Month: January 2024

Super Bowl LVIII is more than just a football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers. “It’s also a live game of Where’s Waldo? starring Taylor Swift,” said host Jimmy Kimmel during Tuesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. “I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but there’s some serious crazy talk about Taylor Swift and Joe Biden going around.” There sure is: the Super Bowl will apparently be rigged in favor of the Chiefs so that Taylor — who also is a psyop according to these nutjobs — will endorse Joe Biden.

Kimmel read a tweet from conservative businessman Mike Crispi, who wrote, “The NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer (Travis Kelce). All to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA. Calling it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and “endorses” Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.” There’s more paranoia where that came from.

“So let me get this straight,” said Kimmel, trying to make sense of this nonsense. “The same people who believe Joe Biden has dementia and needs Kamala Harris to feed him butterscotch tapioca every night also believe that he has somehow planned and executed a diabolically brilliant scheme to fix the NFL playoffs so the biggest pop star in the world could pop up on the Jumbotron during the Super Bowl during a Kia and a Tostitos commercial to hypnotize her 11-year-old fans into voting for Joe Biden?”

You can watch the Kimmel clip above.

Earlier this month, a Talking Heads tribute album was announced, with a teaser of Paramore’s rendition of the classic “Burning Down The House.” Well, the full song is out now, along with more info about the album, dubbed Everyone’s Getting Involved: A Tribute To Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense. The tribute album is part of the anniversary celebrations of the Stop Making Sense concert film and album, which were both released in 1984.

The tracklist hasn’t been revealed yet (in terms of who’s performing what), but the list of contributing artists has been. Along with Paramore, the project also features BadBadNotGood, Blondshell, The Cavemen, Chicano Batman Feat. Money Mark, DJ Tunez, El Mató a un Policía Motorizado, Girl In Red, Jean Dawson, Kevin Abstract, The Linda Lindas, Lorde, Miley Cyrus, The National, Teezo Touchdown, and Toro y Moi. The project will feature all 16 songs from the original album.

The Everyone’s Getting Involved release date hasn’t been shared yet either, but you can listen to Paramore’s cover of “Burning Down The House” right now, above.

Everyone’s Getting Involved: A Tribute To Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense Album Cover Artwork

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

Last summer, Taylor Swift’s “August” went viral on TikTok thanks to an adorable pet-spinning trend. Viral moments aside, Swift’s songs are consistently popular on the video platform, but at the moment, their future on the site looks uncertain.

Are Taylor Swift’s Songs Leaving TikTok?

Maybe.

Universal Music Group currently has beef with TikTok, which could result in them pulling their artists’ songs from the platform. UMG artists include heavy-hitters like Swift, Drake, Billie Eilish, Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, Post Malone, Justin Bieber, Adele, J Balvin, and many others. As of this post, Swift’s songs are still available to use when creating a new TikTok post.

In an open letter shared yesterday (January 30), UMG noted that its licensing agreement with TikTok expires today (January 31). As for negotiations to renew the contract, they have so far not been fruitful.

The letter notes, “The terms of our relationship with TikTok are set by contract, which expires January 31, 2024. In our contract renewal discussions, we have been pressing them on three critical issues — appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.”

It goes on to say:

“As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth. How did it try to intimidate us? By selectively removing the music of certain of our developing artists, while keeping on the platform our audience-driving global stars.

TikTok’s tactics are obvious: use its platform power to hurt vulnerable artists and try to intimidate us into conceding to a bad deal that undervalues music and shortchanges artists and songwriters as well as their fans.

We will never do that.

We will always fight for our artists and songwriters and stand up for the creative and commercial value of music.”

The letter concludes:

“We recognize the challenges that TikTok’s actions will cause, and do not underestimate what this will mean to our artists and their fans who, unfortunately, will be among those subjected to the near-term consequences of TikTok’s unwillingness to strike anything close to a market-rate deal and meaningfully address its obligations as a social platform. But we have an overriding responsibility to our artists to fight for a new agreement under which they are appropriately compensated for their work, on a platform that respects human creativity, in an environment that is safe for all, and effectively moderated.

We honor our responsibilities with the utmost seriousness. Intimidation and threats will never cause us to shirk those responsibilities.”

TikTok then shared a response and kept it short and sweet, writing:

“It is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.

Despite Universal’s false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent.

TikTok has been able to reach ‘artist-first’ agreements with every other label and publisher. Clearly, Universal’s self-serving actions are not in the best interests of artists, songwriters and fans.”

Ultimately, if WMG and TikTok do not reach some sort of agreement before their current contract expires, it looks like TikTok users might have to go without songs by Swift and others.

People are used to hearing quote worthy sentences with the dramatic flair when it comes to the likes of Shakespeare or Emily Brontë. It’s the kind of sentence structure that makes everything sound like a love affair with the English language as you imagine someone writing with quill and ink. Maybe the English language has gotten a bit sloppy or lazy over the years.

But it seems that Nigerians have never stopped having a flair for the dramatics when it comes to speaking, at least that’s what people on the internet have revealed. Recently a podcast ClxpsAndGxgs uploaded a clip to TikTok to discuss an X thread they discovered.

“Nigerians speak so poetic when they’re upset, instead of saying, ‘I’m mad,’ they’ll say, ‘my enemies have succeeded,'” one of the hosts reads before bursting into laughter.

This is apparently just how many Nigerians speak, because the comment section of the original X post which appeared in 2021 and the comments under the recent video give near endless examples.

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One of the co-hosts reads out a response to the original post, “my Naija professor once said, ‘they’ve made an assassination attempt on my life,’ when he slipped on a piece of paper.” The theatrics in speech were too much for the other co-host to bear as he called out how dramatic it was to call slipping on a piece of paper an assassination attempt.

But maybe, just maybe we could have a little more fun with the English language. Clearly, Americans haven’t figured out how to give our sentences the proper enhancements because speaking this way seems much more fun. The examples of this exquisite use of self-expression via the spoken word continued in the comments.

@clxpsandgxgs

Nigerians Speak so Poethically #shxtsngigs #nigerians

One person writes, “my Nigerian friend angry at another friend who’s terrible at charades, ‘he sits under the tree of knowledge, yet not a single fruit falls into his lap.”

Another says, “A Nigerian friend of mine said, ‘the image of God is expanding,’ commenting on my weight gain. I could not even be mad.”

One commenter reveals, “when I walk in with a serious look, my Nigerian mom would ask me, ‘my daughter why does your face look like a formal letter?'”

Someone said they need these little nuggets in the form of a daily calendar and they just might be on to something. Who wouldn’t love a little Nigerian wordsmithing sitting at the ready?

After missing two games against the Nuggets and Blazers with knee soreness, Joel Embiid was back in the lineup for the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday night as they took on the Warriors in San Francisco, but the reigning MVP did not look quite right for much of the night.

Embiid was not looking to attack smaller defenders in the same way he often is, and didn’t seem to be moving particularly well as the Sixers found themselves trailing for most of the night. As the fourth quarter wound down, the Warriors had taken full control of the game with a double digit lead when disaster struck for the Sixers. Embiid got the ball poked away by Jonathan Kuminga helping down on him as he backed down Draymond Green, and as players scrambled for the loose ball, Kuminga jumped to secure it and landed on Embiid’s outstretched left leg, pushing his knee backwards towards the ground.

Embiid immediately grasped at his knee in significant pain, rolling on the court before eventually getting up and limping to the locker room. The hope for the Sixers, their fans, and the league as a whole is that it was more scary than anything for Embiid, but there will further testing coming for the Sixers star center to determine the severity of the injury. For now, everyone will hope it wasn’t especially serious and wasn’t something that will keep him out long-term and threaten to end his season.

The Lakers dipped below .500 on Tuesday night with their second straight loss to a non-playoff opponent, getting smoked by the reeling Atlanta Hawks, 138-122, one night after a double digit loss to the Houston Rockets.

It continues a frustrating trend for the Lakers of being unable to string together any positive momentum, as any time they win a game or two they immediately give those gains in the standings back with a couple of losses. Not only that, it’s not even a matter of playing great competition, as LeBron James bluntly explained the Lakers current situation after the game, noting on any given night the Lakers are capable of beating any team or getting their “ass kicked” by any team in the league.

The Lakers record in the month of January bears that out, as they have wins over top teams like the Thunder and Clippers, while also losing to the Grizzlies, Nets, and Hawks. Every night feels like a roulette spin and it’s just a matter of whether it comes up red or black as to which Lakers team shows up. The real question facing the Lakers right now with the trade deadline looming is: What changes could get them to raise their floor?

Any team with LeBron James and Anthony Davis has a pretty high ceiling, but the problem right now is they also have a floor of “one of the 10 worst teams in the NBA.” That’s a problem when you’re trying to get to the playoffs, and they have to figure out what could stabilize their level night-to-night so they can no longer be such a high variance group, as LeBron so bluntly laid out on Tuesday.

The Los Angeles Lakers have seemingly reached a low point on the season after back-to-back losses to the below-.500 Rockets and Hawks in succession. In both of those games they gave up more than 130 points (something they’ve done in four straight games, but managed to win the first two) and lost by double digits. Making matters worse, their road trip will continue with much stiffer competition later this week, as they face the NBA’s best team in Boston and a Knicks team with the league’s longest active winning streak next.

On Tuesday night in Atlanta, the Lakers were without Anthony Davis as he sat out on the second night of a back-to-back. In his place, Jaxson Hayes got the nod as L.A.’s starting center over Christian Wood, as Darvin Ham looked to find the right combination with his star big man out.

Six minutes after the starters were announced, Christian Wood simply tweeted “lol”, seemingly offering his feelings on being left on the bench even with Davis sitting out.

Neither Hayes nor Wood had a particularly good game, but Wood did out produce Hayes with nine points and eight boards compared to six points and six rebounds from Hayes. Neither provided much resistance on defense, which has been an issue for some time for the Lakers, and ultimately it probably didn’t matter who Ham rolled with on Tuesday night at the five spot.

Still, it was a talking point after the game and both Ham and Wood addressed the tweet, with Ham first saying he hadn’t seen it but declared the starting lineup wasn’t “a popularity contest,” and he was making the decisions he felt were best for the team.

Wood, meanwhile, insisted he meant to quote tweet something, but forgot to do that and so he simply tweeted “lol” without any context and that wasn’t what it was about.

Whether you buy that excuse or not is up to you, but this certainly doesn’t help the rumblings that there’s a locker room disconnect in L.A. between the players and Ham. The task only gets more difficult as they head to the northeast to face the Celtics and Knicks, and if they continue to lose in the fashion they are now, one can expect some significant changes on the horizon for the Lakers.

Over the last year alone, Donald Trump has amassed a mountain of legal woes, along with it a mountain of legal debt. That revolving door cast of increasingly bumbling lawyers ain’t going to pay for themselves (unless he simply doesn’t pay them). But he’s going to be fine, right? He’s a self-purported rich guy, and a self-purported great businessman. He just had to dip a little into his donor money to pay his legal bills last year. Or maybe not just a little.

Per a New York Times report, last year the former president spent “approximately” $50 million of money given to his various PACs — money given by sometimes cash-strapped supporters — to pay for legal bills and other trial-related expenses, such as lawyers for witnesses.

Here’s some of the breakdown:

Mr. Trump has paid legal expenses through both Save America and a second account, called the Make America Great Again PAC, which is an outgrowth of his 2020 re-election committee. In the first half of 2023, Save America transferred $5.85 million to the Make America Great Again PAC, which spent almost all of that sum on legal and investigation-related costs. The roughly $50 million figure is a combination of such costs through both groups.

A fuller story will be more available on Wednesday, when filings made to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) will be made public, so it could be more, could be less (but could be more).

Does the prospective frontrunner for the GOP’s 2024 nomination actually have any money? Or is his entire existence a paper tiger, comprised of money constantly coming and going from his various accounts and businesses? Is it really wise for the Republican Party, its politicians and its voters, to keep sticking by a magnets understanding wannabe dictator whose big mouth just cost him another $83.3 million? Or will this charade continue in perpetuity?

(Via NYT)

Fans of Hovvdy can look forward to a double dose of the musical indie duo. Today (January 30), the band, comprised of members Charlie Martin and Will Taylor, announced their upcoming self-titled fifth album. In tandem with the album announcement, Hovvdy has shared their new song, “Forever.”

The breezy single describes the feeling of unconditional and perpetual love, even in the midst of difficulty.

“Baby, take a breather / You know you’ve been freaking out / How I wanna cool you off / Like your favorite season with the windows down,” sings Martin on the song’s opening verse.

In the song’s accompanying music video, directed by Michael Rees, Martin and Taylor are seen among friends — comedians Veronika Slowikowska and Kyle Chase — vibing to music at a house party, and basking in the joy of everyone’s company.

Hovvdy was produced primarily by Martin and Taylor, with additional production by Andrew Sarlo and Bennett Littlejohn. According to a press release accompanied by the album announcement, the album, described as a “double album,” finds Martin and Taylor “at the height of their powers, broadening the scope of their songwriting and adding new wrinkles to their sound, creating something wholly unique and exhilarating.”

You can watch the video for “Forever” above, and see the Hovvdy cover art and tracklist below.

1. “Intro”
2. “Bubba”
3. “Jean”
4. “Big Blue”
5. “Shell”
6. “Forever Piano”
7. “Forever”
8. “Heartstring”
9. “Clean”
10. “Make Ya Proud”
11. “Til I Let You Know”
12. “Meant”
13. “Song For Pete”
14. “Every Exchange”
15. “Give It Up”
16. “Portrait”
17. “Angel”
18. “Bad News”
19. “A Little”

Hovvdy is out 4/26 via Arts & Crafts. Find more information here.

Sleepovers are a subject that parents and even experts can’t seem to agree on.

On the one hand, they are seen as opportunities for children to develop independence away from home and create core memories with friends—all the while giving parents some possible quiet time.

On the other hand, the “no sleepover rule” is becoming increasingly popular, as the boundary helps to avoid separation anxiety or thrusting kids into potentially risky, even dangerous environments.

But for parents who want the best of both worlds…the “sleepunder” might be the perfect solution.

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​So, what exactly is a sleepunder?

Essentially, a sleepunder, aka “lateover,” is a sleepover, minus actually sleeping over. Kids can still show up in their pajamas, eat snacks, watch movies and play games, all those fun sleepover activities…only when it’s time to go to sleep, parents will pick the kids up so that they can sleep in their own bed at home.

Have to admit—hearing this option immediately puts 10-year-old me, an introverted only child who considered sleeping in a bed that wasn’t my own to be torture, at ease.

According to Erica Komisar, a New York-based psychoanalyst, parenting expert and author, this feeling that I had is certainly not unique.

“Some kids can do sleepovers without any hesitation, while others are less comfortable changing their routine,” she told Fox News, saying that sleepunders are a great way of addressing this very real sensitivity that some kids experience in a way that doesn’t compromise having fun or bonding in groups.

While interviewing with Good Morning America, parenting expert Erika Souter added that sleepunders could be a “great option for parents who don’t culturally understand or agree with the idea of a sleepover.”

“For a lot of people it’s something that they never did or their parents didn’t let them do so this is a really good compromise,” she said.

So, in essence, sleepunders could be a great solution to easing both a kid’s and their parent’s potential anxiety.

So, in essence, sleepunders could be a great solution to easing both a kid’s and their parent’s potential anxiety.

As for how to establish a sleepunder routine, Pattie Fitzgerald, founder of Safely Ever After, Inc., has some tips that she provided to Motherly, and a lot of her advice boils down to being firm and clear in your plan, both to other parents, and your child.

Perhaps most importantly, Fitzgerald encourages parents to create a family “safe word,” just in case their child might feel uncomfortable and want to leave early. This is a way to clearly communicate without potentially causing embarrassment.

Parenting is a constant balancing act between protecting kids and allowing them freedom to explore. Sleepunders might not work for everyone, but it’s a great example of creative solutions to striking that balance.