Month: July 2024

Gucci Mane is looking for artists. Yesterday (July 5), the “There I Go” rapper posted an open call to his official Instagram page.

In the clip, Gucci expressed his desire to sign two new acts (one woman and one man) to his record label. “Who wanna be tha next millionaire,” he wrote. “I got $2 million ready! 1milli for tha next male SUPERSTAR & $1 million for tha next female SUPERSTAR! I gotta a brand new record label, SO ICY MILLIONAIRE! Tag the hottest unsigned artists now & DM ME! #SoIcyMillionaire,”

Typically, artists would jump at the opportunity to gain the backing of a hip-hop heavyweight like, Gucci. However, many users online have begun to urge independent acts to stay far away from the dotted line.

“I would if it wasn’t cursed,” wrote one user.

“I’m ok sir, I would like to live a lil bit longer,”

“These n****s scared sent the contract flee,” chimed another.

Another user posted a screenshot to recap the outcome of Gucci’s 1017 Records roster, including the late Enchanting and Big Scarr, Pooh Shiesty, and more.

“Bro shut that label down lol,” penned another.

Gucci Mane’s wife and entrepreneur Keyshia Ka’Oir previously slammed users for spreading the superstitious tale.

The Orlando Magic have an impressive young core, and on Friday afternoon, the first member from that group cashed in with a major payday. According to Shams Charania of The Atletic and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Orlando agreed to a 5-year max extension with standout forward Franz Wagner that has to potential to pay him up to $270 million.

Wagner can see the value on his deal increase dramatically if he makes an All-NBA team, but if he does not, he’ll make $224 million over the life of the deal. It’s the same deal that Scottie Barnes signed with the Toronto Raptors earlier this offseason — Barnes was selected four picks ahead of Wagner in the 2021 NBA Draft.

While Wagner struggled to hit shots from behind the three-point line last season, the former Michigan standout has established himself as one of the league’s most exciting two-way wings, and played a major role in the team making it to the playoffs this past year for the first time since 2019-20. Wagner averaged 19.7 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 1.1 steals in 32.5 minutes per game for Orlando during the 2023-24 campaign.

Wagner was not the only cornerstone member of Orlando’s roster to get selected high in the 2021 NBA Draft, as standout guard Jalen Suggs was taken with the No. 5 overall pick. While we’ll have to wait and see if he has an extension coming, the Magic have kept themselves busy this summer, as the team brought in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in free agency.

Paris is, in theory, the city of love, so it makes sense that Emily, of Emily in Paris fame, found love in Paris…though that love happened to be in the form of her downstairs neighbor who already had a committed girlfriend. Whoops! Over the next three seasons of secrets and broken pacts, the two have a rocky relationship. Turns out chefs do have sex. But actor Lucas Bravo insists that season four brings it to a whole new level.

Ahead of season four, Emily in Paris star Lucas Bravo says that the two characters have a lot of growing up to do. “This season is all about maturity,” Bravo told Vogue. “We’re all so close now, and I’ve never been so close to Lily before in terms of what we brought to Gabriel and Emily. We really wanted to take it to the next level, not in terms of passion, but in terms of maturity and the connection between them.”

The last time we saw Emily and Gabriel, it was revealed that Gabriel’s ex Camille is pregnant, which puts a damper on the “will they/won’t they” we’ve all come to know and love. Bravo says that this is the time for the two to finally reach that point.

He continued, “There’s a lot of problems that weren’t addressed for three seasons which we’re confronting now. We’re finally communicating and fighting and addressing things. That was great to shoot. We have a few scenes like that where we’re yelling at each other, and at the end of the scene, Lily and I were like, ‘This is so fun!’ We said to Darren [Star, the show’s creator], ‘You need to write more fighting scenes.’ It was all this tension being released,” he said. There is certainly a lot of tension between the two, though not as much as some other chefs.

Despite the tension, Bravo says that Emily and Gabriel are meant to be, at least to him (and the TikTok crowd that has been churning out fan cams nonstop). “All I can tell you is that when I’m in Gabriel’s skin, I’m deeply, deeply in love with Emily. She’s the one—she’s my soulmate. So from Gabriel’s perspective, I think they’re meant to be together and I hope they will be. But from an outsider’s perspective, I think they need to communicate and be independent, and their relationship should be a bonus to them being separate individuals.”

Emily in Paris returns on August 15th.

Outer Range looked like Yellowstone meets Lost at first glance, but the series (starring Josh Brolin, Imogen Poots, and Tom Pelphrey) was much more like Twin Peaks in its willingness to lean into the bizarre, mystical, and hypnotic elements of what was otherwise a bonkers sci-fi/time-travel story. A singing cowboy, a mysterious black powder, and Josh Brolin yelling at a massive hole in the ground were only the beginning of the weirdness.

Sadly, this show has now met the same fate as Twin Peaks, which was in fact cancelled after two seasons before earning full-on cult status. Amazon has decided that Outer Range will not return after the second season emerged in May and then ended with a freaking cliffhanger. It seemed that answers were finally beginning to emerge about Autumn’s plans, and Royal Abbott had finally stopped sleeping in the doghouse with his wife, so that they could straighten out the timey-wimey cowboy mess, but sorry, no future seasons will emerge on Prime Video. As Variety notes, Amazon has stuck with their usual pattern of not revealing viewership numbers, but the show did land near the top of the Nielsen Top 10 lists on release weekend.

Let’s just say that viewers are not thrilled to have grown invested in another sci-fi show that was starting to kick into gear but got yanked at a crucial moment. As a result, people are not only expressing disappointment over on Reddit but also on X/Twitter.

Could this show be picked up elsewhere? Only time will tell. This is a series that Netflix could have scooped up less than five years ago (and probably with better results than with Manifest), but streaming purses are tighter these days. No word has surfaced on the show being shopped around, so in all likelihood, it’s as done on Amazon and elsewhere as The Peripheral turned out to be.

We’re about a week into the start of the NBA’s free agency period, and while there’s still business that can (and should) be done, a number of big moves have already been sorted out. Those (like Paul George going to the Sixers) have gotten the lion’s share of the attention, but teams build out their rosters by making moves on the margins to shore up their weaknesses.

To one extent or another, teams have spent the first week of the new league calendar doing just that, and we wanted to highlight the lesser-heralded moves that deserve as much attention as the big swings we’ve seen. None of these players will (in all likelihood) turn into star additions, but it’s very easy to see how they positively impact winning.

Kyle Anderson (3 years, $27 million), Buddy Hield (2 years, $21 million), and De’Anthony Melton (1 year, $12.8 million) to the Warriors

Losing Klay Thompson obviously hurts the Warriors, but they did a solid job bringing in a trio of really nice players to round out their rotation. Hield’s shooting is a gigantic asset for a team that wants to let it fly from deep, Anderson is a steady hand off the bench whose passing should fit right into Steve Kerr’s system, and Melton is one of the best 3-and-D guards in the league, assuming he’s able to get past the back issues that plagued him last year. Golden State’s days of being a no-doubt championship contender are probably done, but between these moves, a presumed step forward for some of their promising young guys, Steph Curry being Steph Curry, and the hope that Draymond Green can stay on the court, the team has positioned itself nicely to be in the playoff hunt in the Western Conference next year.

Naji Marshall (3 years, $27 million) to the Mavs

The Mavericks bringing in Klay Thompson got a ton of attention, but losing Derrick Jones Jr. was gigantic, as the team did a great job turning him into their hyper-athletic wing stopper last year. Their bet is that Naji Marshall, who started his career as a member of the Pelicans, can fill that role while providing a bit more shooting than Jones did — Marshall has never been a super high-volume shooter, but he took a real leap in efficiency last year, shooting 38.7 percent from three on 2.3 attempts per game last year, and if he can continue to shoot them at that kind of clip on a bit higher volume, he’s going to be a steal at $9 million a year. Regardless, his ability to defend and rebound is going to get him on the floor, and should fit nicely alongside everyone else in Dallas.

Kelly Oubre (2 years, $16.3 million) to the Sixers

Oubre’s long had the reputation of being a volume scorer whose numbers didn’t match his impact on winning. And yet, last season in Philadelphia, he really blossomed into a useful member of Nick Nurse’s starting lineup. He really competed on defense, and while he wasn’t great from three, he gave the Sixers some rebounding and a willingness to attack the rim that fit well alongside Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. With Paul George in town to replace Tobias Harris, the amount he’ll need to do will probably go down, but Philly entered this offseason needing to build out its roster, and Oubre on a relatively cheap deal is a good way of doing that.

Isaiah Joe (4 years, $48 million) and Aaron Wiggins (5 years, $47 million) to the Thunder

It wasn’t as splashy as trading for Alex Caruso or signing Isaiah Hartenstein in free agency, but Oklahoma City quietly took care of business with two of their better developmental stories. Joe is flat out one of the best shooters in the NBA, and made his way into the starting lineup over the recently-traded Josh Giddey in the final games of their playoff loss to the Dallas Mavericks. Wiggins has turned into a nice member of their army of switchy wings on the perimeter, and while he picks his spots offensively, when he tries to put the ball through the rim, it usually goes in. They might be the eighth and ninth guys in the rotation for the Thunder, but boy, having two rock solid NBA players that far down your rotation is one heck of a luxury.

Jonathan Isaac (5 years, $84 million) to the Magic

No matter how you slice it, Isaac is on the short list for the best defensive players on earth. When he is healthy and on the floor, Orlando’s defense goes from excellent to absolutely terrifying, while he had his best year from the field during the 2023-24 campaign — he shot 51 percent from the field and 59.8 percent on twos. Yes, his injury history is a gigantic concern, and he absolutely has to build on what he did offensively last season, but the Magic now have him under contract for the next five years at a nice AAV before they’re going to start paying their core dudes (Franz Wagner, Jalen Suggs, Paolo Banchero). Again, so much of it comes down to staying healthy, but Orlando did a good job here.

Taurean Prince (1 year, $2.9 million) and Delon Wright (1 year, $3.3 million) to the Bucks

Milwaukee’s hands are tied due to their financial situation, but all things considered, they did a respectable job bringing in two guys who are good fits alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard. Neither Wright nor Prince are the kinds of players who will immediately fix every single problem, but price can provide more size and shooting on the wing (which the Bucks desperately need), while Wright is a steady hand in the backcourt who should be able to come off the bench and keep things moving — and if he’s reinvigorated after his spells in Washington and Miami, this could end up being an incredible value signing. The Bucks really needed to build their rotation out a bit, and both of these players should help do that.

Two of Netflix‘s shows are coming back… eventually.

Stranger Things season 5 is expected to premiere in 2025 (they’re halfway through filming!), while Squid Game could return later this year. That’s according to star Gong Yoo, who revealed that fans of the South Korean series might have a squid-y surprise waiting for them under the Christmas tree.

On a video posted to the YouTube channel for WWD KOREA, Gong was asked about his upcoming projects. “I had a lot of fun filming Squid Game,” he said, according to a YouTube translation. “You will probably be able to watch season 2 of Squid Game all over the world at the same time during Christmas this December. Please look forward to.”

What says Christmas more than an anti-capitalist allegory about the lengths people are willing to go to make money? Plus, Nosferatu!

In other Squid Game news, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk and stars Lee Jung-jae and Wi Ha-Joon will preview the new season at Italy’s Lucca Comics & Games. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Netflix is keeping mum about the event in Lucca on October 31. But given that Squid Game is the most popular series ever on the streamer, it stands to reason that interest will be high.” A late October preview would time out nicely for a December premiere. It’s also a good way to get one more use out of that Squid Game Halloween costume.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Future and Metro Boomin have been on a roll in 2024, dropping not just one, but two of the biggest hip-hop albums of the year. We Don’t Trust You and We Still Don’t Trust You are credited with kicking off the open battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, which pulled nearly everything rap-related into its orbit — and eclipsed plenty of other things going on in hip-hop, which may have backfired on Future and Metro.

After the release of the double album, Future & Metro announced their We Trust You Tour, but it looks like they may have fallen victim to the same obstacles that have interfered with plenty of their peers’ touring plans. The rapper-producer duo have nixed a handful of shows in August, including stops in Milwaukee (8/2), Nashville (8/6), Columbus (8/10), New Orleans (8/20), and Tulsa (8/25), according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Although they didn’t give reasons for the cancelations, it might be fair to attribute them to low ticket sales, as missed sales goals has been the culprit behind plenty of tour cancelations of late.

The We Trust You Tour was one of the most anticipated tours of 2024, so this is certainly a disappointment to those fans who had tickets. If low sales were the reason, let’s hope future tours (no pun intended) can adjust and avoid these pitfalls.

Haliey Welch: You may not know the name, but you know who she is. She’s become best known as the “Hawk Tuah Girl” lately, after the viral video in which she describes the steps she takes to ensure a male romantic partner is satisfied. “Hawk Tuah” has become an undeniable sensation, so much so that Welch just landed representation a few days ago.

Everybody wants a piece, and now rapper Plies has just claimed his by dropping a new song based on the meme, appropriately titled “Hawk Tuah.”

The track begins, “She just hit my line and said she wanna come through / I just hit her back and told her, ‘Pull up on me, boo’ / I been on that drank, it got me feeling rock, too / Told her when she come, make sure she bring the ‘hawk tuah.’” The two-minute songs proceeds pretty much how you’d expect from there.

Plies’ most recent album is 2010’s Goon Affiliated, but he has shared a regular stream of mixtapes since then. His latest is 2020’s The Real Testament II.

Meanwhile, Welch recently shared “three awesome things” that have happened since her life has changed, saying, “Number one: I got over my stage fright. I sang in front of 80,000 people with Zach Bryan the other night — and I cannot sing for sh*t. But I did it anyway. Number two: I quit my job at the spring factory, so I don’t have to eat Taco Bell all the time but I’m still going to do it anyways. [Number three:] I actually have to get ready more than one time out of the week now. I’m not allowed to look like Adam Sandler anymore.”

Listen to “Hawk Tuah” above.

The Walking Dead might not seem like the best TV show to turn into a musical, but that’s what some said about Stranger Things and that seemed to turn out pretty well!

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live star Danai Gurira told SFX Magazine that she and TWD team were “actually chatting” about turning the popular franchise into a musical. Likely most good ideas, it began as a joke. “I was just joking around about having a Walking Dead musical on Broadway,” Gurira told SFX magazine. “Me and [Scott] Gimple are actually chatting about it, which is ridiculous.”

Ridiculous, yes, but considering that Gurira has some impressive stage credits, she might be the person to make a Walking Dead musical actually worthwhile. Perhaps called….The Dancing Dead? Let’s workshop the name and see what happens.

Gurira says that the musical idea might be a joke, but the showrunner really does want to look into getting stage rights, though it’s not that easy. “He’s just said we don’t have the rights to it. I’m like, ‘Well, let’s talk to [Robert] Kirkman, see what he says to that.’ I mean, we’re really largely just joking around. But stranger things have been done, and I do love the theatre… It’s about, how do you confine it to something? Because it’s just so much story. So it would really be, how do you confine it to a good two-or-three-hour play?”

How would you confine a bunch of zombies to a play? Maybe they should focus on all those spinoffs instead of adding another project to the docket. How about we check in with Daryl all the way over in France?! Remember him?!?!

(Via SFX Magazine)

(WARNING: Spoilers for this week’s Power Book II: Ghost episode will be found in the recap below.)

The moment we knew would come finally arrived for Tariq in Power Book II: Ghost season four, episode five titled “Ego Death.” Actually, it was two moments. The first is Noma finally caught on to Tariq and Brayden’s underground drug operation through college parties. She discovered it after finding a bag of coke in her daughter Anya’s bag after the same bag of coke was brought to her and said to have come from Stansfield. Noma walks into the next college party with Cane to see the operation live in action, and though their plan is to kill Tariq, they’re forced to put a stop to it after Tariq uses Anya as a distraction.

The second moment is Tariq finally accepting that he is no different from his father. After a string of events that knocked him off his path, Tariq realizes that he needs to use his dad’s qualities to become an “apex predator” to stand at the top of the drug game and ensure the safety of himself and loved ones like Brayden and his mother Tasha. It foreshadows what appears to be an epic second half to season four which begins later this year on September 6.

Elsewhere, Monet and Dru discover that Detective Carter is a dirty cop after his task force catches them in the middle of a drug heist. To avoid getting arrested, Monet and Dru’s crew — minus Ice who was killed by Carter — must give him 35% of their profits and avoid killing civilians or risk jail time or death. Diana makes the decision to keep her baby, and though Tariq was initially combative about it, an acid trip helps him embrace the idea of bringing a child into the world. First, he and Diana will have to get on the same page, as the two do not agree about Tariq’s participation in the drug game while also being a father. Cane and Noma’s romance continues, while Brayden’s own becomes the subject of a big argument between him and Tariq.

Let’s dive into a recap of the fifth episode in Ghost season four with a few takeaways we have after watching “Ego Death.”

The More Tariq Tries To Be Different, The More He Proves That He’s Just Like Ghost

It took three and half seasons of Ghost, but Tariq finally admitted that he’s just like his dad. It all changed during a conversation with Brayden, where Tariq finally acknowledge and accepted the similarities between him and Ghost. Despite this realization, Tariq still doesn’t fully see how similar he is to Ghost. Just like his father, Tariq is quite inconsiderate to the needs of loved ones around him, and he can’t seem to prioritize their issues as he does his own.

When Brayden voices his issues during an argument with Tariq, they get brushed aside as Tariq tells him to “take this sh*t on the chin like I do every day.” Later on, Tariq expects Diana to be okay with him being deep in the drug game as they raise their child, as opposed to pretending to be out of it like Ghost did. In each case, Tariq put his needs and desires above Brayden’s and Diana’s without considering how they really feel or how their current respective situations are effecting them. Classic Ghost if you ask me.

Monet Is Taking The Easy Route Toward Rebuilding Her Family

Monet nearly lost two more children in episode four of Ghost as both Cane and Tariq were in pursuit of Dru and Diana, respectively, in retaliation for trying to kill Monet and set up Tasha for a death of her own. When Monet learned of Diana’s pregnancy, she immediately called off Cane moments before he would’ve killed Dru and she also convinced Tariq not to do the same to Diana. Now, it’s time to put the family back together, but Monet wants to do it the easy way. The drug game is what tore her family apart, but now, Monet is hoping that it can bring her family back together. Realistically, that is the easy route towards rebuilding the family. All Monet knows is the game, and she’s leaning on that to fix her past mistakes and right her wrongs with the family, but the drug game isn’t a place for nurturing a family. If Monet wants things to be different, she has to take another approach.

Diana Can’t Put Herself First And Make Things Work With Tariq

Just when it seemed like Diana and Tariq could work things out with their child on the way, Tariq dropped a bomb on Diana but telling her his plans to remain in the game as they raise their child. Diana, traumatized by how her experience with parents’ in the drug game, is set on her keeping her first child as far away from the game as possible. So, she makes it clear to Tariq that his plans won’t work for her and their child. Just like Dru, Diana is set on putting herself first and prioritizing her wants and needs. This means putting herself (and her future child) above the needs of her family for once. In order to do that, Diana can’t compromise for the sake of Tariq. If Tariq can’t make the necessary sacrifices in order to create a safe life for their child, then there’s no point in Diana trying to make things work. We saw how things ended with Ghost as well as with Lorenzo and Dante/Mecca, Diana doesn’t have to be the next to experience it.

Cane Is Mixing Love And Power — A Bad Recipe

This season of Ghost has provided a new and interesting love story between Cane and Noma. After the death of Obi, Cane stepped up to fill his role as Noma’s right-hand man as they both developed feelings for each other. For Cane, there are certainly pros and cons to their relationship, as it’s allowed him to gain Noma’s trust and have a more prominent role in her drug operation. On the flip side, mixing love and power has never been a good recipe in the Power Universe. Noma is as ruthless as they get, so not only does Cane have to worry about her possible retaliation if something goes wrong in their operation, but he also has to worry about it as a result of something going wrong in their romance. As the saying goes, don’t sh*t where you eat and it seems like Cane will have to learn this the hard way.

New episodes in ‘Power Book II: Ghost’ season 4 are available on the STARZ app on Fridays at 12:00 am EST and on the STARZ TV channel at 8:00 pm EST. Season 1-3 of ‘Ghost’ are now streaming on the STARZ app and website.