Month: March 2021

Much of the intrigue surrounding the Toronto Raptors as we approach Thursday’s trade deadline involves the future of Kyle Lowry, as the best player in franchise history is rumored to have piqued the interest of the Miami Heat and the Philadelphia 76ers. He isn’t the only Raptors player who has drawn plenty of interest, as a recent report by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN indicates there is a huge market trying to acquire the services of one of his teammates.

According to Woj, Norman Powell isn’t just drawing interest, nearly half the league is doing its due diligence on the high-scoring wing, with “a dozen or so” teams trying to bring him on board.

“The Raptors have a host of ways to go with a Powell trade — a number of combinations of young players, draft picks and expiring contracts — that’ll give Toronto optionality,” Wojnarowski wrote.

Powell is a sensible trade target in a few ways. The big one is his contract, as the soon-to-be 28-year-old has a player option for $11.6 million in 2021-22 that Woj reports he’s expected to decline. For teams that could use a scoring punch ahead of this year’s playoff push, Powell can absolutely bring that, as he’s averaging a career-high 19.5 points per game while connecting on 49.5 percent of his shots from the field and 43.4 percent of his threes.

Justin Bieber has openly discussed his deeply religious background and this week, he put his beliefs into action. Following the release of his anticipated album Justice Friday, which examines his religious roots, the singer returned from vacation and immediately got to work spreading the word of God.

Bieber rolled up to California State Prison of LA County in his prized RV trailer early this week, according to a report from TMZ. His goal was to preach Christianity to inmates there. Apparently, the warden of the state prison signed off on a brief visit for Bieber and his pastor, who was there to support faith-based programs at the jailhouse. The report states that it’s unclear exactly what Bieber’s plans were for the day, but he may have read the gospel or lead a choir in song. Thankfully, COVID-safe protocols were reportedly followed “to a T” during his visit.

Not only did Bieber’s Justice album touch on themes of Christianity, but it also attempts to discuss social justice issues. His way of doing so was to include quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr, which felt disjointed and received some backlash from listeners. Bieber claimed that his goal was to simply “amplify Martin Luther King Jr.’s voice to this generation” and while many didn’t think the intention was clear, MLK’s estate had actually signed off on the samples.

Justice is out now via Def Jam. Get it here.

Earlier this month, Arizona rapper Baby Keem shared his first new single of 2021, “No Sense,” after a relatively quiet 2020 that saw the release of just two singles despite Keem’s appearance on the 2020 XXL Freshman cover. Today, he shared the apocalyptic video for the new track, which was produced by Kendrick Lamar’s pgLang, naturally.

The video finds Keem staring out the window of an apartment in a large apartment building complex, watching what appears to be masses of people congregating in the courtyard below. Inside the apartment, he seems to see a group of women sitting around a table exchanging little white packages, while outside, one of the buildings collapses for seemingly no reason.

Keem finally decides to leave the apartment, running to the parking garage and commandeering a car, but at the end of the video, he takes a curve in the exit corkscrew a little too quickly in his haste to escape and the car careens off the building before a smash-cut to black. If anyone wants to take a guess at what any of this means, they’re welcome to, because the video leaves a lot open to interpretation.

With “No Sense,” the total of videos he’s released since 2019’s “Orange Soda” blew up comes to three, including “Moshpit” and “Hooligan.” It seems clear that Keem is willing to take his time in releasing a full-length project and judging from the growing stream counts, his fans are more than willing to eagerly consume each long-awaited release.

Watch Baby Keem’s “No Sense” video.

It’s been years since The Antlers released a new album, and now listeners don’t have to wait much longer for their next one, as Green To Gold is set for release this week. Fans who don’t mind leaving the confines of their streaming platform of choice, however, can actually listen to the full album right now, as the band has premiered it early in full via a film on their website.

The band wrote of the film, “So humbled to work with such ridiculously talented people on this project— directors Derrick Belcham & Emily Terndrup, and featured performers Bobbi-Jene Smith, Dea & Or Schraiber. They’ve created a deeply moving story here, one that parallels that of the album, but told in their own language of movement and light. I can think of no better way to reveal Green to Gold than through their vision.”

Peter Silberman previously said of the album, “I set out to make Sunday morning music. […] Most of the songs on Green To Gold are culled from conversations with my friends and my partner. It’s less ambiguous about who’s speaking and who’s listening. I think the shift in tone is the result of getting older. It doesn’t make sense for me to try to tap into the same energy that I did ten or fifteen years ago, because I continue to grow as a person, as I’m sure our audience does too. Green To Gold is about this idea of gradual change. People changing over time, struggling to accept change in those they love, and struggling to change themselves. And yet despite all our difficulty with this, nature somehow makes it look easy.”

Watch the film here and check out our recent Indie Mixtape 20 Q&A with Silberman here.

Green To Gold is out 3/26 on Anti-. Pre-order it here.

Cult hit Scott Pilgrim vs. the World came out 10 years ago last year, but due to the pandemic, celebrating the anniversary in a theater (the way it should be seen) proved impossible. But now that things are gradually, cautiously, ever-so-slowly returning to normal (99 percent of AMC theaters will be open by the end of the month), it’s time to —

WE ARE SEX-BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4.

A never-before-seen version of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is being released in select Dolby Cinema theaters for one week beginning April 30. “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was designed for the big screen and for the best sound systems,” co-writer and director Edgar Wright said. “To be able to see it with the best specs is obviously any filmmaker’s dream. You want people to see it as good as it could possibly be. I suspect that if you’re a fan of the movie, you’re going to get such a kick out of seeing it like this.” It also will tide over fans of Wright’s work until his new film, Last Night in Soho, is released in October.

The stacked cast for the third best comic book movie of the 2010s includes Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Brie Larson, Ellen Wong, Jason Schwartzman, Aubrey Plaza, Brandon Routh, Alison Pill, and Mae Whitman. For ticket information, head here.

If a new report is correct, there might be more extremely devoted Snyder Cut fans out there than anyone realized. According to Samba TV, 1.8 million HBO Max subscribers stayed up late to watch Zack Snyder’s Justice League as soon as it hit the streaming platform. The third party pollster, whose information comes from terrestrial smart TV users and is not official data from HBO Max, based its numbers on any subscriber who fired up the Snyder Cut within the first five minutes of its release. Given that the film started streaming at 3 AM EST/12 AM PST on March 18, it’s no surprise that the numbers skew heavily towards the West Coast. Via Deadline:

Samba TV showed that the diversity breakdown for Snyder Cut households were Black (+17%), Hispanic (+20%), and Asian (+18%) demos which over-indexed. Of the 25 largest markets, the most over-indexing were San Francisco (+67%), Sacramento (+33%), and Los Angeles (+32%).

Of course, there’s a chance the number of Snyder Cut viewers could be even larger than Samba TV reported, given its polling methods, but it also doesn’t tell the whole picture as many of those users could’ve started the film, only to bail minutes later. However, Samba TV is making a bold claim that the Snyder Cut actually outperformed The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but not by much. The Disney+ show reportedly brought in 1.7 million viewers during its debut, which is pretty darn close to the Snyder Cut’s 1.8 million. But, again, these aren’t official numbers.

That said, Samba’s data did support Marvel’s claim that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier had the most watched premiere of any Disney+ series to date, which now puts The Mandalorian Season 2 premiere and WandaVision in second and third place, respectively.

(Via Deadline)

In the Reel Goats-directed video for Rod Wave’s “Tombstone,” the Florida trap crooner recalls his struggles as he enjoys a snow day in the forest. However, in the deceptively sunny B-plot of the video, a little boy endures similar tribulations, watching his out-of-work father argue with his clearly overworked mom. His story comes to a head when he’s approached on the street by a police patrol car and things pretty much play out like you’d expect.

The somber video accompanies the latest single from Rod’s upcoming album, SoulFly, following the reflective “Street Runner.” The innovative rapper accompanied that single with a web video game that plays a chiptune version of the instrumental and lets players race a hot rod along a coastline at sunset collecting heart-shaped power-ups.

Before announcing the album’s release date, Rod had a falling out with his label over money, threatening to hold back its release until things were made right. Within a few days, though, he apologized for making the issue public and said everything had been resolved. He quickly followed up with a tracklist and release date: March 26, this Friday.

Watch Rod Wave’s “Tombstone” video above.

SoulFly is due 3/26 on Alamo Records. You can pre-save it here.

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.

One of Guapdad 4000’s press pics is a photo of him and his grandma, whom he lovingly calls “Naynay.” It’s a Tagalog term of endearment meaning “mom”; the way he uses it reflects the relationship he has with his Filipino grandmother as a result of his rough-and-tumble upbringing in West Oakland. Throughout his newly-released album, 1176, he highlights those aspects of his Filipino heritage as he shares some of his most vulnerable and personal material yet.

That cultural honor comes through in the titles of songs like “Chicken Adobo,” in which he compares a partner’s love to the heartwarming flavor of the Philippines’ most recognizable dish. The autobiographical vulnerability comes through in songs like “Uncle Ricky,” where he details his run-ins with a reckless relative, and “Stoop Kid,” where the porch of the house from the album’s cover becomes the center of the mise en scene for dice games, shootouts, and family drama to play out over the course of Guapdad’s life.

It’s only right, then, that his prime partner in this endeavor is someone who can relate to some of those aspects of his upbringing. Enter Illmind, a near 20-year veteran producer who has worked with some of hip-hop’s biggest hitmakers and well-respected underground legends from Drake (“You & The 6“) and J. Cole (“Love Yourz“) to Little Brother (“Good Clothes“) and Skyzoo (“Luxury” with Westside Gunn) — and he just happens to be Filipino, as well. Guapdad and Illmind met at a mutual friend’s session and instantly formed a personal and creative bond that resonates throughout 1176, from the unexpected Alice Deejay flip on lead single “How Many” to the ghostly, deconstructed Miami bass R&B of “Catching Bodies,” that brings out some of Guapdad’s most cutting recollections and observations.

Uproxx connected with the “Cartier Kuyas” over the phone to break down the new album, but unfortunately, the conversation had to once again swing to address the sharp rise in anti-Asian hate crimes over the past year in the wake of the recent spa shooting spree in Atlanta. While that conversation helped to highlight a sense of solidarity between the two seemingly disparate groups that actually form Guapdad’s genetic makeup, the rest of our discussion illuminated the intriguing creative process behind bringing 1176 to life.

I have to ask: how are you feeling? How are you responding to the tough news?

Illmind: It’s coming as a surprise to me, just as much as everyone else. It’s really unfortunate. I’m saddened by it. I’m praying for the people who have been affected and the families of all the people that lost their lives so far in these hate crimes. 2020 was an intense year for obvious reasons and now it’s almost like we’re shifting to each culture every year.

It’s rooted in hate. So I pray that we can do what we can to start shifting the narrative and, this might sound whimsical and like I’m in fantasy land, but I am a real true believer in love conquering hate at the end of the day, but getting there is going to be the challenge.

Guapdad: That was a powerful statement, Illmind. I’m over here completely resonating with that. I’m trying to take my time and come up with my more diplomatic response, because right now I’m just on some Oakland n**** sh*t because it’s infuriating. If somebody touched my grandma, I’m going to kill him.

I feel you. I remember you said that the last time we talked about this. So, as far as the album goes: What was the seed? How did this get started? Where did the idea come from and how did you water it and make it grow?

Guapdad: Essentially, the seed came from us. I only talk in this with this type of diction because we homies and I like to give you a bit more deeper scoop than most of the shit we’ve been doing: Honestly, I feel like innately, me and Ill, have been preparing our whole lives to meet each other and work.

Everything that he liked, everything that I liked, everything that we had done up until this point kind of snowballed into us f*cking clash-of-the-Titans meeting each other and just feeling like we was already friends. We both have those similar life experiences throughout our whole lives that led us to there, to where we got this crazy synergy. I don’t give a f*ck what Ill play. As soon as I hear it, the song’s done.

Illmind: I mean Guap said it all. That’s exactly how it started. It’s crazy because we come from two different coasts. Guap is from the West, I’m from the East. We came up on a lot of the same things even with that distance, from fashion to just music taste to just this aesthetic, visual audio aesthetic, everything. And we both take our crafts very seriously and we’re deeply passionate.

When you put two guys like us together, on top of the fact that we both share a similar culture being Filipino, it’s like what Guap said, we were almost sort of destined to do this. The first time I had a session with Guap was in LA, and it was almost like a deja vu moment, where it was like either I saw this happening or it was kind of like written in the stars and it was like, “Oh yeah, whatever you’ve been doing up to this point led to this point right now.”

Guap, how do you tap into this vulnerable mode and why was it so important to do it on this project coming straight off Dior Deposits?

Guapdad: Honestly bro, that was just one big venting session. I’ve been doing a lot of running from a lot of demons, especially throughout just quarantine and all of these things going wrong. And all of these things popping up in my life that trouble me, that take sleep away from me, that add to the pressures of my career. I run away from these things by just working more. I distract myself with work because I’m a f*cking work machine.

I hadn’t processed losing my house because I never slowed down. Had a going away last party at the crib, and I went and I got my tears out. I cried harder than I ever cried in my life at this sayonara event to my old residence. But I feel emotionally, hadn’t really dealt with that devil face-to-face. And the music, these beats, my heart, my spirit was forcing me to talk about it. It was forcing me to talk about that because creatively, I’d probably always reference it and never get over it if I didn’t.

I don’t want to always talk about how much it hurt to lose the house. I don’t want to always look at white people in my neighborhood and get mad at them for gentrification. I don’t want to harbor hate. So it was necessary that I made a song like “Stoop Kid” so that I can still exist in a normal space.

Illmind: It was crazy because at the point in the album creation, when Guap was like, “All right, let’s do some shit. I want to tell some stories, man. I need to pull some emotions.” And a light bulb came off for me because those are, personally for me, those are some of my favorite types of records to make with people. And when he said that, I pulled out the bag.

On “You & The 6,” that was [Drake’s] first time he’s talking about his relationship with his mother and father. “Love Yourz,” a song about Cole talking about the importance of self love and valuing the right things, became the muse for Forest Hills Drive. I feel like when I make music, there’s this emotion that I put into it. And when an artist feels that same, resonates with that vibration and is able to pull something deep inside of them and write something incredible with it, that’s my North star where I feel like I did my job.

What does Naynay think about the wild stuff you sometimes say on these records?

Guapdad: She don’t give a f*ck. [All laughing.] I’m paying bills, and she know my heart is good. One thing that’s tight about my grandma is she sees my blackness and my extrovertedness, she’s always nurtured it. There is a side of me that is very blunt. And there is a side of me that’s non-filtered. And she always accepts that because she accepts me expressing myself. And this is how I choose to do it. So she f*cks with it.

All parents everywhere are just winging it. But as a kid or a person without kids, especially, who never thought on that level, you don’t realize that. Because that’s who you look to when you hungry. That’s who you look to when you need money. That’s what you look to when everything fails and you got to restart. Some people don’t get that privilege. It should be every human’s fail-safe. And that’s how I look at my grandma. She like God to me in that way because her forgiveness is indefinite, and I’m appreciative of that. There’s something tangible that I can hold onto. Even though it’s emotion, that shit is so thick with presence, I feel like it’s physical.

I know you guys have to sit through a lot of press days and have to answer a lot of the same questions over and over and over again. I want to know: What’s a question that you guys wished somebody would have asked you that nobody’s ever asked you?

Guapdad 4000: I never get to talk about cinema, and I have a real love for movies. If you ask me who’s my favorite sound designer, I would say Hans Zimmer.

Illmind: I’m going to copy Guap. Can I do some movie talk too?

Go for it!

Illmind: I guess a lot of people don’t know this about me, but I love John Woo, the director. Hard Boiled, The Killer, all the OG sh*t. Bullet In The Head, The Replacement Killers are fire. But in general, I’ve been really getting into Korean cinema from the ’90s and early 2000s. Korean cinema is something that I was pretty obsessed with for a long time. But I just think their sh*t is super fly. The soundtracks, the visuals, the type of cameras they use, the goriness, the storylines are so bizarre, but so fire to me. Old Boy is the most insane script to put a green light on. I’m talking about the OG one.

Guapdad: One of the greatest movies of all time.

1176 is out now via Paradise Rising / 88rising Records / 12Tone Music. Get it here.

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

After the events of WandaVision, as more heroes are introduced to the MCU and a new Avengers team assembles, we got to thinking: Which superhero has had the best introduction in the Marvel Universe to date? Now obviously, that question is subjective. It depends on which team member you favor, what kind of action movie you’re looking for, and whether you prefer the films to stick to their comic counterparts or branch out and try something new. There’s nuance here to be sure. But we’re going to avoid all that by giving fans a simple ranking to fight over in the comments section instead.

We sorted our favorite superheroes in order of which Avenger had the best intro into the MCU. Disagree with these rankings or don’t, what’s done is done.

17. Hulk

We hate to do this to Eric Bana… and Edward Norton… and Mark Ruffalo, but Marvel struggled in its early days to not only define who Bruce Banner was but also give fans a cohesive origin story for the MCU’s greenest Avenger. It wasn’t until the eventual superhero team-up that Ruffalo gave this monstrosity some personality, and it would take director Taika Waititi’s influence to mine the comedy from this Jekyll and Hyde creation. That’s too long of a build-up, even if the payoff is Captain America shouting, “Hulk, smash.”

16. Black Widow

Again, it gives us no pleasure to relive how dirty Marvel did Black Widow in her early iterations. Though the Iron Man sequel was a fun romp, introducing this super-spy as a piece of eye-candy for an increasingly suicidal Tony Stark is a cinematic choice that just doesn’t age well. The Avengers gave Natasha Romanoff more agency and pushed beyond the superficial “strong female character” label that she repped in Iron Man 2. Plus, all of those sexual harassment jokes? Not a good look, even for a billionaire playboy philanthropist.

15. The Falcon

We’ve no doubt that the upcoming Disney+ series is going to give Sam Wilson his due, but his first look in the MCU fell a bit flat. It’s not the character’s fault. After all, it’s hard to establish yourself as the new bestie of Captain America when that pesky, brainwashed super-soldier is wreaking havoc all over Washington D.C. We learned the tiniest bit about Wilson’s service record and how he’s adjusting to civilian life before Cap pulls him into a different war but here’s hoping The Falcon and The Winter Soldier tells us more about him than just his taste in music.

14. Winter Soldier

Speaking of Avengers in desperate need of therapy, technically we met Bucky Barnes in the first Captain America outing, but the Winter Soldier feels like a totally different character — all that cryo sleep and mind-f*ckery will do that to a person. We met the Winter Soldier during a difficult period in his Hydra service as he was tasked with eliminating his former best friend only to have his memories jogged just enough to cause him to fail his mission, crash a floating helicarrier into the Potomac, and escape to Bucharest to munch on plums and take stock of his life.

13. Valkyrie

Valkyrie was always going to be a kick-ass character — she’s an elite warrior trained to protect literal gods — but Tessa Thompson took the hero to a different level, leaning into her trauma and her unintentional comedic side. Again, we have Waititi to thank for revamping the Asgardian universe as a whole with his take on Ragnarok, but let’s give Thompson her credit. It takes guts and talent to confidently stroll down a spaceship ramp, drunkenly fall off into a pile of space trash, then dust yourself off and kill some scavengers so you can take your king hostage.

7. Monica Rambeau

Now, when we first meet Monica Rambeau she’s a bold, take-no-sh*t pre-teen who has to remind her Auntie Carol why Earth is worth saving. She continues that tradition (of correcting angry white women too powerful to be all up in their feels) in WandaVision, which is how she gains her own abilities. We’re not completely sure just what those powers are as of now (though we know she can see electromagnetic energy waves and absorb bullets) but it’s not her superhero antics that rank Rambeau so high on this list. Yes, there are problematic plot points in Monica’s origin story — having a Black woman sacrifice herself multiple times to save a superpowered white woman who can’t grieve properly, and that white woman’s fake children is an odd choice — but there’s also something incredibly empowering and refreshingly new about how Marvel gave it’s latest Avenger agency over herself, her own grief, and her choices in WandaVision. Monica Rambeau taught us a lot more about moving on from loss than Wanda ever could.

6. Iron Man

On the one hand, we meet Tony Stark as he’s wheeling and dealing in weapons of mass destruction for his own monetary gain. So, yeah not cool. On the other hand, watching Robert Downey Jr down a scotch in the back of a humvee while he chats up his track record with Maxim cover models to a trio of military escorts as AC/DC plays in the background is BIME — Big Iron Man Energy. Seriously, the film’s first five minutes completely captured the character, gave us a brief overview of his personality and flaws, and set up future action sequences in a way that just can’t be beaten. It’s one of the coolest intros on this list, but then again, with Tony Stark, would you expect anything less?

5. Vision

When the two most intelligent Avengers code your brain and the team’s god-like member wields literal lightning to Frankenstein you to life, you really don’t have to do much to earn a spot on this list. But Paul Bettany made Vision’s “birth” infinitely more interesting by playing him as an all-knowing, all-powerful creature just trying to figure his sh*t out after seeing his reflection in the glass of Stark Tower for the first time, and we’ll always thank him for that.

4. Doctor Strange

Is Stephen Strange an egotistical asshole with a debilitating God-complex and troubling narcissistic tendencies? Yes, but his origin story in the MCU was also one of the more nuanced hero journeys that we’ve been given over the past decade. A brilliant surgeon who loses his ability to practice and goes in search of a healing miracle ends up becoming the Sorcerer Supreme and inheriting a terrible responsibility he may not be ready for. The only thing that could make this any better would be the addition of time-travel or teleportation or kick-ass capes or something…

3. Guardians of the Galaxy

We know, Peter Quill is played by the Worst Chris. But dammit, how good was James Gunn’s first Marvel effort? The music. The flippant comedy. The refusal to take itself seriously as a superhero movie. The bizarre characters and complicated group dynamics and unexpected climactic dance battles. What’s not to love here?

2. Captain Marvel

Chronologically speaking, Captain Marvel should’ve gotten her origin story after Captain America’s World War II tour, but fans had to wait much longer to see Brie Larson play the Air-Force-ace-turned-Kree-warrior in her own solo film. It was worth it though, not just for the Nine Inch Nails tees and Skrull comedy and cat appreciation but because this film introduced us to new alien worlds while giving us a wholly unique hero’s provenance. Having Carol Danvers confront the gaps in her memory to remember her humanity and the true source of her power put a spin on the expected superhero formula.

1. Black Panther

Sure, we knew who Chadwick Boseman was as soon as T’Challa made an appearance during the ratification of the Sokovian Accords. Sure, the solo Black Panther film remains one of the best MCU entries and, by far, the richest, most complex look at a comic book world the franchise has ever given us. But come on, that car chase scene? That Captain America highway standoff. That helmet removal reaction? It doesn’t get any better.

Back in 2010, the MPAA ignited a huge (and silly) furor while initially penalizing Blue Valentine for the scene where Ryan Gosling’s character delivers oral sex to the woman portrayed by Michelle Williams. It wasn’t a great look to effectively censor a female orgasm (and the scene didn’t even show nudity), and there have, of course, been non-penalized portrayals of the female orgasm. Everyone always thinks of Meg Ryan’s When Harry Met Sally performance, but The Daily Show‘s Desi Lydic dug deep on the topic and emerged with a few winners. And the most praised-filled salute goes to Netflix’s Bridgerton, which scored far more points than Katherine Heigl’s and Jennifer Aniston’s unfortunately-written scenes in The Ugly Truth and Bruce Almighty, respectively.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge gave herself a much better end of the deal in Fleabag, but yes, let’s talk about Bridgerton (with the relevant scenes starring Regé-Jean Page and Phoebe Dynevor), which made a point of focusing on female pleasure and scored big time with Netflix audiences as a result. Lydic described the show as “nineteenth century British society taking care of their little women” while adding of Dnyevor’s Daphne character, “She’s a Beth in the streets, but a Jo in the sheets.” She then concluded, “Thanks to Bridgerton, there haven’t been this many female orgasms since, well, everyone started watching Bridgerton.”

Lydic’s not wrong (as SNL recently observed). Nor was Last Week Tonight host John Oliver when he bluntly described the series as “lots of jizzing in blankets on that show.” It’s quite a show. My regards to the Duke.