Month: September 2020

Through the first round of the NBA Playoffs, Jamal Murray has staked his claim as one of the league’s brightest young stars. He’s gone head-to-head with Donovan Mitchell, dropping multiple 50-point games and leading the Nuggets to a win-or-go-home Game 7 against the Jazz for a place in the Western Conference semifinals.

On a team ostensibly led by All-Star center Nikola Jokic, Murray has emerged as Denver’s go-to option down the stretch, and over the course of six thrilling games, has proven he’s as clutch and unguardable as any player in Orlando and a relentless threat from just about anywhere on the court.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what’s at the root of his electrifying play, but his newly-discovered taste in music might offer us some clues. Murray, who is just 23, has apparently arrived at the ’90s hip-hop portion of his musical education journey, thanks in part to Carmelo Anthony, who has introduced him to the many joys and wonders of old-school rap.

Via Joe Walker of Hip Hop DX:

“Sometimes when I go back and if I’m getting a haircut, a lot of guys say, “[Car]melo [Anthony] likes to listen to a lot of the old music, most music,” he said. “And then, that kind of put me on where I’m like, ‘OK, let me go back and look at my collection, to all the music that I listen to.’”

He continued, “With all the players here, everybody is so different from each other [and] everybody listens to different stuff. It definitely brought my mind in terms of Method Man, I listen to Wu-Tang [Clan] and Method Man and they’re showing me tracks from Method Man that I didn’t even know. So, stuff like that where I can broaden my mind, broaden my listening to different rappers, different artists and just kind of get that feel. Like, I put on Raekwon the other day. I don’t even know Raekwon‘s album, but I know a couple songs on it are just fire.”

And he hasn’t stopped there. Murray went on to say that he’s also been checking out Nas, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, and Eminem. It’s enough to make you nostalgic for a time when you are just opening the door to so much incredible music. The pregame hype music possibilities are virtually endless.

Murray and the Nuggets will try to stave off elimination in Game 7 against the Jazz on Tuesday night, which tips off at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC.

(Hip Hop DX)

Jason Momoa got his hands on the new Metallica album, S&M2, and we’re pretty sure he likes it.

In an Instagram video seemingly shot in the desert, and maybe from the back of a pickup truck, a fully blown-away Momoa is so stoked by the new album that he can’t even get the release date right or tell the difference between Bluetooth and Blu-Ray discs. The Aquaman star loves it that much. While gushing about the band reuniting with the San Francisco Sympathy to commemorate the 20th anniversary of their first epic collaboration for 1999’s Metallica S&M, Momoa shares a clip from his laptop even though he’s not entirely sure if he should be doing that. In fact, Momoa is such a huge fan of Metallica that he’d actually be honored if they sued him.

You can watch Momoa going nuts over the new album below:

In a recent interview with UPROXX, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett opened up about coming back to the sympathy experience with S&M2 and what the future holds for live Metallica shows during the pandemic:

We’re hoping that maybe if Europe can get it together, then maybe we can start playing some festivals in Europe in the summer. But I don’t know. No one knows. Maybe we’ll be taking temperatures. Maybe there’ll be a saliva test, I don’t know.

I have to warn you, and I have to warn everyone: It’s going to take a long time, and no one’s going to tour until it’s safe. I can only talk for us. We’re not going to tour until it’s safe for our fans. Until it’s safe for our fans, we’re not going to expose them, or take the risk of anyone getting sick and getting infected. We don’t want to be responsible for any sort of irresponsibility of that type.

Sounds like some solid advice that Smash Mouth could’ve used before causing an outbreak in Sturgis, South Dakota. Leave it to 2020 to be the year where we sit around asking bands, “Why can’t you be more responsible like Metallica?”

(Via Jason Momoa on Instagram)

Nick Cannon teased an interview with Kanye West yesterday, in which he addressed his presidential campaign and some rumors surrounding it. Now, Cannon has shared the first part of the interview, and in the 45-minute clip, he reveals that he spent $50 million putting on Sunday Service performances in 2019.

During the chat, he revealed that the money went toward things like costumes, travel, his operas, and other operating expenses. He said towards the end of the video, “I actually had to design wardrobes all the time. I spent every dime that I had for marketing from Yeezy on Sunday Service. Every dollar I had. I spent $50 million last year on Sunday Service, if you add up the operas, if you add up the flights… there’s 120 people going to Jamaica. […] With the Yeezys, they were selling themselves. So instead of paying for ads, I invested it into church. I invested it in saying Jesus’ name on high.”

As previously noted, Kanye said regarding his presidential campaign, “People keep on saying, ‘I think that y’all, you and Republicans, are in cahoots.’” Cannon added, “They’re saying that they’re paying you to do what you’re doing to be a distraction.” Kanye replied, “Bro, can’t nobody pay me! I got more money than Trump!”

Watch the Kanye interview above.

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion became a hot button topic when the duo released the NSFW song “WAP” alongside a racy video. Just about everyone had their opinions about the track, from Tucker Carlson to Tiger King‘s Carole Baskin. But Cardi reveled her label nearly pulled the plug on the single, citing its provocative lyrics.

In an interview with Hot 97, Cardi discussed the track’s breakout success. According to the rapper, Atlantic Records wasn’t so sure about the raunchy nature of the song. Cardi said executives even asked if Meg would be willing to scrap her feature and do a new verse on a different track, but the rapper persisted:

“I just wanted, like at least a top ten. ‘Cause, it got to the point one time that even my label asked, ‘Yo, are you sure? Because this song, it’s so raunchy. You cannot even play it in certain places.’ I’m like, ‘I’m not gonna make this girl do another verse to another song. She like the song and it’s fire.’ They were like, ‘You know, you’re right. It is what it is.’ And it just exceeded everything.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Cardi said she had reached out to Lizzo to join her and Meg on the track, but there was one problem — Lizzo was on vacation. Apparently, Cardi couldn’t reach Lizzo in time to secure the feature: “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ because I had a whole vision about how I want to see Lizzo and everything,” Cardi said. “It was so important to me to include different women that are different races and come from different backgrounds, but are so powerful and influential.”

Watch a clip of Cardi’s Hot 97 interview above.

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

Netflix will be a source of lighthearted escapism (among many other vibes) as this long year turns into fall. Fortunately, Emily In Paris is preparing to land like the lightest, fluffiest sugar cookie on the shelf. The series hails from Darren Star (Younger, Sex and the City, Melrose Place) and looks like the kind of easily-bingeable fare that one can gobble up in one weekend. Also, Kate Walsh might not be instantly recognizable to The Umbrella Academy fans of The Handler, but she’s a boss here, so watch out.

Lily Collins stars as Emily, who (as the title more than suggests) moves to Paris for work. The move’s pretty sudden though, and Emily transplants while being unable to speak French, but that’s no real obstacle to all the handsome Frenchmen lurking about, although it does cause friction with her new work colleagues. Here’s to new adventures and the notion that every bedroom window in Paris makes one feel “like Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge” and sits only a stone’s throw away from the Eiffel Tower:

From the synopsis:

Lily Collins stars as Emily, an ambitious twenty-something marketing executive from Chicago, unexpectedly lands her dream job in Paris when her company acquires a French luxury marketing company — and she is tasked with revamping their social media strategy. Emily’s new life in Paris is filled with intoxicating adventures and surprising challenges as she juggles winning over her work colleagues, making friends, and navigating new romances.

Emily In Paris will stream on October 2.

Depending on what game you play, there’s a 50-50 chance as to whether or not it reflects real life. Thanks to Nintendo and the Biden-Harris campaign, the digital world is starting to reflect the real one even more than usual.

Starting Sept. 1, players can download up to four different official Biden-Harris campaign signs on Animal Crossing: New Horizons through QR codes on the Nintendo Switch Online app. Once the codes are downloaded, gamers are free to decorate their island with whichever campaign sign of their choosing.

“Animal Crossing is a dynamic, diverse, and powerful platform that brings communities together from across the world,” Christian Tom, director of digital partnerships for the Biden campaign said in a statement to The Verge. “As we enter the final campaign stretch towards November, this is one way we are finding new creative and innovative ways to meet voters where they are and bring our supporters together.”

Due to COVID-19, brands and political campaigns have to rethink outreach. However, partnerships like this aren’t new to gaming, Travis Scott partnered with Epic Games to do a branded concert on Fortnite over four months ago. The event set a record with over 12.3 million users on the game at the time.

The Biden-Harris campaign has promised there will be more gaming content to come as the calendar marches towards November. It is unknown if the Trump campaign will do something similar.

Anjimile broke out into the scene when his 2018 NPR Tiny Desk concert entry won over the hearts of the local Boston music scene. Now signed to Father/Daughter records, Anjimile is gearing up to release his debut full-length project, Giver/Taker. So far, the singer has shared the wistful and scenic tracks “Baby No More” and “Maker” as previews of his upcoming release. Now, Anjimile returns with the lulling album preview “In Your Eyes.”

Over enveloping acoustic melodies, Anjimile delivers a soothing reflection on coming to terms with his identity. “This is another song about grappling with homophobia and ultimately recognizing that I am what I am,” he said in a statement. Expanding on the song’s meaning on Twitter, Anjimile said the single is also a reflection on his experience coming out, saying “(spoiler alert: it was painful)” and adding the song is also about “the peace I feel now, as a grown up boy, as a result of learning to love & accept every part of me, especially the gay part.”

Along with sharing the new track, Anjimile has cooked up a social distance-friendly way to celebrate his album’s release. The singer will be broadcasting a virtual release show on YouTube, which is marked as all-ages and encourages viewers to stay in their pajamas.

Listen to “In Your Eyes” above.

Giver/Taker is out 9/18 via Father/Daughter. Pre-order it here.

As Hollywood productions begin to resume after half a year of shutdowns, Johnny Depp has requested a delay for his $50 million defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard so he can avoid a scheduling conflict with Fantastic Beasts 3. Depp and Heard were scheduled to face off in Virginia in January 2021 for this latest lawsuit, which is entirely separate from Depp’s recent libel suit against The Sun that just concluded in London and is awaiting a verdict. However, the lengthy production on Fantastic Beasts 3 is reportedly looking at an October start and will run into February 2021, which presents a problem for Depp. Via Deadline:

“When the Court set the current trial date in this case, Mr. Depp understood that Warner Bros. planned to shoot ‘Fantastic Beasts 3’ in London long before January 11, 2021. COVID-19 disrupted the studio’s plans, causing repeated postponements. With conditions in London having improved somewhat, Warner Bros. has now set a shooting schedule that conflicts with the trial date in this case,” the court papers say.

Depp is shooting for a new court date between March and June 2021, and based on Deadline’s reporting, it sounds like Heard will be open to the delay. Legal teams for both actors will meet in September to work out an agreeable date that accommodates Fantastic Beasts 3 and Heard’s filming for Aquaman 2, which is expected to start production in 2021.

In March 2019, Depp filed a $50 million lawsuit against Heard alleging that she defamed him in her Washington Post column that spoke about her history as a domestic abuse survivor. While Heard did not name Depp in the column, that wasn’t enough to prevent the lawsuit from moving forward. In March 2020, a judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit after determining that the column “relied on the factual underpinning that Ms. Heard was abused by Mr. Depp.” A court date was set for January 2021, but it appears that both Depp and Heard are in agreement that a delay would be in the best interests of both parties as film productions resume.

(Via Deadline)

Gucci Mane has been named in a wrongful death lawsuit after a 23-year-old woman was fatally shot nearly two months ago at South Carolina nightclub Lavish Lounge. Mane’s 1017 Records signee Foogiano, who was performing on stage during the incident, is also named in the documents.

The Associated Press reported the lawsuit was filed by the estate of victim Mykala Bell in Greenville County last week. Bell and Lavish’s security guards were both killed after being caught in crossfire, which erupted during the early hours of July 5. The lawsuit claims Mane was the event’s promoter, though it’s not clear if he was present at the time of the shooting. The documents also allege Foogiano and his entourage entered the premises with “deadly weapons” and weren’t properly searched upon arrival. Police charged Jarquez Kezavion Cooper in connection to the shooting, who is identified as Foogiano’s employee in the lawsuit.

Bell’s attorney Brian Mickelsen family told XXL that she was “a wonderful mother of two small children whose life was tragically cut short because of the negligence of the defendants in this matter. Property owners have a responsibility to maintain their premises in a reasonably safe condition, and had they implemented and enforced the most basic of security measures, Mykala Bell would be alive today and these two children would have their mother with them.”

Foogiano addressed Bell’s death the day following the incident in a video posted to social media where he gave his “condolences to the girl and her family.” “I ain’t going to blame myself for something that I didn’t cause, I never will,” Foogiano added. “But, I respect y’all’s opinions and how y’all feel. She lost her life for nothing. But I did not take her life. Foogiano ain’t shoot nobody.”

Gucci Mane is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

There’s something particularly odd about basketball — particularly playoff basketball — without fans. While they’re integral to the experience in baseball and football and hockey and soccer, the way we consume the sport of of basketball is built on how close fans can be. There is nothing quite like the fact that fans sit at the edge of the court, with no walls or glass between them and those who play the game. Hell, players going crashing into the fans as part of a play is a somewhat common occurrence.

One could argue that this is what hammers home how odd the current situation in the NBA is. Sure, the entire concept of a Bubble at an amusement park amid — [gestures vaguely at everything] — is weird enough. And then, you turn on the games, and they look like basketball, and they sound like basketball, and everything that is going on seems like the NBA basketball we all know and love.

There’s just one strange exception: The fans that make the environments in which basketball is played so electric aren’t there. Well, that’s not 100 percent true. Fans are “in attendance,” they’re just not there in person. In an attempt to somewhat shorten the distance between fans and players as everyone is locked inside their homes and apartments during the COVID-19 pandemic, the faces of fans are displayed on a collection of screens around the court. Some are behind the benches, some are at center court, some are behind the baskets, some of them are Scottie Pippen and B.J. Armstrong, some of them are me, covering my mouth as I unknowingly am virtually seated directly behind Scottie Pippen and B.J. Armstrong.

I — along with Dime’s own Martin Rickman — was one of the fans that did the whole virtual fan thing for Game 3 of the series between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Boston Celtics through Michelob Ultra. It was, admittedly, not nearly as dystopian as I anticipated, although the experience ended up being less about basketball than I anticipated, too.

Here’s how the whole thing works: You get an email with a virtual ticket, you hop into Microsoft Teams, and then, like any sort of virtual hangout you have ever done, you and a bunch of folks from all over are tossed into a big virtual room, one where a number of strangers (although, funny enough, some folks with Dime bylines were in our room). Some liked the Celtics, some liked the Sixers, some were neutrals, and some, as previously mentioned, played for the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s and seemed to have had a pretty fun time with the entire experiment.

Watching the games is an odd experience. While in Teams, things are set up so that one half of the screen is your section of fans and the other half is the game, which is a good 10 seconds ahead of ESPN or TNT (I made it a point to have it on in the background) and causes the fan in your computer to roar like a jet engine. In a fun twist, your seat on your computer is not the same as your seat on the video boards, which can make trying to find yourself a bit of a challenge when the camera pans and you get a glimpse of the various crowds. That’s a bit cumbersome, as is the fact that the stream of the game on your laptop doesn’t always fit into the space allocated — sometimes the basket was cut off, sometimes you couldn’t see the scorebox, etc.

Long story short, it’s not exactly the most pleasant way to watch a basketball game. There are some ways that it works really well, and if those ways get ironed out, it is certainly something that teams can work to apply the games going forward. But at the same time, watching a basketball game isn’t the No. 1 priority. Instead, that would be giving people who love basketball the opportunity to do some kind of communal experience at a time when everyone, if they want to play a role in stopping the spread of a virus, shouldn’t be doing any sort of communal experience in person.

While you’re seated in your virtual see with other people scattered all over the United States, conversations happen. As a group, you talk about the game, you talk about basketball, you mention where you’re from, you do all the sorts of things that you would normally do with people around you at a basketball game. Reactions occur as things happen on the basketball court, and you’re afforded the opportunity to gauge your reaction alongside that of others. Our group had one individual named DJ Hype who took it on himself to act as the master of ceremonies in the group — he tried to organize a wave, which while noble did not go particularly well, and led little conversations with individuals in the crowd.

At halftime, Pippen and Armstrong participated in a Q and A with fans. They answered questions about Anthony Davis, about Luka Doncic and Euro ballers, about who they would take number one in the Draft (Pippen said LaMelo Ball). At one point, a young hooper named Xavier asked about drills that he and his sister can do to get better, so Pippen gave him some advice.

“When I grew up, I wasn’t a great basketball player,” Pippen said. “I believed in my dream and I worked hard at it. Physically, I knew I had to get stronger, but I stayed in the gym, working on my ball-handling, working on just the little things [like] footwork. And I believed in myself, man. My advice to you is if you believe in yourself, don’t let nobody outwork you.”

It was, legitimately, fun. The entire idea of the virtual fan experiment is to make it feel like there are fans at a basketball game. That cannot happen without all the things that make going to a basketball game fun, and while some of them cannot be replicated right now, one thing that can be replicated is the sense of camaraderie you feel with everyone who is around you while you are watching a game. There is no distance through this medium in which that can’t happen to one extent or another.

Doing watch parties on Netflix or hopping on a group call with your friends once every week or two to talk about how things are going have becoming all too common occurrence over the last couple of months. Taking that general idea and applying it to basketball is some sort of an attempt at normalcy. Even if it’s not something that can necessarily be replicated, and even if going to a basketball game in person is always going to be preferable, for now, this gets the job done.