Month: August 2020

Kanye West has been spending much of his time at his family’s multi-mullion dollar ranch in Wyoming in recent months. From Justin Bieber to Dave Chappelle, the rapper has invited a handful of celebrities and musicians to join him at the ranch to pursue creative endeavors. 2 Chainz is one of the few who has been able to lock down some time with Kanye, recently linking up with the rapper for a studio session. To commemorate the successful session and celebrate 2 Chainz’s upcoming birthday, Kanye gave the rapper an enormous gift.

Kanye gifted 2 Chainz one of his Yeezy Sherp ATVs, a tank-like machine that boasts giant wheels and a matte black exterior. “Woke up to a really dope present – Virgo season is upon us,” 2 Chainz wrote in a social media post, thanking Kanye for the present on Instagram. Kanye also added a more personal touch to the giant ATV, engraving a Bible passage on a gold plaque and attaching it to the vehicle.

The large ATVs were first spotted earlier this year in Chicago. Back in February, Kanye sent a fleet of Sherps to roam the city streets and pass out free pairs of his Yeezy Quantum Adidas just ahead of their official release. Upon hearing news of the free sneakers, fans began chasing down the vehicles and braving the chilling one-degree weather in order to scoop up a coveted pair.

Ubisoft apologized Monday and pledged to remove a video from its Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad mobile game after internal and external outrage for it connecting Black Lives Matter imagery to an in-game terrorist organization.

In the mobile game, you take on a terrorist organization that uses a symbol very similar if not an exact copy of the raised black fist image that has become synonymous with the Black Lives Matter movement. The “faceless organization” Umbra is characterized in the video as an organization that incites riots and protest through social media. Many felt the imagery and description of the organization was familiar enough to a cynical view of the current landscape of Black Lives Matter protests and calls for racial and social justice to call it out on social media.

Over the weekend many fans showed disdain for the video and called it offensive. Eventually, Ubisoft took it down, but not before many employees also made their thoughts on the video clear. The employee outrage was so fierce that, according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, the director of the game apologized.

This incident is another unforced error for a company that seems to have too many of these kinds of incidents. According to Schreier, the continued frustrations with Ubisoft’s higher ups has led to employees showing open frustration with the company.

Earlier this year multiple Ubisoft execs resigned following sexual misconduct allegations alongside reports from employees that Ubisoft had mishandled reports of sexual harassment in the workplace. Ubisoft promised “sweeping changes” after this, but how those sweeping changes are being implemented we have yet to see. Ubisoft released a statement before its Ubisoft Forward event in July, but did not address the allegations or its promised changes during the event itself.

Actress Niecy Nash publicly came out over the weekend in just about as joyful a way as possible: by tweeting a wedding photo, in which she proclaimed her relationship with and marriage to musician Jessica Betts. The Claws and Reno 911 actress shared the image that appears to have been captured after her wedding ceremony, revealing to the public her relationship and marriage in a surprise announcement. It’s also a rare bit of good news in 2020.

According to Out.com, Betts confirmed the marriage by saying (on Instagram), “I got a whole wife.” Nash, who had been married to Jay Tucker and Don Nash in the past, had played a role as a lesbian doctor on The Mindy Project in 2014, but before revealing her marriage on Monday she hadn’t officially come out.

She tweeted a photo of her in a wedding dress with Betts, declaring herself “Mrs. Carol Denise Betts” and tagging Betts on the picture.

As Out reported, the two had mentioned one another on social media in the past, but not indicated they were in a relationship. Betts worked on Claws together, with the singer getting a role in an episode.

Betts had performed a song on Instagram with Nash in, coincidently, a wedding dress in 2018. It’s silly and very cute, especially now with the added context that they are now married.

Joe Rogan’s podcast went on a brief hiatus while he prepared for a few changes: (1) The Joe Rogan Experience moving to Spotify; (2) The host himself moving to Texas from California. All of this is happening now, and Rogan’s podcast resumes officially on Tuesday, September 1. He’s dropping the episode a few hours early (7:00 pm Texas time on Monday, since that will officially be September 1 in Australia). To celebrate, he wore this outfit, and everything (well, the size of the podcast) is bigger in Texas.

My goodness. Rogan’s already known for his three-hour podcasts (which must be key to pulling out entertaining bits from guests), but he went for five hours. I guess there’s a lot to discuss after last week, and he promised that “copious amounts of controlled substances were involved,” so that’s certainly something to look forward to hearing. And one has to begrudgingly respect his new wardrobe selections, which might be only temporary, but one never knows.

As far as content goes, It’s difficult to guess how Rogan’s show will differ from the Lone Star State. Will he fly guests in to speak with him? Will he go local, gasp, and invite Alex Jones onto the show? That last bit might be obligatory if Rogan can stomach Jones’ bloviating. Whatever the case, Texas appears to be working out for Rogan so far. He’s reportedly scored a $100 million deal with Spotify, and his viral lesson on “Satanic” Instagram filters recently popped up in a Texas Tech lecture. So, the reward for Texas is a five-hour intro, which sounds like a fair deal.

When fans first noticed that Payback was scheduled for one week after SummerSlam, some assumed it was a weird pandemic-era scheduling mistake. Why would you plan that? But WWE has their own network, so they can pretty much run shows whenever they want, and it became clear that doing Payback a week after a much bigger show was part of “the deal” with Payback.

As the name implies, Payback is a response to SummerSlam, and to things that happened on TV too late to make it on SummerSlam. I want to say the idea was to do a show with a very different tone, but honestly in the era of COVID-19 and Thunderdome I’m no longer sure what “tone” even means.

In any case, WWE Payback was a show that felt different, even though its three strongest matches were the ones featuring the stars of SummerSlam in slightly rearranged configurations.

The big twist of SummerSlam was the surprise return of Roman Reigns at the end of the main event, when he showed up and wrecked both Braun Strowman and the Fiend Bray Wyatt after they’d already spent considerable time wrecking each other. So naturally the main event of Payback was a triple threat for the same Universal Championship that Wyatt won from Strowman just last week.

What’s more, in the meantime Roman has revealed himself as not just a heel but a Paul Heyman Guy. Unfortunately for this match, part of that gimmick included refusing to sign the contract for this match, since it didn’t meet his and Heyman’s demands. Roman still hadn’t signed when the main event arrived, so once against Strowman and Wyatt came out and wrecked each other for a while. Then Roman came out with Heyman, signed the contract on the ramp, and speared Strowman for an easy pin.

So now Roman Reigns is the heel champion of Smackdown, which is potentially a fun place to be in. It’s just a shame that the match that got us there wasn’t more fun in its own. But that’s the thing about Roman turning heel, right? He’s no longer there to give us a great match, and he doesn’t care if we respect him and his wrestling ability or not. A lot of fans begged for this change in attitude, and now we all have to deal with its consequences.

Another direct follow-up to SummerSlam’s events was the tag team match that saw Rey and Dominik Mysterio going up against Seth Rollins and Buddy Murphy. Dom did a great job last week, and this week he gets to share the ring with his legendary (and possibly soon-to-retire) father. This one’s a great match too, with the skills of the other three men more than making up for Dominik being green. It didn’t even seem like a huge insult to Murphy when Dom pinned him to win the match. It’s possibly that this feud will go to a third match, but honestly at this point it seems like Dominik Mysterio has been given about as much shine as he could possibly hope for to launch his career. Here’s hoping it leads him to great places.

Those who’ve suspected that the breakup of the Golden Role Models is imminent had to feel validated by the Women’s Tag Team Championship Match, in which Bayley and Sasha dropped their titles to the makeshift team of Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler. The storytelling in this match was particularly great, with Nia and Shayna gradually finding their groove as a team and learning to get on the same page, while Sasha and Bayley started to get rattled at the prospect of losing and lost a few steps between them.

Also the finish of this match, in which Shayna used Sasha’s arm to choke out Bayley? Wild. Great stuff. Also, you can already see how this story will play in future Bayley/Sasha arguments. They each had two belts, and then Sasha tapped out to Asuka and lost one. Then it was Bayley who tapped to Shayna and lost Sasha’s other belt, leaving Bayley with the only one. But it was Sasha’s arm against Bayley’s neck that led to that submission. There’s a lot to fight over when that trigger finally gets pulled.

Nia and Shayna have a lot to fight over too, but we don’t know yet whether they’ll implode quickly or go down the Sheamus/Cesaro route of realizing they work well as a team. They probably won’t go down the Alexa Bliss/Nikki Cross route of becoming such good friends they both turn face, but you never know. The Riott Squad defeated the IIconics on the Payback Kickoff Show, so Ruby and Liv are perfectly positioned now to challenge Nia and Shayna, which ought to be a fun feud if they give it space.

Keith Lee defeated Randy Orton, which was the most exciting part of their match. As a whole the match didn’t impress me that much, but it had some great moments, because there are always great moments when Keith Lee’s around. Plus, now that he has a PPV win over Randy Orton (in a more flattering pair of shorts no less), we can stop arguing about whether Vince is burying Keith and instead figure out what exciting thing Keith should do next.

Big E versus Sheamus felt like something we’d seen a lot of before. Even though Big E is just getting going as a singles star, he and Sheamus must of have spent hours in the ring together when the New Day and the Bar were feuding. But again, we can take comfort in the fact that Big E won, as he should have, and that his future looks bright.

Coming third in the “not great, but the right guy won so that’s something” trilogy was Matt Riddle versus King Corbin. This match didn’t really work, and these two performers don’t mesh well together. So again, at least Matt Riddle won and hopefully gets to fight somebody else soon (like a heel Roman Reigns, perhaps?).

The show opened with a United States Championship match in which Apollo dropped the title to Bobby Lashley of the Hurt Business. This was actually a really strong match, with both men demonstrating their physical advantages (being huge and massively strong in Bobby’s case, being strong and fast and agile and good at everything in Apollo’s). It’s a shame that WWE has sometimes seemed to put so much energy into teaching us not to find these guys entertaining, because they actually seem to be working to their strengths now.

So that’s where we are after WWE Payback. Now we have a month until Clash of Champions, which seems like a really long time after three shows in just over a week, but it will be here before we know it.

Whether she’s wondering where her tax dollars are going or slamming politicians about the government shutdown, Cardi B is known for using her large platform to share her political views. Now, the rapper has partnered with bi-partisan organization HeadCount to make sure fans are ready to vote in November’s election.

Cardi took to her label’s social media to share a video statement warning fans of upcoming voter registration deadlines. “Let me tell y’all something. State deadlines are coming very quick,” she said, directing fans to check their registration status.

Cardi B’s voter registration reminder is the latest in a handful of political actions. Not only did the rapper express an interest in returning to school and running for Congress earlier this year, but Cardi also hopped on the opportunity to interview Joe Biden ahead of the November election.

The rapper had previously expressed her support for Bernie Sanders, but she and Biden were able to discuss a number of policies from healthcare to eduction. During the conversation, Cardi had one major request for Biden: “I just want Trump out.”

Watch Cardi B’s full message above and check your voter registration here.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

With no fans and limited hobbies to hone in the NBA’s Orlando Bubble, watching what players do to kill time is often just as fascinating as what’s happening on the court. The latest example of this is the confirmation that the Celtics are making sure Tacko Fall learns to swim.

Since joining the team Fall became an immediate fan favorite on what’s an extremely likable Boston Celtics team. Fans love the Celtics putting games away to the point where the intriguing 7-foot-5 rookie center can get some valuable minutes, and even in a pandemic you can see people selling “Tacko Time” shirts on the streets of Boston. One of the most delightful parts of his reputation in the city is that he was actually taking swim classes at the Charlestown Boys and Girls Club, as he never learned while living in Dakar, Senegal, or while at school in Florida.

And we now know that, despite those lessons almost certainly getting cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, Fall has continued his training in the Orlando Bubble thanks to teammates Jaylen Brown and Enes Kanter. The latter posted a video to Twitter on Monday ahead of Game 2 against the Toronto Raptors that showed them holding Fall up in the water while he got in some strokes.

It’s great to see Fall is still putting in some reps and learning new skills in the Bubble, something that many people with a lot of down time say but rarely follow through on. And there’s something oddly mesmerizing about an absurdly tall human being, even compared to two professional basketball players, learning to swim in a pool. It’s good teamwork all around, and it only makes the legend of Tacko Fall grow.

After an illustrious career, J Balvin is known as the “Prince of Reggaeton” and currently stands as one of the best-selling Latin music artists. After growing up in Medellín, Colombia, Balvin has gone on to have a successful global breakout and win a number of awards. Now, the singer is detailing his rise in an upcoming documentary, The Boy From Medellín.

According to Billboard, Amazon Studios have secured the rights to The Boy From Medellín. Directed by Matthew Heineman, the feature-length documentary will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in early September.

In a statement, Balvin said he was “honored” to be able to represent his culture and share his story in the documentary: “Representing my country, my city and Latin culture globally is a lifelong pursuit and I’m so proud to be a son of Medellín. I’m honored to be able to tell my story in this beautiful way and working with Matthew on this project was an incredible experience. Thank you to Amazon for making sure this story can be seen around the world.”

In other news, Balvin was awarded a VMA Sunday night for his “Qué Pena” collaboration with Maluma. Balvin wasn’t able to appear during the ceremony, presumably because the singer is recovering after suffering from a “bad” case of COVID, but Maluma accepted the award on his behalf and put on a spectacular performance.

The last week of August is a traditionally dry one on TV, and this year is no exception. Yet it’s quite likely that you haven’t caught up on all of these streaming highlights from the past week, so please give something from this list a whirl. (If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.)

Ted Lasso (Apple TV+ series) — Jason Sudeikis is reviving his small-time college football coach character (who hails back to a 2013 advertising campaign) for this show. Lasso is somehow coaching professional English soccer, and good luck to him. What’s even more important, though, is that our own Brian Grubb calls the series “almost unreasonably good,” despite the seeming odds against it.

Lovecraft Country (HBO Max) — The unfurling of monsters continued on Sunday night, and there’s no time like now to catch up if you missed it. This week, Leti’s confronting a poltergeist after transforming a ramshackle Victorian home into a boarding house. Given that this happens on Chicago’s North Side, one can expect racist neighborly responses, which will spark dormant spirits within the structure.

Bill And Ted Face The Music (VOD) — Decades in the making, the long-anticipated threequel of the greatest damn franchise ever is here. Yes, “greatest” is a subjective term (fight me, Vin Diesel), but is anyone going to argue that the reteaming of Alex Winter (as Bill S. Preston, Esq.) and Keanu Reeves (as Ted “Theodore” Logan) is an unwelcome sight in 2020? Nope. The good news (for them) is that they’re getting the hell out of 2020 to steal music from themselves in the future and save the world. And unlike The New Mutants, they’re on VOD in addition to theaters this weekend.

The Binge (Hulu film) — Vince Vaughn plays “the adult” in this movie that’s a boozy play on The Purge but without the murder. Basically, teens are allowed to get totally blitzed (alcohol, drugs, you name it) for one 24-hour stretch per year, and the endearing Skyler Gisondo (Santa Clarita Diet, Booksmart) looks like the rising star of this project.

Cobra Kai: Seasons 1 & 2 (Now on Netflix) — Season 3 of this crowd-pleasing arrival will arrive in 2021, but you can catch up to your heart’s content on the series that started as a YouTube original. Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso faces off again with William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence and both of their respective dojo members, and the show’s still got the same energy as the original movies. Macchio promised us that “[t]he best is yet to come” for this series, and we believe him. May the franchise live on as long as possible.

Ravi Patel’s Pursuit of Happiness (HBO Max series) — The star of 2014’s Meet the Patels is back to mull over deep conversations in a four-part season. Maybe some of life’s more fundamental questions shall be solved, but the journey to several different continents will fuel enough escapism that answers might not matter.

Love Fraud (Showtime series debut) — This critically acclaimed Sundance Film Festival limited series feels like the lovechild of Dirty John and Tiger King, as one prolific con-man leaves a decades-long trail of destruction.

The nice thing about comic book characters is that even if you’ve never heard of them, it’s not hard to figure out their deal. For instance, Riddler? My man loves to riddle. Joker? Jokes. Batman? He f*cks bats. The Suicide Squad is full of easily-understood weirdos, including Peacemaker (he’s a “douche-y Captain America,” as John Cena put it), the Thinker (he thinks), Polka-Dot Man (he has polka dots), Ratcatcher (she communicates with rats), King Shark (he’s a shark), Weasel (he’s a weasel), and Arm-Fall-Off-Boy (he loves Fall Out Boy). There’s one single-concept character in the rogues gallery that director James Gunn didn’t want to include in The Suicide Squad, however.

When asked on Twitter if “there [was] any d list character you decided you didn’t want to use in The Suicide Squad?” Gunn replied, “Dog Welder was considered of course. But, you know, being an animal lover, I’m not sure it’s something I’d personally want to see expressed cinematically.” Dog Welder’s powers should be self-explanatory, but…

Dogwelder is a mysterious and likely disturbed individual who never speaks. His face is never revealed; always hiding behind a welding mask. All we know of Dogwelder and his methods are that he seems to live in an alley, he sets traps for stray animals, has a supply of dead dogs (perhaps just puppies) and he fights evil by pouncing upon evildoers and welding a dog to their face.

Uh, good call, James. I never thought I would grow to love a talking tree and a sarcastic raccoon voiced by Jackson Maine (his hands don’t scan), but I’m not sure he could pull off that same feat again with the dog-welding psycho. He’s too twisted, even for Joker!