Year: 2022

Will Smith was front and center in the Super Bowl spot for Bel-Air, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reboot. In the spot, he led people around the globe in reenacting the original show’s theme song, and this spot coincided with Peacock’s premiere of the new show’s first three episodes. Given this heavy participation factor in promotional form, it’s only natural to wonder whether he’s actually appearing in the show, so what gives?

Well, anyone who hoped that Will would appear in Bel-Air will be slightly disappointed. No plans for such a move have been announced, and given that the reboot is darker and grittier than the neon-feel of the original show, it sure would be strange to pop the real Will Smith in as some sort of flashback vision later in the season. Adult Will Smith would also feel very out place here (next to Young Will, now played by Jabari Banks) unless the show’s heading towards time travel. But who knows? Anything is possible when it comes to TV writers’ imaginations.

Ultimately, Will Smith is acting as an executive producer on the rebooted show. So, he’s got plenty of input on the new tone and where the story will go after what happened on those West Philly streets. And according to Peacock’s synopsis, the show “dive[s] deeper into the inherent conflicts, emotions and biases that were impossible to fully explore in a 30-minute sitcom format,” so expect plenty of drama to come. And it’s doubtful that we’ll see him in front of the camera, unless he does a cameo as a totally different character.

Bel-Air is currently streaming on Peacock.

As the second season of Euphoria nears its end, many questions are left unanswered. There is the obvious Nate/Maddy/Cassie love triangle that’s reaching its boiling point, as Rue’s tumultuous recovery journey continues. But the real question here is: what the hell is Lyla Garrity doing there?

Minka Kelly joined the cast of season two in a mysterious role specifically written for her by show creator Sam Levinson. Kelly recently told Vanity Fair that, as a huge fan of the HBO Max show, she was shocked to be offered a role as a mentor to Alexa Demie’s Maddy. Kelly told the mag, “I was like, ‘Sam Levinson knows who I am?’ To be invited on one of your favorite shows is such a surreal thing.”

Kelly is best known for her role of cheerleader Lyla Garrity on NBC’s sports drama Friday Night Lights, who also had her fair share of rollercoaster relationships and cheating scandals. (She currently dates Trevor Noah and previously dated Derek Jeter, Chris Evans, Donald Faison, John Mayer, and Wilmer Valderrama, among others.) Kelly identified with the role and wanted to be seen as a mentor for Maddy’s character.

“I love the idea of making sure that she didn’t have this misunderstanding that in order to have a healthy, functioning relationship as an adult, it means you have to live a perfect life,” Kelly said of their relationship. “You’re not defined by your teenage years in high school. This is the time you’re supposed to mess up. This is all just a period of discovery.” For Lyla Garrity, that discovery came in the form of destroying her father’s car dealership in Texas. Those years didn’t define her either.

When it comes to streaming hits, Philadelphia singer Pink Sweat$ is something of an expert. His breakout single, “Honesty,” racked up millions of streams across nearly every streaming platform, launching his successful career as a solo star after several years behind-the-scenes as a songwriter. Then, to prove that those numbers were no fluke, he nearly doubled them with his follow-up hit, “At My Worst,” and its remix featuring Bay Area singer Kehlani.

For the release of his Pink Moon EP, Sweat$ graciously agreed to a Zoom interview with Uproxx to reveal the secret to a streaming hit, what made each of his prior hits so special, and which songs from his new EP we should all be betting on to rack up the streams in the future.

We’re here to talk about what makes a hit, how to get a streaming hit. It’s something you should know plenty about what with your growing collection thereof.

Wow. Appreciate y’all having me, number one. To answer, I guess I would say it depends on what kind of hit you want, right?

Yeah.

Because I write and I produce, I try to steer people in the right direction, so it’s different kinds of hits. If you want a playful hit it usually can be tied to some sort of a movement, whether it’s a dance or some form of moving of the body that people can feel. And if you want more of a singer-songwriter hit, I think it’s just about the story and the storytelling ability because we all got a story, right? The way you articulate that story through a song, the effectiveness of it, that’s how you get ahead.

What do you think it was about “Honesty” that connected people? Obviously, you said songwriting, but each song kind of has its own personality. What do you think was the personality of “Honesty” that people were drawn to?

I would say it’s just the vulnerability and the relatability because I feel like the state of music, everything is like fantasy. Whether it’s rollies, chains, all these girls, all this overindulgence. That’s fantasy for a lot of people.

That’s not most people’s every day, but most of us are questioning who we are. Do we deserve this thing called love? Are we capable of loving? And I feel like it’s one of those things that we fill our day in a certain kind of way where we don’t have to think about it. We always got to be busy. Because sometimes when you’re sitting alone by yourself, you start wondering like, “Dang, is this how I want to choose to live my life?”

The first line of a song is “She said, ‘Baby, I’m afraid to fall in love.’” I feel like right there, you got people. It’s like, “Oh this is about to be a story. Like, where is this going?” Who’s not afraid to fall in love? Who’s not afraid to be vulnerable? Most of us are. It’s very few people that are just always jumping right in, and we always judge those people like, “Man, you love too easy.”

Absolutely. Now, “Honesty” was of course a smash, but then, you had to knock it completely out of the parking lot with “At My Worst.” What was it that drew people to “At My Worst?” And what kind of an effect did you see when you added Kehlani to the remix and that exploded even more? I always say that song is going to be our friends’ kids’ wedding song. They’re going to dance to that at their weddings.

Well that song, honestly, it was just me. I was tapping into what I know people wanted from me, and then I just elevated it. I wanted to give a perspective that was super vulnerable, but while the lyrics are vulnerable, but at the same time, the music is happy. It takes your guard down with the music. But then the words are seeping into you where it’s like, “Whoa!”

You know, I’m in a position in my life where things are well, I’m able to take care of myself, I’m able to help people, things like that. But at the same time…Someone can see me and be like, “Yo man, he living,” but you don’t really know the things that I deal with, because money can’t solve everything. But my partner does. And it’s like, I always wanted somebody to love me, despite my problems, my internal issues, the things that I struggle with mentally.

So it’s her not judging me, and I feel like, for a lot of people, we want that. We want to be loved at our worst, because it’s easy to say, “Yo, you’re up, you’re doing your thing. He got his mind on right. He got his bread right. He got a car. He got his own place.” It’s easy to do all of that. I feel like, especially for me, being a Black man, we’re always taught to go out and chase things and accomplish something, and then the world would be yours, but that’s the win and the downfall. Because of that pressure of, “Hey, well what if I can’t keep it all together all the time? Is somebody going to still love me?” So that’s what I wanted to get across, but I didn’t want it to be as heavy as me just saying it just now.

So you got your Pink Moon EP coming out. If you could pick two of the songs to blow up from this EP, that you think are going to be the ones, which ones would they be? And would you be surprised if it were a different one?

That’s a great question. I would say “Real Thing,” since that’s the first song I made for the project. Me and Tori Kelly on that, and then another one is called “Better,” me and one of my favorite artists, her name is Kirby. Those are the two that I really, really, really love. And I got another one. I know you didn’t ask me three, but the third one is the Blxst song. It’s called “For Me.” That’s just because it’s like a manifestation song and also a letting-everything-go song. I feel like when I wrote that song, I was in a place of stress where it’s like, having conversations with my label, having conversations with my peers, trying to understand the climate of music, because it’s always changing. I was just stressing myself out and it was like, “I never do this, why am I tripping? What’s for me is for me.”

Blxst is on a roll. Everything he’s on is just like, it knocks to the high heavens. Yeah, man. I’m really looking forward to seeing what this thing does.

I want to get a gospel award for that song, because technically, that’s an inspirational song. I’m putting that out in the atmosphere for sure.

Of course, “Nothing Feels Better” seems to have taken off. Again, what do you think that one says that people are tapping into, and how do you intend to take that momentum forward into the next one? Do you go left or do you stay the course?

I feel like that’s like an adoration song. I’m just showing mad love to my partner, where it’s like all the things in the world that can go right, they don’t really feel the same as just knowing that at the end of the night, I got somebody to turn to. All the things that I deal with throughout the day, just having somebody to go through all those ups and downs with, that’s like a euphoric feeling. We might argue one day, then in the same day we’d be laughing about, “What was we even… It wasn’t that deep. Nothing feels better than this.” The certainty of love.

I feel like it’s not really a lot of songs that popularize adoring people and telling them how great they are. It’s always about tearing somebody down or doing some drugs or something. To each their own, but I just feel like I want to just mix it up. I’m not trying to say “get rid of this” or “get rid of that.” I’m just saying we need some more of this too. It’s like putting all the salt in food, but maybe put some pepper in there. Maybe use a little honey. I don’t know, but we need more than just salt as an ingredient. We need to mix it up.

Pink Sweat$ is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

At the end of 2021, Charli XCX was supposed to be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, but unfortunately, a COVID outbreak made it so she couldn’t perform (although she did still appear on the show). Charli was pretty bummed about not getting to take the stage because she had some big ideas for her performance.

In a new Rolling Stone Q&A, Charli said of the canned performance, “I was so sad. It was the Paul Rudd episode! He’s such a legend. I thought the performance was going to be sick. I was like, ‘This would have been my best TV performance ever.’ When it couldn’t go ahead, it was crushing. I was going to have a main pop-girl moment. Hopefully something can happen in the future. Fingers crossed.”

She also spoke about her relationship with collaborators Caroline Polachek and Christine And The Queens, saying, “We’ve been through a lot together, musically and personally. Caroline lived in my house for three months while she was getting her own place in Los Angeles. And her partner and I used to go to art school together. Christine has been so instrumental in helping me through tricky thoughts about my relationships and sex. In part, that’s what ‘New Shapes’ is about.”

Check out the full interview here.

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

Super Pumped, the new Showtime series from Billions co-creators Brian Koppelman and David Levien, hasn’t even premiered yet and already people are talking about its second season, notes The Hollywood Reporter.

Koppelman and Levien are taking a page out of Ryan Murphy’s book and opting to make the show an anthology series a la American Horror Story and American Crime Story. While the first season will focus on the tumultuous rise and fall of Uber co-founder/CEO Travis Kalanick, as played by Joseph Gordon Levitt, the second season will be coming for Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg.

As THR‘s Rick Porter writes:

Like season one of Super Pumped… the Facebook-centric season will be based on a book by New York Times reporter Mike Isaac. The book is described as a deep dive into Facebook’s transition from groundbreaking startup to the power it has become. The TV adaptation will zoom in on the relationship between Sandberg and Zuckerberg and the world-changing forces that were unleashed, both intentionally and not, as a result.

In the meantime, you can tune in to watch Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber, which premieres at 10 p.m. on Sunday, February 27. We personally are looking forward to it.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

We’re overdue for a good pirate movie (don’t let us down, Margot Robbie). But luckily, there looks to be a good pirate TV show in Our Flag Means Death, an early 18th century-set HBO Max comedy starring Rhys Darby as a would-be pirate, Taika Waititi as Captain Blackbeard, Leslie Jones, and Hodor.

Will I be watching? Aye. (Sorry, we are not overdue for obnoxious pirate puns.)

“They are like an old married couple in certain ways,” showrunner David Jenkins told EW about Darby and Waititi, who previously worked together on Flight of the Conchords, among other projects. “If a scene isn’t quite working, Taika will be able to grumble about Rhys, and vice versa, in the way that only friends can. And then when it is popping, they know how to get the best out of each other. There’s a generosity and a real sweetness between them that you wouldn’t get if you weren’t using those two friends.”

Here’s the official plot summary:

The unique new comedy is loosely based on the true adventures of 18th century would-be pirate, Stede Bonnet, played by Rhys Darby. After trading in his comfortable life for one of a buccaneer, Stede becomes captain of a pirate ship, but struggles to earn the respect of his potentially mutinous crew. Stede’s fortunes change after a fateful run-in with the infamous Captain Blackbeard, played by Taika Waititi.

Our Flag Means Death premieres on HBO Max on March 3. Watch the trailer above.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Kid Cudi launched Encore in October 2020. The mobile app’s vision is to help artists share music, interact with fans, and host live shows. This week, Encore launched the Encore Studio App after getting $9 million in seed funding.

This is the second mobile application under the Encore umbrella, the first being Encore’s Interactive Live Music app for the fans, and now, the Encore Studio: Live Music AR app, which will allow artists to perform for fans by way of augmented reality through mobile devices.

“Music artists are the original creators and they have been forgotten by the creator economy and overrun by memes and algorithms on social media,” Jonathan Gray, CEO of Encore, said in a statement. “Our live AR technology empowers any artist to create personalized content and host experiences for their fans without a production budget or crew and make real cash with 100’s of engaged fans.”

The $9 million dollar funding comes from Battery Ventures, along with 468 Capital, Parade Ventures, Nomade Ventures, Moving Capital, Kayak Ventures, and Gaingels. During its beta stage, artists like Too Short, Kyle, and DC The Don performed shows via Encore. Fans were able to support the artists through microtransactions in the form of a 10-cent “clap.”

“My number one priority has always been inspiring others and providing them the space to tell their own stories in an authentic and meaningful way,” said Cudi in a statement. “We created Encore as a space for artists to share their art, build community, while also being able to pay their rent.”

Third-year forward Zion Williamson has been sidelined for the first four months of the 2021-22 NBA season while rehabbing from a fracture in the fifth metatarsal of his right foot. To this point, there’s no clear or imminent timetable for his return to the court.

He was supposed to return to practice in December, but that was delayed when he endured soreness in his right foot. Soon after, he traveled to Los Angeles to “have an injection to promote healing,” according to Christian Clark of The Times-Picayune.

Clark also noted that New Orleans Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin said Williamson will soon undergo more medical imaging on his recovering right foot.

“It is possible [Williamson] will need a second surgery on his foot, sources said,” Clark wrote. “But nothing has been decided.”

This news is simply a bummer for any player. Williamson has struggled to stay healthy throughout his career, but remains one of the NBA’s most electrifying and impactful offensive superstars when he does suit up. What’s more is New Orleans has really found its stride after a poor start to the year. Williamson’s arrival could ignite a fun, late season run.

Hopefully, he choose whatever is best for his long-term health and returns to the floor in due time.

WARNING: Spoilers for The Righteous Gemstones below.

As The Righteous Gemstones Season 2 speeds towards its conclusion, the Gemstone family is on a collision course with Junior (Eric Roberts), a shady figure from patriarch Eli Gemstone‘s past. The situation reached a boiling point when Eli was gunned down by the Cycle Ninjas, a gang of machine gun toting assassins on dirt bikes who had previously fired on Jesse and Amber at a gas station. However, Eli survived the encounter. Knowing that the Cycle Ninjas would be looking to finish the job, Jesse hatched a plan to bait them into attacking Eli at the hospital and proceeded to dispatch the motorbike thugs with the help of Gideon, BJ, and Martin. It was a surprising win for the Gemstone family, who now have one of the gang members in their possession. There’s just one small problem:

No one knows who the Cycle Ninjas are working for.

While the show has painted Junior as the likely culprit behind the Cycle Ninjas, and he very well could be, there could be another party pulling the gang’s strings: The Lissons.

Introduced early in the season, the Lissons (Eric Andre and Jessica Lowe) are a fellow megachurch family who were desperately hoping to lure the Gemstones into investing $10 million into a Christian resort in Florida. While Jesse and Amber were sold on the idea, Eli shut the whole thing down, and the Lissons seemingly went on their way after angrily ditching Jesse and Amber at a bar after breaking the news. However, there are significant clues pointing towards the Lisson’s involvement.

While the Cycle Ninjas technically attacked Jesse and Amber first, they were in a party bus that was specifically meant for Eli. Their next attack is directly on the big guy himself, and when they find out he survived, they return to finish the job. As for why the Lissons would want Eli out of the way, well, he’s the one who stopped Jesse and Amber from investing in their timeshare scheme. With Eli gone, Jesse becomes the family patriarch and can spend the televangelist fortune as he sees fit.

Of course, there’s always the chance the Cycle Ninjas are controlled by a not-yet-revealed party. The Righteous Gemstones was created out of Danny McBride‘s desire to make an epic series about the Dixie Mafia, and Jesse has repeatedly accused the motorcycle gang and Junior of being tied to the Southern crime organization. Could the show be building towards a larger connection to the Dixie Mafia heading into Season 3? Quite possibly.

HBO’s ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ airs on Sunday evenings.

Now that we’ve all had time to catch up on Netflix’s latest crime thriller, The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window, we need to unpack the show’s twist-filled ending.

Just to recap, the series is part Lifetime parody-part artistic dig at that terrible Amy Adams-starring mystery flick (also housed on Netflix). The show sees Kristen Bell playing a divorced woman, grieving the tragic loss of her daughter after a convicted murderer killed — and ate — her during a trip to the criminally insane asylum. It was take-your-daughter-to-work-day guys and Michael Ealy is nothing if not an attractive DILF who makes questionable parenting decisions throughout this series. But, getting back to it, Bell’s Anna is high on psychotropic and constantly nursing an oversized glass of red wine in every episode of this show which leads her to witnessing a murder, questioning what she saw, gaslighting herself into thinking she’s the killer, and finally solving the mystery once she gets sober and overcomes her fear of errant rainstorms.

So, how does the show end, and what does that final shot mean for a possible season two?

After believing her handsome new neighbor (hello Tom Riley) killed his live-in girlfriend for most of the series, Anna eventually concludes that her handyman Buell, a reformed murderer himself who seems like the nicest character on the show, is actually responsible for the woman’s death. She heads across the street, in the rain, to confront Buell and save her neighbor and his young daughter, Emma but, when she arrives at the house, Buell is lying in the hallway with his throat slashed while her neighbor is dead on the couch. It’s revealed that Emma is a bonafide psychopath at just nine years old — #goals — and she’s been killing everyone who gets on her nerves for the past few years, including her mom, her teacher, her unborn sibling, Buell, and her dad, who’s only crime was being a lousy ventriloquist. After Emma and Anna engage in a pretty vicious brawl, Anna kills Emma and is rescued by her ex-husband. She begins to paint again, to heal from her daughter’s death, to reconnect with her ex, and to travel to see her best friend who just started a gallery job in New York. She’s traded wine for vodka, she’s reading a new crime book, and, while waiting for the plane to take off, she meets a mysterious, glamourous older woman played by Glenn Close.

But, when Anna wakes up from a quick, in-flight nap, the businesswoman isn’t in the seat beside her. She goes to the bathroom to find her new acquaintance dead, with blood pouring from her ear. When Anna alerts the flight attendant, the pair return to the bathroom to find it empty. She’s then told no one was booked in the seat beside her and we’re lead to believe her boozy habit has lead to another imagined murder victim until she unearths the woman’s gold-covered pocket mirror from between the seats.

So, what does this mean for a possible season two?

Showrunners Rachel Ramras, Larry Dorf, and Hugh Davidson told Entertainment Weekly that the set-up was a nod to how so many real crime thrillers end — with a tease of the author’s next book. They’ve also admitted to writing a script for what happens when the plane lands in New York, saying they’d love to do more seasons of Anna solving mysteries. So, it’s entirely possible that Anna will pick up the case while visiting her friend in New York. Or, even better, she’ll find an answer to the one question haunting every fan of the show: Where the hell is Scott?!