Category: News

Things must be a little awkward over at The Daily Show HQ these days. Not only is the show’s host of seven years skedaddling — and a little earlier than expected — but there’s talk that highers-up might replace him with someone in-house. But which correspondent? And wouldn’t that pit all of them against each other? But according to a new report, they might go with a simpler solution, if one reminiscent of Jeopardy! and the most recent Oscars.

As per Deadline, instead of picking one correspondent to replace the departing Noah, they may replace him with two. Or maybe three. Sources claim one idea is to have emcee duties go to Roy Wood Jr. and Desi Lydic. Or maybe they’ll go with another combination. After all, there’s also Ronny Chieng, Michael Kosta, and Dulcé Sloan. That’s to say nothing of daredevil traveler Jordan Klepper, who may want to stop putting himself in the harm’s way that is hanging with Trump supporters.

Having multiple hosts isn’t that unusual. SNL’s Weekend Update has been doing it for ages, to great acclaim. Besides, if one (or both) of the hosts is a woman, then they would be the most high-profile woman in late-night TV now that Full Frontal with Samantha Bee has been given the axe. (Although some just think they should bring Bee back.)

But for now, no final decisions have been made. They still have a little bit of time: Noah’s final show isn’t scheduled until December 8, after which the show won’t return until January 17.

(Via Deadline)

For the life of me I will never understand why anyone would make a superhero movie with, perhaps, the most charismatic action star working today and decide, hey, what if we took away all that charisma? It’s truly baffling. And, look, if you want to make an argument, well, historically, the character of Black Adam is stoic and isn’t going to be delivering nonstop one-liners, well, I would counter that once Dwayne Johnson is cast as the lead – something he himself really pushed for – then there has to be a little leeway to reinvent a character that most people don’t know a lot about anyway. Yes, people have opinions on Batman and Superman. Not a lot of people have strong opinions on Black Adam. Anyway, “stoic” is what we got.

Look, Black Adam isn’t a bad movie. If we take a step back and look at what the DCEU has given us, I could make a case this is in the upper half of quality. This certainty isn’t an incoherent mess like, say, Marvel’s Morbius. The plot makes sense. And Jaume Collet-Serra is a good director and the movie is mostly competent. For me, it’s just a sense of disappointment. There’s nothing that interesting here, but there certainly should be. There are themes that are hinted at, or sometimes directly mentioned – for instance, at one point Black Adam is directly accused of siding with Western invaders over people from his own country – that could have been fascinating. But then they are quickly forgotten to, instead, bring us another CGI cartoon superhero fight that looks a lot like all the CGI cartoon superhero fights we’ve seen before.

Black Adam starts with one of those exposition dumps that includes a voice-over about events that took place 5000 years before. Anyway, a magic stone is found and a kid is transformed into another being named Teth-Adam (who will, eventually, call himself Black Adam). So, Teth-Adam uses his powers for revenge and the people who gave him those powers don’t like that, so Teth-Adam is sent away. So, 5000 years later a resistance fighter and professor, Adrianna (Sarah Shahi) discovers how to resurrect Black Adam (I’m going to refer to him as Black Adam from here on out) in an effort to help the oppressed people of Kahndaq.

But, you see, Black Adam is no hero. Or, at least he keeps telling us this, but never really does anything that bad. Sometimes he kills bad guys, but this is what every action hero in the ’80s and ’90s used to do. And most of the bad guys he tries to kill wind up being saved anyway. The only evidence we really get that Black Adam is not a hero is that he keeps telling us that while he’s hovering in front of the camera. (For whatever reason, Black Adam is always hovering.)

At this point, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) decides to call in the Justice Society to go talk Black Adam, who hasn’t really done anything that bad except kill some bad guys, into surrendering. Why the Justice Society? Your guess is as good as mine. There’s no explanation whatsoever why a superhero group that was historically active during World War II would be in this movie. It kind of presents a scenario where, in the DCEU, the Justice League and the Justice Society are both active superhero groups and Amanda Waller just has her choice on who to call. Sure, a case could be made that Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) and Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan, who got the memo this should be a fun movie) are old and are just still around with not much to do anyway (at one point Doctor Fate makes a direct reference to World War II). But their other two teammates are teenagers: Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) and Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo). Maybe most people won’t really care. For me, it really was fun seeing Doctor Fate, played by an actor who played James Bond, in a live-action movie. But hierarchy-wise, I really couldn’t figure this out. My best guess is the Justice League, as a property, is still, let’s say, “creatively in flux,” and the people calling the shots just didn’t want to mess with it right now. So, instead, we get the Justice Society with no explanation.

(I’m going to harp a little on this. If this series of movies had some sort of cohesiveness by now – Man of Steel came out nine years ago, but feels like 20 somehow – we should be in a situation where the Justice League could just have rotating heroes on duty up there in the satellite and whoever is active would be called in to deal with this, which would be fun. And it’s sort of what this movie does – again, Doctor Fate is somehow in this movie and that’s very fun – only the workaround is, oh, this is the Justice Society, which makes no sense in this context. Anyway…)

Black Adam had a bunch of reshoots, which is normal these days for a movie like this. But it’s pretty obvious where these new scenes are. Before the reshoots, my guess is the consensus was, “this is dull.” So now there are scenes of Black Adam shooting a television showing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly just as Clint Eastwood draws his pistol. It’s this stoic film that’s not having a lot of fun, then will pause for some “inserted laughs.” But the problem is this movie is still just kind of dull. I found myself a little bored by the end, as the third act devolves into something nothing like the, at times, somewhat interesting first two acts as the Justice Society and Black Adam have to literally fight a hell demon. During the first two acts I still thought maybe something will be done with some of the themes that are introduced. They decided to go a, uh, different direction.

Again, Black Adam is a competent movie. (I hope that quote gets on a movie poster. “Competent!”) And a lot of plot complaints get overlooked when the lead of the movie is noticeably having a good time. Which is weird because we all know how much Dwayne Johnson wanted to play Black Adam, then comes out and gives us this deadly serious take on the character. Yeah, I get he’s the “bad guy,” but also (a) not really and (b) aren’t the bad guys supposed to be having the most fun?

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

On the latest episode of UPROXX’s Grand Encounters, we’re diving into the world of L.A. street fashion and Black history to find a new and inventive cocktail. Mixologist and author Shannon Mustipher welcomes fashion designer John Wesley Dean III — founder of RENOWNED — to the bar to talk about his vibe, life, and experience before creating a cocktail just for him. It’s a classic tale of a bartender taking their patron on a journey of experience and flavor.

The conversation between Mustipher and Dean ping pongs between family history, Black history, and fashion. Dean lays down the importance of his name as a symbol in street fashion, how his father instilled him with power in making his business decisions, and then how Black history is important to Dean’s sense of what fashion can be.

All of this leads to Shannon Mustipher crafting a citrus-forward take on an old-fashioned — called “The Wise Louis” — using Grand Marnier Cuvee Louis Alexandre. Dean’s reaction says it all as he takes his first sip, but you’ll have to watch the full episode above to learn more about the cocktail and how to make it while also getting the chance to hear how John Wesley Dean III broke into fashion.

When Car Seat Headrest canceled a Chicago-area show last month, singer Will Toledo explained that he was experiencing, “A post-COVID condition which involves heavy nausea, fatigue, dizziness, and a buzzing nervous system.” Dubbed “histamine intolerance,” the ailment had Toledo “stuck in bed” and is one of the more common side effects of Long COVID symptoms. Now it seems as though Toledo’s health has not improved, and Car Seat Headrest has canceled an upcoming West Coast Tour, as well as the band’s appearance at When We Were Young Fest in Las Vegas.

“After another month of struggling to regain my health, I am I am currently forced to face the fact that my body lacks the basic levels of functionality necessary to leave the house most days, let alone embark on a tour,” Toledo said in a Twitter post. “As a result, we are unfortunately forced to pull out of the When We Were Young Festival dates and cancel our upcoming California tour.”

The comments to Toledo’s tweet and the conversation surrounding his announcement have drawn the support of the Long COVID community. “You’re not alone, there’s millions of us suffering from Long COVID,” a reply read, “Right now, sharing our stories is the only remedy to combat the lack of treatment, awareness & support.”

Recently, guitarist Dave Navarro revealed that he is battling Long COVID, saying that he’s, “Been sick since December and supposedly will be back to my old self in… nobody knows how long.” Animal Collective cancelled their European tour citing economic reasons, but also indicating that they had previously cancelled dates because of “bad COVID infections.” The conversation surrounding Long COVID seems to be bubbling up in the music industry and is very much a real one.

Dan Snyder was a hot topic coming into the NFL owners meeting this week, as the reviled owner of the Commanders has been at the center of Congressional probes into the organization’s workplace, where there have been numerous allegations of sexual harassment as well as some questionable financial practices.

As the various investigations into the Commanders have released findings to the public, there has been a renewed push to get Snyder out of the league, which has naturally led him to dig in further. There was a report last week that Snyder has been collecting information on his fellow owners via private investigators and has told people he has dirt on a few, including Jerry Jones, he would make public if they try to oust him from the league. Snyder has denied that in a statement through the team, but it certainly sounds plausible given the spitefulness of NFL owners.

In any case, the prevailing thought heading into this week’s meetings was that Snyder would be discussed but there would be no vote on his future in the NFL in the immediate. Then, Colts owner Jim Irsay became the first to publicly back the idea of getting Snyder out of the league and noted that, while there needs to be more discussion and some investigations need to be finished up, he believed there was “merit” to voting him out and felt they potentially could get the 24 votes needed to do so.

This is noteworthy given its the first time we’ve heard an owner speak like this about Snyder on the record, which he wouldn’t do if he didn’t believe there was at least a good bit of backing for this position from others. That said, he also isn’t offering anything close to a guarantee it happens, and it remains to be seen if there are in fact 24 owners that share this viewpoint and will put it to a vote at some point.

Irsay also noted that he was not concerned about the report of Snyder digging up dirt on other owners.

The Colts owner has seen his share of scandals in his time so we might just already know most of what there is to know about him, but these public comments will only fuel the push to remove Snyder from the outside. We just have to wait to see if the owners will make it happen.

The NBA season gets underway on Tuesday night and the nightcap will be a battle of two divisional rivals that went in very different directions a year ago — the Golden State Warriors will play host to the Los Angeles Lakers for championship ring night in San Francisco.

As a whole, the Pacific Division figures to dominate headlines in the West, as it is home to many of the league’s biggest stars and top contenders. However, while at least three of the teams figure to be legit contenders to win the West — Warriors, Clippers, Suns — with the Lakers hopeful to bounce back into that realm and the Kings looking to snap their playoff drought, there are questions abound for each as we come into the 2022-23 season. Here we will highlight the biggest (non-injury related question) for all five teams as the year begins.

Golden State Warriors: Can they move on from Draymond Green punching Jordan Poole?

A couple weeks ago, this would’ve been about the young guys stepping into bigger roles and how that looks, which is still a question for Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody, and James Wiseman as they figure to be more important to the Golden State rotation this season. However, that got pushed to the periphery a bit once Draymond Green dropped Jordan Poole with a right cross at practice, earning a brief suspension and causing the once elite vibes in the Warriors facility coming off a championship to erode quickly.

They do have experience navigating a Draymond spat with a teammate, as they made it to the Finals and were the favorites before getting derailed by injuries against the Raptors in the season after Green and Kevin Durant had their much publicized bench altercation. That, however, didn’t involve any punches being thrown, and while Green and Poole are saying the right things about moving forward as professionals, their dynamic will be scrutinized all year, as will Green’s play as he was the odd man out when it came to extensions this offseason, while Poole and Andrew Wiggins got nine-figure deals.

Los Angeles Clippers: Is there such a thing as too much depth?

The Clippers have an embarrassment of riches with their roster, and while the most important thing for them is the health of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George — provided they are able to play — their biggest hurdle will be figuring out what their rotation should be, particularly as they near the postseason. Steve Ballmer is the biggest ownership advantage in American sports because he truly doesn’t care about the luxury tax, as evidenced by last year’s trade for Norman Powell and Robert Covington in the midst of an otherwise lost year, but Tyronn Lue will have to navigate a delicate situation of getting guys minutes on a team that truly goes 12 or 13 deep with legit rotation guys.

There will not be 20 minutes a night for everyone and while there will be plenty of rest going around, figuring out the right combinations will be a season-long process for Lue to know what the rotation becomes in the postseason depending on what matchups they face. It’s a good problem to have, but it is a genuine hurdle to clear with a talented roster of guys who believe they belong in a postseason rotation.

Los Angeles Lakers: What does their rotation look like?

The team across the hall at Staples Center has a very different problem from the Clippers, as the Lakers enter the season trying to figure out what a good rotation even looks like with this roster. Like the Clippers, the health of their two top stars is the biggest factor in any hopes of being a contender, but even if LeBron James and Anthony Davis can stay on the floor, they’re going to need at least some help. The backcourt got completely remade this offseason, with the very notable exception of Russell Westbrook remaining on the roster, with Patrick Beverley and Dennis Schröder being added and Kendrick Nunn finally being healthy and able to play. With little to work with in terms of cap space, the Lakers filled the roster out as best as they could with Lonnie Walker IV, Damian Jones, Thomas Bryant, Troy Brown Jr., and Juan Toscano-Anderson, all of whom are effectively mystery boxes in terms of how they’ll fit with James and Davis.

For new head coach Darvin Ham, it’s going to be a lot of trial and error early this season to figure out who fits with what combination of stars, with the particularly difficult task of figuring out lineup combinations to get the most out of Westbrook, who has struggled when sharing the floor with LeBron and will try out coming off the bench. There’s always the potential of the Lakers being dangerous if James and Davis are out there, but they’ll need some help and it’s not abundantly clear who is going to provide that on this roster right now.

Phoenix Suns: Can they recapture the magic after a dreadful summer?

The Suns are a bizarre case in that they were so dominant last regular season — like, heads and shoulders above the rest of the league — and then flamed out late in the Mavs series with a Game 7 performance that is an all-time catastrophe, which just continued all offseason.

To recap: That loss was so bad that it saw a rift form between the coach and their young star center, Deandre Ayton, pushing them to try and find a sign-and-trade, fail, and just bring him back after not speaking with the coach all summer. The owner is selling the team for fostering a hostile work environment and saying racist and misogynistic things to employees. Jae Crowder isn’t with the team as they try to trade him because they told him he wasn’t going to start and he wanted out. They guy they’re starting over Crowder, Cam Johnson, somehow didn’t get an extension on Monday at the rookie extension deadline. Everyone seemed miserable at media day. They lost a preseason game to an Australian team.

And now, they arrive at the start of the season with a lot of talent and a core we know can pile up wins in the regular season, but an awful lot of bad vibes — and a few roster questions, like Cam Payne still being their backup point guard and still needing to replace Crowder with any more depth in the frontcourt beyond Dario Saric’s return from an ACL tear. It’s not great, but this is also a team we know is really good and just generally they are confounding to try and figure out.

Sacramento Kings: Can they play enough defense?

The good news for the Kings is they might have the least amount of drama surrounding them coming into the season compared to their counterparts. The bad news is they just aren’t as good of a team (at least on paper). Sacramento exists almost in a tier of their own if you look at the win total projections in Las Vegas, as they are at 34.5, five games behind the Blazers and 11 games ahead of the 4-headed monster at the bottom of the West. That makes for an interesting spot as their goal is clear — snap the postseason drought — but it comes with the problem of not having a clear path to doing so.

They do have the makings of an elite offense, as De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis lead a group that could be explosive on that end of the floor. The additions of Kevin Huerter and Malik Monk only give them more firepower from three-point range, and there’s a world where the Kings are a top-10 offense in the league. The problem is, there’s just not a lot of defensive talent on the roster and they are banking heavily on Mike Brown’s expertise to cobble together something respectable on that end if they’re to have a chance of reaching the play-in.

They are going to play small and fast, and that’s great offensively but leaves them without much in the way of rim protection. Without an elite rim protector, the work has to get done earlier by the perimeter defenders, and they do not have a lot of plus-defenders in the backcourt, which means points will be scored aplenty by both teams in most Kings games this year. That said, we saw last year in Dallas what a great defensive coach can do with a limited roster, as Jason Kidd made the Mavs a much better defensive team than anyone anticipated. The Kings aren’t the Mavs, of course, but if Brown can make them respectable, they certainly have the offensive firepower to be fun and maybe claw their way into that play-in discussion.

Matt Skiba is going to be a busy man at this weekend’s When We Were Young Festival. Skiba will be performing at the punk and emo nostalgia-palooza in Las Vegas with his band Alkaline Trio. But he’s also sure to be bombarded with attention following Blink-182…err, replacing him, with original member Tom DeLonge.

Following news last week that DeLonge reunited with Blink-182 after leaving the band in 2015, Skiba — who filled in for him ever since — has been a gracious dude, saying that, “I am truly happy uou guys are a band and a family again.” But the questions still remain about Skiba’s time with Blink-182 and his recent departure. And in a recent interview with Vulture, he pretty much set the record straight. On top of that, he had some juicy details to share about When We Were Young, namely that, “They announced all those bands playing before anybody said yes.” Vulture says they’ve reached out to the festival for comment on this claim, but Skiba shared some illuminating takes:

“You want to hear something? Whether I’m supposed to, or not supposed to say anything, I guess, is immaterial,” Skiba began. “It makes the conversation more fun. But that festival — initially, they announced all those bands playing before anybody said yes. It was a Fyre Festival kind of stunt that worked. And I only know that because my band was on that initial flyer, with every other band from our whole ilk. And they almost expertly started advertising it before they had a single band on the bill. And somehow, all the bands agreed to do it. I’m not making this up. Somebody may correct me, but I know that Alkaline Trio, we hadn’t confirmed anything. And when we read that, we called other bands that were playing, and nobody knew about it.”

This is especially interesting, considering that Blink-182 is confirmed to headline the already announced 2023 edition of When We Were Young Festival. But Skiba, who admits numerous times in the interview to being out of the loop on things by design, says he’s pumped to play at the festival regardless.

“If that’s an accident or a fluke, then it’s like two particles of sand meeting each other in space. It had to have been planned. And they weren’t wrong. Whoever did that, I’m not even mad. You took a sh*t in the fridge and ate the whole wheel of cheese? I’m not even mad. It’s like, holy sh*t, dude. Congratulations to whoever masterminded that, the Lex Luther of promoters. And I think everybody, including us, is really pumped about it. It’s going to be a great time.”

It sounds like the Republican party is even more of a mess than we first thought.

According to a new book titled Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind by New York Times Magazine correspondent Robert Draper, Republican leadership is basically being held hostage by some of its newer right-wing members — including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Draper interviewed Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments after reports that she once claimed tragedies like Sandy Hook and 9/11 were a hoax, to get her thoughts on how House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy should restructure the party should things go well in upcoming elections.

‘I think that to be the best speaker of the House and to please the base, he’s going to give me a lot of power and a lot of leeway,’ she predicted in a flat, unemotional voice. ‘And if he doesn’t, they’re going to be very unhappy about it. I think that’s the best way to read that. And that’s not in any way a threat at all. I just think that’s reality.’

Greene apparently wants a high-profile seat on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees — a pretty big ask for a second-term Congresswoman who’s faced plenty of bad press in the last year. When Draper told Greene as much, she replied, “‘I completely deserve it. I’ve been treated like [expletive]. I have been treated like garbage.’”

And it sounds like McCarthy agrees — or, at the very least, doesn’t want to go against Greene, who’s been amassing a base of QAnon sympathizers and ultra-conservative MAGA supporters. According to Draper’s book, McCarthy told both Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar — another embattled GOP member — that not only would the pair be returned to committee panels, but that they would have “better assignments.” And Kentucky Rep. James Comer, who would likely lead the House Oversight Committee if the GOP comes into power, has been enthusiastic about Greene’s new appointments saying he would “look forward” to members like “Rep. Greene with energy and a strong interest in partnering with us in our efforts to rein in the unaccountable Swamp and to hold the Biden Administration accountable for the many self-inflicted crises that it has unleashed on the American people.”

So cool, not dystopian at all.

(Via Politico)

Charissa Thompson is taken aback at the mention of this being her eighth season as the host of Fox NFL Kickoff, where she spends an hour every Sunday morning breaking down the upcoming day of football with Michael Vick, Charles Woodson, Sean Payton, and Peter Schrager.

“I mean, it’s my longest relationship personally and professionally, so, yeah, I think that says a lot about how much I love Fox and I love the NFL — marriages fail, but my love for the show hasn’t,” Thompson said with a laugh, flashing the same self-deprecating humor she uses on set.

Getting to this point has been quite the journey for Thompson, who spent the early years of her career saying yes to any opportunity and figuring out the details on the fly. After starting in the business in HR at Fox Sports, she became a production assistant in Denver for Fox Sports Net Rocky Mountain, where she got her first crack on-camera doing fill-in work on Colorado Rockies all-access shows. From there, she did everything from sidelines for college football and NFL games, to web videos for Yahoo covering everything from the Olympics to the World Cup, to hosting NHL coverage for Versus. Stints with ESPN and Extra were also stops along the way.

It was trial by fire for Thompson, who did something of a sports broadcasting speed run, gaining experience in reporting, studio hosting, short-form video, and just about everything in between. During one football season, she was on the road so much she didn’t bother having a house and kept everything in a storage unit. Saturdays and Sundays were spent doing sidelines, Mondays and Tuesdays were in studio for NHL, and Wednesdays and Thursdays were shooting video for Yahoo, all in different places.

That experience has made her appreciative of her slightly less chaotic schedule today, as she goes from Amazon’s Thursday Night Football desk to Fox NFL Kickoff on Sunday mornings. For someone who has felt, at times, like a “jack of all trades, master of none,” it’s been a nice change of pace to get a chance to fully immerse herself in the NFL world during the season without being pulled in too many different directions, something that’s required some personal growth to learn to say no in order to not spread herself too thin.

That entrenchment and comfort in her role has also led to her taking on more responsibility for Fox NFL Kickoff, while also doing the same as she starts something new with Thursday Night Football, recognizing that she is the TV veteran on set.

“I always try to look through a lens of what’s best for the team and that collective, but I do feel an ownership that it is my show and I say that only because it’s my responsibility to lead,” Thompson says. “There has been a turnover of the cast, and this isn’t the same group that I started with eight years ago, and almost every year, there’s been a new member of the team or someone else has left and things like that. So, with that turnover comes a responsibility on my end to be the constant and also a responsibility in leading guys — I mean, there’s some guys that come on that have, yes, their resumes are so extensive in the NFL, whether in coaching or playing, that have never done television, so, even something as simple as how to hold the microphone or when we’re going to break and things like that.

“So yes, it’s been a reminder to me that it is my job as the quarterback to make them all feel comfortable, but it’s also my job in the editorial sense, I have a lot more say,” she continues. “I used to be a little bit more passive in the construction of the show because I just defer to producers, and now I’m like nope, we’re not doing that.”

It’s been a noticeable shift for those she works with on Kickoff, as producer Jeremy Mennell pointed out how she’s taken more of a vocal role in show prep and the curation of the rundown and topics.

“Charissa, she’s always obviously been a star since she took over the show years ago, and I think what she’s been doing recently is just in establishing even more so as to why,” Mennell says. “She’s very involved all week and not just with us — I know the Thursday night stuff she’s doing, too — she still finds the time to make sure she’s checking in with me, checking in with Mike and Charles and coach Payton. And she’s really good at finding that perfect blend of getting the point across of what she wants to talk about, what the guy’s strong suits are, and then also the fan wants to hear. She has a very good and different perspective than the guys who just played football, and she’s a perfect middle ground to kind of mesh those things together. And this year, especially, she is being more vocal about it and being even more passionate and really taking pride and stepping up and being that leader on camera and behind the scenes.”

The most recent example of that came in Week 4 following the scary injury for Tua Tagovailoa on Thursday Night Football against the Bengals, when he was carted off with a concussion late in the second quarter. Thompson was on the halftime coverage for Amazon that faced criticism from some for not addressing Tagovailoa’s previous injury from that Sunday, when he was wobbly after a hit but returned to the game after being cleared through concussion protocol, citing a back injury as the reason he was unstable.

All of that was heard by Thompson, who explained why they handled it the way they did in the moment and noted it was something they would learn from moving forward, as well.

“I know that we received a lot of criticism, Amazon did collectively, in terms of coverage,” Thompson says. “I will stand by this: We did what we thought was right in that moment, which was it was just about the injured player. And all the other stuff as far as how we got there and stuff was going to be addressed, whether that was in halftime or whether that was in postgame, but the immediate thing was in remembering like, I’m on a desk with a guy that was teammates with Tua and friends with Tua in Ryan Fitzpatrick. And he was very emotional about what had just happened, as all these guys were. They all played the game and knowing and seeing someone in that state is that for us, it was just getting out the information, making sure that he was okay, and reacting as humans.

“Of course, you can say we could have done this better or we could have done that better, absolutely,” Thompson continues. “And, the same way that — I always make the sports analogies — if these guys in the film session on Monday go back and go, ‘Hey, we threw an interception here. We fumbled the ball here.’ We could have done a lot of things different or better, but that’s why for us, it comes back down to this as a new team, a new scheme, and we will be better next week. We never want to have to have that situation, but that’s not the reality of it. And ultimately, our responsibility was to deliver the news and make sure that he was okay, and that was done.”

The follow through on that came Sunday morning, as Thompson was able to lean on being on site on Thursday to use the A-block on Kickoff for a discussion about the issues with concussion protocols that allowed Tagovailoa to return against the Bills and then play on a short week against the Bengals, and how the NFL needs to proceed as they began looking into changes to the protocol.

The resulting conversation featured Payton discussing how coaches navigate concussion protocols, Woodson giving a passionate plea to both the league and players to be more careful in trying to rush back onto the field knowing what we know about how head injuries can impact players long-term, and Vick detailing how he had a similar situation when he was with the Eagles and how Andy Reid shut him down to protect him from himself trying to come back into a game. All three analysts provided their own experiences to explain how something like that can happen, how it can be fixed, and how the onus is on a number of parties to fix things going forward, which is where Kickoff is at its best and Thompson is always trying to get it to go.

Unlike Fox NFL Sunday, where the same group has been doing the show together for decades, the Kickoff and Thursday Night Football desks have much newer groups that are still be figuring out their on-set chemistry. This can also provide a fresh perspective given how much closer those on set are to their playing and coaching careers. For Thompson, her job is to set the analysts up to provide that unique insight of having played and coached against a number of players still starring in the league, because that’s where they can separate themselves from other shows.

“I couldn’t ask for a better person to know what does it feel like to be Lamar Jackson? Like, oh, I don’t know, it’s Michael Vick to my left,” Thompson says. “Or working with Charles Woodson, I mean, best to play the position in a passing league and ask how you cover these guys like Tyreek [Hill]. And so it is really cool to have access to the answers of my questions right next to me and, really, truly be able to take the audience inside that mindset or something that’s so close to the game.”

Sometimes it’s easy to find that connection. On Thursday nights, that means letting Richard Sherman rant after a Russell Wilson-led team throws instead of running in a short-yardage situation near the goal line, or Fitzpatrick break down an offense he ran just a few years ago. But it also is on Thompson to push deeper than basic questions to avoid getting cliches and coach speak from guys trained their whole lives not to give too much information away, and for her, it always comes back to one simple premise.

“I want it to always feel conversational, but I always say in the preparation for the show and whether it’s the rundown or construction of questions is, it’s not a good question if I can answer it,” Thompson says. “If I can answer the question, then I’m not asking the right one to the experts that I don’t know what their answer is going to be. So, I try to create and craft questions that elicits the best response that I’ll say, oh, wow, I didn’t know that. Oh, that’s interesting or that’s funny.”

That requires constant effort on her part to work with the analysts at the desk to find out want to talk about, how they like questions to be asked, and how to facilitate that conversation in the most efficient way possible, because a one-hour show to preview a full day of games really becomes half an hour or less after breaks, features, and interviews. This is where her past experience pays dividends, whether it’s knowing how to get the most out of a short segment from doing quick bite videos for Yahoo, or the directness required in sideline interviews to get to the heart of a question.

There’s also a confidence in herself that has grown over the years, a sense of belonging and comfort in who she is and being a woman in the sports media, with all the good and bad that come with it. Thompson notes 10 years ago, she would’ve spent time doing hair and makeup for our Zoom interview, ever aware of her presentation, but over time, she’s grown more comfortable.

“I think it’s just my own maturation of self and getting older, it’s kind of like, okay, I don’t need to try to impress as much — I think that I’ve been so open with who I am it’s sometimes a blessing and a curse,” Thompson says. “I think I’ve always had this fear of being a fraud, that I always want to overcompensate for that and be like, I’m an open book. I don’t pretend to be something I’m not. Being authentic is very important for me. Because I know when I watch people on TV, I can tell if they’re being authentic or not, or when they self deprecate, it makes me feel like I’ve broken that third wall. Like, I would want to hang with them, and if I’m watching someone that I want to hang with, I want someone to feel the same way about me. I also think that there’s been the stuff that’s happened to me that’s been made public when I got my phone hacked and I had certain things happen that you can’t help but be like well, okay, there it is.

“And so it’s like, when your most vulnerable situation has happened publicly,” she continues. “You can do one of two things. You either go, ‘Alright, well, that happened and I’m a great girlfriend so let’s move on,’ or you retreat and go the other way and then you crawl into a hole and never want to come out of it. And so, I think that I’ve always just leaned into finding a positive in a negative situation as opposed to letting the negative situation define me, and then I just go away and I avoid all criticism. I mean, that hacking happened a long time ago and I still get people all the time making comments about it, but I don’t care anymore. Because I know being a victim of something is not something that’s laughable, but I have to be able to walk into a room and bring some levity, no matter what the situation is.”

That 2018 hacking in which photos of her leaked online was a low point and left Thompson worried about her career, unsure what the response would be from her employers. What she found instead was unwavering support.

“I remember because my friend Erin Andrews was covering the NFC Championship game and they flew me to Philadelphia to be with her and to just be surrounded by people that I love — the Strahans, and the Jay Glazers, and Howie [Long], and Terry [Bradshaw] and like, literally flew me there to just be with them,” Thompson recalls. “Which still makes me emotional, because it’s like, who does that? It was like, ‘oh, you should have been fired,’ they did the complete opposite. And I was working at Extra at the time and they did the same thing where it was like, you’re a victim of something, we’re here to support you. How can you do that? And you never forget how you’re treated in the worst moments of your life and who’s doing that. So I am forever indebted to the response of my both of my employers in a time that they could have done the complete opposite and I know some other employers probably would’ve.”

The support helped Thompson emerge from that situation confident in herself and her standing in an industry that isn’t kind, particularly to women. As Thompson tells it, doors may open faster for women because there are fewer of them in sports media, but they also close faster, too, as they aren’t afforded as long “to be a guest in the house.” For Thompson, she learned that finding people upon whom she can lean and be vulnerable for support, advice, and knowledge was of the utmost importance. She recalls being asked to do hockey and having to learn the basics on the fly, but found willing teachers in some very capable hands, citing Sidney Crosby and Doc Emrick among those who would take the time to answer questions.

Now, she is far from a guest and has made herself at home, while still seeking out chances to learn more. Every new experience affords a chance to grow even further, with taking on halftime and postgame coverage for Amazon giving her that opportunity each week. But the lessons learned on her journey to this point have provided her with the confidence that she can navigate those situations and belongs in that chair. And now, she wants to pay it forward for the next woman that eventually takes that seat.

“When young women in this business ask for advice, I say do everything,” Thompson says. “Do everything that you can and I will never fault someone if they … there’s gonna come a time where someone takes my job. I hope it’s not tomorrow, but you have to understand there’s an ushering in of new people, and Melissa Stark’s career for example, it can come back. You don’t know when or where, but I’m trying to keep getting better even as I’ve been lucky enough to do this for a long time.”

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Van Buren Records is loudly and proudly a product of Brockton, Massachusetts. The rap collective boasts a roster of thirteen creatives with impressive talents that include rapping, producing, and fashion designing. Luke Bars, Meech, Felix!, Jiles, Saint Lyor, Ricky Felix, Andrew Regis, Kiron, RLouie, Invada, and Shelby have all contributed — through both individual and collective work — to what makes Van Buren Records such an enthralling unit.

The individual members of Van Buren Records have been releasing music for the better part of the past half-decade. However, it wasn’t until last year that they finally united for their official debut album Bad For Press. The 13-track project was, and still remains, a fine display of collaboration, balance, camaraderie, an artistic vision, and [TK]. While some thought that it would be some time before the group offered another body of work, Van Buren Records made a quick return with their second album DSM last month.

An acronym for Dover Street Market, Van Buren Records’ sophomore release reinforces their increasing greatness while also sneering at doubters who questioned if the group had what it took to construct another impressive process. In short, the answer is yes, and in a conversation with Uproxx, Van Buren Records tells us how it all came together.

How would y’all categorize Bad For Press and DSM separately based on their differences?

Luke Bars: [DSM] is the evil twin.

Meech: That’s a good way to put it. They’re both in the same realm; they’re two different energies, two different words, but still us.

Luke: Bad For Press, we were just coming into the industry. DSM is like we’ve seen what’s been going on. We’ve been around. We’re building our own experiences from it and we just put that into the music. You can just clearly see the difference. I don’t want to say it’s dark, you can see that the innocence has been lost a little and that’s not a bad thing.

It took a few years from when y’all first started for the world to get your first formal project with Bad For Press, so I was genuinely surprised to see y’all, who all have individual solo careers you work on, return so quick album No. 2. What made y’all say let’s do this again without much of a break?

Meech: It happened just through momentum swing after the wintertime. People are working on their own things and I think the route of going to do a project again kind of just happened from a conversation in the springtime, like, “Yo, let’s just cook up again, we haven’t done we each other. Get 2-3 records out the way.” Then, honestly, our competitive spirit took over after we made two or three records. Then it’s like, “Yo, let’s just see where we go from here. Just keep knocking sh*t out.” It just happened naturally — it wasn’t like we planned it out. A couple of us dropped singles this year, but aside from that, it just happened because the competitive spirit was like, “Let’s just slap them one more with some sh*t.”

Ricky Felix: People thought we lost it after the first album. People thought that after the first one, we were gonna be one-offs or that they gave us something ill, and then it’s over. So for the past year, we were looking at it like we got to smack these guys in the face with something new, no holding back. We had our convos about it because — I ain’t gonna lie, we were all kinda shook — we were seeing the monthly listeners on Spotify and we were like it’s not the same as when Bad For Press came out. We were all kind of like, do people think we fell off? Do people think that we’re not ill no more? So DSM is really all that anger and that frustration into one project, more aggression over there.

What inspired the title DSM, which is short for Dover Street Market? I think there’s a double entendre there, but why this title?

Ricky: The name of the album came from where we were at that time. We just dropped Bad For Press, we were in LA, and we were traveling a lot. I think it was a mixture of seeing the world, seeing how people dressed and we were trying to get fly. We just culminated our own styles, and on top of that, we wanted to become more individuals with this project. We wanted to really highlight individual artists. We all know as a unit we’re a force to be reckoned with, but now we have to show as individuals that we’re forced to be reckoned with. All that came with the album and it was more of an idea of time in LA, finding that feeling of trying to take that next step into the game, mixed with the music that we created, mixed with the studio space. Dover Street Market really hit both sides of the name: Dover Street Market the store and Dover Street, the street where we had the studio at. It just made sense at that time and it still does.

For me, Bad For Press has the attitude of “yeah, you’re just gonna have to deal with us” while DSM is way more brash and even angry. What things brought us to this approach?

Sheed: When we started out making DSM, we were going into it looking at it like a little EP. As we were building, we were like, “It’s all filling but let’s just see where we end up with it.” Everyone was in such a hungry mode at the time of creating music, it just shows on all the records that were made.

Jiles: With this project, we brought a lot of our own personal records to this project whereas in the last couple of projects we were basically in the studio together. That’s why you kind of see everybody showcase their individual talent more because it’ll be records that Luke brings to the table, Meech brings to the table, or I bring to the table, and then everybody would feed off that artistic energy.

What are some of your favorite verses from the project that are not your own?

Luke: My favorite is Invada’s “Get Money” verse.

Meech: I like Jiles’ “The Source” verse.

Jiles: I like Felix’s “BFM” verse.

Sheed: Felix’s “Back Door”

Meech: His “Back Door” verse is there too. I mean Felix’s verses – “BFM,” “Aye God,” “The Army, The Navy.”

I love the mention of rap greats and just rap moments overall, what about them made it necessary as moments to have on DSM.

Saint Lyor: I don’t know, like with “Movin’ Like Pac,” I was just going through a phase. Tupac is a very controversial figure. Seeing a black man exist in the way he was existing during that time, there’s just a lot to learn from — his good and his bad. I guess I was just in a moment where I was just studying his rising and it kind of just bled into the song and the creation of it for me.

Jiles: When Tedd [Boyd] gave me that beat, obviously it’s a boom-bap beat, so obviously I started to think about ’90s stuff. I’ve always been interested in the Source Awards, obviously with it being close to home with Benzino and them. If you’re from Massachusetts, you kind of know a little bit of the origin of it. There are negative aspects of it, like the famous Source Awards and the beef behind those award shows. So I just tried to approach it by talking about a historic time in hip-hop that relates to our state. That’s how I approach that record.

Just like with Bad For Press, DSM ends on a calmer note with “Go,” “God Talking,” and “If My Sins Were Good.” Is the decision to pull the reins at the end an intentional one?

Luke: I just think it happens that way. I don’t think we went into it intentionally. I put it in the group chat like, “Yo, this has to be the outro.” When everyone heard it, it just had that feeling. It just made sense and when everyone else put in their verse on it, it was just a testament to that. Felix gave us a two-minute verse, and none of us were mad. When it’s something like that, you can’t fight against it.

Meech: It’s just in our DNA. There’s some sense of consciousness even on the turnt records, you’ll catch a bar here and there. I think that’s just our DNA, that’s just what makes VB “VB” to me. So that’s why Bad For Press had that feeling and it came naturally back into this one. We talk about real sh*t every day, it’s just the conversations you’ll get within a sitting with VB.

Jiles: We love post-production and structuring our albums. Even after we’re done making albums, I think that’s one of my biggest arguments, album placement and what song goes where. We all love making albums, so we want them to be as cohesive as possible. I think that’s why you usually find those softer, deeper records toward the end of the project.

What’s something that’s absolutely important for a new fan or someone still understanding y’all to know about this project and things going forward?

Ricky: That muhf*ckas is ill with each other and by themselves. It don’t matter what room you put them in, they always gonna eat. We came in as a collective, but before that, we were all individual artists that merged into one group. Out the gate, everyone had their own unique style, unique sound, and their own vibe. For a new fan, I would tell them that you can love the VB album, but make sure you tap in with the individual projects that are about to come out because it’s going to be just as good, if not a whole lot better than what we can do with each other. Now it’s self-expression, now you get to take full control of your art. So when you see that, it’s like, okay, what Luke got? What Jiles got? What Felix got? Meech? What y’all got by yourselves, what y’all thinking about? It’s gonna be very important once these individual projects come out and that expression gets to creep through the window.

DSM is out now via Van Buren Records/Good Partners. You can stream it here.