Month: November 2023

Yesterday (November 7) marked general elections across the country. Many states’ ballots include several critical social causes, such as abortion, the legalization of marijuana, and more.

In Kentucky, sitting Governor Andy Beshear retained his place in high office with a victory over challenger (and former Kentucky Attorney General) Daniel Cameron. Beshear was sure to make mention of hometown hero Jack Harlow during his victory speech last night.

“Tonight, Kentucky made a choice,” he said. “A choice not to move to the right or the left but a choice to move forward for every single family. A choice to reject Team R or Team D and to state clearly that we are one Team Kentucky. A choice of Jack Harlow over Sarah Huckabee Sanders.”

Although his music errs away from the political content, “3D” rapper Jack Harlow found himself tied up in his home state, Kentucky’s heated race for governor. What is Jack Harlow and Kentucky Governor Beshear’s relationship?

Last week, Harlow attended one of Beshear’s campaign stops, seemingly to help appeal to younger voters. In return, Beshear has shared his admiration of the rapper in several instances. This year alone, Beshear gushed about Harlow during the state’s derby in May. Earlier in the day, Harlow took to his Instagram Stories to share a flick of him leaving the voting booth, followed by an image of Beshear.

Watch Governor Beshear’s full victory speech courtesy of WHAS11 above.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Before Cardi B, Latto, and Megan Thee Stallion were Nicki Minaj’s nemeses, there was Remy Ma (and Lil Kim, but that’s another story). Toward the middle of the last decade, after Remy Ma had been released from prison to find that her reign had been shorter than leprechauns — in part because of Nicki’s dominance — the two rappers engaged in a year-long tussle that saw them release actual diss tracks like “Shether” and “No Frauds” (a bygone era, truly).

Nicki appears to have put their feud on the backburner in favor of funneling her energy into rivalries with more contemporary hitmakers like those mentioned above — and, it has to be admitted, actually supporting newer girls like Doja Cat and Ice Spice. The last we heard of it was last year when Remy appeared on Drink Champs and insinuated they’d agreed to stop talking about each other. While Nicki denied that any conversation to that effect ever took place, a more recent, cryptic Instagram post has her fans thinking that she’s settled the old beef.

“Look over your shoulder / I’m in da rover, it’s over, b*tch,” she wrote. The post appears to be a quote from Remy Ma’s verse on Big Pun’s song “Ms. Martin,” which fans have interpreted as a hint that Remy will appear on Nicki’s upcoming album Pink Friday 2. “Nicki did say she might be forgiving one of the duds on TikTok live a while ago,” one fan wrote in the comments of a post reporting on the coincidence.

While it’s not an outright confirmation from Minaj, it would be nice to see a reconciliation among the women of hip-hop — especially one that brings us a step closer to getting that long-rumored Cardi/Nicki collab. While that might not be some fans’ cup of tea (seriously, just watch boxing if you want to see a fight), as Cardi once said, “Beef is bad for business,” and we here at Uproxx just want to see everybody win because we are not haters.

In March 2023, Republican candidates Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis were within 10 percent of each other in the 2024 primary polls. The Florida governor now trails the former president by 40 percent, according to figures from FiveThirtyEight. Even Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a better shot of winning the election than ol’ Meatball Ron. But that doesn’t mean Trump Team is going to back off from insulting DeSantis as often — and as loudly — as possible.

Rolling Stone reports that “top Trump aides have near-daily discussions about new and outrageous ideas for how to attack and debase DeSantis, including via the campaign’s regular anti-DeSantis ‘Kiss of Death’ email blasts to supporters and the media.” There’s even an inside joke among Trump’s people that they won’t stop humilating DeSantis “until he’s fat again.”

In the past month alone, the Trump campaign, or Trump himself, have also gone after DeSantis for his fashion sense (“Ron’s heels are high, his hopes have never been lower”); his manhood (“[Ron] is now a political eunuch. He’s the last person who should be talking about balls”); his brain (“completely fried and inoperable”); his allegedly bizarre eating habits (“stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tenders”); and much else.

The point of the taunts is to “drive home the point to every voter and news consumer how weird and awkward this guy is,” a senior Trump aide said. Unlike Donald, who is very normal and not messy.

(Via Rolling Stone)

Rick Ross has had quite a career. Two decades in, and he’s made quite a few memories. During a special episode of Complex’s 360 With Speedy, Rozay recalled some of his most vivid memories, including a 2016 visit to the White House.

At the time of the visit, Ross was on house arrest and was wearing an ankle monitor, and the monitor happened to go off while Ross was in the White House. When the alarm chimed, then-President Barack Obama, along with the White House staff, were startled.

“The Secret Service started moving because everybody gave away they phones — all electronics had to be given up,” Ross said. “So when something started making a noise, you saw all the people in the back and I’m like, ‘Damn.’ And then it finally went off and then Obama had to say something. I ain’t gonna repeat it out of respect for Obama though.”

The interview took place shortly before Meek Mill and Ross’ long-awaited joint album, Too Good To Be True, which drops this week.

You can catch Ross recalling the memory in the clip above, slightly past the 17-minute mark.

Too Good To Be True is out 11/10 via MMG. Find more information here.

So far, 2023 belongs to “Say My Grace” rapper Offset. Throughout the year, he’s made a surprise appearance on Amazon Music Live, secured a McDonald’s signature meal collaboration alongside his wife, Cardi B, and dropped his highly anticipated sophomore album Set It Off. Unfortunately, he’s also endured some hardships: the ultimately passing of his former group mate, Takeoff, an intense legal battle with his former record label, and now there could be another court showdown.

According to Rolling Stone, Offset has reportedly been named in a lawsuit stemming from an incident with security during ComplexCon 2021. Paperwork obtained by the platform alleges that Offset (real name Kiari Kendrell Cephus), his musical associate YRN Murk (real name Demetrius Deandre Carter), and one unnamed individual assaulted an attendee during the event (held on November 7, 2021).

The plaintiff, Daveon Clark, alleged that Carter initiated the melee after event staff purportedly deterred Carter from entering a roped-off space due to capacity limitation. Clark went on to say that he was forced to engage in a physical exchange out of self-defense, which Cephus allegedly joined in. Attendees captured video of the alleged incident.

In the filing, it notes, “During this altercation, CSC security guards failed to prevent the attack and instead exacerbated plaintiff’s position by restraining him, allowing defendants Offset and YRN Murk to continue their physical attacks while plaintiff was prevented from protecting himself,”

Clark is seeking real and punitive damages due to the physical and emotional damages the alleged incident caused.

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

Move over, Wordle. There’s a new word game taking over social media, and it’s Connections. The category-based puzzle from The New York Times has become the latest gaming obsession, and we’re here to help you out with today’s challenge.

Here’s how Connections works: Each puzzle gives players 16 words and tasks them with placing the words into secret groups or themes based on how those words relate to each other. To help players out, the groups are color-coded. Yellow is the easiest, followed by Green, Blue, and Purple. What makes things tricky is that many of the words seem like they go together, but there’s only one right answer. If you guess wrong, that’s a mistake. You’re allowed four before the game ends, so tread carefully.

Like Wordle, Connections is frighteningly addictive and players can share their results on social media. To help you best your friends, we have some hints for today’s puzzle and answers if you’re really stuck.

Hints For November 8 Connections Puzzle

Yellow

Life’s a beach

Green

You want fries with that?

Blue

Playing both sides

Purple

On the rocks

Answers For November 8 Connections Puzzle

Yellow

FLIP-FLOP, SUNSCREEN, TOWEL, UMBRELLA

Green

CURLY, SHOESTRING, WAFFLE, WEDGE

Blue

HEDGE, SEE-SAW, WAVIER, YO-YO

Purple

BREEZE, MARY, MULE, RUSSIAN

(Via NYT Connections)

On last week’s Gen V season finale, Antony Starr swooped in from the sky as Homelander and accomplished a great deal in less than one-minute during an action-arresting cameo. Of course, one minute was only his screen time. This likely amounted to a full day of work, and while hashing out finale business, I not-so-casually wrote of Starr, “Whatever the guy is receiving for a paycheck, it isn’t enough.”

Additionally, Karl Urban popped into a credits scene as Billy Butcher, who was shown to be aware of the Supe virus shenanigans, which feels like a straight shot into the vigilante group’s approach to Season 4. He, like Starr, is one of the essential players in The Boys, and it’s hard to imagine either role being played by any other actor. So, how much did Starr and Urban get paid for their narrative-propelling Gen V appearances?

It must be noted that neither actor has spoken on the subject. However, wayyy at the bottom of an Entertainment Weekly piece about The Boys/Gen V‘s modular structure along with Starr and Urban’s cameos, The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke (amid a mountain of praise for the duo) is quoted as mentioning that Starr and Urban both did their cameos essentially for free. Hmm:

The Boys boss praised both Urban and Starr for filming these cameos on their days off from shooting the main show. “They’re shooting the first two or three episodes of The Boys and it’s grueling,” Kripke recalls. “Then we’re asking them to go to that [Gen V] set, put on the suits again, and work more with the fact that we have no money to pay you. Michelle said their support of the wider world is really, really impressive.”

That is, they were not paid in addition to their The Boys pay rate despite filming Gen V on their day off, which seems… again, hmm.

The issue is certainly a timely one. The SAG-AFTRA strike has prompted some actors to reveal that acting on a hit streaming show (like a few Orange Is The New Black cast members) doesn’t automatically bring the big bucks. Sometimes, these actors need night jobs to supplement their acting day jobs, and they’re not seeing much in the way of residuals, either. That is, of course, part of why actors are still on strike, nearly 120 days and counting.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Hot off the (pink) heels of a Mean Girls reunion comes the first trailer for the Mean Girls movie musical.

Tina Fey and Tim Meadows are back from the original teen comedy classic (which Fey also wrote), but don’t expect to see Rachel McAdams or Lindsay Lohan; Regina and Cady are now played by Reneé Rapp and Angourie Rice.

The rest of the cast includes Angourie Rice, Moana star Auli’i Cravalho, Jaquel Spivey, Avantika, Bebe Wood, Christopher Briney, Jenna Fischer, Busy Philipps, and Jon Hamm. His “freaking crushing it” list now includes playing a coach who also teaches sex ed.

You can watch the trailer (which is bizarrely set to an Olivia Rodrigo song, not anything from the musical itself) above. Here’s the official synopsis:

From the comedic mind of Tina Fey comes a new twist on the modern classic, Mean Girls. New student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is welcomed into the top of the social food chain by the elite group of popular girls called “The Plastics,” ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George (Reneé Rapp) and her minions Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney), she finds herself prey in Regina’s crosshairs. As Cady sets to take down the group’s apex predator with the help of her outcast friends Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), she must learn how to stay true to herself while navigating the most cutthroat jungle of all: high school.

Mean Girls comes out in theaters on January 12, 2024.

Once again, Danny DeVito was denied the honor of being named People‘s Sexiest Man Alive. Instead, the distinction went to Patrick Dempsey (he replaced last year’s winner Chris Evans), who was unveiled on Tuesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. But it took awhile to get there.

“If you know anything about me, you know I am a huge fan of sexy man who are alive, and right now there are a team of scientists who have been working at People Magazine Laboratories. They’ve spent the last 12 months crunching numbers to determine which of the four billion men on this planet will be called sexiest,” host Jimmy Kimmel said. He then stood next to the aforementioned sexy man, whose identity was hidden using “cutting-edge hologram technology” that gave him a lizard face. “It’s Ted Cruz,” Kimmel joked before explaining that his studio audience had to guess who it was using a 20 Questions-like game.

The first question: are you an actor? Good start! But things went off the rails once people started guessing other famously sexy men, like Harry Styles, Timothée Chalamet, “Taylor Swift’s boyfriend,” the Golden Bachelor, and George Clooney. “This is the worst batch of questions ever,” Kimmel said while laughing in disbelief. Eventually, someone in the audience correctly guessed the Grey’s Anatomy actor, although it took two hints to get there.

You can watch the Sexiest Man Alive unveiling above.

A recent study by the National Center for Education Statistics found that 87% of public schools say the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted students’ socio-emotional development. Respondents have also said there has been a significant increase in student misconduct.

However, a teacher with 24 years of experience in the U.S. and abroad believes we are misplacing blame for this rise in misconduct. In a viral TikTok video with over 480,000 views, Lisa Conselatore claims that the big problem isn’t the pandemic but modern parenting.

“The problem is cultural,” Conselatore says. “We have raised children to think that they are absolutely the most important person in any room. They are so special that whatever they want to do, or whatever they think, or whatever they say is the most important thing in that moment.”

@lisaconselatore

#tiredteacher #enough #raisingkids #timetolisten #supportteachers #culturetalk #culturecheck #teachersoftiktok #teachersontiktok #teaching2023belike

“I know your children are special to you. I know that my children are special to me,” she continues. “But none of them are the most special person ever in the room at any time. They’re not. Nobody is because we live in a society and we all have to get along and we all have to respect one another and part of respecting one another is recognizing when you have a contribution to make and when you need to sit there and open your ears. … We don’t have that down. We’ve missed it.”

In the video, Conselatore lays some pretty big blame on America’s parents, but she also offers some simple solutions to improve the situation.

“Teach them when to listen, taking a turn to speak. Speak when it’s appropriate. When you have something to say and. It’s your turn,” she says. “Let’s reevaluate our family cultures, our community cultures, and our larger society cultures. Because of this is not working, not working.”