Month: February 2022

Lizzo, who this past weekend teased a snippet of a new song in a buck-naked Instagram clip, just took to the platform again for a preview of her studio session with two of pop music’s biggest producers. In the video posted to Lizzo’s Instagram story yesterday, the “Cuz I Love You” singer is kicked back on a studio couch, moving her feet as she watches producers Max Martin and Benny Blanco work their magic.

Martin has been the primary producer for Grammy Awards Album Of The Year winners in Taylor Swift’s 1989 and Adele’s 25. He also won the Producer Of The Year (Non-Classical) award in 2015. Blanco has been nominated for the same Producer award in the past and has been the producer and songwriter behind hits from Halsey, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, and FKA Twigs.

It’s a big look for Lizzo, who has typically worked primarily with producers/songwriters Ricky Reed and Nate Mercereau in the past. Not that her sound needs any more elevation per se, but if any or all of the follow-up to Cuz I Love You is done in collaboration with Martin and Blanco, then we’re gonna be in for something seriously special.

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

The self-proclaimed King of Staten Island is looking to reign over a new borough that is equally annoying to travel to.

“Sorry, I’m moving, so my place is disgusting.” Davidson said in an interview with NBCLX, as he moved the meticulously placed Kim Kardashian prayer candle out of frame. “I just want to make sure I don’t have underwear everywhere,” Davidson explained in a moment which he probably didn’t think was going to be recorded. When asked where, the SNL star said he was making the move to Brooklyn.

“I love Staten Island but it takes too long to get over the bridge,” the comedian said, after saying he is actually “very excited” to move to Brooklyn. The news comes after Davidson was reportedly looking at houses in LA, where Kardashian lives, but he has yet to confirm or deny. Davidson also bought a ferry in Staten Island last month with co-star Colin Jost, which they are planning to turn into an arts and entertainment venue.

Here’s the thing: it’s annoying to get anywhere in New York, and every apartment is going to be disgusting. The only difference is that Staten Island still has Colin Jost living there, so they can carpool to 30 Rock if needed.

The Chainsmokers are no stranger to big events. Between Super Bowl events, shows at major golf tournaments, a long-standing Vegas residency, and a presence just about anywhere parties are found, they know their role and play it willingly with an energy that’s often lacking when large checks are involved. They know not everyone is there to see them when there is so much going on. But they also know this might be a chance to give someone a good time they weren’t expecting if given the chance.

Alex Pall and Drew Taggart took most of the last two years off from recording following World War Joy, the album they dropped at the end of 2019. They went dark on social media. There was backlash to the July 2020 outdoor show in New York that prompted an investigation. They tried their hands at collecting, both digitally and tangibly (including dabbling, yes, in Faberge eggs). All of this allowed the group to enter what they’re calling a creative high when they recorded new music in Hawaii late in 2021. And they’re excited to share that energy — along with their latest track, “High” — with the crowds coming into Los Angeles for the Super Bowl.

The duo are playing TikTok’s Tailgate Party and are serving up Palomas from the tequila brand JAJA they helped launch at the MaximBet Music at the Market Party. They’ve already been along for the ride with the Rams, having performed at the NFC Championship game, but they’re not counting out Joe Burrow and the Bengals, who continue their storybook season a win away from a title.

Taggart talked to Uproxx about Super Bowl week, the high of making new music, the chance to convert new Chainsmokers fans, and more.

Martin Rickman: You guys have had an opportunity to do a lot of big events like this around sports. I mean even the NFC championship was something that you all were a part of. How important is it to kind of have your foot in the sports landscape and to be a part of major kind of cultural events like this?

Drew Taggart: I mean, it’s been amazing. We’ve been fortunate enough to play at multiple Super Bowl surrounding, like, weekend events for the past, probably six years, which has been super fun. Any big sporting event, whether it’s the Super Bowl, or we’ve done stuff with the PGA or we’ve done F1, it’s just fun when everyone’s there together to have a good time and in a not a typical location, and the vibe’s always great. Everyone’s just super hyped up for the game, whether they’re die-hard fans or not. There’s just always really good energy. So we’re fortunate that we get to be a part of that scenario.

What’s your sports background personally? Do you have rooting interests just generally or is it just one of those things you try to have a good time?

I mean, I’m way too skinny to play football. So I had to stick to soccer growing up, which was my full-time passion. That’s one thing, I would love to do the World Cup and the Champions League. So if any of those people are going to read this interview, we’re down.

But yeah. I mean, this is going to be really exciting. We’ve got the LA team and the Super Bowl in LA, which is super fun. Playing the NFC championship was an absolute blast. The energy in SoFi stadium is unparalleled. And so it’ll be really exciting, and I think this is kind of a win-win Super Bowl. I think everyone’s really excited for the Bengals and Joe Burrow might be the most popular man in America right now. And so I know everyone’s kind of rooting for that from the underdog side. And then you have us as Rams fans in LA, the great team this year and they’re playing at home. It’s just going to be a pretty uniquely fun onsite Super Bowl.

What’s your approach to parties like the ones that you guys play during Super Bowl weekend, where you have an opportunity to take some fans who are diehards, but you’ve also got some people, maybe it’s the first time they’ve ever been exposed to a Chainsmokers performance. How do you tow that line between fan service, but also just making sure everybody has a good time?

I think what you just said now hit that on the head. I mean, we play in Vegas, we’ve been playing at the Wynn at XS for the past five years. And I mean, we’re doing 50 shows a year and we always have a good assortment of fans at every show, but you got to realize that everyone’s there for their own specific reason — they’re there for a bachelor party, or a birthday weekend, or they’ve never been to Vegas before. And they might know some of our music, but they might not be a diehard fan. So we have a lot of experience playing to those rooms. And I think the most important thing is just to remember that everyone’s there to have a good time. And you do your thing as an artist, but there’s a lot of fun tricks that we’ve kind of picked up from doing 200 shows a year from the past decade that like, we know how to make it fun for everyone, even if you’re not a full Chainsmokers fan.

You mentioned the grind that is performing so often, so consistently, and that’s something in live music that had been lost in the pandemic and is now brought back. Things have happened slowly to get back to it. But when you look back on your rise as a group, how have you guys learned from that experience? And what are some of the things that looking back, it’s just kind of funny thinking about the smaller rooms that you were playing to now having events like this, where consistently you’re able to kind of go full throttle like this?

I don’t think the size of the room ever matters. And you can never really predict what a show’s going to be like until you’re there at it because it all comes down to the audience and how people are feeling in the room. And once you’re on stage, I mean, you hope you develop the skills over time to know how to pull out the best energy from that crowd, no matter what the vibe is, but in addition to doing the Super Bowl Tailgate, I mean, we’re doing the Maxim party, we’re doing the TAO party, we’ll be around.

There’s going to be a lot of different type of things with a bunch of different types of people in the room. And you always see it as a challenge to get up there and be like, how do I make this next set the most exciting part of the night? Even when you’re on stage and you’re performing, Alex and I always feel like hosts, how do we pull people into our world? How do we kind of break the third wall from the stage to the audience and make people feel like they’re performing as well?

Who did that for you growing up and got you hooked on the scene?

In dance music?

Yeah.

I mean, I grew up in Maine and so the dance world was something I discovered when I was a teenager, that just seemed so foreign to anything I had ever seen growing up. I played dance my entire life, but the first DJs I listened to were Deadmau5 and Trentemøller and Daft Punk. And watching the rise of Avicii and having the whole sound change. And I would just sit on YouTube and watch iPhone rips of them performing, wherever they were being booked and watch that kind of emerge in the States. And that was something that looked like the most fun thing I could ever imagine. And I’m very grateful that here we are, 10 years later that we get to be a part of that scene.

When you guys look back at kind of the last couple years, and then being able to release new music again and create this continued evolution of the Chainsmokers and the sound that you guys have, how proud are you of the latest stuff that you guys have done – “High” specifically – and what is next?

We finished our album, our fourth album. “High” is the first single on it that we’re super excited for. It was a really fun first one to put out. There’s a lot more depth on this album that I can’t wait for our fans to hear and surrounding people, but yeah. It is a little weird. We’ve been silent on social media. We haven’t put out any content, music’s changed so much, social media’s changed so much since 2019 when we were last active, but it’s fun to experiment. And I feel like everything these days is so less precious.

You can kind of leak some of your songs on the internet before they come out. You have an idea, a discussion about your stuff before it’s officially released with your fans, which is very new. And we’re still kind of getting acclimated to that. But so far it’s so fun. And I think as people that we were creating music all the time to be able to have an open dialogue and not just hold on to things that only we and our friends can hear until they are out in the world is a really exciting new landscape to come back to.

What were you inspired by in creating the new album? Was there anything kind of surprising that you drew from?

We started making this album in Hawaii and we went to Hawaii with a lot of our music-making friends, brought a bunch of gear down. We kind of gave ourselves permission to not make anything if it didn’t come out. We really relaxed and kind of deescalated the vibe that we had just put out an album, we’re on an arena tour right before that. And really just listened to so much music that we loved growing up, like Daft Punk and The Postal Service and stuff that really struck a chord with us. I mean, Daft Punk isn’t really an example of this, but some of the other bands, we didn’t feel like that sound had been heard in a while and we wanted to kind of reimagine it, and infuse everything together. And I feel like this album is very genreless, and it’s going to be really fun to have everybody hear stuff that still feels like Chainsmokers, but pulls in a lot of other things that we’ve loved over the years.

Speaking to pulling from all over the place, you guys have really had this experience of collecting lately, whether it’s through NFT stuff or any of the other things that you have gathered. Do you have that spirit of collecting in your DNA and what are some of the things that you just realized that you’re obsessed with, because you’ve got more time and access obviously to start grabbing that stuff?

Yeah. Alex and I started a venture capital fund called Mantis in the beginning of 2020, right before the pandemic. And that’s given us so much exposure to so many amazing new companies that are being built and in the kind of the focus. We’re on our second fund now, and we’re looking at Web3. It’s everywhere. NFTs are everywhere. We don’t traditionally do that out of our fund, but we’ve learned about that space. And the people that are building the infrastructure around it have been really inspiring to learn from and be a part of. And there’s a lot of opportunity there. I think the world’s still figuring out what it is and it really is a smaller population in the space than it seems via all the memes on social media about NFTs. But I think there’s a really promising future ahead of us in that space. And it’s exciting to be able to participate in some ways.

And then along those same lines, you have an opportunity to partner and be a part of things like JAJA, and other brands. When you look at projects like that, what is interesting about something like that?

It’s hyper-competitive but Alex and I always say whether it’s the VC fund, or our TV and film production company [Kick The Habit], or JAJA, we don’t do things that don’t feel like an inherent extension of who we are. I think that’s made them feel really organic and JAJA especially, we’ve been working on that project for so many years now. We’re so happy where it’s at right now. That’s a brand that embodies the fun nature that we were talking about earlier, about whatever scenario you get into, let’s make it as fun as it possibly can be. And we wanted to create a brand around that vibe and just an awesome tasting, tequila that we can drink every night with friends.

And then finally I got to ask just to finish it, what’s your Super Bowl prediction? What do you think is going to happen?

This is a dangerous question.

I know. I’m sorry.

I automatically piss off 50 percent of the people there. But they’re both great teams. I think the energy of the Rams being at home and that stadium is going to really play in their favor. I’ve been really impressed watching them. I’ll admit it, I’m not the biggest football fan. I’m definitely fair weather when it comes to the end of the season. But I know I love being a part of it. I love being part of the events and I’ve been really impressed watching [the Rams] and I think they can persevere in the Super Bowl.

The indie rock pride of Auckland, New Zealand, The Beths have always stood out with their upbeat tunes that help us take a much-needed mental break. Today, they’re back with the new single, “A Real Thing,” which itself, is about trying to smile through the ills of the world.

“‘A Real Thing’ is a kind of anxiety dream,” singer Liz Stokes said. “It’s a bit muddled, a bit frantic, a bit sinister. It’s what came out of my guitar in late 2020, post NZ election (and U.S. election). I was limply reaching for optimism about the future, but was really just marinating in dread.”

It’s an energetic tune, that despite coming across cynical at times with lyrics like, “Wake me up when the world is fried,” is still fun as hell. It peaks with Jonathan Pearce’s guitar solo and the band singing in unison, “Picking up the tires from the side of the road, gonna push back the coming tide.”

Listen to “A Real Thing” above and check out The Beths’ worldwide tour dates below. Tickets are available at thebeths.com.

02/10 — Los Angeles, CA @ Regent Theater
02/11 — Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriet’s
02/12 — Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
02/15 — Austin, TX @ Empire Garage
02/16 — Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
02/18 — Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade (Hell)
02/19 — Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge
02/23 — New York, NY @ Webster Hall
02/24 — Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts
02/25 — Washington, DC @ Black Cat
02/26 — Boston, MA @ Royale
02/28 — Hamden, CT @ Space Ballroom
03/02 — Chicago, IL @ Metro
03/04 — Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line
03/10 — Sydney, AU @ The Factory Theatre
03/11 — Brisbane, AU @ The Zoo
03/12 — Melbourne, AU @ The Night Cat
03/27 — Southampton, UK @ The Loft
03/28 — Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
03/29 — Glasgow, UK @ St Luke’s
03/31 — Manchester, UK @ Club Academy
04/02 — Birmingham, UK @ The Castle and Falcon
04/03 — Bristol, UK @ Exchange
04/04 — London, UK @ O2 Forum Kentish Town
04/05 — Brighton, UK @ Concorde II
04/07 — Paris, FR @ Point Ephémère
04/08 — Lyon, FR @ Le Marché Gare
04/09 — Dudingen, CH @ Bad Bonn
04/10 — Lausanne, CH @ Le Romandie
04/12 — Milan, IT @ Biko
04/13 — Munich, DE @ Feierwerk
04/15 — Vienna, AT @ B72
04/16 — Prague, CZ @ Underdogs’
04/18 — Berlin, DE @ Lido
04/19 — Copenhagen, DK @ VEGA Ideal Bar
04/20 — Hamburg, DE @ Molotow
04/21 — Cologne, DE @ Bumann & Sohn
04/22 — Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
04/23 — Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
04/24 — Esch-sur-Alzette, LU @ Kulturfabrik
04/24 — Seattle, WA @ Capitol Hill Block Party
08/14 — Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace

After a string of highly noteworthy deals in recent days around the NBA, the Utah Jazz, Portland Trail Blazers, and San Antonio Spurs have reportedly agreed to a trade involving a slew of role players.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski was first to break the news.

Ingles will not play for Portland this year, due to the torn ACL he suffered on Jan. 30 against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Meanwhile, Alexander-Walker is included in his second deal in as many days after being dealt to the Blazers in the CJ McCollum trade Tuesday.

The Jazz also mark Hernangomez’s third team of the year, following the Boston Celtics and San Antonio Spurs.

With Ingles rehabbing his torn ACL and set to be a free agent this summer, Wojnarowski said “don’t rule out a future return to the Jazz.” Last week, Ingles said he “plans on rehabbing mostly in Salt Lake City, even if his expiring contract is moved over the next week as the NBA’s trade deadline approaches.”

There’s really not a ton to glean from this deal. Alexander-Walker has struggled through 2.5 seasons and probably doesn’t factor into the Jazz’s rotation this year. Hernangomez likely won’t supplant their other front-court options. Elijah Hughes has fewer than 200 career minutes to his name.

Wojnarowski did hint at the possibility of these moves being only part of the picture for San Antonio and Portland as well.

“Spurs, Blazers get more draft assets and expiring deals to set up the summer — and perhaps more at deadline,” he tweeted.

As Abbott Elementary continues to be a breakout success for ABC, creator Quinta Brunson is opening up about how she set out to create a series that bucked the recent trend in “dark” sitcoms, but didn’t become a boring old network show in the process. It’s a delicate needle to thread, but judging by the reactions from audiences and critics, Abbott Elementary has pulled off the impressive feat of delivering a show that can be enjoyed by all ages, yet is still hilarious.

Via Vanity Fair:

“Network television, if I’m being honest, was just getting super formulaic, and I think that’s what made it not feel cool anymore,” she says. “Then streaming came out… and then all the comedies started getting super dark — because that became cool, for the comedies to get dark and pretty. Which is fine! But they’re dark. You can’t watch ’em with the whole family…. It’s not going to give you the same laughs as a network comedy.”

Abbott is a firmly family-friendly show, designed to tap into every audience quadrant. (“It’s not prestige television,” Brunson adds. “It’s TV for everybody.“)

Abbott Elementary is easily one of ABC’s strongest sitcoms in recent years, and one person who particularly enjoyed it is Brunson’s sixth grade teacher and the show’s namesake, Mrs. Abbott. During a recent episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Mrs. Abbott showed up for an emotional reunion with Brunson and to say how honored she was to learn the show was named after her. While Brunson was thrilled to see her teacher, she jokingly let Kimmel have it for creating a situation where her make-up was running all over the place from the (happy!) tears.

Abbott Elementary airs Tuesdays on ABC with episodes available on Hulu the next day. Please get involved. It’s really very good.

(Via Vanity Fair)

I’m not afraid to say it: Mad Max: Fury Road? Good movie. Maybe even the best movie of the 2010s (and now I’m sore about it losing Best Picture to Spotlight all over again). The action rules, the direction rules, the score rules, and the guy playing the flamethrower guitar obviously rules. In case I didn’t make myself clear, Mad Max: Fury Road rules, and a big reason for that is the casting. There’s Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, of course, but also Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, and as the Five Wives, Riley Keough, Zoë Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Abbey Lee (she knew the assignment, as they say, in Old), and Courtney Eaton (Lottie from Yellowjackets!).

It’s hard to imagine Fury Road without them, Hardy especially, but as revealed in author Kyle Buchanan’s Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road, the movie could have starred Rihanna, Eminem, and Margot Robbie.

[Director George] Miller and his casting director, Ronna Kress, began meeting with actors in 2009, and their casting search was expensive and extensive: To cast the five Wives that Furiosa escapes with in her War Rig, Miller and Kress saw hundreds of women, including future superstars like Margot Robbie and Jennifer Lawrence. Near the end of that process, Miller even set up a meeting with a pop icon.

That would be Rihanna, who “looked spectacular when she walked in,” Miller said. “I’m not sure she was even aware of the content of the movie, so she dressed up as Rihanna, which was the right thing to do.” It’s unclear why she didn’t get the job, as she’s the best (and only) reason to watch Ocean’s 8 and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. But she wasn’t the only Grammy winner to be considered for a role.

“This is something I don’t hear about very much and that George never admits, but I have a very, very, very strong memory of George talking about Eminem for Max,” lead storyboard artist Mark Sexton said. Miller confirmed the memory: “He’d done 8 Mile, and I found that really interesting — I thought, He’s got that quality. We’d done the first Happy Feet with the late Brittany Murphy, and she had done 8 Mile, so I asked her what he was like and would this be something really interesting for him? She had no reservations about saying what a wonderful talent he is.” That’s as far as things got (“We were going to shoot it in Australia at that point, and he simply didn’t want to leave home,” Miller explained), which is probably for the best, but just remember: rapper Eminem almost played Mad Max because of the dancing penguins movie.

You can read the rest of the excerpt over on Vulture, and buy the book here.

(Via Vulture)

Last month, it was revealed that Taylor Swift is Record Store Day’s Global Ambassador this year. That didn’t make it clear exactly what Swift will do in that role, but now we know at least one RSD endeavor she’s involved in: Record Store Day and Vans are teaming up for a compilation album, Portraits Of Her, featuring Swift, Julien Baker, and others.

Aside from Swift and Baker, the album will also feature Asiahn, Banks, Leyla Blue, Boyish, Bully, Alice Longyu Gao, Laura Jane Grace, Girl In Red, Girl Ultra, K. Flay, Mariah The Scientist, Julia Michaels, Joy Oladokun, and Princess Nokia. The project will benefit We Are Moving The Needle, a nonprofit organization supporting female recording industry professionals.

“Record Stores are a nice escape from the rhythm of our everyday lives. They allow us to really think about what music we’re engaging with and listening to,” Oladokun says in a press release.

Emily Lazar, the Grammy-winning engineer who founded We Are Moving The Needle, also said, “Women are an incredible asset to the music industry, yet they are underrepresented across the board, but particularly in recording studios. To close the vast gender gap in this industry, we must all work together to empower women on and off stage, behind the music, in the studio, and everywhere else in this business. We are grateful for the support from Vans, Record Store Day, and these amazing female artists.”

Tierney Stout, Director of Global Music Marketing at Vans, noted, “This album celebrates generations of women who have overcome barriers to representation, recognition, and opportunity in the music industry. Brands, record labels, musicians, and other organizations, including Record Store Day and We Are Moving The Needle, are working together to give today and tomorrow’s female talent more visibility, support, and opportunities.”

The average trajectory of a professional football player can be both short and cruelly linear. The point is to play within predetermined lines of expectation, on and off the field, without much of a window to explore new roles or alternate routes. To stretch a toe outside those lines, still, can lead to questions about your commitment to the game, and few can relate to that fixed circumstance of tradition better than Ricky Williams.

Williams played 11 seasons in the NFL. Despite his pre-NFL accolades — he won the Heisman Trophy at Texas, went fifth overall in the 1999 NFL Draft, and showed promise as a baseball player prior to his collegiate days — and the evident talent that he possessed whenever he stepped onto the gridiron, Williams’ career was marked by perceived missteps.

First there was an experimental contract with Master P’s short-lived sports agency, No Limits Sports, that was based heavily in incentives that Williams would have a difficult time achieving without the required roster support to back him up — the New Orleans Saints famously gave up every pick they had in that draft to move up to No. 5 and acquire him. The No Limits agent who drafted Williams’ contract, Leland Hardy, failed his league-certification test around the same time. To add injury to insult, Williams suffered a high-ankle sprain in his first season, sidelining him and voiding any hope of him achieving the contract’s complicated incentives. That season would be the first that Williams turned inward, isolating to cope against waylaid expectations.

The second diversion that Williams would take, and what would eventually turn into a powerful vehicle for him, was cannabis. While his association with weed would make him one of the most vilified and misunderstood football players in his time, that deviation from the NFL’s rigid framework was a lifeline. A good thing, too, since cannabis, once a furtive hobby, has now become Williams’ business and a catalyst for change.

“Back in 2004 when I first came out as an advocate for cannabis, although quite inadvertently, there was no one publicly that had my back, no one.” Williams says on a Zoom with Uproxx from his home in San Diego. “What I’ve realized is if we want things to change, especially in a positive direction, we can’t do it on our own. We need to come together.”

Williams launched his cannabis company, Highsman, in October 2021. The concept was simple: Williams wanted to break from any previous stigmas or stereotypes associated with cannabis. The product was streamlined, just three flower strains (Pregame, Halftime, and Postgame) Williams carefully selected to compliment different requirements throughout a person’s day.

“The whole idea of Highsman really came up during COVID. I started doing a lot of autograph signings. People were asking me to sign cannabis inscriptions. So I’d sign my name, number 34, then I’d write “Smoke weed every day,” or “Puff, puff, run,” and my revenue from autographs went up by three times,” Williams recalls with a chuckle. “And I started doing the math, and I said there’s no way there’s this many Ricky Williams fans out there.”

Ahead of the Super Bowl and in a partnership with Jeeter, Highsman is releasing a limited edition cannabis and apparel collaboration featuring a new strain, with 100 percent of proceeds from sales going to Athletes for CARE, a nonprofit that advocates for athletes of all ages. For Williams, the timing is important. In some ways it will be like a conscious return to football, but on his own terms and behind a larger purpose.

“I don’t think it hit me until the other day, when we were shooting some content for the collab. At the end, I saw the merch that’s going along with the content and I got really emotional, because it’s real,” Williams smiles. “I realized it is full-circle, because so much time has gone by that I have a chance to tell a story that can hopefully inspire the young people about what is cannabis, and how to use it and how to think about it.”

While Williams hopes to use Highsman to bridge the gap between the negative connotations of cannabis in pro sports, the company is for everybody. Moreover, what Williams has found, inadvertently or not, is that Highsman’s ingenuity, and spark of connection, comes from his own proverbial ashes.

“It’s not only that I have a brand and we’re doing this, but it’s cool now. When this all started I was a pariah,” Williams says, noting that in his early promo for Highsman, doing meet and greets and signing autographs, a lot of people didn’t recognize him. “When I was running for yards, they were babies. Some of them weren’t even born. But when I tell them the story, they all light up.

“It’s just cool that having these conversations with young people, the only relevance to football is that I walked away from it. It’s something I see that they can actually relate to,” Williams continues. “But if I’m just talking to them as this retired, old football player, there’s not really a relation.”

Though it can be tempting to look back on the treatment Williams got throughout his football career and consider what could have been different if he’d been playing in another era, he mostly resists that inclination. Williams wouldn’t have found out the more meaningful way forward for himself without it. But there are other arenas where he knows he was ahead of his time.

“Beyond just cannabis, the fact that I wanted to view myself as being more than just an athlete, and I think with social media now, athletes are more encouraged to be more than athletes, and actually have a voice,” Williams says. “To me, that’s what’s exciting.”

While Williams says the way he used his voice during his career was primarily advocating for cannabis, football players now “have a lot of things. And athletes, especially African-American professional athletes, have been silenced for a long time. And the fact that our voices are being heard and taken seriously, I think is amazing.”

What often gets left out of stories about athletes like Williams, and what we are still largely bereft of language around pro sports to handle, is how difficult a decision to walk away actually is. And that just because a career appears to careen off-track from the outside doesn’t mean that the athlete living it isn’t going through feelings of doubt and disillusionment while still trying to perform. These things aren’t mutually exclusive, as much as they become easier to explain when framed that way.

Williams describes that push and pull as a big part of his “crisis as a football player.” Ultimately, this made it clear to him that he had to change something.

“When I was a kid and I thought about being famous, it wasn’t for money. It was because I thought I could make a difference. But fast forward, I was there and I wasn’t really making a difference. I felt like I was just distracting people for three hours on Sundays. And I’m sure some people were inspired, but I didn’t feel like that’s what I was here to do,” Williams explains. “And so when I left football, part of it was needing to find something that felt better in how I’m spending my time and my energy. Again, I wasn’t expecting it to be cannabis. I thought that would be the last thing, but here we are.”

Many of Williams’s personal interests, beyond cannabis and Highsman, have grown into small businesses. He has an astrology app called Lila; a holistic healthcare company, Real Wellness, he started with his wife; and is involved in the Freedom Football League.

“I’ve spent so much time and energy searching for truth, and cannabis and astrology have been a big part of my journey, and I feel like I’ve found something,” Williams says, noting the responsibility he feels to share those things back with people is the main impetus to him in starting any business. “I think we all have to make money to take care of ourselves, but if we’re not putting something out in the world that’s making the world a better place — at least that’s the way I feel — then what am I doing?”

Asked how he keeps the joy in what he’s doing when scaling his hobbies into professional pursuits and Williams stresses integration, over the more difficult to discern idea of balance, or having it all. The best way he knows how to do that is through people.

“That was the thing in football, when I was on the field I loved what I did but as soon as I stepped off the field I didn’t necessarily love the people I was around and the things that we were talking about,” Williams recalls. “And so I realized, I need to find somewhere where I love what I do, but I also really enjoy the people around me.”

Jeeter co-founder Sebastian Solano stresses that the company rarely partners with cannabis companies, but they clicked instantly with Williams and the initiative behind Highsman.

“It’s about breaking the stigma of sports, cannabis, and how cannabis can be something very beneficial, specifically for mental health,” Solano says.

The mental health component of the partnership is crucial to Williams, and central to his own journey. Williams, who has been candid about his difficult childhood and adolescence, struggled with anxiety his entire pro football career long before mental health and sports — let alone the impacts of head injuries caused by the sport — were topics the NFL was willing to broach, however imperfectly.

“I can speak to my history, and players history, but we also have to speak of the history of corporations, big companies in the U.S.,” Williams says when asked what he thinks of the gradual inroads the NFL has made with mental health and advocacy, and whether it’s enough. “There are certain ways that the NFL functions, and the fact that they’re willing to start investing money into doing some research into cannabis is at least a step in the right direction. There’s always the big bureaucracies, the big corporations, where things just move more slowly. And the common people, especially the ones ahead of their times, there’s always a time gap. But that’s just the way it works.”

True to the way in which he’s taken perceived problems, or points of adversity, and turned them into channels for change, Williams has an insightful saying: anxiety is information.

“My understanding of the purpose of pain is information, to let us know that we’re not making a stronger adaptation. Or that we’re in the wrong place,” Williams says when asked why he thinks it’s important not to turn away from the things with the potential to overwhelm or intimidate. “We’ve been taught to be skeptical of pleasure, of feeling good. And what I’ve realized is feeling good is one of the most important things in the world, because when you feel like crap, you can’t think straight, you just feel stuck.”

On that front, Williams has an abundant back catalogue of information that he once chose to compartmentalize, maybe more than most. But listening to him talk about the plans for Highsman and the good he’d like it to do, it’s clear that he has all the data he needs to push toward a place of more meaningful conversations around cannabis, within pro sports and beyond.

“I feel like even six months ago, the conversations about cannabis and mental health, people kind of look at you sideways,” Williams adds toward the end of the call, noting that COVID forced people to take their mental health more seriously. “And I was one of those people. I wasn’t comfortable mentioning cannabis and mental health because I was nervous about what people would say. But I’ve redefined what mental means to me. I think starting to have these conversations about how cannabis can be used to improve mental health,” he breaks off for a second, sighing happily, “I’m so excited about this.”

There was a time when he was growing up, and Williams recalls it with a knowing smile, “coach would always say, if you smoke pot you’re going to be a loser.” But from that first toe outside the line and all the crude dismissals that followed, Williams has shown that life in and after a pro sports career doesn’t have to go straight, or stay narrow. That the world can widen, in ways never expected.

“And that’s the story that I’m trying to tell.”

The cult following that Caroline Polachek has been assembling since her 2019 official solo debut, Pang, is quickly growing. Most fans know that Polachek was the vocalist behind beloved early 2000s indie pop outfit Chairlift, and also released music as Ramona Lisa and CEP before finally adopting her own name as a moniker. The success of Pang — which spawned the now-TikTok-viral single “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings” — and last year’s breakout single “Bunny Is A Rider” have fans more excited than ever for where Polachek is headed next.

Since “Bunny” seems to be the lead single off a new solo project, all signs point to that album dropping sometime this year, and her profile is only continuing to rise as 2022 unfolds. Not only will she be opening up for none other than Dua Lipa on her tour this year, but she’s kicking off the year with brand new music. Caroline began teasing a new song called “Billions,” last week, and now the track is finally here and everything listeners her listeners were hoping for. Slated as the second single for a new album, “Billions” is a flickering, glitchy distillation of Polachek’s most experimental instincts.

Watch the “Billions” video above.