Month: July 2023

At some point in our journey through life, we realize that our body is far older than our inner self feels. I recall talking to my grandmother on her 80th birthday and hearing her sigh over the phone before telling me, “I don’t feel 80.” I understood exactly what she meant. In my mind, I’ve been 24 for the past two decades.

Apparently, that gap between how old we are and how old we feel only gets wider as we get older, as demonstrated by a centenarian grandmother whose reaction to finding out she was turning 100 went viral.

Chelsea Dornan shared a video on her Instagram page of a conversation she had with her grandma leading up to her 100th birthday. At first, the woman seemed surprised to find out she was going to hit triple digits soon, but then she confirmed what year it was and did the math herself.

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“Son of a gun! I don’t feel a hundred. Wow,” Grandma said. When Dornan asked her how old she feels, she responded, “I feel maybe 50…55, maybe.”

“I feel healthy, you know, like there’s nothing that’s aching or hanging,” she added before praying to make it through her 100th birthday.

Watch:

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First of all, I’ll have whatever skincare regime she’s been using, because hello, gorgeous.

Second, to make it to 100 without anything aching or hanging? May we all be so blessed.

Third, can we please bring back “son of a gun”?

After her video went viral, Dornan shared a follow-up in which she explained Instagram to her grandma and shared how many people were sending her good birthday wishes, which left her adorably singing Judy Garland’s “I Don’t Care.”

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And on July 2, the celebration of 100 trips around the sun commenced, with Grandma wearing a flower crown and comfy slippers. She tasted a finger-swipe of frosting, because at 100 you do whatever you want. Then she offered a simple prayer—that everyone be happy, that the family stay together and that they all remain happy. “Please God, that’s all I ask,” she said before blowing out her candles.

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How precious.

Only a fraction of 1% of us will see our 100th birthday, and most of those who do will not seem as young as this beautiful elder. What a gift to make it an entire century and still be in such good spirits, and what a gift to us all to see her reach such a huge milestone.

Bia has been on a roll since her 2021 viral hit “Whole Lotta Money.” Last fall, the rapper was enlisted to join Nicki Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl (Queen Mix)” alongside JT, Katie Got Bandz, Akbar V, and Malibu Miitch. Earlier this year, she shared her new song “16” and gave it a scorching performance at Rolling Loud California. However, she has a lot more in store.

Recently Bia announced her new EP Really Her would arrive this Friday, July 28. “New era loading…” she wrote in the hyped-up caption on Instagram. The project will feature the track “Millions,” which she has been teasing on social media.

In 2022, Bia discussed the ways collaborating with J. Cole for the track “London” impacted her own work ethic. “I learned I have to push my pen to maximum every single time because you never know when J. Cole’s going to get on your record,” she said. “Now, I’m pushing it 10 times harder. Every bar, ugh! Let me see how I can take that up a notch. Outside of that, too, I learned a lot about balance. Because the way he’s super punctual — he’s on time for everything. I’m never on time, but I’ll stay late. I need to get better at punctuality.”

Really Her is out on 7/28 on Sony Music Entertainment. Find more information here.

Will Hollywood be saved by the pair that made Frances Ha? Director Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, which she co-wrote with her partner Noah Baumbach, is currently making gobs of money, yet still leaving plenty for Oppenheimer. The far right have made it their latest culture war target, earning haters like Ted Cruz, Ben Shaprio, and — why not — Matt Gaetz’s wife. Now they have another member of their gang.

Elon Musk took some time out from being dragged by Sesame Street characters over his predictably sloppy rebranding of Twitter to join all the non-cool kids at the anti-Barbie table. Someone on his service dropped a meme that seemed to mock X, which had replaced a perfectly fine and established name that was in no way broken. Twitter, the tweet said, was Barbie — fun, bright, pink as hell — while X was Oppenheimer: dark, foreboding, about someone who may have doomed all of humanity to one day perish en masse.

Musk, the second-richest person on the planet (formerly the first), couldn’t help but respond with an attempted dig. “It [sic] you take a shot every time Barbie says the word ‘patriarchy’, you will pass out before the movie ends,” he tweeted (which is still apparently what it’s called).

Did Musk even have time to see Barbie this weekend? Perhaps he did a “Barbenheimer” double before Saturday night, when he randomly announced the rebranding that went into effect on Monday. Or maybe he just skulked about far right hellscapes and saw a bunch of whining about how the film talks a lot about the evils of stupid men.

Or maybe he, a fan of black t-shirts, simply wanted to show some solidarity with Ben Shapiro, who attended his Barbie screening in an outfit Ryan Gosling’s Ken wears during his big number. Whatever the case, it’s the opposite of august company.

(Via The Hollywod Reporter)

According to various reports, Justin Herbert has agreed to a five-year, $262.5 million extension with the Los Angeles Chargers. Herbert becomes the third star quarterback this offseason to ink a seismic new deal, joining Jalen Hurts (five years, $255 million) and Lamar Jackson (five years, $260 million).

At a minimum, $133.7 million of the deal is fully guaranteed, with two more potential guarantees that could bring the amount to $193.7 million or $218.7 million. As an aside, I’ll never understand how these exuberant NFL deals often feature multiple guaranteed amounts, but whatever. To each their own.

Through his first three years, Herbert has won Rookie of the Year (2020), earned a Pro Bowl berth (2021) and finished ninth in MVP voting (2022). Last season, he helped lead the Chargers back to the playoffs with a 10-7 record after a three-year drought, where they fell to the Jacksonville Jaguars, 31-30, in dramatic fashion in the AFC Wild Card Round. He’s been quite prolific racking up the numbers, which include 5,316 total yards and 38 touchdowns as a sophomore.

Herbert becomes the fifth member of a 2020 Draft class to earn a five-year extension worth approximately $260 million this month. On the NBA side of things, rising stars Anthony Edwards, Tyrese Haliburton, Desmond Bane and LaMelo Ball all signed five-year deals keeping them with their current teams that could be worth as much as $260 million if incentives are reached.

Now equipped with a shiny, well-deserved extension, Herbert will look to stay fully healthy this season after an injury plagued third year and build upon the success he and Los Angeles established in 2022.

In June, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre revealed they were postponing their Hollywood Bowl concerts in solidarity with the WGA Strike. They had previously been scheduled for June 27 and June 28. Now the shows have been canceled altogether.

“We regret to inform you that due to the ongoing strike and the uncertainty of when this will be over, we need to cancel the Hollywood Bowl show,” Snoop’s Instagram post from Tuesday, July 25, reads. “We continue to stand in solidarity with all of our brothers and sisters in the WGA and SAG/AFTRA during this difficult time and remain hopeful that the AMPTP will come back to the negotiating table with a REAL proposal and we can all get back to work.”

At a Variety conference in May, Snoop said artists “need to figure it out the same way the writers are figuring it out. The writers are striking because [of] streaming; they can’t get paid. Because when it’s on the platform, it’s not like in the box office.

“I don’t understand how the f*ck you get paid off of that sh*t,” he continued. “Somebody explain to me how you can get a billion streams and not get a million dollars? … That’s the main gripe with a lot of us artists is that we do major numbers, … but it don’t add up to the money. Like, where the f*ck is the money?”

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.

The most fascinating thing about J Hus’ third album Beautiful And Brutal Yard is that the rapper rarely faces a loss. Sure, the British rapper has had to put his career on pause at times, most notably to serve a five-month sentence after the release of his 2018 debut album Common Sense for carrying a knife in public. For the most part, he’s a villain with no chinks in his armor, but one that has inflicted damage to varying levels against his enemies. He has neverending stories about finding himself in the middle of crossfire, self-induced or not, but through it all, he’s in control of the beautiful and brutal yard he lives in. The beauty is clear as J Hus charms as a slick-talking and charismatic man with all the talents and lines to whisk away the woman of his choice. On the flip side, the brutal moments come from the rapper’s villainous reign as an authority too fearless, too relentless, and too equipped to be removed from his throne.

The qualities mentioned above aren’t exclusive to the beauty or brute of J Hus and his world and that’s what adds to the fascination of Beautiful And Brutal Yard. They play equal roles to both sides of the coin. J Hus strives for a new level of fearlessness as he raps about his brute upbringing on “Come Look” over haunting production that sprays a dark overcast over him. In this same sense, the rapper’s daring approach to a woman he desires on “Safa Kara” is the epitome of fearless. Take your pick at lines like “Call me daddy, that’s an ego booster / Call me papa, come have me for supper,” as proof of it.

For the beauty of it all, he stares in deep admiration at an out-of-this-world woman on “Alien Girl” and aims to charm another one with risque solar system metaphors like “Take you somewhere no one can see / We go to Uranus” and “Put on a sex tune while I sex you in Neptune / This comes around only once in a blue moon.” The same charm is applied to “It’s Crazy” where he raps in sarcastic disbelief at his ability to effortlessly take down his perpetrators.

This duality is what makes Beautiful And Brutal Yard so enjoyable. With an album that fires off 19 songs across 63 minutes, enough has to be done to keep listeners interested and locked in, and J Hus accomplishes this pretty effortlessly. The early parts of the album supply infectious production and catchy hooks for records (“Who Told You” and “Militerian”) that will find as much trouble excelling in summer as day parties and tequila do. It’s within the same album that J Hus also taps in drill rap (“Cream”), introspective rap (“Playing Chess & “Come Look”), Rap&B (“My Baby”), and melodic rap (“Alien Girl”). In most cases, this would make for a disjointed album, but not for J Hus. He achieves cohesivity thanks to maintaining an authoritative tone that maintains his sinister even on its brightest days.

J Hus not only accepts the villain role on Beautiful And Brutal Yard, he fully embraces it in an attempt to take it to a newer and dark level. With that, the album leaves us with a clear image of the rapper: seated on his throne with a grimacing smile as he readjusts his crown and twirls his staff, daring anyone to take him down successfully. The album’s opening record “Intro (The Goat)” is a perfect example of this. Though it’s a short verse that launches the album, it’s one that succinctly captures J Hus’ villainous ways. “If I got my nose in your business, you know it’s a snub,” he fires off before concluding with, “My bredrin’s carryin’ ’cause I can’t afford to have it / But when it’s time for action, feel like I’m born to bang it.”

Stepping back from J Hus’ discography for a second, Beautiful And Brutal Yard is the latest offering from the British rap world that proves the genre is excelling across the pond without conforming to standards in the States. J Hus joins names like Dave, Stormzy, Central Cee, Headie One, and more who’ve made waves while staying true to themselves. It’s an observation worth noting as hip-hop, a genre that’s expanded in numerous ways since its start, crosses its 50th-anniversary mark this year. Even in this crowd, J Hus’ Beautiful And Brutal Yard stands out as a body of work that uses various sounds from the rapper’s cultural background, like afrobeats and afro-swing, as an ingredient to spice up and amplify his projects.

From a closer point of view, J Hus uses his third album to provide a vivid and detailed account of his roots and upbringing, giving equal attention to all that’s beautiful and brutal. This duality contributes to everything on the album: its sonic appeal, the thrill of J Hus’ narratives, and the rapper’s overall artistic vision. Furthermore, J Hus excels thanks to a bigger chip on his shoulder and the goal to go to all necessary lengths to prove himself, just as a villain would in their attempt to reign supreme in their beautiful and brutal yard.

Beautiful And Brutal Yard is out now via Black Butter Ltd. and Epic Records. Find out more information here.

Rudy Giuliani sure knows how to screw up. Once (a long time ago) known as “America’s Mayor,” he’s now regarded as someone who torched his reputation, his legal license, and, potentially, a gigantic sum of money for a guy who wouldn’t even bail him out as his legal woes mounted. Nowadays he doesn’t make news unless he’s doing or saying something dumb, as witness his attempt to slam Joe Biden as a criminal — at a time when his old pal Donald Trump is staring down a possible third indictment.

As per Mediaite, Giuliani went on Steve Bannon’s podcast War Room, where they discussed the mountains of dodgy evidence that the sitting president is a serial law-breaker — unlike the man who preceded him, of course.

“It’s an embarrassment!” Giuliani thundered. “The whole world knows that our president is a criminal, and it is making, not just the Biden administration look corrupt. It’s making America look corrupt. It’s way beyond time for an impeachment.”

Giuliani then made a bold declaration, averring that “ a criminal should not be in the White House, and he is now.” He added, “ I’ve never seen more evidence, Steve. I’ve never seen more evidence that a man committed a crime than this.”

It’s not hard find fault here. Certainly if one swapped in Trump’s name for Biden, his statements make a lot more sense. Again, it’s the guy who left Giuliani in the lurch after their failed attempts to overturn democracy who’s already been indicted twice, who could wind up running for president from the clink. Meanwhile, extremist GOP lawmakers keep swearing they’ve got dirt on Biden, but nothing much materializes.

But what do you expect from someone who, in a desperate attempt to claw himself out of a financial hole, got whatever scratch he could by appearing on The Masked Singer?

(Via Mediaite)

Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign is only six weeks old, and look how well it’s doing. He’s polling a distant second behind his state’s most famous resident. His team has dropped straight-up homophobic (and, of course, homoerotic) ads. And he’s added pizza to the list of foodstuffs with which he’s now unflatteringly associated. To top it all off, he’s now had to further gut his campaign team because he spent too much money too quickly and with little to show of it.

As per Politico, since the campaign’s launch on May 24, the DeSantis team has slimmed down by a whopping 40%, or 38 staffers total of what was once a 90-plus person operation. Last week he let go of about a dozen people. On Tuesday he added/subtracted another 26. Those number include 10 event planning positions, as well as the departures of two senior advisors.

In a statement, campaign manager Generra Peck tried to spin the news as a win. “Following a top-to-bottom review of our organization, we have taken additional, aggressive steps to streamline operations and put Ron DeSantis in the strongest position to win this primary and defeat Joe Biden,” Peck said. “Gov. DeSantis is going to lead the Great American Comeback and we’re ready to hit the ground running as we head into an important month of the campaign.”

Won’t having what let’s charitably call a more exclusive campaign staff get in the way of DeSantis’ main gig, i.e., being the governor of Florida? Possibly, although these days he mostly seems to go to war with companies he doesn’t like, even if it empties his own constituents’ pockets. Sometimes he even meddles in the affairs of other states.

Then again, DeSantis is attempting to “reset” his campaign, after a mere six weeks on the trail. But given his financial and staff issues, this is more like a struggling TV show firing most of its original cast and moving to a network no one watches.

(Via Politico)

The former (and now exiled) leader of Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has always come across as more than a bit strange. As the leader of Vladimir Putin’s mercenary army, he publicly trashed the Russian president for months and eventually led a failed mutiny. Mind you, that coup didn’t fail because Putin did much about it (on the contrary), but that’s also beside the point because Prigozhin, who is now exiled, is the subject of a sordid report from Russian independent publication The Insider.

According to The Insider, Prigozhin is reportedly into some upsetting stuff, including an “obsession with exchanging bodily fluids with virgins,” which he apparently believes “prolongs his youth.” This allegation comes from an anonymous Russian sex worker who claims to have “sold her virginity to Prigozhin when she was eighteen.” She now harbors regrets, but she goes on to allege that Prigozhin has a “harem” of very young adult women that he keeps on hand for his whims. Not only that, but the sex worker describes how he has an odd penile implant, which he believes improves his “prowess”:

Before his downfall and exile to Belarus, Prigozhin used to keep a rotating harem of very young (“a little over 18”) girls in rented rooms at the Solo Sokos Hotel in St. Petersburg. “He had sex without a condom,” the sex workers’ union representative told The Insider, because “he believed that this is how he exchanges energy, fluids. It’s as if he receives a charge of vitality from them.”

Prigozhin also has metallic spheres implanted in the foreskin of his “very small” organ, devices he apparently believes enhance his own sexual prowess and pleasure for his partners. In fact, the sex union source said, women found the balls to be painful during intercourse.

It gets worse. If this is true, then I guess the Wagner Group income must pay exceedingly well:

“Everything was very fast. He has a very small penis, in which there were some kind of balls embedded under the skin. He just left the money in a pile on a chair. It was 100,000 [rubles] . I had to take 40,000 for myself, 60,000 was for the pimp.”

As if that wasn’t revolting enough, Prigozhin reportedly had women visit doctors to ensure their virginity was still intact. The Insider closes their story by revealing that he reportedly refers to these women as “shampoo” because “[y]ou open them and then toss them away.”

There’s so much yikes in that final sentence.

(Via The Insider)

At the end of May, STARZ arrived with news that fans of Power Book IV: Force spent months waiting for: an official date for season two. The platform confirmed that Power Book IV: Force would return on September 1. It’s been over a year since the show concluded its epic first season led by Joseph Sikora as Tommy Egan. Power Book IV: Force is the third spin-off in the Power Universe following Power Book II: Ghost and Power Book III: Raising Kanan which have both completed at least two seasons. Though September 1 isn’t as close as we’d like, Power Book IV: Force is back with a nice gift for fans.

Ahead of the show’s season two premiere in a couple of months, Power Book IV: Force shared new images with fans as a first look into what’s to come in the new season. The release comes as Tommy Egan is known for canceling Christmas if someone does wrong by him.

Altogether, the pictures capture scenes with Tommy Egan as well as Isaac Keys as Diamond Sampson, Kris D. Lofton as Jenard Sampson, Manuel Eduardo Ramirez as Miguel Garcia, Adrienne Walker Shanti “Showstopper” Page, and Tommy Flanagan as Walter Flynn.

You can take a look at the images from the upcoming season below.

‘Power Book IV: Force’ season 1 is available to stream on STARZ. ‘Power Book IV: Force’ season 2 arrives on September 1.