The Black Eyed Peas’ new album, Translation, has a completely different sound than anything they’ve done before, as the group offers its take on the world of Latin music with guests like Becky G, El Alfa, J. Balvin, Ozuna, and Shakira. However, the biggest difference that longtime fans may notice is the absence of the group’s erstwhile fourth member, Fergie, who joined the band on their third album, Elephunk, and remained with them through their 2010 album, The Beginning. She was also missing from their 2018 album Masters Of The Sun Vol. 1. In a new interview with Billboard, they explain why.

All three remaining members are quick to point out that they remain in contact with Fergie and consider her their “sister.” However, as Will.I.Am says, “she’s focusing on being a mom. That’s a hard job, and that’s what she really wants to do and we’re here for her, and she knows how to contact us for a retreat or a breakaway. It’s really the way Fergie designed it, so we’re respecting her design. We love Fergie, and we don’t want anything but awesomeness for her.”

Apl.de.Ap reinforces that the group’s recording schedule simply conflicts with the demands of motherhood. “Even with these small connections, she’s always going to be our sister,” he says. “But unfortunately our schedule is displaced by [her] wanting to be a great mom, and she wants to focus on that. And like Will said, we support her 100%.”

Will even notes that Fergie hadn’t heard the album at the time of the interview, hoping that she likes it when she hears it with the rest of the world. While Translation takes them back to their roots as a trio, the group has brought in a new live vocalist for the time being, J. Rey Soul. Taboo compliments the new singer, saying “how proud I am of J.Rey Soul as well, because I know people are probably wondering who this artist is. The question always is ‘How’s Fergie doing?’ and I get that… I feel we’re giving birth to a new artist, J.Rey Soul. I really want to give her ultimate praise and respect.”

With a new sound, a new member, and a new album, Black Eyed Peas looks to extend their run of pop/hip-hop dominance and given the performance of their new single “Ritmo” with J. Balvin, they appear to be on course to do just that.

Check out the video for “Ritmo” above.

Translation is out now on Interscope. Get it here.

I’ll Be Gone In The Dark, the 2018 true-crime bestseller from the late Michelle McNamara, contained years of research that unquestionably helped law enforcement arrest the Golden State Killer. McNamara even helped coin that nickname for the predator formerly known as the East Area Rapist, who committed 50 rapes and 12 murders while terrorizing California in the 1970s and 80s. Sadly, McNamara passed away two years before the publication of her book and the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, who’s expected to plead guilty on June 29. The book not only illuminates her dogged pursuit of the truth, but also the public awareness that she generated, both of which led to renewed law enforcement attention for a 30-year-old cold case.

Following McNamara’s death (due to an accidental overdose of prescription drugs coupled with a medical condition), her husband, Patton Oswalt, resolved to make sure her book was published. He greenlit the manuscript’s completion, and he’s now appearing onscreen in HBO’s six-part docuseries (directed by Liz Garbus), which includes interviews with survivors, investigators, and those who knew Michelle well. Her empathy, and her non-sensationalized treatment of the material, made the book one hell of a read, and that comes through on the series. Patton read aloud from Michelle’s book while visiting Seth Meyers on the day of DeAngelo’s arrest, and he was gracious enough to speak with us ahead of the series’ debut (this talk took place just prior to this past weekend’s Fyre Fest-esque Trump rally in Tulsa).

It’s now customary for us to greet each other by asking if the other’s alright during the pandemic.

Well, are you keeping safe?

For now, but I’m in Tulsa, and there’s an event this weekend.

Oh god!

People aren’t thrilled about a rally happening.

Trump is so confusing. He canceled it, but it’s back on?

They nixed the Juneteenth date. It’s now happening on Saturday.

Oh, Christ, I’m so sorry. I hope you stay safe! Look out for that goddamn Boogaloo group, which is some kind of white supremacist thing. They’re trying to start a race war, so they dress like Antifa, but they shoot cops? It’s, like, fucking terrifying.

This is when we need your Constable Bob from Justified to save the day.

Oh, thank you!

Before we talk about the HBO series, I can’t resist mentioning one of my favorite passages from Michelle’s book — an anecdote about how you gave her a pep talk about Rocky Balboa to help her stay on her writing path.

[Laughs] I was just trying to find some imagery or a narrative that she could use, and that was Rocky. Like, if you watch the original film, he’s insanely out of shape and just has to rebuild from nothing. That was the metaphor I used, and I hope it doesn’t come off as clumsy, but it was the best that I could come up with. Yes, that was the pep talk I gave her on the book, godddd.

Michelle’s writing felt so human, and that only added to that vibe. She also suggested that you silently mouthed jokes to rehearse while washing dishes.

Oh yeah, I washed dishes because that really fed into my OCD and my, like, assembling of things in my head.

Obviously, the series has plenty of somber and emotional moments, but is also a celebration of Michelle’s work. When did you find out it was happening?

I remember that Liz approached me to pitch the idea, and I really, really liked her as a filmmaker. I knew that she would be great at figuring out the narrative correctly. And when I found out, we were in discussions with Liz, and that’s just kind of how it came together. We were working on the series when [Joseph James DeAngelo] got arrested.

You learned about the arrest when the cameras were rolling.

Yeah, we had been working on the documentary, and then then it happened, so they caught it on camera. Crazy, yeah, it was nuts.

You also pop into the series in several places.

Well, I don’t know that I participated that heavily, but I did make sure and turn all the materials over to Liz and her team, and then I wanted the focus to be on Michelle and the survivors and the investigators. That’s what I wanted it to be.

Very clearly, you were supportive of her work.

I mean, I tried to be as supportive as I could.

It isn’t easy to be married to a writer, I imagine?

[Laughs] Well, since we were both writers, we both understood where we were each coming from at the time.

In your afterword, you wrote that you guys initially bonded over your mutual serial-killer knowledge.

Yeah, definitely. That’s in there. I wanted to definitely do the afterword because I wanted Gillian [Flynn] to do the intro to bring us into her world. She’s such an amazing writer that I wanted her to do the intro, and I would do the very last part. I also wanted the last voice in the actual voice to be Michelle’s, and that’s the “Letter To An Old Man.”

That “old man,” Joseph James DeAngelo, is expected to plead guilty.

I believe so! I think it’s the day after the first episode airs. I’ll be watching, and I think what’s more important that the survivors and the victims’ families will be watching, and the same with the investigators.

In addition to law enforcement, Michelle’s fellow citizen investigators, Paul Haynes and Billy Jensen, were incredible.

Yes, they assembled the book. I handed everything over to them and was like, “Please, just help me get this done.” I didn’t want this work to remain unfinished. I don’t think I would be able to live if that was the case.

When it came to Michelle’s writing, when did you realize how skilled she was?

I mean, right away. Just when you talk to her, you can see what an original mind she had, and how engaged with everything she was, and so reading her writing, to me, it wasn’t surprising how amazing she was.

Are you surprised that her book, and her push for DNA, led to an arrest, and did you gave any gut feeling about it?

Actually, I did not know how this thing would turn out. Again, it was another very happy and pleasant surprise, that the victims’ families and survivors would feel some justice, I hope.

You talked a lot in your Annihilation special about your grieving process, and this opens another door of that, no doubt.

It’s just an ongoing process. I found love again, which I didn’t think would happen. It’s still gonna be day by day for a long time.

So, this docuseries will air over six weeks, and I think it nails the obsessive feel of the book because I binged it in one day.

Wow. It’s a tough one to watch, too.

But like I said, there are positive moments, and Michelle’s vibrant personality was apparent. I did chuckle while reading the book when Michelle formally ruled out Tom Hanks as a suspect due to his Bosom Buddies schedule.

Yeah! That, and she really was able to capture how there is a level of obsession with this subject. And thank you so much for taking the time to watch it all, I really appreciate it. And stay safe. Please! This weekend, if you’re going to go protest in Tulsa or have friends who are going out there, tell them to be very careful and aware, okay? I’m serious, please be safe.

HBO’s ‘I’ll Be Gone In The Dark’ premieres on Sunday, June 28 at 10:00pm EST.

It’s been nearly 35 years since the Beastie Boys broke onto the scene with their iconic debut record, Licensed To Ill. The album was produced by Rick Rubin, who met the boys when they were still in high school. Many years have passed since they first encountered each other. The Beastie Boys are the focus of Apple TV’s Spike Jonze-directed documentary Beastie Boys Story, and Rubin, among other things, hosts the podcast Broken Record. Now, Rubin has invited the living Beastie Boys members Michael “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz to join his podcast in for a reunion.

The podcast episode marks the first time Horovitz and Rubin have spoken in 20 years. There’s no beef between them, they just fell out of contact in the midst of their busy lives. Listening to their candid conversation, their apparent chemistry makes it hard to tell that any time has passed since they last spoke. Throughout the course of the hour-long podcast, Rubin, along with Spike Jonze, reminisce with Diamond and Horovitz about their early days, hanging out in local New York City records stores, and why Rubin infamously disappeared before the group’s breakout opportunity on Madonna’s Like A Virgin tour.

Rubin also talked about how growing up outside the city in the pre-internet days shaped him:

“I would say they had better access than I had because this was pre-internet. Like now, everyone could find out anything they want about anything. Where I was, it was hard to find out anything about anything. I spent a lot of time in the library doing research, and even that research wasn’t [the] sort of ‘culture of the moment’ research, it was about learning about things I was interested in and spending a lot of time in records was my closest way of having any kind of connection to culture.”

Rubin added, “On the downside, maybe by living in the city, it might narrow the view of what was cool. I didn’t know what was cool, coming where I came from. And the beauty of that was, I could see and hear everything. There was very little peer pressure about that where I lived. If you were in the city, there was stuff that was cool to like and not cool to like, and that could have a limiting effect.”

Listen to the full Broken Record session with Beastie Boys, Spike Jonze, and Rick Rubin above.

Eminem has been in the rap game for a long time, and during his tenure, he has, to put it lightly, found himself in a beef or two. Another one started brewing recently thanks to an old Em verse that leaked. On an alternate version of Conway The Machine’s “Bang,” Eminem offers criticism of Joe Budden and of Diddy’s Revolt TV, rapping about the latter, “Shout to Puffy Combs, but f*ck Revolt / Y’all are like a f*cked up remote / Now I get it why our button’s broke.”

Naturally, Revolt caught wind of the diss, and they offered a response of their own. They got their point across using only a handful of words, including a choice expletive. Sharing an image of text, Revolt wrote on Instagram, “F*ck you too Eminem.” They also added in the caption, “Now back to our movement,” followed by a Black fist emoji.

On the song, Eminem said of Budden (who is a broadcaster with Revolt), “Tell this journalist stick to the stuff he knows / Like always running from Migos.” Budden hasn’t offered as direct of a response, but he seemed to address the situation on Twitter. Responding to a user who wrote, “[Budden] really been catching strays all week. Yo just be minding his business,” Budden tweeted, “I really just be trying to chill.”

The NBA and NBPA have reportedly finalized an agreement for the restarted season that will see 22 teams head to Orlando in July, with both sides agreeing, mostly, to the terms and policies laid out in the handbook sent to players last week.

However, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, there are a few additional items or tweaks that have been made to the final agreement. One of the most important of those is an “enhanced insurance policy” that the NBA and NBPA will take out to cover players that go into the bubble to provide extra protection in case of a career-ending injury suffered during the restart or if a player contracts COVID-19 and has long-term effects that ends their career.

It seems to be a bit of a compromise on what players like Jayson Tatum, Bam Adebayo, De’Aaron Fox, and other players nearing extensions after their rookie deals were looking for in terms of added protection from injury. The wording of Woj’s report indicates this will only cover the most severe injuries or COVID-19 outcomes, but will at least offer players a bit of a security blanket in the form of “several million dollars” that mitigates at least some risk of playing again.

Still, the players returning to the bubble will face serious risk, both from the coronavirus and the possibility that after such a long layoff there will be an increase in injury risk once they jump back into competitive basketball. The insurance policy won’t protect them in totality, but it’s still good the players were able to get some kind of assistance from the league for those injury concerns.

The early 2000s were the heyday of rap crews branching out into multiple forms of media, with groups like Cash Money, No Limit, and State Property self-financing their own films throughout the decade to varying degrees of success. As adherents to that decade’s take on grimy, New York City-centric sounds, the Buffalo, New York-based Griselda Records is embracing that throwback aesthetic in more ways than one, sharing the trailer for their own crime drama film, Conflicted.

Westside Gunn, the mastermind behind the label’s past decade of growth, including its explosion in popularity within the last few years, shared the trailer on Instagram and paid homage to the pioneers of rap label-financed crime action films. “When Master P did Bout It Bout It showing u the N.O. and Hov made Streets Is Watching showing u BK, and Cam’ron made Killa Season showing u Harlem, Griselda & Conflicted shows u Buffalo,” he wrote. “We’re taking it back to when ppl stole your DVDs.” Ah, the good old days.

Gunn seems jazzed about the movie’s potential, saying, “I’ve literally watched this movie every day since its completion… I promise u you will watch this 50x like any other classic in the streets… What Griselda did for music will be the same way for film. It’s all about the art.”

Check out the trailer for Conflicted above.

Over the weekend, an old clip of Megan Fox on Jimmy Kimmel Live! went viral, with the Jennifer’s Body actress recalling how director Michael Bay had her wear “a stars and stripes bikini” when she was 15. The interview is from 2009, the same year that Guardian writer Jason Soloman claims Fox told him that Bay invited her to audition for Transformers at his house, where he made “her wash his Ferrari while he filmed her.”

Those actions, along with the infamous “he wants to be like Hitler” comparison, make Bay come across as a “sexist jerk,” as The Cut put it, but Fox insists that the resurfaced clip casts an unfairly “sinister shadow” over her relationship with the director.

“I know that a discussion has erupted online surrounding some of my experiences in Hollywood and the subsequent mishandling of this information by the media and society in general. While I greatly appreciate the outpouring of support, I do feel I need to clarify some of the details as they have been lost in the retelling of the event and cast a sinister shadow that doesn’t really, in my opinion, belong,” Fox wrote in a note on Instagram:

“I was around 15 or 16 years old when I was an extra in Bad Boys II… It’s important to note however that when I auditioned for Transformers, I was 19 or 20. I did ‘work’ (me pretending to know how to hold a wrench) on one of Michael’s Ferrari’s during one of the audition scenes. It was at the Platinum Dunes studio parking lot, there were several other crew members and employees present, and I was at no point undressed or anything similar

So as far as this particular audition story I was not underaged at the time, and I was not made to ‘wash’ or work on someone’s cars in a way that was extraneous from the material in the actual script. I hope that whatever opinions are formed around these episodes will at least be seeded in the facts of the events”

Fox also said that she’s “endured some genuinely harrowing experiences in a ruthlessly misogynistic industry,” and that while there are “many names that deserve to be going viral in cancel culture right now, they are safely stored in the fragmented recesses of my heart.” As for Bay and Transformer producer Steven Spielberg, however, “I was never assaulted or preyed upon in what I felt was a sexual manner. I’m thankful to all of you who are brave enough to speak out and I’m grateful to all of you who are taking it upon yourself to support, uplift, and bring comfort to those who have been harmed by a violent and toxic societal paradigm.” You can read the entire note below.

Bunny, a Sheepadoodle in Tacoma, Washington, has become a star on TikTok for appearing to communicate with her owner, Alexis Devine, through a soundboard.

In the video below, Bunny appears to ask for take a trip to the park and understands when her owner says it’s time to stay home. Bunny responds by telling Devine, “Love you, mom.”

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In another video, Bunny says she has a question and then presses, “Ouch.” After the interaction, Devine took Bunny to the vet and discovered she had infection in her nose.

Devine says that she is hopeful, but rightfully skeptical, about her experiment.

“I am not a scientist but I recognize that large amounts of data need to be collected before we can make a judgment as to whether or not Bunny actually understands what she’s saying,” she said. “I’m also aware that I inevitably skew the data in favor of saying that Bunny is consciously communicating with me.”

However, Devine’s attempts to teach Bunny how to speak have their basis in actual research. Last year, Upworthy profiled a speech-language pathologist in San Diego, California who has taught her dog to communicate in five-word sentences using a similar soundboard.

Why is Stella mad?

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This week, many artists issued releases in celebration of Juneteenth that rank among the best new pop music of the week. HER shared the poignant single “I Can’t Breathe,” John Legend released his inspiring album, Bigger Love, with some big-name features, and Victoria Monet teamed up with Khalid for the passionate number “Experience.”

Each week, Uproxx rounds up the best new pop releases. Listen up.

John Legend — “U Move, I Move” Feat. Jhene Aiko

John Legend debuted his triumphant record Bigger Love this week and with it arrived the best new pop contender “U Move, I Move” with Jhene Aiko. In a statement alongside the album, Legend said he hopes it inspires: “During these painful times, some of us may wonder if it’s ok to laugh or dance or be romantic. Lately, the images of black people in the media have been showing us with knees on our necks, in mourning, or expressing our collective outrage. We feel all those emotions. But It’s important for us to continue to show the world the fullness of what it is to be black and human. Through our art, we are able to do that. This album is a celebration of love, joy, sensuality, hope, and resilience, the things that make our culture so beautiful and influential.”

HER — “I Can’t Breathe”

In light of the movement protesting George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police, HER shared the touching ballad “I Can’t Breathe.” Over a subdued beat, HER takes an aim at contemporary politics. “All the corruption, injustice, the same crimes / Always a problem if we do or don’t fight / And we die, we don’t have the same right,” she sings.

Victoria Monet — “Experience” Feat. Khalid, SG Lewis

Victoria Monet teamed up with Khalid and producer SG Lewis for the shimmering number “Experience.” In a message shared to Instagram, Monet wrote that she decided to push the song back “because of the disgusting and confusing state of the world.” Monet added: “We hope this brings some solace and joy to you. We hope the double-ended message of this song is heard: based on experience, we want change! We matter, we always have. Here’s to making changes and celebrating US the best ways we know how.”

Justine Skye — “Bulletproof”

Opening with jaunty marimba, Justine Skye’s “Bulletproof” arrives on her highly-anticipated sophomore album Bare With Me. “The new songs on there mean so much to me,” Justine wrote on Instagram. “I’ve been writing my lil heart out so go dive into it. Let me know how you feel.”

ENZI — “Retrograde”

Nashville-based rising singer ENZI expands her catalog with the room-filling number “Retrograde.” In a statement, ENZI describes the inspiration behind the track: “I was roaming around some audio sample websites when I found a voicemail of a guy asking someone, ‘when the hell does mercury get out of retrograde because this is driving me batshit?’ I thought it was hilarious and I started thinking about what it meant when mercury goes into retrograde. I’m not an astrology expert, but the belief is retrograde throws everyone out of whack and makes people really impulsive and prone to mistakes.”

BTS — “Stay Gold”

Continuing to hone their global audience, K-pop supergroup BTS announced they are reworking some of their songs to be in Japanese. “Stay Gold” arrives as a preview to their new project, Map Of The Soul: Journey, which features two new songs alongside their revised music.

Callaghan Belle — “Sleepwalking”

Callaghan Belle got her start working behind-the-scenes as a songwriter and producer for the likes of JoJo and Colbie Caillat. But now, the musician aims to break into her own with “Sleepwalking.” In a statement, Belle explains, “‘Sleepwalking’ is about the denial phase of heartbreak. That moment when you first wake up in the morning and you don’t remember you broke up. The song is metaphorically extending that brief moment of blissful ignorance. It’s trying to live there for as long as possible. For me, the lyrics depict wandering through a ghost town of memories, going through the motions of an old relationship.”

Lydia Ford — “Overrated”

Irish alt-pop singer Lydia Ford shares her triumphant single “Overrated” this week. Over buoyant instrumentals, Ford gets real with a toxic relationship. “It’s not my job to be your therapist,” she sharply quips at the bridge.

Elenoir — “Wrong Party”

Boundary-pushing Italian art-pop singer Elenoir released the bewitching track “Wrong Party” as a catchy ballad. Alongside the track, the singer shared a stanza from Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Our is Mind is the Kingdom we have to rule the most, forgive its tricks. The World is the most enchanting place we are gifted to live in, take your own sweet chance to dissimulate, but don’t give up on yourself, ever. Dance when it seems to be the worst moment.”

Pink Sweats — “Not Alright”

“Not Alright” heralds Pink Sweats’ upcoming album The Prelude. The song was originally supposed to arrive on the record, but, in light of the protests happening across the country, the singer opted to share the track early. “‘Not Alright’ is a song I wrote about the wide range of feelings you experience being Black in America,” Pink Sweats wrote in a statement.

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