Month: December 2021

Juicy J and Wiz Khalifa’s friendship goes back more than a decade, when Juicy appeared on a remix of Wiz’s 2010 breakout hit “Black & Yellow.” Wiz returned the favor by appearing on “Stoners Night (Part II),” from Juicy’s mixtape Blue Dream & Lean. Since then, the duo has worked together time and time again, and nearly 12 years later, they’re getting ready to deliver a joint album. The currently untitled project is set to arrive in early 2022, according to Complex, and while the two remain tight-lipped about details surrounding the project, they have dropped one of its singles.

The song is called “Pop The Trunk,” a sinister track that’s paired with a music video, which follows the pair as they somehow convince strangers to give them their souls.

The forthcoming album won’t be their first joint effort. Back in 2016, they teamed up with producer TM88 as the TGOD Mafia collective for TGOD Mafia: Rude Awakening, which boasted 16 songs, plus a lone feature from Project Pat. “Pop The Trunk” arrives after Juicy was involved in a fight during Three 6 Mafia’s Verzuz battle against Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. As for Wiz, he recently dropped the single “Million Dollar Moment” earlier this year.

You can listen to “Pop The Trunk” in the video above.

The Baylor Bears are the champions of the Big 12. Baylor took on Oklahoma State in Arlington on Saturday afternoon in a rematch of a game the Pokes won in Stillwater earlier this year. Despite fifth-ranked Oklahoma State needing a win to keep their hopes of making the College Football Playoff alive, Baylor was able to get revenge with a 21-16 victory.

It wasn’t particularly easy for the ninth-ranked Bears, though, as the Cowboys got the ball with 3:14 left and managed to march down the field. Despite there being 90 yards between them and the end zone, Oklahoma State kept chipping away until they found themselves deep in Baylor territory. And after a defensive pass interference in the end zone was called on a third-and-3, the Pokes found themselves with the ball on the Bears’ 2.

Oklahoma State found itself in this position earlier in the quarter, when they got the ball on the one, couldn’t punch it in on three attempts, and opted to kick a field goal. This time, though, they had to go for broke, and after one run gained a yard, another was stuffed, and a pass fell incomplete, one yard was going to determine who won the conference. Cowboys QB Spencer Sanders handed the ball off to Dezmon Jackson, who saw some daylight and decided to bounce it.

Unfortunately for him, Baylor’s Jairon McVea made one heck of a play to force him to keep going wide. Jackson dove for the end zone, was unable to reach the pylon, and as a result, the Bears won the football game.

This was as good a play as you’ll see by a defensive player, as McVea sniffed out Jackson trying to bounce it and did exactly what he needed to do. As a result, Baylor gets to call itself champions.

Perhaps you noticed a big change on Spotify: Over the past week, a number of high-profile stand-up comics, among them John Mulaney, Kevin Hart, and Tiffany Haddish, were suddenly AWOL from the streamer’s vast coffers. Well, there’s a reason for that: As per Entertainment Weekly, hundreds of comedians wanted to get paid when their audio version of their acts are played. And for now, at least, they’re simply no longer there.

Hundreds of comics have banded together to push back against a contractual difference between spoken word and musical artists. Musicians are paid royalties whenever a song is played on Spotify. The same does not apply to comedians. As per EW:

A growing number of comedians are seeking to get paid royalties when their jokes are played on streaming or radio, much the way songwriters are compensated for usage of their music and lyrics. The company Spoken Giants, which counts such performers as Gabriel Iglesias, Patton Oswalt, Paula Poundstone, and Roy Wood Jr. as members, is attempting to secure a more lucrative deal for “spoken-word creative works,” according to its website.

“Compared to music and other media, Spoken Word assets are under-represented in today’s sonic landscape and more importantly key rights, provided for under copyright law, are not paid by the very channels that obtain great value from using comedy works, podcasts, and other spoken-word assets,” a statement on Spoken Giants’ site reads.

Negotiations between Spoken Giants and Spotify evidently has not gone swimmingly. After talks, the group received an email from the streamer saying that content from the comics associated with them would simply be removed until further negotiations.

Spotify has long been criticized for not adequately compensating the reams of artists that fill their coffers. And sometimes, as in this case, those artists push back.

(Via EW)

Next week will mark one month since the tragedy that occurred at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival. The incident left ten dead and hundreds injured. It also left the rapper with hundreds of lawsuits, with those affected aiming to receive compensation for their injuries and loss. According to Rap-Up, 275 cases have been filed against Scott as well as organizers and promoters behind Astrowrold, but a much simpler process seems to be in the works for the mounting lawsuits. According to Billboard, all of the cases against Scott and Astroworld organizers could be consolidated into one giant case.

The attorneys for both the victims and the festival filed a joint petition on December 3 that would combine the 275 cases into a multi-district litigation that would be handled by one judge. They both agreed that consolidating the cases would be the best and simplest way to handle the lawsuits, which include over 1,250 plaintiffs. The petition is pending approval from a judge, but if it gets the green light, a new judge would then be selected to oversee the overall case.

“This type of litigation is exactly what the Texas MDL process is designed to address,” they wrote in their petition. It was filed after nearly half of the families of victims’ from Astroworld turned down Scott’s offer to pay for the funerals of those who died at the festival. A lawyer representing one of the victims’ families said, “Of all the things this case is about, that’s the least of any concern.” They added, “This family is set on making change and ensuring this never happens at a concert again.”

Ridley Scott has two movies out this season, and you know what that means: He has more chances to show how few f*cks h gives. He’s spent the last couple months promoting both The Last Duel and House of Gucci, and he has not minced words. He blamed the box office failure of the former on “the millennian” (presumably he meant millennials). When the Gucci family spoke out against the latter, he told them where to go. He even became the latest auteur to trash superhero movies. And just to stay consistently tetchy, he told a journalist to go eff himself.

IndieWire caught an interview Scott and his Last Duel co-star Jodie Comer did with a Russian journalist. It seemed to be going well, that is until the interviewer gave a sort of backhanded compliment to his oeuvre. He praised the movie as “a very realistic film,” adding that it “looks more realistic than Kingdom of Heaven or Robin Hood,” two of Scott’s other period pieces, of many.

Before he could continue, Scott cut him off. “Sir, f*ck you. F*ck you,” he told the reporter. “Thank you very much. F*ck you. Go f*ck yourself, sir. Go on.”

House of Gucci only just opened, and since it’s already an Oscar contender — on Friday, star Lady Gaga was named Best Actress by the New York Film Critics Circle — there’s every chance that Scott could keep his foul-mouthed press tour chooglin’ along. And then there’s all those movies he still plans on making, including Gladiator 2.

You can watch Scott’s interview in the video below.

(Via IndieWire)

The Dallas Mavericks fell to the New Orleans Pelicans at home on Friday night, 107-91. Luka Doncic, by his lofty standards, had an off night — 21 points on 7-for-20 shooting with a 0-for-6 clip from three, 10 rebounds, seven assists, seven turnovers — but there was one thing that caught the ire of Mavs head coach Jason Kidd.

After the game, Kidd spoke with the media and was asked about Doncic’s penchant for going to the referees while the game is ongoing to complain about non-calls. The Mavs’ coach and Basketball Hall of Fame inductee didn’t hold back, saying that Doncic puts the team “in harm’s way” when he gives the other team a numerical advantage because his focus is on the officials.

“I would lean toward playing 5-on-5 a bit more,” Kidd said, per ESPN. “You’re not going to get any calls. Officials, they tend to not stop the game to change calls. You have to understand there’s a point in time in games — dead balls — to be able to talk to officials.

“While the game is going on, transition defense is one of the things we’ve talked about that we have to get better. If we’re lobbying for calls during live play, it puts us in harm’s way. I think we gave up 20 fastbreak points to a team that we held to six. Just some things have got to be a little bit more important. I think we’re going to get better at understanding as a team when to talk to officials. Not just Luka.”

When asked about the comments, Doncic made clear that he’s on the same page as his coach.

The Mavs will return to action on Saturday evening against the Memphis Grizzlies.

What was supposed to be a regular trip to Amsterdam took a turn for the worst when Ari Lennox was arrested after an incident at the city’s Schiphol Airport. The singer claimed she was detained “for reacting to a woman racially profiling me” and she shared more details about the matter as it unfolded in a string of posts on Twitter. According to Reuters, Dutch military police accused Lennox of public intoxication and being aggressive to a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines official. “Our unit found a woman full of emotions, that wouldn’t calm down,” a spokesperson said. “That’s why she had to be taken into custody.”

A few days after the incident, Lennox returned to Twitter with an update. “Hey loves I’m safe,” she wrote in a tweet. “Thank you so much for your prayers and love.” Today she shared additional thoughts on her arrest, which were not as comforting. “My only regret is my reaction to the racism and discrimination I experienced,” she wrote in a tweet. “I would like to explain what happened to me but KLM has made it clear that they never cared to hear it from jump. It’s painful being silenced like this. It’s painful what I went through. I’m not ok.”

This comes after she and Smino joined Khalid for their new collaboration, “Scenic Drive.”

Over the summer of 2020, as Black Lives Matters protests were held across the nation, people starting remembering some sketchy things about popular comedy shows that were only a decade or so old: An alarming number of them featured blackface jokes. 30 Rock. Scrubs. Community. All made jokes in which white characters applied burnt cork (or some substitute) to their faces. These episodes were subsequently pulled from streamers, often at the creators’ request.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia was another guilty show. But they went farther than most. As per Deadline, the latest episode of the long-running FX show addressed the controversy directly in their latest episode.

The show did two episodes featuring blackface. The first, from 2010, entitled “Dee Reynolds: Shaping America’s Youth,” finds the gang shooting scenes from a fifth Lethal Weapon, with Glen Howerton as Mel Gibson and Rob McElhinney as Danny Glover, his face painted black. They did it again in a later episode, where they film Lethal Weapon 6.

Those episodes were taken down a year-and-a-half ago, and in the latest episode, entitled “The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 7,” they tried to make amends, as per Deadline:

Mac acknowledges he made a mistake on Lethal Weapon 5, while Dennis and Charlie remind Mac and Dee that they did blackface as the Murtaughs in 6 too. The solution is that they hire a local Black actor to play Murtaugh this time.

Meanwhile, a real fifth Lethal Weapon is allegedly en route, directed by Mel Gibson himself.

(Via Deadline)

The highlight of Thursday night’s Verzuz battle between Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Three 6 Mafia, unfortunately, had nothing to do with the music that was played. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s Bizzy Bone and Three 6 Mafia’s Juicy J got into an argument on stage that nearly led to a brawl. After one of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s performances, Bizzy Bone said to his opponents, “You ugly motherf*ckers ain’t finna be mockin’ me while I’m on stage.” Juicy J told him to “shut the f*ck up,” which caused Bizzy to throw a water bottle at Juicy.

Now, nearly two days after the incident, Bizzy Bone spoke out about the fight and he was fairly chill about the whole scrape. “I just think, you know, it’s pretty self-explanatory how it went down,” he said during an interview with TMZ. “I can’t even say it on TMZ, you know, they’d have to bleep it out.” He continued, “Yeah, it ain’t really about bothering me. It’s just about class, it’s just about being a grown man and being in the heat of the moment and sh*t like that. Everybody pretty much understood what it was. From what everybody was telling me, they was like, ‘You really ain’t do no wrong.’ But, you know, it is what it is man, it’s hip-hop, people fight.”

Bizzy also said that Swizz Beatz, who co-founded Verzuz along with Timbaland, was not upset with him. “Swizz was like ‘it’s hip-hop, I ain’t tripping,’ and everybody was acting like he was saying something, he wasn’t talking about us,” he said. “We do our own prayers, we ain’t have no problem with no money, we ain’t ask for no special cups or none of that, we street dudes. He wasn’t talking about us, but of course, he’s being politically correct and I dig that and I appreciate that about him.”

You can watch Bizzy Bone’s interview with TMZ here.

There’s been an avalanche of Trump tell-alls of late, each one featuring exclusive, oft-shocking details about the former president. It’s how we learned that one of his closest confidants was a 28-year-old former body man who was dubbed a “f*cking idiot.” But the latest barnburning tome comes from inside the White House. It’s called The Chief’s Chief, from Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Meadows clearly thought it would be a valentine to the one-term, twice-impeached former Commander in Chief. But some of its stories are so unflattering that it’s reportedly left Trump pissed.

As per The Daily Beast, sources close to Trump say that he’s been going around calling Meadows’ book “f*cking stupid.” Why? Well, for one thing, because it’s how the world found out that he tested positive for COVID earlier than once reported, mere days before a Biden debate. (On a slightly lighter note, Trump also gorged on McDonald’s as he was being treated in the hospital for the virus that very nearly took his life.)

After the story broke, Meadows flailed about for damage control. He tried to pass the story — in which a president and his staff knowingly endanger the lives of many, including the person who would soon take his job — off as a lighthearted anecdote. He also went on Newsmax and called the story “fake news” — despite the news coming from his own book.

Trump is famously temperamental, and he’ll turn on his closest allies on a dime. Indeed, back in October, well before the book was mined for damaging stories, Trump was doing his best to turn The Chief’s Chief into a bestseller among the MAGA crowd. He called it a “fantastic book” about “politics, truth, our great administration, and exciting achievements that took place in government.” He assured supporters it “would make an incredible Christmas present.”

(Via The Daily Beast)