Month: July 2020

Hip-hop is moving as fast as ever. Luckily, we’re doing the work to put the best music in one place for you. This week, there were videos from Lil Wayne, City Girls and Doja Cat, Benny The Butcher, Fivio Foreign and Young MA, There were also new songs from Juice WRLD and Marshmello and the trio of D Smoke, Rapsody and PJ Morton. Here’s the best of the rest:

K Camp — “Stack N Pray” Feat. Mozzy

K Camp and Mozzy have two main objectives on “Stack N Pray.” The two take turns rhyming about the necessity of their grind over a mesmerizing synth loop. The single is from the RARE Family album, an intro to K Camp’s RARE Sound crew.

Armand Hammer – “Solarium” / “The Eucharist”

Armand Hammer’s “Charms” video, from their Shrines album, was one of the most captivating visuals of 2020 so far. This week they dropped a double feature for “Solarium/The Eucharist.” The trippy first half of the video is animated by Shane Ingersoll, while the second half is crafted by Myra Musgrave.

Boldy James & Alchemist – ‘Pots And Pans’ Feat. The Cool Kids

Boldly James and Alchemist released an extended version of their fan-favorite The Price Of Tea In China album. Earlier this week, they dropped “Pots And Pans” with The Cool KIds, where the two acts trade bars over a sparse, caustic Alchemist production.

Don Q — “I’m The One”

Highbridge’s Don Q talks greasy on “I’m The One,” double-time rhyming over an 808-based beat and lamenting, “Lots of n****s gettin’ murdered for throwin’ up gang signs they ain’t even in.”

Lil Skies — “Red & Yellow”

Lil Skies was three when the first Fast & Furious movie dropped. And now, as a grown man, he’s got a spot on the soundtrack to the upcoming Fast 9 with “Red & Yellow,” a subtle flex of “my car is red, my diamonds yellow” over a smoky soundscape.

Nyck Caution — “Famiglia” Feat. Meechy Darko

It’s a Beast Coast link up on “Famiglia,” where Meechy Darko will “kiss the girls make ‘em cry / tell more lies than a politician” and Nyck Caution laments society’s attention seeking ways but surmises, “This is no one’s fault, but everyone is responsible.”

Pressa — “Head Tap” Feat. Sheff G & Sleepy Hallow

On “Head Tap,” Toronto’s Pressa bluntly divulges that “I do business wit’ my gun” over luxurious keys, while Brooklyn drill artists Sheff G and Sleepy Hallow get equally menacing and braggadocious on the 3-minute loosie.

Apollo Brown & Che Noir — As God Intended

Apollo Brown and Che Noir’s latest effort is finally here. The album shows Buffalo lyricist Che Noir collaborating with the likes of Skyzoo, Planet Asia, Ty Farris & Blakk Soul, and Black Thought, who she impressively holds her own with on the reflective ”Hustle Don’t Give.”

Wifisfuneral — “End Of Story”

Wifisfuneral is dropping a new album this August, and he gave it an ever-relatable title: PAIN? He offered the first taste of what to expect on “End Of Story,’ a minimalist track where he croons about a relationship on shaky grounds, rhyming, “My friends say I should leave you alone / They don’t really see what you do for me.”

Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire — “Black Mirror”

Brooklyn’s Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire released “Black Mirror” from his vault this week as a homage to his uncle Shango who recently passed. The soulful track is an exploration of “Black Masculinity and my relationship with my 3 Uncles,” as eXquire said in a deeply personal, since-deleted Instagram post.

Kenny Mason — “Storm”

Kenny Mason bemoans “I can’t battle with blue badges, rather get blue stacks” on “Storm,” an urgent single he released two months off the heels of his Angelic Hoodrat album. The 25-year old employs a melodic cadence to explore a range of societal ills over the course of the two-and-a-half-minute stream-of-consciousness.

Blac Papi — “Hunger For More”

Phillly-based MC Blac Papi is getting things off his chest on “Hunger For More,” the title track from his upcoming EP. He admits, he “took Ls I ain’t sweat ‘em,” and bemoans the futility of grind culture by rhyming, “Girls and kids tell me that they miss me / Tell ‘em I’m grinding workin hard sometimes I feel empty.”

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

Kim Petras’ debut record Clarity was released almost exactly a year ago and the singer has since stayed highly prolific. Along with sharing a Halloween-themed record last October, the singer has shared a handful of sunny songs in 2020, including the shimmering collaboration “Broken Glass” with Kygo. Now, the pair return with an icy video to accompany the soaring single.

Directed by Griffin Stoddard, the dystopian video places Petras inside a dusty tundra. The singer owns the territory, making use of a wrecked car as a stage to deliver the song’s soulful lyrics.

In a statement upon the single’s release, Petras said she resonates with the song’s meaning: “‘Broken Glass’ really connected with me and what I was going through at the time. Kygo and I have written a couple of songs together in the past, but we’ve been trying to make something happen. I think the song is amazing and I’m a big fan of Kygo, so I’m really excited to be on his album and for it to come out!”

The collaboration arrived on Kygo’s third record, Golden Hour. Alongside his album’s release, Kygo thanked his fans for their continued support: “Thank you to all the insanely talented artists I’ve had the chance to work with on this record; hopefully we’ll get the chance to play these songs together live someday soon. And a huge thank you to all my fans who have been supporting me the last couple of years. I hope you enjoy this album as much as I did making it.”

Watch Kygo and Petras’ “Broken Glass” video above.

Golden Hour is out now via Ultra. Get it here.

“Old Town Road” is a very popular song. Last year, the Lil Nas X single famously when on an amazing chart run, during which it was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a record-obliterating 19 weeks. As of this post, the song and its various versions have well over 1.5 billion plays on Spotify. It is also currently the rapper’s only No. 1 song, which was all one Twitter troll needed to label Lil Nas X a one-hit wonder.

Yesterday, a fan tweeted at Lil Nas X, “you’re a one hit wonder. Lmfao you’re ep is garbage and you aren’t classified as a rapper or hip hop artist whatsoever.” Lil Nas X fired back this morning with a tweet listing his achievements that dispel any notion that he only has one hit, saying, “i guess the only one hit wonder who gotta grammy nominated platinum ep containing a platinum single, an almost 5x platinum song, & a diamond single before even dropping a debut album.”

Indeed, Lil Nas X has a point. It could be said that “Old Town Road” overshadows the success of everything else the rapper has done, certainly, but he has had success beyond the mega-hit. His follow-up single, “Panini,” also did well on the charts, reaching No. 5 on the Hot 100, and it has been certified 4-times Platinum. His next single, “Rodeo,” sniffed the top 20 with its peak at No. 22. Meanwhile, Lil Nas X’s 7 EP peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and earned itself a Platinum certification.

In conclusion, “Old Town Road” is Lil Nas X’s calling card, but he done well beyond it, too.

Back in June, Pose star Billy Porter posted a 16-minute video to his Instagram, entitled “This is my message to America,” where he discussed, among other topics, violence against Black transgender and gay people within the African-American community. When asked on Thursday by Billy Eichner, who was filling in for host Jimmy Kimmel during a summer-break episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, what inspired him to post the clip, the Emmy winner responded:

“I am Black first and growing up gay in the Black community, it’s a very homophobic community across the board. With that said, as the world has changed and as the world has shifted, the Black community is changing and shifting.”

After posting the video, Porter was told how much “Black straight man actually love him and someone needs to tell him,” so he offered an addendum to make his language more specific. “I’m talking to homophobic, transphobic, and xenophobic people in general, specifically Black people, in this instance, because Black trans women are dying at the hands of Black cis men at such an alarming rate that it is the highest violence on record,” he said.

Porter doesn’t pay much attention to social media (“I’m 50 years old, I don’t do it like that”), but he still heard about the pushback to his video and he’s willing to “receive when I am tone deaf.” Admitting you’re not 100 percent right about something? Porter really doesn’t spend a lot of time on the internet. The actor is hopeful things are changing for the better, “but we can’t do it until we embrace and love each other through our differences; because of our differences. Love the humanity in every single human being. We’re human beings first, that’s all I’m trying to say.” Watch the entire interview above.

Shortly after announcing his new album, The Ascension, Sufjan Stevens shared the sprawling 12-minute single “America.” Now the song has an appropriately lengthy B-side: Today, Stevens released “My Rajneesh,” which runs for over 10 minutes.

The epic track goes through multiple sections, which, like “America” before it, is similar in style to the music Stevens made during the The Age Of Adz era. Stevens sings on the song’s hook, “Illumination, accede my need, my Rajneesh / Hallucination, accede my need, my Rajneesh.”

The song is about Rajneesh, the leader of the Rajneesh movement that led to the establishment of Rajneeshpuram, a religious community in Wasco County, Oregon that was incorporated as a city between 1981 and 1988. In 1984, members of the community intentionally contaminated salad bars in local restaurants with Salmonella, resulting in the food poisoning of 751 people. This was the first and largest bioterrorist attack in US history.

“My Rajneesh” is not set to appear on The Ascension, but it and “America” will be available as a 12-inch vinyl single on July 1st. The Ascension is Stevens’ first solo album since 2015’s Carrie & Lowell, and his first release overall since Aporia, which came out earlier this year.

Listen to “My Rajneesh” above.

The Ascension is out 9/25 via Asthmatic Kitty Records. Pre-order it here.

After announcing the impending release of the third EP in his Streams Of Thought series, Streams Of Thought, Vol. 3: Cain And Abel, Black Thought has released the first single from the project, “Thought Vs. Everybody,” which he debuted during his at-home NPR Tiny Desk Concert in April. The song itself is a breathless reminder of Thought’s chops as he tears through a hook-less, intimidating display of rhyme-stacking, unforgiving battle raps.

Black Thought also recently appeared on a remix of Public Enemy’s seminal protest track “Fight The Power” with Nas and Rapsody during the 2020 BET Awards, as well as on Eminem’s surprise album, Music To Be Murdered By earlier this year. He has a verse on Che Noir and Apollo Brown’s new album, As God Intended, which released today, and recently announced he’s writing a new musical based on the Harlem Renaissance, which he will also star in.

The variety of projects The Roots frontman is involved in is a testament to his versatility, but there’s a reason Freddie Gibbs place him among his top five rappers. While most of his work has been with The Roots, the longstanding band founded by Black Thought and Questlove in the late ’80s, his recent Streams Of Thought EPs have served as strong reminders that he’s one of the best in the biz.

Listen to “Thought Vs. Everybody” above.

It’s haaaaaaaappening! I’ll leave it to you to intone that as terrified or excited, because I’ve been oscillating so hard it’s really difficult to tell, but NBA players have arrived or are at this very moment arriving in Orlando to be injected into the bubble. No, they just sort of anti-climatically enter via charter bus into the parking lot of their designated hotel.

This week saw guys packing, giving room tours, smuggling in contraband, and otherwise trying to make the best of and/or make sense of what the next three months (or more) of their lives will look like. Frankly this might be the last stop for us here on NBA Self-Isolation Watch, given that players are for the most part out of self-iso and into another different kind of … semi-iso? We’ll talk about it internally because, if this week is any indication, things in the bubble are going to get squirrelly pretty quick. Meantime, here are the last leaps from self-iso into semi-iso in an action-packed week.

Klay Thompson

Thompson is back on the grind in rehab and Rocco, his loyal bulldog, is right there with him. Thompson was doing vertical jumps with a weighted backpack on. This screengrab was mid-jump, so Thompson is of course blurry, but I want you to focus on Rocco who is crystal clear due to his stoic and supportive nature of never unnecessarily moving.

Rating: It’s either unfortunate or very freeing to realize the way Klay Thompson describes his dog here is the way you would also describe yourself.

Donovan Mitchell

Judging by all the puking emojis in the comments of this from his fellow hoopers, it seems safe to deduce that Mitchell got a new car. Also judging by his face and his legs kicked up in glee.

Rating: I hope he has someone to send him pictures of the car while he’s in the bubble.

Jaylen Brown

Brown arrived to the Orlando bubble and he bought his own, even more exclusive bubble with him. I did not initially consider the specialized training equipment that would accompany players to Florida and am now very interested in seeing more pictures of hotel rooms laden with so much high-tech, futuristic gear that it looks like NASA’s Spacelab*.

Rating: *before it crashed to earth.

P.J. Tucker

Tucker had to pack for the bubble! This would be a docuseries I would watch with RAPT attention, truly. The fits, the combinations, going against every fiber of this man’s very being when it comes to packing practical options over four to seven matching silk pajama suits appropriate for daytime wear. And the shoes! I sincerely hope the Rockets coughed up the cost for additional bags, considering Tucker will have a dozen filled with shoes alone. He probably has shoe-shaped duffle bags that look like specific shoes for specific shoes.

Rating: If the bubble cramps this man’s style so help me.

Patrick Beverley

Beverley celebrated his birthday this week and whoever got/made him this cake knows and loves him very much.

Rating: The little chocolate cigars? The edible money? The only time you should put money in your mouth — eating this cake!

Trae Young

Trae took the boat out on the bay, forgot his job for just one day. Pop-punk classics aside, who had any idea there were lakes this big in Oklahoma?

Rating: A simple Google satellite search will show that there are, indeed, quite a few.

C.J. McCollum

McCollum celebrated his wife’s, Elise Esposito, birthday this week by taking her to a vineyard where they were so socially distanced it seems to have been just them and the professional photographer, who maybe doubles as a sommelier, who got these shots.

Rating: Elise also recently became a dentist, that’s why C.J.’s calling her a doctor, it’s not like a “doctor wine” thing or anything like that.

D’Angelo Russell

Rippin’ on boats was kinda big this week but only one man managed to rip through the most sacred waters of them all.

Rating: Purify yourself!

Pau Gasol

This week in tandem, celebratory trolling of Pau Gasol, two of the best either teamed up or had the same idea for a joke because their sense of humors do kind of align. Jimmy Butler and Serge Ibaka shared photos of themselves with Gasol, who is definitely not the focal point in either, to wish the senior (and señor) Big Spain a happy birthday.

Rating: But honestly if Ibaka and Butler were the focal points of your birthday, you’d be having a pretty good one.

JaVale McGee

Please excuse me while I go pick up all the tiny pieces of my heart for they exploded as my eyeballs came in contact with this photo!

Rating: And the avocado toast sneaking in, insult to injury!

Montrezl Harrell

Trez very tenderly gave his French bulldog or in his words, his “first daughter,” a bath this week. That little thing got super sudsy and stayed very still, then went out in the yard and dried off on a nice, soft blanket, no doubt exhausted.

Rating: Bathe me like one of your French bulldogs.

Rudy Gobert

Gobert, ever the rule bender, smuggled some serious contraband into the bubble. That’s right, a whole ziplock bag of cherries, and two different varieties at that.

Rating: Horticulture could be a good outlet inside the bubble if he hangs onto these pits and of course does not rub them all over any microphones or recorders on his way to planting them in some fertile patch of swamp.

Kyle Kuzma

If there’s one thing Kuz can’t get enough of this summer, it’s half painting Pokemon. I hope he’s coming to Orlando equipped with plenty of canvases so he can sit out on his balcony and give us the Studio Ghibli, Bob Ross, Disney silhouette mashup we want of Kuzma’s mind inside the bubble.

Rating: What can we call this era of art, Neo Kuz Noir?

Gordon Hayward

Robyn Hayward has mastered the art of subtly and deftly trolling her gamer husband for years now. As Gordon Hayward packed up what to the novice eye might look already like enough gaming related equipment, she assures anyone who might be concerned there’s still plenty more to go.

Rating: The “phews” heard round the world could collectively power a rubber duck across a bathtub, if there was no jostling going on in the water.

Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet

The Raptors, as everyone knows because you read this column, arrived in Florida two weeks before the rest of the league did. They’ve been in Naples, south of Orlando, participating in workouts and a lot of leisure time. They have done the impossible, become Florida men without becoming Florida man. To wrap up their time, Siakam and VanVleet golfed together and took part in a very respectable and not too fast golf cart chase.

Rating: The Raptors will soon offer their accumulative advice from this time in a self-help seminar entitled: “Florida Man to Men.”

Hassan Whiteside

Whiteside either forgot to pack a pillow for the plane ride to Florida or this is what he uses even while at home. I would believe both.

Rating: The curvature of the ball is a lot better than most airplane pillows, and the pebbled surface might stimulate cells to repair during sleep.

Paul Millsap

Millsap has honed many new skills during his time in self-iso. A respectable kind of magic that won’t creep you out, cartwheels, cooking, honing an already robust wine knowledge and now, cocktails. If there is one player who is not going to get bored in the bubble and who, furthermore, all the bored players are going to seek out, it’s Paul Millsap.

Rating: Look at the balance of that bottle and watermelon slice! That’s not mixology, that’s physics.

J.R. Smith

Smith got the news this week that he will be heading to the bubble along with the Lakers, so he took some extra time to snuggle with his new puppy, about five whole minutes.

Rating: The snores coming out of this thing, just picture them.

Otto Porter Jr.

Porter went to visit his mom this week and she, rightly, put him straight to work. He helped around the house and then did some gardening, very uniformly spacing these hostas. He even realigned the bricks around the garden bed.

Rating: Deft at many types of bricks, you could say. But don’t say that, because it’s mean.

Justise Winslow

Winslow got to the bubble and very adeptly took a photo that works as a testament to these twisted, twisted times. The joy of late capitalism as we, its participants, trundle along in its very belly.

Rating: It is a bit rich though that Disney sent these jolly Disney braided buses to pick up players at the airport, isn’t it? Please let’s not also normalize human sized duck children who also don’t wear pants in all this.

Evan Fournier

Fournier was one of the first to get to Disney World, being that the Magic are like what, around the corner from the park? He was also one of the first to demonstrate what might be a growing concern for the NBA in the coming weeks — the toll of player boredom in their hotel rooms and the extremely jacked up potential for sprained ankles and wrists.

Rating: Cirque du Soleil’s tryouts are the next bubble over!

Kelly Oubre Jr.

Much has already been made about the food in the bubble but you really do have to hand it to the person in charge of it on Kelly Oubre Jr.’s floor for their efficiency. Why make two trips mere hours apart when you can bag ‘em both, slap ‘em on a tray, and call it a day?

Rating: Who said efficiency ratings would go down in the bubble?

Terrence Ross

Ross (safely) lit off some fireworks with his family on the fourth. They might be close enough to his Disney hotel that they can communicate via flare like frigates in the night now, or they can probably just FaceTime.

Rating: As far as baby’s first fireworks, Roman Candles are a nice option.

Chris Boucher

Boucher played my favorite Akon song very aptly from his pre-bubble bubble balcony in Naples.

Rating: This guy is getting big on jokes and I’m here for it.

DeAndre Bembry

It was also Bembry’s birthday this week and boy did he do it big. He flew a safe amount of friends down to the Virgin Isles, took a lot of boat rides, jumped off a boat and ate some wonderfully, wonderfully thematic cakes.

Rating: 26 never looked so occupationally-related and edible.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — Here’s the situation

Good news and bad news. Good news first, because I am nothing if not an optimist, and because I want to push these GIFs I’ve got coming a little further down the page. They are unsettling. I would never unsettle you this early on purpose.

Hamilton is out. The musical phenomenon dropped on Disney Plus and millions of people watched it from the comfort of their homes for much less money than it would have cost to see on Broadway. They got to see Daveed Diggs strut back and forth across the stage as Lafayette in Act I and Thomas Jefferson in Act II. They got to see Leslie Odom, Jr. belt out the role of Aaron Burr. They got to see Renee Elise Goldsberry sing herself through a brick wall as Angelica Schuyler. This is all very cool. I’m sure it lost something in the translation from the live stage show to televised production, but who cares? Lots of people got to see and experience a buzzy work of art that wouldn’t have been available to them otherwise. That’s a good thing.

Unfortunately, this brings us to the bad news and to the aforementioned unsettling GIFs. We must discuss the spittle.

Did you see it? Flying off the bottom lip of King George during his first appearance in the musical? Here, let’s enhance.

ENHANCE.

Yes, sure enough, there is the spittle, launching off his face and into the lights and presumably into the first rows of seats which were hopefully labeled “Splash Zone.” It was a not-insignificant amount of spittle. I have a few notes.

— As much as the spittle disquieted me, I do have to respect the decision to include it in the final edit, in extreme close-up, as if the decision was made that if they had to watch it then so did we. I very much would have liked to be in the editing room when that was given the green light. I like to imagine there was a huge argument that ended with one guy shouting “THE SPITTLE STAYS OR I QUIT.”

— Do you think Jonathan Groff — the actor who played King George, who is terrific, for the record — was aware of the spittle in the moment?

— Guess what: He knows, as he explained to Variety recently:

“I spit a lot onstage,” Groff said on the latest episode of Stagecraft, Variety‘s theater podcast. “I’ve always been a spitter … I start sweating. I just get wet when I perform onstage. It is just what happens.”

He went on, “For the first couple weeks of the run I felt bad, because I’d walk down to the end of the stage in the second song of the show, ‘Skid Row,’ and I can’t help it, I’m just, like, spitting on everyone. And they’re either enjoying it, or they’re laughing, or they’re holding up their programs to block their face. … I don’t care anymore, but it made me feel self-conscious at first. I’d never been so close to the audience where I was actually seeing the reaction on people’s face while I spat on them!”

— What an incredible series of sentences. Read them through a couple times to let them sink it. Read them in King George’s voice. Roll your R’s and really hit those T’s. Make a meal of the whole thing. Let the spittle fly if you’re feeling it. It’s only appropriate.

— So, I knew Jonathan Groff played King George in this, and I know he’s in Mindhunter, but I don’t think I ever fully squared those two facts in my brain until I saw all of this on my television. It was a lot to take in. I’m still going to have to crank away on it mentally for a while. I kind of want to see Holt McCallany as Bill Tench as Hamilton now.

— Actually, no. Let me be clear: I really want to see Holt McCallany as Bill Tench as Hamilton. Or make Mindhunter a musical. Either or both. I’m not a picky man.

— This is easily the most words I’ve ever written about an actor flinging spittle during the recording of a live stage show

— I titled the GIF up there “Hamilton Spittle” and it’s just dawning on me now what a terrific fake name that would be.

This was a good chat.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Congratulations to Mark Wahlberg

As you already know if you spend way too much time staring at a computer and/or following the training regimens of maniac action stars (yes, I do have opinions about The Rock’s cheat day meals, but that’s for another time), Mark Wahlberg has some, oh, let’s call them “interesting” fitness practices. Remember when he posted his daily schedule and everyone lost their mind for a few days trying to figure out how any human lived like that by choice, waking up at 2:30 a.m. and getting in a workout, two meals, and a snack by 8? I do. I think about it constantly. He has 6-7:30 a.m. blocked out for a shower. That’s a 90-minute shower. It’s madness.

But I’m already getting off-topic. We are not here to discuss crazed pre-dawn weightlifting. We are here to discuss… plants? We are here to discuss plants.

It’s Wahlberg’s diet that has changed the most in recent months. Instead of eating seven to eight meals a day of mostly protein, he is now on a plant-based diet, something that only was meant to be for a short amount of time.

“I wasn’t getting enough rest, doing two-a-days, six to seven days a week, eating seven to eight meals of mostly protein, and just not feeling good,” he says. “I did a bone broth fast, and then went plant-based for what was supposed to be twelve days. That was four months ago.”

He’s completely unhinged. I love it. I just picture him sipping bone broth out of a champagne flute at dinner while he nibbles on his 400th carrot of the day. You and I will never look like Mark Wahlberg with our shirts off but we get to eat onion rings. It’s a fair trade. But again, not really the point. The point is these next two sentences from the article that pulled up to my brain in a uHaul and promptly moved in.

“I’ve discovered hummus,” he says. “I never had hummus before and I’m loving it!”

Congratulations to Mark Wahlberg for discovering hummus.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Let’s talk about Tom Cruise’s zit-growing superpower

There was a very good interview with Westworld star Thandie Newton over at Vulture this week. She lets it rip on a number of topics, most notably the way she and other women have been treated by Hollywood over the years, up to and including a few disturbing examples with names named. It’s a fascinating chat with someone who has a lot to say, which is really all you can ask for out of an interview.

One of the things she touched on was Mission: Impossible II and working with Tom Cruise. Most of it focused on how difficult he could be due to the massive amount of pressure he and everyone around him put on his shoulders, and that’s certainly interesting, but I am a child, so I screeched to a halt when I saw this passage.

I remember at the beginning of the night, seeing this slight red mark on his nose, and by the end of the night, I kid you not — this is how his metabolism is so fierce — he had a big whitehead where that red dot was. It would take anyone else 48 hours to manifest a zit.

Have you ever read anything so perfect in your entire life? Like, of course Tom Cruise — a madman who taught himself to fly a helicopter for a later Mission: Impossible movie and hung off a plane for a stunt in another, even though there are very talented stuntmen and CGI technicians who would gladly take that responsibility off his hands (and insurance underwriters who would be happy if they did) — is so unrelentingly intense that his pimples grow at three times the speed of a normal human. It’s somehow both completely believable and unbelievable at the same time, equally passable as a medical fact and urban legend.

My favorite part of this story is that Mission: Impossible II came out in 2000, which means Thandie Newton has been thinking about this pimple for two full decades now. That’s not to say it’s unreasonable on her part. I suspect I’ll probably be thinking about Tom Cruise’s super-zit in 2040 now. You might, too. Let’s set a date in our calendars now to meet up then and discuss.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Shoutout to Virgil Sheets, weirdo coroner

I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about HBO’s Perry Mason miniseries. I like parts of it very much. Other parts of it, less so. I’m fairly certain this will sort itself out once the show really gets cranking in the next few episodes.

One thing I do know, though, is that my favorite character on the show so far is Virgil Sheets, the weirdo little coroner with the Charlie Chaplin mustache who lets Perry use the corpse’s clothes as a personal Goodwill and always seems a little too excited to be in a morgue. I love him. He definitely talks to the bodies when no one else is there. He might even sit them up around a table like they’re all having dinner. I must know more about him at once.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — Bring back the adorable noodle boy

Two facts, both true:

• John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch was a super fun and super weird special produced on Netflix late last year that featured the comedian doing songs and sketches with a grip of children and also a fully deranged Jake Gyllenhall
• Two new Sack Lunch Bunch specials are coming to Comedy Central

From Variety:

Variety has confirmed that Mulaney has signed a deal with the cabler to host and executive produce two new “John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch” specials. The first special debuted on Netflix this past December.

“I was an intern at Comedy Central when I was barely older than the kids in the ‘Sack Lunch Bunch.,’” Mulaney said. “I wasn’t a very good intern, so I am psyched they hired me again. We are thrilled to bring these specials to Comedy Central: a place where I have had so many good times.”

This is good news. I like that this is happening. All of the children were adorable and disturbingly talented and I can’t wait to watch more Sack Lunch Bunching. That said, if the little boy in the above video — the one I’ve been calling Noodle Boy for months now — is not involved in at least one of these specials, I will heave my television off a ninth-floor balcony.

Thank you.

ITEM NUMBER SIX — I mean… sure

I apologize. This tweet from former Deadspin staffer and great Philadelphian Dan McQuade is over a month old. I should have brought it to your attention weeks ago. I am doing it now, though, which feels like it should count for something. Partial credit, at least. Watch the video before you grade me. You’ll see why it had to be done, even this late.

People remember Baywatch mostly for the very small bathing suits and very large surgical enhancements those bathing suits struggled to contain, but please don’t forget that the show was also fantastically weird in a million ways. It’s on Hulu right now. Pick an episode in the back half of its run at random and press play. It’s amazing what you could call a television show in the 1990s.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Ryan:

A wizard approaches you on the street and makes you an offer: You get $5 million but you can only watch one television show and one movie for the rest of your life. All the other shows and movies still exist. You are aware of all of them but can’t watch them even for one minute or the whole deal is off. Do you take the deal and what show and movie are you picking if you do?

Ryan, I am absolutely taking this deal. Every day. Where is this wizard? I’ll go find him if it greases the wheels a bit. I have plenty of time. I’ll do it right now.

The answer to the second part almost doesn’t matter. It makes your question less fun to take that position, but it’s true. I would read books and go do things and watch sports — not a television show or movie… loophole! — and find other millionaire things to do. I’d have so many monocles to clean and organize. There’s just not enough time to enjoy all these shows. But now I’m just being difficult. The trick here is to pick a movie that is incredibly rewatchable and a television show that has had a long run. That way you give yourself options. They also can’t be too mentally taxing, because while those kinds of things can be powerful in the moment, you might not want to revisit them too often. You need a good plan.

All of which is to say I will take the $5 million, the full run of The Simpsons and, I don’t know, let’s go with the Clooney/Pitt Ocean’s Eleven. This is a very good deal for me. Get that wizard over here.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To New Orleans!

A cat burglar is on the loose and a Metairie family has been trying to get the word out.

People’s clothing kept winding up on the Bardi’s front porch. It all started a month ago when a tank top and some socks appeared out of nowhere

SOCK HEIST.

“We just thought alright maybe someone got drunk and had clothes and had some kind of issue,” Joseph Bardi said. “It keeps happening and happening and happening.”

A little concerned, the couple filed a police report.

“We started getting weirded out. Heather bought some surveillance cameras,” Joseph Bardi said.

I can’t wait to discover what kind of sadsack degenerate is out there running around New Orleans stealing small amounts of clothing from people’s yards and moving it to someone else’s property. It’s so weird. Why would any human do something like this? I mean…

Wait.

Hold on.

They said “cat burglar” in the first sentence.

You don’t think…

No.

Come on.

“Lo and behold it was the cat,” Joseph Bardi said.

The culprit was their pet Admiral Galacticat. He was caught on camera with evidence of the theft, as a sock clearly hung from his mouth.

Here I was all prepared to be livid about the pun in the opening and suddenly, blammo, they drop “Admiral Galacticat” on me. How can I possibly stay mad at this story now? What a wild turn of events. Almost wilder than the events in the story itself.

Some country.

“At first I was kind of thinking ‘what kind of idiot lets a cat steal their clothes?’ but then I ended up being that idiot,” O’Neal said. “As soon as she mentioned Nike socks, I was like oh those might be mine.”

Thankful the mystery was solved, he quickly forgave his feline neighbor.

“I patted him on the head and said ‘look you got to stop doing that,’” he laughed

I vote we try this with more small-time criminals. Worth a shot, at least.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

In the summer of 2019, a million years ago in 2020 time, I flirted with the idea of going on a fandango to Colorado in order to see My Morning Jacket at Red Rocks. The venue is at the top of my (apologies for using this corny term) rock-venue bucket list, and MMJ seemed like the perfect band to see there. Long hair, bushy beards, and a screamingly loud Flying V at an elevation of 6,500 feet — what could possibly be better?

Alas, my stupidly frugal and rational side won out. Surely there would be other opportunities to satisfy my Red Rocks rock fantasies, right? Right?? Jesus, what a fool I was. I feel like I shrugged at the chance to hop the last rocket ship to Mars.

I felt especially sharp pangs of regret last month when one of MMJ’s Red Rocks shows from August 2019 was streamed for free online. As I expected, the concert had everything I craved — the hair, the beards, that stout Flying V. Once again, this band proved that they could deliver everything I could possibly want from a band: in short, a hybrid of a bombastically cathartic “big” rock experience mixed with something brainier, jammier, and more nimble. There were delicate, spacey textures that sprawled for minutes on end like an ocean of sound raining down from the sky. They also played the one where Jim James screams “oh shit ruuuuuuuuun!” at the top of his freaking lungs. These guys still can blow minds! How inspiring!

As I watched on my laptop, my guts churning with a mix of elation and profound loss, I was reminded of a fact that I forget all too often: My Morning Jacket truly is one of the great American rock bands of the last 25 years.

Of course, in the past decade, it has seemed as if MMJ has deliberately worked to make people forget this. After building their legend in the aughts with a series of auspicious albums that culminated with the 2005 hit Z, as well as scores of iconic concerts that climaxed with a marathon four-hour show at Bonnaroo in 2008, MMJ took most of the ’10s off. They released two pretty good albums, 2011’s Circuital and 2015’s The Waterfall, and dutifully toured behind them. But otherwise James — the band’s charter member and unquestioned leader — drifted into solo projects and supergroups. And the mighty MMJ faded a bit.

When I spoke with James in 2015, he front-loaded his exhaustion with being the frontman of a medium-popular rock band. He had been haunted by health problems and personal heartache that he attributed more or less directly to the toll of MMJ’s non-stop touring. “I feel like I’ve paid a really heavy cost, a really heavy physical health cost, for the years of touring and how physical I’ve been onstage,” he sighed. “We’ve worked really hard, and maybe it hasn’t been a fair deal. I actually feel a little bit [ripped off]. We’ve had a lot of blessings and a lot of opportunities to do a lot of cool things, but I’ve definitely paid for them all with interest.”

At the time, James was promoting The Waterfall, an album sold as a kind of comeback record and sign of renewal. Which was a little weird, given that James sounded so beat up. But it was also true that The Waterfall was the most engaging album that MMJ had made since Z. And there was supposed to be another LP made during the same sessions that James promised would be out soon. “The two records aren’t related or anything. I don’t want to put it out as, like, The Waterfall 2 or anything like that,” he said. “I just think it’d be fun to put out another record a little bit quicker than we normally do.”

Smash cut to several million and five years later. In 2020, the album that James spoke of back in 2015 has finally been released. Instead of coming out “a little bit quicker” than the normal MMJ album, it arrives after the longest break ever between the band’s records. Oh, and it’s also called, in spite of James’ initial protestations, The Waterfall II. Like all of us, James has hastily improvised under impossible circumstances.

Had My Morning Jacket not just demonstrated with startling efficiency how potent they are as a live act, one might assume that The Waterfall II — an album that sat in the vault for at least five years, and was made as part of a project that began in late 2013, in the early days of Obama’s second term — signals a discouraging sign of the band’s future vitality. Does this even actually count as a “new” record? Or is it technically a “lost” record, a la Neil Young’s recent Homegrown?

Let’s set that aside for a moment. After wondering about this album for so many years, I’m happy to finally have The Waterfall II out in the world. Nobody at this point is expecting the second coming of It Still Moves or anything, but it’s just nice to feel like these guys haven’t ridden completely off into the sunset. And that all comes down to James. He’s the one who had to decide this thing was actually worth putting out. For years, he was ambivalent. (This album came up again when I interviewed him in 2018, and he was in no hurry to even ponder it.) I wonder if on some level he resented MMJ, his life’s work and also the thing that had ripped him off, with interest.

James has said he decided to finally put out The Waterfall II as a surprise summer release when the album’s first song, a wistful psych-soul ballad called “Spinning My Wheels,” came up on his personal shuffle. He felt the song’s dreamy allusions about the need to “find a new day / a new way / to get clear / to be here” applied to the current moment. Which, okay, sure, I can see that. Though the song opens with a couplet that more directly speaks to James’ frame of mind when I interviewed him five years ago: “I’ve been wrong for so long / Risking my life for the sake of the song.”

On The Waterfall, My Morning Jacket sounded determined to remind fans of the monolithic jams they made their name with in the ’00s. It was a record designed to be played live at places like Red Rocks and Bonnaroo, with a bevy of anthemic howlers that could sonically expand to fill the expanse of any venue. A true “we’re back, baby!” record. The sequel, however, carries no such pretenses. Even the hardest rocking track, “Wasted,” which settles on a surly guitar groove accented with punchy horns, feels more like an invitation to explore the darkest corners of innerspace than a call to party. In that way, The Waterfall II feels (apologies for using another corny term) more honest. Much of the record is composed of bleary-eyed, pedal steel-laced ballads that dwell ruefully on loss and aspire gorgeously to a state of healing, creating an all-too-relatable vibe of heartsick restlessness driven by a desperate desire to believe that tomorrow will somehow be better. So I guess it really is relevant to our endless now after all.

Starting with the likable career-ruiner Evil Urges, James has been moving away from the heart-exploding arena-rock sound that MMJ pursued as well as any band of their generation. But it wasn’t until the Waterfall albums that he was able to coherently incorporate the pop and R&B influences he’s pursued in his solo work into the framework of MMJ. On The Waterfall II, he guides his band through some stunningly silky golden age of soul exercises. “Still Thinkin’” starts as an amiably bopping ’60s pop song, and then melts into a hazy coda accentuated with fusion-jazz keyboards and Quiet Storm sax wails. MMJ returns to this well time and again at the heart of the record, with James cutting through the slinky “Magic Bullet” with a molten lava guitar solo and then settling into a comfortable Bill Withers purr on “Run It.”

There’s also a pronounced country feel to many of these songs, more than on any MMJ album since The Tennessee Fire. Though James, as usual, never plays southern rock straight: “Climbing The Ladder” is like a Waylon Jennings song with a disco beat, an inadvertent nod to Sturgill Simpson’s future, while “Feel You” is acid-laced yacht rock with a delectably fluttery Seals & Crofts guitar lick.

What does any of this portend for the band? Apparently there’s another MMJ album that was recorded after their brief 2018 and ’19 tours, though it’s unclear when it will come out. Perhaps the answer can be found in the music. The Waterfall II ends with the album’s prettiest ballad of all, “The First Time,” in which James pines for the innocence of the past.

“Can tomorrow feel like it did back in the past? Before we knew it too well?” James sings in a spine-tingling falsetto. “But only time, time will tell / If tomorrow feels like / The first time… the first time.” In other words, who knows? As another long-lost rock band who returned in 2020 recently observed, this is the new abnormal. Nevertheless, I like not having to completely let go of everything we once knew just yet. The Waterfall II gives me hope that there’s another Red Rocks concert in all of our futures.

The Waterfall II is out now via ATO Records. Get it here.

After making five arrests in connection with the murder of Brooklyn drill rapper Pop Smoke, the Los Angeles Police Department has revealed the names of the adult suspects, as well as the charges against all five of the suspects and their bail amounts.

Yesterday, it was reported that LAPD had arrested three adult men and two juveniles after serving several search warrants in the LA area. While the juvenile’s names are still being kept under wraps as is standard procedure, the LAPD’s Twitter account revealed that the three adults are listed as Corey Walker, Keandre D. Rogers, and Jaquan Murphy. Walker and Rogers, as well as the two juveniles, were booked for murder, while Murphy was booked for attempted murder.

The Los Angeles Times‘ crime reporter also revealed yesterday that police believe that none of the suspects actually knew Pop Smoke; rather, they got the address of the Hollywood Hills home he was renting from an Instagram post, confirming a theory that emerged in the wake of Pop’s death.

Surveillance video confirmed that five people broke into the house late at night in what was thought to be a targeted hit. Pop Smoke’s posthumous debut album, Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon, released last Friday.