Month: March 2021

While Freddie Gibbs fans had a minor collective meltdown over his album Alfredo being “robbed” at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, the Gary, Indiana rapper’s response was much more affable. Gibbs, who was tabbed by fans as a shoo-in for a Best Rap Album award win thanks to his razor-sharp flows and blunt, darkly humorous observations about his misadventures in the drug game on it, was beaten out by Nas, who won the award for his Hit-Boy-produced 2020 album King’s Disease.

Fred didn’t seem too broken up about it, though. In a video posted to social media by a fan at his private Grammy viewing party, Gibbs shrugged off the loss with his typical irreverent outlook and a cheeky comment, delivered in a flashy, salmon-colored suit. “Look, I might have lost today,” he admitted, addressing the crowd. “But I’m undefeated in court!”

He’s referring, of course, to a handful of criminal cases that broke his way, as detailed recently by an in-depth profile on The Ringer by Jeff Weiss. In one case, a judge misreading the amount in case of possession of weed led to the case being dismissed. In the most recent example, Fred was arrested in France after being accused of sexual assault in Vienna, Austria. However, once the details of the case were heard in court, a panel of Austrian judges declared him not guilty, with video evidence confirming that Gibbs was alone in his room at the time the assault was alleged.

Check out Gibbs;’ tongue-in-cheek response to his Grammy loss above.

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

Selection Sunday is upon us as the 2021 college basketball season saw the last of the conference tournaments come to a close on Sunday afternoon as a thrilling Big Ten title game that saw Illinois take down Ohio State in overtime led us right into the bracket selection show.

As has been the case recently, the bracket was unveiled from the top, as the tournament this year will take place completely in Indianapolis. Leading the way for the 2021 NCAA Tournament are the four top seeds in each region, with little in the way of surprises. Undefeated Gonzaga (26-0) earns the No. 1 overall seed and will stay in the West region, where they will await the winner of a play-in game between Norfolk State and Appalachian State as their 16-seed matchup. In the South, Baylor (22-2) earns the 1-seed despite getting knocked out of the Big 12 Tournament in the semis by Cade Cunningham and Oklahoma State, and they will face 16-seed Hartford.

The final two top seeds come from the Big Ten, which has been the best conference in college hoops all season, and sees conference tournament champion Illinois earn the top seed in the Midwest region, where they will face 16-seed Drexel. Fellow Big Ten squad Michigan locks in the final spot on the 1-line, leading the East region, who will face the winner of the play-in between Mount St Mary’s and Texas Southern.

In total the Big Ten had nine teams make the tournament, followed by seven teams each from the Big 12 and ACC, six from the SEC, five from the Pac-12, and four from the Big East. The Last Four In were Michigan State, UCLA, Wichita State, and Drake, with the First Four Out being Louisville, Colorado State, Saint Louis, and Ole Miss.

The full bracket can be seen below.

WEST
1. Gonzaga vs. 16. Norfolk St or Appalachian St
8. Oklahoma vs. 9. Missouri

5. Creighton vs. 12. UC-Santa Barbara
4. Virginia vs. 13. Ohio

6. USC vs. 11. Wichita State or Drake
3. Kansas vs. 14. Eastern Washington

7. Oregon vs. 10. VCU
2. Iowa vs. 15. Grand Canyon

SOUTH
1. Baylor vs. 16. Hartford
8. UNC vs. 9. Wisconsin

5. Villanova vs. 12. Winthrop
4. Purdue vs. 13. North Texas

6. Texas Tech vs. 11. Utah St
3. Arkansas vs. 14. Colgate

7. Florida vs. 10. Virginia Tech
2. Ohio State vs. 15. Oral Roberts

MIDWEST
1. Illinois vs. 16. Drexel
8. Loyola-Chicago vs. 9. Georgia Tech

5. Tennessee vs. 12. Oregon St
4. Oklahoma St vs. 13. Liberty

6. San Diego St vs. 11. Syracuse
3. West Virginia vs. 14. Morehead St

7. Clemson vs. 10. Rutgers
2. Houston vs. 15. Cleveland St

EAST
1. Michigan vs. 16. Mount St Mary’s or Texas Southern
8. LSU vs. 9. St. Bonaventure

5. Colorado vs. 12. Georgetown
4. Florida St vs. 13. UNC-Greensboro

6. BYU vs. 11. Michigan St or UCLA
3. Texas vs. 14. Abilene Christian

7. UConn vs. 10. Maryland
2. Alabama vs. 15. Iona

Nas hasn’t had much success at the Grammy awards. Well, to be honest, he hasn’t had any. The legendary rapper failed to bring home the coveted award each of the 13 times he was nominated. Luckily for him, all of that changed on Sunday at the 2021 Grammys. Nas won in the Best Rap Album category with his 13th album, King’s Disease. The project was boosted by a refreshed sound thanks to Hit-Boy’s production as well as solid contributions from the likes of Big Sean, Lil Durk, Anderson .Paak, and more.

The win comes 25 years after Nas received his first Grammy nomination in the Best Rap Solo Performance category at the 1996 show for “If I Ruled The World (Imagine That).” His nomination for the Best Rap Album is also the fifth time in Nas’ career that he was in the running for the award. The previous four times came in 2000 with I Am…, 2008 for Hip Hop Is Dead, 2009 for Nas, and 2013 for Life Is Good. Prior to this year, Nas was high on the list of artists with the most Grammy nominations without a win. The names ahead of him include Martina McBride (14), Brian McKnight (17), Snoop Dogg (17), and Morten Lindberg who holds the record with 20 winless nominations.

Nas beat D Smoke’s Black Habits, Jay Electronica’s A Written Testimony, Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist’s Alfredo, and Royce 5’9’’’s The Allegory to take home his first Grammy award.

Prior to the Saints Divisional Round matchup with the Bucs, it was reported that Drew Brees would call it a career whenever New Orleans’ season ended. That, of course, would be that night, and while it has taken two months for him to make it official, Jay Glazer’s initial report was indeed correct as the future Hall of Famer announced his retirement on Instagram on Sunday afternoon, with some help from his kids.

That, officially, meant the Saints were in need of a new quarterback, and it remains to be seen if they believe they have that player already on the roster in 2020, either in Jameis Winston or Taysom Hill, or if they’ll go searching for a bigger name on the market. The latter of those two quickly found himself in the spotlight on Sunday, when Adam Schefter reported he’d inked a 4-year, $140 million deal with the Saints in a restructuring of his contract. The big catch is that it is a completely voidable deal and, because the NFL’s salary cap is one of the weirdest things in the world, it will save New Orleans some serious money for this coming year.

The Saints’ “cap hell” was a running joke coming into this season, but with Brees gone and Hill restructuring, they are once again proving that cap hell is a myth in the NFL and you can always work your way out of it. The question now is whether they can finesse their way into one of the stars currently on the market — Russell Wilson or Deshaun Watson — or if it’s Winston that gets the call to work on a new deal and take the reins for the squad after serving as the backup for a year.

Taika Waititi is a Grammy winner now! That was a bit unexpected! The filmmaker and actor is not a musician, though he has done some music-adjacent work, such as his involvement with The Flight of the Conchords. But on Sunday, during the run of pre-show awards, he accepted the trophy for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media, for his 2019 Holocaust comedy-drama Jojo Rabbit. And he was as surprised to get one as everyone else.

Waititi gave his acceptance speech very remotely — from a trailer on the set of Thor: Love and Thunder, which started filming in Sydney, Australia earlier this year. It began with some technical glitches, but once everything was cleared up he was quick to go into charming jokey mode.

“I guess they’re just giving Grammys to anyone now! I’ll take it, thank you,” Waititi said. He then tried to talk about Jojo Rabbit, which earned him an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay over a year ago, in a much different time. “What can I say? It was so long ago, I can barely remember anything about making that movie — but it seems like it’s never going to go away, and I’m happy about that.” Then he said he was “going back to work now.”

Waititi was also taken aback online.

But he was also very grateful.

The win may be a shock, but it does mean something big: Waititi is one half of the way towards EGOT power. So put him on TV and on Broadway and let’s get this done.

Megan Thee Stallion has achieved a long list of things in her short career and thanks to this year’s Grammy Awards, she can add a special accomplishment to her resume. The Houston rapper and Beyonce became the first women to win in the Best Rap Performance category thanks to their “Savage” collaboration. The song originally appeared on Megan’s Suga project as a solo effort, but shortly after its release, Beyonce hopped on it for a sizzling remix, which helped boost the track to the No. 1 position on the singles chart.

It should be noted that the Best Rap Performance award was created back at the 1989 Grammy Awards, but after the 1990 show, it was split into the Best Rap Solo Performance and Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group categories. It remained this way until 2012 when they were recombined into the Best Rap Performance award after the Grammys reconstructed their categories. Prior to this year’s show, it had only been men who won in the Best Rap Performance category in the 11 years that it was presented at the Grammys.

The Best Rap Performance win is Megan’s first Grammy award. She is also nominated in three other categories including Record Of The Year and Best New Artist. As for Beyonce, the win is the 25th Grammy of her career. The “Black Parade” singer also won in the Best Music Video category for “Brown Skin Girl.” Here’s Meg’s delightful reaction to winning:

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

We’re mere days away from something people have begged to see for over three years: the “Snyder Cut” of Justice League, which aims to salvage the DCEU’s flailing attempt at an Avengers-style ensemble smackdown. When it arrives on Thursday, it will run longer than almost every single Scorsese movie, and just to get people extra-excited to do a lot of sitting, HBO Max dumped a new trailer.

Does it feature anything as goofy and potentially viral as Jared Leto’s Joker actually saying “We live in a society?” It does not. But it does lean pretty heavy on Superman, with Henry Cavill’s Kal-El shown rising from the dead, ready to join a team of old friends and new as they battle the horned Steppenwolf.

The trailer bows the same day as a new New York Times interview, in which Zack Snyder discusses his initial exit from the project, which was taken over by the since-scandalous Joss Whedon, as well as comparing his film with First Cow, Kelly Reichardt’s excellent period piece from last year.

“Those two movies share some common DNA, I think,” Whedon says, though he doesn’t’ elaborate on how. “I would love that in a double feature, First Cow and the Snyder cut of Justice League,” he added, actually using the term DC fans spouted through much of the Trump presidency. What could that mean? Maybe all will make sense when the new version drops on March 18.

(Via Deadline)

WandaVision has officially wrapped on Disney+, but the streaming platform is prepared to give Marvel fans more content later this week. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is set to debut on Friday, and in anticipation of what’s looking like a workplace buddy comedy of sorts, Disney dropped two videos that leaned heavily on the action.

The first came on Twitter, which amounted to a scene previewing the somewhat tense relationship between Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson. In it, the latter leaps out of an airplane mid-flight, not updating the former on what exactly was the plan. He also calls the aforementioned Winter Soldier “Buck,” who didn’t appreciate him using a nickname used by Steve Rogers.

The second video, which you can watch above, amounted to more of a trailer for the show than a sneak peek. But it might have given us more details about what happened with that whole jumping out of a plane thing. Interspersed with clips of Falcon flying through a canyon was a scene showing Barnes flat on his back, apparently having fallen from a great hight, while Falcon’s drone chides the man he calls his “co-worker.”

While the show will play about as far away from a workplace comedy as one can imagine, the comedic tension between Bucky and Sam has certainly been a centerpiece of the marketing for the show. But since the show is premiering on Friday, you don’t have long to wait.

Klay Thompson was supposed to make his return this season from a torn ACL suffered in the 2019 NBA Finals, but the day before the 2020 NBA Draft in November, Thompson suffered a torn Achilles in a pickup game in Los Angeles that ended his 2020-21 campaign before it could even begin.

The long rehab process for Thompson is ongoing, but he’s been able to be with the team this season for it and that has kept his spirits high. On Sunday, the All-NBA shooting guard met with the media for the first time to discuss his progress and much more. Among the questions asked of Thompson was what his expectations were for when he returns to the court next season, and while he said he will begin with a minutes restriction and not come out “balls to the wall,” he made it clear that his long-term expectation is to be an All-NBA player again.

Thompson’s confidence and energy have always been defining characteristics of his game, and it serves him very well in the situation he finds himself in, battling back from two devastating injuries back-to-back. He “guarantees” that he’ll be back to the level he once had, and said he gains confidence he can be that player coming off of an Achilles thanks to what he’s seen from guys like Kevin Durant, John Wall, and, further back, Dominique Wilkins.

As Thompson notes, there will be some loss in explosiveness, but as we’ve seen, particularly from Durant, a player whose game isn’t built on being an explosive athlete can certainly make that return to an elite, All-NBA level again. He seems well aware of the need for patience with this injury, but also won’t cede an inch in terms of internal expectations for how he’ll look once he’s cleared of restrictions.

As the United States passes a rather inglorious milestone of one year of COVID-19 health restrictions and lockdown measures, some good news did come on the possibility of ending the pandemic in the months ahead. While new cases are still occurring and people continue to die from coronavirus, in many places the case counts are dwarfed by increasing numbers of reported vaccinations.

The US now has three different proven, safe COVID-19 vaccines: one from Moderna, another two-shot treatment from Pfizer and a third one-shot treatment from Johnson + Johnson. In recent weeks, as supplies of those three are distributed across the country, the number of vaccinations has increased dramatically and sparked considerable hope that the pandemic’s impact on life in America is reduced and soon eliminated altogether.

Saturday brought even more good news: nationwide reporting of vaccinations set a new record, with more than 4 million shots reported in a single day.

The numbers are staggering but as some pointed out, some of those reported numbers came from earlier in the week as reporting in some cases has lagged.

But as more people are vaccinated, those given the jab continue to be safe and practice good masking and social distancing, and eligibility restrictions loosen as more doses become available, the country is slowly moving toward the herd immunity necessary to finally loosen the deadly disease’s grasp on American citizens.