Month: April 2022

Last Sunday, in about 30 seconds, Will Smith changed his entire career — and later he won an Oscar. The beloved rapper-turned-actor has been the top news story for a week after he stormed the Academy Awards stage and slapped presenter Chris Rock over a joke he made about his wife (and, later, danced to one of his own songs). And while hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost kicked off their latest Weekend Update with an update about Ukraine, the punchline was about that slap — as were most of the jokes.

“Intelligence officials are saying that Vladimir Putin is being misinformed by his advisors about how badly the Russian military is performing in Ukraine,” Jost said, “which is kind of like Will Smith’s agent telling him, ‘You crushed it at the Oscars!”

Jost also called Smith’s actions “disgraceful,” adding, knowingly, that they set “a terrible precedent for having to defend your wife at awards shows.”

Che seized upon one of the things Smith said during his acceptance speech: “Love will make you do crazy things.”

“You know what else makes you do crazy things? Crazy,” Che joked. “But I understand where Will’s coming from. I mean, you can’t expect him to sit there and watch another man jump all over his wife—without signing an NDA.”

Che also took issue with the idea that everyone knew Jada Pinkett Smith, whose bald head was the source of Rock’s joke, had a hair condition.

“Can we stop pretending everybody knew Jada had alopecia?” Che said. “I mean, as much as we’ve heard about Jada and Will’s personal lives, you can’t expect us to retain everything,” he said. “It’s like Kanye saying, ‘Don’t act like y’all don’t know I had psoriasis!’”

On a more personal note, Che said he was “tired” of audiences “putting their own insecurities” onto him when he’s cracking wise. “I mean, I can’t make a joke about it being cold outside,” Che said, “without somebody yelling back, ‘Stop making fun of my small penis! Keep my small penis out your mouth!’”

In summing up, Jost deemed it “one of the craziest things we will ever see in our lives.”

You can see those jokes and more in the video above.

Like plenty of other artists before them, Halsey has a bit of a history with the Grammys. After the Recording Academy snubbed of the pop star’s excellent 2020 album, Manic, they shared some frustration on social media about the “bribes” they felt are necessary to make it onto the award show’s radar. Since working with Nine Inch Nails’ icons Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on their most recent album, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, they did earn a nod in the Best Alternative Album category, so the plan was for Halsey to attend the star-studded event in case of a win there.

But, things got a little complicated over the last few days, as the artist recently underwent surgery. So recently… it was just three days ago. In a post on Instagram, Halsey let fans and peers know that they might be a little “fragile” at the event. “The last time I attended the Grammys was 2017 and it was 3 days after I had my first Endometriosis surgery,” they wrote. “I walked the carpet with my stitches still in As luck would have it, I’m attending tomorrow for the first time in years and I had surgery again (you guessed it) 3 days ago. Only posting this to say, if you see me be gentle lol I’m fragile. Fragile but excited :)”

Sending healing vibes to Halsey — and winning ones, too, though their category is stacked with contenders: Fleet Foxes’ Shore, Japanese Breakfast’s Jubilee,
Arlo Parks’ Collapsed In Sunbeams, and St. Vincent’s Daddy’s Home.

Though he’d return later in the night to perform his incredibly popular “Pushin P” single — joined by his Atlanta rap elder, Future — Gunna kicked off his appearance on Saturday Night Live with a rendition of the slow jam, “Banking On Me.” Though the more gentle number didn’t appear on the original version of Gunna’s 2022 album, DS4EVER, it was released later on as one of four additional bonus tracks. Since the rising Atlanta rapper has been romantically linked to Chloe Bailey several times, this kind of emotional song will always raise a couple of eyebrows, but it’s generic enough that there are no specific references to the R&B star.

For the late night set, Gunna showed up in an all cream, double-breasted suit — which he, of course, paired with some signature sneakers — and sat perched on a trunk for the rendition while fog swirled around him and a live band, who got a chance to flex on a musical interlude toward the end of the appearance. Showcasing his softer side on national television side was a smooth move from Gunna, who is fighting against the same stereotypes that plenty of hip-hop artists face. This performance proved that he’s more than just trap bars, although he did bring those in later on. Check out his performance of “Banking On You” up top.

Last night on Saturday Night Live, Gunna brought out Future to show the world exactly what “Pushin P” means. The song is so popular it’s spawned the usage of the specific “Pushing P” emoji, a blue capital P, but Gunna has given his best description of the infamously phrase in an Instagram story following up the song’s release and right before his January 2022 album DS4EVER, was released. “P don’t just mean Playa, P also mean paper too,” he said. “You could be pushing this P with paper too.”

First released right around the top of 2022, the “Pushin P” video has been, ahem, pushing, the Atlanta rapper’s new slang for the last few months, and its raunchy music video certainly helped get eyes on the song in the beginning. For their TV performance of the track, though, Future and Gunna kept it fairly PG, decked out in their usual designer swag, and slowly swaying while they rapped through swirling fog and a tumultuous laser light show.

Perhaps what’s most impressive about the performance, though, is the way Gunna and Future seamlessly trade bars, exhibiting the kind of on stage chemistry that few rappers can manage — especially two who are both such stars in their own right. Check out the performance up top.

The greatest coach in men’s college basketball history is ending his career without one final championship. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski announced before the 2021-22 college basketball season that he would retire when the Blue Devils’ year came to an end, and on Saturday night, that happened thanks to the North Carolina Tar Heels. The two sides faced off in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the history of their lengthy rivalry and the Tar Heels came out on top, 81-77, to earn a date with the Kansas Jayhawks for a national championship on Monday.

But in the immediate aftermath of the game, the focus for college basketball fans on the internet was celebrating the fact that Coach K’s career is over. While his success as a coach is unparalleled in the men’s game, Krzyzewski isn’t exactly beloved for what he’s done at the helm of the Blue Devils. As such, when the clock hit zero, a whole lot of folks pressed send on tweets to wish him goodbye.

The official Twitter account for the Tar Heels couldn’t help but bid him adieu in its final score tweet.

There were some attempts to send him out on a really positive note, like the one from Nike — the longtime uniform sponsor for Duke basketball. The official Nike hoops account asked the Twitterverse to name their favorite moment of Coach K’s career…

…and there’s about a 99.9999999 percent chance you can guess how that went.

The loss on Saturday was the second time this season that the Tar Heels spoiled a big night for Krzyzewski, as they went to Cameron Indoor Stadium during the final game of the regular season and picked up a win.

The 2021-22 college basketball season has produced myriad storylines, culminating in a memorable and wildly entertaining 2022 NCAA Tournament. Saint Peter’s made an historic run, the tournament was conducted in its traditional format for the first time since 2019, and Kansas earned a spot in the national title game with a wire-to-wire victory over Villanova on Saturday. However, the No. 1 discussion point of the campaign has been the final tour of duty for Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski.

Krzyzewski and the Blue Devils entered the 2022 Final Four as the betting favorite to claim a sixth national title under his leadership, and Duke also faced off against its long-time rival, the North Carolina Tar Heels, for the first time in NCAA Tournament history. North Carolina defeated Duke in Coach K’s final home game at Cameron Indoor Stadium just weeks ago, setting the stage for potential revenge and one-of-a-kind scrutiny. As such, the level of buzz was off the charts for the matchup and, if anything, the game itself may have exceeded the considerable hype. The game was hotly contested for 40 minutes but, in the end, North Carolina made the requisite plays down the stretch, pulling off the upset by a final score of 81-77 to advance to Monday’s final.

After a tremendous amount of build-up, the game began with a nervy start on both sides. The two teams combined to score just seven points before the first media timeout, with 3-of-14 combined shooting in the process. Foul trouble then became a storyline when Duke big man Mark Williams, who projects as a first-round NBA Draft pick, picked up a second foul with more than 15 minutes left in the half. He was replaced by Theo John and, while the backup gave Duke quality minutes, he picked up four fouls before halftime in his own right.

From there, the uneven shooting continued for most of the first half. The teams missed 22 of the first 32 shots, with neither able to assert control on the scoreboard as a result. Paolo Banchero did flash his individual brilliance, though, as he was able to generate an impressive dunk in semi-transition.

Duke threw the first haymaker of the game, using a 9-2 run to take a six-point lead at 24-18. Banchero knocked down a three-pointer shortly after to give the Blue Devils a six-point edge with fewer than three minutes remaining before halftime.

In keeping with the flow of the first half, North Carolina then answered with six straight points to the time, answering every Duke punch with one of their own. The final first-half salvo was a Jeremy Roach three-point play in the final seconds, giving Duke a 37-34 lead at the break. Neither team was efficient in the first half, though Duke held the edge with 26 points in the paint and 56 percent shooting inside the arc.

When the bell rang for the second half, Duke struck first, extending its lead to seven points in short order. That set the stage for a response from North Carolina that changed the trajectory of the evening, as the Tar Heels scored 13 consecutive points. Caleb Love scored 10 of the 13 for North Carolina, forcing a timeout from Duke.

Out of the stoppage, Duke responded in kind. Banchero and Williams put pressure on the rim, knotting the game at 55-55 and keeping with the back-and-forth nature of the second half.

Williams picked up his fourth foul soon after, heading to the bench as a result. North Carolina kept pushing in the meantime, reclaiming a five-point advantage behind continued shot-making from Love, backcourt mate R.J. Davis, and big man Armando Bacot.

Almost immediately, Duke countered with six straight points, taking the lead, and that set off a stretch of ties and lead changes that was befitting of the moment. Neither team led by more than two points for nearly seven consecutive minutes, and the close-fought nature of the proceedings only heightened the already considerable drama.

On three consecutive possessions, Duke’s Trevor Keels, North Carolina’s Brady Manek, and Duke’s Wendell Moore converted three-pointers, denting the scoreboard and giving the Blue Devils a 74-73 lead with 1:18 remaining on the 17th lead change of the night.

After a timeout by Duke, R.J. Davis drew a foul and made a pair of free throws, giving North Carolina a one-point edge with 1:01 remaining. On the other end, Bacot was called for a relatively questionable fifth foul, earning a disqualification and putting Williams at the line with a chance to give Duke the lead. The big man missed both attempts, however, and that set the stage for yet another haymaker from Love.

The talented guard connected on a three-pointer to put the Tar Heels in front by four points with less than 30 seconds remaining.

Duke wisely pushed the pace, scoring on a layup by Roach in only seven seconds. Love had a chance to push North Carolina’s lead back to four at the free throw line, but he split a pair, giving Duke a chance to tie the game on offense. The Tar Heels committed a foul against Keels, with the freshman splitting the attempts with 10.4 seconds remaining.

Love garnered the defensive rebound and went to the line with another chance to push the margin to a more comfortable position. When he made both attempts, North Carolina was in a commanding spot, and Duke went begging on the other end, sealing the monumental victory.

There were many heroes for the Tar Heels, though Love stood above the rest. He finished with a game-high 28 points on 11-of-20 shooting, and Love’s second-half heroics will undoubtedly be remembered for a long time in Chapel Hill. Bacot, on one leg for a portion of the second half, produced a double-double with 11 points and 21 rebounds, with the most rebounds in a Final Four game since Nick Collison in 2003.

After a relatively slow start, North Carolina scored 47 points after halftime and finished with well over 1.1 points per possession offensively. The Tar Heels were buoyed by 17 offensive rebounds, and Duke shot just 5-of-22 from three-point range, considerably leveling the playing field and taking some of the juice away from the more talented Blue Devils.

North Carolina will continue from here, facing Kansas in a Blue Blood showdown for the national title on Monday evening in New Orleans. At the same time, Coach K’s career comes to an end in a fashion that would be difficult to script with his last two losses coming against an arch rival and under the bright lights.

Bill Raftery is as good as it gets in the world of broadcasting at slipping little jokes into games he’s calling. While his usual lines are iconic — everyone has screamed “ONIONS!” after a huge shot late in a game, for example — Raftery is ultra-clever, and is no stranger to saying things that makes folks laugh while they watch a college basketball game.

Raftery is, as usual, calling the Final Four alongside Jim Nantz and Grant Hill for Turner, and during the second game of the evening, the legendary broadcaster saw the opportunity to crack a pretty topical joke. Duke big man Mark Williams got a piece of North Carolina center Armando Bacot while the latter tried to possess the ball, which earned him a foul. A slow-motion replay gave everyone a better view of the incident, at which point Raftery couldn’t help but say “it’s not even the Oscars.”

The joke got a laugh out of someone at the broadcast booth, along with presumably thousands of people tuning in to watch the first Final Four matchup in the history of the rivalry between Duke and North Carolina. I’ll be honest: I did not expect Raftery to crack a joke referencing Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Academy Awards last Sunday during the biggest college basketball game of the season, but it’s probably safe to assume that he was sitting on that one all night and made it at the exact right moment.

If you’ve been following the work of pop girls who make it a priority to work with queer artists, like Charli XCX, Kim Petras, and Rina Sawayama, then you’ve probably already come across the work of Pabllo Vittar. The activist, drag queen, and singer-songwriter has been making and releasing her own music for years now, but recent pop looks from major icons like Charli and even Lady Gaga has put her on the map in a new way. So does this new collaboration with Rina, and the clubby, glitchy track is reminiscent of her own dance bop, “Comme Des Garcon.” For her part, Rina is thrilled to collaborate with Pabllo on both the song and the video itself.

“I have been such an admirer of Pabllo for so long — she is nothing short of an icon and so for us to collaborate on an original, I wanted a moment that felt fitting,” Rina said in a press release. “When she sent me the idea for “Follow Me” I was just in love with it immediately and the process from then has been a dream. From working on the music to the video, I’m honored to be a part of the song and be let into her world — I hope both hers and my gorgeous fans are as obsessed with it as we are.”

Pabllo said pretty much the same thing, calling Rina an “icon” as well and talking about how fun the video was to shoot. “I’m so excited to release this song with Rina — she is such an icon and I’m so pleased we managed to make this song work as it’s the perfect combination of our music styles,” the drag queen said in a statement. “I really hope the fans love it as much as we do. Shooting the video was so much fun as well, wearing iconic outfits, and strutting our stuff on the runway! SERVE!”

You better! Check out the clip up top.

One of the most highly-anticipated games in Final Four history will take place on Saturday night. The Duke Blue Devils and North Carolina Tar Heels will go head-to-head in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the history of the sport’s greatest rivalry. If that wasn’t enough, legendary Blue Devil coach Mike Krzyzewski is slated to retire at the end of the team’s run, and to add yet another wrinkle, the Tar Heels took down Duke in Durham earlier this year in the Coach K’s final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

So, yeah, lot going on! It’s a game that has the attention of the entire sports world, and thanks to his Instagram account, we know that Drake is going to be watching intently. He is, of course, a huge basketball fan, but as he showed, Drake is ultra-confident in the Blue Devils getting revenge in New Orleans, as he threw down $100,000 on Paolo Banchero and co. moving on to the national championship game to take on the Kansas Jayhawks.

Duke is favored to win — the fine folks in Las Vegas have them as 4-point favorites, while KenPom also projects a victory by four points. But as we all know, weird things happen in rivalry games, even if we’ve arguably never seen one with stakes quite this high.

Four years ago in San Antonio, the Villanova Wildcats bludgeoned the Kansas Jayhawks in a Final Four matchup, connecting on 18 three-pointers and leaving no doubt who was the better team. In 2022, Kansas returned the favor, beginning a national semifinal matchup against Villanova with red-hot shooting and leading wire-to-wire to reach the national title game on Monday in New Orleans. In the process, Bill Self inched one step closer to a second championship while Kansas stopped Villanova’s bid for a third title in seven years with a 81-65 victory.

The evening began in scalding-hot fashion for Kansas, and the Jayhawks did not relent for quite some time. Kansas buried its first four shots and, with Villanova kicking the ball around to the tune of three turnovers on the first four possessions, the Jayhawks took a 10-0 lead in the blink of an eye.

Ochai Agbaji, the best NBA prospect on the floor and the leading scorer for the Jayhawks, was also unconscious out of the gate. Agbaji capitalized on a few defensive mistakes and his own talent to convert his first four attempts from three-point range, putting Kansas in control.

Kansas built a 38-19 lead after approximately 15 minutes of game time, putting on an offensive clinic in the process. The Jayhawks made seven of their first ten attempts from long distance and, with the aid of six turnovers from Villanova, Kansas was on cruise control.

Villanova did what it needed to do to close the first half, however, as the Wildcats awakened on both ends. After scoring 38 points in 15 minutes, the Jayhawks didn’t score for more than four minutes, and Villanova zoomed to 10 straight points, cutting the margin from 19 to nine. That allowed Villanova to get to the locker room down only 11 points and, after what a barrage in the early going, that was relatively fortunate for the underdogs.

After a back and forth stretch following halftime, Villanova struck first with a spurt. The Wildcats scored eight straight points to climb within eight with 14 minutes to play and, at that stage, Villanova showed its best life of the evening.

Not to be out-done, David McCormack asserted himself. While Ogbaji garnered the headlines with shot-making in the first half, McCormack was dominant throughout, and he contributed a poster-worthy dunk to give Kansas a 12-point advantage.

Villanova would not go quietly, however, as the Wildcats chipped away until they trailed by only six points with fewer than six minutes remaining. In fact, Villanova had a chance to get the ball back down only six when Kansas missed a shot, but McCormack created a second-chance bucket that was the beginning of the end for the Wildcats. Moments later, Kansas wing Christian Braun connected on the single biggest shot of the evening, beating the shot clock to give the Jayhawks a 12-point lead.

For good measure, Braun buried another three-pointer after a timeout, giving Kansas a 15-point edge and further cementing the final outcome. McCormack and Agbaji were the stars of the evening for the Jayhawks, with McCormack finishing with 25 points (on 10-for-12 shooting) and nine rebounds and Agbaji adding 21 points and six three-pointers. They were not alone, however, as three teammates added at least nine points each, and Kansas put together a thoroughly dominant offensive performance.

Villanova was without its second-leading scorer Justin Moore, who tore his Achilles late in the Elite Eight win over Houston, and that clearly put the Wildcats behind the eight-ball. Still, Kansas capitalized on opportunities throughout the evening, shooting 54 percent from the floor and converting 13 of its 24 three-point attempts. Overall, the Jayhawks scored approximately 1.4 points per possession, punishing Villanova’s lack of size repeatedly and executing in impressive fashion.

On a night that will be remembered for the brilliance of Kansas, Villanova was up to the challenge on offense, scoring more than 1.1 points per possession and burying 13 three-pointers. In fact, the two teams combined to set a new NCAA Tournament record for three-pointers (26), out-pacing the record established by the 2018 meeting between the two programs. That was a fitting endpoint in some respect, but Kansas will now move on to Monday, where it will await the winner of the highly anticipated matchup between Duke and North Carolina.