Month: August 2020

The Hamilton movie — which is to say the extremely immersive live recording of the blockbuster musical with its original cast — only dropped on Disney+ less than a month ago, and though we already knew it was a hit, we may not have been able to guess by how much. As per Variety, a new study claims it was the most popular piece of content on all streamers, and by a ton, mopping the floor with everything, even the heavy-hitters.

The study — which, by the way, is too be taken with a quarry of salt, given that streamers only release data when it makes them look good — has it that during the month of July the Hamilton film was responsible for 37% of viewership. For contrast, second place goes to old episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, available on Netflix, which has about a third of that, or 13.7% to be exact. America’s rapping founding fathers also conquered Charlize Theron’s The Old Guard (10.6%), Amazon’s Hanna show (9.6%), Andy Samberg’s Palm Springs (8.1%), even fellow Disney+ content Frozen 2 (down in 9th place with 6.6%).

Here’s another bit of context: The top draw in June was Space Force, the Netflix show with Steve Carell. That claimed a mere 8.3% of the viewership during a month when the numbers were a but more evenly distributed.

So what’s the takeaway? People really, really, really like Lin-Manuel’s take on the United State’s first Secretary of the Treasury. Of course, that you already knew.

(Via Variety)

Giannis Antetokounmpo is not usually one for losing his composure, but on Tuesday night, the reigning league MVP got tossed from Milwaukee’s game against Washington for headbutting Wizards center Moe Wagner. His ejection came after 10 minutes of work, and while he was following things from the locker room, the Bucks took care of business and won, 126-113.

It was expected that Antetokounmpo would receive some sort of punishment from the league for this, and on Wednesday afternoon, it was announced that he’s caught a one-game suspension. As a result, he’ll be on the sideline for Milwaukee’s game against Memphis on Thursday.

This isn’t particularly huge news for Milwaukee — odds are Antetokounmpo wasn’t going to go all-out during the final seeding game with the team’s No. 1 seed locked into place — but the implications are gigantic in the race for the 8 and 9 seeds in the Western Conference. The Portland Trail Blazers are in eighth, a half-game up on the Grizzlies in ninth and the Phoenix Suns in 10th. The easiest path forward for Memphis is to just take care of business, and while the Bucks are incredibly deep, that becomes slightly less difficult with Antetokounmpo out.

As for Phoenix and Portland, the former play the Dallas Mavericks in a game that tips off at the same time as Bucks-Grizzlies. The latter, meanwhile, play the Nets on Thursday evening, so they’ll know exactly what they have to do when they take the floor.

Paris Saint-Germain looked dead and buried in their Champions League quarterfinal tilt against Italian side Atalanta. Thanks to a silky finish in the 26th minute by Mario Pasalic and a bevy of missed chances by PSG star Neymar, it looked like PSG — which is synonymous for crashing and burning in European competition — was going to add yet another data point to the narrative that they cannot get it done at the continental level.

And then, all hell broke loose, and thanks to a pair of goals within minutes of one another, the Parisians came back from the dead to knock off Atalanta, 2-1, and advance to the club’s first Champions League semifinals in 25 years.

For supporters of the French giants, PSG kept getting infuriatingly close, but just could not beat Marco Sportiello in goal. Just on the verge of injury time, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting carried the ball from the left flank and into the midfield. He played in a ball that fell to the feet of Neymar, who looked set to go for goal but, perhaps accidentally, slid the ball across the face of goal. There, his center back and countryman Marquinhos, who tapped it in to draw Paris level.

The French side were roaring in the minutes leading up to the goal, but getting the first seemed to breathe a new life into them in their search for a second. They did not have to wait until any sort of extra time for that, though, as Neymar and Kylian Mbappe combined to see the Frenchman through. Mbappe saw Choupo-Moting darting towards goal, played in a pass, and in the blink of an eye, PSG had gone ahead.

Atalanta is perhaps Europe’s most aggressive side, and their inability to see through the match ended up being their downfall. They were one of the best stories in all of European football this year, so it is unfortunate that things ended so abruptly for them, but even though it took PSG quite some time to score, they were the better side for much of the night. As a result, they will move onto the semifinals, where they will face one of RB Leipzig or Atletico Madrid on Tuesday, Aug. 18.

With his new album Trapped On Cleveland 3 out now and his sights set on a platinum plaque for it, Atlanta’s Lil Keed releases the video for the latest single from the project, “Here.” The video takes inspiration from glam rock looks of the 1980s, surrounding Keed with a four-piece band and putting him in a classic leather look to complete the homage.

Keed’s ambitions certainly aren’t out of reach at all, now that he’s been selected as a XXL Freshman for 2020. He appeared on this year’s cover alongside breakout stars like Chika, Jack Harlow, and Rod Wave, drawing eyeballs that may have missed previous efforts like his “Fox 5” video with Gunna. Between the XXL appearance and a co-sign from no less a superstar than Drake at a show in LA last year, the Young Thug-signed, Young Stoner Life Records rapper is well on his way to joining collaborators like Lil Baby and Lil Uzi Vert as a huge star. In the meantime, prospective Lil Keed fans can check out his most recent project, Long Live Mexico, which dropped in June of 2019.

Watch Lil Keed’s “Here” video above.

Trapped On Cleveland 3 is out now via 300 Entertainment. Get it here.

Lil Keed is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC, 10:00 p.m.) — The agents must outsmart the Chronicoms if they hope to stop Nathaniel and Sibyl who are getting closer to their endgame: eliminating S.H.I.E.L.D. Tonight marks the show’s final episode, and fans get two hours to bid farewell to this ragtag bunch of world-saving heroes. It’s been a wild ride but luckily, you can re-watch all of it via streaming.

Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn (HBO, 9:00 p.m.) — HBO’s latest documentary tells the story of Yusuf Hawkins, a black teenager who was murdered in 1989 by a group of young white men in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. The tragedy, and the official response to it, revealed racial tensions that had been simmering between Black communities and the NYPD for decades, and though it happened over 20 years ago, it feels even more relevant to what’s happening right now.

America’s Got Talent (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) — Five acts from last night’s show move onto the next round.

The 100 (CW, 8:00 p.m.) — Where in the universe is Bellamy Blake? Tonight, we find out. The show has spent most of its final season without its male lead, but this episode is dedicated to his pilgrimage on an alien planet that leads to a character-altering crisis of faith.

Coroner (CW, 9:00 p.m.) — Jenny is called to the scene when a cannabis mogul is murdered and the investigation leads her to an alternate world.

The Houston Rockets are set to shut down Russell Westbrook for the remainder of the seeding games in the NBA’s Orlando Bubble. The team announced that Westbrook suffered a strained muscle in his right quadriceps, and as a result, he will not appear in the team’s seeding game finale against the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday evening.

Westbrook had previously been day-to-day with the quad issue in the Bubble, which cost him games against both the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings, although he did play 27 minutes in the team’s loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday. As the release says, the team will evaluate Westbrook prior to the start of the postseason.

Houston is currently in a seeding battle in the middle of the Western Conference, and heading into Wednesday’s game against the Indiana Pacers, it sat in fourth place, 1.5 games behind the Denver Nuggets in third and a game up on the Oklahoma City Thunder in fifth. Westbrook is critical to the chaotic style the Rockets have adopted since the NBA’s trade deadline, so while they would assuredly want him to be able to go right now, it is far more important to make sure he is at 100 percent during the postseason, something that is especially true in the event they make it through the first round and presumably run into one of the Los Angeles squads.

Earlier this year, Bartees Strange introduced his music to the world with his 5-track EP Say Goodbye To Pretty Boy. The Washington, DC musician didn’t wait long before turning out a full-length effort and now, Strange is gearing up for his LP’s release. The musician announces his debut album, Live Forever, with the rowdy and unapologetic track “Boomer.”

In a statement about his music, Strange said he eventually took recording into his own hands. In his experience, studio recording can oftentimes be a white-dominated space and the musician felt that no one but him alone was able to faithfully capture his musical vision:

“I’m often the only Black guy in the room when I’m playing in a band or working in a studio and I’ll be honest, I don’t think the engineer always knew what I wanted to capture, what I was trying to do or what I was referencing. I wanted a space where I could be in control of how it was gonna sound, and have people there to check me that I trust.”

Listen to “Boomer” above and find Bartees Strange’s Live Forever cover art and tracklist below.

1. “Jealousy”
2. “Mustang”
3. “Boomer”
4. “Kelly Rowland”
5. “In A Cab”
6. “Stone Meadows”
7. “Mossblerd”
8. “Flagey God”
9. “Far”
10. “Fallen For You”
11. “Ghostly”

Live Forever is out 10/2 via MemoryMusic. Pre-order it here.

Elena Delle Donne, the 2019 WNBA MVP, is out for the 2020 season nursing a back injury that required surgery in the offseason. She discussed the “agony” she felt throughout the Washington Mystics’ championship run in 2019 in her recent conversation with A’ja Wilson and Naphessa Collier on their podcast, “Tea With A & Phee.”

“I wasn’t ready (for the season),” Delle Done says. “I kind of kept it pretty quiet but I had back surgery in the offseason and then due to COVID, everything got messed up.”

Delle Donne wasn’t able to be at the Mystics’ facility to rehab the injury because of public health rules that prevented WNBA players from going in for treatment for several months, as well as her particular caution due to her diagnosis with Lyme disease.

That Lyme disease diagnosis is ultimately why Delle Donne applied for medical clearance from the 2020 season. She was denied, a very public incident for the league and the most high-profile player from the NBA or WNBA to apply (and the only known case to be denied). But ultimately, the Mystics decided to keep Delle Donne on the roster and keep her inactive with the back injury, ensuring she would be paid throughout the season.

Delle Donne said she kept quiet about the injury so as to avoid stray elbows from opponents last season, and said she would not have been ready to play by the start of the 2020 season even if she did choose to to the Bubble. The hosts asked Delle Donne about the perception that she’s not “tough” because she decided not to play rather than duking it out in the Bubble and defending the Mystics’ title. Delle Donne dismissed it as the type of narrative that comes with being an athlete.

“I was in agony, and it was pretty brutal,” Delle Donne said. “Backs are pretty tough, so this could have some lasting impact.”

This latest situation comes after Delle Donne in the 2018 WNBA semifinals fought through a gruesome, knee-buckling bone bruise to play in a series Washington took to five games.

In order to play in that series, Delle Donne spent hours in a hyperbaric chamber, moved in an Alter G machine, and another several hours in a float tank in addition to the usual icing, stretching and massaging players receive. Delle Donne played five days after the injury.

Now, it’s the back. Delle Donne is one of the few WNBA players who does not go overseas in the offseason to compete professionally and supplement their income, yet she can’t seem to avoid major injuries. That, in addition to taking dozens of pills per day to treat Lyme disease, only makes Delle Donne’s dominating 2019 MVP and championship run all the more magical. It also gives hope that sitting out the Bubble season might finally be the type of rest she needs to come into 2021 healthy.

All things considered, it’s been a good year for Gunna. His new album, Wunna, enjoyed a No. 1 debut on top of the charts, and he has been active in promoting the record (and its deluxe edition). He continues to ride the Wunna train today as he drops off a fresh visual for “Wunna Flo” (not to be confused with the album’s title track, “Wunna,” which previously received a video of its own). In the clip, as Gunna has tended to do this album cycle, the rapper (alongside the song’s guest, Yak Gotti) shows off his lavish lifestyle by dancing around his private jet, counting stacks of cash while sitting on top of fancy cars, and more.

Gunna has kept busy since releasing Wunna. On the album’s release day, he gave a special livestream performance, which he dedicated to George Floyd. He later appeared on Pop Smoke’s deluxe album and put out a deluxe record of his own, an expanded version of Wunna. He also recently celebrated his 27th birthday and got lavish gifts from his hip-hop friends.

Watch the “Wunna Flo” video above, and revisit our review of Wunna here.

Wunna is out now via YSL Records/300 Entertainment. Get it here.

The Trail Blazers came into the Bubble ready to gun for the eighth seed, and outside of a hiccup against a Clippers squad resting its stars, Portland has looked far more like the team that made a Western Conference Finals run in 2019 than a group scratching its way into a playoff berth.

Having Damian Lillard on your team has proven, over the past five years, to be quite the difference-maker when the margins are slim. Few players have the clutch track record that Lillard has, and pandemic basketball with eight games to make up a four-game margin certainly counts as a slim margin for error. The Trail Blazers couldn’t afford to come in sloppy, and Lillard looks like a man possessed so far, capping off his incredible seeding-game run with a monstrous 61 against Dallas on Tuesday night.

They’re also healthy. The real reason Portland was meandering on the outside of the playoff bracket all season was that they were without Jusuf Nurkic, who sustained an injury all the way back in the spring of 2019, and Zach Collins, who was lost for the season early on. With both bigs back, the Trail Blazers no longer have to rely on the likes of Wenyen Gabriel and Caleb Swanigan to play big minutes.

All these factors led starting forward Carmelo Anthony to tell Rachel Nichols of ESPN that the Trail Blazers don’t see themselves as an eighth seed.

“Our mindset is not an eighth-seed mindset,” Anthony said. “We consider ourselves a very good basketball team coming together at the right time, at the right part of the season.”

The lineups with Nurkic and Collins on the floor together have looked like a breath of fresh for Portland in terms of having capable decision-making and defense in the frontcourt, but it’s actually not been great for the team statistically. The starting unit is getting outscored by 10 points per 100 possessions in the seeding games, mostly because it struggles to defend opposing lineups, such as in an Aug. 8 loss to the Clippers minus Kawhi Leonard. Collins, while an upgrade over the Trail Blazers’ other options, is still largely the same guy we watched at Gonzaga: A very athletic and mobile big man who is best-suited to be a center, but who fouls far too much to make it work at the 5. He fouled out in the first game in the Bubble and has had fewer than three fouls just once.

But two things have helped Portland counteract their jumbo front court, even when both share the court. One is to get Anthony off the floor and juice the offense, which cuts down turnovers and allows Portland to play a set defense more often, which makes better use of their size. The other is Gary Trent Jr.

The former five-star Duke recruit has been a revelation in the Bubble, making good on the shooting potential he flashed back in high school. The Blue Devils struggled to make use of him in a strikingly similar situation to what he faces now, with two lottery bigs clogging the paint. But when Trent is on the floor now, Portland plays faster and more spread-out.

Trent has scored at least 17 points in six of seven seeding games and has the ultimate green light from deep. After signing Anthony and trading for Trevor Ariza and Kent Bazemore, Portland has found its best wing internally, a player who doesn’t need the ball and has good size, making him a good fit with the rest of the roster. Seth Curry was a huge part of Portland’s success last year, and even if Trent can emulate Curry, the Trail Blazers will be one of the best offenses in the Western Conference playoff bracket.

Rumors circulated this week that Lillard was trying to recruit Ariza into the Bubble after Ariza opted out to spend time with his son amid a custody battle. If Ariza can make it work, that certainly won’t hurt, but Portland has shown they are quite good as-is. Anthony’s right: With mostly their full roster available and Lillard at the peak of his powers, the Trail Blazers are one of the hottest teams in Orlando and a sure bet to make life hell if they break through and face the Lakers in the first round.