Month: February 2021

Rich The Kid visits a rapper-run burlesque establishment in the video for his Lucky 7 single “Nasty.” Directed by Teyana Taylor — in the guise of Spike Tey, naturally — the video features three of hip-hop’s hottest rising stars in Flo Milli, Mulatto, and Rubi Rose. While Rich gambles at the high-stakes table, the ladies pose as dancers, running through their risque routines and lounging together. At the end of the video, it’s revealed their antics were all a cover for Rich to make off with the contents of the casino’s safe and the quartet escapes in one explosive finale.

Rich had a rougher 2020 than most, riding out a litany of lawsuits from everyone from his landlord to his former managers to Fashion Nova due to his alleged propensity for running off on the plug — the “plug” in this case being anyone he contractually owes money to. All told, he owes several million dollars to a variety of parties, so here’s hoping he lives up to his name.

Meanwhile, the three MCs who joined him on “Nasty” were collectively more fruitful in 2020. Flo Milli shocked the world with her debut mixtape, Ho, Why Is You Here?, while Mulatto landed on XXL’s Freshman cover just before the release of her debut album Queen Of Da Souf. Rubi released a string of singles throughout the year, then closed out strong with her own debut project, For The Streets.

Watch Rich The Kid’s “Nasty” video featuring Flo Milli, Mulatto, and Rubi Rose above.

For weeks, NBA observers were captivated by ongoing trade discussions involving James Harden. While only a handful of teams seemed to have a real chance to land the prolific guard, Harden is one of the best players in the league and, by extension, it is big news when he is on the move. Eventually, the deal transpired in mid-January, with the Houston Rockets sending Harden to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for a massive haul of assets. Immediately, the focus shifted to Brooklyn and how Harden would be integrated with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, while only die-hards and Rockets fans centered on the shift transpiring in Houston.

Since the trade, however, the Rockets are on the upswing, and that is especially true in the more recent past. When the Harden trade happened, the Rockets were 3-6 and, with a bit of uncertainty in the immediate aftermath, Houston woke up on the morning of Jan. 21 with a 4-9 record and an uphill battle to come. Fast-forward to Monday evening, and Houston scored 48 (!) points in the first quarter, knocking down 11 three-pointers in the opening period and blowing the doors off the Oklahoma City Thunder. That is just one game, of course, but the Rockets now hold the NBA’s second-longest winning streak of six games.

During the stretch since the trade, the Rockets lead the NBA in defensive rating, allowing only 102.6 points per 100 possessions. Houston is deploying an athletic, flexible defense and, while there is some regression from opponent shooting in the offing, the Rockets aren’t a fluke defensively. All told, Houston is eighth in the NBA in net rating this season while sporting a 10-9 record, and the team’s defense is No. 3 in the NBA.

It would be fair to suggest that the Rockets can’t keep up their torrid recent pace but, at the same time, Houston’s roster does have considerable talent. Christian Wood is perhaps the front-runner for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award, averaging 23.3 points and 10.7 rebounds per game while shooting 56 percent from the floor and 39 percent from three-point distance. Victor Oladipo is performing at a high level, averaging more than 20 points per game in his new home, and John Wall has recaptured some pre-injury magic, averaging 17.8 points and 5.8 assists per game. Finally, Eric Gordon seems to be revitalized, putting up 20.4 points per game and shooting 41.4 percent from three-point range since the trade.

Houston is an interesting case study in many ways, including just how much of a “bump” they are benefitting from simply because Harden isn’t there and the team is galvanized as a result. The long run will be more telling but, for now, Stephen Silas is doing tremendous work and the Rockets feel like an actual contender to make the postseason, even without their long-term centerpiece.

Where does Houston fall in our DIME power rankings this week? Let’s take a glance.

1. Los Angeles Lakers (16-6, Last week — 1st)

The Lakers just completed a grueling, seven-game road trip with a 5-2 record, capped by a win over the Atlanta Hawks on Monday. Most of the drama in that particular game centered on a bizarre fan interaction, but the Lakers took care of business on the court. That is more than enough to keep them in the top spot, even if the No. 2 team technically has a better record.

2. L.A. Clippers (16-5, Last week — 2nd)

As discussed in depth last week in this space, the Clippers are absolutely rolling. Their current run includes 10 wins in 11 games, with an elite offense, an improving defense and plenty of star power.

3. Philadelphia 76ers (15-6, Last week — 6th)

Philly is 6-1 in the last seven games, including a 3-0 mark in the last week. Their point differential isn’t quite as dominant as their 15-6 mark indicates, but once again, the 76ers are just dominating at home with a 10-1 record. In a season in which homecourt advantage doesn’t mean as much, you would have a hard time convincing Philadelphia.

4. Milwaukee Bucks (12-8, Last week — 4th)

Milwaukee suffered two losses in two days this week, landing on the wrong end of a back-to-back on the road. Did that keep the Bucks from rising up the board this week? Perhaps. Does that scare me too much? Nope. Milwaukee still leads the NBA in offensive rating and net rating. Until the underlying metrics wobble, there isn’t much to fear.

5. Denver Nuggets (12-8, Last week — 8th)

The slow start seems to be a thing of the past in Denver, with the Nuggets winning six of the last seven games. Nikola Jokic might be the MVP of the league right now, keying a top-five offense, and the Nuggets picked up a very impressive home win over Utah in their last outing.

6. Utah Jazz (15-5, Last week — 3rd)

Speaking of Utah, the Jazz are still playing at a high level, but the Nuggets prevailed in the head-to-head battle. Still, Utah just won 11 straight games and they are 4th in the NBA in net rating through 20 games. If anything, this might be a little bit low.

7. Brooklyn Nets (13-9, Last week — 5th)

The Nets have allowed 123 points or more in seven of the last eight games. In that eight-game run, Brooklyn is yielding nearly 1.19 points per possession to the opposition and, well, that isn’t going to work. Everyone knows how good the Nets already are on the offensive end, but they have to improve at least a little bit on defense, or nothing matters.

8. Memphis Grizzlies (9-6, Last week — 9th)

Memphis may never lose again. The Grizzlies won five in a row, then had five straight postponements, only to come back and win their first two games. Both wins were on the road against a competent Spurs team, which is also impressive. Memphis likely isn’t a top-10 team in the grand scheme, but they haven’t suffered a loss since Jan. 7. I mean, come on.

9. Houston Rockets (10-9, Last week — 17th)

It will be interesting to see if Houston can keep it rolling. The Rockets have four of the next five on the road, but the schedule is also relatively friendly in terms of opponents.

10. Phoenix Suns (11-8, Last week — 11th)

Phoenix just swept Dallas in a two-game set on the road after soundly beating Golden State at home. That’s a nice three-game run, even when acknowledging the Mavericks’ recent struggles.

11. Boston Celtics (10-8, Last week — 7th)

Since a stretch of three postponements earlier in January, the Celtics are just 3-5. Amusingly, Boston actually has a +3.7 net rating in those eight games, with close losses and blowout wins. It’s tough to really figure out what’s going on with the Celtics, though, and they need Marcus Smart healthy.

12. Indiana Pacers (11-9, Last week — 10th)

Maybe some trouble brewing? Indiana’s defense is allowing almost 1.15 points per possession in the last eight contests. They have some roster availability questions, but the Pacers can’t thrive while deploying a bottom-tier defense.

13. Atlanta Hawks (10-10, Last week — 14th)

The Hawks are just pretty solid. Atlanta is 5-3 in the last eight games, and the three losses came to Milwaukee, Brooklyn and the Lakers. To be fair, the wins came against very favorable competition, so the takeaway might be that Trae Young and company just did what they were supposed to do the last two weeks.

14. Toronto Raptors (8-12, Last week — 15th)

Within the confines of this week, the Raptors were 1-2 with two home losses. That isn’t ideal but, in zooming out, Toronto is 6-4 in the last ten games with a top-10 net rating. That qualifies as “baby steps” on the way back to a solid overall baseline, but the Raptors quite obviously aren’t as bad as they were to begin the season.

15. Golden State Warriors (11-9, Last week — 13th)

The positive takeaway is that Golden State is 3-1 in the last four games. The more skeptical takeaway is that the three wins came at home against the Wolves and Pistons. The actual takeaway? Business as usual.

16. San Antonio Spurs (11-10, Last week — 12th)

There is no great shame in losing to Memphis at home, even when it comes on both ends of a two-game set. San Antonio was throttled in both match-ups, though, and that hurts a little bit.

17. Portland Trail Blazers (10-9, Last week — 16th)

We can (and should) discuss the fact that Portland isn’t very good right now, even if explainable due to injuries. Today, though, it is worth mentioning that 2019 lottery pick Nassir Little had the best game of his career on Monday, scoring 30 points in a loss to Milwaukee. It would be helpful if the former North Carolina forward could emerge.

18. Charlotte Hornets (10-11, Last week — 23rd)

Charlotte is riding a three-game winning streak, and that explains the uptick in this space. However, LaMelo Ball is the big story, punctuated by a 27-point, nine-assist, five-rebound explosion in a win over Milwaukee on Saturday. He’s the best prospect in the rookie class.

19. Cleveland Cavaliers (10-11, Last week — 20th)

This is more of a nod to their ability to hang around at 10-11. Metrically, Cleveland is worse than this (24th in net rating) and they’ve lost four of the last six. Hey, at least they’re competitive.

20. Sacramento Kings (9-11, Last week — 27th)

It would be silly to ignore the season-long disaster that is Sacramento’s defense. With that out of the way, the Kings are 4-1 in the last five games and they are only allowing about 1.1 points per possession. That is a huge step up and, at that level, they can survive and potentially even thrive.

21. Chicago Bulls (8-11, Last week — 22nd)

The Bulls are pretty much hovering in the range that most expected. However, Lauri Markkanen just scored 30 or more points in back-to-back games, and that is something to closely monitor. They need him to be aggressive and good.

22. Miami Heat (7-13, Last week — 19th)

Jimmy Butler is back, and that should help. Miami is still 3-9 in the last 12 games, though, and they are not playing at nearly the level they found in the Orlando bubble. Some of that can be explained by roster woes… but not all of it.

23. New Orleans Pelicans (7-12, Last week — 29th)

The Pels stabilized with two home wins to begin the week, only to give it back with home losses to Houston and Sacramento. Fortunately, the Rockets and Kings are just playing better basketball right now, but New Orleans is still underachieving. The trade winds are blowing and the roster just doesn’t work the way it should right now.

24. New York Knicks (9-13, Last week — 21st)

New York is still eighth in defense right now, but the slippage has set in. The Knicks weren’t going to be able to maintain a top-five defense without some very good fortune and, on the other end, New York is 25th in offense. They are still pretty competitive on the whole, which is better than many expected.

25. Washington Wizards (4-12, Last week — 26th)

Things are pretty hideous from this point forward. Washington did out-dual Brooklyn in their last outing, but they needed 149 points to get a three-point victory. That says a lot about the Nets defensively, but it was also a victory that kept the Wizards out of the bottom five this week. Make no mistake, they’re still struggling.

26. Oklahoma City Thunder (8-11, Last week — 24th)

After an encouraging start, reality is setting in for Oklahoma City. They are 3-7 in the last ten games, with a ghastly defensive rating of 117.9 over that span. They did beat Portland Phoenix on the road last week, but followed it up with two (very) lopsided defeats in a row.

27. Orlando Magic (8-13, Last week — 25th)

Orlando has been the worst team in the league over the last 13 games. The Magic are 2-11 in that stretch and, more damningly, Orlando has been outscored by 13.1 points per 100 possessions. The team’s 6-2 start is still making the season-long numbers appear more respectable, but yikes.

28. Dallas Mavericks (8-13, Last week — 18th)

No, Dallas isn’t actually this bad. The Mavericks do have the longest losing streak (six games) in the NBA, though, and they are struggling in a mighty way. It’s been really ugly.

29. Detroit Pistons (5-15, Last week — 28th)

Granted, Anthony Davis didn’t play in the game, but the Pistons beat the Lakers by 15 points this week. That actually happened, and there has never been a bigger endorsement for the weirdest season imaginable.

30. Minnesota Timberwolves (5-15, Last week — 30th)

The Wolves are 3-15 in the last 18 games. That kind of says it all, but the theory of Minnesota’s potential sleeper status this season centered on a high-powered offense. At this moment, the Wolves are dead-last in offensive efficiency.

For years, gamers have begged for EA Sports and the NCAA to come together and make a new college football video game, something that has not happened since NCAA Football 14 due to legal issues that have popped up over licensing issues that stem from using amateur athletes without any sort of compensation.

College football has popped up in games in recent years, most recently with some team likenesses being available in Madden, but on Tuesday afternoon, EA Sports announced that it will get back into the college football game. In a tweet that didn’t leave all that much room for interpretation, the company announced that “college football is coming back,” and said that doing this was for the fans who “never stopped believing” that a college football game would return somewhere down the road.

EA Sports also announced that this series will get its own Twitter account, which shared the message.

The series of games is beloved among gamers, regardless of whether or not they love the wonderfully strange sport of college football. And with the last game coming out nearly eight years ago, a number of folks took a victory lap to celebrate the years of begging EA Sports and the NCAA to figure out a way to turn this into a reality.

There are tons of questions about the game — release date, if EA Sports will use a lot of the same mechanisms that are used in Madden or make this its own unique game, how close it will feel to previous versions of the game, whether real players will be in the game and compensated, etc. — but answers to all of that will come somewhere down the line. For now, those who have been wanting a college football game for years are finally seeing one of their biggest wishes come true.

LaKeith Stanfield has emerged as one of the best actors working today. Hands down. No doubt about it. When he’s on the screen, he’s got … well, he’s got “it,” whatever “it” is. He’s got an acting style that we might have seen in the ’70s, when auteurs ruled the screen, with a unique grit and gravitas that’s impossible not to notice. Think of a movie like Knives Out (when I bring this movie up in the interview, Stanfield immediately says how much he wants to work with director Rian Johnson again), where there’s an entire all-star cast, by design, hamming it up for the camera. Yet there’s Stanfield, as the erstwhile detective, just doing what he does, laying the groundwork of a character we could all latch onto, surrounded by eccentric weirdos. It’s remarkable how he still stands out, even in a hyper-stylized situation like that. (TL;DR: No matter how good your movie might be, if you want your movie to be better, put LaKeith Stanfield in it.)

As you’ll read below, Stanfield struggled with playing William O’Neal in Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah (which premiered at Sundance this week). The movie is casually referenced as “the movie about Fred Hampton” (played by Daniel Kaluuya), but that doesn’t tell the full story. The movie’s main character is William O’Neal, the man who infiltrated Hampton’s Black Panthers as an FBI informant (an option given to O’Neal instead of jail time for a crime he committed), later giving the feds the information that would get Hampton killed. Stanfield personally found O’Neal’s actions “reprehensible,” but still found a way to give the character some empathy. Stanfield scoured old interviews with O’Neal and, believes, he found the man to have remorse. Also, as Stanfield points out, the fact O’Neal later committed suicide on the night a documentary about his actions aired is a telling sign that he was battling the demons. But what if Stanfield is wrong? What if there wasn’t remorse? What if he’s giving some humanity to a man who doesn’t deserve it? Stanfield admits this question haunted him and made this one of the toughest roles he’s ever had to play.

And that’s the thing that makes Stanfield great. He’s such a thoughtful actor. It’s obvious how much this responsibility weighed on him, which we see in his electric performance. By the end, I’m left a little awestruck, basically just asking, “Hey, man, why are you so good?” Of course, there’s no good way for an actor to answer that, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s just remarkable what he can do. Again, if you want your movie to be better, put LaKeith Stanfield in it.

What is your personal opinion of William O’Neal?

I didn’t know the man when he was alive. I mean, he died in 1990, right before I was born.

Right.

But I never could have known him, so I really can’t say my actual opinion about him fully. My opinion about some of the things that he did, I find him reprehensible. Although, in my studies, I’ve become a little bit more empathetic to the human being than I was before. I sort of opened up my awareness and allowed myself to view him more as a human being instead of casting judgment based on some actions that he’s done. I guess I should have just kept this short and said I ended up feeling sorry for him a little bit. It’s really tragic thing the way his story ended and the way that it unfolded for him. I want better for my fellow humans, all of them.

That’s why I was really curious what your position on what he did, because there is some empathy there in your performance. I kind of got the sense it’s hard to say you feel empathetic for someone who did what he did. But at the same time it does feel like they put him in a situation where there were not a lot of good options.

Yeah, it made me reflect on what I might do in that situation. It’s easy to say I’d take 10 years. I’m not going to put someone like Fred Hampton in a compromised position. But the way things unfolded, you may not even have known that’s the decision he would end up having to make. It was a snowball effect, apparently, where he made a couple bad decisions and now you have to continue along this line or things just get worse for you. So you have to do more and more extreme things. This may very well have been the case. My interpretation was that this was how it went down. Now, I can’t be completely sure about that, even given the information that I had because it’s just simply not enough to know whether or not this is how it went down. In my mind, that’s the only way I could rationalize it.

Right.

So, I tried to put that on the character. So, that way, it could make sense to people and make sense to me. Because I couldn’t understand the character that just would be just a complete villain who is just like, “Fuck these people.” Okay, I’ll put it this way: There’s no way you can sit at a Fred Hampton speech and not be moved by the words that this guy was saying unless you’re just a complete lizard. And I don’t think that William O’Neal was that. Because I saw his interview, Eyes on the Prize, full-length interview. You could see, even though he was attempting to try and be tough and not let his interior show, you could see, in little slivers in-between, what he didn’t say that he felt very guilty about what he did. You could see it in the interview! “I felt bad about it, but I had to continue to play the role.” The fact that he felt bad about it, that’s all I needed to know. Now I know that he’s a human being and, okay, now I can play you. I can’t play anyone that’s just not a human. But if you’re a human, I can play you.

But if he is this villain, you don’t want to portray him as something who’s sympathetic. Did you worry about giving him too much credit?

You know what? That’s exactly right. No one’s even asked me that. But yeah, I did worry about that. I was on set the whole time, I kept asking Shaka, “Am I doing this right?” I didn’t want to do it too much. I definitely did not want to do that. So I was trying to find the balance, but it was really difficult. So I was telling Shaka every day, I would be like, “Is the tone okay? Am I keeping steady? I’m trying to keep balanced. I need perspective.” It was really tough to try and find a balance. Shaka would reassure me all the time, “Okay. Boom, boom, this and this.” Try to help me find the right energy balance, but it was really hard. I didn’t want to make him too sympathetic. And because I don’t know if he was at all, it’s a risky thing. But I was just like… I don’t know. I don’t know.

It looks like a hard needle to thread…

I saw it in the interview in the moment and I just wanted to take that and expand upon it. I thought that, at certain points, that it might be beneficial for the story for me to play him as his tough exterior. But I knew that he wasn’t acting like that every day, the way that he was acting in the Eyes on the Prize interview. He’s not acting like that every day. This is after he’s much older and he’s had time to sit with things and come up with his responses for the interview and put his suit on and the lights are on. So I wanted to tap into the unseen parts, the part that people didn’t see in him and bring that to life, if that makes sense.

It does make sense.

I know it was risky, but I thought it might be worth it.

And for a lot of people, this will be one of the records of what happened. So it does make sense why this was tough. Like you said, this is really difficult.

Yeah. But also isn’t it informed by the way he went out?

I wanted to bring that up. That’s a good point.

And we can speculate about why he committed suicide. But if you look at his record, even outside of Fred Hampton, he went on to continue working with the FBI and being their footman for locking up a whole bunch of different people, getting a lot of people in a lot of trouble, and hurting a lot of people. If this didn’t mess with his psyche? And the way that he went out was so violent, running into traffic. To do something like that, you have to be in a mental state of just disarray completely. So you can’t convince me that he was a stone-cold lizard that didn’t feel anything.

Because it was the night the documentary aired, right? And he watched it, and this is just me guessing, but it’s almost like didn’t even realize all of the terrible things he did. And then it was just spelled out to him and then he ran out into traffic. Am I over-reading it?

That’s a good interpretation. That’s just as valid as anyone else’s speculation at this point. One thing is for sure, he was going through something. And the fact that he did it on that night meant that maybe it was that he didn’t even want to deal with even watching it. Or the fact that it was aired to millions of people and that he knew in that interview he was lying about saying, “Oh, I did whatever I needed to do. My kids, they’ll be fine with it.” He knew that wasn’t the truth, and he couldn’t stand, perhaps, one more lie. It was like, “I’m not going to do this.” Actually, he had tried to commit suicide several times before that, and it was thwarted by his cousin. I read in a book, actually, he tried to do it many other times. So he had been going through mental trauma and stuff for years and you can’t battle with those things if you’re just a straight lizard. You just don’t care. But I think, yeah, there was something there. So I got an indication of that in the interview and wanted to use it. I hope that we found some nice little balance with it all.

Because there are definitely moments in the film where he’s like, “I just don’t give a fuck about what you’re talking about.” He’s like, “I don’t care about the Black Panthers.” Or, “What are you talking about? The Martin Luther King guy? I guess. I don’t know.” There are those moments, because I don’t think everybody back at the time who was Black was either like, “I’m a Black Panther,” or like, “Fuck Black people.” You know what I mean?

You mentioned the scene with you and Jesse Plemons when he asks, “What did you think when Dr. King was assassinated?” and you as William basically says he was sad, but that’s about it. That’s an interesting scene. The FBI feeling him out if he’ll be a good plant or not. At least that’s how I interpreted it.

Exactly. No, exactly. That’s my interpretation as well. He was just, yeah, trying to feel him out. Once he realized that he wasn’t connected to this in this way, it’s perfect. All right, good.

Since the pandemic started I’ve watched a lot of ’70s movies. A lot of Altman actually. And your acting style reminds me of some of the acting styles from those types of movies. What are your influences? What are you doing that is so unique? I know that’s probably an unfair question.

Well, thank you very much, first of all. Very kind words. I appreciate it so much. I love this. I love doing it. I’ve done it all my life in one way or another. I love it, man. I love telling stories. It’s my thing. I don’t know. I don’t know. I love it. I don’t know what else to say. I love it. I work hard at it.

Well, you’ve always got this kind of blunt, unique, to the point style. It’s always something I look forward to.

Thank you very much, man. I really appreciate that. I try to give it my all every time I go in. There’s a unique ensemble of people that it takes to make a movie, and I’m just one part of that. I just love doing it, so I appreciate you for appreciating the work.

I know with the next Knives Out movie it’s supposed to be Daniel Craig’s character going on different adventures. But I feel you could come back? Hopefully someday? Or is that it?

I love Rian Johnson. It was really fucking cool working with him. I’d love to work with him again. Who knows? It’s the story makers, story writers and stuff. I’d love to come back. That’d be cool.

This is weird, but he and I are on a Pokemon Go thread. Next time some Pokemon Go thing comes up about Kyogre or whatever I’ll sneak in a, “Hey, also, put LaKeith in another Knives Out.”

[Laughs] Yes! I appreciate you, bro.

Okay I’ll do that.

Hell yeah.

‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ opens Feb. 12th in theaters and on HBO Max. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Dua Lipa had a wildly productive year in 2020 despite the circumstances. The singer released her Gold-certified album Future Nostalgia, performed at award ceremonies and late-night television shows, and even dabbled in US politics. But per a recent announcement, fans can expect the same energy from the pop star in 2021.

Lipa released her “Levitating” remix with DaBaby back in October and it’s still dominating the charts. This week, the track landed at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated February 6, marking a new peak position. To celebrate her song’s achievement, Lipa made an exciting announcement. “Levitating is TOP 5 in the US,” she wrote on social media. “new music coming soooooooooooon <3:

Though the singer didn’t clarify the details of the upcoming release, fans were overjoyed at the news. Following Lipa’s announcement, it didn’t take her fans long to form the hashtag #DuaIsComing. They flooded timelines with their favorite photos of the singer in anticipation of a new release.

While the singer has been very present on social media this album cycle, Lipa recently opened up about how she couldn’t have written Future Nostalgia without taking a step back from the internet. “In all honesty, I don’t think I could have done my second record if I hadn’t taken a step back from social media,” she said in an interview. “When you first start, when I first started putting new music out, everything was super positive and I had lots of nice messages. I think the more stuff you do, then there is criticism and comments and it all comes in thick and fast, and for a while it was really getting to me. I just felt like people had nothing but mean things to say or I was being picked on. It did upset me, it made me feel I didn’t deserve to do certain things.”

See Lipa’s announcement above.

Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Pepsi recently revealed that for this year’s Super Bowl, the company plans to not air any ads during the game and focus on their halftime show, with Todd Kaplan, Pepsi’s vice president of marketing, saying, “We are going to double down on our existing 12 minutes in the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show in the middle of the Super Bowl, and we are going to build it out like we have never built it out before.” They’ve been getting ads out before the big game, though, and they’ve been about The Weeknd and his upcoming performance.

The first one came about a month ago, and it featured people from various walks of life in various environments singing along to the inescapable hit “Blinding Lights.” Now Pepsi has unveiled a new 30-second, The Weeknd-starring spot, and it depicts The Weeknd in the moments before he takes the stage for his halftime show. In it, he walks down a hallway, looking at videos of himself from throughout his career as they’re projected on the wall. Finally, he reaches the end of the hall and takes the field. All the while, a voiceover speaks about creativity and big moments.

Watch the new ad above.

Doja Cat may not enjoy TikTok quite as much as she used to, but it looks like users on the app can’t get enough of her 2019 album Hot Pink. After TikTok members helped turn the album’s song “Say So” into Doja Cat’s first No. 1 hit single, they’ve revitalized another album cut, “Streets,” thanks to the risque “Silhouette Challenge.” According to Billboard, the song entered the Hot 100 in January and has since jumped to No. 25.

The challenge incorporates Paul Anka’s 1959 “Put Your Head On My Shoulder” and Doja’s “Streets” into a quick-change video in which women (and men! and couples!) wear baggy clothes, often looking like they’re ready for bed, before the video slam-cuts to the subjects posing in silhouette form either nude or in lingerie with a deep red filter obscuring the NSFW bits. The switch is similar to that of the Buss It Challenge that uses Dallas rapper Erica Banks‘ song of the same name, although the song switch is actually built into “Buss It.” That song also hit the Hot 100 as a result of its TikTok popularity.

The original sound was cooked up by user Giulia Di Nicolantonio and the hashtag #SilhouetteChallenge has accumulated 217 million views while infiltrating other platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. Numerous celebrities, including Tiffany Haddish and Common, have posted variations of the trend, and even Doja has considered returning to TikTok to post her silhouette to her own song. Check out Doja Cat’s response to the challenge and a few examples below.

It feels like not a day goes by where someone doesn’t speculate about what the future holds for Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal. One of the league’s most dynamic scorers and someone who would legitimately help all 29 other NBA teams win basketball games, Beal is on a Wizards squad that has the worst record in the NBA and fits the profile of being someone whose name will exist in trade talks so long as that’s the case.

The issue with all of this is that Beal has made clear on numerous occasions over the years that he has zero intention of ever seeking out a trade, something that has been the case a number of times this season. And on Tuesday morning, a report from Shams Charania and Fred Katz of The Athletic indicates that Beal has gotten frustrated about his situation.

The catch: Beal’s frustration stems from “the portrayal portrayal” of what things are like for him in D.C., not that he wants out due to how the Wizards’ season has gone.

Beal has so far expressed he wants to remain in Washington and has not indicated he prefers to be traded, sources with knowledge of the situation tell The Athletic. The Wizards, in turn, have no interest in trading him. Amid calls from the general public and even ones from around the league that a team at the bottom of the standings would be best off dealing its prized player, Washington has made it clear it has no plans to move him.

He is privately frustrated and confused with the perpetual portrayal of his situation, according to sources familiar with his thinking. After seeing other players take criticism for requesting to leave teams, those sources say Beal feels he’s getting nitpicked for choosing to stay in D.C., where he began his NBA career in 2012. He felt similarly when he signed an extension in October 2019. Speculation about his future has swirled since before then.

This does track with, well, everything that both the team and Beal have said about his future — while losing is something he does not like, he has developed incredibly strong ties to the franchise and the city during his tenure. Now, there have been situations where it has looked like Beal’s frustration has appeared to boil over, most notably in the first half of the Wizards’ game against the Nets on Sunday, but even with that specific case, he ended up playing an outstanding second half in which he teamed up with Russell Westbrook to take down Brooklyn in the game’s waning moments.

Barring something totally out of left field, it would appear that we could put to bed any notion that Beal wants out of Washington, even if that won’t stop fans of the league’s other 29 teams from taking to the trade machine and trying to figure out he can add them to their squad.

In Mean Girls, Amy Poehler memorably says that she’s not a regular mom, she’s a “cool mom.” That’s debatable, but in Moxie, her second movie for Netflix after making her directorial debut with 2019’s Wine Country, she’s an actual cool mom. Based on Jennifer Mathieu’s novel of the same name, Moxie is about a teenager (played by Hadley Robinson) who discovers her mom’s “rebellious past and anonymously publishes a zine that sparks a school-wide, coming-of-rage revolution,” according to Netflix.

“The ways in which people are encouraged to participate and lend their voice is so different than it was when I was growing up,” Poehler told USA Today about Moxie. “So much of my last decade of activism is about unlearning the ways in which I learned how to participate.” The trailer, set to Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl,” can be seen above.

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

Fed up with the sexist and toxic status quo at her high school, a shy 16-year-old finds inspiration from her mother’s rebellious past and anonymously publishes a zine that sparks a school-wide, coming-of-rage revolution. Based on the novel by Jennifer Mathieu. Directed by Amy Poehler.

Moxie, which also stars Lauren Tsai, Josephine Langford, Ike Barinholtz, Marcia Gay Harden, and Patrick Schwarzenegger, comes out on Netflix on March 3.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Alycia Bella’s music was meant to float peacefully in the summer sun. Its delicate texture makes for a sound that eases the body’s muscles and relieves the many headaches of the world. It has the potential to be a remedy for this tension-filled, nerve-racking society we currently inhabit. For someone who’s spent much of the last decade in close proximity to the music world, Alycia took her time creating this easily perishable world she resides in, one she presents on her majestic debut project, Muse.

As peaceful and serene as the world Alycia creates on Muse is, it’s one glaring flaw away from being perfect. Throughout the project’s 14 songs, the singer’s qualms with loneliness and her failed attempts to resolve it stand as a faulty canvas. No matter how she tries to paint love and its presence in her life, it ends up portraying a young woman who has yet again failed to secure the one and must return to wandering the hills and valleys of serenity without a companion.

The curtains for Muse open with soft echoes over the free-floating production of “Cue The Sun.” With the help of Westside Boogie, the singer seeks an end to the solo route she currently journeys. She and her partner have all but one thing in place to create the relationship of her dreams: commitment. Without it, the status of their partnership hangs by a weak, anxiety-filled thread that drives her as insane as a download stuck at 99%. Further into the album on “Something In The Water,” she begs her lover to take a moment to recenter their love as it currently lives on two separate pages. Unfortunately, her partner doesn’t seem to be interested in the idea. “You know I would walk with you / But you’ll just run,” she sings. “And tell me that I’m not keeping up with you.”

When her efforts to trade her loneliness for commitment come up short, it seems to only accentuate her displeasures with being the only character in her dreamland. As much as she has to offer, she’s left with individuals who cycle in and out of her life and display nothing more than the ability to run away faster than they ran to her. “You were never brave, good at runnin’,’’ she sings on “Mississippi Gun Rights.” Just like it would for any person might do after they’ve been run through the wringer of failed love over and over again, Alycia requests her wasted time be returned while labeling her old flame as selfish in the process. “I fucked with you like you fucked with you / You were never for me,” she sings on “Daylight Savings” in the pitched-down voice of her alter ego Muse 33.

Through the near successes at love and the confusion with one’s decision to waste her time, Alycia still strives for a companion to hold close when the day comes to an end. The world we currently live in is one that has been deprived of social interaction for the better part of a year, and that’s just on a platonic level. If intimacy hadn’t been found before the gates of normalcy were shut and locked up, the chances of obtaining it have only become riskier and more complicated. However, this only seems to make Alycia want a remedy to her lonely nights even more. “God, Drugs, And You” is an ode to the things mentioned in the title, with “You” being the only inconsistent item. “Dark Art” invites listeners to the dreadful drive back home to a bed colder than the winter nights Muse was released in.

There’s a certain vulnerability that’s needed for one to open about their desire for love as well as their seemingly never-ending road to finding it. Without a doubt, Alycia Bella possesses this attribute. One of the best qualities of Muse is its earthy, nonartificial aesthetic that blends effortlessly with Alycia’s ethereal vocals and earnest ballads. Even the most independent souls could use some love and here she proves that thought to be true. While others might leave their frustration of another day without love on the pillows they lay their heads on at night, Alycia keeps them pocketed throughout her days. Alycia needs love in her life, and it’s near arrival — all for it to slip out of the grasps of her hands — make it more of a nuisance and that much more desirable.

Muse is out now via Hurt People, Hurt People. Get it here.