Category: News

Janelle Monáe received widespread acclaim for her role in Glass Onion and, more recently, dropped “Float,” her boastful, joyous February single. Monáe seemingly had the time of her life while preparing for and participating in this year’s NBA All-Star Celebrity Game despite not quite living up to a self-induced Allen Iverson comparison.

And she wants more people to have access to such positive experiences and opportunity.

On Wednesday, March 22, it was announced that Monáe is entering a partnering with the Warner Music Group/Blavatnik Family Foundation Social Justice Fund “to expand the programs of her non-profit, Fem The Future, whose mission is to build a fem-forward future by creating opportunities for under-resourced girls and non-binary youth of color in music, the arts, and education,” per press release.

The partnership has been kickstarted by a $150,000 grant, serving “as a pilot for longer-term collaboration.”

“In partnership with the Social Justice Fund, we’re giving girls the chance to own their power — and change the world,” Monáe said in a statement. “The SJF grant will support Fem The Future as it develops programming for girls and non-binary youth and shines light on their talent — helping them build confidence, expand educational opportunities and make informed decisions about their bodies, their lives and their futures. A beautiful future begins with uplifting the next generation of artists, activists and freedom fighters.”

In January, Monáe was honored with the SheHer Award at the Critics Choice Awards. Her acceptance speech is relevant to Wednesday’s news.

“I’m Janelle Monáe, and my pronouns are she/her, they/them, and free-ass motherf*cker,” she said, adding (as relayed by People), “I try to make an effort in my work … to highlight the ones who have been pushed to the margins of society, who’ve been outcast or relegated to ‘the other.’ This is a deeply personal choice for me because I grew up to working-class parents: My mother was a janitor, my father was a trash man, and my grandmother was a sharecropper in Aberdeen, Mississippi.”

Janelle Monáe is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

A new trend in treasure hunting called magnet fishing has blown up over the past two years, evidenced by an explosion of YouTube channels covering the hobby. Magnet fishing is a pretty simple activity. Hobbyists attach high-powered magnets to strong ropes, drop them into waterways and see what they attract.

The hobby has caught the attention of law enforcement and government agencies because urban waterways are a popular place for criminals to drop weapons and stolen items after committing a crime. In 2019, a magnet fisherman in Michigan pulled up an antique World War I mortar grenade and the bomb squad had to be called out to investigate.

Fifteen-year-old George Tindale and his dad, Kevin, 52, of Grantham, Lincolnshire in the U.K., made an incredible find earlier this month when they used two magnets to pull up a safe that had been submerged in the River Witham.

George has a popular magnet fishing YouTube channel called “Magnetic G.”

After the father-and-son duo pulled the safe out of the murky depths, they cracked it open with a crowbar and found about $2,500 Australian dollars (US$1,800), a shotgun certificate and credit cards that expired in 2004. The Tindales used the name found on the cards to find the safe’s owner, Rob Everett.

Everett’s safe was stolen during an office robbery in 2000 and then dumped into the river. “I remember at the time, they smashed into a cabinet to get to the safe,” Everett said, according to The Daily Mail. “I was just upset that there was a nice pen on my desk, a Montblanc that was never recovered.”

The safe was stolen in the year 2000 nn#magnetfishinghttps://www.granthamjournal.co.uk/news/teenager-finds-safe-containing-thousands-of-dollars-9250637/u00a0u2026

— Grantham Journal (@Grantham Journal)
1650615191

The robber, who was a teenage boy, was apprehended soon after the crime because he left behind a cap with his name stitched inside.

The father and son met up with Everett to return his stolen money and the businessman gave George a small reward for his honesty. He also offered him an internship because of the math skills he displayed in the YouTube video when he counted the Australian dollars. “What’s good about it is, I run a wealth management company and… I’d love him to work for us,” Everett said.

Although the safe saga began with a robbery 22 years ago, its conclusion has left Everett with more faith in humanity.

“I was just amazed that they’d been able to track me down,” he said. “There are some really nice and good people in this world. They could have kept the money, they could have said they attempted to get hold of me.”

“There’s a big lesson there. It teaches George that doing good and being honest and giving back is actually more rewarding than taking,” Everett added.

Treasure hunting isn’t the only allure of the hobby for George. His mother says the hobby has taught him a lot about water pollution and its effects on local wildlife. “George is very environmentally conscious. He always has been since primary school,” she said. “When he first started to do this, he was after treasure. Everything ends up in the rivers and canals.”

This article originally appeared on 04.25.22

Weatherman-turned-journalist Al Roker is known for his ability to chat amiably about all sorts of topics — unless the subject happens to be a random man’s erection (or lack thereof). It’s a lesson that Jameela Jamil learned the hard way.

As Decider notes, The Good Place and She-Hulk star dropped by TODAY on Tuesday to talk about her new podcast, Bad Dates. When asked to share a story about some of her own bad dates, Jamil told the crew of co-hosts how she once “Had a man take several steps into my apartment on what was supposed to be my first-ever booty call.” But things did not progress as anticipated.

“He collapsed three steps in and he broke all of his front teeth,” Jamil continued, as the hosts looked on in horror. “They flew across my apartment. He split his chin open and collapsed, and it’s because he misused a drug that excites a man’s sausage.”

This is where Roker clearly became uncomfortable. After staring at the camera, Jim Halpert-style, for an elongated period of time, the host did his best to move the conversation along. “Would you say that if you have the bad dates, it makes you appreciate the good dates,” Roker asked, to which Jamil responded: “100 percent!” But Craig Melvin, Roker’s co-host, wasn’t ready to stop talking about Viagra Man just yet.

“How long was the man out,” he asked — clearly oblivious to Roker’s visible desire to steer the conversation in another direction. Jamil must not have noticed either, as she responded: “It was a while.”

Which is likely how long it will be before Jamil is invited back on as a guest during Roker’s hour.

(Via Decider)

Larry June is scheduled to visit six Californian cities on his recently announced Larry’s Market Run Tour this spring and summer, but he brought everyone to the Palisades today, March 22, by way of the video for “Palisades, CA” with Big Sean and The Alchemist.

“Palisades, chillin’ in the shade, might take the Bent,” June coolly raps toward the end of the first verse. “Bettin’ on myself, and every time, n***a, it’s a hit.” Junes passes the flow off to Big Sean, who delivers a spoken interlude: “We off in the Palisades / Bettin’ on myself, every time, n***a, it’s a hit / You know, we talkin’ armed guards, gated communities, man / Royal family-type sh*t.”

Big Sean added on Instagram, “My dawgs @larryjuneftm n @alanthechemist ft. Me song + video ‘PALISADES, CA.’ Sh*t make me wanna count some money n take my vitamins, healthy! GOOD JOB LARRY [orange emoji, fire emoji, Earth emoji].”

“Palisades, CA” is the latest in a string of ambitious and indulgent singles from June and The Alchemist ahead of their collaborative project, The Great Escape. “60 Days,” “’89 Earthquake,” and now, “Palisades, CA” perfectly marry escapist visuals with brutally honest lyrics depicting the harsh journey necessary to bask in such luxuries.

“I show a different side of the city,” June told Uproxx last fall, speaking of his native San Francisco. “I’m from Hunter’s Point. I didn’t see too much of the Pier, or the nice avenues. I’ve never been to Alcatraz. I was just biking and sh*t. Now I’m just showing that a person of my color can do different sh*t. And I definitely belong.”

Watch the “Palisades, CA” video above.

Trump is probably genuinely worried about finding out what it’s like to be indicted. But as they say, every crisis is an opportunity. (A crisitunity, as Homer Simpson would say.) And so it’s no surprise that after he claimed that this Tuesday would be the day justice would come knocking — it wasn’t, by the way — his supporters would do what they often do: willingly line his pockets. Now we know how much, and the sum is predictably staggering.

As per Mediaite, the Trump campaign bragged to Fox News, the network that has come to his defense after ditching him for Ron DeSantis, that they’d raised a titanic $1.5 million since Saturday, when Trump first expressed alarm. Is it right for a self-professed rich guy to crow about taking cash from fans who might need it for other matters? Probably not. Will they mind? Ditto.

Of course, as we all know Trump wasn’t indicted on Tuesday. The following day he wasn’t either. That hasn’t stopped him from fantasizing about a perp walk that probably won’t happen. After all, authorities surely know that the big guy would use pictures of that even to fundraise and make the party of law and order even more skeptical of enforcement and the justice system. That said, the fact that he hasn’t been publicly paraded about by police hasn’t stopped people from using genuinely dangerous AI technology to make scarily realistic fake images of same.

(Via Mediaite)

Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit announced his new album Weathervanes last month, releasing the lead single “Death Wish” as a preview. It looks like he has a lot on his plate this year because he also has an HBO Original documentary on the way called Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed.

The documentary is directed by Sam Jones and arrives April 7. A trailer is out today, March 22, serving as a compilation of snippets from Isbell’s public and private life. “When I have a hard day, I can’t just go home and have a drink. There’s no escape for me,” he says, ten years sober.

About music, he says, “Once you write a song, your mind isn’t focused on creating, your mind is focused on re-creating. You can only create something once, and if the tape’s not rolling, you’re just sh*t out of luck.”

Isbell has always been outspoken. Last year, he divulged his consideration of going into politics.

“I have considered it, but I’m gonna need about another ten years of study, and I’d like our kid to be settled into her self before she has to deal with a politician parent,” he responded to a fan on Twitter. “We’ll see if we still have a democracy in a decade.”

Watch the trailer for the documentary above.

Kids, man. I’m not sure of the scientific way audacity is distributed, but kids have a lot of it and somehow make it cute. That audacity overload is especially interesting when you’re the default parent—you know, the parent kids go to for literally everything as if there’s not another fully capable adult in the house. Chances are if your children haven’t sought you out while you were taking a shower so you could open up a pack of fruit snacks, then you’re not the default parental unit.

One parent captured exactly what it’s like to be the default parent and shared it to TikTok, where the video has over 4 million views. Toniann Marchese went on a quick grocery run and *gasp* did not inform her children. Don’t you fret, they’re modern kids who know how to use modern means to get much-needed answers when mom is nowhere to be found. They went outside and rang the doorbell.

Back when we were children, this would’ve done nothing but make the dogs bark, but for Marchese’s kids, who are 3 and 6 years old, it’s as good as a phone call.

You may be questioning why this mom left her two young children home alone. She didn’t. Their father was home, likely wondering why the children were playing so quietly. But. He. Was. Right. There. And the kids still bypassed him to talk to their mom through the Ring doorbell camera. It was pressing business, after all.

“My tablet is dead,” the 3-year-old said.

The kids ignored Marchese’s questions about where their dad was and continued to complain about their tablets. The entire situation is enough to make any default parent chuckle and maybe sob a little.

Watch the urgent doorbell call below:

@tinyann22

Moms can never get a minute of peace lol #momsoftiktok #momlife #ring #camera #kidsoftiktok

And if you’re skeptical that dad was within shouting distance, the mom of two uploaded a part two where dad comes into the frame.

@tinyann22

Replying to @iustmerlp part 2… daddy was found! Lol #kidsoftiktok #momsoftiktok #parentsoftiktok #fyp #ring #prioritiesfirst

After only just emerging back into the public eye as the spokesperson for Pepsi’s questionable concoction of milk and cola with the questionable nickname “Pilk,” Lindsay Lohan is in hot water with the SEC over pitching crypto without disclosing that she was paid for the endorsements. She’s also not alone. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lohan, Jake Paul, Kendra Lust, Soulja Boy, Ne-Yo, Lil Yachty, Akon, and Austin Mahone are all being charged in connection with their endorsements for TRON founder Justin Sun’s crypto companies.

“As alleged in the complaint, Sun and others used an age-old playbook to mislead and harm investors by first offering securities without complying with registration and disclosure requirements and then manipulating the market for those very securities,” said director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement Gurbir S. Grewal. “At the same time, Sun paid celebrities with millions of social media followers to tout the unregistered offerings, while specifically directing that they not disclose their compensation. This is the very conduct that the federal securities laws were designed to protect against regardless of the labels Sun and others used.”

The celebrities charged, except Soulja Boy and Mahone, have agreed to pay $400,000 and effectively plead no contest to avoid admitting wrongdoing. This isn’t legal advice, but they should all probably fire whoever gave them the legal advice that it’s cool to do paid crypto promotion without telling people (and the SEC) that you got paid.

These cases are different than other celebrity-endorsed-crypto cases in the recent past, including the FTX investors suing their celebrity endorsers for allegedly making crypto investments seem safer than they are. For now, most involved in this crypto flim-flam can chug a warm glass of pilk and be glad it’s all over.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

So the new John Wick is pretty long. Nearly a decade ago, the original was an air-tight 96 minutes. Chapter 4 is over an hour longer than that. If that sounds like a long time to be watching an action movie — in a franchise that was simply about a guy avenging his puppy’s death, played by a real-life puppy lover — then get ready to learn it could have been even longer.

In a new interview with IndieWire (in a bit teased out by The AV Club), series director Chad Stahelski talks about its absurd length, which is still not as bad as it could have been. “Our first cut was three hours and 45 minutes, and it felt like three hours and 45 minutes,” he said. “We were like, oh, we’re so screwed.”

Of course, it’s not atypical for all movies to originally be much, much longer than they wind up in final cut. When people talk about “original cuts,” what they usually mean is “assembly cuts,” which are when the editing team puts everything together before whittling it down. All movies have to be whittled down. Sometimes people freak out when they learn movies they love used to be even longer, even petitioning for those cuts to be made public. But trust us, you don’t want to watch assembly cuts. At best, you can simply watch choice deleted scenes on the home video edition.

Still, 169 minutes is pretty long for a movie about a guy shooting people in the head! For some perspective, that’s 11 minutes shorter than Avengers: Endgame and 23 minutes longer than Goodfellas.

(Via IndieWire and The AV Club)

Falling in love can be daunting. But falling out of love is even more terrifying. “There is the art of loving, this is the art of forgetting how,” Caroline Rose sings on “Miami,” one of the lead singles which previewed their upcoming album The Art Of Forgetting.

Songs like “Miami” and album opener “Love / Lover / Friend” stand as haunting juxtapositions to Rose’s previous exuberant, tongue-in-cheek LPs such as 2020’s Superstar. Throughout The Art Of Forgetting, Rose trades in blown-out synths for wood and string instruments, documenting their grief, pain, and breakthroughs on 14 tracks. Marking Roses rawest, most emotional work to date, the musician periodically slips loving voicemails from their grandma into their music: “It got me thinking about all the different ways memory shows up throughout our lives,” Rose said in a statement. “It can feel like a curse or be wielded as a tool.”

Ahead of the release of their album The Art Of Forgetting, which is out Friday, Rose sat down with Uproxx to talk, Elon Musk, performing in a bull fighting ring, and embarrassing tattoos in our latest Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

You are probably asking for adjectives but this is what I say…”Miniature dark comedy soundtracks.”

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

Come on, you and I both know humanity’s not gonna make it that far.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?

Given we pretty much only see the inside of the venue every night, that is basically impossible to answer, but one time we played a show in a bullfighting ring in Fitero, Spain and that was the most memorable show of my life. I’ve never ate so well nor partied so hard in my life.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

I would say the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar has most inspired my work. He somehow fused camp, melodrama, and color with gore, passion and the grotesque. An artist truly ahead of his time in every way.

Where did you eat the best meal of your life?

Best meal of my life is my mom’s enchiladas.

What album do you know every word to?

I am currently trying to forget every John Mayer lyric ever written so I can have some space for new material in my brain.

What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?

Another impossible question to answer but I remember being really blown away by Tame Impala’s light show when we saw them at ACL a few years ago.

What is the best outfit for performing and why?

The best outfit for performing is definitely something long sleeve with lots of layers and is completely unbreathable.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?

I don’t use Twitter but my favorite person to follow on that would be Elon Musk because Lord knows what he’ll say next!

What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?

The most played song is actually a podcast. We play it for every new person who sits in the van for at least 6 hours… And that podcast is Dirty John.

What’s the last thing you Googled?

“Zac Efron shirtless”

What album makes for the perfect gift?

Any of Swamp Dogg’s albums. His demographic is all of humanity.

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

One time I slept on someone’s bean bag chair and woke up with a dirty thong on my foot.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

I’m too embarrassed to tell you.

What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?

I’ll pretty much listen to anything that doesn’t have the lyrics “red dirt road” in it.

What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?

Brought me coffee in bed.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Tell Jenna Williams you have a major crush on her.

What’s the last show you went to?

Big Thief.

What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?

Lord of the Rings.

What’s one of your hidden talents?

This is why I do music, I don’t have any other talents.

The Art Of Forgetting is out 3/24 via New West. Find more information here.