Category: News

You may have been on the fence about starting The Last Of Us, HBO’s latest hit series that follows charmingly grumpy apocalypse survivor Joel as he sets out to protect a young girl who might be the key to survival. You’ve probably seen the memes and Pedro Pascal’s various wholesome interviews floating around and thought, “Hey, maybe I should watch this guy,” but never really got around to it. Well HBO knows that, and they really want you to get hooked, so they are offering the first episode for free. Are you on board yet?!

Ahead of the next episode in the series based on the popular video game franchise, HBO is streaming episode one for free in hopes that some more people will want to join the Pedro Pascal hype train. Episode three of the nine-episode season will air Sunday at 9 pm, and that one won’t be free. Sorry.

You can watch the first episode in the series by simply going to HBO’s site and clicking play without needing to sign up. It’s truly never been easier to watch an unsettling post-pandemic zombie wasteland! Of course, to watch the next episodes, you’ll have to purchase an HBO subscription. But that also makes Succession available to you before season four premieres in March, so it might not be a bad idea. The choice is yours.

Fans are raving about Lil Yachty’s new album, Let’s Start Here. To some, the departure from his signature rap sound to the project’s psychedelic alternative rock core came as a surprise, but to the rapper and his die-hard fans, this was to be expected.

A year ago, as the musician discussed what he had planned for his next official studio project, he plainly told Atlanta jewelry store Icebox listeners should brace themselves because it would be “a non-rap album.”

Yachty went on to gush about the creative direction saying, “It’s alternative, it’s sick! I’ve always wanted to [do one], but now I’ve met all these amazing musicians and producers. It’s like a psychedelic-alternative project. It’s different, and it’s all live instrumentation. I’ve changed my entire dynamic. I’m telling you, with this album and on, I’m creating music a whole lot differently.”

Fast forward to today, and Let’s Start Here is available across streaming platforms, and the list of the musicians and producers that he worked with has been revealed. While Lil Yachty co-produced the entire album, the project features a list of heavy hitter guest producers, including Justin Raisen, Sad Pony, Patrick Wimberly, Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Jacob Portrait, Nick Hakim, Magdalena Bay, and Jam City.

As far as writing credit goes, Lil Yachty has been the go-to rap pen for the new wave of rappers including the City Girls, but artists Mac DeMarco and Alex G are also given co-writing credit. During the initial announcement, Yachty did not list any guest vocal features. Still, after listening to the album, music buffs will recognize recording artists Foushée, Diana Gordon, Teezo Touchdown, and Justine Skye all made an appearance on it despite their names not being listed in the titles.

Details about the featured instrumentalist featured on the project are still being revealed, but one standout musical guest includes MGMT’s Ben Goldwasser, who played the keyboard on the album.

When discussing the inspiration behind the album and his robust approach, Yachty sternly replied, “I wanted to be taken seriously as an artist, not just some SoundCloud rapper. Not some mumble rapper, not just some guy that made one hit.”

View the official tracklist with unlisted guests added below.

1. “The Black Seminole”
2. “The Ride” Feat. Teezo Touchdown
3. “Running Out of Time” Feat. Justine Skye
4. “Pretty” Feat. Fousheé
5. “Failure”
6. “The Zone” Feat. Justine Skye
7. “We Saw the Sun!”
8. “Drive Me Crazy!” Feat. Diana Gordon
9. “I’ve Officially Lost Vision!!!!” Feat. Diana Gordon
10. “Say Something”
11. “Paint the Sky”
12. “Should I B?”
13. “The Alchemist” Feat. Fousheé
14. “Reach the Sunshine” Feat. Daniel Caesar

Let’s Start Here is out now via Quality Control. Get it here.

Drake’s brand-new mansion in LA had an unwanted visitor this week, leading to a search of the neighborhood and the burglar’s eventual arrest, according to TMZ. Drake bought the house last year from English singer Robbie Williams for an estimated $50 million after selling off his “YOLO Estate” in Hidden Hills.

The new place, though, seems to be exactly the kind of home burglars are looking to hit. While Drake wasn’t home at the time, his security called the police after seeing an unknown man leaving the property carrying something. By the time officers arrived, he’d disappeared, but a few hours later, the police were able to find and arrest the man.

Weird things seem to happen at Drake’s house a lot when he’s not home. Also last year, a man claiming to be Drake’s son popped up there looking for him. Of course, Drake’s actual son is the five-year-old Adonis; the man police arrested last year was 23 — just 12 years younger than Drake, who turned 36 in October.

He might just be used to folks showing up at odd hours and helping themselves to his stuff, though; in 2017, a woman broke into Drake’s old place and took a Sprite, a Pepsi, and a bottle of Fiji water out of his fridge.

Yogesh Raut is a three-time Jeopardy! winner, but it’s what the blogger, podcaster, and quizzing expert did afterwards that has fans of the game show talking.

“Please don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say,” he wrote in a Facebook post before listing some of his personal achievements, including being “1/4th of the team that represented the US at the Quizzing World Cup and WON THE WORLD CUP against the best international competition out there” and establishing himself as “belonging in the top tier of writers/editors/bloggers/podcasters in the quizzing community.” Since appearing on Jeopardy! earlier this month, Raut has been “receiving the most attention, praise, congratulations, and nasty trolling from strangers (!) of my life… and for what? What did I do to get the biggest paycheck of my quizzing career? I beat two guys.”

He continued about the “glorified reality show”:

“This is also not an insult to Jeopardy!, which is a TV show designed for entertainment, and a reasonably good one. (I mean, it’s no _Recreational Thinking_, but….) It is entertaining to watch but it bears the same relationship to real quizzing that Holey Moley does to golf. There never has been, and never will be, any justification for treating Jeopardy! as the Olympics of quizzing.”

I would rather watch Holey Moley than the Masters, but I digress.

Raut doesn’t think Jeopardy! is “the problem,” per se, but “there will never be a healthy quizzing culture in this country until we learn to stop pretending that Jeopardy! is important,” he wrote. Raut blames the popularity of the game show on quizzing being a “fringe subculture,” which has allowed “racists, misogynists, and outright sexual harassers to thrive in collegiate quizbowl for so long. It’s the reason unapologetic bigots remain in positions of high power at major pub quiz companies.”

Raut listed the issues the quizzing community needs to address in a separate post:

Jeopardy! champ James Holzhauer wants Raut banned, but executive producer Michael Davies has a different take. “I like the fact that having been criticized, Yogesh took and defended himself… I would say vigorously and at length,” he said on the Inside Jeopardy! podcast. “We’re not beyond criticism. You don’t have to come on Jeopardy! and say lovely things about the game.”

Raut offered advice to anyone who wants to get into quizzing, like he did.

“We have to look the next generation of quizzers in the eyes and tell them, ‘I know you want to learn everything that there is to know. But, for your own sake, please don’t. It will only get you labeled a ‘know-it-all.’ You will be told that you’re a freak, a product of genetic quirks rather than hard work and shining passion, or else a personality-less robot, and that label will be used to justify excluding you and marginalizing your voice,” he told BuzzFeed, adding, “So, for your own good, kill the light that burns inside you.”

“This Is Jeopardy!”

(Via Decider and BuzzFeed)

Lola Brooke is set for a huge breakout in 2023 and now, she’s been anointed by the Queen Bee herself. The Brooklyn rapper — Brooke, not Kim — has the streets buzzing with her viral single “Don’t Play With It,” and many believe she’s poised to have a similar explosion in popularity to GloRilla or fellow drill rapper Ice Spice this year.

Last night at Harlem’s historical Apollo Theater, Lil Kim — who many still deem the foremother of the modern wave of female rap artists — kicked off the Harlem Festival Of Culture with The Jump Off With Lil Kim And Friends show. Apparently, one of those friends turned out to be Lola Brooke, who took the stage to an uproarious response from the crowd.

“I’m so proud of you, baby,” Kim told her as she emerged from backstage. “I got your f*ckin’ back!” Brooke followed up the exchange of mutual appreciation with an acapella rendition of her street hit, accompanied by what sounds very much like a full-crowd sing-along.

Judging from the reactions to her appearance at the Apollo, all Lola Brooke needs to complete her rap takeover is to remain consistent. She already has the ears and hearts of her hometown — and to quote one of her peers, with that, how can she lose?

Jay Leno is having a bit of a rough patch. The beloved Tonight Show host’s reality series, Jay Leno’s Garage, has been cancelled by CNBC after seven seasons on the air. The decision arrives after Leno survived a harrowing ordeal where his face caught on fire while repairing an old car back in November. The show was a love letter to Leno’s passion for cars, but according to Deadline, it’s been axed as the network focuses on “business oriented reality shows” like Shark Tank and Undercover Boss.

As if losing his show after surviving his face catching on fire wasn’t enough, Leno was also in a motorcycle accident last week, which is only just now making headlines. Via PEOPLE:

Detailing that he “got knocked off” his motorcycle on Jan. 17, Leno told the outlet, “I’ve got a broken collarbone. I’ve got two broken ribs. I’ve got two cracked kneecaps.”

“But I’m okay!” the star — who is returning to Las Vegas in March — added. “I’m okay, I’m working. I’m working this weekend.”

Despite the string of bad luck, Leno’s sense of humor hasn’t faltered and you can’t keep the guy off the stage. The comedian knows he’s lucky to be alive, and he was cracking jokes even after the gasoline fire back in November that covered his face, chest, and hands with burns. Leno penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal describing the ordeal and joked that he has a “brand new face” now. “It’s better than what was there before,” The Tonight Show legend quipped.

(Via Deadline, PEOPLE)

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, so if you haven’t already got your plans in order, you might as well buckle down for a lonely night in.

Michael B. Jordan learns this lesson the hard way in the new promo for SNL, which he’ll host this week. In the second of the three bits, cast member Heidi Gardner makes a pass at him, hoping to get chose for V-Day, but when Mike snoozes, he loses the opportunity to musical guest Lil Baby.

The trio also has some fun with Lil Baby’s stage name in another bit, while in the third, Heidi’s Michael Buffer impression falls flat when she misidentifies Baby’s place of origin as Alaska instead of Atlanta. That could make for one awkward date!

Throughout the clip, it looks like all three are having fun, even if the rapper has a little bit of a “deer in headlights” look to him — which is understandable, considering he’s stepping out of his element. However, his one-time partner-in-rhyme Gunna acquitted himself well in some sketches when he appeared on SNL, so perhaps Lil Baby will surprise us too.

Baby is fresh off the release of his third album, It’s Only Me, which dropped back in October. It’s nice to see he’s still pushing it, considering how quickly artists move on from their projects these days.

You can watch the SNL promo above.

Vladimir Putin has been on the defensive lately, which is ironic, considering that he put himself in this position by invading Ukraine for what he now says is some secret reason. The Russian president has also been forced to present high-heeled proof of life, and his choice to use the controversial Wagner group of mercenaries is increasingly under fire. Much of that rationale comes because Putin’s troops are dying by the thousands, which has led him to a series of drafts (some numbering into the hundreds of thousands) in order to beef up numbers on the front lines and in munitions factories.

As well, Putin has been plagued by Russian saboteurs who are blowing up train tracks to ensure that supplies aren’t delivered. The mess has been further compounded by criticism of Putin using the controversial Wagner Group of mercenaries to supplement his own troops, and now, CNN reports that Putin is staffing those military factories with convict recruits. They’re being promised pensions and for their families to be taken care of and everything. That bit of news can be found courtesy of CNN and Andrei Soldatov, and here’s more from the Financial Times with word from the Kremlin:

Russian president Vladimir Putin is pardoning convicts to allow them to fight in Ukraine as members of the Wagner paramilitary group, the Kremlin has admitted.

Russia also dismissed the US Treasury’s move to label Yevgeny Prigozhin’s group, which is playing an increasingly prominent role on the front lines as Putin’s full-scale invasion enters its 12th month, as a “transnational criminal organisation”.

It remains to be seen whether Putin will follow these admissions up with more insistence that he’s winning key territories in Ukraine, even as Kyiv keeps calling bullsh*t on these claims. Yes, he probably will keep on lying, including to those convict recruits.

(Via CNN & Financial Times)

Miley Cyrus just released “Flowers,” and it was no casual affair. The song debuted at No. 1 and broke streaming records. But she’s not done — the magnitude of the hit is only intensifying with each day.

According to Spotify’s official charts, “Flowers” had over 115 million streams during the week ending January 26 (115,156,896, to be precise). That makes it the first song to ever do over 100 million, a mark it passed by a wide margin. This comes after Cyrus broke the all-time one-week record last week with over 96 million streams.

About her New Year’s resolution, Cyrus said, “My 20s were so much fun. If you don’t believe me, I believe you can google it. It looks as fun as it was, but it’s a different kind of fun. I feel that whatever I had in my purpose to prove, I did that. And now, it’s less about proving to others and more about for myself.”

The singer added, “I think why New Year’s is probably my favorite holiday is because everyone has the same idea that I’m kind of exercising all year around, which is, it’s time for something new. It’s time for a change. It’s time for a new beginning. And I think a lot of us wait until midnight to go, ‘Well, when I wake up tomorrow in this new year, everything will be different.’ But it won’t be different if you aren’t different.”

Endless Summer Vacation is out 3/10 via Columbia. Pre-order it here.

On Indiecast, Ian Cohen and I talk about indie rock and occasionally television and sports and things that have nothing to do with indie rock. This week, we delve into the world of mainstream rock and assess the state of major-label bands waving the flag for guitars in a pop-dominated world.

In the “meat” portion of the episode, we review the recent album by the viral Italian band Måneskin, who make their (mostly) English language debut with Rush! Is this record enjoyably dumb or just plain dumb? We report, you decide! We also talk about the latest LP from White Reaper, Asking For A Ride, a lovable one-time indie act who made the transition to the big leagues without losing their sense of humor or ability to write a hearty arena-rock hook.

In the banter segment, I lose my mind talking about the latest news regarding Panic! At The Disco (they’re breaking up) and Fall Out Boy (they’re putting out a new album). I don’t mince words — these are bands I do not care for! And I voice that displeasure in strongly worded language! We then transitioned to talking about a happier topic — the 20th anniversary of Zwan’s Mary Star Of The Sea, a long lost classic worth revisiting.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 123 here or below 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.

White Reaper is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.