Month: October 2020

Brooklyn drill rapper Fivio Foreign — Maxie Ryles by birth — was arrested Saturday in Edgewater, New Jersey for simple assault according to XXL. As of press time, details on the arrest are scant but Fivio is reportedly being held at the Bergen County Jail and was denied bond.

Fivio rose to prominence last year as part of a wave of artists affiliated with the drill movement, releasing the song “Big Drip” and securing a recording contract with Columbia Records. Fivio, who was close with late Brooklyn drill ambassador Pop Smoke, was selected to appear on XXL‘s 2020 Freshman Class cover in August after releasing his 800 B.C EP in April. Fivio also began picking up high-profile feature placements this year, landing on Drake’s Dark Lane Demo Tapes cut “Demons” with Sosa Geek, Lil Tjay’s State Of Emergency single “Zoo York” with Pop Smoke, and Nas’ King’s Disease track “Spicy” with ASAP Ferg.

He’s also proved to be an equal opportunity cameo killer, assisting DreamDoll on her “Ah Ah Ah” single and Young M.A. on her “Move Like A Boss,” then opened October with the release of “Bop It” alongside Polo G. Fivio also amused fans with his playful exchange with Mulatto during their XXL Freshman cypher.

As the premiere of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm draws closer, Sacha Baron Cohen has been promoting the surprise sequel by occasionally slipping into character on his personal Twitter account, but now, he’s taken his game to the next level. The actor has created a dedicated (and already verified) Borat account, which he’s been using to relentlessly troll Donald Trump over his COVID pandemic response.

In a series of hilarious tweets, Cohen — we’re sorry, Borat — fired off a litany of “praise” for the President’s very strong handling of COVID-19 that proves he’s not weak like Melania. The scathing tweets coincided with Trump’s Friday appearance on Tucker Carlson and were absolutely brutal in their mocking of the President’s failed response to the pandemic. There’s also a Stormy Daniels joke tossed in for good measure.

After taking a breather, Borat returned on Saturday where he congratulated Trump on his ill-advised rally at the White House.

Filmed during the pandemic, the Borat sequel appears to be squarely aimed at the Trump administration as the #4 Journalist in Kazakhstan attempts to gift his daughter to Vice President Mike Pence. Amazingly, Cohen got pretty close to his goal. The trailer includes a scene where Borat disguised as Trump bursts into a CPAC rally while Pence is speaking, and yet somehow didn’t result in a nasty clash with the Secret Service. Although, Cohen recently revealed in an essay for Time that he genuinely feared for his life while making the sequel. The actor wore a bulletproof vest during a scene where he pranks a gun rights rally, and he had significant doubts about how well it would hold up against several sub-machine guns as he narrowly escaped in a getaway car.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm starts streaming October 23 on Amazon Prime.

(Via Borat on Twitter)

Rock legend Eddie Van Halen passed away last week at 65 years old after a years-long battle with throat cancer. Figures from around the music world shared their thoughts about the pioneering musician following his death, and the majority of them were filled with praise for the guitarist’s skill and influence. Those are not feelings that David Crosby shares, though.

Over the weekend, a fan asked Crosby on Twitter, “i know you’re not into metal david, but what’s your opinion on eddie van halen,” to which he responded, “Meh ….” Somebody else followed up, “Wow! That was rude, unkind and totally lacking empathy,” and Crosby replied, “Sorry ..just meant he does not move me much.”

Later on, somebody took exception to Crosby’s dismissal of Van Halen, writing, “I can demonstrate how he could have answered WITHOUT being an asshole: ‘I don’t care for the end product, it’s just not my style. But there’s no question at all about his talent and the revolution he brought to the whole industry.’ Feeling expressed and still respectful, see?” Crosby agreed, sharing the tweet and adding, “Better.”

Crosby then clarified his “meh” tweet by saying that Van Halen didn’t have the same impact as Jimi Hendrix, noting that Van Halen was nice the one time they met but that his music just isn’t his cup of tea: “Hendrix changed the world of guitar. Nobody else really …look I get it ..many of you loved Van Halen ….and the one time I met he was nice ….and he was talented …meh to me means I don’t care that much ….and I don’t …doesn’t mean he wasn’t good ,he was but not for me”

Crosby’s comments prompted a good amount of backlash, like from LA Guns guitarist Tracii Guns, who wrote, “Wrong answer as f*ck and rude as f*ck!!! There are better ways to say you don’t care for someone’s music. That was very disrespectful. And yes straight out f*ck you and your smug answer.”

Check out some other responses below.

Shannon Sharpe loves him some LeBron James. The Hall of Fame tight end turned sports talk host of FS1’s Undisputed has long professed his love for his GOAT, LeBron, and as such with the Lakers winning Game 6 and hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy on Sunday night, you knew he was going to put on quite the performance opposite the preeminent LeBron-hater, Skip Bayless, on Monday.

Sharpe did not disappoint, arriving in his favorite rubber goat mask and a king’s cape to rub LeBron’s latest title in Skip’s face, but he took it a step further later as he walked a real, live goat wearing a LeBron jersey and a crown into the studio and attempted to get it to shake his hand like a dog would — while Bayless openly rooted for it to bite him as he fed it treats.

Shannon would eventually lead it back out of the set and hand it off to its handler, while thanking it and calling it “the real goat” and his friend. I appreciate the genuine happiness that this stunt brought Shannon and also that he made it a quick bit so as not to subject the goat to, like, sitting on set while he and Skip yelled at each other. Monday was a great day for LeBron fans to take a victory lap and none did so with more gusto than Shannon Sharpe.

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.

False starts are a dime-a-dozen in the hip-hop world. Artists take their best shots to succeed and not all of them pay off, through no fault of the artists themselves. 50 Cent had a buzzing record in “How To Rob” before he was shot nine times and had to reset the board for his 2002 comeback. Eminem’s demo was rejected numerous times until he reinvented himself as Slim Shady. Maybe it’s not the right time, or maybe fate intervenes, but the fortunes of a fast-rising artist can be totally upended in a matter of months, days, or even a single moment. The ones who can bounce back are the ones we celebrate, the ones we remember.

Del Amo, California rapper Reason’s comeback story could only take place now, in a world as interconnected as ours. His freestyles on Instagram and self-released mixtape There You Have It got him signed to Top Dawg Entertainment, where he got the shot at a global audience as a participant on the soundtrack to Marvel’s Black Panther. However, rather than celebration, his track was met with confusion; fans of a South African rapper with the same name were disappointed to hear someone else’s voice and words and many let the American Reason hear about it on Twitter.

For some, this could have been a setback. For Reason, it was an opportunity to reintroduce himself. Re-releasing There You Have It on TDE allowed him to expose new, curious listeners to his moody, introspective, lyrically-dense sound. Then, in 2019, he received an invite to the Revenge Of The Dreamers III sessions, an invite that would accelerate his career again — albeit, in a sort of bonkers, unexpected way. The Cozz collaboration “LamboTruck” became a surprise standout — not so much because it was the sole crossover on the album with just the two rappers, but because of the eye-popping topic.

Now, he’s following up with his second project for TDE, the suggestively-titled New Beginnings, featuring Ab-Soul, Isaiah Rashad, JID, Mereba, Rapsody, Schoolboy Q, and Vince Staples. It sounds like Reason’s aiming for a reset but actually, the compilation feels more like a bridge between Reason’s jagged introduction to the game and his impending stardom. It’s another unveiling to potential fans, showing off the complexity of his flow, his paint-a-picture storytelling, his wicked, South Park-esque sense of humor, and the brusque wisdom that made him a TDE artist in the first place, but it’s altered with the presence of a new swagger.

Uproxx caught up with Reason over the phone to talk about New Beginnings, resetting expectations, the unexpected consequences of accidental stardom, and what’s next for the ribald rising star.

I’ve noticed that there’s a little bit of a different mood for this album. It’s a little bit more celebratory. The last one was really personal and this one’s more observational. Was that intentional? Did you want to be more expansive on this one?

Yeah. A thousand percent. It’s funny that you said that because literally I wanted it to be like a celebration. It’s funny, I hate when artists say this sh*t, but I’m going to be that artist right now. It’s not necessarily an album.

I just kind of called it a project because my albums are very conceptual and similar to There You Have It. There’s a lot more personal sh*t like that, but this is my debut project with the label. As you know, There You Have It was just a rerelease.

So before getting into my debut album, I just want to celebrate a little bit, I want to attack it from a fan perspective. And I was like, “What’s some of the sh*t that I always wanted to hear?” And let me do that. So I was like, “Damn, I always wanted to hear a record with Zay and JID,” so let me get these two n****s on the record. And I’m a huge Soul fan, and he’s been ducked off for a little bit. Let me get Soul on the record. “Trapped In” didn’t make the project, but I just wanted to get those records, get records with Rapsody, my favorite female artist.

Then I doubled back after that and added the personal records because I still didn’t want to have a full project without those touches of “personal,” if that makes sense. So a lot of the personal records, you double back and add it and make sure that the album flows well sonically, but it’s definitely a celebration though.

Speaking of the personal touches, I was actually going to save this question, but I got to get it out the way now that we’re on it. I literally was just listening to “Windows Cry” right before the interview started.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s my favorite record in the project.

I don’t know that I’ve heard any artists come so honest. What does it mean to you to have a label that lets you put that kind of a song out and what were some of the ways that you would address those concerns throughout the process of being patient waiting for the album to come out?

People know I make music about my life, so I make a lot of my sh*t from a therapeutical standpoint. I made that record while I was on tour with Rock and it wasn’t supposed to come out. It was a record that I needed to make for me so that I can get over feelings these ways about the label. So I can move forward.

“Gossip” was the original outro on the project and Top just happened to call me. And this is why Top is so dope. He was like, “Yo, what’s that record that you was talking sh*t about all of us on? We going to make that one the outro.” So it was his call. It’s so fire to have a CEO that’s so comfortable with himself that he felt the same way. He was like, “I signed you for your honesty. I signed you because you can rap really well but on top of that, you’re probably like one of the more honest members that we have on the label. So I never want you to downplay that honesty for nobody and that’s including me.”

There’s a line on there that I know is going to cause some controversies… Twitter’s going to get to Twitting. So I’m going to give you a chance to preemptively clear up this Chance The Rapper line.

Even that line was from an honest place. I was watching the Joe Budden podcast and Chance was on there and he kept saying that he was independent.

He kept saying, “Any artists can do this. Any artist can do this. Any artists can do this.” And he was explaining how he came up and how he called Apple Music and got the billboard on the page and this and this. But when Joe kept asking him, “How do you do that stuff?” He was like, “You just got to have juice.”

And I had a problem with that. I don’t have a problem with Chance but I had a problem with that because I personally feel like as artists in our positions, we owe the people that look up to us and want to be like us honesty.

I feel like we owe them confidence. I feel like we owe them opportunities to be able to elevate. And if I wasn’t an artist in the industry, I would have learned absolutely nothing from that interview because Chance did not give away the secret to be able to get on. So when I say, “Chance told them they could be independent, knowing no one is,” it’s like, yeah, you might’ve been independent, but you forgot to tell them that you had a hundred thousand dollars of budget and you forgot to tell them that you know the n**** at Apple and you can call them to get the billboard. The regular person doesn’t have these resources to know that.

In a way, you’re kind of selling them a dream that they can do something without telling them how to do it. That’s why I said, “You show them dreams, but you don’t wake them up.” You show them dreams, but you don’t give them the work side of it, which is everybody can’t do this.

I’m sure of the aspect of the element of music people discount or misunderstand the most is the importance of sequencing. You go directly from a Rapsody verse on “I Can Make It” to the first verse of “Fall,” and I cannot convince myself that’s a coincidence. Was it intentional?

A thousand percent actually. The first verse of “Fall” was inspired by Rapsody. Rapsody was following me on Twitter and I hit her up on Twitter and said, “Yo, I wrote this verse. It was inspired by you. If it’s okay, can I just have your number? I just want to text it over to you.” And she called me and she told me she was damn near in tears listening to it.

We just had a long conversation about women’s struggle to get into the industry and what they have to deal with. My sister was an artist when she was younger and I saw what she would have to deal with. So when I’m listening to Rapsody, seeing how dope she is, and she’s not at the “starter level” that she should be at, that’s what made me write “Fall.” I even said in the verse, “I had a convo with Laila sharing some of her wisdom with me came to kick it with me…” because I was listening to Laila’s Wisdom when I wrote that. So it was definitely intentional and our relationship just burst off of that record. So I felt like it made the most sense for us to go from a Rapsody verse into “Fall,” because that’s what that symbolized to me. I’m very, very impressed that you caught that here.

“Slow Down” reminds me so much of [Kendrick Lamar’s] “Sing About Me.” The storylines are very similar, how you both talk about someone close to you being affected by an earlier song you put out. In your case, it was “Better Days,” which was about your cousin. On “Slow Down,” you talk about reconciling with him because he felt a way about you putting his story out there. What was the conversation like?

A hundred percent. I wrote that record in 2014 before I even thought… “Better Days” was actually the third record that I ever wrote. At that time, I’m not thinking I’m going to be signed to TDE or heard by a bunch of people and stuff like that. I tell people “Better Days” is the most important record in my career so far because it changed my life. It was always the record that made people feel like “he’s somebody,.”

But when I wrote it, never once, did I take the time to think about how it made my cousin feel? Because I didn’t think that a lot of people were hearing it. It starts to bubble and then it gets bigger and it gets bigger and you know I’m getting all this praise and love for it that I appreciate. But on the other end, I can tell talking to my cousin that that really, really hurt him. And then we ended up having a conversation about it. I had a show in Atlanta and he couldn’t even stay in the venue when I was performing “Better Days.” And it wasn’t until we got to the last show on Jay Rock tour. I gave a speech about my cousin after and the whole crowd stood up in front of clapping and that was the moment that he felt good and felt like, damn, I’m not the only person that’s gone through this.

I just felt like as a man I was still wrong. I didn’t associate his feelings with the record. I didn’t make that connection until it was too late. I felt like as loud as I was when I did it, I needed to man up and apologize on the grand platform the same way. I apologized to him in person, but I just felt like it would mean more if he heard it the same way he heard “Better Days.” He got that because he deserved that, even though he never asked me for an apology, because that’s just how dope of a human he is.

So this wasn’t on the album, but I do have a question because I didn’t get a chance to talk to you about before. It was a really funny thing when it happened, at least for me. But on “The Soul (Pt.2),” you address the South Africa situation. Did you ever get a chance to speak with the other Reason?

I tried to, but he was a little salty about it and I understand it. When Black Panther dropped I tried to reach out to him and he just kind of put up a tweet almost along the lines of, “I don’t know what’s worse: That I found out the artist has my name or that I find out he has the spot on the Black Panther album that I deserved.” So I just told him, “I feel where you’re coming from. I’m not even mad at it, but you got a lot of dope fans.” His fans were tweeting me like crazy. I’m like, “Your fanbase is dope because they’re upset for you.”

It was funny for me. I’m like, “Man, every time I look up this n**** is like getting credit from my shi*t and vice versa. Shout out to Spotify, but sometimes Spotify will f*ck up and put a song of mine on his page on accident. I’m not really upset about it but it’s definitely been a hurdle. It’s definitely one of those things that prohibited me from getting all the traffic that I should be getting because they’re still trying to figure that out. At the same time, you’ve got to realize how dope your fanbase is. Even when I look at countries where my listens come from, South Africa is my second biggest and I know that it’s from that situation.

So what’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get out of quarantine?

The first thing I’m doing is going to show, bro. I miss performing so much. I can’t even tell you. I don’t care where it’s at. I don’t care what venue they do it. The one thing that sucks about putting this project out is that I made these records with the mindset of performing them. A lot of these records I won’t get to perform because I’ll have another project out by the time this sh*t opens.

Don’t think you’re going to sneak by slipping the old “next album coming” and I’m not going to notice!

I’ve worked. Yeah. I’m working on my debut album. As I said, this is just kind of like a project cause I wanted to put something out there, but I’m working on that debut album. That’s going to sound more kind of like what you were saying at first, cohesive, with storytelling and personal touches and it’ll probably be a little bit darker. I’m working on that right now and I’m wrapping it up. I’m probably I’d say about 65% done, something about that.

New Beginnings is out now via Top Dawg Entertainment. Get it here.

As much of America hunkered down to ride out a pandemic and watched a nationwide uprising for social justice, the show that has captured our imaginations is HBO’s Lovecraft Country. Based on Matt Ruff’s 2016 dark fantasy novel of the same name, the story of the Freeman family has reflected our national anxieties and hopes for a better world. To mark this Sunday’s season finale, HBO has partnered with Janelle Monae, a recording artist who similarly uses fantastical themes to address real social issues, for a unique performance.

On Sunday, HBO and Monae will present Music Of The Cosmos, a VR experience inspired by the world of the show and Monaé’s first VR performance. Airing October 19 at 9 pm — after the season finale of the show — the performance will take place in an interactive environment that Janelle’s avatar will be able to directly impact. For those without Occulus headsets, YouTube Live will also stream and allow viewers to interact with the environment.

“I always strive for innovation, and this project gives me the special opportunity to celebrate Lovecraft Country, a show I’m a huge fan of, and connect with fans in a completely new way using virtual reality,” Monae told Billboard in a statement. “This is the perfect platform to explore the impact of music and movement in a new dimension designed to celebrate Black art, stories, and voices.”

Janelle Monae is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

As the game clock finally hit triple zeroes in Orlando on Sunday night, the celebration was on for the Los Angeles Lakers as they won their 17th championship as a franchise and first in a decade. It was yet another crowning achievement in the career of LeBron James, the first title of what L.A. hopes is many for Anthony Davis, and the culmination of the strangest season in league history.

The Lakers danced and sang and threw back champagne and beer, as champions are wont to do, and, because it’s 2020, much of the celebration was documented live by players on their social media. J.R. Smith has become a serial Instagram Live user — it almost got him in trouble when he first arrived in the Bubble — and he took fans through the celebration, from the court to the locker room to the bus to the afterparty at the hotel bar.

Somewhere in that window between them leaving the champagne soaked locker room for the bus ride back to the hotel, Quinn Cook found himself separated from his teammates and while Smith partied on the bus, Cook hopped in the comments on his livestream to see if he could get the bus to turn around. This was met with hilarity from Smith and Dion Waiters, who told Cook he’s gonna need to fly back on his own.

Cook’s comments were quite funny, ranging from disbelief that he might have to walk back after winning a ring to pleading for them to make a U-turn. Surely he found his way back and was able to join the celebration again, but it was just another odd twist in winning a title in the Bubble in having to also make it back to the bus on time.

As Season 2 of The Mandalorian gets ready to blast its way onto Disney+ at the end of the month, the official Star Wars website has unveiled a brand new batch of character posters featuring Baby Yoda and some other people who get in the way of his scenes. But while it’s always cool to check up on the internet’s favorite green boy, he’s looking a little bummed in this latest poster. If we had to guess why, there’s probably a lack of soup bowls to slurp on whatever planet Mando brought him to this time.

You can check out the The Child character poster below:

Bringing up the rear are Cara Dune (Gina Carano), Greef Karga (Carl Weathers), and The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) who will be doing their best to reunite Baby Yoda with his people, which we already know will involve some “massive lightsaber action” thanks to Giancarlo Esposito promising a Jedi showdown in Season 2.

You can see the rest of The Mandalorian Season 2 posters below:

With seven Emmy wins under its belt, The Mandalorian is riding high into season two. The show absolutely dominated the streaming charts as one of the most watched original series on a new streaming service, so the anticipation for new episodes was already through the roof before audiences were trapped inside on account of the pandemic.

Here’s the official season two synopsis:

The Mandalorian and the Child continue their journey, facing enemies and rallying allies as they make their way through a dangerous galaxy in the tumultuous era after the collapse of the Galactic Empire. The Mandalorian stars Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano, Carl Weathers and Giancarlo Esposito. Directors for the new season include Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rick Famuyiwa, Carl Weathers, Peyton Reed and Robert Rodriguez.

The Mandalorian returns on October 30.

(Via Star Wars)

Offset and Cardi B may be in the middle of a divorce, but he still did everything he could to help make the “WAP” rapper’s birthday special. He got her a pricey new car and bought her a birthday billboard, and he also devoted a sweet Instagram post to Cardi.

Sharing a photo of him and Cardi laying down together, Offset wrote, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY @iamcardib you are amazing woman you the best! Me and Kulture are proud of you!!! over came every obstacle in front you they was all sleep at once then you woke the world up! Thank you for being 1000% every min I known you live it up enjoy keep f*cking balling I’m lucky.”

Offset seems to be feeling down about his impending divorce: He recently said on Instagram that he misses “Mrs. WAP.” The relationship between the two isn’t totally sour, as Cardi recently defended Offset after fans called him a “bad man,” writing, “He a dumbass not a bad man. Cause out of everybody that tried to steal, finesse me into working with their brand for less he got people coming for me with CORRECT CONTRACTS and never ask for a dollar or benefit like every1 else. N****s is n**** but a bad personality he not.”

Divorces can be a challenging time, but that didn’t stop Cardi from enjoying her birthday blowout. She had herself a big ol’ party, and she certainly partied hard; At one point, she found herself face down on the floor.

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

If you go by Rotten Tomatoes score, Spectre is the “worst” James Bond movie in the Daniel Craig-era. But ironically, of the four films, it has the best opening scene: 007 carrying out a mission in Mexico City on the Day of the Dead was thrilling and, with its lengthy (and deceptive) tracking shot, technically impressive. Spectre deserves a top-10 placement on any Best Bond Pre-Title Openings list, and it sounds like whatever director Cary Joji Fukunaga has in store for No Time to Die will be up there, too.

The Wall Street Journal describes the opening as “slow-paced, visually arresting, subtitled with dialogue in French and entirely Bond-free. Focusing instead on Madeleine’s backstory, the opening is a terrifying episode from her childhood in which Safin, wearing a Japanese Noh mask, kills her mother, pursues Madeleine through the home and hunts her down on a frozen lake.” Fukunaga then made an interesting comparison between that scene, which appears in the trailer, and another film. And genre:

“Some clown chasing a child around the house,” Fukunaga says with a laugh. “Yeah, it’s like I brought back It in the first five minutes of Bond.”

Fukunaga was the original choice to direct It, but he wanted to make an “unconventional horror film,” while the studio “wanted me to make a much more inoffensive, conventional script.” He later added, “They thought they couldn’t control me. I would have been a total collaborator. That was the kind of ridiculous part. It was just more a perception. I have never seen a note and been like, F*ck you guys. No way. It’s always been a conversation.” Fukunaga received writing credit on the highest-grossing horror movie of all-time, but it sounds like he channeled his unseen It ideas into No Time to Die‘s opening. As if the wait to watch Ana de Armas kill bad guys wasn’t long enough as is…

No Time to Die is scheduled to come out on April 2, 2021.

(Via Wall Street Journal)