Month: February 2023

Macklemore is set to drop his new album, Ben, next month. Ahead of the album’s impending release, the rapper stopped by The Kelly Clarkson Show, where he opened up about the creation of the deeply personal record.

During his interview, Macklemore revealed that much of Ben is inspired by his relapse, which took place in the summer of 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was an intense time. The life that I knew, just like all of our lives, was stripped away. I’m used to a certain schedule of touring, of being gone, of being home, of recovery and being able to go to a physical 12-step meeting,” he said. “That stopped during COVID. Eventually, I’m on Instagram while being on Zoom and I’m just not really paying attention to the meetings. Eventually — and this is what happens when I don’t prioritize my recovery — if I don’t put that first, then I will lose everything that I’m putting in front of it. That’s what happens.”

Macklemore has long been open about his struggles with alcoholism and substance abuse. He first checked into rehab in August 2008. He has previously revealed he relapsed once in 2011 and again in 2014.

Today, he has been sober for nearly three years, and while he said that his relapse, which only lasted a few weeks, played a role in the making of this album, he does not want to have to rely on painful or traumatic moments to create his art.

“I think that pain is a catalyst for great art,” he said. “I don’t want to inflict the pain on myself anymore to make art. It’s not like I need to self-sabotage in order to create, but I think that it created some darker, more honest, and vulnerable moments on the album.”

You can check out the interview above.

Ben is out 3/3 via Bendo LLC. You can pre-save it here.

Louis Tomlinson has officially announced that he’s releasing his new All Of Those Voices documentary next month. Directed by Charlie Lightening and produced with 78 Productions and Trafalgar Releasing, fans will get the opportunity to catch it in select theaters on March 22.

“This has been something I’ve been working on for years, I’m really excited to finally put it out into the world,” Tomlinson shared on Instagram. “I’ve said it a million times but I’m lucky enough to have the greatest fans an artist could wish for, and as they always go above and beyond for me, I wanted to share my story ‘in my own words’.”

“From the highs of superstardom to the lows of personal tragedy, Louis’ story is one of resilience and determination. The film explores his journey from a member of One Direction to a solo artist, capturing the challenges and triumphs that defined his path,” the announcement on the official website reads. “The film shows a side of Louis that fans have never seen before, as he grapples with the pressures of fame and the weight of his own voice.”

Tickets for the All Of Those Voices screening go on sale starting February 22 at 9 a.m. ET, along with a list of the included theaters.

More information on Louis Tomlinson’s documentary is available here.

Paramore appeared for a cover story in NME in honor of their brand new album, This Is Why, dropping today. After several years, the band members opened up about everything from their inspirations and struggles during recent shows to serving as a guiding light to a new class of musicians.

Throughout the piece, Hayley Williams also opened up about how different things were in the early-aughts emo scene, despite people’s tendency to look back on it nostalgically.

“It’s revisionist history on a less heavy topic,” Williams said. “People look back with these rose-tinted glasses. They talk about the good and forget the rest. It was an alternative scene for a reason – it was weird.”

As a younger band fronted by a woman, Paramore and Williams also had a completely different experience, compared to the other bands surrounding them.

“Oh, my God. I hope no young female experiences the sh*t that I experienced,” she added. “When we were teenagers, the way forward was to be tough all the time. Our entire scene was contributing to sh*tty treatment of women and anything that wasn’t masculine. We were out on Warped Tour, this little Fueled By Ramen band acting like a hardcore band on stage. It was like if I didn’t spit further, I felt like someone was going to throw me out.”

Because of this, Williams continues to shine a light on other young stars, including Billie Eilish, PinkPantheress, and more inspired by Paramore’s decades-long discography.

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

Bad Bunny‘s performance of his hit singles “Tití Me Preguntó” and “Despues De La Playa” was one of the most talked about of Grammy night last Sunday (February 5). However, despite the positive reception the performance received, many fans were frustrated by what appeared to be a technical era.

During the broadcast, the closed captions that appeared onscreen as Bad Bunny was performing read “[SPEAKING NON-ENGLISH]” and “[SINGING IN NON-ENGLISH].” The captions also read “[SPEAKING NON-ENGLISH]” later in the night, when Bad Bunny accepted the award for Best Música Urbana Album.

Following the show, U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) wrote a letter to CBS’ President and CEO and George Cheeks, according to Variety. In the letter, Garcia wrote that the error. “displays a lack of sensitivity and foresight. For too many Spanish-speaking Americans, it felt disrespectful of our place in our shared society, and of our contributions to our shared culture. For the hearing impaired community, this failure was hurtful.”

Cheeks has since responded to the letter, noting that CBS is taking measures to make sure no similar incidents take place in the future. According to a report from Variety, CBS is set to review its practices for close captioning live events.

“Regrettably, errors were made with respect to the closed captioning of his performance and subsequent acceptance speech,” Cheeks said. “We worked with a closed captioning vendor that did not execute at a standard to which we should rightfully be held. Regardless, we should have monitored the situation more closely. A bilingual (English and Spanish-language) real-time live captioner should have been utilized and the words used on the screen were insensitive to many.”

He continued, saying, “our teams are now re-examining the closed captioning process for all live entertainment events on the network to ensure we properly caption Spanish-language content. We will keep you updated regarding our efforts on this matter.”

At the end of The Last of Us episode five, I turned into the Leo pointing meme.

“Endure and Survive” follows Henry and Sam, played by Lamar Johnson and Keivonn Montreal Woodard, as they hide from Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) and eventually team up with Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey). The two groups share a common goal: get the hell out of Kansas City. Henry, Sam, and Ellie survive an infected swarm — shout out to the Bloater — with help from super sniper Joel, and take refugee in a motel.

It’s while Sam and Ellie are bonding that he reveals that he’s been bitten. Ellie believes her magic blood can cure him, but it doesn’t work like that. Sam attacks his new friend, causing Henry to shoot his brother — and himself. The episode ends with Joel mourning the siblings in a familiar scene: it’s the first shot in The Last of Us trailer.

Cue the meme.

That’s some tragic context right there. And the final shot in the trailer?

Cue the meme again. The trailer editors must have liked this episode.

“It took me a couple of days to come down from that,” Johnson told Uproxx about shooting the shooting the showdown and swarm scene. “I remember after that day going home and still sort of being hyperemotional. Your brain knows that you’re acting and it’s not real, but your body doesn’t, so your body still feels things. But I’m really grateful to have had that opportunity to stretch myself.” You can read the rest of his interview here.

Warning: Spoilers for The Last of Us episode five below.

Episode five of HBO’s The Last of Us delivered a devastating moment fans of the videogame series remember all too well.

Henry and Sam, two survivors trying to escape Kansas City after Melanie Lynskey’s ruthless rebel leader put a price on their heads, nearly grasped their hard-earned freedom in “Endure and Survive.” The brothers, working with Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) traversed the city’s tunnel system to make it outside of the Hunters’ blockade, only to be slowed down by a lone gunman working for Lynskey’s revenge-driven demagogue. A stampede of Infected, a showering of bullets, a tense standoff, and a Bloater all thwarted the group’s getaway plan but the final roadblock came when young Sam was bitten and eventually turned, forcing his brother to make an impossible choice he simply couldn’t live with.

It’s a gut-wrenching end made all the more heartbreaking thanks to the nuanced performances Lamar Johnson and Kevionn Woodward deliver — turns that made us invest too much hope in characters whose futures we knew were hopeless.

Uproxx hopped on the phone with Johnson — who plays Sam’s big brother Henry in the episode — to talk about the aftermath of episode five, his crash course in sign language, and if his character really is a bad guy.

You get just one episode to do justice to this character who connected with so many people who played the game. Were you feeling the pressure of that while filming?

I think the fact that I was on The Last of Us [meant] there was pressure there, just because of the IP. I was a big fan of the game. So for me to have an opportunity to play Henry in the live-action, there was just some personal pressure on me to show up for this role, and to honor the performance from the game, but to not necessarily do a carbon copy.

There was definitely a lot of pressure for that final scene. It’s that scene that everyone connects with. When you think of Henry and Sam, you think of that scene. There was some nervousness but I think being nervous about it, it’s a good thing because it just shows that I care. I care to do a good job and show up.

That’s something the show has done a good job of so far. Even when the dialogue is pulled straight from the game, it still manages to make it feel fresh.

Everyone had the same sentiment: we’re not trying to simply recreate the game. Yes, it is an adaptation, but we want to re-feel it. We want to reimagine it and really breathe new life into these characters that people already love so much. How can we add a bit more? A lot of credit goes to Craig [Mazin] because he just gave us such amazing scripts to work with. A lot of these characters, even Henry and Sam, get more backstory. It informed so much more of my choices, my direction, and my arc.

One of the more significant changes is aging down Sam’s character and having him be Deaf. Kevionn Woodward is a fantastic young Deaf actor. What was it like learning to sign, for your character but also to build a bond with Kevionn off-camera?

Yeah, it was obviously a new challenge for me, but I enjoy challenges because on the other side of challenges is growth. I knew that I would learn, and I would grow through this experience. It was actually after I booked the role, I learned that I had to learn sign. So it was a sprint. When I got to my apartment in Calgary, I jumped on a Zoom right away. I had a director of ASL, along with a few interpreters and it really helped me acclimate myself. If I wasn’t on set working, I was at home doing homework, learning my sign, and going over my lines. I had to fully commit and dive in because Keivonn is deaf in real life. For me to also connect with him, which was important [for] the Henry and Sam dynamic on screen, I had to be able to communicate with him. I had to learn sign, not only through my lines and what I had to say in the show but also learn sign so that when he and I are sort of hanging out, we can be able to have a dialogue.

Did you feel like you got a good grasp of it over those couple of months?

It’s kind of like living in a country with a foreign language. Once you’re in that space, you sort of pick it up quicker, because it’s all you’re seeing, it’s all you’re doing. A lot of sign is also very expressive, so it’s all in the face and body language. So that helped with understanding it, especially being an actor and a dancer as well. It’s being aware of my physical space, my face, and my body, and things like that. Of course, I’m not seasoned. I haven’t had years and years of experience in sign so we’d be in scenes and [Kevionn] would be correcting me. It was all very supportive.

Henry seems to be fixated on this idea of being a bad guy because he did a bad thing. Where do you land when it comes to his betrayal?

Sam is his purpose. Sam is his will to live. He fights and endures all the craziness in this world to protect Sam. With Sam getting leukemia and getting sick – it’s not like it’s uncurable. There is a cure. There is a way to help him. And if I don’t do everything in my power to save the person that I love the most in this world? He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. It’s a tough decision because obviously, he gave up a person for Sam, and you can tell it still weighs on him. But at the end of the day, if I was in that position, would I make the same decision? Yes. I would.

Is that bad? Is it good? I’m not sure. I think that’s just a conversation that people have to have with themselves.

The scale of this episode felt bigger than any we’ve seen this season.

It really felt like I was in an action movie.

It looked like it too.

There were some days on set when I was like, ‘This is crazy.’ They were blowing up cars, blowing up houses. That truck that was smashing into cars chasing us actually was chasing us. The practical effects and everything on the set, a lot of it was real. They built that full cul-de-sac in a parking lot. They paved the roads, they put the trees in, they built the houses, they put the grass in, and they placed the cars. It was truly incredible to see and really be a part of.

Did any of those scenes really push you out of your comfort zone?

Me, Keivonn, and Bella were just kind of in the trenches with it. We’re just experiencing it all in real-time. They did this special shot when they blew up the truck, and that’s when the truck goes into the floor. And me, Keivonn, and Bella were just standing over at the side — at a very far distance, of course – and we had our phones out recording it because it was a spectacle to us. We had a couple of weeks of night shoots, and that’s when we shot all that exterior stuff outside. I think the only thing is that it was just very cold. But we got through it.

I’m guessing getting thrown into the fire like that – literally – helps the cast bond pretty quickly?

We had very, very long days on set — like 12, 13-hour days – so we had a lot of time to really connect. Bella is fantastic. She has a great spirit and soul to her. Pedro, he’s actually just very funny, and he brought a lot of levity to the set, which was good because we’re dealing with some pretty heavy material. It was great to have his energy, especially in those moments, because we have to remember, yes, of course, we are doing some heavy work, but this should still be fun. We’re doing what we love to do on a great show with great writing, and it’s such a privilege.

There’s heavy and then there’s downright terrifying, which is how it felt to watch you face off against Melanie Lynskey’s character towards the end of the episode.

That was actually really frightening in real life. The reason why I say that is because it was Melanie, but then there were 30 other people with guns behind her. At that moment, it felt so real. Because all of them were looking at me so intently, it really felt very intimidating. And Melanie, she’s just so sweet. We’d be hanging out in the cast tent between scenes and things, and we’d just have great conversations, but when you call action, she becomes Kathleen. I think there’s an intensity to her softness if that makes sense. It’s not too aggressive, and I think that’s the reason why it’s so intimidating because there’s an intensity behind it.

What went into shooting that final scene, the one game fans probably came into the episode expecting to see?

It was tough. The day before the final scene was when Sam and Ellie had their scene in the room. I remember Jeremy and I; we were by the monitor watching that scene, and we both were in tears. Because I spent so much time building this relationship and this bond with Keivonn, and really growing this love for him, to see him in despair in that scene … it was really heartbreaking.

It took me a couple of days to come down from that. I remember after that day going home and still sort of being hyperemotional. Your brain knows that you’re acting and it’s not real, but your body doesn’t, so your body still feels things. But I’m really grateful to have had that opportunity to stretch myself.

Each week, we’ll recap the biggest moments of HBO’s The Last of Us before placing bets on the odds of survival for our favorite characters – like the sick, twisted, soulless monsters we are.

The latest installment of HBO’s The Last of Us arrived a few days ahead of schedule thanks to Sunday’s Super Bowl game. That early run time is a good thing because we’re going to need the weekend to recover from episode five’s heartbreaking ending.

“Endure and Survive” is the definition of emotional terrorism, an episode filled with crippling loss and traumatic deaths and zombie hordes chasing down fan-favorite characters while our adrenaline levels spike to new highs. In short: it’s everything you could hope for in this twisted universe Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin have built, especially if you’re a binge-watching masochist who prefers their prestige dramas to deliver a firm kick in the gut.

Haven’t You Heard? Kansas City Is Free.

At the risk of giving internet trolls the visibility they so desperately crave, if there was ever any doubt that Melanie Lynskey could convincingly play a sociopathic demagogue post-apocalypse, this episode dispels that idiotic notion fairly early on. A flashback gives us a glimpse of Kansas City before Joel and Ellie crash their pickup into what remains of the QZ. There are executions in the street, mob-led lynchings on every corner, rioters stripping FEDRA corpses of their belongings while others make sport of beating officers to death. This is what freedom looks like when you’ve been oppressed for too long. It isn’t pretty, but Lynskey’s Kathleen is reveling in it anyway.

She’s rounding up collaborators and forcing them to snitch on their friends, but her torture tactics aren’t physical. She’s not stringing her enemies up by their toes to get them to talk. No, she’s holding a twisted version of group therapy, filling FEDRA’s cells with the rats they built their regime on the backs of and breaking their psyches – playing them off one another by appealing to their worst, most treacherous instincts. And she’s having a hell of a time doing it. Because really, what’s the point of becoming a war criminal if you can’t enjoy it a little?

Good for her, and good for Melanie Lynskey we say.

But as thrilling as it is to watch Kathleen be so blasé about mass murder, so single-minded in her pursuit of vengeance, the high of watching terrible characters behaving terribly fades pretty quickly when we meet her prey. Sam (Keivonn Woodard) and Henry (Lamar Johnson) are just a couple of kids trying to outrun a tank-riding militia intent on giving them the firing squad treatment. Working with the poor doctor Kathleen murdered in the previous episode, they find a hideout safe enough to hole up in for a few days. They’ve got canned food and working toilets and Sam — who is deaf — has enough crayons to decorate their safehouse with superhero stick figures – plus one of those magic slate pads that will fill every 90s kid with nostalgic envy – but their secret Utopia can’t last forever. When the doctor gets captured, the pair figure it’s time to get the hell out of dodge and it’s on their way out that Henry witnesses the shootout between Joel and the scavengers that took place in episode four. He sees a potential ally in Joel which is why he and Sam sneak up on the pair while they’re sleeping, holding them at gunpoint to force an uneasy alliance.

And now we’re caught up to where we left off last week.

A Dicey F*cking Plan

Pedro Pascal is so good at playing the capable, curmudgeonly babysitter that it’s easy to forget Joel is an outlier in this post-apocalyptic world. Most people are like Henry – untested, nonviolent, and naïve to how the world outside a QZ actually works. He bumbles his way through their hostage negotiations, not expecting Joel to be so calm (and such an asshole) about having a gun pointed at his head. Eventually, everyone reaches a truce and Henry proposes his plan for escaping the city undetected. He may not be as tough or as skilled as Joel is with a gun – his own comes with no bullets and pointing an unloaded firearm at a little girl’s back is the closest he’s come to violence – but he knows his city, its buildings, its side-streets, and most importantly, its tunnels.

The knowledge that comes from watching dozens of these kinds of zombie stories tells us going underground is a bad idea but dammit if Henry isn’t convincing. Being a snitch for FEDRA means he knows which tunnels are clear and which are filled with the Infected the government trapped down there shortly after the outbreak. They can use the tunnels to avoid the Hunters’ blockades, and, should any of those empty caverns actually be filled with clickers – well, that’s Joel’s problem.

It sounds, as Henry puts it, “dicey AF” but the plan actually works. The group discovers the tunnel system had been used by people as a sort of settlement when everything went to shit, a way to hide out from the chaos happening on the surface as more people became Infected and the government started rounding up civilians to rape, torture, and murder at their whim. While Ellie and Sam bond over comic books and makeshift soccer goals, Henry shares just how he ended up on Kathleen’s most-wanted list. Like everyone else in this city, he saw her brother Michael as some Messiah type, a kind idealist intent on freeing his people from the oppressive regime of FEDRA. Henry followed him and would have until the end, except Sam got sick with cancer and FEDRA had the only drug that could cure him and they demanded something big from him in return. He gave them something big. He gave them the Chosen One of the resistance.

Henry seems to think that makes him a bad guy, and maybe it does, but it’s interesting that the show immediately follows up his confession with a scene of Kathleen reminiscing in her and Michael’s childhood bedroom. Her brother may have been a good man but there’s no way he was as faultless and heroic as she remembers – death often skews our perception of a person’s life. She admits that Michael asked her to forgive Henry for selling him out, even confesses she knows he’d be disappointed in what she’s done to free their people, but she can’t seem to care. There’s no justice in forgiveness, not to her, and so Henry won’t get any absolution from it either.

Later, when she holds Henry at gunpoint while zombies overrun her group, it’s clear that this conflict isn’t about what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s not even about what’s destined to happen and what’s not. It’s about people – who matters to who and who doesn’t. Kathleen doesn’t think Sam’s life was worth Michael’s sacrifice, assigning more importance to her brother because he was a leader – a man who could actually change things for the greater good while Sam is just a kid and kids die. But, as Perry points out, Michael never really accomplished anything. In fact, his death is what sparked Kathleen to finally move the revolution forward. Maybe that was his destiny all along.

But such is grief. It’s ugly and destructive and merciless and it will let you justify watching the world burn if you can assign blame for it.

How It Ends

Kathleen’s world eventually does catch fire, but not before she tracks down Joel, Ellie, Sam, and Henry to the residential outskirts in a Wild West standoff that quickly turns sour. Her group’s been living in the Infected-free QZ for so long now that they’ve forgotten humanity is no longer at the top of the food chain so, naturally, a horde of clickers and runners springs up from one of the city’s sinkholes to remind them. Gamers will likely lose their minds over our first glimpse at the dreaded Bloater – a stage of infection we haven’t seen before that turns people into giant walking masses of impenetrable fungal spores. This new monster is basically the Cordyceps version of the Hulk and it’s angry – like ripping heads off bodies and tossing tanks like they’re plastic candy wrappers, angry.

Still laser-focused on revenge, Kathleen doesn’t notice a clicker clocking her position until it’s too late, giving Henry, Sam, and Ellie the opening they need to escape the bedlam. They hole up in a motel for the night and for a while, it seems like they’ve gotten free of this nightmare. Joel invites Henry to join them on their trek to Wyoming and Ellie reads comics to Sam before bed. It’s all too wholesome to last on a show like this but, even knowing that the moment when Sam shows Ellie a fresh bite on his ankle is still devastating in a way that makes you angry at yourself for even hoping.

Ellie tries to use her blood to cure Sam, the first clue fans get that her immunity might not be so easy and straightforward to replicate, but when she wakes in the morning he’s already turned and looking to make her his next meal. The pair bursts into the room with Joel and Henry, scrapping on the floor as the two men try to figure out what the hell is going on and, in the chaos, Henry ends up shooting his brother. It’s all so heartbreaking and unfair, especially when Henry, distraught at what he’s done, turns the gun on himself as Ellie looks on teary-eyed and helpless.

And just like that, The Last of Us hammers home the idea that we can’t save everyone in this fungal apocalypse. Getting too emotionally attached to the guest stars Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have recruited this season is just clown behavior at this point.

Survival Odds

Joel (10 to 1)
Joel’s rating rises a few points this week mainly thanks to his ability to handle a sniper rifle and his willingness to accept help (for once). We still think he needs to work on his cardio, but he’s fairing pretty well for an almost-senior-citizen. Wait, would Joel be considered a Boomer?

Ellie (5 to 2)
We don’t begrudge Ellie’s desire to make friends but dipping and diving between rabid Clickers to save a couple of guys you really don’t know from Adam just screams desperate. And dumb.

HBO’s The Last of Us has introduced a variety of terrifying monsters over the course of its first few episodes but in this week’s installment, it teased the most blood-curling form of Infected yet.

Episode five’s “Endure and Survive” is gave audiences their first glimpse of a creature gamers recognize as a “Bloater.” The promo for the episode — which aired ahead of schedule this Friday thanks to that Sunday Super Bowl game — hinted at a freakish, grotesque zombie crawling its way from the depths of Kansas City’s underground as fire and bullets littered the background. Obviously, we knew to expect a showdown of sorts between Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen — the woman running the dismantled QZ at the moment — and Joel and Ellie, but how did this new threat factor in? And exactly what is a Bloater in the first place?

Thanks to the first few episodes of the show — and the backstory courtesy of Neil Druckmann’s video games — we know there are different stages of Infected. We’ve come across three stages so far — runners, clickers, and stalkers, but bloaters are even more dangerous versions of these fungal zombies. It takes an Infected a year to reach the bloater phase mostly because they need that time to grow dense enough fungus that acts as a sort of armor, making their “skin” nearly impenetrable. Bloaters are also impossibly strong, aggressive, and colossal in size, physically towering over their prey. They kill by brute force, smashing their victims’ heads and sometimes ripping them from their bodies.

They are, basically, nightmare fuel and at least one of these creatures has been festering underneath Kansas City for a while now. In the show’s fourth episode, Kathleen and her henchman Perry come across a kind-of sinkhole in an abandoned building that seems to breathe and move when they get near. Kathleen warns Perry to keep quiet about the threat until they’ve rounded up all of the FEDRA collaborators. That decision comes back to bite her — literally — at the end of episode five.

After hunting down Henry, Sam, Joel, and Ellie on the outskirts of the city, Kathleen seems poised to exact her revenge until another sinkhole pops up and out pours hundreds of Infected — and one massive bloater. Mayhem reigns and the humans are quickly overrun, which gives our group a chance to escape, but not before fans get to see the damage this new giant fungal puppet wreaks. Thankfully Joel and Ellie make it out unscathed but this likely won’t be the last time we come across this spore-covered Sasquatch on the show.

Bad Bunny has been accused of another possible copyright infringement. The founder of the emPawa Africa record label, Mr. Eazi, claims that Bad Bunny failed to properly credit the Nigerian artist Joeboy and his producer Dëra on his 2022 song, “Enséñame a Bailar.”

According to Rolling Stone, the accusation is against both Bad Bunny and his record label, Rimas Music. He notes that the song interpolates and samples Joeboy’s “Empty My Pocket,” with zero credit.

“The team at emPawa Africa have attempted to sort this issue amicably since May of last year with our mutual legal teams,” Mr. Eazi said in a statement. “But the intent of Rimas Music is clearly to blatantly appropriate young African creators’ work for their gain without attribution.”

“We will not accept Bad Bunny and Rimas denying Joeboy and Dëra credits and a share in the ownership of a song they wrote, composed and, in Joeboy’s case, even performed on,” he added.

The publication notes that Bad Bunny has also worked with Mr. Eazi in the past on his 2019 collab track with J Balvin, “Como Un Bebé.”

Bad Bunny’s label rebutted the accusations in a statement to Rolling Stone and claimed that they purchased the track from the record producer Lakizo Entertainment.

“We are deeply concerned by the copyright infringement accusations made by Oluwatosin Oluwole Ajibade (Mr. Eazi), the founder of emPawa Africa, on the track ‘Enséñame a Bailar,’” the statement said. “We want to make it clear that at all times, Rimas Entertainment has acted properly and has followed standard industry protocols.”

Only time will tell if this copyright infringement claim goes any further.

Today is a great day for any Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg relationship truthers out there. While the duo has been longtime friends, they’ve also frequently fielded rumors about the boundary of it. And, considering Stewart showed off some apparent new ink of the West Coast rapper’s image, it likely won’t die down anytime soon.

That’s right. Stewart seemingly has a portrait of Snoop Dogg on her arm — and his name right beneath reading “My Dogg,” just in case anyone forgets who he is.

“My Dogg!” Stewart captioned the photo on Instagram. “Thanks for the amazing tattoo @scottcampbell. Forever linked in ink to my favorite @snoopdogg.”

“I got to tattoo a legend onto a legend,” Campbell, the tattoo artist, captioned his own Instagram post. “Thanks @marthastewart48 and @snoopdogg. I can retire now.”

Most of the internet believe it’s simply an elaborate bit, as it is part of a Skechers Super Bowl commercial — but there is a small chance that she actually got inked for the spot.

“Martha Stewart getting a tattoo of Snoop Dog is the last thing I expected to read about today but damn do I love it,” one Twitter user wrote.

Continue scrolling for some additional social media reactions to Martha Stewart’s Snoop Dogg (alleged) tattoo.