Month: March 2021

While Saweetie has graced the music world with a few hits and a number of memorable moments, one thing she hasn’t accomplished is releasing her debut album. Entitled, Pretty B*tch Music, the project is on the way, but before it arrives, the Bay Area will join forces with an “iconic” name for an upcoming song.

She shared the news in a recent Instagram post that was captioned, “pretty b*tchin omw to the studio to do a feature for someone……. guess who…… hint: she’s iconic.” The post caused fans to share their theories for who the unnamed act could be, and many concluded that it was Nicki Minaj.

Supporters of both rappers took to Twitter to share their thoughts on a potential new song between Saweetie and Nicki. “I would be here for a Nicki collab ngl,” one user said while another said, “the next pretty b*tch better be Nicki!!! she should’ve been the first tbh (crying emoji).” If the song Saweetie teased is indeed a collaboration with Nicki, it would mark the first time the two rappers have worked together.

Others were a bit skeptical that the upcoming track was a collab with Minaj. Some pointed out that Saweetie’s post did not specify that the song was with another hip-hop act, causing names like Ariana Grande, Adele, and SZA to come up as fans tried to figure out who the iconic name was.

You can view Saweetie’s post above and read some reactions below.

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

The Cleveland Cavaliers are among the teams expected to be sellers at the trade deadline, even if one of their tentpole players is apparently untouchable. According to a report by Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com, a number of teams with postseason aspirations have reached out about the availability of versatile forward Larry Nance Jr.

Having said that, they keep running into the same issue: Fedor reports that the Cavaliers have made it clear that they are absolutely not willing to move on from Nance, who helps the team on the floor in a big way and does a ton to support businesses in his hometown.

Nance would help a lot of teams and he’s on a multi-year bargain deal that makes it easy to come up with matching salaries. He’s the kind of versatile piece that contenders covet because of his defense, playmaking, shooting and impact on winning. According to sources, Nance is the player the Cavs have received the most calls about. Sources say the Minnesota Timberwolves have been aggressively pursuing him since the offseason. Nance’s old teammate and buddy D’Angelo Russell is a strong Nance advocate. Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Miami and Dallas have also shown interest.

But the Cavs keep telling opposing teams that Nance, who is expected to be back in the lineup on March 12 following surgery on his fractured left hand, isn’t available. They recognize what he means to the city and organization.

It’s not hard to see why all of these teams that could use frontcourt reinforcements for a playoff run (save for the Timberwolves, which have someone who’s tight with him) could use a player like Nance. He’s put up really solid numbers this season — 9.3 points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 1.9 steals in 33.4 minutes per game while connecting on 38.1 percent of his attempts from three — while also being willing to do most anything he’s asked to do on a given night. All of these things help Cleveland, too, which makes any hesitancy to move him understandable.

On Saturday, about a month and a half after Biden took office, the Senate passed his first major piece of legislation: the American Rescue Plan, aka the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package. It’s only the third such bill since much of the country went into lockdown just under a year ago, and it’s a doozy, extending unemployment insurance through the summer, earmarking plenty for state and local aid, and even earmarking a bundle to make ACA health plans more affordable.

But there was one significant part of the package that most caught people’s attention: The $1400 headed each American’s way. That’s over twice the amount from the last stimulus package, from late November, which didn’t even make it to a large chunk of Americans’ bank account.

When the bill passed, and people realized they were due another wave of money — again, only the third such payment during a once-in-a-century pandemic that has laid waste to much of American life — people took to Twitter to celebrate.

Although some wanted it posthaste, especially given how badly the last round of stimulus payments was bungled.

Some wondered why it wasn’t even larger.

Many knew they weren’t going to spend it wisely.

And some reminded everyone that while every Democrat in the Senate voted for it, zero Republicans joined them.

In any case, don’t expect that money to hit your account right away. The bill still has to pass through a second round in the House, and then it has to land on Biden’s desk. But hopefully you’ll get it sooner rather than later. Or never.

Lil Uzi Vert went almost three years without a full-length release before dropping Eternal Atake on this date last year. Now it looks the rapper is ready to drop a follow-up, which he revealed during an Instagram Live session on Friday. If a new project from the Philly native arrives in the near future, it would be his fourth project since the start of 2020. Following Eternal Atake, he dropped Lil Uzi Vs. The World 2 and months later, he teamed up with Future for their collaboration Pluto X Baby Pluto.

The upcoming album could be either of his projects Forever Young and Luv Is Rage 3, the latter which he announced in December. He spoke about both efforts during the Instagram Livestream, saying he considered premiering them during a live show before releasing them on streaming platforms. With venues across the country slowly opening up thanks to increasing COVID vaccinations, he may be able to go through with the plan.

Until then, fans can expect to hear Lil Uzi alongside Blink-182 on their upcoming album. He and Grimes were also in the studio apparently “making hits” together.

Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Final Jeopardy is, of course, an incredible test of a person’s ability to get an extremely difficult trivia question correct, but it’s also a test of a person’s ability to game out how things can go based on certain wagers. It takes some assuming how things will go elsewhere in the game, but making the right bet based on how much money you/your competitors have and understanding your limitations about the topic at hand better than everyone else can tilt the game.

An all-time great example of this occurred earlier in the week, when the Final Jeopardy category was “European Landmarks.” The situation heading in: Tim and Jon, the latter of whom was a two-day champion, were tied at $14,200, while Melis was way behind with $2,000. No one ended up getting the question right, but thanks to Melis making an ultra-savvy bet — both in terms of her dollar amount and her understanding that Tim and Jon had to go for broke due to the fact they were tied — she ended up coming out on top.

In a fun twist, a person claiming to be Melis went onto Reddit and explained how things played out, saying that the wording of the question tripped the contestants up and that there was some added drama in the proceedings.

For final J! I discarded the Louvre because of IM Pei, originally thought La Sagrada Familia but knew it had to be French, thought maybe it had something to do with national pride and wrote something incorrect knowing it was incorrect, since my response didn’t matter anyway.

Yes there was a mess up during FJ where Mike couldn’t read Tim’s answer and we had to pause taping a for a good 5-10 minutes before the camera rolled again and Tim’s answer was revealed to be incorrect, increasing the tension even more.

Considering how dramatic this was for those of us at home after it got cut up and aired, another 5-10 minutes to wait seems particularly wild. But hey, to the winner goes the spoils, and that includes getting to flex a bit on Reddit.

A month and a half after Joe Biden took office, his sweeping pandemic relief package, totaling $1.9 trillion, was passed by the Senate. Hooray! It’s now scheduled to go through the House one more time before it winds up on Biden’s desk, but if it passes with flying colors it won’t be thanks to Republican senators. Every single one of them voted against it, while every Democrat in the chamber was for it, even Krysten Sinema.

The bill is called the American Rescue Plan, and it’s designed to benefit working class Americans far more than the previous two packages passed under the watch of Donald J. Trump. (Although the first one, passed last March, was slightly more expensive, at a total of $2.2 trillion.) As per The New York Times:

It would inject vast amounts of federal resources into the economy, including direct payments of up to $1,400 for hundreds of millions of Americans, jobless aid of $300 a week to last through the summer, money for distributing coronavirus vaccines and relief for states, cities, schools and small businesses struggling during the pandemic.

The previous packages were largely fixated on corporations, but this one goes above and beyond to save those in need:

It would potentially cut child poverty in half, through a generous expansion of tax credits for low-income Americans with children, increases in subsidies for child care, a broadening of eligibility under the Affordable Care Act and an expansion of food stamps and rental assistance.

And again, every single Republican senator was against it. Perhaps they were too busy reading Dr. Seuss books. It’s a reminder about the deep division in Congress — and about how the Democrats are, albeit narrowly, in charge. When the news hit, social media was quick to pounce on those that tried to stop the bill from passing.

But again, conservatives are a little busy right now.

(Via The New York Times)

Joel Embiid was an obvious choice for the 2021 NBA All-Star Game. The Philadelphia 76ers’ superstar big man is the best center in the Eastern Conference and very well could up winning the league’s MVP award when it’s all said and done. As a result, he was a shoe-in for a starting nod this year, and Kevin Durant made sure to take him as he assembled his team for Sunday’s game.

The game will have its annual charitable element based on the teams that win each quarter and, ultimately, the game itself, but this time around, Embiid is adding his own twist to the proceedings. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Embiid will take his $100,000 purse from the game and donate it to a trio of homeless shelters throughout the City of Brotherly Love.

Embiid’s charitable contributions to Philadelphia have been well-documented, most notably when he offered to cover the salaries of stadium workers who were going to see their salaries cut earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic and when he got in on a fund to get antibody testing for Philly healthcare workers last April. Embiid has made it clear that he really appreciates how the city has taken him in and embraced him from day one, and this is the latest way that he is showing his appreciation.

Back in September Beyonce sent flowers to a 13-year-old girl after the singer saw a video of her singing one of her songs. Her name was Lyric Chanel, and she was in the midst of what would be a two-year battle with brain cancer and anaplastic ependymoma. That fight came to a sad end on Friday after news arrived that Chanel unfortunately passed away.

In response Beyonce shared a moving medley of her hits to honor Chanel. The two-minute tribute finds her singing “Brown Skin Girl,” “Halo,” and “Love on Top.” She also replaced the word “baby” with “Lyric” while singing the chorus of the latter song. The medley also comes with a video that shows many pictures and clips from Chanel’s life, including one of her rocking some of Beyonce’s Ivy Park gear, which the singer sent her back in October. “Thank you so much @beyonce this couldn’t have come at a better time,” Chanel wrote in a post celebrating the package. “Just got back from getting Chemo and look at the surprise that was waiting. I love you so much.”

The Go Gold For Childhood Cancer Instagram account shared the sad news on Friday. “Lyric gained her angel wings this morning at the age of 13 years old,” they wrote. “Lyric bravely battled Anaplastic Ependymoma and endured more than a child ever should. She loved singing, listening to music, and dancing. I know she most definitely dancing with all the angels right now. Watch over your family baby girl! You are forever missed!”

You can listen to the medley in the video above.

When those in the far right were kicked off Twitter, they went to Parler. When Parler died, they went to Gab, the “free speech” social media site that has become a nest of violent extremists, including the domestic terrorist responsible for the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018. By and large, though, Gab tends to not attract the same attention as Parler did. That changed on Saturday, when its main Twitter account posted an image some found to be pretty bizarre.

The image the Gab account dropped — an All-American (read: white and middle-class) family hanging in the backyard, surrounding a grill, all of them holding guns, even the dog — wasn’t an original. It’s actually the cover for the video game The American Dream, which is actually a satire about gun culture. Did the Gab team not know this? Or were they trying to reclaim a patently ridiculous image, one that overtly makes fun of their way of thinking? Who knows!

Whatever the case, the tweet went viral, although perhaps not in the way the Gab folks intended.

A lot of people fixated on the image of the dog wielding a gun, despite its lack of opposable thumbs.

Some pointed out its noted dearth of logic.

Or made Lana Del Rey jokes.

Others pointed out the source of the image.

And some pointed out this fun fact: The Twitter account for the social media service that boasts about unlimited free speech no matter what had turned off the post’s public replies.

Eminem has had his fair share of controversy since his breakout 1998 album, The Slim Shady LP. Now he’s caught the ire of young TikTokers who’ve recently discovered his older songs. But their complaints have been brushed off by older fans, who were more acquainted with his catalog.

In a series of TikTok videos that were posted earlier this week, Eminem supporters declared that it’s a bit too late to try and cancel the rapper. The back and forth was labeled as a war between Millennials and Gen-Z, with the former coming to Eminem’s defense as the latter aimed to bring him down. As all of this went on, Eminem himself kept quiet, even as his name trended on Twitter. That changed on Friday when the rapper released a lyric video for his Music To Be Murdered By track “Tone Deaf,” which serves as a pretty obvious shot at his critics.

He announced the video on Twitter by using a pair of lines from the song. “I won’t stop even when my hair turns grey (I’m tone-deaf) / ‘Cause they won’t stop until they cancel me,” he wrote in the tweet.

Two months ago Eminem said he wasn’t worried about cancel culture. “With me, it’s literally like every f*cking every other day,” he said during an appearance on Shade45. “I understand some of the sh*t but for the most part like for people who just sit online and they feel like they need to b*tch about whatever it is to feel like they’re a part of something. With cancel culture, it’s like no one ever really gets canceled though.”

You can watch the lyric video above and see some tweets from Millennial Eminem fans below.