While 2020 has not produced a solo project from Cardi B, the Bronx native has one of the year’s biggest moments in music thanks to her “WAP” single with Megan The Stallion. The track and its accompanying video sent the internet into a frenzy while producing an equal amount of fans and critics, all of whom helped the song land three weeks atop the Billboard singles chart.
Months later, the track, as well as other 2020 highlights for Cardi, helped the rapper win Billboard’s ‘Woman Of The Year’ award. While the award may be well-deserved to some, others believed that it should’ve gone to someone else. In a recent video post to Instagram, the Bronx native responded to these critics.
“For you crybabies that’s like ‘what? she only got one song’ – yeah I got that song, b*tch,” Cardi said in the video. “You know? The one that sold the most, the one that streamed the most. The one that had Republicans on Fox News crying about it. The one that’s about to be six times platinum in three months.” She added, “The one that had your grandma popping her pussy on TikTok. Yeah, b*tch, that one.”
The rapper closed the boastful video by reminding viewers that she “won’t ever change” her ways. “Eat it up, I’m just that b*tch,” she said.
You can view Cardi’s response in the video above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Wednesday was supposed to be a day of excitement for the Golden State Warriors, who held the second overall pick in the NBA Draft and were poised to either draft one of the top prospects or trade it away for what figured to be a handsome return.
However, mere hours before the Warriors were set to be on the clock, word emerged that star guard Klay Thompson had suffered a lower leg injury in a workout that was in need of evaluation. As more information emerged over the course of the evening, it became clear that the injury was feared to be severe, with Shams Charania of The Athletic reporting he couldn’t place weight on his leg leaving the gym to Marc Spears simply tweeting he’d been told the injury was “not good.”
Late Wednesday night, we got word of just how bad the injury was as Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports reports the Warriors fear Thompson suffered an Achilles injury in his right leg, thus ending his 2020-21 comeback season before it ever got started.
Yahoo Sources: The fear is Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson has suffered a significant Achilles injury. An MRI scheduled for tomorrow morning.
They will wait for all tests to come back before confirming, but it is a devastating outcome for someone who has worked tremendously over the last year to rehabilitate his left knee after tearing his ACL in the 2019 NBA Finals. A ruptured or torn Achilles is one of the most debilitating injuries for a basketball player, but the hope is obviously that Thompson will be able to work his way back to find something close to his pre-injury, All-Star form.
For the Warriors, who had hoped after being without Thompson and Stephen Curry for most of last season they’d bounce back into title contention in 2021, it’s a huge blow to their team hopes. The chief concern at this point has to be for Thompson’s health and recovery, but it certainly has to shift their plans this offseason.
Next month, Jack White’s Third Man Records will release a new greatest hits album by The White Stripes. For White, it’s another classic anachronistic move: In the age of streaming platforms, greatest hits compilations have become all but extinct. But it’s also warranted and even necessary revisionism for one of the great (and misunderstood) bands of their era.
Almost a decade after they broke up, The White Stripes are even more out-of-step with the pop mainstream in 2020 then they were during the era of nu-metal and teen pop. Jack White has since moved on to a successful solo career, though his tendency to come off as a reactionary crank in interviews has taken some of the shine off of his former band’s legacy. In their time, The White Stripes were as unlikely a world-conquering band as Nirvana was in the early ’90s. Their formula of commingling a plainly constructed mythos — a brother-sister band dressed like peppermint candies — with utterly simple and gut-level blues-based rock proved to be remarkably resilient, both commercially and artistically, over the course of six albums. Ultimately, it was hard to tell sometimes where the mythos ended. (When White calls himself “the seventh son” in “Ball And Biscuit,” he’s referencing a classic blues trope and the fact that he is literally the seventh born son in his family.)
Hopefully the new greatest hits record will be an excuse to go back and listen to The White Stripes’ music, which I’m happy to report holds up very well. How exactly did this band make blues rock great again? I tried to figure that out by revisiting my 30 favorite White Stripes songs.
30. “Let’s Shake Hands” (1998)
Their debut single, and a summation of their sound and aesthetic. In Detroit back in the late ’90s, The White Stripes were not immediately popular; a local scenester once described them as “the kid band that nobody liked.” That was partly due to White’s voice, which was even more shrill and Robert Plant-esque (and therefore un-punk) in the early days. But there was also the novel combination of extreme, even cartoonish childishness and brute old-world aggression derived from the unrestrained machismo of the blues. (White later said that the former was a way to initially distract audiences from the latter.) You can hear all of that in “Let’s Shake Hands” — the text is chaste, but the subtext is highly charged.
29. “I Fought Piranhas” (1999)
Like Jack and Meg White, I am a native of the upper Midwest, and I remember what it was like here in local indie-rock clubs at the turn of the century. You couldn’t toss a PBR bottle cap without hitting a band with a name like The Filthstooges or The Redsideburns or Johnny & The Harley Cats In Heat. Garage rock was a reaction against technology and the internet rapidly remaking culture, so it was an inherent bug of the genre that 99.9% of the bands from that time have been memory-holed or otherwise stranded in their time. As the extremely rare exception, The White Stripes had the benefit of undeniable vision and sturdy tunes, though they also knew how to play the game. “I Fought Piranhas” is the sort of surly, bluesy vamp that leather-jacketed Detroiters, Milwaukeeans, and Chicagoans could get behind, no matter the lack of piranhas in Lake Michigan.
28. “Black Math” (2003)
The 2008 documentary It Might Get Loud opens with the most Jack White scene imaginable — we see him dressed like Johnny Depp in Mortdecai, carefully assembling a Coke bottle guitar while surrounded by cows on the Tennessee plains. The image projected here aligns with White’s persona as the ultimate purist, but this is actually a character called “Jack White” that a boy named Jack Gillis invented. Before he was Jack White, young Gillis loved Led Zeppelin, a band that never was all that reverential of their blues roots. (They were plunderers, not preservationists.) And that hasn’t really changed — Jack White might preach about the primal beauty of a homemade Coke bottle guitar, but musically he’s closer to one of Jimmy Page’s double-neck beauties. Listening to “Black Math,” The White Stripes are best understood as a Gen X Zep, a quintessential riff-rock machine operating on cheap equipment.
27. “Screwdriver” (1999)
Unlike another band from Michigan that likes to get the Led out, The White Stripes had the foresight to not emulate them visually, nor did they ape their million-dollar classic-rock production. White’s love of monstrous, stutter-start riffage instead was married to consciously scruffier sonics. The first song White ever wrote for The White Stripes, “Screwdriver” is like Led Zeppelin II if had been recorded at Cobo Hall by a Walkman with dying batteries.
26. “Icky Thump” (2007)
The best description I’ve seen of a Jack White guitar solo, courtesy of The New Yorker‘s Alec Wilkinson: “Often a series of collisions, a challenge to a song to defend itself. He likes fat, sludgy tones and clipped attacks, often repeating a note as if he were throttling it.” This violent, car-crash style also comes across when he plays other instruments, like a Univox synthesizer, which White maximizes for every squeak, squawk, and squiggle on “Icky Thump.”
25. “You’re Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)” (2000)
Among the many fascinating contradictions of The White Stripes: They are both strongly Midwestern in their core musical elements and embrace of no-frills simplicity, and yet also indebted to British rock in terms of their interest in highly constructed “fake” visual facades as well as White’s songwriting. White is an American obsessed with this country’s native 20th-century music forms — blues, folk, country, jazz — but he’s coming at them as an outsider, separated by an ocean of time and technology in the same way that British rockers were put at a distance by a literal ocean. “You’re Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)” is a poppy blues-rock song that has always reminded me of The Kinks — like Ray Davies, White was man out of time, pining for the traditions that his peers were rapidly setting aside, a romantic who fought off his own cynicism but cultivated an anachronistic naiveté about the modern world.
24. “Truth Doesn’t Make A Noise” (2000)
I’ve gone far too long without talking about Meg White, White Stripes drummer and essentially the whole point of the band. In Meg, Jack founds something that would make this particular blues-loving Midwestern white-people band different from all the other white-people bands. Her drumming was both post-modern and primitive; it made The White Stripes sound like a contemporary reimagining of the blues, and also older than the blues. Meg was also Jack’s muse — pretty much every White Stripes song can be interpreted as being about her or inspired by her, or taken as a signifier of what she represents to the audience and White himself. “Truth Doesn’t Make A Noise” is about a woman who projects her power by not speaking, which must have been especially attractive (as well as frustrating) for a busybody like White. This song appropriately veers between admiration, resentment, and protectiveness. “You try to tell her what to do / And all she does is stare at you / Her stare is louder than your voice / Because truth doesn’t make a noise.”
23. “You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket” (2003)
I’ve spent more time than most critics psychoanalyzing the Jack and Meg White dynamic. (White’s first post-White Stripes album, 2012’s Blunderbuss, is a rich text for Jack and Meg watchers, replete with songs that appear to comment obliquely on their musical breakup.) Since Meg never talks, the texts here tend to be one-sided, though Jack to his credit often paints himself (or his unnamed male protagonists) as weak or misguided. Often these songs hinge on power — who has it, and how it is unwittingly transferred freely between parties. Responding to charges that he was overly controlling in The White Stripes, Jack told The New York Times Magazinein 2012, “Meg completely controlled the White Stripes. She’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met, and you don’t even get to know the reasons.” That quote makes me think of “You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket,” a song in which a controlling man knows he ultimately has no power over a woman who he’s convinced will one day leave him. The fact that Meg did eventually leave confirmed those fears. When Jack performed it on The Tonight Showa few years ago, he was visibly emotional. Some drummers you can just never get over.
22. “Little Room” (2001)
Setting aside all of the Jack vs. Meg palace intrigue in The White Stripes, let it also be known that Meg White is first and foremost an incredible rock ‘n’ roll drummer. “Little Room” is one of her greatest performances, as real and primal and visceral as Son House’s handclaps on “Grinnin’ In Your Face.” It’s The White Stripes at their simplest, and one of their wisest statements about how fame can kill the original inspiration that makes fame possible. It’s not long, so I might as well quote the entire song: “Well you’re in your little room / And you’re working on something good / But if it’s really good / You’re gonna need a bigger room / And when you’re in the bigger room / You might not know what to do / You might have to think of / How you got started sitting in your little room.”
21. “The Denial Twist” (2005)
Get Behind Me Satan was the great curveball album after White Blood Cells and Elephant made them one of America’s most popular and lauded bands. After so much meat-and-potatoes minimalism, hearing piano featured so prominently on a White Stripes record was as jarring as the shiny synths on Van Halen’s “Jump.” But this is also one of the best pop songs in The White Stripes catalogue, though the ragtime-punk feel is more 1905 than 2005.
20. “Offend In Every Way” (2001)
Jack White has the dubious distinction of producing the least listenable album of Neil Young’s career, 2014’s A Letter Home, recorded with a Voice-O-Graph vinyl recording booth that makes the LP sound like a dead man’s attic. I prefer this deep cut from White Blood Cells anchored by Jack’s faithful replication of Neil’s fuzzy guitar tone. Neil should have produced Jack, not the other way around.
19. “Hello Operator” (2000)
Recently I was talking on one of my podcasts about how the legacy of The White Stripes has been affected in the past decade by Jack White’s progressively grumpy public persona. This is a purely anecdotal observation, based on various conversations I’ve had with “the kids,” but it seems like The White Stripes — the most critically adored band of that early aughts “return of rock” generation — currently lag in popularity behind The Strokes and even Interpol and The Killers among younger generations. Right or wrong, they’re now commonly perceived as Luddite killjoys with a theatrical streak that’s out of step with current indie trends. As a rebuttal, I would forward “Hello Operator,” an incredibly fun rock song that reminds me of “Funk #49.” In spite of White’s reputation, this band was not joyless. At their best, they could be gleefully, happily dumb.
18. “My Doorbell” (2005)
Exhibit B in the case of The White Stripes being a lot more fun than people remember. Also a good example of White’s talent for writing dumb songs in a smart way.
17. “Do” (1999)
I wonder if Jack White internalized early criticism from his Detroit peers about his voice, as he still tends to not view himself as a singer. (“I don’t have a sing-the-national-anthem voice,” he told The New Yorker. “What I do is vocalize characters.”) All of this seems strange now, because White is rightfully recognized now as a fantastic rock singer, capable of conveying rage, innocence, lust, infatuation, confusion, and regular old rock-star swagger and authority. And he could do that from that beginning, no matter the haters. This smoldering ballad from the self-titled debut about not trusting the intentions of strangers — a classic JW trope — features one of my favorite early Jack White vocals, touching on all of the aforementioned feelings and more. “Don’t want to be social / Can’t take it when they hate me / But I know there’s nothin’ I can do.”
16. “White Moon” Under Great White Northern Lights version (2009)
Another one for the “psychoanalyze Jack and Meg” file. White apparently wrote “White Moon” (as well as another Get Behind Me Satan track, “Take, Take, Take”) about Rita Hayworth. But in the 2009 tour documentary Under Great White Northern Lights, this Dylanesque tune appears to comment on the undoing of The White Stripes. Toward the end of the film, Jack plays it at a piano with Meg at his side, and in that light the thematic connections “White Moon” has to other Meg songs — the struggle for control, and the inevitability of separation — is made plainer than it is on the album version. As Jack’s emotional performance peaks, Meg starts to break down. “And I promised I wouldn’t lead her on / But she met me, then led me / And I ate what was fed me / ´Til I purged every word in this song.”
15. “The Union Forever” (2001)
Orson Welles was a control freak from the Midwest who obsessively threw himself into multiple projects simultaneously throughout his life. Naturally, Jack White was drawn to Welles and his signature film, 1941’s Citizen Kane. This intense, swirling psych-rocker from White Blood Cells functions as a kind of cover version of that movie. In White’s reimagining, the insecurity and megalomania of Welles/Kane is viewed through the prism of White’s own anger and determination to get one over on the world. “What would I liked to have been? / Everything you hate” functions as a mission statement for his career about as well as anything he actually wrote.
14. “I’m Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman” (2001)
The best longform interview with Jack White was conducted by Conan O’Brien in 2013, mainly because their friendship made White comfortable enough to drop his usual facade of hostile defensiveness with the media. A bit that stands out is White’s belief that people used to have more etiquette with technology; the supposed loss of politeness as society moved beyond landlines to mobile phones is what he finds most offensive about progress. Once again, we see White’s preoccupation with ritual and formality, which informed nearly everything about The White Stripes, from their color schemes to the way White wrote and recorded songs. It’s also reflected in the eccentric phrasing of “I’m Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman,” in which heartbreak is couched as a failure to maintain a proper level of decorum.
13. “Jimmy The Exploder” (1999)
The funniest subplot of The White Stripes’ career was their rivalry with another Midwestern two-person blues-rock combo, The Black Keys. It was instigated entirely by White, who was convinced that The Black Keys ripped them off. Did they? Maybe a little, though the Stripes and the Keys both owe a huge debt to Flat Duo Jets. It’s possible The Black Keys only bothered listening to the first song on the first White Stripes album, as “Jimmy The Exploder” is the White Stripes song that sounds the most like the Black Keys.
12. “Apple Blossom” (2000)
If the twee exterior of The White Stripes was an act of misdirection giving them space to play the blues without suffering “white boy blues band” taunts, the undercurrents of aggression and menace in their music in retrospect allowed them to transcend the quirky excesses of the era. “Apple Blossom” comes awfully close to sounding like a Moldy Peaches track; extreme cutesiness for the sake of extreme cutesiness. But childishness for White is an affectation that can’t fully conceal the fiercely restless adult beneath. His voice might be light and his words romantic on “Apple Blossom,” but Meg’s drums and those clipped piano chords tell a different, more foreboding story.
11. “Jolene” (2000)
When Dolly Parton sings “Jolene,” it’s gently (even sweetly) pleading, with Dolly attempting to flatter her rival in order to deter her from taking her man. (There’s also the joke embedded in the subtext that any woman could possibly be more desirable than Dolly Parton.) When Jack White sings “Jolene,” the woman is driven so mad with jealousy and self-hatred that it turns the song into a threat of violence. Dolly’s “Jolene” is finely wrought southern melodrama. The White Stripes’ “Jolene” is a slasher film.
10. “The Hardest Button To Button” (2003)
Speaking of slasher films, this is The White Stripes’ answer to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a darkly funny tune about a dysfunctional family plunged into even deeper crisis by the arrival of a new baby. This is also the most underrated guitar riff in the band’s canon; the only reason it wasn’t the breakout track from Elephant is that tens of thousands of people can’t sing it in soccer stadiums.
9. “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” (2001)
“The Hardest Button To Button” is Jack White’s exaggerated caricature of what it’s like to grow up in a large family; “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” feels more like an expression of Jack Gillis’ experience. (I can certainly imagine Jack as a kid pre-planning the lowering of his casket.) A nakedly vulnerable song about loss and regret, “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” is also one of the band’s prettiest and most melodic tunes, with a riff that evokes the second side of Abbey Road.
8. “The Big Three Killed My Baby” (1999)
The White Stripes eventually had to leave Detroit, lest Jack White punch out every second and third-tier garage rocker in town. But Detroit could never be fully removed from the heart of The White Stripes. Detroit is one of America’s great music cities, of course, but it’s also a city of underdogs and scrappers. Even after The White Stripes “won,” they never stopped acting like the world was against them. “The Big Three Killed My Baby” is a love letter of sorts to their home city, though because it was written by Jack White, it’s also about hating the city’s auto companies, “planned obsolescence,” and modernity in general. “Well I’ve said it now / Nothing’s changed / People are burnin’ for pocket change / And creative minds are lazy / The big three killed your baby.”
7. “Hotel Yorba” (2001)
Jack White is fond of telling this story about how he keeps his guitar picks on stage far away from the microphone, so he’s forced to work a little extra hard. Struggle is the mother of invention in his world. But the pleasure of “Hotel Yorba” is that it’s so easy; it’s their happiest, lightest, and most ebullient song. Unlike that other famous rock ‘n’ roll hotel, you can check in any time you like, because all they got inside is vacancy.
6. “We’re Going To Be Friends” (2001)
Another song that would be insufferable and dated to the period if it were played with even an ounce of irony. (“We wanted things to be as childish as possible, but with no sense of humor,” White once explained to Spin.) What steers it away from quirksville is Jack White’s inescapable melancholy; he’s reliving childhood, not simply remembering it, and you can hear the distance between where he is now and where he wishes he was then. This song treats the act of chasing all the ants and worms as the most important thing in the world because that’s how it feels to a 6-year-old.
5. “Seven Nation Army” (2003)
The most famous White Stripes song, and probably the single most famous rock song by anybody of the last 20 years. The New Yorker called it the second most recognizable guitar riff ever, after the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” which seems like an exaggeration. (Ritchie Blackmore can afford to live like a bejeweled warlock in a castle somewhere because people can’t stop humming “Smoke On The Water.”) But it’s true that the “Seven Nation Army” riff is incredibly easy to sing along with — it’s not the band’s best riff, but it’s unquestionably their most communal. It’s the sort of riff that most bands don’t even attempt to write anymore, because aspiring to the kind of impact that “Seven Nation Army” has had seems ridiculously out of reach. But there’s clearly still a need for songs like this, and Jack White was fortunate to come up in an era when virtually nobody else was either capable or interested in doing it.
4. “Fell In Love With A Girl” (2001)
People forget that before “Seven Nation Army,” this was the big White Stripes “hit.” It stills sounds like a perfect rock song to me, though I suspect that it might come across as very “aughties” to people who weren’t around at the time. A lot of songs by a lot of early ’00s bands that nobody remembers kind of sound like “Fell In Love With A Girl” — chunky riff, rudimentary but powerful rhythm section, yelp-y singer. It was The White Stripes’ entry in the great “garage rock anthem” sweepstakes, which I think was ultimately won by The Hives’ “Hate To Say I Told You So.” But if they lost the battle, The White Stripes obviously won the war.
3. “Death Letter” (2000)
Ghost World came out the same year as the third White Stripes album, White Blood Cells, so Jack White didn’t have to suffer Blueshammer jokes from haters until he was already well established. But he certainly feared Blueshammerism seeping into his own music from the beginning of his band; dressing up in red, white, and black was a way to sidestep conversations about the contradictions about being an earnest white bluesman. But when The White Stripes covered Son House’s “Death Letter,” there was no hiding behind a clever color scheme; they were going to judged strictly on the merits of their execution. Amazingly, they pulled it off; this is their greatest musical performance on record, with Meg swinging hard against Jack’s slashing slide solos. It works because it’s not an attempt to sounds like Son House; it’s pure gutbucket Detroit blues-punk made by arty outsiders.
2. “Ball And Biscuit” (2003)
Sex appeal is The White Stripes’ most underrated attribute. In their prime, Jack and Meg radiated an intense magnetism on stage; everyone in the audience wanted to be with one or both of them, these so-called siblings who in the throes of their heaviest jams stared at each like they wanted to jump each others’ bones. Jack was also the rare male rock star of his era who sang about sex proudly and even boastfully, as if he might actually be good at it. (Julian Casablancas meanwhile typically sounded too sleepy for a little action.) Film director David Fincher was among those who appreciated this aspect of The White Stripes; I think that’s why he put their sexiest song, “Ball and Biscuit,” in the first scene of The Social Network. How better to demonstrate Mark Zuckerberg’s interpersonal ineptitude than by showing him not getting laid in spite of the appearance of this audio aphrodisiac?
1. “Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground” (2001)
Yes, The White Stripes’ music was simple. But it was also extremely difficult to pull off. Executing a song like “Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground” in a way that sounds fresh and feels legitimately exciting already seemed impossible almost 20 years ago when White Blood Cells dropped. And yet hearing the first 20 or so seconds of this song for the first time in my car at full volume is an experience that remains burned into my memory; I’ll never know what it was like to hear “Whole Lotta Love” in 1969, but I’m confident that hearing “Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground” in the summer of 2001 more than makes up for that. If you think that’s just nostalgia, please go back and listen (as I did in real time) to every garage-rock band that attempted to write a song like this between the years 1998 and 2003. The failure rate is astonishingly high; the lack of success at taking old blues riffs and turning them into vital 21st-century rock songs rivals that of the Washington Generals’ futile attempts to defeat the Harlem Globetrotters. The White Stripes’ accomplishment only seems more incredible in retrospect; they took some of the most familiar musical stems in the American pop culture grab bag, and made them sound different and current at a time when the odds of anyone caring about the blues were astronomically out of whack. But that’s all just music-critic projection. Put this song on. It doesn’t speak to your head or even your heart. It goes straight for the loins. And that’s where all the best rock ‘n’ roll lives.
The 2020 NBA Draft was done remotely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that continues to see record case counts spiking around the country, and as such the presentation of the draft on ESPN looked far different than usual.
Adam Silver delivered picks from a studio on Bristol, Connecticut where ESPN had their panel of analysts and host Rece Davis on site, while Malika Andrews did interviews from a different corner of the studio. All of those interviews had to be remote, as the usual green room was not to be found and draftees watched from home with camera setups and a drawer full of hats of every team. It also meant that the other interviews, like with college coaches who also attend the draft in Brooklyn, had to happen remotely, and in the case of Bruce Pearl, he wasn’t going to be stationary just because the draft was happening.
When Isaac Okoro out of Auburn was taken fifth overall by the Cavs, ESPN dialed up Bruce Pearl who did a video hit very clearly off of his phone with the night sky behind him. This led to plenty of jokes about Pearl’s whereabouts, but the actual answer was funnier than any of them as Matt Norlander of CBS Sports shot Pearl a text and learned he was in a grocery store parking lot in Georgia for the interview.
Breaking news: Bruce Pearl tells CBS Sports he did his ESPN hit on Isaac Okoro in a parking lot of an Ingles grocery store outside LaGrange, Georgia, near the border of Alabama.
It is a time-honored tradition of sports media folks to do radio hits and interviews from all manner of places so I respect this. Now, it might not have been a situation where Pearl was like “I need to get groceries, damn the Draft,” because video of Okoro presenting his parents with a Range Rover indicates they might’ve done their draft party at a restaurant in the same shopping center as the grocery store.
The 2020 NBA Draft was not as trade-heavy as people expected early on. As we got into the middle of the first round, though, a trio of teams came together to work out a deal that involves a pair of players moving on to new places and a pick changing hands.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN and Shams Charania of The Athletic, the Los Angeles Clippers will send sharpshooting guard Landry Shamet to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for the No. 19 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft. The Clippers will then take that pick and flip it to Detroit, which in exchange will send back another sharpshooter in Luke Kennard.
The Clippers are trading Landry Shamet to the Nets for No. 19, source tells ESPN.
Bey gives the Pistons a third first-round selection in this Draft, alongside French guard Killian Hayes and Washington big man Isaiah Stewart. Last season, Shamet appeared in 53 games for the Clippers, scoring 9.3 points per game and connecting on 37.5 percent of his triples. As for Kennard, he battled with injuries during the 2019-20 campaign, but showed signs of taking a leap into become a really impressive scorer — he only appeared in 28 games, but Kennard averaged 15.8 points and hit 39.9 percent of his threes.
“I know the appropriate amount of torture,” Eric Andre assures us while explaining the laundry list of implements at his disposal in the return of Rapper Warrior Ninja. The bit, back for the long-awaited fifth season of his eponymous hyperchaotic and inventive Adult Swim late-night show, was established in 2016 for season four as a thrown together swing at merging hip-hop and weird game shows by way of an obstacle course. Andre compares it to a cross between Lip Sync Battle, Killer Karaoke, and Carpool Karaoke. Jackass meets hip-hop is another way to look at it. But none of those shows feel like they take place in the basement of a demented game master who is having the time of his life watching people fall down, freak out, and tussle with the hard reality that they have, for a few moments, put their brand in the hands of Eric Andre. I’ll throw a comp out there too: it’s like watching Saw with a better soundtrack and slightly lower stakes. So far.
The ambition exhibited in season 5 (which will include three Rapper Warrior Ninja segments with guests ranging from Lil Yachty to Freddie Gibbs, and Steve-O when all is said and done) and the possibility of a stand-alone spin-off (which is in limbo right now) do make you wonder how big and sadistic things might go. Director and EP Kitao Sakurai ponders the possibility of one day having Megan Thee Stallion on to run the gauntlet. Head writer and EP Dan Curry fantasizes about leaving the tight confines of the studio to take over a real American Ninja Warrior course. Season 5 production designer Ben Spiegelman perks up when thinking about massive slides and all the fun he could design if this keeps going and growing.
But to understand how far this can go and what Andre defines as “the appropriate amount of torture,” you need to explore the origins and the level of plotting and creative chaos making that went into that cult favorite season 4 bit and this season’s supercharged version. And with the help of Andre, Sakurai, Curry, Spiegelman, rappers and obstacle course participants Open Mike Eagle and Trippie Redd, and hip-hop icon, People’s Party host, and season 5 judge Talib Kweli, we’re bringing you the story of the past and present of Rapper Warrior Ninja. From the on-set hijinks and party vibe to the weird crazy love affair between The Eric Andre Show and hip-hop culture.
But first, let’s revisit the insanity of the original bit.
The Economics Of Torture
Rapper Warrior Ninja elevates the show’s usual efforts to torture its musical guests, drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as Double Dare and sadistic Japanese game shows. All on a shoestring budget.
Eric Andre: The idea came out of the season 4 writer’s room where we had a bunch of different torture devices for various musical acts. We were looking at our board full of torturous happenings and then we were like, “Why don’t we consolidate and combine all of these into one massive torture gauntlet with rappers?”
Dan Curry (writer/EP): Who doesn’t want to run through a gauntlet?
Andre: It’s so high stakes. You have rappers who are like the epitome of cool, suave, swag, bravado, machismo, but they’re being treated like the cast of Jackass. So it’s like the rappers are out of their comfort zone and out of their element.
Kitao Sakurai (director/EP): Any time somebody is self-serious or takes themselves seriously, seeing them fall on their face in a childlike way is just intrinsically comedic. And I think that’s a core operating principle of why Rapper Warrior Ninja works. And obviously, we don’t do it in an ill-intentioned way or try and really embarrass or humiliate people. It’s all obviously in good fun.
Curry: I think about Double Dare a lot. I think about how the flow of that show was just chaotic and disruptive. It’s kind of like an energetic kid show thing that we get to do. And I think because the rappers are down… If people are down to do crazy shit, we’re going to give it to them.
Sakurai: Eric and I have a love of sadistic Japanese game shows. It’s what I grew up watching as a Japanese kid. And I think that that quality of sadism has seeped into my bones. I think, ordinarily in American culture, sadism is associated with darkness or sexuality or something like that, but sadism has a very different context in Japanese culture. And I think that there’s a quality of sadism in Japanese culture that’s actually very joyous and in good fun, and which is really enjoyable. And it’s almost like Japanese sadism is a cousin of slapstick comedy. And so, in Japanese culture, slapstick comedy has such a long history and that unbroken tradition. So we love that. And that’s what we tried to do with the Rapper Warrior Ninja.
Andre: You don’t see this on any other show or on the internet. So it’s exciting for people to watch.
Curry: Eric and I write the scripts. We riff the whole thing, so I don’t ever worry about production stuff. Then that’s the kind of thing that I always feel guilty about. It’s just the idea, and I laugh, then I write it down, and then I walk away. And then the whole production comes up around that.
Sakurai: We have very limited resources to accomplish anything. The way our season four obstacle course looked was kind of by nature of the limitations that we had. How do you make an obstacle course that takes our art department an hour to set up? We just had to come up with cheap, easy, dirty… a bunch of mouse traps and a plank, some swinging [heavy] bags.
Adult Swim
Good Time Vibes
A behind-the-scenes party turned into the good kind of on-screen mayhem while Andre and company convinced a group of rappers to endure torture and potential embarrassment leading to hilarious results and the birth of an underground favorite.
Andre: Everyone says no when you pitch them. [Laughs]
Curry: I don’t know why rappers want to do it. I wouldn’t want to do it. I wouldn’t trust Eric with that.
Open Mike Eagle (Rapper and season 4 guest): I was thirsty like that to be on TV. Actually, I’ve been knowing Eric for years. I remember the sizzle reels that he made to get that show greenlit. I actually went to a taping of the first season and I was very jealous of people like Killer Mike and rappers who have been on there. When he extended the invite I was like, “Fuck yeah I’ll do it!” I didn’t care what it was.
Sakurai: Behind the scenes and for myself, it’s a lot of work making sure everything is happening from a logistical standpoint. But the audience can smell the vibe, you know what I mean? And the vibe wants to be all these rappers hanging out, partying, and Eric’s torturing them. But it’s also a really fun, good time. And people are laughing and having fun and making fun of each other. And nobody’s taking anything too seriously. And that’s also the kind of tone that we want to create on set.
Andre: When you’re watching it on TV, it’s like fun and funny, and you don’t think of the torture that goes into it. But it took me, especially in the first one with Danny Brown, A$AP Rocky, and Open Mike Eagle… like it took me probably like a solid hour of convincing. They were like smoking weed and drinking, and Danny Brown brought like a ton of KFC for everybody.
Eagle: We were there four or five hours. I spent most of the time hanging out with Danny Brown, A$AP Rocky, Nocando, and Go Dreamer.
Andre: Danny Brown was like, “Dude, I can’t break my leg. I’m going to China to perform tomorrow.” And I was like, “No, trust me, you’re not going to break your leg. It’s going to be fucking awesome.” It took a lot of work. And then I think Danny just shot up out of his chair and he goes, “All right, fuck it. Let’s do this.” And then everybody like rose to the occasion. They were all like, “All right, we’re doing it. We’re here now. Let’s fucking do it.”
Eagle: We got zero [warning about what to expect]. None. And at this point, I’m sure that was part of the whole thing: being very vague about what it was and kind of spontaneously throwing people in the middle of it.
Andre: I didn’t tell them a goddamn thing. They are walking into it literally blind. Blindfolded. They didn’t know anything. They knew it was an obstacle course of torturous devices and they had to keep rapping. That’s all they knew.
Eagle: When they called me out of the green room, they said it was time for me to go to makeup. And it was actually time for me to go do the damn course. Like they wouldn’t even let us know, you know? Go Dreamer was going in front of me. I was blindfolded so I could hear the shit that he was going through. It was fucking crazy. Fucking crazy. I actually killed my whole freestyle. I kept rapping the whole time. Not everybody else did that.
Andre: Hannibal doesn’t read the script, so he didn’t know what was coming. So all of his laughs and shit are genuine. He was like, “Wait, what is this bit? This is amazing.” To this day it’s his favorite.
Eagle: I was really concerned with the cattle prod. That’s the type of shit I don’t fuck with. So like, that’s the only thing that, to me, was over the line. He had a goddamn cattle prod out there. He didn’t hit me with the cattle prod. I think I would have gotten really mad. I don’t know. Would I have fought Eric on his own show? I don’t know! [Laughs]
Andre: I keep [the cattle prod] next to my bed. It sucks. That thing fucking sucks when you get hit with it, but it’s like a fleeting pain. You definitely don’t want to get hit with it, but it’s not like a taser… like a police-grade taser that sticks barbs in you and takes you down. This is a temporary pain, but it wakes you up. I’ll tell you that.
Sakurai: The cattle prod isn’t that bad. I never want to inflict on a guest what I wouldn’t do myself. So I’ll always give it a shot.
Andre: I wouldn’t put anybody through a gauntlet that I wouldn’t do myself.
Curry: I have kids, so I’m a regular Ninja Warrior fan now. But I didn’t know, at the time, that it wasn’t also American Gladiator. So we had the American Gladiator guy because I didn’t know that that wasn’t in American Ninja Warrior. Because that show doesn’t have people with those joust things nailing you.
Andre: [Open Mike Eagle] almost took down the set. The Gladiator kind of nailed him.
Eagle: I used to play football in high school so I thought I could juke and get around. But I’m older now, so I kind of got caught. I went through the wall. I wasn’t prepared for that. It hurt quite a bit.
Sakurai: It just goes to show that the fundamental aspect of what makes something funny isn’t how big or fancy it is, it’s how the people going through it and experiencing it are reacting.
Andre: It’s out of my hands, it’s not my performance really. I’m just like the writer and producer in that situation. So I was just happy how hard everyone committed once we were up and filming and how fucking funny it was and how high stakes it was. When we started doing it, we were like, “Oh, shit, we’re onto something.” We knew we had a hit on our hands.
Sakurai: There was such underground love of that bit. And for us, it works so well. So, it was just a no brainer for us to do more Rapper Warrior Ninja.
New Tech, Same Mayhem
A cult favorite sketch within a cult favorite show, it was all but guaranteed that Rapper Warrior Ninja would return, but the show found a way to go even bigger spread across three separate segments in season 5 that benefited from the reputation of the earlier bit and Andre’s unpredictability.
Andre: I don’t know if we’d be able to do it in season 1, but I think season 4 and 5, rappers loved the show. Especially this younger generation of rappers. Like, they’re my biggest fans. So I think it just comes from admiration for the show.
Trippie Redd (Rapper and season 5 guest): I love Eric Andre, his shit’s funny. I used to watch him on Adult Swim a lot. And he actually was me for Halloween or whatever. He’s a cool dude. I like the dude so I went and did the shit because of him.
Talib Kweli (Rapper and season 5 judge): It was weird for me, I kind of felt out of place because a lot of the rappers there were way younger than me, I didn’t really know who they were. They just looked like rappers to me. I respected them, though, because I respect Eric Andre’s musical taste. So it actually made me want to research the rappers that were there.
Curry: Because everyone saw it, [Rapper Warrior Ninja] and it became a hot thing that everyone liked, the rappers this year kind of knew what they were in for and they got it harder.
Andre: We kicked it up a notch for sure. The snake pit’s a little hacked, as they say. This is new tech. Yeah, we went hard for sure.
Ben Spiegelman (Season 5 production designer): They wanted to go big and schmaltzy and glitzy [in season 5]. It was over the top egomaniac Liberace design, so they wanted to bring some of that again. And they wanted to pump up the visuals, but at the same time keep it janky and half-assed. [Laughs]
Sakarai: We didn’t consider the ultra-low budgetness to be the fundamental building block of the segment. The fundamental part of the segment is taking these swagged out rappers and putting them into situations that are funny. The show itself didn’t have more budget, but what we did was we allocated more resources to Rapper Warrior Ninja. So even though globally we didn’t have a bigger budget to do bigger, fancier things, we just put a little bit more time and attention into those segments.
Andre: We have a dog shock collar. We had like a tennis ball shooter this year. Oh, I have a gun full of blanks! A real handgun. And I would hide it around set. I would hide it and whip it out while they’re in the middle of rapping and like fire it at them and they don’t know it’s full of blanks. It’s loud as fuck! It’s like, “bow bow bow!” So I have all these guns hidden. We also have this harness. We were putting the rappers up in this harness and spinning them around, like 360, so they’d get really dizzy and I’d be like hitting them with the cattle prod and throwing dildos at them and dumping them in ice water and waxing their leg hair and shit like that.
Spiegelman: There was a rig put up. Sometimes Eric might get zapped by something and he needed to be shot out of his chair or something like that. So it was pulleys and harnesses and winches that you could use to lift a human up or drop them down from the ceiling or whatever it was. We tried to go “Big Show” with it. So there are trucks, there are CO2 cannons, there are flashing moving lights. Everybody’s got special wardrobe on, so it’s a bold new world.
Kweli: My first thought [when seeing the set] was, “I can’t believe that they gave him a budget for this.”
Redd: That shit would have be funny if I got injured. That shit would have been hilarious.
Spiegelman: We did have a safety advisor on this thing. So we would run stuff by him.
Andre: I don’t know [how much insurance the show has], you’d have to ask my line producer. But it ain’t cheap.
Curry: I think they probably had to sign a waiver. I felt like there was a pretty high wall this year that people were falling off.
Sakurai: That was like “The Wall of Fear,” or something. [Laughs]
Curry: Eric shot paintballs, and hoses, and threw things at them and terrified them. It’s really funny. It’s a really funny thing to watch. Eric is at his most joyful when he’s fucking with rappers.
Redd: At first it was kind of like, okay, I’m getting the hang of it. And then out of nowhere it just got hard as fuck. [Laughs] Just shooting at shit. That shit’s funny. We had to balance against a wall while getting shot at and all types of crazy shit. If he would have hit me with anything, I would have went up on him with full force. [Laughs] Take him out the game.
Spiegelman: They were designed to be quasi obstacle courses and pretty much there wasn’t any way to win. There was no way to succeed. [Laughs] So let’s say you were one of the contestants, you’d embark on this thing and then you would be assailed by the obstacles themselves or Eric might run up and try to zap you with a stun gun.
Andre: I really went trigger happy with the cattle prod this year. Murs grabbed it and nailed Talib Kweli with it. Because I was going to nail Talib Kweli with it and I felt too bad because I just grew up listening to him. [Laughs] The younger rappers are easy, but Talib Kweli, I grew up worshiping him, so I couldn’t do it. And then Murs was like, “Come on, do it!” And he grabbed it and he fucking nailed him in the leg with it.
Kweli: I got hit with the cattle prod by Murs because he was jealous that I got more respect from Eric Andre than he did. First off, I want to say that…[Laughs] So shout out to Murs, definitely. [For more on that story] I was down for the shenanigans. I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t looking forward to getting cattle prodded, but I know what The Eric Andre Show is, so I went in there with an open mind to just be… when in Rome, right?
Redd: I think it’s a good way to bring a lot of artists together and just do something creative and fun to put laughs on people’s faces and shit. Make our fans laugh, but ultimately for the artist to have a good time too. Have fun. It shows personality for sure. It shows a lot of personality. It shows who you are as a person, on your funny side. Kind of cool.
Adult Swim
Epilogue
There’s no longer cut of the first Rapper Warrior Ninja, believe me, I asked. But in nearly two minutes and in the subsequent all-too-brief bits, the trust rappers have for Andre and the affection he has for them shines through. And it’s reflective of both the show and Andre’s heart and how people see it and him. Believe it: we’re getting emotional at the end.
Kweli: I think Eric is brilliant and I think that the way he tries to dismantle, what we think of rappers, comes from a loving place. He’s a guy who studied music. He knows how to play bass, he went to school for it. He’s the guy who grew up loving and being a part of hip-hop culture. I enjoy what Eric Andre does because, a lot of people look at Black comedy and hip-hop in a monolithic way, as if everyone is supposed to be one way. And Eric Andre destroys all those boxes. The way he invites so many hip-hop people, it just speaks to his character and how much he really enjoys the craft.
Sakurai: Over the years Eric has built up a reputation, and the show has built up a reputation for being very boundary-pushing, and the show does things that other shows don’t do. And also the voice of the show speaks to people that are into hip-hop and into music, and Eric is a very genuine and fun guy. And that’s also a quality I think that musicians and rappers pick up on. His love for hip-hop is not disingenuous, it’s very honest. He very much authentically loves and respects the people that he wants to have on the show.
Eagle: I think just his commitment to whatever it is that he’s doing. And it’s really… You know how shit can sometimes really connect when it’s somebody really, truly being themselves? Like, that show is Eric being himself. Like, back when he was broke, he would do stand up naked. You know what I mean? Like in places where that wasn’t what you do and he goes out there. He’s just always been that person. He doesn’t care and he’s not fucking afraid of anything.
Andre: My show is like the comedy version of the new state-of-the-art rap aesthetic. Everything that like Tyler, The Creator and Odd Future have built, and Yachty and even Future… I feel like I’m subconsciously making the show for rappers. So it’s like we’re simpatico. I think on the same creative wavelengths.
‘The Eric Andre Show’ airs Sundays at midnight on Adult Swim.
Gucci Mane and Jeezy will go head-to-head to kick off the new season of Verzuz on Thursday in what has lined up to be the online platform’s most anticipated battle to date. While much of the focus is on Gucci and Jeezy’s battle, it hasn’t stopped some artists from inserting their name into the mix for a future spot on the Swizz Beatz and Timbaland show.
Just a little over a day away from the Verzuz season premiere, Rick Ross hopped on Instagram to call out T.I. and get his attention for a future matchup with the Atlanta rapper.
Ross sent a direct message to The L.I.B.R.A. rapper saying, “Tip got unfinished business. Rozay got unfinished business. Rozay got unfinished business.” He added, “And after this event, mhmm. It’s time for us to weigh the work. We gotta weigh the work.”
T.I. was originally slated to face Jeezy, but it appeared as if he stepped out of the ring to allow Gucci to go up against his longtime rival. Rick Ross has also participated in a song-for-song battle as he faced 50 Cent said he would consider a battle with The Game — someone he has not seen eye-to-eye with over the years — under one condition: “He can’t play no records with my voice on it.”
Last Updated: November 18th
Netflix hosts an embarrassment of riches in almost every genre imaginable, and anime is no exception. If you’ve never watched any before, or if you’re just worried you might have missed some of the best of what the service has to offer, we’ve got you covered. Romance, action, sci-fi, history, or even all of the above — there’s something for everyone on this list of best anime on Netflix right now.
Death Note, the anime series, not the Netflix horror film that borrows inspiration from it, is one of the most inventive shows on this list. It’s also one of the darkest. Ryuk, a god of death, can kill anyone by simply writing their name in a notebook (hence the title of the series). He gets bored one day and tosses his supernatural journal down to Earth. There, it falls into the hands of high school student and prodigy Light Yagami, who’s a bit disenfranchised by humanity and starts using the book to take out criminals. Of course, that makes him a target of the bad guys but also the cops. You never really know who to root for on this show, which makes it all the more interesting.
This series is a juggernaut in the anime world, spawning movies and multiple seasons and garnering a legion of devoted fans. To understand the hype, you’ll have to watch, but expect inventive action and a gripping storyline. Set in an alternate universe where humanity has caged itself off from giant monsters known as Titans, the show follows a group of fighters trying to protect their people when one of those walls is breached, and the Titans attack.
A group of intellectually gifted orphans discovers a dark secret about their origins in this inventive anime series. There are some dark-fantasy vibes at play here as the 38 siblings living in a seemingly idyllic abode break their Mother’s one rule, opening up a world of secrets and betrayal in the process. We’re suckers for a good mystery, and this has the added benefit of a truly suspect parental figure to heighten the tension.
This time-travel drama offers an inventive twist on your normal anime fare, turning the story of a young man trying to prevent his mother’s death into a winding mystery filled with fantasy tropes and colorful characters. Satoru Fujinuma experiences something called “Revivals,” tiny jumps back in time that let him help others and prevent tragedies. But when he’s sent 18 years into the past to solve a string of kidnappings somehow related to his mother’s future death, things get complicated.
Even those unfamiliar with anime are likely to have heard of Castlevania (as the franchise is one of the jewels in Konami’s crown). The anime series is produced by Netflix, and boasts a voice cast including Graham McTavish as Count Dracula, who vows revenge against Wallachia after the death of his wife, and Richard Armitage as Trevor Belmont, the last of a clan of monster hunters, who leads the fight against him. (Matt Frewer also features in the cast, which should be a treat for any fellow Max Headroom enthusiasts.) There’s blood a-plenty, and a nice balance between monster and man as per most gothic horror stories — as well as a somewhat romantic aspect, as Dracula is portrayed as a sympathetic villain. The series is also just gorgeously animated, and with a first season of only four episodes, well worth your time.
Parasyte is basically the plot of Venom but in anime form and without that stomach-churning lobster scene. No really, this series is a hell of a lot more fun than expected. A teenage kid named Shinichi Izumi is partially infected by a Parasyte: monsters that butcher and consume humans. He’s got to figure out how to feed the beast without killing people and eventually coexist with his evil counterpart.
This new anime series from Netflix represents the platform’s initiative to churn out more of the genre. That’s a good thing if Blood of Zeus is anything to go by. An anime series about Greek mythology is pretty rare, and this one, which follows a commoner who discovers he’s a descendent of Zeus with a destiny to prevent a world-ending war, is an exciting, addictive watch.
BoJack Horseman fans might like this anime series, which also follows a handful of anthropomorphic animals and dives into mental health issues. Of course, this show is set in a school, not Hollywood, and it follows an anxiety-ridden wolf, who finds himself investigating the murder of a classmate. It’s got a mystery/thriller element to it, but that’s not the only selling point.
Fullmetal fans and newbies alike are somewhat spoiled for choice when it comes to Netflix’s offerings: Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood are both available on the streaming service, alongside the recent live-action film. But we’re here for anime, so we’ll just discuss the first two. For the purposes of this list, we’re counting both series as one entity, as Fullmetal Alchemist is a seminal property, but not to fear, I’m not about to leave you in the dark. Both Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood are adaptations of the original manga, which tells the story of two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, as they search for the Philosopher’s Stone. In an attempt to bring their mother back to life through alchemy, they’ve been transformed. Edward has lost his leg, and sacrifices his arm as well in order to save Alphonse’s soul, binding it to a suit of armor. The Stone is their ticket to restoration. The more recent Brotherhood hews much more closely to the manga, whereas Fullmetal Alchemist essentially turns into an original series about halfway through. In the end, they complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses, but if you have to pick just one, I’d go for Brotherhood as the “canon” experience.
Inuyasha is the rare franchise that manages to strike a balance between cute and horrifying. To liken it to a current pop culture phenomenon, it’s similar to Outlander, in that its basic plot sounds like something out of a romance novel: a young woman, Kagome, is sent back in time, and must then contend with forces beyond her reckoning, all while getting to know a rambunctious man (well, in this case, half dog-demon), Inuyasha, to whom she seems to be mysteriously bound. There’s plenty of time-travel fluff to go around, but in Inuyasha’s case, it’s augmented by nightmare fuel in the form of a host of demons searching for the magic jewel in Kagome’s possession. The centipede monster in the first episode sets the bar for how unsettling these monsters look, as well as the show’s overall structure as a sort of monster-of-the-week affair. To that end, the show can get a little repetitive, but the cast is uniformly great (including Inuyasha’s antihero brother Sesshomaru, who I think I can confidently say is “the hot one”), and the balance between fun and horror is a rare find.
If an anthropomorphic horse navigating Hollywood just seems too far-fetched, even by cartoon comedy standards, maybe this show about an anthropomorphic red panda working in the accounting department of a Japanese trading firm feels a bit more down to earth. Retsuko is 25 years old, single, and completely fed up with her place of work. Her boss is a pig (literally), her coworkers are manipulative and selfish, and her love-life is nonexistent. Her only escape: The karaoke bar she goes to every night to vent her frustrations with life by dubbing death metal tracks. If cute Japanese anime, hard rock, and shows about self-discovery are your thing, check this one out.
This fan-favorite anime series has two things going for it: a killer heavy-metal theme song and more action than a Marvel flick. That feels appropriate since the show follows an invincible superhero, who can take out his enemies with just one punch. What’s truly brilliant about this series, though, is how it ranks and classifies lower-tiered vigilantes and how it subverts stereotypes by making Saitama, the hero, apathetic about his own abilities. It’s darkly comedic as some of the best anime typically are.
For anyone unfamiliar with the term, “host club” refers to an establishment where female patrons can pay to drink and chat with the male hosts. Ouran High School Host Club, adapted from the manga of the same name, centers on — you guessed it — a host club operating out of Ouran High School, and serves as equal parts a parody of the stereotypes rampant in shōjo manga (manga specifically aimed at young women) and a sort of bizarro Twelfth Night, as much of the series revolves around the fact that its female protagonist is initially mistaken for a boy. She becomes one of the club’s hosts when she turns out to be a hit with the school’s female student body, though, as is always the case with shenanigans like these, trouble quickly ensues. It’s a fun series, especially as it becomes obvious that the show is poking fun at the very tropes it seems to embody.
Bleach has it all. It’s stylish as hell, it’s incredibly well-acted, it’s genre-fluid, and on top of that, it’s well-written. Though it starts out fairly simply, it builds and builds, transforming into an epic that more than earns its place in the pantheon of great anime. The story begins when Ichigo Kurasaki, a high schooler capable of seeing ghosts, takes on the duties of a Soul Reaper in order to protect his family. As he battles evil spirits and ferries departed souls to the afterlife, he begins to discover that some of his classmates have supernatural abilities as well, and to make matters even more complicated, just when it seems like he’s getting the hang of things, he’s brought into the spirit world to answer to the Soul Society. It’s a transition that the show handles beautifully, and does again and again as it progresses. The world of Bleach (and the mythology involved) just keeps getting bigger, without ever falling short, or falling flat. The series is also impossible to peg as one genre or another, as there are elements of almost everything baked in. It’s an epic, and unmissable as such. Creator Tite Kubo’s style is just the cherry on top of the cake.
Like most other entries on this list, Rurouni Kenshin was adapted from a manga series (which appeared in the legendary Shōnen Jump magazine). The title refers to its protagonist, Himura Kenshin, a former killing machine who is now committed to helping others to try to atone for his sins. Of course, his love of peace is challenged when it becomes apparent that someone else has assumed his former mantle as an assassin and plans to throw the Meiji Government into chaos. The characters are all well-defined and well-developed, with the biggest hook being the contrast between Kenshin’s apparent happy-go-lucky attitude and vow never to kill again, and what we know him to be capable of due to his reputation. He’s also a walking example of the way the series focuses on period to tell a story rather than using it simply as set dressing: the show takes place during a transition period in Japanese history, and Kenshin is just as much in flux.
This Friday will mark two weeks since Chicago’s King Von was tragically killed in a shooting in Atlanta. The early November incident shocked the hip-hop world and the rapper was just the latest young act to be unfortunately taken away from fans at a premature date.
Since his passing, King Von would posthumously earn his highest debut and land three of his projects on the Billboard 200 chart. Now, after taking their well-deserved time to collect their thoughts, the rapper’s family has put out a statement thanking fans for their support as well as sharing plans for future releases.
The statement was shared on King Von’s social media pages and begins by sharing appreciation for fans’ unconditional love for the Chicago rapper.
“Thank you to everyone who has shown their outpouring of love for King Von,” the message reads. “You all played a massive role in Von’s legacy, and by continuing to play his music and sharing your stories about how he has inspired and influenced you all, you’re keeping his legacy alive.”
Next, his family revealed plans to continue the rollout for his recently-released Welcome To O’Block album and release new music in the future.
“To celebrate Von’s artistry, vision, and the immense love that he had for his fans, we will be continuing his roll out of Welcome to O’Block, while working to share unreleased music and interview that he devoted his creativity into completing,” his family said in the statement. “Von had also been working on new endeavors that we will be announcing down the line.”
The Minnesota Timberwolves opened the NBA Draft by taking Anthony Edwards first overall, choosing the swingman out of Georgia over LaMelo Ball and James Wiseman. They still had one more pick remaining in the first round, holding the 17th overall selection, and it appears they will be using that to bring home an old friend via a trade.
According to The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski, the Wolves are in talks with the Thunder that would send Ricky Rubio back to Minnesota, where his career started, along with the 25th and 28th overall picks in this year’s draft to move up to the 17th spot.
The Timberwolves are in talks to trade the 17th pick to OKC for Ricky Rubio and picks 25 and 28, sources tell @TheAthleticMIN
Given that Minnesota passed on adding another ball-handler to the backcourt, it makes sense that they’d look to add one in a trade and Rubio is a veteran who can help bring some stability to the team. The Thunder, meanwhile, have been widely reported as active in trying to move up from their spots in this draft, and having already acquired the 28th and 34th overall picks in trades, had ample ammo to push themselves into the middle of the first round, where there’s been speculation they have an eye on Aleksej Pokusevski.
This deal may not be completed until the Wolves are on the clock as the Thunder will surely want to be sure the player they are targeting is still there, but it would be a fascinating reunion for Rubio in Minneapolis.
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