Month: December 2021

Although Tyler The Creator could easily be pegged as an antie-establishment nonconformist when it comes to hip-hop, he recently admitted that much of that posturing just came from feeling that he wouldn’t be accepted by the mainstream. Now that he more-or-less is the establishment, he seems a lot more comfortable engaging with the culture on its usual terms — working with DJ Drama on his new album, performing at the BET Awards, and participating in the time-honored tradition of sharing and debating Top Fives.

The Top Five, in this case, is Jay-Z’s songs, as prompted by Spotify’s Head of Urban Music, Carl Chery, who asked on Twitter on December 4 in honor of Jay’s birthday. As the responses rolled in by the dozens, Carl took the opportunity to share a clip of a recent interview with Tyler The Creator (who helpfully revamps his entire wardrobe between album cycles, making it easier to determine timelines in situations like this) revealing his own favorites. However, in typical Tyler fashion, the “Wusyaname” rapper still had to make sure his answers were a little off-center (and he picked six), picking eyebrow-raising tracks like “Allure,” “Do It Again (Put Ya Hands Up),” “Excuse Me Miss,” “F*ck All Nite,” and “Show You How.”

Astute fans can probably pick out the common denominator in the majority of those picks, knowing Tyler’s allegiance to Pharrell Williams, but he also included the “Grammy Family” freestyle Jay performed for Funkmaster Flex. Maybe in a future interview, he could offer a little more insight into why these picks are his faves, but for now, they constitute solid picks from an expansive and nearly bulletproof discography. Watch Tyler’s interview with Carl Chery below.

What is it with billionaires and bad haircuts? Mark Zuckerberg apparently can’t spend $15 from his $116 billion fortune to take a trip to Supercuts, while Elon Musk was the laughingstock of Twitter for sporting the “official haircut of no one around you telling you no.” No wonder Jeff Bezos went with the Lex Luthor look.

On Sunday’s episode of Desus & Mero, hosts Desus Nice and The Kid Mero had some words for Musk’s haircut. “Oh, damn!” Mero cried out after being confronted with a photo. “Elon Musk said, ‘Yo, let me go get the Richard Spencer.’” Desus added, “He spent all his Dogecoin on one toupee. He got too much money. He can get better hair than that!”

Musk’s cut is even less flattering from behind. “Come on, dog! He put the sh*t on backwards,” Mesus joked, adding, “He used the Elmer’s Glue Stick for that, dog” and, “Fam, you’re already, you’re already a supervillain. Embrace the balding, my G.” The worst part of this, according to Desus? “Grimes saw this and was like, ‘He’s hot.’”

Both hosts also wondered what aliens would think if they saw the world’s richest man with that haircut. “They’re like, ‘That’s why you got COVID,’” Desus cracked.

You can watch the Desus & Mero clip above.

After going heavy on the déjà vu with its last teaser, The Matrix Resurrections just dropped its final trailer that takes that theme even further as Keanu Reeves‘ Neo finds himself once again busting out kung fu moves inside The Matrix and questioning what, if anything, was ever real. Continuing the franchise’s trippy blending of a simulated world keeping alive the incubated remains of humanity, this latest trailer doesn’t shy away from hinting that this is a new version of The Matrix that is clearly reusing old programs from previous versions. Most notably, Jonathan Groff‘s character, who appears to be an upgrade on Hugo Weaving’s Agent Smith.

Yayha Abdul-Mateen II’s Morpheus also gets some significant play, as he doesn’t appear to be Neo’s adversary, but once again, a mentor figure attempting to aid him through this latest incarnation of The Matrix, which has also somehow ensnared Carrie Anne-Moss‘ Trinity. Unlike previous trailers, we finally get to see Trinity whoop ass and continue to be every bit the equal to Neo she was in the first film. Rounding out the cast is Jessica Henwick, who has been absolutely electric in every trailer as the mysterious Bugs.

We’d try and tell you more about the plot, but The Matrix movies could give Marvel a run for their money when it comes to secrecy. Heck, we just saw a brand new trailer, and we still couldn’t tell you what the heck is going on.

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

Billie Eilish’s album Happier Than Ever has a lot of moments that see her get really personal, and “Male Fantasy” is one of those, in which she examines her relationship with pornography. Now Eilish has given the track a chance to shine as she shared a new video for it today.

In the clip, Eilish meanders around a dimly lit home in not the happiest of states, which makes sense given the lyrical content of the song: She sings in the first verse, “Home alone, tryin’ not to eat / Distract myself with pornography / I hate the way she looks at me / I can’t stand the dialogue, she would never be / That satisfied, it’s a male fantasy / I’m goin’ back to therapy.”

In a September interview with Vice, Eilish said of the song, “The other day I was talking about how stupid and unrealistic porn is so much of the time. How unrealistic, misogynistic, and totally ridiculous the world of porn is. I decided that it was actually a really good idea for a song to talk honestly about pornography because it’s an uncomfortable thing to talk about. Pornography can make you feel violated and good at the same time and this conversation turned into the song. It was hard to write because we wanted it to be as revealing as possible. It’s difficult to be vulnerable and honest and open about my life right now. I find it much easier to write about my past and how I used to feel and to find a new perspective on something that happened to me, to take myself out of a situation. I don’t usually write about what I’m going through in the moment because it’s hard to process it. So this was also about saying how I felt. It was hard and satisfying and revealing and exposing and also incredibly cathartic, too.”

Watch the “Male Fantasy” video above.

The New York Liberty were fractions of a second away from pushing the Phoenix Mercury to overtime in the first round of the 2021 WNBA Playoffs earlier this year, losing on free throws with 0.4 seconds to play. The Liberty, led by Sabrina Ionescu and Betnijah Laney, appear to be one of the rising teams in the league, reaching the WNBA Playoffs as the 8-seed and making considerable strides from a 2-20 record in the Wubble in 2020.

However, to take the next step they’ll turn to a new head coach, as the team announced on Monday that they had agreed to part ways with Walt Hopkins and would begin a coaching search immediately.

It’s a move that raised eyebrows given how the Liberty seemed to take a leap last year under Hopkins’ guidance, and some are wondering if there’s more to this story than is being made public by New York. In any case, the Liberty opening is going to be an intriguing one to coaches across the women’s hoops landscape because they do have real cornerstone talent that has shown the potential to compete with the best. A couple roster upgrades and a coach that can keep them on an upward trajectory seems to be all that’s needed for them to continue their ascent in the WNBA, and plenty of coaches will believe they could be the one to further unlock this team’s potential.

Superheroes are larger than life. They fly, shoot lasers, run super fast and do more than I can possibly sum up here, so is it really any wonder we want to be them too? Why settle for comics, three-hour movies, and sweeping multiverses when you can just hop in the Batmobile as the Dark Knight himself? From Superman 64 to Marvel’s Spider-Man, video game superhero experiences have come in all shapes, sizes, tights, and quality for a long time and since they probably aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, we should swing into them, highlighting the best and most interesting.

In case you couldn’t tell, we’re suiting up to talk about all things superheroic in games on the latest episode of Uproxx Recon. This time around, we’ve got superhost Jessica Howard and in his Recon debut (or origin story) Twitch’s very own Ray Apollo to talk about all fictional folks in spandex suits.

Superhero video games have been around for a while so our hosts spend some time reminiscing on the ones they remember playing as kids, both good and bad, and being thankful that they’re broadly better now. Then, they dive into the world of online team-ups in MMOs like DC Universe Online and City of Heroes, and of course, we can’t talk about superheroes without talking about them throwing down in all types of fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom. Because while we love these characters for their rich stories, we also love to see them come to blows, handing out epic doses of damage to each other.

Finally, the crew gets into just some of the games they’re most looking forward to in early 2022. So don your capes, be careful where you point your heat vision eyes, and get ready to take flight in the latest high-flying episode of UPROXX Recon!

It’s been about a month since a deadly crowd surge during Travis Scott’s set at his Astroworld festival in Houston injured hundreds and resulted in ten deaths. Since then, hundreds of lawsuits have been brought against both Scott and festival organizers. While Scott has offered to pay for funeral expenses (which half of the families refused), the rapper has now reportedly filed court documents that deny all responsibility in one of the lawsuits.

Per a recent report from TMZ, Scott is first seeking to have the lawsuits against him dismissed before attempting to fight them in court. The rapper allegedly just filed new court documents through his lawyer which deny the claims brought against him by plaintiff Jessie Garcia, who alleges they were in the crowd the night of the Astroworld tragedies. Essentially, the court documents ask a judge to dismiss the lawsuit permanently and issues a “general denial,” which denies all claims brought against him and his Cactus Jack label by Garcia.

TMZ’s report goes on to claim that Scott plans on issuing a similar response to all other Astroworld lawsuits brought against him, which there have been many of, and a new motion filed last week might make that a bit easier for him to do. The attorneys for both the victims and the festival filed a joint petition for the 275 lawsuits (representing over 1,200 people) to be combined into a multi-district litigation that would be handled by one judge.

Despite the controversy surrounding Dave Chappelle‘s latest Netflix comedy special, The Closer, which resulted in an employee walk-out at the streamer and pushback from high school students at his alma mater over his trans jokes, the comedian and Netflix are still working together. On Monday, the streamer announced the massive 130 comedian line-up for its 2020 Netflix Is A Joke comedy festival, and Chappelle’s name is noticeably tucked into the list of A-list stars.

According to a press release, Chappelle will feature prominently in a Hollywood Bowl event that’s simply titled, “Dave Chappelle and Friends.” Of course, this move shouldn’t come as a huge surprise after Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos‘ response to the Chappelle controversy, and he ultimately defended streaming Chappelle’s special.

“This group of employees felt a little betrayed because we’ve created such a great place to work that they forgot that sometimes these challenges will come up,” Sarandos told The Hollywood Reporter in October.

Here’s the official 2022 line-up for Netflix Is A Joke: The Festival:

Produced by Netflix in association with Live Nation, the 11-day comedy fest in Los Angeles will feature over 130 artists including Ali Wong, Amy Poehler, Amy Schumer, Aziz Ansari, Bert Kreischer, Bill Burr, Chelsea Handler, Chris Rock, Conan O’Brien, Cristela Alonzo, Dave Chappelle, David Letterman, Deon Cole, Eddie Izzard, Ellen DeGeneres, Felipe Esparza, Fortune Feimster, Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, Hasan Minhaj and Ronny Chieng, Iliza Shlesinger, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, Jerry Seinfeld, John Mulaney, Jonathan Van Ness, Ken Jeong, Kevin Hart, Kevin Smith, Larry David, Margaret Cho, Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum, Michael McIntyre, Mike Birbiglia, Mike Myers and David O. Russell, Nick Kroll, Nicole Byer, Patton Oswalt, Pete Davidson, Ray Romano, Sandra Bernhard, Seth Rogen, Theo Von, Tig Notaro, Tim Robinson, Tina Fey, Wanda Sykes and more.

Netflix Is A Joke: The Festival will run from April 28 to May 8, 2022.

Mullet-sporting hero MacGruber is being sprung from prison to save the world while undertaking a Task Force-X-like suicide mission. That sounds about right for a MacGruber streaming debut, after Will Forte told us that he anticipated Peacock greenlighting the MacGruber TV show. It’s all happening now, approximately 11 years after the MacGruber film based upon Forte’s recurring SNL sketch. The raunchiness of the film, co-starring Kristen Wiig as MacGruber’s sidekick (Vicki St. Elmo), surpassed the network version of the sketch, and boy, does this show look filthy, too.

That’s no surprise, given what we’ve seen already from the title character’s return, and his recent jailhouse interview showed that he hadn’t changed one bit over the course of a decade. His life sentence (after the demise of Val Kilmer’s Dieter Von Cunth) is apparently no more, and only MacGruber can save the world, although one should note that R&R is not exactly “rest and relaxation” for this hero. Amping up the camp quotient here would be Billy Zane, and along with Wiig, Ryan Phillippe’s back and as poker-faced as ever. One can also behold the marvels of a bewigged Sam Elliot with the ultra-serious Laurence Fishburne on board, too.

From the revival’s Peacock synopsis:

After rotting in prison for over a decade, America’s ultimate hero and uber patriot MacGruber (Will Forte) is finally released. His mission: to take down a mysterious villain from his past—Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth (Billy Zane). With the entire world in the crosshairs, MacGruber must reassemble his old team, Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) and Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe), in order to defeat the forces of evil.

MacGruber comes to Peacock on December 16.

Have you ever taken a big bite out of a dessert pie and wondered, “What if this could get me drunk?” Now thanks to Cardi B, you don’t have to wonder any more. The rapper partnered with Starco Brands for Whipshots, cans of whipped cream that are infused with vodka. After releasing a select number of cans last week, Cardi officially debuted the new boozy dessert over the weekend at Art Basel in Miami.

Cardi shared Whipshots with guests at a star-studded sweets-themed party this weekend, offering a preview of the three flavors — vanilla, caramel and mocha — which have been flying off the shelves this month. The rapper offered partygoers the Whipshots served in cones, cocktails, on desserts, and straight from the can throughout the event, per a report from Billboard.

About her decision to create the dessert, Cardi told Billboard in a statement that it’s the perfect combination of sexy and tasty: “I’m not really a hardcore liquor-drinking person. And I like things that are sexy and tasty. It’s going to be a party in every can. At one time I was planning to do margaritas, but this is more fun.”

Echoing Cardi’s statement, Starco Brands CEO Ross Sklar said the rapper was the perfect addition to their product. “You’ve got to find somebody that has a personality that is transparent, super fun, super playful,” Sklar said. “Someone who doesn’t mind being flirty, but above all, is herself. The product delivers and the personality delivers … That authenticity delivers credibility.”

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.