Lil Baby joins an anti-police brutality protest in the video for his defiant new anthem, “Bigger Picture.” The Atlanta rapper’s new video takes a close-up look at the people leading the protests, as he pleads “we gotta start somewhere” if changes are to be made. The lyrics speak to not only the current backlash against police brutality sweeping the nation’s streets, social channels, and news broadcasts but also to the state that caused things to get to such a point:

I gave ’em chance and chance and chance again, I even done told them please
I find it crazy the police’ll shoot you and know that you dead, but still tell you to freeze
F*cked up, I seen what I seen
I guess that mean hold him down if he say he can’t breathe

The video documents Lil Baby as he marches with people wearing “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts, flashing scenes of the peaceful protests which have dominated the on-the-ground experience with news broadcasts which instead focus on fires, looting, and destruction of property.

Lil Baby is the latest rapper to create a video about the protests, which have also been centered in the videos for YG’s “FTP” and “Pig Feet” by Denzel Curry, Daylyt, G Perico, Terrace Martin, and Kamasi Washington.

Watch Lil Baby’s “Bigger Picture” video above.

Almost everything music-related has been canceled or postponed in recent months, but the BET Awards are still on the way: The ceremony is set to air on June 28 (for the first time, on CBS). Ahead of then, the full list of award nominees has been released.

Drake leads the pack with his six nominations, for Best Male Hip-Hop Artist, Video Of The Year, and two nominations each for Best Collaboration and Viewer’s Choice, for his collaborations with Future (“Life Is Good”) and Chris Brown (“No Guidance”). Right behind him are Megan Thee Stallion and Roddy Ricch, who each earned five nominations. Also earning four nominations each are Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, Lizzo, DaBaby, and Brown.

Check out the full list of nominations below.

Best Female R&B/Pop Artist
Beyonce
HER
Jhene Aiko
Kehlani
Lizzo
Summer Walker

Best Male R&B/Pop Artist
Anderson .Paak
Chris Brown
Jacquees
Khalid
The Weeknd
Usher

Best Group
Chloe X Halle
City Girls
Earthgang
Griselda
Jackboys
Migos

Best Collaboration
Chris Brown Feat. Drake — “No Guidance”
DJ Khaled Feat. Nipsey Hussle & John Legend — “Higher”
Future Feat. Drake — “Life Is Good”
HER Feat. YG — “Slide”
Megan Thee Stallion Feat. Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla SIgn — “Hot Girl Summer”
Wale Feat. Jeremih — “On Chill”

Best Male Hip Hop Artist
DaBaby
Drake
Future
Lil Baby
Roddy Ricch
Travis Scott

Best Female Hip Hop Artist
Cardi B
Doja Cat
Lizzo
Megan Thee Stallion
Nicki Minaj
Saweetie

Video Of The Year
Chris Brown Feat. Drake — “No Guidance”
DaBaby — “Bop”
DJ Khaled Feat. Nipsey Hussle and John Legend — “Higher”
Doja Cat — “Say So”
Megan Thee Stallion Feat. Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $Ign — “Hot Girl Summer”
Roddy Ricch — “The Box”

Video Director Of The Year
Benny Boom
Cole Bennett
Dave Meyers
Director X
Eif Rivera
Teyana “Spike Tee” Taylor

Best New Artist
Danileigh
Lil Nas X
Pop Smoke
Roddy Ricch
Summer Walker
YBN Cordae

Album Of The Year
Cuz I Love You — Lizzo
Fever — Megan Thee Stallion
Homecoming: The Live Album — Beyonce
I Used To Know Her — HER
Kirk — DaBaby
Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial — Roddy Ricch

Dr. Bobby Jones Best Gospel/Inspirational Award
Fred Hammond — “Alright”
John P. Kee Feat. Zacardi Cortez — “I Made It Out”
Kanye West — “Follow God”
Kirk Franklin — “Just For Me”
Pj Morton Feat. Le’andria Johnson and Mary Mary — “All In His Plan”
The Clark Sisters — “Victory”

Best Actress
Angela Bassett
Cynthia Erivo
Issa Rae
Regina King
Tracee Ellis Ross
Zendaya

Best Actor
Billy Porter
Eddie Murphy
Forest Whitaker
Jamie Foxx
Michael B. Jordan
Omari Hardwick

Youngstars Award
Alex Hibbert
Asante Blackk
Jahi Di’allo Winston
Marsai Martin
Miles Brown
Storm Reid

Best Movie
Bad Boys For Life
Dolemite Is My Name
Harriet
Homecoming: A Film By Beyonce
Just Mercy
Queen & Slim

Sportswoman Of The Year
Ajeé Wilson
Claressa Shields
Coco Gauff
Naomi Osaka
Serena Williams
Simone Biles

Sportsman Of The Year
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Kawhi Leonard
Lebron James
Odell Beckham Jr.
Patrick Mahomes II
Stephen Curry

BET Her Award
Alicia Keys — “Underdog”
Beyonce Feat. Blue Ivy Carter, Wizkid, and Saint Jhn — “Brown Skin Girl”
Ciara Feat. Lupita Nyong’o, Ester Dean, City Girls & La La — “Melanin”
Layton Greene — “I Choose”
Lizzo Feat. Missy Elliott — “Tempo”
Rapsody Feat. PJ Morton — “Afeni”

Viewer’s Choice Award
Chris Brown Feat. Drake — “No Guidance”
DaBaby — “Bop”
Future Feat. Drake — “Life Is Good”
Megan Thee Stallion Feat. Nicki Minaj — “Hot Girl Summer”
Roddy Ricch — “The Box”
The Weeknd — “Heartless”

Best International Act
Burna Boy (Nigeria)
Innoss’b (Drc)
Sho Madjozi (South Africa)
Dave (UK)
Stormzy (UK)
Ninho (France)
S.Pri Noir (France)

Viewer’s Choice: Best New International Act
Rema (Nigeria)
Sha Sha (Zimbabwe)
Celeste (UK)
Young T & Bugsey (UK)
Hatik (France)
Stacy (France)

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Bradley Whitford has had an interesting career since his break-out role in The West Wing, which ran from 1999 to 2006. Everyone knows him as Josh Lyman from that series, and while he has worked steadily since the White House drama left the air (including Aaron Sorkin’s failed follow-up, Studio on the Sunset Strip), it took several years for Whitford to land another role as visible as The West Wing. He struck out with Good Guys, Happyish, and Trophy Wife — all cancelled after one season — and bounced around in guest TV roles for years, in addition to a starring role on the small cult hit, Cabin in the Woods.

In recent years, however, two roles have resurrected Whitford’s career in a big way: Appearing in the most recent two seasons of Hulu’s Handmaid’s Tale, and his role in Jordan Peele’s brilliant social-commentary disguised as a horror film, Get Out. How, exactly, did Whitford find himself in Peele’s seminal horror film?

“I just thought it would be funny to see Josh Lyman take the top part of someone’s head off,” Jordan Peele joked with Whitford, according to the latter on this week’s Armchair Expert podcast hosted by Dax Shepard. More seriously, however, Whitford’s The West Wing persona did come into play. Peele “was clearly playing on the ‘good’ liberal white dude” trope, Whitford said. “Beware of the good white liberal!” Shepard added.

Told how perfectly Whitford played the role in Get Out, Whitford confessed to Shepard that he was better suited to the role than perhaps he should have been. “Listen. I did not think that ‘I would vote for Obama for a third term’ was a laugh line.” He originally thought the line was serious. In fact, it’s not clear that the line didn’t originate with Whitford himself, as the actor told GQ last year. “Yeah, what’s really funny to me is — I worked on his campaigns. I love Obama. I didn’t even know that was a joke. I don’t know, but I probably said it to Jordan [Peele], without realizing that it’s the whitest thing a person could say.”

Likewise, even as Peele warned him otherwise, Whitford had no idea that Get Out would become the cultural juggernaut that it did. “The script was incredible,” Whitford told Shepard. “But I didn’t know if it was going to work. We were shooting in Alabama, when we were supposed to shoot in L.A. The highest expectation for this thing was that it would be a little smart, arthouse-weirdo horror thing.” Peele, however, kept telling Whitford that it was “really f**king good.” Whitford thought that Peele was saying that because he had to until he saw the first screening of the film at Sundance.

“Man, I had never seen a soufflé rise like that.”

That “soufflé” would go on to earn $255 million on a $4.5 million budget and change the landscape of horror films forever.

Source: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Over the weekend, Eminem updated his list of greatest rappers ever for fans on Twitter, including more recent additions such as Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and Joyner Lucas. The latter — with whom Eminem previously collaborated on the Kamikaze track “Lucky Me” and the aborted, admittedly ill-advised “What If I Was Gay?” — reacted to his addition on Instagram, sharing a post with Eminem’s original tweets and an analogy that compared Eminem to Michael Jordan.

Joyner compared the feeling to being a basketball player given Jordan’s (rare) blessing, writing, “If you played ball and studied Michael Jordan as the greatest and then Michael Jordan name drops you as one of the greatest ball players of all time, that’s how this feels to me.” Lucas, who recently released his debut studio album ADHD in March, is no stranger to receiving high praise from his rap idols, though. His standout single “Will” received the ultimate compliment when its subject, Will Smith, applauded its creative video then appeared on the song’s remix a few weeks later.

Eminem’s updated greatest of all time list received plenty of attention, which could lead to a lot more exposure for Lucas on his next big release, whenever that comes along. The veteran rapper’s co-sign featured heavily into the careers of titans like 50 Cent and Royce Da 5’9, so there’s no telling what effect it could have on Joyner’s future, but one thing is for sure: He’ll have to perform at a high level pretty consistently to live up to the lofty expectations such a co-sign could bring.

Check out Joyner’s reaction to Eminem’s co-sign above.

Back in February — when the world was only focused on a global pandemic and not a global pandemic and nationwide protests — Alicia Keys swung by the NPR offices for a Tiny Desk performance. Not that an Alicia Keys show needs anything extra to make it special, but she spiced up her set by performing a new song for the first time, “Gramercy Park.”

The song, which is set to appear on Keys’ upcoming album Alicia, is about changing to meet people’s expectations and losing yourself along the way. Keys sings on the hook, “I’ve been trying to fulfill you with your every need / Now you’re falling for a person that’s not even me.” She said while introducing the track:

“I love this song so much. It’s called ‘Gramercy Park.’ It’s on the Alicia album, and I love what this songs means. […] A lot of what I’ve been thinking about on my own personal journey is how much we contort and conform and adjust ourselves all the time… with the best of intentions, by the way! It’s from the most beautiful place. We want people to feel us and we want people to know how much we care about them. Somewhere along the line, we kind of lose ourselves in that and maybe can’t find our way back to ourselves, because we’re so concerned about how everybody else feels and we’re so concerned with making other people happy. It’s been definitely something that I’ve personally experienced, and I have a feeling a lot of you might have felt the same way. So this song, ‘Gramercy Park,’ really talks about how that happens.”

Elsewhere in her set, Keys performed “Show Me Love,” “Underdog,” and “Fallin’,” so watch Keys’ full Tiny Desk performance above.

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Our Longest Summer series will look at the eight teams whose seasons are now officially over, and will have to wait until mid-October to make decisions on what’s next and how to proceed after falling short of the cut-off for a continued 2019-20 campaign.

On the heels of a thoroughly puzzling 2019 offseason, the Knicks entered the 2019-20 campaign with mixed expectations. Some believed that New York’s patchwork additions might facilitate substantial improvement, while others feared the worst. When the campaign ended, the results were more to the negative side, with the Knicks posting a 21-45 record and “earning” an omission from the NBA’s planned 22-team restart in Orlando.

Once again, the Knicks enter the 2020 offseason with numerous questions to answer, and with a change in the front office and a new head coach coming in — with the expectation that it’ll be Tom Thibodeau — New York is as difficult to evaluate as any lottery-bound squad. Alas, there are methods to evaluate the madness, and the Knicks do have tangible decisions to make in the coming months.

2020 Free Agents

Bobby Portis (team option), Mo Harkless (UFA), Allonzo Trier (RFA), Damyean Dotson (RFA), Taj Gibson (non-guaranteed), Wayne Ellington (non-guaranteed), Elfrid Payton (non-guaranteed), Reggie Bullock (non-guaranteed)

2020 Projected salary cap space (assuming $115 million salary cap)

$36.1 million, per Early Bird Rights

Areas of Strength

It is, quite frankly, tough to find areas of genuine strength with the Knicks. New York did an excellent job on the offensive glass all season long, and with their wild investment in traditional big men and power forwards, the Knicks did have bulk on their side. Long-term, Mitchell Robinson looks the part of an intriguing starting center and while R.J. Barrett struggled at times during his rookie season, there is reason for optimism. All told, Julius Randle is also an interesting and productive player, even if one miscast as a legitimate No. 1 option.

Areas of Need

The Knicks were a genuine mess on both ends of the floor this season, and especially so on offense. New York landed near the bottom of the league in perimeter shooting (both frequency and accuracy) and the franchise continues to have no answer in terms of an offensive engine on the perimeter. Defensively, it wasn’t quite as porous, but it wasn’t as if the Knicks were anything special, or even average, on that end of the floor, with genuine interest on how the front office plans to fix what is a mismatched roster.

Biggest Decisions

In simple terms, the Knicks have a ton of roster decisions to make, even before considering free agency and the draft. Bobby Portis has a lucrative team option that the team should certainly consider declining. Then, New York has non-guaranteed deals for productive, yet overpaid, veterans in Taj Gibson, Elfrid Payton and Wayne Ellington. Then, you get into young players on fringes (Trier, Dotson) and realize that the Knicks could be yearning to keep the decks clear for 2021. Could they generate big-time cap space this summer? Absolutely. Would it be better to go hunting for stars in 2021? Probably, but the Knicks have been down that road (unsuccessfully) many times before. It would help with clarity if the Knicks got lucky in the lottery with a path toward LaMelo Ball but, if not, this could go any number of directions.

Overall Offseason Focus

One year ago, the Knicks bundled together an allotment of competent, yet ill-fitting veterans in an attempt to make the team better in the short term. On the bright side, New York didn’t thoroughly damage long-term flexibility in the process, but the team didn’t make things easy on Barrett or Robinson from an evaluation standpoint. This time around, the Knicks do have the ability to follow different avenues, but, at the moment, New York has only a few concretely positive assets on the roster and a shortage of cohesion that is striking. It’s time to fix that, albeit with a measured approach.

Is life finding a way? While Alex Trebek is advocating for Jeopardy! to become one of the first shows to resume filming after pandemic interruptions, Universal’s pushing forth to make Jurassic World: Dominion the first major studio film to fire production back up in the U.K. — in a matter of weeks. In a plan detailed by Deadline, the official date to resume on-set production has been set as July 6. Actual filming at U.K.-based Pinewood Studios is anticipated to begin by mid-July at the latest.

How will this happen? Universal has outlined its $5 million investment in new safety protocols (which purportedly go beyond both the UK’s British Film Council and U.S. unions recommendations) to finish up the final 12 weeks of filming. Not only will cast and crew be repeatedly tested, but there will be a private medical facility in place, as well as staggered schedules and these measures:

Covid training for all cast and crew; on-site doctors, nurses and isolation booths; 150 hand sanitizer stations; nightly anti-viral ‘fogs’; more than 1,800 safety signs put up around Pinewood; and ‘Green Zones’ for shooting cast and crew. Masks will be obligatory other than for actors while performing. Scroll down for more detail on the studio’s protocols.

A Universal executive also confirmed that anyone who displays symptoms will go into isolation, and the studio’s not concerned with additional costs, only to finish the film in the safest manner possible. Will it work? One can only hope. And it looks like Universal’s insurance policy, as it was written before, is somehow going to “remain in place without exclusions,” which isn’t the case across the Hollywood board. Also, the production has faced mounting holding fees from Pinewood, which is only further incentive to get the ball rolling again. Seriously though, let’s hope that life really does find a way here, and everyone involved can stay healthy.

(Via Deadline)

Mike Will Made-It is one of the more prolific producers in hip-hop these days and even his mind was blown by the productivity and work ethic of his collaborator Swae Lee. The Atlanta-based producer and EarDrummers Entertainment CEO tweeted his astonishment at Swae’s ability to churn out new music for his upcoming album, writing, “This man Swae Lee just submitted 733 songs to choose from for his album.” Just to drive home the point, he even added the “mind blown” emoji as well as the trio of symbols representing his label and crew.

Swae announced that he’d be releasing his first “official” solo album, Human Nature, during a livestream concert way back in March after promising to use his time in quarantine productively. Apparently he lived up to the first promise if he was able to sketch out enough songs to impress his label’s head honcho. He even had time to crank out a cover of Diddy’s “I’ll Be Missing You.”

Of course, now the EarDrummers collective must cut down the available pool of choices to something more manageable before release — although album tracklists have ballooned in recent years, it’d likely still be a stretch to ask fans to sit through over 700 songs. We’ll see what they come up with, but if that figure is totally accurate, Swae Lee may have enough material left over for a few dozen new Rae Sremmurd albums as well.

Check out Mike Will’s astonished tweet above.

Keeping up with the best new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of new music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.

This week saw a timely remix of DaBaby’s No. 1 song and a young duo showing great maturity. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the rest of the best new music this week below.

DaBaby — “Rockstar (BLM Remix)” Feat. Roddy Ricch

DaBaby previously previewed a remix of “Rockstar” with new lyrics about current events, but now he has officially released the “BLM Remix” of his chart-topping single. Addressing the nationwide protests, DaBaby raps, “Rockstars, n****, just watch the news, they burnin’ cop cars, n**** / Kill another n****, break the law, then call us outlaws, n**** / What happened? Want us to keep it peaceful.”

Pop Smoke — “Make It Rain”

While last week brought the announcement that Pop Smoke’s posthumous album has been delayed, it also brought a new track from the late rapper. On “Make It Rain,” Smoke secured a feature from Rowdy Rebel.

RMR — Drug Dealing Is A Lost Art

RMR emerged as a meme with his expectation-subverting “Rascal” video, but he quickly established himself as more than a novelty. Now, he has given fans more to sink their teeth into with his debut EP, which features appearances from Future, Lil Baby, and Westside Gunn.

Lil Keed — “Fox 5” Feat. Gunna

Lil Keed and Gunna had a bit of an incident at their recent video shoot (for which Young Thug took the blame), but they managed just fine. In fact, they emerged with a clip for “Fox 5,” on which they attest that, despite the headlines they made while filming the clip, they wouldn’t be finding themselves on the news.

Lil Baby — “The Bigger Picture”

On the latest from Lil Baby, the rapper, like many others, is seeking systemic change in light of what’s happening in the US at the moment. What has changed already is the chart status of Lil Baby’s new album, as My Turn just found its way back to No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

NLE Choppa — “Shotta Flow 5”

People’s homes are their safe haven right now… unless you’re NLE Choppa in his new “Shotta Flow 5” video. In the clip directed by Lyrical Lemonade’s Cole Bennett, Choppa wakes up to an intruder in his closet, and the chase gets pretty wild from there.

Kid Laroi — “Go” Feat. Juice WRLD

Juice WRLD had popped up on a number of tracks since his death about half a year ago now, and he has emerged again on another one. “Go” is the latest single from Kid Laroi, and the 16-year-old got a big-time assist via a verse from Juice, who previously served as a mentor for the young Australian rapper.

Gorillaz — “Friday 13th” Feat. Octavian

Gorillaz’s Song Machine carried on last week with another collaboration for the group, the Octavian-featuring “Friday 13th.” Octavian takes the lead here, dominating vocally on the relaxed groove from Gorillaz.

Michael Stipe And Big Red Machine — “No Time For Love Like Now”

The R.E.M. leader first previewed the latest song from Big Red Machine a couple months ago via a late-night television performance, but now he and the Aaron Dessner/Justin Vernon group have shared the official track. On the contemplative song, Stipe’s lyrics resonate in a way that’s relevant to modern times.

Chloe X Halle — Ungodly Hour

The Bailey sisters kicked off their joint musical careers as children, but they’re adults now, both in their 20s. As such, they bring a more pronounced sense of maturity on their latest album that shows just how far they’ve come in their young careers.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.