Month: January 2021

Maren Morris may have been in between albums in 2020, but that doesn’t mean she shied away from sharing new music. Amid the pandemic, election, and Black Lives Matter demonstrations, Morris used her platform in the country music scene to share a poignant anthem about the importance of taking a stand against injustice. Now, Morris brings the soulful track “Better Than We Found It” to a performance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

Morris takes the stage backed by a full band, complete with a harmonica and two acoustic guitars. The song starts slow, building to an erupting chorus where Morris takes an opportunity to showcase her soaring vocals.

Upon sharing the song in October, Morris offered reasoning as to why she chose to pen a protest song:

“I wanted to write something to address exactly how I feel right now, and this came together pretty quickly. It’s a protest song — it’s the most American thing to protest and protest songs have been so embedded in American culture: Bob Dylan, Nina Simone. I think the world right now is sort of in a perpetual mourning period and I wanted to have a song that had weight but also had hope. I still have hope for this country and for the future of it, and as a new mother I wanted to promise my son that I’m going to do everything in my power to leave this world better than the one I came into and the one I see right now.”

Watch Morris perform “Better Than We Found It” on The Late Show above.

The Los Angeles Lakers began the 2020-21 season as the favorites in the NBA. That often comes with the territory after a championship-winning season but, rather than stand pat in the offseason, the Lakers made a few notable moves. Los Angeles added Dennis Schröder and Montrezl Harrell to juice the team’s offense, and the Lakers found a bargain in acquiring Marc Gasol to step into the void created by the defections of Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee. Crucially, the Lakers also bring back two of the best players in the NBA in LeBron James and Anthony Davis and, to put it plainly, that duo provides a sky-high floor and a lofty ceiling on its own.

Still, it is worth mentioning that the Lakers didn’t carry quite the favorite status of other past champions, in part because the bubble provided an odd circumstance and Los Angeles wasn’t necessarily seen as a no-doubt No. 1 team entering the 2020 NBA Playoffs. On cue, the Lakers stumbled out of the gate in a loss to the Clippers but, essentially since the end of the first quarter on Dec. 22, Los Angeles has been the best team in the league by a healthy margin.

The Lakers trailed 39-19 after 12 minutes on the night they received their championship rings and, while they didn’t complete the comeback, Los Angeles lost by single digits. Since then, the Lakers are 5-1 with three consecutive road wins to finish last week, and Los Angeles is No. 1 in adjusted net rating for the season, via Cleaning The Glass. That includes top-tier marks in offense (115.7 points per 100 possessions) and defense (104.5 points per 100), with 56.9 percent effective field goal shooting and a 59.8 percent true shooting mark. None of those numbers are shocking for a previously dominant team, but Los Angeles is simply taking care of business.

Neither James nor Davis is averaging more than 33 minutes per game but, when the two mega-stars are on the floor, it is curtains for the opposition. In 122 minutes with both James and Davis on the court, the Lakers have a ridiculous +20.3 net rating, and that includes a scoring clip of 1.25 points per possession. Everything is a small sample size in the early going, but the Lakers are letting their stars dominate, playing them fairly often together, and allowing their new acquisitions to steer the ship on the second unit.

To be fair, the Lakers are set up as a team that may not want and/or need to keep the pedal to the floor throughout the regular season. They know what they have and, given the age of James in particular, Los Angeles has incentive to take it easy after a (very) long and strenuous 2019-20 title run. At the same time, the Lakers might be able to cruise to the No. 1 seed, in even in a loaded West, and if they can do that and grab homecourt through the playoffs, a repeat bid becomes just a little bit easier.

There is no doubt which teams sits at the top of this week’s DIME power rankings, but the rest of the list is here.
1. Los Angeles Lakers (5-2, Last week — 1st)

The rankings really start at No. 2 right now.

2. Philadelphia 76ers (6-1, Last week — 5th)

Philly’s schedule has not been a murderer’s row, with wins over Charlotte (twice), Washington, New York, Orlando and a struggling Toronto team. In the same breath, the Sixers have the best record in the league and, over the last week, Doc Rivers’ team posted a 96.1 defensive rating while dominating the competition. You can only beat the teams that are in front of you and Philly is doing so handily.

3. L.A. Clippers (5-2, Last week — 3rd)

Aside from the hilarious 51-point loss to the Mavs, the Clippers… have been exactly what they should be. They still have a top-10 net rating even when including the outlier, and L.A. has quality wins over the Lakers, Nuggets, Blazers and Suns. It may not seem like it on the internet, but they’ve played well overall.

4. Milwaukee Bucks (4-3, Last week — 14th)

This is kind of wild. The Bucks lead the NBA in net rating (+12.7) and that is tough to do with a 4-3 record. From there, Milwaukee has two double-digit losses (!), but the Bucks have wins by 39, 47 and 30 points. What a weird start. Fortunately, we know they’re pretty good.

5. Utah Jazz (4-2, Last week — 4th)

It’s been a solid, balanced start for Utah. They are a top-12 team on both ends, and the Jazz picked up a win over the Clippers this week. Considering Donovan Mitchell is still shooting just 37 percent from the floor, I think Utah would gleefully accept this overall start.

6. Phoenix Suns (5-2, Last week — 7th)

The Suns are very good. They lost a close game to the Clippers to end the week, but Phoenix already has road wins over the Nuggets and Jazz. From there, they are playing lights-out defense (103.4 points allowed per 100) and they have seven players averaging 10 points or more. That sounds like a solid recipe to me.

7. Indiana Pacers (5-2, Last week — 9th)

The loss of TJ Warren for a while definitely stings Indiana, as he isn’t a player that is easy to replace. The Pacers are playing well, though, and that includes a victory that had to be seen to be believed on Monday in New Orleans. Victor Oladipo is playing well, Domantas Sabonis is soaring, Malcolm Brogdon continues to be a steady hand, and Myles Turner is playing to his full potential on both ends.

8. Boston Celtics (5-3, Last week — 13th)

Boston isn’t firing on all cylinders and, in comparison to previous editions of this roster, the early returns aren’t terribly enticing. The Celtics do have Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, which helps, and they’ve won four of the last five after a shaky start.

9. Brooklyn Nets (3-4, Last week — 2nd)

The Nets are 1-4 in the last five games and Kevin Durant is going to miss a few tilts. That certainly isn’t what you want for a team trying to find its sea legs, but Brooklyn has flashed enough upside to eliminate at least some of the concern. This still may be a team that requires context moving forward, and we’ll aim to apply it.

10. Portland Trail Blazers (3-3, Last week — 6th)

The most recent result for the Blazers featured Steph Curry scoring 62 points on them and putting on quite a show. In the previous game, Portland smacked Golden State by 25 points. Good luck trying to figure that sequence out, but we do know that Portland’s defense has been problematically poor to this point, and that is a real concern.

11. Golden State Warriors (4-3, Last week — 28th)

After earning a flurry of jokes with poor play at the outset, the Warriors have won four of five. Steph Curry is firing away, Draymond Green is back and they at least have some semblance of cohesion on display. Golden State is still tough to pin down, but the recent results are worthy of exploration.

12. Denver Nuggets (2-4, Last week — 10th)

Based on only the sample from the 2020-21 season, this is a preposterous ranking for Denver. We have to trust that the Nuggets are still good (because they are), but the defense has been atrocious, giving up 115.8 points per 100 possessions. They do have a home date with Minnesota on Tuesday that should be helpful in myriad ways.

13. Orlando Magic (5-2, Last week — 11th)

Orlando is a top-10 team in net rating and win-loss record. They’d be higher on this list if not for a bad home loss to OKC, but the Magic are well on their way to overachieving yet again under Steve Clifford. That includes the No. 6 defense in the NBA through two weeks of action.

14. Atlanta Hawks (4-3, Last week — 8th)

Atlanta remains sixth in net rating and third in offensive rating. Why did they fall this far? Well, the Hawks just lost to the Cavs and Knicks at home. Granted, the loss to Cleveland was on the second night of a back-to-back, but the Hawks blew 15-point leads in both games and there wasn’t a rest disadvantage to explain Monday’s loss to New York.

15. Dallas Mavericks (3-4, Last week — 15th)

The Mavs’ loss to the Bulls this week came without Luka Doncic, which is important context. Doncic found his footing a bit in a win over Houston, but Dallas hasn’t quite been the same on offense with him struggling and Kristaps Porzingis on the shelf. It’s best to effectively punt on their evaluation, for now, but they need to find a way to pile up some wins to keep pace in the West til their second star is back.

16. Miami Heat (3-3, Last week — 12th)

The reigning East champs have alternated wins and losses each game so far, and they are basically a .500 team statistically. The interesting part is that Miami’s offense has been dreadful (bottom-five) and their defense has been strong (top-eight). The Heat and Celtics play a nationally televised clash on Wednesday that could be instructive on both sides.

17. New Orleans Pelicans (4-3, Last week — 16th)

As noted above in the Pacers section, the Pelicans let one get away on Monday, and that keeps them from a big jump in the rankings. Still, there are positive signs in how good the Pelicans have been with Steven Adams on the floor and how much improvement they’ve shown defensively under Stan Van Gundy. On the flip side, New Orleans falls apart when Adams sits, and they have work to do on offense.

18. Houston Rockets (2-3, Last week — 20th)

We know the Rockets can beat the Kings and they’ve done so twice. Otherwise, Houston is shrouded in mystery, including a negative net rating and an offense that hasn’t quite been its elite self this season. Houston’s sample size is still the smallest in the league, so more information is welcome.

19. New York Knicks (4-3, Last week — 26th)

The Knicks are above .500. The Knicks have three road wins. The Knicks have a top-10 defense. Tom Thibodeau certainly has drawbacks, headlined by 40+ minute efforts for RJ Barrett and Julius Randle on a regular basis, but New York has been competitive and feisty, with Randle playing at an All-Star level to begin the season.

20. Cleveland Cavaliers (4-3, Last week — 17th)

Cleveland was always going to cool off after their 3-0 start, and that happened this week. The Cavs did pull off a nice road win in Atlanta to avoid total disaster, though, and Cleveland is No. 2 in the league in defense against all odds.

21. Toronto Raptors (1-5, Last week — 21st)

The Raptors have earned the benefit of the doubt, but they are testing it. On one hand, all five losses have come to solid-or-better teams, with three on the road. On the other, Toronto has been lifeless, with a bottom-three offensive rating in the NBA and some ugly moments. The slate doesn’t get any easier, with a road game in Phoenix on Wednesday.

22. Chicago Bulls (3-4, Last week — 30th)

As evidenced by the No. 30 ranking last week, the Bulls were absolutely brutal out of the gate. Since then, Chicago has won three out of four, including a road sweep of the Wizards and a home win over Dallas. Admittedly, the Bulls got rocked by the Bucks in the middle of those victories, but they’ve at least avoided complete disaster.

22. Washington Wizards (2-5, Last week — 27th)

Washington wasn’t going to lose every game this season, and they just won back-to-back contests. One of those wins (over Brooklyn on the road) can be filed in the “good win” category, and at least the Wizards have been above-average offensively so far.

24. San Antonio Spurs (2-4, Last week — 18th)

San Antonio just dropped four games in a row and, on Monday night, the team announced that Derrick White would miss more time just as he was coming back from an injury-related absence. All isn’t lost, though, as 2019 first round pick Keldon Johnson is shining, averaging 16.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game with versatile defense and a 42.9 percent clip from three-point distance.

25. Sacramento Kings (3-4, Last week — 19th)

The Kings were 3-1 and all was right with the world. Then, Sacramento got swept in a mini-set by the Rockets and absolutely throttled by the Warriors, with drama surrounding Marvin Bagley’s father and deleted tweets to boot. It’s early, but Sacramento is a bottom-10 team statistically on both ends of the floor, and that won’t get you far in the West.

26. Memphis Grizzlies (2-4, Last week — 23th)

At full strength, the Grizzlies are better than this, but they aren’t at full strength right now. Memphis was already missing Jaren Jackson Jr., Justise Winslow and others, and now they’ll be without Ja Morant for a few weeks. It is just tough to see the Grizzlies sustaining even a reasonable offensive output with those guys on the shelf, but on the bright side, Desmond Bane looks the part of a draft night steal.

27. Charlotte Hornets (2-4, Last week — 25th)

It isn’t a great shame to lose to the Sixers in back-to-back games, even by double-digits in both contests. The bigger problem for Charlotte was the 15-point home loss to the Ja Morant-less Grizzlies in the previous contest. That’s not what you want.

28. Oklahoma City Thunder (2-4, Last week — 24th)

There are some lineups that are legitimately fun for OKC, but they just don’t have that many of them. The Thunder are dead-last in offense (99.2 points per 100 possessions) and, without a road win in Orlando this week, they might’ve been even lower.

29. Minnesota Timberwolves (2-4, Last week — 22nd)

The Wolves are in the midst of a four-game losing streak and, in the last week, the results have been hideous. Minnesota posted a 125.6 defensive rating in the last three games and, despite young talent, there is a lot the Wolves need to fix on that end of the floor.

30. Detroit Pistons (1-6, Last week — 29th)

Detroit is only fifth-worst in net rating (-5.6), but the worst record in the league lands the Pistons here. Detroit’s only win came against Boston and it was erased shortly thereafter by a loss to the same Celtics. Obviously, it is well known that the Pistons are in a period of transition, but the early signs for 2020-21 in particular aren’t very strong.

Throughout the pandemic, artists have been doing what they can to help those who are in tougher spots than they are. Now, a large group of them have teamed up with Yeti to help benefit Crew Nation, a Live Nation-established fund that helps concert workers who are out of a job. What Yeti did is send out coolers to a bunch of musicians and had them customize the coolers, which are now being auctioned off. In addition to Crew Nation getting the proceeds, Yeti will match all funds raised up to $100,000.

There are currently 34 active auctions and participating artists include Beastie Boys, Billie Eilish, Brandi Carlile, Brittany Howard, Cam, The Decemberists, Delta Spirit, Elizabeth Cook, Finneas, Fitz And The Tantrums, Fleet Foxes, Grace Potter, The Head And The Heart, Jon Batiste, Little Big Town, Martina McBride, Mavis Staples, Midland, The Midnight, My Morning Jacket, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Phoebe Bridgers, The Revivalists, Scotty McCreery, Shepard Fairey, Shovels And Rope, Social Distortion, Tanya Tucker, Tenacious D, Tommy Seigel of Jukebox The Ghost, Tyler Childers, Umphrey’s McGee, Wilco, and Wynonna Judd.

All of the coolers feature some sort of custom touch from the artist, whether that’s an autograph or some other sort of additional design element. Some also come with other goodies. For example, the Beastie Boys cooler comes “full of merch and includes a vinyl copy of Beastie Boys Music,” while the Phoebe Bridgers one comes with a Punisher vinyl as well as sweatpants and a t-shirt.

All the auctions start at $200, and as of this post, the one fetching the highest price is the Beastie Boys lot, which is currently at $700. Check them out here.

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

SZA would be working at Nike if she wasn’t an R&B star. Oh, and she has an album coming out soon, as confirmed in a feature in Cosmopolitan that published today. Speaking with Julee Wilson, SZA confirms that the long-awaited project is on the way, saying, “This album is going to be the sh*t that made me feel something in my…here and in here. That’s what’s going to go on the album. I’m making all different types of sh*t every day from different places in my spirit.”

She also addresses the 2018 Best New Artist Grammy controversy that saw her lose to an artist who didn’t seem to qualify in Alessia Cara, writing off the moment by joking that she never dreamed of winning awards for music in the first place. “I’m just a girl from the ’burbs,” she explains. ” I never had dreams of being nominated for a Grammy. I thought I was going to be a gymnast and a f*cking business accountant somewhere. Or working at Nike corporate or some sh*t in Portland. Who knows, but something that involved a power suit. So it’s not a heavy burden. Once you’ve been nominated and lost, you’re very much free because you’re not concerned. I passed that threshold years ago—it’s an old energy to me. Why would I be mad?”

Read the full profile here.

The Cleveland Browns will make their first playoff appearance in 18 years on Sunday night when they take on the rival Steelers in Pittsburgh (who were also their last playoff opponent in 2003). It wasn’t the cleanest landing for the Browns to get into the playoffs, as they lost to the Jets and then narrowly escaped with a two-point win in Pittsburgh a week ago despite the Steelers resting stars like Ben Roethlisberger.

One of the reasons for their problems the last two weeks has been positive COVID-19 tests, which wiped out their entire wide receiver room for the Jets game and then took out star cornerback Denzel Ward for the Steelers game. Now in their third week of COVID-19 issues, the Browns will go into Sunday night without their head coach, Kevin Stefanski, who tested positive and will be unavailable. Special teams coach Mike Priefer will be the acting head coach, with offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt taking over all play-calling responsibilities.

Per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the other positive tests were from a wide receiver and offensive lineman on the player side, and a defensive backs coach and tight ends coach on the coaches side.

It took a bit of time, but Stefanski really got the Browns offense to take off in the latter half of the season — final two weeks as exceptions to that — as he got in a pretty great groove calling plays and working with Baker Mayfield to get the most out of the young QB. Now, Van Pelt will have to assume those responsibilities without the benefit of many practices, as the Browns have shut down their facility for now and won’t have nearly as much on-field time to try and get everyone on the same page for their biggest game in nearly two decades.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm dropped just a week before the 2020 presidential election and, as you probably remember, there was no shortage of headlines related to Sacha Baron Cohen and his team pulling off two very impressive coups involving actress Maria Bakalova, who played Borat’s daughter, Tutar. The infamous Rudy Giuliani scene is, of course, the biggest score, which is why it was saved for the film’s climax. (Phrasing?) But the filmmakers pulled off an equally surprising feat by getting Bakalova into the White House, which should not be an easy thing to do, especially during a pandemic. And, yet, Jason Woliner recently revealed how the team managed to get “Tutar” into the briefing room without even taking a COVID test thanks to the very gullible conservative news outlet OAN. Via The Daily Beast:

OAN was extremely easy to hoodwink. They’re not a real news organization, they’re a propaganda organization. And so we got her into the White House with Chanel Rion, no COVID test required. And she was at a gaggle with Larry Kudlow and she was in the briefing room. And you could actually see—and I don’t think this was in the little clip that we put out—but that day, [Jared] Kushner was doing an interview on the White House lawn with Fox Business and you can just see Tutar, Borat’s daughter, wandering around in the background of the shot. And so it was one of those things we were just like, yeah, let’s send her in and see what we get out of it.

As for catching Giuliani with his hands down his pants, Woliner says that America’s Mayor had several opportunities to realize something wasn’t right during his interview with Tutar, but he never caught on until the moment when Borat burst into the room wearing lingerie. According to Woliner, Cohen kept testing the limits of how far he could go before Giuliani figured something out. As we know, Giuliani never caught wise and made it all the way bedroom, which was comedic gold for the team, so the gags ended up on the cutting room floor.

“There was actually a beat that we shot where we pushed in a room-service tray and Sacha was hiding underneath it,” Woliner said. “We were doing this kind of farcical thing where he’s trying to communicate with her again and we wound up cutting it out of the movie. Again, Rudy didn’t discover anything weird, his radar didn’t go up.”

Little did America know that Giuliani’s embarrassing moment would only be the start of his troubles as he spearheaded Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results with disastrous, and sometimes hilarious results.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Where do you even start to eulogize MF DOOM? Set aside the decades-spanning career and multiple personas, from Zev Love X of KMD to Viktor Vaughn and King Geedorah. How do you even begin to encapsulate his impact? Sure, in the last few years, the Rap Twitter convention has held that he was the vanguard of uber-cerebral, anti-establishment hip-hop that “scares the girls away.” But as with so much social media “wisdom,” that reductive outlook was never the case.

MF DOOM didn’t appeal to only rap nerds — you’d be hard-pressed to find even casual rap fans who hadn’t encountered and subsequently been entranced by his rhymes and his persona. His influence within the culture was so widespread that it didn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility that even an affluent white lady actress like Sharon Stone would be a fan. His flow was impeccable, respected by rap purists and SoundCloud rebels alike. It’s impossible to gauge how heavy his impact was, simply because everyone knew about him, but everyone who knew about him felt like he was their personal secret.

He was a traditionalist and he pushed the boundaries of how the genre could or should sound, beginning with his time as a member of early ’90s trio KMD. He could be frustrating, as Adult Swim Vice President Jason DeMarco learned more than once. He could be exhilarating. He could be inspirational. He was an example of hip-hop at its most extravagant, but he was surprisingly ordinary. That was the point of the mask; he could break kayfabe at will, yet he could also be forgiven for leaning way too into it by scamming fans into paying to watch imposters perform his songs, like a true supervillain (hey, even Doctor Doom has his Doombots).

So how could I possibly sum all that up in even a 500-page book, let alone an 800-word internet article? I guess I could start with how much MF DOOM meant to me personally, those late-night adventures with the crew in my late teens/early twenties cruising the streets of Los Angeles blasting Madvillainy and Mm..Food at maximum volume. Or going even further back, to those all-day rap forum rabbit hole sessions, tying up my family’s phone line downloading Operation Doomsday on dial-up. Or the thrill of excitement I felt realizing that yes, that was his voice booming over Cartoon Network commercial bumpers and scenes from The Boondocks.

But somehow relating this all seems too mundane to capture DOOM’s import. After all, there are likely hundreds of thousands of hip-hop fans with stories just like it — a supreme irony, as we all felt like the only ones in the world who were in on the secret of the masked rapper’s existence. Biographing him doesn’t seem like enough, either. With a career that encompassed a prime placement in hip-hop’s Golden Era, bridging the genre’s bumpy entry to the online age, and maintaining his air of mystery along with his authenticity while experiencing the heights of his commercial ubiquity with Adult Swim, there’s just too much there to unpack and examine.

He did all that though. He was one of the first rappers to appear on broadcast television, on The Arsenio Hall Show, performing alongside 3rd Bass as he rattled off his ahead-of-their-time rhymes on “The Gas Face.” He is arguably the symbol of the Napster generation of rap, his projects being among the first to trickle outward from college dorms through person-to-person sharing across state lines and high-speed connections to spread his legend. And though their partnership never came to fruition — mostly because of DOOM’s propensity for vanishing for years at a time while dealing with personal issues — he was one of the first rappers to sign with Adult Swim’s music label arm, Williams Street Records, paving the way for future collaborations such with rap luminaries such as Witchdoctor, El-P, and Killer Mike, catalyzing the connection between the latter two to form Run The Jewels.

DOOM influenced heady, introspective rappers like Earl Sweatshirt and Jay Electronica and rap establishment-trolling rabble-rousing South Florida upstarts like Smokepurpp and Wifisfuneral. Playboi Carti, who many underground rap heads regard as a cancer to the genre, paid just as respectful a homage as elder statesman Busta Rhymes. DOOM could work with any of his peers, like Ghostface Killah of Wu-Tang Clan and fellow multiple-personality MC Kool Keith, but that didn’t stop him from granting his blessing to rising young stars like Bishop Nehru, with whom he crafted a pair of projects, one as a rapper and one as a producer.

I’d be remiss not to mention his pioneering production style, which has proliferated on YouTube through adherents to the “lo-fi/beats to study to” aesthetic that permeates playlists from the likes of Chilled Cow and College Music. Hip-hop and animation now go hand-in-hand, from the Vince Staples-starring Lazor Wulf to the music’s subtle nods in shows like Big Mouth. If you think MF DOOM isn’t one of the biggest reasons why… I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn for sale. DOOM’s influence, his impact, were as far-reaching as his vocabulary, which included references to volcanoes in Iceland and the chemical name for ecstasy, and yes, he found equally elaborate rhymes for both.

All of that only covers a bare fraction of who DOOM was, how innovative he could be, how true to the art form he was. It doesn’t reveal anything about the man himself, who so staunchly separated the persona from his true identity that collaborator Count Bass D once recounted observing self-declared DOOM superfans discount their hero’s very existence upon encountering him in person sans mask. DOOM was a father who lost a son, a man who lost a brother, an artist whose career ups-and-downs informed an adamant lifetime philosophy of never playing by the rules and constantly upending the mechanisms of commerce, even to the chagrin of his business partners, collaborators, and fans — sorry, gang, but we are never getting that Ghostface/DOOM collab album.

Even the way we found out about DOOM’s death, two months after, on the final day of 2020, like a bookend or a coda to the disastrous year that was, like he’d ensured that the blow would be held back to close that horrendous chapter as resolutely as possible… even that was DOOM being DOOM. To the very end, he was getting the last laugh, upsetting the balance with his theatricality, and ensuring that no one could ignore him, forget him, or dismiss him. He was our hero even though he was, to the very end, a supervillain.

A few months ago, Lil Nas X revealed that his first children’s book, C Is For Country, would be released on January 5, 2021. Well, that’s today and the book is out now. To celebrate, the rapper has shared a few adorable snippets from the book.

Tweeting a few images from the book, Nas wrote, “MY CHILDREN’S BOOK ‘C IS FOR COUNTRY’ IS OUT NOW!!!! GO GET IT PLEASE I REALLY NEED TO PAY MY RENT!” On one page, there are screenshots of social media posts featuring Nas in various outfits, and the text reads, “F is for fringe. And feathers. And fake fur.” An illustrated Nas says in the final panel, “I love that for me!” On another page, Nas is brushing his pony Panini, and the text reads, “P is for Panini. Night night, little pony.”

On one of the final two pages Nas shared, he’s picking his hair and the text reads, “S is for swag. Just ’cause I’m going to bed doesn’t mean I can’t look good!” The other page shows him with his family and says, “T is for thankful. I love my fam!” Meanwhile, the publisher’s website for the book shows a couple more pages. One says, “A is for Adventure. Every day is a brand new start!” The other reads, “B is for boots — whether they’re big or small, short or tall.”

A publisher’s statement describes the book, “Join superstar Lil Nas X — who boasts the longest-running #1 song in history — and Panini the pony on a joyous journey through the alphabet from sunup to sundown. Experience wide-open pastures, farm animals, guitar music, cowboy hats, and all things country in this debut picture book that’s perfect for music lovers learning their ABCs and for anyone who loves Nas’s signature genre-blending style. Featuring bold, bright art from Theodore Taylor III, with plenty of hidden surprises for Nas’s biggest fans, C Is for Country is a celebration of song and the power inside us all.”

Learn more about C Is For Country and buy the book here.

It’s a new year, but stars continue to deliver their late-night performances via pre-recorded video rather than live onstage. That condition looks to continue in 2021 but that may not be the worst thing in the world. Aside from keeping performers and their fans safer, the pre-recorded performances allow some creative staging and camera work that might not otherwise be feasible in a live setting. Burna Boy, who kicks off his 2021 with a performance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, proves this with “Way Too Big.”

Standing on a plinth overlooking his band and backup singers, Burna literalizes his album’s title Twice As Tall, surveying the scene from his raised vantage point and evoking a historical monument. Burna closed out his 2020 with a video for the song, which similarly set him up as a model of success, appearing on a billboard in Lagos. Here, although the staging is stripped-down in comparison, he’s able to take advantage of a larger space than would be allowed on the usual late-night stage to keep the same epic mood.

Watch Burna Boy’s late-night performance of “Way Too Big” above.

Twice As Tall is out now on Atlantic Records. Listen to it here.

Burna Boy is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Monday was the beginning of Alex Trebek’s final week as the host of Jeopardy! The game show (and all-around) legend, who died in November from pancreatic cancer, filmed the final five episodes over the course of two days in October. Trebek also recorded a touching message to those suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You’ll recall that about a month ago, I asked all of you to take a moment to give thanks for all of the blessings that you enjoy in your lives,” Trebek says, referring to this clip from Thanksgiving. “Now, today, a different kind of message: this is the season of giving. I know you want to be generous with your family, your friends, your loved ones. But today, I’d like you to go one step further. I’d like you to open up your hands and open up your hearts to those who are still suffering because of COVID-19. People who are suffering through no fault of their own.” He added, “We’re trying to build a gentler, kinder society and if we all pitch in, just a little bit, we’re gonna get there.” The episode ending with the dedication, “Forever in our hearts, always our inspiration.”

Jeopardy! executive producer Mike Richards told EW that he didn’t know Trebek was going to give the speech. “On that first episode, he walked out, and you’ll see it when it airs, he gives this amazing speech about the holidays and coming together and being strong and taking care of each other. And we didn’t know he was gonna do that; he just walked out and did it,” he said. “And you’ll see in the episode, we all started to clap.”

Trebek’s final episode of Jeopardy! airs this Friday, January 8.