When shows are focused on a place, such as the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, it’s important to keep in mind that while Montana is, in theory, a real place, the characters and situations that happen in Yellowstone are not. You wouldn’t go to a fancy Chicago restaurant hoping to meet Carmy or head to an Italian resort to get a glimpse of The White Lotus hotel, would you? No, because those places aren’t real (Chicago might be, but who knows for sure?). But Yellowstone fans are an entirely different type of person: they wear cowboy hats and don’t mess around.
Locals in Bozeman, Montana claim that the show’s popularity has been causing fans to flock to the city, which is becoming a headache for anyone who actually owns a real ranch. Bozeman Police Chief Jim Velkamp told Daily Mail that the influx of out-of-towners has actually had a negative impact on the city. “I think overall for us specifically with the city of Bozeman it’s just the growth and the challenges related to growth … that is our biggest challenge,’ Velkamp said. “Our city has grown so fast. Bozeman wasn’t literally on the map, now it’s a well-known place.”
Velkamp said that the show definitely helped make Bozeman a desirable destination, which has its drawbacks. “I can’t blame one single factor, I certainly can’t attribute it all to the show Yellowstone, but we hear it routinely,” he continued. “The fact that our population is going up so fast means the numbers of crimes are going up fast. We simply need more capacity and bandwidth to keep up with those numbers of crimes even if the ratio, our crime rate, is staying the same and only going up slowly.”
The impact can even be seen on the other side of the law. “We even hear it from candidates for the police department. They looked up Bozeman after watching the show Yellowstone and thought ‘Wow that’s a pretty cool place,’ and so they inquire about working here,” He said. He did not reveal if that has actually worked for anyone looking to become a Montana cop.
Over the last 10 years, the population in Bozeman has jumped from 41K to 56K. Sure, we can’t blame Kevin Costner because he’s already over the whole thing. But anyone who goes to Montana looking to meet John Dutton will be very disappointed when they don’t see him…because he’s not real. Sorry!
That’s not to say she isn’t a fairly big star. Her hit song “Big Energy” peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for just a week shy of a full year. Just seven months after it dropped off, she scored her first No. 1 with BTS member Jung Kook on his 2023 solo song, “Seven.”
But “Put It On Da Floor Again,” Latto’s 2023 collaboration with Cardi B — an A-1, certified megastar, to paint the contrast — didn’t crack the top ten, peaking at No. 13 on the Hot 100. To be sure, that’s still incredibly good and difficult to do. But, not to put too fine a point on things, Latto only has three songs that have even charted within the top half of the chart. This is despite dropping a pretty consistent run of absolute bangers including, but not limited to: “B*tch From Da Souf” (the first “grown-up” song I heard from Latto, which made me a fan), “Sunshine,” “Wheelie,” “Lottery,” “Sunday Service,” and most recently, “Big Mama.”
The Uproxx cover star is, for my money, one of the top mainstream rappers out now, and deserves to be ranked alongside ubiquitous culture connectors like Cardi, Megan Thee Stallion, and yes, all three women’s ostensible nemesis, Nicki Minaj. But until now, she hasn’t been, whether that’s a result of her previously unmarketable moniker, her commitment to making more rugged trap cuts than glittery pop anthems in the vein of “Big Energy,” or just bad luck at connecting with potential fans for some other, undefinable reason. The timing of her debut during a pandemic certainly didn’t help.
That could change with the release of her third album, Sugar Honey Iced Tea, which is out now via RCA Records.
A large part of that is due to the music on the album itself, which isn’t “better” than her prior output as much as it is richer, more diverse, and yet, more focused and personal (see: tracks like “Big Mama,” “Georgia Peach,” and “S/O To Me”). The rollout has leaned into Latto’s self definition as a Georgia girl, with trailers paying homage to the cult classic film ATL and tapping Dungeon Family members, and features from both rising Atlanta stars like Hunxho and Young Nudy to cultural fixtures such as Ciara (my predicted ATL Bass Renaissance may take off with their collab “Good 2 You”).
But the other thing is simply the way stars are made in the era of constant social media interaction between stars and their fans — something that Latto has grown noticeably better at in the year or so since “Big Energy” took off on the charts. The biggest stars — the Cardi Bs, the Doja Cats, the Megan Thee Stallions — are made simply by their availability online.
We know them — or at least, we feel like we know them — and we have a sense of who they are, where they come from, what they want out of life and this music thing. In Latto’s case, there was always a bit of an opaque screen there; despite growing up in the public eye via reality shows like The Rap Game and pursuing rap stardom since her tween years, it never seemed like fans were able to connect with a lifestyle or persona, despite the fact that she very rarely fronted and was always game for an interview with both legacy publications and digital mainstays.
The fans live on social media, though, and the above-mentioned A-listers are native to one app or another, arguing with haters on Twitter or streaming live chats on Instagram even as they worked to build their platforms. It seemed that, until very recently, Latto just didn’t seem all that enthused to put that much of her life on display. Over the past year, she had a high-profile tiff with Nicki Minaj and her protégé, Ice Spice, the latter of which indirectly led to the title of Latto’s album (why, yes, she does think she’s the sh*t).
Likewise, she seems to have found herself a bit on TikTok, the app of choice for folks falling into her particular demographic (she turned 25 last December). There, she shares clips from her travels, almost always accompanied by her sister, Brooklyn, who offers fans another window into Latto’s interior world. One of those clips was indirectly responsible for the battle between Latto and Ice Spice, which garnered attention without getting quite as spiteful as the one between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, leaving the door open — however slightly — for future reconciliation between the two.
That newfound vulnerability has seeped into the music, which finds Latto delving more deeply into topics like her longstanding relationship with a secret boyfriend (rumored to be fellow Atlanta rapper 21 Savage), and the trials that have arisen during her ascent through the rap world. Her storytelling skills and real-life story have begun to align and expand to encompass more of the avenues by which artists become endeared to fans — and potential fans. Sugar Honey Iced Tea has the benefit of building on all the previous work she’s already done — after all, “Big Energy” basically made Latto a household name in 2022 — and paying off on the curiosity of listeners who wondered how she would follow up. After all, everyone loves a cold glass of sweet iced tea in the summer, which is exactly what she’s offered up, along with the traditional Southern story to go with it.
Sugar Honey Iced Tea is out now via RCA Records. You can find more info here.
Five Nights At Freddy’s, the film adaptation of the popular video game series, was released last fall starring Josh Hutcherson and Matthew Lillard and seemed to have amassed its own large and mighty cult following, thanks to the fans of the original game.
The movie followed Hutcherson as Mike, a man so desperate for work that he decided to takes on a job as a security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. Unfortunately, those animatronics tend to come alive at night and cause havoc since they are possessed by the souls of murdered children. It’s hard to get a job these days, so he took what he could get.
After the success of the first film, a second one was quickly green lit, and now we are in all witnessing a new Freddy universe taking shape. Here is everything we know so far about the upcoming sequel, which may or may not be called Five Nights At Freddy’s 2. We don’t know for sure yet, they could always go with Six Nights At Freddy’s.
Plot
By the end of the first film, the pizza place is nearly destroyed, but it’s not over. If the movie franchise is going to follow the video game franchise, Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 could serve as a prequel. The second game, which was released in 2014, takes place in the 1987 and shows first hand how those fuzzy animatronics were possessed in the first place. Popular online fan theories also suggest that the movie will take inspiration from the other game installments.
After the release of the first installment, director Emma Tammi told The Hollywood Reporter, “We have some loose ends that I think are going to have to come back in a sequel to be tied up,” so there might be elements of both a sequel and a prequel in the film.
Scott Games, the company behind FNAF, teased the film by releasing four pages of the “script” online, with three of them being fake, and one being real. The different scripts seem to offer clues as to what exactly will go down in film number 2.
Cast
Hutcherson will be back for another round, which he is very excited about. “I’m dying to get back on set,” the actor said back in January. “Emma Tammi, our director, was fantastic, and it was such a fun world to play in. I’m excited to see what they are doing next.”
In 2023, Lillard let it slip that he had signed a three picture deal for Freddy’s which means we can expect even more of his….shenanigans! Spoiler alert for those of you who haven’t seen the flick, but Lillard turns out to be the big bad who seemingly perishes at the end of the first movie. Seemingly. As he states, “I always come back.” He is coming back, indeed. No other cast has been announced at this time, but Jim Henson’s Creature Shop is returning to design spooky animatronics for the film.
Release Date
As of right now, the highly anticipated sequel is slated for a December 5th, 2025 release date, though that can always change. Production is expected to begin this fall.
Trailer
Since production just began, there is no trailer yet. If you want to get in the mood for some Freddy, you can watch the eerie trailer for the second video game installment:
Stephen King’s fictional Derry, Maine, has been the location for several novels, and it shall soon be ground central for a prequel series leading into 2017’s It and 2019’s It Chapter Two, which starred Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise the Clown, terrorizer of Derry’s children. Those films were scripted by Gary Dauberman, Chase Palmer, and Cary Fukunaga and directed by Andy Muschietti, who co-developed the Welcome To Derry series (along with sister Barbara, who produced the films) that will stream on Max.
Andy will also be in the directors seat for a few episodes, and the series will move off-book, so plot clues will not necessarily be found within the It novel. And that’s alright because King is already busy as heck, having written over 75 books and hundreds of short stories in his time, and this series has been able to maintain relative secrecy during production without a book suggesting every single move. However, updates are filling in some blanks, so let’s talk about what King’s Constant Readers (and Constant Viewers) can expect.
Plot
Some visuals will probably be appreciated first. This new teaser clip — with a “this ain’t America, this is Derry” kicking off festivities — is filled with gore, screams, a sinister grin, suggestions of a telltale red balloon, and Pennywise’s laughter blowing in the wind.
Sure, we do not actually see a glimpse of that demonic entity, but rest assured that Bill Skarsgård will be on hand to fill those clown shoes in this show, which begins in the 1960s when Pennywise first began claiming victims and long before the Losers Club took their blood oath.
The first season will contain nine episodes, and Andy and Barbara Muschetti, who scared the hell out of themselves with the It novel while growing up, promise that this story will move “far beyond what we could explore in our It movies.” The tone, as well, will be filled with “heart, humor, humanity, and horror.”
Although this series has been in the making for perhaps too many years (Hollywood strikes and a pandemic will do that), what will transpire has pleased Stephen King, who expressed his approval for continuing “the story of Derry, Maine’s most haunted city” and duly exclaimed, “Red balloons all around!”
Lips have been largely zipped on further details, but in an interview with Screenrant, director Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr. dropped careful hints:
“[I]t’s very, very character-driven… and I think audiences will be as scared as they are in the original movies, and Andy Muschietti’s handprints are all over this series. So, I think people will be very excited for the series. [Mike Flanagan and Andy Muschietti] are quite similar. Both Andy and Mike are horror aficionados, they’re also very much all about emotion, and character.”
Cast
Welcome To Derry will star Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, Stephen Rider, James Remar, and Bill Skarsgård. The series will also include Madeleine Stowe, BJ Harrison, Alixandra Fuchs, and more.
Release Date
Signs previously pointed towards a Halloween-season 2024 release, but HBO/Max Content head Casey Bloys revealed that those Hollywood strikes pushed this series to 2025.
Trailer
A few quick glimpses of footage can be seen in the below clip, starting after the 1:30 minute mark below:
In the video for “Georgia Peach” from her new album Sugar Honey Iced Tea, Latto pays loving homage to country living. With nods to Southern staples like beauty pageants, roadside fruit stands, pickup trucks, and daisy dukes, “Georgia Peach” paints a portrait of life in the Peach State, which complements the laid-back production from Go Grizzly, Pooh Beatz, Tommy Parker, Alex Lustig, and Kid Masterpiece.
In the three verses (we don’t need no hook for this sh*t), Latto plays around with her flow, going from her usual percussive flow to a singsong delivery that matches up with the airy instrumental. Both the signature sweet tea and Georgia peaches show up; the former in the form of some product placement from Yerba Mate and the latter as the product on display at a roadside stand. Latto’s sister Brooklyn mugs alongside her as they lounge on a GMC pickup.
Another standout from the new album, “Squeeze,” sees Latto reunite with Megan Thee Stallion for another tag-team display of ribald lyricism, while “Big Mama” is a microcosm of the contrasting styles Latto displays across the 17-song tracklist (an extension at the end includes previously released singles “Put It On Da Floor” and its Cardi B-featuring remix, and the Ice Spice diss song “Sunday Service” and its remix featuring Meg and Flo Milli).
You can watch the video for “Georgia Peach” above.
Sugar Honey Iced Tea is out now via RCA Records. You can find more info here.
It’s time to break out the celebratory t-shirt cannon: Adele and Rich Paul are getting married.
The “Someone Like You” singer announced her engagement to the sports agent during one of her record-breaking concerts in Munich, Germany on Friday. In footage posted to social media, Adele can be heard telling a fan that she can’t marry them because she’s “already getting married,” while holding up her left hand.
Back in 2021, when the couple went public with their relationship, Adele opened up to Oprah Winfrey about Paul. They met “at a birthday party, we were on the dance floor,” she said. “And then we met a couple years later. We went out for dinner, which he says was a business meeting and I’m like ‘A business meeting about what?’ And then it was the first time we hung out on our own.” Adele prasied Paul for being “hilarious. Oh, he’s so funny, he’s hilarious, yeah. And very smart. You know, he’s very, very smart. It’s quite incredible watching him do what he does.” That includes working for LeBron James.
Adele (who is taking a “big break” from new music) has one child from a previous relationship, while Paul has three of his own.
Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton are in movies; Rob McElhenney is buying soccer teams with Ryan Reynolds; Kaitlin Olson is roasting Jean Smart and starring in her own television show; and Danny DeVito is doing whatever Danny DeVito does all day. Probably eating sandwiches, possibly while naked. Does that leave any time for more It’s Always Sunny, which is now only two years away from being able to legally drink?
Don’t worry, this isn’t a Euphoria situation. In an interview with The Playlist about her upcoming ABC series High Potential, Olson confirmed that season 17 of It’s Always Sunny will begin filming in the fall. “Yeah, so we wrap [High Potential] in October,” she said, “and then I think three days later we start shooting Sunny, but it’s on the same lot, so I’ll be in the spring of things.”
It takes “about five months” to make a season of It’s Always Sunny, so based on that timeline, season 17 should premiere around the second half of 2025.
Here’s more on High Potential: “A single mom with an exceptional mind, whose unconventional knack for solving crimes leads to an unusual partnership with a by-the-book detective.” You can watch the trailer below.
Ever since Giannis Antetokounmpo became a perennial MVP candidate — and, in turn, the Milwaukee Bucks became a contender in the East — they have been heavily featured on national TV and on the league’s marquee game days. There is no day on the NBA calendar bigger than Christmas, although they now have competition with the NFL, and Giannis and the Bucks have been a fixture of the NBA’s Christmas slate, playing on Christmas in each of the last six seasons.
Spurs at Knicks
Timberwolves at Mavericks
76ers at Celtics
Lakers at Warriors
Nuggets at Suns
After that schedule got reported, Giannis found out on Friday and made his reaction public on Twitter, seemingly stunned that he and the Bucks will have the day off.
Twitter
I can’t quite tell if this is Giannis being mad at being left off the league’s biggest slate of games or if he’s excited to finally get to spend Christmas day with his family, but either way it did come as a fairly big surprise. The East typically only gets two games on Christmas, but this year there are only three teams from the East involved, as they’ve opted to cash in on Wemby-mania by sending the Spurs to the Garden. That figures to have been the spot the Bucks would’ve found themselves in, but now will be watching at home with their families. That’s a nice combination of a holiday off and some added motivation for Giannis, Damian Lillard, and the rest of the Bucks, who find themselves as the forgotten contender after a big summer of moves around the league.
One Musicfest has become an Atlanta mainstay, and now, the event is entering its milestone 15th year. They’ll have quite the lineup to celebrate with their 2024 edition, too: The roster was just announced today (August 9) and it’s led by Cardi B; Gunna; Victoria Monét; Jill Scott; and Earth, Wind & Fire.
Also on the bill are acts like Sexyy Red, GloRilla, Keyshia Cole, Fantasia, Nelly, Ari Lennox, T.I., Young Nudy, Monica, DJ Mustard & Friends, Larry June, Method Man, Redman, DaBaby, Jeremih, Fat Joe, Saucy Santani, and Tanner Adell.
The festival goes down on October 26 and 27 at Atlanta’s Piedmont Park. Tickets are available for purchase from the festival website, with two-day general admission passes starting at $219. Visit the website for more information about ticket options, as well as info about lodging, vendors, and other relevant logistics.
One Musicfest founder J. Carter says in a statement (as HipHopDX notes), “It’s hard to believe we’ve reached the 15-year mark. We’ve grown into the longest-running and largest Black independently owned festival in the country and this journey has been a blessing. Our commitment to the community remains steadfast as we continue to bring the biggest and brightest performers in music and the best activations with amazing partners.”
It seems Drake’s relationship with sports isn’t as cursed as fans would lead you to believe. Apparently, there is one sports franchise that has dramatically benefitted from its connection with the “It’s Up” rapper.
In an interview with GQ, Matte Babel, part of Drake’s management team, claimed the rapper helped prevent Italy’s Venezia Football Club from falling into bankruptcy. According to the outlet, despite the organization’s support in its home country, the funding didn’t quite match.
During the sit-down, Babel spilled the tea. Babel revealed that after the owner Brad Katsuyama made a call to Drake, he immediately stepped in to close the multi-million dollar hole.
“The value of Drake to any football club is undeniable given his global superstardom and brand reach,” said Babel. “This intersection of culture and sport is exactly where we want to be, and as a sports organization, the ability to tap a brand like NOCTA that also teeters the same line is incredibly valuable.”
As of today (August 9), Babel claimed the Drake assist helped raise $40 million for the Venezia Football Club. With the cash boost, Venezia Football Club was able to scout new talent while simultaneously investing into its new facilities for the club on track to be up and running for the 2027/28 season.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
