Month: July 2021

USA Basketball’s has its 12-man roster for the upcoming Summer Olympics all set. While the team lacks a host of traditional big men, the Americans will head into Tokyo with a remarkable amount of firepower on the offensive end of the floor, with guys like Kevin Durant and Damian Lillard among the players that Gregg Popovich will rely upon to give the United States its fourth straight gold medal.

Prior to their participating in the Games, the team will head to Las Vegas for a training camp. As is usually the case, that camp will involve going head-to-head with a Select Team made up largely of NBA youngsters, and on Thursday, USA Basketball announced the 17 players who will help get the Olympic squad ready to go.

“This USA Select Team continues the legacy established by previous Select teams of helping prepare our USA National Team for the Tokyo Olympic Games,” Jerry Colangelo, the director of USA Basketball, said in a statement. “With all the uncertainty of how many of our Olympic Team members will be available for the USA training camp because of the overlap with the NBA Finals, we chose a USA Select Team consisting of many of the top young NBA players and four players who not only own international experience, but who played recently for USA Basketball in important national team qualifying competitions.If we need to add players to fill out our roster for any of our exhibition games, we feel this USA Select Team has an excellent variety of skilled players to choose from.”

The roster features a number of promising youngsters who could make it onto the senior team some day — guys like Edwards, Garland, and Haliburton, among others — and older players (Jenkins, Magette, Mathias, Reynolds) who are being rewarded for the roles they played in either helping the team get through World Cup or AmeriCup qualifiers. The team will be coached by Erik Spoelstra, with Mark Few and Jamahl Mosley serving as his assistants.

Actress, writer, amazing music curator, producer… is there anything Issa Rae can’t do? The visionary creator and star of Insecure has been on an upward trajectory since dropping Awkward Black Girl on YouTube a decade ago and, as is the case with all super successful celebrities, that means it’s time for the Issa Rae footwear drop!

While a good majority of celebrity sneaker collaborations are — gulp — shallow vanity projects, this is Issa Rae we’re talking about. So of course, she’s going to do the thing right. For her first collection with Converse, Rae teamed up with art director, designer, and frequent collaborator Nicky Fulcher to deliver a customizable iteration of the Chuck ’70 that combines Converse’s classic design with Rae’s personal affirmations for an inspiring and eye-catching take on a footwear classic.

“It was all about empowering the next generation to get up and DO what it is they aspire to do,” Rae said in a press release announcing the drop, “So the team took some of my personal affirmations and approaches to life, and put them into the design of the shoe.”

Dubbed the “Issa Rae By You” collection, this collaboration is the latest entry in Converse’s All Stars Program and allows you to customize your very own pair of Chuck ’70s, giving you multiple colorway options, including lavender, beige, white, and even a black pair sporting glow in the dark accents. You also get your choice of high-top, low-top, or platform silhouettes — which you can then customize with Rae’s words of encouragement.

The result is something that fits right into the visual universe of Insecure, so we fully expect to see Lawrence rocking a pair of these next season. The Issa Rae By You collection is live now in North America and Western Europe, check out the collection below and start building your pair at Converse.

With Black Widow‘s dual theatrical and Disney+ release only a week away, stars Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh have been making the rounds to promote the film, which has been delayed for over a year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The chemistry between the two has been lauded in early reviews and reactions, and based on a new interview, it seems like that bond was evident off-screen as well. In fact, like real-life sisters, Johansson and Pugh dunked on each other so much that one instance made it into the film.

While talking to The Hollywood Reporter, Pugh revealed that she was caught off-guard when the Marvel stunt team approached her about her “pose.” As the team noted, Johansson has a signature pose for Black Widow, which Pugh couldn’t help but make fun of, and just like that, it became canon.

And I was like, “Oh God, I have to think about a pose!?” And they were like, “Yeah, because you know Scarlett’s is this.” And I was like, “I know! Who would actually land like that? That’s ridiculous!” And they were like, “Well, yeah. If she actually landed like that, she would have broken her spine.” And I was like, “You think Scarlett knows this!?” And I remember I was just teasing her for it, and Eric, the writer, was on set and was like, “Yep, that’s going in the script!”

But there’s definitely no hard feelings as Johansson laughed about the anecdote and the fact that she and the stunt team thought the pose was “badass” all of this time. “Our egos just got crushed. Florence crushed them in 15 seconds with that comment, and of course, it made it into the script.”

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Despite having false starts directing a fourth Star Trek film and a Doctor Doom movie, Noah Hawley‘s Alien TV series is apparently moving along at FX. In a new interview, Hawley opened up about his plan for the series, which he confirms will not feature Ripley, the fan-favorite character played by Sigourney Weaver.

“She’s one of the great characters of all time, and I think the story has been told pretty perfectly, and I don’t want to mess with it,” Hawley told Vanity Fair. Instead, the series, which he hopes to start shooting next spring, will finally bring the Xenomorphs to Earth and move the franchise outside of its usual setting.

The alien stories are always trapped… Trapped in a prison, trapped in a space ship. I thought it would be interesting to open it up a little bit so that the stakes of “What happens if you can’t contain it?” are more immediate.

However, despite pivoting the franchise towards an Earth infestation, Hawley very much plans to continue Aliens‘ theme of tackling corporate greed and inequality. “The second movie is such an ‘80s movie, but it’s still about grunts. Paul Reiser is middle management at best. So, it is the story of the people you send to do the dirty work.”

Hawley also seems intrigued to explore some of the concepts from the prequel films, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, which delved more into the topic of artificial intelligence than the original movies. “They’re about humanity trapped between our primordial, parasitic past and our artificial intelligence future — and they’re both trying to kill us,” he said. “Here you have human beings and they can’t go forward and they can’t go back. So I find that really interesting.”

(Via Vanity Fair)

As if BTS hadn’t already blessed us enough with the massive summer jam that is “Butter,”the K-pop crew is gearing up to release another big single very soon. The forthcoming song is called “Permission To Dance,” and was co-written with none other than Ed Sheeran — a promising sign. According to the group’s label, the song has another well-known writer on it too. Johnny McDaid is a member of the one and only Snow Patrol, a Scottish/Northern Irish rock band who have been around since the late ’90s. Apparently, he’s back in the studio working with the band on their next hit, so if we get any “Chasing Cars” vibes, he’s the one responsible (McDaid has written songs with Sheeran before, and incidentally, is in a relationship with Courteney Cox).

“Permission To Dance” was announced as part of a CD release of “Butter” that also includes an instrumental version of both tracks. Slated for release next week, July 9th, the new song will presumably hit streaming services that day. And if that’s not enough BTS for you, don’t worry, there’s always more — the beloved band is officially getting immortalized in “Dynamite”-themed Funko Pop dolls, and a line of miniaturized Funko Pop keychains is also available. The world belongs to BTS, you and I are really just living in it at this point.

Although Idles’ debut album, Brutalism, arrived in 2017, the UK rockers have been chugging along for a bit over a decade now. Their journey to becoming one of the most esteemed bands in indie music has had many steps, and that story is being told in a new movie, Don’t Go Gentle: A Film About Idles. The movie will start screening across the UK on July 2 before being made widely available on Blu-ray, DVD, and video on-demand on August 6.

Press materials describe the film:

“Don’t Go Gentle: A Film About Idles is a 75-minute feature film about finding strength in vulnerability. It journeys through the critically acclaimed Bristol band’s determination, friendship and adversity as they fight for a place in a divided socio-political environment, unexpectedly inspiring and unifying an international community along the way. […]

Don’t Go Gentle captures the 10 year journey of Idles’ struggle, grief, and resolve. Exploring their vulnerabilities through their experience, lyrics and sound, we learn the reasons why these five individuals have connected with legions of people across the world. We see just how that relationship unfolds in the most courageous and positive of human ways.

In a time when the ground is shifting beneath our feet, where open communication and truthful reflection are more vital than ever, we journey with lead singer Joe Talbot and the band as they tear across stages, knocking down stereotypes, empowering fans to talk about mental health and the realities we may not feel comfortable to speak about.”

Production of the film began in 2017 when director Mark Archer approached the band’s manager about making a short film about the group. As the movie was being made, though, the band found larger international success, which means the movie changed a lot while it was being made.

Watch the Don’t Go Gentle trailer below.

If you’re among the many people who’s PC seriously struggles to run Microsoft Flight Simulator, get ready for your flights to be a bit less bumpy. According to a report by The Verve, the massively popular simulation game is getting a major patch that promises “significant performance improvements.” While Asobo, the developer of Microsoft Flight Simulator, was originally rewriting the game’s engine for its upcoming Xbox Series X | S port, the changes will also affect those playing on PC in a very positive way. The improvements will go live alongside the console versions release on July 27.

Asobo CEO Sebastian Wloch went into a bit more detail on what this overhaul means for the game. According to Wolch, the team has “rewritten a lot of the parts of the engine … in order to get the maximum performance out of the sim,” and has “mainly working on CPU optimizations, as the game has been incredibly CPU heavy since its launch last year.” During a recent recent Twitch stream spotted by Twinfinite, Asobo showed off the perfomance imporvements on and older system equipped with an Intel Core i7-9700K and an RTX 2060 Super. Thanks to the patch, Microsoft Flight Simulator shot up from around 30fps to a solid 60fps, while CPU utilization dropped from 100 percent to 75 percent and memory dropped from around 16GB to a much more digestible 4.7GB.

However, the PC version of Microsoft Flight Simulator is admittedly not getting all the changes and improvements the Xbox Series X | S versions are. While the Xbox versions will use DirectX 12 — which enables ray tracing, better water effects, and improved shadows and reflections — the PC version will remain on DirectX 11 while the team continues working on making DirectX 12 stable on PC.

Both the Microsoft Flight Simulator update, and the Xbox Series X | S versions of the game, are scheduled to release on July 27.

It’s been two decades since comedians Jack Black and Kyle Gass released their absurdist self titled debut album Tenacious D, and a lot has happened since. They’ve gone on to perform at sold-out tours, release a few films (most notably Tenacious D And The Pick Of Destiny), organize a comedy festival, and drop a handful of albums and singles. Now, marking 20 years as a band, Tenacious D are giving back.

Following up on their 2020 track “Time Warp,” rollicking reimagining of the iconic Rocky Horror Picture Show musical number, Tenacious D are putting their own boisterous spin on a couple of Beatles songs to benefit charity. In their typical fashion, Black and Gass recorded a medley of the two 1969 Abbey Road songs “You’ll Never Give Me Your Money” and “The End.” The band pressed the song into a 7-inch vinyl with all proceeds from the release going to Doctors Without Borders, a non-profit aimed at aiding humanitarian crises across the globe.

In a statement alongside the 7-inch announcement, the band wrote: “Tenacious D are paying tribute to the greatest band in the world…not themselves…The Beatles!!! In the spirit of healing the world….please enjoy tenacious d’s mashup of two classics from Abbey Road.”

Listen to Tenacious D’s “You Never Give Me Your Money / The End” above.

Tenacious D’s 7-inch for Doctors Without Borders is out now. Order it here.

The Phoenix Suns punched their ticket to the NBA Finals on Wednesday night with a blowout Game 6 win over the Los Angeles Clippers. While L.A. fought admirably throughout the series, they ultimately ran out of gas on their home court, and as a result, the team’s sights will be set on making the Finals for the first time in 2022.

Of course, their inability to win this series comes with one gigantic disclaimer: Kawhi Leonard was unable to play. After suffering a knee injury against the Utah Jazz in the previous round, Leonard watched as the Clippers scratched and clawed and did everything they could to come out on top in his absence.

Paul George believes this was the difference between L.A. losing and getting to play for the Larry O’Brien trophy. As he explained after the game, George has no doubt in his mind that Leonard’s absence was what cost the team a shot.

“We’d be going on,” George said, according to Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. “This series would be a lot different. Talk about one of the best players in the league being out, yet we were inches away from getting to the next round.

“So, definitely it’s a ‘what if’ on this. Fact of the matter is we didn’t do enough to win, and that’s the reason we’re going home.”

None of us can know for sure how a hypothetical would have gone, but obviously, taking an MVP-caliber player off of a roster in the conference finals is a gigantic loss. George, to his credit, played like an MVP in this series — oftentimes mocked for his “Playoff P” nickname, George averaged 28.7 points, 10.5 rebounds, 5.5 assists, and 1.2 steals in 41.2 minutes a night against Phoenix — but Leonard adds another dimension on both ends of the floor that very well could have taken Los Angeles over the top in a series where three of their losses were by a combined 11 points.

According to the singer herself, Njomza means “a fresh bud of a flower, before it blooms.” She shared this during a 2019 interview with FOMO Blog before adding, “It’s the new bud, so it means something fresh, something new, something youthful.” At just 27 years old, Njomza embodies the full meaning of her name. She’s still young and her music and presence in the industry could be considered new and fresh to many. With just two EPs and a mixtape under her belt, Njomza is just getting started.

That brings us to the release of her third EP, Limbo. The quarantine-made project captures the lengthy moment of uncertainty that Njomza experienced over the past fifteen months, one that those who listen to the project will surely relate to. Its seven songs deliver what is the Chicago-raised artist’s most collaborative affair yet as it boasts contributions from Russ, Ari Lennox, Metro Mars, and WurID. However, make no mistake, Njomza has plenty of experience working with other artists like Ariana Grande for example and she helped penned the pop sensation’s “7 Rings” and “Thank U, Next” singles.

Fresh off the release of Limbo, Uproxx caught up with the singer to talk about the EP, how she dealt with her own period of uncertainty last year, and what she hopes listeners take away from Limbo.

It seems like the theme of this project, Limbo, is isolation with self or isolation with someone, confiding with them in a sense. What inspired this?

Being in quarantine, I feel like we were in a place that we were kind of in limbo. Also, I kind of noticed while I was writing the songs that they were kind of manifesting themselves into this project. I had initially finished my album first, and then Limbo came to be once I was already done with my album. So I was like, this needs to come up first before the album because I wanted it to be an EP. I didn’t see it as an album, even though I ended up treating it that way, but it’s really just like that back and forth of a relationship. That in-between space where you don’t know what direction y’all are headed, you don’t know if it’s the right thing for you, and the relationship really being in limbo.

Do you feel like you’ve broken out of limbo? If you have, what was the moment where you were like, “Okay, I’m free from this moment of uncertainty?”

I feel like I’m definitely coming out of it. The moment, I would just say, for me, is just choosing myself and getting to know myself first rather than falling into all those little traps to be in limbo. I really took time while being in that position to get to know myself and kind of figure out what I want for my life and my own self. So that was really the moment, just choosing me first before anything else.

With this period of uncertainty, are you someone that rides it out until it goes away? Or do you look for a way out of it as quickly as possible when it arrives?

I feel like I’m definitely the person that once I realized what’s going on, I have to pivot, I have to figure out a new direction. Especially if I’m seeing that it’s not serving me well. Obviously, we all fall back into stuff that we don’t want to fall back into sometimes, but I would definitely say I’m the second option definitely, as soon as I realize it I’m like, I gotta get out of here.

That brings me back to the pandemic. I can only imagine that if that’s an innate and natural feeling to you, it must’ve been hard for you to accept that breaking out of the pandemic world and its weirdness was hard.

During quarantine, I mean, it was so depressing, obviously, with everything going on in the world. Then, my whole career stopped, it was at a halt. I was supposed to drop my album, I was just planning to do so much. So coping with that, I really just leaned towards recording myself. I spent a lot of time recording myself at the house and trying to stay safe, but still being creative. The song “Honestly” on my project, on Limbo, I recorded at home and wrote it at home in my bedroom. That’s one of the songs on Limbo that I felt was birthed in quarantine. I was just trying to stay creative, trying to keep myself sane, while not freaking out every day.

What does this phrase, “finding comfort in discomfort,” mean to you? Especially now that we’re breaking out of pandemic life and getting back to a world that we once knew?

Finding comfort and discomfort, I feel like that phrase is my whole life in a nutshell. I feel like being an artist, for me, is exciting, but it’s also uncomfortable, like having to constantly present myself and be perceived to the world. I think the biggest thing for me recently has been being okay with being uncomfortable and being perceived all the time and having to constantly put my foot forward as an artist and show who I really am. I feel like releasing music is such a vulnerable process in all forms, when it comes to videos, the songs, [and] performing them. It’s just kind of finding comfort with that. That’s what it means to be at least, when I hear that that’s what I think about.

Have you ever found yourself trying to change how you create music so that it gets perceived in the way you want it to? Or do you just put it out and accept that everyone will receive it in their own way because that’s sort of the beauty of art?

I guess if I’m being completely honest, it’s got to be a little bit of both because as a songwriter, I feel like I can write any genre I want. I feel comfortable doing that and I listened to so many different genres, so in a way, I almost have to kind of think about what it’s going to be perceived as when I’m making a project. For Limbo, there’s a sound with Limbo and it kind of stays in this world. With my upcoming album, it’s the same thing. I feel like it’s different than Limbo, obviously, there are notes that are the same, like I’m singing all of this, so it’s still in that realm, but when I make projects, they become their own world. I think about what it means to me, but I also think about how my fans are going to perceive it or how the listeners are going to perceive it, I definitely think about that. But you can only think about it so much, because like you said, people are going to take it and run with it however they want. My hope is just that people feel it in a similar way that I do or at least they feel my intention behind it though.

Heading back to the music on the project, with the title track, “Limbo,” you mention money, fame, and pride as things that would interfere with a relationship. Are there any other things that get in the way whether it be through your doing or from your partners?

I guess pride is the best word out of those three, just covering all those bases, as something that can get in the way with not only romantic relationships, but friendships [and] all sorts of relationships. I definitely have dealt with that in my relationships and ego can definitely get in the way. There’s just a lot of paranoia all across the board when it comes to the music industry and especially living in LA. You just question people’s intentions and I think when you can put that aside and just realize we’re all human, we can prosper. I feel like those things definitely get in the way.

Moving onto “Over And Done,” you’re hit with the unexpected end of a relationship. How do you personally try and cope with things ending out of the blue?

You just have to realize that it’s just life at the end of the day. You can’t control people, all you can control is the way you react to situations. That’s just something that, personally, I just try to do in the best way possible. My new thing is that I’m trying not to take everything personally, that’s my new thing right now. My new motto is don’t take anything personally Because a lot of the times it’s not, everyone’s dealing with their own sh*t. I think that’s how I cope with it.

Contrary to your other projects, you worked with a lot of people on Limbo. There’s Russ, WurID, Metro Mars, and Ari Lennox. Why did you decide to incorporate so many new acts into this project?

I love collaborating and I’m excited that I’m finally just starting to do it. I’ve always just focused on writing my own music and getting my own sound figured out. I feel like I’m in a space now where I know what I’m bringing to the table, so I feel comfortable working with other artists and writers. I’m excited to see what other collaborations I’ll do in the future. I’m so open to it, so I guess we’ll see.

What’s the best advice you can give to someone who feels like they’re in limbo?

My best advice is to go inward and get to know yourself because I feel like we’ve finally kind of had the time and space to do so. Put yourself first as much as you can and just strive for the better. That’s the best advice I could give in this situation.

I don’t want to dive too far into this, but how might Limbo go hand in hand with your next body of work? In terms of how the journey from Limbo to your next album might go?

I think Limbo is leading me to a place where I really am finding myself and focusing less on my relationships, I guess, and — still focusing on my relationships — but putting more focus on me and dealing with my emotions. That’s what I would say Limbo is leading me to.

For someone who might be new to your music or even someone who’s been a fan, once they finish Limbo, what’s something that you hope they take away with it?

I just hope that you can feel me as a human on these songs and that you just get something positive out of it. Whether it’s literally just being able to ride home from work and listen to the project and vibe out or it hits you a little deeper and taps into what you’re actually going through in life, I just hope it hits a heartstring in one way or another.

Limbo is out now via SinceThe80s/Motown. Get it here.

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