Month: May 2021

After a few months of teasing the project, J. Cole finally released The Off-Season last week. The full-length effort delivered a batch of songs that left even his biggest critics satisfied. Days after its release, Cole gave the effort a boost with a fiery video for the track “Amari.” But it turns out the song’s creation didn’t go easily, as J. Cole revealed during a sit-down with Timbaland’s BeatClub YouTube channel.

“Amari” began life during a Twitch livestream held by Timbaland, who produced the song, during which he created what became the song’s beat. After Cole heard it, he decided to record over it. “So I looped up the YouTube lil’ rip, made a whole song on this sh*t,” he said during the sit-down. “I spent the next two days writing and recording the song, and right when I was 90% through writin’ it, I was like, I should probably call him now and get the real file.”

However, things didn’t go as Cole might have expected. When he asked Timbaland to send him the beat, the producer told him he forgot to save it. Luckily, Cole and Timbaland found time to recreate it.

You can watch the BeatClub interview above.

The name Mark McCloskey may not ring a bell, but maybe this does: He and his wife Patricia were the wealthy St. Louis, Missouri couple who brandished guns at BLM protesters last summer. They were almost brought up on felony charges. Instead, they became right-wing celebrities. They even appeared at the RNC, filing the looniest speech that wasn’t delivered by Don Jr.’s girlfriend. And now he’s running for Senate, because of course he is.

As per NBC News, McCloskey announced his candidacy for Missouri’s Senate on the most obvious place: Tucker Carlson Tonight. “I’ve always been a Republican, but I’ve never been a politician,” he told the host, obscuring the fact that he and his wife said they supported the protests before they became conservative superstars. “But, you know, God came knocking on my door last summer disguised as an angry mob, and it really did wake me up.”

McCloskey even had a series of campaign videos at the ready:

In it, he accuses protesters — who never actually trod upon his property — of aiming to “destroy my house and kill my family.” It goes downhill from there. “Our nation is under attack,” he says, singling out “Big Tech, Big Business,” as well as that “swamp” Donald Trump was supposed to drain but wound up expanding.

There’s also more dog whistles, this time about “our culture and our heritage,” as well as attacks on “cancel culture,” “Critical Race Theory,” and “the lies of systemic racism.” He also promises to “defend” Americans from “the mob” over shots of him walking around a farm with a chainsaw as though he was Leatherface. (The McCloskeys live in a giant mansion in a gated community in St. Louis, by the way.)

Should McCloskey win the open seat in his state, he needn’t worry about doing a job in the public sector having never held public office prior. After all, Marjorie Taylor Greene does nothing but harass colleagues and she still gets a steady paycheck.

(Via NBC News)

Sabrina Ionescu’s rookie season in the WNBA was cut short due to injury, but she is wasting no time leaving her mark on the league in her second professional campaign. In just her sixth career game and third of the 2021 season, Ionescu made league history by becoming the youngest WNBA player to notch a triple-double, and she did it with plenty of time to spare.

The former No. 1 overall pick got the New York Liberty going with an early three-pointer, from very deep range, as part of a 15-0 run.

By the end of third quarter, Ionescu was already on triple-double watch, stuffing the stat sheet and leading New York to a seven-point lead over the Minnesota Lynx.

Then, Ionescu crossed the triple-double threshold with her tenth rebound at the 5:24 mark of the fourth quarter. By the time the broadcast could fully acknowledge the feat, she was burying another three-pointer.

Ionescu finished the night with 26 points, 12 assists, and 10 rebounds in 37 minutes, leading the Liberty to what became an 86-75 win at home. In addition to becoming the youngest player to produce a triple-double, Ionescu’s performance was only the ninth triple-double in the 25-season history of the league. It certainly comes as no surprise that she would be operating at an obscenely high level, but the 23-year-old denting the record book this soon is definitely impressive and noteworthy.

Issa Rae’s breakthrough show, Insecure, is coming to an end after its fifth and final season, but it’s clear she has more where that came from. Recently it was announced she’s helming the reboot of Project Greenlight, the IFC reality show from the aughts in which Matt Damon and Ben Affleck helped filmmakers make their dream projects (with lots of nightmares along the way, of course). Rae spoke about the revival during a recent profile with Vanity Fair, though she also shared a story about the late Nipsey Hussle.

According to the Insecure star, HBO initially thought Insecure should star not Rae but a woman of lighter skin color would be a better fit. When they suggested London, Rae took offense, but she later discovered that London, who was Hussle’s partner from 2013 until his death, heard about her complaint and even took offense.

But in 2019, at Diddy’s 50th birthday party in 2019, Hussle played mediator. “He was like, ‘You should just talk to her. Let me set it up,’” she said. “It actually sparked an amazing two-hour conversation. We had so much in common. She was like, ‘People don’t understand, I’m an awkward Black girl.’” She added, “In the same way that I was upset about the limited portrayal of Black women, she was like, ‘People do the same thing to me.’ I completely get that.”

Nipsey Hussle is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Indiana Pacers entered Tuesday evening’s play-in matchup against the Charlotte Hornets facing some uncertainty. Earlier in the day, standout wing Caris LeVert was ruled out due to health and safety protocols, and Indiana had four additional players listed as questionable on the injury report. However, the Pacers established dominance from the outset and they were never challenged on the way to a 144-117 victory over the Charlotte Hornets to stay alive in the playoff hunt.

Indiana began the game with a 20-7 run before the first timeout, with Malcolm Brogdon returning from a 10-game absence with strong play and Doug McDermott getting loose from three-point distance.

McDermott converted four three-pointers in the first quarter, leading the way for the Pacers with 16 points. The Pacers even beat the buzzer with a bucket from Edmond Sumner, pushing the team’s lead to 40-24 as they shot 60 percent from the floor and 50 percent from beyond the arc in the opening frame.

There was a brief moment in which Charlotte threatened, cutting the lead to 52-37 with about five minutes remaining in the first half. On cue, Brogdon generated a three-point play to kick off a 12-4 run from the Pacers.

At the half, Indiana led by a 24-point margin and, while some crazy comebacks have transpired during this bizarre NBA season, the Hornets didn’t have a run in them. The Pacers led by 30-plus points in short order, driving the stake in further with a mind-blowing 108 points through three quarters and essentially removing any doubt as to which team would advance.

As a team, the Pacers shot 55 percent from the floor and 16-for-35 (46 percent) from three-point range in the game, taking advantage of the opportunities provided by spotty Hornets defense. McDermott finished with 21 points, including four three-pointers, and his 20-point first half was key in putting distance between the Pacers and the Hornets.

Domantas Sabonis led the Pacers with 21 rebounds to go along with 14 points and nine assists. From there, Brogdon (16 points, eight assists), TJ McConnell (17 points, four assists), Goga Bitadze (14 points, 10 rebounds, three blocks) and Oshae Brissett (23 points) enjoyed productive evenings to help Indiana secure the victory.

With this defeat, the Hornets will begin their offseason. In general, it was a positive year for Charlotte, especially through the lens of LaMelo Ball, Terry Rozier, and Gordon Hayward, the latter of whom did not play in this game due to injury. The future is bright, particularly with Ball in the mix, and that shouldn’t be outweighed by a play-in flop.

As for the Pacers, Indiana’s breezy win puts them in a win-or-go-home scenario on Thursday evening. The Pacers will take on either the Boston Celtics or Washington Wizards with a chance to sneak into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed, though Indiana will have to hit the road, making things more difficult for the second game of the play-in.

The Wonder Years is coming back, and if you assumed the reboot would do what the original did — look back at life 20 years prior — you were wrong. The revival, like the original, is set in the 1960s (with the hopes, of course, of bleeding into the 1970s), but with one major caveat: The focus, this time, is not on a lilywhite white family in a never-specified suburb but on an African-American family living in Montgomery, Alabama. And now we have the first idea of what it will look like.

In the debut teaser that dropped Tuesday, we see Elisha “EJ” Williams’ Dean, a 12-year-old growing up and experiencing a number of firsts: his first baseball hit, his first kiss, his first real recognition from the father whose respect he craves. We also hear Don Cheadle, taking over the original’s Daniel Stern as the narrator, i.e., Dean as an adult, looking back. (Cheadle, incidentally, only turned four in 1968, but it’s cool.) We also hear a soundalike of the original’s theme song: Joe Cocker’s cover of The Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends.”

We don’t get a sense yet of how much the reboot will deal with the very circumstances a Southern Black family dealt with in 1968, which would be very different from the only occasionally turbulent world of Fred Savage’s Kevin Arnold. But given that one of its executive directors is no less than Lee Daniels — and Lee Daniels does not skirt away from exploring the nation’s oft-deplorable history with race, from The Butler to last year’s blistering The United States vs. Billie Holiday — it should be fascinating to see how it mixes the everyday with one of America’s most tumultuous recent eras.

Meanwhile, Savage himself — who morphed into a seasoned TV director — helmed the show’s pilot, and even broke the news to its star that he’d been cast. The revival is set to premiere later this year, and it will air on ABC, which played home to the beloved original.

You can watch the teaser above.

For much of the past few days, Kwame Brown has been at the center of attention for the NBA Twitter discourse after an episode of the All The Smoke podcast in which Gilbert Arenas joined Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson to talk about a lot of things, one of them being Brown. As is frequently the case when people bring up Brown, he ended up being the butt of a number of jokes.

Brown didn’t take kindly to that and has since spent the past few days going on Instagram Live and torching Arenas, Barnes, and Jackson in videos. Barnes briefly responded with some comments on The Jump when prompted by Rachel Nichols about the growing beef, as Brown took aim at Barnes with commentary about Derek Fisher, who is engaged to Barnes’ ex-wife, Gloria Govan. The jokes about Brown being a bust as the No. 1 pick in 2001 have understandably worn on Kwame, and he finally decided he had time — and found a captive audience with NBA fans the past few days locked into his IG Lives — to go at those who won’t leave him alone.

Among those that he called out alongside Arenas, Barnes, and Jackson is Stephen A. Smith, who delivered the infamous rant about the Lakers trading Brown for Pau Gasol in which he called him “a bonafide scrub.”

Brown lit into Stephen A., inviting him to Seattle to fight because, for some reason, Kwame is aware that Seattle doesn’t require a waiver for hand-to-hand combat.

When pressed by folks to respond, Stephen A. went a route few anticipated and said Kwame is right that people need to leave him alone when it comes to jokes about him and his legacy as a bust.

As many have pointed out, after Brown responded, most everyone he has come after has quickly tried to squash this because Brown is not someone guys want to mess with. Still, even if there’s some self-preservation at play, it’s a point that hopefully folks can take to heart as at some point it becomes tired and unnecessary to keep bashing guys — particularly once they are out of the league, but even when they’re still playing. Brown carved out a 12-year career in the NBA, and while he never became the superstar that is typically associated with being a top overall pick, he also wasn’t a guy that flamed out of the league by the end of his rookie deal.

At some point it just needs to be let go, and Brown has made it clear that two decades of being on the wrong end of jokes has led him to the point of being fed up and being willing to come at anyone’s head about it — and take it much further than basketball.

DJ Khaled released this 12th album, Khaled Khaled, two weeks ago, but he’s already released six videos from it. They include “Sorry Not Sorry” with Jay-Z and Nas, “We Going Crazy” with HER and Migos, “Let It Go” with Justin Bieber and 21 Savage, and more. For his latest, “Body in Motion,” he connects with Lil Baby, Roddy Ricch, and Bryson Tiller for a lively video that shows the quartet having the time of their lives while partying on a yacht with a sizeable cast of women.

The new video arrives as each of the song’s guest acts continue work on forthcoming projects. Lil Baby is set to release his joint project, Voice Of The Heroes, with Lil Durk in the coming weeks. The duo planned to drop it on May 28 but decided to push it back out of respect for DMX, whose posthumous album, Exodus, will be released that day. Roddy Ricch is currently hard at work on his sophomore album, which is rumored to be titled Love Is Barely Real Anymore, while Bryson Tiller will release his long-awaited album, Serenity, at some point in the coming months.

You can watch the video for “Body In Motion” above.

Khaled Khaled is out now via Epic Records. Get it here.

Roddy Ricch is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

After showing off his potential on his 2019 major-label debut album, True 2 Myself, Lil Tjay returned with his follow-up Destined 2 Win earlier this year. The project saw the Brooklyn native flaunting more of his artistry and skills across the 21 songs. A little more than a month removed from that album’s arrival, Tjay lends his talents to rising Chicago rapper Lil Zay Osama in a video for their nonchalant collaboration “Emotions.” In it, the duo surrounds themselves with a cast of women during a video shoot while detailing their displeasures towards emotional people.

The song can be found on Lil Zay Osama’s most recent project, Trench Baby, which he released in February with features from Jackboy, G Herbo, Doe Boy. Earlier this month, he dropped a deluxe re-issue of the album with four new tracks and additional appearances from Stunna 4 Vegas, Sada Baby, and Sheff G.

The new video comes after Lil Tjay earned his highest-charting single thanks to “Calling My Phone,” featuring 6lack, which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Recently, he also shared videos for “Love Hurts” and “Oh Well,” both also from the Destined 2 Win album.

You can watch the “Emotions” video above.

Trench Baby (Deluxe) is out now via Warner. Get it here.

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

No one much talks about the 2003 Hulk anymore. It was from a very different time. The first Iron Man was still four years away. Superhero movies weren’t the only blockbusters in town. They didn’t even happen all that often. And so, nearly 20 years ago, we got a comic book extravaganza from Ang Lee. It didn’t get great reviews. It underperformed. It still isn’t much respected. (Although Lee’s decision to edit it like a comic book movie, complete with multiple panels, makes it perhaps the most aesthetically daring comic book movie of all time.) But even if it had been huge, its resident Bruce Banner had zero interest in doing more.

That person is Eric Bana, the Australian actor and comic who went from acclaimed actor — his turn in the renegade criminal biopic Chopper earned him raves, and he was singled out among the huge ensemble of Black Hawk Down for praise — to the head of a summer tentpole. Bana sat down for a recent WTF with Marc Maron (as caught by The Hollywood Reporter), and he was predictably candid with his host about the role he only played once.

“It wasn’t a quick yes, that’s for sure,” Bana told Maron. “It took me a while to get my head around it. I wasn’t privy to the script prior to signing onto the film. It’s one of the only films I have done where that was the case. It just wasn’t the type of film that I saw myself doing.”

What’s more, the MCU was still a glint in Bob Iger’s eye. And so Bana saw it as a one-time gig. “You certainly didn’t go into a film like that thinking you were going to do more than one … that just wasn’t in play,” he said. “The expectations are not the way they are now. I approached it as a one-off.”

Bana told Maron he wasn’t asked back for 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, which rebooted the character, now with Edward Norton. But he’d already learned that he and superhero movies do not mix. “It’s why I haven’t re-dabbled in that area,” the actor told Maron. “They’re not the kind of movie that I race out and see myself so that conversation is something I have with myself if I want to be a part of it.”

Bana, however, had nothing but nice things to say about the current Bruce Banner: Mark Ruffalo, who still hasn’t gotten his own solo jawn. “He’s the one who worked it out,” Bana said. “He found his stride.”

(Via THR)