Month: April 2023

The National and Taylor Swift have a special chemistry when it comes to collaborating on music. The indie group played a crucial role in the making of her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, and she’s featured on their forthcoming record First Two Pages Of Frankenstein.

In a new interview with The Telegraph, The National discussed working with the “Anti-Hero” singer. Aaron Dessner called her “an incredibly gifted writer,” comparing her to Joni Mitchell and Beyoncé. His bandmate Matt Berninger also divulged that “Cardigan” and “Willow,” the former a beloved cut from Folklore and the latter from Evermore, were originally intended to be songs for The National.

“I’d taken a swing at [‘Cardigan’] and ‘Willow’ and a couple of others, and I wasn’t having a lot of luck, so Aaron sent them to Taylor,” Berninger shared. “I always have a lot of music to work on, and I am looking for something to connect emotionally. The reverse has happened, too, where Aaron wrote something for Taylor, and I dove right in. It works both ways.”

In 2020, Berninger praised Swift after the release of Evermore. “Singing a song with Taylor Swift is like dancing with Gene Kelly,” he wrote on Twitter. “She made me look good and didn’t drop me once. ‘coney island’ is an incredibly beautiful song she and Aaron Dessner wrote together. It really made me miss Brooklyn. Such a blast being a part of evermore.”

HOUSTON — The sun’s only still rising on the collection of tawny brick and glass medical buildings clustered together on either side of Brays Bayou, the river that flows all the way inland from Galveston Bay to wend through South Central Houston and the group of hospitals that make up the Texas Medical Center. But inside an unassuming low-rise there’s some serious concentration being put toward glitter.

At a table set in a corner of the Ronald McDonald House (RMH) Houston’s common hall, a group of lanky, masked teenagers clad in matching tracksuits are bent over open paper bags, carefully measuring portions of iridescent confetti into each. Once the glitter is measured the bag is passed around the table for more craft supplies to be added and finished off with a small cowboy hat tied to the bag’s handles. The final step is a handwritten note penned out in permanent marker, such as “You are strong.”

It’s a production line of the utmost care and it’s clear the deft hands doing it are used to the patient work of practice. This is the first stop in what will be a whirlwind weekend for 48 of the best U.S. high school basketball players who were named McDonald’s All Americans.

All throughout their Saturday morning, the girls and boys will spend time with the kids and families staying at RMH — swapping through indoor tables with t-shirt and cupcake decorations, outdoor activities like a spontaneous game of HORSE on the House’s small outdoor court, and blowing bubbles with kids too little to hoop. What’s evident in watching the athletes interact with the kids, many in wheelchairs or visibly sick, is how easy they are with them. There’s a comfort to every interaction, from carefully lifting kids up to dunk or bending close to talk through a painting strategy. Part of it comes from the involvement athletes have within their own communities (a central consideration to being named an All American), but more of it is, as much as every move from here in their budding careers hurls them toward the accelerated maturation that goes with becoming a professional athlete, they’re still, all of them, kids.

What’s special is that in a weekend meant to celebrate their athletic achievements — and in many ways mark the transition from this stage to the next (college, alternate training programs like Ignite that funnel right into the NBA) — that central fact is never lost sight of. It’s an even more miraculous feat considering that with the rise of NIL, the college transfer portal, and ongoing discussion on lowering the minimum age for NBA draft eligibility to 18 (the WNBA currently has a minimum age of 22 for draft eligibility), the pressure on young athletes to have complete athletic and brand identities by the time they’re college freshman is more intense than ever.

“They’re going to get hit with a lot of stuff that I probably didn’t get hit with,” WNBA champion A’ja Wilson, tells Dime. “You got NIL coming up, you have a way of branding yourself that is really under a microscope. Their worlds are in a spotlight, instantly. When for me, it wasn’t like that. I had the opportunity to be that kid, say whatever, do whatever, and still get through.”

Wilson, a former All American herself, was invited to address the 2023 class in Houston as the group’s fireside chat speaker on the night of their ring ceremony. When the floor was opened up for questions, the age of the athletes, for all their poise and coolness taking the stage to collect their rings (not so for the proud, whooping parents in attendance), was evident. They shifted nervously in their seats, shot surreptitious looks around at their friends. Nobody wanted to be first. When some awkward hands did get raised, many of the questions were about going pro and Wilson’s experience there and felt prompted by an awareness of their families watching in the rows behind them. It wasn’t until a final call for questions that the first real one was asked.

“Did you party?” A girl in the front row quietly asks Wilson.

Wilson smiles back at her, “In college?” The girl nods. Wilson breaks out into deep belly laugh and nods her head, emphatically, “Of course I partied in college.”

The girl who asks gets slapped appreciatively on the back by her friends and instantly, 48 pairs of stiff shoulders relax.

The history of the McDonald’s All American Game (McDAAG) goes back to 1977, when McDonald’s picked the best boys high school players in the U.S. for their sponsored team entry into the Capital Classic game in Washington, D.C. That tournament, started by Bob Geoghan in 1974, was smaller and focused on putting the best high school athletes in the D.C. area up against a handful of national players. Geoghan sensed it had legs and, wanting to start a tournament with more national scope, approached Bob Beavers, a regional VP with McDonald’s and the company’s first Black executive, with the idea. Morgan Wootten (for whom the game’s National Player of the Year award is named) and John Wooden (the UCLA coaching legend and for whom the tournament’s MVP award is named) were also approached to get the new tournament off the ground.

A year later, McDonald’s launched its own all-star style tournament, with the East vs. West style matchup adopted the next year — the girls’ honors and tournament were added in 2002. The Jam Fest, the McDAAG version of All-Star Saturday Night with a Dunk and 3-Point Contest, were added in 1985 and 1987, respectively. A Skills Contest was added in 2002. Former Dunk Contest winners include Vince Carter, LeBron James, and Candace Parker.

The schedule of the weekend expanded over time. Because the community aspect of McDAAG was a centerpiece of the tournament’s founding, a visit to a Ronald McDonald House in the host city often starts things off. From there, daily practices, media day, the ring ceremony, Jam Fest, a game-day shootaround (this year, the kids were surprised by Don Toliver), and then back-to-back girls and boys games. Kids at this level are accustomed to tournaments, from AAU to competing in FIBA events, but the McDAAG scheduling adds a buffer of levity, or just a basic breather, at every step.

“We’ve felt for a long time that this weekend was much more than just about tonight,” McDonald’s Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer Tariq Hassan tells Dime while sitting in the Toyota Center, looking down at the court being prepped for the night’s games. “There’s a reason we invite the families. There’s a reason that we bring the events together where the families are so involved. Because at the end of the day, they’re still high school athletes who are carrying an inordinate amount of responsibility, and frankly today, in a socially connected world, some of that responsibility they may or may not even ask for.”

Talking to Wilson about her experience as an All American is the same as talking to the kids there for their own weekend. The level of pride and prestige in being named and being there with the rest of your class, in going everywhere that weekend and beyond clad head to toe in McDAAG branded tracksuits and uniforms (announcing this year’s class, Vince Carter showed his own shoes from his game, encased in plexiglass like a museum artifact and falling apart), and the specific anointment of skill being named means for your future career (60 percent of McDAAG athletes go on to the pros) is one and the same. It’s the seamless melding of ethos and brand, plus history and recency, that corporations covet, and McDonald’s has done it mostly by getting out of the way.

“If you’re gonna move into culture and you called it out, these kids have a very high BS radar. Authenticity is the best way through that,” Hassan says, emphasizing that as massive as McDonald’s is, as a brand it can’t actually control consumer perception given its own origins and still contemporary product in the service industry. “We don’t over-fixate on this as being a brand property. We focus on this being, kids are first and it’s about the recognition of the best. How do we create the weekend for them?”

Given the compulsion some brands have to overcorrect when they, or the issues affecting them, are called out, many of McDonald’s offerings over the course of the weekend resist by not engaging. Streetwear designer Eric Emanuel gave the uniforms an overhaul, and Toliver performed during halftime of the boys’ game, otherwise the most ostentatious part of the event was a malfunctioning smoke machine on the court. Where the NCAA scrambled to catch up in its equal treatment for the women’s March Madness tournament, simple inclusions at McDAAG that have been there all along are still the most meaningful.

“The difference of the women’s game now, it’s just the recognition of it all. The visibility. It’s really starting to beam. And I really have to give credit to McDonald’s, because they were the only ones that didn’t separate the swag bags,” Wilson recalls. “Coming in, [we] got the same amount of swag as the number one guys got. And that’s what we needed, and the drop off was in college. But now it’s on it’s way up, so I think it’s always a good start here when they have that equality.

“That was a big, big deal to me,” Wilson stresses. “Especially to a young girl, that confidence wasn’t there, and you’re constantly running into stuff.”

Being ahead of the curve doesn’t mean the McDAAG weekend and its components aren’t figuring out ways to keep up. Classes focused on branding and financial literacy were introduced this year, given the prevalence of NIL and how soon these players will be (or already are, in some cases) exploring it. The onus is still on letting the kids and their families step back and have moments of recognition for the work it took them to get here, and Hassan says they’re continually asking for feedback on whether or not courses like this are worthwhile.

Wilson thinks the benefits will fall somewhere in the middle.

“Cause high school kids are always going to be high school kids. Why am I learning about money when I got enough? I’m good. They’re always going to be that,” she chuckles. “I feel like my head would be spinning if you came to me my freshman year and said I need an agent, cause I’m like, why? I just want to go to class, what do I need an agent for? And so for them — and their minds are like play-doh, they see it, it’s on TikTok, it’s on Snap. To grasp that, to get a handle on that, I think Mcdonald’s is on the right track that they execute that here in the couple days they have them, cause they’re all about to go their separate ways and life is about to hit them so fast. If they can just remember a piece from something they learned to help them out in the long run, I think that just speaks for itself.”

The label of McDonald’s All American denotes an echelon of talent and refined skill. It’s singular. A stamp 48 young women and men get that will always set them apart while grouping them together. They become part of an interpreted history. But their own stories and experiences on the way to one weekend couldn’t be more different.

Where college athletics and the drive to go pro can force accelerated growth, it can also blur out the vivid and most formative aspects of an athlete’s life leading up to or outside of, in this case, basketball.

Isaiah Collier, the No. 1 prospect in the class of 2023, is quiet, if a little shy. His ease came through at the morning visit to Ronald McDonald House, where he painted a t-shirt with a really small, really happy kid. It also comes through on the floor, where he’s a psychic menace.

Often three steps ahead making passes to teammates not even there yet, he has a knack for slowing his role in a game down even as it roars around him,

“It’s playing at your own pace,” Collier nods. “Not letting anybody speed you up. It’s all about you, basically, before you think about them. It’s your pace.” The USC signee studies film of passing intently, noting, “At first it was starting to get stolen a lot, so I just started working on it more and more. Not many people just work on passing.”

Collier’s cousin, who he calls his brother, drowned in August while the family was on a kayak trip in the Chattahoochee River. He’s said family is what keeps him going.

“It’s been a real hard season,” Collier says quietly. “So, for me it’s like, I’m just living like him every day. Pushing for him. My family has come real tight. That’s just what I live by, really.”

Matas Buzelis shares in Collier’s knack for passing but will be taking a different route on his hopeful journey to the NBA. The son of two former Lithuanian pro basketball players, Buzelis was a dual competitive swimmer and basketball player, giving the former up to his mom’s chagrin (he cringes with guilt, recalling how upset she was at the decision). Before he hit the growth spurt that currently has him standing at 6’9, Buzelis played point. His height is an asset as he towers over defenders he’s able to weave passes around the floor like an air traffic controller.

Buzelis decided to sign with the G League Ignite, citing the alternate pathway to the NBA as a way to fast-track his body and its physical development as much as his own chances.

“When they say, Matas didn’t want to go to school. It’s not anything like that,” he jokes. He has a keen understanding of European and American basketball, with a foot in both worlds having forged close friendships with the boys also in Houston and also from parents who played the international game. But he had his eyes opened further in the All-Star Weekend Basketball Without Borders camp.

“Those players from Europe know how to play basketball. It’s very fundamental. It was good to just a part of something special like that. I had to adjust a little bit,” he laughs, adding that he liked the aspect of Ignite that offers opportunities to young international athletes who don’t have the option of an American college. “It helps a lot of kids.”

Mikaylah Williams has also gone against international competition. She spent a chunk of her last two summers representing the US in the FIBA U17 Women’s Basketball World Cup in Hungary, but during the weekend in Houston her thoughts are, intensely, of home. Williams is committed to LSU, and at the time we spoke, the Tigers were clawing through the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament en route to an eventual title. She notes that there’s “no choice” but to make it equal to the men’s game now that so many eyes are on it.

Watching Williams, who’s ranked number one in the country, there’s a joy that comes through like an audible hum in how she plays. Asked about it, she breaks into a broad smile. She admits that the best part of weekend was “just being able to touch the basketball again,” politely cutting me off to finish my question that, yes, she feels off if she doesn’t play for a few days. As someone who started playing softball, Williams remembers feeling “timid” when she switched to basketball. She chalks it up to an initial lack of preparation and second-guessing herself, none of which are evident watching her command the floor with her absolute guard’s vision and intensity.

Asked how she feels about using the weekend as a springboard, Williams instead stays thoughtfully grounded in the present. “The best of the best are here,” she says, “and we’ll never play with all these people again.”

Coming into the weekend, I watched many of the athletes’ college commitment announcement videos. Most were pro-level production slick, bite-sized for social media with plenty of in-game highlights and just the right balance of personal flair. At first, it felt strange seeing kids emulate the pros, but then I realized each video was its own small flag of identity, staked as a marker of memory for them in the slipstream of time. Watching them, getting to talk with them, having enthusiastic run-ins with their families in elevators, there was a palpable weight to the importance of the weekend in its own historic prestige, but also for the space it created around them. Breathing space, space to compete, to show out, to goof off, to be humbled and realize how good they had it, to be awkward, frustrated, upset they’d botched a shot or lost the game, to roll their eyes at their families and, when no one was looking, allow themselves to be wrapped in a hug. It was a gift and a simultaneous celebration of time. It was a whole lot more than just a game.

Dime was invited on a hosted trip to the Final Four through McDonald’s All-American Games for reporting on this piece. However, McDonald’s All-American Games did not review or approve this story in any way. You can find out more about our policy on press trips/hostings here.

Bad news for the Jack Harlow haters — which, apparently, includes fellow white rapper/hooper Lil Dicky — but the White Men Can’t Jump remake looks GREAT in its new trailer. All the hallmarks of the original remain intact: the trash talk, the friction between the two protagonists (and between them and their ladies), and even the classic Los Angeles hoop locations, including the “Watts Oasis” court (fire), the world-famous Venice Beach courts (cool, but open runs down there be bunk sometimes), and Angel’s Gate Park in San Pedro (trash, don’t play there unless you feel like chasing your ball into the Pacific Ocean).

Everything gets a modern update as well; Jack comments that his opposite, Sinqua Walls’, stereotyping him for being white is outdated (he was really stereotyping the ‘fit, which… understandable), the hustlers trade cash via apps (Jack even trash talks Sinqua’s choice of apps), and the famous Marques Johnson “Imma get my other gun” gets an upgrade courtesy of Elon Musk.

Also making appearances in the film are fellow rapper-turned-actor Vince Staples (my new favorite thanks to his recurring role on Abbott Elementary, although you could see the potential even in his five minutes in Dope) and the late, great Lance Reddick, as well as Teyana Taylor and Laura Harrier. There’s really something for everybody. This writer, at least, will be seated, as the kids say, on May 19, when the movie debuts on Hulu. Check out the trailer above.

Fox News became the subject of more headlines earlier this week with word that the conservative news network settled with Dominion Voting Systems for a whopping $787 million, which will prevent talking heads and Big Lie-propagators Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson from having to take the stand. This caused great amusement for Jake Tapper, although it appears that an on-air apology is not part of the deal.

Rather, Tucker Carlson will simply continue conducting his masculinity-obsessed segments with out ever expressing remorse (fake or not) for lying to Fox News viewers. The Daily Show, guest-hosted this week by Jordan Klepper, feels that the general public does “deserve” an apology, so they did the legwork to kind-of make it happen. Using sliced-and-diced words from the Swanson heir himself, Klepper was proud to present (in the first few minutes of the above clip) this assortment of words:

“Donald Trump lost the election…. And no, we didn’t tell you, because we don’t care what you think… We we were wrong. We are completely irresponsible, and we’re sorry, America… I’m sorry for repeating something that’s not true… I’m gonna go take a quick break and go cry in a closet while squeezing a stuffed animal.”

As well, Klepper reminded everyone that this is not a victimless affair. He will, after all, be dealing with the brainwashed MAGAs “at Trump rallies every four years for the rest of my life.” Godspeed, Jordan Klepper.

Sampa The Great made waves with As Above, So Below last September.

“If Sampa The Great was a man, her new album As Above, So Below would already be in the conversation as one of the top five rap albums of the year,” Uproxx’s Aaron Williams leveled while reviewing the album. “As it is, I have to be Thanos in this situation and do it myself; Sampa’s new album doesn’t just deserve to be considered one of the top five rap albums of 2022… it is.”

Sampa gave more people an opportunity to arrive at the same conclusion last night, April 19, on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She brought along Angélique Kidjo to perform “Let Me Be Great,” their closing track of As Above, So Below, with an assist from The Roots.

It was an evening of Black excellence all around, as Sampa The Great and Angélique Kidjo met former United States First Lady Michelle Obama, a guest on the episode.

“LEGENDS ONLY!” Sampa captioned her Instagram photo. “What an honour.”

Sampa doesn’t need permission to be great, and she reflected on where she’s arrived last October when her As Above, So Below track “Never Forget” featuring Chef 187, Mwanjé, and Tio Nason soundtracked the official trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

“Can you imagine!” Sampa tweeted at the time. “Me … A non-Billboard charting ass, No huge awards having ass, non Viral ass, No sold-out arena tour having ass Independent artist. Whose song is on a Black Panther trailer! This how God works. Thankful!!”

Watch Sampa in her element with Kidjo on Fallon above.

Doechii has always been a phenomenal performer. After experiencing her pop out at Isaiah Rashad’s The House Is Burning listening in 2021 where I had to ask multiple people “Who is that?,” she dazzled at her own listening where she put on what can only be described as a performance art show for an eye-captivating performance of her song “Crazy,” complete with sticks and electrifying choreography.

Three years later, Doechii is impressing at Coachella and this time around I, along with the audience who for some may have been their first introduction to the TDE talent, got to know the rising star a little better. As the sun began to set, she opened up to thousands with not only her music but also some things about herself. Like, she’s from Tampa, Florida and that’s why she’s the Swamp Princess.

I got the blessing to speak to Doechii after her performance to learn even more about her and all the ingredients that came together for her Coachella debut.

“I went to a performing arts high school, so a lot of my background came from just my experience and my training there,” Doechii told Uproxx backstage. “So a lot of that kind of prepared me for Coachella right now. I had a dope high school experience. It was like High School Musical.”

And it makes sense. Everything Doechii does is with precision.

“I was in chorus, and I also did the jazz musical tech,” she added. “I learned how to write music and music theory.”

We also learn that “Crazy” is a song inspired by a few women in the music industry who people labeled as crazy when they were on the rise and a super meaningful.

“It was Missy Elliott, myself, and Nicki Minaj. I think just those women and how they came up in their careers, a lot of people didn’t really believe in them at first. That resonates with me because I feel like that was me in the beginning of my career. I just felt like it was nice to pay homage to them.”

To prep for Coachella, Doechii and her team developed the concept months ahead and rehearsed for two weeks straight.

“My band and I, and my background dancers, we rehearsed every day for two weeks,” she said. “And we just prepared, worked hard, and that’s how we got the show.”

From her blazing energy to her coordinated outfit with the matching contacts, everything was immaculate about her show. The energy she shared with the audience was majestic and divined with the rhythms of her unreleased track “Pacer” (#droppacer) and a slower song titled “Stress,” to which she offered a short 3-breath meditation session after.

“Sometimes you just feel it in the moment, and you just need to take a breath,” she said. “That’s it. I feel like I do that all the time. Just take a breath. So why not do it on stage?”

As far as “Pacer,” apparently it’s coming but she wouldn’t tell me when (I tried ya’ll).

“I can’t tell you,” she asserted. “We haven’t announced the date yet.”

Of course, I probed about the album, and yet —

“Album? Can’t tell you.”

But, there’s a tour and 2023 is looking like that year.

“It’s going to come out this year for sure. It’s almost done. So it’s definitely going to come out this year. I’m just not going to release the date,” she reiterated to me. “Look forward to the album, look forward to a tour this year, and I’ll actually be on Pharrell’s festival (Something In The Water).”

On “Stress,” we get to experience Doechii’s vocal abilities, and on her latest single “What It Is (Block Boy),” which is quite different from what we’re used to getting from her and serves as a digestible tidbit for those who have yet to catch on yet. The crowd went up for this one and so did I.

“I just thought it would be a really nice summer anthem to put out,” she said. “It’s something universally known. A lot of people know it. So that’s really how the song came about. It was just fun and upbeat, and I thought it would be a great song to perform.”

But, that was just for fun. Doechii is a rapper, period. Expect her to do what she wants musically, but always expect her to rap.

“I don’t know if we’re going to get more of that particular sound,” she told me of “What It Is.” “I just wanted to try it, vibe out. But after that, we’re back to rapping.”

As someone who admittedly didn’t get it at first, but am naturally intrigued by anything outside the box, I do know Doechii will never leave me (or the audience) empty-handed when she hits the stage. For Coachella, her intentions were clear.

“My intention for myself is to just release,” she told me. “But ultimately, I believe that when people come to events like this, they’re coming because they need something. They’re looking for something. You don’t know who’s in the crowd or what they’re going through. So whatever they’re looking for, that feeling of love and connection is what I want to leave them with.”

After her aggressive backing of Kevin McCarthy during the contentious Speaker of the House debacle, Marjorie Taylor Greene was rewarded with a seat on the House Homeland Security Committee. However, that appointment has not sat well with her fellow Republicans, and Greene found herself barred from speaking during a recent hearing where she accused another member of being a “liar.”

According to CNN, Greene caused an “outburst” by tossing “extreme rhetoric” at Rep. Alejandro Mayorkas, which prompted House committee chairman Mark Green to step in and bar Greene from speaking. The fiasco angered GOP committee members and Green reportedly planned to encourage McCarthy to strip Greene of her committee seat. However, the chances of that occurring might be slim.

Greene told CNN on Thursday she was “surprised and angered” over the incident and said she already spoke to McCarthy. “He agreed with me,” Greene said, indicating the speaker believed she shouldn’t have silenced. She also said McCarthy would never agree to pulling her off the committee. “Speaker McCarthy is never going to let that happen,” she said.

While McCarthy may be backing Greene, even Republicans that often side with her are growing tired of her antics. Rep. Tony Gonzales, who calls Greene a “friend,” agreed with the chairman’s decision to bar her from speaking.

“I thought he did a good job managing the committee as best as he could,” Gonzalez told CNN. “But the sooner we can get back to kind of civility amongst colleagues, the better for everybody.”

(Via CNN)

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Last night, the series finale of Snowfall aired, bringing the winding six-year epic to an ironic conclusion. The finale also brought the story of LA drug kingpin Franklin Saint full circle, ending the narrative much as it began – albeit with its protagonist in a much different state, ten years later. (It’s also a full circle moment for yours truly; I quit my old job to work at Uproxx full-time in order to shoot some sponsored content for Snowfall back when it debuted in 2017.)

That story fascinated Brooklyn rapper Skyzoo so much, he wrote a whole album about it. The Mind Of A Saint came out back in January, but much like the show itself, I didn’t get around to engaging with it until much later. With the overload of content coming out on a seemingly daily basis, the project got lost in the rush.

Fortunately, thanks to the series finale airing this week, I had the perfect opportunity to revisit the project – and I’m so glad I did. On The Mind Of A Saint, Sky plants himself into Franklin’s Converse All-Stars to deliver what he believes is the album that Franklin himself would make if he pulled an Eazy-E and switched from the drug business to the music one.

And unsurprisingly, it works extremely well. Sure, Skyzoo’s got that whole brusque New Yorker demeanor – not to mention an accent that marks him as a native of the Big Apple far more than a hard-R-slinging South LA resident – but aside from the modern quirks of his densely-packed delivery and modern rap mannerisms (as opposed to the more straightforward flows adopted by Angelenos in the ‘80s), his unique storytelling style captures the essence of the series perfectly.

Across the 10 tracks, Skyzoo channels his love of sports and pop culture references into the show’s 1980s setting, only using metaphors he knows the protagonist would use. This includes nods to geopolitical happenings like the Iran-Contra scandal on “Eminent Domain” and local sports heroes like the Lakers’ Norm Nixon on “Straight Drop.”

Meanwhile, tracks like “Bodies!” and “Apologies In Order” recount events from the show itself, like a rap recap. Sky litters the former with the names of the characters in the series who meet their demises from Franklin’s machinations, all while detailing the kingpin’s mindstate: “Manboy deserved it, Khadijah deserved it / Tyana shouldn’t have been in that car, that wasn’t worth it / Andre deserved it / I mean, in the beginning, he didn’t but then he went and got all this pretend purpose.”

Even more impressively, though, Skyzoo indirectly uses this conceptual approach to the album to turn the lens onto the ills of society that continue to create the conditions for this criminal mindset to this day. “Picture opportunity skipping over who you be,” he mourns on “Eminent Domain.”

Then, “Views From The Valley” presents the stark contrast between LA’s various enclaves and how seeing wealth just out of reach can make someone desperate to change their fortunes: “Never blink, and turn all this shit into more than I could ever think /Not a stereotype to let me sink, let me link / Between where I’m from to where I’m placed at /And pray over this blizzard I’ma whip up on my way back.”

When he pulls back for a bird’s-eye view on “Panthers & Powder,” it doesn’t feel like a betrayal of the concept. Instead, it reads like something Franklin knows implicitly, even if he wouldn’t know how to articulate it out loud – at least, until he decided to dedicate himself to a craft like rap, in which case those connections might become clearer.

The most impressive moment on the album, though, comes near its own conclusion (which, unfortunately, was written before the final season of the show even aired, leaving Sky’s interpretation of those events unwritten). On “Purity,” Sky imagines Franklin’s fateful meeting with a young Nipsey Hussle and his older brother Blacc Sam as toddlers. By this point in the show, it’s 1986, so it would be entirely possible for a real-life Franklin to have met the boys’ father.

It’s a clever way to double down on the album’s (and the show’s) themes; that for every action, there’s a reaction, that the consequences of a scheme often far outweigh the merits, that legacies are built and destroyed by the mundane encounters we have every day, and that a system that fails its most vulnerable will stay failing everyone within it.

Nip, like Sky’s imaginary Franklin, found his way out of the hustler’s lifestyle through rap; like the show’s Franklin, though, he couldn’t really escape the realities of the twisted social structure of America, which has determined that some lives have more value than others – even when they traffic in the same immoral industry (just watch the show, you’ll get it).

Like the show that inspired it, The Mind Of A Saint is a fascinating glimpse at the realities of the drug trade and its impacts on the community around it, without the glamorizing that comes from other, similar examples of trap and gangster rap. Because Sky posits from the outset that this is a fictional character’s narrative, he can get intimately close but remain artistically distant.

It’s an example of hip-hop at its highest form, a literary work worth digging into to exegete heady themes and an entertaining display of smart, surprising wordplay. It’s what KRS-One set out to make with Criminal Minded and an extension of Jay-Z accomplished with American Gangster. It’s a concept album that actually sticks the landing – something that is so rarely accomplished in any genre. And, with the final season finally out in the world, there’s still some story left to tell – a perfect excuse for Skyzoo to drop a deluxe.

The Mind Of A Saint is out now. Get it here.

Aaron Dessner surprised fans at two of Taylor Swift’s three The Eras Tour shows in Tampa, Florida last weekend.

On Friday, April 14, Swift brought Dessner out to perform “The Great War” with her, their Midnights (3am) track, as one of the night’s two mystery songs. The following night, Dessner featured again during the mystery song portion — this time, to debut “Mad Woman” from Swift’s Grammy-winning 2020 album, Folklore.

Afterward, Dessner called The Eras Tour “the greatest show I’ve ever seen!!!!!” His admiration for Swift spilled into The Telegraph‘s newly published profile of The National, his primary band for over two decades.

“She is an incredibly gifted writer, with the lyrical prowess of a Joni Mitchell but also an entertainer on this level of, like, Beyoncé, and I don’t think we’ve seen that before,” Dessner told the publication. “She made me so much better than I could have ever imagined on my own. It felt like a lightning bolt hit the house. Because I just do what I do. And then she would be like, ‘Here’s this elaborately written narrative to your sad piano that you played on ‘Cardigan.’”

Two paragraphs prior, Dessner also showered Ed Sheeran with praise.

“Taylor and Ed are so incredibly successful, but when we are working on something together, it couldn’t be more grounded,” he said. “We’re all trying to make something good, compelling and authentic. Maybe it’s the sound in this emotional current, where everything doesn’t have to be bright and shiny or plastic or perfect. It can be fragile, bold, rough, loud, quiet, but music should make you feel something. That is always what we are looking for in the National.”

Dessner prominently contributed to production and writing on Sheeran’s – (Subtract), his sixth studio album due out on May 5. The National’s next album, First Two Pages Of Frankenstein, will come first on April 28.

Ed Sheeran is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

When you really think about it, Wheel Of Fortune is the hardest game show on the air. Sure, for Jeopardy! you have to study for years, pass a bunch of tests, and learn how to pronounce words properly. But with Wheel, you need to know exactly how much of your own personal body strength to use in order to spin the titular wheel, and that is no easy task. Not only that, but you also need to know enough about the alphabet and lead some small talk with Pat Sajak, which some would consider the hardest game of all.

But one recent contestant seems to have cracked the code. His name is Dirk Kappel, and he created his own at-home wheel in order to practice for his time on the game show.”I probably had too much time on my hands, and I built a wheel close to this size and practiced and played games in the garage,” the contestant joked. He even took it a step further and made his own little skit of himself buying a letter in order to prepare himself for the big moment:

Did this help him win? No. He did walk away with nearly $15k though, so maybe that will cover the materials he got to make the wheel in question.

On the other hand, Sajak wasn’t impressed with the homemade wheel, jokingly responding, “You owe us $1,200, by the way.” Keep in mind, the Wheel is no longer a celebrity to Sajak, instead, it’s more of a disgruntled coworker he’s been stuck with for years. He’s probably so sick and tired of talking about the wheel. Let him host Jeopardy! for a week just so he can put things in perspective! He needs a break.

(Via Decider)