Month: November 2022

The Sick New World festival is getting off on the right foot. The likes of Deftones, Korn, Incubus, and System Of A Down teased this was coming last night by posting a trippy animated video of Las Vegas and the simple tag of “Sick New World” in the caption on their respective Instagrams. This morning (November 7), the lineup of the inaugural Sick New World festival was officially announced.

Unsurprisingly, the headliners will be System Of A Down, Korn, Deftones and Incubus. Sick New World will take over the Las Vegas Festival Grounds on May 13, 2023. Other notable acts to check out will be Evanescence, Turnstile, 100 Gecs, Chevelle, Mr. Bungle, Papa Roach, Death Grips, Flyleaf, Placebo, Spiritbox, and The Sisters Of Mercy. Ultimately, it’s like When We Were Young but for nu metal.

Sharing a stage won’t be a stretch for some of the acts. Turnstile performed at Deftones’ third annual Dia De Los Deftones Festival over the weekend, while Korn and System Of A Down played a run of shows together earlier this year.

According to press release, Sick New World tickets will go on sale to the public this Friday (November 11) beginning at 2 p.m. PT. There is a layaway payment option starting at $19.99. Full ticket information can be found here.

Check out the festival poster below.

The reason Donald Trump isn’t leaving the money pit that is Truth Social for the Elon Musk-owned Twitter? He can’t let something with his name attached to it fail, which has obviously never happened before. The Washington Post reports that the former president “has told his allies that he can’t leave Truth Social, because he’s propping it up, and he doesn’t want a site so closely associated with his brand to collapse.”

Trump has four million followers on Truth Social, compared to the 88 million that he had on Twitter (many of which were bots). He’s repeatedly claimed that the app is bigger than “TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and the rest,” but “in September, Truth Social had fewer than 1.7 million monthly unique visitors in the United States,” the Post reports. That’s lower than “the websites for the crypto news source CoinDesk, the drugstore chain CVS Health, and the internal job-listing page for Walmart.” And unlike Truth Social, CVS.com is useful (it can tell you the nearest location to buy half-priced candy after Halloween).

After a delayed start on his own platform, Trump has begun using it actively, posting memes and sharing messages from accounts promoting QAnon, the jumbled set of conspiracy theories that herald him as the ultimate warrior against a “deep state” cabal of satanic elite. Truth Social, however, has failed to gain the kind of mainstream base of users or advertisers on which most major social networks rely.

Maybe Trump is correct in avoiding Twitter. He doesn’t have to deal with this:

Remember when Trump was tweeting about Diet Coke? Those were the days.

(Via the Washington Post)

On an August afternoon in San Francisco, Larry June is backstage at Outside Lands Festival, biding his time before putting on a show for a hometown crowd. He’s in the midst of a year filled with sold-out tour dates and his latest album, Spaceships On The Blade, is set to drop ten days after the performance — he even has a natural wine on deck that’ll debut at his album release show later that month in San Francisco. If there was a lot on his mind, you wouldn’t know it. June, cloaked in a navy blue sweater from his Midnight Organic clothing line, is the embodiment of the Bay Area chill. He leans back in his trailer and reflects for a moment on the year.

“I traveled to the UK for the first time this year. Sold out all the shows,” he says while pressing his hands together. “I did a lot of recording. A lot of bike riding and going to the grocery store.”

Spaceships On The Blade marks June’s second release of the year (along with the 2 P’z In A Pod collaboration album with Compton rapper Jay Worthy.) And in a way, Spaceships is a documentation of a hard-earned trip around the sun for June. One that culminated with a Lamborghini ride through London for the “Private Valet” video and rapping in front of the Eiffel Tower in the clip for “In My Pockets.” Guest appearances on the album from Syd, 2Chainz, and the Alchemist are a testament to his rise. But none of it has gone to his head.

“I just take the beat and talk about what I did the last couple of months of my life,” he says without a hint of pomp.

June was born in the rough and tumble Hunter’s Point neighborhood of San Francisco. He moved to Atlanta for a decade when he was five until he was fifteen years old before moving back home to SF for good. He says he claims both, but his calm demeanor is undeniably from San Francisco. As is his entrepreneurial drive.

In a city dominated by the tech industry and start-up types with lofty goals of building companies while increasing their influence, June has his own entrepreneurial journey too, but with an undeniable independent lean. And just like how the new breed of San Franciscans unapologetically enjoy the finer things in life, June is no different. Last year, he opened Honeybear Boba, a boba tea shop in the Dogpatch district just down 3rd St from where he grew up. His natural wine, Uncle Larry’s Natural Orange, is a collaboration with Bay Area winemaker Purity Wine, and then there’s his Midnight Organic clothing line, which gets snatched up so quickly that he can’t seem to keep it in stock. The moment he stepped on stage at the festival and the crowd roars, he thanked them for buying his merch online.

“I show a different side of the city,” he says. “I’m from Hunter’s Point. I didn’t see too much of the Pier, or the nice avenues. I’ve never been to Alcatraz. I was just biking and sh*t. Now I’m just showing that a person of my color can do different sh*t. And I definitely belong.”

There’s a theme in June’s music that offers a flip on the lifestyle that is familiar in Bay Area hip-hop. His street rap come-up is everywhere in his flow, but he’s also ventured outside of his bubble to live the high life in an almost mockery of the techies in San Francisco who chase Instagram clout with their every move. For June, it’s just who he is. He transcends any and all norms and there’s nobody like him.

On “6am In Sausalito,” fron his 2021 album Orange Print, he raps about taking his lady to the bougie Marin County marina town of Sausalito to eat calamari; a scene typically devoid of anyone from Hunter’s Point. There’s an effortless cool about his deep-toned delivery on the hook — “Livin’ life fast, that’s the game we play” — and it just screams with his sentiment that he “definitely” belongs.

Later on “Organic Respect,” he touts a city-dweller healthy lifestyle and early-riser status, spitting, ”Yeah, I rap now, but don’t try it. You from the internet. I’m from that life.” Because it’s not just the startup crowd that shops at Whole Foods and wakes up early to grind. June flips the dichotomy on his head because after all, this was his city first. He grew up watching both of his parents hustle in the music industry and took notes from their drive and that of other artists in his orbit.

“I watched them do it independently and I just kinda took that and ran with it,” he says. “It inspires me a lot because I came up in the community when people were pushing music out the trunk. I saw the grind and it gave me the idea of how I wanted to do it.”

June dropped his first mixtape when he was fifteen and just kept putting out projects since. The mixtapes and EPs gave way to albums and collaborations and since 2018, he’s been non-stop, dropping close to fifteen new releases. Each album has seen June level up, with the fruits of his labor on full display across his sold-out tour in the US and the UK, as he’s become the most recognizable rapper from San Francisco.

But he rejects the notion that he’s an anomaly, and that San Francisco rap isn’t what it used to be. “There’s a lot of independent artists out here making a lot of money,” he asserts, before explaining that his rise is because “I just do numbers and sh*t. I just do me.”

If there’s anything that defines Bay Area culture, it’s how natives of San Francisco, Oakland, etc… have never been afraid to be themselves. It’s what has yielded a culture and style that while not as celebrated as other pockets, is just as influential. For June, who frequently ventures into LA and Detroit hip-hop circles with that Bay Area chill vibe and unquestioned aura that he belongs there too, it has defined his identity and his ascent.

His rise was none more evident than on that Saturday afternoon at Outside Lands. And shades of his San Francisco bred come-up was everywhere around him. He closed his set with “Smoothies In 1991” to an enormous crowd on the rolling green fields of Golden Gate Park. Weed smoke happily filled the air and it felt like everybody there was celebrating the life, drive, and success that Larry June embodies. They sang along with him, “Bitch I feel like I’m dreaminnnn…!” until the music cut off. But everyone just kept going, holding the hook again and again towards June on stage, until they were all finally out of breath.

Given his notoriously intense dedication to method acting thanks to studying under Daniel Day Lewis, Succession star Jeremy Strong doesn’t seem like the type of guy to pop up in a Marvel movie. However, like most actors he found himself in a position where he was desperate for work, and that almost resulted in Strong playing a surprising role in Captain America: The First Avenger. In fact, he had just lost out on an audition for Cowboys & Aliens, so things were getting tight.

“They needed someone to play Captain America’s young body, before he turns into a superhero,” Strong told The Sunday Times. “They said they needed a transformational actor and would use CGI to put the actual actor’s face and voice over my own.”

Ultimately, he turned the whole thing down and retreated back to the theater world for a more Jeremy Strong-esque role. Via IndieWire:

“But that’s my story of L.A. It was just never going to happen for me here,” Strong continued. “It didn’t feel like what I had to offer was valued. And the next day I went back to New York and did a play about a veteran from Afghanistan in a wheelchair during the blackout of 2003.”

Interestingly, Strong had another connection to the Captain America movies. He went to high school with Chris Evans, who apparently had no idea that Marvel planned to use Strong as a pre-serum Steve Rogers.

“Oh no! It just goes to show the industry is so unpredictable,” Evans told The Times. “But I’m so happy things worked out, because I don’t think there was ever plan B for Jeremy.”

(Via IndieWire)

This article originally appeared on 03.02.17

If there’s ever been a particularly bad time to be an undocumented immigrant, it’s right now.

President Donald Trump, who launched himself into the 2016 presidential race with his support for a multibillion-dollar border wall, has been cracking down on immigration as promised. In addition to tightening border security, he’s pledged to remove 2 to 3 million undocumented immigrants “immediately.” And he appears to be keeping his word.

It’s a scary climate we’re facing, but unfortunately, it’s not just Trump and it’s not just America. All over the world, people are more concerned with their countries’ borders than seemingly ever before. Nations all over Europe, for example, are tightening up immigration rules and/or ramping up deportations themselves.

Amidst all the noise and rhetoric — every “radical Islamic terrorist” attack that gets waved about by politicians with something that eerily resembles pride, every horrific crime committed by white Americans that’s met with deafening silence, every press conference faux pas — there are real people and real families being ripped apart in the name of patriotism.

Their stories are terrifying and heart-wrenching, but they’re massively important.

1. A DREAMer gave a powerful speech about deportation. Moments later, she was arrested.

Daniela Vargas, who has lived in the U.S. since she was 7 years old, spoke at a news conference in Jackson, Mississippi, about the importance of the DREAM Act, which aims to help immigrant children who have lived in the U.S. for more than five years and graduated high school receive permanent legal status.

After the event, Vargas and a friend were pulled over and arrested by immigration agents.

2. A Sri Lankan student studying in North Wales was saved from deportation only by a last ditch effort hours before her flight.

Shiromini Satkunarajah, an electrical engineering student at Bangor University, was nearly sent back to Sri Lanka earlier this year. Despite having lived in the U.K. since she was 12 and being only three months shy of graduation, Satkunarajah was only allowed to stay after receiving an outpouring of community support.

3. A woman living in Great Britain was sent back to Singapore without being allowed to say goodbye to her husband and two children.

Irene Clennell had lived in the U.K. since 1988 but was abruptly sent back to Singapore after having her indefinite leave to remain revoked. Clennell is married and has two children with her husband but was not afforded the chance to see them one last time.

4. A mom living in Phoenix was sent back to Mexico. Her children would later face Trump as he addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos’ children were reportedly in attendance as Trump addressed Congress. Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/AFP/Getty Images.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos was sent back to Mexico in January this year for having a criminal record. Her crime? Working under the table to provide for her young children.

5. A beloved restaurant manager in a deep-red town in Illinois was arrested, and now the community is reeling.

Most of the people in West Frankfort, Illinois, voted for Trump. They never thought anything would happen to Juan Carlos Hernandez Pacheco, the friendly restaurant manager who seemed have done at least one kind deed for everyone in the community. Now, he’s been detained by ICE and is currently waiting to find out if he’ll be sent back to Mexico.

6. A Kuwaiti man and father of two living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the other hand, was miraculously spared from deportation because it would cause his family too much hardship.

Yousef Ajin has lived in the United States for 18 years with his wife, with whom he has four children. He reportedly met with immigration officers frequently, but on Jan. 30, 2017, he was suddenly detained.

In February, a judge granted a deportation waiver in order to spare Ajin’s family from hardship. Many other immigrants aren’t so lucky.

7. One man was caught trying to cross the border and returned to Tijuana. He appears to have jumped to his death shortly after.

The man, Guadalupe Olivas Valencia, had reportedly worked in the U.S. before to provide for his family back home before being deported multiple times. Caught trying to enter the country once again, he seemingly decided jumping from a bridge was his only option.

8. A single mother in California was sent back to Mexico, leaving her two young children in peril.

Photo by Jose Cabezas/AFP/Getty Images.

On Feb. 7, María Robles-Rodríguez was nabbed by U.S. Border Patrol and sent back to Mexico, leaving her twin 18-year-old daughters to fend for themselves.

9. Gay men being deported from Britain to Afghanistan are being told to pretend they’re straight.

The British government’s advice to gay men being sent home to Afghanistan, where they can be freely persecuted for their sexual orientation? Just don’t act gay and everything will be fine!

Seriously.

10. Jose Escobar was detained after a routine meeting with immigration officers. He’s a husband and father of three.

Escobar, who has lived in the United States for 16 years, had a deportation scare a few years back but was told he’d be safe if he checked in with immigration agents every year. Only this year, an agent reportedly told his wife, “We’re just doing what President Trump wants us to do with the new rules.”

Escobar will likely soon be deported.

11. A Mexican man living in Idaho was deported. His wife and the mother of his children could be next.

Tomas Copado ran his own auto body shop in Idaho Falls until he was sent back to Mexico earlier this year. His wife, for the sake of their children, recently had her own deportation deferred.

For now.

12. Some undocumented immigrants may be deported to Mexico even if they’re not from there.

Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.

According to several reports, the Department of Homeland Security plans to send anyone who crosses illegally over the southern border of the U.S. back to Mexico, even though they may be citizens of another country.

Needless to say, this is horrendous and possibly in violation of international law.

Every modern nation needs smart, empathetic paths to citizenship. Any immigration policy that tramples on human rights and rips families apart is a travesty.

It’s time to bust the narrative that foreigners primarily come to our country — or any country — to do harm. They come mostly to find opportunity, to escape persecution, or to be with family.

If we can’t come to see them as human beings rather than inanimate outsiders, finding the money to pay for a giant wall will be the very least of our problems.

Are Billie Eilish and The Neighbourhood singer Jesse Rutherford dating? Neither has explicitly said as much publicly, but it sure looks like it. The two were first spotted together last month, including when they got intimate in front of some paparazzi cameras. They later had a couple’s Halloween costume, photos of which Eilish shared to effectively go “Instagram-official” with Rutherford. Now, they’ve taken another major step in terms of publicly disclosing their apparent relationship: They made their red-carpet debut together.

This weekend, the two attended the LACMA Art + Film Gala 2022 together and opted for a sleepy red-carpet look. Rutherford wore Gucci pajamas and fuzzy slippers, while Eilish went with a silk Gucci nightgown and a sleeping mask on her head, People notes. To bring the look together, the two also wrapped themselves in a shared Gucci blanket, smiling big as they posed for the cameras.

Historically, Eilish has hesitated to publicly discuss her romantic life. In 2020, for example, she said, “I definitely want to keep that private. I’ve had relationships and kept them private, and even the ones that I’ve had, and the tiny amount that I’ve let the world see, I regret. […] It’s very much not something I’m interested in.”

As you probably are aware, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, and The Watcher (both from Ryan Murphy) have been dominating Netflix for weeks. Both have done so with some degree of controversy, first when people grew upset about the LGBTQ tag being used for a serial-killer dramatization (which also spawned backlash from the families of the cannibal’s victims). Then people grew upset when The Watcher, much like the real-life case, ended with a lack of closure regarding The Watcher’s identity. That second show is still worth a whirl, and people are apparently still binging the heck out of Dahmer with Netflix claiming that the series will soon reach 1 billion hours viewed worldwide.

For that reason, Netflix has found a way to renew both shows, sort of. The Watcher will continue with a second season, and Dahmer won’t technically continue, but the Monster franchise will live on for least two iterations. From a Netflix press release:

The future installments of Monster will tell the stories of other monstrous figures who have impacted society.

Additionally, Netflix has ordered a second season of the Murphy, Brennan and Eric Newman real-estate thriller, The Watcher.

So there you have it. We’ll see other serial killers receive the spotlight, proving that America’s continued obsession with them shall never end, including on Netflix. Also, we should probably stop expecting any straight-forward presentations from Ryan Murphy, as evidenced by his other Netflix outings. There’s no telling how The Watcher might continue, given that the threatening letters stopped taunting the central family, and Jennifer Coolidge’s realtor ran for the hills. However, she’s the sole connecting cast member of HBO’s The White Lotus seasons, so perhaps she can be the glue here, too.

The latest star to pay homage to the late Aaron Carter is The Game, who wrote a lengthy post on Instagram recalling his first meeting with the pop star toward the beginning of his career. In Game’s recollection, Carter was a generous soul gave up his seat on a flight so that Game and his son could share first class seats. However, Game joined Carter in coach class, where they spent the flight talking.

You can check out the full story below, but as it turns out, Game’s history of supposedly fibbing his incredible behind-the-scenes industry stories has fans giving the accounting a collective side-eye.

Whether the story is true or not, it sort of speaks to the singer’s impact that his death has provoked such a response. Read Game’s full story below.

It was mid year 2005 and I boarded a flight to New York with my now 19 year old son @harlemtaylorr & his mom @___aleska to do 106 & park and we were 1st class so we thought… turns out they over booked & we were one seat short & he was sitting across the isle & said “Hey, you guys have little man.. you can have my seat Game”. At this time my 1st album had dropped & I still wasn’t sure everyone knew who I was so every new “Game” called out was fresh & made me feel like I’d accomplished something great.

The plane wasn’t full so Aaron went back to coach & sat in an isle & had the whole row to himself so he was chilling. I felt bad about him giving up his seat so I thought to myself… “fuck that, I’m going to sit in coach too” !!! He had on his headphones… (airpods weren’t a thing back then) but he took them off & I asked him if I could sit. He of course said “fuck yea man”. We ended up talking the entire damn near 6 hour flight & I can remember thinking how kool it was to be talking to a guy I seen on MTV a million times who my lil sister loved to death cause again I had just became a star so this was super dope. We got to know one another very well during that flight, exchanged sidekick numbers & always hugged when we saw each other over the years.

Yesterday when I read of his passing, it really hurt my feelings and I instantly thought of that flight & our time chilling in the sky.

He was dope af & a very good human.. my love & condolences are with you, your family & his baby boy through this tough time & after. Hit me whenever, FOREVER.

Rest Easy Aaron, fly high kid

After name-dropping Robert Kraft in “Middle Of The Ocean,” off his latest project with 21 Savage, Her Loss, many wonder what the backstory behind Drake and the Patriots owner’s friendship is.

“Big Benjamins like the Pittsburgh Steelers / Drake, you got it,” he raps. “Robert Kraft sent the jet for us, that sh*t was patriotic / You would think we live in Baltimore, the way they ravin’ ’bout the latest product.”

Kraft has been receiving a lot of love from rappers lately — Last year, for his 80th birthday party, he was gifted with a blue Bentley from Meek Mill, Jay- Z, and even Philadelphia 76ers owner Michael Rubin. Much of the admiration came after Kraft worked to help free Meek while he was imprisoned back in 2018.

This past summer, Kraft was seen beside Drake and some high-profile athletes, like Celtics Jayson Tatum and Grant Williams, while attending Rubin’s 4th of July party.

In 2016, during an interview with Complex, the football team owner revealed that he was a big fan of the Canadian rapper.

“He’s a good man,” Kraft said. “I was supposed to go hear him last Sunday night, but he got injured.” Kraft’s dreams would eventually come true two years later when he attended Drake’s concert at the TD Garden with Meek Mill in 2018.

Rosalía will be performing at the 2022 Latin Grammy Awards. In an announcement released today (November 7), Carlos Vives, Silvana Estrada, and ChocQuibTown’s Goyo were also added to the performers’ line-up.

Rosalía received eight nominations this year. The Spanish pop star’s Motomami album received an additional nomination in a technical category. She is up for Album Of The Year for Motomami. Additionally, Rosalía is nominated for Record Of The Year for “La Fama” featuring The Weeknd and Song Of The Year for “Hentai.” She is tied with her boyfriend, Puerto Rican singer Rauw Alejandro, who also received eight nominations.

Vives is most known for singing the theme song, “Colombia, Mi Encanto,” for Disney’s Encanto movie. The Colombian icon has won two Grammy Awards and 15 Latin Grammy Awards in his career. He received six more nominations this year, including Song Of The Year for “Baloncito Viejo” featuring Camilo.

Two Best New Artist nominees will be performing. Mexican singer Estrada, who is nominated for her album Marchita, and Peruvian singer-songwriter Nicole Zignago, will be hitting the stage. Colombian singer and rapper Goyo, who released her solo album En Letra De Otro earlier this year, will be performing as well.

Other acts confirmed to perform include Gente De Zona, Aymée Nuviola, and Los Bukis. Bad Bunny is the most-nominated artist of the year with 10 nominations. The 2022 Latin Grammy Awards will take place in Las Vegas on Thursday, November 17. The ceremony will be broadcast live on Univision.

Some artists mentioned here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.