Month: July 2021

In June, Rick Ross boasted that he flies commercial and cuts his own grass to save money, but he must have been spending a lot of those savings on Uber and Lyft rides because today, he revealed that he’s only just now getting around to applying for a driver’s license. In a video posted to his social media, he self-deprecatingly told his followers that he owns “100 cars and don’t have a driver’s license.” He also joked about being an organ donor, saying, “Don’t let me die just to take my good heart.”

Meanwhile, the home where Ross mows his own lawn is reportedly set to be featured on the upcoming reboot of MTV’s Cribs alongside other celebrities’ homes like Big Sean’s, Martha Stewart’s, Nick Young’s, and Tinashe’s after being used as the set for the palace in Coming 2 America. In May, it was also highlighted during a police chase when a suspect supposedly crashed his truck in front of the property, leading to an extensive search of the grounds for a gun police say he had.

Ross himself has been working on new music as well, contributing guest verses to projects from the likes of Joyner Lucas and Conway The Machine, as well as teasing a joint project with Drake.

Regardless of how you feel about Coldplay these days, you can’t really argue that their debut single, “Yellow,” is a classic, as is the music video featuring Chris Martin taking a soulful walk on a cloudy beach. Now, Ian Sweet (aka indie-pop luminary Jilian Medford) has dropped both a dreamy cover of “Yellow” and shot a total remake of the video, where Medford takes what appears to be the same exact beach walk, in a rain slicker and everything.

“I’ve seen Coldplay live six times,” Medford said of her decision to cover “Yellow.” “Parachutes was the first CD I ever rented from the library and it changed my life. I owe a lot of who I am, and the way I write and perform music to Coldplay. I wanted to cover ‘Yellow’ because it is my go-to karaoke song, love song, breakup song, feel good song… it’s everything.”

Medford’s latest album, Show Me How You Disappear, dropped earlier in the year, back in March. “This is the first record that I leave that space for myself,” she said in a statement at the time. “I feel a freedom on this one that I haven’t felt with the others. People always say ‘I put all of me into this’, but I actually didn’t this time — I left space.”

Watch Medford’s “Yellow” cover above.

Show Me How You Disappear is out now via Polyvinyl. Get it here.

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

Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.

Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week we got a (kind of) new album from punk legends Descendents, the return of Darkside, and new tracks from Porches and Illuminati Hotties. Check out the rest of the best new indie music below.

While we’re at it, sign up for our newsletter to get the best new indie music delivered directly to your inbox, every Monday.

Descendents – 9th & Walnut

The new album from legendary punk outfit Descendents isn’t actually new. In fact, it’s actually older than any Descendents release ever, with songs written during the band’s first-ever practices in the late 1970’s. It took more than 40 years for the songs to get the attention they deserve, and 9th & Walnut finally presents fans with what the band considers to be their lost album. “It sounds cheesy,” drummer Stevenson admitted to me in a recent interview. “I’m always suspicious when movies have a prequel. I feel like they made it up. I feel like it wasn’t really supposed to be that way. I hope people don’t think that about us, like Star Wars one through three.” But as with most things Descendents, 9th & Walnut brings with it a sense of unabashed earnestness that enables this exercise in preservation to fit in perfectly with the rest of the band’s lengthy catalogue. All told, the album delivers a feat that most other bands would struggle to accomplish, let alone a band that’s been playing together nearly 40 years.

Darkside – Spiral

Almost a decade after they first came together, Nicolás Jaar and Dave Harrington are back for more music under the Darkside moniker. Spiral certainly delivers on the anticipation, making for a welcome new entry in the Darkside catalogue, but one that doesn’t stray too far from what fans came to know and love from 2013’s Psychic.

Jhariah – A Beginner’s Guide To Faking Your Own Death EP

It only takes a few minutes of A Bigger’s Guide To Faking Your Own Death, the new EP from Bronx-based singer-songwriter Jhariah, for you to realize that the project is going to be quite unlike anything you’ve heard before. Boasting theatrical production and massive arrangements featuring strings, horns, keys, and more, the EP is a masterclass in musical excess that finds each track building a world unto itself before quickly tearing it down and moving onto the next one.

Big Red Machine – “Phoenix” (ft. Fleet Foxes & Anaïs Mitchell)

With the new album How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? due next month, Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon have already started to showcase some of the exceptional special guests they gathered for the project. The latest sampling comes in the form of “Phoenix,” which features appearances from Fleet Foxes and Anaïs Mitchell. The soaring new track track is “what I always imagined Big Red Machine would sound like,” Dessner revealed in a statement.

Porches – “Okay”

Porches — aka New York singer-songwriter Aaron Maine — is nothing if not prolific. Barely a year after the release of his last album Ricky Music, Maine is back with a brand new effort, his fifth full-length studio album entitled All Day Gentle Hold !. The new LP is previewed by “Okay,” which is “an upbeat tune with an opening guitar line that frankly reminds me a whole lot of Akron/Family’s ‘Running, Returning,’” writes Rachel Brodsky for Uproxx.

Illuminati Hotties – “Uvvp” (ft. Buck Meek)

With a brand new Illuminati Hotties album due out this fall, Sarah Tudzin has been steadily releasing new music to build anticipation. “Uvvp” is the latest offering from Let Me Do One More, which Rachel Brodsky calls for Uproxx “a warm weather-appropriate, beachy single”, featuring an impressive guest spot from Big Thief guitarist (and gifted solo artist!) Buck Meek.

The Linda Lindas – “Oh!”

You might remember The Linda Lindas from their viral performance of “Racist, Sexist Boy” at the LA Public Library earlier this year. Now, the quartet is back with “Oh!,” a brand new track that’s what Rachel Brodsky calls for Uproxx “a no-holds-barred banger, all tight distorted guitars and chantable lyrics reminiscent of Bikini Kill.”

Avery Springer – “Bored Man With A Knife”

Retirement Party leader Avery Springer has been releasing a string of solo music over the last year, featuring mostly sparse arrangements to allow her impressive lyrical flow to take center stage. On “Bored Man With A Knife,” however, Springer teamed up with producer Ryan Hemsworth (Quarter-Life Crisis) to experiment with some electronics and vocal modulation. The resulting track starts the Chicago singer-songwriter on a completely new road, but one with quite a bit of runway and room for exciting growth.

Indigo De Souza – “Hold U”

After recently re-issuing her 2018 debut with Saddle Creek, Indigo De Souza is now preparing to release a brand new album in partnership with the storied indie label. “Hold U” is the second sampling of the forthcoming LP, Any Shape You Take, which Caitlin White calls for Uproxx “a song about holding space for loved ones to express themselves.”

Calicoco – “Heal Me”

Calicoco’s new song “Heal Me” is built upon a building cacophony of off-kilter riffs that immediately give the sense of discomfort, before Giana Caliolo shrieks “give me a labotomy!” The single is the first preview of Calicoco’s forthcoming sophomore album Underneath, which is due in September.

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

Earlier in July, it was announced that Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson, and Paul Simon would headline a special “Homecoming Concert” this summer in Central Park. Now, the full lineup is upon us, and it is stacked. Going down on August 21, the concert will feature The Killers, Patti Smith, Carlos Santana, Elvis Costello, Jon Batiste, Andrea Bocelli, Journey, Wyclef Jean, Barry Manilow, The New York Philharmonic, and plenty more. Check out the poster and the full talent list below.

“This is going to be an historic, monumental moment for all New Yorkers and all Americans,” said NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio in a statement. “I’ll put it plainly: You’re going to want to be here. This is truly once in a lifetime and we thank Clive Davis, Live Nation and Danny Meyer for all their efforts to help make this possible. This is a celebration of our city, of every working family who faced incredible challenges last year and overcame. This is a celebration for you.”

The Great Homecoming Concert Lineup:

Jon Batiste
Andrea Bocelli
Kane Brown
LL Cool J
Elvis Costello
Lucky Daye
Earth, Wind & Fire
Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds
Cynthia Erivo
Jimmy Fallon
Jennifer Hudson
Wyclef Jean
Journey
The Killers
Gayle King
Don Lemon
Barry Manilow
The New York Philharmonic
Polo G
Carlos Santana
Paul Simon
Patti Smith
Bruce Springsteen
Rob Thomas

The Homecoming concert goes down on 8/21 in Central Park and is free to attend. Tickets will be released to the public in “batches” starting August 2 at 10 a.m. ET. Get more information here.

Young Thug is on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts: A sentence I never thought I’d write but that I am so glad I now can. But wait… there’s more! He plays his set with a very (ahem) punk influence, hinting toward the eventual release of his next full-length album, which he’s been teasing for some time. And listen, if you thought Young Thug rapping to punk instrumentals wouldn’t be awesome, I genuinely do not know what to tell you. It’s great.

With a setlist including both new songs (“Die Slow,” “Droppin Jewels,” “Hate The Game,” and “Tick Tock”) as well as his current fan-favorite “Ski” from the YSL compilation album that dropped earlier this year, Thugger’s Tiny Desk Concert is everything you could want from one of these or from a live Young Thug performance.

Oh yeah, and you know Travis Barker pulls up to play drums because what even is a punk-rap crossover without Travis Barker on it? Thug’s flow also seems… I don’t want to say “improved,” but it’s very polished and clear and that’s obviously on purpose as he slides into his next evolution with all the finesse suggested by those constant “slime” and snake references he makes.

Watch Young Thug’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert above.

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

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn delivered stunning testimony during the January 6th Select Committee hearing on Tuesday morning. Despite efforts by Republicans to downplay the seriousness of the attack on the U.S. Capitol building following a Donald Trump rally, Officer Dunn’s testimony paints an even darker picture than what was previously known to many about the failed insurrection. While testifying to Congress, Dunn shared several instances of the MAGA rioters using racial slurs after spotting him inside the Capitol. Via Joy-Ann Reid:

Officer Dunn described men in tactical gear waving Trump flags, and wearing MAGA hats telling him they were invited by Donald Trump. He described a woman yelling “you hear that guys? This f—ng ni—er voted for Joe Biden!” Which was followed by a stream of n-bombs from the MAGA.

Officer Dunn says he had never been called a ni—er while in uniform. He describes fellow Black officers saying they had never been called ni—ers to their face before 1/6/21. One was told by the insurrectionists “put your gun down and we’ll show you what kind of ni—er you are.”

As Dunn continued his testimony, he noted that he had never seen anyone attack a Capitol Police officer, or even the Metropolitan PD, until January 6. According to Dunn, he attempted to defuse the situation peacefully, but again, he had racial slurs yelled at him.

Dunn ended his testimony by revealing his shock and anger at the racial motivations behind the attack, which he shared with a fellow officer. “I sat down on a bench in the rotunda with a friend of mine who is also a black Capitol police officer and told him about the racial slurs I endured,” Dunn testified. “I became very emotional and began yelling, ‘How the blank could something like this happen? Is this America?’”

(Via Joy-Ann Reid on Twitter, Aaron Rupar on Twitter)

UK post-punk stars Dry Cleaning have had an exciting 2021, what with the critical praise for their debut album, New Long Leg. Now, they’ve shared a special one-off double A-side single: “Bug Eggs” and “Tony Speaks!”

Recorded at Rockfield Studios in July and August 2020 during the same session for New Long Leg, these rarities were, up until now, only available in an expanded Japanese edition of the album. Lead vocalist Florence Shaw said that “‘Bug Eggs’ is about the confidence that comes with age, fragility and sexual desire.” Meanwhile, the lyrics to ‘Tony Speaks!’ were “written days after the Conservative party won the December 2019 UK election. I was thinking about climate change, environmental catastrophes and political campaigning.”

“I think our temperaments are important to the band,” Shaw recently told DIY of how the band has developed. “We’re a strange mix of pessimists and optimists. I think that’s something that creates a lot of the atmosphere of our music. A tension between two opposite things […] I think a lot of the writing that I do is trying to work out how I feel about things. I’ll have all these different bits of writing and I’ll think ‘I think these are all about love’, I’ll put them on a page and then I’ll think, ‘Does that help?’”

Listen to “Bug Eggs” and “Tony Speaks!” above. New Long Leg is out now via 4AD. Get it here.

With hits like “Cabo” and “Brothers,” 19-year-old Bankrol Hayden is making his name known, but despite the time and effort that goes into finding and then building on early success, Bankrol still has love for his time spent gaming with his friends back in the day and for what gaming has meant for him in his life. That’s part of why he’s set to be one of the key talents driving Xbox and Atlantic Records’ unveil of the Green Room, a streaming crossover event happening tonight at 6PM ET on Atlantic’s YouTube channel.

Hayden is set to be a member of one of the 10 squads playing Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare (additional guests include Seth Curry, A Boogie, and Vikkstar) for bragging rights and a share of a $10,000 prize pool. Uproxx spoke with Bankrol about the event, his training, and what song he’d put on the NBA2K soundtrack if he had the chance.

Talk to me about why you wanted to be involved with the launch of the series.

Bankrol Hayden: Yeah, it’s really cool. Honestly, I was excited when they told me about it, especially because GaryV is on it. I’ve always been a big fan of his. Also, I’ve just been playing video games since I was a kid. So it was good news when I got to hear that.

How much Call of Duty do you play?

I’m going to be honest, when I was little I played a lot of Call Of Duty: Black Ops, Black Ops Two. But I don’t play much Call Of Duty [now]. I’m actually getting into training right now. I don’t play that much to be real with you, bro. I play more 2K and Madden, I play a lot of GTA. I still play the OG Call Of Duty [games] and shit with my boys when I go back home. I used to go on zombies and go crazy. Nuketown. [In Modern Warfare 3] we used to be taking out the juggernauts. Now that bro brought that back to my memory, it would be every level you would get a new gun or something, but we would be taking out like three or four juggernauts every round. That shit was lit. This was before Black Ops Two, Black Ops One. Yeah, this is way back. But man, I’m really excited for the event. It’s going to be a great time. We’re going to have a blast.

So when you are playing, is it more of a relaxed, hang with friends thing, or just an escape from the world?

It just gets my mind off stuff. I used to be in the hospital and when I was going through surgeries and I was like, I’ve got a back surgery tomorrow, I would be like, okay, playing Fortnite is taking my mind off all that. Or playing Call Of Duty, playing 2K with my boys, with a headset on. That’s always kind of what video games did for me. But as I’m moving into my rap career, I’ve got to be focusing. I’ve got to watch how much time I spend on the game. So I actually put it away. It’s in my closet right now.

I like that. That means you’re really focused.

It was draining for me because I had it in my living room bro, and I was like, you know what? We are here to make music. That’s why we are in LA. But it’s still good and I like it. That shit really helps people’s minds.

When you’re playing 2K, who’s your team?

Man, bro, I liked playing 2K Blacktop, bro. That’s my favorite thing. You gotta watch what I did with Faze Blaze. I beat him in 2K. I like playing that stuff, but my team is going to be the Warriors because that’s where I’m from, out there in the bay.

Are they going back to the playoffs next year?

We’re going back to the playoffs with Klay [Thompson].

How do you feel about Giannis Antetokounmpo winning a championship?

Bro, that shit is inspiring, bro. Just seeing bro win, all the videos of him wanting it before, and now he’s here, it’s respectable. He deserved it.

What song of yours do you feel would be best on a 2K soundtrack?

I’m going to say “Costa Rica” with Kid Laroi remix. That shit would go crazy, I feel like. Or “Drop a Tear,” Lil Baby with me.

What was it like doing a song with Lil Baby?

Shoot man, it was a cool experience. We shot it in a church in Atlanta and all those people had great vibes. It was cool people and it was good, man. It was a good experience. It was crazy. Because I’m a big fan a Lil Baby. So I was like, man, this is surreal.

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

What do you get when you smash together elements of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The African Queen, Pirates of the Caribbean, and, strangely, a little bit of Maverick? And it stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt? Well, the good news is you get about an hour of a movie that could be deemed “entertaining” or “enjoyable.” The bad news is, after that first hour (and like so many movies inexplicably do today), someone decided, “Look, hear me out, what if about halfway through we make this movie super convoluted? Like to the point it would be hard to explain the plot to anyone?” And then someone else decided, “Yes, that’s exactly what we should do.”

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (whose movies I like a lot; though this does not feel anything like a typical Jaume Collet-Serra movie), Jungle Cruise is especially maddening because for the first act of the movie it truly feels like they were on to something.

Set in 1916, Emily Blunt plays Dr. Lily Houghton, a scientist who, in London, steals a mysterious arrowhead that will direct her to a fabled healing tree in Brazil. Even this scene lifts directly from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as Lily times the noise she makes breaking into a crate with that of a tool being used by the museum curator. And you know what? Fine! If you’re going to lift from other movies, that’s not a bad one to lift from. Soon after, Lily finds herself hanging onto a ladder for dear life as Jesse Plemons’s German Prince Joachim screeches at her to toss him the artifact and he will help her, straight out of the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Again, fine. (Also, Plemons is having the time of his life in this movie.)

Lily and her brother, McGregor (Jack Whitehall), arrive in Brazil and hire a rapscallion of a steamboat captain, Captain Frank Wolff (Johnson) to guide them to the area where the magic healing tree might be located. All the while being chased by Plemons’s dastardly Prince Joachim, who has a submarine. So as of this moment, we’ve got: Two charming leads, Johnson and Blunt. Some comedic relief from Jack Whitehall. And Jesse Plemons hilariously overacting as the villain. All in a race to be the first to get to a tree with magical healing powers. You know what, now we’re talkin’, how could this go south?

For reasons I will never understand, in 2021, what I have just described is, somehow, just not enough plot for a movie anymore. So, now, on top of all that we have the ugly CGI ghosts of 400-year-old conquistadors thrown in here, too. And the more time we spend with these ugly CGI ghosts, the worse the movie gets, to the point I just didn’t care anymore because it became all so stupid. And then on top of that we then have to learn about Captain Frank Wolff’s connection to these 400-year-old conquistadors. (I will not give that detail away, but after I saw this movie I told someone this particular plot point and they, still, think I am making this up.)

What’s maddening about Jungle Cruise is there’s a fun summer movie in here. I know this because, for the first hour or so, I was watching it. It was all set up. Some interesting characters are established (now, I wouldn’t go as far to say Johnson and Blunt have “chemistry” with each other, but I did believe two actual movie stars who can carry a movie were on screen) and the rules were in place of what these characters want to accomplish. And then they sunk it with utter nonsense. Look, I get this is a movie based on an amusement park ride (that I have never been on and know absolutely nothing about), but I was actually looking pretty forward to an “original” summer action movie. And for the first hour I kept thinking, by golly, they might have just pulled this off. And then, of course, it sunk into a CGI mess of a convoluted movie. My guess is that there was some sort of decree that every single aspect of the ride just had to also be included in the movie, which was a big mistake. I honestly don’t understand why almost every big-budget studio movie these days, the answer is, “More plot! This movie needs more plot!”

Honestly, my low tolerance for Jungle Cruise is because they had all the ingredients. This really could have been pretty good! It was like a runner with a big lead. All the runner has to do is not fall. Just finish the race and you’ll win. Anyway, the runner fell, which makes it much harder to watch than someone who was at the back of the pack the whole time.

‘Jungle Cruise’ opens on July 30th in theaters and via Disney+. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.</em

Don Lemon found himself in an unusual position while defending rival Tucker Carlson over the “Montana Man” confrontation. That’s quite a set of words there, so let’s back up. In the recent past, Tucker has acquired the reputation of encouraging harassment of outdoors mask wearers by his viewership. He also freaked out over what he called Don Lemon’s “white supremacist QAnon cookie jar.” During that episode, he drew unwanted attention to Don Lemon’s home while claiming that Lemon actually doesn’t care about diversity because he lives in a community that “is just 3% African-American.” As a result (and as Lemon revealed on air during his Monday night CNN broadcast), Lemon’s home was surrounded by paparazzi.

That made the issue of Montana Man (real name Dan Bailey) difficult for Lemon to wrap his head around, after the fly-fishing store owner confronted Tucker and called him “the worst human being known to mankind.” Lemon admitted to having “mixed emotions” on this issue, but he still defended Tucker’s right to shop in an outdoors store (or anywhere) with his family without being confronted:

“I don’t like it. I don’t like it when people do that because I would not want it to happen to me. But I have mixed emotions because Tucker has done this to people before… Tucker said some really nasty and silly things about me, and the next day there were paparazzi in front of my house, hiding, taking pictures… I don’t want it to happen to anyone, I don’t want it to happen to Tucker, but when you do things like that, I don’t know.”

Ana Navarro felt differently and made it clear that she felt no sympathy for Tucker. She pointed out that Dan Bailey was actually pretty calm and collected, considering how upset he was about Tucker sending out dangerous vaccine-misinformation to the Fox News masses every night. Still, Lemon disagreed, saying that Tucker might act “completely reprehensible and divorced from reality,” yet he still felt that the Fox News host had a right to “not be ambushed” in public. Meanwhile, social media is still a fan of Montana Man saying what a lot of people feel about Tucker Carlson.