Morgan Wallen‘s sophomore effort Dangerous: The Double Album recently earned its third consecutive week atop the Billboard album charts. Now, the country singer finds himself in controversy after a video surfaced showing him using a racial slur as he walked home with friends on Sunday night. According to TMZ, the singer and his friends had arrived at Wallen’s home around midnight after spending the night out. Between talking loudly and honking horns, the group was loud enough to disturb their neighbors, causing one to exit their home to record them.
The video captures Wallen telling one of his friends to watch over one of the members of the group. “Take care of this p*ssy ass motherf*cker,” he says in the video before adding, “Take care of this p*ssy ass n*****.” In a statement to TMZ, Wallen apologized for his use of the n-word. “I’m embarrassed and sorry. I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back,” he said. “There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologize for using the word. I promise to do better.”
The incident comes months after he was dropped as the musical guest for an October episode of Saturday Night Live after he attended a maskless party in Alabama. He had to wait nearly two months to finally perform on the show.
Everyone who’s served at one time or another on Trump’s post-election “Elite Strike Force” was, shall we say, a bit eccentric. But none moreso than Lin Wood. All Rudy Giuliani did was rattle off increasingly deranged conspiracy theories and constantly screw up in inventive ways. Lin Wood, however, actually called for Mike Pence’s “execution.” So it’s maybe it’s not even ironic that someone who peddle voter fraud lies is now himself being investigated for potential voter fraud. Perhaps it’s just inevitable.
As per CNN, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — whom you might remember as one of Trump’s most frequent targets in his futile attempt to overturn the 2020 election — is looking into whether Wood had voted illegally in November’s election. Wood voted in Georgia, but he told a reporter early Tuesday that he’d been “domiciled” up north, in South Carolina, in a property he purchased last April.
That statement caught the eye of investigators, but Wood told CNN that that wasn’t true — that he’d only recently registered in South Carolina, after the election. He then called the actions taken by Raffensperger “pure harassment.” (Previously, Wood had called for Raffensperger to be imprisoned for his role in one of his baseless election conspiracy theories.)
Wood was one of the pro-Trump lawyers who spent much of the last few months filing one failed lawsuit after another, alleging elaborate and increasingly bizarre voter fraud schemes. He also told Georgia that the system was so rigged they’d be better off not voting at all. Shortly thereafter, in the state’s early January runoff, Republicans lost control of the Senate.
On Saturday, the music industry was shocked by the news of the death of producer Sophie. The Scotland native died after a tragic fall during a climb to watch the full moon in Athens, Greece. Her death impacted many in the industry, and names like Sam Smith, Rina Sawayama, Charlie XCX, Christine And The Queens, and more mourned her on social media. Now Vince Staples has spoken with Rolling Stone about someone he’d become good friends with over the years.
The rapper revealed he met Sophie back in 2016 when they were both opening acts on Flume’s Australia tour. “I remember once we were at the pool. She was on her computer, I was doing whatever I was doing. I was like, ‘I’ll see you later, Sophie!’” he said. “She looked at me like I was crazy, like, ‘How the f*ck do you know who I am?’” He also praised the way her demanded listeners’ attention. “One thing about Sophie’s music, it demanded attention … Her music demanded attention. While 30,000 people were waiting for one guy to go on, her music demanded attention.”
Sophie would eventually produce two songs for Vince, “Yeah Right” and “Samo,” both from his 2017 album Big Fish Theory. He shared his initial struggles with the beat for the former track. “I tried something, but she said that it wasn’t the attention-grabbing thing that she goes for. So I reapproached it,” he recalled. “Sophie was like, ‘Don’t tell stories. I don’t care what you’re talking about. The attention is what’s important.’ That’s how she worked. At that time in my career, I was at the point where you’re reassessing how you feel about yourself, what your purpose is, what your sonics are. Sophie had something that we were looking for.”
While this attention-grabbing attribute to Sophie’s music definitely caught the eye of Vince, it wasn’t the thing he’ll remember her for. Rather, it was the Scotland native’s fearlessness that impacted him the most.
“I’ve seen Sophie around a dozen sessions, around different kinds of people, different genres, different races, different backgrounds, and she was never afraid. I never saw her once afraid to be who she was, to wear what she wanted, to say what she wanted, to play what she wanted. Not once. I think that’s the most important takeaway: You don’t have to be afraid. Producers, musicians, trans people, people all over, no matter who you are, to be honest — I don’t care who you are, that’s something you could take something from. You don’t have to be fearful. I haven’t once seen fear on Sophie’s face, no matter what
It didn’t take long after Ricky Gervais’ withering, poorly received stint hosting the 2020 Golden Globes back in January for the awards body to announce his two replacements: that reliable dynamic duo, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. What they didn’t know then was that the nation was on the verge of being slammed by an out-of-control, poorly contained pandemic. Since things are still bad, nearly a year later, it makes sense that the two hosts will social distance — although they’ll be taken extra-extra precaution.
According to Variety, the pair will do their hosting from separate coats — Fey from Rainbow Room in New York City (at her old 30 Rock stomping grounds in Rockefeller Center), Poehler from inside the Beverly Hills Hotel, in Los Angeles. It’s a departure from previous mid-pandemic awards shows, which have often found one host spending most of their time alone on an empty stage, occasionally interacting with someone hanging no closer than six feet away. (Sometimes they accidentally start fires.)
Other details — such as if presenters and/or nominees will be remote or present — are still up in the air. But having the Globes’ first bicoastal ceremony means there’s plenty of awards show work to spread around both sides of the country. On the other hand, that means nominees and guests at the loosest (read: drunkest) awards show in the business may have to wind up paying for their own booze themselves.
The Golden Globes will air on Feb. 28. The nominees will be announced this Wednesday, Feb. 3.
Jadakiss has accomplished a lot in his nearly three-decade career, with multiple Grammy nominations, platinum plaques, and a classic album among his many accomplishments. Now he has a new achievement: Later this month he will voice a COVID-19 PSA to be heard on New York City subways and buses. The other voices that will be included in the initiative have not been revealed yet, but Jadakiss took to Instagram to share a recording of the recording.
“If you are experiencing any symptoms of COVID-19, please quarantine at home or seek medical attention. Thanks for helping to keep New York City safe,” Jadakiss says in the PSA, which he made sure to end with his trademark laugh. The announcement will start to make the rounds in New York City’s public transportation services starting February 25.
The initiative is led by film director and social media personality New York Nico, who also shared the news on Instagram, calling it his “most ambitious project yet.” Nico is known for the contest Best New York Accent, which he held last year, while people were in quarantine. It saw people from all over the state send in videos clips of their best accents, a trend that eventually caught the attention of the rest of the country.
The Toronto Raptors have a new record holder for the most points scored in a single game. Fred VanVleet, who has endeared himself over the years to the Raptors faithful with his meteoric rise from an undrafted guard to a crucial member of the rotation, went off against the Orlando Magic, scoring 54 points on absolutely ludicrous efficiency to power the Raptors to a 123-108 win.
VanVleet was locked in from the jump. While Orlando scored the game’s first 11 points, VanVleet broke Toronto’s scoreless drought with a triple, then proceeded to make seven more before the end of the first half. By the time the Raptors took a four-point lead into the locker room, VanVleet had 28 on 8-for-9 shooting from behind the arc.
28 points. Career-high 8 threes. IN THE FIRST HALF.
He didn’t exactly cool off after the halftime break, either. VanVleet hit his career-best mark midway through the third when he canned his 10th three of the evening, giving himself 39 points.
FRED VANVLEET is up to a career-high 39 PTS, 10 THREES midway through the 3rd!
In classic Fred VanVleet fashion, he just kept coming and coming, ending the frame with 46 points in all. His final bucket of the third came after he knifed through the heart of the Magic defense and finished a layup over the outstretched arm of another man who once hit the 50-point mark for Toronto, Terrence Ross.
It seemed like the only thing that could stop VanVleet was Raptors coach Nick Nurse sending him to the bench once the game got out of hand. After a pair of free throws and a layup got him to the 50-point mark, VanVleet scooped up an errant pass to hit 52 on the easiest of layups. Then, he was fed by Kyle Lowry and made a little — pardon the pun — magic happen to get yet another layup for the record.
Not only did VanVleet score a ton of points, he did so on 17-for-23 shooting with an 11-for-14 clip from behind the arc. He also managed to make all nine of his attempts from the charity stripe. This served as a record in more ways than one, as VanVleet broke Moses Malone’s record for the most points scored in one game by an undrafted player. Malone had previously set the record at 53.
With the win, Toronto continued to climb out of the early season hole it found itself in, bumping their record up to 9-12 and putting them a hair above the New York Knicks for the 10-seed at this juncture.
It’s been almost three months since King Von’s tragic death at an Atlanta nightclub. Since then, the Chicago-born rapper has been remembered in a number of ways, including an appearance on the cover of Lil Durk’s most recent project The Voice. Von can also be heard in a posthumous appearance on Pnb Rock’s track “Rose Gold,” which now has a new video.
It captures Pnb Rock in the late rapper’s Parkway Garden neighborhood, which Von often referred to as O’Block. The highpoint in the video comes during King Von’s verse, in which his crew appears and makes a warm moment in honor of the late Chicago rapper. In the song Von also raps about Von, saying, “Before I die, they gon’ remember me / For bein’ in these streets and slangin’ heat, ain’t ducked no enemies,” further highlighting the legacy he hoped to leave behind.
This comes shortly after King Von’s team shared a posthumous video for “Armed & Dangerous,” a track off his Welcome To O’Block mixtape. Von was also honored in Lil Durk’s “Still Trappin” visual as well.
You can watch the video for “Rose Gold” above.
Pnb Rock is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Perhaps the most famous as-yet-unfinished novel is The Winds of Winter, the incredibly long-awaited sixth volume in George R.R. Martin’s fantasy epic A Song of Ice and Fire. How long has it taken him? In the interim since the fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, the bulk of the HBO adaptation of his series has run its course. But Martin, who let fans know he was safe and away from other humans during the pandemic, gave one of his periodic updates on how he’s faring, and this latest one was a bit more upbeat and promising than usual.
As caught by Entertainment Weekly, Martin dropped onto his blog to inform people that, for some reason, he had plenty of time in the last year to make a dent in his next doorstop. “I wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages of THE WINDS OF WINTER in 2020,” Martin wrote. “The best year I’ve had on WOW since I began it. Why? I don’t know. Maybe the isolation. Or maybe I just got on a roll. Sometimes I do get on a roll.”
If that sounds like good news for those hungry to see how he hopes to wrap up his dragon saga — exacerbated, no doubt, by the divisive way the show concluded — then this has unfortunately been a good-news-bad-news update.
“I need to keep rolling, though,” Martin added. “I still have hundreds of more pages to write to bring the novel to a satisfactory conclusion. That’s what 2021 is for, I hope.”
So you’re going to have to keep on being patient: “I will make no predictions on when I will finish … Every time I do, a*sholes on the internet take that as a ‘promise,’ and then wait eagerly to crucify me when I miss the deadline. All I will say is that I am hopeful.”
So there you go: You might get to see those Game of Thrones spin-offs, including that threatened animated one, before you get your mitts around what’s still only supposed to be the series’ penultimate novel anyway. In the meantime the 10th birthday of A Dance with Dragons rolls by this summer, so maybe an anniversary read?
Since the release of his 2018 album Testing, ASAP Rocky has kept things under the radar, mostly keeping to guest appearances on songs like ASAP Ferg’s “Pups,” Mustard’s “On God,” and most recently Slowthai’s “Mazza.” But on Tuesday the rapper resurfaced with a new single, shared exclusively on Instagram.
The track is titled “G-Unit Rice” and it comes attached with a new video, which follows Rocky during a recent trip through New York City. The song itself is similar to the other unorthodox offerings in the rapper’s discography, such as “LSD” and “Sundress.” According to Fader, “G-Unit Rice” was originally shared by Hidji, a member of the video team on Rocky’s AWGE creative agency. The publication also reports that his upcoming album is rumored to be titled All Smiles.
Prior to the new single, Rocky set the internet ablaze when rumors of his relationship with Rihanna surfaced. In early December Page Six and People reported that the two were dating, which left people imagining how their potential children will look. As for his promised future music, he previewed some new tunes at last month’s ASAP Yams Day festival, signaling that he’s got plenty of it on the way.
In 2012, Matthew Walzer wrote a letter to Nike with a request.
“I was born two months premature on October 19, 1995,” the letter began. “I weighed only two pounds fourteen ounces, and because my lungs were fully not developed, my brain did not receive enough oxygen. As a result, I have a brain injury that caused me to have Cerebral Palsy. Fortunately, I am only affected physically, as others can be affected mentally, physically or both.”
Walzer explained that doctors had told his parents he would never walk and that if he ever talked, he’d have a lisp. Both of those diagnoses turned out to be false. “I walk somewhat independently around my home and use crutches when I’m out or at school,” he wrote. He’s never had a problem with his speech. He said he wanted to go to college to become a journalist, and loved writing sports columns.
“Out of all the challenges I have overcome in my life,” he continued, “there is one that I am still trying to master, tying my shoes. Cerebral palsy stiffens the muscles in the body. As a result I have flexibility in only one of my hands which makes it impossible for me to tie my shoes.
“My dream is to go to the college of my choice without having to worry about someone coming to tie my shoes every day. I’ve worn Nike basketball shoes all my life. I can only wear this type of shoe, because I need ankle support to walk…At 16 years old, I am able to completely dress myself, but my parents still have to tie my shoes. As a teenager who is striving to become totally self-sufficient, I find this extremely frustrating and, at times, embarrassing.”
Walzer said he wasn’t making a business proposal, but bringing a need to Nike’s attention.
“If Nike would design and produce basketball and running shoes with moderate support and some kind of closure system that could be used by everyone, Nike could create a shoe line that attracts people that face the same physical challenges I did and still do, yet it could still be possible for anyone to wear them,” he wrote. “I am always searching the web for any type of shoe brand that makes athletic shoes that provide good support, are self-lacing and are made for everyday wear or for playing sports. It is disappointing that no athletic brand has taken the creative initiative to design and produce athletic shoes in this category.”
The letter made its way to Tobie Hatfield, a shoe designer at Nike who had been designing shoes for Special Olympics athletes and Paralympians with similar shoe needs. Hatfield reached out to Walzer and the two worked together to design a shoe that would work for him.
Walzer was blown away. He said his letter had been a “Hail Mary” attempt to find a shoe that would work for him, and he expected maybe a polite response letter, not a personal design partnership.
For several years, Hatfield would send Walzer designs to try and he would give his feedback. Ultimately, Nike developed a whole line of shoes that are quick and easy to get into. The FlyEase line makes athletic shoes accessible for a wider range of people—and they keep on making even better designs.
The new Nike GO FlyEase is the latest design—a completely hands-free shoe that’s even easier to get into and out of. The Nike FlyEase website describes how it works:
“Behind the shoe’s smooth motion is a bi-stable hinge that enables the shoe to be secure in fully open and fully closed states.
This duality allows another signature detail: the Nike GO FlyEase tensioner. The tensioner’s unique flexibility super-charges an action many might take for granted (kicking-off a shoe) and completely reimagines this movement as basis for accessible and empowering design.”
If that’s confusing, here’s a visual demonstration and explanation for how the design came about:
The Nike GO FlyEase will initially be available by invitation-only on February 15 and will become more broadly available later this year. We’re looking at a price of $120.
Pretty darn cool, Nike. This is what innovation should be used for—to make life better for everyone, no matter how people themselves are designed.
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FRED VANVLEET is up to a career-high 39 PTS, 10 THREES midway through the 3rd! 
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