Month: December 2021

Months after dropping his debut album Pink Planet, Philly singer Pink Sweats has been treating his fan base to some new songs in recent weeks. His latest drop is a new collaboration between him and LVRN singer 6lack. The two bring their talents for “Midnight River,” a somber track that both singers spent most of the week teasing for their respective fan bases. Altogether, the new record is an easygoing effort that finds the singers craving a peaceful and serene moment with their respective partners, with the hope that they’re truly in love.

“Midnight Skies” arrives after Pink Sweats dropped a visual for his “Nothing Feels Better.” The video detailed a teenage love affair for the track that’s focused on praising a partner and showing gratitude to them. It came after his heartwarming single “I Feel Good,” which captured Pink Sweats in good spirits and has every right to be. His Pink Planet debut was one of 2021’s best R&B releases and it even appeared on Uproxx’s Best R&B Albums Of 2021 list.

As for 6lack, things have been a bit fairly quiet for the Atlanta singer. His last project was 2020’s 6pc Hot, and since then, he’s stuck to do guest features like Lil Tjay’s “Calling My Phone,” Isaiah Rashad’s “Score,” and Melii’s “You Ain’t Worth It.”

You can press play on Pink Sweats and 6lack’s new collaboration in the video above.

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

The long, semi-national nightmare is over. Fox News replaced their “All-American Christmas Tree” less than 48 hours after an act of arson, which appeared to be a random act by a suspect who’s been acting out elsewhere in Manhattan. While a crime did occur, the disproportional, two-day on-air complete meltdown by Fox News hosts was really something. The Fox and Friends declared that this was “a hate crime on Fox News. Tucker Carlson echoed the same sentiment. “Torching Christmas trees is an attack on Christianity,” he argued. “Obviously. It’s an assault on religious observance” and “a hate crime.”

Kimmel pointed out how silly this meltdown looked from afar. While branding Tucker as the “Little Dummer Boy” and “Little Snowflake,” he declared, “They are really making a mountain out of an act of vandalism outside their studio.” He added, “And whether it is or not, Fox desperately wants to make this a political thing.” Yep, and then came this reality: “You can’t commit a hate crime against a channel.”

From there, it’s useful to point out that Tucker and friends were completely losing their minds over a fake Christmas tree, which led Kimmel to wonder if there’s nothing else that Fox News wants to discuss. “Little Snowflake, unlike the Quran, Christians don’t base our faith on pine trees,” Kimmel summed up. “It’s the reason we don’t hang popcorn and Cookie Monster ornaments on the Bible.”

Yup, this whole thing’s a fiasco, and a greater degree of the chaos has gone down on-air than on the crime scene. It’s no wonder that CNN’s Brianna Keilar came for Fox News over how they’re far more upset about this evidence of the “War On Christmas” than the violent MAGA insurrection on January 6. (Priorities.)

Less than two years after he released his fourth project See You When I Am Famous!!!!!!!!!!!!, Kyle is gearing up to share his latest body of work with the world. Last weekend he announced It’s Not So Bad will arrive on January 28, but the upcoming project won’t be your typical musical release. “Instead of splitting the royalties with the label, I’ll be selling this project as an NFT to give an opportunity for my fans to own this project with me,” Kyle revealed in his announcement. “We’re in this together. Forever & Ever.” Now, we’ve received the latest single from the upcoming project.

Kyle returns with “Perfect,” and just like much of his discography, the new track is a light-hearted upbeat release that finds him celebrating the arrival of an ideal companion in his life. The new song joins recent releases like “Love Me Like You Say You Love Me,” “Optimistic” with Dougie F, and “Sunday.”

“Perfect” also arrives after Kyle announced his I Miss U Tour for 2022. Kyle will be accompanied by singers Col3trane and Leven Kali across the string of shows that begin on February 10 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and continue into March before he wraps things up in Ventura, California, where he grew up.

You can listen to “Perfect” in the video above and scroll up to check out the full dates for the 2022 I Miss U Tour.

This year’s finally drawing to a close with you-know-what showing no signs of abating as of yet. For that reason, it’s still never been a better time than to stack up your queues with fresh content, and Netflix more than has you covered, no matter what you’re looking for. While Cobra Kai and The Witcher prepare to arrive, there’s some placeholders on tap this week. That includes Sandra Bullock’s post-Bird Box streaming followup, and it’s fantastic to see her around this joint again after being one of the first A-listers to star in an original Netflix movie.

In addition, there’s more scandalous content to mine from those wild and wacky big cat people. David Fincher pops in with his love letter to cinema, and a new stand-up comedy special is also coming your way. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s an adult comedy series, an animated film for the kids, and a couple of holiday-themed offerings also doing their best to get you prepared for the weeks to come. Soon enough, we’ll all be pushing 2021 out the back door and asking 2022 to bring much better news, but before that happens, hop onto your couch and binge hard, people.

Here’s everything else coming to (and leaving) the streaming platform this week.

The Unforgivable (Netflix film streaming 12/10)

Sandra Bullock returns to her Bird Box stomping grounds to play an ex-felon who can’t catch a break. She portrays Ruth, who attempts to reintegrate into society and finds that no one wants to (as the film’s title suggests) forgive her. True redemption might only be possible if Ruth finds and repairs her relationship with an estranged younger sibling. It’s heavy stuff, sure, but Bullock has proven time and time again that she can go both dark and light and always captivate in the process.

Tiger King: The Doc Antle Story (Netflix series streaming 12/10)

God help us all, this crew simply won’t quit, even with Joe Exotic languishing behind bars without the ability to be his fully fabulous self. Somehow, two seasons of this show weren’t enough for people, so it’s time for the franchise (gulp) to dig into Doc Antle’s abuses of power while his animal-loving persona begins to crack in a significant way. Is Doc a bigger predator than any of the big cats could ever manage to be? He’s at the top of the food chain, but perhaps that won’t last long.

Voir (Netflix docuseries streaming 12/6)

This documentary series serves as David Fincher’s love letter to cinema. Expect a swath of “visual essays” from Fincher in collaboration with his fellow cinephiles, who will dive deep into iconic movies to discover the true “purpose of filmmaking.” You’ll see some Jaws and Citizen Kane but also The Karate Kid, Mad Max: Fury Road, Kill Bill, Goodfellas, Lawrence of Arabia, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and more. It’s a master class in not only the art of filmmaking but the art of watching movies.

Nicole Byer: BBW (Netflix stand-up special streaming 12/7)

Live comedy shows are finally making a comeback, and Byer’s first Netflix special sees her being both sexy and honest, live from NYC, where she riffs on being an almost-vegan and what’s going on with dudes. Oh, and the pandemic will receive an obligatory shoutout because (as we keep seeing) it cannot be ignored.

Saturday Morning All Star Hits!: Season 1 (Netflix series streaming 12/10)

There’s way too much energy going on in this animated/live-action hybrid for adults only. Take a trip back in time to what you used to watch on Saturday mornings back in the 1980s and 1990s, and don’t expect some cuddly nostalgia here but something a little more disturbing.

Back to the Outback (Netflix film streaming 12/10)

This one’s for the kids who will enjoy watching Australia’s most dangerous zoo captives launch an escape to the Outback, where they look forward to being themselves without being feared for fangs and scales and such while hopefully proving that they, too, are beautiful in their own ways. Isla Fisher and Eric Bana lead the voice cast here.

How to Ruin Christmas: Season 2 (Netflix series streaming 12/10)

A death sets up even more time for Christmastime ruination when Tumi Sello must save the funeral from becoming an utter fiasco. So much for a nice relaxing holiday season, right? Especially when the world could really use a collective nap after all that we’ve been through during the past two years.

Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:

Avail. 12/6
David and the Elves
Voir

Avail. 12/7
Centaurworld: Season 2
Go Dog Go: Season 2
Nicole Byer: BBW (Big Beautiful Weirdo)

Avail. 12/8
Carolin Kebekus: The Last Christmas Special

Avail. 12/9
Asakusa Kid
Bathtubs Over Broadway
Bonus Family: Season 4
The Family That Sings Together: The Camargos

Avail. 12/10
Anonymously Yours
Aranyak
Back to the Outback
How To Ruin Christmas: The Funeral
Twentysomethings: Austin (formerly Roaring Twenties)
Saturday Morning All Star Hits!
The Shack
Still Out of My League
Two
The Unforgivable

Avail. 12/11
Fast Color
The Hungry and the Hairy

Avail. 12/12
JAPAN SINKS: People of Hope: Season 1 (episode 9)

And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:

Leaving 12/13
Halt and Catch Fire: Seasons 1-4
Fifty: The Series: Seasons 1-2
Saint Seiya: Seasons 1-6

Leaving. 12/15
Lee Daniels’ The Butler
Maps to the Stars
The Theory of Everything

Leaving 12/21
Jacob’s Ladder
Private Practice: Seasons 1-6

Leaving 12/25
Captain Fantastic

Leaving 12/30
Winchester

If you’ve been hoping for new music from 2 Chainz, we’ve got some good news for you: the Atlanta rapper is back in action tonight and his newest release finds him paired alongside DJ Premier. Together, the duo delivers “Mortgage Free” and it’s a track that 2 Chainz uses to highlight to show off his tunnel vision and motivation to make sure that he continuously lives, well, mortgage-free. DJ Premier also provides strong production to the track to make it all that much enjoyable.

The new track arrives after 2 Chainz celebrated the tenth anniversary of his beloved T.R.U. REALigion mixtape. He held a concert in his hometown of Atlanta to perform tracks from the project which features Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa, Meek Mill, Jadakiss, and more. The performance came after 2 Chainz revealed the title of his next album. The upcoming release will be titled Dope Don’t Sell Itself, as 2 Chainz revealed back in August. There’s no release date for the project at the moment, but it could be the rapper’s “last trap album” thanks to a tweet he put out this past summer.

Dope Don’t Sell Itself will be the follow-up to his 2020 album So Help Me God. The album arrived with 15 tracks and guest appearances from Ty Dolla Sign, Ye, Brent Faiyaz, Latto, Lil Uzi Vert, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, and more.

You can listen to 2 Chainz and DJ Premier’s collaboration in the video above.

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

For the better part of a year, Roddy Ricch has left his fans wondering when the Compton rapper would deliver his sophomore album. His debut Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial was met with rave reviews while also spending multiple weeks at No. 1. The project, which boasted features from Gunna, Lil Durk, Meek Mill, Ty Dolla Sign, and more, took home multiple awards like Hip-Hop Album Of The Year at the 2020 BET Hip Hop Awards and Album Of The Year at 2020 BET Awards. That’s all in the past now as Roddy gears up to drop album No. 2, Live Life Fast, next week. Ahead of its release, he returns with the album’s intro track.

The track, which features vocals from Ty Dolla Sign, arrives with a video that sees Roddy telling an eerie story of how he was once told that the goal in life “was to have fast money, fast b*tches, and fast cars.” Roddy then dives into the harsh consequences of this lifestyle and what he’s learned from them. As he speaks, Roddy is then accompanied by a woman who joins him in a leather large and seemingly expensive mansion.

Roddy shared the trailer after taking Gunna and Future’s “Too Easy” for a new remix.

You can watch the video for the intro to Live Life Fast above.

Live Life Fast is out 12/17 via Atlantic Records. Pre-order it here.

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

The rumors around Earl Sweatshirt’s follow up album to 2018’s Some Rap Songs and the 2019 effort Feet Of Clay have been swirling all year long. First, Alchemist said he and Earl had hidden an album on YouTube under a fake name. Next, Vince Staples made the biblical assertion that he, Earl, and Alchemist had laid down “30 verses on 30 beats” for a project with Earl and Alchemist. Then in September, Alchemist went on The Needle Drop and said that Earl’s album was “done and it’s incredible,” and is 21 minutes long. The Black Noise-produced “2010” dropped last month, and now, we finally have confirmation of the next Earl release.

The just-announced Sick is a 10-track project that’s set to drop on January 14th, 2022. The announcement also came with the release of the newest single, “Tabula Rasa,” featuring Armand Hammer. The video is a one-shot take that brings us through a home studio with first Armand Hammer’s Elucid dropping his verse, before Billy Woods lays his down and Earl brings it home with an ill stream of consciousness flow.

Earl released a statement on Sick and it speaks directly to what he address on “Tabula Rasa”:

“SICK is my humble offering of 10 songs recorded in the wake of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic and its subsequent lockdowns. Before the virus I had been working on an album I named after a book I used to read with my mother (‘The People Could Fly’). Once the lockdowns hit, people couldn’t fly anymore. A wise man said art imitates life. People were sick. The People were angry and isolated and restless. I leaned into the chaos cause it was apparent that it wasn’t going anywhere. these songs are what happened when I would come up for air. Peace and love to Zelooperz the enigma, The Armand Hammer, and my good friends Alchemist and Black Noi$e. Peace and love to u.”

If the tracks on Sick are laid out like four-plus minute “Tabula Rasa,” then there’s no chance that this is the 21-minute album that Alchemist referred to. That couple with reading between the lines of Earl’s statement, makes it possible that Sick is just a step towards a separate full-blown album. Time will tell. For now, peep the video for “Tabula Rasa” above.

Check out the album art below.

Sick is out 01/14/2022 via Tan Cressida/Warner Records. Pre-order it here.

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

Brian Williams’ last episode of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour ended his three decades at NBC. With the veteran anchor’s sign off, he asked viewers to protect Democracy (he didn’t seem to feel good about where it’s going). He also once again visited with Democratic consultant and strategist James Carville, who’s not afraid to tell his party when they’re royally screwing the pooch, including the recent fiasco of Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal.

In this round, Carville took aim at Democrats essentially sitting on their hands while far-right figures, including Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and rootin’ tootin’ Lauren Boebert, use increasingly divisive rhetoric with seemingly no consequences. Carville has had it up to here with the GOP’s extreme figures being allowed to run wild:

“I have the equivalent of a PhD in white trash-ology, and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, they could be the subject of a dissertation. And we’ve got to call these people out and hold them accountable.”

Carville and Williams had been discussing a new Democratic party ad that targets those far-right extremists, which also include Matt Gaetz, who (via Raw Story) Carville believes “will probably be in the penitentiary by the time the next election comes around.” And Carville is all for the Left “hitting hard” and “telling the truth” without fear because “We’ve got to stop this namby-pamby, censure somebody, take committees away, and just call these people out for who they are.” Otherwise, the mid-term elections are going to surprise everyone by getting these people elected, he insisted.

Yep, we’re less than a year away from those elections, and if the Dems go into attack mode like their opponents regularly do, there’s gonna be fireworks.

The Matrix Resurrections is hitting theaters on December 22 and there is a lot to be excited about. Feelings on the second and third movies are hit and miss, but everyone generally agrees that the universe those movies established is pretty cool. So when a fourth one was announced for 2021 how could there not be a reason to get excited about it? A chance to go back into a world where video game like feats is possible? Who wouldn’t be excited?

That comparison to video games turned out to be right on point because during The Game Awards on Thursday, Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss made a surprise appearance to announce a new game/tech demo from Epic Games called The Matrix Awakens. This tech demo is meant to show players the power of the Epic Games developed engine, Unreal Engine 5. It is currently playable for anyone with a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S.

The moment itself was pretty cool, and it’s always enjoyable when Keanu Reeves shows up at a video game event, but the real appeal here is what the Unreal Engine 5 is capable of. The game/experience is a tech demo, but the screenshots that are coming out of it feel straight out of a movie. It’s an example of the kind of realism that these games are currently capable of. Via unrealengine.com.

“When I told them I was making another Matrix film, they suggested I come and play in the Epic sandbox,” says Wachowski. “And holy sh*t, what a sandbox it is!

“I imagine the first company to build an actual Matrix—a fully immersive, persistent world—will be a game company and Epic is certainly paving the way there. It’s mind-boggling how far games have come in twenty years.

“Keanu, Carrie, and I had a blast making this demo. The Epic sandbox is pretty special because they love experimenting and dreaming big. Whatever the future of cinematic storytelling, Epic will play no small part in its evolution.”

The Matrix has an interesting history when it comes to video games. Back in the early 2000’s when the franchise was at peak popularity, a game by the name of Enter the Matrix was released. The game itself is mediocre at best, but what was interesting about it is that Enter the Matrix contained never before seen scenes exclusive to the game. All of these scenes were considered canon and part of The Matrix universe so anyone that wanted to know everything about the franchise would have to go play the game to find out what was in it. While we haven’t seen anything that tells us exclusive movie content for the upcoming movie is in this tech demo, it’s cool to see that The Matrix is still embracing video games all these years later.

The NFL fraternity lost a member far too young on Thursday, as word emerged from Denver reporters that former Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas had died at just 33 years old.

Thomas, who starred at Georgia Tech in his college days before spending much of his 10-year NFL career in Denver as the Broncos leading receiver, died of unknown causes at this point, but as word spread around the league, many were in shock and disbelief at the loss of someone so young. Thomas spent 8-plus seasons in Denver, before brief stops in Houston, New York, and New England before calling it a career after the 2019 season. He compiled 9,763 receiving yards and 63 touchdowns in his career, winning a Super Bowl with the Broncos and authoring one of the most memorable plays in recent franchise history.

Many Broncos fans posted remembrances of Thomas, and particularly that play which lives forever in Denver sports lore. But for former teammates, friends, and those who covered Thomas, many remembered Thomas, the man, who was beloved in locker rooms and communities. As word spread around the NFL world, many took to social media to remember Thomas, offering their love and condolences to his family, and mourn the loss of a teammate and friend gone far too soon.