we did a couple weeks ago about “Popstar.” I think that it was interesting that you said was that you’re learning to cook something new every day. What kind of things are you learning to cook?
So last night, I made turkey wings. Well, my best friend taught me how to make turkey wings. My best friend, she’s the one that would be cheffing it up. I’m good with pastas and stuff, but she knows how to cook real meat. She knows how to cook steak. All the real important type sh*t. So that’s what we did last night. And I felt like every day we’ve just been trying to do something that we don’t know how to do. Like we did baked mac and cheese and it came out pretty good, which was rare because baked mac and cheese is hard to make. Because I’m working on trying to gain weight, we’ve also just been working on meal prep. So it’s not necessarily been I don’t know how to cook. I know how to cook. I’m just lazy.
What’s the latest on Nightmare Vacation? I know you said it was pretty much done, but now you know, it’s more in flux. It’s like a painting and it’s never finished.
Coronavirus, it might have inspired me to actually do what I always wanted to do with the album, which was make it very virtual.
I’m not going to say too much about that, but just I will leave you with that. I always wanted my album to be similar to a simulation, VR. If you get my drift, like as far as the visuals go and sh*t like that. [Right now] you can’t touch me, you can’t come to the show. So that’s what we’re developing right now is giving them that opportunity to really damn near be in the same room as me. No holograms, weird sh*t like that. But some high tech sh*t.
Absolutely. Technology has made things possible that weren’t possible before. For instance, the “Popstar” video, you made that in your basement on a green screen with a designer that you had no physical contact with. 20 years ago, they couldn’t even imagine such a thing happening and now it’s like, “Oh yeah, let’s do it.”
Yeah, it really went from, “Okay, wow, we have Uber. We have video chat and all that cool sh*t,” to now the connection is literally so good that not only was he not here when we were shooting “Popstar,” but he was on FaceTime when we were shooting it and it’s going at the same rate, so he’s able to say “cut.”
That’s fire. Another fun bit of technology is that we have Netflix and that’s keeping us all entertained. I know you loved Tiger King because of the mullets.
Oh my f*cking God. You know what, Tiger King is one of them shows that I hate that I love it. I’m mad at myself that I like that show.
Why? Everybody loves it.
Everybody loves it, right? But I feel like I didn’t… This might be some weird sh*t to say, but I feel like I didn’t walk away with the same message that everyone else walked away with.
And I’m going to let you ask me why.
What was the message you got that everybody might have missed?
I feel like this is going to sound really f*cking crazy, but I’m trying to buy a tiger. Because I can afford that now.
Oh no, don’t buy a tiger, Rico.
Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know. I believe you. I know, I know. But hear me out though.
It sounds cool.
It’s so cute. It sounds great. It sounds great initially. Me and my friends have gone through this like several times. They’re like, “Where are you going to keep it when it gets big?” And I’m like, “You know, if you don’t think Cardi B and Offset can afford a tiger and pay for land to raise it?” Because they can.
Yes. Only thing is, they can eat your arm.
You know what it is though? Imagine you really do love this animal. Swae Lee, they took his monkey. And all the videos I saw of him and that monkey, I feel like he genuinely loved that. And that’s not even the most f*cked-up part about it too. It’s really a relationship with the animal. Like somebody comes and knocks on your door. They’re like, “You can’t f*cking have this.” And that’s like your best friend. That’s scary.
But yeah you cooled me off, I might not get a tiger.
I’m from Compton so there’s a lot of horses around, so I know that once you start getting the bigger animals, the more complicated it becomes to take care of. And a lot of people just don’t have like the time it takes to really put in work. But it’s funny that you mentioned Cardi because I was actually going to ask you about Cardi. I wrote a whole thing about how Cardi may end up being the next Drake in terms of who she puts her blessing on is the next one to blow up. You know, when Cardi was coming in, everybody was comparing her to Nicki, saying, “Aw, you know they got to have beef.” You’re coming in and it’s like Cardi is going, “Nah, I don’t want to have beef with Rico. I want Rico to blow up.”
I can honestly say that when it comes to like the OGs in the female rap, there ain’t none of them ever make me feel like I ain’t belonged, on the competitive sh*t. I think I sat next to Lil’ Kim. She sat in front of me at the Savage X Fenty show and I introduced myself. And Trina is f*cking awesome. A lot of the women that have been doing this sh*t for a while have been awesome. Cardi’s awesome. Nicki’s awesome.
But when you walk in a room and you see legends, you f*cking speak right. Show respect and homage. We’ve seen what happens when you don’t pay homage, you don’t pay respect, and it really looks deliberately done, it looks hella disrespectful. These women work hard as f*ck. And just getting in the game, touring and having a family and having all the sh*t you have to do… Because I feel like that’s part of being a female too. We love when people acknowledge the cool sh*t we do. So I just try to go along putting the energy out and I feel like I genuinely get it back most of the time.
Like with the Birds Of Prey soundtrack. Everybody was yelling at Saweetie over the styling of the “Sway With Me” video.
They were so mad.
She probably had zero input on any of that stuff, but they were mad at her and they were talking down to her and then you stepped in and you were just like, “No, absolutely not. We’re not going to do that today. Let’s talk about something positive.” Where did that willingness to step in and cut things off come from? Why do you think people are still going so hard on trying to create friction when you all are trying to create a wave?
When you’re a pretty girl, and now I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about “we.” We are a pretty girl. People always think you’re a bitch. It’s not even funny how many people probably think Saweetie is a bitch and she’s rude and she’s a snobby person and all that sh*t. And I just don’t see that. I don’t see that from that girl. I feel like she went to the shoot and they put on whatever they had there and she was like, “Okay, okay this is a look.” And a look is a look.
Shout out to Saweetie for not being one of them people that was like, just a smartass or rude about it? Bro, it’s fashion. It’s just clothes and hair.
You’ve always addressed mental health in some way, shape, form, or fashion throughout your music. I mean, whether it’s “Smack A Bitch” or Anger Management, that’s mental health. Why do you think it’s so important for hip-hop and yourself to address that topic?
I feel like I just have a brain. I have a brain so mental health is important to me if my brain doesn’t feel good, then I don’t feel good and then nobody’s going to feel good. You have to be mindful that normally because you have a brain, you attract other people that have a brain and they might need their brain stimulated or their emotions acknowledged. And being a rapper, sometimes we get so caught up in how cool you are that you kind of forget to acknowledge the sh*t that other people might go through. So “Smack A Bitch” or Anger Management, I was going through a lot, getting frustrated about stuff, and feeling like I had to hide it.
I can’t get as mad. If I get mad how I want to get mad, I’m going to look “crazy.” I’m going to look bad, I’m going to look “ratchet.” I’m going to look like stupid f*cking stigmas that people put on you. And making that project was really important. I didn’t give a f*ck if people thought I was angry, I didn’t give a f*ck if people thought I was too loud. I don’t give a f*ck. This is how I feel. And it’s f*cking relative. Who don’t want to smack a bitch? Who don’t?
Rico Nasty is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The Class of 2020 has to feel massively let down this time of year. After working so hard to reach the finish line, most won’t be able to attend a public graduation ceremony. They’ll also miss out on traditional graduation events such as prom, banquets, senior ditch day, and baccalaureate.
“I’m saddened by the loss of milestone events, prom & graduation,” Lincoln wrote. “In an unprecedented time, it would give us great comfort to hear your voice. We ask you to consider giving a national commencement speech to the class of 2020.”
Then he started the hashtag #ObamaCommencement2020 .
Hi @BarackObama! Like most high school/college seniors, I’m saddened by the loss of milestone events, prom & graduation. In an unprecedented time, it would give us great comfort to hear your voice. We ask you to consider giving a national commencement speech to the class of 2020. — Lincoln (@lincolnjackd) April 15, 2020
This created a groundswell on social media for Barack and Michelle Obama to deliver commencement speeches. Who better to send the Class of 2020 out into the real world? According to Gallup, the Obamas are the most admired man and woman in the world.
If @BarackObama gave a commencement speech to all the high school/college graduating seniors, it would be the most viewed live-stream event in history.
Well, it looks like Lincoln and countless other graduates are going to get their wish.
The Obamas are set to deliver a virtual commencement celebration for graduates from high school, university or “any other kind of school,” Michelle Obama tweeted Tuesday. The special will take place on YouTube on June 6, 2020, and is called “Dear Class of 2020.”
The special will also feature appearances by Lady Gaga, BTS, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and activist Malala Yousafzai.
“I’ve always loved joining commencements––the culmination of years of hard work and sacrifice,” Barack Obama wrote on Twitter. “Even if we can’t get together in person this year, Michelle and I are excited to celebrate the nationwide Class of 2020 and recognize this milestone with you and your loved ones.”
I’ve always loved joining commencements––the culmination of years of hard work and sacrifice. Even if we can’t get together in person this year, Michelle and I are excited to celebrate the nationwide Class of 2020 and recognize this milestone with you and your loved ones. pic.twitter.com/ngR2ykx3A2 — Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 5, 2020
In addition to the YouTube special, Barack Obama will deliver a virtual commencement speech for graduates from historically black colleges and universities as well. On May 16, he will also appear on a television special for high school graduates that will air across the major TV networks.
Lincoln was understandably excited to hear the announcement.
There hasn’t been similar clamoring from graduates to hear from the current president. A search of #TrumpCommencement2020 yields about five people who think Trump should speak to the graduating class.
Hi @realDonaldTrump! Like most college seniors, we are saddened by the loss of milestone events such as graduation. In an unprecedented time, we ask you to consider giving a national commencement speech to the class of 2020 #trumpcommencement2020 — Albion College Republicans (@albioncolleger1) April 16, 2020
As Barack Obama said on Twitter he is pretty fond of giving commencement speeches. Here’s one from Rutgers in 2016 where he gave some advice that’s just as good in 2020.
President Obama Delivers the Rutgers University Commencement Address
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