Month: March 2022

For quite some time, hip-hop has been dominated by a style that fans have come to describe as “toxicity.” Pioneered by moody rappers like Future and Drake, it’s marked by passive aggression, avoidant attachment, and audio gaslighting, with rappers and singers delighting in keeping their significant others guessing in the narratives of their songs. Notably, this style has also been dominated by men — until now.

Atlanta newcomer Kali looks to shake up the status quo with her debut EP, Toxic Chocolate, in which she turns the tables on the f*ckboys of hip-hop, using their manipulative tactics to even the odds and give them a taste of their own medicine. After initially gaining popularity on TikTok — how else? — with her breakout single “Mmm Mmm,” Kali makes the most of that attention on Toxic Chocolate, demonstrating her gift for wordplay and her spicy relationship sensibilities.

In the standout single “UonU” featuring Yung Bleu, Kali promises to play an Uno reverse card on a cheating boyfriend, while on “Standards,” she throws down a gauntlet, explaining why she “ain’t doin’ that back and forth sh*t.” Further promoting the new EP, she revels in other women’s relationship drama and gives them some supremely bad — but satisfying — advice via her Toxic Chocolate Hotline skit, which you can watch above.

Kali’s already off to a great start and will build on that momentum this month when she joins her “Mmm Mmm” collaborator, fellow Atlantan Latto, on the Monster Energy Outbreak Tour kicking off March 19 in Santa Cruz, California, with more episodes of her Hotline to come.

Watch episode one of the Toxic Chocolate Hotline series featuring Sukihana above and stream Toxic Chocolate here.

Orville Peck, famous shoegaze cowboy, announced his new album Bronco last month alongside the release of “C’mon Baby, Cry,” and stated that he was “inspired by country rock, ’60s & ’70s psychedelic, California and bluegrass with everything being anchored in country.” Today, Chapter Two of the album is out, following the unveiling of Chapter One.

Chapter Two includes the singles “The Curse Of The Blackened Eye,” “Kalahari Down,” “Trample Out The Days” and “Hexie Mountains,” the first of which comes with a music video. Despite the humor of his fringed mask and incredibly deep baritone, his words hold wisdom: “It ain’t the letting go / it’s more about the things that you take with,” he intones with certainty.

“The songs on Bronco’s second chapter explore some of the most vulnerable places I’ve ever gone to with my music,” Orville said. “I sing about home, escape, longing, resentment… This chapter, lyrically, has some of my favourite songs on the album. Plus I’ve always been a sucker for a ballad.”

These songs join the previously-unleashed “C’mon Baby, Cry,” “Daytona Sand,” “Outta Time,” and “Any Turn” from Chapter One. All that’s left now is Chapter Three.

Bronco will be out 4/8 via Columbia Records. Pre-order it here.

“A little while before we went into lockdown, a boy in my class came up to me and said that his dad told him to stay away from Chinese people,” Mila de la Garza of punk band The Linda Lindas says at the start of a now-viral video of the band performing their song “Racist, Sexist Boy.” “After I told him that I was Chinese, he backed away from me.”

Mila wrote the song with bandmate Eloise Wong. “I was really angry at the person in [Mila’s] class and I was really angry at the world in general,” Wong said over Zoom. “I think it was something that I really needed to get out.” Mila added: “It’s not okay to say or do things like that and it’s so important for all the other people who have also experienced something like that, to let them know that they’re not alone. And I think it was really awesome and cool that we got to do that.”

The video, filmed at the Los Angeles Public Library for AAPI Heritage Month in May 2021 now has over 4 million views on Twitter and over a million views on YouTube. The band has gotten shout-outs from musicians like Hayley Williams, Tom Morello, and Questlove.

The song’s most compelling lines spell out exactly what The Linda Lindas — and punk in general — set out to do: call out injustice and push for change. “You are a racist, sexist boy / And you have racist, sexist joys / We rebuild what you destroy,” Wong sings with confidence and defiance.

“As younger people, as kids, or as girls, or as people of color, we’ll, a lot of the time, feel like, ‘What can we do about it? What can we do in our lives that can actually make a difference?’ And it was cool that that video actually did. People reached out to us and told us about how it somehow impacted them – that was really special to us,” Lucia said.

The Linda Lindas got their name from the 2005 Japanese film Linda Linda Linda in which a group of teen girls perform the song “Linda Linda” by the Blue Hearts. The Asian and Latinx band includes sisters Mila (11) and Lucia de la Garza (14), on drums and guitar respectively, with their cousin Wong (13) on bass and family friend Bela Salazar (17) on guitar, with all four members trading off on vocals.

For most of the band’s members, their interest in music started with their parents. Lucia and Mila’s father, Carlos de la Garza, is a Grammy-winning mixer, sound engineer, and producer. Not only has he worked with Paramore, Bleached, and Best Coast, but he also produced The Linda Lindas’ upcoming record, Growing Up. Wong’s parents put on the Save Music in Chinatown series to raise money for the music program at her school, Castelar Elementary. Her father, Martin Wong, is the co-founder of Giant Robot magazine.

“There was always a record going on in my house,” Wong said. “We were constantly making mixtapes and making zines. I was surrounded by punk culture.” But the four of them didn’t play their first show until 2018, when Kristin Kontrol from the Dum Dum Girls invited them to be a part of a cover band of kids playing Girlschool LA in 2018. That same summer, Salazar asked the rest of the band to play with her at another gig.

Since then, they’ve become a part of Los Angeles’ DIY punk scene, playing with Best Coast, Bleached, and Alice Bag and opening for Bikini Kill’s reunion show at the Hollywood Palladium in 2019. In May 2021, they signed to punk and hardcore label Epitaph Records, which was founded by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz, cementing the young band’s status as punk mainstays. “We were drawn to punk because of the energy and the freedom in it. It’s like, do it yourself, do what you want, do what matters to you, do what you love, do it with people you love,” Lucia said.

The Linda Lindas brought their love of punk to the screen when they wrote their first song “Claudia Kishi,” for Netflix’s documentary The Claudia Kishi Club, about the character from the Baby-Sitters Club series. They also performed a cover of Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” in the Amy Poehler-directed Netflix film Moxie.

They’re committed to releasing socially-conscious music. In 2020, they released “Vote!” which contains the lyrics “You can’t just watch and stare / While the people in charge are unfair / You’ve gotta put it to a stop / And go to the ballot box.”

Their upcoming debut album was written in the summer and fall of 2021, before “Racist, Sexist Boy” went viral. It was written remotely, complicated by the fact that all four members write songs, and each has her own distinct taste in music. The songs were mostly written individually, apart from “Racist, Sexist Boy,” “Oh!,” which was written by the whole band together, and “Magic,” written by Mila and Lucia.

The final product is an insight into the band members’ lives, dealing with isolation and uncertainty during the pandemic. Growing Up also covers a range of topics including bullying (“Oh!”), self-doubt (“Talking to Myself”), and Salazar’s cat (“Nino”.)

There are also forays outside of punk. Salazar wrote “Cuantas Veces” in Spanish — inspired by Bossa Nova and Latin music — about feeling out of place. “I grew up listening to a lot of Bossa Nova. I grew up speaking Spanish – I learned Spanish and English at the same time – and speaking Spanish is really important to me,” Salazar said.

The Linda Lindas have exploded at the same time rock music is spiking in popularity, especially punk-influenced music. “It’s been making a comeback, partly because of a lot of civil rights movements, a lot of political stuff and because people are saying, ‘We need to say something because it’s been going on for too long,’” Lucia said. And The Linda Lindas are using their songs to get across important messages. “Punk is amplifying your own voice when no one else will. I think that’s a really cool part of punk. Making zines is totally telling your story when no one else will tell it. Or writing music like, ‘Racist, Sexist, Boy,’ it’s telling [Mila’s] story when no one else was talking about it,” Wong said

The band’s sound draws from punk across eras, but there’s a distinct riot grrrl influence. The ’90s’ feminist punk movement was criticized for not being intersectional, but The Linda Lindas represent an updated, more inclusive take on the genre. Rock and punk acts today are more diverse than they were before, but it hasn’t come without challenges for those artists, when audiences sometimes view them through the lens of their identity. There’s an added dimension for The Linda Lindas: they’re all under 18. “Obviously we are kids, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know stuff,” Mila said. “It doesn’t mean we don’t want to say things, doesn’t mean we don’t understand what’s happening and we want to understand,” Lucia added.

The Linda Lindas are pushing past these challenges to make the music they want, and it’s inspiring others. “Representation matters,” Lucia said. “You don’t see a lot of all-girl bands, or all people of color bands or anything like that – all the things that we are. I think it’s important that everyone, of every age, of any gender or any race, knows that they can do anything, whenever, at any point in their life. There’s something inside them and it’s really special.”

Growing Up is out 4/8 via Epitaph. Pre-order it here.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

In addition to being a rap star with beloved mixtapes like 1999 and party-starting singles such as “The Revenge” to his name, Joey Badass has been building out his acting resume, adding roles in Hulu’s Wu-Tang: An American Saga and Grown-ish to his ever-expanding list of accomplishments. However, he recently missed out on a highly coveted role in the Jay-Z-produced, Jeymes Samuel-directed Western, The Harder They Fall, as he revealed in a new interview with Ebro Darden for Apple Music. Originally, the role of cocky quickdraw gunslinger Jim Beckwourth, played in the film by RJ Cyler, was meant for Joey.

After meeting Samuel at the Roc Nation Brunch in 2020, Joey says Samuel first pitched him the role of Beckwourth. “He said he was working on this crazy film, which was The Harder They Fall,” Joey recalled. “He had this role for me. Like, you see dude with the pistols and sh*t? That’s supposed to be me. Shout to my man RJ [Cyler] though, who actually got the role. The young dude with the two pistols and everything. Jeymes wanted me to play that role.”

Unfortunately, it turned out Joey’s success in securing new acting roles actually prevented him from accepting this one. “[Samuel] called me a few months later, it was like March,” he continued. “He was like, ‘Yo, I need you to come to Arizona,’ I think that’s where they were shooting it, or New Mexico, something like that, so I could do this role. I had just accepted the role on Power for Unique, so now it was like a conflict. We were still trying to make it work, but unfortunately, it didn’t work.”

Eventually, though, Samuel helped Joey land the role in the Oscar-winning short film Two Distant Strangers, so things weren’t all that bad. You can check out the video of the full interview below.

Following the success of The Mandalorian and its spinoff, The Book of Boba Fett, Disney+ is gearing up to release Obi-Wan Kenobi, its next live-action Star Wars series set that dives back into the world of the Prequel Trilogy. Taking place 10 years after Revenge of the Sith, the story will focus on an exiled Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) as he keeps a watchful eye over a young Luke Skywalker, who’s hidden from his villainous father Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) on the planet Tatooine. However, judging by the teaser trailer, the Empire’s elite Jedi-hunting force of Inquisitors comes dangerously close to the boy as they’re shown on Tatooine hunting for a Jedi on the run.

As for when Obi-Wan Kenobi will premiere on Disney+: May 25, just in time for the Memorial Day weekend. The live-action Star Wars adventure will arrive shortly after Marvel’s Moon Knight, making Obi-Wan Kenobi the streaming platform’s banner series for the summer as it runs for six episodes, all directed by Deborah Chow.

Here’s the official synopsis for Obi-Wan Kenobi, which as you can see, boasts one heck of a cast:

The story begins 10 years after the dramatic events of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” where Obi-Wan Kenobi faced his greatest defeat—the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side as evil Sith Lord Darth Vader. The series stars Ewan McGregor, reprising his role as the iconic Jedi Master, and also marks the return of Hayden Christensen in the role of Darth Vader. Joining the cast are Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell and Benny Safdie.

Obi-Wan Kenobi starts streaming May 25 on Disney+.

With a month remaining in the 2021-22 NBA season, most teams in the league are focused on the present, at least to some degree. For a handful of teams at the bottom of the standings, however, everything is future-facing, and that includes a deep focus on the upcoming 2022 NBA Draft. It is still (very) early in the draft process in mid-March but, with the 2022 NCAA Tournament set to begin in short order, the attention of the basketball world moves to the college ranks and to the pre-draft process.

The general consensus of the 2022 class revolves around a clear top four, with Duke’s Paolo Banchero, Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren, Auburn’s Jabari Smith, and Purdue’s Jaden Ivey taking center stage. After that, there are wild cards and, in general, there is a lot of room for players to leave marks on the process on the college game’s biggest stage this month. In advance of the madness, though, it is time to roll out a pre-tournament NBA Mock Draft, acknowledging that a lot will change in the coming days.

Note: Draft order according to NBA standings as of Thursday, March 10.

1) Orlando Magic – Chet Holmgren (C/F, Gonzaga)

At this very early stage in the process, team fit isn’t the most important thing in this mock. Acknowledging that, we’re rolling with Holmgren, who is No. 1 on our big board. Orlando wouldn’t necessarily be the perfect destination with a log-jam of frontcourt options, but Holmgren’s ceiling is sky-high with his defensive length and aptitude and moldable offensive game. He isn’t the same kind of clear No. 1 that Cade Cunningham was at this point a year ago, but Holmgren is a monster prospect.

2) Houston Rockets – Jabari Smith (F, Auburn)

There are some concerns about Smith as a ball-handler and play-maker, but he is an obscene shooter. Anytime a player is getting compared to Kevin Durant from a length and shooting perspective, that is probably a good sign. Smith seems like a mortal lock to be a 20-point scorer in the NBA. Houston is almost assuredly in BPA mode at this stage of their rebuild and, at two, that’d be Smith.

3) Detroit Pistons – Jaden Ivey (G, Purdue)

Putting Ivey next to Cunningham would be fun. Unlike Cunningham, Ivey is an elite athlete and he can wreck the opposition with that force. He’s also come a long way as a shooter, and Ivey has the tools to be a good defender in time. He isn’t a good defender now and he’ll need to improve his array of lead guard skills, but Ivey’s breakout has been fun.

4) Oklahoma City Thunder – Paolo Banchero (F, Duke)

Banchero was No. 1 on a lot of boards a few months ago, and it wouldn’t be crazy to have him there now. He’s more of a pure 4 than anything, but Banchero is more than willing to be a lead shot creator and he can get off difficult attempts to carry a late-clock offense. On the other hand, he isn’t an elite shooter just yet, and his defense has some work to do. Still, the Thunder would love to add more frontcourt talent and Banchero fits the bill.

5) Indiana Pacers – Shaedon Sharpe (G/F, Kentucky)

Sharpe may not be in the draft, and that is a bizarre statement to type for a top-five pick. However, he hasn’t played at the college level after reclassifying, and the former No. 1 prospect for 2023 has some questions as a result. If he declares (and is granted eligibility for the draft), it is hard see Sharpe falling much further than this. He’s a crazy athlete and has the kind of wing superstar appeal that every team wants.

6) Sacramento Kings – A.J. Griffin (F/G, Duke)

Griffin has great tools and is shooting the ball phenomenally well recently. He also had a dreadful start to the season, even with injury caveats, and it’s been a weird ride in the last couple of years overall. I’m personally buying him as being “back” as an elite prospect, and he brings immediate versatility and value with his shooting, athleticism, and size.

7) San Antonio Spurs – Johnny Davis (G, Wisconsin)

Davis might be the best player in college basketball this season, carrying an otherwise mediocre Wisconsin team to lofty heights. He’s made a ton of big shots and has enjoyed a breakout that most didn’t see coming. He’s also relatively limited from a size standpoint and may not be able to carry the same kind of offensive usage in the NBA. If he’s a role player, this might be too lofty, particularly if he’s merely a solid defender than a plus one, but he’s a very strong prospect.

8) Portland Trail Blazers – Keegan Murray (F, Iowa)

I was pretty skeptical of Murray early in the season when he was bludgeoning mid-major (and low-major) opponents. Most of that skepticism is gone now, as he played very well in Big Ten play and maintained efficiency. The next hurdle is translation to the NBA game, where he is probably a 4 on defense and someone who isn’t quite a No. 1 scorer. Fortunately, he has really good size and his transition appeal is clear.

9) Portland Trail Blazers (via New Orleans) – Jalen Duren (C, Memphis)

When Duren was viewed as a potential top-five pick, there were worries about over-drafting for a rim-running big man. Now that the hype has cooled a bit, it’s easier to take him in the mid-late lottery. Duren has showcased his skills much better during a recent run by Memphis, and he is an athletic monster with a reported 7’6 wingspan. He’s not going to be an offensive star, but the defensive ceiling is sky-high and he’ll finish anything around the rim.

10) New York Knicks – Ochai Agbaji (G/F, Kansas)

I wish Agbaji was 6’7 or 6’8, but other than that, his projection as a quality role player is very evident. He’s been great for Kansas as a lead option this season, but in the NBA, he’ll be a catch-and-shoot guy who defends at a high level on and off ball. Every squad needs that.

11) Memphis Grizzlies (via Lakers) – Bennedict Mathurin (G/F, Arizona)

I was mocking Mathurin as a first-rounder a year ago, even while acknowledging it was a year early for him. He went back to school, clearly improved, and vaulted his stock into the mid-late lottery range. He’s a fantastic shooter, and Mathurin has shown more off the bounce skill this season. Defensively, it’s not perfect, but the tools are solid and he should be able to hold up eventually.

12) Washington Wizards – TyTy Washington (G, Kentucky)

By now, anyone doubting Kentucky guards is doing so at their own peril. Beyond that (with tongue in cheek), Washington has shown a lot as a shot creator, and he is very smart. He’s more of a combo guard, so situation will be important, but he can get his own shot and pass at an impressive level.

13) Atlanta Hawks – Dyson Daniels (G, G League Ignite)

The Hawks have been a defensive disaster this season, and they’ve also been looking for defense-first backcourt partner with Trae Young for a while. Daniels is very young, and he has a long way to go on offense, but his defensive tools are very impressive. He’s also a ball-mover and is potentially closer to making an impact than a typical one-and-done guy in this range.

14) Charlotte Hornets – Walker Kessler (C, Auburn)

Kessler is probably the best defender in the draft, at least in the short term. He has been one of the best shot blockers in the history of college basketball (not hyperbole) and is the anchor of a top-tier team at Auburn. This is higher than I’d want to take him in the current landscape of the NBA, but there are a ton of centers in this class and some of them will creep up the board. Charlotte’s need for a defensive presence is not a secret, and Kessler would certainly fit the bill.

15) Houston Rockets (via Brooklyn) – Kendall Brown (F, Baylor)

This is a pure upside/athleticism play. Brown is not a fantastic offensive player right now, to say the least, and he doesn’t assert himself on that end. There is a fun package of cutting and finishing in his bag, but he doesn’t have much in the way of ball skills or a reliable jumper. On defense, he is a mega-athlete that should create havoc, but there are raw moments. Houston can afford some swings and keep Brown in the state of Texas.

16) Oklahoma City Thunder (via Clippers) – Jeremy Sochan (F, Baylor)

There is some intentionality in having Brown and Sochan back-to-back. Brown was more on the radar in the preseason for the 2022 class, where as Sochan has come on and gotten the “pre-draft” moniker as a very, very interesting long-term guy that probably isn’t ready yet. The Thunder are in a position to be patient and have a bundle of picks.

17) San Antonio Spurs (via Toronto) – E.J. Liddell (F, Ohio State)

Liddell is an older guy who is one of the ten best college players in the country. He also doesn’t have a super easy defensive translation in the modern NBA, but he is scoring efficiently and doing all the little things for Ohio State. That seems like a Spurs guy.

18) Minnesota Timberwolves – Tari Eason (F, LSU)

Observers are all over the place on Eason, but he is up my alley. His defense is excellent, and Eason projects to defend multiple positions effectively at 6’8 with power. That can carry him to a rotation level in the NBA, but he’ll need to make threes to unlock his true high-end potential. That is a big question, but if you buy his ability to improve there, he could be a lottery guy.

19) Indiana Pacers (via Cleveland) – MarJon Beauchamp (G/F, G League Ignite)

While Beauchamp is in the G League Ignite program, he is much older (21) than most prospects he’s playing with this season. That isn’t an impediment necessarily, but rather a potentially important piece of context. At any rate, he’s a good athlete who defends and plays hard at 6’6. The question is whether he can do enough on offense.

20) San Antonio Spurs (via Boston) – Patrick Baldwin Jr. (F, Milwaukee)

In a draft full of uncertainty, Baldwin Jr. still stands out on the weirdness scale. He was a consensus top-10 player coming into college, but went to play for his father at Milwaukee and had a dreadful season at a mid-major level. To be fair, he projects as a high-level role player and Baldwin Jr. was not perfectly set up to be “the guy,” even at Milwaukee. Still, the numbers and eye test were bad enough where it wouldn’t be completely stunning if he fell out of the first round.

21) Dallas Mavericks – Jaden Hardy (G, G League Ignite)

Hardy is a bucket getter with shot selection issues and inconsistency questions. He does bring very high upside on offense and, at some point, a team is going to fall in love in the workout process. Perhaps even higher than this.

22) Chicago Bulls – Justin Lewis (F, Marquette)

Lewis isn’t a sexy prospect, but he’s 6’7 with a 7’1 wingspan and he projects as a combo forward role player. Every team needs that, particularly if his jumper goes in. There are at least some concerns about athletic pop with Lewis, but at No. 22, that’s not as big of a problem.

23) Denver Nuggets – Trevor Keels (G, Duke)

Keels came flying out of the gate for Duke but subtly regressed, at least in the numbers, during the season. His defensive potential is very, very interesting as a rangy athlete who knows how to play, but he’ll need to clean up some offensive stuff in the near future.

24) Brooklyn Nets (via Philadelphia) – Mark Williams (C, Duke)

There is nuance here, but the simple explanation is that Williams projects as a potential starting center in the NBA, even without too much star potential. He’s incredibly long, flashes plenty on defense, rebounds, and finishes at the rim. The Nets need a long-term guy to potentially pair with (or replace) Nic Claxton.

25) Milwaukee Bucks – Nikola Jovic (F, Mega)

If you haven’t noticed, this is not a strong international class, and Jovic is the first guy off the board. He is a fun passer at 6’10 and he projects as a willing and potentially solid shooter. The questions arrive on defense.

26) Memphis Grizzlies (via Utah) – Jean Montero (G, Overtime Elite)

Montero is going to have to shoot better than he has with Overtime Elite. If he doesn’t, he shouldn’t be a first-rounder, simply because he is small, not a high-end passer at point guard, and not a great defender. The talent is clear, though, and this is a flat class once you get to this range.

27) Miami Heat – Ousmane Dieng (F, New Zealand Breakers)

Dieng is pretty far away right now, but the tools are there for him to be a versatile forward in the future. Getting him into Miami’s developmental pipeline would be fun.

28) Golden State Warriors – Harrison Ingram (F, Stanford)

Like many guys on this list, Ingram’s freshman year didn’t go according to plan. But at the same time, he’s a very good passer who plays a smart game and has defensive potential. The Warriors should’ve seen him plenty from close by and he fits better with Golden State than most teams.

29) Memphis Grizzlies – Malaki Branham (F/G, Ohio State)

This is an upside play for a guy who wasn’t really on the radar too much as a first-rounder a few months ago. Branham has come on strong, and his offensive tools are very tantalizing when paired with his size and athleticism.

30) Oklahoma City Thunder (via Phoenix) – Christian Koloko (C, Arizona)

Koloko joins Kessler and Williams among pure centers in this top-30. He’s been the best defender in the Pac-12 and has plenty of size and upside.

There has been a slew of copyright cases in the music industry as of late, from Dua Lipa getting sued for “Levitating” to Sam Smith and Normani getting sued for “Dancing With A Stranger.” Luckily, though, Katy Perry finally won her “Dark Horse” case, which dates all the way back to 2014.

In 2019, she lost the case when the jury decided that Perry replicated the underlying beat of Marcus Gray’s, aka Flame’s, 2008 Christian rap song “Joyful Noise.” After Perry appealed that decision, she ended up winning in the following year. In October of 2020, though, Gray then appealed that decision, but the federal appeals court has stuck with their previous stance, meaning Perry remains the winner in the case.

The appeal court voted 3 to 0, stating: “The portion of the ‘Joyful Noise’ ostinato that overlaps with the ‘Dark Horse’ ostinato consists of a manifestly conventional arrangement of musical building blocks. Allowing a copyright over this material would essentially amount to allowing an improper monopoly over two-note pitch sequences or even the minor scale itself.”

The reasoning is similar to Post Malone’s in his recent “Circles” case with Canadian musician Tyler Armes; Post’s lawyers claim that Armes only played an “admittedly extremely commonplace guitar chord progression.”

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

In the last few days, Vladimir Putin and his propaganda machine have unofficially joined forces with QAnon conspiracy theorists and trying to push out the now-many-times-debunked idea that the Russian leader’s reason for invading Ukraine was to destroy the secret bioweapons labs that America is running there. Now, as The Wrap reports, we can officially add another tiny, insecure tyrant to the list of people pushing that malarkey: Tucker Carlson.

Surprised? Of course not. The Fox News host’s whole brand is based on being an ultra-smug contrarian a**hole, a fact he highlighted on Thursday night’s show when he took the media to task for saying that these totally untrue rumors are totally untrue. Here’s how he spun it:

“You know that the Pentagon talking points you saw reported as fact on television today—and last night—were an utter lie. Did the reporters who repeated those talking points verbatim know that they were a lie? Maybe they did. On the other hand, how would they know? They didn’t bother to do any reporting what. So. Ever,”

“They got a text from some Biden administration flack and they just read it on the air like it was true. You shouldn’t be surprised because that’s what they do. And it’s possible that they’re afraid not to do that. They know if they stray from the script the White House has written for them, they’ll be denounced from the briefing room as tools of Putin.”

As The Wrap’s Ross A. Lincoln points out, Carlson also seemed to take a thinly veiled shot at his Fox News colleague, national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin, who has been one of the news network’s loudest proponents of actual reporting, writing: “In one telling aside, [Carlson] appears unmistakably to include Griffin in those accusations and insinuations.”

Looking forward to seeing more clips of Tucker aired on Russian state television.

(Via The Wrap)

Phoebe Bridgers’ 2020 album Punisher yielded a good handful of singles, but “Chinese Satellite” wasn’t one of them. Today is a good day for fans of the album track, though, as Bridgers has shared a new acoustic version of it, which she recorded at legendary Los Angeles studio Sound City (the one from the Dave Grohl documentary, yes).

The recording is part of Secretly Canadian’s 25th anniversary singles series SC25, which has the goal of raising $250,000 for Bloomington, Indiana shelter New Hope For Families.

Bridgers previously told Apple Music of the song:

“I have no faith — and that’s what it’s about. My friend Harry put it in the best way ever once. He was like, ‘Man, sometimes I just wish I could make the Jesus leap.’ But I can’t do it. I mean, I definitely have weird beliefs that come from nothing. I wasn’t raised religious. I do yoga and stuff. I think breathing is important. But that’s pretty much as far as it goes. I like to believe that ghosts and aliens exist, but I kind of doubt it. I love science — I think science is like the closest thing to that that you’ll get. If I’m being honest, this song is about turning 11 and not getting a letter from Hogwarts, just realizing that nobody’s going to save me from my life, nobody’s going to wake me up and be like, ‘Hey, just kidding. Actually, it’s really a lot more special than this, and you’re special.’ No, I’m going to be the way that I am forever. I mean, secretly, I am still waiting on that letter, which is also that part of the song, that I want someone to shake me awake in the middle of the night and be like, ‘Come with me. It’s actually totally different than you ever thought.’ That’d be sweet.”

Listen to “Chinese Satellite (Live From Sound City)” above.

Free Guy director Shawn Levy might be one of the greatest pop-action visual stylists working today, if only he could stop trying so hard to be cute. It’s fitting that he has found his muse in Ryan Reynolds, the Redditor’s Tom Hanks.

In Free Guy, Levy gave us a broad high-concept about what-if-the-NPCs-in-Fortnite-were-real, which engaged almost instantly and even groped toward profundity before dissolving into an orgy of nauseating tie-ins. In its final moments, Guy, played by Ryan Reynolds, discovers a Captain America shield and squeals fanboyishly about having a Star Wars lightsaber — as if Levy had belatedly realized that he could use any Disney or Marvel tie-in (thanks to Disney having bought 20th Century Fox, the company that produced Free Guy) and went overboard with it, like Homer Simpson with the star wipe.

Free Guy was four-fifths, maybe even seven-eighths of a good movie, that final embarrassing spectacle of corporate toadying aside, and many of us were hoping that Levy had gotten all that out of his system. After seeing his latest, The Adam Project, which opens on Netflix this week, I’m here to tell you… he has not.

Levy remains a frustratingly talented composer of visual action, the likes of which we maybe haven’t seen since vintage Spielberg or Zemeckis. Levy just can’t stop shitting “Easter eggs” all over every scene. And I mean “Easter eggs” in internet parlance: those meta-textual references to other movies the most obnoxious viewers can pat themselves on the back for recognizing. Because that’s what movies are, right? A forum to reward one’s self for having seen other movies!

If the premise of Ad Astra was “What if you had to go to space to kill your dad,” The Adam Project poses the less bellicose, “What if you had to go back in time to save your dad?”

Any time anyone goes to space or back in time in a movie, it almost always has to do with saving, killing, avenging, or proving one’s self to the protagonist’s dad. Naturally, The Adam Project plays like someone put Back To The Future, Frequency, and Guardians Of The Galaxy into a narrative blender, with an opening scene proclaiming “time travel exists, you just don’t know it yet,” leading into a spaceship dog fight set to a “Gimme Some Lovin’” needle drop. It’s a toe-tapper, and Levy excels at this kind of upbeat, PG-friendly action rendered in major key. It looks great, and you can tell what’s happening — a bar most action movies fail to clear these days, including the most recent one, The Batman.

Ryan Reynolds plays Adam Reed, a 2050 Air Force pilot fleeing the future in a stolen jet. We sort of know what we’re going to get with a Ryan Reynolds vehicle these days — winky asides, copious pop culture references, and an overwhelming air of knowing smarm. Reynolds has become the ideal mouthpiece for this style, which has been referred to variously as Buffy speak, soy dialogue (an adaptation of “soy face“), and probably 100 other names invoking Joss Whedon, post-modernism or Tumblr. Suffice it to say, you know it when you hear it. (“Well… that just happened…”).

After a suitably glib exchange with his threatening commanding officer, played by Catherine Keener, Adam zaps open a wormhole and crash lands in 2022, at his own house, in Rainier, Washington. 2022 Adam is 12 years old, played by Walker Scobell, who has a constantly shiny bottom lip for some reason. Kid Adam is tiny for his age, lives with his widowed mom (Jennifer Garner) inside what appears to be a Thomas Kinkade painting, and is always getting beat up by bullies on account of his smart mouth.

“I’m gonna enjoy this,” says the thuggish Ray (Braxton Bjerken), cocking back a fist.

“‘I’m gonna enjoy this?’” mocks Adam. “Who talks like that? Did you buy, like, a bully starter kit on Amazon or something?”

Yes, the trouble with casting Ryan Reynolds in a time travel movie is that you have to make a little kid do a Ryan Reynolds impression. And the trouble with this kind of dialogue is not that it’s self-referential so much as kind of self-defeating. Having one of your characters ask another “who talks like that?!” is a bit like the screenwriters questioning themselves out loud. Who talks like that? Your characters, apparently!

Whether you find that kind of transparency relatable (we all beat ourselves up from time to time, don’t we?), tedious (quit waffling and get to the point!), or lazy (why not just write something not corny rather than having your characters acknowledge the corniness of it?) is somewhat subjective.

For me, I found The Adam Project‘s self-referencing forgivable (or maybe just inevitable, given the people involved), and its constant references to other movies… less so. Young Adam asks older Adam, of his magic staff thingy (whose properties are never really explained), “is that a lightsaber?”

When Young Adam jumps off a high thing and lands like a tripod, he says “superhero landing!” to no one in particular. My question: Why? Were the implied references not obvious enough?

Adult Adam has returned to 2022, it turns out, in search of his wife, Laura (Zoe Saldaña), a fellow time-traveling pilot who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. When Adam gets chased through a mossy forest by bad guys on hoverboards/gliders (choose your own reference!), it looks unmistakably like Return of the Jedi. When Laura and Adam decide that they may have to part, possibly forever, for the good of the universe, her explanation of why it’s going to be okay sounds a lot like “Don’t you remember Cloud Atlas?”

When Kid Adam asks Adult Adam whether 2050 is really so bad that it warrants these extreme measures to correct it, Adult Adam asks, “You remember Terminator? 2050 makes Terminator look like a daydream.”

My problem with all these name drops isn’t that they acknowledge the existence of movies in the Project Adam universe (hey, we also like movies!), it’s that they tend to reduce rather than to expand. They’re Band-Aids; shortcuts to understanding. What is the future like? Well, it’s like Terminator. That’s more of a barrier, a conversation stopper rather than a conversation starter. The Adam Project is a patchwork quilt of these references, and not incorporated beautifully into some whole, but crude, utilitarian things meant to cover some holes.

That’s a shame, because dammit, Shawn Levy is one of the few directors out there who can convey a sense of wonder, who can apply a genuine visual vocabulary to a family adventure PG setting. He’s constantly inspiring us to imagine something new, right before dragging us kicking and screaming back into the known. Did Spielberg have to name-drop other movies every five seconds? Okay, bad example: Spielberg referenced his pal George Lucas’s Star Wars movies in E.T. almost as often as Levy references his pal Disney’s Star Wars movies in The Adam Project. But Spielberg eventually grew out of that. …At least until he went on to direct Ready Player One, the ur-text of late 20th century nerds who could categorize and regurgitate culture without synthesizing.

The point is, Spielberg’s movies were once able to succeed in spite of their references, whereas Levy can’t seem to shake the idea that he needs these references, like pathological tics. Our own pop culture landscape in 2022 looks less like Terminator than Demolition Man, when motorists crank the volume on their stereos and sing along to commercial jingles like “Oscar Mayer Wiener.” Gee, that was swell. Remember that?

‘The Adam Project’ hits Netflix March 11th. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.