Month: October 2021

Nick Fury has been through some sh*t over the past handful of Avengers movies. We finally got to see how he lost one eye (to a freaking cat) in Captain Marvel. He got snapped away (before he could even finish saying, “Motherf*cker”) at the end of Infinity War. And we don’t really know whether Fury attended Tony Stark’s Avengers: Endgame funeral, or if it was Talos, doing the shapeshifting thing. Yes, it seems as though Fury would want to pay his respects in person, especially considering that the fallen Avenger in question saved the universe, but we simply don’t know. What I’m saying is that there are theories involving the end of Spider Man: Far From Home, and you know how fans are with theories.

There is one thing we do know for sure. Samuel L. Jackson will portray Nick Fury in Marvel’s Secret Invasion series for Disney+, and he’s back (with a Fury) on the set. He’s also wearing a shirt that renders the dissolving of one Nick Fury, but don’t worry. He’s all in one piece, physically speaking.

“Time to get back in the groove,” SLJ wrote on Instagram while telling “The Snap” where to go. “Happy to be back on the attack!#secretinvasion#fuckthatsnap#backwithafury”

Well, it’s good to have confirmation of production, despite further details remaining scant. Presumably, the series will wade through the history of the Skrulls hanging on Earth, long-term and in a subversive, shapeshifting manner. The tone of the series remains a mystery, given that the Skrulls actually ended up (unlike in the comics) being good guys in Captain Marvel, and hopefully, that trend will continue. We’ll also get more Ben Mendelsohn in the MCU, though, and that is always a good thing.

Shortly after The Matrix Resurrections trailer dropped, and absolutely blew fans’ minds, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II took to Instagram where he confirmed that the character he’s playing is indeed Morpheus, the iconic mentor to Keanu Reeves’ Neo. Of course, this raised some questions considering the role was made famous by Laurence Fishburne who played Morpheus in the original Matrix trilogy, yet has not been shy about the fact that he was not invited back for the fourth movie. (But he’s cool with it.)

Setting aside the possibility that the Fishburne business could be an attempt to obfuscate Resurrections‘ surprises, Abdul-Mateen is opening up about taking on the role of Morpheus, and he readily admits that he was confused about the whole thing would work, too. In fact, he almost passed on the whole thing. However, he was eventually won over by the script, which gives him room to come in and not attempt to imitate his predecessor. Via Entertainment Weekly:

For his part, Abdul-Mateen has nothing but respect for Fishburne’s performance — and had no interest in replicating it. “Laurence already did what had to be done,” he says. “I think what the script provided was a new narrative and some new opportunities that did make room within the Matrix universe for a new Morpheus.”

Obviously, Abdul-Mateen can’t reveal anymore about the part, but he does make it clear that he’s “definitely a different iteration” of Morpheus, which could mean anything in the reality-bending world of The Matrix.

The Matrix Resurrections hits theaters and HBO Max on December 22.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

After years of waiting, Adele is back with new music, as her new single, “Easy On Me,” was released earlier today. Fans will be able to listen to Adele’s forthcoming album, 30, when it drops on November 19, but of course, there are people in Adele’s circle who have already heard the album. As for other artists who have had the privilege of getting an advance listen of 30, there’s only one: Drake.

In a Capital FM interview this morning, Adele was asked if she sent the album to anybody so she could get their thoughts on it, and she was quick to respond, “No.” She then continued, though, “I played it to Drake maybe last year, when he was in town, just to get… like, ‘Do you think this is what people want or not want,’ and he was like, ‘Absolutely.’ But that’s it, really. […] I don’t sent it around to various people being like, ‘Can I get your thoughts on this?’”

This comes after Drake gave the new song a co-sign: After it was released, he took to his Instagram Story to spread the word about the track and show love for his pal, writing, “One of my best friends in the world just dropped a single.”

30 is out 11/19 via Columbia. Pre-order it here.

Legally speaking, there are a handful of (legitimate) reasons a person being charged with a crime could cite for having their case dismissed: No probable cause, illegal search, lost evidence, or lack of evidence are just some of them. However, the judge overseeing the case against Infowars personality Owen Shroyer might have heard a totally new one on Thursday, when Shroyer—who is being charged with two misdemeanors related to the events of January 6th—said he should not be charged with any wrongdoing because he’s like “Jesus or the Dalai Lama.”

As Pilar Melendez writes for Daily Beast:

“Prosecutors allege that the host of the Infowars program War Room With Owen Shroyer marched to the Capitol with several other Trump supporters. He was heard on a video telling the crowd: ‘Today we march for the Capitol because on this historic January 6, 2021, we have to let our Congressmen and women know, and we have to let Mike Pence know, they stole the election, we know they stole it, and we aren’t going to accept it!’ Shroyer was then seen on video on the west side of the Capitol and the top of the stairs on the east side of the federal building, according to charging documents.”

Shroyer is also offering an additional reason for having the charges against him dismissed: he’s a member of the press, and that by removing the barricades that typically stand between the Capitol building and the outside world, he was essentially being “invited” into the building by the government. Sort of like a vampire.

Prior to this, Shroyer was perhaps best known for his public outburst during Trump’s impeachment hearing. On December 9, 2019, Shroyer had to be physically removed from the U.S. Capitol (irony alert!) after he began shouting that, “We voted for Donald Trump, and they’re simply removing him because they don’t like him” and saying the Democrats had committed treason. As Deadline reported at the time, Shroyer later posted video of the incident to social media.

No word yet on whether Shroyer’s Jesus comparison tactic will work, but it seems dubious.

(Via Daily Beast)

Comedian Zack Fox had previously dabbled in rap with mischievous singles like “Fafo,” “Jesus Is the One,” and “Square Up,” but as it turns out, those were just practice for him to lock in and release a full EP. That EP, Shut The F*ck Up Talking To Me, arrived last night and across its nine tracks, Fox turns out to be every bit as adept (and profane) a rapper as he is a standup comic.

Just check out “Mind Your Business,” an ’80s-R&B-sampling two-stepper that finds Fox slinging witty, wild one-liners like “I’m smokin’ big pressure, call that hypertension,” and “I took the top off the whip, circumcision.” Meanwhile, on the EP’s title track, Fox employs a soulful beat courtesy of The Alchemist to spit a multi-syllabic string of punchlines worthy of inclusion in the long list of hardcore rap artists that Alchemist has produced for in the past couple of years.

“Don’t get embarrassed tryna snatch my carats,” Fox warns, “My n***s barbaric, sh*t could get ugly as f*ck like Ed Sheeran.” No target is safe from his hilarious threats as he reps Atlanta, references wrestling, and delivers one smirking haymaker after another on his thoroughly impressive debut tape. You can check it out in full below.

As the NBA season approaches and the preseason comes to a close, we’ll be taking a look at the player on each team that holds the key to unlocking their full potential.

For the Cleveland Cavaliers, success this season is probably going to be defined more by how key players look than by their record, as this still feels like a team that is a couple pieces away from being in the conversation for play-in/playoff spots in the East. There isn’t a player on the roster that has more question marks coming into this season than their biggest offseason acquisition, Lauri Markkanen, who the Cavs hope can bring them some much needed floor spacing while also continuing to grow in other areas.

Markkanen is a career 36.6 percent three-point shooter, including a career-best 40.2 percent last year, and for a Cavs team that had some of the worst spacing in the league a year ago, that is needed. However, it’s everything else with Markkanen that remains a question, from defense to what else he provides offensively beyond a spot-up option on the perimeter. He’s not a particularly good connector with a career 6.6 assist percentage and a 9.0 turnover percentage, but he has scoring upside beyond the three-point ball. Last year was, by far, his best shooting season inside the arc, shooting 58.2 percent from two-point range, buoyed by a 55.3 percent mark from 3-10 feet, per Basketball-Reference. That ability as not just a rim finisher but someone capable of scoring from just outside the restricted area is important for his positional versatility and effectiveness inside despite not being a particularly strong big man.

On defense, he has a ways to go, as he’s not quick enough to deal with fours who can put the ball on the floor, but also isn’t a real rim-deterrent when at the center position. Part of J.B. Bickerstaff’s job is going to be figuring out how to make Markkanen lineups work on that end, which many be helped by the fact that he’s likely to be paired with Jarrett Allen and rookie Evan Mobley for most of his minutes, who are both quality defenders. The Cavs invested heavily in Markkanen and gave up their most versatile defender in Larry Nance Jr. to get him, which puts plenty of pressure on the fifth-year man out of Finland to tap further into his potential now that he’s out of Chicago and into the new situation he so desperately wanted to be in.

His presence could help the Cavs backcourt to have more room to attack the paint and work in space, but if the defense is untenable, then there will be plenty of questions about whether Cleveland made the right move this summer.

If you’re going to make a video for a song called “Down South” featuring Houston hard-hitter Maxo Kream and Dallas star Yella Beezy, it’s only right that you make that video a blowout celebration of all things Texas car culture. That’s exactly what Wale does for his Paul Wall-sampling single from Folarin II, throwing a parking lot party with all the candy paint, hydraulics, and horsepower he could fit into four minutes.

The video is also crammed with legends of Texas hip-hop, including Bun B, Slim Thug, and more. As the trio’s guests gyrate to the no-doubt booming bass from the circled-up, showstopping slabs, the rappers perform their verses and sip from styrofoam cups, completing the image of a good, old-fashioned Texas shindig. Interestingly, “Down South” is the third video from the Folarin II rollout, but it was the first single. Wale also dropped videos for “Poke It Out,” featuring J. Cole, and “Angles” with Chris Brown.

Watch Wale’s ‘Down South’ video featuring Maxo Kream and Yella Beezy above. You can read Uproxx’s autumn digital cover story on Wale here.

Folarin II is due 10/22 via Warner Records and MMG. You can pre-save it here.

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

Bo Burnham’s Inside is one of the year’s most talked-about comedy specials, and similarly, the soundtrack album, Inside (The Songs), is inarguably 2021’s biggest comedy album. It’s currently No. 1 on the Billboard Comedy Albums chart and has been for 18 weeks, the entire time it’s been on the chart. It also became his first top-10 album on the all-genres Billboard 200 chart, achieving a peak at No. 7. Phoebe Bridgers also covered “That Funny Feeling” and her recording was one of the best-selling songs on the week of its release.

While Billboard thinks Inside (The Songs) is a comedy album, The Recording Academy doesn’t feel the same way: Billboard reports that the album was deemed ineligible to compete for the Best Comedy Album award at the 2022 Grammys. It will compete, however, for the Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media title.

Meanwhile, Inside (The Songs) was also submitted for Album Of The Year, while “All Eyes On Me” was submitted for Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Best Pop Solo Performance, and Best Song Written For Visual Media. Inside itself was also submitted for Best Music Film.

It remains to be seen what nominations Burnham will actually earn, as the list of Grammy nominees is set to be released on November 23.

This decision comes shortly after the Academy decided that Kacey Musgraves’ Star-Crossed isn’t eligible for any country Grammys.

While stopping by CNBC to promote the upcoming season premiere of Succession Season 3, Brian Cox weighed in on the current state of the American media landscape, and he is clearly not a fan of Fox News. On the hit HBO series Cox plays Logan Roy, a Rupert Murdoch-esque titan who lords over a media empire with an iron fist. In real life, Cox has no stomach for the tactics employed by Murdoch, but he’s also not exactly thrilled with the competition either.

He’s also not exactly telling Fox News to “f*ck off” (though he’s perfectly willing to say that on occasion), but he does have two choice words for them: “the devil.” Via Mediaite:

He had some light criticisms of CNN, saying the cable news network is “clearly the same story again and again and again” but acknowledging “I love CNN, ’cause I’m fairly left-wing.”

“And then, Fox News,” Cox added, “I don’t even go there, because that’s, like, the devil.”

He held up his fingers like a cross as he said it.

However, as one “media mogul” observing another, Cox said he doesn’t think Murdoch believes in anything that Fox News is pushing, and he’s simply exploiting the market for right wing vitriol in America.

“Back in the U.K., there’s more debate. There’s more nuance in the news,” Cox explained. “It’s not as cut and dry… but also I understand where it comes from because this country desperately needs alignment. And so you can see why these channels have developed the way they have.”

In keeping with the modern trend in hip-hop, Young Thug’s newly released second(!) album, Punk, is a star-studded affair on which the trap experimentalist is accompanied by a plethora of guests from across the genre. However, unlike his previous release, So Much Fun, he expands the range of artists he taps to help him fill time, including newcomers like ASAP Rocky, Doja Cat, and Mac Miller among his frequent collaborators like Drake, Gunna, and Future. He also reunites with J. Cole, Juice WRLD, and Post Malone after working with them on some of their biggest singles.

Thug, who officially kicked off the promotion for his latest album with his first-ever NPR Tiny Desk Concert alongside rock drummer Travis Barker, rolled out the album in a most unusual way, only releasing one single, “Tick Tock,” and playing new songs at places like Givenchy’s Paris Fashion Week show and in the backseats of Lyft drivers’ cars. And speaking of cars, his release party stunt of trashing a brand-new Rolls-Royce with baseball bats alongside Gunna and Metro Boomin drew both attention and criticism. However, judging from the fact that many fans on Twitter freely admitted to staying up later than usual for the release (midnight Pacific, three hours later than most New Music Friday releases), it would seem that these tactics had an overall positive effect on the album’s reception.

You can check out some of the new songs from Punk above and listen to the full album courtesy of Atlantic and YSL here.

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