Month: July 2021

Kanye West originally announced that his tenth album, Donda, would arrive last summer. But it never arrived. While some hoped the delay would be brief, nearly a year has gone by. At long last, we now know when the album will drop, and people won’t have to wait too long.

According to a press release from Kanye’s label, Def Jam Records, Donda is confirmed to arrive this Friday, July 23. The project will premiere at a sold-out listening event at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, which will also be livestreamed on Apple Music.

The news comes after Kanye teased a song from the album through a new Beats By Dre commercial. The ad features track and field star Sha’Carri Richardson while “No Child Left Behind,” which will presumably appear on Donda, plays in the background. The track appeared as one of nine songs that Kanye had listed on a whiteboard during a studio session with Tyler The Creator.

Donda is set to feature appearances from many artists, including Baby Keem. The reported cover art also surfaced and it depicts an abstract painting of what appears to be a woman painted in red over a grey background.

You can watch the ad in the video above.

More than two decades ago, Nas and Tupac were entwined in a short-lived hip-hop beef. It began in 1996, when Nas released his second album, It Was Written. It featured “The Message,” a track on which Tupac believed he was dissed. Tupac later released “Against All Odds,” with his own shots at Nas. But before they patched things up, Tupac was tragically killed in a shooting.

However, nearly 25 years after their beef came to an end, an unreleased record by Nas was leaked, and it features him taking strong shots at the late rapper. His attacks arrive halfway through the song’s first verse. “From tube-socks in Timbs to blue rocks and Benz / Who got the ends, the type of n***a 2Pac pretends,” Nas raps. “To all n****s who shine, guess who got revenge / I won’t showboat, my flow choke you.” This marks the first time fans hear Nas directly, unambiguously diss Tupac on a record.

Last summer, Nas spoke about the moment Tupac confronted him about the alleged (though not confirmed) diss on “The Message” during an interview on Ebro In The Morning. “He explained that he thought I was dissing him on the song ‘The Message,’ and I heard he was dissing me at clubs,” the rapper revealed. “He was like ‘Yo Nas, we brothers, man. We not supposed to go through this.’ And I’m like, that’s what I’m saying.” He added, “We had a plan to squash it in Vegas. So I was out there when he was in the hospital, praying for him to come through. Rest in peace.”

You can listen to the leaked record in the video above.

Earlier this month, Sha’Carri Richardson tested positive for marijuana and was issued a one-month suspension, disqualifying her from participating in the Olympics in Tokyo. Richardson did have possible alternate routes to the United States Olympic Team, but every door closed and Richardson, who many viewed as a favorite to win gold in the 100-meter dash, sparked a great deal of conversation that included high-profile support.

With that as the backdrop, Richardson was back at the forefront of the discourse on Tuesday when she was featured in a new Beats spot scored and edited by Kanye West in anticipation of his new album, DONDA, during Game 6 of the 2021 NBA Finals.

Richardson was seen wearing Beats Studio Buds and she ran 100 meters with the backdrop of West’s “No Child Left Behind.” West’s album, set to debut on Friday, July 23, is also highly anticipated, and the combination of the two made for quite a launch.

As for Richardson, it will be interesting to see how she is discussed as the Olympics begin later this week, particularly through the lens of mainstream coverage of the track and field events. It certainly doesn’t seem as if she will be fading into the background, though, and a prominent placement in the midst of an NBA Finals telecast is a reminder of that.

Deadpool wasn’t Ryan Reynolds’ first comic book movie rodeo. Actually, technically that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, in which he played…the character who becomes Deadpool (though he doesn’t talk, and therefore has no quips, or much of a personality). But we’re, of course, referring to something else: the 2011 movie take on Green Lantern. The actor has long been dismissive of his first aborted superhero starring gig, though when he belatedly watched earlier this year — while live-tweeting it, of course — he was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t that bad.

But in the ensuing months perhaps he forgot that. In a new appearance on the podcast SmartLess, Reynolds had a particularly colorful way of describing the stint, which was meaningful to him in one major way: It’s where he first encountered his future wife, Blake Lively.

“I met Blake on the darkest crease in the anus of the universe called Green Lantern,” Reynolds told fellow his all-star hosts Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes. It’s certainly a, uh, vivid way of describing the film, in which he played Hal Jordan, the everyman who becomes Earth’s contribution to the interstellar Green Lantern Corps.

Reynolds had nicer things to say about the film when he publicly watched it, back on St. Patrick’s Day. Over Twitter he largely stuck to good-nature ribbing (including over his sub-Christian Bale-as-Batman voice), sprinkled with compliments for his fellow cast and crew. He concluded that while “it’s not perfect, it ain’t a tragedy.”

But maybe that was the gin he had poured for himself talking. Now, it appears, it’s been downgraded to “darkest crease in the anus of the universe.”

Then again, it’s where he met Blake Lively. He told his hosts that on set they “were friends and buddies.” He was still married to Scarlett Johansson at the time, so it took another year and a half for them to go on a double date, with a catch: At the time they were actually dating separate people.

“We hung out and kind of, you know, we always kind of kept in touch but sort of casually. And then next thing you know, she was going to Boston. I was going to Boston. So I was like, ‘I’ll ride with you,’” Reynolds recalled. “We got on the train and rode together and then I was just begging her to sleep with me.

“Honestly, it was kind of one of those silly sort of … like out of a fairy tale,” he added. “Like a week later, I was like, ‘We should buy a house together.’ And we did.”

Love, it certainly conquers all, even questionable comic book movies.

(Via Yahoo!)

It’s been over a year and a half since Juice WRLD passed away as the result of a drug-induced seizure at Chicago Midway International Airport. Since then, faithful listeners will have another way to enjoy his work.

According to Deadline, an animated film that uses Juice WRLD’s music as inspiration is currently in the works. The movie is produced by Modern Magic, a media company created by Adam Rosenberg and Rodney Rothman. Its script will be written by Jaboukie Young-White, who currently serves as a correspondent on The Daily Show. John Janick, Steve Berman, and Tony Seyler (who appears on behalf of Interscope Records) are listed as executive producers, as are Carmela Wallace, Peter Jideonwo, and Lil Bibby, each of whom are a member of the rapper’s estate.

The news comes after Juice WRLD’s label, Interscope Records, revealed that three posthumous projects from the late rapper are on the way. The first will be a new EP, The Party Never Ends, which the label promised is “coming soon.” Jideonwo also revealed the project will feature Lil Uzi Vert and “a few other big people.”

Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Venmo, the mobile payment app run by PayPal, has revolutionized how we pay each other. Group restaurant outings are no longer a hassle; collecting bill money from roommates has become far easier. Hooray, technology! But as with everything good, there’s a catch: The app has long had that inexplicable public feed, in which not just mutuals but complete strangers can see you, say, wildly overpay for hipster pizza. (Or, if you’re Matt Gaetz, potentially more salacious enterprises.)

Well, no more, sort of: According to BuzzFeed, Venmo has announced that they’re ending the global view part of their social feed, which treats the app like just another social media service. Users will no longer get to see someone they’ve never met forking some dough over to a mutual you sent cash years ago, complete with fun or just plain cryptic explanations for what they’ve paid for. It’s part of an overall overhaul of the app that will take place over the next few weeks.

That doesn’t mean transactions made over the app are no longer public. The public feed will simply no longer be active. One can still, if one is nosy, click on friend’s pages and see, say, the absurd amount they pay in monthly utilities.

It’s not only users who’ve idly complained about the public feed feature. Privacy groups, too, have long chewed out Venmo for how much info they allow on public view. Recently the app made it possible to change one’s Friends List from public to private. That’s a great step but, as BuzzFeed points out, they could go further and make private the default setting. But maybe that will require another baby step.

(Via BuzzFeed)

Last winter, Travis Scott announced a new line of spiked seltzer drinks called Cacti. The beverages, which come in lime, pineapple, and strawberry flavors, hit stores this spring. So far, they’ve been a hit, and now he’s looking to bring more exposure to it through a new partnership with Uber Eats.

According to Complex, Scott teamed up with the food delivery service to give lucky fans a shot at winning exclusive Cacti merchandise. Between July 21-25, consumers can score a chance at getting the merch — namely, an army green t-shirt that sports the Cacti logo, as well as a handwritten note from Scott himself — by purchasing the seltzer on the Uber Eats app. Consumers will then be able to enter a contest to win the shirt.

Unfortunately, this deal is not available to everyone. Only residents of Chicago, Washington D.C., Miami, Orlando, and Tampa are eligible for the giveaway.

The partnership comes after Travis launched his cannabis line, Cactus Farms, together with marijuana cultivator Connected Cannabis. According to NME, the “Indica-leaning strain” features a “dense, purple bud that releases a pungent, funky-sweet gas aroma rounded out by a unique berry twist.”

This also comes after Scott hid tickets for his upcoming festival Astroworld in variety packs of his cacti seltzer. A total of 200 tickets were made available via the giveaway.

The last month has brought to light many new and alarming things about Britney Spears’ conservatorship. The singer has been very public about seeing her current arrangement, involving her father, Jamie Spears, terminated, calling it “abusive” as well as restricting on her lifestyle. It was also revealed that she reportedly called the police just one day before her explosive June 23 court hearing to report her father for conservatorship abuse. However, Britney says there’s plenty more to be revealed.

On Instagram, Britney revealed that she plans on sharing more about the conservatorship. “So I said ‘life goes on’ in one of my recent posts but it’s always easier said than done !!!!!” she wrote in the caption for an image the displayed the words “one day at a time” spelled out with lettered dice. “In that moment that’s what felt was the easiest to say but I think we all know that I will never be able to let go and fully move on until I’ve said all I needed to say … and I’m not even close !!!!”

She added, “I was told to stay quiet about things for so long and I finally feel like I’m just getting here !!!! [three dove emojis].”

You can check out Britney’s post above.

Everyone at some point realizes that adults aren’t automatically smart. The same goes for politicians. In fact, they often claim to know things they know nothing about. There were two good examples of this on Tuesday. One came when an exasperated Dr. Anthony Fauci schooled Senator Rand Paul, who he told him point blank, about the Wuhan “lab leak” conspiracy theory, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.” The other, no surprise, came from Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Hot off being banned for 12 hours from tweeting due to COVID-19 misinformation, the controversial representative walked into it again. During a press conference, a journalist asked Greene — whose attempt to appeal a $500 fine, issued for not wearing a mask in the House back in May, was met with failure — the million dollar question: Is she, in fact, vaccinated. She pleaded the 5th, sort of, claiming that was a “a violation of my HIPAA rights.”

Greene was referring to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects personal information acquired by health officials, such as doctors, from fraud and theft. This poses another question: Does someone, such as a journalist or a potential employer or even the staff at a movie theater, asking about one’s vaccination status violate the HIPAA?

It does not.

Plenty of articles have been published in the last handful of months as vaccine skeptics have tried to float this idea. Here’s one, from no less a source than the HIPAA Journal. All have reached the same conclusion: HIPAA does not protect one from revealing whether or not one is a health threat, including for the highly contagious and transmissible COVID-19. The closest such a question would come to an HIPAA violation is if someone asked her doctor to reveal her status, which is not what happened at this presser.

Some broke down how it really works.

CNN’s crack fact checker Daniel Dale pointed out Greene has done this on multiple occasions yet always seems to miss, somehow, when she’s been debunked.

Others simply roasted her for the confidence with which she revealed she has no idea what she’s talking about.

Others read this as a possible confession that, yes, she has been vaccinated, which would appall her base.

Greene’s vaccine stubbornness comes at a particularly awkward time for her party. A number of prominent conservatives, noticing the fact that the vast majority of new cases and deaths are among the unvaccinated, have had an about-face, and are now imploring their viewers to get dosed already. That even Sean Hannity is doing more to save people than Marjorie Taylor Greene really does say something.

Picture this: you’re floating in a calm bay, listening to the waves tumble along the seashore. The sun beats down on your face as birds chirp in the background. Life is good. Is it real, though? Or are you just on a whole sh*tton of edibles?

Summertime, with its tendency to get people out into and enjoying nature, is the perfect time to pop an edible and sink into a long-lasting, ethereal body high. The sun gets a bit brighter, breezes feel a bit sweeter, the water more refreshing, and sounds much clearer. Gummies, in particular, are ideal for the season: typically made with fruit flavors, they’re a perfect complement to higher temperatures and, being pocket-sized, ideal for stashing as you partake in various outdoor adventures.

I’m not the only one who thinks this – consumers agree. According to data company Headset, which tracks trends in the cannabis industry, cannabis gummies have had significant year-over-year growth from last summer to this summer, with a 21% rise in unit sales from last year. Gummies also made up 77% of edible sales during this same time period, with gummies and chews being the only categories with a positive growth rate over the last year. But not all gummies are created equal. Some are made with low-quality THC distillate, others aren’t dosed well. Some have too-fake fruit flavors while others are simply too sweet.

That’s where we come in. We’ve tried way too many gummies and picked our favorites. Here are the eight best cannabis gummies for summer fun.

Wonderbrett

Price: $25 for 10 gummies

Brand new to the market are gummies from Wonderbrett, the iconic Los Angeles weed brand with deep roots in the legacy market. Wonderbrett is known for many things in the weed world — especially special, hard-to-find genetics — but a good way to remember them is, in the pre-legal days, they were the main purveyors of the original OG Kush strain, as well as one of the favored growers of many famous rappers (Dr. Dre’s 2001 was recorded while smoking Brett’s OG Kush in the studio).

Today, Wonderbrett’s line features vegan, strain-specific live rosin-infused fruit chews with real fruit juice and 10-mg THC a pop.

Bottom line:

For a brand whose tagline is “flavors on flavors on flavors,” these gummies deliver on that front. My favorite, so far, is the papaya, which is not a flavor easily found in the edibles landscape.

Kanha

Price: $18

Brand new for summer are Kanha’s limited-edition pink guava “Exotic Series” gummies, which, with their tropical, fruity flavor notes, feel especially perfect for summer activities by the water. Even more ideal are Kanha’s nano gummies, which have fast-absorbing technology to allow it to hit faster — 15 minutes, the company claims — which is particularly important when on the go or mingling at a party.

Bottom line:

For a sunset stroll, try the pink guava gummies at 10-mg THC a pop. For something more active and social, pop one of the nano gummies, which are 5-mg each and do seem to hit faster than your average edible.

AbsoluteXtracts

Price: $13

Known primarily for their extracts — which can be found in dab, capsule, or cartridge form — AbsouteXtracts also makes gummies, which are strain-specific, vegan, gluten-free, and 5-mg THC apiece. There are four different flavors matched with different strains.

Bottom line:

Maui Wowie, which has a tropical flavor, and Tangie, which has a citrus taste, are both uplifting strains and terpene-built flavors guaranteed to power someone through a day of sun-soaked activities.

Clsics

Price: $20

Live rosin brand Clsics recently debuted their line of live rosin-infused gummies, which are softer and more gel-like than other brands, which I personally really enjoy. They are 10-mg THC apiece and come in different strain-specific flavors, Zkittlez, Watermelon, and Blackberry Fire.

Bottom line:

These gummies are fantastic, easily one of my very favorites of the bunch. Live rosin includes the full spectrum of the plant much more so than most gummies, which tend to use THC distillate oil. Live rosin is solventless and provides a more dynamic body and head high than just distillate, which, for me, is ideal for spending a day out in nature and activating all the senses.

Incredibles:

Price:$30

Incredibles’ 10-mg summer gummies include two flavors of THC distillate gummies — Watermelon Smash and Summer Peach. Rather than infusing their gummies, they are instead mixed and cooked in a homogenous mixture, which ensures dosing consistency (different gummies companies do this in different ways).

Bottom line:

This one comes down to taste. Which flavor speaks more to you? For me, it’s always stone fruit, which I think are underrated in the face of other summer fruits.

Kaneh Co.

Price: $15

One of the oldest legal gummy companies in the game, Kaneh Co., makes bite-sized jellies in a variety of delicious flavors, with 10-mg THC each. Guava tamarind and mango chile are, in my opinion, the two best summer flavors. For those who want just one, and not a whole 10-pack, they also sell them as solos.

Bottom line: Kaneh’s gummies are not only delicious, but they taste good, too. For now, the brand only has distillate jellies but will be releasing a line of live rosin gummies later this year.

Papa & Barkley

Price: $21

Notable for being sugar-free in an edibles landscape that is loaded with sugar, Papa & Barkley’s gummies are a cut above and a good choice for those seeking a less-sweet, lower-calorie option. They are gluten-free, keto, and vegan, and are produced with solventless, hash-infused coconut oil under the brand’s Releaf line, which is known for its high-quality, medical-quality products. All that being said, these gummies are anything but clinical.

Bottom line:

These edibles come in four flavors: tart apple, juicy orange, wild strawberry, and berry blast. I am not able to choose which I like better — they’re all great and seasonally appropriate. Consistent dosing and zero calories make this an ideal choice for frequent summer imbibing.

Kiva

Price: $21

Kiva is a popular brand around the gummy-popping set, in general, but in particular, their 10-mg, strain-specific Lost Farm live resin-infused gummies are truly best of class and one of the best-tasting options money can buy. Expect a dynamic body high and a pleasant head change to accompany it.

Bottom line:

The watermelon flavor, which is perfect for summer, boasts the ever-popular Gelato strain. Other favorites include raspberry, passion fruit, and strawberry lemonade.