Month: December 2020

Making a much quicker return than the nearly four years her fans waited for her 2018 album, Teyana Taylor returned this year to claim her spotlight moment with The Album, the third full-length effort of her career. The 23-track project was a very strong body of work that received support through visuals for tracks that included “Concrete,” “Still”, and “Lose Each Other.” Despite the critical response to the album, Teyana would later express her disappointment with Def Jam’s support of the project after it failed to get nominated for the 2021 Grammy awards. While these highs and lows may be bothersome to the singer, she isn’t letting it deter her from spreading some holiday cheer just in time for Christmas.

The singer took to Twitter to share that she would Cashapp a number of her fans $500 each. “I wanna give $500 each to a few people towards Xmas gifts,” she said in her tweet. “This ain’t no sponsored sh*t, it’s coming from my heart & straight out of my account lol so I wanna give to those who are really in need & could use alil extra holiday cash. Especially if u have kids. Happy holidays.” Among the various Cashapps that went to fans, Teyana gave $500 to one of her followers whose grandfather passed away with no insurance policy and another whose sister faces some struggles with her pregnancy this holiday.

Teyana’s acts of kindness come after she was asked to play Dionne Warwick by the legendary singer herself in a Netflix biopic. “This is a case for Netflix,” she wrote in a tweet. “Please don’t ask who I would cast to play me as it would obviously be Teyana Taylor.”

You can read Teyana’s tweet and the responses from fans above.

The Bucks and Celtics met on Wednesday in the marquee matchup of what was opening night for most of the league, as two of the top teams in the East clashed in Boston.

The Celtics led by as many as 17 entering the fourth quarter, but a run led by Giannis Antetokounmpo helped the Bucks roar back into the lead in the final minute. With 8.9 seconds to play, the Celtics had the ball down 120-119 and drew up an out of bounds play that was, simply, give Jayson Tatum the ball and get out of his way. Tatum got a switch from Khris Middleton to Giannis, and proceeded to work to create just enough space to get off a stepback three, which he banked in high off the glass for what we expected to be the game-winner, with just 0.4 seconds left.

That shot gave Tatum 30 points on the night, second to Jaylen Brown’s 33 on the Celtics, but there was time for the Bucks to run one last inbounds play. They chose a lob to Giannis at the rim, who got fouled on a somewhat dubious call on Tristan Thompson.

The two-time MVP went the the line for the potentially game-tying free throws, where he made the first and then…

Antetokounmpo finished the night with 35 points and 13 rebounds, but needed 36 to force overtime and keep Milwaukee alive in the game. Khris Middleton had 27 points, 14 rebounds, and seven assists, filling up the stat sheet, while Jrue Holiday chipped in 25 points himself. However, it was the bench unit that struggled to contribute, with just 12 bench points for the Bucks compared to 34 for the Celtics, led by a 19-point night from Jeff Teague.

Boston picks up a win that will give them ample confidence that they can once again make a deep run in the East, even in spite of the absence of Kemba Walker early in the season. For Milwaukee, it was a good night for their star addition, but piecing together the rotation around their trio of stars is clearly going to be a work in progress.

Prior to 2020, Guapdad 4000 was undoubtedly a big name, especially after his debut, Dior Deposits, and his string of impressive guest features on Dreamville’s compilation album Revenge Of The Dreamers III. This year, the Oakland native kept it up with a pair of EPs, Platinum Falcon Tape, Vol. 1 and Platinum Falcom Returns, plus a number of strong collabs. Now, Guapdad brings his year to an end by standing beside a fellow Bay legend in a new music video.

Guapdad recently joined Too Short and Rayven for their video for “Oaklandish,” where the trio reps The Bay to the fullest. Bringing their talents to the Oakland streets, the three artists deliver verses that emphasize their love for their hometown, all while warning them to respect the city or face the consequences. Guapdad’s verse is easily the standout on the song, backed by comical punchlines like “Said I’m flyin’ with the stick again / This Harry Potter brother got the wand slitherin.’”

The track appears on Too Short and E-40’s double-disc album Ain’t Gone Do It/Terms and Conditions, which dropped prior to the rappers’ thrilling Verzuz battle, which found them presenting The Bay and all it has to offer to the more than 800,000 viewers that tuned in.

You can watch the “Oaklandish” video above.

Ain’t Gone Do It/Terms and Conditions is out now via Trunk Productions/Heavy On The Grind/3T/EMPIRE. Get it here.

Guapdad 4000 is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

LeBron’s “Decision” in 2010 will go down as one of the biggest bombshell moments in NBA history. When James went on television to tell the world that he was taking his talents to South Beach, it changed the league forever, ushering in a new era of player empowerment that has influenced how superstars have seized control of their destinies ever since.

The whole wild spectacle of it didn’t end there. Far from it. The Heat organization went on to stage an extravagant introductory event that has become almost as infamous as the Decision itself. With smoke machines, a laser-light show, and pyrotechnics, it resembled more of a rock concert than a press conference, and it also gave birth to LeBron promising any number of championships, “not one, not two…”

But apparently, the trio weren’t aware that the team was planning that level of pageantry. On a recent episode of “Cold as Balls” with Kevin Hart, Chris Bosh says that the scope of the welcome party caught them by surprise and was partially leftover from another event that was planned that week at American Airlines Arena.

“We came to the arena, and there was people everywhere,” Bosh said. “They’d made the jerseys already. Thousands of people had them. And we pulled in there, and we hadn’t even signed the contracts yet. We didn’t sign the contract until right before we shot up out the stage. We didn’t know nothing. I found out that there was a concert in town. That’s why that stage was there, so they didn’t build it for us. We were in between days of the concert.”

Regardless, it’s an iconic moment in NBA history. And for Heat detractors, it offers plenty of schadenfreude, as they didn’t quite deliver on the nine or ten titles that were promised that night, although the two championships they did win can’t be seen as anything other than a huge success.

For some people, “no” is the hardest word they’ll ever say. It’s understandable, telling someone no can create a tense social situation and we all want to be seen as a nice person.

The problem is that never saying “no” to things we don’t want to do can lead to a terrible build-up of resentment for our friends, family, or coworkers. It can also lead to feelings of low self-esteem because you can’t manage to stand up for yourself.

Left unchecked, this problem can lead to a sense of despair because your life no longer feels like it’s yours.

“There’s a well-used term for people that say yes to everyone and everything. It’s called being a people-pleaser,” communications expert Mat Apodaca writes. “It’s not bad, of course, to help out when asked to or pitch in when needed. The problem arises when you say yes to everything.”

via Pexels

So the question becomes, how do you learn to say no?

Apodaca has some practical advice to help you learn to say “no” to your boss, colleagues, and people in your personal life.

To Your Boss

Saying “no” to your boss can be tricky because you don’t want to lose your job. Plus, there are a lot of advantages to being known for going above and beyond the call of duty.

However, people respect those who have the confidence to say “no” and it can be seen as a positive trait by an employer. As Warren Buffet once said, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.”

Apodaca suggests the best way to say “no” is to reframe the boss’s request in terms of workflow.

“I really appreciate you thinking of me for this project. Currently, I was planning on spending this week/month on projects X,Y, and Z. As I recall those were high priorities.”

“Wow, thanks so much for bringing this to me. Right now I have a full load working on project X & Y. Would you prefer I set aside that work and spend my time on this new project instead?”

via Pexels

To Your Colleagues

If a colleague comes to you with a request that you don’t want to do, Apodaca suggests that you be cordial and supportive, while letting them know that there isn’t enough time for you to take on another project.

Try this:

“That’s a very exciting initiative to be heading up Brian, you must be stoked! Thanks for asking for my help with the survey piece of it. Truth be told, this is not what I’d consider an area of strength for me, I’d probably slow things down. Lisa is pretty good at those, you might ask her.”

Or …

“You know I normally love doing this type of work Beth and I really appreciate you asking for my help with the layout part of it. Unfortunately, the timing isn’t good, our boss Mark has me working on a presentation to the ELT for next week.”

In Your Personal Life

We’ve all had that favor for a friend or family member that we just didn’t want to do. Whether it’s helping them move, watching one of their kids for the weekend, or giving them a ride to the airport.

Apodaca has a rule that he’s “always happy to help someone, providing they are doing the main work.” For example, if your child is complaining about not having any money, make them a budget so they learn to take better care of the money they have.

Another rule is to do the favor on your time. If someone wants help moving or hanging their Christmas lights, you tell them when you’re free. That way you have some control over the situation, and if your schedules don’t align, then you get out of having to do something you didn’t want to do in the first place.

In the end, having healthy relationships is all about setting appropriate boundaries. “Boundaries are essentially something you create in order to live the type of life you want to,” Apodaca writes. “It’s sort of like a set of guidelines that you have set in your life. From time to time, you share them with others depending on the situation.”

The new year is right around the corner, why not make creating new, healthy boundaries part of your 2021 resolutions? If you don’t want to, it’s fine for you to say no. But you already knew that.

Have you ever been part of a group project and had the overwhelming urge to punch one of your partners?

Of course you have. We all have. Even those of us who aren’t prone to violence can understand the urge. In fact, we’re all engaged a big group project right now called The Coronavirus Pandemic, and there are whole lot of people in the U.S. group who are just begging for a smackdown. Still think the virus is a “hoax”? Thwap. Wearing your mask as a chin diaper instead of covering your mouth and nose? Whpsh. Toting your AR-15 to the state capitol to threaten public officials because they insist on trying to protect public health? TKO time.

Apparently, those of us who are feeling a bit punchy these days are in good company. A new study has found that octopuses occasionally punch fish that they cooperatively hunt with, seemingly just because they feel like it. Though it’s not clear exactly why they do it, scientists say it doesn’t appear to be an act of aggression. Some think that they might do it out of “spite” or to influence better hunting behavior.

In other words, Mr. Octopus is hunting along with some annoying group of fish until he’s finally like, “Dude, you’re bugging the crap out of me. Stop it.” Thwack. Or “Dude, you’re fudging everything up. Knock it off.” Thwack.

Some scientists also think octopuses will throw a punch in a self-serving, I’m-taking-that-just-because-I-can of way. “Dude, back the hell up. That prey is mine.” Thwack.

Why some angry octopuses punch fish

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If we want to get a bit more scientific about it, octopuses are known to hunt collaboratively with fish so that they can cover more area and increase their chances of catching something. In a new report published in Ecology, scientists describe how one kind of octopus in particular, the big blue octopus (also known as day octopus), seems to express displeasure with their hunting partners by randomly lashing out, using “a swift, explosive motion with one arm.” Or in other words, punching.

That’s the word the scientists actually use. Punching. Yay, science.

It seems that the humor is just inherent in the visuals. Eduardo Sampaio, one of the study authors and a Ph.D. student at the University of Lisbon, found it hilarious when he first observed the behavior from the cephalopods he was studying. “I laughed out loud, and almost choked on my own regulator,” he told Live Science in an email.

It might seem like the most logical explanation is that the octopus is simply knocking the fish away from the prey it wants. Sampaio explained that that is what some scenarios indicate.

“Despite collaborating, each partner will always try to maximize its benefits,” he told Live Science. “In the cases where prey is readily available, the octopus seems to use ‘punching’ as a way to control the partner’s behavior in a self-serving way.”

However, the researchers also observed that there were instances where there didn’t seem to be any benefit to the octopus to punch the fish. More research is needed to figure out what that’s all about, but that’s where the “spite” speculation comes in.

It is quite something to witness—the octopus and fish swimming along nicely together when all of a sudden one of those tentacled arms flies out and punches a fish out of nowhere. It’s also fun to speculate whether the octopus is just being a big old bully or if that fish actually deserved it.

We can come up with whole storylines for why Mr. Octopus feels justified in sucker-punching his partner. Maybe the octopus is in a bad mood and the fish is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe the little guy is just super needy and hovering, and it’s the octopus’s way of saying, “Back off. Just because we work together doesn’t mean we’re gonna be friends.”

Octopuses are, after all, one of the most intelligent animals on earth. My guess is if they’re punching the creatures they’re working with, they probably have a good reason for it.

When two of the internet’s darlings get together, well, that’s amore. Excuse me, I mean that’s show business! Harry Styles has swiftly become one of the foremost pop stars in the world following his legacy-cementing album, Fine Line, so any move he makes is newsworthy. But add in Phoebe Waller-Bridge, beloved star and creator of the hit series Fleabag? That’s like internet catnip, and the fans are going a little crazy tonight after seeing apparent proof and rumored confirmation that Waller-Bridge will indeed be starring in Harry’s next music video for “Treat People With Kindness.”

After the splash of “Watermelon Sugar,” a video that’s “dedicated to touching” was released during a global pandemic that forbids just that, Harry’s next video is guaranteed to have viewers equally up in arms. Though the source of the rumors that Phoebe is involved remains unclear for now, fan accounts like Harry Styles Daily (@hsdaily) have been circulating a GIF of the two in what certainly looks like a clip from a music video:

Then, the official Fleabag account on Twitter replied to a meme from the show about the character Harry with a knowing reaction GIF:

Although “Treat People With Kindness” is one of the weaker tracks on Fine Line, it’s certainly a sentiment that could do with some good PR these days. No word yet on official release date, but that clip looked pretty much done, didn’t it?

Gucci Mane’s has had a pretty great 2020, but nothing beats this: On Wednesday, the Atlanta rapper and his wife, Keyshia Ka’oir Davis, announced the birth of their first child, Ice Davis. They delivered the news on their respective Instagram pages, with Gucci posting an elegant picture of his wife and a caption that read, “My wife just gave me a 7lb 1 oz baby boy his name ICE DAVIS 12/23/20 thank you Mrs Davis.” Keyshia shared a similar picture with the caption, “He’s here!!!!!!!!!!” while writing his name, birth date, weight, and a #ThankYouLord hashtag. She added, “OMG he is soooooo darn CUTE & PERFECT.”

Gucci and Keyshia first announced the pregnancy back in August over Instagram posts, with Gucci proclaiming that “life is great.” His wife’s message fell on the humorous side of things, with her writing, “I ain’t athletic but on @laflare1017 D I did gymnastics.” The birth comes three years after the couple tied the knot at a luxurious ceremony in Miami. Ice Davis will join the children the couple have from previous relationships; Gucci has a 12-year-old son while Keyshia has three children.

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

LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers have Wednesday night off as they were among the four teams that tipped their seasons off on Tuesday. James and the Lakers collected their 2020 championship rings prior to a loss to their in-town rival Clippers, with LeBron suffering an ankle injury that caused him to miss the final minutes of action.

LeBron insists he’ll be ready to go for Christmas Day, but in the meantime plans on getting plenty of attention from the medical staff for that ankle and drinking lots of wine, which he says will help his recovery. James, being the hoops junkie that he is, was excited to settle in with a bottle of wine and fire up his NBA Gametime app for the opening night of basketball around the rest of the league, but was reminded once again of the frustrations of trying to watch games from the app.

It is a time honored tradition among NBA fans to get frustrated by trying to watch League Pass, whether through their TV providers — which don’t always have an HD option — to working through the app that sometimes has its hiccups and odd presentation quirks like showing games as “LIVE” when they don’t tip for some time. It’s always fun when we get to see James, the everyman, dealing with the same frustrations as the rest of us. That James is voicing these problems he has with the app on Twitter also provides some hope that we might see some action taken to fix these issues, which would also be nice.

Last week, Swae Lee revealed a hard drive with “all my songs” had been stolen from him at Los Angeles International Airport. He even offered money to get it back. “I got 20K for anyone who found my hard drive @LAX T2 delta airlines this morning,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “All my songs are on there.” Luckily for him, he revealed in a GQ interview that the hard drive has been successfully found.

That said, Lee did reveal that, had he not been able to retrieve the hard drive, he had MP3 versions of the songs as back-up. “It’s like a movie, bro,” he said, laughing off the whole situation. “But I’m not really stressing. I’ve dealt with worse sh*t than this.” So what happened? During an Instagram Live session, someone chimed in, claiming to have the drive but adding that they would need a payment of $150,000 in return. The person later added way they would also accept a photo or a guest feature with Lee and Drake together. While the hard drive is now well on its way to Lee, it’s unknown what deal — if any — the two worked out to initiate its return.

(via GQ)