However, what may have been a bit lost in all the debate about women’s empowerment and the Kardashian omnipresence is how vital Cardi’s symbolic passing of the torch has been for the women she chose to highlight in cameos in the “WAP” video.
While Kylie Jenner, Normani, and Rosalía are all stars in their own rights, newcomers Mulatto, Rubi Rose, and Sukihana received a huge boost in popularity thanks to Cardi’s co-sign, which we’ve already seen have a vitalizing effect on the careers of other women in rap like Chika, Kamiayah, Rico Nasty, and yes, even Megan herself.
It seems that the Highlander era for rap’s women is over; the unwritten rule among fans and industry execs is no longer “there can only be one,” but instead “there’s room for everyone.” Cardi herself even followed up to highlight each of her guest stars on her insanely popular Instagram. Now that the hype for “WAP’s” over-the-top video has somewhat died down, it’s the perfect opportunity to take a look at the three new rappers who appear in it and get to know the next wave of female rap stars taking the baton from Cardi.
Mulatto
Atlanta-bred Mulatto, despite being the youngest of the three guest rappers on “WAP” (by about two months, as her birthday is in December while Rubi’s is in October), is actually the longest-tenured by dint of her appearance on Jermaine Dupri’s Lifetime reality competition show The Rap Game when she was just 17 years old. Then known as Miss Mulatto, she became the series’ inaugural winner and spent the next few years grinding it out independently rather than taking the offered deal with So So Def. This may have turned out to be a smart decision; she signed to RCA Records this year after releasing a string of well-received EPs (which were somehow conveniently overlooked by JD when he made his infamous “stripper rap” comments).
Song You Should Know: “Muwop”
Although the song “B*tch From Da Souf” became her breakout hit and de facto calling card, her most recently released single “Muwop,” named for and featuring Gucci Mane, had an immaculate rollout earlier this month and showed that she could keep up with one of the best-known icons of Atlanta trap rap. For weeks, Mulatto teased the track with photos of herself reproducing some of Gucci’s most iconic looks and when it finally released, it more than lived up to the hype.
Rubi Rose
Hailing from Lexington, Kentucky, Rubi Rose may actually be a familiar face to those with keen eyes; she was the starring role in the video for Migos and Lil Uzi Vert’s 2016 runaway hit single “Bad And Boujee,” hopping out of the BMW at the start of the video and flanking the rappers throughout. She later appeared on Playboi Carti’s leaked 2018 throwaway “On Top,” accompanied by rumors that the two were dating. However, her big viral moment came a year later with 2019’s “Big Mouth,” when her unique, gritty voice received attention on Twitter. Cardi even notes in her Instagram post highlighting Rubi, “You need a unique tone of voice when you a female rapper.”
Song You Should Know: “Hit Yo Dance”
While that unique tone netted her a deal with LA Reid’s rebooted Hitco Entertainment, it was her first single for the label that truly showed the 21-year-old’s star potential. With Hitmaka’s beat borrowing a loop from Birdman’s 2002 hit “What Happened To That Boy?” Rubi coolly out-raps guest NLE Choppa and shows a gift for confident wordplay and switching up her flow at the drop of a dime. Don’t sleep on her recent collaboration with Compton’s Day Sulan, “Big,” either.
Sukihana
Like Cardi B, Sukihana got her start of the reality show Love & Hip-Hop, appearing on the Miami-based version earlier this year. While the show hasn’t been much of a launching pad for its stars’ careers — really only Cardi has ever achieved mainstream notice since the show’s premiere in 2011 — Suki has popped up in videos semi-regularly for the past two years. Like Cardi, Rubi, and Mulatto, she built her following on social media, showing off her rhyme skills in freestyles posted to Instagram as she put out her own, self-financed music videos. Her most successful appearance to date came in 2018 alongside Texas rapper Cuban Doll in the video for “Drug Dealer.”
Song You Should Know: “Pretty And Ratchet”
As Suki’s spent the last two years polishing her skills, her latest is naturally her best. She sounds more confident than ever, with an improved flow that shows the attention that she pays to her craft. While the single flew mostly under the radar, that was more likely due to the glut of new female rappers popping up than any lack of talent or marketing on Suki’s part. Even Cardi comments on her growth, the sort of noticeable effort that suggests she won’t simply rest on her laurels now that she’s “made it.” She also has a quirky and unapologetic sense of humor and authenticity which will not only endear her to fans, but also serve her well in brushing off her inevitable haters.
Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Brave New World writer Grant Morrison recently adapted Aldous Huxley’s 1932 classic novel for NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock. This marks a new phase in the legendary comic book scribe’s career, following a streak that hails back to the 1980s Zenith and Animal Man titles. Those works led to him taking over the Doom Patrol comic book series, and although he isn’t involved with that DC Universe/HBO Max TV show, he created two of its most beloved characters — Crazy Jane (with her dozens of personalities) and Danny The Street (literally a living and sentient street that’s both gender non-conforming and superpowered) — within its wild ensemble of weirdos. Morrison has also carved out Batman, Wonder Woman, and Judge Dredd storylines, so let’s just say that adapting a sci-fi book was an unanticipated move but one that worked out splendidly.
We spoke with Morrison about wrapping up the first season of Brave New World, a show that’s dreamy and devilish and delightful, leaning into both pulpiness and eerily antiseptic gloss while reveling in hyperkinetic experimentation. It’s a daring update on what was already considered a prophetic work of literature, and Morrison’s version of the story introduces several new elements, including Indra, the computer connected to everyone’s minds, and the rewriting of the Savage Land as a literal theme park. Morrison was cool enough with also fielding some questions about HBO’s Watchmen and why Doom Patrol‘s Danny The Street can (finally) fully flourish in our current times.
Adaptations of other writers’ babies can be tricky. Does seeing your own work being adapted (with Doom Patrol, and so on) inform your process in adapting another writer’s work?
It’s quite unusual for me, but my process is the same as people who are adapting my work. You’re looking at something and basically trying to translate it from one medium to another, and television has very different demands and different pacing from a comic book, and it really is a translation. This is something that was created decades ago — with Brave New World, almost 100 years ago — and then you turn it into an almost contemporary theme and fit it more squarely in the world we live in now.
Prior to the show’s launch, you told Variety that you were looking to “escape from the comic book fandom that was kind of controlling my life.” Did it work?
[Laughs] It’s not so much “control,” but I’m always aware of my audience, and with the comic books, the audience is always on you and always checking you for little plot details. You’re under a lot of scrutiny, and I don’t mind that, but I’ve got to the point — where the secrecy of it and the sense of scrutiny and the fact that you’ve got monthly issues and have to hit your plot points — where I find it much more stressful. So what I liked about TV was the long process with multiple drafts and working with other people and the collaboration of it. It’s just a different dynamic, which I enjoyed a little bit more than the frantic pace of the monthly comic books.
We need to talk about the show’s disturbing use of contact lenses with, like, a brain probe or something. How did those get added to the story?
The idea was that to avoid the Elon Musk/Stephen Hawking CEO of AI taking over, but you could actually run a computer network on human brains. We’ve got so many neural connections, so all you would need was some kind of radio-telepathic link. There are no servers; it’s a purely distributed network of the minds of everyone, linked up to Indra. We also had to explain why there’s no automation, why everyone worked, and why they get jobs, because in a future society, we imagine automation, so that was the explanation. The computer needs everyone to be healthy and constantly active and engage in all kinds of physical pursuits. Huxley left a lot of stuff very vague, and we spent a lot of time in the writer’s room trying to find rationalizations for all those gaps. And out of that came the idea of how to link up to the computer and the contact lens — it’s quite visceral, and to join the society, you almost have to go through an initiation.
The show also got brutally visceral with the idea that monogamy is the root of most conflict in the world.
[Laughs] Yeah, Huxley also saw it as monogamy leading to the notion of family. And from the point of view of characters in the book, family is the root of all social problems. Whether we agree or not, it’s something to explore.
One big change you made was in retiring Huxley’s Native/Indigenous stereotypes with the Savage Reservation.
I actually lived with the Zuni Pueblo [tribe] in the 1990s, so I’m very familiar with that area and the people, and they’re far from the Savages presented in the book. For me, and aside from trying to get away from that kind of portrayal of Native people, what we were all more interested in was putting America itself in possession of the Savage Land, where the culture of the 20th and 21st century has now become degraded through 300 years where America refused to join the World State.
That’s a haunting reminder right about now.
Everyone else progressed to this “Brave New World,” and America has remained behind, and ultimately, it’s like any culture left behind for 300 years. Suddenly, they start to look weird. We had a lot of ideas that didn’t even make it to the screen, like with inflation suddenly being so bad that it took $3000 to buy a Mars bar. Or the fact that there’s six presidents in the past five months. And the place is kind of a mess because it’s a fallen, broken-down, last-gasp version of 20th century America. That seemed more interesting to put in the possession of the Savage Lands. It just seemed to expand the concept instead of looking down on a specific culture that was kind-of misunderstood and make it about American culture and how they’d respond to this new world.
The switch-up with the Savage Land reminds me of how Damon Lindelof recontextualized Watchmen on HBO. I’m assuming you watched it, especially given your previous commentary and feud with Alan Moore.
Oh yeah, I thought [the show] was fantastic.
There were a few possible Easter eggs (pointing to your comics) in Watchmen, like with the Zenith sign in the Looking Glass origin-story episode.
I think Zenith poster may have been just based on the popular television manufacturer, but I know there was a King Mob reference. In the trophy room, there was a gorilla mask that says “King Mob’s Gorilla Mask” under it. And King Mob was actually a radical group (in the 1960s), which Malcolm McLaren was part of, so I used the same name for my character in The Invisibles.
Speaking of references, with Brave New World, people are drawing comparisons to Black Mirror and Westworld.
Those are post-Brave New World ideas, and Westworld, in fact, is very much influenced by Brave New World, the novel. There are characters called Bernard and Ford, and it uses a lot of the ideas. As you know, people have been copying that book for so long that a lot of things are a little bit like it. But the difference between Brave New World and everything else like it is that this is not Marxist sci-fi about the exploited underclass rising up and seizing the reins of society. Brave New World is actually more chilling than that. No one can rise up because everyone is happy, and there’s no need to rise up, and when they do rise up, society puts them back in their place. So we’re not really doing the story that Westworld and everything else does, where they feel sorry for the downtrodden masses who then rise up. Usually, that ends up with civilization in ruins and nowhere else to go, so we didn’t really want to play those tropes again.
We gotta talk a little Doom Patrol. For Crazy Jane, the show has added a Karen to her gathering of personalities which is a loaded name these days.
It certainly is! And that’s good, it has to keep up with the world we’re living in, and I only named about 30 of those personalities, so there’s plenty of room to make up new ones.
And Danny The Street is also near-and-dear to the hearts of viewers.
I can understand because Danny The Street was always popular. Back in the day when he was created in the late 1980s, we didn’t have terms like “genderqueer” or “non-binary,” they just didn’t exist. There were no names, and I think that it’s really good now that characters like that can show up and be slotted into the world we live in. Suddenly, Danny’s genderqueer, and it makes more sense. It has something to say to the society that we’re living in now — where people in the margins have been able to get into the center of it more. I’m pleased with characters like that, which seemed really bizarre and were, in a lot of ways, seen as unacceptable back in the day, and we couldn’t even describe what we were doing. Those characters have come into a flourishing progression because of that. Danny was named after the famous drag actor, Danny La Rue, and his name (in French) actually translates into Danny The Street.
Doom Patrol was a pioneering comic for the idea of weird/atypical superheroes, who are everywhere now, like with Umbrella Academy and The Boys. Are you watching those shows or anything else in particular lately?
I watched the first season of The Boys, and that was great. The dysfunctional hero thing seems to be pretty popular. Another show that I’ve been watching lately is Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You. I watched the whole thing over two days. I was so impressed. It’s just beautiful and perfectly done. The dialogue, and it’s technically astounding and emotionally brilliant, so it’s hard to compare anything else to that.
Now that you’ve wet your feet adapting a classic novel, are there any others you’d like to tackle?
Oh, that’s an interesting question. Maybe another Huxley, since I feel quite bonded to him after all this. Some favorite books of mine, like The House of Leaves or Carter Beats the Devil, are a couple of things that would be fun to do.
You gave John the Savage a different fate than the book. Will we see him again?
All of the seeds are planted there, and we wanted to make sure there was an opening because John learns so much from his contact with this new world, and Lelina learns so much from her contact with the Savage Land. And because these characters are still in play, it seems like there are better ideas to explore when they essentially meet again. What do they represent, what do they stand for, and how do they deal with one another? So, the potential was there.
‘Brave New World’s first season is currently streaming on Peacock.
It was six years ago today that the world was stunned to learn that Robin Williams had committed suicide at 63 years old. The comedian’s daughter Zelda shared an emotional tribute to her dad on Twitter, where she wrote, “It’s hard for me on regular, good day to remain the person expected to graciously accept the world’s need to share their memories of him and express their condolences for his loss,” adding that while she’s “touched by all your boundless continued love for him, some days it can feel a bit like being seen as a roadside memorial — a place, not a person — where people drive past and leave their sentiments to then go about their days comforted their love for him was witnessed.” She also announced that she was taking today off Twitter (“It is simply too much”), although not before chastising Eric Trump for exploiting her father’s legacy.
Last week, one of the president’s two fail-sons shared a clip from a 2009 standup special of Williams mocking “rambling” Joe Biden. “Joe is like your uncle who is on a new drug and hasn’t got the dosage right,” Williams joked about the then-Vice President, now presumptive Democratic nominee running against Donald Trump. Like many before her, Zelda quickly hit back at Eric. “While we’re ‘reminiscing’ (to further your political agenda), you should look up what he said about your Dad. I did. Promise you, it’s much more ‘savage’. Gentle reminder that the dead can’t vote, but the living can,” she tweeted.
While we’re ‘reminiscing’ (to further your political agenda), you should look up what he said about your Dad. I did. Promise you, it’s much more ‘savage’.
During a 2012 performance, Williams compared Atlantic City to the mythical land of Oz, full of “druggies and pimps and pizza: oh my!” He continued, “And Donald Trump is the Wizard of Oz. He plays Monopoly with real f*cking buildings, this is a scary man. And he owns all these beauty pageants: Miss America, Miss Universe. Isn’t that a bit like Michael Vick owning pet stores? It’s a f*cking catch-and-release program for him. This is a man who said, ‘My daughter is hot.’ Even people in Arkansas went, ‘That’s f*cking wrong. That’s just way out of place.’ And that f*cking hair, my god!”
“WAP” is still going strong in the discourse — in some unexpected ways, as well. Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion have essentially “broken the internet” with their NSFW new video, dominating online discussion in a way that suggests “WAP” might not just be a huge hit but also a part of our day-to-day dialogue, the way phrases like “bling bling” and “lit” jumped from hip-hop catchphrases to our everyday lexicon. And while the video may be pretty wild, it would seem to be relatively tame compared to some of the stuff people usually search for online.
And yet, “WAP” is now trending on PornHub and Cardi B thinks it’s hilarious. A fan account on Twitter, @BardiUpdates, posted an extremely carefully edited screenshot of the trending searches from the popular adult entertainment site, which had “WAP” not only in the most trending searches — it had it right next to the top. Cardi posted a screenshot of the tweet to her Instagram story, wondering, “Why ‘WAP’ trending on PornHub?” and cracking up laughing with an emoji. It wouldn’t be the first video to have migrated to the site; G-Eazy even premiered his video for “Still Be Friends” — which featured a number of Vixen’s featured performers — there earlier this year.
You can check out the video for “WAP” — which isn’t quite as porn-y as the headline might suggest — above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” video came out on Friday, and days later, it is still a hot topic of online conversation. A fair amount of that talk has been about Kylie Jenner’s appearance (which more than a handful people didn’t love). Amid all that, though, Cardi wished Jenner a happy birthday.
Cardi shared some on-set photos of Jenner (who turned 22 years old yesterday, August 10) and in the post’s caption, she wished her a happy birthday, thanked her for appearing in the video, and explained why she wanted Jenner to be involved: “Happy Birthday and thank you @kyliejenner for being in my music video.I wanted different type of bad bitches in my video.Black,white,Latin,mix we all have WAPS!OK …but thank you always @krisjenner you always a call away for me and you treat me and mines like fam.” Jenner responded in the comments with a trio of kissing lips emojis.
Cardi previously offered a different explanation for Jenner’s presence, writing in a now-deleted tweet, “Why did i put Kylie on my music video?she treated my sister and daughter so lovely at her kid bday party .Travis and Set are real close and Kris Jenner have giving me advice on certain things I ask for and her husband real cool with mine.”
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Diamond DeShields is easily one of the most exciting players in the WNBA on and off the court. Not only can she fly up and down the court with wicked speed, but she has a sweet jump shot, silky handles and great court vision — all the makings of a fast-rising star. Last season, the 6’1 guard averaged a career-high 16.2 points, 2.4 assists, and 5.5 rebounds per game which earned her All-Star honors for the first time in her career.
Following last year’s crushing defeat at the hands of the Las Vegas Aces in the WNBA playoff semifinals, DeShields and the Chicago Sky have big dreams this year. With a talented core group of Courtney Vandersloot, Allie Quigley, Cheyenne Parker and the electric DeShields, Chicago is the top dog in the East and has their eye firmly focused on the prize this year. DeShields has had some early struggles this season, but looks to be improving after scoring a season-high 14 points along with three rebounds and one steal in Saturday’s win against the Connecticut Sun.
Dime caught up with DeShields, also the newest Oakley athlete, last week to talk about the sunglasses giant’s new “One Love” campaign, the WNBA’s role in the fight for social justice and how the Sky are staying focused in their quest for the 2020 WNBA championship.
Oakley just came out with a campaign where they remade Bob Marley’s famous ‘One Love’ song and music video. You appear in the video, and you also co-wrote some of the lyrics. Is writing something that you enjoy doing in your free time?
I’ve always taken to music, in a way, lyrically. But the way we came up with the lyrics was actually through an interview process and some of the members from Team Oakley interviewed the athletes and then took tidbits to create the song which was really touching, and it’s really cool to see your words really be part of that creation process.
The campaign is about remembering Bob Marley, his love for sports and just trying to spread a positive message to people around the world right now. How do you think the return of sports can help people have some sense of normalcy in their lives?
It’s not about getting back to normal with the return of sports, I think it’s about creating a new normal. Obviously, we’re in the midst of not only a pandemic but a larger civil rights movement in global history. So it’s our duty as athletes to make sure we’re on the frontlines of that battle and I don’t think the old normal is something any of us want to get back to you. And so like I said as leaders and as influencers, it’s our duty to create a new normal.
The WNBA has been at the forefront of social justice issues for years, and even more so this year. The league is also unique compared to other sports leagues, with about 80 percent Black women and such a high level of thought put into every action on the social impact front. What is it like to be part of such a unified league with players that are incredibly well-spoken and outspoken about issues like police brutality and racial inequality?
First of all, it’s very special to be a member of the WNBA and it’s such an incredible group of strong, educated, powerful women. And when you talk about marginalized groups, we’re the marginalized of the marginalized. Not only are we a league of females, we’re a league of Black females and a large part are members of the LGBTQ+ community. Every day of our lives is an uphill battle, so for us to not be vocal and outspoken at a time such as this when like you said, about 80 percent of our league is directly impacted by racial injustices and racial issues, it would be doing ourselves a disservice and there’s no place for that. We’ve always been at the forefront of social justice issues; we will continue to do that and I’m just happy to be a part of a group that is as powerful and unified as the WNBA. It means a lot.
Obviously, every season is physically challenging in the WNBA. But this season must be particularly different from a mental standpoint — how did it feel when you were sitting at home, not knowing whether you were going to get to play basketball this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic and then seeing the social justice movement take off in the U.S.?
It felt like my world had been turned upside down. My sport requires me to leave my house and go to a gym every day, and to do other things outside of just the equipment and things that I have at home. So having to adjust to working out in your living room and using YouTube workouts or Zoom workouts. And then just as the civil rights movement was spawned after the murder of George Floyd, it just broke all of our hearts and specifically it broke my heart, to be in that place emotionally. But it did spawn a bigger, larger movement and like I said, it would only be doing myself a disservice to not get out and be involved in trying to make change.
Pivoting now to the Chicago Sky, you came into 2020 with title aspirations after falling just short in the playoffs last year. You’ve started this season on good note, currently sitting at the top of the Eastern Conference standings. In such a short and different season, how do you make sure that your focus is always there?
It’s just the same mental approach you would have even if you weren’t playing in the Wubble. You got to come into each and every game ready to execute the game plan, unified as a team. There are a lot of distractions right now and some of those distractions are just not having fans, being able to hear every single thing in the gym. The referees are hyper sensitive now because they can hear every comment and everything that’s said — typically, they wouldn’t hear those things. Living with your opponent, being next door neighbors with your opponent. There are a lot of things that can throw you off, but as long as you have the mental fortitude to push through those things and have the same approach as you would before, I think that has contributed to our success early on and will continue to contribute to our success down the road.
A lot of fans say that you have some of the coolest on-court style in the league, with your game-day uniform including a headband, sleeves, glasses and cool kicks. Is that something you enjoy being known for?
I believe if you look good and you feel good, then you play good. So every time I’m out there, I gotta make sure that I look good because if I don’t look good, then I’m not going to feel good and if I don’t feel good, then I might not play good. I just try to go out there and do what makes me feel comfortable, without doing too much!
Cardi B is the subject of a new Elle feature, and in it, she offers some teases about her upcoming album, including a comparison that should excite fans.
In the piece, Cardi draws parallels between her upcoming album and one of Beyonce’s classics, Lemonade, saying:
“My music is always going to make a woman feel like a bad b*tch. When you make a woman feel like she’s the baddest b*tch in the room, to me, that’s female empowerment. But this album is going to be really different. Of course, it’s going to have my Lemonade moments, my personal relationship moments.”
She later commented more about her album addressing her relationship with Offset, saying, “If you all are so curious to know about my relationship and blah, blah, blah, I’m going to put it in the f*ckin’ music, and you can buy it, too. I’m not going to give it to you all for free.”
Cardi also addressed the hate she gets online, saying it isn’t enough to make her leave music: “Ain’t no way that I’m going to quit. I don’t give a f*ck if the whole world picks on me. I don’t give a f*ck if people make up lies about me every single day. I want to make it really clear that nobody can ever make me quit.”
In 2000, four of the year’s 15 highest-grossing movies were comedies, including Meet the Parents, Scary Movie, and that stone-cold classic Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. Last year, it was zero. As Hollywood has shifted towards franchises, in particular franchises revolving around superheroes, it’s become increasingly difficult for comedies to make a dent at the box office. Assuming they’re released into theaters at all.
One of the few exceptions is comedies starring and/or produced by Seth Rogen, like Sausage Party and Neighbors, which, as he told GamesRadar, “have managed to do really, really well, even though they’re the exact type of thing that people say doesn’t do that well.” But he also recognizes that the mid-budget comedy is becoming extinct, having been replaced by the $200 million comedy. “Something that me and [producing partner] Evan [Goldberg] talk about a lot is how Marvel movies are comedies. Thor: Ragnarok is a comedy. Ant-Man is a comedy at its core,” he said. “There are $200 million comedies out there… That’s something, as a comedic filmmaker, to be aware of”:
“That is the benchmark that people expect! If you’re going to make a big huge comedy, just know that your competition is like Marvel. Not to say you should not make those types of films, but know that’s what audiences are seeing, and that, when you see those movies in theaters, they are playing like comedies. They are legitimately funny and star comedy stars… That’s why something like Good Boys does well, because we’re not offering scope. What we’re offering is pure comedy and emotion and relatability and nostalgia. That’s the trade-off. You don’t get to see the God of Thunder being hilarious, but you get to see something that maybe represents your actual life, and that’s very gratifying in another way.
Rogen’s new comedy, An American Pickle, was originally scheduled to be released in theaters, but then the pandemic happened, and HBO Max bought the rights. That could be the new normal, even when movie theaters are open again.
Over the past decade or so, the relationship between Kanye West and Jay-Z has been up and down. Regardless of how things have gone, though, Kanye just misses his old friend, as he told the world on Twitter last night.
Kanye retweeted @TeamKanyeDaily, who shared a video of Kanye and Jay performing “Otis” at the 2011 MTV VMAs. Kanye then shared a screenshot of the video and wrote, “Miss my bro … real talk.” Kanye’s tweet comes right on the heels of the ninth anniversary of Watch The Throne, his and Jay’s collaborative album that came out on August 8, 2011.
Things between Kanye and Jay have been hairy in recent years. Jay seemed to shade Kanye at a 2017 concert, but a few months later, he spoke highly of his relationship with Kanye to David Letterman. During his My Next Guest Needs No Introduction appearance, he said, “That’s my brother, we’re beyond friends. Really, like literally, my little brother is Kanye. And like your little brother, things happen sometimes.”
It continued a strong stretch of play from Kuzma, who LeBron James said Monday night the Lakers needed to be the third star if they are to win a championship. In the bubble, Kuz has been one of the few Lakers to shoot the ball well and he’s also taken a greater interest on the defensive end of the floor, which bodes well for L.A. as they gear up for the playoffs.
The player contesting Kuzma’s game-winner was the incredibly long Bol Bol — admittedly late with his closeout — and afterwards Kuz was asked about shooting over Bol and gave an all-time answer of “I think Jesus could be in front of me, and I would probably still shoot it.” It’s a spectacular response and one that the TNT Tuesday night crew had some fun with, with Shaq warning him that Jesus might just “shut his ass down” the next game.
Dwyane Wade and Vince Carter were rolling after that, and Candace Parker added that while Kuz’s confidence is good it has also been known to occasionally lead to the young forward shooting the Lakers out of games. There’s no doubt that L.A. is going to need Kuzma in the playoffs in a few games to do some of the heavy lifting as defenses focus on LeBron and Anthony Davis, but there’s certainly not a confidence issue for Kuz.
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: Steven Klein 
