Month: October 2020

Travis Scott’s collaboration with McDonald’s was a big deal, but since it was only a limited time affair, it has come and gone. It turns out that from the restaurant’s point of view, the endeavor was a big success.

According to The Wall Street Journal, McDonald’s revealed today that comparable sales at US restaurants rose 4.6 percent from July to September compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, in the previous quarter (April to June, compared to a year earlier), US sales were down 8.7 percent as dine-in options were temporarily halted at the beginning of the pandemic. The restaurant chain attributes this growth to faster drive-through speeds and the Scott collaboration.

The meal certainly proved popular while it was available. At one point, the restaurant actually had to make a change to how the meal was ordered, and they were even running out of some ingredients because people were buying them up so quickly.

The McDonald’s collab consisted of much more than just the meal, though. Scott offered a ton of merch options through his website, some of which were more outlandish than others (shout out to the McNugget pillow). There was even a Scott action figure available, but not without a catch.

While promoting Uncut Gems, Adam Sandler told Howard Stern that he was “going to f*cking come back and do one again that is so bad on purpose just to make you all pay” if he didn’t get an Oscar nomination for his performance in the anxious Safdie brothers-directed film. Guess what? Sandler wasn’t nominated (he not only should have been nominated; he should have won), and he came back with… a decent movie, actually.

Hubie Halloween is one of Sandler’s better Netflix comedies. That may sound like half-hearted praise, but it’s not; I’m the one person who thinks The Week Of and Sandy Wexler are good. Hubie is Sandler in reflective mode, casting himself (someone whose broad comedies are usually met with critical scorn) as Hubie Dubois, who’s bullied for wanting to bring joy into the world and help others. But mostly, it’s an excuse for Sandler to have a goofy voice, make fart jokes, and reference his old movies. He has layers.

About those callbacks: Hubie Halloween begins with an obvious Happy Gilmore homage, with Ben Stiller reprising his role as retirement community-turned-psychiatric hospital employee Hal in the golf comedy. Hubie also brings back the O’Doyle family (“O’DOYLE RULES”) from Billy Madison and the pee-stained sheet from The Waterboy.

If recognizing Sandler references is cool, consider these people Miles Davis.

Also, Steve Buscemi plays a werewolf, making it part of the Hotel Transylvania Cinematic Universe. You should watch Hubie Halloween.

Trippie Redd takes no days off when it comes to releasing music, especially when it comes to albums as the young rapper has yet to go a year without gracing his fans with a full-length effort since his 2017 arrival. Trippie keeps the streak alive with his new single, “Sleepy Hallow,” and an update on his upcoming album, Pegasus.

“Sleepy Hallow” is a short effort, clocking in at just under two minutes. Despite its brevity, Trippie makes the most of the brief track by packing a good punch in the track as he flows energetically over the song’s haunting, fast-paced production. The single also arrived with a new release date and tracklist for his upcoming Pegasus album. Comprised of 26 songs and guest appearances from Rich The Kid, Young Thug, Future, Quavo, Lil Wayne, Swae Lee, and more, Pegasus will arrive on October 30.

Trippie Redd has been fairly active in the singles department this year, all in preparation for his Pegasus album. A few weeks ago, he teamed up with Busta Rhymes for their “I Got You” single, a track that arrived after his “Excitement” effort with PartyNextDoor. He also released his “Dreamer” single to celebrate his 21st birthday as well as his joint track with Juice WRLD, “Tell Me U Luv Me.”

Scroll down to see the artwork and tracklist to Trippie Redd’s upcoming album.

1. “Let It Out” Feat. Myiah Lynnae
2. “Moonlight”
3. “Love Scars 4”
4. “The Nether”
5. “So Stressed” Feat. Yung LB
6. “Excitement” Feat. PartyNextDoor
7. “Mood” Feat. Chris Brown
8. “Pegasus”
9. “Weeeeee”
10. “Personal Favorite” Feat. Rich The Kid
11. “V-12”
12. “Spaceships” Feat. Young Thug
13. “Never Change” Feat. Future
14. “Good Morning”
15. “No Honorable Mention” Feat. Quavo & Lil Mosey
16. “I Got You” Feat. Busta Rhymes
17. “Too Fly”
18. “Red Beam” Feat. Sean Kingston
19. “Oomps Revenge Pt. 2”
20. “Take One”
21. “Sleepy Hollow”
22. “Kid That Didd” Feat. Future & Doe Boy
23. “Don”
24. “Hell Rain” Feat. Lil Wayne & Hoody Baby
25. “TR666” Feat. Swae Lee
26. “Sun God” Feat. Myiah Lynnae

Pegasus is out 10/30 via 10K Projects/1400 Entertainment. Get it here.

It’s officially a wrap on the 2020 WNBA season. On Tuesday night, the Seattle Storm completed their sweep of the Las Vegas Aces in the Finals to capture their fourth championship, tying the legendary Houston Comets (RIP) for most titles in league history. But before the Storm lifted the trophy on Tuesday, so much had happened in the WNBA. In an unprecedented season, we saw almost nonstop games, clutch performances, important and difficult conversations about social justice. Now that the season is over, it’s time to reflect on what we learned from another competitive period of play:

1. The Seattle Storm didn’t even blink

I promise I won’t make this entire blog about the Storm, but their season was pretty amazing. Coming into this year, almost everyone placed their bets on Seattle winning the title and Seattle — well, they delivered in strikingly dominant fashion. Sure, they ended up relinquishing the No. 1 seed to the Aces at the end of the regular season, but the Storm knew what their end goal was. When it came down to crunch time, they were locked in, becoming the first team in WNBA history to go undefeated in the playoffs. Their 92-59 rout of the Aces in Game 3 was the largest margin of victory in WNBA Finals history, showing off their killer instinct.

After missing last season due to injuries, Breanna Stewart and Sue Bird were able to get back to being the league’s most lethal dynamic duo and lead Seattle to another championship. In doing so, Stewart packed her resume even more one year after rupturing her Achillles and Bird added another trophy to her collection. Questions about Bird’s playing future will likely overwhelm the Twitterverse, but whether or not she chooses to play next year, Seattle’s younger stars have shown they are plenty capable of sitting in the driver’s seat. Between Stewart (26 years old), Jewel Loyd (27), Jordin Canada (25) and Ezi Magbegor (21), the Storm are in good hands for the foreseeable future.

2. Somehow, someway, the players survived the “Wubble”

It’s been a long year and long season for the women of the WNBA, but somehow they made it through. Unlike the NBA, whose season started rather normally and was then forced to move to a single-site location in Orlando, Florida due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the WNBA wasn’t even sure if holding a season at all was possible.

But despite spending three months away from home during a global health crisis constantly surrounded by the reminders of their day job — and while playing essentially every other day — the players still managed to put on an incredibly strong season while continuing the national conversation around racial injustice. From the start, players made sure they didn’t drop the ball on advocating for the Black LGBTQ+ community whether it was by sitting out the season to completely focus on activist efforts or make a statement with their actions throughout the season in Bradenton, Florida. The 2020 WNBA season was unlike any other season in league history and the players deserve all the rest and relaxation they can get after enduring that.

3. There’s so much incredible talent in this league

At some point during the 2020 season, it started to feel like everyone in the WNBA was showing out on a nightly basis. And that’s because almost everyone, from the rookies to the veterans to the players people didn’t even know existed last year, played some great basketball. Crystal Dangerfield, the No. 16 overall pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft, surprised many folks with her maturity and the way she fit right into the Minnesota Lynx’s system on her way to earning Rookie of the Year. And her fellow rookies Chennedy Carter, Satou Sabally and Julie Allemand all acclimated really well to the pro level. Meanwhile, we saw vintage performances from Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi — not to mention Angel McCoughtry’s resurgence and Candace Parker’s dominance on both ends of the floor.

But the biggest and most heartening surprise were the performances from the likes of Myisha Hines-Allen and Betnijah Laney, players who were relatively unknown in the past but became household names this year. Without 2019 MVP Elena Delle Donne and superstars Natasha Cloud and Kristi Toliver, the Washington Mystics entered this season with low expectations only for Hines-Allen to put on a complete masterpiece of a show night in and night out. Add Laney, who has been tossed around teams like a hot potato in years past, made sure that those same teams will have her name highlighted on their free agency wish lists. Another great storyline was the improved play of Bria Hartley, who departed the New York Liberty in the offseason to head to Phoenix, where it seemed she had finally found the right until she tore her ACL. With only 144 roster spots, it can be incredibly difficult for really good players to make it onto a roster and even when they do, they are often overlooked. But with so many stars missing, the opportunity was ripe for players like Laney and Hines-Allen to make their names known — and they took it without hesitation.

4. 2020 was a year of immense growth for the WNBA

2020 was a great year for the WNBA objectively, from the incredible play on the court to the record viewership numbers to the omnipresence of the famous orange hoodie. In a recent press conference with the media, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert reported that this season saw a record average of 83.1 points scored per game. Additionally, average viewership during the regular season increased 68% from 2019, thanks to an increase in the number of games on national television. Opening Day games saw a 20% increase in viewership year-over-year and ESPN’s coverage of Game 3 of the 2020 #WNBA Finals was up 34% from last year.

The league also announced that the orange WNBA logo hoodie — yes, the one you saw everyone from LeBron James to Robin Roberts sporting — became the best-selling WNBA item ever. The WNBA is on the rise, and this season — despite its difficult circumstances — is just a sign of the great things to come.

5. Next year will be scary competitive

I know I went on and on about how the Seattle Storm will dominate for years to come because of their incredible core group of players and presence of one of the most decorated players ever in Stewart. But, the 2021 WNBA season could be insanely competitive if we see the return of the league’s stars and some crazy free agency moves that spice things up. Take the Aces, for example. They had a very successful season and made it all the way to the Finals. But next year? If all goes well, next season will see them get Liz Cambage and Kelsey Plum back and that’s scary to think about. The previously mentioned Mystics were missing some key players, but if they get Delle Donne and Cloud back next year, they will likely be in the mix for the title.

The Sparks, Mercury and Sun fell short this year, but will still have title hopes next year and with so many available free agents, the rest of the league might just be a couple moves away from fighting for a championship in 2021.

Quavo and Saweetie are one of the premiere couples of hip-hop, and it all began because Quavo was able to do what so many men before and after him have failed at: successfully slide into some DMs.

Yesterday, Quavo shared a screenshot of the first Instagram DMs he ever sent to Saweetie. The exchange began on March 15, 2018 with Quavo sending Saweetie a snowflake emoji, a reference to her single “Icy Grl.” She responded back in kind, sending him an emoji of a bowl of noodles, a nod to the Migos hit “Stir Fry.” Then Quavo turned on the charm, writing back, “u so icy Ima glacier boy,” to which Saweetie replied, “was hannin then.”

From there, it turns out things went pretty well, as they of course went on to establish a relationship, and they’ve been dating for a while now. Quavo capped off the post with a photo of the two of them enjoying drinks together in present day. He captioned the tweet, “HOW I PULLED UP: HOW WE COMING,” with a crying laughing emoji.

Since then, the two have collaborated musically on a number of occasions. They dropped “Workin Me” in 2018, while 2019 brought “Tip Toes,” “Emotional,” and “Too Much Shaft.”

What’s Mike Pence’s favorite episode of Breaking Bad? “Fly.” What’s Mike Pence’s favorite Jeff Goldblum movie? The Fly. What’s Mike Pence’s favorite Sugar Ray song? “Fly.” These are the kind of terrible, terrible jokes that Stephen Colbert didn’t make on Wednesday’s The Late Show, shortly after a weary nation forgot its problems — its many, many, many problems — and was captivated by a fly on Pence’s extremely white head during his vice presidential debate against Kamala Harris.

“Trump’s debate last week was a hurricane of bad faith. It bordered on a demonstration of the banality of evil. Tonight, on the other hand, we were faced with the banality of banality. I spent the whole debate on the middle of my seat,” Colbert said, although there was one moment that “everyone’s buzzing” about. Then came the zingers:

“He’s so full of crap, he’s attracting flies!”

“All jokes aside, thoughts and prayers to that fly’s family. It’s got to quarantine for two weeks. We’ve got to get that fly to Walter Reed.”

“It stayed there for over two minutes! Two minutes. Meaning that fly has a longer attention span than the president of the United States. That’s a long time for a fly. It made a life there!”

Then my personal favorite: “I want to point out that I have a Black friend,” Colbert said, doing an impression of Pence. “By which I mean this fly on my head.” I hope Colbert is the late-night host who gets the inevitable Jeff Goldblum interview. He deserves it.

Although Kanye West hasn’t said much about it in recent days, he is in fact still running for president. That’s despite the fact that at this point, it would take an unprecedented upset for either Donald Trump to not retain the presidency or for Joe Biden to not take over the White House. Regardless, he’s pressing on, and he used last night’s vice presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris to do a bit of campaigning of his own.

During the debate, Kanye tweeted out images of some of his Kanye 2020 merch, although the two pics he shared weren’t modeled by anybody. He changed that with a video he posted, though, of him holding a “Vote Kanye” hat over Harris’ head on TV and a “Kanye 2020 Vision” hat over Pence’s. He captioned the post, “They had to get the merch first,” along with a link to his election merch site.

Meanwhile, following the news of Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, Kanye shared a message of peace and unity, tweeting, “There’s a crying need for civility across the board. We need to and will come together in the name of Jesus. I’m praying for President Trump’s and Melania’s full recovery, just as I would for Joe and Jill Biden if they were stricken, as well as everyone else with COVID-19.”

A week after the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Senator Kamala Harris and current Vice President Mike Pence took the stage for their own debate. Unlike the Trump-Biden duel, which received incredibly negative reviews, Harris and Pence refrained from fireworks and shouting, opting to keep things for the most part civilized and peaceful. As the debate carried on, a number of notable names in the music world took to Twitter to share their thoughts.

Showing his support for Senator Harris, Chance The Rapper commended her early performance in the debate, writing, “I like that she winning the debate.” He also sent out a pair of light-hearted tweets during the debate. The first post read, “Thank you Vice President,” with a gif of Family Guy‘s Stewie rocking back and forth in a straitjacket — a reaction to Harris repeatedly “thanking” the vice [resident throughout the night. The second tweet commented on the massive fly that landed on Vice President Pence’s head for a long period of time towards the back stretch.

Other reactions came from Hayley Williams, who tweeted “my safe word is ‘mr vice president i am speaking’” — a comment on Senator Harris’ response to Vice President Pence repeatedly interrupting her. Dreamville rapper Bas commended the fly for its work, writing, “That fly really ended this debate.”

You can find other reactions from the music world below.

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

Wednesday night brought about yet another debate leading up to the 2020 election, this time featuring the vice presidential candidates, Senator Kamala Harris and current VP Mike Pence.

It was, well, another debate and you can find in depth analysis of who said what and who (Pence) lied the most and all of that somewhere else, but towards the end there was a moment that brought about some widespread joy on Twitter, as a fly landed on Pence’s head and just kind of hung around in his hair for a full two minutes with the VP clueless as to what was going on.

There were a number of NBA and WNBA players tuned into the debate and as soon as the fly landed on Pence and hung around, they had the same reaction of so many — which was to laugh in relative disbelief at what they were witnessing.

Some, like LeBron James, made sure to note that flies typically find their way to smelly things like garbage or, uh, excrement, and fired off some jokes at Pence’s expense.

Those weren’t the only zingers, as Tobias Harris offered up some clever commentary of his own.

Others simply found it very funny, which it, objectively, was.

Kaytranada promised to deliver his sophomore album at some point in 2019, and he came through with just a few weeks left in the calendar. The album Bubba was seen as a satisfactory sequel to his 2016 debut, 99.9%. Aiming to keep the project in rotation as it approaches its one-year anniversary, Kaytranada and Tinashe have dropped a new video for one of the album’s highlights, “Worst In Me.”

Being released in October, the video is appropriately Halloween-ish in theme, and it kicks off with Tinashe cheerfully preparing for a date night as her partner makes their way to her house. When he finally arrives, Tinashe and her love interest enjoy what turns out to be a short-lived dinner. The two retire to the bedroom, but that’s when things take a turn for the worse. Tinashe’s inner vampire reveals itself, prompting her to sink her fangs into her partner’s neck.

The “Worst In Me” video serves as one of three that Kaytranada has debuted following the release of Bubba. The first was a 1970s-inspired video for “10%,” his collaboration with Kali Uchis, while the second was “Need It,” which found him teaming up with Masego.

You can watch the “Worst In Me” video above.