Month: June 2021

Being a woman in music seems exhausting. Billie Eilish regularly pointed out fans and media’s fascination — borderline obsession, really — with her body, from covering herself in baggy outfits to avoid creepy comments to shutting down the perception of her revealing Vogue cover constitution “growth.” Lizzo constantly battles derogatory comments about her weight and shape despite the extreme level of fitness it takes to play flute, dance, rap, and sing at the same damn time.

The latest target of users trolling on social media is Coi Leray, the breakout artist who spent the last two years building a buzz before landing a huge hit with “No More Parties” earlier this year and becoming a 2021 XXL Freshman. Commenters have compared her to a boy in the past, and today, her name is trending on Twitter in light of her appearance at the BET Awards, where she wore a pair of baggy pants with a bikini top, a look that has become something of a trademark for the artist, who seemingly loves to embrace her shape and show off a lot of skin (her twerking videos get nearly as much attention as her music).

The negative attention prompted her to wonder at the fascination with her shape, tweeting, “Is there a certain way I’m supposed to look? Help me understand.” She then questioned, “In the Bible is it a Sin to be thin?”

She also pointed out the hypocrisy inherent in these comments, subtly imploring empathy for women from those commenters, saying, “I hope all yall mothers got beach bodies.”

A quick look at the Coi Leray trend on Twitter sees plenty of users echoing her sentiment, decrying the abusive commentary surrounding her and other women’s bodies in the music industry.

So long as social media gives a platform to every Tom, Dick, and Harry to share their worst opinions (and continues to reward them with engagement), it seems unlikely that there will ever be much change on that front. However, Coi’s post, and the current conversation, highlight the problem, and spreading awareness is the first step to resolving it.

One of the more impressive feats in gaming is World of Warcraft. The MMO that has been running since 2004 is still extremely popular and is receiving updates to this very day. However, while WoW might be the most famous long-running game, there are others that have been running just as long if not longer. Some games were once extremely popular, but have now simply cater to a hardcore crowd that still love it. Others were cult hits that never reached peak popularity but have always been held up by a fanbase that kept it going the entire time. These are the games that many developers today are striving to make and replicate, but with maybe a little more notoriety. Here, we’ll highlight five classic games that are still going strong all these years later.

Ultima Online

Arguably the game that started the entire MMO genre. Ultima Online launched in 1997 to incredible success thanks to an extensive player vs. player mode and a lot of roleplaying. This was one of those games where the major fun of it was going off and making your own fun. Very Dungeons and Dragons-esque. It has now evolved into a bit more of a modern MMO experience, but many of the old design choices can still be seen in today’s MMOs. It also is still being updated! It received an expansion in 2020 and has a subreddit of about 6.8K followers. It may be old, but Ultima Online is still beloved to this day and is one of the most impactful games ever.

Everquest

If Ultima Online was the original MMO then EverQuest was the remix that perfected the genre. The first 3D MMO, EverQuest was also inspired by the Dungeons and Dragons style of giving players freedom of choice. It had huge commercial success and laid the foundation for a lot of what later successful MMOs would use. The fantasy setting, alongside multiple playable classes, and subsequent expansions were incredibly popular. The sequel, EverQuest II, was moderately successful as well but stood no chance against what World of Warcraft was going to become. As a result, many people fell back to their old favorite in the original. It reportedly had 82,000 active players and 66,000 subscribers in 2020. Not bad for a game that came out 1999.

EVE Online

Released in 2003, one year before World of Warcraft, EVE Online has never had quite the level of popularity we’ve seen as some other games at their peak. However, with a reported player count somewhere in the 300K range it’s pretty clear that people are still showing interest in this longtime space-faring MMO. Despite being one of the more challenging MMO’s out there, players and developers have built plenty of safeguards to keep new players from feeling like they can’t join. This has actually helped increase interest in the game and given them some of their highest player count numbers in years. EVE Online is a game that’s hard to learn, but those who do can’t speak enough to how fun it is to play.

Runescape

Remember Runescape? While World of Warcraft and Guild Wars dominated MMO’s in the early to mid-2000s, Runescape was everyone’s favorite free-to-play option. Runescape itself isn’t the most in-depth game. Go do simple tasks and make your numbers get bigger. Complete some quests. The player vs. player combat is extremely simple, but there’s something relaxing to all of it and there was some extra content for anyone that would pay for the members’ subscription. Of course, as games became more complex Runescape tried to follow along, but many of the original players had already left by that point. Eventually, developers, Jagex did something interesting. They split the game. Anyone that wanted to play the new modern Runescape could do that and anyone that wanted to play the game they grew up with could play Old School Runescape. Both are fully supported, but bigger updates to Old School Runescape can only be made when fans approve of it. While Runescape is nowhere near its peak popularity there is still a hardcore player base keeping it going all these years later.

Phantasy Star Online 2

This one is kind of cheating, because Phantasy Star Online 2 technically released in the United States back in 2020, but the original game released in Japan back in 2012. Fans of the first Phantasy Star spent years waiting for an official release to the United States, or Europe, before giving up and going through alternate means to play the game. The dedication the community had to Phantasy Star was finally rewarded with a western release and a major update in June of 2021 called Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis.

Team Fortress 2

The original popular team based shooter, Team Fortress 2 was the king of that genre before Overwatch. Quirky and weird characters with stronger teams winning more often than not. It was basically the formula that Overwatch copied. First released in 2007, it has seen a decent amount of support from Valve but only on PC. The console releases have seen no support. That said, everyone who plays TF2 is playing it on PC anyway and despite Overwatch existing that hasn’t killed the game. In fact, it’s arguably more popular than it’s even been before with a recent broken record. With over 150,000 concurrent players that’s an all-time record for the almost fifteen year old game.

The Euro 2020 (in 2021) tournament has featured some sensational goals and also some incredibly dumbfounding moments. Entering Monday, the leader in the clubhouse for most self-destructive moment belonged to Mats Hummels of Germany who headed one into the top corner of his own goal in the opener against France.

However, Spain’s Unai Simon decided to give Hummels a reprieve on Monday when he created an even worse own goal when he completely bottled a pass back, whiffing on the ball as it screamed past him and into his own net to give Croatia a 1-0 lead despite not having a shot on goal to that point.

It is absolute pain for Unai Simon, who can’t do anything about it once the ball gets by him. It was certainly a forceful pass back, but not one that should get by a world class goalkeeper in a major international competition. The expected goals chart after that own goal was especially hilarious.

The good news for Spain is that they would eventually get an equalizer on the other end before halftime to draw even at 1-1, but that they weren’t leading and in full control of the game at the break was nothing short of ridiculous given Croatia ended the first 45 minutes with two shots and none on goal.

Spain will likely still manage to find their way to victory as they are dominating the first half, but in soccer, one goal can be the difference and just gifting the opposition one is never the best path to the next round.

Freaks and Geeks, one of the greatest TV shows of all-time, was famously canceled after one season. The injustice gets worse: the season aired out of the order, and NBC didn’t even bother to show three of the 18 episodes; they debuted months later on Fox Family. It’s no wonder that Freaks and Geeks didn’t become the hit it should have been with a cast of future-comedy stars, including Linda Cardellini, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, James Franco, Lizzy Caplan, Busy Philipps, and Martin Starr. But there was still an offer for a second season… that co-creators Paul Feig and Judd Apatow turned down.

“When the show was canceled, there was an offer from MTV to continue making the show at a much lower budget,” the Knocked Up director told Collider. “And we all decided we didn’t want to do a weaker version of the show.” Feig added, “It was a weird time for me because my mom died two days before we got canceled. So I was a little out of sorts, but I remember hearing that [MTV offer]. We probably just had to lose so much stuff and music and budgets. We were already always strained on our budget as it was.”

Freaks and Geeks without a period-accurate (and therefore, expensive) soundtrack is not Freaks and Geeks. That’s like watching Beavis and Butt-Head without the music video commentary. So good on Feig and Apatow for declining the offer — even if I’m bummed we never got see Lindsay work “in Greenwich Village as a performance artist.”

(Via Collider)

Last week, DaBaby and Ludacris trended for the better part of a day when comedian Lil Duval compared the two, calling DaBaby “this generation’s Ludacris.” While fans on social media debated whether the two artists really were analogues of each other or not, DaBaby prepared for his overstuffed BET Awards performance and Ludacris went to space in the latest Fast & Furious film. Fortunately, Billboard was able to get ahold of DaBaby on the BET Awards red carpet and ask him about it, giving him an opportunity to set the record straight.

Although DaBaby didn’t outright reject the premise, he was careful to point out how limited — and limiting — it is. “I feel like that’s too commonly used,” he said. “I think people use that too lightly. I was inspired by Ludacris’ creativity with his music videos. [I was inspired] by a lot of people. Not only people like Ludacris but people like Nelly. I mean, everybody. I feel like as the generations unfolded, people from every era was inspired by somebody from the era before them. Even when it boils down to 50 Cent, Eminem, and Mystikal, everybody’s videos used to be crazy. Busta Rhymes’ videos used to be crazy [too]. So I definitely was inspired by Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, and several other artists with their music videos.”

DaBaby, who first broke out with the comedic video for his song “Walker Texas Ranger,” might be onto something there. If nothing else, he’s far from the first younger artist to take inspiration from his forebears; Uproxx even has a whole show about it. From Busta to Eminem to Missy, modern artists have been looking to many of the icons of days past to inspire their own standout visuals because if you’re going to take from anyone, you’ve got to take from the best.

Read DaBaby’s full interview with Billboard here and watch his BET Awards performance of “Ball If I Want To” here.

Scottie Pippen has found himself making a lot of headlines recently, which for him is mostly good considering he’s trying to launch a new bourbon brand and that’s the entire reason he’s doing every interview he possibly can.

He’s also decided to just let it fly in those interviews, making some very interesting comments on everyone from Ben Simmons to Charles Barkley to Michael Jordan. Most of the people he has spoken on have not responded, but Kevin Durant took issue with Pippen saying he doesn’t know how to play good team basketball, taking him to task on Twitter and calling out a couple specific instances of Pippen being selfish. One of those was when Pippen refused to re-enter the game after Phil Jackson drew up a last second shot for Toni Kukoc instead of him.

All these years later, Pippen is still furious about that coaching decision — which is made even funnier since Kukoc drilled the shot and the Bulls won the game — and has yet to let go the fact that he deserved the chance at the final shot. As KD noted, how can he call Durant not a team player when he’s still mad about his coach drawing up a play for a better shooter in that spot?

But that point hasn’t stopped Pippen from still being extremely upset about the situation and railing against Jackson for it continuously.

The latest example of that came on The Dan Patrick Show on Monday, where Pippen said he felt the decision was racially motivated and, when Patrick asked if he was saying Jackson was a racist, Pippen responded, “Oh yeah,” before pointing to Jackson leaving the Lakers, writing a book about Kobe, and then returning to the Lakers as another example of how he took advantage of Black athletes. The entire interview is a lot, with some shots at Michael Jordan in there at the end too for staging some iconic huddle moments, but the Jackson part is surely what will garner the most attention.

Pippen spent a ton of time with Phil, as he said he was in those locker rooms and practices with him, so you have to take him as quite the character witness — and it’s not like Phil hasn’t put his foot in his own mouth at times, most notably with his “posse” comments about LeBron James.

At the same time, pointing to the Kukoc play as an example feels a bit like sour grapes from Pippen, because, again as KD and many others have noted, it was putting the ball in the hands of the better jump shooter. The Kobe point is interesting, and is at least a more than fair condemnation of Jackson insisting on one thing from his players and doing another himself when it comes to “the circle” and taking things that happened internally and making them public.

If nothing else, Pippen’s comments will once again dominate headlines and A-block space on talk shows early this week, as this was quite the interview with Dan Patrick.

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy used a poor choice of words while explaining how he would sell President Joe Biden‘s infrastructure bill to skeptical conservatives. During a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press, Cassidy was attempting to list examples of how fixing America’s roads and bridges would benefit the average constituent. Being stuck in traffic is a bipartisan problem that nobody wants regardless of what side of the aisle they are on, and Cassidy was on the right track when he emphasized that most people would rather be spending time with their family than wasting “three hours a day” in their car. Nothing controversial there.

However, things took a slightly sexist turn when Cassidy described how the infrastructure problem would affect women. Via Raw Story:

“My wife says that roads and bridges are a woman’s problem if you will,” the senator added. “Because oftentimes it is the woman — aside from commuting to work — who’s also taking children to schools or doing the shopping. And the more time that she spends on that road, the less time she spends doing things of higher value.”

Granted, Cassidy’s intent was to help sell the infrastructure bill to Republicans who are overwhelmingly opposed to almost every initiation coming from the Biden administration, but relegating the situation into a “woman’s problem” (because they do all of the “shopping”) isn’t the most tactful approach. It is generating headlines, but for all of the wrong reasons.

(Via Raw Story)

The 2021 BET Awards were, as usual, full of surprises, with enough moments that lit up social media to forgive the at-times seemingly slapdash and slightly overlong production (going to commercial during performances should simply not be a thing, ever, especially in a show that ran almost four hours). Whether those moments prompted wig removals, like Jazmine Sullivan’s virtuoso vocal performance of “On It” with Ari Lennox, or roasting, like DaBaby’s bursting-at-the-seams, off-sync rendition of “Ball If I Want To,” BET put on a show worth talking about, pulling its fair share of online buzz even amid an NBA conference finals game with lots of dynamite moments of its own.

With so much chatter throughout the show, though, there will still a few moments that rose above the rest, causing more than just a stir. Instead, they felt more like culture-shifting occurrences, whose residual effects will ripple outward like waves in a pond when a stone breaks the surface. These may end up being the ones that inspire retrospectives as we look back on them as the inciting incidents for huge changes in the way things are. Here are the three biggest moments of the 2021 BET Awards.

Cardi B Announces Her Pregnancy

Joining Migos to perform their Culture III standouts “Straightenin‘” and “Type Sh*t,” Cardi B pulled another pregnancy reveal for the ages, walking out midway through the performance in a rhinestone-studded bodysuit with a sheer midriff to show off her belly. The crowd pop when she does says everything that needs to be said; Cardi is already helping to carve out a new status quo for mothers in entertainment, but adding another child to the mix makes things even more interesting. It’s one thing to be a working artist while pregnant, it’s another to keep working when you have a child, but it’s an another-other thing entirely to get pregnant again, keep working, and still outwork the dudes — including the one who helped make all these kids in the first place.

Lil Nas X Remembers The Times — And Makes Out With One Of His Dancers

When Lil Nas popped out in dazzling golden ancient Egypt-inspired regalia to perform “Montero,” it didn’t take long for Twitter to draw comparisons to Michael Jackson’s 1991 music video for “Remember The Times.” After all, that was the theme for Mike’s video, which despite being way before Nas’ time, is such a fixture of Black culture that I’m sure he’d been exposed to it about 100 times before he hit puberty. So when he broke out into the iconic choreography from that video with his dancers, a thrill of satisfaction shot through viewers’ timelines — then transformed when he called back to another legendary award show moment. In 2003, Madonna, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera made history with a same-sex kiss at the MTV VMAs, solidifying their status as queer icons. I imagine we’ll look back on Nas’ kiss with his dancer the same way, as a watershed moment of representation. Happy Pride!

Megan Thee Stallion Refuses(?) To Perform Alongside DaBaby

This one’s more of a developing situation, but viewers couldn’t help but note that despite their long string of collaborative hits together — including DJ Khaled’s “I Did It,” which they performed last night — Megan Thee Stallion and DaBaby’s relationship seems to have strained to the point where at least one of them won’t share a stage with the other. While there could be any number of reasons why Meg slunk off stage after finishing her verse for “I Did It” without joining the group shot at the end (which included DaBaby, Lil Baby, Lil Durk, and HER), considering their recent social media spat, which resulted in Meg unfollowing DaBaby across platforms, it’s almost assured we haven’t seen the end of this saga. One or the other may soon be called upon to address the rather obvious moment — in which case, another round of reactions wouldn’t be out of the question.

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

The WNBA season has been rolling along for the past six weeks and to this point there have been no hiccups regarding the league’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols.

That is an impressive feat, particularly given WNBA players fly commercial rather than charter flights to road games, and we learned how the WNBA has pulled that off on Monday morning. The league announced they’ve yet to have a positive test this season because 99 percent of the league’s players are vaccinated and all 12 teams are above the threshold for being considered a fully vaccinated team.

They are the first professional sports league to reach that level of vaccination across all teams and the results in terms of teams being able to keep players on the court and not have to deal with COVID related absences speak for themselves. It’s not out of the question that someone could still test positive at some point, as Chris Paul’s recent absence for the Suns after a positive test despite being vaccinated earlier in the season was a reminder that it can happen. However, he also was able to clear protocols after a week and return to the court, with no reported symptoms or lingering issues.

For the WNBA, it’s a testament to the commitment of the players in the league to making sure they do what is needed to play the games and take care of themselves, their teammates, and everyone else around the league.

Atlanta rapper Young Nudy is taking his dueling alter egos on the road for the Dr. Ev4l vs. Rich Shooter tour beginning this August. The 10-city tour starts in Houston, TX, and ends in Boston, MA, hitting Charlotte, Memphis, Nudy’s native Atlanta, New York, and Philadelphia along the way. The tour is in support of his new album Dr. Ev4l, which features guest appearances from Nudy’s cousin 21 Savage, G Herbo, and Lil Uzi Vert, and is supported by the singles “2Face” with G Herbo and “Dr Ev4l.” 21 Savage appears on “Child’s Play.”

Nudy, who is coming off a successful 2020 in which he released the well-received Anything and featured as a guest on Deante’ Hitchcock’s Better single “Attitude,” enjoyed increased attention thanks to singles like “All White,” “Never,” and “Vice City.” He was also the subject of a viral video of students crashing through the floor of an Airbnb as they turned up to the sounds of his breakout single “EA.”

You can get more information on the Dr. Ev4l vs. Rich Shooter tour here and check out the tour’s dates and venues below.

8/6 — Houston, TX @ House of Blues
8/7 — Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
8/11 — Charlotte, NC @ The Underground
8/12 — Memphis, TN @ Growlers
8/13 — Atlanta, GA @ Believe
8/14 — Birmingham, AL @ Zydeco
8/18 — Silver Springs, MD @ Filmore
8/19 — New York, NY @ Gramercy Theatre
8/20 — Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts
8/21 — Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall