Year: 2022

Last fall, the usually very articulate Awkwafina struggled to answer a question about perhaps the only controversial thing about her: her use of what’s been dubbed a “blaccent.” In movies like Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean’s 8, the actress and rapper partook in the sketchy tradition wherein non-Black people adopt a stereotypical Black voice. Now, a handful of years later, she’s finally addressing it.

In a lengthy statement dropped on her Twitter feed Saturday morning, Awkwafina began by addressing the “historical context of the African American community in this country.” She wrote about how “a group that is disproportionately affected by institutionalized policies and law enforcement policies – all the while having historically and routinely seen their culture stolen, exploited and appropriated by the *dominant* culture for monetary gain without acknowledgment nor respect for where those roots come from.”

Awkwafina then tried to clarify her position in all this. “But as a non-Black POC, I stand by the fact that I will always listen and work tirelessly to understand the history and context of AAVE [African American Vernacular English], what is deemed appropriate or backwards toward the progress of ANY and EVERY marginalized group,” she wrote. “But I must emphasize: To mock, belittle, or to be unkind in any way possible at the expense of others is: Simply. Not. My. Nature. It never has, and it never was.”

She continued:

“My immigrant background allowed me to carve an American identity off the movies and TV shows I watched, the children I went to public school with, and my undying love and respect for hip hop. I think as a group, Asian Americans are still trying to figure out what that journey means for them – what is correct and where they don’t belong. And though I’m still learning and doing that personal work, I know for sure that I want to spend the rest of my career doing nothing but uplifting our communities. We do this first by failing, learning, acknowledging, hearing and empathizing… And I will continue, tirelessly, to do just that,”

A couple hours later, Awkwafina returned with another announcement. “”Well, I’ll see you in a few years, Twitter – per my therapist,” she wrote. “To my fans, thank you for continuing to love and support someone who wishes they could be a better person for you. I apologize if I ever fell short, in anything I did. You’re in my heart always.”

She then clarified that she was not retiring from the entertainment industry, just from the “ingrown toenail that is Twitter,” and that she will “avail” herself “on all other socials that don’t tell you to kill yourself!”

So we’ll be hearing from Awkwafina again, and we don’t mean a postcard.

(Via People)

Towards the end of 2020, Wizkid released Made In Lagos, his long-awaited fourth album, which produced “Essence,” his collaboration with Tems that went on to become one of the big songs of the summer of 2021. The track was later remixed with a verse from Justin Bieber, which further boosted the song’s appeal. That remix appeared on a deluxe reissue of the album, which also featured another fan-favorite record: “Mood,” with rising Nigerian singer Buju.

Months after sharing the deluxe album, Wizkid and Buju bring their talents together in a new video for “Mood.” It’s a vibrant effort that features Wizkid and Buju having a grand ol’ time together as they show off some dance moves. Wizkid also gets whisked away by a woman who does a great job of grabbing his attention.

Wizkid’s newest video comes after he and Burna Boy connected for one for the celebratory track “B. D’OR“. He’s also set to bring his talents to Puerto Rico’s 2022 Afro Nation festival, which is set to go down next month. Megan Thee Stallion, Burna Boy, Tems, Ckay, Koffee, Naira Marley, Rema, Tekno, and more are expected to perform.

You can watch the video for “Mood” above.

Made In Lagos (Deluxe) is out now via RCA Records. You can stream it here.

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

The majority of Republicans haven’t been participating with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. But they haven’t been content with simply doing nothing. Some have spent months either downplaying the violent attack, even publicly condemning the investigation. On Friday they went even further still, censuring the two lone Republicans on the committee and actually declaring that the Capitol storming was “legitimate political discourse.”

As per The New York Times, the Republican National Committee, when faced with a former leader who continues to spread the voter lies that led to the attack (and is now even slamming his ex-veep), decided to go after party members who are trying to ensure such a thing never happens again. They voted to formally censure Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both die hard Republicans and both people who have refused to whitewash over Trump’s actions. (Cheney was infamously stripped of some of her power by her own party last year.)

In a statement, they condemned Cheney and Kinzinger for collaborating with Democrats over what they called the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

After the vote, certain Republicans attempted to clarify their language to make it seem like they weren’t condoning the violent assault, which left five dead and dozens of police officers injured. That didn’t go so well.

“Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger crossed a line,” said Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman. “They chose to join Nancy Pelosi in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol.” (Mind you, the investigation is largely focused on the violence at the Capitol.)

The GOP’s extraordinary statement, which found the party further aligning itself with a loose cannon who was gorging on McDonald’s while sick with COVID, did not go unnoticed by several people in power, among them Cheney herself.

Others treated it with gallows humor.

And so the party that a very long time ago ended slavery are now parroting the dubious claims of Tucker Carlson.

(Via NYT)

On Friday, Nicki Minaj released her first single of the year, “Do We Have A Problem?” with Lil Baby. The track arrived with quite the cinematic music video, which showed the rappers as criminals who trick their enemies to complete a crime. The video also featured an appearance from Joseph Sikora, who plays Tommy Egan on Power and Power Book IV: Force. Prior to the song’s release, Nicki was a guest on the DJ Buck & Friends podcast, where she spoke about her son and how motherhood has changed her life.

“When I look at my son, sometimes when I’m stressing about something, I look at my son and I realize, ‘What are you mad at? Look at what God blessed you with,” Nicki said. “This is the ultimate blessing of the universe. There’s no greater blessing. There’s none. You can’t think of one greater blessing that the universe gives us as human beings. So I will just say that it’s been a great experience.”

She later made note of one thing she won’t let her son do in the future. “I’m learning a lot, I’m laughing a lot,” she added. “He’s a show-off, but I’m not letting him rap. I’m not letting him do nothing about no music.”

Nicki’s comments come after she delivered a pretty impressive Adele impression during an appearance on The Late Late Show With James Corden

You can listen to the full episode of the here.

On Friday, former vice president Mike Pence did the unthinkable: He dared say his ex-bestie Donald Trump was “wrong” about something. At a Federalist Society gathering in Florida, Pence addressed Trump’s dubious claims that he had the power to decertify the 2020 election on Jan. 6 of last year. He did not, so he did not, and he said as much very clearly. Did Trump resist the temptation to angrily respond? Of course not.

At the event, Pence addressed the elephant in the room: Trump’s recent comments about him, including as he put it, that in his old gig he “possessed unilateral authority to reject Electoral College votes.” Not so, he correctly stated. “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence said. “The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. Frankly, there is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”

Hours later, Trump responded by way of his poorly copy edited press releases.

“Just saw Mike Pence’s statement on the fact that he had no right to do anything with respect to the Electoral Vote Count, other than being an automatic conveyor belt for the Old Crow Mitch McConnell to get Biden elected President as quickly as possible,” Trump wrote. “Well, the Vice President’s position is not an automatic conveyor if obvious signs of voter fraud or irregularities exist.”

Trump then doubled down on his dodgy claim that because certain lawmakers are trying to clarify certain laws, it’s an admission that Pence could have overturned the election:

“That’s why the Democrats and RINOs are working feverishly together to change the very law that Mike Pence and his unwitting advisors used on January 6 to say he had no choice. The reason they want it changed is because they now say they don’t want the Vice President to have the right to ensure an honest vote. In other words, I was right and everyone knows it. If there is fraud or large scale irregularities, it would have been appropriate to send those votes back to the legislatures to figure it out. The Dems and RINOs want to take that right away. A great opportunity lost, but not forever, in the meantime our Country is going to hell!”

Another chipper missive from everyone’s favorite optimist.

For Pence, his address on Friday was the strongest rebuke he’s yet made to his former president. Mind you, he’s never rebuked him publicly, even after his violent supporters wanted to hang him outside the Capitol building.

(Via The Hill)

Rolling Stone is taking a step into the music festival world. The publication recently announced that it purchased a majority stake in Las Vegas’ Life Is Beautiful festival. The estate of Zappos’ ex-chief executive officer Tony Hsieh, who founded the Vegas festival, will retain a piece of the business and the terms of the deal have not yet been revealed. The publication’s CEO, Gus Wenner, made the purchase in order to curate an events business to complement the editorial side of the company. Wenner reached out to Hsieh in June 2020 and the two worked out a deal before Hsieh died later that year.

The festival will retain the name Life Is Beautiful, but Rolling Stone will look for ways to incorporate the company into the showcase. One example includes naming one of the festival stages after the publication. David Oehm, the new CEO of Life Is Beautiful, will continue to run the festival with his team. “Live events and experiential are so much a part of the future of publishing,” Wenner said in an interview, according to Bloomberg. He hopes to build the business in a way that will allow Rolling Stone to be as relevant to music fans today as it was in the past.

Life Is Beautiful was originally founded in 2013 as a part of Hsieh’s plan to revitalize downtown Las Vegas. The Killers and Kings of Leon headlined the first edition, and since then it’s grown to be a three-day event. The most recent edition of Life Is Beautiful was held in September of 2021.

It’s been quite a week-and-a-half for Joe Rogan. The NewsRadio alum-turned-controversial podcaster is singlehandedly responsible for a growing exodus from the streamer Spotify, with artists demanding their music be removed over his repeated spreading of dangerous COVID misinformation. (Staffers are also very unhappy.) He’s done the unexpected and apologized for his actions, and on Friday night he was on mea culpa duty again, this time for another infraction.

As per Page Six, a video went viral on Friday showing a compilation of Rogan dropping the N-word — said in full every time — over and over again on The Joe Rogan Experience. It was even shared by India.Arie, one of the artists who joined the likes of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell in demanding Spotify erase their work.

It prompted Rogan to again take to Instagram to record a video apology. In it, he called the video “the most regretful and shameful thing I’ve ever had to talk about publicly.” Though he pointed out the clips were “out of context” bits spanning “12 years of conversations,” he did admit it “looks f*cking horrible. Even to me.”

He continued: “I know that to most people, there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, nevermind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now. I haven’t said it in years.”

Rogan did claim that he never used the word in a racist manner, that he was only using it in the context of whatever conversation he was having. But, he admitted, it was a mistake not to censor himself: “Instead of saying ‘the N-word,’ I would just say the word. I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing.”

The word, he said, was fascinating to him. “It’s a very unusual word, but it’s not my word to use,” Rogan said. “I never used it to be racist, because I’m not racist, but whenever you’re in a situation where you have to say ‘I’m not racist,’ you’ve f–ked up, and I clearly have f–cked up.”

He also addressed a clip of him discussing visiting a Black neighborhood in Philadelphia, which he described as “Planet of the Apes.” “I was trying to make the story entertaining,” Rogan said. “I did not, nor did I ever say that black people are apes, but it sure f*cking sounded like that.” He added, “It wasn’t a racist story, but it sounded terrible.”

After Rogan’s first apology on Sunday, artists continued to leave Spotify in protest. He’s had a few defenders, though, most prominently Jon Stewart.

(Via Page Six)

Netflix keeps digging deep into the true-crime realm with no signs of stopping. From the revival of Unsolved Mysteries to Joe Berlinger’s Crime Scene series to the Making A Murderer show and the upcoming Inventing Anna (from Shondaland and starring Julia Garner), it’s never been easier to binge other people’s bad deeds to your heart’s content.

The streamer’s newest such documentary, The Tinder Swindler, will appeal to both true crime aficionados and online daters alike. It’s a true-crime story, but is it, you know, a true story?

Oh yes. This is the story of a faux billionaire playboy who cruised Tinder, setting up a string of long-distance romances, leaving women (worldwide) in debt and wondering what on earth hit them. Simon Leviev worked out a series of long cons after introducing himself as a hard-at-work Israeli millionaire, i.e., the “Prince of Diamonds.” As The Times of Israel notes, Simon chose his alias while pretending to be the son of real-life multi-millionaire Lev Leviev in a scheme that went on for years. According to ABC News, Leviev’s true identity was Shimon Hayu, a con-man who had already served years of hard time before he wandered into Londoner Cecilie Fjellhoy’s life, and once he was done, she was out over $200,000.

She wasn’t the only one, not by a long shot. The process, Fiellhoy said, was both hard and fast and incremental, with him showering her with hugely romantic gestures, largely from a distance. In reality, Hayu was already living on another woman’s money, which was his method of operation. Once an undeniable pattern formed, these women banded together to work some justice upon Hayu (who operated under a number of aliases), and that’s where this 2-hour Netflix documentary comes in, while Hayu now stares down extradition to his homeland on a number of fraud charges.

It’s a cautionary tale, of course, especially when one marvels at the ease at which Hayu would work his routine, first convincing the women that his profession was one of danger. He would later send them photos and calls of distress, asking for money, claiming that his credit was temporarily inaccessible and that he needed large sums of money to move to safety. Then he’d disappear, never to be heard of again and move on to his next target.

Maybe stay off Tinder, but do catch The Tinder Swindler, which is currently streaming on Netflix.

Has a Super Bowl commercial ever been this built up? Once a week for the past three weeks, Megan Thee Stallion has shared a teaser for her Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Doritos Super Bowl LVI commercial. First it was her checking into the studio backlot where a commercial featuring exotic animals is being filmed, then it was her getting locked out of her trailer by a sloth (?), and today we have the official song that goes with the campaign, “Flamin’ Hottie.” I guess this commercial is officially a highly anticipated one.

The song rides a sample of “Push It” by Salt N’ Pepa (a femme rap classic if there ever was one) and Megan isn’t short on the analogies between how hot she is and how hot these dang chips are! “Damn, I’m so hot, can’t touch me, just like Cheetos on your fingers, wanna suck me!” she says in the song’s opening verse. Then brings it home on the hook with “‘Cause I’m all that and a bag of flamin’ hot chips!”

The song was obviously co-signed by Cheetos mascot Chester Cheetah on Twitter:

Listen to “Flamin’ Hottie” above and join us on the edge of your seat for Meg’s Super Bowl LVI commercial sometime on Sunday, February 13.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Everything on a basketball court is perfectly calibrated from game-to-game. Unlike baseball, where parks vary in size, basketball courts are one uniform size. The rims are 10 feet high and perfectly level, and the distance from one to the other is the same on every single court where NBA games are played.

Well, kind of. Midway through the first quarter Friday night’s game between the Philadelphia 76ers and Dallas Mavericks that tipped off at god damn 10:15 p.m. EST, Luka Doncic hit a three and started flailing his arms around like something was wrong. It turned out Doncic noticed that the rim was tilted, which led to the officials stopping the game so they could fix this.

Enter Boban Marjanovic, who you have probably heard is very tall. The Mavericks (and former Sixers!) big man casually walked onto the court, bunny hopped, grabbed the rim, and looked to get that thing level.

It looked like he did a decent job, but decent is not good enough for a rim during an NBA game. As such, someone had to get a ladder, a tape measure, and a level and sort everything out.

Did this work? Not really! In the aftermath of all this, the backboard got tilted, so the Mavs cut their losses and just replaced the basket altogether.

If this does not work, we recommend cutting the court in half and just playing 3-on-3.