Month: April 2021

Earth Day is right around the corner and as the climate change crisis persists, it’s more important than ever to raise awareness about environmentalism. That’s why iconic TV host Bill Nye The Science Guy has tapped several musicians including Justin Bieber and Jack Harlow to join him in an Earth Day-themed musical.

Earth Day! The Musical takes place on April 22 and follows Nye as he and a handful of celebrities and activists share information about how individuals can do their part to help curb the effects of climate change. Other celebrities slated to join Bieber, Harlow, and Nye include Maluma, Ben Platt, Charli and Dixie D’Amelio, Cody Simpson, Steve Aoki, Tori Kelly, Zac Efron, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, and Nick Kroll.

The event will stream on Facebook and also showcase the important work of several entrepreneurs trying to make the world a better place. CEO Alexia Akbay will highlight their Hawaii-based company Symbrosia, which uses seaweed to reduce livestock methane, and 18-year-old Jerome Foster II will discuss how he became the youngest member of the Biden White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

Earth Day! The Musical premieres 4/22 at 12 p.m. ET. Watch it here.

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

50 Cent has signed for his next starring role and get ready for the description on this one. The film is called Free Agents, and according to reports, the Lionsgate film (which 50 Cent is also executive producing) is being sold as a “high concept sports action heist thriller.” As for what that means for the average moviegoer: Football players pulling heists. Via THR:

Agents, described as a high concept sports action heist thriller, tells of a group of professional football players who come together to steal from the team owners who [are] exploiting them.

The story focuses on a journeyman player who gets his last shot at his dream but just as he starts to find some on field success, is lured into a dangerous crime ring with some of his teammates that threatens his dream, his family, and his safety. Jackson will play the leader of the ring, a veteran linebacker who pulls the young player into his dangerous scheme to get back at league owners.

In a statement to THR, Free Agents director Deon Taylor (Fatale, Black and Blue) had nothing but praise after locking down 50 Cent for the football heist flick. “50 has been legendary in all ways I have been extremely impressed by his amazing energy on screen and his ability to light up every scene he is in,” Taylor said. “I truly believe this extremely complex role will truly allow the world to understand just how unbelievably talented 50 is as an artist.”

Of course, the real trick is going to be getting 50 Cent to comply with COVID standards. The rapper/actor ran into trouble for hosting a maskless Super Bowl party, and he immediately started making plans to visit Texas after learning that the state lifted its mask mandate. “I’m headed to Texas f*ck this,” he wrote on Instagram back in March.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Overwatch lost one of its most influential developers. Jeff Kaplan, director of Overwatch and the in-development Overwatch 2, announced his departure from Activision-Blizzard in a letter to fans on Tuesday. Taking over for Kaplan will be long time developer for Blizzard and a “founding member” of Overwatch, Aaron Keller. Both Keller and Kaplan wrote a letter to fans following Kaplan’s announcement.

“It was truly the honor of a lifetime to have the opportunity to create worlds and heroes for such a passionate audience,” Kaplan wrote. “I want to express my deep appreciation to everyone at Blizzard who supported our games, our game teams and our players. But I want to say a special thanks to the wonderful game developers that shared in the journey of creation with me.

“Jeff’s been a great leader, mentor, and friend, and he knows how much we’re going to miss him,” Keller said. “I’ve been lucky to work alongside him and the rest of the Overwatch team for many years in building something that continues to inspire people all around the world, and I’m honored to carry the torch forward.”

To say that this is shocking would be an understatement. Kaplan has been the face of Overwatch since the game was originally announced back in 2014. He’s the person who would announce major changes to the game and was the one who announced Overwatch 2 entering development back in 2019.

Since then, details about Overwatch 2 have been sparse and Kaplan himself has been fairly quiet. Without many new details about the game, it’s been hard to gauge how development is going, but the assumption has always been that Kaplan was at the head of it. Games changing directors mid-development like this is rarely a good thing for the game itself — it’s a new voice leading the charge and it’s going to impact how development proceeds moving forward. This doesn’t mean that Keller can’t handle it, but it’s hard to feel confidence about Overwatch 2 when something like this happens.

This also raises questions about Activision-Blizzard’s eSports project, Overwatch League. Kaplan was always a huge supporter of Overwatch League and appeared to take a role in pushing Overwatch to become an eSport. However, Overwatch League has had a lot of upheaval over the last year with layoffs in Activision-Blizzard’s eSports departments back in March and former commissioner Pete Vlastelica stepping down in October 2020.

For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what kind of impact this is going to have on the franchise as a whole, because a name like Kaplan doesn’t step down without having waves.

Kurt Vile has released music on a handful of labels over the years, but his best-known work has come with Matador Records. His 2009 album Childish Prodigy was the first and his most recent was 2018’s Bottle It In. His next record will be released elsewhere, though, as Vile revealed today that he has signed with Verve Records.

Vile shared a statement about the signing, in which he notes he has long admired the label. He also says that he has “hundreds of songs and ideas” in various states of completion. He wrote:

“I’ve admired the @ververecords logo on the back (and front!) of many -a- velvet underground album since my teens. in particular the logo on the back of the vinyl boxset of the quine tapes has been haunting me for the last several years now… for whatever reason i often find myself staring into it (true story!). so when i was approached by the label to be signed i was surprised and honored to be sure… but i had already felt that subliminal enchantment and i knew it was a, well… sign! i think my previous album ‘bottle it in’ is my deepest record and i’m still really proud of it. i’m excited to release its follow-up on @ververecords. it’s been a crazy f*ckin year and i’ve got hundreds of songs and ideas in the can, on paper, and in tape recorders all strewn about the ‘kv zone’… nuggets recorded before-and-after pandemic times… in studios and from home… music past, present and, yup, we’re still rolling. it’s gonna be heavy, it’s gonna be beautiful… and it’s gonna be out there.”

The label also shared the news and noted that Vile’s next album is set for release in the summer of 2022.

Check out the posts from Vile and Verve below.

Fans have been waiting to her details about a new project from Jorja Smith ever since the UK singer captivated audiences with soothing vocals on her 2018 debut album Lost & Found. With the release of her recent single “Addicted,” it seemed as though Smith was gearing up for something exciting and on Monday, the singer officially returned with a big announcement.

Smith shared the snappy single “Gone” on Monday, which arrived alongside the announcement of her forthcoming eight-track project Be Right Back. About the song “Gone,” Smith says she hopes her listeners can derive their own meaning from her lyrics, adding that she wrote the track about tragedy:

“There’s something about being able to write about one thing and for it to mean so many different things to others. I love that this song, well any of my songs really, will be interpreted in different ways, depending on the experiences of the people listening. This one is just me asking why people have to be taken from us.”

About the album as a whole, Smith says, “It’s called Be Right Back because it’s just something I want my fans to have right now, this isn’t an album and these songs wouldn’t have made it. If I needed to make these songs, then someone needs to hear them too.”

Listen to Smith’s “Gone” above and see the Be Right Back album cover art and tracklist below.

1. “Addicted”
2. “Gone”
3. “Bussdown” Feat. Shaybo
4. “Time”
5. “Home”
6. “Burn”
7. “Digging”
8. “Weekend”

Be Right Back is out 5/14 via FAMM. Pre-order it here.

The Mother of Dragons might be making the jump to Marvel. Emilia Clarke is reportedly in talks to join Marvel’s Secret Invasion, one of its recently announced series headed to Disney+. Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn are confirmed to reprise their roles (Nick Fury and his Skrull ally Talos), and Kingsley Ben-Adir and Olivia Colman are also reportedly in talks for the series along with the Game of Thrones star. Naturally, most of these casting details have not been confirmed and are being kept under wraps, as Marvel does. Via Variety:

The series is said to follow a group of shape-shifting aliens who have been infiltrating Earth for years. Ben-Adir has been set as the a main villain. Kyle Bradstreet is attached to write and executive produce. Kevin Feige’s unit is producing the series for the streamer, as it does all other MCU titles, including the hits “WandaVision” and “Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”

Clarke joining Secret Invasion would seemingly put a nail in the coffin of persistent, and more importantly, false online rumors that the actress is replacing Amber Heard as Mera in Aquaman 2. Heard has repeatedly stated that she’s not being replaced and that the rumors are just that: rumors.

As for the latest Marvel series to join its growing stable, not much is known outside of the general plot. However, fans were given a small teaser during the end credit scenes for WandaVision. After stopping the events of Westview, Teyonnah Paris’ Monica Rambeau was met by a Skrull disguised as a SWORD agent who informed Monica that “he wants to see you,” while pointing up to the sky. More than likely the Skrull was referring to Jackson’s Nick Fury who was last seen in a space station in Earth’s orbit following the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home. Parris’ involvment in Secret Invasion has not been reported, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see her pop up in the alien series.

(Via Variety)

Jeff Rosenstock surprise-released his album No Dream last year, and it ended up being one of 2020’s better rock projects. Now, he’s gone ahead and taken the album to a different level by releasing Ska Dream, which is, as the title not-so-subtly indicates, a ska version of the album.

Aside from shifting the arrangements, Rosenstock also reworked some of the song titles; “No Time” becomes “No Time To Skank,” “…BNB” becomes “…SKA,” and so on. Rosenstock says of the album:

“The very good idea to make this record came together when, like many other bands throughout this pandemic that refused to participate in super spreading events, we were trying to find a fun way to make some music together to share with people. Otherwise we were just spending our evenings texting the group chat in dread about the collapsing world around us. Not the most fun band activity.

As with most things ska in my life, what started out as a fun goof with friends eventually morphed into ‘Hey, what if we tried to make it good though?’ All of us have a pretty deep history playing and touring the country in punk/ska bands. We all understand the stigma that comes along with ska, we’ve all dealt with the pitfalls of it, and we’ve all kept on truckin’ regardless. If you are one of those people who loves music as long as it isn’t ska, that’s cool, we see you. This record isn’t for you and you don’t have to listen to it. Byeeee.

Okay, everyone else, we see you too, we love you and check it out, SKA DREAM is real.”

Rosenstock also compared the process of making the album to how The Postal Service made Give Up, writing, “We live in different cities and don’t see each other a lot. This record was arranged through file-sharing, as Ska Dream is the obvious 2021 analogue to The Postal Service’s Give Up.”

Stream Ska Dream below.

After Almighty Suspect, Blac Chyna, and Guapdad 4000 gave their impressions of Canadian dancehall star Snow’s “Informer” video in the last episode of React Like You Know, this week’s episode sticks to the dancehall lane with Jamaican icon of the genre, Sean Paul, and his 2003 video for “Like Glue.” Released as the third single to Sean Paul’s second album Dutty Rock which dropped just a year earlier, the single peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100, was successful worldwide, and was a fixture of music video countdown shows’ daily rotation for a good, long while.

Of course, for our panel of fresh-faced, up-and-coming artists, that may as well have been 100 years ago — NLE Choppa was only eight months old when the single was released, and most of the others wouldn’t have been in the target demo for shows like TRL and 106 & Park just yet, either. Most only remember the song from family get-togethers, although Shootergang Kony fondly remembers Sean Paul from the EA rapper wrestling game, Def Jam: Fight For NY (a true classic that deserves an HD remake and/or sequel — someone please get on that immediately, thanks).

Watch the latest episode React Like You Know above.

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

Kacey Musgraves‘ 2018 album Golden Hour catapulted the singer into the limelight. Since then, she’s released a live Christmas album and a handful of standalone singles and collaborative tracks. But the singer is now inching closer to releasing her next studio album, which is slated to see a unique label partnership.

Musgraves released Golden Hour via Universal Music Group (UMG) Nashville. But with her upcoming LP, which is set to debut later in 2021, UMG Nashville is partnering with another major label, Interscope Records, to share marketing, radio promotion and international marketing on the project.

UMG Nashville CEO and Chairman Mike Dungan expressed his excitement about partnering with Interscope for the project: “I have never worked with anyone whose cultural reach is so vast. This artist and her music have thrived in so many diverse environments. Kacey, the music, and the career deserve the broadest base of experience and expertise. We have discussed some type of cross label partnership for her music for a couple of years now and this is the perfect fit. We’re excited to partner with our friends at Interscope on the next chapter of Kacey Musgraves.”

Cindy Mabe, UMG Nashville President, echoed Dugan’s eagerness, saying, “Kacey’s music has never had boundaries. Her clever songwriting, adept storytelling, vulnerable and real emotional delivery, and her overall ‘take me or leave me’ spirit have translated through genre, time, space and culture. She simply connects. As we begin to set up her new music, it made sense to once again push the boundaries to reach more fans around the world as we continue to serve the fans who have been here from the beginning.”

It turns out hastily put together ideas that no one likes aren’t particularly sustainable. According to multiple reports out of Europe, the Super League — a gigantic project put together by top football clubs in England, Italy, and Spain that has come under boatloads of scrutiny in recent days — is on the verge of falling apart, as four clubs have pulled out and the rest find themselves hanging on by a string.

In a series of rapid-fire occurrences on Tuesday, word came out of England that Chelsea had been putting together paperwork to leave the project altogether. This came on the heels of supporters blocking the team bus from entering its facility ahead of the day’s game against Brighton, with club legend Petr Cech being asked to resolve the situation. (He did not.)

Shortly after, the first official domino appeared to fall. Manchester City, whose manager, Pep Guardiola, excoriated the project earlier in the day during his press appearance ahead of Wednesday’s match against Aston Villa, officially left the Super League altogether.

One of the Spanish sides, Atletico Madrid, pulled out, and then, the biggest turn yet occurred. Manchester United, viewed as one of the architects of the project due to (among other things) an American ownership group that wanted to make the sport more profitable, withdrew.

Further reporting has indicated that there will be a call sometime tonight among the clubs in the Super League to discuss a path forward. As a supporter of one of the clubs involved in this (that is among those that have already left the project), I hope they are all as embarrassed as they deserve to be, particularly the carpetbaggers who came into communities where clubs have become institutions for being by and for the people, about a blatant money grab that put their bottom lines above the will of those who made the sport great.