Nicki Minaj is still flying high after receiving MTV’s Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at Sunday’s VMAs. Yesterday, she posted a gracious “thank you” note addressed to Beyoncé and Jay-Z for the thoughtful gift they sent to congratulate her. Although the power couple did not attend the VMAs in person, they did make sure to acknowledge Nicki’s achievement with a bouquet of white roses, which Nicki captured in a video posted on her Instagram Story. “Congrats on your beautiful award,” the accompanying card read. “Sending you all of our love. Hov and B Holla.”
In turn, Nicki gushed back, “Thank you so much. The both of you. For everything.”
Beyoncé and Jay-Z congratulate Nicki Minaj on her Vanguard Award with flowers and a note:
Both of the music stars turned moguls were instrumental in Nicki Minaj’s success. In her Video Vanguard Awards acceptance speech, she named both as inspirations. Jay-Z was among the artists she cited for inspiring her flow along with Doug E. Fresh(!?), Foxy Brown, Lauryn Hill, Lil Wayne, and Slick Rick (Lil Kim was noticeably absent, as fans pointed out on Twitter). Meanwhile, Nicki mentioned Beyoncé as one of the “people who gave me huge opportunities that I’ll never forget,” which also included Britney Spears, Eminem, Kanye West, Madonna, Mariah Carey, and Rihanna.
The Crown is actually doing it. Following rumors that the Netflix series would go for an “easy win” by introducing the young Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the show has officially cast three newcomers as the royal couple. Rufus Kampa and Ed McVey will play Prince William in his teen and early adult years, respectively, while Meg Bellamy will take on the role of Kate Middleton. It will be the first onscreen roles for all three actors.
As previously rumored, The Crown will feature William and Kate’s tabloid fodder romance. Via Deadline (which supplies photos):
McVey’s plot lines will include William’s courtship of Kate, including how they met when both were studying Art History at the University of St Andrews in Fife, Scotland in 2001. The pair, married in 2011, are now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
Given how the Netflix series began dismantling the fairy tale image of the Royal Family by highlighting its treatment of Princess Diana, it will be interesting to see how Season 6 will portray William and Kate, who have had their share of scandals.
In the meantime, The Crown will start streaming its fifth season later this year, which will reportedly feature the last years of Princess Diana’s life. (In a brilliant casting coup, Elizabeth Debicki will play Princess Di in her later years, and you couldn’t ask for more a life-like resemblance.) The production has not confirmed how it will portray her tragic death in Paris while being aggressively pursued by the paparazzi, but it will be impossible not to address the grave moment in the Royal Family’s history.
The Crown Season 5 starts streaming on Netflix in November.
It was only a matter of time before more scandal came for Brett Favre. The pro football Hall of Famer and frequent retiree — who officially retired (for presumably the last time) in 2011 has always been one of the NFL’s golden boys. But now the longtime Green Bay Packer, who finished up his career with the Minnesota Vikings, is at the center of an FBI investigation.
As NBC News reports, the FBI is investigating why Favre — who has an estimated net worth of about $100 million — was paid $1.1 million by the state of Mississippi in both 2017 and 2018 to make a set of motivational speeches, which never happened, and why this money was paid to the football star out of the struggling state’s welfare funds earmarked for the needy.
Favre has repaid the fees, although not the $228,000 in interest the auditor also demanded. But the revelation by the auditor that $70 million in TANF welfare funds was doled out to a multimillionaire athlete, a professional wrestler, a horse farm, and a volleyball complex are at the heart of a scandal that has rocked the nation’s poorest state, sparking parallel state and federal criminal investigations that have led to charges and guilty pleas involving some of the key players.
Favre hasn’t been accused of a crime or charged, and he declined an interview. His lawyer, Bud Holmes, said he did nothing wrong and never understood he was paid with money intended to help poor children. Holmes acknowledged that the FBI had questioned Favre in the case, a fact that hasn’t previously been reported.
While rumblings of these financial shenanigans first popped up more than two years ago, NBC News reports that they gained renewed attention in July, when a lawyer who was hired specifically to get back some of the misspent money was fired shortly after issuing a subpoena to obtain additional information on the financial dealings between Favre and former governor Phil Bryant.
On October 29, 2021, Favre took to Twitter to fire off a series of tweets defending his position in the case, claiming that he had no idea where the money had come from:
As I have said before, I would never accept money for no-show appearances, as the state of Mississippi auditor, @ShadWhite, claims.
I am doing all that I can to support this investigation to make things right for the people of Mississippi and I have shared all that I know, which is that I was paid for three years of commercials that I did, and I paid taxes on the money, as I should.
Of course the money was returned because I would never knowingly take funds meant to help our neighbors in need, but for Shad White to continue to push out this lie that the money was for no-show events is something I cannot stay silent about.
Despite all efforts to seek clarification with the auditor, he has never granted a call back or a meeting with me, but has instead only repeatedly run to the media.
Text messages obtained and verified earlier this year by Mississippi Today seemed to indicate that, as NBC News writes, “Favre sought a $3.2 million grant for a drug company in which he was a shareholder and a $5 million award that built a volleyball arena at the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter played the sport and where he played football.”
In additional texts, Favre talked about gifting Bryant with shares in Prevacus, a drug company developing treatments to lessen the effects of concussions. “Don’t know if legal or not but we need cut him in,” Favre texted in November 2018. A few days later, the quarterback texted again, noting, “Also if legal I’ll give some of my shares to the Governor.”
Favre’s lawyers did not respond to NBC News for comment.
Following the recent trend of early aughts bands returning with new music, Muse are attempting to make a comeback with their ninth studio album, Will Of The People. On this week’s Indiecast, hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen question the band’s current critical acclaim and compare the LP to some of their earlier hits. Plus, Indiecast revisits Queens Of The Stone Age’s Songs For The Deaf for its 20th anniversary and discusses the new album by Portland-based power pop artist Mo Troper.
In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian shouts out Callous Daoboys, a band that exemplifies the exciting music coming out of the heavy rock/metalcore genre today. Steven tells listeners to check out Eli Winter, whose recent self-titled project is a perfect Americana-tinged instrumental for the season.
New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 104 here or 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.
If you were going to pinpoint a moment when the music festival landscape began to change, it was in January 2014, when Coachella dropped its annual fest poster. On it, three names stuck out as a bit different, one on the second line of each day: Ellie Goulding, Lorde, and Lana Del Rey. It wasn’t just those artists, either. It was booking artists like Pharrell, Foster The People, Empire Of The Sun, Bastille, and AFI, next to more expected Coachella offerings like The Knife, The Replacement, and Neutral Milk Hotel.
The move signified a sea change, where the festival, at that point 15 years old, realized that in order to survive, it must evolve. At that moment, it nodded to whatever was poppin’ on local station KROQ instead of seeing tickets based on the Pitchfork-approved indie elite. It was programming with diversity in mind, giving shots to then-upstart pop-adjacent female artists that they were willing to bank on playing well in the moment — and looking good in hindsight. It set up the roadmap that the other major music festivals in the US would follow, moving away from rock, dance, and (a little bit of) rap and into pop, international music, (a lot more) rap, and streaming sensations.
And, let’s make this especially clear: this is a good thing. Much of the cultural shift of the last decade has been more equitable and forward-thinking. But — and I say this as a fan of the music that has grown less commercially viable in recent years — it’s also a bummer that some more adventurous tunes and bookings are now considered a bit too niche for the Coachella (or Lollapalooza, or Governors Ball, etc) stage… or a bit too old.
Of late, festivals have been springing up catering to the audience that might feel alienated by Coachella’s shift. Just in Southern California, the FYFs and Burgeramas of the world found themselves mired in controversy, and have given way to newer offerings like Just Like Heaven, next month’s Primavera Sound LA, and, returning for the first time since 2000, last weekend’s This Ain’t No Picnic. Not to age myself too much here, but This Ain’t No Picnic was actually the first music festival I ever attended, as a high schooler in Orange County. The event just ran a couple of times, but the 1999 edition I went to notably offered Sonic Youth (playing with borrowed equipment after being robbed), Sleater-Kinney, Rocket From The Crypt, Guided By Voices, and Superchunk.
Philip Cosores
Its return more than 20 years later — now at Brookside at the Rose Bowl — resembled FYF’s ethos a bit more than its strictly-indie beginnings, but even with a spattering of hip-hop (Isaiah Rashad, Earl Sweatshirt) and R&B/pop (an incredible Tinashe, Jorja Smith), it was clearly a festival designed for those not willing or able to make the two-hour trek into the desert anymore. Both of the headliners were Coachella headlining alums who now find themselves legacy artists, LCD Soundsystem and The Strokes. And while neither are quite a festival rarity at this point, both made convincing arguments for their status as bill-toppers.
LCD Soundsystem, for as divisive of a figure James Murphy has become, can make all the chatter around them fade away with just a few minutes of playing music. Who would have thought that a band that became known for transcendent live shows is… still unreal live? Sure, the stage is just a few dozen black widow spiders short of looking like my dad’s garage, but James Murphy’s voice is one of the most underrated instruments in rock and leads his revered musical compatriots through anthem after anthem. If seeing LCD Soundsystem live every few years is what is needed to maintain good graces with its long-term fans, then so be it. They fulfill their end of the bargain.
The Strokes, on the other hand, are not known for their live show. Their performances often feel like a tightrope walk that could end in disaster… and sometimes does! But not on this night, where the band was incredibly tight and good-humored, and frontperson Julian Casablancas was on his best behavior. They’re a band that doesn’t need to play their biggest hit to satisfy their audience, a band whose vibe and aesthetic sits equal to their craft. Also, the streaming numbers to their recent The New Abnormal indicate that their newer tunes are also hugely popular, to a shocking extent. All that said, there was not a dud in the setlist, including a surprising “Ask Me Anything,” an underrated “Under Cover Of Darkness,” and an inspired “Juicebox.”
Elsewhere, I’d probably be best off just touching on some highlights:
– Phoebe Bridgers’ hometown (literally) show was pretty similar to the tour she’s been giving for about a year… which means it is still terrific. She recalled learning to drive in the Rose Bowl parking lot and told her fans to steal their parents’ credit cards to donate to abortion funds. We stan a young legend.
– Directly in front of her set was Idles. Music festivals are often ripe for culture clashes, but this was an all-timer. After the English post-punk band’s first rager, frontperson Joe Talbot asked the crowd to split in anticipation of a moshing frenzy. From the audience, another group shouted “nooooo” in unison, as the young female Phoebe fans were instructed by security to hold on for dear life. Soon there was crowd surfing and slam dancing and all the other fun stuff that’s probably not seen at typical Phoebe shows. But it was all in good fun, and hopefully both fanbases earned some respect for each other.
– Le Tigre reunited for the first time in more than a decade, and showed that the world still needs them. Frontperson Kathleen Hanna would explain how the group formed as a protest outfit and it’s a shame that they still need to be protesting the same things decades later. But, that said, their “dance away the injustice” ethos and sly wit is as meaningful and impactful as ever, with the importance of seeing them live for the first time visible on many faces, particularly the women that Hanna has inspired throughout her career.
– Ethal Cain, Magdelena Bay, Mdou Moctar, Turnstile, and Slowthai deserve all the hype they’ve been getting.
With Primavera Sound just a few weeks away, time will tell if there’s enough of a market for two similar events in the LA area. But seeing the local music fans that I’ve been running into for the past 15 years at shows all turning out for this, it was hard not to be nostalgic for times when this could have been more than a locally-faced event. Genre fests, whether rap or dance or country or indie, have become more common and might speak towards how audiences want to spend their money, which is especially tight in 2022. Still, it was nice to see indie rock still able to work on this scale, a vibrant music community getting together, and new memories being formed by the many young fans that turned out. Hopefully, they’ll remember this as fondly as I do my first This Ain’t No Picnic.
Check out an exclusive gallery from This Ain’t No Picnic 2022 below.
LCD Soundsystem
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Le Tigre
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On the 20th anniversary of their wedding, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress shared a cute photo on Instagram of her and Prinze Jr. together. She also tagged Stern in an Instagram Story that shows the radio DJ asking the Scooby-Doo actor if he’s willing to marry Michelle Gellar “even though you know it won’t last” from a circa-2001 interview. Prinze Jr. replied, “Oh, absolutely it will last!” Stern remained unconvinced:
Stern then pressed, “You think you know everything?” to which Prinze Jr. admitted, “No, I don’t.” The radio host continued, “You think [you’re] gonna know how you feel at 35? You’re gonna be a completely different man.” But Prinze Jr. doubled down, saying, “And she will be a completely different woman, but that’s all right.”
Stern replied by hedging a bet: “I wanna make a written bet with you. In about 10 years, you’re gonna hunt me down and go, ‘Howard, I owe you money.’” Prinze jokingly agreed, saying, “OK.”
Stern wagered $1 million that they wouldn’t make it. Well, it’s been more than 10 years, and Michelle Gellar is ready to cash in.
(For You)r Consideration is a weekly column breaking down the rappers and singers doing it RIGHT on TikTok and the viral TikTok music trends and top songs taking over your FYP.
The Rise of Ice Spice
If you haven’t heard her Drake-cosigned smash hit, “Munch,” then here’s your wake-up call. The track from the Bronx’s Ice Spice debuted back in August and has become virtually unavoidable on TikTok’s For You page. DaniLeigh used the single as background for a GRWM-style video for the VMAs, Kehlani posted two videos of the Bronx drill hit, and Chantel Jeffries took to her page to make a video with Ice Spice herself! The music video snippet posted to the app has over 1 million views, and over forty thousand videos have been created to the sound. With these numbers, there’s no doubt that “Much (Feelin’ U)” will continue to rise in popularity.
Double standards are frustrating, and if you’ve ever needed an outlet to express that frustration, this trend is for you. Tennessee rapper Finesse2tymes’ latest single, “Back End,” is blowing up on TikTok to call attention to some silly and serious instances of inequality. In addition to lyrics, “It’s cool when they do it (It’s cool, huh?), it’s a problem when I do it, f*ck ’em,” creators are adding some extra flare by using the “Police Runner” filter by byten21, so you can simulate dodging the cops. Dig into the trend below.
Beyoncé finally released her 7th studio album last month. And just as the 16-track project has the world in a chokehold, content surrounding the album can’t seem to fizzle off the FYP. Creators on the app continue to show the album praise and have moved past ranking Bey’s discography and the songs on RENAISSANCE. Now, TikTokers are ranking the album’s critically acclaimed transitions. Self-proclaimed barb and Beyonce stan @shook.individual’s video ranking of the album’s transitions has just under 100k views. With these numbers, members of the Bey hive should rush to the app and hop on this trend.
Pop in some gum, start chewing, roll your eyes, and press play Rosalía’s chiptune track “Bizcochito” to hop on the trend that has populated TikTok all summer. TikTokers are using the track from the singer’s 3rd album, Motomami, to randomly give attitude to their friends and family. Doctors, beauticians, lawyers, and other professionals on the app are taking the sound and rolling their eyes at the widespread misinformation they’ve seen in their respective fields. Rosalía even hopped on the trend, serving up some attitude at the gym, eating sushi, and getting her hair done. There are currently over two hundred and fifty thousand videos and counting made using “Bizcochito,” combined with a cosign from the singer herself, this trend has staying power.
With three solo singles under her belt, a song with her ex-boo Gunna, and several covers circulating social media, the world is ready for Chlöe Bailey’s debut solo album. Last week, the UPROXX cover star took to TikTok in a vacation-ready look to give fans a taste of some unreleased music. The melody Bailey sings is traditional R&B leaning, departing from the uptempo pop tracks she’s released in the past. Fans in the comments expressed the snippet is similar to Brian McKnight records and the intro of cult soap opera Days of Our Lives. Want a taste of Chlöe’s upcoming album? Watch her TikTok below.
Earlier this year, tribute concerts were announced for the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who tragically passed in March. The first event honoring Hawkins goes down at London’s Wembley Stadium this Saturday, September 3.
Who Will Perform At Taylor Hawkins’ Tribute Show In London?
The show has a stacked lineup, as taking the Wembley stage are Blink-182’s Travis Barker, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme, The Police’s Stewart Copeland, Oasis’ Liam Gallagher, Omar Hakim, the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, Kesha, Rush’s Geddy Lee, Queen’s Brian May, Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, Nile Rodgers, Mark Ronson, and others.
It was reported that Paramount has teamed up with Foo Fighters and the Hawkins family to air the Wembley Stadium show live on its various platforms, including CBS, MTV, Paramount+, and Pluto TV. A one-hour special will air on MTV’s global network, starting in Latin America on September 3, before an extended two-hour cut will air later on in the month. MTV will also livestream the concert on YouTube.
This tribute concert is the first of two. It will be followed by one at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum on September 27, with a lineup that includes Miley Cyrus, Joan Jett, Chris Chaney of Jane’s Addiction, Gene Simmons of Kiss, Alanis Morissette, Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue, and more.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Sarah Palin came out of the gate running strong when John McCain chose her, the then-governor of Alaska, as his running mate in the 2008 presidential campaign and instantly made her a household name. But it soon became clear that, when left to her own devices, Palin could be a bit of a loose cannon, and not a particularly polished one. Which is essentially the reputation she has maintained in the years since — right up to and including her recent failed attempt to fill a House seat in a special election in Alaska. Now that she has had time to let her loss sink in, well, she’s kind of pissed.
As Yahoo! News reports, Palin now seems to be blaming Alaska’s ranked choice voting system as the reason for her loss. “Ranked-choice voting was adopted in Alaska in 2020 and has been hailed by proponents as a novel system to reduce partisanship and ensure that winning candidates have a majority of support,” Paul Best wrote for Yahoo! News. “Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-place votes after the first tabulation, then they win, but if there is no majority winner, then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated.”
Which all seems fair enough. In the case of Alaska’s special election, Democrat Mary Peltola received 40 percent of the original vote, while Palin received 31 percent; 28.5 percent of voters chose Republican Nick Begich, so he was eliminated ahead of the next tabulation. Ultimately, Peltola triumphed with 51.5 percent of the second vote versus Palin’s 48.5 percent. While that all seems like a pretty good indicator that Peltola was indeed the people’s choice, Palin’s now complaining about this “new crazy, convoluted, confusing” system, which she claims has “disenfranchised 60 percent of Alaska voters.”
On Thursday, Palin issued a statement that read, in part:
Ranked-choice voting was sold as the way to make elections better reflect the will of the people. As Alaska — and America — now sees, the exact opposite is true. With optimism that Alaskans learn from this voting system mistake and correct it in the next election, let’s work even harder to send an America First conservative to Washington in November.
In other words: I didn’t win, so the system must be broken. Spoken like a true MAGA Republican.
This weekend will play host to one of the year’s biggest music events, as the first Taylor Hawkins tribute concert, at London’s Wembley Stadium, will take place on Saturday, September 3. If you can’t make it out to Wembley, it will fortunately be pretty easy to watch the show either online or on TV.
In mid-August, it was reported that the concert would be viewable in a number of ways aside from actually being there in person. Foo Fighters and the Hawkins family have teamed up with Paramount to air the concert on Paramount’s platforms, including CBS, MTV, Paramount+, and Pluto TV. Furthermore, a one-hour special will air on MTV, starting in Latin America on September 3, before an extended two-hour cut will air later on this month.
This morning, Foo Fighters offered some direct online watching links on Twitter, making finding the show even easier. The event will be livestreamed globally on YouTube via MTV at this link (also embedded at the end of this post). It will also be streamed on Paramount+ (in the US only) and on Pluto TV (both domestically and internationally).
The show is set to kick off at 11:30 a.m. ET (10:30 a.m. CT, 8:30 a.m. PT). The performance lineup includes Blink-182’s Travis Barker, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme, The Police’s Stewart Copeland, Oasis’ Liam Gallagher, Omar Hakim, the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, Kesha, Rush’s Geddy Lee, Queen’s Brian May, Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, Nile Rodgers, Mark Ronson, and others.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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