Month: May 2022

The Golden State Warriors announced that defensive ace Gary Payton II suffered a fractured left elbow during Tuesday night’s Game 2 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. Payton went up for a layup during the first quarter and got clotheslined by Grizzlies wing Dillon Brooks, who was assessed a flagrant 2 foul and ejected.

The foul — along with a few other moments during the opening 12 minutes of the game — drew the ire of Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who accused Memphis of playing dirty during his interview with TNT in between the first and second quarters. And after the game, Kerr ripped Brooks for breaking a code among players.

“I don’t know if it was intentional, but it was dirty,” Kerr said. “Playoff basketball, it’s supposed to be physical, everybody’s gonna compete, everybody’s gonna fight for everything. But there’s a code in this league, there’s a code that players follow where you never put a guy’s season/career in jeopardy by taking somebody out in mid-air and clubbing them across the head, and ultimately fracturing Gary’s elbow.

“This is a guy who’s been toiling the last six years, trying to make it in this league, finally found a home playing his butt off this year,” Kerr continued. “In the playoffs, this should be the time of his life, and a guy comes in and whacks him across the head in mid-air. He broke the code, Dillon Brooks broke the code. That’s how I see it.”

There is no word on whether or not Brooks will be assessed any further penalty for the foul.

If you’re just waking up and checking Uproxx before your Twitter feed, number one, thank you. Number two: Batten down the hatches. You’re in for a wild day.

Last night, Dave Chappelle performed at the Hollywood Bowl as part of the ongoing Netflix Is A Joke Fest, which has seen seemingly the entirety of the comedy community descend on LA for a month-long slate of events. However, it seems unlikely that any will top the outrageous happenings toward the end of Chappelle’s headlining set. As Dave was closing out the show, an unidentified male assailant tried to rush the stage, apparently brandishing a replica handgun.

He was able to tackle the comedian before a group of people, which reportedly included rapper Busta Rhymes (with whom Chappelle is soon to launch the Dave And Busta Tour, no joke) and the multitalented Jamie Foxx, intervened, packing the attacker up and taking him backstage. Later, he emerged on a stretcher doing his best impression of a human pretzel, as seen in a video posted to social media. He was loaded into an ambulance for transport to a local hospital, where I’m sure doctors will try their best not to practice their own tight fives as they sort his arms back into some semblance of their original shape.

Fans on Twitter have naturally been buzzing, expressing awe at how badly beaten up the attacker looks (here’s your reminder that Busta is 6’1 and well over 200 lbs.) and comparing the incident to Will Smith and Chris Rock’s recent Oscars outburst — including Chris Rock.

For his part, Chappelle seemed unharmed and like Rock, played it off with his own improvised riff, which Foxx joined. “I been doing this 35 years, I just stomped a nigga backstage,” joked. “I seen Busta Rhymes, he was like, ‘That’s how you do it, god.’”

That is, indeed, how you do it. Let’s all hope no one else gets any ideas about trying this stunt again.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

“I’m so stupid happy that you left,” Winona Oak sings, a cutthroat lyric on the kind of sparkling pop song that would make her fellow Swedish star, Robyn, incredibly proud. “If you see me having fun it’s all ‘cause you’re my ex,” concludes the chorus, rounding out an incredibly addictive bit of pop that’s a celebration of life after leaving a toxic relationship. “Happy You’re My Ex” is one of the last tracks on Oak’s fascinating debut album, Island Of The Sun, which is slated for release later this summer, and it’s one of the best debuts of 2022.

The album doubles as the coming-of-age story of a woman and an artist who has already been to hell and back, and managed to translate all of the pain, chaos, and loss into a collection of near-perfect pop songs. The record’s soaring title track, “Island Of The Sun,” kicked off the news of Winona’s full-length album earlier this year, a follow-up to two EPs released in 2020 — though most emerging artists already know the story of how it felt to release music in a year marked by pandemic and isolation.

Closure, released in January of 2020, and She, released in October of the same year, mostly flew under the radar, even if an earlier collaboration with The Chainsmokers back in 2018, “Hope,” put Oak on the map in some circles. Those early EPs began to tell Winona’s story, but in order to really do that, it’s necessary to go back to Sollerön — the remote Swedish island where she grew up. Or at least, have Winona take us there.

Since traveling to Sweden is a daunting task even without a virus raging, meeting up with Winona in LA right before the start of her North American tour dates made the most sense. And even sitting outside Soho House all alone, Winona Oak is impossible to miss. Wearing an oversized, linen khaki suit, Oak was initially trying to get the concierge at Soho House to let her in, before giving up and waiting it out on a nearby bench. Both of us were a bit too early for a lunch meeting at the Soho Warehouse in downtown LA, just a few blocks away from the Atlantic Records headquarters.

But as soon as a publicist walked up with the proper credentials, we were quickly ensconced in the cushy booths on the building’s sunny rooftop, facing down a table full of appetizers, coffees, and drinks. Unassuming and down to earth, there’s still a sense of mysticism around the Swedish singer-songwriter, especially in her linen suit, with her dark brunette hair tipped blue at the end, and striking, intense eyes.

Winona had only recently arrived in Los Angeles from her native Sweden, and was still a little jet-lagged. Between rehearsals, label meetings, and press for her upcoming album, she decided to treat herself to a mimosa before our lunchtime interview, giving way to the sunny California day and the chance to settle in and talk for an hour. Oak will be in America for the next month and a half, so it’s understandable that the first thing she wanted to do is show off photos of her dog, who she’s already missing like crazy.

Like plenty of other young, beautiful women before her, some of Oak’s earliest memories of the industry are about the powerful men who wanted to control her image, and shadows of these figures still show up in some of her songs. But, also like plenty of her predecessors — including Sweden’s most brilliant pop export, the aforementioned Robyn — Oak wasn’t the type to be under anyone’s thumb. If anything is obvious upon meeting Winona, it’s that her stubborn streak is a mile wide, and that resilience would serve her well in a tricky industry.

Between the prevalence of misogyny in the music industry and that escape from a toxic ex, some might’ve worried that an initial gig collaborating with The Chainsmokers would be similarly scarring. But, in fact, it was quite the opposite. “That was one of the first songs I ever released,” Winona remembered. “They heard the song and really loved it, it wasn’t even a finished song, just a little piece. I met up with them, and I just loved them. They were super fun and supportive. I didn’t have anything out back then, and they just decided to take a chance on me, and really believed in me. They’ve been really good mentors to me, from the start.”

Officially though, Winona’s first-ever song came even before that one, a collaboration with another supportive producer. Attending a writing trip for the boutique synth-pop label, Neon Gold Records, was when Oak met Australian producer What So Not, and their collaboration “Beautiful“ became the first time she ever officially shared her music with the world. Oak decided to attend the trip, which was held in Nicaragua in 2017, last minute, with only about two weeks notice. And that decision was one that changed her perspective on music forever. “I got a taste of a different life,” she remembered. “I was like ‘I need to change things. I need to actually put all my energy into this.’ It was such a life-changing experience.”

Before she decided to go full tilt into the industry, music was always in the background of Winona’s life. Born Johanna Ewana Ekmark, the third child to parents who’d already had two children fifteen years before, she was more than just the youngest child. Winona described it as more like having “two more moms,” with her older sisters stepping in to help guide her as a child. That childhood, spent on the isolated, heavily forested island of Sollerön — also known as the “island of the sun” — included growing up with animals, particularly the family’s five horses, and forced lessons in violin starting at the age of five.

“I would write stories that were really dark,” she remembered of her writing habits as a kid. “I’ve always had a really dark side to me. But it wasn’t until I was 18 or 19, when I moved to Stockholm and met people who were actually making music for a living, that I realized I could try that as well. When I was a kid I was writing stories and poems, now I write songs.” As she’s grown in stature as an artist, releasing two EPs of her own, and now on the cusp of putting out a debut, Winona isn’t the kind of pop star who will gloss over the heavy, complicated emotions.

Instead, these subjects constantly make their way into the heart of her songs, like the searing kiss-off, “NDA,” or the love letter to herself she penned in the sad, brutally honest third single off her album, “Jojo,” which comes out today. “My name is Johanna, but I’ve always been called JoJo,” she explained. “I wanted to write a song to myself. It’s one of those songs reflecting on the time that we live in, and feeling confused and lost, and not knowing where to put these big emotions.”

Across the complicated themes found on Winona’s reflective title track, her nostalgic ode to a former lover on “Baby Blue,” and today’s latest release, “Jojo,” this young artist isn’t afraid to mix the fear, anger, and sadness that she’s experienced as a woman in music with an equally unshakeable sense of self-confidence. “We are so powerful,” she said. “We can create an entire life. Women’s bodies are so powerful. We are divine.” If there is a thesis for Island Of The Sun, it is undoubtedly that. Check out the video for “Jojo” above and keep an ear out for more new music coming from Winona as the days get longer.

Island Of The Sun is out 6/10 on Atlantic Records.

Winona Oak is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

There has been mass outrage since a draft opinion about the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, the famous 1973 Supreme Court decision that protected a woman’s right to have a safe and legal abortion nationwide, leaked. Some in the music world have offered their thoughts on the situation and now so too has Halsey.

In a lengthy social media post shared last night, Halsey called the decision “one of the most significant events we will witness in our lifetimes” that will “spiral into lethal situations for our entire country” and implored their followers to take action by attending local rallies and donating to pro-abortion organizations and funds.

Halsey’s post concludes, “I cannot stress enough the implications of this moment in history. This is a cruel attack on our fundamental right to choose if and when to have a child. I felt this way before I became a mother and I feel this way even more now after having my son. Pregnancy and having a child is a dangerous and life altering experience. Though one that can be BEAUTIFUL if you are consenting and desiring of it. Everyone deserves the right to choose and the right to make that choice SAFELY. Please take action.”

Read Halsey’s full post below.

“For any of my followers who are hearing about the Supreme Court leaked draft decision to overturn Roe V Wade, this is one of the most significant events we will witness in our lifetimes. This has been confirmed by Judge Roberts and is NOT a hypothetical. The effects of this decision will spiral into lethal situations for our entire country. Most seriously impacting people of color, rural areas and socioeconomically impacted communities. The time to take action is NOW. Many states are armed with trigger bans that will go into immediate effect pending this decision.

Attend a local rally. Make donations to ACLU (aclu.org) and Abortion Funds (abortionfunds.org) or to your local organizations and funds. Educate yourselves on your local legislators.

I know it seems like this conversation is happening constantly and many of us have lived with the mental security that we would never witness the revocation of this right. I know it seems like every time we worry, it’s a false alarm. But it’s not. That security comes from people like YOU, people at ACLU, Planned Parenthood and more who are actively advocating to protect this right.

This is not a false alarm. Again, this is not a hypothetical. And while for the time being, you can STILL access abortion in all 50 states, that will NOT be the case in the summer when this decision is cemented. And many of those who seek abortion out of state will be at risk of persecution as well.

I cannot stress enough the implications of this moment in history. This is a cruel attack on our fundamental right to choose if and when to have a child. I felt this way before I became a mother and I feel this way even more now after having my son.

Pregnancy and having a child is a dangerous and life altering experience. Though one that can be BEAUTIFUL if you are consenting and desiring of it. Everyone deserves the right to choose and the right to make that choice SAFELY. Please take action.

Halsey.”

Howard Stern has a headline-making take on every hot-button topic lately. When he came (armed with profanity) for Joe Rogan’s vaccine skepticism, this ignited a rivalry between Stern’s audience and Rogan’s rabid fanbase. Will there now be a rivalry between Stern followers and the SCOTUSBlog readers? Not likely, although the blog did post Chief Justice John Robert’s disapproving acknowledgement of the leaked memo — revealing that the court is set to overturn Roe V. Wade — and Stern’s tearing into those 5 conservative justices who want to pave the way for states outlawing abortion.

Make no mistake, some states are keen to make this happen. Texas led the extreme way by effectively putting a bounty upon anyone who assists a woman in getting the (medical) procedure, and the Ohio legislature is currently drafting a bill that will likewise eliminate exceptions for rape and incest. Via Mediaite, Stern’s response to this ongoing madness laid out some realities on how women’s bodily autonomy is viewed:

“If guys got raped and pregnant, there’d be abortions available on every corner. Every street corner a different clinic that would take care of the problem. How women would vote for this agenda is beyond me. Who the hell wants to carry a baby that you do not want? And again, the people who carry these babies who don’t want them don’t raise these kids and then we’re stuck with them.”

Stern then declared (from a perspective not unlike that of George Carlin) that pro-Lifers are anything but pro-Life after the child is born. “The people who are anti-abortion, they don’t give to charity, they don’t raise these kids. I don’t know who they think is going to raise them,” he declared. And Stern has an idea on who should raise those children:

“All the unwanted children should be allowed to live at the Supreme Court building with those Justices and they should raise every one of those babies. That crackpot Clarence Thomas and that wife and all of them. They can raise those babies that they want.”

Watching robed justices chasing after toddlers sounds like an SNL skit, but it’s also awfully sobering to think about it at all. The 2016 presidential election results keep on hitting back, even in 2022.

(Via Mediaite)

A Texas pastor is suing Kanye West for using part of one of his sermons without permission, according to TMZ. Bishop David Paul Moten is sampled on the Donda song “Come To Life,” which uses about 70 seconds of the sermon looped throughout the song. Moten’s lawsuit calls the uncleared sample an example of musicians “willfully and egregiously sampling sound recordings of others without consent or permission.” The lawsuit also includes Kanye’s label, G.O.O.D Music, and its parent entities Def Jam Recordings and Universal Music Group. Donda, released in August 2021, sold 309,000 equivalent units, topping the Billboard 200 in its first week.

Kanye was previously sued over a religious sample in 2019. Andrew and Shirley Green, the adoptive parents of a little girl whose prayer is sampled on “Ultralight Beam” from The Life Of Pablo, sued Kanye for pulling the audio from a viral video on social media. Although Kanye reached out to the girl’s biological mother Alice Johnson for permission to use the clip, the Greens, the girl’s legal guardians, said they were never contacted, and that Johnson was never given a written license agreement or payment.

More recently, a music rights company, Declan Colgan Music Ltd., sued Universal over a sample of the band King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man” from the My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy single “Power.” DCM said that UMG has been underpaying the agreed-upon 5.33-percent cut from streams.

Father John Misty stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last night, still hot off the release of his album Chloë And The Next 20th Century. Joined by a stringed orchestra, a xylophonist, and guitarists, Misty performed a soft, soothing rendition of “Kiss Me (I Loved You).”

Known for his silky, folksy vocals, Misty was captivating as his performance demonstrated his abilities as a vocalist and as a composer, with his instrumental writings beautifully delivered by his backing band. At one point, Misty pulls out a melodica and begins showing off his chops.

Misty, born Joshua Tillman, released Chloë And The Next 20th Century last month, marking his first album in four years. In an interview with DIY, Misty admitted that he didn’t go into the record with the intent of understanding a cohesive concept.

“Your personal life just can’t go on one-upping fiction,” he said. “I can’t really make any kind of defense or case for the record. I can’t tell you why it should exist. To find yourself so totally committed to making something you don’t understand at all is very fulfilling.”

Misty will play several festivals this summer, including Green River and 80/35. He will also tour in support of Chloë And The Next 20th Century, beginning next month.

Check out Misty’s performance of “Kiss Me (I Loved You)” above.

Chloë And The Next 20th Century is out now via Sup Pop. Stream it here.

If Rudy Giuliani limply swinging a golf club in oversized shorts is the laugh-out-loud image that will get us through this month, then April was most definitely defined by Donald Trump’s hilariously serious claims that flying tomatoes, bananas, and pineapples (huh?) are like missiles, with equally deadly consequences. In freshly released transcripts from an October 2021 deposition, the former president explained that he and his team were “on alert” for rogue fruit-flingers in the crowds during his campaign stops because “you can be killed” if you were to be hit with a tomato. While most of the world is still chuckling at the absurdity of it all, to Trump’s lawyers, publishing the former president’s words is no laughing matter.

As The Daily Beast reports, a flurry of emails show that—even after stories about the transcript had already been written, shared, and laughed about—Trump’s legal team was doing its darndest to “un-make it public” by having the deposition, which was published as part of a public record, erased from evidence.

As Jose Pagliery wrote for The Daily Beast:

Snippets of that transcript—which was chock-full of references to the risk of getting hit with tomatoes—were filed in the court docket by the protesters’ attorney at 7:18 p.m. last Tuesday.

But while two Daily Beast journalists were preparing to publish a story about the fruity deposition, Trump’s legal team was trying to pressure the plaintiff’s lawyer, Benjamin N. Dictor, to delete his own filing. (Dictor also happens to represent The Daily Beast’s News Guild.)

“That exhibit is unnecessary, prejudicial and needs to be pulled ASAP,” Trump defense attorney Jeffrey Goldman wrote to him at 8:08 p.m.

Alina Habba, another Trump lawyer, chimed in as well: “ASAP Ben. That is wholly inappropriate and prejudicial.”

Despite their quick action and insistence, Team Trump’s efforts were, well, fruitless. Once The Daily Beast’s story dropped, it became the perfect fodder for talk show hosts including Seth Meyers, Rachel Maddow, and Trevor Noah—not to mention media outlets like UPROXX.

Even so, Dictor was still reportedly working on the matter the next morning, after all the fruit fallout, to have the digital copy of the public record changed with the agreement of all parties involved. According to an email from Dictor, he was “advised that they will not remove a document from the docket unless it was either (i) filed to wrong case or (ii) filed to the wrong court.” God bless America!

(Via The Daily Beast)

Trevor Noah, like so many people across America—and around the world—was taken aback when a draft opinion about the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked earlier this week (for which The Daily Show had a great response). On Tuesday, Noah took aim at the real reason behind the decision to overturn a law that has been in effect for nearly half a century: conservative Republicans.

While Noah was sure to make it clear that what we’ve seen is only a draft opinion, not a law, he also made sure to note that “it’s important to remember how we got here. Because, keep in mind, that poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans don’t want Roe v. Wade to be overturned. But the GOP didn’t care about that.”

So, how did we get here? According to Noah:

“[The GOP] didn’t care about winning over the people, they just cared about getting enough justices onto the court to get what they want. Basically, they used the same tactic that that a**hole friend of yours uses when they’re ordering pizza.

‘Hey, what toppings does everyone want? What do you want on the pizza?’
‘Extra cheese and pepperoni!’
‘Well I’m ordering so it’s anchovies and pineapples!’

Dick!

And that’s basically how you end up with a Supreme Court decision that amounts to a hostile takeover of America’s reproductive rights.

While Samuel Alito, who authored the draft, wrote that “the inescapable conclusion is that the right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the nation’s history and traditions,” Noah wholeheartedly disagrees. While he believes there’s truth in the idea that part of our history is that “men can control what women do,” he also points out that the right to an abortion has been around for 50 years—which might be longer than you have been around.

“Think about it,” said Noah. “I think it’s safe to say that [the right to an abortion] is a tradition at this point. Like, if you go without electricity for a weekend, you’re camping. If you go without it for 50 years, you’re Amish, motherf***er. That’s just who you are.”

You can watch the full clip above.

Marjorie Taylor Greene took to the campaign trail this week as she gears up for reelection, and so far, it’s not going so great for the embattled, whackadoo congresswoman. During one of several stops, Greene was confronted by U.S. Navy Veteran Alex Boyle who called out the George representative for her “craziness” and saying that joining the military is “like throwing your life away.” Jewish space lasers also made a cameo appearance.

“She spoke disparaging[ly], as if my service in the United States Navy as a veteran, and my military experience was some sort of a waste of time,” Boyle said during an exchange filmed by WTVC. When Greene tried to change the subject, Boyle did not back down. Via Raw Story:

“I heard what you said, I read the texts,” he said. “Here’s the problem, you’ve cast disparaging things against the Jewish community, you suggested a space laser.”

“No, sir, I have not,” Greene responded.

“You are disrespecting the United States Congress and you’re a shame,” he said.

As one of Greene’s entourage or a supporter yelled that Boyle has been watching “fake news,” he got in one final remark at the QAnon congresswoman. “I’m really, horribly, saddened that the fourteenth district has gone to such craziness,” Boyle said.

Here’s a different angle of the exchange from WTVC reporter Bryanna Idzior:

Of course, the larger question is whether Greene will even be able to run for reelection. A judge has yet to rule if her involvement in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building constitutes insurrection. If so, Greene could be removed from the ballot. Greene appeared in a hearing in April where she attempted to downplay her connection to the “Stop the Steal” rally. However, her testimony flagrantly contradicted the public record, and last week, lawyers officially filed paperwork accusing Greene of lying during the hearing. If a judge rules against her, Greene will not be eligible for reelection. That decision is expected to arrive within the week, according to Bloomberg.

(Via WTVC)