Month: February 2021

With a handful of No. 1 singles under his belt, country singer Luke Combs continues to grow his already-enormous platform. Unlike other country musicians such as The Chicks or Maren Morris, Combs has stayed tight-lipped about his political views amid the election and Black Lives Matter protests. But with his new song “The Great Divide,” Combs offers a lukewarm take about how our country’s politics seem more divided then ever.

Combs shared his new song with a lengthy explanation about the single. In it, he said he wrote the track last June when there were “a lot of crazy things going on in the world.” But in the same breath, Combs said the single is “not meant to be political.” Fellow country singer Margo Price took issue with his argument, calling out Combs for other times he had no problem being political.

Sharing a video clip alongside his single, Combs detailed his decision to release the song at this time:

“It felt like the right time to put this song out. When we wrote it there were a lot of crazy things going on in the world, there are still a lot of crazy things going on in the world, and I just felt like I had some stuff to say. It’s not meant to be political, it’s not meant to try to tell you what to think or how to believe. That’s not my job. I’m just a guy kind of saying the way he was feeling when he wrote it. We recorded this song on a whim a few week ago and it just felt like something I wanted you guys to hear. I hope you love it. I know it probably sounds a little different than what you’re used to.”

After hearing Combs’ argument, Price was having none of it. Instead, she called out this double standard by sharing images of Combs with Confederate flag memorabilia and the time he allegedly flashed a white power hand sign during a televised performance. “when people say ‘they don’t want to be political’… smdh,” Price wrote.

After Combs fans began slamming Price under her original tweet, the singer shared a screenshot of one of the singer’s past tweets.

Check out Price and Combs’ tweets above.

More stories are emerging detailing the chaotic final days of Donald Trump’s presidency but, insurrection instigating aside, none sound as wild as a new Axios report detailing a heated confrontation between conspiracy-obsessed lawyer Sidney Powell and a group of White House advisers seemingly defending our democracy.

In their “Off The Rails” series, Axios has been chronicling the last month of Trump’s reign, one that included a second impeachment hearing and a MAGA-supporting mob storming Capitol Hill at the behest of the president himself. Outwardly, operations within the administration certainly seemed disorganized, but a recent account of a contentious meeting between top Trump aides paints an even more disturbing picture of what was going on in the Oval Office during those last weeks — and much of it centers around Powell. A newly ordained member of Trump’s “legal strike force” at the time, Powell crafted some truly bizarre conspiracy theories following Trump’s loss in the presidential election — ones that suggested foreign agents working for the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez had tampered with voting machines in Georgia and other states.

Powell of course has presented no proof of voter fraud, which is why Dominion — the tech company who owns the machines in question — is now suing her for $1.3 billion. But in mid-December of 2020, she was still adamant about foreign interference and she, along with former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, and former Trump administration official, Emily Newman, met with Trump to convince him her claims were true. Now we’re learning just how insane that meeting actually was.

According to Axios, while Powell, Flynn, and Byrne called Trump’s staff “quitters” and “disloyal,” senior advisers to the president like Eric Herschmann and White House staff secretary Derek Lyons were trying desperately to convince Trump not to give Powell top-secret security clearance and invoke National Emergency powers to overturn the election. At one point, things between Flynn and Herschmann got so tense that Herschann told the pardoned criminal, “Why the fuck do you keep standing up and screaming at me. If you want to come over here, come over here. If not, sit your ass down.”

The meeting went on for hours as Powell reportedly told Trump that her co-counsel, Rudy Giuliani, hadn’t “understood what this case is about” when he chose to focus on Democrats’ involvement in alleged voter fraud instead of her Chavez theory. When Giuliani finally showed up to the White House to try to calm both parties down, Herschmann dragged Powell for throwing Rudy under the bus.

Reports Axios:

Herschmann, Cipollone and Lyons left the Oval Office, but soon discovered that the Powell entourage had made their way to the president’s residence. They followed them upstairs, to the Yellow Oval Room, Trump’s living room, where they were joined by Giuliani and Meadows.

Trump sat beside Powell in armchairs facing the door, separated by a round, wooden antique table. Giuliani sat in an armchair to the right of them, while Byrne and Meadows sat on a couch. Byrne wolfed down pigs in a blanket and little meatballs on toothpicks that staff had set on the coffee table.

Herschmann was primed to brawl and ready to dump on Powell. It had been a long day.

“Rudy,” he said, turning to Giuliani, “Sidney was just in the Oval telling the president you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. Right, Sidney?” He turned to Powell: “Why don’t you tell Rudy to his face?”

“Eric, really it’s not appropriate,” Trump replied curtly.

“What’s not appropriate?” Herschmann shot back. Turning to Powell, he said, “Why don’t you repeat to Rudy what you just told the president in the Oval Office — that he has no idea about the case and that he only just began to understand it a few hours ago.”

Three days later, Giuliani would publicly distance himself from Powell, telling Newsmax that Powell did not represent the president, and that “whatever she’s talking about, it’s her own opinions.”

As things devolved into a late-night screaming match between Powell’s conspiracy-peddling crew and Trump loyalist trying to keep their sinking ship afloat, Trump “wandered to his dining room,” and seemed desperate to find ways to overturn the election results any way he could.

The whole saga is a fascinating read but this line sums up pretty much everything you need to know about the tumultuous talk: “When Rudy’s the voice of reason, you know the meeting’s not going well.”

Atlanta singer/rapper Pollari is the latest to grace UPROXX Sessions with a moody performance of the hyper-pop-inflected “Lover’s Lane.” Built on a 2000s alt-rock-esque guitar loop produced by Yung Skrrt and accented with futuristic, spacey sound effects, “Lover’s Lane” finds Pollari imploring an ex to move on: “Here’s to the dream you sold me,” he croons. “Hope you move on one day.”

Pollari is signed to Rick Rubin’s American Records and Pulse Recordings. In 2020, he released four projects, including three EPs and a 20-song compilation of older tracks called Forever, Yours 2. His most recent one, December’s Never Sorry, featured the single “Heartless!” He’s also accrued an impressive list of notable collaborators which includes Playboi Carti, Lil Skies, Lil Yachty, Nick Mira, Cole Bennett, and more. With his emotive, melodic style, he’s right in line with the current wave of young stars using social media to build followings and break out in their own, defiant lanes.

Watch Pollari’s “Love’s Lane” performance for UPROXX Sessions above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

In about two months, Cloud Nothings have a new album, The Shadow I Remember, on the way. For the release, they reunited with producer Steve Albini, who produced 2012’s Attack On Memory, and they’ve shared some glimpses of the album here and there. Today, they’re back with a new one, “Nothing Without You,” and they even made a video game to accompany the song.

The band released a video for the track, and since it’s just a playthrough of the game, it details the playing experience well. It’s a simple game that tasks the player with taking care of a Tamagotchi-like creature by playing with it, feeding it, and so on.

Baldi says of the song and game, “‘Nothing Without You’ explores both the negative and positive aspects of dependency, whether it be on a person, a place, an object, or nothing at all. Jesse Jacobs and Vagabond Dog took that concept and filtered it through the ultimate needy creature, the Tamagotchi.” Jacobs adds, “Put your compassion to the test by providing care and protection to this new species of virtual pet. This fussy animal demands a quality diet, clean living environment, and righteous tunes.”

Listen to “Nothing Without You” above.

The Shadow I Remember is out 2/26 via Carpark Records. Pre-order it here.

On Tuesday, EA Sports made a gigantic announcement when it revealed that it is bringing back its college football video game franchise under the EA Sports College Football title. The last time it made a college football game was with NCAA Football 14, which because of the scarcity and the seven-plus years that have gone by since its release can only be found for an exorbitant price on eBay and other places.

I am among those who has held tight to their copy of NCAA 14, as it (along with Skate 3) is the sole reason my Xbox 360 still has prime placement in my living room — I am currently working through a UMass Dynasty on our Uproxx Edge Twitch channel every Tuesday evening. I love the old NCAA games, as I had every title from 2005 through the final 2014 game, and spent much of my freshman year of college flunking classes because I was too busy working a two-team Dynasty with my roommate every day for an almost embarrassing number of hours each day.

Playing the 2014 edition is a reminder of some of the frustrations of old, and with the various issues and stagnation the Madden franchise has had — particularly with its career and franchise modes due to a lack of investment — we have some hopes for how EA will approach its new college football reboot. We’ll start with the things we want to see, from the “this should be in there” to the “please do this it’d be so much fun even if we know it won’t happen,” and then address some of the temptations that might come for EA’s development of the game that we know will be disastrous.

WHAT WE WANT

Focus On Dynasty Mode

I know that Ultimate Team modes are the focus for EA Sports with Madden and FIFA, sometimes to the detriment of the franchise/manager modes, but I am begging the good folks at EA to recognize why people loved the NCAA games and spend the majority of their time on the Dynasty Mode. It is the flagship mode of the franchise because it was so unique to any other franchise mode. In Madden, there’s only so much you do in free agency and trades. You aren’t going to make trades every week — or, at least, most people won’t — and free agency is a brief offseason note. FIFA is a little closer to the immersive nature of recruiting with the transfer windows and constant scouting of youth players, but it’s still just not quite the same. Recruiting is as big a deal as the games itself, and honestly you spend more time doing that than playing and it’s great, at least from my point of view.

I hope they really dive into the recruiting space and figure out how to expand it. Having played the 2014 game a lot recently, I’d like to see them go back to having a little more to do week-to-week in terms of picking what to talk with recruits about (or at least have that option) as well as negative recruiting other schools. Make visit weeks a bit more of a big deal and maybe even get into the dirty side of recruiting (hold this thought).

The Dynasty mode, by itself, is worth the price of the game if done right and while I know the temptation will be to try and create something new, I hope they simply try to make that mode the best it can be and invest most of their time into that. It’s why people love the game and have rallied to bring it back, and if you want to give them what they want, it’s expanding and dialing in the program building aspect of Dynasty.

Embrace College Football Offenses

The previous franchise did this pretty well and I just want to emphasize they should really spend some time to make sure they get this right rather than making tweaks to Madden playbooks. There is such a variance in college football in terms of what teams run and so many different schemes that separates it from the pros. It allows you to take advantage of things you have and mitigate deficiencies that come with being one of CFB’s have nots. The triple option will for sure be in there, but it goes well beyond that. There has been a lot of progression in college football offense since the last game came out, and it’ll take some serious conversations with coaches and research to get as much of that variety into the game. It would absolutely worth it, if not crucial, to really separate this from Madden — it is in no way a stretch to say that if this plays like Madden but with college football branding that this game would be viewed as a bit of a dud.

Let Us Commit Recruiting Violations

I understand why the NCAA games might have avoided this, because with NCAA licensing comes a partnership and the NCAA doesn’t exactly want to promote dirty recruiting. However, this is now licensed through CLC, which is just giving them rights to schools, stadiums, uniforms, etc. As such, I really hope they use the fact that they aren’t tethered to the NCAA to get into committing recruiting violations and the like. I want to get stripped of three national championships at Coastal Carolina because I got sloppy and was handing out $100s like candy on Halloween and have to restart my career at Nick Saban’s School For Wayward Boys (shouts to Michael Felder) as the offensive coordinator at Alabama to rebuild my image. Bring back recruiting promises, but add in being able to build a bag man network, and if you don’t meet your promises, that kid might go tell somebody about it and get you canned. The people crave it, let them have it now that you’re free from the NCAA.

Find A Way To Pay The Kids In Real Life

For now, the plan is to have the rosters be random groupings that share no resemblance to the names, images, and likeness of the players. That’s good, to start, but also as NIL legislation moves through the federal government, let’s make sure we find a way to get money to the kids, however that’s needed to be done. It seems as though that’s the plan, but it just needs to be said. It’s really cool to be in a video game, but it’s way cooler to be in a game when you’re getting paid.

WHAT WE DON’T WANT

Do Not Try To Make Targeting A Thing

Playing NCAA 14, I came to the horrific realization that if an NCAA game returned they would try to put targeting into it, because they are obsessed with realism. I do not play video games for complete and total realism, I play them to have fun. In NCAA 14, they became obsessed with replay reviews, a thing that, objectively, should not be in a video game. You are a game, you do not need to purposefully get things wrong just to review them. You are in total control here, video game, you can just make the right call, all the time, and not try to add “the human element” which is the thing people hate the most about officiating.

That brings me to targeting. Flagging dangerous hits to the head is important and necessary given the dangers, both short and long term, of head injuries. However, a video game does not have to worry about that, and we can save a lot of headaches by just not trying to make targeting a thing in the new game. It’s going to be tempting, because you’re a “simulation” game, but you can just ignore that one. There is no way in a video game to have full control of how your player tackles and so you’d just be spinning a wheel and randomly throwing guys out in the name of “realism.” Don’t do it. No one will miss it if it’s not in there.

Don’t Get Too Cute With The Coaching Carousel

I have seen people, mostly college football media folks, who have decided that it’d be cool to have coaching buyouts in the game. No. Just, no. We don’t need coaching salaries and buyouts and detailed contracts. Just hire me, fire me, and move on — again, hopefully I’m being fired for brazen recruiting violations. We don’t need buyout negotiations if I want to go to another school, and if we start having it to where you make money as a coach then you know that means microtransactions will somehow be put into this (more on this in about two seconds!). Let’s just not do that and keep it fun.

Microtransaction-mania

The microtransactions economy in video games is gross, we all know this. The ideal situation is that EA Sports makes the correct decision — which would also be based in goodwill since this was not in the last college football game it created — and just does not include them at all. But it seems extremely unlikely that would happen because of how much money microtransactions pull in for EA Sports, they are a rock upon which franchises like Madden and FIFA are built. Hopefully there can be something of a compromise position here, where microtransactions are used for totally innocuous stuff like old uniforms and other small things that add to the aesthetic of the game if you so choose and absolutely nothing more. If EA gets in way too deep here and makes it so VC is, say, crucial for Dynasty Mode to function — “you need X to improve your facilities, which makes it easier to recruit” or “for X you’re able to pay for a better academic staff so your players are academically eligible for games” — and the easiest way to get VC is to pay real money, it would be a major disappointment.

Don’t Spread Yourselves Thin

This one couples with the first point on focusing on Dynasty mode but it’s the thing that’s most concerning to me. There’s surely been a million ideas EA’s kicked around over the past seven or eight years about things they’d do with a college football game if they brought it back, but you can’t do it all in the first edition. Lay the foundation again and then build. That includes maybe not getting everything fans, including myself, ask for in this one, which is perfectly fine. Make Dynasty mode a hit again and work your way out from there. If you can do a story mode for a player career mode, that’d be really cool and I think there’s something there with starting in HS and getting recruited, but it doesn’t have to be a grandiose thing in the first game, especially if it comes at the expense of making your flagship mode worse. I’m sure they’ll try and make a CFB Ultimate Team mode, because that’s a revenue driver, but, really, don’t lose focus on what made people love this game.

After the dizzying high of last week, the price of GameStop stocks has started to plummet after a group of retail traders on Reddit boosted the price by over 1,600 percent, which caused Wall Street to scramble as hedge fund billionaires went on cable news and cried that the coordinated effort was “attacking wealthy people.” While the moment enjoyed a brief celebration as a populist revolt, the WallStreetBets subreddit is reportedly experiencing low morale as the stock frenzy has died down. Enter Mark Cuban, who stopped by the subreddit on Tuesday for an “Ask Me Anything” session where he doled out advice on what to do next and also took a shot at the Robinhood trading app for its controversial decision to block users from buying GameStop and other “volatile” stocks last Thursday. According to Cuban, that move caused the stocks to “dive” by cutting off the source of natural buyers: day traders. Via Deadline:

“If you can afford to hold the stock, you hold. I dont own it, but thats what i would do. Why? because when RH and the other online brokers open it back up to buyers, then we will see what WSB is really made of. That is when you get to make it all work. I have no doubt that there are funds and big players that have shorted this stock again thinking they are smarter than everyone on WSB. I know you are going to hate to hear this, but the lower it goes, the more powerful WSB can be stepping up to buy the stock again.”

Judging by the responses Cuban received, the subreddit plans to follow his advice with some users proclaiming, “BUY AND HOLD. WHEN WE BLEED, THEY BLEED AS WELL.” As for whether that gamble pays off, that remains to be seen, but it’ll be interesting to watch in the several movies that are already being frantically written about the week when GameStop stocks captivated a very bored world.

(Via Deadline)

As the cold, dark days of winter carry on, restaurants all over the country are struggling to keep patrons coming in the proverbial door. Despite expensive and elaborate upgrades to help make restaurant dining safer, the one-two punch of the pandemic and frigid temperatures has done a number on restaurants’ cash flow. Already, 17% of all restaurants in the United States have permanently closed since the start of the pandemic.

The National Restaurant Association described the industry as being “in an economic free-fall” in their plea to the U.S. House of Representatives, for some economic relief. If no help is received, they expect 58% of restaurants to continue furloughs and layoffs in the first quarter of the year.

There are, however, some big businesses doing their part to support the restaurant industry in its time of need. Capital One, for example, is taking a multi-pronged approach to helping the restaurant industry. One of those initiatives is providing over 30 restaurants nationwide with funding to safely and successfully winterize their outdoor dining options so they can stay open and keep their occupancy up.

“Restaurants are anchors in the communities in which we live and work, which is why we’re providing them support so they can better access the tools they need to survive these difficult winter months,” says Monica Bauder, Head of Cardholder Access at Capital One. “At Capital One, the dining industry has always been an important community to us and we want to continue to find ways to help them through this difficult time.”

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Cotogna, an Italian restaurant in San Francisco’s Jackson Square, was able to build an outdoor structure with a roof and heaters at each table thanks to Capital One’s help. The staff also put olive trees between the tables to act as barriers while maintaining the restaurant’s ambiance. Now Cotogna can operate at full capacity entirely outdoors.

Courtesy of Cotogna

“We are really committed to making guests feel safe and comfortable and want them to feel like they’re eating at the Cotogna they know and love,” says Matt Cirne, Cotogna’s beverage director. “Having partners like Capital One that are willing to be creative and really help restaurants navigate the uncertainty that lies ahead is crucial.”

Two well-known restaurants in Washington, D.C., ABC Pony and Maketto, have also received support from Capital One during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since everyone uses online reservation services these days, Capital One partnered with Seven Rooms to provide complimentary table reservation services to restaurants like them. This service will be invaluable for restaurants whether they’re able to be open now or later.

“It’s going to be crucially important to have constant communication with our guests once it’s safe to reopen our indoor dining rooms to ensure that each person feels comfortable,” says Erik Bruner-Yang, a Washington D.C.-based chef who also manages ABC Pony and Maketto. “Capital One’s sponsorship of our transition to using Seven Rooms as our management system will help keep our guests up-to-date in real-time about our COVID-19 safety practices and other important updates.”

The impact on the restaurant industry is changing month-to-month though, which is why Capital One is adapting its support to fit the new needs. For example, the company is also working with Bruner-Yang on The Power of 10, an initiative he created that is helping restaurants keep their employees employed and food insecure communities fed. The initiative found that a restaurant can keep 10 full-time staff employed and make 1,000 meals for frontline healthcare workers and other vulnerable community members with $10,000 a week. So far, the partnership has lead to over 55,000 meals served and 280 jobs saved.

Erik Bruner-YangCourtesy of The Power of 10

In order to help the thousands of restaurant workers who’ve lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Capital One has also partnered with Get Shift Done, a nonprofit that’s hiring impacted restaurant workers to help put together food boxes for food-insecure communities nationwide.

And since keeping a restaurant afloat during the pandemic is an uphill battle, Capital One, the official credit card partner of The James Beard Foundation, hosted a free webinar series for restaurant owners as part of the foundation’s Open for Good Initiative. The initiative was designed to act as a guidepost for owners during this unprecedented time when the future looks so uncertain, and provided useful information on cash flow, business credit, human resources, social media, and public relations.

Despite the challenges that businesses have faced – and continue to face – more than two-thirds of business owners remain optimistic that their businesses will return to pre-pandemic operations and revenues, according to a recent survey conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of Capital One Business.

While that optimism is encouraging, it’s taken resilience and dedication among business owners to navigate the stressful environment of the past year.

Many businesses, including those in the food services industry, have taken measures to help navigate the economic shutdowns and social distancing mandates brought on by the pandemic. They’ve adopted contactless payment options, delivery, online ordering and curbside pickup to keep their doors open and stay connected to customers.

To support local restaurants and the broader small business community, Capital One partnered with a coalition of brands and nonprofit organizations to launch Small Unites, a national advocacy program that is providing ongoing support for small businesses across America. As part of Small Unites, anyone can donate to verified small business fundraisers, as well as the Small Business Relief Fund.

Learn more about how Capital One is helping build thriving communities.

The last we heard from Rostam (aside from his Amanda Gorman song) was his October single “Unfold You.” Now he’s back with his first official single of 2021, a breezy number called “These Kids We Knew.” On the track, he takes a critical position on how older generations deal (or don’t deal) with climate issues.

The lyrics to the song are simple, as they consist of a handful of repeated lines: “These kids we knew for so long / they don’t speak like they been spoken to / by governments or emperors / Gonna line you up on the sidewalk court / Ain’t proud of where we’re going / You say we can’t afford the slow down / but the skies won’t take it no more / so we’re gonna slowly pull the earth back together.”

Rostam says of the track:

“I was thinking of three generations while I was writing this song. There’s a generation of adults who don’t see global warming as their problem because they think they won’t be impacted by it. Then there’s a generation younger than mine, who will certainly have to deal with what is happening. In the song I have a fantasy of the younger generation arresting the adults and putting them on trial in the streets of cities around the world. Those are the ‘sidewalk courts’ that I sing about in the song. The song was written in a fever-dream state during the second week of March last year while I was recovering from COVID-19.”

Listen to “These Kids We Knew” above.

Azealia Banks graces headlines every once and a while after making offensive and controversial remarks about her music industry contemporaries. The last we heard from Banks, however, she had pulled her dead cat out of the ground and boiled it on the stove in an extremely disturbing video. But now, Banks is back to her usual routine of taking aim at fellow musicians. This time, Megan Thee Stallion, FKA Twigs, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are the targets of her rant.

Taking to her Instagram Stories early Tuesday morning, the rapper began by discrediting Megan’s claims about getting shot by Tory Lanez last summer. Though Megan has shared graphic photos of her injuries and is currently seeking legal action against Lanez, Banks slammed the rapper as using her story as a way to “virtue signal.”

Next, Banks made some disparaging comments about FKA Twigs recently opening up about being in an abusive relationship with Shia LaBeouf. Banks labeled the singer’s story as “weak,” even though LaBeouf confirmed his abusive actions and apologized to the women he’s hurt.

Finally, Banks made the belittling claim that women in the music industry opening up about their past trauma is just a marketing method.

Read snippets of Banks’ Instagram rant above.

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

Drakeo The Ruler is living his best life now that he’s back on the outside. With yet another new project, The Truth Hurts, in the works for 2021, he is too busy enjoying his recently restored freedom to worry about life’s minor problems. That’s the theme of his laid-back new single, “Too Icey,” which arrived today with a video depicting Drakeo savoring the finer things — namely, Southern California’s fresh air, a brand-new Rolls-Royce, and a bottle of Tropicana apple juice in the cupholder.

The blend of high-low aesthetics — Drakeo’s regular-guy posturing at a gas station with a car full of snacks and his phone on the charger contrasts nicely with his to-the-socks Supreme ‘fit and luxury automobile — is part of Drakeo’s appeal. He’s a gangster rapper who readily admits his gritty tales are at least partly made-up and maintains a pretty low profile despite his classy flexes. The car is aspirational but the rapper in it is relatable.

He’s also a workaholic, releasing a nonstop stream of new singles and projects since he was declared free from the corrupt LA County penal system just after election day in 2020. Even when he was inside he never stopped working; his album Thank You For Using GTL, recorded on the phone from Men’s Central Jail, was one of 2020’s most impressive and innovative projects.

Watch the “Too Icey” video above.