Megan Thee Stallion has likened her upcoming era to a snake shedding its skin, an evolution she symbolized with her upcoming single “Cobra” and its rollout. After teasing its release with a menacingly reptilian teaser, and officially announcing it with some revealing cover art, the newly independent Houston rapper shared more details about the song on Twitter, revealing that not only did she “spill her guts” on the track but also co-produced it.
“I’m so excited for the HOTTIES to hear #cobra!” she wrote. “Y’all are not gonna be able to guess what it sounds like so stop trying lol I spilled my guts on this song, I helped produce this song , I’m just so proud of it. Thank you to everyone that has been a part of my new journey and thank you hotties for riding with meee. Only 2 more daysss.”
I’m so excited for the HOTTIES to hear #cobra ! Y’all are not gonna be able to guess what it sounds like so stop trying lol I spilled my guts on this song, I helped produce this song , I’m just so proud of it thank you to everyone that has been apart of my new journey and…
Megan certainly had to shed a lot of old skin in preparation for the next phase of her career. She sloughed off her old record label, agreeing to settle out of court in exchange for ending the contract, and she addressed the trauma of her shooting by Tory Lanez in a powerful statement that hopefully got that particular monkey off her back. Now, she can move forward with the confidence that every move she makes now will be her own.
“I had to rearrange the way I’ve been thinking,” Sen Morimoto sings on his album closer “Reality.” The line gets to the heart of his third studio album Diagnosis, a project that’s taking indie jazz fusion to the next level. The song is broadly about the personal hell one creates by being overly self-critical, but Diagnosis as a whole implores listeners to examine their own truths and perhaps leave with a new perspective.
While the album does hold themes of love, spirituality, and radicalization, you won’t find many overt anecdotes about Morimoto’s personal life. Instead, he aims to examine the systems in place that exploit artists’ trauma in order to profit off their music. “Every song on Diagnosis is, at its core, an attempt to flip the lens around,” he said in a statement. With lush production, the 13-track LP is a series of ruminations on the current state of the music industry. He sings of art as content, information overload (and how particularly dystopian it feels to watch commercials at the gas pump), and in his own words, “making sense of the chaos around us.”
To celebrate the release of Diagnosis, Morimoto sits down with Uproxx to talk Stevie Wonder, fear of the unknown, and the innovation the DIY music community breeds in our latest Q&A.
What are four words you would use to describe your music?
Anti, Capitalist, Diorama, Pop.
It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?
I hope my work can be looked back on as part of a moment in time when the American public was becoming more broadly aware of the evils of capitalism and the US government’s role in the senseless death across the globe and destruction of the environment.
Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?
I learned how songs are written by teaching myself Stevie Wonder songs on the piano so those chords, melodies, and lyrics are deeply ingrained in me.
Where did you eat the best meal of your life and what was it?
This is an impossible question to answer but one meal that comes to mind is one I had on tour in London at an Indian restaurant called Dishoom. The flavors were so deep and they kept the chai tea flowing. I think of that meal a lot.
Tell us about the best concert you’ve ever attended.
Another difficult one. Maybe Solange at Pitchfork Fest in 2017. It felt like the density of the air changed when that set started. Everything was so perfectly arranged in music and movement.
What song never fails to make you emotional?
Nina Simone’s live recording of “My Sweet Lord” and “Today Is A Killer” always makes me feel like I can see the full spectrum of emotions in front of me like a painter’s palette. The joy in the choruses with the full choir that break down to these unreal intimate solo piano and vocal moments that sound almost improvised. She was able to make these songs that were written by other people sound like she was just thinking aloud in that one moment, and we’re lucky enough to have a recording of it happening live.
What’s the last thing you Googled?
“Vin Diesel Iron Giant”
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?
We once stayed with a friend of a friend’s dad, so we had never met, but they had a really advanced security system at their house with a wall covered in TVs that showed camera angles all over the outside of the house. So our bass player slept under the glow of these TVs which I thought was kind of creepy.
What’s your favorite city in the world to perform and what’s the city you hope to perform in for the first time?
My favorite city to perform in has to be a hometown show in Chicago, though I absolutely love playing anywhere in Japan too, especially Osaka. I’d love to go play in Mexico City. Lots of places in Central and South America.
What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?
Don’t put too much value in the standards of the music industry. Everything worthwhile out here is done outside the box, and most parts of the industry are just trying to latch onto whatever innovation comes out of the DIY world.
What’s one of your hidden talents?
I’m not at a point where I could really call it a talent yet but I’m enjoying learning to sew. I want to make merch out of reused garments because merch is kind of the only way an artist makes money these days but I think a lot of band tee’s end up in landfills.
If you had a million dollars to donate to charity, what cause would you support and why?
Right now I would put all of that money into humanitarian aid to Gaza and the Congo. Sadly a million dollars wouldn’t even scratch the surface of what’s needed to rehabilitate and take care of those that have been displaced.
What are your thoughts about AI and the future of music?
I think it will likely become a tool for TV and Ad music placement. That’s a part of the industry which actually pays musicians fairly a lot of the time so I could see a lot of these production companies relying on AI-generated soundtracks and scores to make that process much cheaper for them sadly. I’m sure there will be some cool art that can come from using AI in a creative way but at what cost, you know?
You are throwing a music festival. Give us the dream lineup of 5 artists that will perform with you and the location it would be held.
I had this thought, which I immediately realized was stupid because people get wasted at music festivals and it would be way too dangerous but – I thought it would be fun if a subway train system in a city put on a festival where acts played stripped down sets on the platforms of different stations and fans could take trains to each platform to hear the sets. I’m not sure who would play. If it was booked for my specific taste maybe Cardi B and Paul Simon headline.
Who’s your favorite person to follow on social media?
I’ve always liked following Noname’s twitter. I think for a lot of people it has felt like a friend to radicalize yourself with. Exploring thoughts around anti-capitalism and anti-colonialism in a public forum with a large platform is really brave and I think it gave a lot of people trying to sort through the same moral dilemmas a voice of support in each of their journeys.
What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?
My favorite tattoo is a big red snake on my arm. I was driving around with my friend at the time, who is now my partner, and we said: “What if I got a Gucci snake tattoo right now?” We went to the closest shop, asked for a “Gucci snake” which the tattoo artist looked super puzzled about but did a really cool take on. Years later we live together and have grown up in a lot of ways but this tattoo is a reminder of our silly times together running around being kids.
What is your pre-show ritual?
I used to kneel on the bathroom floor and pray for the grace to communicate real love to the audience. I’m not really religious but I felt it got me in the right mindset to play honestly. Now I just circle up with my bandmates, remind them that I love them and decide to have fun.
Who was your first celebrity crush?
Maybe Shakira, or Robin Williams.
You have a month off and the resources to take a dream vacation. Where are you going and who is coming with you?
I think a trip to Japan with my whole family, my partner and her family and our bandmates would be the move.
What is your biggest fear?
I fear for the world. I fear that we’ve gone too far building this capitalistic machine that has a will of its own, and it freaks me out how easy it is for us to be unaware of its effects on the world. I am afraid of what else I’m unaware of.
Diagnosis is out 11/3 via City Slang. Find more information here.
Tuesday night marked the first time that Kevin Durant and Victor Wembanyama shared a floor with one another. Perhaps the two most uniquely talented players of their respective eras, Durant and the Phoenix Suns looked like they were going to get the best of Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs until a Keldon Johnson bucket in the remaining seconds propelled San Antonio to a 115-114 win.
Wembanyama expressed before the game that Durant is his favorite player, and after the two went head-to-head, the French rookie laid out something that he can take away from the 13-time All-Star’s game.
“I learned that I’m far from mastering the game as much as him, because I tried to do some stuff like him but I think I’m not maybe patient enough,” Wembanyama said, per Andrew Lopez of ESPN. “I think I want to go too fast, but he goes to his own pace and goes to his spots. I think I have to, not copy that, but get inspired by that.”
Durant was likewise complimentary of the “unique player” that went No. 1 overall in the 2023 NBA Draft.
“He’s a unique player who is going to be a force in this league for a long time”
“He’s gonna be a force in this league for a long time,” Durant said. “Once he continues to get experience under his belt, he’s just gonna get even better.”
Durant led the shorthanded Suns on Tuesday night, going for 26 points on 12-for-19 shooting with seven assists, two rebounds, and two blocks. Wembanyama, meanwhile, scored 18 points with eight rebounds and four blocks.
Over the last year artificial intelligence has become a growing concern. It has the capacity for greatness, including in the field of medicine. It can also be destructive. It can destroy job and make it easier to steal people’s identities. Hollywood is already feeling the effects, as when Tom Hanks learned an AI version of him was starring in a dental ad. The latest to be affected is Scarlett Johansson.
Per Variety, the erstwhile Marvel actress was nonplussed to learn an AI app had used her likeness for an ad. It’s called Lisa AI: 90s Yearbook & Avatar, and it’s an AI image-generator that demonstrated its prowess by making an ad starring an AI version of a movie star who famously sued a gigantic corporation because they stiffed her. Predictably that didn’t turn out so hot.
“We do not take these things lightly,” Johansson’s attorney, Kevin Yorn, told Variety. “Per our usual course of action in these circumstances, we will deal with it with all legal remedies that we will have.”
The ad, which was first spotted on October 28, appears to have been deep-sixed. How did it use Johansson?
The ad, reviewed by Variety, begins with an old clip of Johansson behind the scenes of Marvel’s “Black Widow.” Johansson says, “What’s up guys? It’s Scarlett and I want you to come with me…” before a graphic covers her mouth and the screen transitions into AI-generated photos that resemble the actor. A fake voice imitating Johansson then continues speaking, promoting the AI app. “It’s not limited to avatars only. You can also create images with texts and even your AI videos. I think you shouldn’t miss it,” says a voice that sounds like Johansson.
Fine print under the ad read “Images produced by Lisa AI. It has nothing to do with this person” — an apparently attempt to cut any legal action by Johansson off at the pass. Apparently that didn’t work.
It’s not surprising that Hollywood would fall victim of the shadier aspects of AI. But there was one big player who had the tech’s number before anyone: Tom Cruise, who made the main baddie in Mission: Impossible 7 a rogue form of AI. One person who saw that film was President Joe Biden, and it scared him enough that it inspired him to sign an executive order to rein in AI. If humanity has avoided one of those robot takeovers depicted in fiction for decades, it may be partly thanks to the guy who keeps risking his life to entertain us.
The world is still mourning Matthew Perry after the Friends star died in a drowning accident at his home over the weekend. The 54-year-old actor was found unresponsive in his jacuzzi when authorities arrived at his Los Angeles are home though no drugs or signs of foul play were found at the scene.
According to law enforcement officers speaking to the outlet, less-in-depth tests run following Perry’s death prove neither fentanyl nor meth contributed to his untimely passing in any way. But, the outlet was quick to note that more in-depth tests that look for evidence of other intoxicants — alcohol, prescription drugs, etc — will take longer to conduct, with results expected in the next four to six months. Though Perry did find pills in Perry’s home following his death, they were prescribed to him by doctors and “stored in proper bottles.” At this time, there’s nothing to indicate those medicines contributed to his death.
The proposed “multi-stadium listening event” for Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign’s purported joint album has been postponed. According to Billboard, both the listening event and the album itself have been pushed back from their original date, November 3. Billboard notes that this isn’t the first time they’ve been rescheduled, with the original release aimed at October 27. A report from earlier that month said they were planning on holding it at RCF Arena (formerly known as Campovolo) in Reggio Emilia; however, the date came and went without confirmation, and on October 23, Ty shared an Instagram post teasing the new date in November.
Before that, it was reported that the duo was looking for a distributor for their joint album, fielding five offers from different labels. Per Billboard, though, their grandiose plans are contingent on a lot of factors outside their control. They’d need weeks — not just one or two — to secure a location and insurance, plus enough time to promote the show — at least, much more time than they allotted with the October 23 announcement. Plus, arenas in Europe are currently engaged in football season — no, not the one with helmets and pads — so teams would likely be unwilling to rent out their arenas and risk damage to the fields, even if they were playing away games on the requested dates.
Truthfully, all this is less than surprising and at this point, I’m not sure who Kanye thinks he’s fooling. He doesn’t have an agent — and probably isn’t going to find another one after being dropped by CAA over his prior antisemitic statements — and he probably isn’t anywhere near liquid enough to assume the risk of putting all this on himself — again, because his bank accounts were closed in the wake of the above-mentioned bigotry, while the IRS simultaneously put a hold on him for unpaid taxes. Most importantly, his past erratic behaviors appear to have finally caught up with him, making him more of a liability in the eyes of business partners than a potential cash cow. You can only cry “wolf” so many times before the villagers turn on you, and Kanye’s been shouting wolves, lions, tigers, and bears for the past year. The jig might finally, well, and truly be up.
(Gross spoilers for Amazon’s Gen V will be found below.)
Gen V‘s preparing for what promises to be a head-splitting season finale, and there’s plenty of speculation of what type of cliffhanger we will witness. You gotta know there will be one of those, and hopefully, more about The Woods will come to light. As the audience prepares, however, people tend to have questions, and one Reddit user had a solid one about Lizze Broadway‘s fun-sized character, Emma, a.k.a. “Little Cricket.”
As we previously discussed in our season review, Emma’s power — the ability to shrink and grow in size by purging and binging — is one of many in this series that strongly relates to the more traumatic aspects of coming of age. Emma deals with this in the most graceful way possible, at least, as far as her clothing goes, but there’s certainly a healthy dose of self-loathing that goes along with this power vs. the pressures of college life.
Still, there’s a big question when it comes to Emma being big, and one Reddit user articulated what a lot of people are probably thinking. When Emma needs to shrink, does she have to do so mechanically, so to speak? And if that’s the case, does vomiting always suffice, or, you know, does it work with the other end, too? I will now let user “shhbaby_isok” take hold of this important discussion, especially with the second question:
Does Emmas powers work through the mechanical act of eating or purging, or by caloric intake/deficit? Say Emma refrained from eating, would she burn through her fat stores, or would she simply shrink?
Or is the act of purging necessary to make her shrink? What if she’s been giant size for a while and her stomach content has been metabolized. Is she stuck like that? or does poopin also count as purging?
There’s more at the source, of course, regarding whether or not calorie count of any particular food matters, and, if this “poop” ability was a real thing, whether Emma would, you know, fall into the toilet if she…. ? Never mind.
In the series, Emma does know that she has to maintain a certain calorie count or shrink beyond her control, so it makes more sense if these calories are in-and-out on a temporary basis rather than fully metabolized. If the latter was the case, she might keep growing and never be able to shrink again, soooo yeah. I’m gonna have to guess that vomiting is the only bodily function that matters when it comes to Emma’s powers.
“Higher, faster, further,” might be Carol Danvers’ motto, but it definitely doesn’t apply to the box office projections of the MCU’s next team-up, The Marvels.
The Nia DaCosta’s directorial effort scheduled to land in theaters on November 10th is currently tracking at $75M – $80M for its three-day opening weekend. That’s around 50% less than Captain Marvel’s debut, which earned $153M in its opening weekend. According to Deadline, buzz around the sequel to Brie Larson’s superhero vehicle — also starring Iman Vellani and Teyonah Parris — has suffered due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, which has severely limited the studio from pushing the film in the press and at conventions like San Diego Comic-Con.
Without stars making the rounds to promote the film, any interest in the MCU entry must be built through smart marketing tactics, but even there Marvel seems to have failed. The PR campaign for The Marvels started much later than the standard 12 weeks other superhero team-ups have gotten. That could be due to a lack of confidence in the film’s ability to draw crowds back to theaters during a period of superhero fatigue amongst movie fans.
Deadline reports that The Marvels is “well below the top-performing MCU titles among men under 35,” and that among both male and female audiences, it falls behind recent movies like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in terms of interest. With some fans unsure of where the film fits in the ever-expanding multiverse being built by the studio, it sounds like even the tease of an X-Men crossover might not be enough to save it at the box office this month.
Over the summer, Harrison Ford whipped his way back into theaters as the iconic archaeologist in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. It’s now been several months since the fifth Indy film’s release, and fans of the fedora-wearing adventurer want to know when they can watch his newest adventure on Disney+. The answer? Very soon.
According to Variety, Dial of Destiny will start streaming on Disney+ on December 1 because nothing brings in the holidays like Harrison Ford punching Nazis. We’re always saying that.
While Indy’s previous adventure, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, didn’t live up to the stone-cold classic movies from the ’80s, Dial of Destiny seems to have done a better job of returning an older, more grizzled Dr. Jones to the big screen. Uproxx‘s Mike Ryan praised Dial of Destiny as an “audacious blast” that didn’t repeat the mistakes of the fourth film.
“The crazier it got, the more I liked it,” Ryan wrote in his review. “I’ve re-watched the other four movies very recently. I think there’s a misconception from people who haven’t seen them in awhile that they are based on some sort of gritty reality. I re-watched Raiders of the Lost Ark with someone who hadn’t seen it before and she found the ending over the top. Basically, here’s this movie set in reality, then all of a sudden ghosts are flying out of the Ark killing people while Indy does a whole bunch of nothing. Personally, I’m just so used to Raiders I’ve never really thought of it that way before. I love the movie, but she’s not wrong. All the movies are like that. And the thing about Dial of Destiny is it doubles down, or even triples down, on that idea.”
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny starts streaming December 1 on Disney+. It’s also currently available for purchase on VOD.
Over the summer, Harrison Ford whipped his way back into theaters as the iconic archaeologist in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. It’s now been several months since the fifth Indy film’s release, and fans of the fedora-wearing adventurer want to know when they can watch his newest adventure on Disney+. The answer? Very soon.
According to Variety, Dial of Destiny will start streaming on Disney+ on December 1 because nothing brings in the holidays like Harrison Ford punching Nazis. We’re always saying that.
While Indy’s previous adventure, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, didn’t live up to the stone-cold classic movies from the ’80s, Dial of Destiny seems to have done a better job of returning an older, more grizzled Dr. Jones to the big screen. Uproxx‘s Mike Ryan praised Dial of Destiny as an “audacious blast” that didn’t repeat the mistakes of the fourth film.
“The crazier it got, the more I liked it,” Ryan wrote in his review. “I’ve re-watched the other four movies very recently. I think there’s a misconception from people who haven’t seen them in awhile that they are based on some sort of gritty reality. I re-watched Raiders of the Lost Ark with someone who hadn’t seen it before and she found the ending over the top. Basically, here’s this movie set in reality, then all of a sudden ghosts are flying out of the Ark killing people while Indy does a whole bunch of nothing. Personally, I’m just so used to Raiders I’ve never really thought of it that way before. I love the movie, but she’s not wrong. All the movies are like that. And the thing about Dial of Destiny is it doubles down, or even triples down, on that idea.”
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny starts streaming December 1 on Disney+. It’s also currently available for purchase on VOD.
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thank you to everyone that has been apart of my new journey and…
