Month: February 2024

On Monday, February 26, Drake generated (deserved) criticism by posting a since-expired Instagram Story advocating for Tory Lanez, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence after being found guilty on three felony counts in connection to shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the feet in July 2020. Drake’s Instagram activity the following day was more endearing — at least to the two-plus-million people who liked it.

Drake posted two Instagram photos of his mother, Sandra “Sandi” Graham, presumably at a recent stop on his ongoing It’s All A Blur Tour — Big As The What? with J. Cole. The first photo shows Sandi beaming (and rocking a tie-dyed OVO hoodie) while holding her iPhone. The next slide is a zoomed-in photo of her phone open to a text she wrote, which reads, “I always cry when I come to his concerts… I’m so proud of him.” Drake captioned the post, “Posting this as a forever core memory.” (It’s extremely important to note that Sandi uses enlarged text like a true mom.)

From the moment he became a well-known rapper, Drake has publicized his devotion to his mother. Last July, during one of three shows at New York City’s Madison Square Garden during his initial It’s All A Blur Tour with 21 Savage, he emotionally rapped “Look What You’ve Done” to his mom while she sat beside him on stage.

As for Drake’s current It’s All A Blur Tour — Big As The What? leg, the next shows are scheduled for Saturday, March 2, and Sunday, March 3, in Kansas City, Missouri. See all of the remaining dates here.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

James Clavell’s 1975 novel Shōgun runs a whopping 1152 pages. The first time it was adapted into a TV miniseries, in 1980, they banged the whole thing out in five episodes. Mind you, those episodes were nearly two hours each, totaling nine hours and change. The book’s inspired a new limited series (as they call miniseries nowadays), which bowed its first two episodes today. But how many episodes will it take to get through the Clavell now?

The answer: 10. The difference is that each episode is between 60 and 75 minutes, meaning it will probably wind up being only slightly longer than the previous TV adaptation — 10, maybe 11 hours total, depending on how long each episode is. In other words, it’s about an hour per every hundred pages of the tome.

Shōgun has been earning raves, with some calling it the next Game of Thrones. Here’s how Uproxx previously described Shōgun’s plot:

The expansive story follows the outbreak of a 1600s civil war and also revolves around the accounts of an English ship captain, John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), whose shop becomes marooned, which is the first step in him becoming pivotal in the conflict, particularly on the side of Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), whose rule has been dragged into chaos by an opposing Council of Regents (i.e., “vultures”). However, Blackthorne and Toranaga must rely upon a translator, Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), who is no mere impartial party.

The 1980 Shōgun was a massive hit, turning its star Richard Chamberlain — already a fixture of television — into the era’s king of miniseries. The trashy The Thorn Birds was soon to follow. That Shōgun, which also features the legendary Toshiro Mifune, is not available to stream but is on Blu-ray.

New episodes of Shōgun will drop every Wednesday on Hulu and Disney+ as well as on FX.

Drake and J. Cole spent Wednesday, February 28, at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York for the second of back-to-back shows for their co-headlining It’s All A Blur Tour – Big As the What? However, a part of Drake is still in St. Louis, Missouri, where two fans were struck by a car and killed while leaving a Big As The What? concert on February 13. The victims were mother and daughter, 42-year-old Laticha Bracero and 21-year-old Alyssa Cordova.

Per XXL Magazine, Drake paused Wednesday’s show in Buffalo to deliver a broader message about gratitude in the victims’ honor.

“You never know what somebody else’s reality will be when they walk out of this building,” Drake told the audience in XXL‘s fan-taken video. “So, for this moment that all of us are together — all 18,000 people — what I want to do [is] I want you to turn to somebody that you do not know. Not somebody that you came with. I want you to turn to somebody that you do not know, I want you to look them in the eyes, and I want you to prove that you’re grateful for your life. I want you to take five seconds out of your day to make somebody else’s day. Just show them some love because you never know what comes next. Just some f*ckin’ love tonight in Buffalo, New York.”

Drake continued, “I think one of the most important things in life is the idea that you have two choices. You can either wake up every day, and you can be a piece of sh*t, or you can wake up every day and be a decent person, so I appreciate y’all being good for [inaudible]. Rest in peace to that young mother and her child.”

According to KTVI FOX 2 in St. Louis, the alleged driver has been identified as 22-year-old Monte Henderson, who has been out on bond and subsequently “ordered to undergo house arrest and wear a GPS ankle monitor.”

The local news outlet also reported the alleged sequence of events, as excerpted below.

“Henderson was charged with two counts of first-degree involuntary manslaughter and two counts of armed criminal action in the deaths of Laticha Bracero, 42, and Alyssa Cordova, 21.

The crash happened around 12:30 a.m. on February 14 at North 18th and Olive streets, near city police headquarters, in Downtown West as Bracero and Cordova were leaving a Drake concert.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s probable cause statement claims that Henderson was speeding in excess of 70 miles per hour in a 2020 Jeep Cherokee, driving eastbound on Olive Street. At some point, Henderson allegedly blew through a red light and sideswiped the front end of a 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander, which was traveling north on 18th Street. The Cherokee spun out and struck Bracero and Cordova, who were using the crosswalk on Olive.”

There are great lawyers, and then there’s Alina Habba — which is to say someone who doesn’t appear to be great legal representation. The former president has burned through endless lawyers during his many recent legal woes, and at this point the best he can do seems to be someone under the intense delusion she’s better than Taylor Swift. Her latest blunder might be her worst: She let slip that her client is not only not as rich as he claims to be but is apparently straight-up not rich.

Per Raw Story, Trump’s lawyers filed a request asking to stay Justice Arthur Engoron’s decision to force their client to fork over $454.2 million after being found liable in his New York fraud case. That request was denied, by the way, but not before they suggested Trump simply doesn’t have the dough.

“In the absence of a stay on the terms herein outlined,” the filing read, “properties would likely need to be sold to raise capital under exigent circumstances, and there would be no way to recover any property sold following a successful appeal and no means to recover the resulting financial losses from the Attorney General.”

In other words, Trump doesn’t have half a billion at the ready. What’s more, this directly contradicts what Habba told Newsmax after they asked if he had “that kind of money sitting around.”

“Yes,” Habba replied. “I mean, he does, of course he has money. You know, he’s a billionaire. We know that.”

Do we, though? When asked if Trump could simply write a check, Habba kind of waffled. “I’m not gonna get into privileged information, but there will be a bond, and there will be no issues with that,” she said. “So that’s all I’ll say on that.”

Habba later told Fox News something similar, claiming “he’s resilient and he happens to have a lot of cash.”

Will Trump throw ketchup at Habba next time he sees her? Maybe not. He’s already been open about how difficult he is as a client, saying any lawyer who takes him on as a client would have to be “crazy.” At least he has Habba.

(Via Raw Story)

Bardigang has been through it while waiting for Cardi B’s sophomore album, the follow-up to her Grammy-winning, record-obliterating 2018 debut, Invasion Of Privacy, and among Uproxx‘s “Most Anticipated Albums Of 2024.” On February 28, there’s reason for cautious optimism that one of hip-hop’s longest droughts is nearing an end, as Cardi B announced she will release her new freestyle “Like What” this Friday, March 1.

The diamond-certified rapper posted the song’s cover art on Instagram alongside the caption, “[eyeballs emoji] YA FOUND ME. Like What freestyle FRIDAY [microphone emoji].” Cardi also posted a snippet to her Instagram Story, in which she raps atop instrumentals from Missy Elliott’s “She’s A B**ch,” as aggregated on X below.

Cardi B’s announcement comes one day after Cardi teased a separate snippet on her since-expired Instagram Story, as captured below by MEFeater.

On February 26, Cardi B incited anticipation by blacking out all of her social media accounts, which has become the tell-tale signal that new music is coming. Cardi’s social media accounts have since been restored, but “Like What” is a promising sign that all of this could be the start of a larger album rollout.

Cardi B and Missy Elliott are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift have more or less become inseparable since collaborating on Swift’s 2014 album 1989. Antonoff spoke about their working relationship in an interview with Mikael Wood for The Los Angeles Times.

“I’m a little b*tch sometimes,” Antonoff said, within the context of his protectiveness toward his collaborators, especially Swift. “But you come after my friend Taylor, you’re toast to me.”

Antonoff also compared questioning the merit of Swift’s songwriting to “challenging someone’s faith in God. You just don’t go there.” He also suggested Kanye West “just needs his diaper changed so badly.”

On January 24, Antonoff publicized his distaste for West on X (formerly Twitter), writing, “kanye on bleachers release date is hilarious little cry baby b*tch.” (At the time, West and Ty Dolla Sign’s joint three-part Vultures project shared a March 8 release date with Bleachers’ self-titled album, though everyone should know by now to never trust any announced Vultures release date.)

Of course, West’s harassment of Swift has been well-documented. There was the viral 2009 VMAs incident and his viral “illegally recorded phone call,” which Swift said then-wife Kim Kardashian “edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar,” as she recounted in her 2023 Time Person Of The Year profile.

Earlier this month, West posted a since-deleted Instagram message to Swifties, claiming, “I’m sure I’ve been far more helpful to Taylor Swift’s career than harmful. To all Taylor Swift fans I am not your enemy uuum Im not your friend either though lol.”

Ty Dolla Sign is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a single adult or married with children, there’s nothing quite like having cereal for dinner or a late night snack once in a while.

Something about it feels nostalgic but it’s also really easy to fall back on when you’re too exhausted to cook a full meal. There’s nothing wrong with grabbing a bowl of cereal for a meal outside of breakfast. You’re feeding yourself or your family a food that contains some of the vitamins a body needs.

Maybe that’s the thought process Kellogg’s CEO Gary Pilnick was going with when he unintentionally sparked some serious backlash. Pilnick was interviewed by CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” discussing the cereal giant’s new commercial featuring Tony the Tiger. The commercial itself isn’t really the problem. It features a mom holding a box of cereal with kids excitedly awaiting their cereal for dinner chanting along with Tony the Tiger’s call to eat the sweet meal.

The backlash came followeing Pilnick’s comments about why his company felt the need to create a commercial advocating families eating cereal for diner.

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Americans have been feeling excess pressure at the grocery store as prices continue to climb as companies rake in record profits, while wages stay the same. This may make for some resentment with consumers, especially when the CEO of a large company like Kellogg’s promotes their own product as a solution for saving money.

“The cereal category has always been quite affordable, and it tends to be a great destination when consumers are under pressure,” Pilnick tells CNBC. “We gotta meet the consumer where they are so we’re advertising about cereal for dinner. If you think about the cost of cereal for a family versus what they might otherwise do, that’s going to be much more affordable.”

It’s true, grabbing a family size box of Frosted Flakes and a gallon of milk is much more affordable than cooking a pot roast with all the fixings. The problem is, people probably don’t want to hear money saving tips from a CEO that makes millions a year who is pushing a solution that essentially increase his company’s earnings. “Squawk on the Street” host, Carl Quintanilla seemed to try to hint to Pilnick that his strategy may upset some people by asking if he was worried his approach may, “land the wrong way.”

While the CEO said the approach was “landing really well right now,” people on the internet are having some big feelings. A TikTok user who goes by the name PinkWigCorporategirly, uploaded the clip featuring the CEO’s comments along with a caption that read, “Rich CEO of Kellogg’s telling the poor and all of the laid off workers to eat cereal for dinner while standing in front of a mansion. This is what companies think of you.”

The TikTokker was not alone in her feelings. Several commenters chimed in with their own thoughts.

“Give the peasants cereal for dinner,” one person writes.

“Even cereal is $5+/box and the bags hold LESS cereal now, like 45% of the bag, so Kellogg’s can kick rocks,” someone else says, while others were worried about the sparse nutritional value in cereal.

“You don’t need vegetables. Especially not kids. Who needs to be healthy,” another sarcastically asks.

PinkWigCorporategirly wasn’t the only one to make a video about the CEO’s remarks. The general consensus seems to be that Pilnick should not give out financial advice that will enhance his own company’s profits.

Monica Lewinsky knows a thing or two about reinvention.

The former White House intern became the source of media obsession after her affair with former President Bill Clinton become public. It solidified her place in history against her will, but through her actions since, Lewinsky has transformed her public persona into a feminist icon and champion of a powerful anti-bullying campaign.

Now, the 50-year-old Lewinsky is lending her household name to sustainable fashion brand Reformation and Vote.org in hopes to encourage people to vote this year.

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In a campaign aptly titled “You’ve Got The Power,” Lewinsky models fabulously chic and structured workwear pieces—blazers, pencil skirts, one badass leather trench coat—all while posing in a sky rise office building.

There are even subtle (or not-so-subtle) nods to Lewinsky’s previous chapter during the Clinton era: one image where she’s clad in vivid scarlet, head-to-toe, and another wearing large sunglasses as though she were thwarting the paparazzi.

On the campaign website, Reformation wrote: “Monica’s been empowering women to use their voices and feel powerful for a long time. So it just makes sense that she’d help us do the same. And while great clothes won’t fix everything, putting them on and going to the polls is a pretty good place to start.”

On the same page, Lewinsky is quoted saying “Voting is using your voice to be heard, and it’s the most defining aspect of democracy. If you wanna complain for the next four years, you gotta go out and vote.”

Lewinsky told Elle in an interview published Monday that her decision to join the campaign was inspired by an evident rise in voter frustration and apathy.

“We all have to be reminding each other that we can’t let that get in the way of needing to vote, that that’s how we use our voice. That’s where our power is,” she shared.

For many women, clothing is a powerful form of expression. The fact that we have so many unapologetically feminine elements coming together to encourage women to use their voices, spoken in a language that many women understand on a visceral level…that in itself feels like progress.

Voting is sure to be tenuous this year. Whether this campaign serves as a reminder to get out there and let your voice be heard, or gave you inspiration for your election-day look, it’s a pretty worthwhile collaboration.

FYI: Though not modeled by Lewinsky, Reformation is also selling a limited edition “You Got The Power” sweatshirt. A portion of the proceeds made will got towards Vote.org, which works toward making voting more accessible.

There was a time when far right fans of The Boys had no inkling the show didn’t like them. They thought Homelander, the Trumpy leader of the villainous superhero faction The Seven, was some folk hero, worthy of adulation. Then last season the show’s creative team made it very clear he was a villain. The far right fans melted down. Just to twist the knife, The Boys’ team cooked up a little jab at not only Homelander but the modern politician he’s most like.

On Wednesday, the Twitter/X account for Vought International — the fictitious company run by Homelander — dropped some new merch. It was a tacky, wildly expensive, and frankly hideous sneaker, whose sales will go to the guy’s forthcoming trial, which is one of the events revealed to happen during Season 4.

“Based on our greatest hero’s boots, these shoes will make you feel like you can fly,” read the post. “Available at a Super deal of $777, with all proceeds going to his legal defense fund. Get yours before his sham of a trial on June 13!”

If the Homelander high-tops look familiar, that’s because they’re a clear parody of the dumb golden Trump sneakers the former president was peddling the other weekend. Of course, those were only going for $399, about half of what Homelander’s supporters are asking for, in a show that’s not real but that’s just as ridiculous as our own, very broken reality.

Trump unveiled the golden sneakers the day after he was forced to pay nearly half a billion dollars after being liable in his New York fraud case. Though the footwear quickly sold out, they’ve caused him no shortage of headaches, including blurting out racist stuff about them and getting dragged by Shane Gillis on SNL.

As for The Boys, it’s set to return to Amazon Prime starting June 13.

In a world where prices are continuously increasing, prominent companies are turning to surge pricing to raise prices even further during peak demand times. Uber charges people more for a ride when demand is high. Hotels have been changing prices based on demand for years and Amazon uses AI to keep prices constantly in flux.

Recently, Ticketmaster, known for charging high fees, has been charging customers even more for tickets as demand rises.

On Monday, February 26, news reports began circulating that Wendy’s, America’s 5th most popular fast-food chain, would implement dynamic pricing at its restaurants. Many assumed that meant a Dave’s Double burger would cost an extra $3 during dinner time or medium fries would cost an extra buck during the lunch rush.

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The changes in pricing are part of a $30 million effort to launch digital menu boards at all of its U.S. company-run restaurants by the end of 2025 and to enhance its digital menus at restaurants across the globe.

Dear @Wendys,

No.

Sincerely,
Everyone.

— My Own Damn Self (@BlackGirlTris) February 27, 2024

Many people feared the worst after the reports, but Wendy’s hadn’t provided any specifics on pricing during its announcement. “Dynamic pricing can allow Wendy’s to be competitive and flexible with pricing, motivate customers to visit and provide them with the food they love at a great value,” a Wendy’s spokesperson told The New York Post. “We will test a number of features that we think will provide an enhanced customer and crew experience.”

The news caused a lot of outrage on Twitter, where many railed against what they saw as a plan to start price gouging. They also feared that surge pricing would become ubiquitous in the fast-food industry, where consistency and low prices keep people returning to the drive-thru.

If you can’t depend on the price of a burger and fries on the drive home from work, then what can you depend on?

Prices at fast food restaurants are already on the rise. McDonald’s raised its prices by 10% over the last year, and, according to PriceListo, Wendey’s prices have soared by 35% between 2022 and 2023 due to a rise in the cost of labor and supplies.

Adding surge pricing on top of higher prices would force many people to abandon the drive-thru altogether.

Looks like Wendy’s got word of @ronnychieng‘s side hustle and shut it down pic.twitter.com/8NiqzUk1gj

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) February 28, 2024

Wendys figuring up what your fast food meal cost based on demand and surge pricing pic.twitter.com/zkv7T2siAP

— ScottW (@jswtreeman) February 27, 2024

The Wendy’s Cashier after selling the guy in front of me a stale burger for $17.98 pic.twitter.com/1UVYYvx3Pp

— High Yield Harry (@HighyieldHarry) February 28, 2024

Me bursting into Wendy’s at 3am so I can get a nacho cheeseburger for $1.50 https://t.co/a03U4gXPsD pic.twitter.com/jocx7YE88V

— DOGRUSH (@dagothurfanclub) February 28, 2024

Bro I’m just trying to order a sandwich from Wendy’s what the heck is this 😭 pic.twitter.com/ptiPThvVo1

— Matt Esparza (@matthewesp) February 27, 2024

just got 110 burgers from Wendy’s. nice try but your surge pricing won’t get me, I’m stocked up for the year 🖕 https://t.co/PydoS5hjA0 pic.twitter.com/yJu8tY4mx3

— gaz (@gazpachomachine) February 27, 2024

Wendys + Robinhood 🤝 pic.twitter.com/QTgT66srUK

— David (@dkrasniy) February 28, 2024

After the public backlash against its new pricing strategy, Wendy’s clarified that it has no intention of implementing surge pricing. “Wendy’s will not implement surge pricing, which is the practice of raising prices when demand is highest. We didn’t use that phrase, nor do we plan to implement that practice,” the company said in an email to The Associated Press on Wednesday, February 28.

However, it did add that its new digital menu boards may offer more dynamic menu offerings throughout the day that could save consumers a few bucks for stopping by during non-peak hours. The company said the new digital menus “could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the slower times of day.”