Category: News

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the latest famous person to spend some time during a Monday Night Football broadcast chilling out with Peyton and Eli Manning. Schwarzenegger joined the two for their ManningCast broadcast of the matchup between the Los Angeles Chargers and the New York Jets, presumably because he is a well-documented person who rooted for the Chargers once.

Anyway, because he joined the two, Schwarzenegger got the chance to discuss stuff, and also things. And at one point, Schwarzenegger was joined by a special guest — no, not a person, it was instead his donkey, Lulu, who you may remember from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Look at how happy Arnold is to give Lulu a treat! And watch Peyton’s face, because while Eli tries to talk through this like it’s a normal thing — he even makes a joke about how the donkey and Peyton look the same while they’re eating before sending them to break — the future Hall of Fame inductee sat there with a stunned silence and look of shock on his face. I hope Lulu enjoys getting a little something to eat, and then gets to head over to the couch and enjoy a good football game.

On Monday, Donald Trump took the stand in his New York fraud case. It did not go well. (Although he thought it did.) On top of enraging the judge and almost getting thrown out, the former president was also at the mercy of another courtroom fixture: the sketch artist. The drawings from the trial — news cameras were not allowed in the room — were, to put it mildly, unflattering. Among their critics were one of his former employees-turned-enemies.

Per Mediaite, on Monday’s episode of The Five, Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s fourth and final press secretary, put aside her beef with her former employer to rail against the treatment he’s received.

“Keep doing what he’s doing,” she said after being asked if she had any advice for Trump. “Look, I would advise them to ask for a better sketch artist because that does not look like my former boss there.”

McEnany also railed against New York Attorney General Letitia James for calling Trump a “conman” and “carnival barker,” saying, ““This is a travesty of justice.” She added, “And that sketch is a travesty too. It looks nothing like Trump.”

Here’s the sketch that left McEnany steamed.

Honestly it’s not even the worst of the Trump sketches. Here’s some more.

Trump is surely unhappy with the sketches, just as he was surely unhappy with previous ones, which didn’t make him look so hot either. He’s not the only member of his family peeved at their courtroom sketches: His eldest son, Don Jr., told the sketch artist to make him look “sexy,” and he was nonplussed when he got one that made him look, in his words, like “Kermit the Fricken Frog.”

(Via Mediaite)

In the immortal words of Erykah Badu, artists are sensitive about their sh*t. “Malibu” rapper Soulja Boy’s latest social media rant epitomized that. Last week, on Lil Yachty’s podcast A Safe Place, J. Cole shared his initial response to Soulja’s breakthrough 2007 single, “Crank That,” with which he wasn’t thrilled. Soulja was not pleased with the remarks.

Immediately after hearing Cole’s comments, Soulja took to X (formerly Twitter) to blast the rapper. The rant began on November 4 and ended on Monday. But later on that day, Soulja apologized to Cole for his online tangent.

“My bad dawg. J. Cole, sorry for the confusion,” he said. “Keep doing your sh*t. We [are] from two different worlds. I stand on what I stand on. It’s hard coming from where I did, man. I dealt with a lot of hate my whole career, so it was just messed to think it would come from you .”

Just hours prior, Soulja was still on the defense, which confused his followers. Ultimately, another musician stepped in to diffuse the tension, according to Soulja. “Nicki [Minaj] just told me I took what he said wrong,” Soulja said. “And that he was showing love. So I’m gonna let it go. My bad, y’all, I really thought dude was hating on me .”

Read J. Cole’s initial comments below.

My real friends were playing Three 6 Mafia, Lil Jon when [Soulja Boy] came out… Whatever the f*ck was poppin’, whatever new rendition of Black culture was penetrating, like, music coming up, in the South, they were on. A lot of that shit for me artistically, and what I stood for morally as an artist, I was conflicted. I turned from a hater to an appreciator. Like, what can I find that’s amazing about this? What can I find that’s good about this? What can I find that’s going on? That sh*t changed me as an artist. I became a better artist.

(WARNING: Spoilers for the most recent Power Book IV: Force episode will be found below.)

For nearly three months, we’ve watched Tommy Egan elevate and go head-to-head against the competition in Chicago’s drug game during season two of Power Book IV: Force. This season was jam-packed with drama, which is expected in the Power Universe, but it also delivered shocking deaths between characters like Walter Flynn and Leon. Up and through episode nine, Tommy and Diamond built an empire that it’s nearly untouchable in Chicago, and whether or not it remains untouchable and what happens next, is what we’ll find out in the season two finale.

When Will Power Book IV: Force Season 2, Episode 10 Come Out?

The tenth and final episode in Power Book IV: Force season two, titled “Power, Powder, Respect,” will arrive on November 10. The episode will be available on Friday on the STARZ app starting at midnight EST/PST. The episode will later air on the STARZ TV channel at 8pm ET/PT. Here’s a synopsis for “Power, Powder, Respect”:

Tommy must decide how much he is willing to sacrifice in pursuit of revenge and his long game to take over the Chicago drug game.

New episodes of ‘Power Book IV: Force’ are available on the STARZ app on Fridays at 12:00 am ET/PT and on the STARZ TV channel at 8:00 pm ET/PT.

Could the Hotties, Bardi Gang, and the Barbz be putting an end to their years-long online feud? Barbie supporting player Issa Rae has her fingers crossed that they are. Rae’s latest venture, Rap Sh!t, allows her to, among other things, express her love for music. Although Season 2 of the series has already wrapped, Rae has ideas for future episodes.

On Monday, November 6, during an interview with ET‘s Denny Directo, Rae revealed that there are a few guest cameos on the season three wishlist. “There’s a list. I mean, we want Meg[an The Stallion],” she said. “We want Cardi [B]. Nicki [Minaj] would be a nice little tie-around.”

As the idea began to marinate, she added, “If we could unite them… Maybe in season three, we can unite the fan bases.”

In the past, Rae has thrown a tremendous amount of support behind Megan and Nicki. The idea of rap’s leading ladies squashing their rumored feud with an epic appearance on the scripted show would certainly shake up the culture in the best way.

Season 2 of Rap Sh!t will premiere on Max on November 9. Find more information here.

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

Ridley Scott says what he pleases. Where Martin Scorsese is relatively diplomatic in his criticism of comic book movies, Scott is not, saying their scripts aren’t “any f*cking good.” After a journalist gave him a backhanded compliment about his films, he told them to “go f*ck yourself” — then continued the interview. There’s a new New Yorker profile of the filmmaker, which includes him again showing how few effs he gives.

The piece concerns his latest film, Napoleon, an epic that reunites him with his Gladiator supporting player Joaquin Phoenix. Scott didn’t immerse himself in the infamous French emperor, as other filmmakers would. He isn’t, the piece says, “big on biographies,” and he only read two on Bonaparte before giving up.

As such, there might be a few historical inaccuracies here and there. Sure enough, after the trailer came out, TV historian Dan Snow dropped a TikTok breakdown of all it got wrong, including the myth that Napoleon shot at the pyramids and that Marie-Antoinette had cropped her hair before being executed.

But Scott’s reaction to Snow was very brief: “Get a life.”

Elsewhere in the profile, Scott claims that he got Russell Crowe “back on his feet” after his notorious phone-throwing incident by offering him the 2006 dramedy A Good Year. A representative for Crowe, alas, disputed that account.

Scott also teased that in the Gladiator sequel (in which Crowe emphatically does not appear), Paul Mescal’s hero fights baboons, which came about after Crowe saw a video of the creatures attacking tourists. “Baboons are carnivores,” Scott said. “Can you hang from that roof for two hours by your left leg? No! A baboon can.” So get ready for some baboon fighting action.

Napoleon hits theaters on November 22, though you may one day be able to see an even longer cut Crowe claims is “fantastic.”

(Via The New Yorker)

Purdue center Zach Edey is probably the best-known player in college basketball. The 7’4 center from Canada is the reigning national player of the year after a season in which he averaged 22.3 points, 12.9 rebounds, and 2.1 blocks per game for a No. 1 seed and, independent of his immense skill level, the star for the Purdue Boilermakers stands out above many for his sheer size. That made Monday’s scene even more interesting, when Purdue opened its season against Samford.

As you would expect, Edey took the jump ball for the Boilermakers — he tends to do this, as he is, you know, seven feet and four inches tall. But he faced a much different opponent in the middle of the floor when Samford deployed 5’8 guard Dallas Graziani against him.

The visuals were quite striking.

Edey did not exactly explode off the floor to win the tip, but he did manage to guide the ball to a teammate and avoid what would have been a funny situation had things broken another way. Of course, it seems that Samford would have to acknowledge this wasn’t the best way to win possession at the start of the game, but the program did accomplish the goal of garnering some attention at the start of a game in which Purdue was a 20.5-point favorite.

The Portland Trail Blazers frontcourt is about to take a major hit, as one of the two veteran centers they acquired during their offseason of wheeling and dealing is about to get surgery. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Robert Williams has to go under the knife to fix a knee injury that he suffered on Sunday night against the Memphis Grizzlies.

According to Wojnarowski, it’s yet to be determined how much time Williams will miss. It is worth mentioning that he injured his right knee, while his left knee was the one that required surgery last offseason.

Williams came to the Blazers as part of the Jrue Holiday trade to the Boston Celtics. His acquisition was something of a surprise, as the Blazers already brought in a center via trade when the team acquired Deandre Ayton in the three-team deal that sent Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks. But through the first seven games of the year — six of which have included the former Celtics big man — Portland used Williams in a bench role, where he averaged 6.8 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1.2 blocks, and 1.2 steals in 19.8 minutes per game.

The Blazers have accrued a 3-4 record through the first seven games, and won their first In-Season Tournament game against the Grizzlies.

When it was announced that Donald Trump would take the stand in his New York fraud trial, few expected it would go smoothly. What would it be like to interrogate one of the world’s top shelf chaos agents? Cameras weren’t allowed in the courtroom, but all reports say it was as wild as one would imagine. Trump threw insults, got testy, muttered under his breath, and rambled off-script so often the judge threatened to throw him out. So it was a disaster? Not according to Trump.

After exiting the courtroom, a calm Trump said, “I think it went very well.” Did it, though? What he said afterwards suggested it might not have:

This is a case that should have never been brought. It’s a case that should be dismissed immediately. The fraud was on behalf of the court. The court was the fraudster in this case. They made references to assets that were very valuable, and they said, uh, they had no idea. They had no idea what the numbers were when they said $18 million for Mar-A-Lago, has 50 to 100 times that amount by any estimation. It’s a terrible thing that’s happened here. We’re taking days and days and weeks and weeks and it goes on. And then you look at the outside world and what’s happening. But of course, they’re getting their wish because I don’t have to be here for the most part. But I certainly do have to be here because I want to be here because it’s a scam. And this is a case that should have never been brought, and it’s a case that now should be dismissed.

So maybe Trump meant it went “very well” under the circumstances. After all, he wasn’t actually thrown out of court. And maybe he enjoyed annoying everyone by refusing to answer questions, instead babbling about things like his alleged wealth and claiming that he was president in 2021. If that’s how he measures a good day in court for a trial his company has already partially lost, then so be it. Or maybe it’s just further proof that his brain is mush.

(Via Mediaite)

Over the past few years, as Nigerian pop music — also known as Afrobeats, perhaps a bit reductively — has grown more popular stateside, the artist who has emerged as the central focus for the movement is Burna Boy. Amid a constellation of rising stars such as Asake, Davido, Rema, and Wizkid, his has been the one that burns the brightest. From a semi-coincidental US breakout to becoming the first Nigerian musician to headline an American stadium tour (more on that later), Burna has become the most recognizable face of the genre and its unofficial ambassador from his homeland to the “land of opportunity.”

Of course, I knew all this going into the Los Angeles stop of his I Told Them… Tour Friday at BMO Stadium (home of the Los Angeles FC and Angel City FC soccer teams). But I was still unprepared for the show of sheer enthusiasm from the massive crowd at the recently renamed stadium. While the crowd itself was visibly smaller than the venue’s capacity of 22,000 seats, its energy filled the space, making the misty late-night show feel like the crowded arena show it probably should have been (for the record, the nearby Crypto.com Arena seats 20,000).

While I was perfectly prepared to jibe at the African Giant’s self-aggrandizing decision to pursue the eyebrow-raising “first artist” headlines over the more pragmatic decision to sell out an ostensibly smaller venue (not to mention, the seating shell game used to achieve those headlines), by the time Burna was three songs into his setlist, I was not only converted but I also fully believed that Burna is the perfect ambassador for Afrobeats in the US.

Some of this is down to background info. Having written about the artist for the past five years, I’ve gleaned some insights into his politics, including a belief in the small-but-growing “One Africa” movement, and his insistence on fighting to clarify the Afrobeats moniker. Burna staunchly rejects the classification, preferring the term “Afro-fusion,” which he believes is both more accurate and less confusing, considering his countryman Fela Kuti pioneered a genre called Afrobeat (no “S”) over 40 years ago.

And while he believes that Africa, the continent, should be united under one banner — sort of the way the EU is made up of several different countries using similar trade and financial laws — he is careful to note that “Afrobeats” paints with a broad brush that doesn’t accurately distinguish between contemporary African music such as Amapiano, Coupé-Décalé, Ethio-jazz, Gqom, Makossa, Sungura, and more. There are so many different sub-genres, instruments, languages, and cultures, that the term Afrobeats can truly be seen as reductive (and often is, outside of Nigeria).

But the main aspect of Burna’s performance that makes him such a perfect ambassador for Afro-fusion is, naturally, the music, and the ease and confidence with which he performs it. While the music itself often expresses a joy that can’t be easily put into words (and certainly not in less than these 800 characters), what I can say is I’ve never seen any artist appear to enjoy themselves onstage as much as Burna. Longtime readers will know: that’s a LOT of artists.

Both his ear-to-ear grin and his lighthearted, sometimes goofy dancing are infectious. Security gave up trying to keep concertgoers out of the aisles almost immediately on Friday, recognizing quickly that maintaining neat little lines would not only be impossible but ill-advised. You’ve probably seen how energetic some African dances can get; folks all around dipped and swayed and dropped down with the sort of urgency and stamina that would even make Megan Thee Stallion’s adamantium knees cry out for assistance.

Meanwhile, despite Burna’s lyrics mostly being in the pidgin Yoruba spoken among natives of the region, the crowd seemed to know every word, singing along like they were his real background vocalists (both sounded spectacular). He exhibited immaculate crowd control with call-and-response segments that brought the spirits of the ancestors out of the audience — even those without African ancestry (a group of SWANA guys behind me were having so much fun dancing in the aisle, it seemed like Burna’s dream of a united Africa was much closer than it might be in reality).

And even after the set lulled an hour in when Burna played most of his slow songs back-to-back (this after starting after 10 pm), he snatched the crowd back to wakefulness with joyous anthems like “It’s Plenty” and his breakout hit “Ye” before closing with his biggest hit to date, “Last Last.” That’s a guy who knows how to finish a show (confetti rain, band vamps, the whole shebang). With Burna Boy introducing more and more of the population to the music of his homeland, it makes perfect sense why Afrobeats is taking over the world.

Burna Boy is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.