Month: September 2023

Nas and Hit-Boy’s creative partnership has turned out to be incredibly fruitful, as they’ve released no fewer than five projects — one of which, King’s Disease II, delivered Nas his first-ever Grammy win in 2022, ending a 20+ year drought for the rap rap veteran. Alas, all good things must eventually end, and so, Nas and Hit are delivering one last album before moving on. It’ll be called Magic 3 and it’s coming out this Thursday, September 14 — Nas’ 50th birthday. Nas and Hit-Boy announced the final project (after teasing the duo’s “finale” for the past week) on Instagram:

In Hit-Boy’s post, the producer left several comments thanking “any and everyone who’s listened” and declaring that “it’s been fun,” while Nas waxed nostalgic in his own caption, writing, “It’s been nothing short of Magical!”

The first five albums — three King’s Disease projects and two installments of Magic — were credited with revitalizing Nas’ credibility with younger audiences and his own day-one fans after years of declining reception, as noted by such observers as Lonzo Ball and 21 Savage. However, Savage quickly backtracked after being featured on the Magic 2 track, “One Mic, One Gun.” Nas was later tapped to remake “Rapper’s Delight” with contemporary stars GloRilla and Latto and fellow veteran Rakim, bridging the gap between generations and proving he’s just as relevant as ever after collaborating with younger stars like Don Toliver, Lil Durk, and ASAP Rocky.

FX’s anthology series Fargo is known for its star-studded casts juxtaposed with the grim realities of midwestern life, and season five is no different! The upcoming season will bring viewers to the comforting sights and sounds of crime and cold weather. This time, with a brand new slew of actors.

“When we’re casting for Fargo, you want someone who has both comedic skills and dramatically that can hold up [and] has ballast and strength, but they need to be nimble,” executive producer Warren Littlefield told EW. “Noah’s dialogue really, really forces them to be nimble and understand that in the middle of that tragedy, there is comedy.” There is quite literally only one person with the comedic skills, stamina, and authentic Midwest accent for the part. And some others are thrown in there for good measure. Here’s everything we know.

The Cast

Season five, which takes place in 2019, will include Jon Hamm, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ted Lasso’s Juno Temple, Stranger Things’ Joe Keery (as a character named Gator Tillman), New Girls’ Lamore Morris, and Dave Foley (as a character named Danish Graves). Hopefully, it will also include Hamm’s hometown accent, as casting director Rachel Tenner confirmed that that is an integral part of the casting process.

The Plot

The tagline for this season is “When is a kidnapping not a kidnapping, and what if your wife isn’t yours?” which sounds reminiscent of a few Lifetime movies from 2005, though the tone will probably be a bit different.

Temple stars as Dorothy “Dot” Lyon, a seemingly innocent woman whose mysterious past comes back to haunt her. Hamm plays the ruthless sheriff Roy Tillman who is intent on digging up dirt on Dot. “Jon Hamm is Jon Hamm,” Littlefield told EW. “Every actor should have a resume like that. I mean, remarkable. We feel his muscle, his dramatic muscle,” he says, “but he’s also Jon Hamm, so you’re like, ‘Oh my god, did he do that?’”

Release Date

Fargo season five will debut on November 21st on FX.

(Via EW)

Draymond Green and the Golden State Warriors are well-acquainted in battles with Chris Paul. They’ve faced off in three separate playoff series and spent numerous seasons vying for the Pacific Division crown over the past decade. Heading into the 2023-24 campaign, the two sides have joined forces after a midsummer trade brought Paul to Golden State and saw Jordan Poole depart for the Washington Wizards.

Green has not shied away from conceding the conflicting emotions he navigated when he initially learned the Warriors might acquire him this offseason. On a scale from 1-10, Green told ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk that his past disdain for the legendary point guard broke the scale.

“Eleven! I hated him,” Green said. “Eleven! But I think that’s also a sign of respect.”

As the doldrums of the offseason transition toward a focus on training camp and media day, Green is calling this year “one of the most important years of my career” with a clear objective in mind.

“It’s not to redeem anything about Draymond,” the veteran forward said. “My goal is that we can help Chris Paul get his first championship.”

Green said he and Paul have communicated at length since the trade, both via phone and face-to-face, and Green holds his new teammate in high regard.

Green, Paul, and the new-look Warriors will introduce themselves to the NBA world opening night when they face the Phoenix Suns at 7 p.m. EST inside Chase Center. Green said both he and Paul have adjusted to the novelty of now being teammates, though there still remains work to be done once the games begin.

“We’ve kind of gotten over that hump now,” Green said. “But then there’ll be another hump of actually playing together that’ll take some getting used to. But I’m excited about it. We’ve gotten together as a team, we’ve kicked it together and the vibe feels great. And I’m a student of the game of basketball and Chris Paul is a master, and I’m looking forward to learning from him.”

It was a raucous episode of The View on Tuesday. After Whoopi Goldberg kicked things by setting the record straight on her sex life, which did not involve getting down with a mystery man during her absence last week, Joy Behar found herself on the receiving end of a foot massage from none other than Matthew McConaughey.

After the two had a seemingly tense exchange about gun control that ended with McConaughey saying Behar is playing a game he’s “not interested in playing,” the actor lightened things up by recreating a famous moment from a 2006 episode of The View. You see, this isn’t Behar’s first foot rub from McConaughey, and he was not shy at all about delivering another one. Behar was obviously game as well.

As for the backstory to McConaughey’s knack for giving foot rubs, you can judge that one for yourself.

Via Entertainment Weekly:

“Now you know where I got this from. This is my dad’s trick,” McConaughey told Behar, who informed him that she got a pedicure specifically for his appearance. “Now if you remember what that was inspired from, my dad would do this. I’ve got two older brothers, every time we had a date come over, we noticed they’d come over earlier and earlier, we’re going out at eight and they’d show up at seven…. Who’s sitting on the couch getting a foot rub? Your date. My dad would always give a foot rub.”

The reaction you’re looking for is, “Hmm….”

You can watch the saucy foot rub in action below:

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Doja Cat’s Scarlet is proving to be the biggest moment in hip-hop in 2023: “Paint The Town Red” just reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making it the year’s first rap song to top the chart. Now Doja continues to peel back the curtain on her upcoming album Scarlet by unveiling the tracklist today (September 12).

She shared the 15-song tracklist on social media, and notably, she’s the only artist on the project. Doja proudly proclaims in the post’s caption, “no features.”

Doja recently explained how not all of Scarlet sounds like the songs fans have heard so far, saying, “One thing that I wanted to mention was that I have music that came out — these three songs came out, these were the first three songs I made during the period that I was making music,” she said. “And then there’s a second half where I went to Malibu and I made all this music in ten days. That half is very different from the first half.”

Check out the Scarlet tracklist below.

1. “Paint The Town Red”
2. “Demons”
3. “Wet Vagina”
4. “F*ck The Girls (FTG)”
5. “Ouchies”
6. “97”
7. “Gun”
8. “Go Off”
9. “Agora Hills”
10. “Can’t Wait”
11. “Often”
12. “Love Life”
13. “Skull And Bones”
14. “Attention”
15. “Balut”

Scarlet is out 9/22 via RCA. Find more information here.

Comedian Michelle Wolf is in a good place. Her new Netflix special just dropped with a unique format (rather than a one-hour chunk, she dropped 3 episodes with an interest in adding to it down the road if the audience is there) and she’s seeing the benefits of exploring the world and getting serious about her work/life balance both on-stage and off. But while Wolf feels like the special is great, she’s equally excited to see the effects of her choices on the new material that she’s working on during her current tour. Because naps and breaks aside, the work never stops.

Uproxx spoke with Wolf recently about all of that, navigating a world where her relationship influences her material more, controversial french fry dipping sauce picks, and growing up in the shadow of an amusement park.

In the opening for the first episode of the special, it seems like you’re eating french fries from various locations, and I’m curious if there is a city, specifically, that you want to call out that has the best french fries?

French fries are an excellent food.

I had curly fries about two hours ago.

It’s also one of those things that, obviously stand-ups, we’re all over the place. It’s like you can always depend on a french fry. I tend to eat them everywhere. The ones I had in Denver were really good, but they also have a honey mustard dipping sauce, and I’m a big fan of honey mustard. This might be a controversial opinion, but I don’t like ketchup. I know, I’m going to be bold enough to say it, but I don’t like ketchup and I’m a mustard person.

Speak your truth. What was behind the decision to do this as three episodes instead of the standard hour?

Well, I mean, I wanted to try something new, but also, based on what’s happening on social media and our general attention spans, I thought it would be more fun to section (it off). I also had an abundance of material, way more than an hour. I had about two hours’ worth of material, so I thought it would be more fun to just section them off into episodes that felt like you were seeing a satisfying chunk of material rather than just sandwiching it together in an hour. I thought that would be a nice way to break it up. If you watch all the episodes, you actually see that it’s five, it’s just the second episode and the third episode have two episodes in each. It sounds way more confusing. (But) that’s how I originally wanted to do it as these various-length episodes that just fit whatever the amount of jokes that were in it. Netflix thought it would be better to be more like 30 minutes. I don’t know if I necessarily agree, but we did make the compromise to get it on the platform. Hopefully people like this and in the future I’ll get to do it the exact way that I’d like to do it.

I was also thinking about the future where it’s like, oh, you can release three, four episodes at a time when you have a 15-minute chunk on this and a 20-minute chunk on this, and just instead of waiting to have a whole hour-long special, you can release episodes here and there whenever they’re ready.

How did living abroad influence the material here? It feels like there’s some stuff that’s maybe a little bit more inward. Was that a direct result of being a little less connected to the ebbs and flows of the US for a time?

I think first of all, any travel or extensive period of time you can get outside your normal cultural environment is going to affect your point of view, which I think is really important for evolving as a standup. But also I really made the choice to take a step back from, I was living in New York and I was really, really grinding for a lot of years and I’m very happy with all the work that I did there. But I do think it was also important for me and ultimately my comedy to have a little bit of a more balanced life where it’s like I get to live and see and do things. And then I can write and make jokes and do standup. I think living abroad and spending time in Europe has really allowed me to do that more.

One of my fears as a comedian is if I wasn’t doing it every night that I would get worse. But I have to say, I think my comedy’s only getting better. These episodes that are coming out I really, really like. But the hour I’m working on now, I already love and it’s still new. It feels like at least, for me, I’m making the right decision to jump out for a bit and experience life and then be able to come back in and do a bunch of jokes about it.

With everything going on in the US specifically over the last five, or six years in that period when you’re abroad, when you see news break from the US, does it hit differently when you’re out there?

Obviously, every place has its own issues, but I would say less about hearing the news and more about the general feeling. When I came back to the States, it felt tense. You can feel it. It’s almost like it feels like we’re in that awkward pause in an argument where we’re just waiting for someone to say something and start arguing again or break something. It’s like sometime before dessert at Thanksgiving where we’re like, you don’t really know what’s going to happen, but you’re pretty sure it’s not going to be good.

Europe, these guys know how to take a break in Europe. Obviously, I think Europeans can be very passionate about a lot of different things, but you know what Europeans love more than anything? Free time and vacation. They’ll take any holiday they can get. They will sit out in a cafe and watch people and have a coffee. It’s nice to be able to do that. It’s something that I think we could really benefit from here as well, but I don’t really think our society’s set up that way for people to sit and enjoy each other’s company.

I’m starting to feel like my ancestors made a mistake when they left Italy.

I would maybe take the trek back.

In terms of working in family stuff and relationship stuff more into your act), what’s the conversation like when you’re establishing what’s something you can talk about, what’s something you don’t want to talk about? Is that a decision you make on your own or is that a collaborative decision?

It’s really a decision I make on my own and it’s just like, I want to tell the best jokes I possibly can tell. Sometimes that’s about things I observe in society and other times that’s things that are happening in my life. I’m just not someone who’s ever going to talk about something that I don’t feel comfortable talking about or sharing. It’s pretty easy for me to draw that line because I’m not looking for jokes in places that I don’t want to tell them. I also love jokes, so if I think of something really good and it’s about my personal life, I can’t not tell it.

I’m curious if you’ve walked a line with that and maybe gone over once or twice.

I don’t think so. Normally, if I tell a joke, and I don’t tell it anymore, it’s because it either didn’t work or I just haven’t figured it out, which most of the time I believe that all jokes will eventually work. You just have to be at the right point in your life and your ability to tell them. Sometimes you just get the idea for a joke way too early. You’re just not a good enough comic to tell it yet.

Have you revisited things that you’ve kind of put down in the past? Where you feel like you’re at a different point where you can make them work?

For sure, for sure. I mean, there’s so many of them that I couldn’t even give you specific examples because I’ve done it often where it’s like I’ll have a premise and then I’ll put it down for a while and then pick it back up and be like, oh, it works now. It’s either because I’m more confident in it or I’ve come up with a different way to say it, or I had different experiences that I can throw in there. It’s one of those really interesting and fun things about comedy where I think everything you want can be a joke. You just have to figure out if you’re good enough to tell it.

Who decides that? Is that something you decide over time or just from your own experience or is it the audience? I’m guessing it’s some kind of mixture. How do you determine the hierarchy?

Comedy’s interesting in that way that it’s like you can’t do it in a vacuum. The audience is part of the instrument and I think a lot of us comics can be stubborn in the sense that we’re like, “No, this joke is going to work.” But at some point, the audience does have to agree with you and you just have to find out a way to make that happen.

It is up to both of you, but I don’t think the audience is… the best jokes, the audience isn’t deciding to laugh or not, they’re just laughing. I’m sure we’ve all been watching something or someone or been at a show, or even just on the street. If you see someone, I don’t know, trip in a funny way or run into something, you’ll laugh voluntarily and I think that’s the best. When the audience doesn’t make the choice to laugh, they just end up doing it is when you know. You’re like, “Okay, I’ve made a good joke.”

Last question. You’re from Hershey, Pennsylvania. I’ve spent a little bit of time there. I’m from Allentown, Pennsylvania, Did you grow up in Hershey or was it more you were born there and moved away?

Born and raised Hershey. Born in Hershey Medical Center, went to Hershey High School. My home. Worked at the Subway in Hershey Park.

Oh, so you were a sandwich artist?

I was a sandwich artist. That was the first art that I ever did.

Do you get sick of living near a theme park like Hershey?

I mean, as a kid growing up and even my teen years, it was really cool because first of all, I was always just running around as a kid. Even my friends in high school, we used to play crazy games of tag and stuff, so we were always doing kid things. But it was cool to be by the amusement park because there used to be a thing where the park used to close at 10:30 PM but at 10:00 PM they would let you in for free. I don’t think they do this anymore, but at 10:00 PM they would let you in for free because the park was closing. We used to go. We’d run to a roller coaster. There’d be no lines left, so we’d ride it four times and then leave the park and that was very fun.

I really liked growing up there and I had a lot of really good friends and we had a blast. It was good for me. I haven’t spent much time there in the past 10 years or so, but it was really good when I was a kid.

I’m sure the statute of limitations would’ve run out. I think you can answer this truthfully. Was there ever a time that you thought to or did try to stay at the park after hours to really test the limits of the security?

You know what? I would honestly be way too scared of getting in trouble to do that. Thinking about it now, that seems genius, but I was way too scared of getting in trouble to do that. I was quite a rule follower.

Michelle Wolf’s series of micro specials, ‘It’s Great To Be Here,’ is available to stream on Netflix

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has decided to open an impeachment inquiry into Hunter Joe Biden. This development sparked a pissing match between Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, and Gaetz might soon receive the Boebert treatment from Greene. In the meantime, however, Democratic Senator John Fetterman, whose new mustache has already called bullsh*t on ongoing impeachment efforts, let the world really know how he felt about McCarthy’s posturing.

In this clip from NBC News’ Liz Brown-Kaiser, Fetterman feigned being in crisis over the news. He clutched his head and went straight into Halloween mode with ghost noises and scary fingers everything.

“Oh my God, really? Oh my gosh! You know, oh, it’s devastating,” he giggled. “Ooh don’t do it! Please don’t do it! Oh no, oh no!”

Fetterman must have left his congressional hoodie at home during this momentous event. That’s a shame because I think the spooky vibes could have been even more effective with that particular outfit. Still, Fetterman continues to keep it real by dressing the way he was on the campaign trail. That’s who people voted for, not for someone who refers to a veggie tray as “crudités.”

Also, this is a moment to remind everyone to stay strong this fall and not fall into pumpkin-spice mode. You can do it.

Centenarians — people 100 years or older — are a rarity. Their lives are often scrutinized as holding the key to aging.

Czech photographer Jan Langer‘s portrait series “Faces of Century” shows them in a different light: as human beings aged by years of experience, but at their deepest level, unchanged by the passing of time.

In the series, Langer juxtaposes his portraits with another portrait of the subject from decades earlier. He recreates the original pose and lighting as closely as he can — he wants us to see them not just as they are now, but how they have and haven’t changed over time. That is the key to the series.

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These are the rare faces of people who have lived through two world wars, a cavalcade of regimes, and the rush of advancements in modern life. These photos, and the stories of the lives lived by the people in them, show not only the beauty of aging, but how even as we age, we still remain essentially ourselves.

1. Prokop Vejdělek, at age 22 and 101

Vejdělek is a former metallurgical engineer who will never forget the taste of warm fresh goat’s milk.

2. Bedřiška Köhlerová, at age 26 and 103

Originally born in Merano, Italy, Köhlerová wishes to visit Italy one more time.

3. Ludvík Chybík, at age 20 and 102

Chybík is a former postal carrier and says he will never forget the route he worked every day.

4. Vincenc Jetelina, at age 30 and 105

Jetelina spent eight years in prison after World War II. Now, he just wants to live the rest of his life in peace.

5. Marie Fejfarová, at age 101

Fejfarová burned all her material memories, including old photographs, when she decided to move to a long-term care facility. She lived a dramatic life, hiding from the Nazis and then the Russians, but eventually she was able to travel the world with her husband. Her experiences show there’s no such thing as too late in life to start a new chapter.

6. Antonín Kovář, at age 25 and 102

Kovář is a former musician whose daughter comes to visit him every day. He wishes to play the clarinet once more.

7. Anna Vašinová, at age 22 and 102

Vašinová will always remember the day her husband was taken away by the Nazis. She wishes to be reunited with him after death.

8. Stanislav Spáčil, at age 17 and 102

Spáčil was an electrical engineer throughout his life and thinks that it’s too early in his life to think about the past.

9. Anna Pochobradská, at age 30 and 100

Pochobradská was a farmer. She now lives a quiet life and is thankful that her daughter visits her every weekend.

10. Antonín Baldrman, at age 17 and 101

Baldrman was a clerk early in life and keeps up with current events by reading the newspaper.

11. Marie Burešová, at age 23 and 101

Burešová loves talking to her family and wishes to have them all together again.

12. Vlasta Čížková, at age 23 and 101

Čížková cooked in the dining room at the airport in the small village of Vodochody. She’ll never forget reciting her own poetry at wedding ceremonies.

13. Ludmila Vysloužilová, at age 23 and 101

Vysloužilová stays active every day by chopping wood, shoveling snow, and doing work around her house.

The photographer Langer was initially inspired to document the lives of elderly people because of what he saw as the media’s lack of coverage of them. He decided to focus on people over the age of 100 — a very rare demographic indeed. The 2010 U.S. Census reported only 53,364 centenarians, which is only 0.19% of the population of people 70 years or older.

“One should live every single moment according to their best knowledge and conscience because one day we will see clearly what has a real value,” Langer says of what he learned from his subjects while photographing them.

The series was originally part of a story that Langer did for the Czech news outlet aktuálně.cz. You can see more photos from the portrait sessions by following the link.

This article originally appeared on 12.08.17.

Recent polls suggest that Republicans and Democrats have slightly different tastes that have nothing to do with politics.

If you like cats, The Beatles, and Starbucks, you tend to vote Democrat. If you’re into Toby Keith, Budweiser, and Dunkin’ Donuts, you tend to vote Republican.

But an interesting new quiz claims to be 98 percent effective at determining people’s political affiliations by asking questions that have zero to do with politics.

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Click here to take the quiz.

So how does it work? (Don’t read the answer if you haven’t taken the quiz yet.)

According to ChartsMe, recent studies have found that people who were more prone to disgust are more conservative. This leads them to more closely align with the Republican Party.

Some scientists believe it’s ancestral and that the adverse reactions to conditions we’d label “disgusting” were used to protect primitive ancestors from contamination and disease. This way a person wouldn’t confuse drinking water with dirty pond scum. But if the test told you that you’re a Republican, you probably won’t accept that explanation because studies show you probably don’t believe in evolution.

Click here to take the quiz.

This article originally appeared on 08.09.18

Despite Elon Musk publicly embracing the far-right with his constant rants about the “woke mind virus” and antisemitic conspiracy theories, the Twitter CEO has yet to come around to Donald Trump.

According to Walter Isaacson’s new biography, Elon Musk, the Tesla and Space X CE0 has had “deep disdain” towards Trump going all the way back to his 2016 campaign. Not only did Musk contribute to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but he openly criticized Trump.

However, Musk was willing to give the incoming president a chance and agreed to meet with him shortly after his surprise win in the 2016 election. That meeting reportedly left Musk even more “baffled” by Trump.

Via Mediaite:

“He seems kind of nuts,” Musk said after the meeting, according to Isaacson, “but he may turn out okay.”

On the contrary: Musk “concluded that Trump as president was no different than he was as a candidate,” Isaacson wrote. “The buffoonery was not just an act.”

“Trump might be one of the best bullshitters ever,” Musk told Isaacson. “If you just think of Trump as a sort of con-man performance, then his behavior sort of makes sense.”

Trump did not, in fact, turn out okay. He withdrew from the Paris climate accords, which prompted Musk to quit Trump’s presidential council in protest. In the years since, Musk has veered towards the far-right, but he has not changed his opinion on Trump even after famously inviting him back to Twitter.

According to Isaacson’s biography, Musk personally believes Trump committed criminal activity by sparking the January 6 attacks, which led to his initial ban. “It’s not free speech to subvert democracy,” Musk said.

However, he still allowed the former president to return to Twitter after posting a poll that broke towards reinstating the former president’s account. Musk made it clear he wasn’t happy with the results.

“I’m not Trump’s fan,” Musk told Isaacson. “He’s disruptive. He’s the world’s champion of bullshit.”

(Via Mediaite)