When Batista returned to the WWE for his final match in 2019, there was no questions that “The Animal” wanted to end his career on his own terms. His run back to the squared circle in 2014 started with an almost certain championship win at WrestleMania before Daniel Bryan’s meteoric rise shifted reported plans.
While promoting Room 104, Batista spoke with Uproxx about his professional wrestling career, having sway when he was “making millions of dollars” for WWE, and that infamous 2014 run.
“So, throughout the rest of my wrestling career, I had a lot of input. There was one time I went back for a few months after I had left to do films. I went back with a certain understanding that I would have influence on my storylines. It was all stripped away from me and I lost control and it ended up being a disaster,” Batista said. “And I said that I would never come back until I could control my narrative and what I was doing in professional wrestling. And they let me do that, which is why I went back last year and I retired. I closed up my career, but they let me do it my way. And I think it was great.”
Batista would return to Hollywood shortly after his feud with The Shield ended, before meeting Triple H in a one-match farewell at WrestleMania 35.
Read more from Batista’s interview promoting HBO’s Room 104here.
The Talking Sopranos podcast is a must-listen for fans of The Sopranos, as co-hosts Michael Imperioli (Christopher) and Steve Schirripa (Bobby) break down every episode of the HBO series. I would also recommend following Imperioli on Instagram, otherwise you’d never know that James Gandolfini was apparently a huge Green Day fan.
The actor recently shared a photo of himself with Gandolfini, who tragically died in 2013, and in the comments, someone asked, “What kind of music was Jim into?” Imperioli replied, “Green Day.” It seemed like a joke at first, with another follower adding “yeah f*ckin’ right, Jim listening to Dookie would be an honor to watch,” but Chrissy wasn’t lying: “He would play the vinyl of Dookie in his trailer at work… He loved Green Day.”
James always struck me as more of an Insomniac guy, but guess not.
Picturing James Gandolfini enthusiastically singing along to Longview and feeling a serene calm wash over my body pic.twitter.com/nCnOFHx4MZ
As far as I can recall, no Green Day songs were ever played on The Sopranos (American Idiot came out during A.J.’s nu-metal phase), but Gandolfini has brought up the punk band in profiles before. Like this one from 2004, “Garden State Warrior: 11 Moments with James Gandolfini” by Chris Heath, who writes, “He asks me whether I have heard Green Day’s new album yet and talks about the enduring appeal of Lynyrd Skynyrd.” We sadly never found out what Gandolfini thinks of “Jesus of Suburbia.”
Megan Thee Stallion is in the midst of what is perhaps a bittersweet time in her life right now. She is fresh off the release of her Cardi B collaboration “Wap,” but she was also recently shot. She discussed the scary incident in an Instagram Live Q&A last night, and the conversation offered some insight into where her head has been since then.
Megan was asked, “What did you feel after getting shot,” and she answered:
“I feel like this is a thing that I see every single day and I see so many women and I see so many men talking sh*t about this. […] I felt, like, really crazy. I felt like, why did I get shot? Like, what did I do? It was insane. But sh*t was crazy and I feel like some people think that it’s funny and I feel like some people think that it’s a joke and I feel like some people think that they’re saying it to get to me, but I’m not ashamed of who I am and I’m not ashamed of what I’ve been through, and I’m not scared to say anything about anything.
It’s not fun, b*tch. I don’t understand. I just felt very betrayed by a friend. I felt very betrayed by all my friends. I felt very shocked, very scared. But the one thing that y’all need to know about me is I’m not a person who is able to be down for a long time. I don’t like to be victimized. I don’t like to feel like, ‘Oh my god, Megan, something’s wrong.’ I like to be upbeat. I like to be happy.”
She continued, “I always want people to know that pain does not last forever. Bad times don’t last forever. So I definitely always want people to see me being an example of bad things not lasting forever. Just because you go through something bad, don’t mean that that’s the time you’re gonna be in forever.”
Megan Thee Stallion responds to questions about being shot
Drake has been prolific in 2020. He dropped Dark Lane Demo Tapes a few months ago, he’s been hard at work on a new album (that’s nearly finished), and he dropped a pair of new songs with DJ Khaled. Before his next project comes out, he has helped an associate on an endeavor of his own.
Today, Popcaan has dropped a surprise new release, Fixtape, and Drake makes a pair of appearances on it, on “Twist & Turn” (which also features Partynextdoor) and “All I Need.” Given these are Popcaan songs, they are both dancehall-style tracks, although “All I Need” is closer to slow-burning, late-night hip-hop.
Listen to “Twist & Turn” and “All I Need” above, and check out the Fixtape art and tracklist below.
1. “Chill”
2. “Buzz”
3. “Fresh Polo” Feat. Stylo G and Dane Ray
4. “Twist & Turn” Feat. Drake and Partynextdoor
5. “Mamakita”
6. “Goodaz Gal”
7. “Canary”
8. “Rapid”
9. “Unda Dirt” Feat. Masicka and Tommy Lee
10. “Any One A Dem” Feat. Frahcess One
11. “All I Need” Feat. Drake
12. “Suh Me Luv It” Feat. Jada Kingdom
13. “Bruck Di Buddy”
14. “Murda” Feat. Preme and French Montana
15. “Jealousy”
16. “Friends Like These”
17. “Retribution”
18. “Bank And God”
19. “My Way”
Fixtape is out now via OVO Sound/Warner Records. Get it here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
For his follow-up to Widows, one of the most severely under-seen movies of the 2010s (it rules), Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen has made an anthology series for Amazon Prime Video called Small Axe. Each episode “celebrates little known stories of Black pride and resilience,” according to Amazon, including Mangrove, which tells the “true story of the Mangrove 9, a group of Black activists who clashed with London police during a protest march in 1970, and the highly publicized trial that followed.” Black Panther standout Letitia Wright (Shuri) plays one of the activists.
“Sunday, August 9, is 50 years since the Mangrove March, which led to nine innocent Black women and men being arrested,” McQueen said in a statement. “It was a march necessitated by relentless police brutality in Notting Hill. To commemorate the bravery of these community activists and the nine who went on to be acquitted of incitement to riot with the judge citing ‘evidence of racial hatred,’ I am sharing the trailer of Mangrove, one of five films to be released under the banner Small Axe” (you can watch it above). One of the other films, Lover’s Rock, stars John Boyega and was selected as the coveted opening-night title for the New York Film Festival. Here’s the official plot synopsis:
Based on a true story, Small Axe celebrates little known stories of Black pride and resilience, like the Mangrove March. Learn more about what happens when even ordinary people stand up to police brutality and racial injustice to achieve something transformative with Academy Award winner Steve McQueen’s latest.
Netflix drops the final season of a fan-favorite sci-fi series this week, along with a look at America’s problematic immigration system. First up is The Rain, a Danish drama that imagines the end of the world due to a deadly virus. A little too on the nose? Maybe. If you can’t stomach that fictional storyline, though, there is an interesting docuseries on America’s immigration policies and the government organizations that enforce them.
Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) Netflix this week of August 7.
This timely, six-part docuseries arrives on Netflix to give audiences an inside look at the struggle faced by some of the country’s most vulnerable communities. Back in 2017, filmmakers Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz were granted access by Leaders of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to shoot footage for the doc, but apparently, they’ve been fighting with the government ever since to actually release what they captured on camera. The show follows the legal saga of a handful of detained immigrants as they fight for citizenship.
The final season of this Danish apocalyptic series lands on Netflix this week and with it, hopefully, a way to save the world. The siblings are still fighting over how to do that with a deadly virus that kills instantly wreaking havoc on the planet. Rasmus is now Patient Zero, and Simone just wants to play hero, but they’ll have to work together if they want to make it out alive.
Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:
Avail. 8/1/20 Super Monsters: The New Class
A Knight’s Tale
Acts of Violence
The Addams Family (1991) An Education
Being John Malkovich
Death at a Funeral
Dennis the Menace
Elizabeth Harvest
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Hardcore Henry
Iron Man: Armored Adventures: Season 1-2 Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park III
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Mad Max (1979) Mr. Deeds
My Perfect Landing: Season 1 Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea: Season 1 The NeverEnding Story
The NeverEnding Story 2: The Next Chapter
The Next Step: Season 6 Nights in Rodanthe
Ocean’s Thirteen
Ocean’s Twelve
Operation Ouch: Season 1 Operation Ouch: Special Remember Me
Seabiscuit
Toradora!: Season 1 Transformers Rescue Bots Academy: S2 The Ugly Truth
What Keeps You Alive
Avail. 8/2/20 Almost Love
Connected
Avail. 8/3/20 Immigration Nation
Avail. 8/4/20 A Go! Go! Cory Carson Summer Camp
Malibu Rescue: The Next Wave
Mundo Mistério / Mystery Lab
Sam Jay: 3 In The Morning
Avail. 8/6/20 The Rain: Season 3 The Seven Deadly Sins: Imperial Wrath of The Gods
Avail. 8/7/20 Alta Mar / High Seas: Season 3 Berlin, Berlin
The Magic School Bus Rides Again Kids In Space
¡Nailed It! México: Season 2 The New Legends of Monkey: Season 2 Selling Sunset: Season 3 Sing On! Germany
Tiny Creatures
Wizards: Tales of Arcadia
Word Party Songs
Work It
And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:
Leaving 8/7 6 Days
Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer
St. Agatha
Leaving 8/14 Adventures in Public School
Being AP
Goon
It’s no secret that J. Cole has always loved basketball just as much as he loves rapping and rap music. Just take a look at the covers of his early mixtapes and debut album, Sideline Story. However, it was only recently revealed that he once had designs on giving up his day job to pursue those hoop dreams. In a revelatory essay for The Players’ Tribune, Cole wrote eloquently about losing his passion for working with words and turning his attention to developing the skills that might see him excel in another arena — pun intended. However, that passion was reignited by his newfound impulse for collaboration and he kept spitting — even as he continued to work on his jumper in local pickup games where he was rumored to put up some Klay Thompson-esque numbers.
Last month, though, in collaboration with Puma, Cole not only released his RS-Dreamer basketball shoe, he also shared a series of nostalgic ads that seemed to hint — as he had in his Players’ Tribune piece — that he refused to let his unfinished business remain that way. Narrated by Master P, who is notable for being the only rapper in history to try out for and make it onto an NBA roster (for the Charlotte Hornets and Toronto Raptors for the 1998 and 1999 preseasons, respectively), the latest ad, “The Audacity,” watches Cole working on his game as Master P expresses his incredulous disbelief at some unstated goal Cole appears to be pursuing.
It could just be a clever way to pitch the rapper’s basketball shoe, but the idea’s already begun to take hold among the social media-savvy league’s Twitter feeds, with the Detroit Pistons account mocking up a jersey with Cole’s name on it. Players are sporting his shoes throughout the NBA’s Orlando bubble and no doubt, there’s some buzz among them whether he actually has what it takes to make it on a team. One thing has does have for sure is the experience and the passion that lays the foundation for any prospective hooper’s path to a pro basketball career. Here’s a timeline of J. Cole showing off his love for the game and the moments that are helping drive the speculation that he’s now aiming to be one of the oldest rookies in NBA history*.
*Pablo Prigioni currently holds the record, debuting with the New York Knicks at 35 years old in 2012. He’d been a professional overseas since 1995, though.
1999-2003: High School Years
While Cole’s short film/sneaker announcement Dreamer contains archival footage of a pre-teen J. Cole working on his handles on a backyard hoop and dramatizes his early experiences on the blacktop, we’ll consider his four years at Terry Sanford High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina the beginning of his hoops journey. In 2017, Bleacher Report‘s Natalie Weiner published an excellent oral history of his time there, in which Cole’s coaches and teammates praise his work ethic, if not his skills.
2003-2007: St. John’s University
Cole went to college in New York on an academic scholarship rather than an athletic one, but that didn’t stop him from trying out for the team. He was good enough then to receive a call-back for the second day of tryouts, but had by then decided on music as his path. Though there’s some confusion about whether he was cut or just didn’t show up for day two (he insists it was the latter), he kept playing, on intramural teams and the St. John’s women’s practice team.
2007-2010: The Mixtape Years
Although he’d given up on basketball as a career by then, he kept the game close and highlighted his love of hoops in his art. His second and third mixtapes, The Warm Up and Friday Night Lights, both prominently featured basketball themes in their cover artwork and titles. On the cover of The Warm Up, he cradles a basketball in his left arm, looking like he’s on his way to a pickup game in the park, while on Friday Night Lights, he sits on the ball with his head in his hands like he just lost a huge game.
2011: Cole World: The Sideline Story
Dreamville
Everything from the title of Cole’s debut to his styling on the cover screams “game ready,” or at least “game adjacent.” The somewhat self-deprecating title feels like a reference to his sidelining his hoop dreams in favor of his rap ones, as well as a subtle reference to his being cut (or quitting) at both levels of organized basketball before letting go entirely. Despite this, he wears a letterman jacket as if he’s a varsity player and even the disc itself (remember those?) was printed with the lines of a basketball court seen from above.
In 2019, the depths of J. Cole’s love for hoops (and his emerging skills) were slowly revealed as NBA player Dennis Smith Jr. used him as a prop to dunk over in that year’s dunk contest. But it was after the dunk that we got our first public glimpse of J. Cole the hooper; retrieving the ball, he tried to go for a dunk of his own. He got hung on the rim, but was able to laugh it off — after all, he was an amateur surrounded by guys who do this for a living and just getting up there was impressive enough for most folks. But it was clear he wanted more, especially when interviews with Smith and text message exchanges his manager LB posted on social media revealed a guy who could score a casual 45 points at a rec league run but groused about no one having their phones out when he hit a game-winning buzzer beater.
2020: The Audacity
Master P says J. Cole is considering trying to earn an NBA contract
“When I talked to J. Cole, he was like, ‘You know, big dog, you did it. What do you think I would have to do to make it happen?’”
Beginning in early 2020, it seemed that Cole was feeling nostalgic for his playing days, releasing Dreamer as a way of announcing his upcoming sneaker collaboration with Puma, then publishing “The Audacity” for The Players’ Tribune. Dreamer slyly referenced his All-Star Dunk Contest failure, contrasting it with the work he’s done since to be able to complete that dunk. And now, he’s getting advice from Master P and training camp invites from NBA teams. It looks like the message of his Puma promo run — whether it leads to an NBA contract or not — rings true: “[It] sounds crazy when said out loud, but I believe all of the best dreams do.”
Cardi B has done what a lot of rappers are aiming for: Build a massively successful career for herself from the ground up. While her exact path may not be reproducible, she has offered some advice for up-and-coming artists who are looking for their shot at fame.
Cardi participated in a roundtable conversation with Rubi Rose, Sukihana, and Mulatto on Apple Music’s New Music Daily, and she told artists that to succeed, they need to do their own thing:
“Sometimes when I see these girls on a blog for some dumb sh*t, I be wanting like to hop in they DM and be like, ‘b*tch, don’t even worry about that. B*tch, you want to know what you do? Post a badass picture of you. Girl, post a freestyle or something. Don’t even pay [attention].’ I be wanting to say that because I been through it. I been through it. I been through f*cking responding to people. I been embarrassed before. I been canceled. I go through a ‘Cardi B is canceled’ party five times a year, you know what I’m saying? I been through all of that bullsh*t. So it’s like, when I be seeing girls coming up, I be wanting to tell them, ‘This what you should do. Just do your own lane.’”
Elsewhere in the conversation, she also encouraged hard work and collaboration:
“When you start climbing up there and you reaching up there, they’re going to embrace. You never know when one of these male rappers and everything they’re going to want to start doing a song. You never know. And if people ask you to do features, just keep doing it no matter who it is, just keep doing it. Just be there, just go to everybody. Everybody who has a fan, just go and do it and do it. And just be everywhere.”
Cardi also recommended that artists thinks of themselves as a brand, not just a musician:
“You just got to keep showing that, this why I’m the one, this why I’m that b*tch, this is why y’all got to pick me. This why you’re going to stan me. And just keep it going. Focus on your looks, focus on the music, focus on your brand. Because you’re going to be more than an artist, you got to think about being a brand. One day, you’re going to be more than just a artist. You’re going to be representing somebody’s product. You’re going to be f*cking… you might be in a movie. You might be in… bigger than life. After a while, you’re going to have so much opportunities.”
The conversation will be available to hear in full on Apple Music today at noon ET.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
With the slew of singles he’s released over the past months, one can only hope Guapdad 4000 has something bigger in store for his fans. Bringing June to a close with his second collaboration with Denzel Curry, the two rappers joined forces for their “Lil Scammer That Could” collab, one that came attached with quite the surreal music video. The track was then followed by his “No Home For The Brave” and “Orgasm Full Of Pain” singles in the following weeks before he returned for a third consecutive week with “Choppa Talk” alongside TyFontaine. Keeping the pedal to the metal, Guapdad keeps it coming with another single.
Holding it down by himself this time around, Guapdad returns with his latest release “Deadly Assassination Summer Squad.” The track centers around Gupadad’s fight to stay alive, one that always seems to come up during the summertime. “I was fightin’ for my life in the summer time,” he raps. “N****s always tryna catch me when I’m doin’ right.”
Earlier this year, Guapdad went on a similar streak in releasing singles week after week. The end result of that was the Platinum Falcon Tape, Vol. 1 so it may be possible that volume 2 is on the way. Whether it is or not, the music and the Rona Raps series amplifies the generosity and creative skills he holds within.
Listen to “Deadly Assassination Summer Squad” above.
Guapdad 4000 is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Coming off the success of his 2019 debut album, Is He Real?, IDK pushed full steam ahead in 2020 as he made his mark on the year in the second quarter with a pair of singles, “Mazel Tov” and “In My White Tee.” The latter featured a sample of Dem Franchise Boyz’s 2004 songs, “White Tee” and “I Think They Like Me,” while the former landed on IDK’s late June effort, IDK & Freinds 2, the sequel to his 2018 project. Showing no signs of slowing down this year, IDK returns with some more friends for a new single.
Calling on DJ Scheme, JID, and Kenny Mason, IDK touches down with “Cereal.” While the track is his first release since his IDK & Freinds 2 project, the song is his second collaboration with JID as the two last connected on “Porno” from IDK’s Is He Real? debut. As for Kenny Mason, who is off to a great year thanks to his Angelic Hoodrat debut, and DJ Scheme, the song marks the first time the acts have collaborated with IDK.
The track comes after IDK shared a celebratory video for his ASAP Ferg collab, “Mazel Tov” and made his late-night TV debut with a performance of “No Cable” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
Listen to “Cereal” in the video above.
IDK is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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