Month: January 2022

Spotify, the world’s biggest music streaming service, hasn’t had a great week. They’re finally starting to get their comeuppance for having exclusive rights to the biggest podcast in the world: The Joe Rogan Experience, where the former host of a show where people ate bugs can’t stop spreading dangerous misinformation about the public health crisis we’ve been living with for two years and counting. Artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have demanded their music be removed, potentially opening the flood gates for a mass exodus.

Now another pair who also have ties with Spotify are…well, not severing ties with them but at least issuing a stern statement. As per CNN, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — who announced an exclusive partnership with the streamer, for whom they will produce podcasts, back in 2020 — released a statement not only advising them to shape up but revealing that they’ve been doing that for nearly a year.

“Last April, our co-founders began expressing concerns to our partners at Spotify about the all too real consequences of COVID-19 misinformation on its platform,” a spokesperson with Archewell, the pair’s foundation, said. “We have continued to express our concerns to Spotify to ensure changes to its platform are made to help address this public health crisis.”

They added, “We look to Spotify to meet this moment and are committed to continuing our work together as it does.”

The statement did not name names, but it’s clear they were referencing Rogan, who has already been condemned by scientists for spreading nonsense to his fanbase. But given how they reacted to Neil Young pulling some of the greatest music ever recorded from their coffers, it’s clear where Spotify brass’ priorities lie. Meanwhile, perhaps Prince Harry and Meghan should do something more than simply express concern.

(Via CNN)

Earlier this month, the suspects in Young Dolph’s murder — 32-year-old Cornelius Smith and 23-year-old Justin Johnson -— were arrested and charged with first-degree murder two months after the rapper’s death. According to FOX13 Memphis, during their first appearance in court, the two were asked by Judge Lee Coffee if they would need an attorney to be provided for them. They both declined. In a second court appearance, the suspects returned again without lawyers, leaving Judge Coffee to set a deadline for them to find representation.

“If you have a lawyer hired, that’s fine, but as I told you 10 days ago, I cannot allow you to sit in jail week after week, month after month, without a lawyer,” Judge Coffee told Smith and Johnson during the hearing. “If you don’t have a lawyer hired on Feb. 4, I’m going to hire a private attorney to represent both of you all.” In response to Judge Coffee’s request, Smith and Johnson both assured the court that they would have lawyers by the deadlines, adding that their families were working on finding attorneys for them.

This comes after the slain rapper’s label Paper Route Empire released the tribute Long Live Young Dolph. It arrived complete with features from Key Glock, Big Moochie Grape, and more. Key Glock also delivered a video for “Proud,” which appears on the album.

Championship Sunday has finally arrived in the NFL, with the Bengals headed to Kansas City to face the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game at 3:00 p.m. ET on CBS, and the 49ers in L.A. to face the Rams in the NFC Championship game at 6:40 p.m. ET on Fox.

With the Super Bowl on NBC this year, these are the two biggest games of the season for Fox and CBS, and they treated them as such, with big-time promos and wall-to-wall coverage like a mini-Super Bowl. CBS tapped into their broader Paramount family for a Bengals-Chiefs hype video starring Tom Cruise delivering a Top Gun themed promo that is about as good as it gets, with the Top Gun: Maverick star waxing poetic about football, America, and chasing greatness.

Sometimes the cross-promotions in these pieces can feel forced, but a game featuring Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow getting the Top Gun treatment feels about as natural as it can get. I would love to know how much football Tom Cruise actually watches because I feel like it is either absolutely none or he is a maniacal fan and there is no chance of anything in between. Whatever the case, the man is a pro’s pro and after watching this hype video we are very ready for kickoff (and the new Top Gun movie which is sadly still a few months away).

One of the most iconic political protest songs in history, U2’s 1983 classic “Sunday Bloody Sunday” helped cement the Irish band as a titanic rock and roll act who transcended music to become a global force. Bono sings the song from the perspective of an observer of the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, where British troops shot unarmed civil rights protesters and killed 14 people. The song’s opening lyrics became a rallying cry for war torn populations:

“I can’t believe the news today, I can’t close my eyes and make it go away. How long, how long myst we sing this song? Til it’s too late, too late. Cause tonight, we can be as one, Tonight!”

Today, on the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday massacre, U2 released an acoustic version of the song. Posted to the band’s social media accounts, it features only Bono and The Edge in a modest studio performing the song in black and white. The Edge is on an acoustic guitar and he joins Bono on backing vocals to punctuate the song’s high points. Midway through the clip, footage of the 1972 event are spliced in. The video’s caption reads simply “30 January 2022 – With love, Bono & Edge”

It’s a timely reminder that “Sunday Bloody Sunday” isn’t just famous as the opening track to War, the band’s first platinum album, but also a reminder of how many nations could feel the pain and emotions that Bono and the band laid out many years ago.

Lindsey Graham’s loyalty to former president Donald J. Trump is like a pendulum, relentlessly swaying back and forth. In the lead-up to the 2016 election, the South Carolina senator was adamantly against him. Then he had one of his characteristic changes of heart. He was a close Trump ally throughout his presidency, even helping his failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Then, after the Jan. 6 riot, he was against him. Then he joined his side again.

Now Graham is taking issue with at least one thing Trump said. At his latest rally in Texas, Trump told the crowd (among many other weird things) that should he be re-elected in 2024, he’ll pardon his violent supporters who’ve been rounded up by the feds for storming the Capitol building. It was a strange thing to say, even for him, almost a tacit admission that he thinks what they did was good.

But Graham doesn’t think so. During an interview on CBS the morning after Trump’s rally, he was asked if he agreed with his promise to pardon people who violently stormed the Capitol.

“No,” Graham replied. “I don’t want to send any signal that it was OK to defile the Capitol. There are other groups with causes that may want to go down the violent path if these people get pardoned.”

When asked if it was “dangerous” to offer pardons for people who, among other things, injured dozens of police officers, he said, “Yeah,” then added, “I think it’s inappropriate. I don’t want to reinforce the defiling of the Capitol was OK. I don’t want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future.”

Graham tried to compare what Trump said at his rally to current vice president Kamala Harris promoting bail for those arrested during the George Floyd protests of 2020.

“I didn’t like that either,” Graham said. “So I don’t want to do anything from raising bail to pardoning people who take the law into their own hands because it will make violence more likely. I want to deter people who did what they did on Jan. 6. And those who did it, I hope they go to jail and get the book thrown at them because they deserve it.”

Will this enrage Trump? Probably. But the two will probably patch things up quickly.

You can watch Graham’s interview in the video above.

(Via Raw Story)

The Las Vegas Raiders will have all new leadership in 2022 after a 2021 that saw Jon Gruden resign in disgrace in the middle of the season and GM Mike Mayock get fired after a Wild Card round end to a tumultuous season.

With nine teams seeking out head coaches this offseason, the Raiders chose to move quickly and will look to a franchise many have turned to in the past for a new leadership model, hiring a new GM and head coach from the New England Patriots. Pats exec Dave Ziegler will be the next Raiders GM and he’ll bring with him offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to be the new head coach, per multiple reports.

This will be McDaniels’ second stint as a head coach in the AFC West, as he was in Denver for just under two seasons, compiling an 11-17 record before being fired midway through the 2010 season. Now, 12 years later, the Raiders will hope that another decade under Bill Belichick (and a more established quarterback in place in Derek Carr) will yield better results for McDaniels as a head coach.

The hope from Las Vegas is that McDaniels can bring some stability and consistency to the offense, as Derek Carr enters his ninth season, coming off a prolific year with 4,804 passing yards and 23 touchdowns, but also 14 interceptions and Vegas’ red zone struggles were on full display in their Wild Card loss to Cincinnati.

The track record of former Patriots assistants as head coaches isn’t very strong and many teams have attempted to copy the “Patriot Way” to rather dismal results. Whether McDaniels and Ziegler can buck that trend and recognize the need to create something unique rather than trying to copy the blueprint from New England will be fascinating to watch, if nothing else.

50 Cent is thriving in the TV world. His series Power, which launched in 2014, has birthed a pair of successful spin-offs — Power Book II: Ghost and Power Book III: Raising Kanan — with a third, Power Book IV: Force, set to debut on February 6. (A fourth and final one, Power Book V: Influence, has yet to receive a release date). There’s also his series BMF. But some are waiting on him to finally deliver his long-awaited sixth album. The Queens native spoke about it recently, saying it will most likely be his last.

At the end of last year, 50 Cent shared a video of him performing with a caption that revealed his retirement plans. “Smile my next album might be my last,” he wrote. “I terrorized hip hop for 14 years,don’t believe me Nielsen, the numbers will never lie but i’m nobody’s favorite Smh.” A month later, during a recent appearance on The Talk, 50 was asked if that was still true.

“I probably think I’ll deliver one more full-length album, then the other things I do will be connected to film and television,” he replied according to HipHop-N-More. “I’m having so much success in this area that I have opportunities to keep releasing music through the projects that I’m bringing.”

As for what’s next, 50 Cent is set to join Tyler The Creator And Megan Thee Stallion as headliners for UK’s Parklife Festival, which goes down in June.

This weekend’s SNL was hosted by Willem Dafoe, one of the great character actors, who was recently seen in movies big (Spider-Man: No Way Home) and small (The Card Counter, The French Dispatch). The night was usurped not by a fellow performer but by a football legend: Peyton Manning, who swung by Weekend Update to, of course, confess his love for Emily in Paris. But while the former quarterback couldn’t stop talking about something frivolous, the segment’s anchors kept things topical.

Colin Jost kicked things off by outlining President Joe Biden’s many, many headaches, among them a dodgy economy and a possible war between Russia and Ukraine (parodied in the show’s Cold Open). “Stocks are plummeting and there’s a threat of a land war in Europe, so it looks like Democrats were right: Joe Biden is the next FDR,” he cracked.

There’s also the pushback Biden is receiving from Republicans over who he’ll choose to replace departing Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer on the bench. “President Biden promised to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, but I hope it’s not because he wants to sniff a new type of hair,” Michael Che said as a picture appeared showing Biden’s many touchy-feely pictures with women.

But it wasn’t all Biden jokes. They also bashed the other side. When Jost talked about Ukraine officials trying to calm the public’s nerves over a potential invasion by claiming “panic is the sister of failure,” Jost said, “I thought Ivanka was the sister of failure.”

Then there’s Glen Youngkin, the newly sworn-in governor of Virginia, who set up a hotline for parents to rat out teachers they think are teaching Critical Race Theory, which isn’t taught in public schools anyway. “You know you’re racist when you call the cops about a Black character in a book,” he said. He then did a mock phone call. “Yeah, hi, I’d like to report a suspicious Black man rafting with a young white hostage,” he said over an image showing the cover of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

There were also digs at Mitch McConnell, Peloton, Melania, and McDonald’s weird menu hacks, including the terrifying new “Land, Air & Sea” sandwich. You can watch Weekend Update jokes in the videos above and below.

Janet Jackson’s self-titled documentary aired this weekend, and one of the issues addressed was her notorious 2004 Super Bowl Halftime Show with Justin Timberlake. During their performance, a wardrobe malfunction caused Janet’s breast to be exposed, sparking backlash as well as an FCC investigation. Janet specifically addressed how Justin, who’s often been criticized for how he handled the incident, responded to the controversy.

“We talked once, and he said, ‘I don’t know if I should come out and make a statement,’” Janet recalled. “I said, ‘Listen, I don’t want any drama for you. They’re aiming all of this at me.’ So I just said if I were you, I wouldn’t say anything.” She also took a moment to deny rumors that suggested there’s been tension between her and Justin since the Super Bowl incident.

“Honestly, this whole thing was blown way out of proportion,” she says. “Of course, it was an accident. That should not have happened, but everyone is looking for someone to blame, and that’s got to stop.” Janet added, “Justin and I are very good friends, and we will always be very good friends. We spoke just a few days ago, and he and I have moved on, and it’s time for everyone else to do the same.”

Elsewhere in the documentary, Janet reveals that she turned down an offer from Justin’s team to perform with him during his 2018 Super Bowl Halftime Show. “When I think about it, would it be nice to be able to perform? Yes,” Janet said. “Our family, we love entertaining. But on the flip side of it, it’s stretching out the past, reliving something that happened over 10 years ago.”

The Los Angeles Lakers got one game of having all three of their stars back on the court together before seeing another go down. After beating the Nets in Brooklyn in Anthony Davis’ return to action, the Lakers have dropped two in a row to the Sixers and Hornets, both of which they played without the services of LeBron James.

James has been dealing with knee soreness, a rather vague designation, but something the Lakers wanted to be cautious with. After two games missed, James’ knee was apparently not doing any better and the Lakers had him get an MRI done to ensure there was no structural damage. On Sunday, coach Frank Vogel delivered the results of that MRI, saying it showed “general swelling,” but that the continued swelling issue would keep James out until it subsides and that the star had flown back to L.A. with the team still with one game left on their road trip in Atlanta on Sunday.

James is in the midst of one of the best offensive seasons of his career, averaging 29.1 points along with 7.7 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game on 52.2/35.2/75.9 shooting splits — his highest scoring average since 2009-10 in Cleveland. He has been tasked with an immense scoring and creation burden with the combination of Lakers injuries and general roster construction issues, and James shrugged off questions about whether he was worried about his increased workload recently.

The Lakers will remain cautious with James’ injury, and if there’s some good news it is that they won’t play again until Wednesday after they conclude their road trip in Atlanta on Sunday afternoon. Whether James’ knee responds well enough to treatment to get him back this week or not remains to be seen, but every game without LeBron is an uphill battle for this Lakers team.