Month: February 2021

Rush Limbaugh, the radio talk show host who helped shape the modern Republican party, has died.

The 70-year-old radio personality and diehard Trump supporter revealed he was battling a terminal case of lung cancer in 2020 — he was a cigar aficionado who infamously denied the link between smoking and lung cancer years before his death — and before the start of his most recent show, his wife Kathryn confirmed he had succumbed to the disease.

“I know that I am most certainly not the Limbaugh that you tuned in to listen to today,” Kathryn Limbaugh said before announcing her husband’s death on his show this morning.

Limbaugh was a polarizing, controversial figure, to say the least, probably equally adored as he was reviled. After starting his career firmly in the traditional conservative Republican mold Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, he recently used his platform to spew conspiracy theories and voter fraud accusations on behalf of Trump. He also failed to condemn the Jan. 6th insurrection on Capitol Hill, telling this to his listeners the day after the violent mob stormed Congress and aided in the death of five people, including a police officer:

“We’re supposed to be horrified by the protesters. There’s a lot of people out there calling for the end of violence…lot of conservatives, social media, who say that any violence or aggression at all is unacceptable regardless of the circumstances…I am glad Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, the actual tea party guys, the men at Lexington and Concord, didn’t feel that way.”

Obviously, people are airing out all its thoughts over Limbaugh’s passing, with GOP figures and fans mourning the loss of a key figure in their movement while others take the opportunity to remind people of the damage many feel Limbaugh did to the country. We’ve rounded up some of the most, errr, passionate reactions to the man’s death.

So, yeah, lots of feelings being shared today but we’ll just end with this: May Rush Limbaugh enjoy whatever afterlife he earned.

YouTube star/boxer Logan Paul has announced that he’s moving to Puerto Rico after he “fell in love” with the island while scouting it out to start the “next chapter” of his life. Oh, and also, the tax rate is way lower than California’s, which really sealed the deal. (Paul has previously stated that California’s taxes are “f*cking insane.”) Paul shared the news of his pending on the latest episode of his “Impaulsive” podcast, and it’s already stirred up controversy on social media where he’s being dragged for exploiting the U.S. island territory that’s still reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in late 2017. President Trump famously visited Puerto Rico to survey the damage, and instead of coordinating relief efforts, he threw paper towels at the crowd and essentially left the island to fend for itself. Now, Puerto Ricans get to deal with Paul moving in, and folks are not happy.

Much like his brother, Jake Paul, Logan has been a lightning rod of controversy that reached a boiling point when he posted a YouTube video that showed a suicide victim in Japan and cracked jokes like, “What, you never stand next to a dead guy?” when one of his crew voice their objections. Due to Paul’s popularity, YouTube was slow to react and initially did little in the way of punishment for the wildly insensitive video. However, after public backlash, YouTube yanked Paul from a lucrative ad deal with the video platform.

While Paul apologized several times for the callous suicide video, just a few weeks later, he was in hot water again after posting a video of himself tasering dead rats. That controversy led to YouTube to temporarily suspend all advertisements on his channel, but it notably refused to ban Paul completely. “What you think is tasteless is not necessarily what someone else would think is tasteless,” YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told The Verge. “We need to have consistent laws, so that in our policies, so we can apply it consistently to millions of videos, millions of creators.”

(Via Impaulsive)

Compton native Problem recently became the latest rapper-turned-entrepreneur to swap his street hustle for the legal weed game. In the video for his new single “4 The Low,” he’s joined by fellow purple purveyor Wiz Khalifa as the two cannabis entrepreneurs tout their wares. Along the bottom of the screen, a cable-news-style scroll displays fictional weed stocks rising and lets Problem detail the journey from hood hustler to legitimate businessman, as told by Bay Area skunk salesman Berner.

Problem’s Coffee & Kush initiative cross-branded his three favorite things to expand his brand with multiple mixtapes bearing the title and his own lines of both java and Mary Jane. Meanwhile, Wiz’s Khalifa Kush is one of the more recognizable rapper-fronted brands and he’s expanded into a delivery-only restaurant called HotBox By Wiz, displaying a bit of savvy synergy in capitalizing on smoke-inspired munchies with a convenient snack brand.

While both rappers are past their Billboard chart-topping heydays, they’ve eased into a more relaxed schedule of sharing singles and features with their like-minded peers that seems to suit their chosen lifestyle. Wiz recently appeared on 03 Greedo’s new single “Substance” and Tyla Yaweh’s “All The Smoke” with Gunna. Meanwhile, Problem recently featured on Lou Phelps’ “Nike Shoe Box” remix.

Watch Problem and Wiz Khalifa’s “4 The Low” video above.

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.

Sometimes, there is value in taking time to sit with a finished product and pick apart each piece. After the pandemic pushed the planned release date by several months, Another Michael had nearly a full year to spend with their debut album, New Music And Big Pop, between submitting the final master and releasing the first track. “I’m actually more connected to the record now than I would have been, maybe, had we released it sooner,” Michael Doherty tells me over the phone as the rest of his bandmates — bassist Nick Sebastiano and guitarist/keyboardist Alenni Davis — listen intently.

As I’m sure is the case with many writers, the last twelve months have made it increasingly difficult for new music to break through the constant noise and find space to nestle in my brain and make itself at home. “New Music,” the opening track of New Music And Big Pop, took a mere 31 seconds capture my full attention when a streaming link popped into my inbox about a year ago. It’s at this point in the song that Doherty’s voice first hits a falsetto note that is impossible to ignore, setting the stage for a spectacular debut effort that sounds familiar in its composition, but completely original in its execution.

The track itself an exercise in self-examination, with Doherty’s lyrics detailing, from a bird’s eye view, a beautiful process that many of us undergo daily: musical discovery (something you are hopefully experiencing right now). It’s a simple story, centered around getting a link to new song via text from a trusted friend. But it’s a narrative that often goes untold in songwriting — how often do you hear music about listening to music? As it turns out, the activity of really listening to music and diving into new sounds is an integral part of the glue that holds Another Michael together.

“It wouldn’t be possible to bond over music and bond playing music together if it wasn’t for listening to music,” Sebastiano notes. “I think it’s like a big part of our friendship and what our music ultimately ends up being.”

“If it weren’t for our friendship and hanging out and listening to music, I wouldn’t listen to what has become my favorite music of all-time,” adds Davis.

Without pressure or any label expectations to live up to, the process of writing their debut album was freewheeling and improvisational, with the trio feeling the freedom to explore the furthest reaches of their musical imagination. With two EPs under their belt, the band’s approach to writing their debut full-length album became a much more collaborative affair. The process begins with an idea from Doherty, before it’s presented to Sebastiano and Davis, and the trio jams to develop the idea.

This writing process gives each member an opportunity to access their shared lexicon of different influences from their vastly divergent musical upbringings: Sebastiano came of age in a household filled with disco music, while Davis obsesses over video game music, and Doherty continues to find inspiration in whatever genre is popular at the moment, from boy bands to modern pop. “I think the difference in where we’re all coming from, then coming together and appreciating what each person likes is a defining part of our sound,” Davis summarizes. “We’ll kind of explore a bunch of different options and play off of each other’s strengths in that way, and sometimes it’ll be workshopped in a studio setting, or a home-recorded setting, and we’re trying to figure out how it’s gonna be inside the box in that way,” adds Sebastiano.

Despite the loose and cooperative writing sessions, once a song was completed, the band made a point to capture their inspiration on tape, quickly making the move to rehearse and record the track. During the writing and recording process, the trio was processing the album in real time, without much time to let the music gestate and evolve in their heads. “I look back upon it as one work that’s like a big pizza,” Sebastiano explains. “One song was like the cheese, another song was like the bread. And then we only saw it as that for a while.”

With the equipment and technical prowess to engineer their own recording sessions at their own house or a house they rented in Ferndale, New York, the band was truly able to give themselves the space to take full advantage of the studio technology and built out the world of each song. “We had the opportunity to work as late as we wanted or as long as we wanted,” notes Sebastiano. “Not having a time crunch for studio time definitely helped to bring in those more experimental arrangements.”

In their finished form, tracks like “I Know You’re Wrong” and “What Gives?” recall specific moments in Doherty’s life from the perspective of an objective narrator, taking care not to contextualize the stories with a specific emotion, and allowing the listener to come to their own conclusions about the instance. Nowhere on the album will you find lyrics meant to be inked onto your skin. Rather, the lush textures and layers of the music will encourage you to put on a pair of noise-canceling headphones to immerse yourself in the product of a group of friends that takes music more seriously, than they take themselves.

Without the burden of an emotional weight and its palpable feeling of inspiration, New Music And Big Pop delivers ten tracks that are imbued with a sense of liberation and raw talent that feels rare in 2021, a breath of fresh air that creates a unique lane and a promising future for a new band like Another Michael. Luckily, one of the silver linings of being unable to tour is an abundance of time to continue writing. “Extremely excited to say that we’ve been working on a lot of music here,” Sebastiano reports, with a discernible enthusiasm in his voice for what’s next.

New Music And Big Pop is out February 19 via Run For Cover Records. Pre-order it here.

British singer FKA Twigs recently brought a lawsuit against ex-boyfriend Shia LaBeouf, who she accused of mental and physical abuse during their relationship. Twigs alleged that Shia lashed out with alarming displays of jealousy and controlling behavior, and that he “strangled” her and subjected to sleep deprivation, social isolation, and gaslighting. Twigs also alleged that LaBeouf knowingly infected her with an STD, and she’s suffered “pretty severe PTSD” in the aftermath of the relationship. She’s coming forward now with even more details about the alleged abuse, including how she feels that it’s “pure luck” she survived, as she told Elle magazine.

The full piece in Elle is a chilling one that includes allegations we’ve heard already (that Shia kept a gun near the bed, and she was afraid of going to the bathroom out of fear of being accidentally taken for an intruder) about LaBeouf’s disturbing behavior, but one particularly unsettling section sticks out. Twigs claims that Shia bragged about shooting stray dogs and justified it as some twisted form of method acting preparation:

LaBeouf would shamelessly brag about shooting stray dogs. He said it helped him “get into character” as a gun-toting henchman for his role in 2020’s The Tax Collector. Twigs was disturbed by this confession and questioned him. “I said to him, ‘That’s really bad. Why are you doing that?’ And he was like, ‘Because I take my art seriously. You’re not supporting me in my art. This is what I do. It’s different from singing. I don’t just get up on a stage and do a few moves. I’m in the character.’ He made me feel bad, like I didn’t understand what it was like to be an actor or to do this…Method [acting technique].”

Aside from the disturbing implications (people who commit violence against humans often start with committing violence against animals) of the dog-shooting allegations, that passage contains something that abuse survivors will recognize: the devaluing of the victim. If this is true, Shia not only explained away his own disturbing behavior as a means to achieving high “art” while attempting to make Twigs feel as though her career was a lesser one. Also heartbreaking: how Twigs revealed a massive fight because he socially isolated her and didn’t want her to feel joy outside of his influence:

[I]f twigs did communicate with friends, LaBeouf would often become jealous. “One time, he heard me laughing on FaceTime with my friend. He came in and had a massive argument with me because he said he doesn’t make me laugh like that. So then I had to hide laughing with my friends. It’s [about] isolation, so I don’t talk to my friends. He hated that I had an experience to myself [with] something that didn’t involve him, a memory that gave me joy,” she says, sighing. “He made me feel like I wasn’t allowed joy, basically. That’s what it boils down to: I wasn’t allowed joy unless it directly revolved around him.”

Twigs also referred to a common metaphor used to describe abusive relationships: the boiling frog metaphor that explains how how victims find themselves being slowly, and insidiously, controlled by their partners. It’s a harrowing interview to read but a necessary one, and you can find it in full at Elle.

(Via Elle)

Earlier this week, Nicki Minaj‘s father, Robert Maraj, was tragically killed during a hit-and-run accident in Long Island, New York. Police were searching for information about the crime scene, but it’s now been reported that the man responsible for Maraj’s death has turned himself in.

Per a report from TMZ, 70-year-old Charles Polevich was arrested as a suspect in Maraj’s hit-and-run arrest. Polevich was detained and charged with two felonies, leaving scene of crime involving a person’s death and tampering with physical evidence.

Police report that Polevich’s 1992 white Volvo hit Maraj at the intersection of Roslyn Rd. and Raff Ave. in Mineola, New York. According to cops, Polevich “then exited his vehicle stood over the victim asked him if ‘he was ok,’ walked and returned to his vehicle and fled the scene.” After fleeing the scene, Polevich drove home while “avoiding intersections and did conceal his vehicle in the detached garage at his residence.” TMZ’s report states that Polevich’s bail has been set at $250k and he’s be ordered to surrender his passport in order to remain in New York state.

The hit-and-run took place on February 12 and Minaj has yet to release a statement about her father’s death. The rapper has been photographed with him over the years, but previously detailed instances of abuse she faced during a 2010 interview with Wendy Williams.

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.

Pink Sweats is a living example of why the phrase “less is more” is oftentimes true. The Philly-born singer found his way onto listeners’ radars with two main ingredients: his voice and the fluttering strums of his electric guitar. Soon enough, he graced the world with his Volume 1 EP, a project that put to use the same formula employed on his breakout single, “Honesty.” With a stripped-down body of work, Pink Sweats’ heart-torn ballads of love and its highs, lows, and everything in between grabbed the attention of R&B lovers who enjoyed a sound different than what the general landscape had to offer.

The Philly native’s sound didn’t stay that way though. It would slowly grow and expand from his initial streamlined sound. However, that was all in the plan for Pink. Between the arrival of Volume 1 and his newly-released debut album, Pink Planet, the singer gave fans more from his wide-ranging palette of artistry. New instruments appeared beside the singer on his Volume 2 and The Prelude EPs and it was clear that the Philly native was slowly building his own world.

That moment comes with the release of Pink Planet, Pink Sweats’ official debut album that’s been in the works for a little over a year now. Its 18 songs find the singer deep in the alternative R&B genre that he’s taken comfort in since his career began three years ago. Pink Planet is also the most complete version of Pink’s musical world, giving listeners a healthy dose of what the singer has to offer with his talents.

We sat down with Pink Sweats to talk about the new album, what his “Pink Planet” entails, the R&B genre, and more.

What are you feeling and looking forward to the most now that Pink Planet is here?

I feel excited, I feel nervous, I feel a little bit of “hurry up” and “wait” kind of thing. It’s been a long time coming from Volume 1 to now. It’s been literally the most beautiful journey I could ever ask for, I’m just excited.

Back when we spoke in 2019, you mentioned the increasing musicality between your Volume 1 and Volume 2 EPs. The former is “strictly guitar” as you said and the latter has a “little bit more rhythm to it.” With Pink Planet, there’s even more here. Talk to me about your growth and this increasing musicality.

It was like I want to spoon-feed the people. It’s not like I just got these new sounds like a meteor hit Earth and I found it and now I got more musical. I’ve always been this way, it’s just now, I feel it’s the proper time in my process to reveal all that I do and all that I am as a creator, like my core. Some people probably look at it like, “Wow, this is so crazy. He just popped up out of the blue.” I’ve been doing this for going on ten years making music. I haven’t been an artist, but I’m really just a creator. I like being in the studio making songs, that’s my core and now I finally get to showcase all the kinds of music that maybe I wanted to write for somebody else, but they might not have been as receptive to that style of musicality and things like that. I’m just using my platform as an artist to be a nerd, to do music, and not worry about all the gimmicks. I got songs with strings and guitar solos, I’m playing bass, drums, keys, just going crazy and having fun and being a little nerd.

This is a project you’ve had in the works for some time now. How many times did you say “I’m done” and how many times do you end up going back in to tweak this thing or that thing? Or just completely change something?

I’ve literally probably done that five times cause over the first period it’s like “I’m finished,” soon you get to that phase where it’s like maybe someone at the label is saying what they think. Then, you try to adjust that, and then you say, “I’m finished,” again. Then I hear something and I’m like I wanna tweak this or add this, I wanna replay that. Then, the label again, “Oh we hear this,” then it’s right back to me. Then it’s like I wanted to add a whole new couple of songs. It’s a lot of times, countless times I pretty much was done in my head and then you just keep pushing, keep going — or not even pushing, just keep working and then you end up making or creating something that you feel like is worthy of being on the album. Yeah, that’s happened a lot over the top, I think I’ve been making this album for a year, or honestly since the end of 2019. For it to finally come out? Whew, relief.

How has your initial vision of Pink Planet changed, if at all, from when you first picked the name and decided on its concept to now?

What I would say about the Pink Planet is I’ve been sitting here thinking about this, so what I’m saying is — I don’t think I ever really said it — now that I’ve sat with the body of work, the idea in its totality, it’s really just a place where people can go and feel seen, heard, loved, they just feel felt. Like yeah, my heart has a place here. A lot of times, the planet Earth, how society is, the world at large, it isn’t always so beautiful to everybody. I feel like I wanted to create a place of escapism that people can go and hear pleasant sounds, hear pleasant stories, hear adoration, things that people desire. Everybody wants love, so it’s like hearing those stories creates a certain level of aspiration which you don’t already have and then a sensibility and a connection when you do have it. It’s like, “Oh man, I understand what you’re saying.” So for me, I just wanted to create a beautiful safe space for people. If there’s no place on Earth, there’s a place here and I can listen to this music and I can go to Pink Planet.

A majority of the songs on the album are centered on love. Would it be correct to say that Pink Planet is also a euphemism for your heart?

Yeah, essentially. It was letting people into my world, the creative space that I made for myself to escape, I want to share that with everybody else. It’s like being a kid, but we’re grown. It’s like where you’re a child, some people at least have grand imaginations, but nobody can come to that place in your head. For me, I get to live out my childhood through music where it’s like I’ve created this place in my head and now I’ve been able to share with the world. Like some Bridge To Terabithia type stuff. You’re just bringing your friends on the rise, everybody wants to listen and give me a shot. So it’s like come on, let me show you.

The intro song, “Pink City,” paints a picture of being trapped in a “city” all to break out and make your own. In your case, what are you breaking free from?

What I was breaking from was the mental bondage that comes with being a human being. It’s like we all have to carry this given weight, it wasn’t a weight that we chose to pick up, it’s just like you’re born and people immediately throw their junk onto you. It’s not always negative things, but it’s just things you didn’t choose. It was the mental bondage of like I’m supposed to be a certain way. If you’re from this place, you’re supposed to dress, act, talk like this, or you’re not from there. It’s like okay… It was also a sense of when I was in my transition from pre-Pink Sweats to becoming Pink Sweats. It was a mental break for me [from] so much fear. That’s the thing people don’t understand is [that] all these mental weights that people put on you, they create a sense of fear where you won’t do things, you won’t act on things, just because you’re afraid. I want to share that with people because I understand that, like imagine if I didn’t take the leap to become an artist was because I was afraid. All of the positivity that came from stepping over that hurdle was insane.

Does the song apply to an actual city as well?

It’s not [so much] a physical city, but it’s just about the mentality. Wherever you’re from, there’s a mentality that was given to you a lot of times, most of us it’s not progressive, it keeps us stuck. I’m sure you’re from somewhere where if you go home, you see people talk about all the things they were gonna do and never did it. You see people from your high school, your college, or whatever, talk about, “If I had this, I would’ve did that.” For me, I’m trying to share my story from the other side of my fear, but being transparent, mentally I was raised in the mud. When I go outside, my environment, the things I’m learning, that’s mud — we were raised in the mud. Coming from that, but slowly progressing day-by-day to change the situation to say you know what? I’m not going to thrive here and that’s when I came to [the] conclusion [that] I’m trying to fit in and clean my act up here, but I really just don’t belong here. I need to go build my own world, I need to build my own mental city, a place where when I have an idea it’s a good idea because I said it’s a good idea not because somebody else had to validate it.

I had this thought that maybe one day I could have 10 million monthly listeners when at one time somebody would laugh. [They’d be] like, “Man that’s impossible, what are you starting from?” Or, “You’re not a rapper bro.” One of my friends really told me, “Bro I don’t know.” I didn’t have any animosity to him because I had already built my system in my mind outside and he just didn’t understand. I didn’t take offense, I wasn’t like “Oh you don’t believe in me.” I was just like, nah man, you just don’t get it. It goes from people not believing to people championing you., and that to me, that’s the Pink City right there. It’s like New York, I kind of wrote the song based [on] New York cause when I became an artist it was like this big city, and people every day just walk around and in their mind, they’re the next thing. Millions of people in the city and in so many people’s minds, they’re the next thing and I always admired that. They’re not looking to their left or looking to their right trying to see who’s the competition, they’re just going after whatever it is. I mimicked my idea off of that.

There’s a bit of juxtaposition happening on “Chains.” You’re wrapped up in this lady’s chains, you say you’re a slave for her, but you do it in such a tender way. How are you able to tap into this delicate sound so well and in so many ways?

Honestly, that’s a song that is close to my heart because I feel like love is the most powerful thing and, I’m sure last time we talked I said this, but it’s like so many people walk around in the desire of this thing called love. It’s like, “Oh, I wanna be loved, I can’t wait to be in a relationship,” or they’re scarred by love. Love is so powerful, it can make somebody do the worst and the best. Having love can make you be at your best and losing love can sometimes make people go crazy. That thing that typically feels intangible, but the way I look at it is love is just “acts of service.” There is no genuine desire for return. You just love something or a person, I just want to be here. I’m literally wrapped in you to the point where you just want to make them happy, you want to see them at their best. It’s kind of like, in a strange way, the only love you ever get that feels eternal or feels like forever outside of your partner is [from] a parent. When you’re firstborn, you didn’t do anything and they just loved you so much. You’ve accomplished nothing, you ain’t made no money, you ain’t get an A in school yet. You ain’t even eat and they’re like “Oh my God, my baby!” Mom’s crying, dad’s there, so the only time you get that outside of that is when you’re in love with someone else. Your parents love you so much that they’re literally engraved and entangled in your world.

As an adult, when you really find love, it feels like, “Dang, it doesn’t matter what this person does, I’m rocking with them.” That’s really how it’s supposed to be. When they say “life or death,” it’s on some Bonnie & Clyde type sh*t. If we gonna be that, we gonna be that. If we’re gonna be the Huxtables, we’ll be the Huxtables, but if you want to be Bonnie & Clyde, we can do that route too. I’m just rocking with whatever’s going down. I’m entangled here, I don’t even want to go anywhere else. And just the way I lyrically did it, I wanted to pit somebody against their mind like he’s really in love huh? I wanted people to feel that [and] wonder is that even possible.

How much fun did you have making “Icy” and “Give It To Me?” Cause those are songs that are groovier and much more upbeat than the rest of your catalog.

They were probably the most fun songs for me. I was just making songs, honestly, I wasn’t even working on my album when I did that. I just wanted to get in with my friends and that’s what I did, I just called up my friends like, “Man, I’m bored, I just wanna get in the studio.” We just started making these songs and I’m like, this should go on the album! Just the energy around my friends being able to be a part of my journey when it counts. Back then, they were there for me when there was nothing going on, but now that everything’s going on, being able to plug them into that and allow them that exposure as producers and stuff like that, means a lot to me. It’s like, “Yo man, this is lit. We’re really doing it.”

Speaking of collaborations, you’ve worked with a number of artists over the years. Mahalia, Wale, Jessie Reyez, and Gashi. Despite this, all of your projects are, for the most part, solo efforts. Why’s the Pink Planet only yours to create in?

It’s just me because at the end of the day, as an artist, it’s my goal to empower people via my actions. I feel like as an artist, I’ve had a sense of confidence that I want to be a part of spreading for other artists, for other songwriters, everybody. Where it’s like as a singer, most of the time the formula is “feature, feature, feature, feature, feature, feature,” you gotta have features, that’s the only way you can make it. I just wanted to say, “Hey, I’m taking a risk,” but I’d rather bet on myself than somebody say that such and such is the reason that people listen to me. I’d rather people listen to me, so when I really got something important to say, it counts. That doesn’t mean I won’t feature, it just means that history will tell the story itself, I won’t have to tell it. The music will say, “His first album, no features. The project before that, no features, the second one, no features.” So if I can do it, if I can change my life and reach these heights without it, then that means somebody else has a chance. At least they don’t have an excuse to say that they didn’t see anybody do it.

What kept you occupied during quarantine last year. I feel like you can only record so much music before having to get out of the studio and do something. What was your getaway?

My friends and I always joke that we’ve been in quarantine. We’ve been broke and when you ain’t got no money, you can’t go anywhere. When I was coming up, it would literally be the studio to the house, studio to the house. Mentally, I feel like I was prepared, but outside of that, it was more so the fear of people in my family being exposed, my friends, things like that. The actual being inside it was like, man this sucks, but I’ve been here before mentally. Your friend would call you like, “Bro, let’s go to the bar.” It’s like, dude I don’t got no money to even leave the house, I can’t go. I’ve been there where it was like I wasn’t going anywhere. Honestly, it sounds bizarre, but it felt good for me to be at home and not worry about getting evicted, that was always one of my fears. Being home and not stressing like I’m about to lose everything.

R&B has been labeled as many things from “dead” to struggling with an “identity crisis,” I’ve also heard you labeled as alternative R&B so I wanted to ask two things: Where do you think you are in the many shades and corners of R&B and how do you view the genre as a whole?

So for me, I feel that personally, not being cocky or anything, I feel like I’m an anomaly. I’m only saying that because of my background, how I even turned into music, the music I was allowed to listen to, the music I fell in love with to becoming a songwriter, understanding all the different nuances — all the main genres at least. I feel like I borrow from so many things that, in a strange way, I wouldn’t call myself straight up and down R&B, only because of the context of what R&B is today. If I was in the ‘90s, I would say yeah, I’m R&B, but as it is today, it’s more alt R&B or R&B pop just because of the sentiments of me being a songwriter and the understanding of what makes a song a little more R&B than pop, I understand the differences.

I wouldn’t say it has an identity crisis; all those things are just old people. R&B is just what it is, and it’s not dead, it’s definitely alive. I think at the mainstream level when people say it’s dead, I think that’s what they really mean, they’re just not articulating that to the highest power. You can find R&B everywhere. It’s out here; it’s just at the mainstream level, I feel like a lot of people aren’t R&B. Where it’s like back in the ‘90s you look at the charts, it was a lot of R&B singers at the top, so it felt like it was alive. R&B is definitely still alive, I’m grateful for the contribution that I was even allowed to get, people accepting me and giving me a home and a platform to live in. I definitely feel more like a Stevie Wonder in my head. Stevie Wonder made pop hits, he made R&B hits, he made soul hits, all these things. He was a real artist, he was a creative, he wasn’t necessarily a genre, he [was just like], I’ll do what I want to do, cause I can. You just run into certain artists where it’s like we really can’t pin him, we just gotta let them do what they do best.

In our last interview a couple of years ago, you said you wanted to contribute to the culture and preserve it as best as you can. What piece of that puzzle do you think Pink Planet contribute to that overall goal?

Pink Planet, in the grand scheme [of things], it’s introducing love back to what I hope is the mainstream of Black music. At the end of the day, I’m an international artist, I understand what it looks like to go overseas and people look at you strange that you dress a certain way and I also understand why, cause it’s like you think I’m a rapper. You see me and where I’m from, I dress how where I’m from. I got tattoos cause I like Lil Wayne, I like Chris Brown, that was my era, but I’m not out here wildin’, shooting nobody, I’m the nicest guy ever. But when people see you, they can’t even see that… All they ever see is people who look like me rapping about things they perceive as inhumane like you would kill somebody cause they stepped on your shoe? I’m trying to bring that balance back to the mainstream, that’s what I’m shooting for that big spot because there are so many kids that need to see that. I remember being a kid, wanting to be a rapper. It’s like I’m not drug dealing or anything, why would I want to sit up there and talk about that? But when you’re in the hood or in a situation where you ain’t got no money it seems easy. This is what they doing, why can’t I do it? It seems easy, let me just do that, but you don’t realize a lot of people follow you — whether you want them to or not, that’s the position that we have as artists. So, I got cousins, I got family, and I would hate for my uncle or my aunt to tell me that one of my little cousins started being in the streets or something because that’s what they saw me doing. I do it for my family first and I hope that it trickles down to the world.

Pink Planet is out now via Atlantic. Get it here.

Pink Sweats is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Waner Music Group.

Alex Lasry, the 33-year-old senior vice president for the Bucks and the son of team governor Marc Lasry, announced on Wednesday that he will run for Senate as a challenger in the Democratic primary for the seat currently held by Republican Ron Johnson.

In a video announcing his candidacy, Lasry, who worked in the Obama White House out of college, pledged to bring the strategies that helped the Bucks mesh “progressive values” with good business into the federal government as a senator.

Much of the video centers on the construction of Fiserv Forum and the way it reinvigorated the downtown Milwaukee area and created thousands of jobs in the city. But it also shows Lasry at marches in protest of police brutality following the killing of George Floyd as well as the shooting of Jacob Blake by police in the Milwaukee suburb of Kenosha last summer.

The Blake shooting inspired the Bucks to strike their game in the NBA Bubble, at which point Lasry and the team’s management group stood behind their players. Yet in recent months, Lasry, a hedge fund manager and the son of a billionaire, has been the target of backlash for not locking in the Fiserv Forum as a polling place after promising to do so, and for cutting the line to get his hands on a vaccine dose last month.

Johnson’s senate seat in Wisconsin has been called “vulnerable” by the political media since the state went to Joe Biden in 2020 and because the state has both Republicans and Democrats across its state leadership.

Despite The 1975 releasing the 22-track album Notes On A Conditional Form last year, the band is already hard at work on new music. They recently revealed that they’re working on yet another release in light of their canceled 2021 tour, but that’s not all. Vocalist Matty Healy is also working on a special project: reviving his pre-The 1975 band.

Healy revealed that he’s working on an album as Drive Like I Do, the band he was in before forming The 1975. After teasing a few snippets of the music, Healy hopped on his Instagram Stories to explain what he’s working on:

“There’s a lot of people asking me about Drive Like I Do. Drive Like I Do was the band we were before the 1975. It’s as humble as it was. So there’s the old music, there’s a little bit of new music. I’m not going to make a fanfare about it. it’s not coming out today, but it’s coming out pretty soon. It’ll be a nice little thing. There’s loads of things going on, coming out. I’m excited.”

The news arrives after Healy’s mother spilled some details about the project in an interview. “Matthew is working on a solo project,” she said. “I’ve got two boys in the entertainment industry. It’s a nightmare but I’m proud of them both. I’m very lucky that my boys have both got good heads on their shoulders.”

Watch Healy talk about his upcoming project above.

In this era of lockdowns and limited travel why take a trip to Flavortown when you can have Flavortown come to you, baby?! Let it be known that we had to include “baby” at the end of that sentence because we’re talking about Guy Fieri… baby. The Mayor of Flavortown and an all-around kind-hearted food dude, Fieri has just launched a ghost kitchen operation he’s calling Flavortown Kitchen in 23 states and Washington D.C., operating out of the workspaces of existing restaurants and industrial kitchens.

This technique of utilizing closed restaurant spaces or commissary kitchens — called “ghost kitchens” — has boomed during the pandemic. The Flavortown Kitchen will be temporarily serving up Fieri classics like Donkey Sauce, Jalapeño Pig Poppers (which are exactly what they sound like), cheesesteak egg rolls, wings, and burgers so stuffed you won’t know how you brought yourself to actually fit the entire contents of the thing inside your body.

The delivery-only restaurant is operating out of the kitchens of small chains like Buca di Beppo, Brio Italian Grille, and Bertuccis and leverages Fieiri’s massive platform to helps to keep service industry employees working as the pandemic safety conditions continue to put a strain on the restaurant industry.

The Flavortown Kitchen is available on most third-party delivery apps and is currently operating in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. So if you’ve been craving a Bacon Mac n Cheese Burger or that plate of Cajun Chicken Alfredo with a side of fried pickles, now is your chance to indulge in state fair levels of culinary insanity.