Month: October 2022

Lil Baby’s new album It’s Only Me is out this Friday, October 14, and now, after turning the project in and sharing its tongue-in-cheek cover art, the Atlanta rapper has revealed its tracklist, which features appearances from EST Gee, trap crooner Fridayy, Future, Jeremih, Nardo Wick, Pooh Shiesty, Quality Control labelmate Rylo Rodriguez, and Young Thug.

Of the singles Lil Baby previously released this summer, only “In A Minute” appears among the album’s 23 confirmed tracks. Baby also assured fans that there are no plans to release a deluxe edition, so other songs like “Detox” and “Frozen” may well only exist as standalone for the foreseeable future. In addition to sharing the tracklist for It’s Only Me, Baby also put out the music video for “Heyy,” which you can check out below.

It’s Only Me is out 10/14 via Quality Control Music. You can pre-save it here.

1. “Real Spill”
2 “Stand On It”
3. “Pop Out” Feat. Nardo Wick
4. “Heyy”
5. “California Breeze”
6. “Perfect Timing”
7. “Never Hating” Feat. Young Thug
8. “Forever” Feat. Fridayy
9. “Not Finished”
10. “In A Minute”
11. “Waterfall Flow”
12. “Everything”
13. “From Now On” Feat. Future
14. “Double Down”
15. “Cost To Be Alive” Feat. Rylo Rodriguez
16. “Top Priority”
17. “Danger”
18. “Stop Playin” Feat. Jeremih
19. “FR”
20. “Back And Forth” Feat. EST Gee
21. “Shiest Talk” Feat. Pooh Shiesty
22. “No Fly Zone”
23. “Russian Roulette”

(House of the Dragon spoilers ahead.)

Need a quick refresher on this all-encompassing prophecy in the Song of Ice and Fire universe? As relayed alongside the dagger: “From my blood come the prince that was promised and his will be the song of ice and fire.” This has been the groundwork for basically everything in the House of the Dragon canon, and now fans are finally able to begin unpacking it.

Though the actual mystery of who exactly the Prince That Was Promised is still up for debate, there are some enlightening developments thanks to the latest episode of House of the Dragon. Before King Viserys succumbs to his decades-spanning illness, he mistakes Alicent for Rhaenyra, who he was speaking with the night before.

“His dream. The Song of Ice and Fire. It is true. What he saw in the north. The Prince That Was Promised,” Viserys said to Alicent, thinking it was Rhaenyra. “To unite the realm. Against the cold and the dark. It is you. You are the one. You must do this. You must do this,” Viserys adds. Obviously, the “you” here is aimed at Rhaenyra, but Alicent just hears the words “Aegon” and “The Prince Who Was Promised” and goes with that theory instead.

As evident in the previews for the upcoming episodes, Alicent thinks that Viserys wants Aegon to sit on the throne, which will not end well considering his track record. Even though Viserys confirmed that Rhaenyra remains his heir, of course, nothing can be that simple when it comes to this family.

So, even though the actual identity of the Prince Who Was Promised is ambiguous, it’s clear that Alicent will go to great lengths to keep her side of the family in power, now that the miserable King has perished.

(Via Vox)

(SPOILERS for this week’s Power Book III: Raising Kanan will be found below.)

Episode eight in season two of Power Book III: Raising Kanan, titled “A House Is Not A Home,” ends with quite the cliffhanger. After having a long-awaited sweet moment with his daughter Jukebox, Marvin connects with Renee to ask her questions about what he can do to further repair his relationship with Juke. He also uses it as an opportunity to take her on a date of sorts as a small romance is brewing between them. This warm scene is quickly interrupted when two members of the Italian group show up and fire gunshots in Marvin and Renee’s direction. The episode comes to an end with viewers unsure of who, if anyone, was shot. We’ll have to wait another week to find that out, but until then, let’s explore Marvin’s eventful journey up until this point.

How Did Marvin Get Here?

The Italians’ murder attempt comes after Marvin hired Marco, the son of the Italian leader Sal Boselli, to help him execute a hit on Toni. If you recall from season one, Toni and Marvin had an intimate relationship that ended terribly once Marvin was arrested and learned that Toni was working with the police to snitch on him. For Marvin, that discovery hurt him a lot because of how much he cared about Toni. He bought her a dog shortly after they met, there were a lot of sex scenes, and he even got into a fight with someone in her defense.

Earlier this season, we learn that Marvin was able to avoid jail time because Toni refused to come to court and testify against him. As a result, Marvin is left to only complete an anger management class to ensure that he doesn’t go to jail. Despite this, Marvin has his eyes set on getting revenge on Toni. So when he spots Toni with her husband Hugo, he figures that now is the time. Marvin meets with Marco and hires him to kill Toni, and this comes with strict instruction from Marco to not tell his father. Marco brings his family associate Dominic, who isn’t the brightest, along for the job. The duo breaks into Toni and Hugo’s home and Marco quickly shoots Tonio in the head and kills her. Hugo rushes into the room and tackles Marco, and during their tussle, Dominic aims to shoot Hugo but misses and hits Marco who later dies. Dominic himself is hit a couple of times and he scrambles out of the scene.

In “A House Is Not A Home,” we see that Dominic successfully walked and crawled to a hospital despite bleeding out. It’s here that Sal pays him a visit and learns that Marvin was the one who hired Marco for the job to have Toni killed. This leads to Sal telling Raq that he will, unfortunately, have to kill Marvin for going behind his back to hire Marco and getting him killed. Raq doesn’t give him the green light to do so, and despite that, Sal sends a pair of his men to kill Marvin. Things are about to get really wild in Queens as we make our way towards the end of Power Book III: Raising Kanan season two.

New episodes of STARZ’s ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’ are available to watch on Sundays at 12:00am EST.

Rex Orange County (real name Alexander James O’Connor) has been charged with six counts of sexual assault in the UK. According to The Sun, O’Connor appeared at London’s Southwark Crown Court today (October 10) and pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In a statement shared with Consequence, a representative for O’Connor said, “[O’Connor] is shocked by the allegations which he denies and looks forward to clearing his name in court. He is unable to make any further comment because of the ongoing proceedings.”

Per The Sun, the 24-year-old singer is accused of assaulting a woman, who was identified as being over 16 years old, in London’s West End on June 1. Furthermore, he allegedly also assaulted her in a taxi and then three additional times in his Notting Hill home the next day.

After pleading not guilty, O’Connor was “unconditionally bailed” and currently awaits a three-day trial, which is set to start on January 3, 2023.

Around the time of the alleged assaults, O’Connor was on tour in the US, specifically in California. He performed at San Diego’s Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre on May 29, at Santa Barbara’s Santa Barbara Bowl on June 1, and at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl on June 4.

In July, O’Connor canceled his tour dates set for this fall due to “unforeseen personal circumstances.”

The Last of Us, one of the best video games of the 2010s, was released when Bella Ramsey was 10 years old. The Game of Thrones actress did not play it then — a big break for her parents who didn’t have to explain what a “Molotov cocktail” is — and she still hasn’t played it now, even after being cast as Ellie in the HBO adaptation.

“I was actually encouraged not to,” Ramsey told USA Today when asked if she’s played The Last of Us. “After my first audition, they asked me, ‘Have you played it?’ And I said, ‘Nope,’ and they said, ‘Keep it that way.’ [Laughs.] I did watch some of the game play on YouTube just to get a sense of it.” Hopefully she looked up a guitar tutorial for “Take On Me,” too.

Ramsey continued:

“I’m so excited for it to come out – it was such a big part of my life. I shot for a whole year, which is quite a long time when you’ve only lived for 19 years. Pedro wrote a little card to me at the end, saying, ‘How interesting that something so huge and life-changing should happen so early in your life and so late in mine.’ I thought it was a really sweet observation and I just had the best time.”

The Last of Us premieres on HBO in 2023, but until then, you can catch Ramsey in Lena Dunham’s oddly effective Catherine Called Birdy.

(Via USA Today)

For approximately nine months beginning in June 2015, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump were both angling for the GOP presidential nomination — rendering Jeb one of Trump’s favorite punching bags. In addition to famously (and regularly) labeling him as “low-energy,” some of Trump’s choicest other comments about the former Florida governor included calling him “an embarrassment to his family,” “a stiff,” “not a guy who can be president,” “desperate,” “sad and pathetic,” “loser,” “liar,” and “a nervous wreck” (and that’s just for starters). But, as The Daily Beast reports, Jeb mustered up enough of that low energy to hit back at Trump, who attempted to sully the name and reputation of Jeb’s dad — former president George H.W. Bush — over the weekend.

At a Sunday rally in Arizona, Trump continued obsessing over the FBI’s recent reclamation of several highly classified documents that the 45th president removed from the White House and brought home with him to Florida. While he seems to be bouncing back and forth between claiming the documents were declassified (possibly just with his brain), accusing the FBI of planting said documents, and brushing it off as no big deal, the former president opted for Door No. 3 during Sunday’s event. Without any evidence to back up his claims, he began rattling off how several of his predecessors had done the exact same thing that he had — but stored the documents they took from the White House in far less secure areas.

When he got to George H.W. Bush, Trump claimed that he had taken “millions and millions of documents to a former bowling alley pieced together with what was then an old and broken Chinese restaurant. They put them together. And it had a broken front door and broken windows. Other than that it was quite secure.”

The crowd sort of chuckled, but Trump didn’t seem to be kidding — and Jeb didn’t really know how to respond to the wild, and super-specific, accusation. So he did what most of us do after listening to Trump spin a yarn and admitted: “I am so confused.”

(Via The Daily Beast)

Another day, another blunder by Dr. Oz’s campaign. Although, at least this time he wasn’t standing in front of Hitler’s car. It can’t get worse than that, can it? (It can.)

On Monday, New York Magazine published a blistering report from Rebecca Traister that zeroed in on the Oz campaign’s attempts to exploit John Fetterman’s health issues after the Democratic candidate suffered a stroke shortly before the Pennsylvania primary election. Oz’s people are also attempting to frame Fetterman as soft on crime, which has proven to be a more effective campaign tactic despite Fetterman’s history of combatting gun violence while mayor of Braddock, Pa.

Traister also brought up reports that Oz was involved in medical testing that led to the death of over three hundred dogs, which would not go over well with the TV’s doctor campaign. Via New York Magazine:

The inversions and ironies are mind-boggling. Oz, a man who came to politics after having been questioned on the Senate floor about making unsubstantiated claims regarding “miracle” weight-loss pills, is framing Fetterman as less than medically forthcoming. Oz, who built a daytime-television empire thanks to Oprah Winfrey and by telling women it’s bad to be fat, is feminizing Fetterman and shaming him for being lazy and overweight. Oz, whose medical research led to Columbia University being fined for cruel experimentation on and the deaths of more than 300 dogs, is running a billboard using the image of a little girl and a puppy to cast Fetterman as some sort of deranged pansy, while repeatedly calling him “pro-murderer.”

Surprisingly, Traister received a response from a campaign spokesperson for Oz — who mostly just wanted to insult her.

“Suppose you were the dumbest person in the world,” the spokeperson said. “Now suppose you were a reporter for New York Magazine. But I repeat myself.” However, as Traister notes, “He did not deny the allegations about the puppies.”

(Via New York Magazine)

On Friday night (October 7), Rosalía‘s Motomami Tour touched down in Inglewood with special guests that were even a surprise to her. During the concert, the Spanish pop star was joined onstage by her boyfriend Rauw Alejandro and MIA.

The Motomami Tour visited Inglewood’s YouTube Theatre on Friday and Saturday night. With the tour was in the LA area, Rosalía had a few friends and loved ones visit her during the concert. While she was performing “Yo x Ti, Tu x Mi,” MIA emerged from behind the stage. Rosalía had a look of shock on her face when she recognized MIA. They shared a hug and MIA was whipping her hair to Rosalía’s hit.

Shortly after MIA’s appearance, Rosalía proceeded to perform the next song in her set, “Despechá.” She was once again in shock when Puerto Rican superstar Rauw Alejandro was the next guest to hit the stage. Rosalía was blushing when they were dancing together. At the end of the song, they shared a passionate kiss. Considering that “Despechá” sparked breakup rumors back in July, Rosalía and Alejandro showed during that song that they are very much in love.

After both special guests left the stage, Rosalía admitted to the crowd that she had no idea that either of them were going to pop out and join her. She also said that MIA was an “inspiration” for her as an artist.

Rosalía and Alejandro are the second most-nominated artists at the 2022 Latin Grammy Awards with eight nominations each. Rosalía’s Motomami album has an additional nomination in a technical category. Bad Bunny is the most-nominated artist of the year with 10 nominations.

Kanye West’s last week or so has been quite eventful — so much so that he’s released a 30-minute documentary about it titled, fittingly, Last Week. It also doubles (triples?) as something of a short film and music video, as it contains a belligerent new song in which he lashes out at his critics, as well as an extended sequence in which he plays himself as a sort of video game avatar.

The documentary section follows him as he holds meetings with business partners, including Adidas executives; during his Adidas meeting, he plays the attendees what appears to be porn. Afterward, he attends his daughter North’s basketball game as the sound mysteriously cuts out. In the new song he works on in the video, he raps, “You a fake b*tch/ You don’t really love Ye/ Go listen to Drake, b*tch.”

Kanye’s erratic behavior has been the subject of scrutiny all year, but the criticism ramped up last weekend after his YZY season nine fashion show in Paris, where models wore shirts reading “White Lives Matter” (West himself also wore the shirt, as did invited guest Candace Owens). After railing against the backlash the shirts received (or lavishing in it), West’s social media access was restricted after he made anti-Semitic remarks.

You can see Last Week below.

This July marked 10 years since Frank Ocean rocked the music landscape with Channel Orange, and its lasting impression can be quantified in a new way. The seminal album has now spent 100 total weeks on the Billboard 200, sitting at No. 157 on the chart revealed Monday (October 10). It joins Blonde, Ocean’s 2016 sophomore studio album, in achieving that benchmark. Blonde has charted for 298 total weeks.

Ocean, famously enigmatic, seemed to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Channel Orange on July 10 by reviving Blonded Radio on Apple Music 1, which had been dormant since last Christmas. Rumors about Ocean’s highly anticipated next album have been swirling for years. He dropped “DHL,” his first single in two years, in October 2019, followed by “Dear April” and “Cayendo” in March 2020. Come September 2021, a Hits Daily Double report surfaced that Ocean was “shopping a new album” to different labels by “taking meetings and playing the music for execs.” Still, no album.

And then in late September, Ocean wiped his Instagram page. That’s usually a universal indicator to fans that an artist is gearing up to begin a new era — we’re just one year removed from the Adele 30 frenzy — but any true Ocean fan knows better than to expect a conventional rollout strategy. The one confirmed morsel of information about Ocean’s near future? He’s expected to headline Coachella in 2023.