Month: August 2020

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

At first listen, Jaden’s latest project, CTV3: Cool Tape Vol. 3, feels like a dramatic departure from his prior material. Whereas his debut Syre was a masterfully produced introduction to a talented young rapper who very much wanted to be accepted as such and Erys was a method-style deconstruction of the hip-hop tropes of the day, CTV3 plays like a meta but surprisingly sincere ode to nostalgia in all its glory.

It’s fitting, as the young heir (he’s still just 22) defines his latest excursion as a “prequel” to the conceptual storyline of his first two projects. Incidentally, this means CTV3 merges two separate threads that have run through Jaden’s discography since he debuted as a rapper in 2012 with the first “Cool Tape,” The Cool Cafe. While Syre and Erys are both very much fully-fledged albums and executed as such from top to bottom, Cool Cafe’s follow-ups, CTV2 and The Sunset Tapes: A Cool Tape Story are more experimental, allowing him to flex his creative muscles without being beholden to the story of his semi-autobiographical Syre character (named for Jaden’s own middle name).

CTV3 brings both those creative strains together in a most unusual way. While he’s shown that he’s a more than capable MC, it was clear that he’d adopted a new direction from the introduction of his first single, “Cabin Fever.” Landing as it did amid a global pandemic requiring a period of self-isolation, its theme of restricted young love resonated despite ostensibly being part of a multi-album story arc that related more to Jaden’s personal experiences. As it’s a “prequel” to its predecessors, CTV3 positions Jaden in a more optimistic light with even more surf-rocky throwbacks in the vein of “Cabin Fever” such as “Lucy!” and “Falling For You” featuring Justin Bieber.

The latter leans into the teenage melodrama of its conceptual subject, with Jaden/Syre pronouncing “If you don’t call me, I’ll jump off the roof.” It’s typical Romeo & Juliet stuff, but Jaden delivers it in a way that feels both knowing and sympathetic. It’s an honest depiction of all the angst and overinvestment of a teen romance, but delivered with distance, it allows Jaden to view it with a clear eye, without judgement. Hey, we were all young once. The overall project oscillates between tracks like these, reflecting the ecstatic highs of young love, and tracks like the more rhythmic “Rainbow Bap” and “Young In Love.”

The rap-rap songs give Jaden the room to flex a little and remind listeners that yes, he can rap his ass off just as well as dad could. However, they also serve a purpose within the narrative. These are Syre’s internal monologues, where he takes a step back and examines his feelings, albeit with the cockiness and insecurity of youth. These aren’t the lows, they’re the lulls; those points in a fresh crush when the mirror gets to talking to you, telling you that you’re moving too fast, that you’re not moving fast enough, that there’s no way she’ll like you, or that you’re the shit and she’d be crazy not to.

And while “Cabin Fever” and “Boys And Girls” draw much of their lightheartedness from their flower child, Beatles-inspired nostalgia, the raps on “Endless Summer” and “Rainbow Bap” draw from older generations of hip-hop, leaning heavily on sampled drum breaks and direct lyrical references to pioneers like KRS-One and Slick Rick. This also echoes that youthful tendency of teens, freshly aware that things happened before they were here and some of those things were pretty cool, start rooting through their parents’ music libraries and discover gems that help shape who they are and set them apart from their peers. Anyone who’s encountered TikTok’s determination to run E.L.O.’s “Mr. Blue Sky” into the ground can attest to as much.

With Cool Tape Vol. 3, Jaden gets to flesh out the story of his fictional avatar a little more fully while also spreading his wings. Branching off into new styles like ‘60s psych-rock in this way is smart, drawing his entrenched fanbase with him by degrees rather than all at once, while giving wary newcomers a chance to dip their toes into his genre experimentation, then work their way into his full-time commitments to rap. Meanwhile, the tape accomplishes one other goal; it shows Jaden isn’t just a one-trick pony and that he’s adding new facets to his sound all the time. When he finally is ready to step away from the story of Syre, he’ll have plenty of tools at his disposal to build whatever shape his dream takes next.

CTV3: Cool Tape Vol. 3 is out now via MSFTSMusic / Roc Nation Records. Get it here.

HBO’s Lovecraft Country is ambitious and astounding and will undoubtedly blow your expectations away. Created by Misha Green, who’s working with Matt Ruff’s 1950s-set dark-fantasy novel as source material, the show counts horror visionary Jordan Peele and sci-fi maestro J.J. Abrams as executive producers. The show is full of literary and musical references, along with monsters, both in-your-face and and figurative; we’ll discuss the resulting symbolism on a weekly basis.

So far, Lovecraft Country‘s monsters have shone light on how Black history and horror are often interchangeable terms while exploring “sundown towns” and cult rituals gone amiss, along with a commentary-filled soundtrack that includes Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey On The Moon” and Marilyn Manson. Figurative and literal monsters have abounded, and this week, the show gets down with what (at first) appears to be a classic haunted house story (but is, contextually, so much more) in the “Holy Ghost” episode.

The themes might be complex, but the action is straightforward and more of a building block for what’s to come. Atticus and Leti struggle to cope with what went happened in Ardham, including a certain snake-vision, in different ways that intersect. We also learn more about what sure sounds like a scheme from Christina Braithwaite, although the show’s making a mystery of where on the evil-good spectrum her intents are sitting, as well as the whereabouts of her associate, Patrick. As some of you fine people have pointed out, we’ve never seen them in the same room together.

Let’s move on with the action because there’s so much this week.

Letitia F*cking Lewis living up to her full name:

Jurnee Smollett tearing down the street with a baseball bat, smashing windows of her racist Chicago North Side neighbors isn’t the most shocking visual of the episode, but it’s a striking sight. What had seemed like a (suspiciously) great deal (and an opportunity to open a boarding house) turns into a nightmare when neighborhood racism stirs up dormant spirits trapped within her new home. The burning cross in Leti’s front yard push her over the edge, but the spirits inside the Victorian structure were already primed for vengeance. This leads to an unsettling and gruesome climax.

Lovecraft Country does a Poltergeist send-up:

There’s a lot of exorcism scenes out there, but one would be hard-pressed to outdo the satisfaction gained from watching this one: a gathering of ghosts (with mutilated bodies) joining hands with Leti to force Hirem Epstein’s soul out of Atticus, and it’s all set to more gospel (Shirley Caesar’s “Satan, We’re Gonna Tear Your Kingdom Down”). Yes, it’s somehow connected to that damn Order of the Ancient/Sons of Adam cult, as Christina confirms later this episode in a windy bout of exposition. It’s a complicated web, but Leti had purchased the Winthrop House, named for Horatio Winthrop, a founding member of the cult who stole scripture and influenced Epstein as a follower. He’s the monster who kidnapped Black South Side residents, upon whom he performed tortuous, inhumane experiments. Leti knows they only want to be free, and Jurnee Smollett is killing this role.

Leti also believes that her mother left an inheritance, which adds to existing tension with her sister, Ruby, but this is all a ruse from Christina, who’s pulling financial strings. Does Christina actually mean to reveal her entire hand to Atticus regarding her aim to decode the entire Book of Adam? It’s hard to say. On one hand, she knows that no one would believe Atticus if he tried to sound the alarm on her actions. On the other, she also has quite an ax to grind against the cult (and apparently knew that ceremony would explode), so perhaps she’s more benevolent than she appears. Hell, George even threw out the “don’t judge a book by its cover” line, and I don’t think Jordan Peele would agree with tossing that line into the script without coming back to it.

More bad dudes getting taken out:

Anyone who’s watched the first few episodes of this show knows that Lovecraft Country isn’t afraid of getting graphic (that giant ghost with a baby head? yikes), but its violence isn’t gratuitous or without a purpose. As our own Brian Grubb pointed out, this show loves to take out bad guys in the best ways, and this house appears to have gathered quite a few white home invaders in its crawlspace. We see one get beheaded by an elevator, which is both brutal and efficient (even if the scene was literally too dark).

We’re done with this week’s monsters, so let’s do loose ends.

Montrose and Atticus’ secrecy pact:

I gotta say that Montrose makes a fair point when he asserts that telling the truth about George’s disappearance could be counterproductive, due to revealing that “white people also have magic on their side.” We also see another reminder that Montrose favors classic lit like Alexander Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo whereas Atticus favors the pulp fiction also beloved by the late George (whose Dracula love comes up this week). Atticus also loves Lovecraft (despite the author’s racist legacy), whereas Dumas experienced racism first hand and did not shy away from exploring the effects of colonialism. There’s a lot of layers there that we’ve already discussed about this show’s literary references, but I also think it reinforces that George is Atticus’ real father.

Another well-placed use of spoken word:

Like with last week’s “Whitey On the Moon,” this show crushes the soundtrack/spoken-word game. The episode opens with Leti at church with a voiceover from a 3-year-old Nike “Be True” campaign, which starred Leiomy Maldonado, the transgender model and “Wonder Woman of Vogue” who appears as a judge on HBO Max’s Legendary. Maldonado, much like Leti, climbs metaphorical mountains and breaks down barriers:

“Hey Lei, What did you do, to make a mark on this world? What mountains did you climb? Which angels gave you their wings? Which skies have you flown? When you reach the heavens, who was there to catch when you fell? And did they tell you that you saved them too, like you saved me? That they are mending their wings and holding them up to the sun, just to step back and watch… you fly.”

Not too long after this scene, Leti endures even more than she’s seen already. Not only does she lose her virginity to Atticus this episode (that puts a whole new spin on that snake scare), but she pieces together faces of the murdered South Side residents that materialized in her darkroom photos. She does all of the detective work, and Atticus attempts to play hero at the end of the hour by confronting Christina, who isn’t about to be intimidated. Then there’s the different way that Leti and Atticus deal with trauma: she resolves to confront it, while he’d prefer to simply move out of the house. In the end, Leti helps the spirits mend themselves, and I hope that means that Leti helps them fly.

Oh, and the show also hot-dropped another mystery. This looks interesting.

HBO’s ‘Lovecraft Country’ airs Sundays at 9:00pm EST.

Keeping up with the best new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.

This week saw The Weeknd share a non-After Hours endeavor and Dua Lipa appealingly re-think her latest album. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.

The Weeknd and Calvin Harris — “Over Now”

Days after he gave one of the best performances of the VMAs, The Weeknd took a quick break from the After Hours era to unveil a new collaboration with Calvin Harris, “Over Now.” The track doesn’t have the same nighttime feel as a lot of his new album does, and proves that he’s a talented and diverse performer.

Disclosure — Energy

After an album-less five years, the brother duo that is Disclosure returned with a new effort, Energy, the title of which gives away the nature of the record. It’s a kinetic release, and they secured a fun roster of collaborators for it: Guests include Aminé, Slowthai, Kehlani, Common, and Syd.

Black Thought — “Good Morning” Feat. Pusha T and Killer Mike

Between duties on The Tonight Show, The Roots’ Black Thought has found time to tend to his solo career. His latest output on that front is “Good Morning,” which has a delightful lineup. Joining him on the Swizz Beatz-produced track are Pusha T and Killer Mike.

Jaden — CTV3

Jaden continues to blaze his own creative path, and the latest product of that effort is CTV3 EP. While it’s a step forward for the artist, it also contains a look back: He reconnects with his “Never Say Never” collaborator Justin Bieber for their first new song together in years, “Falling For You.”

Dua Lipa — Club Future Nostalgia

The disco vibes of original version of Future Nostalgia are already enough to get people dancing, but now Dua Lipa has upped the ante on that front. Teaming with The Blessed Madonna, she brought the album back with a new DJ mix, which substantially flips all the songs on the album, brings on some new guests, and breathes new life into music that still had plenty left.

Ty Dolla Sign — “Expensive” Feat. Nicki Minaj

Ty Dolla Sign has been working on a new album, Dream House, over the past few years. He has shared some new material between now and then, and he recruited somebody who has been having an exemplary 2020 — Nicki Minaj — to feature on his latest, “Expensive.” As the song suggests, the two communicate their rich tastes and rap among (CGI) piles of cash and diamonds.

Selena Gomez and Blackpink — “Ice Cream”

Blackpink are racking up collaborations with huge American pop stars. They hopped on Lady Gaga’s Chromatica album earlier this year, and now they got Selena Gomez to join them on their latest, “Ice Cream.” Gomez even celebrated the meet-up with her own flavor of the titular treat.

Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song

Owens told Uproxx about her process of making her second album, saying, “I was with a guy called James Greenwood and he just encouraged me to let the ideas flow and have them be fully formed, saying, ‘Don’t do what you normally do, Kelly,’ which is trying to EQ the kick drums before you move on the synth melody. ‘Let’s maybe scope the sound, deal with nudges later, and just allow the ideas to be fully formed and honor the ideas in that way first.’”

Cordae — “Gifted” Feat. Roddy Ricch

The YBN collective is no more, so neither is YBN Cordae… in name, anyway. The rapper is now just Cordae, and now he has dropped his first single since the name change, recruiting chart topper Roddy Ricch for “Gifted.” The two have had prosperous come-ups in recent years, which they chronicle here.

Angel Olsen — Whole New Mess

2019’s All Mirrors arrived three years after its predecessor, which was the longest between-albums gap of her career. Now, less than a year later, she returned with Whole New Mess, of which she previously said, “I had gone through this breakup, but it was so much bigger than that — I’d lost friendships, too. When you get out of a relationship, you have to examine who you are or were in all the relationships. I wanted to record when I was still processing these feelings. These are the personal takes, encapsulated in a moment.”

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Jpegmafia’s rampage continues with another new video, following self-shot clips for singles “Bald!,” “Covered In Money!,” “Bodyguard!,” “Cutie Pie!” and “The Bends!” His latest release — and possibly his last for this particular run of tracks — is the appropriately “Last Dance!” It comes with its own lo-fi music video.

The video primarily consists of night shots of Peggy standing in front of a neon sign with a woman next to him. They’re silhouetted by the lights behind them and Jpeg rocks a hoodie with a durag as he mimes a performance of the lyrics. Periodically, a picture-in-picture window pops up in a corner to show the pair in another location, with Jpeg still rapping to the camera and his female companion preening at his side. These shots are occasionally interrupted by straightforward performance shots, the only times Jpeg appears clearly in the video.

After Jpeg announced “Last Dance!” on Twitter, he followed up with a post script for fans, writing, “p.s. this is the final one.” Whether that means he’s hibernating to work on a new project remains to be seen, but it has been nearly a year since his last full-length project, All My Heroes Are Cornballs, so a new album would be timely.

Watch Jpegmafia’s “Last Dance!” video above.

Mariah Carey’s upcoming memoir, The Meaning Of Mariah Carey, is set to drop in a month, and there has been a bit of drama in the lead-up to it. There were reports that Eminem was concerned about the book given their complicated history, with Us Weekly quoting an “insider” as saying that Eminem was “stressed out” that Carey might speak ill about him in an intimate sense.

Fans of both artists are surely curious about what will be said about Em, but it actually looks like he won’t be mentioned at all.

A new Vulture profile on Carey indicates that Eminem isn’t mentioned in the book, as the piece reads, “It’s 300-plus meaning-packed pages, and, yes, what she didn’t include has meaning too. Eminem, who was reportedly ‘stressed’ over what Carey might say about their rumored 2001 fling, doesn’t have to worry.” The story goes on to quote Carey as saying, “There’s some songs that I can sing in response to that, but I will not do it.” She continued “with a roll of her head,” “If somebody or something didn’t pertain to the actual meaning of Mariah Carey, as is the title, then they aren’t in the book.”

Read the full feature here, and check out our recap of Carey and Eminem’s past here.

The Haunting of Hill House was a word-of-mouth hit for Netflix. Horror maestro Stephen King called it a “close to a work of genius, really. I think Shirley Jackson would approve, but who knows for sure” (we’ll have to ask Elisabeth Moss), while I’m still shaking from the reveal in episode [REDACTED]. If you know, you know. Creator Mike Flanagan likely could have wrung another season out of the Crain family, but instead, he’s going the anthology series route — The Haunting of Hill House is now The Haunting of Bly Manor.

Based on The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, the 1980s-set Haunting “revolves around Bly Manor and the lives of its inhabitants, both living and dead,” according to Netflix. Much of the cast from Hill House is back — including Victoria Pedretti (Nell), Henry Thomas (Hugh), Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Luke), Kate Siegel (Theo), and Catherine Parker (Poppy) — but they’re playing different characters this time; the plots between the series are disconnected, too, with Flanagan telling EW, “I felt like the Crains have been through enough, and we left them exactly as we all wanted to remember them.”

“I have a story,” an unseen narrator says in the teaser trailer above. “A ghost story.” Spooky. The Haunting of Bly Manor premieres in October. Also spooky.

A couple weeks ago, Megan The Stallion confirmed it was Tory Lanez who shot her, saying, “Yes, this n**** Tory shot me. You shot me and you got your publicist and your people going to these blogs lying and sh*t.” Getting shot is surely a difficult experience, but Megan appears to be feeling confident after the incident, as evidenced by a new freestyle she posted on Instagram last night.

The video shows Megan sitting in her home, playing an instrumental from Lil Ju Made Da Beat on a laptop. She begins the 60-second clip, “Tic-tac-toe, I’m gonna X this bitch / if a hit dog holler, I address that sh*t.” She goes on to address the shooting with a self-assured line, saying, “Got shot two times and I ate that sh*t / bounced right back with a Revlon deal.”

Lil Ju, by the way, was in Megan’s corner shortly after the shooting, refuting claims that Lanez was defending Megan. He tweeted, “I hope y’all don’t believe he was defending her! This a bullsh*t story.”

Meanwhile, Megan had a good night at yesterday’s VMAs. She had three nominations on the evening, and her “Savage” video picked up a win in the Best Hip-Hop category.

Check out the freestyle above.

Chadwick Boseman’s shocking death at age 43 was announced to the world on his Twitter account. “It is with immeasurable grief that we confirm the passing of Chadwick Boseman,” the tweet read. “Chadwick was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016, and battled with it these last 4 years as it progressed to stage IV. A true fighter, Chadwick persevered through it all, and brought you many of the films you have come to love so much.” That tweet from the Black Panther star’s account has since been liked over 7.4 million times (with 3.1 million retweets), making it the most-liked tweet in Twitter history.

“Most liked Tweet ever. A tribute fit for a King,” Twitter’s official account tweeted, along with the #WakandaForever hashtag. The previous record-holder was by Barack Obama, who wrote, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion…” in August 2017. Here are the five most-liked tweets ever.

1. Chadwick Boseman

2. Barack Obama

3. Barack Obama

Kobe was a legend on the court and just getting started in what would have been just as meaningful a second act. To lose Gianna is even more heartbreaking to us as parents. Michelle and I send love and prayers to Vanessa and the entire Bryant family on an unthinkable day.

4. Andy Milonakis

Congratulations to the Astronauts that left Earth today. Good choice

5. Macaulay Culkin

Hey guys, wanna feel old?

I’m 40.

You’re welcome.

The Andy Milonakis one is a… surprise.

John Oliver wasted no time in declaring that last week was “one hell of a week,” which included not only the RNC but the unfolding situation in Kenosha, Wisconsin after police shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back. In the midst of subsequent protests, Tucker Carlson jumped to the defense of white vigilante teen Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed two protesters after supposedly entering the scene to help “defend property.” This led people to call for Carlson’s firing from Fox News, given that he had managed to top himself while asking, “How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”

Oliver joined in with everyone else who’s aghast at the Carlson situation, and he ripped into the Fox News host. “Well, you don’t seem to be shocked, and that alone should be pretty fucking shocking, because let’s be clear. A 17-year-old vigilante with a rifle cannot maintain order, because a 17-year-old vigilante with a rifle trying to maintain order is himself the definition of disorder. Except, of course, if you’re a regular viewer of Tucker Carlson, a show that exists to teach its viewers precisely three things: Property damage is violence, homicide is order, and pillows are for sale.”

Oliver pointed out that Rittenhouse, a noted MAGA fan who sat front-row at a January Trump rally, may very well have watched the McCloskeys speak at the RNC about their right to bear arms and defend property. Even if Rittenouse didn’t catch that segment, Oliver observes, it really doesn’t matter, since Tucker Carlson’s so accustomed to picking up the subject that he immediately tried to justify Rittenhouse’s actions. This left much of the nation aghast, including Trevor Noah, who takes extreme issue with Rittenhouse being treated better by police than Jacob Blake.

Rittenhouse has since been charged with first-degree intentional homicide. Watch the Tucker Carlson/Kenosha segment beginning at 8:00 above.

Taylor Swift’s latest album, Folklore, has achieved some sort of chart accolade with every passing week since its No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200. During its first week, it and “Cardigan” made Swift the first artist to have an album and song simultaneously debut at No. 1. On last week’s chart, Folklore became the first album by a woman to spend its first four weeks on top in five years. Now the latest Billboard 200 chart has been revealed, and Folklore is again at No. 1 for the fifth straight week.

Naturally, this has brought Swift more achievements. Folklore is now the first album to spend its opening five weeks at No. 1 since Drake’s Scorpion did in 2018. If Folklore stays on top for a sixth week, it will be the longest run at No. 1 for any album since Drake’s Views racked up 13 total weeks in 2016. Folklore is Switch’s second album to pull off five straight weeks at No. 1, as Fearless led for seven consecutive weeks (but not its first seven weeks) at No. 1 in 2008 and 2009, and had 11 total weeks at the summit.

Additionally, Folklore ties DaBaby’s My Turn for the most weeks on top this year.

This news arrives a couple weeks after Swift slightly expanded Folklore by making a bonus track available for streaming.