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J. Cole Will Release A Documentary For His Upcoming Album, ‘The Off-Season’

After three long years, J. Cole will finally release a new album on Friday. The Off-Season arrives after quite the wait following his last solo full-length effort, 2018’s KOD. Fans of the Dreamville rapper haven’t been exactly deprived of music from him since the 2018 effort as they received an impressive guest feature run from Cole as well as Revenge Of The Dreamers III which he appeared on multiple times. Nonetheless, just five days remain until The Off-Season drops and now, the project will be preceded by a documentary as Cole revealed in a tweet on Sunday.

Cole shared a trailer for the documentary on his Twitter page, one he recently reactivated, with the announcement. In it, he speaks about the current stage of his career over videos of him in the studio and shooting some hoops at a basketball court.

“This is the moment that a lot of your favorite rappers hit a crossroad,” he says. “Are you okay with getting comfortable? Did you leave no stone unturned creatively? And when I thought about that feeling, I was like ‘Nah, I’m not cool with that.’” The upcoming documentary will be released on Monday at 1 p.m.

The trailer arrives after Cole shared the first single, simply titled “Interlude,” from the upcoming album. Fellow Dreamville rappers Cozz recently shared his thoughts on The Off-Season, calling it Cole’s “best sh*t to date.”

You can watch a trailer for the documentary in the post above.

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David Griffin Was Fined $50,000 For His Comments About Zion Williamson Not Getting Enough Calls

Anyone that has watched the Pelicans this season knows that Zion Williamson lives at the rim. Unsurprisingly, a player as big and athletic as him has found most of his success when he’s going towards the basket and daring the defense to stop him. For the most part, this is effective, but there’s one part of this strategy that can be irritating for players like him: He’s not always going to get calls from the referees, because a case can be made that he gets fouled on every possession.

Williamson is one of those players who gets hacked a lot and doesn’t always get a whistle. For Pelicans executive David Griffin, Williamson’s lack of calls reached a boiling point after he was listed as being out indefinitely due to a finger injury. Griffin said that the way Williamson is officiated is an example of the league “encouraging violence” against him.

Comments like this don’t usually sit well with the NBA, so it was a surprise to no one when the NBA announced it had fined Griffin for $50,000.

Honestly, considering the circumstances, this feels like Griffin got off a little easier than one might have thought. Usually when someone makes a comment implying a grand conspiracy against their team or player, that is going to lead to a harsh punishment by the league. Walking away with a standard fine that players, coaches, and execs receive for criticizing the officiating is probably the best-case scenario for Griffin.

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Wendy Sparks And The Court-Side Moms Podcast Want Basketball Fans To Know The Whole Story

There’s cheesy grits and pancakes, moussaka and Nutella cake, a stuffed baked potato — not just with the bacon bits and cheese sprinkled on top as a garnish, but with everything pre-mixed by hand and baked inside — something called “Chef’s surprise,” which turns out to be spaghetti. These are the sweet, secret sustenance of the pros, specifically Kyle Lowry, Luka Doncic, Julius Randle, and A’ja Wilson, respectively. More specifically, these are the holdover food from their childhoods that their moms will still happily make whenever they ask.

These are the kinds of career-forming facts that don’t get as much publicity as what players accomplish on the court. They’re also the kinds of close and comforting details that Wendy Sparks, host of the Court-Side Moms podcast, asks the moms of NBA and WNBA players to share every episode.

“I remember my very first episode, writing out like 1,000 questions — I didn’t know what to write, I didn’t know what to do, I had no idea what to say,” Sparks says over the phone from Tampa, where she’s joined her son, Toronto Raptors recent addition Khem Birch, after not seeing him in person since Nov. 2019 due to the border restrictions between Canada and the U.S. “I was so nervous.”

There’s no trace of those early nerves in any of the weekly episodes of the show. Sparks is a warm and thoughtful host, inviting the moms of some of the best and biggest pro ballers in the world to share the path players traversed as they went from awkward, rebellious, or carefree kids into the person we know best by a name and number on the back of a jersey.

For Sparks, every step of Court-Side Moms, from concept to spontaneous pitch, came from time she’s spent in gyms and arenas supporting Birch. And inevitably, some of that time has been spent sitting anonymously alongside fans who have a lot to say about players.

“They would either love the players or absolutely hate the players, and that used to drive me crazy. You’re talking about someone’s child,” Sparks says. “You don’t understand the struggle, you understand what it takes to get these kids where they are today.

“It’s a game, they’re playing their game,” Sparks adds. “They’re playing it just like how we go to work, and at the end of the day we go home, it’s the same thing for these players. And I kept saying, I need people to hear this. I need people to understand where all this is coming from.”

It was more than a parent’s vigilance, there were years of formative, intimate details that were being left out. This, in Sparks’ eyes, opened up an opportunity to add meaningful context that we’d never hear otherwise.

“Athletes’ stories are so important,” Sparks stresses. “People often think that it’s easy. And it really isn’t the case, right? For example, there’s only 450 NBA players, and even less, 144 WNBA players, for starters, per year. So the sacrifices, the struggles, the love and passion behind this, coupled with the kids’ talents on the court, is so vital for our kids being selected from this giant pool of basketball players.”

It was at a basketball camp Sparks did with Birch in Nova Scotia that would offer a serendipitous opportunity to tell those stories. During a break in action, Sparks and Kurt Benson, CEO of the sports agency Tidal League, started talking about basketball in the province. The conversation shifted easily to Sparks’ own journey — a fierce and talented point guard born and raised in Montreal who set her career aside to raise Birch — and the gap she kept coming back to in the way players’ stories are told.

Sparks says Benson went “very quiet” before encouraging her to pursue the idea in earnest, offering the help of Tidal League to bring the concept to life. Court-Side Moms has since become the company’s flagship podcast.

“When I was told this is going to be a reality, then the panic set in,” Sparks says with a laugh.

She doubled down on her research. Determined not to have any part of the space she’d soon invite her guests into be “fly by night,” Sparks ventured beyond the stats-forward and news cycle-driven scope of most basketball podcasts, into travel and family shows, to better understand what it was that kept people engaged. Wanting to go beyond a sports podcast’s typical demographics and reach new audiences, including families and younger listeners, the approach the show’s team takes is “very analytical,” Sparks says. “It’s important. So I needed help to show people that this is possible for anybody.”

While quick not to take credit, there is an engrossing warmth to the way Sparks sets the space up for the moms who join her each episode.

“I try to keep, well, I do keep it very professional, but very sisterhood-like,” she says. “First and foremost for me, it’s about making the mother comfortable. Understand you have a lot of mothers that went through a lot of sacrifices, and sometimes they’re worried about sharing. Worried about how you’re going to use that information. Worried about how I’m going to put it out there. Because once you say something, whatever platform, you’re really putting your story in somebody else’s hands.”

Thankfully, Sparks’ hands are deft and tender. They also flip through a digital Rolodex of NBA and WNBA contacts most agents, media, and GMs would drool over. She relishes any chance to bond with other basketball mothers — despite Birch moving on from Orlando, she is still a member of the tight knit Magic Moms — and as a result has built up a large and constantly expanding network over the years.

“We have Zoom calls, we have a lot since COVID,” she says. “That made it easier for us, because now I get to see a whole bunch of mothers at once from everywhere. Before, we would have a moms weekend in New York City and we’d have 60 mothers, but that’s it. Well, where are the other 390 moms, right? So now we do Zoom calls, everybody’s invited.”

The result is one giant collective that intertwines and stretches beyond conferences or team allegiances.

“It’s like, if your son needs anything, you let me know, or, if you’re coming to Atlanta come see me,” Sparks says. “People say, ‘Oh, you’re NBA moms, you guys shop, you have millions.’ No! We all work. We’re laid back people just like anybody else. We still drink the same wine, still drink the same coffee, sit on the same couches like everybody else. And we complain about our kids like everybody else.”

Asked if there’s a dream mom she’d like to interview now that she’s in this space and Sparks gently corrects, “All moms are dream moms.”

“I do not want to make it seem like ‘Oh my gosh, I landed this mother,’” Sparks says. “I never want a mother to feel that her son or daughter is inferior to another. For example, you have superstar Kyle Lowry, and then next week we have another player who is not getting so much visibility. For me, that mom, I’m treating her no different than Kyle Lowry’s mom. Or no different than Kevin Durant’s mom. Because at the end of the day, we’re all moms. We’re all equal. We all went through the same struggle.”

It’s this equalizing outlook that Sparks returns to again and again, and part of what makes Court-Side Moms so captivating. Because even if you are the kind of person more compelled by the numbers, the process of hearing a player’s story told by the person who was closest to them during its every twist and turn offers a novel and slower look at the lives driving the NBA’s perpetually accelerating narrative. The show offers an immediately immersive lens to fans who are both constantly hungry for more and desire welcome respite, especially against the backdrop of such a tumultuous season.

Besides asking for the culinary comforts of their children, Sparks closes out every episode with rapid-fire questions, like what would you say to a mom who disagrees with a coach, or if you could only give one piece of advice to another court-side mom, what would it be? Borrowing from her format, I ask Sparks at the end of our call what advice she would offer to fans on the game or their favorite player from a court-side mom.

“The first thing I would ask them is to be respectful,” she says. “Understand the truth behind an athlete, understand the stress of these athletes coming out and having to be perfect in the public eye, every single time they come out on the court.

“These guys or girls are playing because they love the sport, first and foremost,” Sparks continues. “They’re human, just like the fan. So I always say the players are playing for themselves, they’re playing first for that. And then after that, they’re going to try to deliver the best they can.”

Moms, unfortunately, read Twitter. Sparks knows fans on the platform’s propensity to oscillate, often wildly (“You look at the biggest player and they have a great game and oh my goodness, they’re the best thing since sliced bread… God forbid they have a bad game”). And while she admits she’s had moments where she’s been guilty of yelling at the TV when a layup is missed, or a team loses, she mostly asks that fans are able to take a step back.

“Just show love,” she says, “and understand that not everybody has that 60-point game day.”

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Trey Songz Is Reportedly Accused Of Hitting A Woman With His Car

The legal troubles are mounting for Trey Songz. According to TMZ, the singer was recently accused of striking a woman with his car earlier this month. The publication says Trey and the unnamed woman got into an argument on May 6 while they were in each other’s cars.

A police report that was filed afterward alleges the singer hit the woman’s car as she stepped out of her vehicle to confront him, and when he sped off from the scene, his vehicle also struck her hand in the process. The woman eventually called the police, but by the time they arrived, Songz had already fled the scene. The woman reportedly suffered injuries to her hand but refused medical attention. Police are calling the incident a hit-and-run and a representative for the singer has denied the allegations.

This is the latest in a string of accusations against Trey Songz. A little over a week ago, the singer was sued for punching a bartender at a Hollywood concert. In that matter, Songz allegedly jumped on the venue’s bar to sit during the show. He was then asked to get off the bar — a request which he ignored — and when a male bartender approached him to get his attention, the singer reportedly punched him in the head. He then looked at the other bartenders at the bar and went back to watching the concert. The bartender is seeking unspecified damages, citing physical and psychological injury.

Trey was also involved in a fighting a police officer during an NFL game, an altercation that, fortunately for him, resulted in no charges.

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

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Grimes Appeared On ‘SNL’ As Princess Peach To ‘Try’ Her Hand Acting

In between Miley Cyrus’ performances, Elon Musk’s hosting, and Dogecoin’s failure to reach the moon the latest Saturday Night Live episode featured an unexpected guest during one of its sketches. Grimes joined the SNL cast members for a Super Mario-themed segment that saw Wario — played by Elon Musk — on trial for the murder of Mario.

The sketch began with cross-examinations of Luigi and Wario himself before a plot twist revealed that Princess Peach was cheating on Wario with Luigi, an accusation that was proved by text messages during the trial.

Grimes teased her appearance on SNL through a post she shared on Instagram hours before the show. She shared the news with a lengthy caption that detailed parts of a phone call she had with a friend about the cryptocurrency Ethereum and other things and concluded with her writing, “Tune into SNL tonight to watch me try acting!” Her involvement in the skit also comes after she gave an explanation for why she may not have been invited to perform on SNL.

“The music booker from SNL came to my show once but I literally concussed myself in the first ten mins of the show, blacked out and played a famously horrific set that I have no memory of,” she wrote. “And I think the booker thinks im the worst live act ever haha but kinda funny anecdote.”

You can watch the skit in the video above.

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Elon Musk Compared Himself To OJ Simpson And Addressed Some Old Tweets During His ‘SNL’ Monologue

Elon Musk’s SNL hosting gig started with an unusual cold open celebrating the mothers of the show’s cast. And he continued that trend during the monologue by bringing his own mother on stage to talk about Dogecoin.

Musk took center stage in Studio 8H on Saturday for a much-anticipated hosting gig for the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire. But unlike many episodes with non-actors hosting, the monologue didn’t rely on music or bits to fill time, even if a person in a spacesuit could be seen before the crowd even stopped cheering. Instead, Musk gave a joke-filled opening five minutes, addressing his past controversial comments, weird tweets and admitting that he’s on the autism spectrum.

“Sometimes after I say something I have to say “I mean that,” he said. “That’s because I don’t always have a lot of intonational variation in how I speak. Which I’m told makes for great comedy.”

Musk described himself as “the first person with Aspergers to host SNL. Or at least the first to admit it.” But as many online mentioned, that declaration isn’t quite accurate. Former cast member and host Dan Aykroyd has also admitted he’s on the autism spectrum, so Musk isn’t actually the first despite his revelation here that he’s also on the spectrum.

Musk also went through some tweets, such as one that read “69 days after 420 haha.” He chalked it up to his being on the spectrum and admitted “that’s just how my brain works” along with a non-apology.

“To anyone that I’ve offended, I just want to say I reinvented electric cars and I’m sending people to Mars in a rocket ship,” Musk said. “Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?”

He also addressed his infamous appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast where he smoked weed and played with a sword. Joking that he doesn’t simply “go from podcast to podcast, lighting up joints” he compared himself to the very famous subject of a murder trial.

“It’s like reducing OJ Simpson to murderer. That was one time,” Musk said, doubling down on the joke later. “Fun fact OJ also hosted the show in ’79. and again in ’96. Killed both times.”

Again, however, that’s not quite right: Simpson hosted just once in 1978. In any event, Musk joked that he could test NBC’s censors and “say something truly shocking. Like I drive a Prius.” He also made fun of his child’s much talked-about name (“It’s pronounced ‘cat running across the keyboard’”).

Later on, he also brought his mom out to talk about the video game he made and sold as a child, part of his famous origin story. She struggled a bit with the timing, but was sure to mention Dogecoin, the first of several mentions of the cryptocurrency on the show.

In all, it wasn’t the best of monologues we’ve seen in Season 46 and served as an uneven introduction to an episode that continued that pace the rest of the night. But it was certainly one of the most talked-about of the year, and Musk showed that he had plenty to say.

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Elon Musk Did Multiple Dogecoin Sketches On ‘SNL’ And Its Price Plummeted Anyway

Cryptocurrency evangelicals were thrilled about Elon Musk’s Saturday Night Live hosting gig, mostly for the sake of their bottom line. But despite all the hope that a mention or two would push the price of the joke crypto to even greater heights, Musk’s appearance on the show seems to have actually caused a plunge.

Hype about Musk hosting amid some outcry from fans and skeptics had pushed the price of the dog-themed currency to record highs in recent days, especially with the assumption that Musk would at least mention it on the NBC comedy program. And he did, including during a Weekend Update sketch where he played a fake financial advisor.

The mentions started during the uneven monologue, when Musk brought his mother, Maye, on stage briefly. She mentioned that she was hoping her Mother’s Day gift wasn’t just Dogecoin, which set Musk up for a joke and drew some cheers from the crowd. But according to Coinbase, right as the monologue played out the trading of Dogecoin started to crater.

The sketch with Musk as “financial expert Lloyd Ostertag” essentially had the billionaire, in glasses, explaining the history of Dogecoin as Colin Jost and Michael Che ask “what is Dogecoin?” over and over. It essentially sounded like an SEO post about Dogecoin played out on television, the joke being that the cryptocurrency was the focus of the bit in the first place.

Finally, though, all that asking turned into Musk breaking down and telling the truth about the whole deal.

“Yeah, it’s a hustle,” Musk admitted with a smile before an enthusiastic cry of “Dogecoin to the moon!” to end the sketch.

Even with an entire segment about the currency, prices continued to plummet as the show continued on Saturday night. Its Weekend Update mention saw a brief boost, but by show’s end and into Sunday morning the currency was down about 40 percent from its pre-show highs.

Later on, Musk took part in a Wild West sketch where he played “LeRon,” who was an “eccentric” cowboy who had ideas about electric horses, drilling tunnels and a decentralized currency not reliant on mining gold.

If that sounds a lot like Musk playing himself, you probably should also know there was a joke about his very bad coronavirus opinions as well.

“For a while, I thought masks were dumb,” Musk’s character said after he was accused of robbing a bank while refusing to wear one. “But now I admit, Masks make sense.”

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Miley Cyrus Covered Dolly Parton And Performed With The Kid Laroi On ‘SNL’

As she’s done numerous times in her career over the last decade, Miley Cyrus once again found herself on the Saturday Night Live stage this weekend. Her gig as the show’s musical guest made for the singer’s sixth appearance on SNL. Thanks to this episode’s host, none other than Elon Musk, who had many viewers ready for some potential Dogecoin chatter, all eyes were on last night’s episode. Rather than the usual pair of performances that musical guests offer when they appear on the show, Cyrus blessed the audience with three songs last night.

She began the night with a cover of her godmother Dolly Parton’s “Light Of A Clear Blue Morning” for the show’s cold open. Rather than the typical sketch for the open, SNL cast members showed love to their moms with warm messages during the segment. “Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and this is for all the moms out there,” Cyrus said before delivering the cover.

Later in the show, she brought out The Kid Laroi to perform their new collaboration, “Without You,” a track that was remixed with a new verse from Cyrus last week. Lastly, to bring and end to the night, Cyrus returned one last time for a solo performance of “Plastic Hearts,” the title track from her 2020 album.

You can watch all of Miley’s performances in the videos above.

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Jeffrey Dean Morgan Admits That His Window To Play Batman Is Closing

In 2016, The Walking Dead’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan appeared briefly in Zack Snyder’s Batman vs. Superman as Thomas Wayne, the father of Batman. The speculation at the time was that Snyder was setting Morgan up to play Batman in the Flashpoint Timeline. For the unfamiliar, in the Flashpoint timeline, Barry Allen (The Flash) travels back in time to save his mother’s life but creates a butterfly effect that gives rise to an alternate timeline where Bruce Wayne is killed instead of his parents, and Thomas Wayne ultimately becomes Batman.

That storyline will be incorporated into next year’s Flash movie from director Andy Muschietti (It), and Jeffrey Dean Morgan would still really like to take on the role of Thomas Wayne, as he told CinePOP this week:

“Look, the top of my list has always been Batman. That’s always been my favorite superhero and talking about Flashpoint has been very fun. I get asked about it a lot. I love the story of Flashpoint. Who knows? Who knows with DC? Who knows how these franchises work? I suppose I probably have a two or three-year window and then I’m gonna be too old. There’s no way. Look, I’m available. Everybody knows I’m available. I say I’m available, I’ve been saying it for five years. We’ll see what happens.”

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though it’s going to happen. “Ever since Zack Snyder walked away, my whole kind of bit in that world has walked away with him,” Morgan told Comicbook.com last year. The possibility seems to have been foreclosed by the casting of another Batman. “Michael Keaton swooped in and took my gig,” Morgan joked.

That’s bad news for Morgan. On the other hand, it should be a blast to see Michael Keaton — who played Batman in Tim Burton’s Batman films in the 1980s — return to play the Caped Crusader. Ben Affleck will also return to play Batman in the film, which hits theaters in November 2022. Meanwhile, Morgan may still yet return to the world of comic books. He’s been rumored for a role in The Boys for a couple of years, while he also told Cinepop, “I like Lobo a lot. I have something maybe cooking and I’ll let you know soon if that turns out to be,”

Morgan can currently be seen as Negan in The Walking Dead, which kicks off its final season — and will hopefully see the death of his character — in August.

Source: CinePop, Comicbook.com

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Gal Gadot Claims She ‘Handled’ Joss Whedon After He Threatened Her Career Filming ‘Justice League’

Joss Whedon’s time filming Justice League has been examined many times in various ways in recent months. Replacing Zack Snyder on the DC project, reports have besieged the director after troubling interactions with both Ray Fisher and Gal Gadot, both of which were readdressed as Snyder’s original vision for the film was restored with a four-hour epic on HBO Max earlier in the year.

And according to a new report, Gadot was more forthcoming about her interactions with Whedon on set that won’t sit well with fans. Gadot had previously admitted that her experience “wasn’t the best one” with the director, but according to the report the director actually threatened her career over an on-set conflict that she claimed she dealt with personally.

N12, a publication based in Israel, interviewed Gadot who revealed she had “issues” with Whedon but also said she “handled it.” According to translations made by ComicBook.com and others, she confirmed things similar to an April disclosure that Whedon threatened to make Gadot look “incredibly stupid” while on set.

[via ComicBook.com]

Now, in a new interview Gadot confirms the extent of those issues, telling Israel’s N12 that Whedon threatened to damage her career when she asked to make changes to her character, noting that she handled the issue immediately.

“He kind of threatened my career and said if I did something, he would make my career miserable and I just took care of it instead,” Gadot said in the interview.

Translation of the interview hit Twitter on Saturday, leading to a new round of discussion about Whedon and Gadot, both of which started to trend on the social media site in light of the interview’s publication. Ray Fisher also tweeted about Whedon in the wake of the new details as well, the latest in a series of comments he’s made against Warner and their handling of the director’s on-set behavior.

It’s unclear exactly what Gadot did to handle it, but it’s the clearest indication yet that things weren’t great on the set of Justice League from one of the stars the long-rumored conflict between the director and Wonder Woman herself.