Category: News

The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 has been a hot-button issue from the moment Qatar was awarded the coveted tournament in 2010 because of the country’s history of atrocious human rights violations and corruption. Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter recently admitted “Qatar is a mistake,” and Dua Lipa agrees.

The multiplatinum pop star took to her Instagram story early this morning (November 13) to address rumors attaching her to the World Cup’s opening ceremony.

“There is currently a lot of speculation that I will be performing at the opening ceremony of the World Cup in Qatar,” Lipa wrote. “I will not be performing and nor have I ever been involved in any negotiation to perform. I will be cheering England on from afar and I look forward to visiting Qatar when it has fulfilled all the human rights pledges it made when it won the right to host the World Cup. One love, Dua x.”

Lipa will finish the nine-show Australia leg of her Future Nostalgia Tour at Perth’s RAC Arena on Wednesday (November 16). After that, the three-time Grammy winner will presumably keep chipping away at writing her new album.

BTS’ Jung Kook, meanwhile, will perform at the opening ceremony.

The FIFA WORLD Cup Qatar 2022 kicks off next Sunday, November 20, and will run through December 18.

Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

In their second Saturday Night Live performance of the night, Black Star took the stage with producer Madlib to perform “The Main Thing Is To Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing” from their album, No Fear Of Time.

During the performance, Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey rap in tandem, throwing rose petals on the stage, as grayscale images rotate in the background.

“The rogue soul dark be the light / Shed the light into the darkroom / The light is not afraid that part / Gang-gang variates dream team,” the two rap on the track.

In a recent episode of Drink Champs, Bey and Kweli defended paywalling their album via Luminary, with Kweli saying, “We have made a choice for a lot of valid reasons to be in control of where and how we distribute our art. At this point in our careers and because of the music business, speaking for myself, we have to as men and as artists focus on not trying to cast a wide net and get everybody. Even me as a fan of Black Star, I want to hear it wherever I feel [like] hearing it.”

Check out the performance of “The Main Thing Is To Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing” above.

This past May, Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli reunited as Black Star for the first time in 24 years. The two released their second joint album, No Fear Of Time, which featured the song “So Be It.” Tonight, they brought “So Be It” to the Saturday Night Live stage.

During the performance, Black Star performed in a set-up replicating a nostalgic New York City, as the lyrics to the song displayed on a screen in the back.

“It’s bigger than hip-hop, hypes, and wicked government / Brooklyn award-winning, a not-give-a-f*ckingest,” raps Bey on his verse

In an interview with NPR, Kweli said that although this is their first album in 24 years, Black Star’s mantra of “black excellence, unity, confronting racism, Pan-Africanism, elevating consciousness,” resonates just as much now as it did then.

“We stand tall on the shoulders of our ancestors,” said Kweli “The canon of black art is amazing, and it is the lifeblood of all great art that comes from America in particular. Black people in America have been the moral compass, and we have been the ones who have elevated the art and we have been the ones who have made the most original American things.”

Check out the performance of “So Be It” above.

For the first time in his decorated UFC career, Israel Adesanya (23-2-0) has lost a fight in the middleweight division, and it was to a familiar foe. On Saturday night at UFC 281, Alex Pereira (7-1-0) picked up a win over Adesanya to unseat him via fifth round TKO as the top dog in the promotion’s middleweight division in front of a packed crowd at Madison Square Garden.

It certainly seemed going into the fifth and final round like all Adesanya needed to do was survive. Despite Pereira taking round two, Adesanya controlled the rest of the fight with the cerebral nature that he’d done in his previous defenses of the middleweight championship.

And then, Pereira started to throw punch after punch with an understanding that he needed a finish. With Adesanya backed against the cage, Pereira’s opportunity came to fruition. He unloaded a series of rights and lefts that stunned the champion, and eventually, the referee stepped in as Adesanya was unable to raise his hands or head to defend himself.

The only other loss Adesanya suffered in his UFC career came when he moved up to light heavyweight to fight Jan Błachowicz. He had, however, battled and lost to Pereira in the past, with the Brazilian picking up a pair of wins in two kickboxing fights. Now, in his fourth UFC fight, Pereira was able to show he can beat Adesanya yet again, and as a result, he’s the UFC middleweight champion.

Montana Love entered Saturday night’s bout with Steve Spark as a near perfect 18-0-1 in his career with nine knockouts, most recently getting a unanimous decision win on the Canelo-Bivol undercard in Las Vegas. The 27-year old light welterweight was a headliner for the card in his native Cleveland on Saturday, but the excitement quickly devolved into one of the wildest scenes in boxing this year, when Love got disqualified in the sixth round for throwing Spark over the top rope, Royal Rumble style.

Unfortunately in boxing this is not a legal way to win a fight and instead is a guaranteed way to lose it, as Love was swiftly DQ’d and Spark was named the victor. That was likely going to be the result anyways, as Love was sent to the canvas in the second round and had a big cut over his eye from a headbutt that the DAZN crew expected to cause a sixth round stoppage anyways and send the fight to the scorecards, where Spark would’ve been up thanks to the early knockdown.

This eliminated any doubt that Spark would get the win, though, and he even managed to stick the landing onto his feet after getting flipped over the top rope in the skirmish. Love was clearly not happy with the headbutt, which certainly seemed like an accidental clash of heads as they both dipped low to throw shots, and went out on his own terms in this one.

On the heels of his new album, Faith In The Future, Louis Tomlinson has been gearing up for line performances, as well as fan meet-ups. Unfortunately, fans may have to wait a little bit longer to get their copies of the album signed.

Following a performance last night (November 11), Tomlinson broke his arm. He revealed the news in a post on Instagram, reading:

“Thank you to everyone that’s listened to the new album so far, it means the world to me. The show last night in New York was incredible. Unfortunately on the way back, I’ve managed to fall and break my right arm pretty badly. So I’m gutted to say I’ll have to reschedule the in-store signings next week. New dates will be announced very soon. Thank you for all your support and sorry to anyone who was coming next week.

Tomlinson will embark on the Faith In The Future tour beginning next year. In a recent interview with Billboard, Tomlinson revealed that he wrote the album with touring and live performances in mind.

“I think actually, as much as this album is about the fans and about those live moments — when I listen back to this album, even today, what makes me proud is this is the record I want to make and I always wanted to make,” Tomlinson said. “So if I still have that feeling in two years, which I imagine I will, that’s how I want to remember it individually. That will definitely give me confidence for the rest of my career. And it already has. I really feel comfortable in what I’m doing and again, it all comes back to the fanbase. They’re the people who allow me to do what I want to do.”

It’s been a hell of a week for congressman-elect Maxwell Frost. This past Tuesday (November 8), Frost was elected in Florida’s 10th congressional district in the US midterm elections, making him the first Gen-Z person in history to be elected to congress. To celebrate, he attended the DC show of his favorite band, The 1975, on Thursday. During the show, the band’s lead singer, Matty Healy, shouted out Frost onstage.

“Unfortunately I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting this person today because I thought I had COVID,” said Healy to the crowd. “but there’s a genuinely young man here, a 25-year-old man, Maxwell Frost… I hope I didn’t get his name wrong. Is he up there? Where is he? Is he gone? Is he in the toilet? He’s gone for a piss.”

When Healy finally spotted Frost in the crowd, he continued, saying, “That man right there is a 25-year-old who just made his way to Congress, and I think it’s about damn time that we have some 1975 fandom representation in Congress!”

It’s clear this was a life-changing experience for Frost. Following the show, Frost took to Twitter to reel over the performance.

“The band is definitely at their best right now. The show’s arch, set list, design, and performance were all spectacular. 10/10 recommend.”

Check out a clip from the show above

Though BTS has announced plans to go on hiatus until 2025, in order to complete their mandatory military service, we certainly won’t have a shortage of music from the boys anytime soon. Today, the band announced through their official Twitter account that BTS’ Jung Kook is set to perform at the World Cup opening ceremony in Qatar.

“Proud to announce that Jung Kook is part of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Soundtrack & will perform at the World Cup opening ceremony,” read the tweet. “Stay tuned!”

Though the band is on hiatus, each of the BTS members are gearing up for solo releases. Though it may be awhile until we hear solo material from Jung Kook. In a recent interview with Weverse, Jung Kook admitted that he is a perfectionist with his music, and has scrapped several songs as he wasn’t satisfied with the final products.

“That’s why there’s so many songs I’ve written that I haven’t been able to release,” he said. “After making the effort to write them, I should have realized I should just edit them as much as I can and release them, but when I heard them again after a while, they didn’t sound good, so I just deleted them all.”

The FIFA World Cup kicks off on November 20.

There are a handful of reasons why the Charlotte Hornets have gone 3-10 to start the year, which is tied for the worst mark in the Eastern Conference. Perhaps the biggest has been the absence of LaMelo Ball, the team’s third-year All-Star guard who has not played this year after suffering an ankle sprain during the preseason.

Reports began to indicate that Ball’s time on the sideline could come to an end on Saturday, as the team upgraded him to questionable on the injury report. There was additional optimism when Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN brought word that the plan was for Ball to go through warm-ups prior to that evening’s game against the Houston Rockets with one eye on making his debut.

Eventually, Rod Boone of the Charlotte Observer reported that Ball will indeed be active, and the team eventually confirmed that news.

Ball, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, has turned into the centerpiece of the franchise in Charlotte. After earning the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award during his first year in the Association, Ball earned a spot on the All-Star team in 2021-22. Last season, the youngest Ball brother averaged 20.1 points, 7.6 assists, 6.7 rebounds, and 1.6 steals in 32.3 minutes per game for the Hornets while connecting on 38.9 percent of his attempts from behind the three-point line.

A good hurdle is one of the most aesthetically pleasing things in all of football. Think, for example, about all the times you have seen Saquon Barkley jump over another human, clear them, land on his feet, and perhaps pick up a few more yards. It looks cool every single time and is one of the more impressive things you will see someone do on the gridiron.

There are, of course, reasons why we don’t see this more often. The obvious one is that the athleticism, jumping ability, and anticipation that is required to pull this off is incredibly difficult. The less obvious one, however, is that if you mess up any part of this, something is going to happen that probably hurts extremely bad.

Here is an example of that from Michigan’s game against Nebraska on Saturday. Huskers receiver Alante Brown caught a pass and attempted to go up and over Mike Sainristil, a defensive back for the Wolverines. That didn’t quite happen, because instead, Sainristil’s helmet made contact with … well, you clicked on the post, you can probably figure out what happened here.

“OH, HE HIT HIM RIGHT IN THE GOONS,” former Heisman Trophy winner and current ESPN analyst Robert Griffin III said. He then said it “did not look like it felt good,” which is an understatement.