Teyana Taylor let the tea spill to Tamron Hall, confirming that she’s in the process of playing Dionne Warwick in an eventual biopic.
“We’re already working on it,” Taylor said in a preview clip of their interview shared exclusively with Billboard. “We’re in the building process right now. I always wanted to make sure I could lock in with any person that I would be playing.”
During the interview, Taylor noted that she was pulling her inspiration from biopics of other famous musicians, including 1993’s What’s Love Got To Do With It about Tina Turner and 2004’s Ray about Ray Charles. “I miss when movies were like that, when you got to really get to know them and tap in,” she shared.
Details about her project portraying Warwick are still under wraps. However, Taylor revealed that the two of them are close and “talk every day.” She is also going to eat at her favorite Jersey Italian restaurant soon.
“I’ve always been a firm believer and stood on safety,” Taylor added. “She’s had a wonderful career, and I think right now is about making her feel as safe as possible to tell her story because a lot of these stories get misconstrued or dramatized to an extent. That’s not really where we want to go.”
In a world of hoppy, juicy, hazy IPAs, mouth-puckering sour beers, and bold, robust, oaky, bourbon barrel-aged stouts… sometimes you want a respite. And by that, we mean a simple, no-frills, easy-drinking pale lager. It’s the kind of beer you can crack open, put your feet up, and just relax with while you binge-watch the streaming show du jour. (Succession, obvs.)
When we’re talking about pale lagers, we have to specifically mention European pale lagers. This simple, refreshing lager style is known for its use of Pilsner malt and liberal use of noble hops. Like American pale lagers, some European varieties rely on the addition of adjuncts like corn or rice. Regardless, the result is a light, crisp lager well-suited for any occasion. It’s just as suitable as an accompaniment to your spring grilling or as an end-of-the-workday sipper.
Now that we have a better idea about what exactly a European pale lager is, it’s time to rank some of the most popular. Below, we’ve listed eight of the most well-known European pale lagers that are readily available in the US. We ranked them based on flavor and crushability. Keep scrolling to see where your favorite beer landed.
Brewed the same way since 1873, Heineken is one of the most recognizable beer brands in the world. This crisp, simple beer is brewed with only malted barley, hop extract, and water. But it gets its beloved flavor from the addition of the brand’s Heineken A-Yeast®.
Tasting Notes:
The nose has the unmistakable skunky aroma you either hate or love. There’s also a fruity quality and light sweet corn. There’s more slightly skunk on the palate as well as apple, light citrus, cereal grains, and floral, lightly bitter hops. Overall, fairly watery and muted.
Bottom Line:
Heineken lager is easy to crush. It’s light and fairly watery and goes down easy. Nothing too exciting with this one. It does its job.
Sometimes only imbibed on St. Patrick’s Day as a break from Guinness and Irish whiskey, Harp Lager deserves to be enjoyed more than one day per year. This simple, clean lager is brewed with water, malted barley, unmalted barley, and hops. It’s known for its citrus, sweet malts, and lightly bitter hops.
Tasting Notes:
The nose is all cereal grains, honey, citrus peels, and floral hops. Fairly muted, it’s still inviting. The palate continues this trend. Albeit kind of watery, this beer does have notable flavors like cracker-like malts, lemon zest, honey, and more floral, earthy, lightly bitter hops. Refreshing, easy to drink, but nothing to write home about.
Bottom Line:
This is yet another easy-to-drink, overall no-frills European pale lager. There’s nothing overly exciting about this beer, but also nothing bad either.
This authentic Italian pale lager is brewed with soft water, high-quality barley, bitter and aromatic hops, and Nostrano Dell’isola maize from the Lombardi region. It’s well-known for its crisp, elegant flavor profile featuring citrus, sweet cereal grains, and bitter hops.
Tasting Notes:
The smell is classic grassy, floral hops, cereal grains, corn, and light skunk. Drinking it reveals green apples, lemon peel, honey, sweet corn, cereal grains, more light skunk, and floral, earthy, lightly bitter hops. Overall, a flavorful yet muted beer.
Bottom Line:
Like many of the beers on this list, Peroni is crisp, light, and very easy to drink. It’s more flavorful than some of the lower-ranked beers on this list, but it’s still fairly light.
With its origins in the 1600s, to say Grolsch is a classic European pale lager is an extreme understatement. Brewed with European pale and specialty malts as well as Emerald and Magnum hops sourced from Germany’s Hallertau region, it’s known for its crisp, easy-drinking flavor.
Tasting Notes:
This beer carries aromas of grassy, floral hops, light citrus, honey, and cereal grains. Simple, yet inviting. On the palate, you’ll find notes of cereal grains, sweet malts, light citrus, honey, and grassy, herbal, earthy, lightly bitter hops at the finish.
Bottom Line:
Featuring floral Noble hops, this traditional European pale lager is crisp, refreshing, and surprisingly well-balanced.
This 5% ABV Danish European pale lager is brewed with pilsner malts and a blend of select hops. It’s known for its balance, complexity, and hop aroma and flavor. It’s an easy-drinking beer with substance that you’ll come back to often.
Tasting Notes:
The nose begins with a bit of funky skunk that’s followed by cereal grains, honey, citrus peels, and floral, lightly piney hops. There’s more of the same on the palate and that’s a good thing. Light skunk, pilsner malts, honey, orange peel, and floral, bitter hops at the finish.
Bottom Line:
This beer is simple in flavor and aroma, but that’s not a bad thing. The sweet malts and floral, earthy hops work in unison to make a crushable beer.
Another thirst-quenching Italian beer, Birra Moretti has been brewed nearly the same way since its inception way back in 1859. This easy-drinking European pale lager is made with simple ingredients like water, malted barley, maize, and select hops.
Tasting Notes:
This beer has a really herbal, earthy aroma with yeasty bread, citrus, and floral hops making an appearance. Drinking it brings forth notes of bready malts, yeast, citrus peels, honey, and floral, piney hops. The finish is dry, crisp, and highly refreshing.
Bottom Line:
Simple ingredients don’t guarantee a simple beer. It’s clean, crisp, surprisingly balanced, and complex.
When it comes to European pale lagers, there are few more popular than Stella Artois. The kind of beer that seems to be available at every bar whether it’s a fine-dining establishment or a dive bar, Stella Artois is a well-balanced, floral, lightly bitter beer perfect for any occasion.
Tasting Notes:
The nose is filled with noble, grassy, earthy hops as well as cereal grains, lemongrass, and sweet malts. The palate continues this trend with light skunk followed by yeasty bread, cereal grains, citrus, and more grassy, floral, subtly bitter hops. The finish is a nice mix of hop bitterness and malt sweetness.
Bottom Line:
There’s a reason Stella Artois is so wildly popular and it isn’t all advertising. While it’s not going to blow your mind, it has a great balance of malt and hops that will leave you craving more.
Named for the year in which the Hatt family founded this French brewery, Kronenbourg 1664 is known for its lightly bitter, floral, highly drinkable flavor mostly due to the addition of the highly coveted Strisselspalt hops.
Tasting Notes:
Complex aromas of cereal grains, honey, lemon peels, crisp apples, and floral, earthy, Noble hops are prevalent on the nose. The palate features sweet malts, cereal grains, lemon, honey, and more floral, grassy hops. The finish is a nice balance of hops, citrus, and cereal grains.
Bottom Line:
You’d have a hard time finding a more complex, balanced European pale lager than Kronenbourg 1664. If you only seek out one beer on this list, make it this one.
This week is an utter bonanza for rap fans. In addition to new tracks from Quavo, Rod Wave, and Nipsey Hussle, there were so many new releases, there’s no room for preamble.
Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending March 31, 2023.
Albums / EPs / Mixtapes
B. Cool-Aid — Leather Blvd.
B. Cool-Aid
Ahwlee and Pink Siifu team up for a joint project of jazzy instrumentals and heady, abstract rhymes that blends old-school outlooks with futuristic execution.
DJ Drama — I’m Really Like That
DJ Drama
Drama’s seventh studio album is an expansive effort that pulls from multiple corners of the hip-hop landscape, including his own Generation Now imprint.
Huey Briss — Flowers Before The Grave
Huey Briss
Huey Briss made a strong first impression in 2021 with Grace Park Legend; he follows up two years later with the thoughtful and heartfelt Flowers Before The Grave.
Juicy J — Mental Trillness
Juicy J
Look, you know what you’re getting with any project from the Memphis icon. But this time around, there’s an added grace note: a forceful final collaboration between Juicy and the late Gangsta Boo.
Larry June & The Alchemist — The Great Escape
Larry June
Larry June and The Alchemist are such an obvious seeming matchup that one wonders why this is their first joint project. With any luck, it won’t be their last.
Le$ — Le$ Is More, Vol. 2
Le$
I’d say it’s a great week for fans of the low-key, “Curren$y-fi” strain of lifestyle rap purveyed by the likes of Larry June and Le$, with a release from each. Consistency is the name of the game, and it’s one skill both have mastered.
Luh Tyler — My Vision
Luh Tyler
At 16 years old, Luh Tyler has already amassed a fervent fanbase with his natural, charismatic delivery and unpretentious presentation. He’s just a kid having fun and that quality shines through everything he’s released so far.
Ric Wilson, A-Trak & Chromeo — Clusterfunk
Ric Wilson
I previously highlighted the Chicago dance rapper’s impressive collab with some of the biggest names in the first half of his qualifier, but here is your reminder to actually go press play. Make sure you’ve got room to move.
Tyler The Creator — Call Me If You Get Lost: The Estate Sale
Tyler The Creator
Before, when Tyler had loose tracks from his album recording sessions, he’d shoot a one-off video and share it on social media. This time, he gave his CMIYGL snippings a proper release as a deluxe edition full of legit gems.
Singles / Videos
38 Spesh — “Gunsmoke Intro”
The Rochester rapper/producer is a little too productive to keep track of every release, but this is a good jumping-on point if you’re new to his style.
BigWalkDog — “What You Hear Pt.3”
Flint, Michigan rapper BigWalkDog is one of the slew of rappers that Gucci Mane added to his 1017 roster in recent years, and this gem from the deluxe version of his album Trick City is a great introduction.
G-Eazy — “Tulips & Roses”
The Bay Area vet appears to be gearing up for a new project, offering something different on his latest single.
Morray — “High Price” Feat. Lil Tjay
Every day, we inch closer to another outstanding project from the North Carolina native, who as easily croons as he does peel off sharp-tongued punchlines. Teaming up with Tjay allows him to focus on one side while the equally talented Tjay handles the other.
Nardo Wick — “Hot Boy” Feat. Lil Baby
Nardo hasn’t quite reached the heights of “Me Or Sum” or “Who Want Smoke,” but the solid skill behind those songs is still there; it’s only a matter of time.
Reason — “At It Again”
Top Dawg promised a plethora of new releases from his label this year; I’m looking forward most to Reason and Ray Vaughn’s. Yes, it’s a little bit out of hometown bias … but it’s also because they release genuinely impressive music.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Maybe this is a little “inside baseball,” but I have no idea how this article will perform. That’s significant because that’s sort of my specialty. When someone on our team has an idea, I generally have a solid idea of how it will land. When I come up with a concept, I do it because there seems to be a general interest. Hot sauce? Obviously, that’s something people are passionate about.
Sriracha specifically? Who knows.
(Okay, I guess I can find out. Here’s the Google trend chart showing significantly less interest than hot sauce — rising and falling at a similar cadence. Who knew that hot sauce had seasonality?)
Google Trends
Part of why there’s less interest in sriracha is what I’ll call the “Coke effect” or the “Kraft effect” — when there is one brand that has dominated so much of the market, buying it is sort of a no-brainer. California’s famous Huy Fong Foods makes a sriracha sauce that is so prevalent that I’m actually surprised to see so much competition. It’s hard to get someone to experiment with another brand. If you’re a hipster new-era food company with an angle, I can see it, but the more generic brands? What’s the upside?
The other piece of the “Coke effect” is that one brand can come to define how we taste or even recognize a certain food. Suddenly, anything that deviates from the standard tastes off. I’d wager that most people who read this article have only tasted one brand of sriracha sauce ever. I’ve certainly never seen another brand in a fast-casual restaurant or pho joint. No other brand has merch and multiple Halloween costumes and branded socks and comes in a keychain-sized bottle and ITS OWN CHEESE???
Google
Add to all of this Huy Fong dominance that sriracha’s definition seems pretty murky. Wikipedia says this: “a type of hot sauce or chili sauce made from a paste of chili peppers, distilled vinegar, garlic, sugar, and salt.” But… isn’t that all hot sauce? Even the sriracha documentary seems pretty laser-focused on Huy Fong. What, specifically, is this stuff supposed to be? How can it be judged if the parameters are this vague?
I think those are the truest definitive parameters but here are a few more elements that seem to make a good sriracha, as per… me:
Enough sugar to draw out the sweetness of the peppers.
A sweetness-vinegar balance that favors the sweetness without losing tang.
Enough spice to grab your attention, rarely enough to sideline a meal.
The ingredients for sriracha are mostly all the same — peppers, sugar, vinegar, garlic — and then some stabilizers. So for the most part I let brands self-define what is and isn’t sriracha and judged them based on my own palate which, like everyone’s, was calibrated by Huy Fong’s ubiquitous sauce. That said, Huy Fong didn’t win this test. Didn’t even medal. So read on, dear reader, read on and find the surprising trio of brands that toppled the icon in this blind test!
PART I — Methodology:
Steve Bramucci
My lady laid out this little grid for me. I used saltine crackers for the first taste and a spoon for the second. Since one of the defining factors of the genre seems to be texture, it was certainly helpful to look at them when tasting. And, of course, the yellow sauce was easily recognized because there was only one.
This is clearly a sweet chili sauce, and I got scammed or I fell for the shape of the bottle or someone submitted it because they wanted coverage and their PR team is shitty (in retrospect, I think it was in a two pack with Leping Leopard’s actual sriracha).
Anyway, it’s a sweet chili sauce and a good one, but definitely meant for a different ranking.
Rating: Disqualified.
Bottom Line: Kudos to me, I suppose, for at least being able to pick this out as a sweet chili sauce rather than a sriracha. Though that’s not much of a challenge.
20) SEMI-DISQUALIFIED — Mago Roasted Habanero Hot Sauce
This is fruity. There’s the sweetness of Sriracha, but I’m still going to guess that there’s some habanero at play. I know there are one or two other brands in the test that call their habanero salsa “sriracha” and this is probably one. With that said, this is a really strong hot sauce it’s umami-driven and fire-roasted. Too thin to be true sriracha with too much vinegar, I think but certainly tasty.
Rating: 9/10 as hot sauce. 0/10 as sriracha.
Bottom Line: I love this sauce but between the habaneros and the fire roasting and the high vinegar flavor, it’s not sriracha. Still delicious, though!
This clearly has truffle flavoring in it. On one hand, the truffle craze has been overdone, on the other hand, truffles are delicious, on the third hand no one‘s actually using real truffles in their product. They are using a synthetic. On the fourth hand, synthetic truffles are also kind of tasty.
The problem is, I just don’t need truffle everything and I would rather add it through oil than a hot sauce. This is deep and earthy, but it’s igniting all sorts of fears of fake or synthetic truffles in my mind and it’s really not doing anything particularly special to make up for those fears and there’s a weird tartness that actually doesn’t play well with the truffles which I am sure is derived from vinegar and… I guess this just doesn’t work.
That’s all I needed to write. It’s well-intentioned, but it doesn’t work.
Here’s another classic sriracha that looks more like a regular hot sauce, in that it is thinner. It tastes like Thai chilies, but it also tastes pretty mild and generally doesn’t pop on the palate. There’s more sweetness to it, almost skewing towards a Thai-sweet chili sauce.
I have a feeling this is gonna land lower.
Rating: 5/10
Bottom Line: This is a Thai table brand, which means it could be an indication that I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. But it was also $5 after shipping (and being imported from Thailand) so I think we can agree it’s not the Cadillac of srirachas.
17) Trader Joe’s Sriracha
Amazon
Price$10.80 (Cheaper at Trader Joe’s Physical Locations)
Original Notes:
This was our first classic sriracha sauce in the test (I started with a few semi-srirachas) and it is definitely not Huy Fong. It tastes like there’s something nutty in there. I like the flavor but it’s definitely more than just garlic and chili. I can’t really tell what it is maybe some sort of sweeter pepper? Maybe just sugar? It’s interesting but I’m not in love with it.
Rating: 5/10
Bottom Line: Sometimes things just don’t come together. I’m surprised to see Trader Joe’s landing this low but also… this isn’t good so ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
This is pretty hot but there’s some sort of weird body odor note. I’ve noticed that happens with pre-packaged products sometimes and you don’t know if it’s because something accidentally fermented or is meant to have funk or if they roasted the garlic in a weird way or what.
Regardless, I don’t love this if I’m being finicky — which I am literally being paid to be
Rating: 6/10
Bottom Line: Not terrible but not great by any means. I don’t think the Ass Kicking name is strong enough to make up for this mediocre product.
This is a little thin in every respect. The flavors in the sauce is thin. The blend is not as fine and sort of thin-meets-pulpy. It’s less like the ketchup texture and more like a sweet chili sauce texture. No major complaints, but nothing to write home about either.
Rating: 6/10
Bottom Line: We have arrived in the long, boring, mediocre middle of the ranking.
By the look of this one, I thought it was gonna do really well. I thought it might even be Huy Fong but upon taste — it’s not. It’s a little… I don’t know (GIVE ME A BEARD AWARD).
Some ratio is just off perhaps it’s a tad too garlicky? I think that’s it.
Rating: 6/10
Bottom Line: That price is for a two-pack but I don’t really need to notate that because there’s no reason to buy this.
Man, this is probably Sriracha, but it tastes a lot like Taco Bell sauce. It’s almost like I can taste the corn shell tortilla in it if someone told me this was Taco Bell sauce, I would definitely fall for it. That said, it’s pretty good I just don’t quite think of this as Sriracha, though I suppose it is.
This is pretty sweet and almost tastes like a mix of sweet chili and Sriracha, although it lands more in the Sriracha direction. The flavor is really good. I like it — I’m not wildly in love with it but I would never turn it down.
It’s fruity but it’s not habanero. It just doesn’t quite come together all the way, which is the most generic food writer, bullshit ever and I promise I won’t use it a second time in this tasting.
This is a stone cold classic but it’s definitely pretty mild. There’s no real heat. You have to really layer it on. It miiiiiiiiight even end up being Huy Fong although I think that Hoy Fong is significantly hotter and fruitier. It’s just… mid-level in every way.
Rating: 7/10
Bottom Line: Classic and solid but falls into the trap of imitating Hoy Fong and being slightly worse. Not a great place to land, even for a brand as big as Tabasco.
There’s something weird in here that I don’t necessarily love. I don’t hate it but I feel like they got fancy with the sweetener?
It’s just a little different. Maybe they did something weird to the garlic. I don’t know but also maybe there is an American palate problem at play here — this could be about the fact that I’m calibrated to Huy Fong. Because if I was in Thailand, and someone said “Hey, try this more authentic type!” I would probably get all excited and buy 70 bottles.
With that said, it tastes just different enough without surprising me in a way that I’m in love with for me to not be particularly interested in going back for more.
Rating: 8/10
Bottom Line: I was right about weird sweetener. But contrary to my prediction, I did go back for more (because I saw the brand and recognized it as one I really like) and ended up liking this sauce a fair bit. Not a starter but definitely worth a try.
This one is absolutely delicious and definitely very spicy but I would debate that it’s sriracha. It’s too fruity for that. I believe that it is made with habaneros. Just by deduction, that means that it comes from the Heartbeat hot sauce line, because I know they call their habanero sauces Sriracha and sent them to me calling them sriracha.
Technicalities aside, it’s great. It’s very fruity and there’s a whole lot of flavor.
Rating: As a hot sauce 9/10 — I love this sauce and have like 10 different Heartbeat flavors at my house. As sriracha: 7/10. Split the difference and we land at 8/10.
Bottom Line: I wouldn’t use it on the same dishes as sriracha but I certainly like it a lot. This is one brand on this list that I have consistently bought with my own money. For a food writer who gets a lot of stuff sent for free, that’s saying something.
I feel like one thing that this test has illustrated is that there’s a lot of confusion around what sriracha is and that some brands have used that to make weird hybrids or mashups. Here is another example because this definitely tastes like a Korean gochujang and Thai sriracha mashup. Do we need it? Maybe not. But a blend of gochujang and sriracha is a very good idea and this is very tasty.
So why isn’t it higher? Between the two sugar-forward sauces that it blends together, it’s got a lot of sweetness to it.
Rating: 8.5/10
Bottom Line: A sauce I didn’t know I needed but I certainly liked. One of the marvels of sriracha is just how exciting it can make a bowl of white rice and this sauce seems like it could do that splendidly. On the flip side, the problem with mashups is that they don’t work as well in culture-specific dishes.
I know the sauce by taste it’s the Heartbeat Red Habanero. I lived in Costa Rica last year, where the food is mostly rice and beans, and I had this for literally every meal for two months. I absolutely love this sauce. It’s in my rotation regularly. I wouldn’t exactly call it a sriracha but it’s a flavor that I adore.
Very fruity but that fruit flavor is all coming from the chili itself. I don’t think there’s any other fruit in there except maybe bell peppers, which is a vegetable but has a fruity vegetal flavor to it.
Rating: As a hot sauce: 10/10. One of my absolute favorites. As sriracha: 8/10. The average is 9/10 but I just couldn’t push it into the top six in a sriracha ranking when it’s not quite that.
Bottom Line: You wouldn’t use it for all the same dishes you’d use sriracha — I wouldn’t put some in my soy sauce at sushi restaurants, as I do with Huy Fong, but as a sauce, this is an absolute standout.
This is too thick to be Huy Fong. It’s almost tomato-pasty but I also really like the flavor I have a feeling this is one of the really authentic Thai products.
It’s really good and I’m going back for more time fruity and light and also simple. Maybe there’s cornstarch in there as a thickener? (I was correct!) Or other weird thickeners? But it doesn’t taste super chemical, so I guess simple corn starch.
I guess the real complaint here is that it’s super mild.
Rating: 8.5/10
Bottom Line: Excellent in everything but its heat level.
Okay, this was deep in the ranking and I took a little phone call because I was worried about palate burnout. I came right back to a winner that was very sweet and very mild but definitely and excellent sriracha. The garlic is done well, the vinegar isn’t overpowering, it’s really nicely balanced. It’s a little thin to be Huy Fong but that says nothing about the flavor.
I really like it
Rating: 8.5/10
Bottom Line: Eight point five out of ten friends would not know that this is any different than Huy Fong.
This is a classic and could even be Huy Fong (winner!). It’s excellent it’s fruity and it’s bright and it’s spicy and it tastes like something my palate is pretty accustomed to.
I’m not actually in my peak sriracha sauce-using era right now but when I was, I remember how well this did with pure rice. You kind of forget how fruity it is and that it’s also sweet right after the heat.
Rating: 9/10
Bottom Line: OG. Icon. Market Leader. Also: Delicious. It takes a lot to beat this.
I can’t believe none of these use peanut oil this taste so nutty. Maybe it’s in how they roast the garlic? This is very good and very nutty and could be Huy Fong but I doubt it because of the nuttiness. It’s classic with a plus — that nutty, umami depth. It doesn’t shock me, stays in the Huy Fong lane, but offers something exciting.
Rating: 9.1/10
Bottom Line: A very minor upgrade over Huy Fong, but an upgrade nonetheless.
Holy shit, I love this sauce. I don’t know how we get to call it sriracha but it’s kind of obvious which one it is because there was only one truly yellow sauce and it was called “yellow sriracha” right on the label. It’s not all that spicy but the flavor of yellow chilies is such a surprise and the other ratios are so well done and there’s this aspect of the tropics to it.
If you asked me which sauce to put on your jerk chicken right now, I would hand you this. It’s my new go-to when eating Jamaican food.
Rating: 9.5/10
Bottom Line: This transcends any rules I had about what is and isn’t sriracha. It’s just so freaking wonderful. I love it and I will seek it out, even though I get roughly 30 free sauces sent to me per month.
This is a surprise. It’s darker; it’s moodier. It’s almost smoky but it’s not that either. It’s beguiling and truly spectacular. I don’t know what it’s doing differently. Maybe it’s toasting the peppers? Or the garlic? Or… I don’t know here all the darkness comes from but it is my favorite so far by a mile. It’s a little less sweet and a little darker and the flavor profile is richer.
Rating: 10/10
Bottom Line: Sometimes these sorts of tests come down to a judgment call. Not this time. I can, with 100% confidence, call this the best sriracha on the market.
PART III — Conclusion
Steve Bramucci
Get the whole top five for fun and contrast. Get the Hearbeat because it’s an excellent sauce, regardless of its sriracha-ness. Get the yellow sriracha because its so good it transcends my rules laid out in the lede. But nothing beats that Kikkoman. Not sure why, can’t explain it, but it’s undeniable: this is better than the OG.
Pratt actually answered that very question, though perhaps inadvertently, when he was talking about the possibility of a sequel with CBR. When discussing the possibility of a second film, Pratt explained that:
“Listen, there’s like, at the end of the film, there’s a post-credit sequence that gives you a taste of what the sequel could be about. And that gets me very, very excited. But there’s been talk of Luigi’s Mansion. That was a Gamecube game. I think that would be great.”
In one short sentence, Pratt — who must be taking PR advice from Tom Holland — revealed that The Super Mario Bros. Movie does feature at least one post-credits scene, and that it’s teasing a potential sequel. As one of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Pratt is no stranger to bonus scenes.
Just because a movie teases a sequel doesn’t mean it will definitely happen. The 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie — which Bob Hoskins, who played Mario, often called his biggest regret — ended with its own cliffhanger, which promised a sequel that never happened (that movie, it should be noted, was a notorious disaster).
Note: This is my fourth-to-last Top Chef Power Rankings post for Uproxx. Follow me on Twitter and/or Patreon for updates on how to find them after that!
This week on Top Chef World All-Stars, the producers first brought out Britain’s most fabulous chocolate man to paddle their bottoms and tell them that they’re ever so naughty.
David Moir/Bravo
That was actually Paul A. Young, a “Master Chocolatier,” who immediately had everyone excited to find out where the fudge is made. Ah, but don’t let the shiny shoes, velour suit, and ascot fool you — wait, is that an ascot or a cravat? It’s an ascot, right? I think cravats have buttons, dangit I should’ve learned this in finishing school.
Anyway, it turns out, this flamboyantly dressed Englishman was actually Larry David in disguise!
He might be fancy, but his true passion in life is the HARD SCONES! Or in this case, HARD BISCUITS! And by “biscuits,” I of course mean “cookies,” because stuffy old powdered wigs still call “cookies” “biscuits.” (See? This is why we had to have a revolution).
The quickfire challenge was to produce two “biscuits” — one sweet and one savory. And lord was the polka dot man ever the biscuit stickler! He demanded that the biscuits “clink” when they hit the table, “snap” when you break them in half, and blush when you speak frankly! He threw a little tantrum every time a chef tried to present him with “gluten-free” crumbles, some cakey bullshit passed off as a biscuit, or a thing one was meant to eat with a spoon for some reason. Not a biscuit! To the tower with you!
I want to make light of his persnicketyness, but I have to admit… I’m with you on this one, Polka Dots. It’s always an argument in my house when my wife (*Borat voice*) makes cookies because she likes them all soft and gooey and undercooked in the middle and I like them a little harder so I can dunk them in milk. I do appreciate the chewy-gooey ones, on some level! They’re great if you’re just eating the cookies plain and unaccompanied like a savage who lives in the trees!
In this shiny-shoed man I recognized a fellow dunker and it brought me joy. These cooks are made for dunkin! And that’s just what we’ll do! One of these days these cookies are gonna DUNK ALL OVER YOU!
That was a fun challenge, but after it was over they put Paul back in his decorative box and moved onto the elimination challenge: football food at Tottenham Hotspur! What fun sports mascots they have in the UK! Sources say the “Hotspur” derived their nickname from the way the townspeople would all pile their belongings onto horseback and spur them onward whenever Tottenham came to town to keep the football hooligans from headbutting their families. Oi, which a youse can cook up da best scran, yeh? Last c*nt off da pitch gets a bashin’!
This challenge was actually a masterpiece of Top Chef producer impishness. First, the chefs would be broken up into groups of three. In round one, two groups would go head to head to make one dish using “an English specialty ingredient.” The other two would do the same with a different ingredient. The loser of each of those matches would then go head to head with a different ingredient. The loser of that match would then be split into three individual chefs who would have to compete against each other.
Which in practice meant that the chefs all grouped into threes with who they thought would be the strongest chefs, only to realize that those chefs would be their potential foes. The dastard!
This season is all previous Top Chef winners and finalists, so they know how to play the game. They all quickly did the math that if they teamed up with the chef who had immunity from the Quickfire, and their team lost, their chances of going home would jump from 33.33% to 50%. So they treated the chef with immunity like a leper.
This was the face of Buddha, the most Moneyball motherf*cker to ever compete in this competition when he realized he would be stuck on a team with the chef who had immunity:
David Moir/Bravo
That was a fun format, but if I could be allowed one minor quibble: Could we please stop with the “this was a great dish, but the chef didn’t highlight ______s enough,” format? NO ONE EATS LIKE THIS! I’ve never met a single human who takes a bite of a dish and goes, “Gee, that was really tasty, but I don’t know if the leek saddles were really the star of the dish.”
No one cares which component is the star! If it tastes good and seems harmonious, isn’t that the goal? I mean, I know it’s the goal — it’s just that when you’re pitting the world’s best chefs against each other the judges end up having to nitpick. I get it. Still, it’s a little obnoxious that the lowest-hanging nit always seems to be “Durrrr I didn’t get enough of that BRAMLEY APPLE FLAVOR I was looking for.”
No one cares, man! Sucks to your apples!
Hold up, I got so caught up in complaining that I forgot to mention that one of the judges for this challenge was a Sacha Baron Cohen character:
Bravo
They passed him off as Aquiles* Chávez, judge of Top Chef Mexico, but come on, man I think I know a Sacha Cohen character when I see one. It looks like he was going for… a French surrealist painter ex-Rockabilly guy turned baseball analyst? I dunno, seems a little conceptual, Sacha. (Wait, Aquiles… Achilles??? This dude is named Achilles?!)
The Teams:
Maroon: Amar, Victoire, Nicole, aka Team AVN. Green: Luciana, Gabri, Begoña, aka Team LGB. Yellow: Buddha, Ali, Tom, aka BAT Team. Purple: Sara, Charbel, Sylwia, aka Purple Team.
Better Mormon name: “Wensleigh-dale” or “Wenslee Dale?” Discuss.
Rankings:
12. (even) ((Eliminated)) Luciana Berry
David Moir/Bravo
AKA: Real Estate. Crinkle. Smoke Alarm. Tonka Beans.
I had Luciana ranked low last week, but after her top side of the quickfire finish (thanks to a biscuit made with TONKA BEANS, my new favorite phrase), I thought maybe she was turning things around. She even correctly diagnosed the problem with Team LGB’s first dish:
Bravo
Bleu cheese and egg yolks, it turns out, isn’t a good combo (just don’t tell your mom’s panties I said that).
Sadly, no points are awarded for your correct advice being ignored (story of my life!). Their next dish could conceivably be blamed on Luciana:
Bravo
Apparently, she cut the apples too early and they got soggy. How do you like them soggy apples? I don’t! Good day!
During this challenge, we learned that Bramley Apples are the “national fruit of the UK.” Gail described them as “more tart than a granny smith, a very satisfying apple.”
Well sure, who doesn’t love an apple that tastes like absolute shit? Certainly not not the Brits! Oi, dis app is so taht it’s rearrangin’ me teef, it is! Oy’ve awways wan ‘ed to have me teef reawwanged, oy ‘ave!
Finally, Luciana signed her exit visa with some subpar scallop carpaccio. Car pacci NO!
Bravo
As judge Cohen put it, “Why you not put acid things on?”
As much as I want to blame the judges for their “not enough pea flavor” (heh, “pee flavor”) complaints, an Asian-inspired raw scallop dish as a vehicle for English peas admittedly sounds like kind of a terrible idea.
So I guess we’ll pea ya later, Tonka Beans. We’ll never forget the times you got super angry for exactly 15 seconds and then immediately went back to being chill again.
11. (-1) Victoire Gouloubi
David Moir/Bravo
AKA: Al Dente. Minute Rice. Steven Seagal. Three’s Company. Pulp Fiction.
There was a nice lil’ gettin’-to-know-the-chefs segment in this week’s show, in the middle section when they gave them the night off. And you know what? I am starting to get to know this season’s chefs. Chef Victoire opened up a little more about leaving Congo at 20 to go to Italy, where every day people don’t know how to treat her because she’s black. Meanwhile, she’s only been speaking English for four months!
Last week I speculated that she probably speaks five languages, and this week she revealed that the real number is seven! Someone could nitpick whether she’s 100% fluent in all seven, but seven languages?! I can barely name seven languages, let alone speak them.
All of this makes me feel like a real bastard for ranking Victoire this low. But she did make a biscuit so bad that Padma immediately was like “Girl, you need gluten.” Padma honestly looked offended. But then Victoire teamed up with Amar and Nicole for a stinky cheese and duck dish that took down the green team 5-0.
Bravo
This was not only a winning dish, it required a call to an ambulance when Victoire revealed a severe walnut allergy halfway through standing next to Nicole while Nicole chopped walnuts. “I’m allergic to walnut,” Victoire said sheepishly.
(*loudly chopping, squinting through a cloud of walnut dust*) “WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU. ANYWAY, THE WALNUT SNOOTERS ARE ALMOST DONE, I THINK IT’LL REALLY CLEAR THEIR SINUSES FOR THE CHEESE.”
At this point Victoire started puffing up and losing her voice and was immediately dragged away by the show’s medics. She found out her team won the challenge with the epi-pen needle still in her arm. I’m calling her Pulp Fiction from now on.
Miramax
10. (+1) Nicole Gomes
David Moir/Bravo
AKA: Clawhoser. The Contessa. Kindergarten Cop.
Strong week for Nicole, who damn near won the quickfire with some very cute cookies, er, biscuits.
Bravo
Don’t you just want to feed those to your dolls and clap your palms together like a little lord? Out of all the contestants, Nicole definitely looks like the one who’d bake a mean cookie.
She also revealed that she can be a bit of a foodzilla during team challenges, which was illustrated with a montage of Nicole speaking at a slightly higher than normal volume a couple of times during a food service (which, in my experience, ALWAYS involves shouting!). I’m sorry, I know from the other contestants’ reactions to Nicole that she can be annoying sometimes (hence the new nickname, Kindergarten Cop) but it’s hard to assign any malice to anyone who looks so much like a cartoon leopard (sorry to keep harping on this, but the smile and cheeks really remind me of Clawhauser).
Nicole then won a team challenge alongside Amar and Victoire, so theoretically maybe she should be ranked higher. I’m not quite a Clawhoser believer, but we’ll see.
9. (-1) Charbel Hayek
David Moir/Bravo
AKA: Davos. Soup Nazi. 25.
Charbel keeps sneaking under the radar, though he does maybe deserve some credit for correctly recognizing that what his team’s “too thick” cheese sauce really needed was MORE CHEESE. When in doubt, always add more of the special ingredient. It’s the chef version of just mashing the B button.
Bravo
Charbel also dropped a heck of a zinger, cheering “Come on, Green Team! It’s green apple and you guys are green.”
Nailed it, bro. Drop that one at Def Comedy Jam and the security guards would need smelling salts.
8. (-1) Sylwia Stachyra
David Moir/Bravo
AKA: Auntie Claus. Potato Girl.
This episode was notably light on Polish Potato Girl one-liners, which is a little disappointing. But maybe she deserves it for trying to take my job of giving nicknames. Anyway, probably the funniest thing Sylwia said this episode was when she told another contestant that her savory cookie was a “caesar cookie,” which sounds kinda good, but then when she got in front of the judges she got flustered and said “I make anchovies cookie with parsley.”
That sounds… less good, but much funnier.
Bravo
I have to knock Sylwia down a couple of pegs on account of her proposed solutions to the Welsh rarebit sauce were “Sriracha” and “maybe some chilis?”
Then again, cheese with chilies, maybe not such a bad thing. Welsh queso sauce? “Hey Chef, is this a freakin’ Welsh rarebit sauce or a Polish queso, am I right?!”
7. (+2) Amar Santana
David Moir/Bravo
AKA: Big Sleazy. Laughtrack. Hibbert.
Big Sleazy (I call him that not because he’s literally “sleazy,” but because he’s always takin’ it sleazy, so to speak) has been the class clown all season and I’ve dinged him for it a little bit. This episode it seemed like even though he’s been trying to make all the other competitor’s jokes seem funny this season, he has been paying attention. His biscuits understood the assignment (step one: be a biscuit) and his cheese dish had lots of cheese, which was enough.
Just making the judges what they want seems like a great way to skate through a challenge, and he did. He spent the rest of the episode proverbially smoking cigs behind the PE building while everyone else ran laps and God bless him for that.
I feel like it’s even money between Amar, Sylwia, and Sara for who would be the “best hang.” Discuss. (I actually hung with Amar once and he fed me fancy ham so I’m probably a little biased here. Open invitation to any of the other chefs to feed me more ham and be declared good hangs).
6. (-3) Tom Goetter
Bravo
AKA: Meekus. Fuckboi Tom.
Tom has maybe been coasting on his naughty little pervert persona for too long, and when he tried to pull his usual wicked, German “I have made you a cookie that is not actually a cookie at all, ha ha ha!” act this week, Judge Polka Dots was not falling for it at all. He tossed Tom’s liquid nitrogen “clouds” in the garbage and promptly sentenced Tom to 12 years of hard dough in biscuit jail.
Dude was going on and on about biscuits and baking and blah blah blah when Tom cut him off with the most majestically passive-aggressive “Okay thanks, cheers, mate” I’ve ever heard. The perfectly concealed animus in that, so obvious and yet so perfectly disguised, was just a wonder of German engineering. It was like looking at a BMW engine, or Tom’s hair.
Later Tom teamed up with Buddha and Ali, and… hold up, dog, are you wearing a ladies’ shirt?
Bravo
Damn, if that V was any deeper Joe Biden* would’ve have to blow it up to keep Russia from selling cheap gas to the EU. *Er, “Ukrainian separatists.”
I like to think Tom was late for filming so he just grabbed that shirt from a girl he woke up with. “Hallo darling, would you like to taste some clouds?”
Here was their team’s first dish, btw:
Bravo
Looks… fine? But you knew they were in trouble when Buddha was like “I’m glad we’re not pairing that cheese with cauliflower, that’s so obvious.”
Trust me, man, no one outside of a Top Chef judge or contestant thinks Wensleydale cheese and cauliflower is “too obvious.” Sometimes “obvious” is good. Mostly in food and in your mom jokes.
If you think I’m lying, consider: in round two, yellow team was assigned apples and made an apple pie. That one they won. Clearly, they learned the correct lesson.
Bravo
5. (+1) Gabri Rodriguez
David Moir/Bravo
AKA: The Black Pearl. The Mongoose. Wile Y. Coyote.
What the hell do we do with Chef Gabri? I feel like I could put him in the top three or the bottom three and justify either. First, he started off being blinded by Judge Polka Dots and his beautiful shiny shoes — “he look like Austin Powers,” said Gabri hornily, even though Austin Powers’ entire thing is being kind of ugly.
Then he made a “corico biscuit,” which involved corn and lard. Which sounded kind of good, but looked like this:
Bravo
Are you okay, bro? This looks like a bowl of corn nuts. Poor Padma sat there chewing it for five minutes like Mr. Ed when they put peanut butter on his gums. Rule 1A of biscuit making, you’re not supposed to have to eat it with a spoon.
Later Gabri teamed up with Luciana and Begoña for two losing dishes that seemed like their idea and then had to go head to head with them. Where Begoña and Luciana seemed like they both went to the well in round three and just made variations of restaurant dishes of theirs, Gabri made this crazy thing:
Bravo
Said Tom: “Gabri’s peas are clearly undercooked, but he still made a better dish.”
Said Sacha Baron Cohen: “He create a very tasty flavor plate.”
A very tasty flavor plate indeed.
4. (+1) Sara Bradley
David Moir/Bravo
AKA: Party Mom. Reebok. Sassparilla.
This week, Party Mom revealed that she played soccer in high school, but only so she wouldn’t have to go home right after school and could drive around smoking weed before practice. Which is both the most Party Mom story ever told and probably equally true of a good 85% of the chefs I’ve ever met. Again, Sara seems like a good hang.
Later she ended up on Team Purple, probably because she likes to smoke that sticky-icky (purple is the weed color, right? weed and penises). She played quality control on Sylwia’s thiccc sauce and co-signed Charbel’s “more cheese” solution. “I think they’re gonna be happy with it,” Sylwia said.
“They’re gonna be constipated is what they’re gonna be,” said Sara.
I love any chef willing to talk about poop. The way to my heart is through my butt.
3. (+1) Ali Ghzawi
David Moir/Bravo
AKA: RRR. Maui Wowie. The Strain. Giz.
I wish the Top Chef producers would just tell me whether Ali’s name rhymes or not. It’s better for my jokes if it does. Ali is like Gabri’s foil, in that he’s another chef I could see in the finals or getting eliminated, but for the opposite reasons. Where Gabri is like a gay Tasmanian Devil in the kitchen, Ali is calm and quiet and it’s hard to tell whether that’s the earned confidence or it’s just the handsomeness and he’s actually a himbo.
You knew Ali was going to win the quickfire as soon as they showed clips of him worrying whether his food was “too simple.” The interviews take place after the challenges, so I think that’s more chef’s false modesty than editorial manipulation. “Oh, that winning dish? My only worry was that it was SO EASY.” It’s the food equivalent of when someone compliments your outfit and you say “Oh, this old thing?”
2. (-1) Begoña Rodrigo
David Moir/Bravo
AKA: Tilde Swintón. Beach Mom. Thtevie Nickth.
This week, Chef Begoña revealed during the get-to-know-the-chefs sequence that she actually lives with her mother, son, and ex-boyfriend. Having an unconventional living arrangement is the most Tilde Swintón thing ever and entirely unsurprising. She also pronounced “Eez not been easy to be a chef” with a hard “-ch” on “chef” which I know shouldn’t be funny but still gets me every time.
I had to knock Chef Begoña down in the rankings a little bit. That blue cheese-and-egg-yolks idea was totally hers and definitely backfired, and then it seemed like Chef Gabri stole her thunder in the pea round. Of course, I’m not going to knock her down too far, because holy shit just look at these biscuits:
BravoBravo
She is not from Earth!
1. (+1) Buddha Lo
David Moir/Bravo
AKA: Moneyball. Double Down. Big Data. Buddha.
I’m surely biased from having just seen this guy win a season, but I just get the feeling Buddha can do everything. Where other chefs bitch about having to make dessert, Buddha makes this thing:
Bravo
What is this, a TACO FOR ANTS?!
In the same challenge, he also got a human interest vignette montage featuring his pug, whose name, Buddha explained, means “little crumb,” and “he’s got more rolls than a bakery,” a line you can tell Buddha has used at least 100 times before. But truly no group of humans on Earth does corny dad jokes better than Australians. It’s part of why I love them.
Buddha further revealed that he used his Top Chef winnings to pay for his pug’s eye surgery so that the little crumb wouldn’t go blind. That’s amazing. In America, we just do boring shit with our extra money like pay off our massive student debt. I’m still paying mine off and I’m 42 and I’ve been fully employed for 16 years! Hahaha, it sucks here so much.
I digress. In this episode, it was clear that Begoña had an off day. Buddha didn’t exactly thrive either, but he instantly went from “cauliflower and cheese is too obvious” to “let’s take apples and make some apple pie,” which is exactly the kind of finely calculated triangulation that makes me feel like he’s the favorite. He’s gonna buy that pug some gastric bypass.
Follow me on Twitter and Patreon so you can find these Top Chef posts! Only three more to come!
Lil Wayne’s first album, Tha Block Is Hot, came out nearly 24 years ago. That means the New Orleans rap legend has been in the game longer than most of the current crop of hip-hop hitmakers has even been alive. When you consider the sheer number of songs that he’s released since then, it’s no wonder he’s admitted to Googling his own lyrics. It’s probably a lot to have to remember — especially when he spends so much time performing live.
With his Welcome To Tha Carter Tour kicking off next week, fans might be curious which of his songs he’s most likely to perform. With so much material to choose from, predicting what songs from which albums make onto his setlists seems like a herculean task — if not outright impossible — but we can look at what songs he’s been performing the most in the past to make some educated guesses. Fortunately, Setlist.fm has been keeping track of those. Here, we’ll take a look at which songs from Wayne’s albums are his most (and least) performed live, and perhaps by the end, we’ll have a better idea of which Weezy F. Baby faves he’ll play on tour.
Tha Block Is Hot
Cash Money Records
Most played: “Tha Block Is Hot”
Least played: “Intro”
This one’s easy enough; Wayne really only plays two tracks from his 1999 debut. The title track is an obvious inclusion, given its one of the tracks that basically made his career. The album’s intro, which is merely a spoken word hype track featuring appearances from his Cash Money Records upperclassmen Mannie Fresh and Birdman, hasn’t found its way into too many of Wayne’s setlists which is unsurprising. “Tha Block Is Hot” has its fans, but it isn’t anywhere near one of his more popular tracks, however important it is to his overall growth.
500 Degreez
Cash Money Records
Most played: “Get That Dough”
Least played: “Get That Dough”
Another early career benchmark for Weezy, “Get That Dough” has since been overshadowed by his voluminous output in the years after its releas.
Tha Carter
Cash Money Records
Most played: “Go DJ”
Least played: “I Miss My Dawgs”
Tha Carter
is where Wayne’s career really started to take off and he began developing his reputation as one of the stronger lyricists and better hitmakers of the Cash Money roster. Second single “Go DJ” is a prime example of one of his early monster hits, and his first high-charting Billboard song, peaking at No. 14. It wound up being his most successful single until 2008’s “Lollipop.” Meanwhile, “I Miss My Dawgs” is a more heartfelt album cut, which explains why he rarely plays it.
Tha Carter II
Cash Money Records
Most played: “Hustler Musik”
Least played: “Tha Mobb”
If the first entry in Wayne’s Tha Carter series was the starting point for his rapid ascent, the second was the straightaway that gave him the room to really open up the engine. It’s also notable for being the first time he called himself the “Best Rapper Alive” — which he set out to prove with fan-favorite hits like “Hustler Musik,” “Fireman,” and “Money On My Mind.” However, it was the straightforward lyrical delivery of “Tha Mobb” that first established what a motivated Lil Wayne could accomplish.
Tha Carter III
Young Money Records
Most played: “A Milli”
Least played: “Tie My Hands”
In between Carters, Wayne went on an absolute rampage on mixtapes, dropping a truly unreal number of singles direct to blogs in the three years between that might go unmatched forever. That mixtape run culminated with “A Milli,” which Wayne’s signature hit to this day. Oddly enough, it was only his second-highest charting song, peaking at No. 6 on the Hot 100, but it was undeniable in the streets. For rap fans of multiple generations, it’s unofficially dozen-times diamond. While Setlist.fm has “Pussy Monster,” a mixtape track, as the least performed song from this album, that would actually be “Tie My Hands,” the moody recollection of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in his hometown.
Rebirth
Young Money Records
Most played: “Drop The World”
Least played: “Runnin”
Rebirth arrived at a time Lil Wayne appeared to be finding himself musically, leading to lukewarm reviews and a sense that Wayne needed reinvention less than he needed to refocus on what worked. Still, it was the album that spawned “Drop The World,” his lauded collaboration with Eminem. The song wisely stayed away from the stilted rap-rock that defined the rest of the project, which explains why it still has enough heat to make it into his setlists.
I Am Not A Human Being
Young Money Records
Most played: “Right Above It”
Least played: “With You”
Wayne’s next album helped him bounce back, even as he did a stint in prison for illegal gun possession. Fortunately, this was right around the time Drake joined the Young Money roster, giving it an added boost thanks to the popularity of Wayne’s protege, who also appeared on the album’s highest-charting single. The two rappers often bring the best out of each other, so it likely helps that this fact produced one of Wayne’s stronger verses that stands up well on its own when Drake can’t perform with him.
Tha Carter IV
Young Money Records
Most played: “6 Foot 7 Foot”
Least played: “President Carter”
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. “6 Foot 7 Foot” is best known as a kind of “A Milli” redux, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of Wayne’s more memorable tracks from the second half of his career. While it doesn’t reach the lyrical heights of “A Milli,” it does stand out as a high point of Wayne’s discography — it doesn’t hurt that it peaked at No. 9 on the Hot 100. Meanwhile, “President Carter” has made sparing appearances at his shows, but probably never was sticky enough to stay in rotation.
I Am Not A Human Being II
Young Money Records
Most played: “Rich As F*ck”
Least played: “God Bless Amerika”
The third and final single from Wayne’s 2013 album peaked at No. 38 on the Hot 100, courtesy of a beat by T-Minus and Nikhil Seetharam — frequent Drake collaborators — and an appearance by 2 Chainz. This was likely the origin of the two rappers’ creative chemistry, which later led to the release of a full joint album, Collegrove, three years later — and teases of a second installment, due for release later this year. Expect to see this one in any joint tours that may spawn from this release.
FWA
Young Money Records
Most played: “I’m That N****”
Least played: “Thinking Bout You”
FWA, or the so-called Free Weezy Album, occupies an interesting space in Wayne’s catalog. Released exclusively on Tidal in 2015, it was meant to commemorate Wayne’s break from Birdman’s Cash Money imprint, but since his contract was apparently effectively still in limbo at the time, no singles were released and little to no promotion was done on the album’s behalf. It was eventually released to Apple and Spotify on its five-year anniversary but with a number of tracks removed or changed over clearance issues. It shouldn’t be any surprise Wayne barely performs it.
Tha Carter V
Young Money Records
Most played: “Uproar”
Least played: “Used 2”
Wayne’s first proper release after leaving Cash Money was fittingly a return to the series that stamped his “GOAT” status and its “Special Delivery”-sampling hit “Uproar” helped to once again elevate Weezy to hitmaker status. Landing at No. 7 on the Hot 100 and earning double platinum certification, “Uproar” proved that the turbulent time spent hashing out his legal issues hadn’t dulled Wayne’s pen skills (so much as you can call them that with Wayne’s method of punching in freestyles) at all.
Funeral
Young Money Records
Most played: “Dreams”
Least played: “Dreams”
Given Funeral, Wayne’s most recently released album, dropped just ahead of a global pandemic shutting down live entertainment for two years, it’s probably fine that he hasn’t really had any opportunities to showcase any of the tracks from it. He may well do so on his upcoming tour. (He’s also got no fewer than three projects in the works at the moment, so he could bypass Funeral altogether to preview those as well).
Here are Wayne’s most-played songs live, according to Setlist.fm:
Going down the list, it’s pretty clear that Tha Carter III remains Wayne’s favorite album to perform, while Rebirth joints like “Drop The World” and “John” appeal to a broad audience (I will withhold judgment). And, of course, a Drake song is definitely going to show up. Wayne’s got an utterly massive (and growing) catalog, though, so nothing should come as a surprise when he hits the stage.
Getting engaged can be one of life’s most wonderful moments. Everyone does it in their own way, but usually when you see someone drop down onto a knee and pull out a box that has a ring in it, you can put two and two together pretty easily and deduce what is going on.
We got one of those moments during Thursday night’s game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks, only this one featured the person dropping to their knee breaking the rules at Dodger Stadium and getting lit up by a security staffer. Videos show that the dude hopped onto the playing surface after sitting in right field, at which point he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring.
After kneeling for a few seconds and getting cheered on by Lourdes Gurriel Jr. of the Diamondbacks, security came in and decided the best course of action was to go all Terry Tate: Office Linebacker on the dude. You can see Gurriel recoil at the hit, which was about as clean of a form tackle as you’ll see.
This was, of course, excessive by the security staffer. But the good news for this dude is that all of this ended up being worth it, as TMZ found out that his fiancée said yes.
Last year, comedian Heather McDonald collapsed onstage while performing in Arizona. The incident, which fortunately hasn’t led to lingering issues, quickly went viral but with an insidious angle. McDonald’s vaccine status was being blamed for the collapse. She had revealed she was triple-vaxxed ahead of the show, and now, she had to spend a considerable time battling misinformation being spread by the likes of Joe Rogan. (McDonald actually knows Rogan, and when she messaged him that he could’ve easily checked on her status by reaching out, he didn’t respond.)
Fortunately, McDonald had a popular podcast, so she could set the record straight, but after a lull, her viral moment resurfaced. This time, McDonald was featured in the now widely debunked anti-vaxxer documentary, Died Suddenly. As her collapse is shown, an ominous voiceover from an anonymous “whistleblower” says, “The dead can’t speak for themselves, so therefore, I have to speak for them.”
There’s obviously one small problem there: McDonald is very much alive, which reporter Ben Collins easily proved by going to visit her:
As Collins dug further into the Died Suddenly documentary, he couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the people were still with us. Heck, one of them is heading to the NBA.
The person featured immediately after McDonald in the trailer, Keyontae Johnson, collapsed on Dec. 12, 2020, days before Covid vaccines were available or widely administered in the U.S. This month, Johnson made it to the Elite 8 of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament with the rest of the Kansas State Wildcats and is a projected NBA Draft pick. (Johnson was eventually diagnosed with a heart condition unrelated to the Covid vaccine.)
While the documentary continues to be debunked, the abuse that McDonald has experienced since it became a hit with anti-vaxxers isn’t dying down. Turns out that group isn’t big on fact-checking or human decency.
“They say something mean, like, ‘You shouldn’t be alive because you got the vaccine,’” McDonald revealed. “Or they’ll say, ‘You shouldn’t be alive because you joked about Jesus.’”
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This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
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