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On His Latest Tour, Bruce Springsteen Contemplates His Own Ending

Bruce Springsteen is walking toward me.

He is singing “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and his shirt is inexplicably open, revealing deeply tanned and chiseled pectoral muscles. The Bad Scooter has found his groove, and he’s now headed in my direction. If this sounds like a deeply weird dream, I should add that I’m surrounded by 16,000 people inside of a Minnesota hockey arena.

As he gets closer, I fixate on the beads of sweat pouring down from his deeply tanned and chiseled forehead. He’s putting out a level of moisture not seen since Patrick Ewing in the 1994 NBA Finals. Here is a 73-year-old man who has been performing on stage for two and a half hours, and I imagine he must be exhausted. But as Bruce finally looms over me like I’m a tourist surveying the iconic mugs etched into Mount Rushmore, he betrays no signs of tiredness. This time, Hakeem Olajuwon doesn’t stand a chance.

Then, it happens: We briefly make eye contact. At least, I think we make eye contact. But then I remember that the greatest living arena rocker is standing approximately 36 inches away form me, and his magic trick is fooling individuals gathered in 16,000-person blobs that he is singing only for them. He is making eye contact with me, but he is also making eye contact with everybody. But he’s really looking at you, my brain assures me. I decide to believe my brain.

To my right is a woman from Nashville who I am guessing is in her late 50s. Before showtime, she told me that she saw the first date of Bruce’s 2023 U.S. arena tour last month in Tampa. “You could tell that he looked old,” she said. And yet here she was on a Sunday night catching droplets of Bruce’s perspiration in St. Paul, nearly 900 miles away from home, with plans to see The E Street Band again later this month in Detroit and twice more in Europe this summer. I look over at her as Bruce hollers about a transistor radio blasting from a tenement window directly in front of us, and she is beaming.

Nobody right now seems old. But Bruce is the only one who does not look old. His hair is more gray than brunette now, but that only makes him look harder, like a rock-solid block of concrete, the very stuff that arenas like this one are made of. To quote the man himself, Bruce Springsteen is still tougher than the rest.

But Bruce is old. I know this because he keeps telling us that he’s old. Mortality is a central theme of his best-selling 2016 memoir Born To Run. It also forms the crux of the award-winning one-man show Springsteen On Broadway. Bruce underlines it again on his most recent album of original songs, 2020’s Letter To You. If you haven’t heard it, you can get the gist of the album’s subject matter from reading the track listing: “One Minute You’re Here,” “Last Man Standing,” “Ghosts,” “I’ll See You In My Dreams.”

And then he reiterated this message yet again in his 2022 Howard Stern interview, in which he hinted that there might not be many more marathon three-hour arena-rock shows in his future. Instead, he imagined emulating Johnny Cash or the late Pete Seeger, who played into his 90s as a wizened folkie.

Who can really believe that, though? The paradox of Bruce Springsteen is that while, on one hand, he is second only to Bob Dylan when it comes to elderly rock stars who fixate constantly on death, he also has remained committed to his own physical fitness with a zeal that is comparable only to the supernaturally spry exoskeleton known as Mick Jagger. Given his age, of course he would consider pivoting to the sort of music that doesn’t require a level of physical exertion that people born around the time that Tunnel Of Love was released find taxing. Except … this is Bruce Springsteen! He is indomitable! Even when Bruce tells us that life is fleeting, his performances show us the opposite — that maybe The Boss will, in fact, be the one guy who defeats Father Time.

That hope, however, is another product of his magic trick. As Bruce walks past me and makes his way from the platform in the middle of the arena floor back to the stage, I am completely bamboozled. It is impossible for me to imagine a time when I won’t be able to see The E Street Band and have my soul rocked for three hours. Excuse me: I mean have my soul rocked by the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, love-making, earth-quaking, Viagra-taking, justifying, death-defying, legendary E Street Band!

Twenty minutes later, as I’m trudging back to my car through an utterly frustrating and thoroughly predictable early-March Minnesota blizzard, the spell breaks and a different reality sets in. It’s not only possible that I won’t see this kind of Springsteen show again, it’s also more likely than not. A live performance by Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band in 2023 is a precious resource. And that resource is dwindling faster than any of us want to believe.

When I tweeted last week that I had successfully procured a ticket to see The Boss, my mentions were inevitably clogged with jokes and outright gripes about ticket prices. The controversy over Ticketmaster’s “dynamic pricing” policy has undeniably cast a pall over the current tour. At best, it has informed every conversation about these shows. At worst, it has been the only talking point, as evidenced by both daily newspapers in the Twin Cities centering their pre-concert coverage on complaints about how tickets for this tour are exponentially pricier than The E Street Band’s previous local stop in 2016.

The most damning condemnation came from the media outlet that has covered Springsteen with the greatest loyalty and rigor. Backstreets, a fanzine that started publishing quarterly editions in 1980, announced last month that it is shutting down. While not explicitly positioned as a protest of the ticketing policy, the high prices were blamed for dampening the enthusiasm of the publication’s writers and readership for the tour.

Fans have complained about high ticket prices for as long as there have been concerts. But this was different. An earlier Backstreets post timed with the initial on-sale last summer is striking for the raw hurt at its core. It’s nothing less than a cry of betrayal and, in the magazine’s own words, a “crisis of faith” about fans being “thrown to the wolves.”

When pressed by Rolling Stone about the criticism, Springsteen was coldly pragmatic: He admitted that he personally instructed his people to price tickets at market value, and pointed out that if they had been initially priced lower than that, they would have been scooped up by brokers and marked-up dramatically anyway. Why should they get that money and not him and his band?

As much as I hate dynamic pricing, a truly diabolical practice even by Ticketmaster standards, I can’t really argue with that logic. The first stateside E Street Band tour in seven years was going to be a hot (and expensive) ticket no matter what. Consider that when Bob Dylan resumed touring for the first time in eight years in the early ’70s, David Geffen called it “the biggest thing of its kind in the history of show business.” If a Bruce Springsteen tour in 2023 isn’t exactly comparable to Dylan going out with The Band in 1974, it’s still worth noting that he’s been widely regarded as the best in the world at playing rock songs in hockey arenas for at least 40 years. And there’s extra urgency now given the scarcity of Bruce Springsteen shows in the recent past and, perhaps, in the not-so-distant future.

But what Bruce didn’t factor in was the illogical regard his followers have for him. He stands for more than his classic-rock peers, so we expect him to charge less. Even if it’s true that scalpers are usually the ones who jack up prices, it hit different when it seemed like Bruce was the one doing the soaking.

“Well, I’m old. I take a lot of things in stride,” he told Rolling Stone when the “crisis of faith” comment was brought up. “You don’t like to be criticized. You certainly don’t like to be the poster boy for high ticket prices. It’s the last thing you prefer to be. But that’s how it went. You have to own the decisions you have made and go out and just continue to do your best.”

The takeaway by disgruntled fans was that he was wholly unbothered by their disillusionment, which only deepened the bad feelings. But now that I have seen the tour, I’m focused on the part of that quote where Bruce once again directly states where he’s coming from: Well, I’m old.

In the days leading up to the concert, I listened to Letter To You on repeat. I liked the album upon its release, though I had a weird hang-up about how he took several old songs from the ’70s — “Janey Needs A Shooter,” “If I Was The Priest,” “Song For Orphans” — and reworked them. It felt like a cheat, like he was compensating for the inclusion of fresher clunkers like “The Power Of Prayer” and “Rainmaker.” But lately, I’ve talked myself into regarding Letter For You as a borderline-great Springsteen record, because I realized that those ancient (and admittedly terrific tunes) fit with the album’s overall “lion in winter” theme, in which Bruce takes stock of his life in rock and reconciles the fact that there are now more musical adventures in his past than await him in the future. (I have even come to forgive the ugly album cover, which explicitly visualizes the “lion in winter” theme.)

That theme carries over to the current tour. The setlists have been mostly static, with occasional debuts and curveballs sprinkled amid songs that have been carefully selected to offer a comprehensive retrospective of his catalog. In St. Paul, three selections from The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle (“Kitty’s Back,” “The E Street Shuffle,” and, of course, “Rosalita”) highlighted his jazzy and jammy early period, with Bruce once more cutting loose on long, hot-dog guitar solos like he was back at The Main Point in Philly. Three selections from Darkness On The Edge Of Town (“Prove It All Night,” “The Promised Land,” and “Candy’s Room”) captured the gut-level power of his late-’70s prime, with Steven Van Zandt — who now looks nearly as trim as he was during the Carter administration — howling garage-rock backing vocals and stroking his own stinging guitar solos. There were several tunes from his most popular album, Born In The U.S.A., and the title tracks from two of his most notable 21st-century records, The Rising and Wrecking Ball. (There was nothing from the non-E Street Band ’90s albums, though Bruce did pull out a tour debut with “Pay Me My Money Down” from We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, and dutifully trotted out “Night Shift” from the recent soul covers collection Only The Strong Survive.)

And then there were the numbers that derive from the bookends of his career. From Born To Run, there were the essential warhorses: “Born To Run,” “Thunder Road,” “She’s The One,” and my favorite Boss song of all, “Backstreets.” That final number was paired in the middle of the set with a central track from Letter To You, “Last Man Standing.” Both songs are about young people who pledge life-long loyalty while in pursuit of outsized dreams only to ultimately come apart, and they are delivered in the dramatic and romantic manner one expects from a Bruce Springsteen song. The difference is that “Backstreets” is Bruce’s perspective as a kid in his 20s, and “Last Man Standing” is Bruce’s perspective as a man in his 70s.

Standing on stage alone with his guitar, he addressed the audience for the first time at length before “Last Man Standing.” The lack of patter otherwise underscored the importance of the moment — his only other long-ish introduction came ahead of another similarly themed Letter To You song, “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” also performed alone at the end of the night.

He related the story of George Theiss, a boyhood friend who invited 15-year-old Bruce to join his first band, The Castilles. Decades later, Theiss became the subject of this song after he died of lung cancer in 2018, leaving Bruce as the only surviving member of their garage band. The Castilles, by the way, lasted three years, an eternity for a teen rock group, Springsteen proudly noted. And then it ended. Like all things must.

Writing new songs that obsess over the past, and also repurposing old numbers to reveal their present-day relevance, is the basis of Letter To You, and it also sets the tone for this tour. It’s a reflective show, and also a refractive one, in which songs change shape when set in relation to each other. The youthful defiance of the tour’s show-opener, “No Surrender,” now has a melancholy edge. One of his greatest songs about aspiration, “The Promised Land,” is prefaced and shaded by “Letter To You,” a direct message to his audience about how he has poured his “fears and doubts” into his work. His defining song about the gratifying work of performance, “Prove It All Night,” is paired with “Ghosts,” which addresses the same idea but from a backward-looking, nostalgic stance.

Springsteen still sings “Backstreets” with heartfelt conviction, but prefacing it with “Last Man Standing” irrevocably changes with it means. In the current set, it ceases to be a coming-of-age anthem; it is now a prequel story about a man whose age has come and gone. It is a period at the end of a sentence that was first written 48 years ago.

Watching Sunday’s concert overall felt like closing a circle. It reminded me of a genre movie where a gang decides to team up for one caper, in the hopes that they can eventually walk off forever into the sunset. (There’s certainly a lot of loot at stake.) In case it needs to be stated for the record: This is still a kick-ass band. Naturally, the principals demand the most attention — the titanic beat of Max Weinberg, the bouncy bass of Gary Tallent, the consistent brilliance of Roy Bittan, the swashbuckling swagger of Steven Van Zandt. But there’s also an expansive supporting cast this time around, with a full horn section augmenting saxophonist Jake Clemons and a small army of backing singers. The lineup reflected the setlist — the past commingled with the present, and achieved a special harmony that temporarily suspended time.

I have no idea what lies ahead for The E Street Band, because no one does. I’m only saying that it felt like a group of people singing and playing like they might not have many more parties like this in the future. I couldn’t help but choke up a little during the encore when at the end of “Glory Days” Bruce called Little Steven over to the microphone and asked if he wanted to go home.

“I don’t wanna go home,” Little Steven said.

Then Bruce asked the left side of the arena if they wanted to go home. No! Then he asked the people seated behind the stage. No!! Then the people on the right side. NOOOO!!!

It was unanimous: Nobody wanted to go home.

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Bobby Farrelly On The Sweet Sincerity Of His New Film, ‘Champions’

It’s been nine years since Bobby Farrelly has directed a movie, 2014’s Dumb and Dumber To, which he co-directed with his brother, Peter. (When I spoke to Peter for 2018’s Green Book, he did mentioned that Bobby had stepped away to spend time with his family after the death of Bobby’s son.) It’s weird now watching the movies these two are directing separately. There’s always been an sincere and sweet undertone to the Farrelly brothers’s movies. When they are at their best is when we truly love the characters. And watching Champions, this is a movie brimming with heart and sincerity. And it seems pretty obvious, now, that this trait in the duo’s movies comes from Bobby. (Bobby does not disagree.)

Bobby Farrelly knows what you’re probably thinking of when you hear “One half of the Farrelly brothers directs a movie about special needs kids playing on a basketball team.” He admits there’s not much he can do about that, but those misconceptions are ill-advised. This topic has been something close to Farrelly’s heart for a long time and, as stated earlier, this is a very sincere and sweet film.

Woody Harrelson plays Marcus a development league assistant basketball coach in Iowa that gets fired from the team for getting in an altercation during a game, then gets thrown in jail for drunk driving. The judge sentences him to community service, coaching a basketball team for special needs kids. As you might expect, Marcus learns a little bit more about himself than he bargained for. There’s no great plot surprise in Champions, it’s just an old-fashioned, feel-good comedy that we don’t really ever see in theaters anymore.

Ahead, Farrelly explains what it’s like finally directing a movie without his brother. And, speaking of his brother, he tells us what it was like when Peter directs his first movie without Bobby and wins an Oscar. The way Bobby sees it, since Peter also owns a Razzie award, those two things cancel each other out.

I got very emotional during this movie and I wasn’t expecting that.

Well, that’s great. You know what, I cried making it once or twice. We have these ten actors in it, all with varying degrees of intellectual disabilities and many of whom had never acted before and just working with them was so much fun. The whole crew, it was magical. It’s like at the beginning everyone was a little walking on eggshells around each other. We didn’t know what our limitations were, if any. And everyone was just … we didn’t know what to expect. Well, by the end of the shoot, every single person on the crew was a fast friend with everyone else. We were all together. And you realized too, that none of these actors – even though they had never acted before – none of them held us back in any way whatsoever. They were as good as I could have possibly have as a director. And it was just so much fun working with them and telling this story. And it was a joy.

I know your history with hiring special needs people and how much this means to you. But were you at all worried that when people hear, “One of the Farrelly brothers is doing a movie about special needs kids playing basketball,” they might think this a movie made in bad faith?

Well, there will be some people who probably will still think that. There’s nothing I can do about that. I just have to be able to sleep with myself. The way I can sleep with myself is if I know that people that are actually in this world – that have either children or brothers or siblings with intellectual disabilities – if they like it, I’m happy. Because they’re the ones – and people with intellectual disabilities themselves – if they’re happy, I’m happy. And if they weren’t happy, I would be devastated because I would’ve felt like I did them wrong. And I never wanted to do that. Okay. So it’s them. It’s the people at the Special Olympics. It’s the people that run organizations like Best Buddies and things like that. If they’re happy with how we portray everything, then I’m happy. And they are happy. So I can only care so much about what people think who haven’t seen the movie or projecting what it’s about.

Also, you made a comedy that’s actually going to be a movie theaters. It doesn’t happen very often anymore.

No. Comedy’s kind of been on hiatus the last few years. And it’s too bad, too, because more than ever we need to laugh, right? Our society’s like, laughter’s good. It is good. Particularly if it’s laughter that comes from the right place. And this movie does, this is not a movie where we’re laughing at anyone.

No, absolutely not.

And we’re laughing at circumstance and things like that. And so, I don’t know. I hope that comedy makes a full rebound and I think it will actually, because people are starving for it.

How did you like directing alone? I think this is the first time, right? I know Peter’s done two.

I’ve directed some things alone, but in the TV world. And I’ve shot some commercials and stuff like that. So I have worked alone. But in a project like this, a 40-day shoot, it is a little daunting. I’ve had such a great career working with my brother and what we bring to each other is a different point of view. And also, if we see something the same way, it gives us confidence that we’re doing it right. Sometimes you’re wondering … you just question. And so when you have someone right next to you that you know has the exact same goal in mind, which is to make a good movie or something, and you can trust each other’s opinion, that’s huge.

So to do it on your own? It’s a little more daunting I guess. But you know who helped me on this one was Woody Harrelson. Woody’s a good buddy and he loved this movie. He loved the idea of it. He loved the actors he was working with. He loved his character. He loved it so much that he was a huge help to me. It was almost like he was such a generous actor working with his co-actors that he did a lot of directing help for me. He’d backed them up and he’d be out there and he’d do things that were so invaluable to me. But it’s just because he wanted it to work so much. And like I said, he was so generous as an actor. He really was. He helped out incredibly because Woody’s had so much experience. I think he’s made 110 movies or something like that. And he’s just terrific.

Here’s where you can tell me I’m wrong. I’ve obviously seen Peter’s Green Book and Greatest Beer Run Ever. Now watching your solo movie, in the Farrelly brothers movies, I get the sense the sweetness and sincerity come from you. Watching this movie is one of the sweetest, most sincere movies I’ve ever seen. All the movies you did together have an underlying sereneness and I think that’s from you.

Well, Peter would be so mad right there. Thank you. You’re absolutely right.

You know what, Peter won the Best Picture Oscar. I think he’s doing just fine.

Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. But no, you know what? It was this story. This story called for it. Each story’s a little bit different of how much heart. We always believe that you’ve got to put some heart in it. Even when we made Dumb and Dumber, we wanted you to actually like those guys. They’re dumb, but we’re not laughing because they’re so dumb that let’s laugh at these guys. We wanted you to actually like them, Harry and Lloyd.

It doesn’t work if you don’t like them.

Exactly. All of our movies, whether it’s There’s Something About Mary or anything else, you got to put a little bit of heart in there for our humor to work because we do go over. We go way over the line on a lot of things. But if you like the people, you go with them and you laugh with it. But this movie, more than most that we’ve done, is a story that it called for a lot of heart.

So I remember when I interviewed Peter for Green Book and he said he was talking to you a lot during that. And I know the reasons why you had to take a step back for a while. But from a competitive standpoint almost, is it weird to you the first time he goes solo without you he wins Best Picture?

It was definitely a little, yeah … Pete goes out and makes a movie for the first time without me and it wins an Oscar. Do the math. Well, my answer to that is this: that one time along the way when we were making all of our movies together, we got an offer to do a small part in another movie called Movie 43.

Oh yeah, I’ve seen that movie.

I said, I don’t want anything to do with it. Pete didn’t say that. He did have something to do with it and they won a Razzie!

Yeah, you made the right decision on that one.

He won a Razzie! But then he won Oscar. So we’re just back to even, that’s all.

So in your mind, it’s even Steven because the Razze and the Oscar cancel each other out?

They negate each other.

I will say, I thought during this whole movie that I had the ending figured out and until the last second I thought I was right and then I was wrong. Anyway, this movie has a great ending.

Yeah, I mean, that’s just what it is. That’s the credo of the Special Olympics. If you’ve ever been to a Special Olympics event, they’re really something else. It’s really incredible because everyone wants to win and I think they say, let me try to win, but let me be brave in the attempt or something. But they’re happy when the other team wins. They’re happy for them. Were the Philadelphia Eagles happy with for the Kansas City Chiefs?

No, I can tell you for a fact they are not. As A Chiefs guy, I got yelled at by Eagles fans that night.

Yeah, it’s the fans mainly, they can’t get it. But then when you actually see professional athletes after a hard-fought game like that and they’re all talking to each other and they’re shaking hands and they’re laughing, they’re smiling, as a fan sometimes you’re like, what’s going on here? How come they’re not as mad as I am? I think there is that understanding that the other guys are professional, too. But anyway, in the Special Olympics world, that’s a much bigger element. It’s not about getting to the top of the podium. It’s about being there and having a good time and giving it your best. And that’s what the movie was about.

The end credits are similar to There’s Something About Mary. With the cast performing a musical number, this time to Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping.”

Yeah, it was a little bit of a callback to that, but our friends deserved it. We wanted to see them all having and capture them a little bit more like they are in real life and they’re pretty close to how they played their characters. But they’re just a great group and they’re really fun and that song helped capture that.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

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When Is 2 Chainz And Lil Wayne’s New Album Coming Out?

2 Chainz and Lil Wayne have been teasing a collaborative new album together. Their first project, 2016’s ColleGrove mixtape, saw the two rappers blending the title from Georgia’s College Park (Chainz) and New Orleans’ Hollygrove (Wayne).

In a new video, 2 Chainz offered some more insight into what fans can expect from the forthcoming ColleGrove 2.

“Two, three, for years now working on this project, and I’m finally getting to the finish line of this project with me and Wayne that I’m so excited to bring to the marketplace,” he said. “I’m still learning stuff. I’m still learning things in this business. And one thing that I have learned in this process is that no response is the response.”

The follow-up project was initially intended to drop last year, but now an exact release date is unclear. As Chainz previously shared with DJ Akademiks, the duo has done quite a lot of work on it already.

“We were in the studio together,” he shared around January of last year. “This time, we’ve been in the studio together multiple times working on this project. Whether going back in after we’ve done something or whatever. This one is definitely coming out this year. We’re actually in the process of mixing it. Wayne’s on every single song.”

Here’s hoping there’s an official release date for it soon.

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Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alanis Morissette, John Mayer, And More Will Play Sound On Sound Festival 2023

Sound On Sound Festival is set to return to Bridgeport, CT this fall, and this year, the festival promises a new “elevated experience.” Sound On Sound will once again take place at Seaside Park, however, the festival space will be “doubled,” according to the festival’s website.

Over the course of two days, music lovers can enjoy performances from over 20 different acts. On Saturday, September 30, there will be performances by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lord Huron, Trey Anastsio Band, Nathaniel Rateliff And The Night Sweats, and more. The following day (October 1), the likes of Alanis Morissette, John Mayer, Hozier, Mt. Joy, and Cautious Clay will take the stage.

This year, Sound On Sound will bring their performers to a new stage, which will schedule back-to-back sets, so fans won’t have to worry about overlapping performance times. New mobile towers and WiFi setups will also be in place at Seaside Park, offering more connectivity. Festivalgoers can also look forward to three times more food options from local vendors.

General on-sale for Sound On Sound festival begins Thursday, March 9. Fans can purchase tickets here.

You can see the full line-up above.

Some of the artists mentioned are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

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Elon Musk Was Reportedly Incensed When One Twitter Employee’s Code Tweak Threw The Whole Platform Into Disarray

Elon Musk‘s day went from bad to worse in a matter of hours on Monday. After already fending off a damning BBC report that highlighted continued the Twitter CEO’s management flubs and more (he reportedly takes bodyguards with him to the restroom), the social media platform went haywire around noon EST as tweets stopped loading and images were broken across the entire site. A frustrated Musk fired off a tweet lamenting the state of Twitter’s code stack.

“A small API change had massive ramifications,” Musk wrote amongst the chaos. “The code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason. Will ultimately need a complete rewrite.”

But that wasn’t the whole story. In a corroboration of the earlier BBC report that massive layoffs and resignations had left Twitter severely undermanned, a new report claims that just one employee was overseeing the move to a new paid API system. The consequences were readily apparent. Via Platformer:

The change had cascading consequences inside the company, bringing down much of Twitter’s internal tools along with the public-facing APIs. On Slack, engineers responded with variations of “crap” and “Twitter is down – the entire thing” as they scrambled to fix the problem.

Elon Musk was furious, we’re told.

However, employees did confirm that Musk is partially right. Twitter’s infrastructure is in bad shape, which is why you need a team of engineers to carefully implement any changes.

“There’s so much tech debt from Twitter 1.0 that if you make a change right now, everything breaks,” an employee told Platformer. Instead of grappling with that reality, Musk has continued with layoffs.

(Via Platformer)

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Hoo Boy, Jada Pinkett Smith’s Camp Is Not Happy With Chris Rock’s Jokes About Her And Will

For nearly a year, Chris Rock held his tongue on the infamous Will Smith Oscars slap (which followed his “G.I. Jane” joke about Jada and an eye-roll response from her) that rolled out (in many people’s eyes) like a “snap” on Will’s behalf. During that duration, it hasn’t been hard to imagine that whatever Will was actually responding to, marching onstage and whooping Rock’s face, simply for that joke, didn’t add up. Rock more than suggested as much during this past weekend’s Selective Outrage special on Netflix, for which Rock took the gloves off and let loose upon Will.

Granted, Will (along with Jada) was certainly not the only target during Rock’s set, but it was the one everyone was waiting for and clearly the one that people noticed. And Rock duly delivered his dose of drama by suggesting that Smith took a swing at him out of frustration for being publicly dragged as a “bitch” after not only being cuckolded by Jada but being “interviewed by the person who cheated on [him] on television.” There’s a lot going on there, but the reported responses from Will and Jada’s camp kind-of blow past all that. Sources began talking to PEOPLE and mentioned that Smith unsuccessfully aimed for Rock’s forgiveness, and now a Jada “source” has rolled out.

Surprised, surprise, it sounds like Jada is not pleased. The source accuses Rock of being “obsessed” with her for nearly three decades. This accusation even includes a shot at his choice of venue (Baltimore’s Hippodrome theater) for the Netflix special, which is wild:

“Jada has had no part in all of this other than being heckled,” the source says. “Chris is obsessed with her and that’s been going on for almost 30 years.”

“Look where he chose to film his Netflix special. Her hometown [of Baltimore]. Obsessed.

“Back in 2016 she helped start a movement with the Academy Awards by questioning why there are so few Black members, and Chris took it to this?” the source adds.

Clearly, Jada wouldn’t be pleased about him making light of her 2016 Oscars boycott, which he responded to as host by joking, “Isn’t she on a TV show?’ Jada’s going to boycott the Oscars? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited!”

However, three decades of “obsession” would be the accusation, which is something to say, alright. Jada’s source doesn’t clarify there, so the gossip rounds will surely continue on that note. Oh hey, way back in the aughts, Rock and Jada did star together in those Madagascar movies. Actually, they did voice work and likely never ended up in the same room together while he voiced a zebra and she voiced a hippo. I’m only mentioning this because it’s worth beefing about the “Circus Afro” song (as recited by Rock) that got stuck in people’s heads after one of those movies. Until I hear another reason, I will totally speculate about that song being the source of all of this drama.

(Via PEOPLE)

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Chance The Rapper Put His Message At The Forefront During His ‘Yah Know’ Performance On ‘Fallon’

Chance The Rapper dropped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Not only did he give a funny interview, but he also took the studio stage to perform his recent song, “Yah Know.”

It starts off with Chance surrounded by red lighting, giving off the impression that he’s in a box just before he starts to rap. However, once things kick off, the stage setup perfectly matches the song’s beat, introducing a medley of colors as it picks up.

His performance slows down the pacing of the original and has stunning choral background vocals, even though he’s the only one on stage. Given that the uploaded video of “Yah Know” also has the lyrics written across the screen, it further emphasizes what he’s saying.

“Hold my hand if you scared, hold my hand if you cried / Hold my hand and I’ll drive, close your eyes and I’ll steer / I’m not woke, I’m just tired / I’m not floatin’, I’m flyin’ / I’m not broken, I’m fine / I’m outspoken, I stay on code when I’m out in the open online,” he raps on the first verse.

Recently, he also dropped a second visual for the song, as a historical context version of the lyrics he’s performing for Black History Month.

Check out his “Yah Know” performance above.

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You’ll Soon Be Able To Watch ‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’ At Home (But Not On Disney+)

Three of the four highest-grossing movies of all-time are directed by James Cameron. Soon, you’ll be able to watch all of them at home.

Avatar: The Way of Water is coming to digital platforms, like Prime Video, Apple TV, and Vudu, on March 28th. There will be three hours of never-before-seen extras, including “Building the World of Pandora,” “The Challenges of Pandora’s Waters,” and the hilariously named “Spider’s Web.” See if you can watch the entire thing while holding your breath, Kate Winslet-style.

Here are just some of the extras:

Building the World of Pandora – James Cameron and a team of talented artists combine years of research with their design skills to build the world of Pandora with new characters, creatures, indigenous clans, underwater environments and the take-no-prisoners hard-tech world of the RDA.

Capturing Pandora – James Cameron’s approach to performance capture has the cast performing in a volume rigged with infrared cameras to capture their movement, and head rig cameras to capture emotion on their faces with only the boundaries of imagination to limit them.

The Undersea World of Pandora – Co-production designer Dylan Cole and his team conceive of the marine creatures required for Avatar: The Way of Water while James Cameron and his stunt team devise extraordinary means to bring those creatures to life in a performance capture tank.

The Challenges of Pandora’s Waters – James Cameron tackles the “non-trivial challenge” of performance capture above and below the water’s surface, utilizing a wave machine and current generator to reproduce ocean conditions, and underwater vehicles to replicate creature movement.

Pandora’s Returning Characters – James Cameron reunites with his returning cast – Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang. Together they discuss the amazing evolution of their characters in Avatar: The Way of Water.

Pandora’s Next Generation – Meet the talented young newcomers who have been cast as the next generation of Na’vi and follow them through the adventure of making Avatar: The Way of Water.

Spider’s Web – James Cameron introduced the human character of Spider into the fabric of Pandora – thus creating a host of technological challenges on set…and an incredible journey for the young actor, Jack Champion.

Becoming Na’vi – The Avatar cast is immersed in the culture of the indigenous Na’vi, living off the land in the Hawaiian rainforest and training in a multitude of disciplines in preparation for their roles.

The Reef People of Pandora – In true James Cameron-style, the Metkayina reef clan has been developed with great attention to detail, bearing unique evolutionary traits and a culture – with new dwellings, new clothes and different way of life – all a result of living off the ocean.

Bringing Pandora to Life – Once James Cameron completes his virtual production process, every sequence is turned over to Wētā FX to bring Pandora to life – with unprecedented advancements in facial performance, environments and making CG water look real.

The RDA Returns to Pandora – Co-production designer Ben Procter and his team present an armada of new vehicles and human technologies that the RDA brings to Pandora – in concept design and with practical builds.

The New Characters of Pandora – Meet the important new characters of the Avatar saga played by Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell and Jemaine Clement.

The Sounds of Pandora – Hear how James Cameron worked with composer Simon Franglen to create the distinctive music of The Way of Water while building on James Horner’s brilliant score for Avatar, and learn how Chris Boyes created the immersive sounds of Pandora.

New Zealand – Pandora’s Home – The production of the Avatar sequels is so thoroughly ensconced in New Zealand that James Cameron considers The Way of Water a “New Zealand film.” Hear reflections from the cast and crew, including the remarkable New Zealand crew, on making the film.

Avatar: The Way of Water does not have a Disney+ streaming date yet.

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Miley Cyrus’ ‘Endless Summer Vacation’ Will Be Creatively Divided Into Two Themed Parts

Yes, Miley Cyrus can proudly buy herself flowers and write her name in the sand, but there’s also a slew of other amazing things she can do for herself, including taking creative control of her music. As the singer’s single “Flowers” continues to burn up the charts and streaming platforms, Cyrus is teasing what other sonic treats fans should expect from her forthcoming album, Endless Summer Vacation.

In a video clip teaser from her Disney+ Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions), uploaded to the musician’s Instagram page, Cyrus details the creative process behind the way in which the project’s layout.

“When it comes to the sequencing of ‘Endless Summer Vacation,’ I divided it by two parts, ‘AM’ and ‘PM,’ to kind of represent almost an act,” she calmly revealed. As Cyrus continued, she explained the reasoning for the decision, stating, “The ‘AM’ to me is representing the morning time, where there’s a buzz and an energy, and there’s a potential of new possibilities. It’s a new day.”

In contrast, as for what the ‘PM’ portion of the album represents, Cyrus said, “At nighttime, it feels like there’s a slinky, seediness, and kind of a grime but a glamour at the same time. In the evening, it’s a great time for rest, it’s a time to recover. Or it’s a time to go out and experience the wild side.”

The album is set to drop this Friday and will feature guest vocal appearances by Brandi Carlile and Sia.

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Chance The Rapper Just Wants To Eat A ‘Personal Pep’ Pizza From Pizza Hut While He Shops At Target Again

Chance The Rapper finally explained a mysterious tweet of his. Last night (March 6) on an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the “Yah Know” rapper took a break from his busy schedule filming The Voice for an interview and a live performance.

During the interview, Fallon asked Chance about a tweet he posted last month, in which he said he was “trying to get @Target and @pizzahut to SQUASH THE BEEF.”

Fallon asked Chance what exactly he meant by this, to which he replied reminiscing on a time when Target shoppers could purchase a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut while they shopped, and reeled over the fact that Target stores no longer have Pizza Huts in store.

“I can’t be the only person that’s noticing this,” said Chance. “Do you guys not remember a time when you used to go to Target, and you would have a cart in one hand and a personal pep pizza in the other? What’s going on, Target? I just feel like… I don’t know, there’s like a silent beef going on.”

Though he misses those iconic personal-sized pizzas, Chance admitted that Target is still one of his favorite places to shop.

“Target’s amazing,” said Chance. “They’ve got everything — they’ve got household appliances, they’ve got produce.”

Could Chance be the one to convince Target and Pizza Hut to reinstate their partnership? It’s not unlikely. After all, he was able to convince Wendy’s to bring back their spicy chicken nuggets to their menu back in 2019.

You can check out the interview above.