Year: 2022

Dominique Wilkins is a Hall of Fame inductee and still holds the mantle of the best player in Atlanta Hawks franchise history, but for 25 years, he felt like something was missing. Wilkins was left off of the NBA at 50 team in 1997, and is considered one of the biggest snubs from that list.

This year’s NBA 75th Anniversary Team righted that wrong as he earned one of the 76 spots on the league’s updated list of the greatest players to grace the NBA hardwood. It’s an honor Wilkins doesn’t take lightly, as he soaked in the full experience of being in that room at All-Star in Cleveland with the league’s all-time greats.

Last week, we got a chance to speak with Wilkins about that experience, the MVP race, celebrating regular season accomplishments, and the Hawks falling short of expectations as he was promoting an auction benefitting KultureCity, a non-profit focused on accessibility for autism and other invisible disabilities, where they partnered with Ballerz and NFT Genius to auction off a piece of digital art as well as some signed Wilkins memorabilia.

It was a big year for you getting named to the 75th anniversary team and I know you’ve spoken on that at the time, but getting to go to Cleveland and being at All-Star with those guys, what did that mean to you? And what was that experience like for you?

I can tell you it was surreal emotions and feelings. I still haven’t been able to grasp it yet because of the importance of that honor. And I can tell you everybody in that room felt the same way even though you know, you’re great players and all that, but when you’re in a room where you anointed as royalty, the greatest to ever do this, man. It was an emotional thing. I had the chance to know myself, LeBron, Carmelo, Dr. J., and guys like Magic, all of us sitting in this room that’s talking about man, this is unbelievable. And you would think guys are like, “Yeah, yeah, I know I’m supposed to be here,” but it wasn’t like that. It was like, nobody could believe that we were all in this room together, being anointed as the greatest players to ever play. So I’m still emotional about it, even to this very day, but man that was an honor worth waiting for.

How cool was it that those guys, the current players that were able to be in that room, and it seems like there’s that respect that you get across generations when you’re at that level? And what is it like to see that and to be able to see guys that you looked up to who were in that room and guys that were looking up to you?

You know, the respect we gave to guys before us, we’ve always given those guys respect, but the respect was even at a different level that night. And I gotta tell you, the young guys, the current players in this league today who got selected, they were the same. They gave utmost respect to us and appreciation, and we all realized at that moment that we are one of the smallest, big families in the world. And it was a level of respect, I cannot tell you how good it felt, you know, coming from everybody. And so that’s something that you can share with your kids for a lifetime. And no one can ever take that from you.

Right now a big discussion point is Nikola Jokic winning the MVP and a lot of people were talking about, oh, should we tie MVP to what people were doing in the postseason because he got knocked down in the first round, that sort of thing. And I want your perspective on this because I think we’ve shifted away a little bit — maybe too far — to everything has to be about the playoffs. How do you think we should talk about regular season greatness because it’s such a grind, and when we, I think, we need to celebrate that as well?

Well, you know, the MVP was very hard to, in my opinion, to pick this year. I think the three top guys all deserving of being an MVP — Joel Embiid definitely deserving of being an MVP and Giannis. Their body of work of what they did during the regular season, you know, that’s what really dictated where you ultimately end up. I mean, the playoffs, I don’t think what you did in the playoffs should really diminish what you did in the regular season. Because you look at what Jokic and Embiid have done in the playoffs, they’ve been incredible. So it I don’t think it really was predicated on what you do in the playoffs and never has been, right?

So that’s the way it is and a lot of times it’s hard for people to accept, but it was a very hard honor to pick this year. It really was, and I know it was hard for [voters]. But you know, are all those guys deserving of that? Absolutely. Now, I probably would have picked Embiid as well, because of what he did in a regular season when he was unconscious and the way he played, but all three of those big guys man I mean, like you flip a coin. That was a tough one this year.

I do want to talk about your work with with KultureCity. First off how did that come about? And how did you come to this idea for this NFT auction?

Well, you know what, Julian Maha and I, who was the founder of KultureCity, he and his wife Michelle, I met him on Twitter and we had conversations and we kind of hit it off and we talked about special needs in his family and my family, and we thought it was a great fit that we team up together. And the last five years it’s been great, man. I can tell you the relationship has been absolutely wonderful because I’ve learned more, myself, even though I’ve been involved with special needs with my daughter for quite some time. I learned so much by being attached to KultureCity, and that’s why I’m the chairman of board now and helping us continue to build awareness and a lot of participation in helping to do what we do.

What do you want people to know about accessibility and the things that we can do to make life easier on on everybody and the things that it takes to do that?

Well, first of all, you want people not to ignore the issues and the problems that people are dealing with with special needs. It’s been around since the beginning of time. It’s been around, but people have ignored it. They have looked at people dealing with special needs or autism and hidden disabilities and invisible disabilities as like it’s a second thought. It’s like nothing that really important until something happens that is out of that person’s control because no one has given attention to that person to help them deal with their issues. So we want to make sure that no one gets left behind, that special needs get a serious, long, healthy look and how we can come together to raise money to continue to raise the awareness, to put facilities in place to help people help themselves.

Absolutely. I do want to talk a little Hawks with you. What did you see from the team this year that was maybe a little different than than last year that didn’t come all together?

Well, I think we underachieved for sure, no question about that. But a lot of things came into play with that. First of all, not enough consistency in the rotation as far as our line up because so many people without due to COVID or injury or those things but I thought we got a little comfortable at times. And then at the end the year we started to pick it up and turn it on where we say hey, if we’re gonna make the playoffs, man, it starts now. And so even though we struggled for the most part throughout the season, we still got in the playoffs and played against a tough Miami team. And you know, and you look at Philly, they’re seeing that as well. It’s not like Miami is a fluke, they’re good team. So, again, you know, they did what they were supposed to do as the No. 1 seed, you know, but at the same time, I do think we underachieved.

From Trae’s perspective — the attention that he got in that Miami series from them defensively and obviously what they were able to do to slow him down, what do you hope to see from him coming in next year? And what do you think he can learn and take away from that experience? Because it’s the first time that some team has done that and really taken him away.

Well, you know what, I tell people all the time, how do you beat the double team? You go before it gets there. And what I mean by that is you either make a quick move and get to the basketball or you pass it to the next guy to set them up. Because when you set those other guys out to be successful, and they start making shots, for example, your game becomes easy because now the defense got to make a decision on how you guard the other guys. So you can’t let that guy continue to sit over and knock down shots, you got to make an adjustment. So now later in the game, it becomes Trae’s time. And so that’s things he’s learning, but you know, if you look at it from a defensive standpoint, Miami threw a lot of different looks and they’re one of the better, if not the best defensive team in the league. So they got guys that just for every position who can guide out front enough to get help, and that’s what happened.

A women stripped off her clothes after crashing the Cannes red carpet, but before you joke, “Well, yeah, Idris Elba was there,” she did it for a very serious cause. According to reports, the activist was seeking to support Ukraine and shine a spotlight on alleged war crimes being committed against women by Russian forces. However, she didn’t make it far, as security guards quickly removed her from the red carpet where Elba and co-star Tilda Swinton were premiering their new film, Three Thousand Years of Longing.

Via IndieWire:

An unidentified woman, who appeared to be wearing a shirt that said “scum” on the back, burst onto the scene and began screaming at the top of her lungs.

The woman reportedly removed all of her clothing and collapsed to her knees before security guards promptly removed her from the premiere. She appeared to be wearing yellow and blue body paint in the colors of the Ukrainian flag with, according to one observer, the words “stop raping us” written across her abdomen.

Due to the swiftness of the Cannes security team, there’s very little footage of the woman’s protest, but New York Times reporter Kyle Buchanan managed to tweet a very brief clip and confirm the disruption.

“On the Cannes red carpet for George Miller’s new movie, the woman in front of me stripped off all her clothes (covered in body paint) and fell to her knees screaming in front of photographers,” Buchanan tweeted. “Cannes authorities rushed over, covered her in a coat, & blocked my camera from filming.”

Buchanan continued his thread with updates, but the commotion appeared to be short-lived as Miller and the film stars continued down the red carpet as if nothing had happened.

(Via IndieWire)

Alex Garland is an author turned writer (author of The Beach, screenwriter of Sunshine, 28 Days Later, and Dredd) turned director of brainy-yet-visceral sci-fi like Ex Machina and Annihilation. In his latest, Men, a horror-sci-fi whatsit starring Jessie Buckley opening this weekend, Garland’s talent is as palpable as ever, but his inspiration feels a little thin.

Buckley, who has a nice career going after memorable roles in Taboo, Chernobyl, Fargo, I’m Thinking Of Ending Things, and The Lost Daughter (the latter earning her BAFTA and Oscar nominations), plays Harper, a recent widow who has rented a house in the English countryside to try to forget her troubles back in London. Those troubles, we learn through a series of flashbacks, mostly involve her recently deceased ex, who seems to have been emotionally and physically abusive.

So now Harper’s renting a 300-year-old country manor from Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), a chipper, snaggletoothed estatesman who’s so English he seems like he might spontaneously burst into a newspaper full of fish and chips at any moment. Geoffrey seems nice enough, though suspiciously over-attentive, the kind of guy who’s clearly interested in Harper and pleasant on the surface, but also awkward and fumbling, oblivious to personal boundaries enough that she can’t be certain he won’t turn dangerous. MEN, am I right?

Kinnear, who is genetically 175% English according to Ancestry.com, plays this kind of character perfectly and effortlessly, which is probably why Garland has him play multiple iterations of it, The Fatties Fart Two-style. That choice might sound like an odd fit in a sort of psychological horror-ish movie, and it is, but Alex Garland is nothing if not full of bold, offbeat storytelling choices. To some extent, it works — adding to this environment of vague-but-persistent dread, the kind of terror you might wonder whether you’re just imagining. The kind of terror other people would try to convince you was only in your head. A recipe for “gaslighting,” in buzzier words.

In Men, Garland has a lot of great little ideas, with brilliant performances and viscerally compelling imagery, but lacks one big idea to tie them all together. He maintains the act masterfully for a while, building beautifully and meticulously Harper’s snow globe of persistent dread. Such that it’s only midway through the second act when he starts having to lay his cards on the table that you realize he doesn’t have much of a hand. It’s mostly movie tricks and empty concepts. That’s a criticism of Men but it’s backhanded praise of Garland, who even in this middling effort accomplishes a lot of things other filmmakers simply couldn’t.

Still, maybe the title should’ve been a clue as to the vagueness of Garland’s purpose here. “Men.” That’s it? Harper is haunted by, like, the demon-ghost of toxic masculinity? In 2022, when roughly the last 27 major releases have all been sold as being “explorations of toxic masculinity” (something you could say about any number of classics, from Goodfellas to Swingers to The Sands Of Iwo Jima and not be wrong) a villain has to be a little more specific than “toxicity” and “gaslighting.” And anyway, didn’t Alex Garland already explore this pretty perfectly in Ex Machina?

What Garland is attempting in Men is basically a movie with one character, played off a series of vaguely-defined and sort-of-hackneyed concepts. It’s a credit to his skills as a craftsman that he pulled it off for even a minute. Men ends up being a handful of solid scenes and intriguing performances signifying nothing.

‘Men’ is available only in theaters May 20th. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. More reviews here.

Damon Albarn may have devoted a significant chunk of his life to gorillas (rather, Gorillaz), but they’re not the only animals he cares about: He and a bunch of other artists contributed to For The Birds: The Birdsong Project, a five-volume collection of 242 recordings inspired by birds and their singing, with proceeds benefiting the National Audubon Society.

The first volume rolled out today and among the new songs is “Bird Calling,” a collaboration between Albarn, Mark Ronson, and Wale. Ronson offers some rhythmic, midtempo production while Wale carries the song with rapped and Albarn provides the hook.

Project organizers say, “The Birdsong Project is a community dedicated to the protection of bird life, and to the celebration of the joy and mysteries of birdsong. We believe that birds — no matter feather or flock — are precious and inspiring and fundamental to our world. That a world without birds would be a world without freedom and flight and song. We believe birds matter. Are endangered. And need our help.”

Elvis Costello, who contributes to the endeavor, adds, “This should be so very obvious; without birds we would be knee-deep in worms, swarmed by bugs, the trees bereft of song. The least we can do is raise our voices in praise or lament. I’m grateful to [producer Randall Poster] for asking me to join his magnificent flock.”

Listen to Ronson, Albarn, and Wale’s “Bird Calling” above.

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

To say the IPA is a popular beer style is a massive understatement. Wherever you live, there are bound to be craft breweries nearby consistently highlighting West Coast, New England-style, and even Milkshake IPAs on their beer menus. The oftentimes slightly bitter (and sometimes aggressively bitter) beer style is a craft brewing mainstay from Bakersfield to Bar Harbor and everywhere in between.

There’s just something special about the IPA. Its distinctiveness is what makes it so sought after, but also so divisive. A well-made IPA might be a perfect harmony of malts and hops, citrus, ripe fruit, and other flavors, while a poorly-made one (or one made with too heavy a hop hand) might be bitter to the point of aggression. This is why great IPAs are so widely heralded while bad IPAs are quickly forgotten.

And, even though there are countless breweries scattered throughout the US, there are a few that stand above all else. That’s why we asked a few well-known craft beer experts, brewers, and beer professionals to tell us the one IPA they never get tired of drinking. Keep reading to see some familiar names as well as a few scrappy underdogs.

Fiddlehead IPA

Mike Haakenstad, brewing operations manager at Sycamore Brewing in Charlotte, North Carolina

ABV: 6.2%
Average Price: $14.50 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans

Why This Beer?

This question is a lay-up. Without a doubt, Fiddlehead IPA is a must-try for any IPA fan. This is hands down my number one personally. This beer has a “dank-ness”(and I do hate that term) that is unmatched. I can only describe it as an oniony/garlic that I have not found in another beer, ever. They execute their hopping precisely for this characteristic to be showcased and it is beautiful. I would say King Sue from Toppling Goliath would be a close number two with similar characteristics. This beer drinks super well on a hot summer day and drinks just as well after snowboarding. This beer is a “W”.

The Veil WhiteFerrari

Josh Lancaster, brewer at Seven Sounds Brewing Company in Elizabeth City, North Carolina

ABV: 8%
Average Price: $19 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans

Why This Beer?

The Veil Whiteferrari is a perfect representation of the New England Double IPAs that The Veil led the way in popularizing across the country. It’s smooth and slightly sweet and perfectly balanced, expressive of my favorite hops, Citra and Galaxy. You can always find several great IPAs on tap at The Veil, but when they release Whiteferrari I go and buy as much as I can.

Bale Breaker Top Cutter

Andy Innes, lead brewer at Phillips Brewing & Malting Co. Ltd. In Victoria, British Columbia

ABV: 6.8%

Average Price: $8.99 for a six-pack

Why This Beer?

Anything by Bale Breaker. Specifically, I’ll shout out Top Cutter. For hop-obsessed individuals who have yet to make the pilgrimage to Yakima, please go. Go down for the Fresh Hop Fest and carve out an afternoon for Bale Breaker. Their brews magically encapsulate the best of PNW hops and are so fresh and delicious. Top Cutter has a lot of what you’d expect, with big citrus and pine, but the delicate floral aromas they capture in their dry-hopping are wildly good. Rosewater. Geraniol. The things dreams are made of.

BKS Counterculture

Chris Meyers, co-founder at Crane Brewing Company in Kansas City

ABV: 7%

Average Price: Limited Availability

Why This Beer?

BKS Counterculture is a must-try beer. This is another great, local option and so worth snagging if you can get some. We are fortunate to have so many neighborhood breweries like this. Double dry-hopped with Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe, and Galaxy hops, it’s juicy, hazy, hoppy, and perfect.

Russian River Pliny the Elder

Douglas Constantiner, founder and CEO of Societe Brewing in San Diego

ABV: 8%

Average Price: $6.99 for a 16.9-ounce bottle

Why This Beer?

Russian River Pliny the Elder. To me, Pliny is to beer what ‘The Godfather’ is to movies. There are so many variations of the IPA now for beer drinkers to be excited about but even though Pliny has been around 20 years it’s still impressive. It has the perfect balance of grapefruit, pine, and malt backbone. There is nobody like Vinnie in this world when it comes to hops. When you drink Pliny, know that every IPA that you have ever had owes to this beer.

Odell IPA

Dan Lipke, head brewer at Clown Shoes Beer in Boston

ABV: 7%
Average Price: $9.50 for a six-pack

Why This Beer?

Odell IPA is a can’t miss beer. A great American IPA, big on citrusy hops, mellow on malt. Finishes with a crisp bitterness that makes you want another sip. The best part? It’s not that difficult to find.

Russian River Pliny the Younger

Alex Wenner, owner of Lasting Joy Brewery in Tivoli, New York

ABV: 10.25%
Average Price: Limited Availability

Why This Beer?

Anyone introduced to hoppy beers in the days where haze is king should do themselves a favor and try the now classic West Coast offerings. And if you are going to put a West Coast IPA on your bucket list, it is Pliny the Younger from Russian River Brewing. Released at their brewpubs only for a couple of weeks a year, it is certainly not an easy beer to get your hands on. None of the pure juice and pillow-sweetness of the Northeast, Pliny the Younger is piney, grassy, and dank with notes of citrus set against a boozy, caramel malt backbone.

Tree House Doppelgänger

Austin LaBrune, brewer at WeldWerks Brewing Co. in Greeley, Colorado

ABV: 8.2%
Average Price: Limited Availability

Why This Beer?

Doppelgänger: Tree House Brewing Company. Everyone knows about Treehouse if you’re looking at some of the best IPAs to try—Julius undoubtedly is the fan-favorite pick. But for me, Doppelgänger is where it’s at. It delivers the same experience every time. Doppelgänger is a juice bomb full of peach rings and mango while still delivering the textbook malt profile that Treehouse is known for. If I could only have one more IPA for the rest of my life, this is the one.

Russian River Blind Pig

Nik Mebane, brewmaster at Wynwood Brewing in Miami

ABV: 6%
Average Price: $5.50 for a 16.9-ounce bottle

Why This Beer?

That would have to be Blind Pig by Russian River. They literally wrote the book on West Coast IPAs. Sure, the Pliny beers get more press. But I believe the best, most bucket-list-worthy beer they actually make is the hoppy, slightly bitter, complex Blind Pig IPA.

Telluride Freaky Fish

Matt Simpson, head brewer at Tennessee Brew Works in Nashville

ABV: 8.5%
Average Price: $14.99 for a six-pack

Why This Beer?

Freaky Fish from Telluride Brewing Company brewed an Imperial IPA that was served at the Big Beers Festival in Vail several years ago. Not sweet, great aroma, bitterness was balanced. One of the best high-gravity IPAs of all time.

Bell’s Two-Hearted

Marshall Hendrickson, co-founder and head of operations at Veza Sur Brewing in Miami

ABV: 7.1%
Average Price: $7.99 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans

Why This Beer?

Bell’s Two Hearted Ale is my pick. I’m sure most IPA-heads have tried this beer, but it’s one of the best IPAs out there. I believe it’s a single-hop IPA that only uses Centennial hops. It’s mind-blowing how they achieve such a dynamic hop profile with only one hop.

Tree House Julius

Frank Gervasi, certified Cicerone and general manager at Arizona Wilderness Brewing in Phoenix

ABV: 6.8%
Average Price: $5.50 for a 16-ounce can

Why This Beer?

Treehouse Julius. The availability of this beer has changed from when you had to line up at their Monson facility and could maybe get 5-8 cans of their new releases, but that doesn’t mean the beer has changed. It’s incredibly tropical fruit-forward. My first time drinking any of the Treehouse IPAs (Green and Haze included), I was amazed that there was no actual juice in the beer.

The celebrity showering debate is one that nobody asked for, but the hits just keep coming. It began last summer when a slew of Hollywood parents admitted they don’t wash their children (?), and then snowballed into other celebs admitting that they didn’t find showering necessary (????!) Now, James Corden is adding this take into the mix.

On a recent episode of The Late Late Show With James Corden, the host admitted that he is shocked by those who shower for longer than 10 minutes. “I’m in and out [of the shower] in a solid three or four,” Corden said, which puzzled his staff, who then awkwardly went over their showering habits.

While he should have just let it go right then and there, he added, “I’m trying to think about what people do in there for 10 minutes. I use soap, but I don’t wash my hair. I wash it every two months. That is a true story.” One of Corden’s producers then called him “dirty.” Maybe Corden is just trying to burn every bridge before leaving the show next year?

Some celebrities decided to blame their shower habits (or lack thereof) on the ongoing drought in California, which is what caused Corden to speak up when he should have just…not. The main takeaway here is that if you don’t shower, stop telling people that! They will be able to smell you either way. You can check out the clip above if you want to hear Corden trying to defend himself.

Madison Cawthorn will soon be leaving the congressional building, officially, after he lost his election. Much of this had to do with his constant stream of incendiary statements, yes, but there was also a PAC that targeted him while releasing explicit, unsavory video footage, which is likely what did him in with GOP voters. Well, that and his bizarre claim that the GOP is all about coke and orgies. In the aftermath of Cawthorn’s primary loss, Lauren Boebert has been awfully quiet.

However, one can assume that, since she is a fringe GOP/MAGA diehard like Cawthorn, that Republicans might be embarrassed enough to vote her out of office, too. She’s been ignoring the subject, but that hasn’t stopped stories — like her ex-employees airing grievances about missing paychecks and alleged luxury/breast implant splurges by Boebert — from circulating, and now, the same group that targeted Cawthorn wants to unseat Boebert, too. Here’s what Insider reports from the group:

“I think we’re going to go after Lauren Boebert in Colorado in a similar way,” David B. Wheeler, a cofounder of the American Muckrakers PAC, told Insider Wednesday. “I think we’re going to engage in that race pretty quickly.”

The group on Thursday launched fireboebert.com, seeking tips on information, pictures, videos, or documents on Boebert or her associates. A tweet by @FireBoebert reads, “Hi @RepBoebert – Ask @RepCawthorn about us. We look forwarding to getting to know you.”

So, it’s apparently on. And how is Boebert reacting to this news? She’s tweeting about abortion, gas price, Ukraine, teleprompters, and Nancy Pelosi. In other words, she’s coping, and whether she’s coping well is anyone’s guess, but her head is firmly in the sand.

As Madison Cawthorn recently stated, “the best is yet to come.” How that applies to his fellow Ultra MAGAs, well, we should find out soon.

Primary season’s shaping up to be a doozy!

Rina Sawayama broke through in 2020 with Sawayama and will be continuing her world domination with her next LP, Hold This Girl, which was announced only a couple of days ago alongside the release of the fierce single “This Hell.”

Last night, she brought that track to late-night television with an ebullient performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She flaunts the sass of the song with killer dance moves in killer outfits, including leather mini-skirts and cowboy hats, which really convey her sonic mixing of country and glam rock.

The track was produced by Paul Epworth, who has worked with Adele and previously won Grammy Awards for Producer Of The Year.

“The past couple of years I’ve been listening to lots of female country singers and wanted to write a euphoric and tongue-in-cheek country-pop song,” Sawayama said in a statement. “I’ve been dreaming of working with Paul Epworth my entire career so I knew it was meant to be when we finished this song in a day. I put in as many iconic pop culture moments as I can, but the song is more than that.”

Watch her performance of “This Hell” above.

Hold This Girl is out 9/2 via Dirty Hit. pre-order it here.

Playing basketball against Luka Doncic seems to be extremely difficult. Despite this, the Golden State Warriors were able to keep the Dallas Mavericks‘ star from imposing his will on Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals en route to a 112-87 win — Doncic scored 20 points, reeled in seven rebounds, dished out four assists, and committed seven turnovers in 35 minutes of work.

Perhaps one reason why Golden State was able to bottle him up is the amount of experience they have going against LeBron James in the playoffs. During the most recent episode of his podcast, Draymond Green gave some insight into how going up against Doncic is similar to going up against James, who the Warriors played in the NBA Finals each year from 2015-18.

“One of the main, glaring similarities that stick out at you is how those two guys can manipulate a defense, how those two guys can control the pace of a game,” Green said. “At their size, with their passing ability and the way they can put pressure on the rim, and pressure on the defense, and with the vision that they have, they’re a lot alike.”

Green said Doncic is one of the few players who can control a game like the two of them, but pointed out some major differences. James, he believes, likes to push in transition, while Doncic only looks to do that if he can get a “complete runout.” He also says that Doncic wants to “look for his shot a little bit more than LeBron,” while James is “more often than not pass-first.”

At the end of the day, though, Green can see the influence James had on Doncic’s game.

“It feels a lot like playing against LeBron,” Green said, “playing against Luka every possession.”

It is always refreshing to see new acts pay respect to artists who came before them in form of a cover. English singer-songwriter Griff accepted the challenge of reimagining Queen’s transcendent record “A Kind Of Magic,” opting to slow things down a bit but deliver the full magic nonetheless. The cover comes as part of a global expansion effort done by Coke Studio, including six other artists, like Dreamville’s Ari Lennox and K-pop band Tri.be putting their own spin on the 1986 song that reached No. 3 on the UK singles chart.

The aforementioned Coke Studio initiative is paired with the seven artists featured in a documentary titled The Conducter where viewers can see them perform “A Kind Of Magic” together. The 21-year-old tweeted her excitement about the endeavor on Thursday (May 19), sharing that this all started back in December.

The “A Kind Of Magic” cover follows Griff and Sigrid’s reworked single “Head On Fire” after the original iteration took home Best Collaboration at the BandLab NME Awards this past March where Griff also won the NME Radar Award.

Listen to her “A Kind Of Magic” cover above.

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