Month: May 2021

Jamaican American superstar Sean Kingston is on the album comeback trail after a half-decade hiatus with his new album Deliverance and its lead single “Darkest Times” featuring G Herbo, and his latest stop is UPROXX Sessions. Kingston stops by the studio in LA to deliver a smooth performance of the moody new track, showcasing his vocals, undulled by the time away and ready to compete with a new generation of singing rappers and rapping singers.

Kingston, whose last album Back 2 Life was released in 2013 and featured the Hot 100 single “Beat It” with Wiz Khalifa, had been relatively inactive in the years since, although he maintained that he was working the entire time. Deliverance, which is set for release later this year via Empire, is called “a rebirth” in press materials, and if anyone can manage a successful comeback, it’s an artist whose calling card includes one of the biggest hits of the resurgent 2000s, “Beautiful Girls.”

Watch Sean Kingston’s UPROXX Sessions performance of “Darkest Times” above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

LeBron James‘ HBO Show The Shop returns for its fourth season this Friday, bringing with it an impressive list of guests including Puerto Rican star Bad Bunny, WNBA champion Nneka Ogwumike, and Bron’s big homie Jay-Z. In a new clip previewing the season premiere airing this Friday, the latter makes an admission that might surprise a few fans of the 30-year rap veteran: He wasn’t always as cool, calm, and collected as his rap persona might have you believe.

When LeBron asks whether his guests ever got “so zoned out they couldn’t see anything,” Jay confesses, “In the beginning, I used to get on the stage and just forget all my lyrics.” Of course, Jay is far from the only rapper ever to forget his own lyrics — on stage or otherwise. Both Eminem and Lil Wayne have copped to having to Google their rhymes to ensure they don’t repeat themselves, while current hitmaker Lil Baby was stumped by a TikTokers lyrics quiz when he couldn’t complete his own bars. Among them, it’s probably easiest to forgive Jay and Wayne, who’ve both embraced a style of songwriting heavy on mental formulation without writing anything down.

The Shop airs 5/28 at 9 pm ET on HBO. Watch the promo above.

E3 is quickly approaching and while it will be an entirely virtual event this year, that doesn’t mean we won’t get to see any video games. Many developers still plan to hold virtual showcases to give updates on upcoming titles, announce new ones, and give all of us gamers a reason to be excited.

While we’ve all known that Xbox would be having an event of some kind, we didn’t know when or what it would look like. On Wednesday they finally gave us some details. They’ll be hosting a virtual event alongside recently purchased Bethesda to give fans some insight into what’s on the horizon. It will be, as expected, entirely virtual and while they don’t mention E3 itself, we may as well consider it a part of that since it’s taking place between June 12 and June 15.

It’s actually a brilliant idea to host Xbox and Bethesda at the same time. Bethesda has had an E3 press conference for years on their own, but Microsoft purchased them back in September and this is a chance to show that partnership on a grand scale.

This could also mean that we have some really exciting announcements on the way. Fans have been anticipating news on Elder Scrolls ever since they teased a title back in 2018, and we haven’t heard much about the Fallout franchise since Fallout 76‘s release. This has the opportunity to be one of the best events of the weekend, especially since we still know nothing about Nintendo or PlayStation’s plans for the E3 time period.

Chicago rapper Polo G is riding on a string of major successes. Now with a recent No. 1 single to his name, the 22-year-old rapper details his highly anticipated third album, Hall Of Fame.

The rapper took to social media to share a short teaser clip as an album announcement, revealing Hall Of Fame is slated for a release on June 11. “I got somethin special for you I hope you appreciate it,” he wrote.

In the video, Polo G lays out his hopes for the LP. “My goals for Hall Of Fame was just to make sure that I can show my diversity as an artist, really like elevate my sound, for the people to hear something that I ain’t ever did before,” he says.

Polo G has already previewed the album with a few singles. His track “Rapstar” hovered at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for two consecutive weeks and more recently, the rapper dropped his Lil Wayne-featuring number “Gang Gang.”

Hall Of Fame will arrive just over a year after his 2020 sophomore effort The Goat. Featuring artists like NLE Choppa, Juice WRLD, and BJ The Chicago Kid, the LP debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified Platinum in December.

Watch Polo G’s album teaser above.

Hall Of Fame is out 6/11 via Columbia. Pre-order it here.

After revamping the Halloween franchise, Danny McBride is trying his hand at reviving another ’80s classic: The Garbage Pail Kids. According to a new report from Deadline, McBride will serve as both co-creator and writer for a new Garbage Pail Kids animated series for HBO Max. The actor’s Rough House Pictures will also produce the series that’s borne out of McBride and co-creator David Gordon Green’s love of the classic Topps trading cards and Saturday morning cartoons. Via Deadline:

The Topps Company created Garbage Pail Kids in 1985. The gross-out humor and subversive attitude of Garbage Pail Kids became a worldwide phenomenon that recently celebrated its 35th anniversary while remaining an integral part of a retro revival of all things 80’s.

The Garbage Pail Kids animated series marks a continuing love-fest between McBride and HBO after he delivered the dark comedy classic Eastbound & Down. On top of developing Garbage Pail Kids, the actor is currently hard at work on the second season of The Righteous Gemstones, which saw its production shut down barely 48 hours in at the start of the pandemic.

Walton Goggins snapped a selfie of himself in character as Baby Billy Freeman in mid-April, which let fans know The Righteous Gemstones is officially back on track. Following the Goggins reveal, Jason Schwartzman and Eric Andre were added to the season two cast, which was already stacked to begin with thanks to series regulars McBride, Goggins, Adam Devine, and the always excellent Edi Patterson.

(Via Deadline)

Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr have all appeared on The Simpsons over its decades-long run, but only one of the Beatles made the show keep a promise.

In the season seven episode, “Lisa the Vegetarian,” Paul, his then-wife Linda, and “the fifth Beatle” Apu helped Lisa commit to being a vegetarian — and reveal that if you listen to “Maybe I’m Amazed” backwards, there’s a ripping lentil soup recipe. But mostly the vegetarian thing. The Simpsons staff was able to book McCartney only after agreeing to a unique stipulation, and before you ask, it has nothing to do with marrying a carrot.

“The wonderful story about Lisa becoming a vegetarian is that Paul and Linda McCartney said they would not come on the show unless Lisa remained a vegetarian for the life of the series,” Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa, said on the Allrecipes podcast to promote her Oil & Water series. “And we’ve kept our promise.” McCartney “always checks” in to make sure they live up to their word, but there was a close call in the season 24’s “Penny-Wiseguys” when Lisa added insects to her diet.

“The saving grace was that even after she ate the bugs, she then reversed course and went, this isn’t for me. I’m going back to my vegetarian ways,” Smith said. “So, I feel like ultimately we kept our promise, even if she stuck her toe in unknown waters.”

“Lisa the Vegetarian” taught me so much about vegetarianism and tolerance and animal rights, but mostly, it taught me that you don’t win friends with salad.

You can listen to the episode below.

(Via the Hill)

Lightning Bug find themselves in an enviable spot: Their 2019 album October Song caught the attention of esteemed indie label Fat Possum, who promptly signed Lightning Bug and reissued the album. Now, the band is readying their first new album for the label, A Color Of The Sky. They’ve already shared the singles “The Right Thing Is Hard To Do” and “September Song, Pt. II,” and today, they’re back with a new one.

This time, it’s “Song Of The Bell,” a neo-nostalgic burst of ’90s-style shoegaze that’s in the same family tree as The Verve’s early-career material and My Bloody Valentine. The band’s Audrey Kang says of the track:

“‘Song Of The Bell’ is a song about hope, but it’s also about understanding that uncertainty is an inextricable part of being alive. This was the last song to be written — we’d already recorded the bulk of the record. We were in the first leg of quarantine and I felt like our days had been abruptly hollowed out. I was thinking about emptiness and reading the Tao Te Ching, this very enlightened text, ‘to be empty is to be full, twist to be straight,’ etc. So I was thinking about that concept, how one can ’empty’ oneself to be full, and where is that line, between emptying yourself and losing yourself? I thought about how when something is empty, you sort of have two choices: you can see it for what it used to hold and no longer does (i.e. a ‘shell’), or you can look for its potential to hold new things and possibilities (i.e. a ‘vessel’).”

Kang also previously spoke about her songwriting evolution from the previous album to the new one, and about the experience she hopes listeners have: “Songs in the past sometimes felt muddled, or I felt lost where to take them. But for this one, each song felt like a whole entity from conception. […] I want listeners to explore their own interior worlds. It’s about learning to trust yourself, about being deeply honest with yourself, and about how self-acceptance yields a selfless form of love.”

Listen to “Song Of The Bell” above, and below, find the A Color Of The Sky art and tracklist, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates below, all of which are in support of Bully.

1. “The Return”
2. “The Right Thing Is Hard To Do”
3. “September Song, Pt. II”
4. “Wings Of Desire ”
5. “The Chase”
6. “Song Of The Bell ”
7. “I Lie Awake ”
8. “Reprise”
9. “A Color Of The Sky”
10. “The Flash”

09/03 — Spokane, WA @ Lucky You Lounge
09/04 — Seattle, WA @ Neumos
09/07 — Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
09/09 — San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
09/11 — Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
09/13 — Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
09/14 — Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress
09/15 — Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf
09/17 — Austin, TX @ Mohawk
09/18 — San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
09/19 — Dallas, TX @ Deep Ellum Art Company

A Color Of The Sky is out 6/25 via Fat Possum. Pre-order it here.

On Wednesday, capitalizing on the moment of Phil Mickelson winning the PGA Championship at 50 years old, Capital One announced the latest edition of The Match will put Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady together to face off against Aaron Rodgers and Bryson DeChambeau.

Brady and Mickelson paired before, losing to Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning, and the last time they held the made for TV pro-am competition, Mickelson managed to win with Charles Barkley against Stephen Curry and Peyton Manning. This time he’ll have to go up against another PGA pro in DeChambeau, who has become as polarizing a figure as golf has ever had.

DeChambeau being mic’d up for a full round of golf is going to be an incredible watch, although not everyone loves listening to The Scientist’s stream of consciousness monologues. Among those people is Brooks Koepka, who has never been a big fan of Bryson’s but now full-on loathes the man as evidenced by an outtake from an interview he did after a round at last week’s PGA Championship, when his entire train of thought got interrupted by Bryson click-clacking by with his metal spikes and talking about lord knows what.

Koepka has steered into this rivalry with Bryson and when The Match got announced on Wednesday, all he could do was apologize to Rodgers for having to be paired with Bryson.

Bryson’s response was to simply note that he’s living rent free in Brooks’ head.

Phil meanwhile just wants to gloat about beating Brooks in the PGA.

It is the best rivalry golf has maybe ever had in terms of two guys actually hating each other, and while this is surely setting up for a Bryson-Brooks match at some point, we’ll tune in with glee as long as they’re mic’d up. The trash talk wasn’t limited to just Brooks and Bryson, with Brady getting in on the Brooks meme game and Bryson digging into the Deflategate jokes.

If you’re trying to dunk on a social media platform’s push to make the internet more inclusive by way of performative outrage, you might want to make sure you have a basic understanding of grammar and terminology. Lauren Boebert clearly forgot to do so.

After both Linkedin and Instagram implemented new capabilities allowing users to share their preferred pronouns on their profiles, the Republican representative from Colorado posted a tweet that seemed intended as a dig at anyone not strictly adhering to the gender binary labels of old.

In Bobert’s defense, she did skip high school, receiving her GED just a few months before she was elected to office, so the mechanics of good grammar — including the difference between a noun and a pronoun — might not be of concern to her. However, though unfortunately for Boebert, Twitter’s knives were already sharpened, and they came out fairly quickly in response to the Congresswoman’s willful ignorance.

Why it matters to Boebert (or anyone else for that matter) what pronoun a person uses in their social media bio, well, we couldn’t tell you, but she seems to be triggered, which is ironic considering that she’s a gun-obsessed nationalist. And her approach says lot about how Boebert approaches many other issues.

NBC’s hit series The Voice closed out its 20th season Tuesday night. The show boasts several talented judges like Blake Shelton, John Legend, Kelly Clarkson, and Nick Jonas, but the star power was upped even more for the season finale. To celebrate the end of another successful season, the show tapped Justin Bieber to give a captivating rendition of a couple of his Justice songs.

Performing a medley of his hits, Bieber kicked off the set in a fancy sports car. He was eventually joined by a crew of backup dancers who delivered a fun choreography amid flashing neon lights while the singer delivered part of his No. 1 song “Peaches.” Bieber closed out the set with his hopeful track “Hold On,” where he sang uplifting lyrics about the importance of leaning on loved ones in a time of need.

Though the performance aired Tuesday night, it must have been filmed in the days prior because Bieber was still rocking a controversial hair style. The singer revealed last Sunday that he had buzzed his hair, a stark contrast to his former frizzy locs. He had put his hair in locs over a month ago and was hit with continuous accusations of cultural appropriation seeing as the hairstyle has cultural and historical significant for Black people. Bieber never addressed the allegations of cultural appropriation and didn’t give a reason as to why he chose to debut the buzz cut.

Watch Bieber perform “Peaches” and “Hold On” on The Voice above.

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