Month: May 2022

Finally.

Late last month, Kendrick Lamar arrived with news that the music world spent the last three or so years waiting to hear from him. He revealed that his fifth album, titled Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers, would arrive on May 13. The announcement was made in a statement from his PgLang agency, which he founded with longtime partner Dave Free. Aside from the album’s title, its release date, and some very early projections of the project’s first-week numbers, there’s little we know about the nature of Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers. With just less than five days until the album arrives, officially launches his new era with “The Heart Part 5.”

The new track is the fifth installment in the series that Kendrick has run in between albums since 2010 with the last edition coming in 2017 with “The Heart Part 4.” Just like “The Heart Part 5,” the 2017 track was released a short time before Kendrick’s fourth album Damn. “The Heart Part 5” is the first piece of music with Kendrick as the lead artist that we’ve received since his contributions to the 2018 Black Panther soundtrack. One of his more recent musical contributions overall came on Baby Keem’s “Family Ties,” which the two won a Grammy award for last month.

The new track also arrives after Kendrick appeared beside Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and Mary J. Blige at the upcoming Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show. As the group’s performance neared, rumors swirled that Kendrick would use the marquee weekend to make his long-awaited and that turned out to be the case.

One final note about Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers: it’s set to be Kendrick’s final album on TDE, a label he’s called home since 2004. Once Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers is released to the world, it remains to be seen what Kendrick’s next moves as one of rap’s biggest superstars will be.

You can press play on the video above to hear “The Heart Part 5.”

This weekend was quite the active one for Jack Harlow and Drake. The former released his second album Come Home The Kids Miss You which featured an appearance from Drake as well as Lil Wayne, Pharrell, and Justin Timberlake. Harlow and Drake’s collaboration, “Churchill Downs,” is named after the famed horse racing complex in Harlow’s hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. It’s also the site of this year’s Kentuck Derby which Harlow and Drake both attended on Saturday along with other big names like DJ Drama, Michael Jordan, Lewis Hamilton, and David Beckham.

Jack Harlow took a moment to speak with an NBC Sports reporter during his time at the Derby, and it’s here that things took a hilarious turn. In the middle of the interview, Drake steps in and says, “I was just trying to listen to what you guys got going on, adding, “I just want to hear the conversation. I’m not really here to speak on nothing.” That didn’t last too long as an intoxicated Drake soon took a moment to show some love to Harlow. “I just had to show up. I’m so proud of this guy,” Drake said before adding, “And we’re drunk.” He’d quickly correct himself and clarify that he was drunk while Harlow was sober.

The duo was then asked if they placed any bets on a horse. “We got a lot going on,” Drake said. Harlow added, “We were forced to make a move, on the one and only Happy Jack. He’s really giving a good description of how I feel right now. [If there] was a Happy Aubrey, we’d run that too.” Unfortunately for Harlow at least, Happy Jack finished in 14th place while Rich Strike, who entered with an 80-1 shot of winning, took home the Kentucky Derby crown.

Towards the end of Harlow and now Drake’s TV interview, the rappers seemingly received a cue from the production crew to wrap up the interview, but Drake wasn’t quite ready to end things. “You can’t give the wrap-it-up signal,” he said. “What are you gonna cut to? What are you gonna cut to? A shot of, like, poorly manicured grass, or something?”

You can watch clips from Drake and Harlow’s time at the Kentucky Derby above.

Come Home The Kids Miss You is out now via Atlantic. You can stream it here.

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

The Sacramento Kings were one of three NBA teams to have a head coach vacancy following this regular season, with the Lakers and Hornets also joining the coaching carousel, and have been the most active to this point in conducting interviews and narrowing their search.

On Sunday night, word broke that the Kings had found their next head coach just down the road in San Francisco, as ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Warriors assistant Mike Brown had agreed to a four-year deal with the Kings.

Brown has been a head coach on three occasions, twice in Cleveland and once in Los Angeles with the Lakers, compiling a 347-216 record in seven-plus seasons at the helm. Brown has been an assistant in Golden State ever since the 2016-17 season, winning championships with the Warriors where current Kings owner Vivek Ranadive was formerly a minority stakeholder in the team — and he was seen courtside on Saturday night for the Warriors win over Memphis.

Whether Brown can find success with the Kings and snap the NBA’s longest postseason drought remains to be seen, and will likely come down to personnel and whether Sacramento can put together a coherent roster, finally. But his initial task will be making the De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis pairing as successful as possible, while trying to coax a decent defense out of a team that has struggled mightily on that end for many years.

Brown got the nod in Sacramento over ESPN’s Mark Jackson, who has likewise interviewed with the Lakers as he looks to leave the booth for the sidelines once again after his three-year tenure in Golden State from 2012-14.

U2 recently received an invitation to Ukraine from the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky. With that, Bono and The Edge from the band decided to take Zelensky up on his offer and visit the country. During their trip there, Bono and The Edge took over a subway station-turned-bomb-shelter to hold an acoustic concert for nearby citizens. “The people in Ukraine are not just fighting for your own freedom, you are fighting for all of us who love freedom,” Bono told the audience, which included soldiers, according to Rolling Stone. “We pray that you will enjoy some of that peace soon.”

The Irish Times reports that the duo played songs that included “With or Without You,” “Desire,” “Angel of Harlem,” and “Vertigo.” Bono and The Edge also covered Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” which replaced the word “Me” with “Ukraine.” U2’s set also featured appearances by Ukrainian musicians that were pushed into military duty after Russia invaded the country. One of them included singer Taras Topolya from the Ukrainian band Antytila.

Bono and The Edge’s performance comes after they appeared in Global Citizen’s “Stand Up For Ukraine” livestream where they performed a rendition of “Walk On” which addressed the invasion.

You can check out videos from Bono and The Edge’s performance in Ukraine in the videos above.

Game 4 of the Mavs-Suns series was defined by three-point shooting, as Dallas rolled to a 111-101 victory to even the series at 2-2 going back to Phoenix in one of the most impressive shooting displays of the postseason.

Dallas came out hot from the jump, as Dorian Finney-Smith, Davis Bertans, and Spencer Dinwiddie all got rolling from beyond the arc in the first half as the Mavs pumped in 12 three-pointers to take a 12-point lead into halftime.

The other storyline in the game was foul trouble for the Suns, namely Chris Paul, who picked up four first half fouls and was largely ineffective in the game, scoring just five points on 2-of-4 shooting with seven assists in 23 minutes of action. Devin Booker did his best to pick up the pieces, scoring 35 points and holding the Suns in it, but with Cam Payne continuing his postseason struggles, the Suns couldn’t afford Paul to be on the bench as much as he was.

Most of the Mavs did cool off considerably in the second half, starting it 9-of-33 from the field, as Phoenix reeled them in, cutting the lead to as few as four with 1:17 to go in the third, but Dallas was able to find timely buckets to answer every Suns run. In the fourth quarter, Devin Booker did his best to lead the Suns back into the game, giving a strong two-way effort to open the period as Phoenix once again trimmed the Mavs lead to six.

However, Phoenix had to figure out a way to close the game without Paul, who picked up his sixth reaching in on Jalen Brunson on an offensive rebound with nine minutes to play.

While Doncic struggled to find his stroke from the outside, his teammates continued to provide the lift, with Dorian Finney-Smith taking over briefly with back-to-back threes to once again push Dallas to a double-digit advantage, as he finished the night with 24 points, all on three-pointers, as he hit 8-of-12 from deep to give the Mavs a much-needed lift.

While it was a tough shooting night from Doncic, he came up with big plays down the stretch when he committed to creating for his teammates, as Phoenix continuously collapsed on Doncic’s drives and helped off the corners despite the Mavs shooters burying everything from there all night. Reggie Bullock and Jalen Brunson cashed in on corner three opportunities created by Doncic in the closing minutes as Dallas once again opened up a healthy lead in the final four minutes, with the star putting the dagger in with some fancy footwork in the post with just over two minutes to go.

There was plenty of commentary on the officiating during the game from fans of both sides, but the difference was simply Dallas’ lights out shooting. Non-Doncic Mavs went 19-of-34 from three, headlined by Finney-Smith’s night, while the Suns were a solid but unremarkable 9-of-25 from deep. No one other than Booker could really get it going for Phoenix, and that proved to be too much of a burden for the Suns’ star to bear down the stretch, as he could never get them within more than two possessions of the lead.

Now the series shifts back to Phoenix where the Suns looked terrific to open the series and it may simply come down to whether the Mavs’ “others” can be effective away from their home arena. Doncic had 26 points, 11 assists, and seven rebounds in the win, but was a dreadful 1-of-10 from distance and needed the pick-up from his teammates to get this game across the finish line. The Suns have clearly decided they’ll let the Mavs’ role players get open looks off of Doncic’s creation, and in Game 4 that came back to bite them as the Mavs buried shots throughout the night.

The Golden State Warriors dominated Game 3 against the Grizzlies on Saturday night, piling up 142 points in a 30-point blowout win to take a 2-1 series lead, but after the game much of the conversation was about Ja Morant’s knee injury that caused him to leave the game for the locker room early in the fourth quarter.

There were a couple of plays in the late third and early fourth that seemed to leave the All-Star guard hobbling a bit, but head coach Taylor Jenkins and the Grizzlies focused on a play in the early fourth that saw Jordan Poole grabbing for the ball but instead pull on Morant’s knee. After Steve Kerr called Memphis out for dirty play in Game 2 headlined by Dillon Brooks’ clothesline of Gary Payton II that left him with a fractured elbow and led to a Brooks suspension, the Grizzlies took this play as some sort of effort at retribution from the Warriors — who unsurprisingly insisted it was incidental.

On Sunday, Jenkins met with the media and offered a less than positive update on Morant, who was continuing to have tests done on his knee and had no official diagnosis, but did note that there was a “really good chance” the star guard will be out for Game 4.

That’s obviously a big blow for Memphis, although they did have a stellar record without Morant during the regular season, as Morant was the lone bright spot in the Game 3 loss before he exited. It was always going to be a steep hill to climb for the Grizzlies against the Warriors, but the margin for error gets brought down to effectively nil if Morant is unable to play. Memphis would need a significantly better effort from their other guards, particularly Tyus Jones, if they are to find a way to even the series without Morant — or even if Ja can play but is limited.

It’s been almost seven years since Future obtained his first No. 1 album. He earned it with his 2015 third album DS2 which many herald as a classic in his discography. Future’s stardom was cemented in the following years, especially in 2017 when he released two albums — Future and Hndrxx — in the span of two weeks with both topping the charts. Nowadays, Future’s output is not what it used to be, but his chart performance has remained the same. At the end of last month, Future released his ninth album I Never Liked You and many expected it to debut at No. 1. Those expectations have come true thanks to the latest chart from Billboard.

For the Billboard 200 dated May 14, 2022, Future’s I Never Liked You went No. 1 thanks to 222,000 album units sold in its first week. That number is comprised of 214,000 streaming equivalent album units which equates to 283.75 million on-demand official streams of the album’s songs. I Never Liked You also posted 6,500 pure album sales.

With its first-week sales of 222,000 units, Future’s I Never Liked You earns the biggest debut of any album released in 2022. It’s also the highest sales week since Adele’s 30 posted 280,000 units in the week ending on December 2, 2021. Additionally, I Never Liked You had the biggest debut of any hip-hop/R&B album since Drake’s Certified Lover Boy posted 613,000 album sales last September.

Future’s latest No. 1 gives him his eighth chart-topping release in the last seven years which is the most by any artist in that timespan.

You can revisit our review of I Never Liked You here.

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

Over the weekend, one longtime Republican decided he’d been quiet long enough. Steve Schmidt, a strategist who managed John McCain’s unsuccessful presidential run in 2008, took to Twitter, where he proceeded to unleash hell upon Meghan McCain, who was already smarting from surreally lousy hardcover book sales. Then he came for his old boss’ notorious running mate.

It’s no secret that Schmidt and Sarah Palin did not get along. Their contentious relationship was dramatized in the campaign trail book Game Change as well as the HBO movie made from it, in which the two were played by Woody Harrelson and Julianne Moore. But Schmidt decided that while he was torching John McCain’s daughter — whom he accused of being a “bully” whose behavior on her father’s campaign trail “appalled” the late politician — he’d go after Palin as well.

“When the campaign ended I refused to let Sarah Palin speak,” Schmidt tweeted about election night 2008. “I placed the phone call to Barack Obama for the concession and did everything I could to make sure a beautiful speech wasn’t disgraced by the nut ball from Alaska.”

You can watch how the Game Change film depicted that scene.

He also saw a depressing, disturbing shift in the GOP. “Palin understood the party of personal responsibility was dead and replaced by a whining victim cult of losers who routinely lied and blamed others for their failings,” he wrote. “Palin went on the attack after the campaign. You see, it wasn’t that she was ignorant and unprepared. It wasn’t that she was a pathological liar who became intoxicated by fame and grievance. She was a victim!”

He added: “John McCain’s last words to Palin on election night were a warning,” the former advisor wrote. “He said don’t be pulled in ‘by the extremists like Limbaugh.’ It was too late and he knew it.”

The next day, Schmidt doubled down when confronted by Breitbart News editor-at-large Rebecca Mansour, calling Palin “an absolutely degenerate liar. Pathological. Unfit. Unwell. She’s a quitter and a buffoon who has no business ever holding a position of public trust, ever. Not even as a crossing guard. Nothing.” Schmidt then told Mansour, “You are nuts also.”

Alas, even though Schmidt never liked Sarah Palin, the campaign he ran had opened Pandora’s Box. Not only had an obscure governor been turned into a household name, she inspired untold clones, even “pathological” and “unwell” than her. Though not many of them have openly scoured about New York City while sick with COVID.

(Via Insider)

Earlier this month, it was announced that Eminem would be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in his first year of eligibility. He joins Dolly Parton, Duran Duran, Lionel Richie, Pat Benatar, Eurythmics, and Carly Simon as artists that will be inducted through the Performers category. After the announcement, The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’s CEO Greg Harris praised Eminem during an interview with Taryn Daly of Audacy.

“For a lot of years people asked about hip hop,” he said. “He is the tenth artist to be sort of categorized that way. But you listen to his music, it is as hard-hitting and straight ahead as any metal song. It is right there. It is a chest punch with a message and with a power and with a rhythm and with a band.”

A few days after the inductees for the 2022 class were announced, we finally received a message from Eminem himself about the inclusion, and it couldn’t come in a more Eminem way. The rapper shared a cartoon image of himself standing in front of a bunch of Minions in between a message that read “The Minions congratulate Eminem. Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame 2022.”

Fans noticed that amongst the cast of Minions, there is a green one with an M on its chest and it looks extremely similar to an M&M (which is phonetically pronounced the same way as Eminem). As a result, many believe that Eminem is in some way involved in the upcoming Minions: Rise Of Guru movie which arrives in theatres on July 1. It’s also not the first time that Eminem has promoted the movie as he did so at the end of March with a trailer that featured “Lose Yourself” playing in the background.

You can view Eminem’s tweet above.

Formula 1 has steadily increased in popularity in the United States in recent years, fueled by Netflix’s Drive to Survive series, and on Sunday the racing series held its first of two stateside races of 2022 in Miami.

As is the case at all F1 races, the paddock was filled with celebrities milling about, looking at cars, and talking to drivers before the race, but because this race was in Miami, there were far more American sports stars than usual. Some of them were household names anywhere, like Tom Brady, Serena Williams, and Michael Jordan, but there were also some lesser known names for folks from the other side of the pond wandering around.

Among them was Paolo Banchero, as the potential No. 1 overall draft pick in the upcoming 2022 NBA Draft was taking it all in at the paddock. At 6’10, Banchero stands out in a crowd and for the Sky Sports broadcast, that meant he had to be somebody and they should probably talk to him. The Sky Sports team decided he was Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, leading to an extremely awkward (and hilarious) interview on live TV with Martin Brundle.

The “whatever” at the end is hysterical, as Brundle was clearly having a very difficult time sorting out who was who in a foreign place with a lot of non-F1 regulars in attendance. Doing an interview and then asking “what’s your name?” is an objectively funny way to go about things, and as F1 continues to try and grow its footprint in the U.S., Sky Sports might want to seek out some local spotters when they come stateside so they can avoid yelling “PATRICK” at someone who is decidedly not Patrick Mahomes.