When Anthony Bourdain passed away in 2018, many fans began celebrating the vibrant life that the world-renowned chef and TV host led. Now, years later, a new book chronicling Bourdain’s last days is set to be released, and those close to Bourdain are unhappy.

As reported by The New York Times earlier this week, Bourdain’s personal texts, emails, and various writings are set to be published in an unauthorized biography, Down and Out in Paradise by Charles Leerhsen. Many who knew Bourdain have been critical of the biography, which goes very in-depth on a notoriously private person. In the book, the chef’s final texts to his then-partner Asia Argento have been revealed.

The exchange began when Bourdain asked if there was anything he could do, and Argento texted back “Stop busting my balls,” to which he replied, “Okay.” He was found dead the next morning. Argento made it clear that she did not want her words used in the book, though it seems like that request was not honored. Argento told The New York Times, “I wrote clearly to this man that he could not publish anything I said to him,” she also confirmed that she did not read the book.

While she has not publicly addressed Down and Out in Paradise, Argento posted an Instagram story last night of her wearing a shirt that had an image of bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman (Argento herself is a bodybuilder). She added the text “Stop busting my balls” over the shirt, which we all know were the last words she shared with Bourdain.

This seems to be Argento’s quiet way of addressing the book, which hits shelves on October 11th. If there is anything we can learn from this scenario, it’s that we don’t truly know or understand celebrities as much as we think we do. In a lot of ways.

(Via Vulture)

California has officially become the first state to limit the use of lyrics as evidence in criminal trials as Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB2799 — aka The Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act — into law after it passed the state senate late last month.

The Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act is one of several so-called “Rap On Trial” laws introduced at both the state and federal levels by activists seeking to end the use of lyrics against artists, a practice that some refer to as racist due to their frequent application in criminal trials involving rappers. The practice has come under greater scrutiny this year as high-profile cases against rappers like YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Gunna and Young Thug hinged on instances of the rappers lyrics that supposedly tied them to criminal activities. The prosecutors in the latter have received criticism as the main counts against them stemmed from them shouting out YSL on their records.

Artists like E-40, Killer Mike, Meek Mill, Too Short, Ty Dolla Sign, Tyga, and YG attended a virtual signing ceremony today, where Songwriters of North America co-founder Dina LaPolt said, “For too long, prosecutors in California have used rap lyrics as a convenient way to inject racial bias and confusion into the criminal justice process. This legislation sets up important guardrails that will help courts hold prosecutors accountable and prevent them from criminalizing Black and Brown artistic expression. Thank you, Gov. Newsom, for setting the standard. We hope Congress will pass similar legislation, as this is a nationwide problem.”

The bill’s signing represents a huge step forward for proponents of similar bills in states like New York, which passed its own “Rap On Trial” bill through the state senate in May but saw it stall out in the State Assembly.

Just when you thought you’ve heard every conspiracy theory imaginable, failed right-wing congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine is accusing the Deep State of somehow making Hurricane Ian strike Florida to punish Ron DeSantis for not mandating COVID vaccines. Lorraine, who lost a 2020 congressional race against Nancy Pelosi, made the wild claims on the Shots Fired! show that she streams on Rumble, the YouTube of the Far Right.

In Lorraine’s defense, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) allegedly having advanced “weather manipulation” technology isn’t a new theory amongst conspiracy mongers, but tying it to COVID is a wild, new addition.

“These huge hurricanes seem to target Red states, Red districts and always at a convenient time, typically, right before elections or, you know, in this case possibly Ron DeSantis has been stepping out of line a lot and challenging, fighting the Deep State,” Lorraine said.

Lorraine floated the theory to her guest, Lauren Witzke, who’s also a failed congressional candidate and, clearly, just as gullible as her host. Witzke took the weather manipulation ball even further down the crazy field by suggesting Hurricane Ian is punishment from the “elites” for Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Via Mediaite:

“I’m not putting it past the elites to target something like this toward Florida as punishment for getting rid of vaccine mandates or getting rid of child grooming,” she continued. “They are angry with us and it wouldn’t surprise me to find out and, yeah, the technology does exist. But you’re not supposed to talk about that or know about that because that’s controversial or a conspiracy theory.”

For the record, there are historical documents of hurricanes in Florida going all the way back to 1523. We’re confident DARPA didn’t exist back then unless they have a time machine, also.

That’s going to be the new theory now, isn’t it? Dangit.

(Via Mediaite)

When rumors and reports swirled that All-NBA center Rudy Gobert was potentially on the trade market, numerous teams emerged as logical fits, such as the Chicago Bulls and Dallas Mavericks. The Minnesota Timberwolves, headlined by their own All-NBA center in Karl-Anthony Towns, were not generally considered among those teams.

Yet in late June, Minnesota dealt Patrick Beverley, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Leandro Bolmaro, Walker Kessler, four first-round picks, and a pick swap in exchange for Gobert, which caught much of the league by surprise, including Timberwolves players themselves. According to a report from ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, who said he spoke with various members of the team, some Timberwolves players were “shocked” that the trade occurred.

“They had a euphoria about the season, winning that play-in opportunity, getting to the Memphis series and battling with the Grizzlies,” Windhorst said on Friday’s episode of The Hoop Collective podcast. “They were assuming they were going to run it back. And the team had extended [Beverley], and Beverley was beloved on that roster. The players were kind of stunned. But as I pointed out, Rudy Gobert is pretty good, with all due respect to the guys they traded.”

Tall-ball has increased in popularity recently, thanks to teams like the 2018-19 Toronto Raptors and current iteration of the Milwaukee Bucks, Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics. But a pair of All-NBA centers being the foundation of that tall-ball approach is unique, at least over the past few seasons. It’s an atypical team-building strategy, albeit a fascinating idea and one that many within Minnesota’s organization didn’t foresee materializing.

Lyrics can be tough to decipher these days, but there’s no better feeling than knowing exactly what your favorite artists truly wanted to express on their latest hit. From shady one-liners to catchy hooks, sometimes the lyrical content of a song can give fans real insight into the lives of today’s top musical talent. With his track, “Levels” Vancouver’s Boslen relays his unfiltered feelings about the music industry — and with his track “Gone,” he’s in deep thought about the lessons he’s learned from past relationships.

With help from Uproxx’s Cherise Johnson, Boslen dishes on the track’s opening line and admits that his ex of six years stepped out with his best friend. The incident, in addition to the peace and understanding he gained from the romantic low point is the inspiration for the track “Gone” from his latest album GONZO. The 23-year-old rapper tells Uproxx about facing the “monster in the closet,” working through codependency, and getting vulnerable after a failed relationship — themes present in the mellow rap-sung ballad. Aside from sharing intimate revelations, Boslen tells us that his latest EP’s lead single might just be his favorite song he’s made in his entire career.

Watch Boslen decipher “Gone” above.

“In many ways, Fresno is a city built on tacos,” Mike Osegueda, aka Mike Oz, tells me over tacos (what else?) late one evening.

If it had been someone else saying it, at some other time, I almost certainly would’ve dismissed it as the kind of mostly nonsensical hyperbole that frequently pollutes press releases. Only in this case I didn’t, because, for one, I had already spent half an evening with Oz, and by that point, I knew he wasn’t prone to that kind of soundbite speak. And for another, at that moment, that particular kind hyperbole actually made a sick sort of sense. Maybe it was the tacos.

I was sitting with Oz, co-creator of Fresno’s Taco Truck Throwdown, which will hold its 11th titular event on October 1st, in a major intersection in Fresno at the time. We were eating tacos at one of two unlicensed pop-up stands that had set up in the parking lot of a formerly vibrant commercial space. As a kid I used to come to a store at this corner to buy books. Two tents now occupied the parking lot, about 100 feet apart, both selling basically the same thing. (“These are the best tacos around, homemade tortillas!” exhorted one guy working a plancha, wearing sunglasses even though it was almost midnight).

This had been kind of a theme for the evening: eating incredible tacos from mobile taco stands in locations that seemingly didn’t have much going on there besides tacos. In LA, and most other cities that seem to have food trucks in general and taco trucks specifically, those trucks generally set up near popular bars and well-trafficked nightlife strips in order to capitalize on the foot traffic they bring. The curious anomaly of Fresno is that taco trucks seem to spring up pretty much any damn place with enough space to fit them.

We’d already been to three or four taco trucks that evening. One in the parking lot of an oil change shop, another just set up in a field on an empty lot, with lights shining like a taco beacon. Without exception, none of the locations had any obvious pedestrian traffic to speak of. Fresno, located in California’s Central San Joaquin Valley, almost the perfect halfway point between San Francisco in the north and LA to the south, is a sprawling city, spread out and suburban, like Houston or Jacksonville. I’d go so far as to say that a lot of these trucks had set up in some of the least foot-trafficked blocks in one of America’s least foot-trafficked cities. And yet, even after 10 pm on a Thursday, when we were there, most seemed to have plenty of customers, drawing from all walks of life.

Which helps explain why I could not only forgive, but engage in the grandiosity of Mike Oz calling Fresno “a city built on tacos.” Because in most places, taco trucks feel like a phenomenon designed to capitalize on nightlife. In Fresno, they feel like a phenomenon that generates nightlife. All over the city, in patches of derelict businesses and blighted blocks, ad-hoc taco stands sprung up, both licensed and non, sometimes with little more than a flat top grill and an extension cord. In one spot just east of the Tower District (one of Fresno’s oldest and probably its hippest neighborhoods) there was a defunct gas station that had been turned into a thrift store, which in turn became a taco stand after dark. This kind of grassroots mixed-use zoning happens all over the city, in a way that’s hard not to appreciate, even when some of the blocks surrounding it look like sets from Children of Men.

It’s this kind of charm — not to mention the abundance of really good tacos — that inspired Mike Oz to create Taco Truck Throwdown 12 years ago, along with Sam Hansen. Oz was a baseball writer at the time, and Hansen was a graphic designer for the Fresno Grizzlies, united by their love of tacos and a dream to create an event that could properly celebrate them. For the event, the Fresno Grizzlies minor league baseball team rebrands as the Fresno Tacos (complete with much sought-after merch) and the food trucks take center stage for a taco contest in what the Fresno Bee has called “one of Fresno’s signature events.” (There’s also music and other performances — this year’s event will have Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Foos Gone Wild, and Lucha Extreme Wrestling)

Back in 2016, I got to be a judge, which required sampling almost 30 tacos (probably TMI, but I weighed myself before and after a bowel movement the next morning, and I was literally five pounds lighter). This year’s contest, scheduled for October 1st, has 25 entrants. Which sounds like a lot, until you drive around south Fresno for a night and see how many taco trucks there actually are out there. Oz estimates that on any given night, there are “at least a hundred taco trucks” operating within a 30-minute radius. From what I witnessed in the course of our Taco Ride Along, 100 seems conservative.

Our first stop was El Premio Mayor, currently a brick-and-mortar operation with two locations and two trucks, a burgeoning taco empire that began as a flat top grill hooked up to an extension cord running from Belén Ramirez’s apartment in the Yosemite Village Apartment complex 26 years ago. She’d grown into a taco truck six weeks before the first Taco Truck Throwdown in 2010, at which El Premio Mayor took home first place.

They’ve won five more times since then, and their logo, painted on the sign out front and on the inside wall at the restaurant, is a cartoon of Belén’s son, Adrian Loza, holding up two trophies from the Taco Truck Throwdown in 2015, when El Premio Mayor swept both the judges choice and the people’s choice competitions. Oz likes to say that El Premio Mayor and La Elegante (with a Chinatown location and one truck) are to Fresno taco trucks what Pat’s and Geno’s are to Philadelphia cheesesteaks.

That logo is bittersweet now, part celebration and part tribute. Loza died less than a year after El Premio Mayor’s triumph in 2015, hit by a train, supposedly while out jogging, training for a Tough Mudder. He was 29. The family had to start new social media accounts for El Premio Mayor after he died. Loza had been the only one who knew the passwords. This kind of thing makes for big drama on The Bear, but there’s been no big rebrand or high-profile reinvention around here. No one says “yes, chef,” they kind of just carry on. El Premio Mayor did win a particularly emotional Throwdown again in 2016. They have about 20,000 Instagram followers, as of this writing, and the business seems to booming — in a modest, taco truck kind of way.

No matter how much you want to write a light puff piece about a local taco contest, it’s hard to avoid a story of tragedy. It’s been barely a year and a half since Oz himself got laid off from his job writing about baseball for Yahoo Sports. Three weeks later, the same month, his sister died in a hit-and-run accident while crossing the street in Oakland. Putting on food truck events, once his side gig, had just been promoted to his main gig. Setting out on your own often makes for an inspiring story; having it forced upon you while dealing with a personal tragedy is tough to imagine.

Oz, who promotes the Taco Truck Throwdown with the Fresno Grizzlies, as well as running Fresno Street Eats, his events and catering company, thankfully seems to be doing okay now (with his schedule, it’s easy to wonder whether he has a choice). Not that the gig ever seems to get any easier. Barely a week before last year’s event, a 41-year-old man died during an amateur taco-eating contest at a Grizzlies game. EMTs were on site performing the Heimlich maneuver and CPR, but couldn’t save him. The coroner later reported, not surprisingly, that the man had died choking on tacos, and his son sued the team. Oz wasn’t involved in the event, though it was intended to help promote TTT. It did perhaps did cast an unfortunate shadow on what was supposed to be a comeback during an already tough year.

“The completely weird, off-the-wall shit that happens in Fresno on a daily basis might be unparalleled in a city of its size,” said Jeff Passan, a Syracuse grad who worked with Oz at the Bee, to Stephen Nesbitt in Nesbitt’s profile of Oz on The Athletic from earlier this year. “There are great stories everywhere, great characters everywhere.”

Perhaps it was inevitable that Oz himself would become one. Back in 2016, in a lot of ways, he was my foil. We had similar jobs, him writing about baseball for YahooSports, me writing about movies for Uproxx. Yet he was a Bay Area kid, who’d grown up in Fremont and went to college at San Jose State, who took his first job at the Fresno Bee. He liked it so much that he’s been here ever since, inspiring most of his extended family to move down too. These days Mike Oz is basically Mr. Fresno. Meanwhile, I was born in raised in Fresno County (in Del Rey, a rural armpit so insignificant people that live 10 miles away will ask, in all earnestness, “where’s that?”), moved away at 18, and rarely spent much time there. In 2016 I was living in San Francisco, where I’d been for years.

In 2020 I married another local (and fellow Reedley High graduate) and moved back to Fresno. These days I’m trying to learn to love a place that I left late enough in life to take for granted, but early enough to realize now that I don’t actually know all that well. Oftentimes it takes an outsider to truly appreciate a place. Part of me probably hopes that seeing it through Mike Oz’s eyes will help open me up to all the good things Fresno has to offer.

“Fresno is a city that’s kind of desperate for an identity,” Oz tells me. He laughs at the way Fresnans seem to take outsized offense to any slights, any time we’re mentioned in a comedian’s punchline or late-night host’s joke. The way we hold onto mild throwaway insults for decades. I’m deleting an entire paragraph here where I catalog all the ones in my personal brain Rolodex, from Tupac to NOFX. Men’s Health named Fresno “America’s Drunkest City” in 2010 — based on largely arbitrary data, like DUIs — and city council people are still handwringing about it. (I actually kind of like it, being known for drunkenness is better than being known for nothing).

“The reality is that it’s just a place a lot of people drive through and see on signs without knowing well, that has kind of a funny name,” Oz says. “Of course, they’re going to use it in a punchline.”

Mike Oz, in his element.

What is pretty special about Fresno, Oz likes to point out, is the taco culture. Whereas lots of other places with great tacos tend to draw immigrants from specific parts of Mexico at specific times, bringing with them the taco traditions of where they came from, like San Diego from Tijuana and Baja California for example, the San Joaquin Valley, by virtue of being the agricultural heartland of California, is constantly drawing immigrants from all different parts of Mexico who come to work on the farms. So it is that you can find taco traditions from Baja, Sonora, Sinaloa, Jalisco, Oaxaca, etc., plus traditions imported from earlier waves of immigration that evolved here. And all these slightly different and distinct taco traditions rub tortillas in closer proximity than you can find just about anywhere else.

As Oz’s TTT co-founder Sam Hansen put it in an interview a few years back, “There is a lot of evidence to prove that taco trucks were invented in the Fresno area. They were originally ‘lunchero’ trucks, which provided food for the migrant workers who were picking the produce that is produced in this area. From there, the luncheros evolved into the taco trucks you see today. Some are located in the city and some are still out in the rural migrant areas like they were 50 or 60 years ago.”

I grew up with some of those luncheroes, the diverse taco culture here all squares with my own experience, even if I never quite understood the mechanisms behind it. I spent four years searching for decent chile verde living in San Diego in the early aughts, mostly to no avail. One restaurant had it on the menu, and when it came out it was just carnitas with tomatillo salsa on top, which only made me angry. Living in San Francisco, I waited in the long lines at La Taqueria in the Mission District, which at one point won FiveThirtyEight‘s crown of “Best Burrito In America.” The food was what I would consider slightly above average by Fresno taco truck standards.

Oz doesn’t expect that having great taco trucks will eventually make Fresno a tourist destination, nor do I. For one thing, I don’t know that I could in good conscience suggest that bright-eyed out-of-towners descend upon some of the iffier parts of town late at night to eat tacos off a trailer in the parking lot of a thrift store. A friend I grew up with (of Mexican descent, like Mike) describes (admiringly) part of what Mike Oz has done as “make taco trucks safe for white people.”

I’m not sure taco truck tacos should even be a destination food. To me, they’ve always been the perfect food for people in transition — a thing you grab on the way to somewhere else. Your favorite one is invariably between two places you drive between a lot, becoming your oasis along the journey. Oz mentions Jenny’s Tacos as one of his “white whales,” a truck he loves that he’s tried but failed to get to participate in the Throwdown — which he discovered because it was on his frequent route between Sunnyside and Visalia. One of the first questions I asked when I heard about Throwdown was whether they got Tacos Morales, from Academy and 180 (who make a unique and uniquely spicy carne asada burrito that’s totally worth the heartburn if you’re ever traveling between Fresno and Reedley). Your favorite taco truck is always associated with an intersection in your mind like that.

Part of the genesis of Throwdown was trying to settle the “whose taco oasis is truly the best” arguments that inevitably characterize Central Valley life. At best, Oz hopes, Fresno and tacos could one day become as linked in people’s minds as Breaking Bad and Albuquerque.

At our first stop, El Premio Mayor, we get the QuesaTaco — aka the red taco, a variant of the currently-trendy quesabirria — and a classic asada. Premio Mayor, one of the first places in Fresno to serve a quesabirria taco, does make an excellent one, served with hearty reddish jus and meat that gets caramelized towards the edges and which has a rich, almost short rib character.

Every place seems to offer a quesabirria taco these days, and El Premio’s is easily one of the best I’ve had (this simple version I had in Guadalajara a few years back is up there). And yet there’s something slightly… un-taco about quesabirria tacos. They’re very good, don’t get me wrong, and in general, we should have more foods that riff on the French dip. But the downside of all that meat and cheese stuffed in there just so is that it doesn’t leave much room for salsa and fixins.

To me, the beauty of the taco is the combination of the charred meat with the homey tortilla and the fresh salsa and crunchy veg. Quesabirria offers nice juicy meat and jus-soaked tortilla (amazing), but partly at the expense of de-emphasizing the salsa. Oz agrees, in a good taco, the salsa is as important as the meat. For the record, El Premio Mayor offers a garlicky, dusky red salsa made from chili japones, and a bright red watery one made from pure chile de arbol — both excellent. They serve the asada with chopped onions (red) and cabbage (green), with grilled serrano pepper, caramelized onion, and lime on the side. It’s these little touches you come to appreciate. Taco trucks are like that, fundamentally the same yet infinitely varied.

From El Premio Mayor, Oz drove us down to Tacos Don Chicho, in Sunnyside in Southeast Fresno. Don Chicho’s looks about as humble as it gets, a little green trailer sitting in an empty field. This will be Don Chicho’s first year at Throwdown, and when I went they hadn’t yet decided which of their tacos to enter into the contest — asada, adobada (marinated pork, kinda like al pastor without the spit), pollo, carnitas, birria, cuerito (pork skin), buche (pork stomach), tripa (beef stomach), cabeza (beef head), or lengua (beef tongue). I’ve always been amazed at the staggering variety of options available from a truck the size of a walk-in closet, and all for $2.50 a taco (which is somehow both insanely expensive compared to the taco trucks of my youth and ridiculously cheap by 2022 standards).

We talked to Jose, who does whatever the taco truck equivalent of “front of house” is for his parents, who still do most of the food prep for Don Chicho’s. The truck is named after his father, Narciso, aka Chicho, who brought the family here from Jalisco years ago. Narciso used to work in the fields, but at some point figured cooking tacos was easier than climbing up and down a ladder all day in 100-degree heat (though it should be said: running a taco truck doesn’t seem that much easier, albeit less physically taxing). Jose and his siblings are all DREAMers, and he tells me they the family recently had their resident status approved permanently.

Oz admits he isn’t that adventurous when it comes to taco fillings, sticking mostly to the non-offal/organ meats. I’ll go for lengua from time to time (I find it’s generally moister than carne asada), and I’ve had buche and tripa once or twice, but never cabeza. I draw the line somewhere before sesos (brains). Jose offers a quesabirria, which I accept, and ask for a lengua. And, since I figure “What better time to break my cabeza cherry than now?” I also opt for a cabeza taco. While we wait, a guy from a different taco truck (a seafood-focused one) comes in to pick up some tacos from Don Chicho’s, which does feel like a high endorsement.

Don Chicho’s quesabirria is crunchier than El Premio’s, though with less caramelized meat. It’s slightly less rich and flavorful, though it also has raw onions inside, which is nice. They serve their tacos with thick slices of radish and fancy cucumbers (“It’s the little differences,” -Jules, Pulp Fiction). As for the cabeza, I think in my head I was associating it with head cheese, some kind of terrine-like thing full of weirdly chewy textures. The reality isn’t like that at all. It’s something closer to pork jowl (aka guanciale), a juice, intensely flavorful braised meat filling that you wouldn’t know came off a skull if you didn’t ask, and once you’ve tasted probably won’t care. It was the kind of taco so good you beg your friend to take a bite. Jose said they were leaning birria for their competition taco, but if I were them I’d go cabeza. I don’t know if all cabeza tacos are as good as Don Chicho’s, but I know I’ll be chasing that one for the next few years.

Mike Oz won’t handicap Don Chicho’s chances at their first Throwdown. He says he has a (slight) favorite between El Premio Mayor and La Elegante, if you really pinned him down, but that he’ll kill me if I print it. Other heavy hitters include Taco Pinto, a two-time winner who make a big shrimp taco with red cabbage, and last year’s winners, Tacos Ama and Tacos La Vaporera.

Our next stop takes us to Taqueria Corona, another green trailer with stickers on the window, nearly identical to Don Chicho’s. This one has an extra axle and sits in the parking lot of a Lube Plus, whose sign implores “LIKE US ON FACEBOOK,” in church-style plastic lettering. Corona serves up some of the best al pastor I’ve ever tasted, charred and juicy, on pleasantly chewy tortillas with fiery dark read arbol salsa. (My take on al pastor: average al pastor isn’t that good, probably takes a backseat to average asada or certainly birria, but good al pastor has a higher ceiling than just about any of them).

A group of well-dressed, younger Hispanic folks shows up to put in an order, looking like they’re fueling up during a night on the town, even though, once again, there isn’t a bar or night spot within sight. They seem to be on foot which, again, makes no logical sense. We’re at a lube joint next to an airport. But in Fresno, if you grill it, they will come.

“This place isn’t even in the Throwdown,” Mike says, only half jarring me out of my pork-fueled fugue state, as al pastor juice trickles down my chin. “I just like it.”

Taqueria Corona

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Taco Truck Throwdown 11 takes place at Chuckchansi Park, October 1st. Vince Mancini is on Twitter.

The best new hip-hop this week includes albums, videos, and songs from Freddie Gibbs, Kid Cudi, YG, and more.

Guess who’s back? That’s right, I’ll be once again taking over the Best New Hip-Hop This Week column, for the time being, so pardon my rust as I get back into the groove. This week’s bursting at the seams with new releases including Quavo and Takeoff’s “Nothing Changed,” Bree Runway’s “That Girl,” Smino and J. Cole’s “90 Proof,” along with the slew of new albums and songs below.

Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending September 30, 2022.

Albums/EPs/Mixtapes

Baby Tate — Mani/Pedi

Baby Tate made a name for herself with her 2019 debut Girls and built on that impressive foundation with the equally impressive 2020 EP After The Rain. Now, she’s got a shiny new record deal and her latest mixtape, Mani/Pedi, is set to launch her into the stratosphere.

Drakeo The Ruler — Keep The Truth Alive

Before he passed, Drakeo earned a well-deserved reputation for being incredibly prolific. With so much music already recorded, we can likely expect to see much more posthumous output from the South Central native.

Freddie Gibbs — Soul Sold Separately

Gangsta Gibbs’ first release on Warner Records culminates nearly 20 years of experience combining the hitmaking sensibilities he learned from Jeezy with the DIY mentality he cultivated alongside underground stalwarts like The Alchemist and Madlib.

Kid Cudi — Entergalactic

Releasing his latest album alongside a full-on feature film on Netflix (although he insists on calling it a “special”), Cudi offers more of his signature melodic musings on anxiety, heartbreak, and love. I highly recommend watching the movie, which helps put the album in the proper perspective.

YG — I Got Issues

YG’s sixth — and final — album under Def Jam features some of his most confessional songwriting. He sounds older and wiser here, without sounding jaded. That’s an impressive feat for the Compton rapper, who brings in some surprising collaborators on his new album as well.

Singles/Videos

Big30 — “Celine Frames”

The Memphis rapper dropped a new tape, Last Man Standing, this week, and the single “Celine Frames” is an excellent summation of the sound and themes: Getting money, ducking opps, and being a boss.

Fredo Bang — “Free Thug”

Baton Rouge trapsoul spitter Fredo Bang returns this week with a sentiment we can all get behind on his new tape, Free Thug. Its lead single loops a marching band for a more upbeat offering than his usual.

Kenny Mason — “Nosedive” Feat. Jean Dawson

Atlanta native Kenny Mason has been breaking boundaries with his formidable combination of hardcore grunge riffs and acidic observation. His new project Ruffs offers up more of the same, and Jean Dawson is a perfect match for his energy on “Nosedive.”

Psalm One — “Shadow Work”

Fans of Freddie Gibb’s gruff, double-time Midwestern flow should appreciate underground veteran Psalm One’s own application of the form from her new project Big Perm (a clever callback to a classic film).

Rome Streetz — “Non Factor”

Fans of Griselda Records’ focus on gritty, lyrics-forward boom-bap rap were delighted when the underground staple signed to that label last year. A highlight from his new project Kiss The Ring features Griselda general Westside Gunn, a fitting compliment to the song’s lo-fi aesthetic.

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

Taylor Swift is one of the biggest musicians in the world, but her chart-topping success has not exactly carried over to the big screen. Cats (19 percent on Rotten Tomatoes); Valentine’s Day (18 percent); and now, Amsterdam, director David O. Russell’s star-studded new film with a 39 percent on the review aggregation website. Haters gonna hate hate hate, except, yeah, the haters might be on to something here.

At least Swift’s co-stars seemed to enjoy working with her.

Margot Robbie got a bundle of Folklore merch that she handed over to her excited guy pals, while Christian Bale was excited to tell his daughter that he sang with Swift. “That was a real nice surprise, and I actually didn’t tell anybody about that until afterwards,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “I went to my daughter and said, ‘You know who I sang with today? Taylor Swift.’ And she was like, Wait, what? Why would you be doing that?’”

Bale continued:

It was a very funny scene, actually, because J.D. [John David Washington] and myself had been practicing that song a little bit. David had us sing it all day long, but then there were moments where I would forget the lyrics. So I’d look at J.D., he’d look at me, and then he’d forget, too… And then we were going flat. Our pitch was all over the place, but we were like, ‘Yeah, but the feeling is right!’ And then all of a sudden, David just goes, ‘How about Christian and J.D. just shut up for this one and let Taylor do it?’ And it was like we had been drowning out an angel’s voice all day long with our cacophony and our rough, terrible voices.

Don’t be so hard on yourself, Christian. I’ve seen Newsies.

Voice of an angel.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

The Miami Dolphins have come under a considerable amount of fire in the last day after Tua Tagovailoa left Thursday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals with head and neck injuries. Much of this stems from the fact that the team’s signal caller played in the first place — Tagovailoa went down during the Dolphins’ win over the Buffalo Bills this past Sunday and collapsed, but got the green light to return with what was described as a back injury.

Even before Thursday night, the NFLPA announced an investigation into how he was able to go back into that game, which is taking on a new urgency following Thursday night. On Friday, Miami head coach Mike McDaniel met with the media to discuss how things are going for his starting quarterback, which included a defense of the process that led to him returning to the game.

“The timing of all of it, how things played out, I get the optics, I get exactly what it looks like, I understand all of this, and I understand people’s concern,” McDaniel said. “But the one thing that I can exude with 100 percent conviction is that every person in this building had 100 percent the correct process, diligence, and that’s why there’s not a player or person that you’d be able to talk to in the building that would think otherwise, because it is clear, contrite, and not something that is negotiable in any way, shape, or form.”

McDaniel also got emotional discussing Tagovailoa getting carted off, saying “I’m just really, really, really glad that I can hear normal Tua in his voice.”

While McDaniel addressed the media, NFLPA president J.C. Tretter put out a statement explaining the investigation, writing that Tagovailoa exhibited “no-go” symptoms and that “we need to figure out how and why the decisions were made last Sunday to allow a player with a ‘no-go’ symptom back on the field.”

Earlier in the day, Dr. Allen Sills, the Chief Medical Officer for the NFL, appeared on television and said Tagovailoa was checked for concussion symptoms every day since the game against Buffalo.

Long ago, Community was the lesser-loved child of the NBC sitcom lineup. The Office, Parks and Rec, and 30 Rock all had their glory days with various NBC tie-ins and one-off reunions, but Community was often left out of the conversation. Which, to be fair, is a very Community thing to happen, so it kind of works! NBC effectively canceled the series in 2014, before a sixth and final season was ordered by Yahoo! Screen (remember that? Probably not.)

One of the long-running jokes from the series was that it would never fully be complete until there were “six seasons and a movie.” When the final episodes aired in 2015 on the abandoned Yahoo! Screen, it seemed like the prospect of a movie was long gone. While the cast and crew would often mention the show’s mantra and tease the potential movie, it seemed like nothing was really going to move forward. UNTIL NOW!

This morning, Peacock announced they would be reviving the series once more for a movie to finally fulfill the prophecy. Most of the original cast seems to be on board, including Joel McHale, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, Jim Rash, and Ken Jeong. The very dedicated fan base finally came out of hibernation to express not only their excitement but also say that they knew the movie would happen all along and they never once doubted it!

The Community movie currently has no release date, but maybe there is time to bring back Yahoo! Screen for another quick runaround!