Month: February 2021

Detroit rapper Tee Grizzley recently got the news that his brother, who adopts the moniker Baby Grizzley, has been indicted on federal gun charges after finishing a 5-year sentence behind bars. Now reflecting on hearing the news, Grizzley drops the track “Late Night Calls” alongside a poignant video.

True to his signature style, the rapper does not stray from honesty on “Late Night Calls.” The song deals with the anxiety around picking up a late-night call to find out that a loved one has been hurt or jailed. Grizzley details the time he answered his phone to the news that his brother had been arrested. He also recalls when he first found out his father had passed away through a frenzied phone call. “And I got some calls late nights / The next day I couldn’t even eat / And I got some calls late nights / The next day I couldn’t even think,” he raps.

Ahead of the visual’s release, Grizzley has been trading verses with some big names in rap, who also happen to be Detroit natives. Most recently, Grizzley exchanged bars with Kash Doll on the fiery single “Bossa Nova.” Just ahead of that, the rapper linked up with Big Sean to show a day in their lives on their joint “Trenches” video.

Watch Tee Grizzley’s “Late Night Calls” video above.

It’s a been a roller-coaster of a night for Kevin Durant. Prior to tip-off against the Raptors on Friday, a report from ESPN indicated that Durant would not be in the starting lineup, as part of the league’s health and safety protocols related to COVID. Durant had reportedly been in contact with an individual who may have been exposed to the virus and had returned an inconclusive test.

But just a few minutes into the opening quarter, Durant emerged from the locker room and entered the game. The details about the contact tracing in connection to Durant were unclear, but every indication was that he had been cleared to re-enter the game. However, Durant later left the game in the second half in connection to the same situation.

ESPN’s Malika Andrews offered some clarity after Durant exited the game, explaining that although Durant had tested negative on three occasions over the last 24 hours, the individual with whom he had been in contact had subsequently tested positive, meaning Durant would once again being under contact-tracing protocols.

Statement from NBA on Kevin Durant situation: pic.twitter.com/S6XvLUhAH2

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 6, 2021

Naturally, there was some frustration on Durant’s part, which led to this tweet after he returned to the locker room.

Free me

— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) February 6, 2021

And Durant wasn’t done expressing his thoughts on the matter, appearing to criticize the league for what he perceives as a focus on appearances and perceptions rather than a meaningful response to the situation.

Yo @nba, your fans aren’t dumb!!!! You can’t fool em with your Wack ass PR tactics.. #FREE7 https://t.co/78N1iKFAoc

— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) February 6, 2021

Nonetheless, the Nets will continue to proceed with caution, and according to Adrian Wojnarowski, it appears doubtful that Durant will travel to Philadelphia for a game against the Sixers this weekend.

The NBA and Nets are still conferring, but it is unlikely Kevin Durant will be traveling with the Nets to Philadelphia for Saturday’s game against the 76ers, sources tell ESPN.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 6, 2021

It’s certainly been a strange night for Durant and the Nets, who ended up falling to the Raptors, 123-117. It marked the first time in Durant’s career that he both didn’t start the game and scored under double-digits, although the circumstances clearly put an asterisk by those stats.

For a first-time head coach, Steve Nash has found himself with an embarrassment of riches. The Big 3 of Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and James Harden is one of the most talented trios ever assembled, and because of that, the expectations for them going forward are astronomical.

Nash and the Nets are already encountering some of the challenges they’ll have to overcome defensively, but those pitfalls on the other end of the court are certainly a trade-off they were willing to make and an area that they can continue to improve upon as the season progresses.

But when it comes to the pure scoring power that each of these players wields, well, that’s not something you can really teach. They are among the lethal scorers of any generation, and Nash himself has witnessed firsthand just how they measure up when it comes to comparing them against some of the all-time greats.

Prior to their game against the Raptors on Friday night, Nash was asked about Kyrie in relation to a player he’s often compared to, Allen Iverson, and though Nash was effusive in his praise for The Answer, he naturally came down on the side of Kyrie as the more complete player.

Steve Nash was asked if Allen Iverson was a fair player comparison for Kyrie Irving. Nash said Kyrie is more skilled and that Iverson was electrifying, a crazy competitor, and one of the all-time greats. Full quote below. pic.twitter.com/YR0TkRNKwg

— Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) February 5, 2021

It is, after all, a fairly apt comparison. Both are lightning-quick, with devastating ball-handling skills and an ability to finish at the rim among the trees. But, even Iverson himself has admitted that Kyrie might have better handles than he did, despite the fact that A.I. is widely considered to be the owner of one of the most lethal crossovers in the history of the game.

Kyrie’s footwork and his ability to finish with both hands at all sorts of impossible angles off the glass is another area that sets him a notch above just about anybody else. Iverson die-hards, however, will likely never concede that Kyrie might be more skilled, and that’s perfectly understandable. But either way, there’s plenty of similarities between two of the NBA’s greatest showmen.

With only a handful of singles to his name, Young Rog teamed up with Summer Walker for the laid-back anthem “Bullsh*t.” Alongside the song’s release, the two got together to film a captivating video, which even includes a special cameo from Rog’s dog Zeus.

Directed by Mac Grant, the visual sees the LVRN labelmates seeking a drama-free relationship. “I really wish you’d hear me from a different side / But there’s no tellin’ you nothing bеcause you always right,” Walker sings.

About the collaboration, Young Rog praised Walker’s talent in a statement to Complex: “Summer was honestly amazing and for real, for real, I think her voice over any beat makes records sit in another dimension. Great records definitely come with good team effort and it’s really a blessing to be working with [her].”

Despite the circumstances, 2020 was a busy year for Walker. Along with confirming her pregnancy and showing off her glowing baby bump, the singer broke ground on her own record label Ghetto Earth Records, an imprint of Interscope. After launching the label, Walker’s first signee was singer/songwriter NO1-NOAH, who collaborated with Walker both on Over It and Life On Earth. “I came up with Ghetto Earth because earth is ghetto,” she said about the endeavor. “I don’t wanna be controlling over my artist’s music. I want them to be fully involved in everything they put out. I’m just here to support and help them get to wherever it is they’re trying to go in life.”

Watch Young Rog and Summer Walker’s “Bullsh*t” video above.

Lou Dobbs has been canceled. Well, at least his Fox Business Network show has been according to reports. The host of Lou Dobbs Tonight, routinely one of the highest-rated shows on the Fox channel, has been host to a number of wild and baseless claims about voter fraud in the wake of Donald Trump’s loss in the November election. And it may have cost him his spot on the network’s lineup.

According to CNN, Dobbs will still be employed by the network but it cited a Los Angeles Times report that Friday night was his last broadcast on the network.

Fox representatives did not immediately respond to CNN Business requests for comment, but a source close to Dobbs confirmed that he has been benched by the network.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Dobbs “remains under contract at Fox News but he will in all likelihood not appear on the company’s networks again.”

As several other reports note, the timing of the show’s cancelation coincide with a massive lawsuit levied by two voting machine companies, Smartmatic and Dominion, after Dobbs and other Fox hosts made false claims about Trump’s baseless election fraud misinformation campaign. But as the New York Times reported, a Fox statement brushed the removal of its top-rated Fox Business Channel show off as “planned changes.”

“Fox News Media regularly considers programming changes, and plans have been in place to launch new formats as appropriate postelection, including on Fox Business,” Fox said in a statement to the Times. “This is part of those planned changes. A new 5 p.m. program will be announced in the near future.”

The Times also got a quote from Donald Trump about Dobbs’ departure, calling him “great.” And as the Times laid out, all the times Dobbs defended Trump and supported his wild and baseless cries of voter fraud certainly made it a favorite of the now-former president. Which may be why Fox decided, with a $2.7 billion lawsuit at hand, the network decided to cut ties.

Don Herzog, who teaches First Amendment and defamation law at the University of Michigan, said it was possible the cancellation could help Fox in its defense of the lawsuit.

If Mr. Dobbs had continued to discuss Smartmatic or promote election fraud on his program, the network could have found itself liable for each new claim, Mr. Herzog said.

The network also could argue that the lawsuit made them aware of untruths that Mr. Dobbs had helped spread. And in a trial atmosphere, the cancellation of Mr. Dobbs’s program might help persuade jurors that the network was acting in good faith.

Dobbs’ future in television is uncertain at this point, but if he’s looking to move to another right wing TV network like Newsmax he might have some legal trouble there as well.

As the NBA inches closer to its mid-season break, there’s been a lot of debate about the wisdom of moving forward with plans to host an All-Star Game in Atlanta next month amid the ongoing pandemic. Several players around the league have expressed reservations about participating in what would be a massively scaled-down event.

De’Aaron Fox, Kemba Walker, and others

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 6, 2021

Durant had been registering antibodies from his March bout with COVID-19 when he was out due to contact tracing a month ago. He missed four games after exposure to the virus. https://t.co/dv66NxIX0j

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 6, 2021

Woj initially reported that Durant would miss the entire game but quickly revised that to say he would simply not start against Toronto, presumably leaving the possibility that he might still take the court at some point.

The Nets were one of the teams early in the season to have several players miss games due to COVID-related contact tracing and safety protocols. Durant was among those players to miss time after being exposed to the virus.

Zella Day and Weyes Blood first sang together on stage during Lana Del Rey’s Norman F*cking Rockwell tour, and the crowd’s response to that moment led to talks about an official collaboration. Now, Day and Weyes Blood have finally shared the result of their songwriting sessions, “Holocene.”

The folksy single, which is inspired by songs from the venerable musician Daniel Johnston, is layered with rich harmonies. Both Day and Weyes Blood lend their vocals on the track, delivering a tune about the importance of holding onto hope.

Speaking about the single in a statement, Day said:

“These days it seems music is the only superpower I can count on to protect me from the threats that lurk within the complete unknown. If hope were a paper airplane and shot into the sky I grabbed it with my hands as it was floating by and unfolded the paper to absorb the contents inside. ‘Crazy Train’ was scribbled at the top of the page and when I looked to see what the words were that were bleeding through from the other side of the paper ‘Holocene’ was there waiting to be sung. There was laughter in the room when the songs were made, tears being shed on the other sides of the walls, but I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I didn’t cry in the studio too. We’ve all needed a refuge this year, this is a glimpse into mine.

Over the last year I have found myself living in two conflicted mental states: days where I’m impassioned, so many words and thoughts surrounding our current climate extending throughout my being. The other reality is emptiness, a complete loss for words. Exhaustion. Loneliness. Sometimes loneliness becomes a giant casting a long shadow that I can’t outrun. I learned not to be too hard on myself in these moments, ultimately trusting that the motivation to create would eventually come back to me. ‘Holocene’ was the rain that fell. It’s a collection of thoughts, a song for the interpersonal relationship between the world inside and outside of ourselves.”

Listen to Weyes Blood and Zella Day’s “Holocene” above.

Netflix’s To All The Boys movie series will become a trilogy later this month, but its central star has other plans in the works that are a bit more supernatural in nature. The third To All The Boys movie, Always And Forever, hits Netflix on February 12 but Friday brought news that Condor will be involved in a series about the teenage afterlife.

Netflix announced that Condor will star and executive produce a limited series called Boo, Bitch, which casts the To All The Boys star as a teen trying to “live an epic life” but woke up to find out that she’s dead. And a ghost.

If that sounds a lot like Teen Angel, well, here’s hoping. And while most of the comments were from people either happy for Condor or requesting other Netflix shows get another season, it’s certainly a nice place to go from the To All The Boys series that can expand her work with the streaming service moving forward.

Condor certainly seems excited about exploring the teen entertainment world in a slightly different context, and spent much of Friday rewteeting stories about the series announcement.

We’ll have to see just how much TGIF is in Boo, Bitch when it actually hits Netflix, but turning teens into ghosts is always fruitful TV show material.

Even though she’s too young to know it, Gigi Hadid and Zayn’s newborn baby Khai already owns some priceless gifts. After giving birth in September, Hadid was showered in gifts from celebrities from across the world, including Donatella Versace. Even Taylor Swift sent little Khai a gift, and she made sure to include a personal touch in it.

Hadid recently revealed Swift’s special gift in a cover interview for Vogue. The model said that Swift sent her baby a handmade teddy bear, which was sewn out of fabric from one of the singer’s old dresses. “It’s misshapen, and she called it Ugly Bear,” Hadid said about the gift, mentioning that Swift also had one just like it when she was a little girl.

In other Swift news, the singer may be facing a copyright infringement lawsuit over her recent album Evermore. Apparently, there’s a fantasy amusement park based in Pleasant Grove, Utah which boasts the name same — and they weren’t happy about the title of Swift’s LP. While the lawsuit was filed against Swift months after the album’s release, Evermore Park’s director of human resources claims that several Swift fans asked if there was a connection. Swift’s team has responded to the lawsuit, saying it’s “inconceivable” that Swift pulled the title from the theme park

Donald Trump, adrift in a world without Twitter, could really use a social media lifeline to prevent him from scribbling down insults and hoping a carrier pigeon happens to fly by. His reticence to join Parler in the wake of his getting removed from Twitter was a curiosity to some, especially given how many of his supporters flocked to the MAGA-friendly service in the aftermath of his November election loss. But now we may know a bit more about why he never joined Parler before it was booted from app stores and Amazon’s server space: he tried (and failed) to negotiate a deal to join.

According to Buzzfeed, Trump and his surrogates were negotiating him joining Parler in exchange for an ownership stake in the company while he was still in office. The talks apparently never got anywhere, in part because, well, it would almost certainly be against the law:

Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale raised the idea to Trump of taking an ownership stake in Parler during a meeting last year at the White House, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. Parscale had taken an early interest in Parler, and reportedly considered creating an account for Trump on the site in 2019 as a bulwark against Twitter and Facebook.

Four sources told BuzzFeed News that Parscale and Trump campaign lawyer Alex Cannon met with Parler CEO John Matze and shareholders Dan Bongino and Jeffrey Wernick at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago in June 2020 to discuss the idea. But the White House counsel’s office soon put a stop to the talks, one person with knowledge of the discussions said, ruling that such a deal while Trump was president would violate ethics rules.

There are a lot of wild and unprecedented things Trump did during his four years in office, and the nonexistent separation between his work as president and his business deals remains near the top of the list even after “inciting a coup attempt” was added to it. But negotiating a business deal to join a social media service as a part-owner after getting kicked off Twitter for being too dangerous to America is certainly a new wrinkle to Trump’s chaos. And despite him not being fully involved in the talks, the idea that surrogates of his had the power to organize these sort of potential talks provides a lens into the extremely unusual nature of the Trump presidency.

Buzzfeed reported that those early 2020 talks were revived once Trump lost the November election, but that they “fell apart” after the January 6 MAGA riot that left five people dead following an attack on the U.S. Capitol that Trump helped to incite:

However, in negotiations with the Trump Organization, Parler offered a 40% stake in the company, according to a December document seen by BuzzFeed News and two people with direct knowledge of the proposed deal. Upon completion of that deal, half of that stake would have been given immediately to the Trump Organization, while the other half would have been doled out in tranches over the 24-month period of the agreement.

Meanwhile, a deplatformed Trump has reportedly resorted to writing down mean tweets about those who have betrayed him, sometimes trying to get others to tweet his ghost-written insults. This news came Friday from a story in The Daily Beast about Trump’s reaction to Liz Cheney voting to impeach Trump and seeing backlash from fellow Republicans:

People close to Trump say he views Cheney’s immediate fortunes as one of the first tests of his lasting influence on the party and conservative movement.

But due to Twitter’s banning of the @realDonaldTrump account following the Capitol riot that Trump instigated, he has not been able to personally trash Cheney via his once widely read tweets. He has written out insults and observations, several of them about Cheney, but with no ability to tweet them himself, he has resorted to suggesting put-downs for others to use or post to their own Twitter, according to a person with direct knowledge of this new habit.

It’s a depressing fate for one of the few True Posters out there, but it’s probably safer for the state of democracy, all things considered.

[via Buzzfeed, The Daily Beast]