Month: September 2021

Ever since Verzuz became a fixture in the hip-hop community last year, fans have clamored for match-ups featuring some of the all-time greats squaring off. Jermaine Dupri is trying to get something going for himself, as he issued a challenge to Diddy. However, Diddy doesn’t think that’s a worthwhile endeavor for him, as there’s only one artist he’d do a Verzuz against.

Last night, Dupri called out Diddy, tweeting, “Somebody let @Diddy know I’m @thegarden right now ! And he gon need some training for me.”

Diddy didn’t take long to respond with a tweet that both showed respect for Dupri while declaring that he can’t measure up to Diddy. Additionally, he declared the only person he’d do a Verzuz with is Dr. Dre. He tweeted, “Beloved you my n**** but your arms too short to box with God!!! You aiint got enough hits. I’ll smash you with just biggie n Mary . But I do have the upmost respect on you as a musical legend – Dre the only one can get in the ring w me . – LOVE.”

Dre was actually once set to participate in a Verzuz, but Swizz Beatz notes he backed out after hearing the poor sound quality of one broadcast.

Tucker Carlson has got swollen testicles on the brain. No, it’s not a neurological condition; but ever since Nicki Minaj tweeted about her mysterious “cousin’s friend” whose ball sack reportedly did not like whatever was in the COVID vaccine, Carlson can’t stop talking about this poor man’s scrotum.

His testicular fixation began on Monday night when he read aloud a tweet in which Minaj told a story about some poor dude’s junk:

While there didn’t seem to be much more left to say, Carlson found plenty of ways to turn this into a continuing story. On Tuesday night he was back on Swollen Balls patrol, correcting a misunderstanding on his part: “Last night… suggested that Nick Minaj’s cousin is the one with the swollen testicles in Trinidad. And we were wrong and we want to admit it. We henceforth correct the record. Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s testicles are not swollen. As far as we know, he’s fine. It’s Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles who are swollen.”

Glad we cleared that up—as I’m sure Nicki Minaj’s cousin and his balls are.

Carlson brought on Candace Owens, of all people, to whom he admitted that “My total knowledge of Nicki Minaj is right around zero.” (No sh*t.) “So I have no idea what Nicki Minaj thinks of anything else. But I know when someone is not intimidated, and this woman is not intimidated… And it’s just so interesting and heartening to see someone who’s not afraid in America. There are still a few. I guess it’s left to a rapper from Queens, but good for her.”

Sounds a bit racist, but moving on…

Things then took a more serious tone when a much more somber Carlson addressed the cousin’s friend with the swollen testicles directly, and implored him to consider being a guest on the Fox News show.

“We haven’t been able to figure out if this show is broadcast in Trinidad, but if Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend is watching—or his former fiancée is watching—we want to hear your story. We’ll come to Port of Spain to see you. Let us know.”

If all goes well, who knows: Maybe Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s inflamed meat clackers could get a Fox News show of their very own.

On Tuesday, the world was shocked and saddened to learn about the death of iconic comedian Norm Macdonald, who passed away at the age of 61 after a nearly decade-long battle with cancer, which he chose to keep private. While all of the late night hosts honored the late comedian, Seth Meyers had a special connection to Macdonald: In addition to both being former SNL alums, both men had spent some time anchoring the “Weekend Update” desk.

At the beginning of last night’s Late Night, Meyers took several minutes to pay tribute to the man whose path in which he followed and to share some of his most memorable moments with Macdonald. Meyers talked about how in 2015, as part of the SNL 40th Anniversary special, he shared the stage with Macdonald and fellow former “Weekend Update” hosts Colin Quinn and Kevin Nealon:

“It was a night where everyone just got a couple things to say, there were so many people there and it was really limited. The four of us had a little thing to say, I believe, if memory serves, before we introduced Chevy [Chase]. I remember we all said our line—myself and Colin and Kevin—and then Norm just started talking. And none of it was what he was supposed to say… I remember laughing really hard, not at what Norm was saying as much as the idea that any of us thought that Norm would play by anyone else’s rules. On any night.”

In addition to sharing his favorite all-time Norm joke (it’s the “two cakes” line in here), Meyers shared how Macdonald once told him that his favorite thing about SNL is that it’s “the last place on TV where you can [still] bomb.” That if a show was going poorly, “by the time ‘Update’ rolled around, you could literally just go out there and bomb. And that both made that level of difficulty both something that I think he really respected, and also… he just didn’t care if he was bombing. If he thought the jokes were good, he had exactly as much fun telling them to a dead audience than to one who appreciated them.” It was that kind of confidence that made Macdonald a comedian’s comedian, and one who everyone from Seth Rogen to Meyers has admitted to trying to emulate.

When Meyers admitted to Macdonald that one of the toughest parts of doing “Weekend Update” was “not telling every joke the way I thought Norm would tell it. I had to beat Norm’s delivery out of me… and I told him how hard that part was and he said, ‘I’m so glad to hear you say that because my son was watching you on Update and said to me: You talk like Seth Meyers. And he told me that when he said that, he said, ‘Oh no! My son doesn’t know how time works.’”

Meyers concluded by saying that Macdonald “the gold standard and he will continue to be the gold standard.”

You can watch the full segment above (and some of Macdonald’s best “Weekend Update” jokes below).

Violet, Justine Bateman’s feature-length debut as a director (which is playing this week at the Toronto International Film Festival), is a pretty remarkable film. Olivia Munn plays the title character, a film executive who, throughout the film, is haunted by internal voices. Well, first, there’s her external voice, which is usually what she’s saying out loud to appease people, mostly men. Then there’s an internal voice, a man’s voice, always telling her how awful she is. Then there are handwritten notes, Bateman’s own handwriting, that appear on the screen that reflect Violet’s true feelings about any situation. When I say it’s remarkable, it’s would have been pretty easy for a movie like this to go poorly. Or, as Bateman says, turn into “a pile of stuff.” Instead, it works. And really cuts into what a lot of people feel on a daily basis as we are undercut by our own internal monologues.

It does seem like a lot of Bateman’s creativity is rooted in her interpretation of stupid societal norms, and why we still continue to hold up these stupid norms. And she’s obviously been thinking about these things for a while, which is why I wondered why it’s only now we are getting her first feature-length film. She’s a talented filmmaker. Obviously, she had a lot of success as an actor in the ’80s on Family Ties (if you happen to catch any episodes, it’s still a very good show and Bateman’s comedic timing on that show should be talked about more) and then as an author. But it truly is remarkable she pulled off a movie like Violet, which hinges so much on the viewer going along for the ride and getting on the wavelength of the movie. This would be a tough movie for someone who has directed a lot of movies.

Ahead, Bateman takes us inside her thought process — this is someone who has really thought about the themes she’s trying to put out there. It’s a movie she says she wishes she had seen when she was 19. (This makes a lot of sense.)

(Also, as an aside, we figure out why when I hear the name Justine Bateman my first reaction is “a trouble maker.” Yes, this has everything to do with Family Ties.)

Reading past interviews, you’ve been thinking about this idea for a while. Why didn’t you make this 10 years ago?

You’re hilarious.

Why is that?

Ten years ago? What is that, 2011? Ten years ago I wrote it. I was just writing a bunch of scripts and just saving them to my computer. I’m being a little cheeky here, but the truth is, the timing is such an important factor for me. In my life, the timing didn’t feel right. I wanted the timing to feel right earlier, but it just didn’t. In particular, for me to direct, I’d wanted to direct since I was 19, but the timing never felt right. And I knew if I tried to push ahead it would just be a pile of stuff, whatever I made. That’s been my experience with pushing against timing for me. When I graduated from UCLA in 2016, then the timing suddenly felt right. I did the two shorts, and then had to raise the money for Violet. It’s all those factors. It’s all those factors.

You say “pile of stuff.” I see your point how if you’re not ready to make a movie like this, it could turn out poorly if not presented exactly the right way.

Mike, it’s not only timing for me, but it’s like throwing a party. There are all these different elements, all these different variables: who’s going to be coming, what food are you ordering, which caterers are available, which venue you going to have it in? There are all these things that have to coalesce at the same moment.

Right…

I’m using a silly example, but you know what I mean: finding the perfect apartment or house for yourself. A lot of things have to happen in other people’s lives in order for that exact apartment or house to be available for you. Somebody has to get that job offer that takes them to Chicago so that they have to vacate their place at this exact time. There’s a lot of elements that, obviously, I don’t know about, so all I can do is go by when the timing feels right. That’s a lot of it, you want to hit a moment in society.

Well, a moment in society. yeah. It is interesting it’s coming out when I think society’s talking about stuff like this more than they were before.

I couldn’t have planned that out.

Of course.

It’s interesting how, God, if someone could really control things like that, that’d be something else. So much of it’s out of your hands, all I can do is follow that timing feeling, and that’s it. There’s a long answer to your question.

I always have it in the back of my head you’re a trouble maker and I think I’ve figured it out. By the way, this is so stupid…

That is stupid.

I was eight or nine and the first episode I ever saw of Family Ties is the one where Alex is taking speed and Mallory is supplying him the speed, which is very different than every other episode. I thought this was a sitcom about a speed addict and his sister who’s a speed dealer.

That steered the image in your mind of me.

Yes. So to this day, I’m like, “Ah, a troublemaker.”

I’ll take that. I like it.

I’ve been talking to people about this movie and I’ve found that I didn’t realize that there are people who do not have those voices in their head. Are you finding that? Or are most people relating?

Most people are saying, “Are you reading my diary?” I have a theory on the people who don’t hear the critical thoughts. They either have reached nirvana in their personal growth, or they’re not yet aware of it. They’ve grown so accustomed to that being part of what goes through their minds that they don’t see them as critical thoughts. I think a lot of people can take these critical thoughts and just absorb them in a way where they’re like, “It’s just part of my personality.” Or, “I’m just hard on myself, it’s fine.” They may come to that day like Violet does down the line where they’re like, “Everything was working fine before, and now I’m suddenly aware of these thoughts, what’s going on?” I would say that I hope everybody gets a chance to see this film, even if it’s not something that’s applicable to their lives right now.

When you look around, and you look at the ways people behave around us – or people we don’t know that are showcased in the media – to me, it makes things really clear as to how could they have gotten to the point where they’re talking like that. To me, it really comes down to this root cause, which is their own personal fear, and these critical thoughts come, “You’re a piece of shit, you should turn around and make them feel like shit.” It’s this calculus that we do. It goes a long way to explain why people behave the way they do.

The people who at least think they’ve reached nirvana, are you envious of them?

Years ago I was making a lot of fear-based decisions…

I’ve heard you say that. What’s an example?

What’s an example? Most of the time, the result would just be me not being myself. I’d be in a situation, and go along, and I’d be feeling myself. Say, at a party or something, and then I realize I don’t feel myself now. I feel off-balance or something. In the beginning, I couldn’t pinpoint when or where that happened. I remember after the party, I didn’t feel like I was on track. Then I have to go and think about what happened at that party and really, really try to pinpoint the moment. Once I was successful at doing that, then I could say, “Okay, what was going through my head at that moment?” Then I go, “Oh, I get it. It was when that girl walked in.” Okay, what happened when that girl walked in? “I felt less than; I felt competitive.” I’m just making up an example.

Isn’t what you’re saying by going off track, isn’t that “just yourself”? You can’t help that.

I guess when I mean “myself,” I mean, I have a true north for myself, and perhaps everybody does.

Okay.

Where I feel comfortably confident, like how kids do. They’re just being themselves. They’re fine. They’re not thinking about what other people think of them. I think we’re born with that, and then it just gets chipped away by, maybe, the family we grew up with. Or maybe our classmates, or our teachers, or whatever. It gets chipped away at. Then, you have to get back. I think it’s important. It’s very important to me to get back to my true north. Who am I, really?

That’s how I got to a place where I feel my true north almost all the time and I’m very in tune to when I feel like I go off track. Of course, it’s still off, but for me, personally, I don’t feel like I’m really being me. I feel like I’m being a fearful version of myself. Or I’m being an insecure version of myself. Or it’s just not me, and I want it to be. I immediately start writing, either on my phone or in my journal, or something, because I want to get to whatever that irrational fear is that was the button for this moment. I don’t want to change anyone’s behavior around me, I just want to get rid of all of my buttons so that I can just be in any situation, anybody can be saying anything, and I’ll just be like, “Sorry, what did you say?” For it to just not affect me at all. I get closer and closer every day, and I hope by the end of my life I just hope I don’t have any buttons at all.

From this movie and some interviews I’ve read with you, you seem to be exploring all these themes about society and the stupid things we do in society as people and why do we do this stuff. It seems to be where a lot of your creativity is coming from. You seem really in tune with this.

This is really just, for me, creatively, as a filmmaker and an author, I want to go as far as I can creatively. I want to use as many elements as I have at my disposal and that I can discover that I don’t even know about yet to drive certain thesis statements home: In Fame, the first book about the life cycle of fame, and then Face, about women’s faces getting older and why that makes people angry, and then this one. I went through this, I processed this, the life cycle of fame, the rising and then when fame goes away. And then my face being criticized publicly, and got on the other side of that where I just don’t give a shit now. Then this, Violet is more generally about processing all that. If I can leave anything here, if it’s of any use to anybody, I wish somebody had told me how to do this shit. I wish I’d seen this film at 19. I could have become myself faster. I just want to like, “Here, let me just pass it on.” I love directing. I love filmmaking. I am heavily influenced by the European films of the ’60s and ’70s that are so metaphor heavy and everything.

Like what?

Let’s see, Antonioni, Godard. Two or Three Things I Know About Her, Godard’s film. Or Lavventura. Eight 1/2 is my absolute favorite.

This is also a really interesting movie for Olivia Munn, who is in a lot of “celebrity news” stories these days, where a lot of people seem to have opinions. It feels like a good time for her with this movie…

Olivia has a fantastic screen presence. I think this would have been a great film for her at any point in her life. I hope she gets a lot more roles like this where she can show what she does. Sometimes people don’t get the opportunities that fit their skill set until a certain point, maybe this is not for her. I’m really happy for her. Her personal life is none of my business.

Right.

I’m really excited for her that she’s going to be a mom. I’m thrilled for her. She does a great job in this film, and I hope she gets tons of accolades for this film. She deserves it.

I think this is one of her best roles.

Yeah, yeah. It’s cool. Sometimes people don’t get the … if we’re all birds, some people don’t get the opportunity creatively to just jump out of the nest and show you what they can do when they spread their wings. [Laughs] That’s such a bad analogy.

No, it’s not. It was good.

A lot of people don’t get the opportunity to just jump off and show to you. I’m glad that Violet could be that for her, and I hope she can do that many more times in other films.

You said that you wrote a bunch more scripts…

I have a ton of scripts.

I hope you get to make those.

Yeah. I’m talking about getting a couple set up. I can’t wait. I absolutely love directing. I hope I do it till the moment I die.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

It was just seven months ago that D Smoke released the deluxe edition of his debut album, Black Habits. The reissue added four songs and features from Snow Tha Product and E-40 to the already stellar project that showcased appearances from Ari Lennox, Snoop Dogg, Sir, Jill Scott, Davion Farris, Jackie Grouche, and Iguocho. Since then the Inglewood rapper has remained fairly active on the music scene by releasing a string of singles and it turns out that some of these outputs could appear on the rapper’s upcoming sophomore album which he announced on Tuesday.

D Smoke took to his Instagram to officially announce his upcoming album, War & Wonders. The rapper revealed the project would arrive on September 24 and even unveiled its artwork, a painting of D Smoke himself standing tall while a number of people are piled on top of each other around him. D Smoke’s most recent single that we can expect to appear on the project arrived last month with “Shame On You.” The track showed love to the rebels fighting for a righteous cause.

Elsewhere in 2021, D Smoke delivered a tribute track to Sade and remixed “Gasper Yanga” with Snoop Dogg after dropping “Basketball” for Last Chance U.

You can view the post from D Smoke above.

War & Wonders is out 9/24 via Woodworks Records/EMPIRE.

The Houston Rockets have invested heavily in the backcourt, headlined by the selection of Jalen Green with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. Houston also has rising prospects in Kevin Porter Jr. and Josh Christopher, to go along with a returning veteran in Eric Gordon and other intriguing options. With the Rockets reportedly content to allow John Wall to remain sidelined, with or without a trade, there is still a bit of flexibility for Houston on the perimeter, and that could pave the way for the return of Dante Exum.

Though nothing is official at this juncture, Shams Charania of The Athletic reports that Exum and the Rockets are nearing an agreement to bring the former top-five pick back to Houston for the 2021-22 season.

Exum was dealt to the Rockets in January, though he never saw the floor for Houston due to a calf injury. Injury issues have plagued the former Utah Jazz guard, with Exum appearing in only 97 games over the past four seasons combined.

Still, Exum is only 26 years old and, even without seeing him on the floor in a game setting, the Rockets seemingly saw something appealing to give Exum a chance to make a dent. Modest expectations are necessary at this stage of Exum’s career, but Houston is certainly in a period of transition, and he is a buy-low option without much, if any, risk.

It’s been just over a month since the release of Nas’ fourteenth album, King’s Disease II. The sequel to the rapper’s 2020 album that gifted him his long-awaited first Grammy award. King’s Disease II is executive produced by Hit-Boy and arrived with features from Eminem, Lauryn Hill, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Charlie Wilson, and more. Today Nas unveils a new star-studded visual for “Brunch On Sundays.” In it, the rapper enjoys a mid-day mealwith LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Swizz Beatz, Blxst, Hit-Boy, Cordae, and Lil Rel.

The video is the second we’ve received for King’s Disease II, the first being “Rare.” The 2021 album has received a similar, if not better, response when compared to its predecessor, with people commending he and Hit-Boy’s chemistry and asking for the possibility of third installment in the series.

“He’s like my Quincy [Jones], you know what I mean?” Nas said during an interview with Apple Music’s Ebro Darden last month. “So I feel like the next thing I do, if I was to work with Hit-Boy on the next thing I do, I think that we might do something that is going to be magical.” He added, “I think what we have is magic. I think if we do another one, I’m excited about that idea, but you know, we’re celebrating this one now.”

You can watch the video for “Brunch On Sundays” above.

King’s Disease II is out now via Mass Appeal. Get it here.

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

Monday evening saw the return of the Met Gala, which had to be cancelled last year due to the pandemic. There was a lot of talk about attendees’ outfits. But one person who wasn’t even there may have outshone them all. Nicki Minaj wound up stealing the spotlight thanks to a string of tweets that voiced her concern about the COVID-19 vaccine. One of her tweets concerned her cousin’s friend, who allegedly his fiancée call off their wedding his “testicles became swollen” following his COVID vaccination. (Of course, there could have been other things to cause that.) Rightwing commentators rushed to Minaj’s side, among them Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who had a special request for a recent news broadcast.

“We haven’t been able to figure whether this show is broadcast in Trinidad,” Carlson said on his show Tuesday, having already discussed the matter the night before. “But if Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend is watching, or his former fiancée is watching, we want to hear your story. We’ll come to Port Of Spain to see you.”

For the record, when asked if evidence exists for reproductive issues as a result of the Modera, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson vaccines, Dr. Anthony Fauci has replied with “a resounding no.” But Carlson is never one to listen to experts.

Amid all this, Minaj’s vaccine tweets also sparked a beef with Piers Morgan. This saga is most likely far from over, so we’ll be back to report on the next chapter whenever that arrives. Until then, please get vaccinated.

There’s a new Trump book coming out, and somehow it has yet more shocking revelations about his final days in office. For one, he apparently hates kiss-up House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The person who may have saved former vice president Mike Pence from joining the failed coup was…Dan Quayle? And then there’s this: General Mark Milley, his top military adviser, took steps to stop an “unhinged” Trump, right after Jan. 6, from doing anything crazy, like starting a war. And when Trump found out about that, he was pissed.

Excerpts from the forthcoming book Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, were published in The Washington Post on Tuesday. Among the claims were that Milley was worried that, after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, a “manic” Trump, who was in “serious mental decline,” would launch a “rogue” nuclear weapons launch. So he held a Pentagon meeting behind his back, even telling staff to ignore the president’s orders, should they come. Milley was so concerned even called China to reassure them that the united States would not attack them.

As per The Daily Beast, after discovering this particular tidbit, the former president spent the rest of the day in attack mode. He called up allies, like Turning Point USA kid Charlie Kirk. By the end of the day he was blabbing on Newsmax about the T-word.

“I’ve had so many calls today saying that’s treason,” Trump told Newsmax hosts Sean Spicer, his former press secretary, and Lyndsay Keith. He also accused Milley of “trying to just get out of his incompetent withdrawal out of Afghanistan, the dumbest thing that anybody has seen.”

Trump later released one of his “press releases,” calling his former military adviser “’Dumbass’ General Mark Milley.” (That one may have been a nod to the insult Alex Jones called him after he recommended his base take a life-saving vaccine.) He made sure to spread doubt about Woodward and Costa’s reporting, but he said, if it’s true, it should end with Milley in prison.

“I assume he would be tried for TREASON in that he would have been dealing with his Chinese counterpart behind the President’s back and telling China that he would be giving them notification ‘of an attack,” the statement read.

Calling dubious claims of treason wasn’t the only thing Trump talked about on his Newsmax appearance. He also claimed it’s not Joe Biden who’s running the government but Trump’s own predecessor, Barack Obama.

And to think this all could have been worse had it not been for Dan Quayle, the guy who couldn’t even spell “potato.”

(Via The Daily Beast)

Earlier on Tuesday, fans of Brintey Spears noticed that her Instagram was no longer active. The account was a place where the singer could freely speak about her personal life, especially the events surrounding her conservatorship. When her supporters noticed it was no longer active, concern began to grow for Spears. However, the singer took to her Twitter account to reassure them that everything was okay. “Don’t worry folks … just taking a little break from social media to celebrate my engagement !!!!” she wrote, adding, “I’ll be back soon.”

Billboard also confirms that the singer willingly chose to delete the account.

It was just two days ago that Spears announced her engagement to Sam Asghari. The two have been dating for four years and they met back in 2016 during the video shoot for the singer’s “Slumber” track. The couple shared the news about their engagement with posts on their respective Instagram pages.

Asghari’s manager, Brandon Cohen, said that he’s “proud to celebrate and confirm the engagement,” in a statement to People. He added, “The couple made their long-standing relationship official today and are deeply touched by the support, dedication, and love expressed to them.”

Other recent good news for Spears includes her father opting to file a petition to end the singer’s 13-year conservatorship.