Joel Embiid and Draymond Green are two of the biggest personalities in the NBA. Embiid has carved out a niche as one of the most prominent posters in sports and is usually good for at least one or two funny quotes when he’s in a good mood, while Green has long been one of the league’s most insightful players, something he has parlayed into his own podcast.
Embiid appeared on that podcast in an episode that dropped on Wednesday, and unsurprisingly, the whole thing is quite good. One of the best moments came around the 48:40 mark of the below video, when the two decided to talk some sh*t to one another and had the time of their lives.
“Hopefully we will meet y’all in the Finals, because as you know, like nobody else in this league, I’m lockin’ that sh*t up,” Green said while a smile creeped onto Embiid’s face.
The two went on to have a long back-and-forth where Embiid accused Green of needing a double-team when they play, while Green said he’s never asked for one. Embiid then said he thinks he’s pretty good defensively, at which point Green tried to catch him off guard.
“When we put you in every pick-and-roll and they bring you up to blitz because you can’t get up the floor, that’s kind of like asking for a double-team,” Green said.
“That’s not why!” Embiid said. “You want me to play drop against Steph Curry?”
Green said he doesn’t have to play drop, but at the same time, he does not need to blitz in those situations, to which Embiid fired back by saying he wants the ball in the hands of one specific non-shooter.
“I wasn’t blitzing last time,” Embiid said. “I was just trying to make sure we got the ball out of his hands so you can make plays, cause you can’t shoot the basketball.”
Green responded that he’ll make every other play and hit shots down the stretch, while Embiid said that if he had to choose between Curry or Green beating them, “I’ll take you every single day.”
“Many have succumbed to that mindset, brother,” Green responded. “Many have succumbed to that mindset.”
The conversation moved to the MVP race, which is viewed as a battle between Embiid and Nikola Jokic, but I could have watched another six hours of the two ribbing one another while smiling. Here’s to hoping that, somewhere down the line, Embiid is the guy who fills in for Shaq on Inside the NBA after Green has established himself on the desk after his playing career ends.
Jack Beguedou might be doing the impossible in bourbon whiskey — bringing something completely new to the table. Beguedou, a Togolese immigrant, has been deeply devoted to all things whiskey for years. But it was only recently that he started taking that knowledge to the masses, via his whiskey influencer handle, Hood Sommelier. Now, Beguedou is picking barrels to release under his brand, and leading much-sought-after tastings blending West African cuisine with fine Kentucky bourbon.
Where did it all start? From not seeing himself or his West African immigrant friends and family represented in the bourbon and wider whiskey world. Beguedou has made it his mission to change that, via whiskey reviews online (in various formats) and bringing two disparate communities together, through their mutual love of good whiskey and good food.
We caught up with Beguedou recently, to talk about his new partnership with Heaven Hill, and his AFROFUSION concept, where West African chefs, DJs, and bartenders host parties, brunches, and tastings for anyone looking for something truly special in the whiskey game. We also talked about how a French-speaking kid from Togo got into whiskey in the first place and how our culture informs what we experience in every drop of whiskey. It was a fun and illuminating conversation.
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months
Give us a little bit of background of how you first got into whiskey.
I got into whiskey truly as a fluke. I got into insurance about 12 years ago. It all started with me drinking Johnnie Walker and some bourbons with my mentor when he was teaching me how to golf. As my mentor, he was teaching me the ways of doing business, which means golfing, knowing good spirits, and having good conversations. And truly, it just became something that I was obsessed with. It started actually with him breaking things in my head — because I’m from a French-speaking country. I’m from West Africa. We’re drinking a lot of single malt. I’m like, “Johnnie Walker Red and Black. Black is the top one.”
He was laughing that day because he’s someone who was much older than me. One day, he was like, “I know you say you know good things, but whatever you know, there is always something above it.”
So he goes, “I heard you last time, all talking about how you know so much about malt whisky, and you said, ‘Johnnie Walker Black.’” He said, “What about the Johnnie Walker Green?” My eyes just widened. “What about the Blue?” I was like, “What is this guy talking about? Those things don’t exist. He’s making up colors for them, right?!”
Mind you, I was 25 at that time, so that’s 12 years ago. A week later, we go to this nice golf course. It’s a big tournament, a lot of big wigs there. And my mentor orders, “Johnny Walker Green, please.” Then they pour that. I take a sip and I look at him like, “whoa…” I had a pour of it. I’m like, “You know what? Moving forward, I’m going to do research. I’m going to know everything.”
Then how did that expand into you doing bottlings and having this huge impact on the game?
About five years later, I was obsessed because I was terrible at golf, but I was good at bringing good whiskey on the course. It became my thing. Today, I have a strong immigrant community and client base here in the Midwest. Every time we do an event, I’m bringing whiskey. If someone is getting married in our community, they’re calling me about which whiskey to bring.
Myself, I started buying more and more. Every time I have any business gathering, I’ll be the whiskey guy. But it was just when it came to parties or when it came to business. That was it. So I’m getting into more whiskey, but I’m just buying it based on somebody’s YouTube research, right?!
I know that well.
So, about five years ago, I started going, “Okay, wait a minute. Why am I buying all this crap? Why am I having all these things? What’s the point?” It was more of, now I need to really dig into it, catalog it, know exactly where I’m standing. This is when I got into bourbon because single malt is what I had all around. Boy, that was a whole different world to jump in. Now, it was only my American friends who like it because all my immigrant friends only like single malt. So now I have two audiences. And then about four years ago, that’s when I learned something important. My best friend — who actually designed my Hood Sommelier logo — he’s like, “Dude, I was looking for this drink. I went online, and no one looks like us. Is there no black person or no immigrant who talks about whiskey?”
So, when he said that, I’m like, “Bullshit.” In my mind, I’m like, “That doesn’t make sense. Bullshit.”
There really wasn’t back then, was there?
Right? I’m like, “No. That doesn’t make sense.” He’s like, “No. I’m telling you. All these things you do for us, you do all this and teach people about drinking and all that …” He’s like, “There’s no one who does that like us. Why don’t you do that?”
Hood Sommelier
So how did you start?
I was like, “Editing videos, doing all this thing, I can’t … That’s just too much.” I didn’t have the confidence then, but then I started. I spent probably a year online just watching people like Whiskey Tribe, and all these people, watching all these people talk about the whiskeys. I’m like, “I can do that. That’s what I do every day. I can do that.”
One of the decisions I made at that time is I wanted to move from the West Side of Omaha, the rich side, to actually move to North Omaha, which is considered an economically depressed and struggling neighborhood with my people living in it. That’s the “hood.” Being in business, I’ve started getting into boards and talking about problems that affect the Black communities in our town. Somebody at one of those meetings said to me, “How are you guys sitting here talking about issues that concern us, but you don’t live in the neighborhood? You are not part of things that are happening.” So I moved into the neighborhood. I decided it was more important to be in the life with the people than outside of it looking in. That’s how change is made.
At that same time, I realized that I probably have one of the biggest libraries of whiskey in the Midwest. I talk to a lot of people in the industry and have close to 5,000 bottles. So I’m like, “I want to be that guy in the whiskey industry. That’s who I want to be. I want to be the guy who is building a community of people, regardless of their background.”
Wow. That’s impressive. Now, you’re working all over the industry. You just started working with Heaven Hill with AFROFUSION and are bringing West African vibes to Kentucky bourbon.
It’s, again, something that defines me. I am a guy who grew up in Africa, ate African food. If you look at AFROFUSION, I want AFROFUSION to become a global thing. It’s where whiskey meets flavors that they might not probably meet in the same house. I’m African, I eat African food, but usually, I have it with bourbon, or I have it with single malt. Where do those two meet?
Really, the basis of AFROFUSION was not about the food or the bourbon. It was about unity. We went through a tough time where … It got to the point it was weird for a white man from a small town to be in the same room as a black person from Africa because of the social differences and political opinions that we have. So, I asked, “How do we create an event that creates unity?” Look, West African food is very foreign to a guy who drinks whiskey somewhere in Kentucky. Plus, bourbon is not actually something a lot of African people drink because they usually drink single malt, right? To bring those two people together in the same room with that one thing that’s familiar to each of them and create this blending event is what I wanted to do.
That’s the concept of AFROFUSION. African food, meet whiskey. I know why I didn’t say bourbon, why I didn’t say single malt. I say whiskey because it can be any whiskey: rye, bourbon, single malt, whatever.
Hood Sommelier
Let’s look at tastings for a moment. You’re from Togo and I’m from the Pacific Northwest. Growing up, I’m eating a very specific diet that’s regional. Likewise, you’re growing up eating specific foods that I’m likely not. Yet, we can both come together over a glass of whiskey and find different things. When you’re leading tastings, how do you approach the fact that who we are and where we come from affects what we’re actually going to taste ad smell in that whiskey?
That’s one of those things that I tell people all the time. I’m sure you know this, but when I do any private tasting, I actually have a Scotch school where I teach people about Scotch whisky. Funny thing is, when we start tasting, I tell people that I’m not going to say anything ’til we’re done getting everybody’s tasting notes. People always think it’s weird. I’m like, “No. I’m not here to tell you because the brain is a sensitive machine.”
Yes, it is.
If you put something in somebody’s head enough, they will believe it. People are like, “Oh, okay, sure…” I start every tasting, “Anything we do say, there’s no wrong answer.” Once you say, “There’s no wrong answer,” people come up with stuff that will blow your mind because of our different backgrounds.
I like to say, “Our brain has a catalog of taste notes based on our life experiences.” That’s literally what it is. Our brain has a registry or a catalog of notes already preset that’s based on experiences. If you traveled a lot, you will have more to say about a spirit. If you stay sedentary, there will be less you say about that same spirit. I see it in my tastings, the more traveled or exposed to different cultures someone is, the deeper of flavors and layers they will find in a spirit. Always.
That always translates to the glass. It’s all there but you’re the one pulling it out, right?
Exactly, I grew up eating a lot of seafood. So when I’m talking to people about flavors, I might use a word like star anise. Or I say cloves. Or I’m saying, “Oh, there is a ghost pepper.” I talk about ginger. I talk about this plant back home that they call the “old ladies playing football,” which is a plant that is supposed to resurrect you. Those things are all things that when you tell an African, they’re like, “Oh yeah. I know what you’re talking about.” But if you tell that to someone else, they’d be like, “I don’t get it.”
But in the meantime, I didn’t grow up around strawberries. I didn’t grow up around pears. But I grew up around mango. I grew up around papaya. I grew up around real sugar cane. So when I’m doing a rum tasting, I’m telling them about sitting on the summer days on top of the roof of your house and eating raw sugar cane and breaking it down. Unless you grew up in that environment, you would not get it.
I wholeheartedly agree. I grew up next to a temperate rainforest full of mossy cedar trees and wild mushrooms and wild berries and smoked salmon and oysters and stuff like that. So I’ll latch onto earthy, mossy, umami, mushroom notes, and oyster liquor or smoked salmon bellies. Other people just look at me like I’m crazy sometimes with those notes. I’m like, “Oh. You’re from the desert or grasslands or somewhere else where those notes mean nothing to you…” But it doesn’t mean that anyone’s wrong. I think that’s what’s important, and why I love what you’re doing.
So tell me, what’s next for AFROFUSION?
The goal for next year is to see how to develop AFROFUSION to be a phenomenon that we can take all around the United States, exposing people to West African food, partner with African chefs all around the United States, and hopefully work with a brand that can take it global, so we can actually do this more internationally. Hopefully, there are a couple of events that we’re working on right now that will have to do with more food with a New Orleans-style approach, exposing people to the Afro-French culture and style. Obviously, nothing happens without great music. Afrobeat is taking over the world, so I always keep a good DJ who does Afrobeat.
One of the things I want to do is if I invite you to my house in Africa, I want you to feel great and welcome. That’s what AFROFUSION is going to be. Bring people together from Kentucky to West Africa … Fusion. I want people to feel free in that environment and feel as if I transported them, for just a moment, back to where I grew up.
Way back in April 2020, when literally everything was happening over Zoom, the cast of the hit ’90s coming-of-age show My So-Called Life reunited virtually after 26 years. Noticeably absent was Jared Leto, who played heartthrob Jordan Catalano on the hit show. In a new interview with Variety, Leto confirmed that he had “no idea” why he wasn’t invited to the virtual reunion.
“I hope everyone had a good time without me.” the House Of Gucci actor said. “I’m sure I was [invited]. I would’ve hoped. Maybe I wasn’t. No, I’m sure I was. What a crazy time we’re in. Not everyone’s able to make everything.” Leto infamously missed out on the first month of the COVID pandemic, as he was on a meditation retreat in the middle of the woods. Maybe they tried to reach out to him then, and it just went straight to voicemail?
My So-Called Life aired for only one season in 1994, but quickly became a cult classic and launched the careers of both Claire Danes and Leto, before he became a rockstar and formed the band 30 Seconds To Mars. Then he became The Joker in 2016’s Suicide Squad. When asked if he would ever reprise his role as the DC villain, Leto says, “Never say never,” though some DC fans would probably say never.
Leto’s upcoming Marvel movie Morbius was another early-pandemic delay. After production was completed in 2019, the film premiered on March 10th, 2020 before being pushed back five times. The film stars Leto as Michael Morbius, a doctor who basically becomes a vampire after trying to cure himself of a rare blood disease. Leto is joined by Last Night In Soho’s Matt Smith, who plays villain Milo. The film is now slated for an April 1st release (hopefully).
Saweetie is hip-hop’s undisputed queen of brand partnerships. Sure, Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat have fast-food deals, but Saweetie’s the one who kicked it all off with the McDonald’s meal inspired by her viral favorite food concoctions. She’s also got deals with Crocs (a co-sponsorship with Hidden Valley Ranch, also inspired by her revelation she likes to apply the dressing to more than just salad), MAC Cosmetics, and Amazon. So it comes as no surprise that she announced a new one this week, this time tapping into her history as a multi-sport athlete.
Saweetie is now Champion’s first-ever “Global Culture Consultant,” appearing in the sports apparel brand’s “Get It Girl” campaign (named for the Saweetie song of the same name, which also appears in a Beats By Dre ad) and throwing a spotlight on 12 collegiate athletes who have the “confidence to play by their own rules and look good doing it.” The women featured in the campaign are receiving more than just the look, too; Champion is providing access to Champion executives as mentors of entertainment, marketing, and media as well as sports.
“My relationship with Champion runs deep, as an athlete and lover of streetwear,” Saweetie said in a press release. “It’s been a go-to brand since high school! This campaign and partnership hit me on a personal level and I couldn’t be prouder to help all my sporty-icy girls out there feel empowered with self-love and confidence. When you feel good wearing Champion, the sky’s the limit.”
Tucker Carlson must have a terrible poker face, because he’s done a pretty awful job at hiding where his loyalties lie while “reporting” on the Russia Ukraine War. While he regularly, and blatantly, pushes batsh*t conspiracy theories and Russian propaganda for all his audience to hear, on Tuesday night Tuck took a different tack: Playing the role of concerned American who, like so many other Americans, is worried for the people of Ukraine. Blatant concern trolling, really.
In what amounted to a hollow attempt to tone down his usual “Yay, Putin!” rhetoric, Carlson used a bit of backwards logic to explain that if his nightly rants sometimes seem to be pro-Russia, that’s only because he has Ukraine’s best interest at heart. While he did allow that “Civilians in Ukraine are being crushed by Vladimir Putin—that’s true,” he went on to suggest that providing Ukraine with more weapons and/or supplies in which to help them continue fighting, “as well-intentioned as it is, and it is,” might be counterproductive:
“Will it, for example, prolong the fighting in Ukraine at the expense of the vulnerable civilian population in Ukraine? If I do this, could I inadvertently be doing to Ukraine what the West inadvertently did to, let’s say Iraq, and Syria, and Libya and Afghanistan? You wouldn’t want that. You would hate to do something like that again. Because that would be cruel. So, you would want to make sure that you weren’t doing that.
But not a single person in Washington, at least in public, appears to be asking that question. No one is allowed to ask that question. ‘What are you, a Putin defender?’”
So there you have it: Tucker Carlson—the man who has become a superstar in Russia, where orders have come directly from the Kremlin to plaster the Fox News host’s smug face and pro-Putin rhetoric over every pixel of their state-run media—isn’t actually rooting for Russia.
You see, he just doesn’t think that Ukraine has a snowball’s chance in hell of defeating Putin — though some expertsthink otherwise — and believes the more humane thing to do is just give Putin what he wants and stop prolonging the inevitable. Whatta guy!
Tucker says you’re not allowed to ask if sending more weapons to Ukraine will prolong the suffering of the Ukrainian people pic.twitter.com/SqkxR94fPm
In recent months, Britney Spears has frequently used her Instagram page to tell stories about her conservatorship, show off some skin, and tease some upcoming projects. At the moment, though, her Instagram account is currently not active. The account was viewable this morning, but this afternoon, fans started noticing trying to access it now yields an error page.
In one of the last posts Spears shared before the account was deactivated, she wrote about visiting Las Vegas and an experience she had with a masseuse, saying, “The only thing I’ve known when I used to go to Vegas was hour long meet and greets with 40 people every night getting the worst pics of me and then a two hour show !!!! Let’s just say THIS TIME visiting it gave me a whole new perspective on what it means to live !!!! Being able to go to the spa was a highlight as well and you know what ??? Don’t ever pity me like my masseuse does …. ‘People do love you!’ …. Huh ???? Huh ???? I don’t want to be loved … I want to be feared !!! Being loved and being nice got me taken advantage of so take your pity and go f*ck yourselves !!!!”
Imagine being the masseuse that Britney Spears called out on Instagram
This isn’t the first time Spears’ Instagram page has been deactivated: When it was back in September, Spears noted on Twitter, “Don’t worry folks … just taking a little break from social media to celebrate my engagement !!!! I’ll be back soon.”
Following the one-two punch of the pandemic and Deep Water stars Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas breaking up after an almost year-long, heavily-photographed relationship, it seemed like the erotic thriller was, well, dead in the water. The film was eventually set for a streaming release on Hulu, where at least it won’t become just another footnote in Affleck and de Armas’ careers.
However, the first reviews are rolling in for Deep Water, and some critics appear to actually love the throwback vibes from the film directed by Adrian Lyne, who was the master of erotic thrillers like Fatal Attraction and Unfaithful. That said, others did not enjoy Deep Water‘s plot (particularly the murder mystery central to the film), but there’s an almost unanimous theme running through each that the movie is a weird, wild mess that’s hard to look away from.
It’s been so long since we have gotten a mainstream sleazy movie (released by Disney no less) starring two movie stars (at least, as much as anyone can still be a movie star today) that it feels like a whole new concept. To the point that Deep Water makes no sense, it’s impossible to make heads or tails out of character motivations, and there’s no real resolution or payoff to anything, yet I enjoyed this trashy dumb thing more than I ever thought I would.
The primary usefulness of Deep Water is as a record for celebrity chroniclers of the off-camera romance that made co-stars Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas a tabloid thing for a minute, hopefully with better chemistry than they generate onscreen. But it does serve a secondary purpose for those of us who have ever considered the prodigious gifts of Tracy Letts as both playwright and actor, and wondered, “Is there anything he can’t do?” Well, turns out he can’t emerge unscathed from an Adrian Lyne erotic thriller, not that anyone does in this case.
A simple story that tracks, with aberrant characters and the boldness to be weird; when was the last time we got one of those? Deep Water is not only a refreshing throwback to the days of mid-budget thrillers aimed at adults, but perfect for at-home binging.
Deep Water doesn’t do a very good job of helping the audience connect with its cast, as Vic and Melinda are both very surface-level characters. Between the two, Vic is the far more developed character. We see that he is a dedicated father who adores his daughter, and we see him tending to his unique snail-raising hobby. Melinda, on the other hand, is set up to purely be a beautiful and promiscuous wife that has a drinking problem. de Armas is an extremely talented actress, but it feels like she gets typecast as the eye candy that lacks any real depth.
“Deep Water” may be as short on steaminess and stingy with nudity as you might expect from a movie in which sex is almost exclusively used as a weapon, but Lyne maintains a studied fascination in the messiness that tends to follow — emotional or otherwise. (Or, told another way, this critic can’t remember the last time I saw an A-list movie star pick a pubic hair out of her teeth on the big screen.)
There’s something missing from Adrian Lyne’s “Deep Water,” and it’s not just the body of Martin McRae, the last unfortunate rival to get a little too friendly with Vic Van Allen’s wife. Vic (Ben Affleck) and Melinda (Ana de Armas) have an open marriage, but her … distractions have a habit of disappearing, and so do pretty much all ties to recognizable human behavior in the “Fatal Attaction” director’s unexpectedly cool-headed adaptation of the 1957 Patricia Highsmith novel for Hulu. This erotic thriller is still sexy and plenty entertaining, mind you, but it’s just not very useful insofar as what it says about real relationships.
Deep Water looks like a huge amount of material has been shaped in the edit but there are odd gaps and elisions. De Armas behaves as if she’s in some saucy cologne commercial, and Affleck appears to have necked a hundredweight of Percocet before the cameras rolled.
Despite what should be the sizzling allure of Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas as its stars, the rather plodding sexual thriller Deep Water feels like a reject from the pile of scripts its director Adrian Lyne got in the ’80s. His career was on fire then, notably for Fatal Attraction and other films like 9 1/2 Weeks, Indecent Proposal and his most recent feature credit, 2002’s Unfaithful, which earned Diane Lane a Best Actress Oscar nomination. But no one is getting nominated for this one.
Deep Water starts streaming (not a water pun) March 18 on Hulu.
Despite the New York Knicks regressing from a top-four seed to the lottery in Tom Thibodeau’s second year at the helm, the 64-year-old head coach is “expected to remain the Knicks’ head coach beyond this 2021-22 season,” according to a report from Bleacher Report’s Jake Fischer.
“Knicks governor James Dolan had granted the front office permission to either remove Thibodeau or retain him, sources said,” Fischer reports. “But team president Leon Rose has no plans to make any change on the Knicks’ bench, sources said. Thibodeau maintains a frequent dialogue with Dolan following each game and often visits the governor’s box.”
Fischer also writes that the New York front office “values” Thibodeau embracing a role as the organization’s spokesperson, willing to address both positive and negative news publicly.
Furthermore, the absence of an obvious successor dissuades the Knicks from considering or opting for a change. Fischer writes “there’s no evidence” that assistant Johnnie Bryant would represent an upgrade, while Kenny Payne “may very well” try to “pursue” becoming the men’s basketball head coach at University of Louisville.
A lack of health from key players like Derrick Rose and Nerlens Noel, who have combined for just 51 games this season, is also seen as a reason for New York’s down year, according to sources in contact with Fischer. A decline from Julius Randle, who was an All-NBA forward last year, was also mentioned, in addition to the team prioritizing more ball-handling this offseason, which created a shift away from the defensive identity of 2020-21.
“New York’s commitment to Thibodeau comes after a disconnect grew between the head coach and Leon Rose’s primary front-office lieutenants — executive vice president William Wesley and vice president of basketball strategy Brock Aller — ahead of the February trade deadline, sources said,” Fischer writes.
Fischer reports “there will be a level of turnover in New York this summer” and that the Knicks, since the 2021 Draft, have been willing to trade much of their roster. They’re in the market for a point guard, with Jalen Brunson seemingly atop their list of targets.
Last summer, Roc-A-Fella Records filed a lawsuit against Damon Dash after the label’s cofounder announced plans to auction a portion of Jay-Z’s debut album, Reasonable Doubt as an NFT. The label argued that the album is owned by the company, and not by its individual partners.
The lawsuit is ongoing, however, Jay and Dash are reportedly in talks to reach a settlement deal.
Jay-Z’s attorney Alex Spiro said in a filing earlier this week Dash and Jay were “in the process of meeting and conferring to determine whether they can reach a settlement agreement that would resolve this case.”
If Jay and Dash are unable to settle the case, Spiro and Jay plan to file a motion seeking full victory in the case.
Dash currently owns one-third of Roc-A-Fella, however, Spiro and Jay argue that Dash’s stake in the label doesn’t give him the right to sell any portion of the esteemed album.
“The sale of this irreplaceable asset must be stopped before it is too late, and Dash must be held accountable for his theft,” read the lawsuit filed against Dash last June. “The bottom line is simple: Dash can’t sell what he doesn’t own.” A judge immediately blocked the album’s sale as an NFT.
Dash and Jay must reach a settlement deal by April 1, according to the letter.
Better known as Combat Jack, Reggie Ossé died in December of 2017. As the host of The Combat Jack Show, the former Def Jam attorney and once Managing Editor of The Source pioneered the hip-hop podcast format, turning his show into a hub for hip-hop conversation, interviews, culture, and knowledge. He co-founded the Loud Speakers Network and then in the last year of his life, hosted the first season of Gimlet’s Mogul podcast, helping to usher in the storytelling format for hip-hop podcasts that was similar to NPR-style radio segments. In so many ways, hip-hop podcasting today is indebted to Ossé and the shaping of this medium for celebrating the culture on the internets and beyond.
The hip-hop podcast landscape is no doubt saturated in its sheer number of shows, but there are only a few that can be deemed “Essential.” For every excellent interview-based or storytelling hip-hop podcast out there, there’s over a handful of fly-by-night shows trying to operate on a soapbox like the influential The Joe Budden Podcast, often screaming into the void to stir the pot. We’ll leave those aside, cause this is about the hip-hop podcasts that you need to be listening to. These are shows that are pushing the greater conversations in hip-hop forward, illuminating untold stories, giving shine to cult-ish lifers, and praising the undisputed greats.
What Had Happened Was
Hosted by Open Mike Eagle, What Had Happened Was is now in its third season. Each has focused on a different figure in hip-hop who is a legend in their own regard. Together with Mike Eagle, they spend each episode discussing a specific era or album in their career. Season’s one peak pandemic drop with Prince Paul jumped from the producer’s work with De La Soul, Chis Rock, Gravediggaz, and more. Season two featured El-P and saw the gregarious rapper/producer telling the behind-the-scenes stories of his discography from Company Flow to Run The Jewels. Now with season three, hip-hop OG A&R man Dante Ross has been documenting the history of hip-hop’s early days that he bared witness to with acts like the Beastie Boys, Queen Latifah, Brand Nubian, and then some.
While Ross isn’t necessarily as immediately likable as El-P, or as flat out funny and weird as Prince Paul, he’s as real as they come and Mike Eagle has proven himself to be an adaptable host with each subject. Mike Eagle really strikes a balance between confirming that he’s worthy to be moderating these conversations and always keeping his subject front and center. Oftentimes, podcast hosts have trouble relinquishing the limelight, but Mike Eagle does whatever it takes to serve the conversation and get the most out of Ross, who was the proverbial “guy in the room” for so many momentous hip-hop moments in his time with Def Jam and Tommy Boy.
What Had Happened Was is part of Open Mike Eagle’s Stony Island Audio network, which now as of season 3, has partnered with the much larger and prominent eclectic Talkhouse Podcast Network. It’s a testament to what Mike Eagle has built and his hustle as an independent podcast maestro is one that Combat Jack would most certainly be proud of.
Louder Than A Riot
There’s a point near the conclusion of NPR Music’s Louder Than A Riot’s episode “The Day The Mixtape Died: DJ Drama,” where co-host Rodney Carmichael says, “The reason hip-hop runs counter to America’s systems of power, is because hip hop is a product of the inequality built into these systems.” It’s a masterful summation of the tenuous relationship between hip-hop, Black America, law enforcement, and mass incarceration in America, and it speaks to the central thesis of this 12 episode series.
While Louder Than A Riot concluded in early 2021, it’s the type of show you can pick up at any time because the material is basically relevant forever (last time I checked, cops don’t appear to be on the verge of not disproportionately targeting Black people anytime soon.) Hosted and co-written by NPR Music journalists Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael, the podcast takes a nuanced look at the criminal justice system through the lens of hip-hop artists. There’s an excellent episode on Nipsey Hussle, and how his potentially being labeled as a gang member in the LAPD’s racist “CalGang” database, might very well have led to his death. A three-part episode on Bobby Shmurda’s ascent amid a murder case is likewise fantastically reported. What sets Louder Than A Riot apart is the obvious considerable amount of time and resources that went into making it and the resulting high-quality product that renders it among the best storytelling podcasts out there, hip-hop or not.
Breaking Atoms: The Hip Hop Podcast
A British hip-hop podcast with two hosts who know what’s up on both sides of the Atlantic, Breaking Atoms is primarily an interview-based show. Hosts Sumit Sharma and Chris Mitchell are two self-proclaimed hip-hop stans who unapologetically curate their guests, digging through the proverbial crates of hip-hop like in recent episodes with Wu-Tang Clan’s Raekwon, Justus League producer Khrysis, and surging Vallejo rapper LaRussell. Sharma and Mitchell have a knack for asking open-ended questions that elicit drawn-out, insightful remarks from their subjects and it’s the mark of a fluent podcast host.
But it’s the recent multi-episode storytelling series on Jay-Z that has really made Breaking Atoms stand out. There’s both a four-part episode called “The Making Of The Blueprint by Jay-Z” that came out in concert with the album’s 20th Anniversary, as well as a five-parter on Reasonable Doubt, to celebrate its 25th Anniversary. The episodes welcomed a range of diverse guests as they report on the early days in Brooklyn for Shawn Carter, as well as the creation, critical reception, marketing, and timing of these historic hip-hop albums. You’ll hear from artists in the Jay-Z orbit like Just Blaze, Young Guru, and DJ Clark Kent, as well as hip-hop thinkers like Kathy Iandoli and Oliver Wang. It all comes together in a comprehensive and well-produced podcast package.
The Big Hit Show: To Pimp A Butterfly
It’s crazy to think that an official Kendrick Lamar biography hasn’t been written yet. Marcus J. Moore’s The Butterfly Effect was a page-turning unofficial work that featured just about everyone in Kendrick’s circle except the man himself. But now with the new season of Spotify’s The Big Hit Show, we get an even closer look at the making of one of the most important albums of the 21st century. Hosted by Alex Pappademas, Spotify has clearly sunk a ton of money into ensuring that this sounds spectacular and it does it ever.
Not only do we get insight from people who worked on To Pimp A Butterfly like the outspoken Terrace Martin, timeless George Clinton, TDE’s President Terrence “Punch” Henderson, rapper Rapsody, saxophonist Kamasi Washington and more, we also hear from Kendrick himself and Barack freakin’ Obama. We get inner circle stories about the time Kendrick went to Minnesota to record with Prince, or when Kanye West gave Kendrick a second tour bus with a recording studio in it so he could keep working on new music and simultaneously open for West on the Yeezus tour. While Pappademas sounds a bit strangely academic at first, the format is produced incredibly well and the awkwardness slowly fades away while the subjects bring depth and backstories to the making of the jazz and hip-hop fusion masterpiece of an album. This is a must-listen new podcast with new episodes released weekly.
Dad Bod Rap Pod
Every hip-hop head has a couple of hip-hop soul siblings. You know, that one homie or two you came up with listening to the same albums and arguing about which MC was nicer? That’s exactly what Dad Bod Rap Pod hosts David Ma, Nate LeBlanc and Demone “Dem One” Carter come across as. They’re the friends you argued about hip-hop with getting blunted into the night and then laughed about it before starting the cycle again the next day. All three hosts are based out of the San Jose, CA area, and they each have backgrounds in different disciplines within hip-hop: Ma is a journalist and academic, Carter is a lifelong MC, and LeBlanc is a record collector and a certified authority in hip-hop geekery.
They’ve hosted over 200 insightful interviews to date with rappers like Too Short and Casual of Hieroglyphics, to scribes like The Ringer’s Shea Serrano, and recent J-Dilla biographer Dan Charnas, to figures who thrives in hip-hop’s margins like producer/social media savant Blockhead and Mumbles, who famously produced Aceyalone’s A Book Of Human Language and then seemingly disappeared. There’s a connection between the three hosts as they banter among themselves ahead of each episode’s interviews that afford you as the listener the ability to often disagree with what one of them says, only for the other to swoop in and prove your point for you. This is a podcast for folks who take hip-hop way too seriously, have spent a lifetime worshipping underground culture, and have come out of it all grateful for a never-ending trove of rap nostalgia.
Complex Subject: Pop Smoke
Released last year, this binge-worthy six-part saga on the life, meteoric rise, and tragic death of Pop Smoke, provides a definitive look on the Brooklyn drill rapper. Produced jointly by Spotify and Complex, the podcast is hosted by DJ Pvnch, written by Complex’s Shawn Setaro (who formerly hosted the erstwhile and likewise essential The CipherPodcast), and you’ll blow through these 30-minute episodes in no time. Like Pop Smoke, Pvnch is also from Canarsie and he brings instant authenticity to the riveting storytelling. We learn about the young rapper growing up in “The Flossy” (Canarsie), and then getting discovered by Pusha T Manager and GOOD Music COO Steven Victor, who quickly signed Pop Smoke to his Victor Victor Records label.
The stories about Pop Smoke’s phenomenal ascent as a teenager are brought to light, as we also learn about the relationship between UK and Brooklyn drill. There was really no way to predict just how much Pop’s unique sound would catch on and you root for him as a star, before the rug gets pulled out from under us with the senseless circumstances surrounding his death. The voices brought in to speak on Pop — from family, friends, and collaborators — are well-curated, and considering his death was only in 2020, this is a monumental production for how succinctly and epically it paints the fine brush strokes in the life is this once-in-a-lifetime rapper.
Questlove Supreme
What feels more like a really sophisticated hip-hop radio show, iHeart’s Questlove Supreme is well….the supreme interview and pop culture conversation style podcast. Questlove is joined by his Team Supreme co-hosts, Laiya St.Clair, Phonte Coleman, “Unpaid” Bill Sherman, and “Suga” Steve Mandel, to talk to legit the biggest names in hip-hop culture and beyond.
Questlove might as well be the most refreshing, well-liked, and visible hip-hop geek in the world and there’s an unbelievable moment in just about every episode — Will Smith popped in recently and talked about doing ayahuasca. Not every guest on the show fits into the hip-hop mold (take recent convos with Bonnie Raitt and Carlos Santana for example), but Questlove Supreme is definitely presented through a hip-hop lens. In the end, it’s a reminder that perhaps the greatest modern form of artistic expression, is indeed hip-hop.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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