Month: December 2021

Before Travis Scott and Cardi B were considered hip-hop’s consummate pitch people, Chance The Rapper was the poster child for brand partnerships. In recent years, he’s fallen back a bit as he embraced family life as a husband and father of two, but that doesn’t mean he won’t still do the occasional deal — especially when it’s for a good cause.

His latest is a crossover with ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s which will see him grace a new flavor of the ice cream. It’s a mint ice cream loaded with fudge brownie pieces and it comes in both dairy and non-dairy versions. According to a press release, the new flavor was inspired by Chance’s childhood experiment with adding his mom’s brownies to mint ice cream, which wound up becoming his favorite. A portion of the proceeds will go to his SocialWorks non-profit, with both versions coming to stores in early 2022.

From a musical standpoint, we haven’t heard much from Chance this year, but what we have heard has been marked by notable collaborations. Early this year, he reunited with longtime his Chicago brother Vic Mensa for “Shelter” with Wyclef Jean, their first work together in years. Meanwhile, more recently, he made good on the promise of collaborating with R&B legend Dionne Warwick, sharing “Nothing’s Impossible” in November.

(SPOILERS from Sex And The City revival And Just Like That… will be found below.)

Last week, Peloton teamed up with Chris Noth (with a savvy assist from Ryan Reynolds) for an ad that was meant to quell controversy after And Just Like That… killed off Mr. Big immediately following a weekly cigar and a ride on the exercise bike. In the aftermath of that stunning scene, Peloton was compelled to quickly issue a statement, and the company was reportedly unaware that the bike would be used in such a way.

Coincidentally or not, Peloton’s stock took a nose dive following that series premiere, and the team-up appeared to be another quick joint save by Peloton and Reynolds, who previously did their thing after the “Peloton Girl” fiasco. And now, both Peloton and Ryan Reynolds are reacting to another situation — the surfacing of sexual assault allegations (as published by The Hollywood Reporter) from two women against Noth.

As THR reports, Peloton and Reynolds have quietly deleted the ad from their social media accounts. Likewise, the original YouTube video link is a dead one. From THR:

Peloton has removed a viral ad starring Chris Noth from its social media accounts following sexual assault allegations made against the actor in a Thursday report from The Hollywood Reporter. Actor Ryan Reynolds, whose Maximum Effort marketing company produced the ad, has likewise deleted it from his Twitter account.

As THR originally reported, two women (known as “Lily” and “Zoe” to protect their privacy) have come forward with accusations of sexual assault (which they claim happened in 2004 and 2015, when they were both 25 years old) against Noth. The details of their allegations can be read here, and Noth maintains that the “encounters were consensual.” He added, “It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out.” Both Lily and Zoe spoke with THR months ago after they say their trauma was stirred up by the build up to And Just Like That…‘s impending release.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

Is Tyler The Creator the most dazzling star in the rap constellation right now? Just to ask the question would once have been considered lunacy, liable to see the inquirer exiled to a boarding school in Samoa for an 18-month stretch. We’re talking about the Ladera Heights kid who busted out of the twilight of Tumblr to make schlocky horrorcore tunes, drank “death juice” in warped music videos, and hypothesized in interviews about how humanity was going to become subservient to ostriches.

That is to say, Tyler subverted everything that hip-hop history told us a big-ticket rapper should be. He spawned in Cali, but didn’t look to his regional forefathers for anything; a demon child who rapped in the kind of timbre you would expect to hear emanating from the attic in a haunted house movie, uttering doomed mantras that a hell wraith might recite in an attempt to corrupt the adolescents who entered.

​​I’ve been thinking about those crazy, giddy Odd Future gigs that happened back in the day. They were unruly events packed out with young fans who had probably been dropped off by their parents and let off the leash for their first-ever rap show. Multiple dives per member were typical. When I saw the group perform in Dublin in 2011, Tyler made the gnarly leap despite wearing protective strapping on a foot that had been broken during a previous show, when he jumped into a crowd from the top of a speaker. “Kill people, burn shit, f*ck school” chanted the group and crowd in unison — a ridiculous lyric when you look at it in plain text, but a visceral mantra for mutinous teens. Those six words were probably scrawled across a million school desks. The reverence Odd Future’s fan base bestowed upon them predicted a certain type of intensely devoted fandom that young rappers like Lil Peep and Mac Miller enjoyed before their untimely deaths.

​​It’s a decade later and Tyler has stayed relevant by doing what every teen tearaway artist must do to retain their place in the zeitgeist: growing up. In doing so, he’s become one of rap’s leading men. New album Call Me If You Get Lost debuted at the top of the Billboard 200, his second album in a row to do so.

The evolution of Tyler from rap villain to genre protagonist has been as gradual as it’s been thrilling. The kid who terrified fans’ parents with his lurid lyrics is now a premium artist, both popular and critically loved. It’s a transformation as inspired as it once seemed unlikely.

The misanthropy of Tyler’s early writing suggested an artist who might struggle with fame. Destiny seemed to demand he position himself more as a man behind the music, like L.A. ancestor Dr. Dre or his hero Pharrell. There’s been times in his career when he appeared to want to be anything but a rapper, dabbling in fashion, film scores, and app development. Yet now he stands at the summit of his vocation, looking down on almost everyone else. Maybe Tyler will never be a walking headline maker like Drake, or the epitome cool like Future, or a hit single machine like Cardi B, or sell as many tickets as a legacy artist like Jay-Z, or be considered a wise lauriat like Kendrick Lamar. But Tyler increasingly looks comfortable in uniting many of the elements the public want in their rap stars.

Of course, he can rap well. Early concerns that his gruff voice wasn’t the nimblest instrument — especially when compared to the flow of friend Earl Sweatshirt, an extraordinarily dense linguist — have long been tossed out. On “Manifesto,” from Call Me If You Get Lost, his flow is dense and full of passion. Tyler’s personality is fabulously magnetic — he exudes star quality. And though in the past he resembled a music industry insurgent, hellbent on firebombing everything around him, Tyler has always been dedicated to the classic art of album making. He’s got a clutch of LPs that are distinct and memorable, which is why, like Kanye West’s catalogue, Tyler’s albums lend themselves well to debates about ranking.

Yet Tyler’s rise has been almost the inverse of what was previously considered normal for a star rap artist. His emergence was facilitated by his ability to harness the power of the internet, a nontraditional route to the cultural zeitgeist in the late 2000s. Tyler and Odd Future carpet-bombed Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube with unfiltered thoughts, 140-character protests, and glimpses into L.A. skateboard culture. The group released so many tapes, you had to decide what was worth your limited hard drive space. Songs were recorded on a laptop camera microphone; artists of totally different skill levels were invited into the group with no overarching plan. And while Tyler and the group’s violent language and morbid imagery were controversial, they were often honest about issues such as suicide and depression. They captured the desperate condition we call being young. Tyler would veer from goofy to deeply troubled; from sadistic to just a kid who needed attention. His records played like the tumbling into the teen psyche — and it’s as alarming a place as you might expect.

I wondered if the sounds and content of Bastard (billed as Tyler’s first mixtape, released on Christmas Day 2009) and Goblin (his 2011 debut album) might have aged miserably. Trust me, they hold up. Tyler’s vulnerability laid a path for the generation of open-hearted emo rap that have followed, while musically, the jazzy chords, synth waves, resonant bass drones, and metronome drums still feel fresh and exhilarating. See the sci-fi beauty of “She,” which compliments Frank Ocean’s silvery vocal style. “Odd Toddlers” features the same sample jacked from jazz-funk group Cortex that Madlib used on the MF DOOM track “One Beer,” solidifying Tyler’s spiritual connections to the timeless sounds of the producer and supervillain. Yet Goblin already sees Tyler, just 20-years-old at the time of its release, feeling his place in the rap landscape and grappling with a sense of lost youth. On both the title track and “Golden,” he reveals his regret at the life changes stardom is leading to.

Wolf remains my favorite Tyler record and the peak of the first phase of his musical development. His production feels more vibrant than ever — Erykah Badu stops by to contribute to the jazz club ditty “Treehome95” — while his writing retains its anger, but with more flair and focus than before. “Answer” is a moving account of absent father issues as Tyler envisions what he might say if he could pick up the phone to call his missing dad. Follow up Cherry Bomb is no disaster — the Roy Ayers collaboration “Find Your Wings” is an exceptional piece of generation connecting — but too many songs awkwardly find Tyler looking backwards. To say he phoned it in might be too harsh, but for the first time you can picture a disinterested artist dropping the masters off at his label’s front desk and just heading off and doing his thing.

In that backdrop, Flower Boy felt like a miracle. Naturally growing out of his bratty persona, he turned in a meditative work. After years of hints and rumors, the record feels like real-time depiction of Tyler coming to terms with his own sexuality as he raps about hooking up with men. In doing so, he recontextualizes thorny lyrics of the past, coming across as a young man who once used ugly humor to work through his own feelings. Meanwhile, the most severe tones were stripped out of the music, as Tyler deployed chiming xylophones, soft piano chords, leisurely strummed electric guitars, and soulful vocals to deliver a more summertime experience.

Then came another tight turn with Igor, a glamorama of wild experimentation and very little rapping. I felt some of Tyler’s personality was buried beneath the audio effects, but it served up some of his most daring musical experiments. Just a few weeks before the release of Igor, Tyler took to Twitter to respond with approval at a viral video made by comedian Nat Puff, aka Left at London, that recreated his supposedly predictable methodology. Try parodying “The Boy is a Gun.” You can’t.

​​Call Me If You Get Lost completes a trinity of work that has cemented his status among critics who may have thought his early work problematic. It’s tempting to call it the squaring of a circle: the sunny grooves of Flower Boy and daring genre-bending of Igor placed Tyler in the lineage of Brian Wilson, but under the influence of Westside Gunn, ​​Call Me If You Get Lost sees him rekindle an interest in rapping. Whether that was through direct communication or simply absorbing the music of Gunn and his Griselda Gang comrades is unclear. What is important is that Tyler raps like a man who simply loves rapping. This palpable joy in what he’s doing helps Call Me If You Get Lost navigate various hip-hop eras, styles, and forms. It’s a huge artistic statement that doesn’t go out of its way to tell you that it’s a huge artistic statement. Tyler is at his most compelling, and looks more like rap’s leading man than ever before.

The recruitment of host DJ Drama, the Philly ringmaster who’s helped facilitate some of the greatest mixtapes of the 21st century through his Gangsta Grillz series, ensures Call Me If You Get Lost trades in nostalgia, not dissimilar to the way Kendrick Lamar once summoned the ghost of Tupac. This is not perfunctory back-in-the-day remembrance that simply features a few adlibs from Drama and the famous “Gangster Grizzilz!” taglines — Tyler takes his lead from the esteemed series. The horns of “Lemonhead” feel like something you’d have heard on a classic Lil Wayne Gangster Grillz release. Drama himself slides into the role as Tyler’s foil. His yells of “We just landed in Geneva” inject extra scope into the luxury rap of “Hot Wind Blows.” You can picture Drama in the passenger’s seat snapping photos of the surroundings as Tyler takes them on a spin around the city.

A feeling of contentment ripples through the writing. Tyler is happy to muse on his success: “Mom was in the shelter when ‘Yonkers’ dropped, I don’t say it / When I got her out, that’s the moment I knew I made it,” he intones on “Massa,” an interesting revelation of warmth about his viral single from 2011 having previously rapped on “Colossus,” from Wolf, that he was, “sick of hearing about ‘Yonkers.’” On the more tension-filled “Manifesto,” he makes a point of being unapologetic for old lyrics, no matter who tries to pull them out of context and out of time — “Internet bringin’ old lyrics up, like I hide the shit / What’s your address, I could probably send you a copy, bitch” — and, as a person once banned from entering the UK, highlights the absurdity of famous people who claim to be “canceled” when they experience mild backlash: “I was canceled before canceled was with Twitter fingers.”

We can’t begin to ignore the musicality Tyler displays. Interestingly, he has never needed to surround himself in the studio with fresh voices to progress his sound. Think about how Kanye has recruited everyone from Jon Brion to Daft Punk to help him push things forward; even the lengthy career of Dr. Dre saw him rotated through co-producers, such as Scott Storch and Melle Man. Call Me If You Get Lost at once feels distinct from any previous Tyler release while being instantly recognizable as a Tyler, The Creator piece. After the synchronized piano loops of his early work, he tinkers with more free jazz performance on songs like “Massa.” His deft handling of a lush loop on the dreamy, luxuriant “Hot Wind Blows” is sample-mining that would please J Dilla. “Rise!” feels like an update of “Frontin’” and features the kind of airy hooks he’s been pinching from Pharrell since the beginning.

The guest spots are like a frequently circulated photograph of Barcelona’s talent-loaded bench. Lil Uzi Vert and Youngboy Never Broke Again are fine taste picks for a rap album in 2021. Lil Wayne continues his recent run of excellent guest spots on “Hot Wind Blows.” The presence of Domo Genesis keeps Tyler’s links to his Odd Future origins alive.

Mostly, Tyler just feels more at ease in his own skin than ever before. Maybe this is an emotional reading of the record, outside of usual music crit analysis, but after a tough couple of years for all of us, hearing him talk about enjoying his work, falling in love, and feeling healthy on “Blessed” made my heart sing. Maybe Tyler is simply delivering what his audience needs to hear in 2021. Maybe he really is that content — success is often built on great timing.

Odd Future fans are older now and, of course, more considered. Tyler has entered his 30s with them and feels primed to navigate his audience through another decade. If Call Me If You Get Lost had just been a great album, it would have been enough. But Tyler gave rap more than that. Whether he’s the genre’s greatest star right now can be debated. Inarguable, though, is that right now he’s in a group of one.

Wombats trotted down serene white sandy shorelines, iguanas waddled over the lava rocks, and high up in the water-colored sky sunshine danced over all-day pool parties at the Hard Rock Hotel Maya Riviera. This is the site where HARD Events and Cloud9 Adventures 4-day event, Holy Ship! Wrecked, took their original festival cruise concept and flipped it on its head.

Whereas most festival producers attempt to differentiate their experience with blockbuster artists on the music lineup or a picturesque venue, few distinguished themselves from their peers in a single year like Holy Ship! Wrecked did last weekend. To be sure, the music was over-the-top solid with showings from Marc Rebillet, Charlotte de Witte, Desert Hearts, Ben Böhmer, Justin Martin, Alison Wonderland, the Lisbona Sisters, and many more. But the venue might have been the #1 highlight — a blissed-out adult-amusement park. Among its many features were the all-in resort standard of open bars and a smorgasbord of succulent restaurant options, plus an actual water park — for anyone who felt like being a kid again for the day.

What really made the event such a prize wasn’t the fact that it was sunkissed and breezy at a heavenly 80 degrees all weekend — that didn’t hurt though. Instead, Holy Ship! Wrecked set itself apart by transporting fans into the same experience a person might expect a topline DJ to get. The experience was luxe and glamorous. Plus, by design, it dissolves all those physical barriers that would traditionally separate the hottest musicians and the fans who love them. It brings the fans to the stars and by simply walking around the venue it was common to run right into your favorite DJs, again and again.

With fistbumps and highfives abounding, the resulting debauchery was as irresistible as it was unique. Observe the undulating sea of freak flags proudly waving in the crowds around the event’s many stages. Through fashion and flair, these lovable weirdos share kindred spirits (along with actual ones), even referring to one another fondly as “ship fam.” Based on the sheer joy and camaraderie of those who attended, it’s tough to imagine anywhere else on earth last weekend where people were having so much fun.

We could say more, but perhaps it’s better to just let the colorful smiles in the photos ahead tell the rest of the story.

When The Recording Academy livestreamed an announcement of all of their 2022 Grammy nominees, Japanese Breakfast‘s Michelle Zauner nearly didn’t tune in. She was scheduled to record a podcast that day and certainly wasn’t expecting to become Grammy-nominee for Best New Artist and Best Alternative music album. So when she did hear her name called alongside artists like Olivia Rodrigo and Saweetie, all she could do was scream with joy.

Zauner has been experiencing a lot of joy lately. Her 2021 album Jubilee was an ode to the feeling, detailing ecstatic romance and the nuances of identity over shimmering synths and pop-leaning chords. The album was a way to move on from the grief she carried through the better half of the past decade, and also gave her the chance to try out new things like writing string and horn arrangements.

Zauner’s joy has also comes from the fact she hit a lot of major milestones in 2021. Earlier this year, Zauner released her New York Times bestselling book Crying In H Mart. The story is set to be adapted into a film and also just landed on Barack Obama’s list of favorite books of 2021. And while her Grammys nod confirmed the stand-out nature of Jubilee, the album came in at No. 1 on the Uproxx 2021 Music Critics Poll, featuring on more than 25% of the 200+ ballots.

Sitting down to reflect on her wins and absolutely bonkers year, Zauner chats with Uproxx about some of the other albums she’s been loving this year, how she celebrated her Grammy nominations, and her hope that she runs into Ariana Grande on the red carpet. Check out an edited version of the conversation below.

Every year Uproxx asks music critics from a range of publications like Rolling Stone, Billboard, Spin, and others to rank their favorite albums and songs of the year. So, this year we had more than 200 music critics vote for their favorite album and Jubilee appeared on 53 ballots, meaning more than 25% of all these critics voted for your record. How does it feel to have these music critics’ favorite album of 2021?

It’s a rush. I think I’m just blown away. Just totally floored. I felt kind of like a crazy person these past two years sitting on this record and it’s been so surreal to receive this type of acclaim. I’m honored.

I bet that that must feel really nice too especially since you were sitting on the record for so long, to have it be released and also have people love it so much.

It’s a really, really wonderful feeling, because I think as an artist, there’s so much time that’s spent feeling like no one understands you or what you’re doing. And it’s been such a long time working on music and feeling like no one really got it. And so I felt like it was such a special record for me and it’s really wonderful to have that feeling be shared with people with such high standards and impeccable taste.

In general, you’ve had a wildly busy year. Not only did you release a book and an album, but you also went on a tour, you were nominated for Grammys, you went on TV, you soundtracked a video game, and probably the biggest achievement of the year, you sang “Be Sweet” in Simlish for Sims4.

That’s true.

Where were you when you heard the news about the Grammys and how did you hear it?

I think that my manager had an inkling that it was going to happen. I had a Studio Ghibli podcast booked for noon that day. And he was like, ‘we have to cancel this podcast. I think that you should watch the Grammys.’ And I was like, not really planning on it. I’d rather not delude myself into thinking that there’s a possibility here. And so I was like, ‘I don’t want to watch it and then feel bad about myself for watching it.’ And he was like, ‘no, no, just trust me.’ And so I was in my apartment in Brooklyn watching it and yeah, I screamed a lot and probably freaked my neighbors out pretty intensely.

Did you celebrate at all that night?

I had kind of a weird busy day where I had to do a bunch of interviews and a reading and I couldn’t really celebrate properly, but I did get very drunk at a bar in Philadelphia with my producer Craig Hendrix and the two of us celebrated with some friends. We played a fun game where we were going through the years guessing which artist won Best New Artist for every year. And I think just thinking about where we’re at in music and what that represents. Seeing people like Elton John against The Carpenters in the ’70s and even Jewel and Fiona Apple in the ’90s… It just it was really cool to look back at the Wikipedia of all of the artists that have been nominated for Best New Artist over the years and be able to consider myself in that history. It was a fun drinking game.

I assume that you’re going to the Grammys next year?

Yes.

Do you have any musicians or celebrities that you really hope that you run into when you’re there?

Yeah. I am a secret Ariana Grande stan, and so I would love to meet Ariana Grande. I’d love to talk to Megan Thee Stallion about anime. I’d love to meet Olivia Rodrigo. I’m very excited to meet a bunch of people, but I think I would particularly like to meet Ariana Grande. I think it would be sick to meet BTS, too.

Just before our chat today, Barack Obama listed Crying In H Mart on his favorite books of the year. What is it like knowing not only that one of our former presidents read your writing, but also loved your book?

I was just saying he’s the first president I ever voted for and it’s really surreal to be on the most coveted year-end list. But yeah, I don’t know at this point, there’s just so much good news that has happened at the end of the year. It just feels momentous. And I’m trying to just be in this moment, because it feels like such a big, special moment and I want to feel it to its full extent.

Jubilee was a music critics’ favorite album of the year, but I was wondering what you would say your favorite album of the year was, or just some albums that you’ve been listening to a lot.

I really loved Chai’s Wink. I probably listened to that album the most, this year. I also really liked Hand Habits, Fun House, and Clairo’s Sling.

Did you get to try anything new for the first time this year like food or any experiences that really stand out to you?

I went to Mexico City this week for the first time, which was so much fun and so wild, because it was the first time we left the country in almost two years. I had the most incredible snapper, whole roasted snapper with these Mexican sauces on it. It was so delicious. I think I’ve eaten a lot of bugs in my life, but I don’t think I’ve had crickets before and that’s like a big thing over there. So we had a lot of fried crickets that were pretty good.

Is it true that they taste like chicken?

I think that they taste kind of like dead leaves. They’re salty. They kind of taste like salty fall foliage.

When you released your book, did you have a lot of people reaching out to you that were just talking about how they had really similar experiences to you? Did that make you feel a sense of connection with people?

Yeah, totally. Because the book came out in the middle of the pandemic, I didn’t really get to do that many readings up until closer to the end of this year. And I think that especially growing up in a very white town with very little diversity, I felt so alone in my experiences. And I felt so confused by… in particular my relationship with my mom and being raised by an immigrant parent and my identity and all of that, that I think for the first time I feel like I’m not a crazy person, because so many people reached out to me having this same type of relationship with their parent or their culture. I just I feel so much less alone and less crazy, because for the first time I feel like I’ve written down what so many people haven’t said out loud. That’s a really wonderful feeling.

I have a really specific question that I’m really curious about. Can you tell me what it was like working with Michael Imperioli for your “Savage Good Boy” video? Cause I just started watching the Sopranos this past year and I’m totally hooked, very obsessed with him now.

Yeah. I’m a huge Sopranos fan. And so it is my cinematographer and he was our top pick and that was like the beginning of a really crazy year of getting to meet some of my heroes. It was really hard for me not to call him Christopher. I felt like I just really knew him as Christopher, but he was like such a nice guy. And he knows a lot about art and music and was really down and took it very seriously and gave me so much respect as a director, even though I’m so new to it and pretty young. It was a really wonderful experience. He’s such a gracious, wonderful guy.

Jubilee is all about joy, which definitely contrasts with your previous releases and your book as well, which are often revolving around the feeling of grief. I was wondering while you were writing Jubilee, were there any lessons that you took away from writing the music and what are some things that are bringing joy for you right now?

Oh, I studied, I took some guitar lessons and piano lessons and that was like a big learning lesson for me was just push myself to write with other instruments. And that was really helpful. I wrote “Slide Tackle” on bass and I largely wrote “Paprika” and “Tactics” on piano. And this is also the first time that I started writing string and horn arrangements. I just learned so much about what I’m capable of as a composer and that was really exciting for me.

And what it’s bringing me joy is this massive relief that my work has finally found a home in so many people’s hearts. I feel just so grateful to have this type of understanding and connection with so much of the world that I’ve never had before. It feels like a very peak moment in my career. And I’m just trying to remind myself to revel and not feel overwhelmed or scared and to feel like hard work has finally paid off.

Check out the results of Uproxx’s 2021 Critic’s Poll here.

Jubilee is out now via Dead Oceans. Get it here.

Twenty-year-old Sabrina Lassegue started a production company two years ago and is already well versed in the obstacles she faces as a young woman in media. She spends a lot of her time working with mentors who teach her how to handle older people in the industry, especially men, who refuse to listen to her.

“I knew as a young woman I wasn’t going to be taken seriously,” she said on TikTok. “So I practice all the time and I’m lucky to have wonderful mentors in the industry who have helped me find ways to respectfully get my point across and turn the table back around, to me, in a meeting.”

Lassegue was recently hired by a brand to make a commercial for a feminine product. While presenting her idea to the company the brand uses for marketing, a man was very disrespectful to her.

“He claimed I didn’t understand the audience and attempted to tell me what women wanted to hear,” she told BuzzFeed. “He had his own agenda and wanted a chance to pitch himself to create a commercial for the brand. He began to shut down every idea I had without hearing them out or would take everything I had said previously and repeat it back as he stumbled his way through my original phrases.”

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Lassegue repeatedly asked the man to stop interrupting her so another female teammate joined in and asked him to respect her wishes. After that, the man said, “The problem with you women is…” and Lassegue had enough.

To document the disrespect, she pulled out her phone and recorded herself telling the man off.

“No. No…please keep yourself on mute. No, I’m actually not done speaking, so while I respect your ability to talk on and on, my ears actually do have a limit,” Lassegue said. “I find it extremely disrespectful and degrading that you felt a need to not only interrupt my entire presentation but also repeat back to me what I had just offered to the table.”

She posted the video on TikTok to show the world what young women have to deal with in media and the video has been played more than 12 million times. It has also received an incredible amount of positive feedback from women who’ve had to deal with the same thing.

“Ah yes, I’ve been in video production for over 20 years now. This happens daily! I have my own company now and work only with women,” Melissa said.

“Men do this so much. They stop you in the middle of a sentence, and then proceed to explain what you were just explaining,” another TikTok user said.

“This is the most concise professional DESTRUCTION and I am in awe,” Meredith wrote.

After the video went viral, the company and the man who was rude to her both apologized to Lassegue. The company is setting up another meeting so that Lassegue can present her ideas without disruption.

The disruptive man has been taken off the project.

This video is wonderful for two reasons. First, it presents a great example of how women can clearly and professionally tell a man to stop being disrespectful in meetings. Second, it’s an example for companies to learn how not to treat women in meetings.

Klay Thompson is steadily working his way back into game shape, regularly joining the Warriors’ G League affiliate in Santa Cruz for practices in order to get scrimmage time at full speed — something NBA teams rarely do during in-season practices.

Thompson has said he is healthy enough to play right now, but won’t return to the court until he can play a full minutes load, saying two weeks ago he felt he could go 25-30 minutes tops. While there was some optimism that Thompson would be back in action for the Warriors in time for their Christmas Day tilt with the Suns, it appears that is no longer the case. Word emerged from Shams Charania on Thursday that Golden State’s games on Dec. 20 and 23 were no longer in the mix for Klay’s return, with Connor Letourneau and Kendra Andrews confirming, noting that Dec. 28 at home against Denver is possible, but it seems more likely Thompson will not return until after the new year.

The Warriors are in a good enough position at the moment, 23-5 and atop the West standings, that there is no need to try and rush Thompson back if there is any concern that he isn’t ready to be a full go. His return is definitely going to be at the Chase Center in front of the home crowd, which means that Dec. 28 game against the Nuggets, Jan. 3 against the Heat, or Jan. 9 against the Cavs feel like the three most likely dates for his return to action.

In the wake of the disaster at his Astroworld Festival earlier this year, Travis Scott isn’t avoiding the spotlight. Instead, he’s taking the lead — or, at least trying to control the narrative — by joining a committee dedicated to improving concert safety in the future, according to TMZ. Meeting with The United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), which represents more than 1,400 cities, the committee will be made up of public safety officials, health care managers, emergency response professionals, and various folks from within the music industry to “aggressively focus on new technologies and innovations that offer ways to address these challenges.”

Travis embraced (or invited) more scrutiny last week when he sat down for an interview with controversial radio and television host Charlamagne the God, saying he’d been on an “emotional rollercoaster” since the Astroworld crowd control disaster that killed 10 concertgoers and injured hundreds more. The incident led to Travis and Live Nation getting hit with dozens of lawsuits totaling close to $3 billion asked in damages. The suits are likely to be combined into a single court case. The lawyer for the family of one of the 10 people killed criticized the interview, saying, “Travis Scott, his entourage, handlers, promoters, managers, hangers-on, and everyone else who enable him are the problem. Everything that Travis Scott has done or said since ten people died and hundreds of others were injured at his concert has been lawyer-driven and calculated to shift blame from him to someone else.”

Meghan McCain is blasting Project Veritas following a New York Times report that James O’Keefe’s far-right organization allegedly threatened to publish Ashley Biden’s diary if her father didn’t grant them an on-camera interview in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election. In an attempt to land an October surprise, Project Veritas reportedly reached out to the Biden campaign with barely two weeks to go until Election Day. McCain was disgusted by what she read in the New York Times.

“No one deserves to have their diary stolen and sold but it’s particularly cruel that this happened while Ashley Biden was freshly in recovery for addiction,” the former The View host tweeted. “Just because her dad was running for president doesn’t justify this one bit.”

According to the NYT, Project Veritas gave Biden four days to respond or it would start printing sensitive excerpts from his daughter’s diary that reportedly mentioned him by name. Via Raw Story:

“On October 16, 2020, Project Veritas wrote to Mr. Biden and his campaign that it had obtained a diary Ms. Biden had ‘abandoned’ and wanted to question Mr. Biden on camera about its contents that referred specifically to him,” writes the Times.

The report also quotes Project Veritas chief legal officer Jered Ede, who told the campaign that “should we not hear from you by Tuesday, October 20, 2020, we will have no choice but to act unilaterally and reserve the right to disclose that you refused our offer to provide answers to the questions raised by your daughter.”

Project Veritas and O’Keefe are currently facing federal charges following a FBI raid on several employees’ homes in early November. The raid stems from an investigation into how the organization obtained the stolen diary.

(Via Meghan McCain on Twitter & Raw Story)

The Los Angeles Lakers are heading to the G League to get some backcourt reinforcements, only they’re not signing a young up-and-comer to their roster of players with championship aspirations. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic and Marc Stein, L.A. will bring Isaiah Thomas back to the Lakers on the heels of a monster game in the developmental league on Wednesday.

Charania went on to report that the Lakers will sign Thomas on a 10-day contract.

A former All-NBA guard with the Boston Celtics, Thomas has bounced around the league in recent years, having stints with Cleveland, Los Angeles, Denver, Washington, and New Orleans. That stint in Cleveland coincided with LeBron James’ final year with the team, and was defined in part by the two players struggling mightily to get on the same page with one another.

Since his breakout 2016-17 campaign in Boston, Thomas has struggled to stay healthy — his trade to the Cavs famously nearly fell apart due to lingering hip issues — and make a sustained positive impact with his teams. But after a 42-point outing on Wednesday and considering the Lakers’ issues with finding a spark on offense as they sit 16-13 on the year, the team is prepared to give Thomas another opportunity to suit up in the purple and gold.