Month: September 2020

Eddie Murphy was one of the bigger snubs at this year’s Oscars, with many thinking he deserved at least a nomination for raucous Rudy Ray Moore biopic Dolemite is My Name. But there’s one major awards body that knew not to snub him: the Emmys. On Saturday night, Murphy was named Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for hosting SNL last year. And it was amazingly the first time he’d ever won one of their awards.

Murphy’s SNL gig was part of the actor and comic’s comeback, following years of him being largely absent from screens and stages. It was the first time he’d been involved with SNL, where he got his start in the early ’80s, since the show’s 2015 anniversary special, in which he didn’t participate in any of the sketches or do much beyond wave to the audience. Murphy threw himself into the shenanigans with gusto, unearthing classic SNL characters such as Buckwheat, Gumby, and Mr. Robinson, looking like he was having the time of his life. His reward is his first-ever Emmy, and the fifth time he’d been nominated. (Previous ones were for SNL, in 1983 and 1984, and another in 1999 for his animated comedy The PJs.)

Naturally, Murphy could not accept the trophy in person, but he made sure to leave a video speech, posted on the Television Academy’s Twitter account.

“Thank you to everybody at the Emmys,” Murphy said. “Thank you so much for giving me an Emmy. I don’t have an Emmy. This is 40 years since I started Saturday Night Live, this is my first Emmy, so thank you so much. I want to thank Lorne Michaels for putting this whole thing together, and making this happen. And I want to thank, the cast, the writers and the crew at SNL. This was a very, very special thing for me to come back and have the show turn out the way it did. I’m still floating from it. And thank you to everybody for giving me an Emmy.”

The big Emmys show airs Sunday on ABC starting at 8 p.m.

(Via Deadline)

Michael Jordan is a competitor, even when it comes to the Creative Arts Emmys. That means he’s likely celebrating his latest win over the likes of Joe Exotic and Mr. Monopoly on Saturday night.

Emmy weekend is certainly an interesting change from years past, with a pandemic still going on and a much more muted celebration in store this year. Still, one category that was much… wilder than most in recent years was the Creative Arts Emmy for outstanding documentary or nonfiction series. Tiger King, which took life in quarantine by storm this spring, certainly had lots of viral buzz, but it was up against a tough cast of characters, including Michael Jordan’s The Last Dance.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, it was Jordan who came out on top on Saturday, with the 10-hour The Last Dance chronicling Jordan’s last year with the Chicago Bulls taking the award.

The normally staid category had a higher profile than most years, as it was filled with breakout series. The Last Dance — ESPN’s highest-rated original program ever — won the award over fellow nominees American Masters, Hillary, McMillion$ and Tiger King.

As THR noted, it’s the first Emmy win for ESPN in a documentary or nonfiction category, and the sixth overall for ESPN’s Primetime Emmy trophy case. And it’s certainly a big one against the enthralling Tiger King and hilarious McMillion$, to say the least.

Game 1 of the best-of-five series between the Connecticut Sun and the top-seeded Las Vegas Aces did not go as anyone anticipated, as the Sun blitzed the Aces in a dominant performance behind a career afternoon from point guard Jasmine Thomas.

Thomas, who averaged 10 points per game on the season, erupted for 31 points in just 23 minutes of play against Las Vegas, hitting 13-of-18 attempts from the field, including a 3-for-6 day from three-point range. At one point in the third quarter, Thomas’ 31 points equaled the point total of the entire Aces team in a stunning performance that will leave the top-seed searching for answers.

Jasmine wasn’t the only Thomas to have a big game for the Sun, as Alyssa Thomas went to work on the Aces with 18 points on 8-of-14 shooting in the win.

The Aces defense simply had no answers for the Sun, as Connecticut carved them up in the third quarter to run away with a 87-62 win to make quite the statement in Game 1.

Connecticut as a team hit 50 percent of their field goal attempts to go along with 42.1 percent of their threes, torching the Vegas defense. On the other end, the Aces were stuck in the mud against a physical Sun squad, shooting a dismal 33.8 percent from the field and hit just 1-of-14 three-point attempts. MVP A’ja Wilson had 19 points and nine rebounds, while Jackie Young chipped in 17 points off the bench, but no other Aces were able to reach double figures as they were unable to get much of anything going as a team.

Game 2 on Tuesday night (9 p.m. ET on ESPN2) will offer an opportunity for a bounceback, but the Sun will be feeling very confident coming off three straight wins now in the postseason, looking to carry that momentum to a healthy 2-0 series lead.

The New York Jets might just be the worst team in the NFL. It’s certainly too early to say that emphatically, but their offense has been truly abysmal and the defense has had plenty of lapses as well.

On Sunday, they faced an incredibly banged up San Francisco 49ers team that got more injured as the game wore on, losing Jimmy Garoppolo, Nick Bosa, and Raheem Mostert (on top of already being without George Kittle). The Jets still could only muster a couple of field goals through the late third quarter offensively, and the defense didn’t exactly help matters as they couldn’t even do something as simple as “get off the field on 3rd and 31.”

Yes, the 49ers converted on 3rd and 31 from their own 11 on a 55-yard run by Jerick McKinnon that shouldn’t have had a chance to pick up a first down.

There’s no trickery or anything wild about the play design here. Just a straight toss play that McKinnon cuts back across the field where for some reason there aren’t any defenders on the entire left half of the field capable of cutting him off and stopping him from galloping into Jets territory. It is a microcosm of the season so far for the Jets — who would later in the game kick a field goal after an interception set them up in the red zone. A hapless team seemingly incapable of converting the best of chances into the expected outcome.

While Cardi B continues work on her upcoming sophomore album, the Bronx rapper decided to bringing her two-year-old daughter into the spotlight a bit more thanks to her new Instagram page. Cardi made the announcement about her daughter’s new Instagram with a post to her personal account.

“Follow @Kulturekiari new IG…soo much cool bute baby stuff coming up,” Cardi said in a post which shows her daughter adorably holding a mini Louis Vuitton bag. A quick visit to Kulture’s Instagram page proves that Cardi was indeed right to label it as cute as it presents Kulture hanging with her mom, posing for pictures, and much more.

The launch of Kulture’s new page comes at the end of what’s been a tough week for Cardi. Earlier in the week, reports emerged that the “WAP” rapper filed for divorce from her husband Offset, which she later confirmed during an Instagram livestream.

“The reason for my divorce is not because of none of that sh*t that ever happened before. It’s not because of cheating,” she revealed during the livestream. “I just got tired of f*cking arguing. I got tired of not seeing things eye to eye. When you feel like it’s just not the same anymore, before you actually get cheated on, I’d rather just leave.”

Visit Kulture’s new Instagram page here.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The WNBA playoff semifinal series were both scheduled to tip-off on Sunday afternoon, with the Connecticut Sun and Las Vegas Aces serving as the early game, with the Minnesota Lynx and Seattle Storm set for the late game.

However, just a half hour before tipoff of the Lynx-Storm game, the league announced that they were postponing that game due to inconclusive COVID-19 tests from players out of an abundance of caution, planning to reschedule it for a later date once they can get firm test results back.

It’s the first instance of such test results in either the WNBA or NBA playoffs and provides some insight into how those will be handled, with the players in question going into isolation until they produce negative tests — or a conclusive positive test — and games being postponed rather than making teams play without key players in a playoff series. That latter part wasn’t fully known, but it makes the most sense for how to handle such a situation, as no one would want to have a series swung by an inconclusive test.

Hopefully all subsequent tests will return as negative and the game can go on and be rescheduled soon with both teams having their full rosters available to them.

It was a day of injuries in the NFL on Sunday, as Week 2 saw a number of young star players go down with injuries. Nick Bosa left Niners-Jets with a left knee injury and Saquon Barkley left Giants-Bears with a right knee injury, with both being carted off of the field with serious concern about their status going forward.

In Pittsburgh, promising young starting quarterback Drew Lock also was knocked out of the game after suffering a right shoulder injury on a play in which he got hit and driven into the ground as he stumbled and fumbled the football.

The Broncos announced in the second quarter that Lock’s day was officially done with a shoulder injury — although the specifics of the injury were not yet released. As such, Jeff Driskel took over as the Broncos starting quarterback as he tried to lead Denver back against Pittsburgh, but in the second quarter the already difficult task of being a backup trying to come in and lead the team got much more difficult when star rookie receiver Jerry Jeudy went down with an injury as well.

Jeudy’s status remains uncertain, but the two young stars of the Broncos offense that came into the season with such promise are both injured and the Denver faithful collectively hold their breath in hopes neither will be too severely hurt.

There was good news on the Jeudy front, at least, as he suffered a rib injury and was listed as probable to return.

The early window of Week 2 in the NFL saw a number of young stars go down with injuries, as one of the great fears of this season starting without preseason games and without as much contact was the potential for serious injuries early on.

Broncos second year starting quarterback Drew Lock and Niners second year star defensive end Nick Bosa both suffered injuries in the first quarter of their respective games that knocked them out of action. Lock suffered a shoulder injury, while Bosa was carted off with an apparent knee injury. Not long after, Giants young star running back Saquon Barkley added his name to the growing list of concerning injuries, as he went down with an apparent right knee injury after stepping awkwardly while being tackled on the sideline against the Bears.

Barkley was helped back across the field to the Giants sideline, where trainers continued to evaluate him and he was eventually put on the cart and taken to the locker room, per reporters on site.

It is a brutal loss for the Giants, who built their offense around the combination of Barkley and young quarterback Daniel Jones. Barkley struggled in Week 1 against the Steelers, and New York’s inability to get the ground game going was a big reason for that loss. He had seemed to put those struggles behind him in Week 2 with 28 yards on four carries early against the Bears before his injury.

We’ll provide an update when one becomes available.

Fans have been itching for a new album from Isaiah Rashad since the TDE rapper shared his debut back in 2016 with The Sun’s Tirade. The album is beloved by fans, as was his debut effort Cilvia Demo which he released back in 2014. In the last year or so, Rashad has teased the release of his upcoming sophomore album, which he revealed is titled The House Is Burning, but the rapper has yet to share much information about it aside from a few tweets.

As the wait continues, Rashad decided to shed a little light on the upcoming album as he took to Twitter to let fans know who they can expect to hear on the album.

In a now-deleted tweet Rashad said that his upcoming album will not arrive without a guest feature from Young Dolph. “I don’t wanna drop til I get a Young Dolph feature,” Rashad said in the tweet. With both rappers calling Tennessee home — Rashad hailing from Chattanooga and Young Dolph hailing from Memphis — it makes sense that the TDE rapper wants to connect with a rapper in his neighborhood.

While it’s been four years since his last album, Rashad has increased his activity over the last few months. After dropping his “Why Worry” single as a part of TDE Appreciation Week, Rashad joined Kaash Paige on “Problems” from her debut album, Teenage Fever.

View Rashad’s now-deleted tweet above.

The San Francisco 49ers looked to get their season back on track on Sunday when they faced the Jets in the Meadowlands after a loss in Week 1 to the Cardinals, but had to do so without the services of star tight end George Kittle, who suffered an ankle injury last week.

After a quick touchdown from Raheem Mostert, the injury news for the Niners got worse when star second year defensive end Nick Bosa got rolled up on while being blocked, with his left knee bending awkwardly as he fell backwards. Bosa would try to limp off the field, but was unable and the Niners medical staff had to take him back to the locker room on a cart.

Bosa is one of the league’s best young defensive players, earning Defensive Rookie of the Year honors a season ago as a key piece of the Niners NFC Championship winning squad. Last week against Arizona he got off to a solid start to his sophomore campaign with six tackles and a forced fumble, but the fear now is that his season could be over due to the apparent knee injury suffered on Sunday. The hope, of course, is that this was simply a scary looking injury that won’t be of the season-ending variety, but we will provide an update here once one becomes available.