Month: July 2021

The Philadelphia 76ers enter Thursday night’s NBA Draft with Ben Simmons still on the roster. Despite the fact that the team has reportedly had some conversations with other franchises and views a trade as inevitable, Simmons is still with the Sixers, as nothing has materialized ahead of one of the biggest nights of the NBA’s offseason.

An issue, reports have indicated, is that Philly wants a whole heck of a lot back in exchange for their All-Star forward. One team, per Zach Harper of The Athletic, learned this the hard way, as the Cleveland Cavaliers apparently tried to gauge the Sixers’ interest in a move for Simmons and were told they’d need to part with more or less everything they have.

One question outside of a likely Mobley pick is what else they might have in store for themselves. Rumors of Collin Sexton trades are swirling. Exploring better-balanced books in the future is happening. And even kicking around a potential Ben Simmons trade for Cleveland has been discussed, as it has with many teams. League sources said brief conversations between Cleveland and Philadelphia were explored, but an asking price of every young player the Cavs value plus multiple first-round picks in the future wasn’t something they’d consider.

It’s an interesting look into Philly’s (pun intended) process here, because while there was a perception that Simmons’ value cratered during the NBA playoffs, it appears that the Sixers are indeed confident in their ability to get back something really substantial for a 25-year-old All-Star on a long-term contract. Whether or not they’re able to do this, of course, remains to be seen, but Philly seems content to wait until they get something really substantial back before making a move.

The early ’90s might have been hip-hop’s golden era but thirty years later it’s apparent we’re entering a pretty special time for the genre. As much fuss as algorithmically generated tracklists have caused over the past couple of years, the current hip-hop landscape has been more diverse, creative, and boundless than that early time when the genre was seemingly recreated with every new release.

In 2021 especially, rappers have gotten out of their comfort zones, leaving behind familiar styles and sounds to forge new paths based not on what might sell or what the cool kids are doing, but on their own whims, fantasies, and newfound levels of access. Rappers like IDK, Tyler The Creator, and Vince Staples have always worked on the side of the field just left of center, but this year, they’ve all put out music that sounds effortlessly innovative, leaving behind the bombastic sounds that made them critical darlings to take creative risks — risks that have paid off, delivering some of their best output to date.

For IDK, that innovation came on his second album, USee4Yourself, in which he again takes a microscope to a single subject, examining it from multiple angles and drilling down to determine how he really feels about it. Whereas on his breakout mixtape IWASVERYBAD that subject was the institutionalization of Black men (especially himself) and on his debut album IsHeReal? he pondered the existence of a higher power and mourned the loss of his mom, on USee4Yourself he turns the lens to relationships and romance, filtered through his recent status as a rap star.

And while he includes frequent collaborator Rico Nasty and reaches out to the mainstream with features from Offset and Young Thug, he also burrows into his own hip-hop fandom, putting Jay Electronica and MF DOOM together on “Red.” That song also features Westside Gunn, one of rap’s modern avatar’s of bars-first hip-hop, while the production, on the whole, seems to take inspiration from Gunn’s Griselda collective rather than the brash sounds that defined IDK’s earlier projects. If anything, USee4Yourself sounds like if Yeezus was actually made by a Kanye who actually cared instead of just projecting the appearance of caring (IDK vocally sounds so much like him here, I made the personal decision to swap out all the Kanye songs on all my playlists with songs from this album).

Tyler The Creator, meanwhile, takes a different — but no less effective — tack on his new album Call Me If You Get Lost. While the production combines all of Tyler’s best eras — the soulful reinvention of Igor, the reflective pop of Cherry Bomb and Flower Boy, the abrasive rap on Goblin — the subject matter finds Tyler settling into his role as a recent Grammy winner and multimillionaire, embracing rap’s classic braggadocio in place of his former rebellious shock-rap provocations. Inviting DJ Drama onto the tape to provide hyped-up ad-libs, Ty positions the album as his own entry into the Gangsta Grillz canon.

On several tracks, including the lead single “Lumberjack,” Ty points to his Rolls-Royce, finding ever more elaborate ways to both flex and juxtapose the signifier of wealth with his social status, a la The Throne’s “N****s In Paris.” In a recent interview, Tyler cited BET as the resource that taught him everything he knows; on Call Me, he finally wears that influence on his immaculately tailored sleeve, embracing the bombast of the 2000s crunk era’s fascination with garish jewelry and unfiltered gasconade. He also gets really real about feeling rejected by Black people as much as white people on the autobiographical “Massa,” challenging the expectations against him directly rather than subverting them or simply acting out as he had in the past.

Challenging expectations and sharing the grim realities of his biography were never problems Vince Staples had. Instead, he found that his unflinching confrontation of the traumas that defined his upbringing was being swallowed up by his caustic production choices. It’s no surprise that the EDM-influenced, demented, post-apocalyptic pinball machine beats on Big Fish Theory kept people from tuning all the way into what he was saying or that the alarming screech of the “Blue Suede” instrumental washed out the track’s harrowing narratives of life in gang-divided North Long Beach.

So instead, Vince challenged himself — and frequent collaborator Kenny Beats — to make something more palatable on his self-titled latest. The beats are awash in something like nostalgia — if the word “nostalgia” could ever imply the paranoia creeping through tracks like “Are You With That?” and “Sundown Town.” The placid beats and laid-back delivery are exactly what it seems like Vince would have been doing all along were commercial considerations never a factor (one senses his prior resistance to playlist-friendly material was his own form of rebellion at the thought of being a “star”). Getting away from the crazed, frenetic production that anchored his previous projects let Vince’s voice shine through.

Even Dave East, that eternally maligned avatar of millennial New York City tribalism, has found his groove working alongside soulful producer Harry Fraud on the singles from the upcoming Hoffa. East has struggled in the past, trying to wrangle mainstream expectations with his own taste, to the point where some fans on Twitter have wondered at his inability to connect with a wider audience while artists like those on Griselda seemed to garner more support by avoiding doing the same. Employing the smooth production of Harry Fraud, Dave has never sounded more comfortable than he does on “Diamonds,” “Uncle Ric,” and “Chapo.” This is what he should have been making all along, maybe.

And that seems to be the end result of all this experimentation. Although I said rappers got out of their comfort zones, perhaps the title should read they found and got into their comfort zones. Each of the above-named artists sounds more relaxed, assertive, confident, and clear-headed than they ever have, with nothing to prove and no one to impress but themselves. In trading in their trademark production or shaking loose lyrical crutches, by embracing the tactics and beliefs they once held at arm’s length, they have tapped into a new vein of creativity. The result is a gold rush of unique, engaging, progressive hip-hop that the culture could certainly use much more of — and that fans should reward with their ears.

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

Yesterday brought some unfortunate news, as ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill passed away at 72 years old. He and his band have left their mark on music, so word of Hill’s passing was tough to hear for many. To honor the late artist, Foo Fighters decided to take some time during the first show of their summer tour, last night in Cincinnati, to pay tribute.

During the show, Taylor Hawkins wore a sleeveless shirt that read, “Dusty RIP.” On top of that, the group took a moment to bust out some micro-covers of the band’s songs, including “La Grange.”

Foo Fighters have some pre-existing connections with ZZ Top. Billy Gibbons and Grohl are both involved in upcoming Queens Of The Stone Age material, as Gibbons said of the recording experience in 2019, “Dave Grohl was also taking part and he decided to have a big barbecue. So there was this interesting gathering. So, we spent one hour telling stories, great stories remembering these lovely guys [Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul].”

Gibbons also appeared in Foo Fighters’ Grohl-directed Sonic Highways documentary series. Years earlier, Grohl, Gibbons, and Lemmy Kilmister covered Chuck Berry’s holiday classic “Run Rudolph Run,” for the 2008 album We Wish You A Metal Xmas And A Headbanging New Year.

Check out some clips and photos from the show below.

Lou From Paradise, an underground rapper from Staten Island, New York, is the latest artist to grace the Uproxx Studios stage for a Sessions performance that shows off his sinuous flow. Performing his song “James Dean,” Lou (who used to go by Lou The Human, which you might know him by already) spits with a graceful, well-practiced delivery that belies the complexity of his rhymes schemes and the low-key wit behind each bar.

Debuting back in 2017 with Humaniac under his old moniker, Lou’s easy flow and adherence to hip-hop traditions gain him plenty of attention from hardcore hip-hop heads, while his use of deconstructed, bare bones instrumentals marked him as an innovator rather than another stodgy imitator. Among his influences, he cites backpack rap favorites like Mos Def and Talib Kweli, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest, while his love of twisting syllables draws clear inspiration from early Eminem. Basically, if you like beats-and-bars, boom-bap rap, Lou’s music will definitely take you to paradise.

Watch Lou From Paradise’s “James Dean” performance 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.

While Hawkeye has been teased countless times for bringing a bow and arrow to several laser beam fights, it doesn’t stop him from being the hero so nice we get ’em twice. In the hero’s upcoming Disney + series, Hawkeye, not only are we reuniting with Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton, but we also get the opportunity to meet the next-generation of Avengers in the shape of Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop. After months of anticipation and three other Marvel series wrapping up over on the streaming service, EW has now provided us with a closer look at the upcoming series as well as a release date: November 24.

For those wondering what we can expect this November — or who are unfamiliar with Kate Bishop — the Marvel superhero made her debut in 2005’s Young Avengers #1 when she took up the hero’s name after Clint was found dead. However, as Marvel characters do, Clint came back, returned to fighting crime, and ultimately mentored and teamed-up with his Robin-like predecessor. Perhaps the most famous comic series to depict the pair’s relationship is Matt Fraction and David Aja’s take on Hawkeye that ran from 2012-2015, which is presumably what the series will be loosely based on. In addition, the post-credits scene of Black Widow could also give us a bit more context on what — or who — is coming for Clint in particular.

In the exclusive EW interview, Renner further explained the dynamic we’ll see between the two, stating:

“[Kate is] a 22-year-old kid and she’s a big Hawkeye fan. She has a wonderfully annoying and equally charming manner about her, because she’s such a fangirl of Hawkeye. The relationship grows from that, but the biggest problem for Clint is Kate Bishop and the onslaught of problems that she brings into his life.”

In addition to Renner and Steinfeld, Hawkeye will also star Vera Farmiga, Florence Pugh, Fra Fee, Tony Dalton, Alaqua Cox, and Zahn McClarnon, with Jonathan Igla set to both write and executive produce. Luckily, we’re merely months away from seeing how this all plays out, though the series bumping up so closely with Disney +’s Boba Fett spin-off has us wondering just how short Hawkeye might end up being or if the two will simply overlap. Here’s hoping we get another series just as compelling as Marvel’s other (Emmy award-nominated) shows.

Meanwhile, Page Six sums up how some may feel about all of this.

Pop Smoke’s family is still dealing with their grief when it comes to the sudden and tragic loss of the rising star, and his mother has even gone so far as to say hearing his voice is slowly but surely getting easier with new posthumous releases. The recently-released album, Faith, is the second to come out following the rapper’s death at 20, following up his record-breaking debut album, Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon, which was also released posthumously.

One of the strongest songs off Faith is “Demeanor,” a song that features pop force Dua Lipa, and today his camp has released a video for the track. Managing the difficult task of filming a video without the rapper, the visuals unfold through an old-fashioned party that comes with a twist when one of the paintings on the wall comes to life. As the night devolves into a serious party with lots of merriment, dancing, and drinking, Dua descends the stairs with an air of the “female alpha” she’s namechecked in the past and resurrects here. Organizing a few scenes of organized dance moves, the singer mostly flits throughout the night of debauchery for her verse, before Smoke’s undeniably chorus comes back in.

Check out the video above.

Here’s a Marvel plot twist no one saw coming. Scarlett Johansson has reportedly filed a lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company while alleging that it breached her contract because it “induced” Marvel Studios to release Black Widow on Disney+. According to a source for the Wall Street Journal, the dual release strategy “cost Ms. Johansson more than $50 million,” which prompted her legal team to file the lawsuit on Thursday:

Ms. Johansson said in the suit that her agreement with Disney’s Marvel Entertainment guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release, and her salary was based in large part on the box-office performance of the film.

“Disney intentionally induced Marvel’s breach of the agreement, without justification, in order to prevent Ms. Johansson from realizing the full benefit of her bargain with Marvel,” the suit said.

Disney couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, this lawsuit certainly won’t be the last as studios scrambled to release films on streaming during the pandemic and shortened theatrical windows. WarnerMedia’s abrupt decision to release its entire 2021 film slate on HBO Max caused shockwaves in Hollywood and may have severed the studio’s relationship with Christopher Nolan.

Johansson’s lawsuit also arrives on the heels of the National Association of Theatre Owners calling out Disney for hurting Black Widow‘s box office take by releasing it on streaming. Considering a portion of that box office haul was contractually promised to Johansson, her attorney believes she has a strong case that will embolden more actors to push back.

“This will surely not be the last case where Hollywood talent stands up to Disney and makes it clear that, whatever the company may pretend, it has a legal obligation to honor its contracts,” John Berlinski told the Journal.

(Via Wall Street Journal)

We may be more than a year out from the beginning of the COVID pandemic, but the new Delta variant — not to mention rampant vaccination misinformation — has caused the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. to triple in just the past few weeks. And while Hollywood is understandably anxious to get back to show business as usual, the logistics of film and TV production have made that difficult. Few companies seem to understand this better than Netflix, which has become the first studio to require that all its actors, as well as “Zone A” crew members who have reason to be in direct and close contact with those actors, be vaccinated. As Deadline reports, “Some productions, like the Starz/UCP series Gaslit, have adopted the mandatory vaccination policy. Netflix is making it standard across the board in the U.S.”

The mandate comes just weeks after the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and some of the industry’s biggest guilds agreed to “implement mandatory vaccination policies for casts and crew in Zone A on a production-by-production basis.” While it’s a step in the right direction, the case-by-case approach is not enough for some people. Sean Penn, star of the aforementioned Gaslit, isn’t keen to resume production until everyone on the set has been vaccinated, which he’s offered to personally organize.

But it makes sense that Netflix would be the first studio to take these kinds of precautionary measures. The Witcher, Grace and Frankie, and the upcoming musical rendition of Matilda are just some of the Netflix productions that have had their schedules impacted by the pandemic. On July 17, Deadline reported that season 2 of semi-porny Bridgerton had to put a pause on production—just one day after resuming production on the already-shut-down show. It’s an issue that Phoebe Dynevor, who stars as Daphne Bridgerton on the mega-hit series, saw coming way back in January when she told Deadline: “I can’t imagine how it would be possible to film under these circumstances. There are so many extras and so many crew members, and it’s a very intimate show. It just baffles me how we would film it under COVID rules unless there was a vaccine beforehand.”

As Deadline writes:

Netflix’s decision comes amid a fourth COVID wave in the U.S. fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant, which brought COVID safety on set back to the spotlight. While vaccination is not a silver bullet — there have been breakthrough infections for fully vaccinated people — it is considered a crucial safeguard alongside existing safety protocols including regular testing, PPE and social distancing.

The vaccine mandate is the strongest measure Netflix could enforce under the current return-to-work protocols. There have been calls to expand the vaccination requirement beyond Zone A.

(Via Deadline)

If you haven’t heard of Dax yet, don’t worry; you just might be hearing about him constantly soon enough (although he’s been on UPROXX Sessions twice so you should be paying better attention). Today, he released the video for his latest single “Child Of God” with a fitting music video, after previewing it for his huge, loyal fanbase throughout the week. It might surprise you to learn that this is only the latest of a truly absurd collection of videos he’s been building over the past half-decade.

Dax, who hails from Ottawa, Ontario in Canada, is one of the artists at the forefront of the modern era where YouTube can not only crank out a rap star as ably as Spotify but also provide sustainability for that star in its own, self-contained ecosystem. Where artists like Dax and DDG might have floundered in the major label system or struggled as underground, independent rappers 20 years ago, we currently live in a time where “YouTuber” is a legit job description.

Dax loves playing around with this concept. So long as he’s getting paid to rap, why not have the most fun doing it? To that effect, he not only releases his own original songs, he also takes on covers of seemingly any and every song that is currently popping on playlists and radio, from classics like Tupac’s “Hit ‘Em Up” to contemporary favorites like SpotemGottem’s “Beatbox.” There’s even a version of Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” By sticking to his own lane — and constantly expanding it — he’s been able to flourish, and that success has translated to millions of streams on other DSPs and huge followings on social media.

Now, he’s working on his debut album. Don’t be surprised if all those numbers translate to the Billboard charts for an artist who’s been working his tail off and is poised to make the jump from “best-kept secret” to “overnight success.”

Watch the “Child Of God” video above.

Rihanna had big news for fans yesterday — or at least those who love her beauty line — when she announced a Fenty Parfum “coming soon.” But that wasn’t the only thing she’d in the news for last night. A the new season of Real Housewives Of New York is slowly unrolling, wives Leah McSweeney and Roman Singer were getting into it once again in a recent episode. Singer was trying to give Sweeney advice about promoting her Married To The Mob line, suggesting she put “mob something” on a sweatshirt and have Singer wear it to help get her name out there more.

In response, Leah let Ramona know that “I already have Rihanna wearing my sh*t” and that despite being a housewife icon, Ramona isn’t necessarily the demographic for her line. Responding to that, Rihanna posted herself wearing a shirt from Leah’s line along with the caption “what was said @ramonasinger ? #RHONY.” Leah immediately responded to the post, commenting “I love you so much ” and bringing the episode full circle.

We’ve yet to see Ramona respond to Rihanna’s post, but odds are she’ll just keep quiet now that Leah re-grammed the flex moment and has definitely won the argument… for now.