Month: November 2021

A week after Latto ran roughshod over an impressive LA Leakers freestyle, the Atlanta native returns to give a high-speed tour of her hometown in the patriotic “Soufside” video. Shouting out the streets, businesses, and landmarks she grew up around, Latto delivers a boastful, assertive, and lyrically dextrous verse, name-checking Southlake, Pointe South, Rex Road, Riverdale, Lovejoy, and more as she cruises through Atlanta in a convertible and posts up outside the Southside Discount Mall (we call ’em swap meets in LA) with a massive crew.

The new track marks a return to the trap-inspired, bass-heavy sounds that first helped Latto make her name — y’know, before she changed it — after her last single, “Big Energy,” threw longtime fans for a loop with its pop-friendly beat. While it’s nice when artists can show versatility, rap fans are often skeptical of big stylistic changes, and here, Latto shows a powerful understanding of how to switch lanes while remaining anchored to her signature sounds. This gives her room to evolve without losing touch with her day-one fanbase, which is often the first step on the road to rap royalty. Give her another couple of years, and Latto just might go from “Queen Of Da Souf” to the ruler of the rap game (pun intended).

“Soufside,” along with “Big Energy” and “The Biggest,” are all set to lead up to the rapper’s second full-length studio album, which is due in early 2022.

Watch Latto’s “Soufside” video above.

Eternals marks a lot of first for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s the first film to feature an on-screen sex scene, the first to cast a disabled woman in a lead role, the first to be directed by a woman of color, Chloe Zhao and is the first to prominently feature a same-sex couple. However, while this all seems pretty undeniably incredible and proves just how much of a milestone this film is, not everyone is quite as pleased with the studio.

Despite being due to release in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait on November 11, the film has ultimately been banned from theaters following Disney refusing to make edits requested by the nation’s local censors. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the primary focus of the edits was eliminating the overt inclusion of the MCU’s first same-sex couple — Phastos (played by Brian Tyree Henry) and his onscreen husband Ben (Haaz Sleiman) — and a scene in which the pair share a kiss. While Marvel’s parent company, Disney, has come under fire in the past for both censorship on their Disney+ streaming service as well as altering promotional material for other countries, refusing to make these edits is a big step in the right director for the brand — and Eternals star Angelina Jolie is proud.

“I’m sad for [those audiences]. And I’m proud of Marvel for refusing to cut those scenes out,” said Jolie. “I still don’t understand how we live in a world today where there’s still [people who] would not see the family Phastos has and the beauty of that relationship and that love. How anybody is angry about it, threatened by it, doesn’t approve or appreciate it is ignorant.”

While Disney simply doing the right thing might not seem like a drastic course of action, it is worth noting that the studio “expected to face a kickback by censors in the Gulf, where homosexuality is still officially illegal and films containing anything related to LGBTQ issues are frequently pulled from release” and still elected to ignore the requests and lose out on profits from those countries. The company faced a similar situation last year, when the Pixar title Onward was banned in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia over a single-line referencing a lesbian relationship.

Regardless, the film is still scheduled for release in the United Arab Emirates on November 11, and is available in North American theaters as of today.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — This is fuel to me

There are very few things in this world that bring me more joy on a day-to-day basis than the years-long, constantly bubbling feud between Vin Diesel and The Rock. I cannot get enough of it. I could read an article about it right now. I would stop typing this paragraph and go read it and smile the whole way through. I know it’s a petty impulse on my part. I know it’s a little ugly. I do not care. Shoot it into my body with a machine gun. I need the bullets to live.

The history here is well-documented, sometimes by me, but here’s a short version. The Rock and Vin Diesel made Fast Five together. It was a good movie. Then they had a falling out on the set of a subsequent Fast & Furious movie, which The Rock, bless his drama-loving WWE-trained soul, spilled out all over Instagram like a scorned teen.

“Some [male costars] conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don’t. The ones that don’t are too chicken s—t to do anything about it anyway. Candy asses. When you watch this movie next April and it seems like I’m not acting in some of these scenes and my blood is legit boiling — you’re right.”

Perfect. Beautiful. The fallout was… I don’t want to say “fast and furious” because that’s too on the nose, but let’s say “swift and intense.” Everyone started typing a lot. Tyrese got emotional. The Rock and Jason Statham were spun off into their own mini-franchise because my two beefy dads can’t be in the same room without shooting smoke out of all the holes in their faces. I consumed it all while cackling like the Joker.

Things reduced to a simmer for a while. Tempers cooled, business interests took hold, a ceasefire was negotiated. Kind of. A stray shot would sneak through every now and then. At one point, Vin Diesel said this, which was really quite funny.

“I protect everybody including Dwayne. I protected Dwayne more than he’ll ever know. And it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have to know. But he appreciates it. He knows it. Dwayne has only got one Vin in his life. Dwayne Johnson only has one big brother in this film world and that’s me.”

Please do picture The Rock reading this quote in his personal gym one morning and becoming so angry that he whips a 50-pound kettlebell at a mirror. And it gets better because Vin sat down for a profile for Men’s Health — a magazine The Rock 100 percent subscribes to — earlier this year, back when F9 was coming out, and he said… well, this.

“It was a tough character to embody, the Hobbs character,” Diesel says. “My approach at the time was a lot of tough love to assist in getting that performance where it needed to be. As a producer to say, Okay, we’re going to take Dwayne Johnson, who’s associated with wrestling, and we’re going to force this cinematic world, audience members, to regard his character as someone that they don’t know—Hobbs hits you like a ton of bricks. That’s something that I’m proud of, that aesthetic. That took a lot of work. We had to get there and sometimes, at that time, I could give a lot of tough love. Not Felliniesque, but I would do anything I’d have to do in order to get performances in anything I’m producing.”

FELLINIESQUE.

I promise to you — and I would never lie about anything related to this situation, just out of respect — that I shouted a little when I read that. And so, apparently, did The Rock, because he sat down for a profile in Vanity Fair — a magazine Vin Diesel 100 percent subscribes to — in October and responded to a slew of things Vin said point-by-point, all leading up to this paragraph.

“You know, I’ll tell you this,” he says eventually. “One part of me feels like there’s no way I would dignify any of that bullshit with an answer. But here’s the truth. I’ve been around the block a lot of times. Unlike him, I did not come from the world of theater. And, you know, I came up differently and was raised differently. And I came from a completely different culture and environment. And I go into every project giving it my all. And if I feel that there’s some things that need to be squared away and handled and taken care of, then I do it. And it’s just that simple. So when I read that, just like everybody else, I laughed. I laughed hard. We all laughed. And somewhere I’m sure Fellini is laughing too.”

I am vibrating right now. I am so excited that I’m vibrating. And it gets better, somehow, because The Rock, bless his jacked and/or shredded heart, will not let it go. He’s out promoting his new Netflix movie Red Notice right now, and, well…

“People were asking me about that and they just, they find a way, and you know, what’s interesting is, you know, these Vin diesel jokes, which play great by the way to the audience, which is always a good thing… because it’s really, it’s all about them.”

“But, people think these jokes come from me and they actually don’t. I mean, you’d be surprised at how many people come to me with ‘I got a great one.’ I’m like ‘okay.’ ‘I got another great Vin Diesel joke.’ ‘I’m sure you do.’ Always funny.”

I need this to continue forever. We all do. Things have been weird out there for a while now. A pandemic is still raging and our government is a chaotic mess and people are all a little frayed around the edges. We need one pure thing that will never let us down. We need The Rock and Vin Diesel to keep feuding in the press. They need to keep this up. Forever. For the people.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — TOBY SOPRANO

The thing I like about David Chase is that he made a piece of art that is pretty much universally regarded as a masterpiece of its generation, one that altered the trajectory of an entire medium in ways we’re still experiencing 20 years later, and he is still just as cranky as all heck about it. I mean that. I like it a lot. There’s something charming about the world pointing at someone and saying “That man is a genius” and that man throwing up his hands and saying “feh” to all of it. I hope people interview him once a month until the end of time and I hope every interview goes kind of like this one in the Hollywood Reporter went. Part of me thinks he secretly loves it.

But we’ll get to that. I promise we will. It’s going to take us a minute to get there, though, because this also happened in that interview and it altered the trajectory of my entire week. Look at this.

Your father’s business partner had a kid who you knew, who was your age, I believe.

Yeah.

And he had a cousin. Who was that?

Toby Soprano.

This is where the Soprano name came from?

Right, yeah. But I don’t know that Toby was connected. He might have been, I don’t know. He had a Cadillac.

Toby Soprano.

Toby.

Toby Soprano.

I can’t stop thinking about this. I can’t stop saying out loud, just a little bit most of the time, like three in a row under my breath and then a fourth one very suddenly bursting out at a higher volume. It’s… it’s fascinating to me. Tony Soprano, perhaps the defining character of fictionalized crime of the past quarter-century, a towering figure in the television landscape that lesser imitators have been trying to recreate ever since he was introduced, was based on some dude David Chase kind of knew named Toby. He had a Cadillac. I suspect I am taking this information with me to the grave. Toby Soprano.

Back to David Chase. He was asked, once again, for probably the 10,000th time since the show ended, what happened in the final scene and how he felt about the ongoing worldwide reaction to it all. And he said this.

I had no idea it would cause that much — I mean, I forget what was going on in Iraq or someplace; London had been bombed! Nobody was talking about that; they were talking about The Sopranos. It was kind of incredible to me. But I had no idea it would be that much of an uproar. And was it annoying? What was annoying was how many people wanted to see Tony killed. That bothered me.

Which is great and perfect in about four different ways. One of the ways it was perfect is that the casual reference to “what was going on in Iraq” reminded me of maybe my favorite quote by anyone ever, delivered by Alex Trebek in a 2014 profile in The New Republic.

Fact: When Trebek shaved off his moustache in 2001, he did it in the middle of the day, himself, without warning the “Jeopardy!” producers. Renee was alarmed to come in and find him mid-shearing. He just felt like it, he says now. “And it got so much press, I couldn’t believe it. The wars with Iraq or whatever at that time, and people are all in a stew over my moustache. I have one response: Get a life.”

“People are all in a stew over my mustache” has been living in my brain ever since I read it for the first time over seven years ago. It’s not going anywhere. And now it’s been joined by Toby Soprano. What a remarkable sequence of events we have on our hands here. Everything just coming together organically, at least in my haunted funhouse of a brain. It’s fun. We have fun.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Jason Momoa is battling COVID, presumably with a sword or trident

Good news and bad news, ladies and gentlemen. Bad first: Jason Momoa, Duncan Idaho and Aquaman himself, apparently contracted COVID at the Dune premiere in London. That’s a bummer, just generally, because Jason Momoa rules and I do not want him to be sick and/or unhappy, but also specifically because it puts a small hold on my plan to put him in every movie.

This brings us to the good news, though: Jason Momoa appears to be handling COVID better than any other human has ever handled being affected by a disease at the center of a year-long global pandemic.

“I got hit with COVID right after the premiere. There was a lot of people I met in England, so got a lot of aloha from people. And who knows?” how he got it, Momoa said Friday.

The Hawaii native added that “either way, I’m doing fine.”

How fine? Hmm. How does “hanging out with his quarantine bro, a professional skateboarder who is just doing skateboard tricks all over the living room and stuff” sound?

Momoa said that he’s isolating with his “roommate,” skateboarder Erik Ellington.

“Everyone wants to know how COVID is going, it’s going pretty good,” he said in another update, as he filmed Ellington doing tricks on his skateboard through the house. “Yeah, we’re having a ball,” Momoa said with a laugh.

Jason Momoa is living a more thrilling and exciting life while infected with COVID and quarantining at home than most of us live on the vacations we planned out months in advance. In some ways, I suppose, this is upsetting. In other, more substantial ways, it feels, like, cosmically correct. Let’s focus on that second part. Good for Jason Momoa.

I mean, not that he caught the thing. Just, like, for the rest of it. Guy seems to have things figured out.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — I will watch this show

Two things are true here:

• Sofia Vergara is set to star in a cool-sounding new show from the producers of Narcos
• That picture up there is not Sofia Vergara but is a promotional picture from Narcos that I love very much, so there’s that

Details, via Variety:

Titled “Griselda,” the series chronicles the real life of savvy and ambitious Colombian business woman who created one of the most profitable drug cartels in history. A devoted mother, Blanco’s lethal blend of charm and unsuspecting savagery helped her expertly navigate between family and business leading her to become widely known as the Black Widow and the Cocaine Godmother.

This sounds great. Griselda Blanco was the focus of one of the Cocaine Cowboys movies. She was wild, man. I will almost certainly watch this show when it comes out, mostly because I tend to watch shows like this. That’s why I’m typing these sentences. To bring it all to your attention.

Actually, I lied. I’m typing these sentences for two reasons. The first is the one I just mentioned. The second is the thing where Narcos comes back this weekend and I wanted another excuse to show you some of the show’s promotional images over the years. Yes, again. I know. They’re just so good. Like, look at the classic ones of Pablo Escobar, illustrating the “at first I was like / then I was all” meme better than any two images on Earth.

Or this more recent one, where it looks kind of like this guy found a large package of cocaine on the ground and decided in that moment to become one of the world’s biggest drug kingpins.

Or this one of Scoot McNairy and his mustache standing in front of a flaming truck for the season that is about to start.

The point I’m sauntering casually toward is that I have very high expectations for this new show with Sofia Vergara. Expectations for the quality of the show, sure, fine, but mainly expectations for the promotional images. Show me Sofia Vergara with a machine gun in her hands riding on a speedboat filled with cocaine and handsome men. That would be a nice start.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — I know we’ve all probably seen this by now but sometimes things still need to be discussed

So here’s what happened: The other night, I was minding my business, scrolling through my phone like a good little mindless content zombie, and I saw this tweet.

What happened when I saw this can only be described as a kind of gasp/laugh combination that lasted a number of minutes, which was awkward because there was another person in the room who I could not explain it all to because of all the aforementioned gasping and laughing. It was a real problem.

Also a problem: Figuring out what to do with this information. My first instinct was to try to learn nothing else about it at all, to just have this one pure thing and keep it that way forever. But I’m a curious man. Too curious. Curious enough that I was reading this article before the gasping and laughing even stopped.

In The Love Trap, David Birtwistle, a personal trainer of Too Hot To Handle fame, must choose one of eight women to date, without accidentally selecting one of those planted in the house to “trap” him.

First of all, hilarious. They got a retread from another lunatic dating show and they gave him a shirt and put him in a room with beautiful women and trap doors. Give everyone a raise. Everyone involved in this in any way. Even me, just for typing this.

The other women and even presenter Joel Dommett don’t know who they are, and the audience (although none of the contestants) only finds out if they were real or fake once they’re eliminated.

Ah yes, the eliminations.

THE ELIMINATIONS.

It was hard to concentrate on much else in this episode once it became clear that a woman, inevitably wearing high heels and a bodycon dress, would have the ground disappear from under her once David decided she wasn’t for him.

All correct. I cannot imagine actually trying to watch a full episode of this show, especially after I knew the gimmick. It feels like it would get old fast. Unless they do other weird stuff to the people who get eliminated. Like, for example, just off the top of my head, shooting them out of a cannon. Again, I’m not the expert. I wouldn’t have even thought of this show. But I do think I deserve that raise.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Leroy:

Is Lazlo yelling “bat!” and Roy Kent yelling “whistle!” the same joke, and if so is there a third instance of this joke, it makes me laugh every time.

Hmm. It kind of is the same joke, Laszlo yelling “BAT” on What We Do in the Shadows before he turns into a bat and Roy yelling “WHISTLE” on Ted Lasso instead of blowing an actual whistle. But you’re right, it is a good joke. There’s something about charming people yelling random words with purpose that just works. Give me more of it.

As to the second part of the question, I… I can’t think of another example. I know there are plenty. I’m blanking and it’s infuriating me, especially since I just did that whole thing about how my brain has stored “in a stew over my mustache” for seven full years. If you can think of some, tell me. And Leroy. Tell us both. We’re struggling here.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Barcelona! Kind of!

“I was taking my son, Milan, for a walk in the park and I got him a little ice cream. We sat on one of those park benches and we were just minding our own business. And then two huge wild boars came from the back and ambushed [us] and took my purse!”

See, the thing about this quote right here is that it’s incredible even before you know who said it. Some lady was in a park with her son and — out of nowhere — two giant wild boars stole her purse. That’s wild! But it also brings us to the best part…

It wasn’t just a regular woman.

It was…

I’m thrilled to report…

Shakira.

We actually discussed this once before, weeks ago, back when it happened. But now she’s talking about it in a new profile for Glamour magazine. And, continuing a promise I made to all of you back then, I will always update you anytime there is more news about wild boars stealing Shakira’s purse.

And I was like, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” and screaming, because they were taking it away, with my phone in it, my car keys, everything! Like they could understand me! And people were just watching and they weren’t doing anything!” she says, laughing now over the incident in which luckily no one was hurt. “

In the defense of these frozen bystanders, if I saw two giant wild boars run up and steal a purse from international music superstar Shakira and go tearing off with it, I… I think I would be frozen solid, too. That’s a lot for any brain to process. Too much, honestly. These people should be commended for not just passing out on the spot. Leave them alone, Shakira. They’re doing the best they can.

“They started digging inside my purse… Obviously my son’s sandwich was inside the purse, so that’s why they were so interested. So they took the sandwich and walked away and left my purse. It was wild.”

It says a lot about me that I read this paragraph and my initial takeaway was “I wonder what kind of sandwich it was.” Like, I was angry that the writer didn’t get clarification via follow-up. Journalistic malpractice, I thought, and kind of still think, even now, days later, with many opportunities to get over it.

What did we learn here? Two things, I think:

• Be careful around wild boars
• I should not be allowed to interview Shakira

But I guess we all already knew both of those.

If The Marías’ debut album Cinema would fit into any film genre, lead singer María Zardoya thinks it would be a dramedy. But it’s nothing like the kitschy, rose-tinted world of movies like 500 Days Of Summer or teen-centered dramas like Juno. Instead, the album lives in a cinematic universe that’s dripping in glamour and romance, swathed in lush red velvet that’s dimly illuminated by moody lighting.

As someone who grew up in a small town outside of Atlanta to Spanish and Puerto Rican parents, Zardoya became a film buff at a young age as a way of imagining her life outside a town whose only cultural events revolved around the church. Cinema pays tribute to the films Zardoya watched in her youth, drawing inspiration from the artistically-inspiring works by Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, many of which revolve around strong female characters. “Watching his films felt like a rebirth,” Zardoya said about Almodovar’s films over a Zoom call. “It felt like a cultural reset of sexual freedom and artistic freedom that I was really craving as a young adult living in this small town that lacked all of that.”

Cinema is as romantic yet less campy than Almodovar’s films. It’s fully-instrumental album opener “Just A Feeling” acts as an exposition, setting the scene for the remainder of the album with swirling, orchestral violins and a languid guitar. Zardoya’s hushed vocals then cut through with buzzing synths on the following laid-back pop number “Calling U Back,” showing off The Marías’ knack for loungey and beguiling psych-pop numbers that originally built the band’s fanbase and introduced them as indie-pop innovators on their first two EPs, Superclean Vol. I and Superclean Vol. II.

When it comes to her own taste in music, Zardoya appreciates musicians who aren’t afraid of experimenting with genres. “I like that concept of music right now that you don’t have to fit into this mold or just do one thing,” she said. “And you can tell in Cinema, we’ve got a Reggaeton-inspired song, but then we have a more acoustic song with harps and strings.” When it comes to her lyrics, Zardoya definitely doesn’t fit the indie-pop mold. With many of her songs, on Cinema as well as other releases, Zardoya moves fluidly between delivering her lyrics in Spanish and English. “The feeling that I get from singing a song in Spanish is different from the feeling I get from singing a song in English. It comes from a different part of you and your emotions. When I sing in Spanish, it’s just more nostalgic and a bit more romantic.”

While Zardoya draws inspiration from a wide variety of genres, she’s a true Britney Spears fan at heart. She previously transformed Spears’ hit track “Baby One More Time” into a simmering dark-pop anthem and even labeled Cinema’s buoyant song “Hush” The Marías’ “Britney moment.” “I just loved her as an artist and looked up to her so much,” Zardoya said about Spears’ influence on her songwriting. “She’s such a strong force and such a strong woman. That, I think, intimidates a lot of people on her team and a lot of people just in general in the industry.”

Zardoya also noted she’s personally inspired by innovative women musicians, which is why she curated a playlist for Uproxx of her favorite rising female pop stars. “I grew up listening to a lot of female musicians and artists, both Latin and non-Latin,” she said. To Zardoya, listening to music is a means of escape and relaxation, which is why she listens to “a lot of chill music.” Sleepy chords and drawn-out synths can be heard throughout her curated playlist with artists like the dreamy group Men I Trust and tropical synth-pop duo Buscabella. But it also features some more dancey numbers, like breakout pop artist Remi Wolf’s jazzy number “Liz” and French electro-pop band L’Imperitrice’s funk-forward song “Peur Des Filles.”

Check out Zardoya’s full playlist below, along with her explanation for why she opted to highlight each track.

Biig Piig — “Oh No”

“The Biig Piig ‘Oh No’ song, I love the vocal production and the layers of this song, I think. And just the overall, it’s kind of dark and moody, but it’s still dreamy and edgy, and I love the lyrics as well. I can relate to the lyrics.”

Maye — “Yours”

“And the Maye song, Maye’s a friend of mine, and I just love this song. It’s such a feel-good song. And the music video is her in a roller skating rink, and that’s like the perfect visual for this song. It’s just, it just feels good.”

Arlo Parks — “Black Dog”

“The Arlo Parks song ‘Black Dog,’ it’s a song kind of that deals with mental health, and I can relate to it a lot. And I think a lot of people during quarantine and post-quarantine can relate to the feeling of anxiety, and having this dark sort of force sort of present in your life, and how it feels to deal with that. So I can relate a lot to this song, and I really like the message that she sort of encapsulated in that song.”

Men I Trust — “Before Dawn”

“The Men I Trust song, ‘Before Dawn,’ this is on their newest album, and the first time I listened to this song, I just, I fell in love with it. The beat, the tones of the synths, even the tone of her voice, which is kind of in the back, it’s almost its own instrument in the song. It’s a beautiful, beautiful song. I can turn it on whenever, and it just transports me.”

L’Imperatrice — “Peur Des Filles”


“The L’Imperatrice song, this is a French band that I love, that I discovered during quarantine. And this song in particular is just a feel good dancey song. Just get up and dance. I have no idea what she’s saying, but it doesn’t matter because it takes me to the mood, and that’s kind of the most important thing.”

Lav — “Wavvy”


“And this love song ‘Wavvy,’ I discovered it during quarantine as well. And I kind of had it on repeat. It was just the feeling of the song. It’s like a slow jam, a song that gives the emotions of longing and sort of heartbreak. But it’s a beautiful song. And the bass, the tone of the bass is amazing.”

Remi Wolf — “Liz”

“This Remi Wolf song, ‘Liz,’ is amazing. It’s one of my favorite Remi Wolf songs. The melody is just so good. It’s so catchy. And yeah, it’s just like a feel-good song. And I love like the tones that they use, and her vocal inflections, and the dynamics of her vocals as well, is really good.”

Raveena — “Headaches”

“This Raveena song I’ve loved for a long time. I love the way that it starts as one song and then sort of takes you to a different part, almost like a different song, but it happens so seamlessly. And it’s just a beautiful song. I love her voice. It’s like just very healing and relaxing to listen to. I love all of her music.”

Luna Li — “Cloud Castles”

“I love Luna Lee. She is just a force, she plays all the instruments on her, on her songs. And just this project was, it was amazing. Again, like the tones of like the bass and the guitar and how she like is able to weave all of these instruments together in the most seamless ways. It’s so good. She actually played harp on one of our songs on the album and strings on a couple of them as well.”

Buscabulla — “Nydia”

“I love, it just feels like an old Bailara, but in an amazing, modern way it’s, it’s feel is so nostalgic. Feeling of the song is just, it takes me back to a time and place from my past. But it’s just a beautiful song and I love the band and I love the project.”

Cinema is out now via Atlantic. Get it here.

The Marías are a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Seven years ago, French Montana released “Don’t Panic,” warning listeners that “we just getting started.” Now that he’s nearly two decades deep in the game, it appears he’s giving us all the green light to lose it with his new single, aptly titled “Panicking.” It features Brooklyn rapper Fivio Foreign and a hook that boasts that now “we got ’em panicking.”

The song arrived with a tongue-in-cheek video that follows French and Fivey as they pull off a high-altitude heist, shoving a pallet of cash out of the back of a cargo plane and promptly following it down. However, it looks like their parachutes opened a little late; they crash into a fancy spa filled with gorgeous women, declaring “we in a buffet!” After a wardrobe change, we see the boys getting pampered by their new acquaintances wearing silk robes and boasting that they’ll have “your favorite rapper naked on that OnlyFans” (apparently they are assuming that your favorite rapper is either a beautiful woman or selling so poorly they need alternative income — they really should clarify these things). Unfortunately, our boys get caught at the end; as thieves, they should really have been observing Heat rules here: “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”

“Panicking” is the latest single from French’s upcoming fourth full-length studio album, They Got Amnesia, which drops on November 12 Epic Records/Bad Boy Entertainment. You can pre-order the project here.

Watch French Montana and Fivio Foreign’s “Panicking” video above.

There’s no time for misbehavin’: The Righteous Gemstones season 2 trailer is here.

The new season of one of TV’s funniest and most cutting comedies “finds our blessed Gemstone family threatened by outsiders from both the past and present who wish to destroy their empire,” according to the official plot summary for HBO. John Goodman, Danny McBride, Adam Devine, Edi Patterson, Tim Baltz, Cassidy Freeman, Tony Cavalero, Jennifer Nettles, Skyler Gisondo, Greg Alan Williams, and of course Walton Goggins as Baby Billy Freeman are all back, while Jason Schwartzman, Eric Roberts, and Eric Andre have been added to the recurring cast.

Unlike another acclaimed HBO series, The Righteous Gemstones will address the pandemic. “COVID was very kind to the Gemstones,” McBride told Entertainment Weekly. “They were able to deliver to the world a streaming service that allowed people to stay at home and watch Gemstone broadcasts. So while everyone around them suffered, they’re in a better position than they’ve ever been in before.” He also said that Baby Billy “comes back with a bang this year… Baby Billy is a man who has some things that he has to face from his past, as much as he would prefer not to. It was awesome to have Walton back, and the stuff he gets up to this season is too much fun.”

I agree: Walton Goggins is awesome. The Righteous Gemstones returns on January 9.

Former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb has delivered what is probably the most optimistic news since the pandemic began almost two whole years ago. According to Gottlieb, a new experimental antiviral pill from Pfizer (as well as new a therapeutic from Merck) has given him enough confidence to say that that America is nearing the light at the end of the tunnel in regards to COVID-19.

“I think the bottom line is the end of the pandemic‚ as least as it relates to the United States, is in sight right now given that we have the tools to combat this disease,” Gottlieb told CNBC on Friday morning.

Gottlieb was so confident about his assessment that he actually started issuing calls for the Biden administration to celebrate even though he feels the country is looking at approximately two more months of dealing with the Delta variant. Via Mediaite:

“I think that this therapeutic and the other innovations that we’ve seen coming to market really mark the end of the pandemic in the United States,” Gottlieb said. “And we need to think how we put that victory sign on the side of the White House, and we declare victory over this pandemic, at least here in the United States.”

As for why Gottlieb is betting very large on the new Pfizer pill, according to the Associated Press, the Pfizer pill not only cuts hospitalizations and deaths by nearly 90% in “high-risk adults,” but independent experts actually told Pfizer to end its study early and apply for FDA approval because the results were coming back so strong.

(Via Squawk Box on Twitter)

A week after Dave Chappelle made a string of trans jokes after enduring “the worst three weeks of my life,” he’s adopting an unrepentant stance again. The controversial comedian arrived at San Francisco’s Chase Center for his sold-out Thursday night appearance. Officially, this is the start of his 10-city tour to screen his Untitled documentary, which he said was cancelled by film festivals amid the controversy over his trans jokes in Netflix’s The Closer. If you were wondering if Chappelle has changed his tune on the reaction to those jokes, well, that didn’t happen.

Via Rolling Stone, Chappelle couldn’t resist likening himself to notorious crime boss Al Capone while he addressed the crowd who gave him a standing ovation. Yep, he’s still going back and forth on whether or not he’s thrilled to be cancelled. Here’s his latest:

[M]uch of the comic’s material focused on his self-proclaimed status as a cultural pariah. “Man, I love being cancelled,” Chappelle told the crowd of 19,000. “It is a huge relief. It’s like getting Capone on tax evasion.”

The gleefully abrasive comedian, who previously declared that Netflix’s trans employees “will not summon” him and must agree to conditions on speaking with him (to date, they haven’t shown interest in doing so), later proceeded with screening Untitled.

As Rolling Stone relayed and Yahoo further elaborated upon, the Untitled documentary screener went over well with the live audience (one attendee called it “fantastic” while many grew emotional). The film focuses upon how America grappled with both the economic devastation wrought by the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd, followed by civil unrest and associated debates on policing, all while Chappelle worked to pull off a grassroots comedy camp in Yellow Springs, Ohio. By reported accounts, Untitled is a thought-provoking film about how Americans “are trying to process the grief and isolation of the last year,” yet unfortunately, Chappelle continues to be unrepentant about those trans jokes and focus a lot of his energy on being at odds with marginalized groups.

That juxtaposition is… something.

(Via Rolling Stone)

Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda has been steadily working toward a comeback ever since his release from prison earlier this year. In addition to returning to the stage at Rolling Loud — both the Miami and New York editions — he’s released a handful of new singles and guest appearances, including a remix to Eladio Carrion’s “Tata” with J Balvin and Daddy Yankee, the wide-eyed “No Time For Sleep Freestyle,” and now, his latest, the hungry “Splash.”

Over a sinister, piano-backed beat produced by Aloy and Danny Wolf, Bobby spits a tongue-twisting flow, cockily challenging foes with eye-popping taunts. His new, squelched delivery makes some of the bars harder to understand but “Splash” is much more about the vibe, creating the sensation of speeding down a highway so fast the tires of your vehicle leave the ground.

In addition to putting out new music, Bobby has also been on a philanthropic spree. In June, he arranged a “Father’s Day Give Back Brunch,” treating 200 families to a traditional Jamaican meal and giving out free haircuts for attendees. More recently, he sent 2,000 New York City students back to school with brand-new backpacks full of supplies, telling the kids at six schools “you guys are unstoppable.”

Listen to Bobby Shmurda’s new single “Splash” above.

United States District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan vocalized what many of us are thinking when she laughed out loud at Donald Trump’s lawyers. As Raw Story reports, the former president’s attorneys were in court on Tuesday to file a legal brief in which they boldly—and quite falsely—stated that both the FBI and the Senate have cleared Trump of any wrongdoing as it relates to the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th. Which is patently false, and anyone who follows the news would certainly know that.

While discussing the legal brief, Chutkan jumped right in to ask about a line that stated: “Notwithstanding [the January 6th committee’s] allegations and insinuations of conspiracy, investigations by the FBI and the Senate Committee on Government Affairs and Homeland Security rebuff their contentions of wrongdoing by Trump Administration officials.”

Chutkan, good sport that she is, decided to play along and ask about the basis upon which they had reached that conclusion. To which Trump’s lawyers replied: “Just a published article from Reuters … quoting the FBI.”

Chutkan, now in absolute disbelief, actually laughed out loud at this response, before responding: “You cite an article … That’s your only support for that statement?”

Indeed, it was.

You can listen to the laugh-riot of an argument over at Raw Story.

(Via Raw Story)