Month: June 2020

The cast of Amazon’s The Boys brought their wickedly fun, superhero-skewering vibe together today in a cast “reunion,” which is a strange term since they never split, but sure, it’s Friday, and we’ll take it. Patton Oswalt, who has filmed a secret role for Season 2 of the show, acted as host for this gathering, and a previous UK-released teaser has already set the mood for what’s to come. Obviously, what’s to come will be more vengeance and blood as Amazon Prime continues to adapt the Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson comic-book series.

What did we learn today? For starters, the show is moving to a weekly format for episode releases, and the Season 2 premiere date is September 4.

Prior to the reunion chat, Amazon previewed a Twitter clip to show off The Seven’s newest member, Stormfront, who isn’t thrilling Homelander and Queen Maeve. Another clip cheekily showed a compilation of Starlight and Queen Maeve kicking ass with this caption: “Wait, why is this show called The Boys again?” It’s a decent question.

And finally, there was the nearly hour-long gathering, in which a lot of chatter went down. That includes Patton referring to a “little ray of sunshine,” and I wasn’t quite clear on whether he was talking about Karl Urban or Billy Butcher. Maybe both. The final portion of the video shows off the 3-minute opening scene of Season 2. Giancarlo Esposito has arrived to portray Stan Edgar, the CEO of Vought. A board meeting’s enjoying a sandwich break while some throat-cutting and beheadings go down elsewhere. Enjoy:

Here’s the official Season 2 synopsis:

The even more intense, more insane season two finds The Boys on the run from the law, hunted by the Supes, and desperately trying to regroup and fight back against Vought. In hiding, Hughie (Jack Quaid), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capon) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) try to adjust to a new normal, with Butcher (Karl Urban) nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Starlight (Erin Moriarty) must navigate her place in The Seven as Homelander (Antony Starr) sets his sights on taking complete control. His power is threatened with the addition of Stormfront (Aya Cash), a social media-savvy new Supe, who has an agenda of her own. On top of that, the Supervillain threat takes center stage and makes waves as Vought seeks to capitalize on the nation’s paranoia.

Previously, executive producer Seth Rogen promised that the Amazon Prime series’ second season would be “better” and more outrageous, and it certainly looks like the show has upped the bloody ante. In the process of filming, though, Toronto reportedly shut down one violent scene for crossing a line by filming near the site of a real-life terror attack that killed 10 people in 2018. Yep, that sounds like a questionable judgment call, but we’ll see if that scene makes it into Season 2 when it arrives on September 4.

Pirates of the Caribbean is the 14th highest-grossing film series ever, with the five entries in the franchise having made over $4.5 billion worldwide (even if only one, maybe two of them is any good). So, it’s no wonder that Disney wants to continue making Pirates movies. What is surprising, however, is that there’s two projects in the works: a reboot from Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin, and another starring Margot Robbie.

The “female-fronted Pirates of the Caribbean,” as the Hollywood Reporter calls it, will find the I, Tonya actress re-teaming with Birds of Prey writer Christina Hodson. “While plot details are being kept in Davey Jones’ locker, the project, in early development, is not intended to be a spinoff of the long-running franchise that had pirate Jack Sparrow at its center but rather a wholly original story with new characters under the Pirates moniker, itself inspired by the long-running attraction at Disneyland,” THR added. Basically, the Mazin movie will take place in the same cinematic universe as that drunken rascal Jack Sparrow, even if Johnny Depp isn’t expected to appear in the movie, while the Robbie one will be its own thing. And probably be better off for it.

Hopefully this ends with a Margot Robbie animatronic in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland / Disney World. As long as she doesn’t replace the Dirty Foot Pirate.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

Sometimes the best new R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm and blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the best new R&B jams that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.

This week, 6lack unleashed 6 Pc Hot for his birthday, August Alsina made his return with The Product III: State Of Emergency and JoJo dropped off the music video for her Good To Know track “Small Things,” among many other great releases. Check out the rest of the best new R&B songs below.

6lack — 6pc Hot EP

6lack celebrated his birthday this week with the release of his EP 6 Pc Hot, the follow-up to 2018’s East Atlanta Love Letter. The six-track project is an ode to his Atlanta roots with songs like “ATL Freestyle” and his own brand of hot sauce called 600 Degrees (which has been delivered to fans homes at their request via a robot.) 6 Pc Hot and 6lack’s 600 Degrees hot sauce should be enough to hold fans over until his next full-length album, whenever that will be.

August Alsina — The Product III: State Of Emergency

It’s been a minute since August Alsina released a full-length album following 2015’s This Thing Called Life, as he dealt with some personal health and label issues. Now, he’s back in a major way with his third studio album The Product III: State of Emergency. The project features 27 solid tracks, making this a return worth waiting for.

JoJo — “Small Things”

JoJo shared her music video for her song “Small Things” this week. The video features dancers in all-white as JoJo sits in a white chair, singing her heart out. The song lives on her recently released album Good To Know, which made No. 18 on Uproxx’s Best Pop Albums of 2020 So Far.

Jayla Darden — “Demonstration”

21-year-old Detroit native Jayla Darden is the music industry’s latest multi-threat and her latest release “Demonstration” is a continued example of what’s to come from the R&B darling. The talented musician not only sings but she writes, produces and engineers most of her music as well. She recently made an appearance on HER’s instagram live series, Girls with Guitars and did a live performance of her single “Onto Something” and a cover of Aaliyah’s “I Don’t Wanna” while playing the guitar.

Pink Sweats — “Not Alright”

On his latest single “Not Alright,” Pink Sweats delivers major alt-R&B and pop vibes in the name of social justice. “‘Not Alright’ is a song I wrote about the wide range of feelings you experience being Black in America,” Sweat$ captioned on an Instagram post. “I was planning on putting this record out with the rest of the album, but I need you all to hear this one now.” “Not Alright” serves as Pink $weat’s latest release from his forthcoming project Pink Planet, which is slated to drop on July 17.

Savannah Cristina — “F’d Up” Feat. Flo Milli

Savannah Cristina and buzzing rapper Flo Milli tapped in with each other for the R&B singer’s latest release, “F’d Up.” It’s an honest track about what not to put up with in a relationship. “I don’t catch feelings, I catch flights,” Savannah croons on the track. On Saturday (June 27th), the “Comfortable” singer is set to make an appearance at the 13th annual Roots Picnic Virtual Experience’s pre-event.

11:11 — “Call Me Daddy

As rising R&B singer 11:11 readies for the release of his debut album, the burgeoning artist dropped his steamy new single “Call Me Daddy” today. The Toronto singer’s previously released track “Me, Chanel & Jameson” was also featured on an episode of the Joe Budden Podcast. 11:11 is certainly one to watch.

Saint Bodhi — “Cabin Fever”

Los Angeles native Saint Bodhi explores her feelings about a “sh*tty,” toxic love on her new single “Cabin Fever.” It’s an alternative R&B dream with clean, rounded acoustics, moments of syrupy slowed-down production, and melodic distortion.

Ford. — “Hold On” Feat. Ayelle

Ayelle and 20-year-old buzzing producer Ford. came together for the enchanting track “Hold On,” this week. The song sits on the fringe of electronic sounds and R&B and combined with Ayelle’s ethereal vocals, this song is meant to take you to heaven.

Alewya – “Sweating”

Alewya takes it to another dimension on her sensual track “Sweating,” produced by Ghana-based producer The Busy Twist. “This video is for US. In love, power and rage,” the music video for “Sweating” opens up. The black-and-white visual for the melodic dance track was directed by Jack Bowden. Alewya previously collaborated with Little Simz on the song “where’s my lighter” and is London Records’ first signed artist.

Check out this week’s R&B picks, plus more on Uproxx’s Spotify playlist below.

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

Hip-hop stars Lizzo and Saweetie are at the center of a debate swirling on social media about double standards in body shaming after a video of Saweetie indulging in a gigantic, Frankenstein’s monster of a cheeseburger went viral. Saweetie constructed the burger during an Instagram Live session with fans, combining what looked like two cheeseburgers with a handful of friends and dubbing it a “McGangBang.” However, a day later, fans had Lizzo’s name trending on Twitter after pointing out the disparity in fan reactions to the two rappers’ viral videos.

Fans noted how much of the reaction to Saweetie’s decidedly unhealthy snack were mostly positive, as commenters joked that the sandwich looked delicious and shared their own wild taste concoctions. However, a video of Lizzo working out a few weeks ago garnered a different reaction, with commenters deriding Lizzo’s size and weight even as she literally exercised for the health benefits. In fact, ever since she emerged into the mainstream spotlight with her hit song “Juice,” Lizzo has been subject to disingenuous concern trolling over her health — even to her face on live television.

However, other fans were quick to shut down the comparisons, telling their fellow fans that even their defenses for Lizzo could be seen as counterproductive, reductive, and unhelpful. As one put it, “Y’all act like y’all defending Lizzo by making her the poster child for fat people.” Another questioned, “Why seeing Saweetie eat bring up Lizzo in your head?”

The trending topic furthered a much-needed, ongoing discussion about body shaming and double standard in pop culture, but it also relied an another age-old, toxic trope — pitting women against each other. Neither artist is a stranger to this phenomenon. Last year, fans compared Lizzo to Ari Lennox during a debate about which made more “soulful” music after an awards show, while Saweetie’s music video look for a Bird Of Prey soundtrack single sparked complaints that the stylist ripped off Rico Nasty’s signature look.

The lesson here, it would seem, is to let women in entertainment just be without comparing them or criticizing them for things that ultimately won’t really harm anyone else — and in fact, let fans feel seen and represented relatable watching their faves do relatable things like working out for the health benefits, chow down on indulgent snacks — or even do both, a perfectly reasonable compromise between the two.

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

Taylor Swift has been an outspoken ally of the LGBTQ community. The singer was recently one of many musicians who applauded the Supreme Court’s recent ruling against LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace. In order to celebrate Pride Month and commemorate the Stonewall uprisings, Swift was invited to speak as part of the star-studded livestream Stonewall Day. Using her platform, Swift spoke out against overlooked injustices that LGBTQ people face.

After celebrating the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, Swift said we still have “so far to go” in terms of protections for LGBTQ people. Swift pointed out a specific example — the US census. The singer said that upon filling out her own census, she noticed there were only two options for gender:

“We had a really good step forward recently with the Supreme Court ruling, based on discrimination, based on sex. But we still have so far to go in terms of equality and protections for LGBTQ people and people in the trans community. The Equality Act has still not been passed, and that needs to happen. I got my census the other day and there were two choices, male and female. And that erasure was so upsetting me, the erasure of transgender and nonbinary people. And when you don’t collect information on a group of people, that means that you have every excuse in the world not to support them. When you don’t collect data on a community, that’s a really, really brutal way of dismissing them. So, obviously we all need to exercise our right to vote this year, we need to check out our absentee ballot policy in our states. And we need to make sure we elect people who care about all communities.”

Watch Swift’s Stonewall Day speech above.

In the middle of pumping up fans of The Boys with a live event on Friday, the Amazon original series dropped a surprise Season 2 video on Twitter that features Aya Cash‘s new character Stormfront introducing herself to The Seven (a power-mad, satirical version of the Justice League), who clearly have no idea that she’s joining the team and aren’t exactly thrilled by the news.

In the clip, Stormfront is live-streaming herself as she meets The Seven’s heavy-hitters Homelander (Anthony Starr) and Queen Maeve (Dominic McElligott), who attempt to not look annoyed while meeting Cash’s character as she’s broadcasting live. They soon have to work even harder at containing their anger when Stormfront drops the bomb that she’s the newest member of the team, and it’s all been approved by the higher-ups at Vought, the evil corporation who created The Seven and gave them their powers.

You can watch The Boys video below:

Stormfront was first teased back in March when Cash and Starr revealed to Entertainment Weekly that the latest addition to the extremely problematic team would disrupt the status quo thanks to her ability to go toe-to-toe with Homelander, who’s been unrivaled in raw power until now:

Stormfront, with plasma bolt capabilities, also comes with enough power to slap back at Homelander when he goes full egomaniac. “[He’s] used to everyone being scared of him. She matches him,” Cash says. “That’s not to say she doesn’t understand his power and tiptoe around it sometimes, but she’s also willing to challenge him. Ultimately, I think the dynamic between the two is terrifying and will change who Homelander is.”

The second season of The Boys will hit Amazon Prime on September 4.

(Via The Boys on Twitter)

The fount of joy that is Bill Walton has been plugged up as he’s been away from ESPN broadcasts the past three months, but an interview with Tim Cato of The Athletic uncovered a fantastic new story of how Walton once helped Rick Carlisle, a former teammate and current head coach of the Dallas Mavericks, acquire Grateful Dead tickets for Carlisle during his first date with his wife, Donna.

Walton had a relationship with Grateful Dead Productions President Laurence “Ramrod” Shurtliff, and the band would mail Walton their tour schedule ahead of time. He found out late in the afternoon that Rick and Donna were headed to a show in Washington, D.C., but encouraged them to go nevertheless, and tell the folks running the event that they knew Ramrod. From there, Walton’s magic worked.

From Cato’s interview:

And so he goes to the Capitol Center with Donna, going through the crowd, and so Donna’s like, “Wait a second, we’re going to a concert and we don’t have any tickets? And we don’t have anything? This is our first date? What am I doing here with this guy.” And so they get to the back door, somehow, some way. Rick knocks on the door and this big, burly guy opens the door and says, “Who are you and what do you want?” And Rick and his very quiet, very shy way says, “Is Ramrod here?” And the guy steps back and says, “Who are you and what do you want Ramrod for?” And Rick says, because I had told Rick to go to that backdoor and ask for Ramrod, so Rick says to the guy, “My name is Rick Carlisle, and Bill Walton told me to come and ask for Ramrod.”

So the guy relaxes a little and he says, “Wait here.” So he closes the door and five minutes later Ramrod shows up, comes to the backdoor, he knows Rick because Rick had been to a whole bunch of concerts with us before, and so Ramrod says, “Come on in, Rick, and bring your lovely friend.” So Ramrod walks him through the backdoor, takes him up and puts him right on the stage about 10 feet away from Jerry Garcia, gives him two chairs and a cooler full of drinks, and says, Enjoy the show.

As Walton explained, having this sort of in is just “the way life works with the Grateful Dead,” and fortunately for Carlisle, having this in led to a pretty good first date, as he’s been married to Donna for years. It stands to reason that it will be a while until Walton is back on television again, if only because the ongoing pandemic likely means hat we won’t get college basketball for a while, but someone should really give him a gig on a morning talk show or something, because we could use as much Bill Walton as possible right now.

A Lyft driver in Reno, Nevada is the perfect example of staying calm in a heated situation with a racist.

The trouble started the minute that Edgar, the driver, picked up Richard who requested a four-mile ride to his home. After Richard got in the car, Edgar asked him to wear a mask, explaining that members of his family had been infected with COVID-19.

The passenger replied saying he didn’t believe the government about the coronavirus. Edgar asked him to please cover his mouth with his hand, which he did.

Richard then questioned Edgar about the route he was taking and things escalated.

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“You want to get out?” Edgar asked, calmly.

“No, I want you to take my ass home and I’ll give you a shitty review,” the passenger responded.

Racist Lyft passenger rages at driver for asking him to wear mask

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The two then argued over where Edgar was able to drop him off and whether the car was Edgar’s or Lyft’s. The answer is easy. It’s Edgar’s car so he can do whatever he likes, especially if he feels threatened by a passenger.

Richard then called Edgar a “candy ass faggot with white glasses” and muses that he could crush his “fucking skull right now.”

Edgar let him know that the interaction was being recorded on video and he quickly backpedaled.

The violent threat was the last straw for Edgar who stopped his car and asked Richard to get out. But Richard continued to squabble over whether the ride was canceled or not.

He then began poking fun at Edgar’s accent.

“Where are you from, boy?” he asked with a condescending tone.

“I’m from here.”

“No, you’re not,” the passenger responded.

“Yes I am,” Edgar said confidently.

The passenger responded: “You’re a fucking wetback.”

Eventually, he got out of the car.

Lyft responded to the incident by banning Richard from using the service. “The behavior shown by the rider in this video is despicable and has no place on the Lyft platform,” the company said in a statement.

“Lyft is committed to maintaining an inclusive and welcoming community, and discrimination is not tolerated.”

Edgar should be commended for handling the situation calmly and confidently. He didn’t feel compelled to drive the racist passenger home, he just dropped him off and went about his day.

What’s insane about the entire incident was that Richard knew he was being recorded, but it still didn’t stop him from going off on a racist, homophobic rant. That’s probably because anyone who is a racist probably doesn’t have much brains to begin with.

We all know history has a habit of repeating itself, but the fact that we find ourselves in a global pandemic almost exactly 100 years after the last major one feel almost too on the nose.

While the coronavirus outbreak differs from the Spanish flu pandemic in some important ways, there are also some striking similarities. The same uncertainty of how to handle it. The same differences of opinion on how bad it could get. The difference now is that we have a whole lot more science to help us figure it all out—but also a massive information machine that feeds off of people’s misunderstandings of how science works and makes it easy for misinformation to spread like wildfire.

Good times.

But it can be eye-opening to look at historical documentation of a similar event, especially through photographs depicting the details of daily life. As we’re all in various stages of lockdown or reopening, mask-wearing and physical distancing, it’s fascinating to see people a century ago dealing with the same things.

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CBS Sunday Morning did a segment on the 1918 pandemic in early March, just before states in the U.S. began coronavirus shutdowns. From some physicians downplaying the Spanish flu as “old-fashioned influenza, nothing more” to people wearing masks in public—or refusing to—there are so many parallels to what we’re experiencing now.

The story of the 1918 flu pandemic

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Watching this segment now, several months into the pandemic, is really something, isn’t it? One thing to be thankful for is that we’re not in the middle of a world war while also dealing with coronavirus outbreak, though we do have our own era’s social and political upheaval happening at the same time. Let’s just all sign a pact to not add an all-out war on top of everything else we’ve got going on. 2020 has been eventful enough.

Some of K-pop boyband BTS’ global success can be attributed to their productivity. Though the group just released the 20-track record Map Of The Soul: 7 earlier this year, BTS is already gearing up for yet another release. Following the debut of their track “Stay Gold,” BTS has returned with a sunny video.

Directed by Ko Yoo Jeong, the video follows each of the BTS members as they long to free themselves from dark situations. They daydream of enjoying the little things, like playing Jenga with a friend, reading a book, or petting a dog. After a long journey, BTS finally find each other and successfully seek paradise.

“Stay Gold” arrives on BTS’ upcoming Japanese language album, Map Of The Soul: Journey. The album music from their back catalog, translated from Korean to Japanese, along with a handful of stand-alone singles.

Their upcoming album is a way for the group to celebrate their massive global success in 2019. Last year, BTS became the first K-pop group to ever become certified Platinum in the US. Their 2018 effort Love Yourself: Answer had been certified Gold until a boost in sales led it to jump to Platinum, meaning it sold one million equivalent album units in the US.

Watch BTS’ “Stay Gold” video above.