Month: February 2021

Lil Baby and Lil Durk have collaborated on a few occasions over the years, mostly on Durk’s projects, the most recent one being “Finesse Out The Gang Way,” off his 2020 release The Voice. The two also worked together on “3 Headed Goat” from Durk’s Just Cause Y’all Waited 2, but fans have requested they do more together. Apparently Lil Durk caught wind of this demand, and now he’s teasing a possible project on his Instagram story.

Lil Durk reposted an Instagram poll from a fan that said “Durkio x Lil Baby Tape?” with the options of “Yes” and “No.” He captioned the Instagram story post and said, “I ain’t see this but thissssssssss @lilbaby_1,” with a group of fire emojis. He also tagged Lil Baby to ensure that he caught wind of what their supporters want from them.

If the album arrives at some point in the future, it would not be the first time Lil Durk or Lil Baby were a part of a joint project with another artist. In 2017, Lil Durk dropped Supa Vultures with Lil Reese and Bloodas with Tee Grizzley. The following year, Lil Baby teamed up with Gunna for Drip Harder, a project that also saw a contribution from Durk on “Off White VLONE” with Nav.

Tuesday marks the three-year anniversary of Nipsey Hussle’s debut album, Victory Lap, which found the Slauson rapper take a moment to reflect on all the things that occurred during his decade-long rise, including his many celebrated mixtapes like The Marathon, Crenshaw, and Mailbox Money. Many fans took to social media to share their favorite songs from Victory Lap. Lauren London, meanwhile, who began dating Nipsey back in 2013, hopped on Instagram to reveal a fun fact about the rapper’s debut album.

“Fun fact: the voice that says ‘victory lap’ on the album is me,” she wrote. She also added that her son Kross was “on my hip” as she recorded the vocals for Victory Lap. Her voice can be found at the end of the album’s title track, with Stacey Barthe, and on “Real Big,” with Marsha Ambrosius. London also starred in Nipsey’s video for “Double Up,” featuring Dom Kennedy and Belly, where she plays the role of a former love interest to Nipsey.

The news arrives after M1 and Stic.Man of Dead Prez revealed that Nipsey intended to remake their classic 2000 album Let’s Get Free to complete his record deal with Atlantic.

Nipsey Hussle is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Steve Bannon, who reeceived a pardon from Donald Trump before his administration ended, is already planning the former president’s political future — Even if he isn’t sure he’s fit to hold office at all. But unlike most people, he doesn’t think it should be another run at the White House in 2024.

The former Trump advisor apparently wants his former boss to run for office in 2022, not two years later when the White House may be up for grabs again. And the plan is for him to become a congressman, then apparently take Nancy Pelosi’s job. According to Newsweek, Bannon appeared at a Republican event in Boston over the weekend and laid out his grand design for Trump’s political future.

Speaking to a group of Boston Republicans on Saturday, Bannon laid out a longshot plan for Trump to return to Washington, D.C.—but not directly to the White House, The Boston Herald reported. Instead, Bannon wants Trump to run for a seat in the House of Representatives in 2022 and then manage to take the role of Speaker of the House away from Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi of California.

“Trump is a disruptor, but he has a long-term vision because I absolutely believe in the marrow of my bones that he will be our nominee in 2024,” Bannon told the GOP group in a speech. “He’ll come back to us. We’ll have a sweeping victory in 2022, and he’ll lead us in 2024.”

While it’s actually not a bad plan, it seems extremely unlikely it’ll be one that interests Trump. Trump’s blog post of a statement about Mitch McConnell made it pretty clear that Trump wants to lead the Republican party, not from a House seat but as the figurehead once again in charge of the whole thing. Despite his penchant for holding grudges, the actual work of being a congressman — much like the work of being president, which he routinely ignored — seems unlikely to be of much interest to him. The other part of this plan, taking Pelosi’s job, would require Republicans to win back the majority in the House of Representatives, which they hope to do in two years.

It would be, however, extremely easy for Trump to win a seat in the House of Representatives. Republican stronghold districts seem to elect any QAnon lunatic they can find these days, so Trump can find a district in Florida and make that happen relatively easy. But what Trump seems to want to do these days is post on social media, which he absolutely cannot do, even if he were to be Representative Trump someday.

Questlove is one of the industry’s most celebrated musicians. His acclaimed band The Roots have been repeatedly nominated for Grammys. They have a street named after them in their hometown of Philadelphia. His new film Summer of Soul won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Festival. Despite all his accomplishments, the drummer and DJ said that some of today’s rappers don’t always know who he is.

One example happened on a recent episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, on which Questlove and The Roots have long served as the house band. In a recent Rolling Stone profile on Jimmy Fallon, Questlove told the publication that Cardi B had no idea who he was when they met. “I definitely know that Cardi B thought I was NBC security when she first came on the show,” he said with a laugh.

Then again, Questlove isn’t always down with the kids. He recently said that Tyler The Creator was “the last guy who truly did his homework” within hip-hop. He did admit, however, that Tyler has more appreciation for rappers who’ve come about in the last decade.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The south is currently undergoing a freak winter storm, with states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona experiencing the coldest and harshest weather in decades. As of this writing, 23 people have died and millions are without power. Most of the latter live in Texas, where outages have lasted hours or even days. It’s a horrifying situation — and a reminder that some Republican lawmakers in these states weren’t exactly empathetic last summer, when California was suffering power outages.

One of them was Dan Crenshaw, the Texas representative who sometimes tries to take a measured and mature stance and other times makes mini-movies in which he fantasizes about leaping out of airplanes and beating up antifa. As the western state was plunged into an energy crisis, he thought it was time to take action — which is to say to mock AOC and the Green New Deal gang.

So when Crenshaw’s constituents were suddenly experiencing their own energy crisis, people couldn’t help but remind people about his callous words.

And then there was, of course, Ted Cruz, currently the most frequently mocked member of the GOP. One of his old tweets also resurfaced, in which he too tried to pin California’s woes on the left.

While a lot of people dunked on Crenshaw and Cruz, and deservedly so, some took the high road, hoping it would be a teachable moment — albeit for a group of lawmakers who tend to not learn.

Hang in there, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and anywhere else dealing with unusually cold temperatures and snow. And we hope you one day get politicians who don’t belittle the suffering of others.

The Minnesota Timberwolves will not have the services of D’Angelo Russell for the next few weeks. According to a report by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Russell needs to undergo a procedure on his left knee to remove a loose body, and as a result, he’ll spend the nest 4-6 weeks on the mend.

Shortly after, the news was confirmed by the team.

It’s an absolutely brutal turn of events for the team, which just got Karl-Anthony Towns back into the lineup following a bout with COVID-19. Russell has started 19 of the 20 games in which he’s appeared this season — he hasn’t appeared in four of their last five tilts, and the one time he did take the floor, he played less than six minutes — and has averaged 19.3 points and 5.1 assists in 29.2 minutes a night while connecting on just a hair under 40 percent of his attempts from three.

In his stead, Minnesota will presumably turn to the stead hand of Ricky Rubio, who has been pinch hitting in the starting lineup with Russell out. Regardless of whether he’s out for the low-end of that projection or he misses all six weeks, the implication would be that Russell won’t be able to return to the floor until after the All-Star break.

This year, our official Mardi Gras cocktail is the classic Bloody Mary. It’s spicy, full of umami, and has just the right hit of alcohol to be both an after-work sipper or an eye-opener during a late-morning brunch. And with Mardi Gras being an at-home celebration this year, you’re going to need a cocktail or two ready to mix up for your own bacchanal.

The thing with the Bloody Mary is that it has about a million variations/recipes. While the main riffs are pretty straightforward (think a Canada’s Caesar with Clamato or Mexico’s Michelada with beer instead of vodka and Clamato in place of pure tomato juice), a lot of variations go out of their way to be over the top. Granted that’s mostly with absurd garnishes but I’ve seen recipes that ask you to make garlic reductions and source random radishes only grown far, far away.

That feels like overkill. It’s a drink, not a science experiment.

The Bloody Mary below leans towards classic flavors and keeps it simple. The important thing to remember with Bloody Mary preparation is to make this your own. I like mine fairly spicy, peppery, and full of a lot of celery salt (but not on the rim). I also like a touch of clam juice in there, to give a light nod to our mixing brethren up in Canada.

That’s just me, though. Treat this recipe as a starting point and dial in your Bloody Mary based on your tastes and palate. Let’s get mixing!

Bloody Mary

Ingredients:

• 2-oz. vodka
• 6-oz. tomato juice
• 1 barspoon clam juice from a jar of clams
• 4 dashes Worcestershire sauce
• 4 dashes Tabasco
• 2 dashes Habanero Tabasco
• Lemon juice from 1/2 of a lemon
• Salt
• Black pepper
• Celery salt
• Celery stalk
• Ice

A few quick notes. Always pre-chill your vodka. I always keep a bottle of Stoli in the freezer with my ice. You really want to start with an already ice-cold base of vodka. It brings a softer texture and blends with the drink much better.

Next, make sure your tomato juice has spent the night in the fridge. As with the vodka, you really want to start with already cold ingredients. This will help the texture of the drink hold and not get watered down. That is the ice will cool and mix the drink without severe melting (you’ll see what I mean below).

Lastly, use whatever hot sauce you like. I like a vinegar forward hot sauce in the cocktail and a genuinely hot chili-forward hot sauce on the top that’ll make my lips buzz when I take a sip. When I have it, I use Valentina’s — usually with the standard hot sauce in the cocktail and their Extra-Hot on top.

What You’ll Need:

• Pint glass
• Barspoon
• Pairing knife
• Juicer
• Jigger

Method:

• Fill a pint glass with ice.
• Add the vodka, clam juice, lemon juice, a large pinch of salt, two shakes of celery salt, a few cranks of black pepper from a mill, and four dashes of both Worcestershire and Tabasco.
• Top with tomato juice and stir (from the bottom up, rotating the ice) until all ingredients are fully integrated and the glass starts to chill.
• Top with ice if needed and add two dashes of Habanero Tabasco and two more shakes of celery salt.
• Garnish with a celery stalk.
• Serve.

Bottom Line:

This was a much-needed eye-opener during my day-off lunch. There’s a beautifully silken texture to the cocktail that’s counterpointed by sharp spice, pepperiness, and deep umami. The touches of lemon and clam lurk just beneath the surface. The suprise with a good bloody is always how refreshing it is, and this nailed that aspect.

If you look at the photo below, you’ll see the look of the cocktail you want to aim for. The black pepper should be suspended in the body of the drink. That won’t happen if you’re using room temp vodka and juice. The drink will get too watered down and everything will drop to the bottom of your glass — no one wants that.

Since it’s already Fat Tuesday, you better get your vodka in the freezer and tomato juice in the fridge ASAP.

You don’t hear a lot of misinformation about what happened during the 2020 election, and for good reason: Many of those who used to spread voter fraud lies were deplatformed and rightwing places that used to give them platforms — Fox News, Newsmax, etc. — have been threatened with lawsuits by Dominion Voting Systems, the company at the center of said conspiracy theories. The only one still at it is Mike Lindell, aka the MyPillow Guy. And lo and behind, he’s finally about to get sued.

On Tuesday, a lawyer for Dominion told The Daily Beast that their long-threatened lawsuit would be filed “imminently.” The voting machine company were none-too-pleased when Lindell, as well as Trump lawyers Lin Wood and Sidney Powell, kept insisting, without proof, that China and others somehow hacked their machines, nudging the vote Biden’s way. Dominion have already sued Powell and Rudy Giuliani. Now they’re coming for Lindell.

“He has doubled down and tripled down. He has made himself a higher public profile with his documentary,” said Dominion attorney Tom Clare, referring to Lindell’s continued habit of publicly making wackadoodle conspiracy theories involving them. Indeed, the company issued him two warnings, advising him to stop making up nonsense involving them.

Lindell’s response to the threatened lawsuit was essentially to double dog dare them. That was his response this time as well. “That would so make my day, because then they would have to go into discovery, and that would make my job a lot easier,” Lindell told The Daily Beast. “It’ll be faster for me to get to the evidence, and to show the people in the public record the evidence we have about these machines…I will not stop until every single person on the planet knows, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, what these machines did to us.”

He added, “If they sue me, I would be so happy.”

While Lindell has been all too happy to keep on keepin’ on with the voter fraud silliness, even as he put his company at risk, he’s been running out of places to talk about it. He recently made a disastrous appearance on Newsmax, in which he began to talk about Dominion only to have his mic volume lowered, resulting in one anchor walking off set. The far right channel still played host to his two-hour conspiracy theory movie Absolute Proof, albeit with a giant disclaimer disavowing them of the content of Lindell’s speech. If he keeps at it, it sounds like he’ll soon be doing his Dominion routine in the most random of places.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Shaka King, who directed Judas And The Black Messiah, has described the plot pitched to him by the Lucas Brothers, who co-wrote the screenplay, as “The Departed set inside the world of COINTELPRO.”

COINTELPRO was of course the FBI’s program to infiltrate and discredit anti-war and civil rights organizations (including the stated goal of preventing a “Black Messiah” from uniting them all, as referenced in the title). In this case, it led to the execution-style killing of Fred Hampton during a police raid. Daniel Kaluuya plays Hampton in the film.

The Leonardo DiCaprio of this operation (a slightly imprecise metaphor in this case since the informant wasn’t a cop) was Bill O’Neil, a car thief who agreed to become an FBI informant in return for a suspended sentence. Lakeith Stanfield plays O’Neil in the film, with Jesse Plemons as his FBI handler Roy Mitchell.

The performances in the film are fantastic, with Kaluuya looking like an early lock for best actor as Hampton. But it is, of course, a movie, and one that seems to trade spectacle for a coherent account of the events depicted at certain points (which we’ll get to in a separate piece). The story is framed around Bill O’Neil’s last and only known interview, for a 1990 PBS docuseries, Eyes On The Prize 2, directed by Louis J. Massiah and Thomas Ott. The whole thing is currently available online (for now). Watch it below.

It’s an interesting watch and offers a good background on the events, which probably could form the basis of a few different movies. In addition to Hampton, it also touches on Bobby Seale getting gagged during the trial of the Chicago 7, which was depicted in last year’s The Trial of The Chicago 7.

It’s been over a month since Donald Trump was booted from much of social media, and things have been pretty quiet online. There’s even a good chance you now go a day or two without even thinking of Trump, much less hearing his voice or reading his tweets. That all changed on Tuesday, when the former president, unable to tweet, released a long, meandering, Blogspot-worthy statement, mostly about dragging the man who helped save him from a Senate conviction.

“The Republican party can never be respected or strong with political ‘leaders’ like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm,” Trump began. He was just getting warmed up. He took the Senate Minority Leader to the woodshed and beyond, claiming his “business as usual, status quo policies” are what led to his recent demotion — not that the GOP had gotten behind a highly unpopular, hugely divisive president who was on his way out.

There were other accusations. Trump claimed that Senate and House leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer play McConnell “like a fiddle” and “they’ve never had it so good.” He said he has “no credibility” because of his family’s “substantial Chinese business holdings.”

There were insults, too. “Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again.” He made vague promises that “where necessary and appropriate,” he will “back primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First.”

The statement comes mere days after McConnell essentially instructed much of his party to acquit Trump of inciting the failed MAGA coup of January 6, which had gotten him impeached for a second time in the House. Then again, immediately following the vote McConnell did launch into a lengthy broadside against Trump, essentially admitting that he was guilty but was spared on the technicality that he was no longer in office. But then, it was McConnell who had delayed the Senate vote, which could have come during his final days on the job. Seems Trump’s being at best semi-ungrateful.

The former president wasn’t only trying to further split a party that’s already in shambles. While he stopped short of election misinformation, he did point out that he “received the most votes of any sitting President in history, almost 75,000,000.” (He didn’t mention that Biden received more.) He claimed he “single-handedly saved at least 12 Senate seats,” and averred that many Georgia Republicans ‘voted Democrat, or just didn’t vote’ due to their anger at some of his other favorite punching bags, Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.”

He then laid down the gauntlet, essentially trying to do what he did back in the run-up to the 2016 election: taking aim at establishment Republicans and offering himself as a deranged alternative.

Of course, back then he wasn’t banned from his favorite social media service. This statement is a dense text, but in the before-time he would have spread this over an epic thread.

Will Trump be able to once again destroy the Republican party via occasional lengthy screeds that could stand an editor? Stranger things have happened. In the meantime, right now McConnell’s dour face must sure be red.