Month: October 2022

This article originally appeared on 08.05.21

Six years ago, a high school student named Christopher Justice eloquently explained the multiple problems with flying the Confederate flag. A video clip of Justice’s truth bomb has made the viral rounds a few times since then, and here it is once again getting the attention it deserves.

Justice doesn’t just explain why the flag is seen as a symbol of racism. He also explains the history of when the flag originated and why flying a Confederate flag makes no sense for people who claim to be loyal Americans.

This high school student, Christopher Justice, does a great job at explaining the Confederate flag and its problems.pic.twitter.com/CcOXHCB8GQ

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But that clip, as great as it is, is a small part of the whole story. Knowing how the discussion came about and seeing the full debate in context is even more impressive.

In 2015, a student at Shawnee Mission East High School outside of Kansas City came up with the idea to have student journalists document students engaging in open discussions about various topics. In support of this idea, history teacher David Muhammad helped arrange a debate about the use of the Confederate flag in American society in his classroom.

According to the Shawnee Mission Post, Muhammad had prepared a basic outline and some basic guiding questions for the discussion, but mainly let the students debate freely. And the result was one of the most interesting debates about the Confederate flag you’ll ever see—one that both reflects the perspectives in American society at large and serves as an example of how to hold a respectful conversation on a controversial topic.

The full discussion is definitely worth a watch. Justice had quite a few Confederacy defenders to contend with, and he skillfully responded to each point with facts and logic. Other students also chimed in, and the discussion is wildly familiar to anyone who has engaged in debate on this topic. For his part, Mr. Muhammad did an excellent job of guiding the students through the debate.

“I had Chris in class, so I knew he was super intelligent and that he read a lot,” Muhammad told the Shawnee Mission Post in 2018. “But that really came out of left-field. He was never out there very much socially, so I didn’t expect for him to want to speak in front of a crowd like that.”

(In case you’re wondering, according to LinkedIn, Christopher Justice is now studying political science at Wichita State University after switching his major from sports management. David Muhammad is now Dean of Students at Pembroke Middle School and also serves as a Diversity Consultant.)

Thanks, SM East, for documenting and sharing such a great discussion.

The Baltimore Ravens looked dominant in the first half against the Buffalo Bills, jumping out to a 20-3 lead at home and it appeared the marquee game of the day might end up being a rout.

However, the Ravens offense stalled in the second half, getting shutout by the Bills who followed Josh Allen’s lead to a 23-20 comeback win — the second big collapse at home for Baltimore this season. There were plenty of missed opportunities for Baltimore (and a few calls that went against them Ravens fans will point to as part of the problem), but nothing was bigger than a failed 4th and goal from the three with just over two minutes to play in a 20-20 game that resulted in an interception in the end zone.

From there, the Bills marched down the field with relative ease — somewhat confirming coach John Harbaugh’s fears in just kicking a field goal to go up three — and deep into Ravens territory. Baltimore looked confused on whether they should let the Bills score, as many players tried to let Devin Singletary run into the end zone with just under 90 seconds to play, but one Ravens defender ran over to tackle him, all but assuring the Bills could milk the clock all the way down.

After a knee on the one to wind the clock all the way to three seconds left, the Ravens sideline was in disarray, with Harbaugh getting into it with star corner Marcus Peters, who didn’t like something Harbaugh said as he walked off the field and had to be pulled away and restrained from going after his coach.

It’s not what you want to see on the sideline between your coach and a star player, but after the game Harbaugh shrugged it off as the heat of competition and said he still loves Peters — and hopes the feeling is mutual.

The Ravens dropped to 2-2 with the loss but will feel like they should be 4-0, and in what figures to be a tightly contested AFC playoff race, those two losses could prove very important when it comes time for seeding in January.

Netflix’s new limited series, Dahmer, is proving to be one of the year’s most controversial shows. While many have praised Evan Peters’ acting chops as the show’s subject, convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, family members of the victims have deemed the show insensitive, as it has triggered past traumas. Also, some people have slammed artists for alluding to Jeffrey Dahmer in past songs.

In 2010, Kesha released a song called “Cannibal,” on which, Kesha rap-sings, “Be too sweet and you’ll be a goner / Yeah, I’ll pull a Jeffrey Dahmer.’

Today (October 2), Kesha’s mother, Pebe Sebert, who co-wrote the song, has taken to TikTok to address the negative backlash. In the video clip, Sebert revealed that she wrote that particular lyric.

“At the time, Kesha and the other writer were too young to know who Jeffrey Dahmer was,” she said. “Literally, the way it happened is, I had this rhyming program called MasterWriter for songwriters, we were looking for a rhyme for ‘goner.’”

Sure enough, Dahmer’s name popped up, which inspired the line. When Sebert and Kesha were writing the song, the two recalled how Kesha wasn’t popular in high school, and how when she began blowing up, guys began fawning over her. This partly inspired the line, “But now that I’m famous / You’re up my anus.”

“It was a tongue-in-cheek, funny song,” Sebert said, “it was not actually about cannibalism… I’m sorry to anybody who’s lost a family member in this tragedy.”

Also facing backlash following Dahmer are Katy Perry and Juicy J for their 2013 collaboration, “Dark Horse.”

On his guest verse, Juicy raps, “She’s a beast / I call her Karma / She’ll eat your heart out like Jeffrey Dahmer.”

Neither Juicy nor Perry have issued a response to the backlash.

Whenever a player leaves the field on the cart, it’s always cause for concern for fans, as it’s usually an indicator of a significant injury. In Detroit on Sunday, Seahawks fans were in a bit of a panic when DK Metcalf was seen taking the cart back to the locker room after not having a clear issue on the field.

While speculation swirled, the Fox broadcast brought a welcome (and funny) update for Seahawks fans, as Metcalf wasn’t dealing with an injury of any kind, but was instead just dealing with a bathroom emergency with a disaster scenario in play if he were forced to try and jog back there.

This explains why Metcalf was just hanging out on the cart, legs dangling off the sides, without a trainer on there with him, but it’s also incredibly funny that he was in such dire need of a bathroom break that he needed to take the injury cart to the back.

Naturally, Metcalf’s ride to the bathroom reminded fans of one of the all-time great sports conspiracies, where Paul Pierce’s wheelchair exit from an NBA Finals game was actually so he could go poop — something Pierce once confirmed but then insisted he was joking — and led to Pierce’s name trending on Twitter.

We had a poop emergency scandal recently in football involving Lamar Jackson, but he denied “pulling a Paul Pierce,” but it seems DK won’t be able to escape the Pierce allegations this time.

There’s yet another Trump tell-all coming out, this one from the reporter he dubbed his “psychiatrist.” It’s called Confidence Man, from The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, and excerpts have revealed some good and strange dirt, from him refusing to use the same toilet as his predecessor, Barack Obama to his staffers pettily breaking a White House air conditioner. Haberman also claims he wanted to fire his own oldest daughter and her husband, which he’s denied. Speaking of Ivanka and Jared, the latter is the focus of another excerpt, which alleges that Trump routinely belittled his back.

As per The Guardian, at one point during the former president’s failed 2020 campaign, Trump regaled aides about Kushner’s idea to go camping, which he found short-sighted. “Ivanka wants to rent one of those big RVs,” he told them. “This skinny guy wants to do it. Can you imagine Jared and his skinny ass camping? It’d be like something out of Deliverance.” He then pretended to play the classic banjo theme from the film, in which backwoods men rape a guy from the city during a camping trip.

It wasn’t the only time Trump was observed mocking his son-in-law. In the early days of his one-term presidency, he belittled Kushner’s voice. “He sounds like a child,” he said after Jared appeared before a congressional committee.

Trump also dragged Kushner’s Jewish faith. After Kushner took a day off to observe a religious holiday, Trump groused, “‘F*cking Shabbat,” then wondered aloud if he’s really religious of if he was just trying to get out of work.

Kushner has plenty of time to get over these remarks. After all, he thinks he’s going to live forever.

(Via The Guardian)

Kendrick Lamar’s recent performance on Saturday Night Live was one for the ages. In the episode hosted by Miles Teller on October 1st, the rapper delivered an incredibly artistic medley of “Rich Spirit” into “N95” and then brought on Sampha to sing the hook on “Father Time.” But this was not the first time that the Compton rapper appeared on SNL. While he stopped off at 30 Rockefeller Plaza this weekend on a short break from his tour supporting his latest album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, he has been the musical guest twice before and then even made two additional cameo appearances. So what songs did he perform and when?

All The Songs That Kendrick Lamar Has Performed On ‘SNL’ In His Career

“Swimming Pools (Drank)” and “Poetic Justice”

On January 26th, 2013, Kendrick was three months removed from the release of his breakthrough album, Good Kid M.A.A.D. City. He debuted on the SNL stage in an episode hosted by Adam Levine (lol) and backed by a TDE Records hoodie-clad band, he showed the audience what a soon-to-be rap star looked like on”Poetic Justice” and “Swimming Pools (Drank.)

“i” and “Pay For It”

It didn’t take long for Kendrick Lamar to return to the SNL stage. In an episode hosted by Woody Harrelson on November 15th, 2014, Lamar delivered two gems a few months before To Pimp A Butterfly was released. Wearing a white t-shirt and blackout contact lenses, he opened his performances with the album’s lead single, “i” (with an epic intro from Woody Harrelson, by the way.) Then, he surprised everyone by playing with Jay Rock and Chantal on Jay Rock’s track “Pay For It.”

“Rich Spirit/N95” and “Father Time”

The most recent appearance on SNL by Kendrick Lamar featured a mega-cut of “Rich Spirit/N95” and then a second song, “Father Time” featuring Sampha. Miles Teller hosted the episode on October 1st, 2022. This is what an artist on top of the hip-hop world looks like.

Cameos Appearances

Apart from his three times on SNL as the musical guest, Kendrick Lamar also made two appearances on the comedy sketch show as a guest performer with other artists.

The first was on February 1st, 2014, when he appeared on “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons. The episode was hosted by Melissa McCarthy.

Then on December 1st, 2018, Kendrick joined Anderson .Paak for their collaboration “Tints.” Claire Foy was the host and you can watch that performance here.

We are just weeks away from Taylor Swift’s 10th studio album, Midnights, however, fans are already excited for Swift’s next big move. According to a report from The Sun, Swift has begun re-recording her sixth album, Reputation, which was originally released in 2017.

Swift started re-recording her first six albums in 2020, after Scooter Braun acquired the rights to her master recordings the year prior. So far, she has only released re-recorded versions of her 2008 album, Fearless and her 2012 album, Red, and in each of the re-recorded albums, she has included re-recordings of songs “from the vault” that were recorded during those album sessions, but never officially released.

The Sun is reporting that Swift recorded a song with Drake in 2017 during the Reputation sessions, however, the song didn’t make the final tracklist, as it was reportedly “deemed to be too direct about their foes at the time.” Swift apparently wants to re-record the track with Drake and include it in the new version of Reputation.

Who is Taylor Swift and Drake’s rumored diss track aimed at?

Much of the Reputation album is rumored to be about Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, with whom Swift had been publically feuding during that time. Swift and West’s feud dates back to 2009, when West interrupted Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Video By A Female Artist at that year’s MTV Video Music Awards. Though they briefly patched things up in 2015, their feud reignited the following year upon the release of West’s seventh studio album, The Life Of Pablo.

The Life Of Pablo features the song, “Famous,” on which West raps, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? / I made that b*tch famous,” though leaked versions of the song contain the lyric, “I feel like Taylor Swift still owes me sex / Why? / I made that b*tch famous.”

Taylor seemingly responded to the lyric on the Reputation cut, “I Did Something Bad,” on which she sings, “If a man talks sh*t, then I owe him nothing.”

Meanwhile, Drake and West’s relationship has been rocky for the past decade, however, around the time of The Life Of Pablo‘s release, Drake released a standalone track called “Summer Sixteen,” on which, he raps, “Now I got a house in LA / now I got a bigger pool than Ye / And look, man, Ye’s pool is nice, mine’s just bigger’s what I’m saying.”

Some believe the line was innocent, while some believe it was indicative of a beef between the two parties.

Days after the release of The Life Of Pablo, Swift accepted the award for Album Of The Year at the 2016 Grammys for her fifth studio album, 1989. In her speech, she said, “As the first woman to win Album Of The Year at the Grammys twice, I want to say to all the young women out there there are going to be people along the way who are going to try and undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame. But if you just focus on the work and you don’t let those people sidetrack you, someday when you get where you’re going you’ll look around and you will know that it was you and the people who love you that put you there. And that will be the greatest feeling in the world. Thank you for this moment.”

Though Swift didn’t call anyone out by name, fans immediately suspected she was referring to West.

The feud was only made worse in July of 2016, when Kim Kardashian shared a video of West on the phone with Swift attempting to clear the use of the line, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex.” Swift took to social media that day, explaining that while she did clear the line, she did not clear West saying, “I made that b*tch famous.”

Over the course of the next year, Swift would maintain a relatively quiet social media presence and stay out of the spotlight, but that November, Drake shared a picture with Swift taken at his 30th birthday party, sparking rumors of a collaboration.

To this day, a Drake and Taylor Swift collaboration has never received a proper release, however, if the news shared by The Sun is true, we may hear the rumored track soon.

Donald Trump remains the presumptive nominee for the Republican presidential ticket, which isn’t so great for the GOP. After all, he keeps doing and saying messed-up things. Over the weekend, the former president had one of his customary meltdowns, this time directed at not only Mitch McConnell but also his wife, Elaine Chao. Chao used to be part of Trump’s administration. That didn’t stop him from saying racist things about her. What do fellow Republicans think about it? With Rick Scott, it’s hard to tell.

The Florida senator went on two separate news programs Sunday morning. He was asked about Trump’s comments on both. And both times he awkwardly deflected, even when repeatedly pressed for an answer.

On CNN, host Dana Bash asked Scott about Trump making thinly-veiled violent threats against McConnell, saying he has a “DEATH WISH,” as well as him calling Chao “Coco Chow.” At first he tried to change the subject before brushing it off, saying, “the president likes to give people nicknames,” adding, “I’m sure he has a nickname for me.”

Bash continued to press him, though, at which point he admitted that it’s “never, ever okay to be a racist. I think you always have to be careful if you’re in the public eye with how you say things. You want to make sure you’re inclusive.” But he refused to condemn Trump’s remarks, only saying, “I hope no one is racist. I hope no one says anything that’s inappropriate” — despite Trump having done just that.

Scott also went on Meet the Press, where host Margaret Brennan was even more forceful. Over the course of four minutes, she asked him six times to condemn not only Trump’s comments but also a bizarre claim made by Marjorie Taylor Greene at his rally on Saturday evening, where she claimed Democrats want Republicans “dead” and that they’ve “already started the killing.” Scott wouldn’t condemn that one either.

When asked if he would rebuke the comments, Scott only said, “Well, I think what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to bring everybody together.” Brennan wouldn’t let it go, asking if he thought Trump and Greene’s comments were dangerous. “I think — I — I think we all have to figure out how do we start bringing people together,” he replied.

As Brennan repeatedly pressed him for a rebuke, Scott alternately changed the subject, offered vague talk of unity or claimed he hadn’t heard the widely-reported comments made by prominent people in his rally. Another thing he refused to do: talk about his incredibly unpopular plan to chop social security.

This past Friday (September 30), Showtime aired a documentary on Sinead O’Connor called Nothing Compares. Named after one of O’Connor’s biggest hits, a song originally written by and for Prince called “Nothing Compares 2 U,” the documentary noticeably does not feature the song.

Toward the end of the documentary, a message appears on-screen, reading “The Prince estate denied use of Sinead’s recording of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ in this film.”

In a statement to Billboard, Prince’s half-sister and co-heir to his estate, Sharon Nelson, explained why the estate didn’t clear the use of the song for the Kathryn Ferguson-directed documentary.

“Nothing compares to Prince’s live version with Rosie Gaines that is featured on the Hits 1 album and we are re-releasing that album on vinyl on November 4th,” she said. “I didn’t feel [O’Connor] deserved to use the song my brother wrote in her documentary so we declined. His version is the best.”

In O’Connor’s 2021 memoir, Rememberings, O’Connor recalled meeting Prince after the success of her version of “Nothing Compares 2 U.” According to O’Connor, Prince invited her to his home, chided her for swearing, and asked her to partake in a pillow fight. She remembers feeling an object in the pillow which she believes Prince slipped inside the pillowcase to inflict pain on O’Connor.

Still, she maintained in an interview with New York Times, she said that despite her unpleasant encounter with the man who wrote “Nothing Compares 2 U,” she is still proud of her version of the song.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s my song,” she said.

Check out the trailer for Nothing Compares above.

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

Last night (October 1), Bad Bunny performed at the SoFi stadium in Los Angeles as part of his ‘World’s Hottest Tour.’ While fans were elated to see Bunny perform several of his hits, Bunny kept the surprises going throughout the show. One of the biggest surprises was Cardi B, who made an appearance and performed two hits of her own.

When Cardi arrived to the stage, Bunny thanked her for joining him on the last show of the tour, and cited her as an influence to his own career, as well as Latin music in general.

The two then performed their collaboration, “I Like It,” from Cardi’s debut album, Invasion Of Privacy.

Afterward, Cardi performed her breakthrough hit, “Bodak Yellow.”

Back in August, Cardi spoke to Harper’s Bazaar about Bunny’s star power and his versatility in the realm of music.

“The fact that such a big artist like him can transition into trap, to salsa, to merengue, to any beat and genre that he wants to do … there’s so many different genres of music out there, and yet the number-one artist on Spotify is motherf*cking Bad Bunny.”

Following the show, Cardi took to Twitter noting the concert’s large audience.

“I was just at this stadium for the super bowl not long ago,” she said “…There’s more people here today at bad Bunny’s concert then the Super Bowl! …….Literally artist goal !!!!!”

Check out the performances above.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.