This summer will mark four years since Nicki Minaj released her fourth album, Queen. Since then, her releases have been quite sporadic and not as frequent or fulfilling as her fans would’ve hoped. In 2019, she dropped her tropical single, “Megatron,” and the following year she returned with “Yikes” and “Trollz,” her chart-topping-yet-controversial single with Tekashi 69. In 2021, she uploaded her 2009 mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty to streaming platforms with three new songs including “Seeing Green” with Lil Wayne and Drake. Unfortunately, none of those years presented a new album, but that could finally change this year and it starts with Nicki’s new single with Lil Baby, “Do We Have A Problem?”
Their new collaboration arrives with a cinematic nine-minute video that initially begins with Nicki Minaj as a detective of sorts who is looking to capture a criminal played by Lil Baby. A stakeout is set up in order to capture Lil Baby, but things take a turn when Nicki runs off with Lil Baby as they complete a mission they had planned from the beginning. The visual also features a cameo from Joseph Sikora who plays Tommy Egan on Power and Power Book IV: Force.
The track adds to what’s been an event week for Nicki. She had an interesting Instagram Live conversation with Kevin Samuels and even settled her differences with City Girls. Nicki also listed her conditions for a potential Verzuz battle, saying, “It should feel like a celebration, that’s exactly what I would like it to feel like. Fun, happiness.”
You can check out the video for “Do We Have A Problem?” above.
Closing out 2021 with a dramatic break-up single, “Feel Like Sh*t,” she’s already back in early 2022 with more new music. And “She’s All I Wanna Be” fits in with the lamenting nature of plenty of McRae’s oeuvre, this time with her attention focused on another woman that she’s jealous her man might like more. “You want the girl with the small waist / and the perfect smile,” she begins. “She’s got everything that I don’t have / And she’s all I wanna be so bad,” McRae finishes on the racing chorus.
Even though the song is just ostensibly just as sad as plenty of Tate’s other hits, it gets a pop-punk guitar, some glittering synths, and heavy percussion to elevate it from sad girl anthem into actual anthem. Check out the new single above, this one has all the earmarks of a hit.
Earlier this week the NFL world’s attention shifted away from the upcoming Super Bowl or Pro Bowl to a bombshell lawsuit brought against the league by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores.
The lawsuit featured a number of accusations against various prominent NFL people, from alleging Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered Flores $100,000 per loss to tank in 2019 to highlighting the sham interviews he’s been on as teams simply bring him in as a Black candidate to fill the league’s Rooney Rule requirement without giving him serious consideration. The smoking gun in the lawsuit was text messages from Bill Belichick to Flores that congratulated him on the job before he even interviewed for it, with Belichick eventually saying he “f**ked it up” and got his Brian’s wrong, as it was Bills OC Brian Daboll, not Flores, who was getting the job.
This has been the talk of just about every sports show all week since it dropped on Tuesday, and unsurprisingly the Inside the NBA crew had some thoughts on it as well, with Charles Barkley leading the way with some cutting humor about the state of the NFL (and the country at large), noting it’s more likely right now that a Black woman will end up on the Supreme Court than a Black man ending up an NFL head coach.
Charles Barkley “Did you know that we got a better chance of getting a black woman on the Supreme Court than we do of having a black NFL head coach” pic.twitter.com/a7VJYD5ZWs
Barkley also had some advice for Bill Belichick so he’d avoid another text mishap, saying the Pats head coach needs to label his contacts “Black Brian” and “White Brian” so he can avoid such embarrassment in the future — to Shaq’s delight.
The best part of this segment was Ernie Johnson desperately trying to keep the train on the tracks while Shaq just wanted to egg Chuck on into more jokes about Black Brian and White Brian.
The Jacksonville Jaguars were among the nine teams to have a head coaching vacancy this offseason after they fired Urban Meyer after less than a full season at the helm in Jacksonville.
Meyer’s tenure was an abject disaster, filled with poor play on the field and constant controversy off of it. The candidate pool was expected to be headlined by Byron Leftwich, the former Jags quarterback who is now the offensive coordinator in Tampa Bay, but on Thursday, he pulled himself out of the race. Late Thursday night, Jacksonville made a decision on the remaining candidates and hired former Eagles head coach Doug Pederson, who won a Super Bowl in Philly in 2018.
Former Eagles’ HC Doug Pederson is being hired as the next head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, source tells ESPN.
The Jaguars will hope that Pederson can bring some creativity and life to an offense desperately in need of that as Trevor Lawrence enters his second season. Pederson spent a year away from the NFL in 2021 after being fired after the 2020 season by the Eagles, compiling a 42-37-1 record during his time in Philadelphia that included that Super Bowl run.
With Pederson filling the Jaguars vacancy, there are three jobs still available — Houston, New Orleans, and Miami — and despite six coaches being hired so far, not one has been Black only further illustrating the issues the league has in its hiring practices that are being challenged by the Brian Flores lawsuit.
John Cena’s hit superhero show Peacemaker is currently airing its first season on HBO Max, after being introduced as a character in last year’s Suicide Squad film. The show’s unexpected momentum has been praised by fans, as many are pleasantly surprised by Cena’s lovable character and the story arch. This begs the question: will the show return for a second season?
The series follows Cena’s Suicide Squad character as he joins a black ops squad to eradicate extra-terrestrial beings. The season finale of the show will air later this month, but fans are already wondering if Cena will reprise his role as the weirdly lovable antihero for a second season.
“There’s a really good chance of that,” creator James Gunn said. “The show is doing extraordinarily well, and we’re excited, we all like doing it, we just need to cross some Ts and dot some Is, which is basically me,” the director added. “[Peacemaker] got more subscribers for HBO, billions of people saw it on HBO; for Peacemaker it worked out really well.”
So, a second season hasn’t officially been ordered, but due to the success of the first season, it’s very likely the show will return to HBO Max. The streaming site has already asked Gunn to make a second Suicide Squad series, so they are clearly impressed by his work. Hey, if anyone can get John Cena bravely dancing in his underwear, they must be good at their job.
According to Page Six, Palin has been making the most of her time in Manhattan, where she’s preparing to square off against The New York Times in a defamation suit over a 2017 editorial that she says falsely linked her to the 2011 mass shooting in Arizona that wounded Rep. Gabby Giffords. The politician and the athlete were first spotted together last week, when they dined outdoors at Elio’s on the Upper East Side. It was Palin’s second time at the restaurant in just as many days; she has previously dined there—indoors—just before testing positive for COVID. She returned to the restaurant a couple days later to apologize for the media frenzy surrounding her night out, then ate there again (this time outdoors) with Duguay in tow.
While sources told Page Six that the couple has became romantically involved since late 2021, a source close to Palin told People that the two are “just friends” and that they “met through hockey,” whatever that means.
Friends or otherwise, Page Six couldn’t help but notice that when Palin showed up for court on Thursday, she was carrying a New York Rangers face mask with her. While Duguay’s team has not issued any statement on the matter, his dating history is pretty impressive. After dating Farah Fawcett in the ‘80s, Duguay married supermodel Kim Alexis in 1993; the couple divorced in 2013. Palin, meanwhile, split from Todd Palin—her husband of more than 30 years—in 2019.
Joel Embiid has never been afraid of stirring things up on social media — hell, he even goes by “Troel” on Twitter — but on Thursday night a tweet by the Sixers big man got confused by many as him calling out Ben Simmons when, in fact, he was simply catching up on the AFCON semifinal between Cameroon and Egypt that he missed the end of due to the Sixers’ flight to Dallas.
In what became the first in a string of tweets about Cameroon’s meltdown in penalty kicks against Egypt, in which they missed three out of four attempts to lose, Embiid simply tweeted a photo of Charmin Ultra Soft toilet paper.
Given that yesterday featured a report that Ben Simmons was upset that Embiid put blame on him after last year’s playoffs when Simmons felt he could’ve done the same to Embiid in 2019 and didn’t, it was understandable why people would’ve immediately jumped to the thought that Embiid was finally fed up enough with the situation to call out his longtime teammate. However, as Embiid continued tweeting, it became clear that this wasn’t a vicious subtweet of Simmons, but simply the Cameroon native expressing his frustrations with his beloved national soccer squad fumbling away a chance at an AFCON final with dreadful penalty kicks.
For those hoping for an escalation of the current cold war in Philly between the Sixers and Simmons, I’m sorry to disappoint you. However, I’m sure Embiid also knew what he was doing when he led with that, allowing people’s minds to race to Simmons before he continued on to make clear it was about Cameroon’s AFCON tournament run ending in disappointing fashion.
The Brooklyn Nets have been without guard Joe Harris since mid November due to an ankle injury, depriving them of a key floor spacer for a large chunk of the season. Now, it seems possible that Harris will miss even more time.
Per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Harris may need a second surgery on his injured left ankle. Whether or not Harris will get the surgery, Harris’ agent Mark Bartelstein told ESPN, will be decided upon how Harris progresses over the next ‘one or two weeks.’ It is possible, per ESPN, that Harris could return to action without having to have another operation.
Originally, Harris was expected to miss 4-8 weeks with the injury, but has missed much more time than that due to setbacks in his rehab. He was originally injured on Nov. 14 and subsequently had surgery on Nov. 29 to deal with what was deemed “a little bone particle.”
Harris is a needed piece for Brooklyn. One of the league’s best floor spacers, he’s a key piece to provide room for Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving to work. (That trio has had limited time together this season for various reasons, only compounding the problems Brooklyn is facing.) When he’s not available, they don’t really have a way to replace the three-point shooting he provides. Perhaps if they can get their three stars on the floor all at once the Nets can still figure it out and make a real title run. But that assumes Harris will come back at all, which doesn’t seem like a guarantee if he has to have another surgery.
Prior to his injury, Harris was averaging 11.3 points per game while shooting 45.2% from the field and 46.6% from three.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has a complicated relationship with the truth. Case in point: On Thursday morning, as the state braced for an impending winter storm, Abbott promised his nearly 30 million residents that all would be well in the Lone Star State.
“We are dealing with one of the most significant icing events that we’ve had in the state of Texas in at least several decades,” Abbott said, according to The New York Times. Yet he noted that “the power grid is performing very well. There is plenty of power available at this time, as well as plenty of power expected for the remainder of today and early tomorrow.” But as of Thursday evening, temperatures across the state are below freezing and more than 70,000 residents are without power, Raw Story reports.
“It’s a little traumatic,” Corpus Christi resident Angelica Carlin told her local newspaper, according to Raw Story. “It’s like last year. Déjà vu all over again.”
The déjà vu Carlin is experiencing is understandable. It was almost one year ago that the state was walloped with a massive ice storm that left millions of people without power. Among the power-less were senator Ted Cruz and his family, who decided to high-tail it to Cancun for a little fun in the Mexican sun.
Cruz became an even bigger punch line, then unfortunately tried to get in on the joke, which only made his abandoning his constituents look worse. Also: Approximately 700 people died. Unfortunately, Cruz is still at it and just yesterday, ahead of the storm, tweeted about the price of a plane ticket to Cancun.
Speaking of statements you might want to take back: If Abbott has a DeLorean or TARDIS stashed away somewhere, he might want to hop inside and travel back to November. That’s when, according to KUT90.5, Austin’s NPR affiliate, Abbott stupidly said the words: “I can guarantee the lights will stay on.” When reminded of that statement, Abbott had no choice but to backtrack, noting:
“No one can guarantee that there won’t be a load shed event. But what we will work and strive to achieve and what we are prepared to achieve is that the power will stay on across the entire state.”
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) in November: “I can guarantee the lights will stay on.”
The James B. Beam distillery is more than just Jim Beam bourbon. Although Jim Beam is the biggest selling bourbon in the world, there’s a lot more going on in Clermont, Kentucky than making white-label bottles of Beam. There are eight bourbon brands that come out of Beam’s distilleries altogether, and those are what we’re here to blind taste today.
Beam’s eight bourbons are fairly varied both in taste and price. Perhaps more importantly, Beam has two bourbon mash bills. The standard mash is 75 percent corn, 13 percent rye, and 12 percent malted barley. That covers classic Jim Beam, Knob Creek, Baker’s, Old Crow, Legent, and Booker’s expressions. Then there’s their high-rye bourbon mash bill of 63 percent corn, 27 percent rye, and ten percent malted barley. That whiskey ends up in Basil Hayden’s and Old Grand-Dad.
For this blind tasting, I’m focusing on those eight bourbons — no rye whiskeys or Little Book (a blended straight whiskey) today — to see which one really stands out as the ultimate Beam bourbon brand. I’m keeping bottles as close to similar as possible — that is I’m not pulling a wild single barrel limited edition Jim Beam you can’t find and pretending that’s going to be comparable to Old Crow or Old Grand-Dad. The lineup today is all pretty standard bottles of Beam’s bourbons that you should be able to find and taste for yourself.
The lineup today includes:
Knob Creek Small Batch 9-Year
Baker’s Single Barrel 7-Year
Booker’s 2021 Batch 3 “Bardstown Batch”
Old Crow
Basil Hayden’s 10-Year
Jim Beam Single Barrel 95 Proof
Old Grand-Dad Bonded
Legent Bourbon
Let’s dive in!
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months
This is classic from the jump. The nose is a balanced mix of bourbon vanilla, cinnamon spice, and fresh popcorn just touched with browned butter all next to a hint of mild cherry. The palate is a soft mix of almond shells, orange oils, and fresh cinnamon rolls cut with plenty of vanilla icing. The mid-palate has an old wicker chair vibe with a hint of must to it next to a touch of old leather that ends up on a dry cherry tobacco leaf.
Taste 2
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
This opens with a sweet Christmas cake vibe on the nose with plenty of creamy vanilla next to old leather belts and musty cellar beams. The taste is almost shockingly sweet for just a moment before vanilla pound cake with poppy seeds veers the palate toward sticky cherry tobacco. That spicy/fruity/sweet mid-palate fades away and you’re left with this savory green herbal and a floral note on the finish that ebbs between fresh rosemary sprigs and dried eucalyptus with an echo of powdered coriander.
Taste 3
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
We’re back to a classic bourbon nose that’s bursting with old cherry tobacco leaves, worn-yet-somehow-sweet leather, oily vanilla pods (the expensive ones), chewy caramel candies, and this sense of wet charcoal (think of an old outdoor grill after a rainstorm). There’s a slight woody sassafras note on the palate that leads towards a cherry root beer vibe before subtle apple sauce full of cinnamon and nutmeg drives the silken taste towards marzipan, raw cornbread batter, dark chocolate, more of that cherry tobacco, and a final whisper of dry old wicker.
Taste 4
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Wow, this is thin on the nose already. There are hints of vanilla, overcooked popcorn, caramel, and what feels like fresh slices of Wonder Bread. The sip is almost invisible on the tip of the tongue and very watery but does have echoes of sweet cherry candy, caramel apples, and vanilla extract in there. Those notes almost immediately disappear into the watery nature of the sip with no discernable finish.
Taste 5
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
This is pretty light too but has a lot more going on from the nose onward. There’s a clear sense of old cellar beams with a touch of cobweb next to rich vanilla, eggnog spices and creaminess, and a hint of indistinct pepperiness. The palate starts off creamy and sweet like a vanilla cream pie cut with wintry spice. That spice focuses on a black peppercorn with a hint of woody maple syrup, more of that old cellar wood, and a light dusting of dark chocolate powder. The end is short and a little thin while leaning more into the old cellar beams and pepper than anything else.
Taste 6
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
There’s a light sense of toasted oak on the nose next to kettle corn with a hint of butter, vanilla beans, and Cherry Coke. The taste opens with a honeyed sweetness that leads towards orange oils, wintry spice, cherry tobacco, caramel cornballs, and a hint of that oak. The mid-palate marries that cherry tobacco to the dry wood from a cherry tree that then fades out quickly, leaving you with a watery end.
Taste 7
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
There’s an indistinct “pepper” on the nose that’s countered by vanilla extract, soft winter spices, and equally soft suede. The palate is a full-on Christmas cake cut with orange zest, dried fruit, and almonds that leads towards a green peppercorn spice and a layer of dry cornmeal. The end is shortish and leans into dry cherry tobacco, more of those peppercorns, and dry old wicker that’s spent too long on the deck.
Taste 8
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
This opens with a rich and lush sticky toffee pudding with hints of marzipan, rich vanilla cream, and oaky spice on the nose. The taste leans into woody cinnamon sticks and allspice berries mingling with nutmeg, dried cherries, and plum jam with a subtle spicy edge. That plummy jamminess drives towards a finish full of lush marzipan and spice while a hint of dried cherry tobacco arrives on the end with a cedar box vibe.
This is a classic bourbon that became part of Jim Beam about 30-odd years ago. Until then, it was famed for being the drink of choice of President Grant, back in the 1870s — which gave it a lot to hang its hat on as a brand. The juice in the bottle is a year younger than a typical Jim Beam bourbon and it cut way down to 80 proof for bottling.
Bottom Line:
Meh. That’s all this left me with. It was so watery and indistinct. You can skip this altogether.
This bourbon is the same juice as Old Grand-Dad. This is aged longer and built to match a different flavor profile even though both brands use the same high-rye distillate.
Bottom Line:
This was miles ahead of Old Crow. Still, it was pretty thin thanks to that low 80 proof. The wateriness sneaked into the palate and just kind of muted everything. That being said, this is incredibly easy to drink and does have a clear flavor profile. So, I’d say that this would be a good introduction to bourbon for a newbie.
This high-rye whiskey is aged for at least four years. The bonded barrels are then vatted according to the Old Grand-Dad flavor profile and bottled at 50 percent, which lets a bit more of the juice shine in the bottle.
Bottom Line:
This was fine. It’s a good shot and beer bourbon, for sure. I could see using this in a cocktail in a pinch thanks to those ABVs. There’s certainly enough going on that it’ll stand up to mixing in a classic cocktail.
These bottles are pulled from single barrels that hit just the right spot of taste, texture, and drinkability according to the master distillers at Beam. That means this juice is pulled from less than one percent of all barrels in Beam’s warehouses, making this a very special bottle at a bafflingly affordable price (for a single barrel).
Bottom Line:
This is more refined Jim Beam and it kind of works for me. It’s not “amazing” or “blow your socks off” bourbon but it’s not meant to be. This is good, solid bourbon that’s amazingly drinkable neat, or in a cocktail, for under $50.
What more could you ask for a single barrel bourbon?
This is the first single barrel release from Baker’s, which has phased out its small-batch expressions. The juice comes from hand-selected barrels from specific spots in the Beam warehouses from whiskey that’s at least seven years old. In this case, we’re talking an eight-year-and-seven-month-old barrel.
Bottom Line:
This is the biggest outlier in the whole line. That veer into savory herbs and florals at the end is pretty damn cool. The only reason this isn’t higher is that the next three bourbons are all fantastic too.
This is Jim Beam’s small batch entry point into the wider world of Knob Creek. The juice is the low-rye mash that’s aged for nine years in new oak in Beam’s vast warehouses. The right barrels are then vatted and cut down to 100 proof before being bottled in new, wavy bottles.
Bottom Line:
I can’t overstate how “classic” this bourbon feels. It’s comforting and really easy to drink while still having serious depth. Pour this over a couple of rocks and you’ll be set. Or throw it in your favorite whiskey cocktail and let it shine there. It’s up to you.
This bottle from Beam Suntory marries Kentucky bourbon, California wine, and Japanese whisky blending in one bottle. Legent is classic Beam bourbon (low-rye) made by bourbon legend Fred Noe that’s finished in French oak that held red wine and Spanish sherry casks. The juice is then blended by whisky blending legend Shinji Fukuyo at Suntory.
Bottom Line:
This was delightful. I had been only really using this to mix up cocktails but it really stood out as a great sipper during this blind taste test. I’ll have to rethink only using this for cocktails going forward and start sipping this on a rock or two.
The whiskey in the bottle is the classic Jim Beam low-rye mash bill that’s hand-selected for its excellence. In this case, the barrels were aged for exactly six years and five months before the juice went into the bottle untouched at cask strength.
Bottom Line:
This was like drinking silk imbued with beautiful and classic bourbon notes. It was a dream to sip, even neat, in this lineup. It’s also the bottle I wanted to return to immediately. I do think Legent came close to this, but this bottle had the edge thanks to the velvet texture/mouthfeel and a little more depth in the flavor profile.
Part 3: Final Thoughts
Zach Johnston
Cards on the table, I’m not at all surprised by any of this. I’m a huge Beam stan and drink a fair amount of the juice from Clermont. I also know what I don’t touch on my whiskey shelves and that’s Old Crow and Basil Hayden’s. That 80 proof juice is just too thin for me these days.
That aside, Booker’s winning with Legent as a close second didn’t feel off either. Though, I do wonder if other Booker’s releases would have been inched out by Legent — or Knob Creek 12 — in an alternate reality blind taste test. But that’s a story for another day. Until then, if you see some Booker’s or Legent on the shelf on your next trip to the liquor store, don’t hesitate to give them a shot.
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