Month: March 2022

At this Sunday’ss Grammy Awards, Japanese Breakfast will be up for two awards: Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album for Jubilee. The album also topped the 2021 Uproxx Music Critics Poll, which isn’t quite a Grammy Award, but still, it’s been a heckuva year+ for Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner, who also released the best-selling book Crying In H Mart. Now ahead of the Grammy Awards, Japanese Breakfast has released a pair of tracks for the Spotify Singles Series, including a cover of Bon Iver’s classic cut, “Skinny Love.”

The “Skinny Love” cover is part of Spotify’s ongoing series of releases from artists in the Grammy Best New Artist category. Arlo Parks released a cover of Kaytranada and Syd’s “You’re The One” earlier this week and Finneas covered also covered a Bon Iver song earlier this month, in “Flume.” For the “Skinny Love” cover, Japanese Breakfast peels back their typical arrangements for a twangy take on the Justin Vernon-led classic. “We decided to record Bon Iver’s ‘Skinny Love’ because it felt like a very surprising cover for Japanese Breakfast,” Zauner said. “It’s so moving and sparse. We felt we could add some interesting instrumentation to the track and celebrate our fellow label mate Bon Iver.” A revamped version of Japanese Breakfast’s “Be Sweet” was also released, with a slight disco-lean and tweaked vocal arrangements.

Listen to Japanese Breakfast’s “Skinny Love” cover and “Be Sweet” above.

At the end of last week, Nicki Minaj dropped off her third record of the year with “We Goin Up” alongside Fivio Foreign. The record is one she previously previewed on Instagram Live while noting that it would not appear on her long-awaited fifth album. Despite this, Nicki still celebrated the song’s release and she joined Fivio and others to party the night away. While the night may have gone well, one person had a comment about Nicki’s outing and it eventually earned a response from Nicki herself.

In response to a video of Nicki at the party with Fivio and others, the Twitter user wrote, “I wish she’d move on from this lifestyle this isn’t you anymore Nicki.” She eventually caught wind of the comment and did not hold back on a response. “Tell me you don’t know anything about Nicki Minaj w/o telling me,” Nicki wrote. “Ppl rlly create their own perception of you then tell you not to be you. Girl eat sh*t. Thank you.” She added, “Out of all the 3 wishes a b*tch get a b*tch using 1 wish to tell me not to be who I’ve ALWAYS [f*cking] been.”

Nicki continued, “My whole AUTHENTIC come up is fully documented for the world to see. YouTube is free I think still. Y’all want me 2b some rich RNB singer/pop star so bad. (well not the smart ppl) they know my story. 1 thing u can never change is ur story. I can&will only be me. Take it or [leave].” Another person questions the first user’s intention between their tweets and Nicki wrote, “Other races can do it tho,” while adding in another tweet, “Ppl rlly make up an imaginary ‘you’ in their head. Sh*t wild.”

To conclude her message, Nicki wrote, “Can y’all please let me enjoy the moment? Please?”

You can view the original tweet and Nicki’s responses above.

Chris Rock hasn’t said a thing since Oscar night, when he made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith and got smacked on live television by her husband, who then won an Academy Award. Though the incident initially left many confused, the tide has turned more or less definitively against Will Smith. His actions have been slammed by many, with Zoe Kravitz, who was present, calling it assault. But at least there’s been some great news for Rock himself.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, in the two days since the chaotic ceremony, Rock’s stand-up ticket sales have spiked through the roof:

StubHub, the ticket exchange and resale company, said it experienced more than 25x the daily sales each of the past two days than occurred last month for Rock’s tour. The company added that cumulative sales over the past two days are more than the total sales for Rock’s tour in the entirety of March. Additionally, the average price of tickets sold jumped from between $150-$200 a ticket to about $250 a ticket.

Ticket sales, StubHub told THR, tend to spike in the day or two before a show. Thing is, Rock’s next show isn’t even until April 8, leading them to blame the surge on what may wind up being the most famous thing to ever happen in the near century of Academy Awards ceremonies (including the naked jogger and, yes, the Moonlight kerfuffle).

During Sunday’s Oscars, Rock joked about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, which is the result of a hair loss condition called alopecia. (It’s not yet clear whether Rock knew about this ailment.) Her husband then stormed the stage, struck him across the face, then yelled profanities at him. The American broadcast cut the sound for most of the incident, but it played uncensored in other countries.

The following day Smith issued a formal apology to Rock, while Pinkett Smith wrote a more cryptic statement about what happened. Smith’s actions have been met with widespread condemnation, even from Richard Williams, who Smith played in the film for which he won an Oscar.

You can purchase tickets to upcoming Chris Rock shows here.

(Via THR)

The Los Angeles Lakers didn’t have the services of LeBron James or Anthony Davis on Tuesday night during their trip to Dallas to take on the Mavericks. Unsurprisingly, this did not work out particularly well for them, as the Lakers suffered a 128-110 loss.

While Davis is targeting a return in the coming days from an injury that has held him out since mid-February and James hasn’t been ruled out for an extended period despite dealing with swelling in his left ankle, the loss made the Lakers’ already-unenviable situation a little worse. L.A. fell to 31-44 on the season, which puts them in 11th place and out of the Western Conference play-in tournament altogether. Currently, the Lakers are tied with the San Antonio Spurs, who hold the tiebreaker over them for the 10-seed.

Perhaps the hardest pill to swallow for L.A. is that their final seven games this season are absolutely brutal. Four of their remaining seven contests are on the road and all of them come against teams firmly in the playoffs: Utah on March 31, Phoenix on April 5, Golden State on April 7, and Denver on April 10. While their home schedule is not as arduous, they still play a team fighting hard to stick in the play-in tournament (New Orleans on April 1) and a playoff team (Denver on April 3) before suiting up against the Oklahoma City Thunder — against whom they are 1-2 on the year — in their home finale on April 8. According to Tankathon, only Memphis and Chicago have more difficult schedules to close out the year. If there is a silver lining, it is that San Antonio has the fifth-toughest schedule in the league with seven games to go.

Should they make the play-in, history has shown that it’s not especially easy to beat a team with James on it in a one-game series, while Davis should be healthy and rested by the time that rolls around. Of course, that assumes they are able to make it in the first place, and that is by no means guaranteed.

After a strong 2021 year that was led by the release of his chart-topping sixth album Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler The Creator is keeping the energy alive in 2022. He’s currently on tour in support of the album and he brought a talented roster of artists on the road with him. Kali Uchis, Vince Staples, and Teezo Touchdown have all joined Tyler for the string of shows that kicked off in mid-February and is set to continue until April 8. So far, things have been going well on tour, but Tyler has one pet peeve with fans and he took to Twitter to make a stern request to them.

In a tweet, Tyler wrote, “Stop throwing your sh*t on stage, i dont want it, now mid show i gotta move it, whats the logic f*cking stop thanks b.” After sharing the tweet, Tyler reposted a video from the fan where it shows him being forced to stop a show after an object was thrown on stage. “I don’t understand the logic of throwing your sh*t up here,” Tyler said. “Not only for safety reasons, but bro I don’t want it. I’m not even being funny, every show someone throws something up here and I don’t understand the logic. Then if I slip and break my foot, stop throwing your f*cking sh*t up here, bro!”

Baby Keem later replied to Tyler’s tweet in agreeance, writing, “Please stop dawg. Please.”

You can view Tyler’s tweet and video from his concert above.

Very little has gone right for the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2021-22 NBA season, including injury-related issues and a disappointing win-loss performance. Still, the Lakers are alive in the postseason race, and Los Angeles got a bit of good news on Tuesday evening. During what was a dismal first half for the Lakers in a nationally televised game against Dallas, Chris Haynes of TNT and Yahoo Sports reported that star big man Anthony Davis is aiming to return on Friday when the Lakers take on the New Orleans Pelicans.

As Haynes notes, LeBron James missed Tuesday’s game with an ankle issue, and indicates that James will miss Thursday’s game as well. Still, there seems to be optimism that he’ll be back in the near future, and Haynes cites sources in saying Davis, barring setbacks, is targeting Friday against New Orleans or Sunday against Denver. Within the same report, however, Haynes does indicate that Kendrick Nunn, who has not appeared all season, is not likely to debut for Los Angeles before the end of the regular season.

Davis has appeared in only 37 of 75 games for the Lakers this season, and he hasn’t appeared since suffering an injury on Feb. 16. Despite a dismal 18.2 percent three-point shooting clip in a small sample, Davis is averaging 23.1 points and 9.7 rebounds per game and, at the very least, he would bring a desperately needed infusion of high-end talent for the Lakers. Though he may not be 100 percent upon arrival, any lingering optimism for the Lakers is tied to the hopes that James and Davis can overcome the rest of the organizational drawbacks when the bright lights come on in the playoffs, and this is a step toward that potential.

This past October marked one year since Wizkid released his fourth album Made In Lagos. While the world was barred from enjoying the project in an outdoor setting, which tends to be appropriate for an afrobeats project, Made In Lagos grew to be Wizkid’s most popular release yet. It was spearheaded by the success of “Essence,” which features Tems and became a song of the summer entry in 2021 as it was later remixed by Justin Bieber. Despite bit being a bit removed from the release of Made In Lagos, Wizkid is back with a new music video for a fan favorite from the project.

At long last, Wizkid shares the video for “True Love,” which features Tay Iwar and Projexx. The new visual includes an appearance from Jamaican-Canadian model and vitiligo awareness spokeswoman Winnie Harlow. In it, Wizkid takes center stage in a gladiator-like stadium as a group of women dance around him. Soon, Harlow joins him and they intimately dance and cozy up beside each other for the remainder of the visual.

Wizkid released the video for “True Love” a few months after landing a pair of nominations for the upcoming Grammy awards. He was selected in the Best Global Music category with Made In Lagos and the Best Global Music Performance category with “Essence.”

You can watch the video for “True Love” above.

Is there anything better than jamming out to some of your favorite songs in Beat Saber? The VR rhythm game that features players slashing away at floating blocks is one of the best games in the always growing VR landscape. Beat Saber is so popular that some of the biggest musical artists in the world such as Lady Gaga and Billie Eilish have collaborated with the game to get music packs of their own in the game.

On Tuesday, we saw another example of a major collaboration happening with world famous band Fall Out Boy adding a music pack of their own to Beat Saber. Some of the songs include hits like “Centuries” and “Irresistible” among others.

Pete Wentz was excited about the band’s collaboration with Beat Saber saying in a statement, “Our shows are flat out filled with pyro – it’s rock n roll.” said Wentz. “That’s why our first VR collab had to have a TON of it… this will be the biggest rock show that Beat Saber has ever seen. Turn it up!”

One of the best parts of playing Beat Saber is how energetic it can feel jamming out to music while hitting each block. Fall Out Boy is perfect for a game like this thanks to how uptempo some of their music can be. We can’t wait to start jamming out when the music pack drops on March 31.

Harry Styles has quite a busy schedule ahead of him. He recently announced that his third album Harry’s House will arrive towards the end of May. It’ll be his first full-length project since late 2019’s Fine Line. The project received Grammy nominations in the Foreign Pop/Rock Album or Soundtrack of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album categories. “Watermelon Sugar” and “Adore You” were also nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance and Best Music Video respectively, with the former winning. Harry is hoping for similar success this time around with Harry’s House, and it appears that it’ll require him to let go of some prior obligations.

According to The New Yorker and Billboard, Harry has dropped out of his role in the remake of the 1992 silent film Nosferatu. His last-minute exit from the film was reportedly due to a scheduling conflict. His appearance in the classic gothic horror would’ve made for his fifth acting role following 2017’s Dunkirk, 2021’s Eternals, and this year’s upcoming films Don’t Worry Darling and My Policeman. Harry’s appearance in Nosferatu also would’ve made for his second role in a horror film.

In other news, Harry recently announced the release date for his first single off Harry’s House. “As It Was” will arrive on April 1, less than two months before Harry’s House drops on May 20. Elsewhere, Harry styles will also take the stage as a headlining act at this year’s Coachella Festival.

Harry’s House is out 5/20 via Columbia Records. Pre-save it here.

Zoe Kravitz speaks her mind. When Hulu cancelled her adaptation of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity after only one season, she shaded the streamer for its dearth of “shows starring women of color.” Now she’s using deep, angry sarcasm to weigh in on Will Smith’s instantly infamous slap of presenter Chris Rock at the Academy Awards.

To recap: Late in Sunday’s telecast — not long before Smith won an Oscar for King Richard — Rock, who was presenting the trophy for Best Picture, made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head. Her husband, who was initially seen laughing at the joke, suddenly stormed the stage and struck Rock across the face. Smith then screamed profanities at Rock, who struggled to get things back on track. (Smith’s antic also overshadowed the trophy’s winner, Summer of Soul, co-directed by fellow native Philadelphian Questlove.)

In the immediate wake of the incident, people were confused. But in the two days since, the tide appears to have turned definitively against Smith. Smith issued a formal apology (while Pinkett Smith released a cryptic statement), while everyone from 50 Cent to Jimmy Kimmel have weighed in, taking Rock’s side. Kravitz joined them.

Over two separate Instagram posts, the The Batman actress shared what seemed to be innocuous photos of her Oscar and after party gowns…only to reveal it was really about Smith’s behavior. “here’s a picture of my dress at the show where we are apparently assaulting people on stage now,” she wrote in one. The other was almost the same. “and here is a picture of my dress at the party after the award show -where we are apparently screaming profanities and assaulting people on stage now.”

Sure enough, people found footage of Kravitz not standing up when Smith won not long after striking Rock.

Rock refused to press charges against Smith, but others feel some action must be taken. Jim Carrey said Rock should sue Smith, while Joe Rogan claimed what Smith did sets a dangerous precedent for people reacting to comedians making jokes about other people. Smith, apology excepted, has been largely laying low, perhaps reflecting about how he’s spent decades immaculately polishing a brilliant career, which he may have torpedoed in about 30 seconds.