Month: July 2021

Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox truly have a way with words when it comes to describing their relationship. Kelly infamously wears a drop of her blood around his neck and Fox once said being in love with him is like “being in love with a tsunami or a forest fire.” But despite their very public displays of affection, Fox still has to constantly field critics who slam her for the age gap between them. Fox chalks it up to the patriarchy, but still has a explicit message for those carrying judgement: “Go f*ck yourself.”

Fox recently sat down for an in-depth interview with InStyle Magazine where she spoke about her recent career resurgence and the moment she decided to stop living in fear of critics. The conversation inevitably turned to her romance with Kelly, who was recently seen packing on the PDA with Fox after painting his tongue black at the Billboard Awards.

Fox says she is sometimes criticized for dating a younger man, which she labels as “ridiculous.” Fox is only four years older than Kelly, a fact she says wouldn’t ever be mentioned if the roles were reversed:

“You want to talk about patriarchy? The fact that he’s four years younger than me, and people want to act like I’m dating a younger man. He’s 31, and I’m 35. Granted, he’s lived like he’s 19 his whole life, but he isn’t 19. No one would blink twice if George Clooney was dating someone four years younger. Four years? Go f*ck yourself. We would have been in high school together. That’s so ridiculous that women are treated that way.”

The actress also says she has paparazzi questioning where her kids are, a question that her ex-husband is never asked. “You don’t expect a dad to be with the kids all the time, but I’m supposed to not be seen and be at home with my kids,” she said. “They have another parent. I have to leave and sometimes I don’t want them photographed and they don’t come with me. This whole year I’ve been very surprised by how archaic some of the mindsets still are in some people.”

Of course, Kelly also made an appearance in the InStyle interview. When asked about what Fox is like, the musician fired off another head-scratching compliment. “She’s like the earth,” he said. “When it’s summer, it’s the hottest summer. When it’s winter, it’s the most amazing chill. In the fall and spring, it’s a beautiful transition.”

Read Fox’s full interview with InStyle here.

In what is probably an excellent case for visiting the place where Rudy Giuliani’s law career completely turned to mulch, Against Me! leader Laura Jane Grace has announced a solo set at Philadelphia’s Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Yes, THAT Four Seasons Total Landscaping, where the former New York City mayor and embattled Trump attorney held a bonkers press conference four days after the 2020 presidential election and pretended that he’d tooootally had intended to gather the press at a landscaping company situated next to an adult bookstore called Fantasy Island.

Anyway. Grace, who also fronts The Devouring Mothers, will play an all-ages solo show featuring Brendan Kelly of The Lawrence Arms on August 21. “This will be the first and last time Brendan and I will play in front of a landscaping company and we promise it will be better than that MAGA sh*t show,” Grace said in a statement. Grace, who released a surprise solo album Stay Alive last year, also has some fall and winter appearances scheduled, which you can view below.

8/21 – Philadelphia, PA @ Four Seasons Total Landscaping (w/ Brendan Kelly)
9/25 – Las Vegas, NV @ Punk Rock Bowling
12/27 – Reading, PA @ Reverb *
12/28 – Worcester, MA @ Palladium *
12/29 – Washington DC @ 9:30 Club *
12/30 – Sayreville, NJ @ Starland Ballroom

*w/ Thursday

Tickets to Grace’s Four Seasons Total Landscaping show are on sale now and available for purchase here. You can also grab some exclusive merch, sold here. Stay Alive is out now via Polyvinyl Records. Get it here.

Resort To Love, a new Netflix movie coming out this month produced by Alicia Keys, is garnering a lot of attention on Twitter today. Unfortunately for her, the buzz consists less of excitement to see the movie than it does fans trolling it for its premise. The film, which stars Keys’ fellow 2000s pop fixture, Christina Milian, as a singer who gets booked for her ex’s wedding and winds up romancing him away from his new fiancee, is reminding fans of Keys’ own affair with Swizz Beatz, who divorced his wife Mashonda and married Keys the same month in 2010.

Love can be messy, sure, but the film’s plot is hitting a little close to home for some fans, prompting a roast session of trend-worthy proportions. The jokes came flying at breakneck speed to point out the obvious similarities between Keys’ real-life love story and the one that she produced, which apparently asks viewers to sympathize with the would-be homewrecker’s point of view. Granted, the movie still isn’t out yet so we don’t know that this is actually what happens in it, so maybe it deserves the benefit of the doubt.

That, however, would be entirely too reasonable and not what we’re here for today. Today, we are going to get these jokes off. Check out the film’s trailer above and more hilarious reactions below.

OG Parker is the producer you can count on. He knows how to create a song that the people will love and he’s done it numerous times for the likes of Migos, PartyNextDoor, and Chris Brown. His latest achievement has been his work on XXL Freshman DDG’s project Die 4 Respect and their TikTok hit “Impatient” with Coi Leray.

The talented multi-instrumentalist (Parker plays the clarinet, piano, and drums) attended Georgia State University in Atlanta to study music and in 2017 decided to put everything into being a producer. From Migos’ Culture hit “Walk It Talk It” featuring Drake to Megan Thee Stallion’s latest single “Thot Shit” and DDG’s “Impatient,” OG Parker has kept up with his own momentum with consistency. The 27-year-old Quality Control beat maker’s next move is to put together his own project, with the release of “Rain” featuring Chris Brown, Layton Greene, Latto, and PnB Rock.

Uproxx got the chance to catch up OG Parker to talk about the year he’s having in music and how he’s able to constantly create hits.

Let’s talk about “Rain” and how you got PnB Rock, Chris Brown, Latto and Layton Greene on that one track.

It was a song that I had already did with Chris. Chris was already on it and PnB was already on it. I had it for about a year and a half now and I knew it was a song that I wanted to do as my single. I had been trying to figure out the right artists I wanted to put on it. I knew I wanted females on it. I went and I got Latto and I got Layton Greene on it and it just took a minute to get it all together, get the mix right, get everything together.

What was the most difficult part about putting the song together?

I think just trying to make it perfect. I’m an overthinker. So I’ve been trying to figure out the order of the artists. I didn’t know who I wanted to go first and everything.

Does that happen often or is that your normal work process of you rearranging things multiple times? Reminds me of Kanye West, how we got all those Life Of Pablo edits in real-time.

Exactly. Usually, I’m not as hands-on because it’s not always my song. Usually, the artist gets to control that more. This is one of the first times where I really get to make the final decision.

So the project as a whole, is it done? When is it coming out? What’s the status?

It’s about 70% to 80% done, I would say and we’re looking for it to come out a little bit after summer.

How many songs are on it so far and what’s the vibe like?

We got a lot of songs, but I wanted it to be around five to eight. I want it to be like an EP. I don’t want it to be too long because I’m just trying to introduce myself right now. I want it to be everything. I want it to be awesome. I want to have a dance hall song on there, a trap joint going on there, and an R&B joint on there.

Can you say who else you’ve collaborated with on this project?

I can’t say who’s going to make the final cut because we have a lot of records, but I’ve been working with Kehlani, PartyNextDoor, Tyga, a lot of people.

Tell us about working on “Thot Shit” for Megan Thee Stallion.

We actually have a whole bunch of songs, we’ve been going crazy, but the first song I made with her was “Thot Shit.” I’m actually really cool with her engineer. So he hit me up like, “Yo. I’m in the studio with Meg, send me some beats.” I sent a couple of beats over and then he was like, “Yo, I’m about to FaceTime you.” He FaceTimed me and Meg took the phone and she was like, “Yo, all these beats you just sent me are mine. I love them all.” Ever since then I just been sending her beats and we just been going crazy. We got in the studio a couple of weeks ago and we were just working on the album.

I also want to talk about your production. I feel it’s really distinct and I’m just curious to know where do you draw your production ideas from to make a hit?

I would say, I don’t think I’m a super-emotional person, but I think that I draw a lot of my beats from the emotions that I’m feeling at the moment. So if I’m sad, I’m probably going to go to the studio and make some R&B beats and if I’m turned up, if I’ve been drinking with the homies and stuff, I’m going to make some turnt trap stuff or a club hit because that’s the vibe I’m feeling.

What would you say is a song that maybe you were very passionate about something and that’s the beat that got created when you pulled from that place?

I would say “Thot Shit.” I actually produced that with Lil Ju who did Body and all those songs for her. When we cooked up that day, I think that we were cooking up for her, we knew she was working on the album. I think that we were mainly focused on making up-tempo club stuff. I think that was the time that we kind of went in with a set plan and then it worked out.

So you guys made this beat together in person?

He actually lives in LA and he came to Atlanta for a couple of days and he hit me up. He was like, “Yo, what you want?” I was like, “Yo, come to my house.” We made like seven beats that night and “Thot Shit “was one of them.

You also worked with DDG who is going crazy this year as well. What made you want to work with him?

So originally it was actually a session that my manager set up. I actually was on his last tape. I had two songs on there and it was a cool vibe. I would say about eight months later, I was like, “Yo, I want to lock back in with DDG.” So I flew to LA and we just started working and then I was like, “Yo, we should just do a whole tape.” We just kept growing and working and then getting features. It was just a crazy vibe. That was kind of my first time ever, just EP-ing somebody’s whole project and it was a great experience and I feel the people are receiving it very well.

I also want to just talk about your influence in Atlanta as a whole. Tell me a little bit about you coming up in Atlanta and the style of music that you make and your influence.

Growing up, you had your Shawty Redd’s and your Zaytoven’s and things like that. The trap drums and stuff I feel is embedded into Atlanta producer’s DNA because we grew up hearing those Gucci songs at every club we went to. It was the trap drums and stuff like that came to me naturally. Then being somebody who plays instruments and having a grandfather that was a professional pianist, I feel that gave me a different melodic edge to my production. My stuff is kind of melodic mixed with the trap stuff.

Once this project comes out, what can everyone expect?

I think that’s going to definitely take my career to the next level. I think it’s something that I’m going to continue to tap into. This definitely wouldn’t be my last project, I would want to keep working and drop a full-length project after this one. Then also just keep working with all the artists that I’ve been working with.

You’ve accomplished quite a bit. How do you want to impact your fans or listeners at the end of the day?

I would say definitely for the producer community, I would want to be looked at as somebody who can make all the genres at a high level for your favorite artists. The goal is to break new artists. I feel that’s something that I heard Timbaland say in an interview. He said that he’s remembered for breaking Aaliyah more than just getting with an artist that’s already famous to give them a hit song because that’s easier than breaking a new artist. That’s something that I definitely want to do.

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

Angel Olsen is taking a decidedly different approach in following her 2020 album Whole New Mess: Her next release, Aisles, is a EP featuring covers of ’80s songs. She announced the project (which is set for release on August 20) today and previewed it with her synthy cover of Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” (which was originally composed in Italian by Umberto Tozzi).

Olsen notes of the release, “I know it’s not really in my history to do something unintentional or just for the hell of it, but my connection to these songs is pretty straightforward, I just wanted to have a little fun and be a little more spontaneous, and I think I needed to remember that I could!”

Olsen also said of making the project:

“I told [co-producer and engineer Adam McDaniel] I had an idea to record some covers and bring some of the band into the mix, or add other players. I needed to laugh and have fun and be a little less serious about the recording process in general. I thought about completely changing some of the songs and turning them inside out. I’d come over to find Adam had set up five or so synthesizers, and we’d get lost on a part for a while messing with some obscure pedal I knew nothing about. We’d spend a good amount of time going through sounds before finding one or two, sometimes we’d get real weird and decide to just go with it.”

Aisles is also the first release on somethingscosmic, Olsen’s new Jagjaguwar imprint.

Listen to “Gloria” above and find the Aisles EP art and tracklist below.

1. “Gloria” (Laura Branigan cover)
2. “Eyes Without A Face” (Billy Idol cover)
3. “Safety Dance” (Men Without Hats cover)
4. “If You Leave” (Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark cover)
5. “Forever Young” (Alphaville cover)

Aisles is out 8/20 via somethingscosmic. Pre-order it here.

Exactly two weeks after having his law license suspended in New York, Rudy Giuliani is now barred from practicing law in Washington D.C. Following the New York suspension, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Giuliani’s license will be suspended in the nation’s capital until “the disciplinary matter in New York” is resolved.

While Giuliani’s legal team believes his license will be reinstated, it’s hard to downplay the seriousness of the New York ruling, which flat-out deemed Giuliani a threat to the public due to his continued attempts to push the “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Donald Trump. Via CBS News:

“The seriousness of respondent’s uncontroverted misconduct cannot be overstated,” the New York court said in the 33-page decision. “This country is being torn apart by continued attacks on the legitimacy of the 2020 election and of our current president, Joseph R. Biden. The hallmark of our democracy is predicated on free and fair elections. False statements intended to foment a loss of confidence in our elections and resulting loss of confidence in government generally damage the proper functioning of a free society.”

In light of his mounting legal troubles, The Rudy Giuliani Defense fund was set up with the intention of raising $5 million for a man “whose fate will determine if America still is a Republic governed by We The People, or if the swamp has finally amassed total control of our great country.” As of Tuesday, less than $10,000 dollars was raised. Is that bad?

(Via CBS News)

Millions of people around the world, of all ages, have seen the photos of the hormone-induced mania that followed The Beatles wherever they went in the 1960s and ‘70s. But there are only four people who ever knew what that fandom looked and felt like from the inside: John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Paul McCartney. And now McCartney, a.k.a. The Cute Beatle, is talking in McCartney 3,2,1.

The trailer for McCartney 3,2,1 has just dropped, and it seems like just the kind of intimate experience Beatles fans have long craved. In the six-part Hulu docuseries, McCartney sits down with legendary music producer Rick Rubin for what appears to be one of his most personal interviews ever. As the two listen to old Beatles tunes, McCartney recalls how certain aspects of the band, its members, and their songs came together (pun most definitely not intended).

The decades seem to have given McCartney the time needed to reflect on the enormity of the band he was a part of, and how they helped to redefine the music industry as we know it—turning everyday musicians into global icons. “At the time, I was just working with this bloke John,” McCartney explains of the band’s early days. “Now I look back and I was working with John Lennon.”

McCartney offers some gem quotes throughout—“We were writing songs that were memorable because we had to remember them!”—and shares both stories and music that have never been heard before. From the trailer alone, it’s clear that McCartney is having a good time, and gives a clear accounting of just how collaborative the band was in creating its distinctive sound. Some of what’s brought out in the docuseries is even surprising to McCartney; when Rubin reads a quote from Lennon about how “Paul is one of the most innovative bass players that ever played bass and the stuff that’s going on now is ripped from his Beatle period,” it’s the first time McCartney has ever heard the words—and he’s clearly moved.

McCartney 3,2,1 will premiere on Hulu on Friday, July 16th. You can watch the full trailer above.

For her first film since Frozen II (the 10th highest-grossing movie of all-time), Kristen Bell is trading in her Arendelle crown for a coupon book.

Queenpins is inspired by a true story about two friends, played by The Good Place actress and Kirby Howell-Baptiste (Barry), who are drowning in debt in the suburbs. Their solution: a multi-million dollar counterfeit coupon scam. “You know who gets rewarded? People who don’t follow the rules. It’s time we start bending them a little,” Bell’s Connie tells Howell-Baptiste’s JoJo in the trailer above. But they quickly draw the attention of a loss prevention officer (Paul Walter Hauser) and a post office inspector (Vince Vaughn), who make it their mission to stop the fake coupon ring.

Here’s the official plot summary:

Inspired by a true story, Queenpins is an outrageous comedy about a bored and frustrated suburban homemaker, Connie (Kristen Bell) and her best pal JoJo (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), a vlogger with dreams, who turn a hobby into a multi-million dollar counterfeit coupon caper. After firing off a letter to the conglomerate behind a box of cereal gone stale, and receiving an apology along with dozens of freebies, the duo hatch an illegal coupon club scheme that scams millions from mega-corporations and delivers deals to legions of fellow coupon clippers. On the trail to total coupon dominance, a hapless Loss Prevention Officer (Paul Walter Hauser) from the local supermarket chain joins forces with a determined U.S. Postal Inspector (Vince Vaughn) in hot pursuit of these newly-minted “Queenpins” of pink collar crime.

Queenpins, which also stars Bebe Rexha, Dayo Okeniyi, Joel McHale, Nick Cassavetes, Michael Masini, Eduardo Franco, Paul Rust, Marc Evan Jackson, Lidia Porto, and Greta Oglesby, hits theaters on September 10, followed by a Paramount+ release.

Pete Davidson has over 100 tattoos. That’s a ton of body art, and sometimes, this works to his advantage, as shown in the above still from the semi-autobiographical The King Of Staten Island. For most other movies (he stars in James Gunn’s upcoming The Suicide Squad), those tattoos can be pain in the butt, which even goes beyond those regretful relationship decisions that demand a quick coverup. The SNL star recently revealed to Seth Meyers that he was getting rid of the ink (a lot of it, at least), because having Winnie the Pooh on one’s body doesn’t translate to a breezy moviemaking experience. “You have to get there three hours earlier to cover all your tattoos,” Davidson previously told Meyers. “Because for some reason, people in movies, they don’t have that much.”

This is turning out to be quite an ordeal, but Davidson’s keeping a sense of humor about it all, even tattoo-removal interruptions. As he revealed to People TV, Davidson admitted that he’s waited “about four or five months,” since his last appointment (“we’re shooting some stuff and it takes like a month for it to heal”), but he’ll be back in the chair soon.

Davidson apparently doesn’t plan on removing every tattoo on his bod, but he’s got a ways to go until he loses the undesired etchings. “They said by the time I’m 30, they should all be gone,” he admitted to People. “So they got like two more years left of this.”

Two years actually isn’t too awful in the grand scheme of things. He’ll probably save himself at least a few cumulative years in the movie-makeup chair, too. Davidson also poked fun at his “questionable choices” that “need removing” during his recent Smartwater ad. He emphasized that better hydration is one of his “smarter choices,” and you can watch that humiliation-filled ad spot below.

Pooh Shiesty’s current legal troubles continued this week as a Miami judge denied the Memphis rapper bail in the second of his firearms cases after being charged with discharging a firearm during a violent crime, conspiracy, and robbery under a law regulating commerce, according to Miami’s local news channel 10.

Shiesty, who is signed to Gucci Mane’s 1017 Records, was charged with the above after allegedly shooting a pair of men alongside two of his own friends, Bobby Brown and Jayden Darosa, after a sneaker deal gone wrong in October 2020. Federal agents were able to link Pooh Shiesty to the robbery thanks to one of his own Instagram posts, matching the serial numbers on bills he flashed in a photo to ones that fell out of Shiesty’s vehicle — a rented McLaren — at the scene of the shooting. Both victims survived.

The news comes after Pooh was denied bail in another shooting case in which the rapper was accused of shooting a security guard at a strip club where he’d just performed. Although the victim supposedly recanted his witness statement, prosecutors found his revised statement fishy and successfully argued against Pooh receiving bail. The timing of both cases couldn’t be worse, as the rapper was on the upswing of his career, with a major hit to his name in “Back In Blood” and a selection to XXL‘s 2021 Freshman class ensuring maximum attention.

Pooh Shiesty is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.