Month: January 2023

There are few players in the NBA that jump higher on their shot than Russell Westbrook, and on Wednesday we saw one of the possible benefits of that extra high jumper when he decided, mid-shot, he didn’t want to shoot anymore and had time to just rifle the ball off of Kevin Huerter’s chest to get the ball back and keep the possession alive.

It’s a hysterical play and something that only Russ would do. Why he decided not to shoot it is anyone’s guess, as Huerter’s not even contesting him on the shot (because, well, why would you contest a Westbrook three late). Even with Huerter just standing on the ground, he’s still not expecting to have the ball chucked at him and it works out to get Russ the ball back and continue the possession to the confusion of everyone — including the camera operator, who pans out for the shot before having to scramble back as the ball bounds off Huerter.

We see this kind of thing happen fairly regularly with a player trying to save the ball from going out of bounds by launching it off a defender, but this may be the first time that’s been used to abort a shot attempt.

Snail Mail unveiled Valentine in 2021 as the follow-up to her beloved debut Lush. “I wanted to take as much time as possible with this record to make sure I was happy with every detail before unleashing it unto y’all,” she said at the time. “Referring to the process as the deepest level of catharsis and therapy I have ever experienced would be a huge understatement. Valentine is my child!”

She’s brought those songs on tours since then, including a killer run with Turnstile and Jpegmafia last year. She’s hitting the road again after announcing a tour today following the announcement of her five-day Valentine Fest. After the fest in Baltimore, it’ll hit Iowa City next and end in Queens, NY at Governor’s Ball.

Check out the full dates below.

02/10 — Baltimore, MD @ Valentine Festival
02/11 — Baltimore, MD @ Valentine Festival
02/12 — Baltimore, MD @ Valentine Festival
02/13 — Baltimore, MD @ Valentine Festival
02/14 — Baltimore, MD @ Valentine Festival
04/07 — Iowa City IA @ Mission Creek Festival
04/08 — Omaha NE @ Slowdown #
04/10 — Fort Collins CO @ Aggie Theatre #
04/11 — Boulder CO @ Fox Theatre #
04/12 — Salt Lake City UT @ Soundwell #
04/13 — Las Vegas NV @ AREA15 #
04/15 — Indio CA @ Coachella
04/16 — San Luis Obispo CA @ Fremont Theatre #
04/18 — Reno NV @ Cargo Concert Hall #
04/19 — Roseville CA @ Goldfield Trading Post %
04/20 — Santa Cruz CA @ Rio Theatre %
04/22 — Indio CA @ Coachella
04/23 — Flagstaff AZ @ Yucca North #
04/24 — El Paso TX @ The Lowbrow Palace #
04/25 — Albuquerque NM @ Sister #
04/27 — Oklahoma City OK @ The Jones Assembly #
04/28 — Fayetteville AR @ George’s Majestic Lounge #
04/29 — Memphis TN @ Black Lodge #
05/01 — Indianapolis IN @ The Vogue #
05/02 — Cincinnati OH @ Woodward Theater #
05/04 — Morgantown WV @ 123 Pleasant Street #
05/06 — Winston-Salem NC @ The Ramkat #
05/07 — Atlanta GA @ Shaky Knees Festival
06/10 — Queens, NY @ Governor’s Ball Festival

# w/ Water From Your Eyes + Dazy
% w/ Water From Your Eyes

Find ticket information here.

Donald Trump has a lot on plate these days, but there’s one thing that sometimes slips through the cracks: He’s being sued for defamation by E. Jean Carroll, who for years has accused the former president of sexual assault. Trump sat for a predictably testy deposition last October, and excerpts from the transcripts are only being made public now. Among the newest revelations is that he may have screwed the whole thing up by contradicting one of his long-running (and pretty darn heinous) defenses.

As per The Washington Post, during the deposition, Trump was shown a photo of Carroll from the ‘90s. Trump, as you may recall, has had said that he couldn’t have assaulted her because she’s “not my type.”

And yet when shown this photo of Carroll and asked to identify the woman it showed, Trump responded, “That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife,” alluding to Marla Maples, his wife from 1993 to 1999 and the mother of his daughter Tiffany.

Trump’s revealing gaffe was quickly corrected by his attorney, Alina Habba.

Carroll has alleged that Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-’90s. She has two separate lawsuits filed against Trump: one for allegedly defamatory comments he made about in the wake of her allegations back in 2019, and one for the incident itself.

According to transcripts, Trump used the deposition to continue to trash Carroll, calling her “mentally ill” and falsely claiming that she said that she “loved” being raped and found it “sexy” — a gross distortion of an interview she did with Anderson Cooper in 2019, in which she talked about how the term “rape” “has so many sexual connotations” and is a “fantasy” for some.

During the deposition, Trump also vowed to sue Carroll, as well as the lawyers grilling him. He may have screwed up his defense before the interrogation even began, but he also may have made it even worse.

(Via The Washington Post)

Trippie Redd is a man of his word. Earlier this week, he posted a star-studded track list featuring Chief Keef, Future, Lil Baby, Lil Durk, Travis Scott, Nardo Wick, and more still. The Instagram caption promised to reveal the cover art and release date if the post eclipsed 80,000 comments. And over 82,000 comments later — including Drake with six steam-nose emojis — Trippie Redd announced tonight, January 18, that Mansion Musik is dropping this Friday, January 20.

According to press release, the 25-track album is “an ode to Chief Keef’s 2018 Mansion Musick mixtape.” Keef served as the album’s executive producer, and he’s the featured artist on tracks “Atlantis” and “Rock Out.”

The full track list boasts “Fully Loaded” featuring Future and Lil Baby, “Knight Crawler” featuring the late Juice WRLD, “Dark Brotherhood” featuring Lil Baby, “Krzy Train” featuring Travis Scott, “Muscles” featuring Lil Durk, “Swag Like Ohio Pt. 2” featuring Lil B, “Who Else!” featuring Rich The Kid, “Pure” featuring G Herbo, and “Colors” featuring Kodak Black.

Nardo Wick, Big30, Lucki, Summrs, Fijimacintosh, Rylo Rodriguez, Ski Mask The Slump God, Rob 49, and DaBaby are also featured artists.

Future is in the middle of his six-date One Big Party Tour, which kicked off on January 7 at the Toyota Center in Houston, where Trippie Redd performed as a special guest. Chief Keef, meanwhile, might be gearing up to release an album of his own.

Mansion Musik is out 01/20/2023. Pre-save it here.

Iggy Azalea has been teasing OnlyFans content that will be “hotter than hell,” and that’s a big promise. Specifically, she said there will be “photographs, visual artist collabs, videos, merch & all kinds of aesthetically pleasing, hot as hell things,” and the spicy, cinematic trailer that came along with the post was an indication she wasn’t lying.

She’s been sharing snippets here and there on social media to entice fans to sign up for her $25 per month account, and it seems to be working. A polaroid of her nude eating a cherry went viral on Twitter, with the caption, “You better be subscribed & logged on tonight… Something hotter than hell in your inbox at 9pm .” She also shared a fiery bikini picture as well.

It’s truly a surprising twist that Iggy went in this direction, considering her previous tweet that she would never join OnlyFans. “I think onlyfans can be really empowering for people, But I WILL NEVER, EVVVER join,” the rapper wrote in 2021. “I don’t want to make that type of content & it only f*cks up the bag for ppl on there who really bout that life. Shoutout to the baddies tho!!!!” However, she has clarified that she joined because she felt like other platforms had “creatively limiting censorship.”

Lots of famous people have run for Congress. Do you know the guy who wrote the novel Hillbilly Elegy, which was made into a Ron Howard movie with Amy Adams and Glenn Close, is a Senator now? Or that TV quack Dr. Oz got his butt handed to him by a guy who was actually good at social media? Strange but true. This one is a bit on the Mad Libs side: As per Deadline, if you’re a Burbank, California resident, there’s a chance you may one day be represented by the erstwhile (although who knows, maybe future, at some point) Cory Matthews.

On Wednesday, the Federal Elections Commission received files from Ben Savage, who’s angling for a seat occupying California’s 30th district. That’s right: The star of Boy Meets World wants to be representative. That seat is currently occupied by Adam Schiff, one of the most famous and vocal anti-Trumpists in the House. Savage isn’t trying to kick Schiff out; Schiff is expected to run for Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat, though he has yet to make that official.

The idea of Ben Savage — again, the kid from Boy Meets World, who returned to the role for a mid-teens follow-up — running for elected office isn’t out of nowhere. In 2003, he interned for then-senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, which he did as part of his requirements as a political science major at Stanford. Last year, he also made an unsuccessful bid for a seat in West Hollywood City Council.

So good luck to possible future-representative Ben Savage. It’s not even the most out-there news to emerge from the ‘90s coming-of-age sitcom. No, that would be the time people deduced that Danielle “Topanga” Fishel was married to the guy who found dried shrimp in his Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Still, pity the guy who eventually might have to hang out with some real House kooks.

(Via Deadline)

Andy Shauf’s album Norm will drop on February 10 and be supported by a North American tour. “The character of Norm is introduced in a really nice way,” Shauf said in a statement when announcing the album in November. “But the closer you pay attention to the record, the more you’re going to realize that it’s sinister.” So far, Shauf has released singles “Wasted On You,” “Catch Your Eye,” and now, “Telephone.”

“Telephone” feels more sentimental than sinister, though it does hinge upon the sneakily sinister fact that humans are more addicted to phones than ever. Shauf focuses on the unique dopamine hit when someone you love calls. “I would live on the telephone if I was listening to you talk about your day,” he softly sings in the slow-burning song. “I nod my head count the days gone by since I held onto your words.”

The accompanying video was animated by Chad VanGaalen and stars the same yellow cartoon bird as the “Catch Your Eye” video.

“I love Chad’s animation style so much,” Shauf said in a statement, per JamBase. “He takes normal things and makes them odd, but also makes odd things seem totally normal. We asked him to take us into the weird world of Norm and a few months later we received an email with a link to this video, and it was everything that we hoped for and much more.”

Watch the “Telephone” video above.

Norm due out on 02/10/2023 via ANTI-. Pre-order it here.

The 2022-23 season has been one to forget for the Charlotte Hornets, as they entered Wednesday night with an 11-34 record. One reason for their struggles has been injuries to star guard LaMelo Ball, as he has only played in 21 games due to two different stints on the injured list with a sprained left ankle.

On Wednesday night against the likewise cellar-dwelling Houston Rockets, Ball once again suffered a left ankle injury after teammate PJ Washington landed on Ball’s ankle after trying to block a shot, turning it badly and leading him to need help to get to the locker room.

It’s a nasty looking injury, as Ball’s ankle goes nearly 90 degrees over with Washington’s body weight coming down on top of it, and he was clearly in considerable pain as he left the floor. Given this is now the third injury to the same ankle, there has to be a heightened level of concern. Ball has now suffered an ankle injury in just about every imaginable way, first turning it over on a drive to the basket, then stepping on a fan’s foot, and now having it landed on by a teammate.

Ball missed just over a month on both previous sprains, but with the Hornets well outside the playoff picture in the East, one would expect even more caution with Ball’s ankle as the perspective in Charlotte shifts fully to the future and Ball is the centerpiece of everything they are trying to do. He was quickly ruled out for the game with a left ankle sprain, with further testing to come to determine the severity.

J. Cole is playing with fans’ emotions. The Dreamville rapper wiped his Instagram earlier this month, which is usually the telltale sign that an artist is preparing to drop an album and roll out a new era. Cole fans got new Cole music tonight, January 18, but in an unexpected way that will surely just make the ambiguous wait for his next album all the more painful.

Up-and-coming producer Bvtman uploaded “Procrastination (Broke)” to his YouTube page. The three-minute track finds Cole in his bag over a Bvtman beat that he had stumbled upon, as explained in a screenshot of a message presumably written by Cole to Bvtman:

“This song should live on your channel and serve as a thank you to you and every producer out there cooking up and sharing their work with the world. It’s a million artists out there right now just like me, hungry and searching every day for something to spark a word, a melody, a hook, a verse, a punchline, a way to vent, or a way to CUT THROUGH.

On a day when I couldn’t find much motivation, I was looking for anything to inspire me. Out of curiosity, I typed in ‘J. Cole type beat’ into YouTube. Yours was the first I saw. I pressed play, focused, and wrote this.

This is some sh*t that would normally stay in the vault, but I don’t want to hold onto the music like that no more. This is for you and whoever else need to hear it. God bless bro and keep doing what you do!”

Cole’s bars reflect that mindset.

“I write these words aimlessly / But not without hope / That somehow I’ll stumble on somethin’ that’s dope / A clever lil line, a thought to provoke myself,” he raps atop a groovy, infectious beat. Cole expresses dissatisfaction with his habit of losing songs “in the endless folders of the hard drive,” wishing he “was more fearless” and put more music out without considering the reception.

Fans will likely specifically key in on Cole admitting that his earned status and wealth have impacted his artistic urgency: “I still relate to that procrastination for tasks / ‘Cause I need to finish album / But hell, how many more times can I send this wooden pail down in that well / And pull it back up with the hope that it’s filled / Plus, it don’t help that I’m rich now / So that means that I don’t gotta deal.”

Listen to “Procrastination (Broke)” above.

ASAP Rocky is slowly rolling out details surrounding his forthcoming album, which he joked should be called Flacko Boomin but appears to actually be titled Don’t Be Dumb. Most recently, Rocky dropped “Same Problems.” And during a conversation with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, Rocky turned the hype up another notch.

“It’s coming. It’s finished and we just putting the finishing touches on it,” Rocky told Lowe (as noted Billboard). “The new stuff is me being vulnerable, and it’s just no filter, and just where I’m at, at my stage. My age and how I see things, my peers, the younger kids, the older cats, it’s just my perspective.”

Rocky also touched on Rihanna’s upcoming Super Bowl LVII halftime performance with Lowe.

“I’m just as excited as you guys, if not more,” he said, per Billboard. “Yeah, I’m super excited. This is huge. This is incredible. I’m so glad that my lady’s back making music again and whatnot, and getting back out there.”

Rocky added, “It’s just incredible, especially for both of us — it is a good year for both of us to be more active and be out there. But the Super Bowl is huge, and her being the creative she is, she going to bring it, man. I’m excited. I’m more excited than everybody else, honestly.”

Last week, Rihanna and Apple Music shared a trailer for the halftime show, featuring Rihanna’s 2016 hit “Needed Me,” and Rihanna and Rocky enjoyed a date night at the 2023 Golden Globes.