Month: April 2022

Yesterday was a big day in Barbados, as April 28 marks National Heroes Day, during which the island nation honors a select group of people who have been declared National Heroes. Rihanna earned that distinction last November, meaning this year’s National Heroes Day was Rihanna’s first as an honoree, about which she was thrilled.

Rihanna shared some photos from when she was named a National Hero last year and wrote, “My very first #NationalHeroesDay as a National Hero of my country Barbados! [Barbados flag emojis] What an absolute honor to be amongst such great men and women who have come before me and held this title in commitment to our nation! I will forever cherish these memories and continue to represent the Bajan people and my home Barbados to the fullest!! Love and gratitude to both The Prime Minister, The Honorable Mia Amor Mottley and our President, Her Excellency The Most Honorable Dame Sandra Mason for trusting me with this honor!”

The first National Heroes Day was celebrated on April 28, 1998, 100 years after the birth of Sir Grantley Herbert Adams, Barbados’ first prime minister (a position then called “premier”). The holiday has been observed annually since then.

The National Hero distinction is a big deal, as Rihanna is just one of 11 people to ever be given the title and the first one since the inaugural ten-person class in 1998. Rihanna is one of only two living National Heroes of Barbados, alongside legendary cricket player Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers. She’s also one of just two women to ever receive the honor, the other being Sarah Ann Gill, a social and religious leader in the 1800s.

This week on Indiecast, hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen take a deep dive into the most talked about albums from 2002. Re-examining releases like Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lights, Beck’s Sea Change, and Rilo Kiley’s The Execution Of All Things, Steven and Ian sort the albums into a few different categories: Overrated, underrated, properly rated, and their absolute favorites.

Along with revisiting music from two decades ago, Steven and Ian discuss all that happened in the music industry during their week-long hiatus. Elon Musk is trying to buy Twitter, Greta Van Fleet’s Josh Kiszka apologized for appropriating indigenous culture over the years, and Wilco dropped their 20th anniversary Yankee Hotel Foxtrot reissue, which is an impressive 11-LP box set. Finally, Succession‘s Cousin Greg, whose real name is Nicholas Braun, is apparently starting an indie rock TV series.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 86 on Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Donald Trump has said a lot of ridiculous things throughout his life, and many, many offensive things, too. And while his most supporters didn’t seem to mind that he enjoys grabbing women “by the p*ssy,” one would think—or, at least, hope—that even his most true-blue fans would want to put their MAGA hats on mothballs for a beat after learning of the former president’s fear of flying fruits.

Earlier this week, transcripts from an October 2021 deposition with Trump were made public. In them, he defends telling a crowd of supporters in 2016 to “knock the crap out” of anyone they see “getting ready to throw a tomato”—an act we previously believed only happened in Muppet movies, but one Trump seems decidedly familiar with, and knowledgeable about. On Thursday night, Seth Meyers attempted to share this development, along with quotes from the transcript, with his viewers, but had trouble getting through the words out without breaking into hysterical laughter.

After breaking out a spot-on impression of how Trump might have wanted to handle the situation—“I wanted to use some highly specialized fruit ninjas. I said, ‘Let’s do ninjas, because they have the fruit swords.’ But they said no.”—Meyers got to the most idiotic part of Trump’s already senseless argument.

“There’s this even dumber part of the deposition where Trump says, ‘You get hit with fruit… it’s very violent stuff. We were on alert for that… I wanted to have people be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit.’

What do you mean ‘do fruit’?! What do you mean you were put on alert? There’s an alert system for fruit? It’s like the Homeland Security threat level? Red’s tomato, yellow’s for banana, and green is for avocado. You know what they say: If you get hit with an avocado, you’re toast!”

You can watch the full segment above, beginning around the 8:55 mark.

Bryson Tiller is only a few years older than Jack Harlow (29 vs. 24, respectively), but that didn’t stop Harlow from looking up to his fellow Louisville, Kentucky native in his younger days. As Harlow is gearing up to release Come Home The Kids Miss You next week, he took a moment to shout out Tiller by sharing a DM exchange they had when Harlow was 17.

It started last night when Tiller offered some unsolicited support for Harlow, tweeting, “get ready for my bro Jack’s new album. soon you’ll see why he is number 1. MAY 6th.” Harlow responded by writing, “Dreams come true,” and sharing a screenshot of a DM exchange they had on June 30, 2015.

In it, Harlow starts by thanking Tiller for how well he has represented Louisville on a big stage. Harlow then noted the influence Tiller had on him while expressing confidence about where he himself would end up, writing, “I’m a massive fan dude and study your every move. I just turned 17 and I’m very confident in my craft and trajectory of my career.”

After Harlow concluded by calling Tiller a “hometown hero” and expressing his desire to meet, Tiller responded, “thanks man I appreciate it. keep working. anything is possible.”

Indeed, it does seem like anything is possible for Harlow: His debut album, 2020’s Thats What They All Say, went No. 5 and Harlow has two No. 1 singles to his name: “First Class” and his Lil Nas X collaboration “Industry Baby.”

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

Donald Trump treated the White House like a ride at Universal Studios, according to a new book. In This Will Not Pass, authors and New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns spoke to New Jersey governor Phil Murphy (D), who told them that the former-president kept a room stocked with MAGA merch next to the Oval Office. “They literally hand you a shopping bag, and you took anything you’d like,” he said.

Murphy visited Trump at the White House in April 2020 to discuss the pandemic. It was a (strategically) friendly enough meeting, with the former-president saying, “You can’t have a better representative than this man. That I can tell you.” But by December 2020, the relationship had soured. Murphy had less kind things to say about Trump.

“There was some amount of evidence that they knew more than they were letting on, and that sure as heck would have helped us to have that knowledge,” Murphy said. “There’s no question about that.” Murphy said that the lack of a national testing strategy – he called it a “kind of patchwork quilt” – a failure to make “reliable, verifiable data” available to the public, and a failure to mobilize the Defense Production Act early on, made the governing more difficult. “All of that would have really helped. It would have helped New Jersey. It would have helped the country,” he said.

Murphy added, “We have likewise suffered from the get-go with the absence of a national strategy, a national consistent theme that face masks actually are not political, they save lives.” But at least he got an overpriced MAGA bear out of it.

(Via the Hill)

Since teasing the release of his comeback single earlier this week, Psy has made it clear that he’s well past the “Gangnam Style” phase that first introduced him to a global audience. Despite his past as a record-breaking K-pop artist, Psy isn’t shy in asking the reigning pop heroes of the day, BTS, to get involved with his new album, Psy 9th. His new song, which is called “That That,” was produced by none other than Suga of BTS, and another teaser clip from this week revealed that Suga is featured on the track and part of the video as well.

In a wild west-themed romp, Psy and Suga cavort through an old timey town, checking out the saloon and hosting massive dance-offs out in the town square — plus Suga raps his own verse on the track. It’s the kind of feel good, kitschy clip that will definitely go far, and based on the incredibly catchy chorus from the song, Psy has a chance at getting himself back into the mainstream pop conversation. Since his new album is also out tonight, listeners can dive right in with not just the new single, but the entire record. Stream that below if you want to hear what this viral star is up to now, and check out the video up top.

At this point, it feels like nothing else in pop can really take place until Harry Styles releases his next album. Harry’s House has already earned the praise of Joni Mitchell, who seems to be a namesake of sorts for the title, earned Harry a spot on the Coachella lineup — where he previewed not one but two new songs — and spawned the hit single “As It Was.” What else can he do before the album drops in a few weeks? Well, plenty it seems. Not only is “As It Was” back on top of the charts at the No. 1 spot, after a brief dethroning by Jack Harlow’s “First Class,” and that might be the only thing delaying another new song from the record.

When it come, the next single is likely to be “Boyfriends,” a much slower track that nevertheless has already become a fan favorite because of how it dismantles the bad behavior of men who date women! Imagine that. “Late Night Talking” would be another good pick, but instead of giving us new music, tonight Harry gave us the idea of new music by sharing the entire tracklist for the record. Let the speculation begin, this thing ain’t over until it’s over.

Harry’s House tracklist:
Side A
1. “Music For A Sushi Restaurant”
2. “Late Night Talking”
3. “Grapejuice”
4. “As It Was”
5. “Daylight”
6. “Little Freak”
7. “Matilda”

Side B
8. “Cinema”
9. “Daydreaming”
10. “Keep Driving”
11. “Satellite”
12. “Boyfriends”
13. “Love Of My Life”

Lil Baby is one of many big-name artists that are set to release a new album this summer. The rapper has been promoting his third album, which would be his first solo release since 2020’s My Turn, as one that will surely take over the music world when the warmest months of the year arrive. Lil Baby hasn’t shared too many details about his next body of work, but he has given his fans some music. Earlier this month, he released “In A Minute” and “Right Now” to kick off his 2022 campaign, and now, he returns with a third track for listeners to enjoy.

Aiming to keep his hot streak alive, Lil Baby doubles back with “Frozen.” It presents the Atlanta native as a laser-focused spitter who is determined to stick to his journey in life without letting unnecessary distractions deter him. The new tracks arrived after Lil Baby earned his 100th entry on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, something that only Drake, Glee, Lil Wayne, Taylor Swift, Kanye West, Future, Nicki Minaj, Elvis Presley, Chris Brown, Jay-Z, and Justin Bieber have done.

More recently, Lil Baby took the stage at the 2022 Coachella Festival, and shortly after, he was announced as one of the performers at Pharrell’s Something In The Water festival. Additionally, Lil Baby will set out on his One Of Them Ones tour alongside Chris Brown last this year.

You can listen to “Frozen” in the video above.

It’s been a little under two years since Future gave the world a solo album. His last effort was 2020’s High Off Life, which was a bit of an underwhelming release compared to his prior projects. With that in the past, Future has steadily teased his ninth album as one that would satisfy fans much more than High Off Life. Finally, after a bit of a wait, fans can judge his new body of work for themselves as Future just released his new album, I Never Liked You. With the new project also comes a video for Future and Kanye West’s latest collaboration.

Their new track, which is titled “Keep It Burning,” is an effort that watches the duo find the good in destruction. Both Future and Kanye have no issue with tearing things down as they see the good that could come from it. The track also arrives with a matching visual that captures Future and Kanye dressed in all black as they show off some dance moves for the video that’s shot with a scope lens.

As for the rest of I Never Liked You, Future presents 16 songs with additional features from Gunna, Young Thug, Drake, Tems, Kodak Black, and EST Gee.

You can watch the video for “Keep It Burning” above.

I Never Liked You is out now via Epic Records. You can stream it here.

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

The first round of the 2022 NBA playoffs is essentially done and dusted. Outside of the Memphis Grizzlies and the Minnesota Timberwolves continuing to go at one another, every first round series has been decided, with three teams — the Philadelphia 76ers, the Phoenix Suns, and the Dallas Mavericks — taking care of business in road Game 6s on Thursday night to punch their tickets to the conference semifinals.

What does this mean? Well, for most of us, it means that we’ll watch the Grizzlies and Timberwolves play their Game 6 on Friday on ESPN before a pair of series — Game 1 of Bucks/Celtics and, potentially, Game 7 of Grizzlies/Timberwolves — have games on Sunday on ABC. But for the Inside the NBA crew, the Sixers, Suns, and Mavs winning means there are no games this weekend on Turner’s airwaves, and after the Mavericks beat the Jazz, Shaquille O’Neal was the happiest person in the world.

Shaq saw Bojan Bogdanovic’s potential game-winning shot miss and reacted by throwing a fist in the air and jumping out of his seat with a huge smile on his face. Now, it does not seem that Shaq has any sort of beef with the Utah Jazz. He, like all of us, just likes having free weekends, is all, and got one thanks to 24-point outings from both Luka Doncic and Jalen Brunson.

The most incredible part of this is that Chuck managed to correctly pick all three games to get the TNT fellas a long weekend, meaning all three fought off the Chuck Guarantee Curse to advance to the second round.