Month: April 2022

Sunday night was a coronation for the South Carolina Gamecocks, as the best team in women’s hoops led wire-to-wire in a thoroughly dominant performance against the UConn Huskies to win their second national championship.

The Gamecocks jumped on the Huskies from the opening tip, taking a 13-2 lead in the blink of an eye and quickly asserting their dominance on both ends of the floor. Coming into the game the question on everyone’s mind was how UConn would deal with South Carolina’s size, namely AP Player of the Year Aliyah Boston, and early on it was apparent the Huskies didn’t have an answer.

South Carolina dominated on the glass, particularly on the offensive end where they got 20 boards alone, creating one second chance opportunity after another. Boston led the way with her board work, hauling in 14 to go with nine points, three assists, and a pair of blocks.

With so much focus on Boston from the Huskies defensively, it opened up opportunities on the perimeter and Destanni Henderson stepped up to have a monster performance, leading all scorers with 26 points on 9-of-20 shooting, including a 3-of-6 night from three, as she attacked the UConn defense and punished them for overhelping on Boston in the pick-and-roll game.

On the other end of the floor, South Carolina simply overwhelmed the Huskies with their length and activity, forcing 15 turnovers and holding UConn to just 41.5 percent shooting from the field (and 25 percent from three). That activity, coupled with their dominance on the boards, allowed them to hold UConn to one shot on most every possession (UConn had five offensive boards all game) and also get out and push the tempo to apply further pressure.

Paige Bueckers was hounded throughout by Henderson and the aggressive South Carolina defense, finishing with a team high 14 points, but needed 13 shots to get there as the Huskies star just could not establish a rhythm. Caroline Ducharme gave them a boost off the bench with nine points as their second leading scorer, and the Huskies would make a third quarter run to make things competitive and cut the deficit to six points.

But the Gamecocks quickly regained control in the fourth quarter and opened up a double-digit lead again on their way to a 64-49 win, as Dawn Staley hoisted her second national championship trophy.

It was a sensational performance from South Carolina, who had some struggles early in the tournament establishing their offensive rhythm but found it as the games wore on and saved one of their best performances for last, leaving no doubt who was the best team in the title game. The 2022 team joins the 2017 team in hoisting the championship trophy, and also earns the distinction of being the first team to beat the UConn women in a title game (the Huskies entered the night 11-0 in championship games).

Aside from the chaos that the “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” video caused, another big moment for Lil Nas X as he prepared for his Montero debut album came with the release of “Industry Baby.” He released the song with Jack Harlow and the song became his third chart-topping song after “Old Town Road” and “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).” Lil Nas’ collaboration with Harlow also came with a great music video that showed off some of Lil Nas’ dance moves during multiple scenes at the fictional Montero County Jail.

However, some people hoped to see Harlow show off some of his own moves in that video. After hearing from a good amount of disappointed fans, Harlow took to Twitter to clear the air. “Nas wrote the whole treatment for this video and I followed his lead every step of the way,” he wrote. ” If he had asked me to be in that shower scene I woulda been in that shower scene. I just let the mastermind cook. Honored to be apart of it.” Lil Nas himself jokingly chimed in and tweeted, “To the lgbtq+ community i sincerely apologize. i have failed you. i am embarrassed. i am ashamed. and i will learn from my mistakes.”

Well, it seems like Lil Nas did learn from his “mistakes” as he made sure to include Harlow in some portions of his dance routine during their 2022 Grammy performance of “Industry Baby.” Harlow leaned and swayed with Lil Nas and his backup dancers as he started performing his guest verse, and by the time he was done, Harlow got into the full swing of the routine before walking off the stage.

You can watch Lil Nas and Harlow’s performance of “Industry Baby” above and move up to 3:26 to see Harlow’s entrance.

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

Cardi B has deactivated her Twitter account again after some fans got a little too rambunctious in her mentions over skipping the Grammys. According to Rolling Stone, Cardi addressed the abuse before deleting her account. “I’m deleting my Twitter but on god I hate this f*ckin dumbass fan base,” she wrote. “You got the slow dumbasses dragging my kids all cause y’all [thought] I was going to the grammys and I didnt the f*ck ? When the f*ck I hinted I was going ? just f*vkin stupid I can’t I needs to protect myself.”

Rolling Stone listed some of the replies that made Cardi take her latest break. “I bet yo son wouldnt like for you to be on your ass while teasing us fans and not ever dropping music,” one read. When Cardi responded (and maybe overreacted) “I hope your moms die,” another person taunted, “do you kiss your @utistic child with that mouth?”

Cardi most recently disabled her account in the spring of 2021, which some speculated was for her to have time to finish her upcoming sophomore album. While that album still has yet to materialize, she has since had a second child, and her health and family should absolutely take priority over her work. Before that, she deleted the account when fans harassed her husband Offset in 2020. Cardi has spoken about the dark side of social media in the past, so it’s possible she could return but it certainly makes sense why she would want to take a break from it once in a while.

The night is young, and Lady Gaga has already won multiple awards at the Grammys tonight. Though the star has recently been recognized for her work with elderly entertainers, she’s actually been partnering with Tony Bennett on jazz standard albums for the last seven years. Cheek To Cheek, the duo’s first album, came out back in 2014, and back then it picked up the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. Last year, the jazz-singing duo announced they’d be doing another joint album, Love For Sale, along with some TV special performances.

And though last year at the Grammys, Gaga was all about her Chromatica era, this year, she’s shifted gears to promoting her jazzier collaboration. Love For Sale won once more for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, and picked up a victory for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. To celebrate those two wins, and the lasting artistic partnership these two legends have established, Gaga and took to the stage tonight in Vegas to give fans a peek into the jazzy universe their album created. First she performed “Love For Sale” with some wacky jazzy dance moves, and then moved directly into the jazz standard “Do I Love You?” Tony sadly wasn’t able to be present, as he retired from performing last year, but he introduced Gaga with a cute video and blew her a kiss to kick off the medley. Check it out up top.

John Legend is a veteran at the Grammy awards. He’s taken home 12 awards and he’s been nominated on 33 occasions throughout his career. This year, Legend wasn’t nominated in any categories, but it hasn’t been too long since he was nominated at the show. In 2020 and 2021, he won in the Best Rap/Sung Performance and Best R&B Album categories respectively, and in 2019, he was nominated in the Best Musical Theater Album category. While Legend won’t leave with a trophy this year, he did make an appearance at this year’s Grammys, and with it came a Ukrainian tribute performance of his new song “Free.”

The track is one that Legend just released today, and it sees him pleading for freedom and an unrestricted life backed by the soft presence of the piano, stirring strings, and a powerful choir. His performance was introduced by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the current president of Ukraine, who gave a speech about the country’s ongoing war with Russia. Legend was also accompanied by Ukrainian singer Mika Newtown and Ukrainian poet Lyuba Yakimchuk for the performance.

Prior to his appearance at the Grammys, Legend became the latest artist to sell their music catalog. According to Bloomberg, Legend sold his copyrights and rights to royalties of his catalog to KKR & Co. and BMG, with each company getting a 50-percent stake. It was not revealed how much Legend made from the deal.

You can watch the Legend’s performance of “Free” and listen to Zelenskyy’s speech in the videos above.

At the 64th Grammy Awards, no other country artist was as decorated as Chris Stapleton. Before the main event even began, Stapleton had already claimed two awards during the Grammys premiere event telecast. His song “You Should Probably Leave” won the Grammy Award for Best Country Solo Performance, and his song “Cold,” won for Best Country Song (a songwriting award.) As the Grammy evening began to unfold, Stapleton soon took home his third prize of the night when his album, Starting Over, won the coveted award for Best Country Album.

Three for three for Stapleton, who is undoubtedly one of the best in Nashville and has now also won Best Country Album three times. So it was a fitting moment when soon after winning his final award, Stapleton took to the stage to perform “Cold” and it was most definitely breathtaking.

Backed by his band The Honchos, a hypnotic piano made way for smoky drums as Stapleton took to the mic, guitar in hand. His gravelly vocals were sublime as he sang the seething lyrics, “Oh, why you got to be so cold? Why you got to go and cut me like a knife.” A full string section joined the arrangement, making this an especially cinematic rendition of the tune. And of course, Stapleton’s lead guitar left a lingering mark in between his gorgeously delivered vocals.

You know how Jackass is the finest piece of art produced since the creation of the United States on July 4, 1776, and Johnny Knoxville has built an entertainment empire based on his willingness to have things launched at him and causing him terrible amounts of pain? Well, on Sunday night, all that hard work and dedication to getting kicked below the belt paid off with Knoxville getting a match at WrestleMania 38.

Knoxville wrestled Sami Zayn in an Anything Goes match, which was somehow sillier (and better) than anyone could have imagined. It involved, to the shock of no one, Johnny Knoxville getting hit with stuff, which looked like it hurt a lot.

Still, Knoxville was able to win thanks to a few things. For one, he used a lot of weapons and things of that nature.

But because the Jackass crew has a habit of popping up when someone else is doing something, Knoxville had some reinforcements. First up with Chris Pontius, who went full Party Boy and, well, you’ve seen Jackass you know what happens when he starts doing Party Boy stuff.

And then, there was Wee Man, who his under the ring, threw some pretty convincing strikes, and then picked up Zayn and gave us WrestleMania’s most iconic body slam since Hulk Hogan picked up Andre the Giant.

Knoxville won via pinfall (with the assistance of a giant mousetrap). The match went 14:25 but could have gone for another three hours and still been terrific.

It may sound hard to believe, but Nas has never performed solo at the Grammys, despite being something of a fixture in its Best Rap Album category. Of course, he only recently won that award for the Hit-Boy joint album King’s Disease, so maybe the Grammys overlooking the rap elder statesman could also be considered a tradition — until now. Thanks to the Grammys’ ongoing initiative to actually honor hip-hop, Nas has now broken both streaks. He made up for the last 20 years in his 2022 Grammy performance, playing a medley of his hits including “I Can,” “One Mic,” “Made You Look,” and new song “Rare,” further cementing Nas’ status as the Grammys’ new golden child — even if he is closer to 50 now.

In the past few years, Nas and Hit-Boy have proven to be a winning team. In 2021, they won the Best Rap Album Grammy for their first collaborative project, King’s Disease — Nas’ first-ever win in the category in his 30-year career. Their follow-up, King’s Disease II, is also nominated for Best Rap Album this year. Finally, in December of 2021, the duo collaborated once again to make Magic — no pun intended — their third joint album to date. They have both stated that they plan to release a third installment of the King’s Disease series, as well. Given how things have been going on that front, don’t be surprised if that one gets nominated for a Best Rap Album Grammy too.

Watch Nas’ 2022 Grammys performance of “I Can,” “One Mic,” “Made You Look,” and “Rare” above.

Brandi Carlile has been a Grammys darling for a minute now, and rightly deserved. The queer country singer first came onto the Recording Academy’s radar in a big way back in 2019, when her album, By The Way, I Forgive You, was nominated for Record Of The Year, and one of its best singles, “The Joke” was up for both Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year. Though she didn’t win in those major categories, picking up three Americana wins instead, since then she’s been a steady fixture in the nominations for the Big Four categories.

Tonight, she performed her three-times nominated track “Right On Time,” off her latest album, In These Silent Days. That song is up for Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year, and strangely Best Pop Solo Performance, though it is decidedly not pop… Carlile is also up for Song Of The Year for “A Beautiful Noise,” a song she co-write with Alicia Keys that urged people to vote in the 2020 election.

During tonight’s set, Carlile was introduced by Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell, and sat at a baby grand decked out in her bejewelled blazer (rhinestone cowgirl?) to deliver her gorgeous ballad, before abandoning the piano to go lead her band on an electric guitar. To go from that soulful moment at the piano to ripping it on an electric guitar just proves that Carlile contains multitudes. Watch above.

Each year, there’s a new round of artists who make an impact, big or small, on the music industry. In that group, a select few are chosen to be recognized in the Best New Artist category at the Grammys every year. Winners in this category over the last few years have come from an array of genres. In 2017, Chance The Rapper took the award while pop singer Alessia Cara did so the following year. The award was given to Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish in 2019 and 2020 respectively, and last year, Megan Thee Stallion was graced with the Best New Artist award.

This year, that honor has been given to Olivia Rodrigo. Fresh off her awesome performance of “Drivers License,” she was selected over the other Best New Artist nominees which were Arooj Aftab, Jimmie Allen, Baby Keem, Finneas, Glass Animals, Japanese Breakfast, The Kid Laroi, Arlo Parks, and Saweetie.

Over the past twelve months, many of the artists in this year’s Best New Artist category had highlight moments that certainly helped to boost their careers. Arlo Parks’ Collapsed In Sunbeams, which is also nominated for Best Alternative Music Album, won the Mercury Prize, which is awarded for the best album released in the United Kingdom by a British or Irish act. Olivia Rodrigo scored her first No. 1 album with Sour after tearing up the singles chart with “Drivers License.” The Kid Laroi also delivered a chart-topping album and single with F*ck Love and “Stay” with Justin Bieber. Lastly, Japanese Breakfast won the 2021 Uproxx Critics Poll thanks to their third album Jubilee, which is also nominated in this year’s Best Alternative Music Album category.

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