Month: August 2023

The United States will enter the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup as favorites. While the Americans are not the defending champions — last time around, the team registered a disappointing 7th-place finish — the team will enter the tournament with their perpetually high expectations. It certainly helps that the U.S. has looked very good in its pre-World Cup tune-up games, as the team went 5-0, beating Spain, Slovenia, Puerto Rico, Greece, and Germany in its pre-tournament tour.

Now, the Americans are on their way to the Philippines, as the team will play all three of their games in Group C at Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay. They are the overwhelming favorites to win their group, and would be expected to make it through the second round of the tournament with relative ease (as they are -125 favorites to win the World Cup). But that is for another, day, and for now, here’s everything you need to know about when the United States will play their group games.

Saturday, August 26

USA vs. New Zealand
8:30 a.m. ET
ESPN2

Monday, August 28

USA vs. Greece
8:30 a.m. ET
ESPN2

Wednesday, August 30

USA vs. Jordan
4:30 a.m. ET
ESPN2

Almost every other game that will occur in the tournament will be aired on ESPN+, with one quarterfinal, one semifinal, and the championship game all taking place on ESPN (one would expect those to be all USA Basketball games, so long as they avoid elimination). For the rest of the World Cup schedule, click here.

Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.

This week saw Quavo drop his first solo album in a minute and Lil Uzi Vert team up with a superproducer. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.

For more music recommendations, check out our Listen To This section, as well as our Indie Mixtape and Pop Life newsletters.

Mike Will Made-It — “Blood Moon” Feat. Lil Uzi Vert

Producer extraordinaire Mike Will Made-It links up with Lil Uzi Vert on his latest, “Blood Moon,” on which Uzi delivers raspy verses about the fortune he’s amassed. J. Cole, by the way, isn’t heard on the track, but he actually had a role on the production side.

Charlie Puth — “Lipstick”

Puth gets in a sexy groove on his latest, “Lipstick.” The song, released last week, sees Puth wanting to make things official with a special someone: “Baby, I think it’s time we post a picture / Tell your momma and your sister you got a man / ‘Cause I’m your man.”

aespa — “Better Things”

aespa just launched their SYNK: Hyper Line World Tour earlier this month, and now they have a fresh song to play on the road. Last week, they dropped “Better Things,” a smooth pop anthem about moving on after a breakup.

The National — “Space Invader”

The National are still riding the wave of their April album First Two Pages Of Frankenstein, but that didn’t stop them from dropping new music the other day. They actually unveiled a pair of new songs, a couple of slow-burners in “Space Invader” and “Alphabet City.”

Doechii — “Booty Drop”

Over a sample of Uniiqu3’s 2018 song “Bubble Gum,” Doechii delivers a confident strip club anthem on her latest, “Booty Drop.” The track arrived last week with a video, too, which basically sees Doechii and her cohorts turn a boat into a club-like environment.

Fifty Fifty — “Cupid (Twin Version — Remix)” Feat. Sabrina Carpenter

“Cupid” earned Fifty Fifty a lot of free TikTok real estate this summer. Now, they’ve given the song a fresh update with a new remix, which brings Sabrina Carpenter into the fold for a verse on the sugar-sweet tune.

Addison Rae — “2 Die 4” Feat. Charli XCX

Speaking of being big on the internet: Social media star Addison Rae is kicking her music career into high gear with a new EP, AR. She brought in some tried-and-true pop firepower to help, as she collaborates with Charli XCX on “2 Die 4.”

Sufjan Stevens — “So You Are Tired”

Sufjan Stevens has been incredibly busy lately: He announced Javelin last week, which will be his fifth album since 2020. He shared “So You Are Tired” from the project and it makes good use of his lullaby-like vocals and an equally comforting instrumental.

Polo G — “Barely Holdin’ On”

Polo G gets vulnerable on his latest, “Barely Holdin’ On.” As Uproxx’s Alex Gonzalez notes, “Polo delivers a tear-jerking ballad over an emotional piano instrumental, as he sings of his hopes to live long and make an impact while he’s still with us.”

Quavo — “Hold Me”

It’s been a minute since we got a Quavo solo album, with his last being 2018’s Quavo Huncho. He’s back with Rocket Power, though, and among the highlights is “Hold Me,” which sees the rapper pay tribute to his late Migos bandmate Takeoff.

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

Unlike his Ken in Barbie, Ryan Gosling’s job is not just beach. Gosling nearly did it all for the Greta Gerwig-directed phenomenon, including sing.

“I’m Just Ken,” Gosling’s power ballad featured on Barbie: The Album, became his first-ever entry on the Billboard Hot 100. On Monday morning (August 21), Atlantic Records amplified Gosling’s Ken-ergy by sharing a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the making of “I’m Just Ken.”

The nearly four-minute video shows Gosling in the studio and on the Barbie set with Gerwig, Margot Robbie, and several other castmates. At various points, Gerwig can’t contain her amusement — covering her mouth in a failed attempt to conceal her giggles. The “I’m Just Ken” dance number is also totally deconstructed.

Similarly, Dua Lipa and Mark Ronson recently posted candid footage from their process of making Lipa’s “Dance The Night,” the Barbie theme song that cracked the top-10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and Pop Airplay charts.

Ronson executive produced the star-studded Barbie soundtrack. Throughout the movie’s marvelous promotional cycle, he has shared the DM that initiated Lipa taking on “Dance The Night” and the moment he recognized Gosling as “a vocal powerhouse” (as told to Vanity Fair).

Watch the behind-the-scenes “I’m Just Ken” video above.

Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Barbie soundtrack is a Warner Music release. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Charles Martinet will no longer be able to say “it’s a-me, Mario.”

After over 30 years as the voice of the most famous video game character of all-time, as well as Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi, Nintendo has revealed that Martinet is “stepping down” from voice acting.

“Charles Martinet has been the original voice of Mario in Nintendo games for a long time, as far back as Super Mario 64. Charles is now moving into the brand-new role of Mario Ambassador. With this transition, he will be stepping back from recording character voices for our games, but he’ll continue to travel the world sharing the joy of Mario and interacting with you all!” the video game company wrote in a statement. “It has been an honor working with Charles to help bring Mario to life for so many years and we want to thank and celebrate him. Please keep an eye out for a special video message from Shigeru Miyamoto and Charles himself, which we will post at a future date.”

Martinet replied:

Nintendo fans knew something was up when Mario sounded different in the trailer for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which comes out in October. Now it’s official. No replacement voice has been announced yet, but the jokes about Chris Pratt, who voiced Mario in this year’s The Super Mario Bros Movie, are flying higher than Mario in a Tanooki suit.

When Lonzo Ball signed with the Chicago Bulls in free agency in 2021, it was a chance at a fresh start for the young star guard. He was going to a Bulls squad that was trying to make the leap into the East playoff picture, having already traded for Nikola Vucevic, signed DeMar DeRozan and Alex Caruso, and already had Zach LaVine in town. That quintet was supposed to be the core group that would make them a contender in the East, and in their first year they quickly established a rhythm, jumping out to the best record in the East as the calendar turned to 2022.

However, from there things unraveled, starting with Ball suffering a torn meniscus in January 2022 that has seen several setbacks, requiring multiple surgeries and the expectation that he will miss his second consecutive full season. There are no guarantees Ball can ever come back and play again, and the Bulls will always wonder what could’ve been had he stayed healthy. Since he went down, the Bulls have struggled to find consistency as a team, missing that point guard presence Ball brought on both ends of the floor.

On the latest episode of the From The Point Podcast with Trae Young, Ball opened up a bit about the injury (in the cold open and more fully at the 26:00 mark of the above vide), particularly how he felt bad for the Bulls organization because they’d invested so much in him and built a team he felt was “perfect” for his game to play how he wanted.

It’s going to be a big ‘What If?’ For me I feel bad just for the GMs, just cause I feel like they made the perfect team around me. That was the most I’ve ever been involved in an organization and I finally got the perfect team that I felt like to fit my game and play my way and just do what I wanted to do. That injury, I’m still going through it right now, but that one messed me up early because I feel like we really had a chance and we never got to see what it was.

You can hear the frustration and disappointment in Ball’s voice as he answers the question, noting that after years of trying to fit into situations that weren’t ideal around him, he was finally presented with an opportunity to play for a team built with him in mind. That early success only makes the “What If?” game worse, and seeing the Bulls fall apart since and never make the playoffs the last two years only adds to Ball’s feeling that his injury derailed the organization’s pathway. Of course, it’s not Ball’s fault, but human nature is hard to shake and you can tell he still feels in some way responsible. Hopefully he can make a return to the court in 2024 and start making up for some lost time in Chicago.

Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t seem like the nicest person in the world. She has even been known to tell off a colleague on the House floor and call them “a little b*tch.” She is also openly lobbying to be Trump’s running mate, so if you were hoping that she might tank her own political career, well, that might do it. Greene’s own tendency to be rude and disrespectful, however, doesn’t mean that she deserves the same. And some wonder whether a joke from Law and Order: Organized Crime star Chris Meloni crossed that line.

Meloni has been seen around lately while posing only in socks, but he cannot resist cracking a joke every now and then. And although it could be argued that Greene set herself up here, the joke was still not the greatest look. Many thought the low-hanging fruit that Meloni reached for was funny, oh, but it was also mean. Here’s Greene doing the set up, by the way, by posing in front of “[t]he world famous Iowa Butter Cow!”

Meloni fired right back: “Right, but what’s in the glass case behind you.”

Some Greene defenders stepped up because, generally speaking, one really should not call a woman (or anyone) a cow.

Still, and perhaps because this zinger was so unexpected, more people laughed along with Meloni.

Greene has thus far ignored the chaos. Perhaps she has replies muted on Twitter, but if she zings back, she’ll send that message loud and clear.

“Seen you from the stage in the 100s / Must be eagle eyes,” Drake rapped in his and Central Cee’s On The Radar freestyle, and it wasn’t an empty line. Drake sees everything while on stage for his It’s All A Blur Tour, from a human-sized bra and sleeping, Yeezy-wearing attendee to a handwritten sign.

“This man been holding this sign up all night. I gotta read it,” Drake said in a clip circulated by Our Generation Music over the weekend, presumably from one of his It’s All A Blur Tour stops in San Francisco, California. “This man got a sign that says, ‘My girlfriend cheated on me; she was supposed to be here with me tonight.’”

Drake leaned over and asked the sign-holder for his girlfriend’s — or, ex-girlfriend’s? — name. After a back-and-forth, Drake was confused as to whether her name is Scarlett or Starlet, “like the strip clubs.” The man wrote her name down to confirm it is, indeed, Scarlett. Once that was cleared up, Drake instructed the crowd to shout “Sorry, Scarlett!” on the count of three, and then he added, “Sorry, Scarlett. You can’t be cheating on my dawg like that.”

The It’s All A Blur Tour is headed to Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Monday (August 21) and Tuesday (August 22). See all of the remaining dates here.

Los Angeles might have experienced some inclement weather this past weekend, but that didn’t stop a historical event of a different variety from happening downtown. Earl Sweatshirt kicked off his Doris anniversary tour celebrating the 10th birthday of his debut album at The Novo at LA Live, where he was joined on stage by the founder and de facto leader of the defunct Odd Future clique, Tyler The Creator.

The duo performed their 2013 collaboration “Whoa,” while Tyler led the crowd in a nostalgic chant: “G-O-L-F-dub-A-N-G.” “Make some noise for Odd Future,” Earl commanded.

In addition to Tyler’s appearance, several other members of the former crew also joined the reclusive rapper onstage, including Domo Genesis to perform “20 Wave Caps” and unofficial member Vince Staples, who appeared on “Hive.”

Backstage, it looked like (nearly) a full Odd Future reunion, with Earl, Tyler, Domo, and Vince, flicking up with Casey Veggies, Jasper Dolphin, L-Boy, Mike G, Syd, and Taco. It looked like the only members missing were Hodgy, Left Brain, and Matt Martians.

Much of the crew is expected to perform at the upcoming return of Tyler’s Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival in November, which Tyler is headlining along with SZA and The Hillbillies: Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar.

The NBA regularly touts the growth of its social media pages and the impressions, views, and mentions players generate across the internet, as they were one of the sports leagues to recognize the importance of growing their social presence (and what it could mean for business).

That sort of growth doesn’t just happen and requires lots of hours logged by social media managers to watch games, clip videos and highlights, and craft posts to maximize their reach. While on the outside it’s a job that sounds great, it is also very demanding during the long NBA season and, despite running the public-facing accounts of a multi-billion dollar corporation that reach many millions of people, doesn’t pay a ton. That can wear down employees and, apparently, frustrate them to the point that after they leave they might air out the NBA’s dirty laundry to their millions of followers on Facebook, as happened on Monday morning.

A former social media employee used the NBA’s Facebook account to post about low pay and poor working conditions for social media managers at the league, noting they’d been gone for a few weeks but still had access to the account.

While $50,000 after taxes is a fine salary in some places, given the league offices are in New York, that is not very much money to work in the city. The problem is, like most jobs in the sports media landscape, they are highly desirable because so many people want to work in the field even with long hours and relatively low pay. As a result, burnout isn’t a real concern for employers because there are always folks trying to break into the industry willing to embrace that grind to work covering the sport(s) they love.

Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus ruled Disney Channel in the 2000s thanks to their respective hit shows, Wizards Of Waverly Place and Hannah Montana. All this time later, they’re about to dominate this upcoming Friday of new music, as they both have fresh singles — “Single Soon” for Gomez and “Used To Be Young” for Cyrus — out on the same day. While that puts the two in direct competition when it comes to debut week chart placement, things look friendly between the former child stars.

As ET notes, Gomez shared a clip from her run on Hannah Montana as Mikayla Skeech, Montana’s musical rival who appeared in a few episodes. Gomez wrote in an Instagram Story, “@mileycyrus and I both have a SINGLE SOON and we are releasing on the same day. We have been friends since we USED TO BE YOUNG. Excited for August 25!!!”

Cyrus used the same clip for her own Story, writing, “@selenagomez and I are both dropping our new SINGLEs SOON… I SAY WE #USEDTOBEYOUNG.”

Here’s the clip in question, which sees the two trading jabs as they man the phones for a telethon:

Gomez is currently starring in the new season of Only Murders In The Building, while Cyrus announced a few months ago that she doesn’t plan to tour in support of Endless Summer Vacation.