Year: 2024

“Beautiful Girls” singer Sean Kingston was arrested at Fort Irwin in California’s Mojave Desert yesterday (May 23), immediately after performing a concert there, on fraud and theft charges, TMZ reports.

A company named Ver Ver Entertainment filed a civil complaint against Kingston and attorney Dennis Card, who represents the company, alleged (via Local 10), “He basically has a sales pitch that he goes through to defraud people. He induces them into giving him really expensive things. We know that our property is inside this house right here, so as soon as the raid takes place we are going to have a crew of people in there to reassemble it and take it back to its rightful owner.”

In terms of the raid Card mentioned: Kingston’s arrest followed a SWAT raid on his Florida home, where his mother, Janice Turner, was arrested. She was taken into custody on “numerous fraud and theft charges.”

The complaint from Ver Ver claims Kingston used his celebrity status to scam people out of products and services: In one alleged example, he partially paid for a television and entertainment system, but never paid for it in full following installation.

Following his mother’s arrest, Kingston wrote in an Instagram Story post yesterday, “People love negative energy! I am good and so is my mother!.. my lawyers are handling everything as we speak.”

The Boston Celtics and the Indiana Pacers are currently going head-to-head to figure out which team will represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals this year. Boston was expected to be in this spot, but Indiana is a bit of a surprise, as their high-flying style of basketball completely wore down a pair of compromised teams in the first two rounds.

Those two teams, the Milwaukee Bucks and the New York Knicks, are now at home with a bad taste in their mouths. That’s the case for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Orlando Magic, Philadelphia 76ers, and Miami Heat, as well, as all of these squads made it to the playoffs but couldn’t reach the promised land. And today, we decided to look at all six of those teams and identify what they need to do next year if they want to go deeper in the postseason than they were able to go this time around.

New York Knicks: Be healthy

The Knicks are a pretty easy case. They were the second-best team in the Eastern Conference for some time and got derailed by, quite frankly, a shocking string of injuries. Losing just Julius Randle, or just Bojan Bogdanovic, or just Mitchell Robinson, or just OG Anunoby would have been bad enough. To not have any of the first three against the Indiana Pacers was a major problem, then Anunoby hurt his hamstring in Game 2 and played five minutes over the remaining five games. And then, to top it all off, Jalen Brunson was clearly hobbled for much of the series before leaving Game 7 with a broken hand.

New York has to figure out the futures of a few major contributors — Anunoby and Isaiah Hartenstein are free agents this summer, as are a pair of dudes (Alec Burks, Precious Achiuwa) who gave them good minutes in the playoffs. But above all else, they just need some R+R to heal up on the heels of a brutal stretch of injuries. If they can simply make it to the playoffs next year with the normal bumps and bruises teams have and not a catastrophic injury crisis, they’ll be one of the favorites to make it to the conference finals in 2025.

Milwaukee Bucks: Get healthy and find trustworthy depth

The Bucks are in a similar boat to the Knicks, with the difference being that instead of a bevy of injuries killing them, they just found themselves with no shot due to Giannis Antetokounmpo missing the entire first round and Damian Lillard getting hurt as the series went on. In a bit of analysis you won’t find anywhere else: The Milwaukee Bucks are a better basketball team when those two play. Incredibly insightful, eh?

In all seriousness, the Bucks should take a step forward next year due to the mix of health and Doc Rivers having an offseason to plan and prepare the team. A problem, though, is they’re in a tricky spot from a roster-building perspective — Malik Beasley, Patrick Beverley, and Jae Crowder are all free agents, but six of their top-8 players in minutes per game last year are slated to be back. Do they look to package a veteran (say, Bobby Portis and Pat Connaughton) and the No. 23 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft for immediate help? Do they hope they can get lucky on the vet minimum market? Or do they bank on continuity helping a young guy like Chris Livingston or Andre Jackson Jr. break through?

Cleveland Cavaliers: Pick their core and build a more balanced roster around them

Now that J.B. Bickerstaff is gone, the Cavs face two big questions are:

1. What does the future hold for Donovan Mitchell (and, as a result, Darius Garland)?
2. Can you have Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley on the same team?

The team’s four best players might not be compatible with one another. The Cavs, essentially, have two guards who need the ball and two centers in their starting lineup. Things just always seemed to lack any sort of consistent rhythm when Garland and Mitchell were on the floor together, and there was never enough space when Allen and Mobley were out there at the same time. If Mitchell is willing to sign an extension, it makes sense to start making and taking calls on Garland — an awesome player who had a Murphy’s law year — but if Mitchell makes clear that he wants to test the free agent market, shopping him and trying to recoup as much as possible would be prudent.

No matter what, picking one of Allen or Mobley as your center to build around has to happen, as both are good NBA centers at a time when teams could really stand to have one on the roster. Cleveland has to start building out its team in a way that makes sense. Max Strus is a good player and Isaac Okoro took a nice step forward this year, but the team still needs more on the wing. Creating better floor balance figures to be the top priority no matter which of their core pieces end up on the trade block, and how well they manage to build a more well-rounded roster figures to determine their ability to raise their ceiling.

Orlando Magic: Add some offensive juice in the backcourt

The Magic, which had not won a playoff series since 2010, had the Cavs dead to rights in their own building. A road Game 7 usually causes young teams to wilt, but instead, Orlando led by as many as 18 points in the first half. And then, as was often the case for Orlando, the bottom fell out on their offense. They’d go on to score another 47 points over the remainder of the game, shot 25.6 percent from the field in the second half, and had their year officially end with a whimper. The worst part: This wasn’t a huge surprise, as the Magic’s offense was prone to go through spells where it was absolutely abysmal, and once again, that reared its ugly head at the worst possible time.

The good news for Orlando is that the team is under less pressure to win right now than any other playoff team — this was the first time in franchise history that they won at least 47 games without Shaquille O’Neal or Dwight Howard on the roster. Having said that, the offense is way too prone to cold spells, and they have to figure out how to fend those off. Paolo Banchero continuing to develop and Franz Wagner remembering how to shoot would help, but could the historically conservative Magic take a swing before those dudes are due big extensions and try to get a backcourt star who could help them become a, say, top-15 or so offense? We’ve seen plenty of teams bank on continuity and have it work, but it’s no guarantee that happens. There’s a real path for them to get a top-4 seed in the East next year, and it all revolves around sorting things out on the offensive end of the floor.

Philadelphia 76ers: Build intelligently

Joel Embiid is under contract next year, Paul Reed is on a non-guaranteed deal, and Tyrese Maxey is going to get a lot of money at some point this summer via an extension. Otherwise, the Sixers are a blank slate — they quite literally do not have anyone else under contract. This is Daryl Morey’s dream scenario, as he gets to build a team entirely around a pair of stars.

However, that create a lot of pressure. The team is flush with cap space to add another star on a max contract and/or picks they can use on the trade market, but they also will need to build out a full roster. Striking the balance between gathering high-level talent and creating the depth needed to be a contender is never easy, and the Sixers have to figure out the right answer based on what is available to them this summer.

There is, of course, no guarantee this plan works out. Even if Morey knocks this offseason out of the park, Philly is in a situation where Embiid’s health is the ever-present elephant in the room — the alternative answer to this might be “money that they can give the NBA so Embiid can be on a load management plan that keeps him healthy in the face of fines.” But between the start of free agency and Maxey putting pen to paper on a max extension, Philly has to put together a championship-level roster around its two building blocks. Embiid is in his 30s already, and even though he has a star running mate in Maxey, he’s not likely going to be one of the best players on the planet for too much longer. As such, the Sixers need to nail this offseason — there cannot be another major financial albatross like the Tobias Harris contract — and use it to create a real runway to a championship.

Miami Heat: Swing for the fences

Put a microphone in front of Pat Riley and something is gonna happen. Riley obliged in his postseason media availability where he, uh, said a lot of stuff! Chief among them: Riley made very clear he wants Jimmy Butler (and Tyler Herro) to play more often, and he doesn’t have a whole lot of urgency to come to terms on an extension with his star player, who turns 35 in September and can hit free agency next summer.

Regardless of what happens with Butler, the Heat as presently constructed are just not good enough to go on a run that doesn’t include insane shot making that drives every Celtics fan you know insane. The good news, based on another thing Riley said, is that the lack of a championship over the last few years is surely eating away at him, and if there’s one team you just know will be looking to go for broke this offseason, it’s the Heat. They’re a franchise built around occasionally striking out while swinging for the fences, because they’d rather hit a homer than string together a few singles. They need to add another big time player who can serve as a running mate with Bam Adebayo as Butler starts to age out of stardom. Who that is, however, remains to be seen, but if Miami runs back essentially this same team next year, it’s more than likely that they’ll be a Play-In squad once again.

Reacher, as played by Alan Ritchson, is a big guy. But hear me out: what if there was a bigger Reacher?

Earlier this week, Anthony Michael Hall revealed to Cinema Blend that fan-favorite bad guy Paulie will be played in season 3 of Prime Video’s Reacher by Olivier Richters, the “tallest actor and bodybuilder in the world.”

Get a load of this guy, who goes by The Dutch Giant.

“He reminds me of, do you remember when we were kids? The Spy Who Loved Me, the Jaws character that Richard Kiel played? He was a literal giant, like seven foot two. That character [Paulie] does live in the show, and they have an epic battle,” Michael Hall shared. “I don’t want to give it away, but yeah, they definitely meet as they do in the book… You know, Reacher and Paulie colliding – there’s something Marvel about that, right? They’re like two superhero-sized guys, so it’s kind of cool.”

7′ 2″ Richters is already on set taunting puny 6′ 3″ Ritchson:

I instantly regret even jokingly calling goon-whomping Ritchson “puny.” Please do not pick me up with one hand and throw me out of a building.

Reacher season 3 premieres on Prime Video at some point in 2025.

(Via Cinema Blend)

The most recent album we got from Lady Gaga is 2020’s Chromatica (she and Tony Bennett released Love For Sale in 2021, too). There’s still no word about when Gaga’s next album is dropping, but the artist has just offered an enticing update about it.

Last night (May 23), during a Q&A at the Los Angeles premiere of her Chromatica Ball concert film (as Rolling Stone reports), Gaga said she’s been “in the studio every single day” and continued, “I have written so many songs, I’ve been producing so many songs, and it’s nothing like anything that I’ve ever made before. I love to break genre and I love to explore music. There’s something really beautiful about knowing that you will be loved no matter what you do.”

Gaga also explained her current creative process that started taking shape during the Chromatica Ball Tour in 2022, saying, “Something I’m definitely exploring right now is sort of the art of intensity and I think that the art of intensity actually began during this tour, but I’m not done with it yet.”

She also said of the tour more broadly, “This tour went on during a time that people didn’t think that you could tour [during the COVID-19 pandemic] and stadiums were packed all over the world and they were sold out, all dressed up and dancing and singing. I’m just so excited for you all to see what we made up close.”

The legal troubles continue for Diddy: Last night (May 24), NBC News reported that Diddy is facing yet another sexual assault lawsuit. This comes shortly after another one was revealed a few days ago.

April Lampros filed the claim in the Supreme Court of New York County. She’s suing Diddy over allegations of battery, sexual assault, infliction of emotional distress and gender-motivated violence.

Lampos alleges that while she was a fashion student at New York’s Fashion Institute Of Technology in 1994, she met Diddy. The rapper supposedly said he would mentor Lampros and offer industry connections, but he eventually became “aggressive” and “coercive.” Lampros claims Diddy sexually assaulted her on four separate occasions, including one incident where he forced her to take ecstasy and have sex with Kim Porter, Diddy’s former girlfriend.

Lampros says that years later, she learned that Diddy allegedly recorded himself and Lampros having sex and showed the video to others.

Diddy previously issued an apology after hotel security footage surfaced of him assaulting Cassie, saying, “It is really difficult to reflect on the darkest parts of your life, but sometimes you gotta do that. I was f*cked up. I mean, I hit rock bottom. But I make no excuses. My behavior in the video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video.”

Steven and Ian open this week’s episode by recapping Ian’s epic technical fail that canceled last week’s episode. They also revisit last week’s lost Kings Of Leon conversation and this year’s wealth of memory-holed albums. Finally, Steven expresses gratitude that his Sportscast rant about jinxing the Timberwolves in the lost episode never aired.

Then the guys address Apple Music’s list of the 100 best albums, which prompted a lot of conversation this week. For instance: Is 1989 (Taylor’s Version) really the 18th best album of all time? Steven forwards the idea that 60 years might be too wide of a time span for one list when it comes to assessing music. From there, they review the new album by DIIV, Frog In Boiling Water, which Steven might like more than Ian.

In Recommendation Corner, Ian hypes up the latest from Young Jesus while Steven stumps for From Indian Lakes.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 190 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Zach Bryan can’t stop writing new music. Last year, the country superstar dropped his self-titled sophomore album — just over a year after releasing his debut album, American Heartbreak. In recent weeks, Bryan has been teasing his third album, The Great American Bar Scene. Tonight (May 24), he shared the first taste of the album in the form of a new ballad, “Pink Skies.”

On the song, Bryan looks back on his youth, and as he gets older, he wants the younger people around him to enjoy these nights in the country, before they get too old. He also honors those who are no longer with him, as he carries on their memories.

“The kids are in town for a funeral / So pack the car and dry your eyes /I know they got plenty of young blood left in ’em / And plenty nights under pink skies / You taught ’em to enjoy,” Bryan sings.

Bryan has been sharing details about The Great American Bar Scene via social media. Earlier on Twitter, he said the album will comprise of “16 songs and a poem.” He also described the album’s mood as a “depressed and hopeful summer vacation.”

Though Bryan hasn’t shared a release date for The Great American Bar Scene yet, he hinted that fans won’t have to wait that much longer.

“Guys I’m teasing no body, I write and record music reckless and fast, just got the record finished so it’ll be dropped on someone’s head any day now,” he said. “I truly want to just say thank you for being so kind and patient, I’m really freaking grateful lately.”

You can listen to “Pink Skies” above.

PinkPantheress has another bop on her hands. Just six months after dropping her debut album, Heaven Knows, the UK songstress has shared her new single, “Turn It Up.”

On the speedy track — which samples Selena’s “Dreaming Of You” and “Genie” by Girls Generation — PinkPantheress recalls a moment of infatuation found in the most heavenly of places — the dance floor.

“I won’t tell them I met you in the club / You remember our favorite song was playing / And every word that came out your mouth was wrong / Oh Maria, Maria,” she sings.

Though some may argue that the use of samples may be a bit of overkill, PinkPantheress musical stylings make for a pleasant blending of cultures. Back in March, she won Producer Of The Year for Billboard‘s Women In Music series. In an interview with Billboard she opened up about her creative process and how she breathes new life into old songs.

“At the beginning, I wasn’t really adding anything to my samples. I was basically just singing over instrumentals. I didn’t mind sampling, but I didn’t like how people… I think people thought it was lazy, and part of me understood what they meant. I’m chopping them, speeding them up or slowing them down way more. I’m adding more instrumentation so it’s more hidden, whereas before it would kind of just be the actual track itself.”

You can listen to “Turn It Up” above.

Charlie Puth is about to be a bigger artist than ever before. Inspired after receiving a coveted co-sign from one Taylor Swift on the title track of The Tortured Poets Department, Puth decided to drop his new single, “Hero.”

On the song, Puth offers affirmations to a special woman, letting her know that he will gladly be her rock — in good times and in bad. Over a breezy, guitar-driven instrumental, he delivers intimate vocals, creating a sense of closeness through the sounds.

“She cut me off and that’s when she said / ‘I don’t need a hero, I don’t want to be saved’ / But I said, ‘I’ll be here every night and day’ / Oh, I don’t need a hero, but if you let me stay / Oh, I can still be here every night and day,” he sings on the song’s chorus.

But like all humans, heroes fall short sometimes — and Puth is painfully self-aware as he recalls tumultuous moments in their relationship.

“Lovin’ you ain’t easy, but I’m never gonna stop it / I know that night I lost my head and I was bein’ out of pocket I wasn’t tryna start a fight or tell you how to live your life / I just wanted / You to know I f*ckin’ cared,” he sings on the song’s bridge.

“Hero” will appear on Puth’s fourth studio album, which is set for release later this year.

You can listen to “Hero” above.

Sexyy Red has the streets on lock this summer. Tonight (May 24), the St. Louis rapper dropped her new mixtape, In Sexyy We Trust, which features a new collaboration with Drake, “U My Everything.”

On “U My Everything,” the usually sexually-charged and outspoken Sexyy wants to lock it down with a certain man, urging him to “tell them hoes we go together.”

She tests his loyalty, rapping, “If you f*ck with me, go tattoo my name / I’d like to score him, and he’d do the same / I think we soulmates, you my twin flame.”

The song marks Drake’s first musical contribution since Kendrick Lamar dropped his scathing Drake diss track “Not Like Us.” While he doesn’t directly address Lamar, he seemingly suggests that he hasn’t let up.

Fans who have been paying close attention to the Lamar-Drake beef will hear a sample of “BBL Drizzy” on Drake’s verse. The original version of “BBL Drizzy” was an AI-generated track by comedian King Willonius, which was later remixed by producer Metro Boomin, who has shown to be on Lamar’s side in the feud. After sharing his remix, Metro launched a contest, promising a $10,000 cash prize to a rapper who drops the best freestyle over the beat.

Though Drake neither confirms nor denies rumors that he received a Brazilian butt lift — or any form of cosmetic surgery — he does suggest that he’s helped pay for others to get procedures.

“Me and the surgeon got history / I changed a lot of girls lives for real / they need a new body, they hittin’ me,” Drake raps on his verse.

Though neither Lamar, Drake, or Metro have offered any indication that their beef is over, Drake seems to be having a laugh over the whole ordeal.

You can listen to ‘U My Everything’ above

In Sexyy We Trust is out now via Open Shift/gamma. Find more information here.