Category: News

Lil Baby has become one of Atlanta rap’s brightest rising stars in recent years and now, the city has honored his success by declaring November 13 Dominique “Lil Baby” Jones Day. The city presented the proclamation declaring it Lil Baby Day during a ceremony on Sunday (November 13), presenting the rapper with a plaque acknowledging both his role as a “musical ambassador” for Atlanta and his philanthropic efforts in the city.

Earlier this year, Lil Baby was given the Quincy Jones Humanitarian Award at Black Music Action Coalition’s second annual Music in Action Awards Gala after launching a jobs program and a $150,000 scholarship for young people in Atlanta. For the last three years, he’s hosted a back-to-school backpack giveaway, and last year, he gave away bikes for kids in Atlanta, refurbished a basketball court, and even bought out a local Foot Locker’s entire stock to share with the families of his hometown.

Lil Baby joined rap peers such as fellow Atlanta natives Gunna and Lil Nas X, Nas, and Travis Scott in being honored by his hometown. He’s been having a stellar year lately, releasing his third album It’s Only Me last month, putting out a documentary based on his life, and receiving a songwriting award from ASCAP.

Season two of Last Week Tonight lead-in show The White Lotus got off to a dong-swinging start. In the season two premiere of Mike White’s Emmy-winning series, Cameron (played by Theo James) changes in front of Aubrey Plaza’s Harper, who gave an April Ludgate-like reaction to the incident. The undressing scene shows… a lot, but it was originally going to show even more, according to James.

“What he does is — this is Mike’s writing — he treads the boundary of how calculated that was, or was it just easy-breezy? On the day, we had to figure out what that was because the original derivation of it, it’s kind of full-frontal, if you know what I mean,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “We shot that and it felt too much, too aggressive. What we came to is a bit more opaque, and that’s what Mike does so well.” It’s also required.

In season one of The White Lotus, Steve Zahn showed off his junk to his on-screen wife, Connie “Mrs. Coach” Britton. Well, his fake junk. “I remember when I got the script asking Mike if I was going to have to do full frontal,” he told The Wrap. “And he’s like, ‘No, it’s going to be a prosthetic.’ I did have to approve the prosthetic that they used. He showed it to me first.” Zahn’s reaction: “Yeah, that’ll do it.” It’s the Babe of hogs.

(Via EW)

Foo Fighters have maintained a relatively low profile since the death of Taylor Hawkins (save for the pair of Hawkins tribute concerts earlier this year), but Dave Grohl has sprinkled in appearances here and there. He joined Paul McCartney at Glastonbury, popped up at Judd Apatow’s benefit concert in August, and performed at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony a week ago. Now, Grohl has once again taken the stage: As was announced in August, Grohl was part of the lineup for Joe Walsh’s 2022 VetsAid charity concert, which went down on November 13 at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.

Grohl didn’t perform his own set, but instead featured during a number of other performances. The Breeders had a set and Grohl helped them close it out by joining for a cover of Pixies’ “Gigantic.” Walsh’s band James Gang also wrapped up their set with “Funk #49” accompanied by Grohl. To close out the entire event, Walsh played four songs and Grohl joined in on the last two: “Life’s Been Good” and “Rocky Mountain Way.”

The event had a strong lineup aside from the aforementioned artists, as it also featured The Black Keys and Nine Inch Nails.

Check out Grohl’s performances below.

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

After delivering the wildly successful Stranger Things 4, which brought in a monster amount of views and cemented the series as a pop culture juggernaut, The Duffer Brothers are gearing up to bring their epic Hawkins story to a close with the fifth and final season. They reportedly plan to build on the massive scale of the blockbuster fourth season but also bring back some of that season one magic. During a fan event on Sunday, the sibling creative team opened up about their ambitious plans for Stranger Things 5 and how their pitch had Netflix execs in tears.

“We did get our executives to cry, which I felt was a good sign that these executives were crying,” Matt Duffer told the crowd. “The only other times I’ve seen them cry were like budget meetings.”

Stranger Things producer (and future Deadpool 3 director) Shawn Levy backed up the tears story and praised the Duffers for their commitment to the characters. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

“As a witness and having been in that two-hour pitch room and having read this first script — I’m paralyzed with fear that I’ll spoil anything but I will say the thing about these Duffer Brothers is that even though the show has gotten so famous and the characters have gotten so iconic and there’s so much about the ’80s and the supernatural and the genre, it’s about these people, it’s about these characters. Season five is already so clearly taking care of these stories of the characters because that’s always been the lifeblood of Stranger Things.”

While the character-centric but still epic take on Stranger Things 5 sounds awesome, no one mentioned the term “Vecnussy,” so right off the bat we have concerns about the show losing its way. Fame changed you, Stranger Things.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Over the weekend, while Nas was in New York celebrating the release of his latest project, King’s Disease 3, the rapper’s Calabasas home was broken into.

TMZ reports that two men broke into the Brooklyn rapper’s home on Saturday around 8:30 that evening. Ring camera footage recovered from Nas’s house showed two men smashing a rear door to gain entry. Luckily, the rapper nor anyone else was present in the home. After being notified about the robbery via the camera system, the authorities were alerted by Nas and his team.

Unfortunately, by the time the police arrived, the two thieves were long gone — taking with them at least two bags of unknown items and tearing the rapper’s home apart, TMZ reported. It’s still unclear what exactly has been taken or how much the mysterious things could be worth.

To date, Nas has yet to return to his home and has not publicly spoken about the incident. Still, presumably, he will head back to California soon to help give the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department an idea of what they could be looking for.

It’s been less than a week since Nas dropped his third collaborative album with Hit-Boy, King’s Disease 3. The rapper plans to celebrate the culmination of the three projects at a one-night show at the legendary Madison Square Garden in February 2023.

Aaron Carter tragically died at his California home on November 5. He was 34 years old. There was an outpouring of tributes for the former child pop star and younger brother of Nick Carter, including from Backstreet Boys and Hilary Duff. Word of an incomplete memoir, Aaron Carter: An Incomplete Story Of An Incomplete Life, surfaced just five days after Carter’s sudden passing, sticking out amid the public mourning.

“Aaron was an open book during the writing process,” author Andy Symonds said in a statement, per Billboard. “It’s a tragic irony that this autobiography will never include all his stories, thoughts, hopes, and dreams as he intended.”

Despite its incompletion, Symonds planned to publish the memoir on November 15. That news was met immediately by backlash, which seems to have changed Symonds’ mind. According to Entertainment Tonight, the book will remain shelved.

“Out of respect for the Carter family, my client has decided to defer the further release of the book at this time,” said Scott Atherton, attorney and founder of Atherton Galardi Mullen & Reeder PLLC, representing Ballast Books and Symonds. “Mr. Carter was not just a celebrity but also a father, a brother, a son, and a friend to many still grieving for him.”

Atherton added, “Public attention has recently focused on a small number of interactions during Mr. Carter’s early years. […] The more important story is about Mr. Carter’s life and what people can learn from his professional success, personal struggles, and tragic passing.”

Last week, Duff provided a statement to ET condemning the planned publishing of the book: “[It’s] really sad that within a week of Aaron’s death, there’s a publisher that seems to be recklessly pushing a book out to capitalize on this tragedy without taking appropriate time or care to fact check the validity of his work. […] To water down Aaron’s life story to what seems to be unverified click-bait for profit is disgusting. In no way do I condone shedding any light on what is so obviously an uninformed, heartless money grab.”

Taylor Helgeson of Big Umbrella Management also spoke out against the posthumous memoir, and fans expressed they would not support any rushed posthumous work.

Carter’s official cause of death is still unknown after a performed autopsy, and toxicology results are pending. The Los Angeles Times reported that “investigators found evidence of medications and compressed air” in Carter’s bedroom and bathroom. He was found dead in his bathtub. It was reported over the weekend that he died without a will.

Donald Trump has been reeling in the aftermath of the midterm elections. Despite polling suggesting Republicans would dominate their opponents and take the House in an overwhelming victory, a “red wave” has failed to emerge. (At best, the GOP will take the House with a seat one majority.)

In true Trump fashion, the former president has reportedly been lashing out at everyone, including his wife, Melania, who he reportedly blames for encouraging him to back Dr. Oz. Naturally, that revelation sparked Trump to lash out even more as he employed his typical cry of “Fake News” in response to reports that he’s angry at Melania.

However, former White House communications director Stephanie Grisham, who worked closely with the First Lady, is not buying Trump’s denial. Here’s what Grisham told MSNBC on Sunday. Via Raw Story:

So, you know, I’m sure that Sean Hannity probably really wanted Oz, and I’m sure Melania probably said, you know, listen to Sean, you never go wrong when you listen to Sean. And it did not surprise me that he’s privately angry with her. But, you know, she does not care, I can tell you that right now. She does not get really involved. She knows who she is, and she does not really care, other than the bad headlines about her.

As for the topic of whether the Republican is truly rejecting Trump after MAGA candidate Kari Lake added another loss to the pile over the weekend, Grisham isn’t getting her hopes up. She’s repeatedly seen the GOP says it’s done with Trump, but then “they come crawling back.”

(Via Raw Story)

It’s tempting to say that 2022 wasn’t a great year for action movies, considering new installments of John Wick and Mission: Impossible don’t come out until 2023 and 2024. But that would be a disservice to two of the year’s best movies in any genre: Everything Everywhere All at Once and RRR. The latter film, in particular, about two Indian revolutionaries who began as rivals before becoming best bros was an out-of-nowhere sensation, with a sparkling 93 percent “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a worldwide box office gross over $100 million; RRR is even being submitted for Best Picture at the Oscars. Rightly so. The dance sequence alone deserves a nomination.

Director S.S. Rajamouli recently appeared at a screening of RRR at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre, where he discussed plans for a sequel. “I would absolutely love to. I can’t reveal many details about it, but my father, who has been a screenwriter for all my films including RRR… We discussed a bit about it, and he is working on the story,” he said, according to the Indian Express. CGI tigers everywhere are shaking.

Earlier this year, during a special event to celebrate the film’s success, [actor N. T. Rama Rao Jr.] had said fans’ demand for a sequel to RRR is fair and asked Rajamouli to take the story ahead. “I’m pretty sure that if he doesn’t make [a sequel], you’re going to kill him for sure. He needs to make RRR 2, there needs to be a conclusion to this also! I was speaking to a journalist, and I don’t know how but I said RRR franchise. So, hopefully it becomes true. He should make RRR 2,” the actor had said.

I already mentioned the dance scene. But screw it, I’m bringing it up again.

Now that’s cinema.

(Via the Indian Express)

Back in September, Tyler Perry’s latest film A Jazzman’s Blues was released. The movie, which premiered on Netflix, is a “sweeping tale of forbidden love” that also “unspools forty years of secrets and lies soundtracked by juke joint blues in the deep South,” according to a press release. Perry wrote, directed, and produced the film which stars Joshua Boone and Solea Pfeiffer as the romantic couple at the center of the movie. The soundtrack for A Jazzman’s Blues features an original composition by singer Ruth B. titled “Paper Airplanes.” The record was also produced by D’Mile and Ruth B. herself and co-written by two-time Academy Award nominee and five-time Grammy winner Terence Blanchard, and now, it gets paired with a stellar new music video.

The stirring video for “Paper Airplanes” places Ruth B. in the Southern landscape that makes up most of A Jazzman’s Blues. All in all, the visual strikes as a touching dedication to love, something that pairs perfectly with the storyline of Tyler Perry’s Netflix film. Ruth B. stands tall throughout the video as she sings with sheer elegance and passion, two things that make the touching song that much better. The track itself also has a big presence in the film as it almost takes the role of a character by tying the storyline of the movie together.

In addition to Boone and Pfeiffer, A Jazzman’s Blues also stars Amirah Vann, Austin Scott, Milauna Jemai Jackson, Brent Antonello, Brad Benedict, Kario Marcel, Lana Young, and Ryan Eggold.

You can watch the video for “Paper Airplanes” above.

‘A Jazzman’s Blues’ is now streaming on Netflix. You can find it here.

John Oliver hails from the United Kingdom, but he became a United States citizen shortly before the 2022 election. He’s still a massive Liverpool F.C. fan, but it probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that he doesn’t maintain much sentimentality for the monarchy. He devoted this week’s deep dive to mercilessly trouncing this institution, and he began while highlighting the “complicated” reaction from some British citizens to Queen Elizabeth II’s death.

This includes a pair of young ladies (early in the above video) declaring, “It’s like I care, but I don’t” and “she ain’t done nothing for us.” In response, Oliver totally gets it and compares the situation with the bizarre way that And Just Like That… killed off a franchise-spanning character. “I had a similar reaction when Big died on the Peloton,” he began. “I don’t care because Big was pompous, good for nothing (and let’s be honest, voted for Trump), but I do care a little because I know that Carrie really cares.”

How much did Carrie care, exactly? “Look at her, there in his last moments, devastated, doing absolutely nothing.”

Granted, that’s an exaggeration. Carrie obviously cared, but there was plenty of criticism about how her character reacted. She didn’t immediately call 911, although to be fair, nothing would have saved Big at that point. She did cradle him during his final moments, and the aftermath of his death grew pretty complicated. He had left money for his ex-wife, Natasha, and Carrie also found that she couldn’t guess the password to his laptop. So yes, it was messy, just like the collective British response to Elizabeth’s death.

Oliver moved on to dissecting the fallout of Elizabeth’s imperialistic legacy, which she stoically held onto until her final days. Oliver, for sure, tore into the entire British family for “ignoring calls for true apologies and reparations to those who suffered tremendously because of what was done in their name.” Well… at least the Royals still have Piers Morgan on their side.