Month: January 2022

Fresh off her recently released single, “Belaire Bleu,” Jucee Froot co-signs another big-name brand with an assertive performance for UPROXX Sessions. The Memphis rapper shows off her razor-sharp flow and flashy fashion sense at the same time with “Balmain,” snapping off a stream of rapid-fire punchlines over a trunk-rattling trap beat while decked out in a studded white jacket. The performance is a whirlwind showcase of breath control, confidence, and charisma, sure to capture a few new fans as she begins her 2022 campaign.

Although she’s still a relative newcomer, Jucee is no stranger to the rap game. She’s been steadily grinding her way up from the Memphis underground, earning the respect of city legends like Juicy J on the way. It’s paid off, too; in 2020, she featured on the soundtrack of Issa Rae’s hit show Insecure, landed a placement on the DC Comics girl-power adventure Birds Of Prey, and dropped an attention-getting debut mixtape Black Sheep featuring A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Juicy J, and Rico Nasty. While she took a bit of a break during 2021, she returned strong toward the end of the year with her Grinch-y video for “Christmas List.” After opening the year with “Belaire Bleu,” she’s set for an even bigger breakout in 2022.

Watch her UPROXX Sessions performance above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

Jucee Froot is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Chicago rapper Saba’s third album, Few Good Things, is only a few short weeks away from release, and today, he announced that it would be preceded by a short film of the same name, sharing a minute-long teaser suggesting poignant moments, illuminating storytelling, and lush musical accompaniment. The album was previously supported by two singles, “Stop That” and “Come My Way” featuring Krayzie Bone. Saba will also tour the album in the US beginning in April.

Few Good Things: The Short Film is slated to premiere on January 31 with a follow-up screening on February 1 via the premium social live media platform Moment House. Along with the film debut, journalist Brandon “Jinx” Jenkins will host a live discussion with Saba and the film’s director, C.T. Robert. You can see the premiere times below and purchase tickets here.

In the press release, Saba said of the film, “The concept of Few Good Things is the realization of self after a search for exterior fulfillment. It is the satisfaction and completeness you gain by simply living a life that is yours. ‘Few’ is a small number, but ‘few’ is not lonely. In the face of all adversity, a ‘few good things’ is recognizing and accepting blessings. Few is to count them, one by one – an empty glass is full of air, an empty bank is full of lessons, and an empty heart is full of memories. ‘Few good things’ is to grow comfortable with the empty, and despite that, finding your fullness.”

Watch the trailer for Few Good Things: The Short Film. The album is due February 4 via Pivot Gang, LLC. You can pre-save it here.

LIVESTREAM DATES/TIMES BY TERRITORY
1/31 – 6pm ET – North + South America (East)
1/31 – 6pm PT – North + South America (West)
2/1 – 6pm JST – Asia + Australia + New Zealand
2/1 – 6pm GMT – Europe + UK + Africa

As COVID cases continue to spike in the US, movie studios are forced to make decisions about upcoming theatrical releases. Despite movies like Spider-Man No Way Home and Scream continues to crush at the box office, Disney has decided to release their latest flick Turning Red on Disney+, instead of in theaters. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Pixar employees are feeling disappointment over the decision.

“Everyone is really bummed, but most of us get it. Families just aren’t going to the movies,” an insider says. As many young kids are still unable to be vaccinated, many families with children under five are staying in instead of going out.

Turning Red is the third Pixar movie to be released straight to streaming over the last two years. Both Soul and Luca were released in 2020 and 2021, respectively. “We were told that Soul brought a ton of subscribers to Disney+. Luca started off slower but essentially did the same,” says the Pixar source.

The movie, which stars Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, Ava Morse, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Hyein Park, Orion Lee, Wai Ching Ho and James Hong, is the first Pixar movie to be directed solely by a female director. It follows a young girl who turns into a red panda when she is experiencing intense emotions.

The next Pixar release is the Toy Story spinoff, Lightyear, which is expected to hit theaters this summer. Of course, as we all know, release dates can change often.

It was a bad week for the Trumps — but a potentially good week for people waiting for the family to face consequences for [waves in the gentle direction of the last five years]. New York Attorney General Letitia James found “significant evidence” of the Trump Organization committing fraud (“That’s believable, certainly more believable than a pattern of business at the former-president’s fraud,” Stephen Colbert joked), while the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s request to block the release of White House records to the House January 6 committee. The committee also asked Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, to cooperate with its investigation; she’s reportedly “annoyed” by the request.

Things seem pretty bad for the former-president, but Trump biographer Tim O’Brien cautioned against counting any fried chickens before they hatch.

“Every time there is an investigation of Trump, the media becomes invested in [it] being a possible death knell,” the author of the 2005 book TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald, told the Washington Post. “Donald Trump has nine lives not because he’s a master dodger, but because it’s hard to prove fraud. It’s worth stepping back and looking at the realities of the legal proceedings and at the bars the prosecutors have to overcome to make a case.” He added, “Bad behavior doesn’t amount to fraud.”

“It hinges on whether [James] can prove Trump or the children knew they were doing something wrong and did so anyway,” he said. “Behaving badly is not a crime.”

No, but ordering your steaks well done should be a federal offense.

(Via the Washington Post)

Madison Cawthorn is showing his age (and his ass, again). The 26-year-old congressman from North Carolina has been in office for just over a year, and has quickly made a name for himself in political circles—all for reasons unbecoming. Most recently, he decided that the best time to clean his gun would be in the middle of a virtual House Veterans Affairs Committee meeting.

On Wednesday, Newsweek reports, Cawthorn was part of a three-hour virtual meeting in which the dangers of burn pits were being discussed. But the political newbie lacked either the interest and/or the attention span to pay attention to the stories of veterans who were part of the hearing and testifying about the devastating health effects caused by being exposed to the many toxic chemicals found in these repositories, which includes everything from munitions to human waste.

In the middle of the meeting, with his camera on for any and all participants to see, Cawthorn could be seen giving his firearm a polish. He chose to do this while Jen Burch, an Air Force veteran who was stationed in Afghanistan, spoke about the dangers she and her fellow veterans face in being exposed to burn pits, and detailed her own breathing issues as a result of the exposure.

Cawthorn’s lack of interest in the proceedings did not go unnoticed. Lindsay Church, co-founder and executive director of Minority Veterans of America, was on the call and took a screen shot of the congressman’s artillery bath time session, which he posted to Twitter.

John Feal, a 9/11 first responder who was on the call, had some harsh words for Cawthorn, whom he described as “immature” and “a child.” “He lacks common sense,” Feal told the Daily Beast. “I think the congressman was overcompensating for something that he lacks and feeling inadequate among the heroes on that call.”

Burn Pits 360 founder Rosie Lopez Torres wasn’t looking at Cawthorn while Burch was speaking, but told the Daily Beast that he seemed distracted at other times during the call. When she saw the screenshot of him during the meeting later, her first response was: “Oh wow.” Torres said that he showed “Total disregard and disrespect to America’s war fighters. He was so bored with the topic. Those that are sick and dying and the widows in his district should see how much he cares about the issue.”

Speaking to Task & Purpose, Burch herself noted that “Here we are taking time out of our day, including the representatives, to talk about a very important issue—a life or death issue for many veterans—and it’s like, ‘I’m sorry am I boring you? You’re not paying attention.’”

Perhaps Cawthorn had other things on his mind—like the role he played in the Capitol insurrection or his impending divorce to a woman who may or may not be a Russian operative. No wonder there are North Carolinians attempting to have him disqualified from running again.

(Via Newsweek)

Breanna Stewart is one of the biggest names in a loaded free agent class this offseason, and apparently, the two-time WNBA champion is entertaining the idea of moving back to the east coast. According to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, Stewart, who is from upstate New York and played her college ball at UConn, held a meeting in Los Angeles with the New York Liberty earlier this week.

Haynes reports that the Liberty sent a who’s who of the franchise’s decision-makers to the meeting, including its owners, Joe and Clara Tsai, along with head coach Sandy Brondello.

Stewart is not the only former UConn standout to sit down with the Liberty. It had been reported by Annie Costabile of the Chicago Sun Times that Stefanie Dolson, who was one of Stewart’s teammates with the Huskies, also met with the Liberty, which Haynes confirmed.

The Liberty are coming off of a 12-20 season, and while they earned a postseason berth for the first time since 2017, the team fell in the first round to the eventual league runners-up Phoenix Mercury. The team boasts an intriguing young core with the 1-2 punch of Sabrina Ionescu and reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year Michaela Onyenwere, while Betnijah Laney is coming off of an All-Star campaign and Natasha Howard, a former teammate of Stewart’s with the Storm, joined via trade last year.

Stewart has won just about everything a person can win during a basketball career, and is coming off of a campaign in which she was a first-team All-WNBA and second-team All-Defensive selection. Stewart averaged 20.3 points, 9.6 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.7 blocks, and 1.2 steals in 33.4 minutes per game last season.

In 2009, around the time a mysterious figure named The Weeknd began uploading druggy post-R&B tunes on YouTube, an electronic musician named Daniel Lopatin was compiling his best tracks — synth exercises, new age meditations, experimental noise collages — for a Brooklyn-based label called No Fun Productions. That album, Rifts, comprised 145 minutes of Lopatin’s strongest compositions as Oneohtrix Point Never. The project would situate him as a leading figure in a surprisingly robust underground, avant-pop scene. He began producing music for alt/indie-pop songwriters like Autre Ne Veut and Antony And The Johnsons. The Weeknd, on the other hand, propelled those early rumblings into a trilogy of mixtapes initially released anonymously, before revealing himself to be Abel Tesfaye of Toronto, Canada. Over a decade later, The Weeknd and Oneohtrix Point Never are the unlikeliest of collaborators — a synth nerd and a reluctant pop icon — but have thoroughly changed the landscape of mainstream music. How in the hell did that happen?

The Weeknd first encountered Lopatin’s music while watching Good Time, the psychedelically horrifying Safdie Brothers movie that OPN created the score for. According to an interview with Lopatin in GQ, the connection for The Weeknd and Lopatin was simple: “He [Tesfaye] was like, ‘I’d heard your music before, but now I understand.’” From there, both artists continued to populate the Safdie universe, The Weeknd in Uncut Gems and OPN as the film’s composer. Their connection solidified from there, with Lopatin joining some last-minute sessions for The Weeknd’s 2020 global smash, After Hours. He earned credits both as a writer and producer, contributing to three songs: “Scared To Live,” “Repeat After Me (Interlude),” and “Until I Bleed Out.”

The Lopatin-featuring songs on After Hours all betray brilliant, gauzy synthwork, and the sort of ambling, warbling bed of melodies OPN had continued to develop on his Warp Records releases, like 2018’s Age Of and 2020’s Magic Oneohtrix Point Never. The vocoded vocals, distant and disenchanted deliveries, and percussion used to accent instead of build became common in both of their works. Obviously, this is easier to point out now that we know they have such a profound influence on each others’ art, but in both of their music we could see the underground and mainstream veering ever closer together — a trend popular across music more generally. This allowed The Weeknd to take chances on his radio-bound hits, and Oneohtrix to look for pop gold on his album tracks.

This seems to be at the heart of their collaboration. This is more than a case of an underground artist cashing a major label check or a pop superstar looking at an experimental producer for cred amongst the cool kids. The Weeknd and Oneohtrix Point Never have a genuinely symbiotic relationship; sure, Magic Oneohtrix Point Never has Tesfaye listed as an executive producer and the album’s only featured guest — ”No Nightmares.” That certainly benefited OPN’s bottom line. But that track is immensely illustrative of how the two consistently meet each other halfway; it’s an outlier on the album, and one that betrays some of The Weeknd’s fingerprints.

This collaboration in particular, in addition to Lopatin’s role as musical director for Tesfaye’s performance at the Super Bowl halftime show, has put him in a unique position. He’s a beloved, boundary-pushing independent artist, but one that shadows as a pop songwriter, sitting in rooms alongside Max Martin as a Mad Hatter of sorts, proposing all sorts of wacky sounds while producers and hosts of hired guns go about the tedious work of crafting hit singles. (“[Illangelo] would be in there doing arduous stuff at the eleventh hour, and I’m popping over there like Kramer saying, ‘Hey, I just f*cked around with some synthesizers!,’” Lopatin explains during that same GQ interview.

Oneohtrix Point Never’s influence on The Weeknd has been in subtle, brilliant ways. The little things that make his songs great have been adapted and retrofitted for The Weeknd. Synth programming takes center stage, atmospheric interludes are used as ways to signal tension and release. But The Weeknd’s decision to associate himself with a relatively unknown experimental musician is very Kanye West-level “surrounding yourself with geniuses that highlight your genius is the truest sign of genius.” It’s easy to forget because of his monumental popularity, but The Weeknd began his career during the bloghouse boom. He stood alongside How To Dress Well as the prince of PBR&B — no matter how reductive and stupid that term is.

The star power was always there with Abel, but it took him a long time to find his lane. He wasn’t accepted within the critical zeitgeist until he released After Hours — when OPN joined the team. Pitchfork wasn’t exactly kind to Starboy. Before After Hours, Tesfaye was known as a formerly promising artist who sold that promise to go big. His ability to eventually cash in on that hype is a combination of brilliant decision making and constant improvement. Songwriting is a lot like working out. Muscles take time to grow. Oneohtrix Point Never is the dude you reach out to after setting a new PR while having perfect technique. OPN brought The Weeknd to new heights.

Daniel Lopatin’s impact on The Weeknd has obviously reached a fever pitch with Dawn FM, a new album from Tesfaye that sets itself up as a song cycle influenced by the role radio stations play in our lives. It’s not a coincidence that OPN’s latest album, Magic, is itself an ode to the magic that comes through the airwaves. Dawn FM is, in many ways, a stylistic sequel to Magic, though Tesfaye and OPN replace the latter’s samples of on-air chatter with interludes from Quincy Jones and Jim Carrey. The styles are similar, but Lopatin’s album is still way too weird for the playlists many of Dawn FM’s tracks have and will wind up on. It’s a credit to OPN that he can make his niche and strange concepts work on a capital-A album. It’s also a credit to The Weeknd that he’s willing to push the envelope of what pop can be. The desire to innovate has always been there for Abel Tesfaye, but all he needed was a little push from someone who believed in his vision. Enter: The Magic of Oneohtrix Point Never.

Hindsight is 20/20. Just a few years ago, it looked like Tinashe was out of place and struggling to find her footing in the music industry. Today, it’s clear that she was just ahead of her time. Since 2020, a new wave of Black pop singers has emerged, working very much from a blueprint for which she helped lay the groundwork, including such breakout stars as Chloe and Normani. Then, in 2021, Tinashe returned with her album 333, coming full circle to land at the forefront of the movement she helped to start when no one else really “got it.”

Today, she released the latest single from that album, “X,” with a high-concept music video that slyly nods to the way she saw the future before anyone else did. Featuring a subtly comedic framework of a teenage Tinashe encountering a street hustler peddling visions of the future in his crystal ball, the video shows off the LA-based singer’s high-fashion sensibilities and acrobatic choreography with a team of dancers and a stunning wardrobe that is best described, in the words of her video co-star, as a “snakeskin octopus dress.” Unfortunately, featured artist Jeremih was unable to appear, as he’s been recovering from a vicious bout of COVID since 2020, but his verse remains intact. Either way, Tinashe makes her point; she could see what no one else could in her crystal ball and now, her vision is coming to life.

Watch Tinashe’s “X” video above.

It’s wild to remember how, four years ago, Steve Bannon was the White House chief strategist to President Trump. He’s now waiting a July trial on federal contempt charges after he refused to comply with a subpoena for the House Jan. 6 committee. So, he’s currently free to host his War Room podcast, and his most frequent guest happens to be wacky QAnon cheerleader Marjorie Taylor Greene. These two share an interesting dynamic with him occasionally giving a side-eye to her lies but enjoying her company well enough to keep inviting her back, since she also told him that she’s done with politics. This week’s Greene-Bannon team up is a rager — as in, Marjorie is entirely angry about Tom Hanks’ new ad to celebrate Biden’s one-year anniversary as president.

Granted, Biden has been dealing with several impossible helpings of horribleness since taking office. He inherited a messy pandemic mindset from a sizable chunk of the American people. The pandemic’s wreaked ongoing havoc on the economy, and so on. Omicron has taken progress in the wrong direction, and Congress can’t seem to pass anything effective because Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin have essentially gone Republican. Well, Marjorie seems to think that this ad from Tom Hanks might be the worst thing going on today, other than “kids are wearing masks every single day!” Via Raw Story:

“I was absolutely disgusted with Tom Hanks! All I could think about was, ‘Well this is definitely a Hollywood movie.’ I mean, honestly, ‘Be brave?!’ And all of these statistics he’s quoting… everything he was saying is a lie!”

Meanwhile, Greene (who is wealthy without her congressional salary), has decided to keep on racking up no mask fines by defying Nancy Pelosi’s mandate. Still, she’s very upset about the reality of being unvaccinated, as she told Bannon, because she’s not allowed to go into gyms or bars. And she’s so mad at Tom Hanks, which is yet another thing she doesn’t have in common with reality lovers.

(Via Raw Story)

Russ doesn’t often invite other artists to participate in his weekly single releases, but judging from his latest he really should. This week’s release is a remix of last week’s release, “Remember,” adding 22-year-old New York alt-R&B singer Hailey Knox for a crisp second verse that plays off the wistful themes of the original. According to Russ’ Twitter, the “Gucci Prada Balenciaga” singer responded to his open verse challenge and he liked her verse so much, he added it to the song, touting the freedom to do so as another of the benefits of remaining independent.

Knox, who got her start singing acoustic covers of pop hits on social media, grabbed fans’ attention at the end of 2021 with the release of “Gucci Prada Balenciaga,” which flaunted her expensive tastes and became something of a playlist favorite among young fans who scour the internet for up-and-coming talent. A placement on Lyrical Lemonade boosted her profile and with Russ lending her his support, it’s probably only a matter of time until her growing buzz leads to more concrete successes.

While Russ doesn’t often collaborate on his weekly singles, he loves to bounce off other rappers — especially on his recently released album Chomp 2, which expanded the scope of the original EP with appearances by everyone from Big KRIT to Snoop Dogg to Westside Gunn. He also teased a possible duets album with Kehlani, which would be another great outcome for his 2022.

Listen to the “Remember (Remix)” featuring Hailey Knox above.