Month: November 2022

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a major cinematic spectacle, but it’s also a big-time music event, too. After all, Black Panther: The Album, in support of the first movie, was a No. 1 album. Now, we know what the new Wakanda Forever OST is going to look like, as the tracklist was shared today.

It kicks off with the recent Rihanna release “Lift Me Up” and also includes songs from Burna Boy, Tems, Stormzy, Fireboy DML, Tobe Nwigwe, CKay, PinkPantheress, and Rema, among others.

Recently, it was reported that Rihanna would have another Black Panther song besides “Lift Me Up”: a The-Dream-produced number called “Born Again.” However, that song does not appear on the tracklist. While it’s possible the song could still appear in the movie, unless something changes, it’s not currently slated to appear on the soundtrack album.

Check out the full tracklist below.

1. Rihanna — “Lift Me Up”
2. DBN Gogo, Sino Msolo, Kamo Mphela, Young Stunna, and Busiswa — “Love & Loyalty (Believe)”
3. Burna Boy — “Alone”
4. Tems — “No Woman No Cry”
5. Vivir Quintana and Mare Advertencia — “Árboles Bajo El Mar”
6. Foudeqush and Ludwig Göransson — “Con La Brisa”
7. Snow Tha Product featuring E-40 — “La Vida”
8. Stormzy — “Interlude”
9. Fireboy DML — “Coming Back For You”
10. Tobe Nwigwe and Fat Nwigwe — “They Want It, But No”
11. ADN Maya Colectivo: Pat Boy, Yaalen K’uj, All Mayan Winik — “Laayli’ kuxa’ano’one”
12. OG DAYV featuring Future — “Limoncello”
13. CKay featuring PinkPantheress — “Anya Mmiri”
14. Bloody Civilian featuring Rema — “Wake Up”
15. Alemán featuring Rema — “Pantera”
16. DBN Gogo, Sino Msolo, Kamo Mphela, Young Stunna and Busiswa — “Jele”
17. Blue Rojo — “Inframundo”
18. calle x vida and Foudeqush — “No Digas Mi Nombre”
19. Guadalupe de Jesús Chan Poot — “Mi Pueblo”

Actor LaKeith Stanfield took to Instagram yesterday to share a post that is now drawing some serious reactions from fans. “If you are for gangsta rap, you can’t also be for Black,” the photo read. Many believe he was referring to the tragic recent passing of the rapper, Takeoff.

“The dangerous toxicity associated with this glorified black serial killer and killed music and imagery got people thinking it’s cool to hurt those that look like them and ONLY them,” Stanfield added in the caption. “I know that the scope of issues we have to contend with is much larger than just this and that we have a lot of work to do in many areas to restore our hearts and minds after centuries of persecution and manipulation, but we have to start somewhere. At some level, we have to see our lives as valuable so that we think before we react and see another human when we look at a Human man.”

Specifically, many have pointed out the possible hypocrisy in his comments. Stanfield co-starred in SZA’s recent music video for “Shirt,” where the two go on a crime spree and use guns.

Continue scrolling for some reactions from fans regarding Stanfield’s social media post.

The comedic genius that was Robin Williams still never ceases to draw a hearty chuckle even years after his death. Someone is always digging up an old video of him doing what he did best, making people laugh. In a rediscovered video, someone put together an epic compilation of Williams essentially taking over interviews with his antics.

In the 10-minute video, he goes from talk show to talk show where he upstages the comedian charged with hosting the show. His hilarious full-body comedy tickles the crowd into a roaring thunder of laughter. In one of the clips he’s talking about how easy it used to be to fly on an airplane compared to post 9/11. He jumps into different accents with ease as he jokes about not being able to have a fingernail clipper on a flight because someone might threaten to clip someone’s hangnail.

In the clip with Jay Leno, Williams begins to explain why he wore tape over his mouth at an event, but instead of telling the story like a normal person, he starts speaking strangely and says he had to go into a witness protection program. The audience cannot get enough of his hilarious shenanigans while he talks to Leno. One thing about Williams’ style of comedy is that it seemed to cross all social barriers and still does.

In the short snippet of him on “The Tonight Show Starting Johnny Carson,” he dramatically gets up and pretends to be a drunken Shakespeare looking for an apartment, 2B … or not 2B. There’s no way that the written word could do his comedic performance justice. Don’t believe me, check it out for yourself in the video below.

Despite panicked headlines to the contrary, no amount of “rainbow fentanyl” found its way into an unsuspecting child’s Halloween treats this year. Turns out, people are not randomly mixing highly expensive drugs in with candy and then accidentally giving them to trick or treat-ers because we mentioned highly expensive, right? Like previous scare campaigns about THC candy accidentally making its way along side a bat-shaped Reese’s cup, the rainbow fentanyl thing never made sense, and now, the evidence is overwhelming.

Via Vice:

In response to a VICE News inquiry about whether there had been any incidents of kids being unintentionally exposed to fentanyl on or around Halloween, a DEA spokesperson sent previous statements and press releases, including a comment from the DEA’s administrator saying, “We’ve seen nothing that indicates that this is going to be related to Halloween.”

Other police agencies went so far as to issue statements debunking rumors and making it extra clear nothing nefarious happened with Halloween candy.

As sociology professor Joel Best told PBS in October, shadowy cartels have absolutely nothing to gain by randomly putting fentanyl in kids’ candy. As a business practice, it makes zero sense. None.

“If you give a dose of fentanyl to kids in elementary school, you have an excellent chance of killing them,” Best said. “If you do addict them, what are you going to do, try to take their lunch money? No one is trying to addict little kids to fentanyl.”

Of course, that fact should’ve been obvious, and yet, it didn’t stop media figures like Joe Rogan from spreading misinformation. The dude even got fact-checked on the air and still continued to agree with Dr. Phil that parents shouldn’t trust any candy that they didn’t buy themselves from the store. Rogan is giving Alex Jones a run for his money in not being able to resist every conspiracy theory that lands on his plate.

(Via Vice)

In a post-Elon Musk world, Twitter may now have a major racism problem (well, an even bigger major racism problem). How else does explain how the usage of the N-word went up a mind-blowing 500 percent in the wake of the Tesla founder’s reluctant takeover of the social media behemoth? While the official reason being given is a highly organized “trolling campaign,” it probably didn’t help the site’s reputation that its new owner is now using the site to float baseless conspiracy theories about the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband. But on Tuesday night, Trevor Noah offered up some other possibilities for the racist free-for-all.

From Atlanta, The Daily Show host offered up a range of possible explanations as to why Twitter became flooded with hate speech. “Who knows what it is,” he said. “It could be racist, yeah, it could be… You feel free and emboldened to say it now. Or it could be Black people watching Elon take over like, ‘THIS n***a.’ You don’t know which one it is.”

What Noah, and the rest of the world, does know, however, is that Musk isn’t wasting any time in trying to recoup the $44 billion he spent (a.k.a. was forced to spend) in order to purchase Twitter, most notably by announcing that verified users would now have to pay $20 per month for the meaningless blue checkmark next to their name — which he quickly lowered to $8.

Given Musk’s need to make Twitter profitable, and what Noah describes as the free speech people’s desire to only ever use their right to free speech to use the N-word (“Why do they never want to use their free speech to say words like ‘perambulate’ or ‘pusillanimous’?”), the host has come up with a brilliant suggestion: “If Elon Musk wants to make money from Twitter, what he should do: Don’t charge people for blue checkmarks… Charge white people to say the N-word. Twitter will be the most profitable company in history. Racists are going to be taking out loans.”

You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 2:00 mark.

Here’s some non-problematic Harry Potter news for once: the grave site where Dobby died will remain open to Muggles.

The house-elf’s death scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (featuring very good acting from Daniel Radcliffe considering he was basically cradling and crying over E.T. in the river) was filmed at Freshwater West Beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, which has become a tourist spot for Harry Potter fans.

The difference between people visiting the dead Dobby beach and Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross Station, however, is that “environmental officials became concerned that the site’s popularity with tourists was having a negative effect on the beach and considered tearing the memorial down as part of an eight-month review,” according to the New York Times.

But a peaceful resolution has been reached.

Last week, Dobby’s grave site won a reprieve, when officials announced that it could stay, as long as visitors stopped leaving behind tributes to Dobby — or, from a different perspective, environmentally ruinous litter.

“The memorial to Dobby will remain at Freshwater West in the immediate term for people to enjoy,” the National Trust Wales wrote in an assessment. “The Trust is asking visitors to only take photos when visiting the memorial to help protect the wider landscape.”

In other words, don’t bring your nasty socks as a tribute. Thank you.

(Via the New York Times)

Grammy-winning artist and producer Pharrell continues to give us reasons to be happy! If his upcoming collaborations with BTS and Travis Scott weren’t enough to keep him busy, planning his breakout hip-hop festival, Something In The Water, should.

The festival set to take place next year from April 28 to 30, will make its triumphant return to the singer’s hometown, Virginia Beach. This year’s two-day event was held in Washington, DC after the star’s frustrations grew with the police department mishandling of his 25-year-old cousin Donovan Lynch’s death after being fatally shot by police.

Despite the last-minute location change, the festival still managed to completely sell out. However, as the feedback began to roll in, onlookers, including our own Wongo Okon, shared that the festival seemed to have lost its magic that came along with being oceanside. In his review, Okon penned, “While DC is still a part of the DMV area, this year’s edition of Something In The Water didn’t have that same feeling,” adding, “The showcase just felt like it was crammed into the country’s capital, and to a certain extent, it quite literally was.”

The Neptunes hitmaker took to social media to the formal announcement. Always an avid for his city, in the caption, Pharrell stresses residents of the state will receive priority. Local residents will have first dibs on general admission tickets beginning at 10 a.m. ET on November 5. Non-residents will have to wait until noon ET.

The lineup has not yet be released. To purchase tickets, visit the festival website.

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

Over the summer, Warner Brothers made the controversial move to scrap the half-filmed Batgirl movie, which did not land well with many fans, particularly those who are leading the forefront of the Brendan Fraiser Renassaince movement. This also inspired a larger, more complex conversation revolving around this question: Are all movies …bad now?

Probably not, but the “restructuring” of various movie studios seems to have a lot of directors scrambling at the idea that their movie could be next. The Russo Brothers, known for their longstanding relationship with Marvel, told Variety that the move was unprecedented. “It’s rare that I can think of something that high profile, that expensive, that was murdered in such a way,” Joe Russo said of the Batgirl debacle. “It’s sad, but we’re at a time in the business where corporate sociopathy is going to rear its head because people are scared.”

Even though some people are scared, the brothers don’t feel bothered by the changing tides in the movie industry. When they were told that their Netflix blockbuster The Gray Man, would only play in theaters for a week, Joe says that he wasn’t surprised. “I’ve got four kids, so I can identify Gen Z’s habits pretty accurately,” Joe Russo said. “They don’t have the same emotional connection to watching things in a theater.” Okay but some of them still do!

Russo also thinks that the golden age of films shattering records might be over as simultaneous theatrical/streaming releases become popular. The brother’s insanely successful Marvel movie Avengers: Endgame made over $1 billion in its first weekend in theaters. “It will never happen again,” Russo added. “That was an apex of that era of theatrical filmmaking.” James Cameron will probably have something to say about this in the coming weeks.

(Via Variety)

In probably the best case scenario you’re gonna get here, Joe Rogan mostly walked back his recent remarks to Tulsi Gabbard about public schools being forced to install litter boxes in restrooms to accommodate students who identify as furries. The urban legend, which originated in Canada, has been debunked for an entire year now, but that hasn’t stopped Republican politicians from spreading it on the campaign trail going into the midterm elections.

While hosting Gabbard on his show in mid-October, Rogan spread the thoroughly debunked myth with the following anecdote. Via Reuters:

Rogan claims to know a friend whose wife “works at a school that had to install a litter box in the girl’s room because there is a girl who’s a furry.”

“Her mother badgered the school until they agreed to put a litter box in one of the stalls,” Rogan tells Gabbard. He added that they “conned the school into putting this expletive litter box in a girl’s room.”

Obviously, that’s some incredibly thin and non-credible sourcing, which Rogan learned the hard way after he began getting peppered with messages that the litter box story is an “internet rumor.” On the most recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan admitted that he tried to verify his friend’s wife’s story, and it did not go well.

“So I contacted him again and I said, ‘Tell me exactly what she said and contact her and find out.’ She no longer works for that school. She works for another school. She contacted the other school. She didn’t get a response,” Rogan said via Mediaite.

However, before you give Rogan too much credit, he gave himself some wiggle room by saying he thinks some mom did try to request a litter box, which again, no. Nobody is doing this.

“I don’t think they actually did it,” Rogan said. “I think there was discussions about doing it because there was one particularly wacky mother, but there is — it doesn’t seem that there’s any proof that they put a litter box in there.”

(Via Mediaite)

The duets on Juan Gabriel’s upcoming album Los Dúo 3 were revealed last night (November 1). The late Mexican icon teamed up with artists like Danna Paola, and Lasso, and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty.

Before his death in 2016, Gabriel kicked off his Los Dúo album series a year prior. The first LP featured duets with Fifth Harmony, Marco Antonio Solís, and Vicente Fernández. The second album arrived a few months after with duets featuring J Balvin, Belinda, and Joan Sebastian. Los Dúo 3 will be Gabriel’s first posthumous release in the series.

On Gabriel’s social media accounts, the tracklist for Los Dúo 3 was unveiled along with the album’s release date. In 2016, Gabriel released “Gracias Al Sol,” the most famous Spanish version of CCR’s classic “Have You Ever Seen The Rain?.” Now Fogerty will be singing the song with Gabriel on his upcoming LP.

Mexican pop star Paola will be joining Gabriel on the song “De Mí Enamórate.” Venezuelan singer-songwriter Lasso collaborated with Gabriel on “Yo No Nací Para Amar.” He recently scored a huge hit this year with “Ojos Marrones.” Rising regional Mexican music singer Ángela Aguilar will feature on “Nada Más Decídete.” Her father, Pepe Aguilar, will appear on the song “Cada Vez Y Cada Vez.”

Last week, Gabriel’s estate released a new version of his classic “Déjame Vivir” featuring ex-RBD singer Anahí. Los Dúo 3 will be released on November 11.

Find the Los Dúo 3 tracklist below.

1. “Déjame Vivir” Feat. Anahí
2. “Por Qué Me Haces Llorar” Feat. Gloria Trevi
3. “Cada Vez Y Cada Vez” Feat. Pepe Aguilar
4. “De Mí Enamórate” Feat. Danna Paola
5. “He Venido A Pedirte Perdón” Feat. Mon Laferte
6. “Have You Ever Seen The Rain” Feat. John Fogerty
7. “Nada Más Decídete” Feat. Ángela Aguilar
8. “Luna Tras Luna” Feat. George Benson
9. “Yo No Nací Para Amar” Feat. Lasso
10. “Venecia Sin Ti” Feat. Charles Aznavour
11. “Te Doy 8 Días” Feat. La Adictiva
12. “Déjame” Feat. Luciano Pereyra
13. “Mía Un Año” Feat. Eslabon Armado
14. “Ya” Feat. Banda El Recodo De Cruz Lizárraga and La India

Los Dúo 3 is out 11/11 via Virgin US Music Latin. Pre-order it here.