Month: January 2023

It’s been over a decade since Kendrick Lamar dropped his second studio album, good kid, m.A.A.d city. The album, released in 2012, debuted at No.2 on the Billboard 200 chart. The Compton rapper was nominated for five Grammys following the album’s release, cementing him as one of his generation’s most influential hip-hop artists.

Since releasing GKMC, Lamar’s star has risen to unimaginable heights, with platinum albums and many accolades, including a Pulitzer Prize for his 2017 album, DAMN. Today, the “Alright” rapper continues to make history. Most recently, GKMC became the first hip-hop studio album to spend 10 years on the Billboard chart — an incredible feat.

“Kung-Fu Kenny” recently celebrated the album’s 10th anniversary during a stop on his The Big Steppers Tour stop at Accor Arena in Paris this past October.

The concert, which was livesteamed in conjunction with Amazon, featured sets from pgLang’s Tanna Leone and Grammy Award-winning recording artist Baby Keem, who is also Lamar’s cousin. The enigmatic rapper’s stage show followed the release of his fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, which was released in May 2022. The project served as the rapper’s first body of work since releasing 2017’s DAMN., and it debuted at No.1 atop the Billboard 200.

GloRilla‘s meteoric rise to fame hasn’t been easy. The Memphis rapper has been open about her journey to where she is today. Last month, a funny clip of the rapper working the drive-thru at a fast-food restaurant resurfaced. Recently, another clip turned up. It was an older interview with the Grammy nominee in which she revealed that she had been in jail for nearly three years for the unlikeliest crime: stealing cereal.

In May 2022, following the release of her mega-hit “F.N.F,” the CMG rapper chatted with social media comedian Funny Marco on his YouTube series about the journey to her success. Throughout the hilarious conversation, she opens up about what led her into rap, her “rachet a** friends,” and more.

However, there was one moment when things got a little intense. Marco boldly asked the “Tomorrow 2” about her criminal past, including a situation where she was arrested and jailed for stealing cereal out of a K-Mart, to which she replied, “yes.”

Since then, the rapper has come a long way. Big Glo snatched two of the hottest songs last year with “F.N.F,” earning a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance, and “Tomorrow 2” featuring Cardi B. She’s also released her debut album, Anyways Life’s Great… and recently made her debut performance at the 2022 American Music Awards alongside Cardi B.

Check out the full video below.

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

Warning: This post contains a massive spoiler for the Bond movie No Time to Die.

It’s been a year since Daniel Craig’s James Bond died. What’s more, it’s been over three years since Craig last played England’s most famous fictitious spy, having wrapped his final day in the fall of 2019. Even before Craig was done playing him for good, there’s been breathless talk about who will be his replacement. Will we get the first non-white 007? Will he not even be a he? But right now it’s looking like producer Barbara Broccoli and company may go a more traditional route after all.

As per Puck News, the franchise’s producers recently met with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who broke through as the lead in the Kick-Ass films, briefly played Pietro Maximoff for the MCU, scored a Golden Globe for Nocturnal Animals, and more recently appeared in Tenet and Bullet Train. The meeting, Puck News’ Matthew Belloni claimed, “went well.” He also called him a “great actor, British, fits the younger direction the Broccolis want to go, accomplished but not particularly famous.”

This is, of course, hearsay, and what’s more, Broccoli said they’re still a ways off from even shooting the next film. Last summer she said they were “at least two years” away from principal photography. They could go with Taylor-Johnson, who would be yet another handsome Brit in a franchise that has mostly stuck with actors from the U.K. (The exception is George Lazenby, an Aussie, who only stuck around for 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.)

In the meantime, Taylor-Johnson will soon be returning to Marvel as the lead in this fall’s Kraven the Hunter. But he may soon have to learn to like his martinis not stirred but, as it were, shaken.

(Via Puck News)

LeBron James took umbrage with the way an interview he gave to Sam Amick of The Athletic was presented to the masses. In a tweet on Sunday morning, Amick spoke to James in the aftermath of the Los Angeles Lakers’ 136-134 win over the Sacramento Kings, the team’s fifth win in a row, in which James was asked about the fact that the front office has yet to move their 2027 and 2029 first-round NBA Draft picks for more immediate help.

“Y’all know what the f*ck should be happening,” James said. “I don’t need to talk.”

Amick’s tweet said the interview included James’ “waning patience,” and in a series of tweets on Sunday afternoon, James said that his patience is not waning and that “you make it sound like I’m frustrated when I’m really not. I told you over and over, my job is focused on the guys in the locker room, my job isn’t the roster.”

https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1612172265197559811

While James did say that “I worry about who’s in the locker room” and that “I can’t do nobody else’s job,” it is tricky to read him saying “y’all know what the f*ck should be happening” as anything other than his belief that the Lakers should make a trade in the present. But then again, winning cures all ails, and L.A. is currently tied for the longest winning streak in the league despite Anthony Davis being sidelined with an injury, so maybe James is willing to be patient and ride this wave right now.

The Saints and Panthers had nothing to play for but pride on Sunday, as the two teams were eliminated from playoff contention a week ago when the Bucs beat Carolina to wrap up the NFC South.

However, it was still a divisional game and players know every week is important to put something good on tape, particularly heading into the offseason where many players face uncertain futures. As such, tensions were still high and in the early third quarter, a little kerfuffle broke out after a Panthers run play to D’Onta Foreman, as he and Saints lineman Marcus Davenport started jawing, with the two eventually exchanging slaps — Davenport first, with Foreman returning fire as refs tried to separate the two.

The referees had a long discussion, with the league office in New York also weighing in, and both players were ejected for the slap fight, ending their seasons about 90 minutes sooner than expected.

It’s certainly not the best way to end your season, particularly having to pay a fine after your last game of the year, but Davenport and Freeman will get to be the first done with their postgame shower and head into the offseason a bit sooner than the rest of their teammates.

No NFL team has ever had to deal with the emotions the Buffalo Bills have this week after seeing Damar Hamlin collapse on the field in Cincinnati, requiring CPR on the field to restore his heartbeat. After that game was cancelled, the Bills were solely focused on the health of their teammate, waiting and praying for some kind of positive update after the terrifying scene on Monday night.

Happily, those positive updates came rolling in late this week, as Hamlin improved dramatically, first starting to show signs of being neurologically intact, then being able to ask who won the game, and eventually having his breathing tube removed so he could FaceTime with his teammates this weekend and post updates on social media. All of that built up to an unbelievable atmosphere in Orchard Park, NY for the Bills’ Week 18 game against the Patriots on Sunday, where the 2-seed would be theirs with a win, but more importantly they could pay tribute to and celebrate the positive updates on Damar Hamlin.

The team all had patches with Hamlin’s No. 3 on their uniforms, and the stadium erupted before the game to give a standing ovation when asked to show Hamlin how much he is loved in Buffalo.

After all of that, it was time for kickoff, which produced an all-time moment when Nyheim Hines took the opening kick all the way for a touchdown, sending the Bills crowd (and Hamlin watching from the hospital) into a frenzy.

It’s as cool a moment as you can get in sports, and an incredible way for the game to start. The Bills sideline was almost in disbelief at what Hines had pulled off given the moment and the emotion was overwhelming, as Hamlin was still very clearly front of mind for all of his teammates.

(SPOILERS for this week’s BMF episode will be found below.)

BMF fans were in for a long-awaited treat this weekend as the show finally returned for its second season. The season two premiere arrived a little over a year after the show’s inaugural season came to an end in the fall of 2021. Season one concluded with the deaths of Kato and Lamar (or so we thought) as well as Meech and Terry’s split which the former continuing in the game while the latter resorted to a car-ride service with his father Charles. There’s a whole lot in store for season two, and with that, comes some changes to the weekly schedule of new episodes for BMF.

If you recall from season one, new episodes of BMF came out Sunday at midnight on the STARZ app before being available to watch on the STARZ channel at 8 PM EST. For season two, BMF has shifted new episodes to premiere on Fridays under the same release plan: the new episode is available to watch on the STARZ app Friday at midnight before it premieres on the channel that same day at 8 PM EST. This gives viewers the chance to watch an episode or two during the weekend before the responsibilities of the work week pull them away from the TV screens.

The first episode of season two premiered on Friday (January 6), and it’s available to watch on the STARZ app. You can also check out our recap of that episode here.

Howard Stern and Donald Trump used to be buds. They were two powerful, cocky New York guys who liked to publicly talk about sex and how successful they were (or, in Trump’s case, how successful he claimed to be). Then the big guy had to go and run for president. Stern, who describes himself as a “normal conservative,” has never shied away from trashing the stupid, destructive turn Trump’s life took. It’s frankly unbelievable that the infamously thin-skinned Trump hasn’t returned fire more often, though that’s what he did on Saturday.

“I have been noticing the fact that Howard Stern’s show has gone to Hell, and so few people are listening—Used to be great, now it rates less than fair,” Trump wrote on his rinky-dink Twitter clone. “It’s a sad thing to watch. When he loved ‘Trump,’ it was ‘hot,’ when he decided to go with Crooked Hillary, his ratings world collapsed. Can’t believe they pay him so much money, but I hope he gets it!”

Stern doesn’t just go after Trump. He’s no fan of his supporters either, or what’s left of them these days. Last fall he called the MAGA crowd a “nation of nincompoops,” saying, “Their freedoms have never really been threatened and they have no idea what it would be like to live under a different type of system other than democracy. And they don’t get it. They are morons. They think somehow that the world would be better under a guy like Trump.”

He then offered some advice to put things in perspective: “You should go live in Russia, all you f*ckers out there.”

Trump’s not doing so hot these days, but he is still technically running for president, even if it seems like he’s not. Will Stern make good on a threat he made in 2021 and run against him in 2024? Wilder things have happened.

(Via Mediaite)

Ever since the league year officially began on July 1, there has been a bit of a standoff between the Lakers and their star, LeBron James. It wasn’t enough to keep LeBron from signing a two-year extension with the Lakers, but it’s been fairly clear that there is some tension in the air when it comes to his relationship with Rob Pelinka and the team’s front office.

That exists because while the team has been actively shopping Russell Westbrook, they have been reluctant (or outright refusing) to put their two future first round picks on the table (2027 and 2029) to make a splashier trade. After a woeful start to the season, there were reports the front office was unsure there was even a trade to be made that could fix things this year, indicating the team was not going to pursue anything approaching a ground-shaking move unless things changed considerably on the floor. An upswing was followed by Anthony Davis’ foot injury that seemed to only add further to L.A.’s reluctance to go all-in with this team, as they went 2-5 in their first seven games without their All-Star big man.

Since then, the Lakers are 5-0, with LeBron playing the best ball of his career, and if the early season struggles were the chance for the front office to put their concerns out into the public, this recent hot streak by James has allowed him to return fire with his desire to see reinforcements arrive. While James refuses to say so directly (despite plenty of questions asking him to do just that), he offered Sam Amick of The Athletic a parting quote after the Lakers win on Saturday night against the Kings that was his strongest on the record statement yet.

But how’s your patience level? Is that aspect (of this situation) tugging at you?

They’re doing what they feel is best for the franchise.

How do you feel about that?

I’m doing what’s best for my guys in the locker room. That’s all I can worry about. I’ll let y’all …

A brief pause as he walks away, and one final, unmistakable comment that was shouted from nearly 20 feet away …

Y’all know what the f— should be happening. I don’t need to talk.

James is well aware of his perception as LeGM, and he’s taken it upon himself to try and push back on that by insisting he doesn’t have constant dialogue with the front office and isn’t part of personnel decisions. Part of the problem in this instance is the Lakers also see an issue with how people view who is actually in charge, and what seems to be playing out is a power struggle between James (and, more broadly, Klutch Sports Group) and the Lakers brass after years in which they signed players that seemed to come with LeBron’s stamp of approval.

The failure of the Russell Westbrook trade, when they scrapped a Buddy Hield deal to land Westbrook at the behest of James and Davis, seems to have been the moment the relationship shifted and since, the Lakers have seemed determined to do things on their terms. The problem is, the roster they’ve constructed makes just as little sense as the one put together a year ago, and upgrades need to be made. James has made his peace with the failure of the Westbrook trade to have the desired effect, even if Russ is playing better in a bench role this year, but the Lakers aren’t quite ready to go all-in again.

So, as the trade deadline approaches in a month, the Lakers find themselves in an internal standoff, and until that is resolved, it seems there won’t be much done externally to fix their issues.

Skip Bayless has long made a career out of being a provocateur, but sports media’s biggest heel learned this week that there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed when talking about sports and has been in the crosshairs of just about everyone because of it.

Bayless sent a remarkably tone deaf and insensitive tweet wondering how the NFL could postpone Bills-Bengals while the entire football world simply wanted to know if Damar Hamlin was going to live after going into cardiac arrest on the field on Monday Night Football. Since then, he’s made a weak non-apology on air, gotten blasted by his co-host Shannon Sharpe when the Hall of Famer returned to the air on Wednesday, and been the target of more mockery by Charles Barkley (and just about everyone else).

On Sunday, FOX analyst Michael Strahan became the latest to rip Bayless, calling him out (without even saying his name, just “someone here at this network”) for being “inhumane” and noting that “sensible people and sensible human beings have a heart” and understand when something is more important than football.

You can hear the rest of the FOX NFL Sunday desk agreeing with Strahan, and it’s notable in that you don’t often hear this kind of direct condemnation of something Bayless (or any other talking head) says by someone else on a network. However, in this instance, it was absolutely important for Strahan to do so because Skip is such a big name and FOX has made him one of the faces of their network. When he crosses that line, someone has to call him out and also has to distance everyone else from that statement to ensure everyone knows that’s not the belief of anyone else.