Month: August 2020

It’s been over a year since Jamila Woods released her landmark sophomore album Legacy! Legacy!. Each track on the record is named after a different artist of color like “Basquiat” and “Baldwin.” Now, the singer is remembering the late author Toni Morrison, who died just a few months after Woods released last year’s album.

Woods debuted the single “Sula (Paperback)” Thursday, inspired by Morrison’s 1973 novel Sula. The book was the first Woods had ever read by Morrison, and the singer was instantly inspired by Morrison’s depiction of the relationship between protagonists Sula Peace and Nel Wright.

About the novel and song, Woods said, “It’s the first Toni Morisson novel I ever read and it inspired the first chapbook of poems I ever wrote. The novel shows the evolution of a friendship between two Black women and how they choose to navigate society’s strict gender roles and rules of respectability. On Sula, Toni Morrison wrote, ‘living totally by the law and surrendering totally to it without questioning anything sometimes makes it impossible to know anything about yourself.’ Returning to the story several years later, it gave me permission to reject confining ideas about my identity designed to shrink my spirit. It reminded me to embrace my tenderness, my sensitivities, my ways of being in my body. This song is a mantra to allow myself space to experience my gender, love, intimacy, and sexuality on my own terms.”

Listen to “Sula (Paperback)” above.

Legacy! Legacy! is out now via Jagjaguwar.

On Aug. 21, a major PGA Tour video game title will make its return to the market when PGA Tour 2K21 drops for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

HB Studios, which has produced The Golf Club franchise, is heading up the project for 2K and earlier this week they hosted a virtual press preview event that Uproxx attended to offer details about will be in the game as well as some gameplay preview. For gamers that have been waiting for a PGA Tour video game to make a return, there’s plenty to get excited about. Let’s get into everything you need to know about PGA Tour 2K21, including game modes, who and what is in the game, customization options, microtransactions, and much more.

What golfers are in PGA Tour 2K21?

A dozen PGA Tour pros got scanned into the game, headlined by cover athlete Justin Thomas and (pre-beefed up) Bryson DeChambeau. The pros serve as your rivals in your MyCareer, with various challenges to clear to beat them, unlocking prizes along the way. Players were given 360-degree facial scans but their swings were not scanned and no motion capture work was done for this edition.

Justin Thomas
Cameron Champ
Bryson DeChambeau
Matt Kuchar
Kevin Kisner
Gary Woodland
Billy Horschel
Ian Poulter
Tony Finau
Jim Furyk
Sergio Garcia
Patrick Cantlay

What courses are in the game?

There are 15 officially licensed courses that will be in PGA Tour 2K21 upon launch. Detroit Golf Club is also in process of being scanned and created and will be added after the game’s release, with plans for at least one more course addition.

Atlantic Beach Country Club
Copperhead Course (Innisbrook)
East Lake Golf Club
Quail Hollow Club
Riviera Country Club
TPC Boston
TPC Deere Run
TPC Louisiana
TPC River Highlands
TPC San Antonio
TPC Sawgrass
TPC Scottsdale
TPC Southwind
TPC Summerlin
TPC Twin Cities

How will the courses play?

We spoke with lead designer Shaun West of HB Studios about the course scanning process, which they promise will provide the most realistic gameplay a golf game has ever seen. In partnership with Terra Imaging through a process that took three months per course, the courses were scanned by drones, providing HD video as well as terrain details, to allow the studio to create exact replicas of the courses.

“The process that they use for scanning the courses flying drones over it, taking photogrammetry and video and combining all that information into 3D data that we could then optimize and put into our course designer really let us take the product to the next level,” West said of the process, which began with The Golf Club 19. “We’ve taken that a step further this time using that process with all of our courses we’re launching in 2K21.”

Previous games have had green scans to replicate the undulations of the putting surfaces, but with the Terra Imaging process, HB Studios is able to bring a more complete course to the player. As anyone who has played Sawgrass or East Lake or any of these courses can attest, the course designers put painstaking detail into the sloping of fairways and bunkering to make the course play as desired, and that hasn’t always translated to video game golf.

“We wanted to take this step and make sure that it wasn’t just the greens, we were stepping back from there to the bunkers and the fairways and even the tee boxes,” said West. “We wanted to make sure the elevation changes and all of those nuances in the fairways, like those lumps and bumps that you see, they’re easy to forget if you’re just looking at photo reference to build a course. So, this scanning process allows us to map the entire square footage area of the course. It’s literally everything. We clean up some trees and noise that might be on the course to flatten out those areas, but in general we’ve got very precise data for everything from the tee to green and it’s been a huge success thus far.”

The gameplay video we’ve seen has shown the fruits of that labor, as there’s not just general sloping to fairways, but a very real look to them and how the mounds and dips effect tee shots and lies.

Who announces the game?

Luke Elvy and Rich Beem are in the booth, with John McCarthy as the on-course reporter.

What does the MyCareer mode look like?

Starting with Q-School on the Korn Ferry Tour, your player (which can be fully customized with facial features, hair, accessories, etc., BUT will not include facial scanning options) will begin their PGA Tour career. The season runs for 30 tournaments, playing the 15 licensed courses in the game as well as some other courses that were created and imported from The Golf Club 19, and ending with the Tour Championship at East Lake. You gain sponsorship deals as you go along, as well as competing with your aforementioned rivals. The MyCareer mode was the focal point of this edition of the game — along with online play and the course designer (!) which we’ll get to and more.

You gain XP and VC throughout your career to add more gear and clubs — VC can also be purchase.

So, more microtransactions?

Yes, in the sense that it’s an option, but as they told it to us it won’t matter a ton. For one, all players stay at the same level and all have the same swing, which is to say you don’t increase skills through XP or VC boosts. On top of that, while the clubs all have various attributes, they attempted to balance them to where any club with a certain strength (say, distance) also has a weakness (like, forgiveness) so that buying new equipment does not automatically make your player better. As such, players are rewarded for working their way up to new equipment, but there isn’t a prohibitive advantage to dropping major money on VC.

That’s good news, but how does one make it more challenging or get better?

There are six preset difficulty modes, ranging from Rookie to Legendary, that will make the game easier or harder — and customizing difficulty settings is also an option. These will impact swing sensitivity and forgiveness for errors with your swing, how much the rough and other conditions impact the ball and more. Playing at a higher difficulty will also give you an XP multiplier for each round.

OK, so about that course designer note. That sounds really cool. How’s it work?

It is very cool! The course designer allows you to fully build your own course, either through beginning templates or by starting with a totally blank canvas of a property. There are various themes to begin with — like desert and tropical — and literally thousands of different objects, trees, bushes, hazards, ponds, lakes, bunkers, and other assets you can add to your course. New to this year’s game compared to The Golf Club 19 is the ability to put any object in any course — rather than being confined to objects from your chosen “theme.” Once you finish building a course, that will be uploaded to the PGA Tour 2K21 community and available to play on all platforms. It’s going to be maybe the best part of the game, and surely the part that will keep players coming back for more even once they’ve mastered the 15 courses in the game.

You also mentioned online play, what will that look like?

There are two ways to play online. One is through online matchmaking, which will allow you to drop into matches (of various formats) against players from all over — NOTE: there is no crossplay, so you can only play against those on the same platform. You can play stroke play, match play, skins, alternate shot, and, new to this year’s game, 4-player scrambles.

The other option is to create or join a Society, which is really the hallmark of The Golf Club franchise. This allows you to run your own club with friends online (or open one to the public) and create tournaments, play matches with others in your Society. For those that don’t want to operate a club, you can simply join one — there will be massive, open to all societies available to join.

Let’s go back to customization. What brands have products in the game?

A number of the major club manufacturers and clothing lines in golf are available — with some notable exceptions like Titleist, Ping, Nike, and others.

Cobra/Puma
TaylorMade
Callaway
Bridgestone
Ben Hogan
Wilson

adidas
Polo Ralph Lauren
Under Armour
Travis Mathew
Malbon Golf
Skechers
Penguin
PGA Tour
Jack Nicklaus
Grand Slam Performance

Can I customize my swing?

No. As they explain it, the focus on this year’s game was on the career mode, online play, and getting all of the courses replicated as best as possible. As such, they updated their standard swing in the game, but that is the lone option. That said, the training mode does allow you to perfect your swing and calibrate your joystick (right stick is the swing stick) to ensure your transition is smooth, as fast or slow transitions lead to draws and fades, respectively.

What are the swing control options?

The game allows for a number of swing control options to allow players to make the swing they want at any given time. You can shape your shot right or left (left bumper + left joystick) to hit draws and fades, with your swing tempo also factoring in. You also can change your attack angle to create more or less spin, as well as partial swings, which you’ll have to control with your backswing, which will be assisted by a percentage bar at the bottom that will show you the preferred range to draw the club back for the distance you’ve chosen.

Cheesecake isn’t for everyone. The decadent mixture of cream cheese (or sometimes ricotta, shout out to Italian cheesecake) crumbly graham cracker crust, butter, eggs, and loads of sugar is more than a bit rich. In fact, it’s a weird dessert overall. It takes two disparate things people love, mashes them together, and ends up being neither cheese nor cake in its final form. Our point is, cheesecake, unlike say, ice cream, is a divisive dessert. So when we learned that Cheesecake Factory had a seven flavor line of cheesecake-flavored ice creams, we knew we had to rank them.

The Cheesecake Factory line — available nationwide — features an ultra-rich blend of cream cheese, sour cream, and ice cream in seven flavors which include Birthday Cake, Chocolate, Cookies & Cream, Key Lime, Original, Salted Caramel, and Strawberry. It is not, for the record, regular ice cream that happens to be made by the Cheesecake Factory. This is cheesecake Cheesecake Factory ice cream, which is important to remember because if you dive into the chocolate thinking there isn’t going to be a tart aftertaste, you’re in for a rude awakening.

To rank these, we’ll be using a five cheesecake rating system. Try them yourself and argue with us in the comments. It is summer after all, and nothing melts away quarantine boredom quite like eating then arguing over something sweet.

Key Lime

Oh boy, we’re in for a rough start here folks. This is… well, it’s not good. Key Lime Pie and cheesecake speak to the same type of sweet tooth, they both utilize egg, are both tart, and both sit atop a graham cracker crust — so this flavor seems like a winner.

It’s not.

Where a slice of Key Lime pie is bursting with a refreshing and tart flavor, the Cheesecake Factory Lime cheesecake ice cream is just off-puttingly sour. Graham cracker swirls try their best to add some much-needed texture and a counter flavor to tamp down some of the sourness, but ultimately the mixture of sour cream, cheesecake ice cream blend, and key lime will convince you that your carton has expired.

Seriously, skip this one.

Our Rating:

Eat a real slice of cheesecake instead, even if you hate cheesecake.

Salted Caramel

When we tried the Salted Caramel entry, a concern rose to the fore: was every flavor of this ice cream going to be bad? We’re not trying to be negative here, but between Cheesecake Factory Key Lime and Salted Caramel ice creams, it was starting to feel like whoever conceived of this ice cream pitched the line of flavors by saying “let’s ruin perfectly delicious ice cream flavors by adding cheesecake into the mix.”

This flavor is all out of whack. The sea salt clashes with the sour cream and cheesecake blend, creating an overwhelmingly sharp and salty aftertaste that lingers on the palate well past its welcome. Good luck trying to cleanse your palate after a spoonful of this stuff. While the caramel flavor is overpowered by the salted cream cheese, it still manages to create a sticky mess that clings too easily to the walls of your mouth and never really mixes into the ice cream base.

Our Rating:

1 cheesecake out of 5. Salted Caramel is one of the greatest ice cream flavors of all time, but the near-perfect blend of flavors can’t hold up when you mess with the formula.

Cookies and Cream

We’ve finally woken up from the nightmare. Cheesecake Factory Cookies and Cream ice cream isn’t the best flavor of the bunch, but its a marked improvement over the flavors that precede it. The tartness of the cheesecake blend pairs nicely with creamy chocolate and vanilla ice cream, and the chocolate cookie swirls add an extra dose of rich chocolate and texture. The only thing that let us down about this flavor was the lack of large cookie chunks in the ice cream, bigger pieces of the oreo-like cookie would’ve really kicked this flavor up a notch and brought it more in line with the Cheesecake Factory’s own signature Oreo Cheesecake.

We had high hopes for this one, and while we don’t want to call it a disappointment, it failed to truly wow us.

Our Rating:

2 out of 5 cheesecakes. A league above the Key Lime and Salted Caramel flavors, but nothing remarkable.

Original

One spoonful of Cheesecake Factory’s Original Cheesecake ice cream will help you to realize why the franchise decided to shoot their shot by launching seven different flavors. This stuff is good and if the idea of cheesecake ice cream sounds insane to you, this flavor will make you believe it’s as legitimate an ice cream option as rocky road or pistachio.

A nicely balanced blend of vanilla ice cream, graham cracker swirls, cream cheese, and sour cream, Cheesecake Factory’s Original flavor not only belongs in your fridge, but we can easily see it being one of your top 10 ice cream flavors, even if you aren’t crazy about cheesecake.

Our Rating:

3 out of 5 cheesecakes. A great place to start if you’re wondering if cheesecake ice cream is for you.

Birthday Cake

Okay, this is way better than it deserves to be and we’re ashamed to admit it. We don’t want to offend you if you ride hard for Birthday Cake flavored ice cream, but that’s a flavor for babies, fam. It’s like preferring funfetti over devil’s food chocolate cake. So we fully expected this flavor to be absolute trash.

But. It’s. So. Damn Good.

Seriously, we know that the idea of candy sprinkles, swirls of icing, and sour cream sounds disgusting — even typing it out makes us cringe — but this absolutely delicious. In a strange way, the Birthday Cake flavor tastes less like a Birthday Cake and more like the heavy cream and condensed milk Mexican sponge cake, Tres Leches.

The slightly tart and sour flavor is mostly masked in the insane sweetness of the Birthday Cake flavored ice cream, but supplies a pleasing aftertaste that’ll draw you in for another spoonful.

Our Rating:

4 out of 5 cheesecakes. The only reason to not have a pint of this in your freezer is that it’s embarrassing.

Chocolate

Cheesecake Factory’s Chocolate cheesecake ice cream is the only flavor in the entire line that could pass as regular ice cream. Rich chocolate fudge swirls work their way throughout this ultra-dense chocolate ice cream — which features a slightly subtle cream cheese after taste, delivering a nearly imperceptible burst of tartness.

We expected this to be one of the more boring flavors in the line, but it managed to be the pint we finished first, thanks to the bitter dark chocolate overtones.

Our Rating:

4 out of 5 cheesecakes. It’s not our favorite flavor Cheesecake Factory makes, but it’s a less embarrassing number two than the Birthday Cake!

Strawberry

Trust us, we were shocked to find strawberry in the top spot as well. While I’m by no means a hater of strawberry ice cream, I fully acknowledge that it’s the worst component of Neopolitan. Strawberry rarely tops lists — it’s a mid-tier flavor in the realm of desserts, it’s nobody’s favorite milkshake flavor, easily the worst variation of flavored milk, and the most visually unappealing variation on the Kit-Kat of all time.

But paired with cheesecake ice cream? It works beautifully.

Bits of frozen strawberry and graham cracker swirls pair perfectly with the tart undertones of the cheesecake blend, resulting in a dense, creamy, and rich experience that comes in waves, as layers of complexity reveal themselves only to quickly break down as they melt in your mouth — causing you to reach for spoonful after spoonful.

Be careful with this one!

Our Rating:

5 out of 5 cheesecakes. You need a pint of this in your freezer today. Our suggestion is to buy some fresh strawberries and add some crushed graham crackers to a few scoops to really take this to the next level. The extra graham dust will add some texture, and the fresh strawberries will make a few scoops all the more refreshing.

Towards the start of the pandemic, screenwriter and former PC Gamer editor in chief Gary Whitta (who co-wrote the story for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) launched a fascinating endeavor. In April, he started Animal Talking, a talk show that takes place entirely within the popular Animal Crossing video game.

The show endeared itself to some big-time guests who have appeared on the program, like Elijah Wood, Brie Larson, T-Pain, and a number of others. After a successful first season, a second season of the show launched last month. On the latest episode, Whitta was joined by Selena Gomez, who discussed her relationship with Taylor Swift.

On the show, which streams live on Twitch, Gomez said, “I’ve always dreamt of doing a song with Taylor. We both wanted to do that. […] It just feels like we’re family, I’ve known her for 13 or 14 years now. She’s been my best friend, but we’ve talked about it, for sure.” When Whitta suggested it was only “a matter of time” before the two linked up on a track, Gomez replied, “You never know!”

Elsewhere on the program, Gomez told a number of corny jokes, including, “I don’t trust stairs: They’re always up to something.”

Watch the full episode here.

In the opulent video for Murda Beatz’s new summertime single “Doors Unlocked,” the prolific producer is joined by Ty Dolla Sign, Polo G, and a plethora of pretty women at an unoccupied mansion for some fun in the sun. While Murda and Polo hang out with a squad of ladies by the pool, Ty entertains his chosen companion with a bubble bath in a room full of even more bubbles. The sky above them is a hazy purple, reflecting the dreamy quality of Murda’s production on the song, which pairs gauzy synths with his usual skittering, rumbling 808s.

While Murda’s mostly laid low throughout 2020, only really popping up with one other single of his own (“Banana Split” featuring YNW Melly and Lil Durk), his beats have continued to grace projects from the likes of Lil Baby, NLE Choppa, and Polo G.

Polo, meanwhile, is coming off the release of his critically hailed sophomore album, The GOAT, and his own appearances alongside Lil Baby on Lil Durk’s “3 Headed Goat.” Kid really likes caprine mammals, I guess.

Finally, Ty Dolla Sign appears to be gearing up for the release of a project of his own after releasing the single “Ego Death” featuring Kanye West and FKA Twigs.

Watch Murda Beatz, Ty Dolla Sign, and Polo G’s “Doors Unlocked” video.

Ty Dolla Sign is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Multiplayer online games are as popular as ever, especially while people largely remain at home and trying to stay in touch with friends. That makes for a market that’s crowded with titles and mashups of what’s found considerable footing in the industry. The latest of those is Rocket Arena, a game from EA that launched last month promising a frenetic combat system where the ammo you fire helps you blast opponents away as much as it helps you move around the board.

It’s a fascinating concept, full of characters and promising a compelling story to boot while you grind your main’s abilities and learn the ropes of its 3 v. 3 combat system. Because Rocket Arena is inherently a three-player game — and the squad you pick is as important as your character pick — we decided the best way to cover the game was to team up. So we got three Uproxx Gaming writers — Bill DiFilippo, Chris Barnewall and Ryan Nagelhout — together to play some matches and give some first impressions. The result was a general consensus: there’s potential here, but we weren’t blown away at first glance.

Bill

One word kept coming to mind as I played Rocket Arena: potential.

EA Sports’ newest release — which came out for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on July 14 — is such a fun game in concept. The best way to describe it, as I did to my colleagues with whom I got a feel for the game, was a game at the intersection of Overwatch and Super Smash Bros. At the bare minimum, that sounds like an incredibly fun idea, right?

Well, not quite. There is plenty to like about Rocket Arena. The concept, as you can guess, is quite fun. Primary and secondary attacks being specific to characters gives you plenty to learn, the ability to jump (or double jump, or triple jump) and dodge can make combat fun once you get a handle on it, and there are items you can receive during games that add a fun twist. The best thing about Rocket Arena is that it’s a really beautiful video game. The characters and levels both look fantastic, and the game’s hyper-frenetic nature means you’re oftentimes flying around and exploring, it’s pretty easy to get lost in the look of it all.

My issue with it comes from two things: the speed of the whole thing, and the amount of space afforded to those who play it. Rocket Arena is a comically fast game. Like, haphazardly so. The character you control zips around in the space given in an attempt to play one of several 3 v. 3 games. All of these games happen, though, in a confined amount of space. You can probably see where the inherent flaw in this is. The game is so fast, but the amount of room you have to explore and operate within that space is limited — this is where the comparison to Overwatch, an incredibly well-paced game in perfectly-calibrated amounts of space, fall apart.

If I had to make a prediction, this is a game that is going to really benefit from patches and upgrades over the coming weeks and months. It doesn’t feel like a finished product right now, which is fine! It’s a new idea, and new ideas take time to hammer out. There’s still a ton to like, and with games getting second chances left and right, Rocket Arena‘s final form seems both exciting and inevitable.

Chris

Can a game be too slow but too fast at the same time? Yes, and it’s called Rocket Arena. For a game that took the namesake of one of the most popular Quake mods ever, it fails to live up to any of the pedigree before it. It’s a game with varying influences but unfortunately lacks the interesting personalities of an Overwatch or the brand familiarity of a Super Smash Bros. What you get instead is a chaotic arrangement of characters that you don’t really have an attachment to knocking each other out of the arena.

A video game is more than personality, though, and if Rocket Arena had compelling gameplay at its core, the rest could follow later. Yet you rarely feel cool doing anything or that you are making game-changing plays. That might be because the objective-based game modes just lack the depth necessary to feel like this game is anything more than a simple brawler where whoever happens to have slightly better aim will win most encounters. Every character has a different kind of rocket gun with different abilities, but at no point did I feel like switching to a different character would have made a difference in a fight.

This doesn’t mean this game is hopeless. I personally love the movement abilities. Shooting rockets off of walls and the ground to help create momentum made for some fun moments where I really felt like I was flying across the map. Unfortunately, since the terrain is built with this kind of movement in mind it would often force me to actually slow down instead. Fights are hectic, chaotic, but that speed always made me feel like I was somehow moving too slow.

A lot of this is theoretically fixable, but the game will have to undergo some pretty dramatic patches, but with those changes there may need to be more thorough overhauls of different game modes. Having King of The Hill-style control points is a multiplayer shooter staple, for example, but the area that you have to stand in to capture those points was far too small. The chest keep away and coin collecting game mode is fun, but it felt unbalanced. More often than not the team that got the first chest would win the entire game. The football like ball scoring mode can be exploited and was never at any point fun.

I really wanted to like Rocket Arena. I tried to like Rocket Arena, but the way it fought me every step of the way left me ultimately disappointed.

Ryan

There are few games that I’ve liked less the more I’ve played it, but the launch version of Rocket Arena is certainly on that list. I say “launch version” because I agree with my teammates when they tout the game’s potential for fun. I just didn’t have it right away, and the more I dug into the game modes and characters the more frustrated I became.

One worry, though, is that the gamer pool for Rocket Arena will dry up before the game’s kinks and tweaks can make it into something sticky enough to keep players coming back. They’ve already had one free-to-play weekend to get players a look at the rapid-fire combat and various game modes the game offers. Most of those, however, seemed lopsided at best and at worst completely unplayable. It’s not just a case of maybe not being good enough at this kind of game, either: The skills needed to thrive can certainly be developed, but almost immediately it became clear that it wouldn’t be worth the effort.

It didn’t feel like there was much to do right away, and if grinding doesn’t have a meaningful reward there’s an entire backlog of other games waiting that you could be playing otherwise. It’s a tough market to crack and the good news is the EA title has an established roadmap and is likely to get plenty support. Those that stick with the game will find tweaks that have rewarded their patience and hopefully an audience will follow. A game like Rocket Arena needs a huge swath of people playing to keep it free flowing and make it feel alive. I just don’t know if I’ll be heading back into the arena anytime soon.

Sure, today might be National IPA Day, but we celebrate this beer category 365 days per year. Even as hop bombs have fallen out of favor (about time!), hazy, fruity New England IPAs have surged (also about time!). Much of the reason we can sip an IPA every day is that it’s comprised of so many different varieties. We’re talking about way more than just the bitter, pine tree flavored brews some people think of when they imagine the style.

While there are other options out there (English IPA, Black IPA, etc.), for today’s purposes, we’re going to take a look at six different IPA varieties that offer an intro course on the category. These include the classic West Coast IPA, the East Coast IPA, Double IPA, Triple IPA, Session IPA, and the Uproxx-beloved New England-Style IPA. For each entry, we’ll give you an example of a great beer to try today as well as a few other choices for your future bottle hunting.

Firestone Walker Union Jack (West Coast IPA)

The Story:

If you want to sip on the pinnacle of West Coast IPAs, you can’t find a much better (readily available) beer than Firestone Walker Union Jack. This 7 percent IPA is not only one of the best West Coast IPAs on the market, it’s also one of the first. Named for co-founder David Walker, the “British Lion” that adorns the brewery’s bottles and cans, this is the perfect pint to start National IPA Day right.

Tasting Notes:

This beer is so well-balanced, sipping it will instantly help you erase the stigma of over-hopped, bitter West Coast brews. But we’re not saying this beer isn’t full of hops. It starts with CTZ, Cascade, and Centennial before dry hopping with Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe, Citra, Amarillo, and Chinook. But it never feels over-hopped.

The result is a complex beer with hints of tropical fruits, subtle pine resin, citrus, all with a subtle malt backbone.

Also Try These: Ballast Point Sculpin, Green Flash Palate Wrecker, Stone IPA

Dogfish Head 60 Minute (East Coast IPA)

The Story:

If you’ve never tried Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, what on earth are you waiting for? Brewed since 2003, this unique beer is made by continually boiling Chinook, Warrior, Summit, and Amarillo hops for (you guessed it) 60 minutes. With all those hops and the intense hop flavor, you might assume this beer is 12 percent ABV. Surprisingly, it’s only six percent ABV and highly sessionable.

Tasting Notes:

The result of the continuous hopping is evident on the first sip. But this process doesn’t make this beer overly bitter. It remains floral, well-balanced, and full of vegetal hop flavors, juicy grapefruit, and subtle pine.

Also Try These: Alchemist Focal Banger, Maine Beer Lunch, Trillium Congress Street

Cigar City Florida Man (Double IPA)

The Story:

‘Florida Man’ is a true legend. He’s the headline grabbing man from the Sunshine State who just as easily could be getting press for wrestling an alligator as he is for buying a Porsche using a check he printed on his home computer (real story). He’s America’s anti-hero and Cigar City paid him the highest compliment by naming a Double IPA in his honor.

They even paid homage to this character by using a “nearly-criminal” amount of hops.

Tasting Notes:

While Florida Man is brewed with a blend of hops including Azacca, Citra, El Dorado, and Mandarin Bavarian, it remains well-rounded because of the addition of peach esters and Canadian honey malt. The result is a slightly hazy beer full of tropical fruit flavors like mangos and pineapples, all melded together with pleasing resinous pine hop flavors.

Also Try These: Bell’s Hopslam, Surly Abrasive, La Cumbre Full Nelson

Other Half All Green Everything (Triple IPA)

The Story:

There’s a reason Brooklyn’s (and Bloomfield, New York) Other Half is one of the most highly regarded breweries in the country. If you visit either location, you’ll find new and intriguing, boundary pushing flavors every time you stop by. But one constant is the flagship All Green Everything with its huge hop presence — including Motueka, Amarillo, Citra and Mosaic hops.

Tasting Notes:

This 10.5 percent ABV Triple IPA deserves your respect. It’s just as high in alcohol as it is in flavors. The best part is that it has two different flavor-driven gears. The first is full of tropical fruits like pineapples, guavas, and mangos. Then the beer shifts into a hop-fueled citrus bomb. All in all, one of the best examples of the style to sip on for National IPA Day.

Also Try These: Sierra Nevada Hoptimum, Founders Devil Dancer, Wicked Weed Ménage-a-Freak

Founders All Day IPA (Session IPA)

The Story:

If you’ve never had a session IPA, you might assume that all IPAs are high in alcohol. Well, the term “session” can only be applied to beers with less than 5 percent ABV. Founders All Day IPA is 4.7 percent ABV and everything you really need to know about it is right there in the name. This is the kind of IPA you can crush all day.

Tasting Notes:

Sometimes low alcohol content means less flavor — we’ve all had our fair share of “light” beers. But just because this beer is low in alcohol, doesn’t mean it’s lacking in taste. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. This supremely well-balance brew is clean, fresh, refreshing, and loaded with resinous pine flavor with just the right amount of bitterness at the end.

Also Try These: Lagunitas Daytime, Stone Go To, 21st Amendment Down to Earth.

Sloop Juice Bomb (New England-Style IPA)

The Story:

If the West Coast IPA is the OG IPA, the New England-Style IPA is the new kid on the block. It’s only been around for a few years, but it’s taken over the beer world like a juicy, hazy storm cloud. Many IPA fans hate the juice-like flavor and appearance of the style, but its acolytes are truly fanatical in their enthusiasm. One of the best examples of the style is Sloop Brewing’s flagship brew Juice Bomb.

Tasting Notes:

If you’re only going to drink one New England-Style IPA to celebrate this holiday, make it a Sloop Juice Bomb with its subtle bitterness and juicy tropical fruit flavors that are all rounded out well with resinous, piney hops at the very end. At 6.5 percent ABV, you’ll likely finish your whole six-pack before you even realize you just fell in love with hazy IPAs.

Also Try These: Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing, Two Roads Two Juicy, Tree House Julius

In a little over a month, Mariah Carey plans to release her memoir, The Meaning Of Mariah Carey. While this represents a milestone in the singer’s storied career, hip-hop fans are looking forward with equal eagerness to her own fans because of her rumored connection with Eminem. With celebrity gossip magazines positing Carey’s plans to expose the truth behind their supposed six-month relationship — and all the drama that followed — fans of both artists (as well as of beef and celebrity gossip in general) have plenty of reason to look forward to the book.

The feud between the two stars stems back as far as 2002, when Em derogatorily name-checked Mariah in songs as he did so many other pop stars of the day. The difference in this case was that the singer had allegedly met with the rapper the year before to discuss the latter making an appearance on her 2002 album Charmbracelet. However, rather than a business liaison, it seemed the pair formed an amorous one — at least, in the version of events Eminem has maintained since.

Carey, however, has denied that there was ever any such romantic relationship between them, despite Eminem’s many references to it over the years. In fact, so contentious was their rivalry that even Carey’s ex-husband Nick Cannon got involved, developing his own long-standing beef with Eminem that continues to this day. With so much history and so many contradictory accounts involved, Carey’s memoir stands to become her definitive statement on the quarrel — and possibly shed light on just how things got so complicated to begin with.

Below is a timeline — incomplete though it may be — of the reasons fans can’t wait to see what Mariah Carey says about Eminem in her new book.

2002: Eminem Says He Dated Mariah, Mariah Denies It

The first public evidence of the feud between these two superstars dates back to 2002. Eminem mentioned Mariah in a lyric on his song “Superman” from his fourth album, The Eminem Show. “What you tryin’ to be, my new wife?” he questions on the track. “What you Mariah? Fly through twice.” Elsewhere on the same album, Em drops her into a bar on “When The Music Stops,” sneering, “What the f*ck you take me for, a joke? You smokin’ crack? / Before I do that, I’d beg Mariah to take me back.”

However, that same year, Mariah denied Em’s assertion to no less an authority than Larry King, telling the long-tenured talk host, “I hung out with him, I spoke to him on the phone. I think I was probably with him a total of four times. And I don’t consider that dating somebody.” She reiterated her denial in an interview with Maxim magazine that same year.

2003: Mariah Musically Claps Back

In 2003, Carey became the first pop star to openly respond to Eminem’s goading on a record, on the song “Clown” from her ninth studio album Charmbracelet. Undercutting his Eminem Show provocations, Mariah sang, “I should’ve left it at ‘I like your music too’” and “You should’ve never intimated we were lovers / When you know very well we never even touched each other.” During one performance of the song, she even reportedly dressed a dancer in a blonde wig, referencing the dye job Em sported in the first half of his career, and a Detroit Pistons jersey, an obvious reference to the rapper’s hometown. Her return volley was the first of an ongoing rally that lasted for the next ten years.

2005-2009: Eminem Returns Fire

On his Anger Management tour in 2005, Eminem turned up the dial on his accusations, playing voicemail clips he insisted were left by Carey saying things like, “I heard you were getting back with your ex-wife. Why won’t you see me? Why won’t you call me?” He reportedly played the clips before launching into his song “Puke,” while pantomiming obvious nausea.

The next year, Em appeared on the Shady Records compilation album, Eminem Presents: The Re-Up, with more vitriol aimed at Mariah. The song “Jimmy Crack Corn” once again named the singer, as Em rapped, “As 50 would say, ‘Our clothing line’s on Fiyaa’ / Meanwhile, your mind’s on us, like mine’s on Mariah / And y’all is just like her, you’re all f*cking liars.”

Then, in 2009, Eminem took more shots at Carey after she married Nick Cannon in 2008. “Mariah, what ever happened to us?” he scoffed on the Relapse song “Bagpipes From Baghdad.” “Nick Cannon better back the f*ck up,” he continued. “I’m not playin’, I want her back, you punk.”

2009: Mariah Declares Eminem “Obsessed”

While Nick Cannon himself issued a blog post in response, the real haymaker came from Carey herself, who released the song “Obsessed” complete with a video in which Mariah satirizes Eminem by dressing up as him and stalking herself. The song was a huge success too, peaking at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. While Mariah never specifically mentioned Eminem in the song or the video, it was obvious to anyone watching just who she was taking aim at.

2009: Eminem Issues A “Warning”

“The Warning,” Eminem’s seething diss track, followed “Obsessed,” bringing with it a cascade of new accusations from the scorned rapper. Among them: That Eminem and Carey had dated for over six months, that they’d had sex one time, during which Em suffered a premature orgasm, that Carey was an alcoholic, and that she’d flown out to visit him multiple times on her private plane. He also threatens to release even more intimate voicemails than the ones he played during his tour.

2010-2019: The Cold War Begins But Eminem Breaks The Ice

Between “The Warning” and the next volley, things were relatively quiet between the two superstars as Em shifted his attention to mostly ignoring Nick Cannon as the latter offered up a string of diss tracks that barely moved the needle. Nick even challenged Eminem to a boxing match at one point, but that was apparently not the main event fans really wanted to see.

Then, in 2019, a new rejuvenated Eminem appeared on Fat Joe’s Family Ties album to reignite the long-simmering discord between himself and Mariah Carey after his Kamikaze album was well-received by fans as a return to celebrity-dissing form. Em once again dropped Mariah’s name in his “Lord Above” verse: “…This is all puns aside though / I know me and Mariah didn’t end on a high note / But that other dude’s whipped. That pussy got him neutered / Tried to tell him this chick’s a nutjob ‘fore he got his jewels clipped.”

Cannon once again rose up (despite being divorced from Carey since 2015) but was mostly ignored by Eminem (although Em’s associate 50 Cent got in his fair share of cyberbullying against Nick), who is seemingly reserving smoke for the true object of his obsession.

Now, with Mariah Carey’s book release right around the corner, speculation has resumed that Carey might take the opportunity to get ahead of anything Eminem might say or release some bit of scathing information that will put him in his place. However, given Mariah Carey is also the celebrity who gave us the “I Don’t Know Her” meme, fans shouldn’t hold their breath. We may never know what really happened between the two, but it’s certainly one of the wildest celebrity feuds this side of Kanye vs. Taylor.

The Meaning Of Mariah Carey is out on September 29. Get it here.

The Griselda Records machine never stops grinding (heh). Conway, who already delivered the Lulu EP with The Alchemist earlier this year, is set to return with the feature-loaded album From King To A God next month. Today, he gave a sneak peek at just how star-studded his upcoming project is with “Lemon,” a sinister cut featuring none other than New York rap legend Method Man, whose work with Wu-Tang Clan remains one of Griselda’s influences in their gritty approach.

From King To A God will arrive just about one year apart from Conway’s last solo album Look What I Became and contain features from a wide array of respected names in hip-hop. Guests appearing on the project include Dej Loaf, Erick Sermon, Freddie Gibbs, Havoc, Hit-Boy, and Lloyd Banks, as well as the expected complement of Buffalo-repping bars from Conway’s Griselda cohorts Benny The Butcher and Westside Gunn. In a statement about the album’s release, Conway explained his goal for From King To A God.

“Typically, when I create an album, I tend to focus on being the best rapper and having the best bars,” he wrote. “With From King To A God, I wanted to show growth; how much I’ve grown as an artist and how much I’ve grown as a man. I wanted to showcase versatility and show people that I’m not a one trick pony. I feel like this album is not only arguably one of my best albums ever, but it is also the perfect appetizer to get my fans ready for my Shady Records debut God Don’t Make Mistakes.”

That’s right; with three projects out just this year, Conway still hasn’t technically made his official debut. Look forward to that after From King To A God, which is due 9/11 via Drumwork/Griselda/EMPIRE.
Listen to Conway’s “Lemon” with Method Man above.

Megan Thee Stallion is looking to expand her empire beyond music. She debuted a spooky web series last Halloween, and now she’s getting into cosmetics: It was announced today that Megan is Revlon’s new global brand ambassador.

Megan said in a statement, “I’ve always set the bar high for myself with everything I do, but to now be a brand ambassador for Revlon, it feels like a new level. To me, the Revlon brand stands for both beauty and female strength and I’m excited to help define what that means to a new generation of women.”

Silvia Galfo, Revlon Global Brand President, also noted, “Megan is a remarkable talent and we know she’s only going to continue to rise to new heights. When we first approached her about a partnership nearly a year ago, we were drawn to her confidence and fierce ambition as much as her power to hold nothing back. She loves to express herself with makeup and is a constant inspiration to her fans on living boldly. It’s that authenticity and unapologetic spirit that we admire, and we are thrilled to welcome her to the Revlon family.”

She also discussed her new role in an interview with Allure and described her make-up style, saying, “Well, you know I love makeup — it’s so fun to experiment with and it’s also another avenue to my art and how I express myself. I’d say my style is really reflective of my roots in Houston. Watching the women in my family get made up was a really precious moments for us. I love how makeup can make you feel, and that’s why I’m not afraid to go bold with it — more, more, more!”

Megan recently teased new music as well, saying that her next album will address Black Lives Matter.