Category: News

Larry June keeps it as cool as the September breeze in his new video for “I’ll Make Time.” The San Francisco native has been promoting his new album, Spaceships On The Blade, with a string of sunny but lo-fi videos perfect for the album’s casual vibe. “I’ll Make Time” is no exception, finding Larry cruising through the California desert with the top down and repeatedly crossing paths with a pretty woman on a drive of her own. They don’t meet until near the end of the video, though, when Larry leaves his wallet in a diner after enjoying a glass of his favorite beverage.

I don’t know if you could call what’s happening with Larry June a “breakout.” He’s been around for quite a while and unlike some rappers who explode into the spotlight seemingly all at once with a viral hit, Larry has been easing his way into it, growing his following slowly but organically as his magnetic personality draws in listeners of fellow low-key luxury rappers like Curren$y, Dom Kennedy, and LE$ (all names he’s collaborated with over the years). Rather than pursuing radio or TikTok, Larry keeps up a steady stream of laid-back bangers like “Private Valet,” “Don’t Check Me,” and “Corte Madera, CA,” sticking to his guns and letting the world catch on.

The strategy appears to be working. Larry has secured a co-headlining spot on the returning Red Bull SoundClash with two events alongside Detroiter Babyface Ray in both rappers’ hometowns next month.

Watch Larry June’s “I’ll Make Time” video above.

In episode five of House of the Dragon, a cloaked Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) has an unpleasant reunion of sorts with his frequently mentioned wife, Lady Rhea. Daemon, dressed ominously in a black hooded cloak, stands in the middle of a path in the Vale, seemingly waiting for her. He looks like the Grim Reaper, the lead singer of an early 2000s emo band, or, ironically, Jared Leto in Morbius. Lady Rhea sarcastically asks him if he’s come to finally consummate their marriage and torments him. Tense music plays (thanks closed captioning!) as Lady Rhea’s eyes widened. She reaches for her weapon, but her horse freaks out (the technical terms) and she falls off, cracking her neck. We see Daemon try to tame Lady Rhea’s horse, and he picks up a large rock. Daemon’s actions remain unclear. Before the tense music and the horse freaking out, we didn’t see what Daemon did, if anything, so it’s impossible to know for sure. Did Daemon intend to kill his wife, who was a skilled rider? Did he pick up the rock to show her mercy with a quick death, or was he motivated by hate?

As one of the few main characters on such an intimate show that has mostly consisted of the same three Targaryens talking in various rooms, Daemon Targaryen remains a mystery. The narrative consistently and intentionally hides his motivations and actions from the audience, leaving us to ponder his true nature. Is he a villain or just a weirdo? It’s still too soon to tell, but Matt Smith’s striking performance keeps it interesting rather than frustrating. The events in episode five imply that Daemon is dangerous and guilty of uxoricide, and playing a game (of thrones, perhaps?) with his brother King Viserys and niece Princess Rhaenyera.

But in episode four, Daemon was menacing, outrageously emotional, and disturbingly hot. He turned on the uncle charm when he took Rhaenyra for a night out in King’s Landing, they had a streamy little finger bang, and by the end of the episode, Daemon is writhing on the floor getting a beating from his brother. When confronted about his intimacy with Rhaenerya, Daemon’s emotions feel authentic: he doesn’t feel bad about his actions with Rhaenyra because he has genuine romantic feelings for her. Smith plays Daemon so well that the incest scene, as gross as it was, felt weirdly hot, and so well that by the time King Viserys is pissed and kicking him, you feel kind of bad.

Smith is a master at quiet, rousing menace. His face looks completely different depending on his emotion and the lighting. He can embody charm with his body language while his eyes communicate the opposite, or vice versa. He can also be completely charming or completely terrifying. Although a terrible film (and not even so terrible that it is a pleasure to watch), Smith does this in his entertaining performance in Morbius. His character builds and builds from a seemingly normal person into total chaos and as Prince Philip on Netflix’s The Crown, Smith tapped into his dark side.

Essentially, Matt Smith gives House of the Dragon everything while also giving nothing at all. Smith’s presence changes the gravity of every scene, instantly making the show more interesting and infinitely more dramatic and emotional, despite the unknown. Every scene without him feels like a missed opportunity, but a necessary missed opportunity because you need to miss him. A character without clear motivations should never work, but like Game of Thrones’ Littlefinger played with similar success by Aiden Gillen, Daemon Targaryen works because of Matt Smith.

On an early summer day in 1999, Death Cab for Cutie were gathering for band practice when a sudden jarring explosion in the distance halted them in their tracks. The band was preparing to head out on the road in support of Something About Airplanes when something shifted. “We were playing music in the house and the house just shook,” Ben Gibbard said of the event, which turned out to be a nearby pipe explosion that claimed the lives of three people, two of them children who were swimming at a beloved town park.

“It was this kind of utopian little area in Bellingham where if you knew, you knew,” Gibbard explained. “People would swim there and skinny dip and they’d go there at night. And it was destroyed. So not only was it the loss of life, but because of the need for a f*cking pipeline to go through the middle of this thing, these kids lost their lives, and this beautiful place that we all loved was destroyed.”

To this day, a sign at Whatcom Creek warns visitors that the park is a “sensitive area” due to the destruction caused on that day. Gibbard revisited the event for their 2019 The Blue EP for the introspective “Kids In ‘99.” “I kept thinking about those kids and being like, those kids need a folk song. They need to be remembered. And of course, their family remembers them and of course, people remember that event, remember them. But I just felt that I’d written songs about Bellingham after I’d left it because I wanted to squeeze that version of Bellingham in my mind.”

Gibbard grew up in Bremerton, right across the water from Seattle, where his parents would frequently bring him to Olympia national park as a kid. The backdrop of Washington became a central trope in Death Cab’s essential discography. There are frequent references to the mountainous surroundings, dreary weather, and skyscraping trees that Gibbard felt weren’t present in music from other parts of the country. “You live in Seattle and you go 20 to 40 minutes, and you’re in the mountains. You go over those mountains and it’s a whole other world. It really feels like you’re on the edge of the earth at times.” This sentiment mirrors a chunk of Death Cab’s discography, where high-energy rock songs are immediately followed up by sorrowful introspective tracks.

“I think we’ve always been really interested in our environment and the way that our environment shapes us emotionally and otherwise,” bassist Nick Harmer explains. Harmer and Gibbard met in Bellingham and eventually became college roommates. “There’s a lot of rain and clouds. And I think for me, it can be a brooding place to be, and a real introspective place to be.”

In “Foxglove Through The Clearcut,” the latest single from the band’s 10th studio album Asphalt Meadows, Gibbard abandons his signature crooning vocals for a spoken-word monologue about a man who traveled across the country before reaching the edge with nowhere left to go. The lyrics began as a fictional story, but while writing Gibbard soon realized he was the narrator.

“[Ben] always left himself open to being affected and being impacted by the things that are happening around him in his environment, and channeling that either in a particular instrumentation choice or in a direct lyrical narrative that he’s exploring,” Harmer adds when asked about Gibbard’s lyrical evolution. Throughout the band’s entire discography, the lyrics are sprinkled with location-specific anecdotes: driving down the 405, pining in the city of seven hills, passing by the dusty storefronts of Holly Street.

Gibbard cites Modest Mouse frontman Issac Brock as the driving force behind the evolving sounds that have echoed throughout the Northwest and beyond since the late 90s. “Especially on early Modest Mouse records, he was writing about, quite literally, the loneliness of the West and the gentrification of it. He was just writing these incredible songs about the sense of alienation and just kind of vastness of where we live,” Gibbard remarks that the sound coming out of other music hubs just didn’t resonate with the band.

“It seems like there’s this period in pop music [over] the last 20 years, where every other song seemed to be about how tonight’s going to be the best night ever,” Gibbard explains, “That was just not really a sentiment that felt appropriate coming out of the Northwest. You’re looking out your window, it’s gray, it’s dreary, the sun’s going up and going down before you realize it, and it just lends itself to slow music, perspective music.”

The slow but introspective music is what launched Death Cab to gather recognition across the country, where most Top 40 stations were still thriving on the late-’90s grunge and the early-2000s pop frenzy. Because of the area’s isolation, the subsequent music scene became a small but strong pool of a specific PNW-inspired sound: reverb-heavy guitars sprinkled with melodic riffs paired with often existential lyrics.

Not only is the band heavily inspired by the area’s geography, but also by its welcoming community. The band gushes about employees at local venues, radio stations, and record stores as the main supporters of the flourishing music scene. “There’s Vera Project, there’s Crocodile, Showbox,” Harmer mentions. Not only have these venues supported the band in their early days, but Death Cab also raised funds to help keep them afloat during the early days of the pandemic.

Harmer adds that you can’t go anywhere in the immediate Seattle area without finding someone who wants to sit and chat about music, which is not always the case in other music-centric cities. “I mean, going into a local guitar shop and sometimes you run into somebody there. You’re just always around the music. And I think because we play music, we love music, it’s worked its way into every corner of our lives. We’re connected in a variety of ways to the ongoing community of music making. If you’re paying attention and you’re curious, you will come across all kinds of music. I mean, there’s so much amazing music up here, right?”

Gibbard also mentions Wall Of Sound Records, a local store in Seattle, which is his favorite place to discover new music. “They’re the rare kind of dudes who are into that kind of music and they’re not snobby about it. They really want to share it. And if you go in and you say, yeah, ‘I love Depeche Mode’ or something and [they say] ‘You got to hear this Turkish darkwave band. They’re incredible.’ They’ll just hand me the record. I’ll be like, holy sh*t. This is f*cking great.”

Wall Of Sound is just one of the many local places that take pride in their extension of music knowledge in Seattle and beyond. Jeffrey Taylor and Michael Ohlenroth, the curators at Wall Of Sound, say that the area has always had a healthy music scene stemming from diverse musicians and artists, which began to gain more recognition after the ’90s grunge phase. “It seemed natural that a more introspective, genteel, singer-songwriter approach to music would make inroads with PNW music fans and slowly spread to the rest of the country and the world,” Ohlenroth says. “That said, talents such as Ben Gibbard’s or Elliott Smith’s would have grown in any soil.”

Perhaps that’s why Death Cab has resonated beyond the area, their appeal was just heightened by the Northwest of it all. Gibbard continues, “I really feel that one of the many reasons that Seattle kind of developed the scene that it did, and the kind of aesthetic that it did, was because we were so isolated.” In the isolation, the tight-knit music community flourished.

Though he is now a “proud Cascadian,” Gibbard has lived in and written about other places, too. He sings of frustrations on “Bixby Canyon Bridge,” and talks about California’s blazing heat waves in “Why Would You Want to Live Here.” But he always found himself coming back to Washington. “I lived in LA for a couple of years and I enjoyed it to a certain extent, but when that relationship disintegrated, I told myself I’m never leaving this place again. I needed to leave it to recognize how much I love it. So to me, I’m so proud to be a Seattle artist.”

Death Cab For Cutie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

YG is just a little over a week away from dropping his sixth studio album, I Got Issues. Per usual, the tracklist to this YG album boasts several hot collaborations.

So far, we’ve heard YG’s solo tracks, “Toxic,” and “Alone,” as well as “Scared Money,” a collaboration with J. Cole and MoneyBagg Yo.

A track called “Sober” contains appearances by Roddy Ricch and Post Malone. “No Weapon,” which features Nas, is a collaboration that comes after years of manifestation, he revealed to TMZ in a recent interview.

“I didn’t rap with him,” he said. “He did his sh*t in his studio, he sent it. It was crazy ’cause I’ve been trying to get Nas on some sh*t for years. I was trying to get him on my second album and sh*t, but it just didn’t happen. But he’s been showing love since day one, he always supported my sh*t and all that. So when I finally got the verse, I was like, ‘Finally.’”

Check out the tracklist below.

1. “Issues”
2. “Baby Momma”
3. “Toxic”
4. “Maniac”
5. “How To Rob A Rapper” Feat. Mozzy and D3szn
6. “I Dance” Feat. Duki and Cuco
7. “Scared Money” Feat. J. Cole and MoneyBagg Yo
8. “Go Dumb” Feat. H.E.R.
9. “No Love”
10. “Sober” Feat. Roddy Ricch and Post Malone
11. “Drink To This”
12. “No Weapon” Feat. Nas
13. “Alone”
14. “Killa Cali”

I Got Issues is out 9/30 via 4hunnid and Def Jam. Pre-save it here.

Some of the artists mentioned are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The live two-hour premiere episode of the star-studded 31st season of “Dancing With the Stars” was an emotional one, to say the least, as actress Selma Blair took to the stage.

Four years ago, Blair publicly announced her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis—a chronic disease that causes many different symptoms, including vision loss, pain, fatigue and impaired coordination.

It was clear that entering the competition was more than a chance to win a title for Blair. In an interview with ET Canada, the “Cruel Intentions” actress shared that “I hope that by doing this show that I could show people with disabilities the joy that can be found in ways you never expected.”

Blair definitely succeeded with that goal. She and pro dance partner Sasha Farber earned third place and brought the audience to tears with an elegant, moving waltz routine set to David Cook’s “The Time of My Life.”

Blair posted a shorter clip of the dance onto her Instagram, writing in the caption that “This night will go under my pillow of sweet dreams for the rest of my life.”

Blair, who normally walks with a cane, was most concerned with keeping her balance during the performance. But relying on Farber was a welcome relief. “I have been a single mom. I’ve always loved supporting people, and then to have so many people support me, heaven,” she told “Access Hollywood“.

She added that the opportunity to dance came at a time when recovery had stalled. “I just couldn’t get motivated to get stronger. Then this came and for the first time in my life I was like, ‘Yeah, it makes sense…’ I want to start learning how to build myself up again,” she shared. Because of her work with Farber, the “Legally Blonde” actress is getting stronger each day, something that gives her immense pride.

Blair’s comeback is certainly inspiring—it takes immeasurable amounts of grace to move through all of life’s challenges and still remain hopeful. Whether or not she makes it all the way through the competition, she has already won something much more profound by proving what’s possible.

Sometimes animals appear much more human than they ought to and one cat has been playing close attention to the ways of the two-legged pooper scoopers. Lily, an 8-year-old indoor-outdoor cat gave her family the most pleasant surprise by ringing the doorbell to be let back into the house. The very savvy kitty-cat’s family recently moved to a new neighborhood and after she went out to explore she didn’t come back to her new home.

Stefanie Whitley, the cat’s owner, told WPXI-TV, “I was really nervous about bringing her to a new area with how she would react.” The family had only lived in the new neighborhood for about two weeks so the adventurous feline wasn’t as familiar with the area as she was with her previous stomping grounds. So when Lily ventured out to say hello to the other neighborhood cats, she got turned around and didn’t make it home for four whole days. Obviously the family was worried and feared their sweet furry friend had run into an unfortunate situation. “Normally she comes home, but this time felt different and I didn’t think that Lily was coming home,” Whitley told WPXI-TV.

Thankfully, Lily surprised everyone when she suddenly hopped up on an object close to the door and meowed loudly into the Ring doorbell. She quickly reached up to ring the doorbell and meowed again to make her presence known. You can hear the excitement from the family in the background. Watch the video below.

It’s very hard to find an expert who isn’t picking the Buffalo Bills to win the Super Bowl this year. It’s a strange spot for Buffalo, a franchise that has so long been defined by its inability to get over the final hump in the quest for the first Lombardi Trophy in its lengthy history, but through two weeks, it’s hard to say they’re anything but the favorites. The Bills started the year by pummeling the reigning Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams, 31-10, before annihilating 1-seed in the AFC, the Tennessee Titans, on Monday Night Football this week, 41-7.

One of the biggest reasons for the hot start has been Stefon Diggs, who leads the league in receiving touchdowns and is second in receptions and receiving yards to start the year. Diggs played a major role in Buffalo going from a pesky squad in the AFC to one of the best teams in all of football when he joined via a trade ahead of the 2020 campaign, and despite the emergence of other options in the passing game like Gabriel Davis and Dawson Knox, Diggs is the No. 1 option in the high-flying Bills offense.

Uproxx Sports caught up with Diggs one day after he torched the Titans — he caught 12 balls for 148 yards and three scores — to discuss his “cool day at the office,” the Bills’ approach this season, his relationship with Josh Allen, his partnership with Snickers, and much more.

I want to start by asking what do you got going on Snickers?

This is my second year of partnering with Snickers, great people over there. We’re rewarding fans for submitting their rookie mistakes, with two chances to win two Super Bowl tickets to Arizona — everybody knows Super Bowl 57’s in Arizona — and a little bit of post-game action, anticipating some fun after that for the winner. And also, they can win each month, we’re doing a thing where they can win some prizes as far as some sign merch, some gift cards to NFLshop.com, can get your favorite jersey, just by submitting your rookie mistake. So, getting rewarded for doing the wrong thing, it’s a good deal.

I know you were an All-Rookie selection, but when you heard about this, and that fans will be highlighting their rookie mistakes, was there one from your first year in the NFL that you thought of?

No, I didn’t think of anything specific. But I do have a couple of, like, in game, I had some mistakes, I ran a couple wrong routes here and there and some things like that. But I always just sharpen them, bring my guys food and stuff like that. So at least off the field, I was doing the right stuff.

Yeah, so let’s talk ball. There’s one obvious place I got to start, which is how you do feel after last night?

It was alright, it was alright. It was a cool day at the office.

I have a lot of friends who are really big Bills fans, and I was talking to them before the game, and so many of them were more amped up for last night than most games. And they said it’s because after how intense and competitive last year’s game with the Titans was, they really wanted to see you guys win this. Was that the same mentality for you guys, or was it we’re not thinking about last year, we’re focused on what this week is?

It was more so focusing on a week ahead of us. Last year’s [game], it’s hard to hold on to those things, especially because, yeah, we lost, and it was early in the season as well. We had a loss at the end of the season that I probably will say is more something to think about than that.

But it’s also the regular season, you’re trying to stack wins each and every week. So trying to ignore the noise and kind of just focus on, hey, this is a brand new team. We’re a different team than we were last year, coming in with the confidence that everybody is doing their job, doing that one 11, and we’re trying to win, and we’re trying to win in convincing fashion. By that, you got to be consistent, and you got to work hard.

And Von said something interesting after the game, which was “we have an attitude of domination.” What does that mean to you and how you approach games, practice, your day-to-day, whatever else?

You always got to expect to win, and you expect to win because of your preparation. If you prepared the right way, you did everything you were supposed to do in your power, you at least put yourself in the best situation to win. But then from there, you got to take control, you got to put it in your own hands. We’ve got a team full of guys that, if you’re doing your one 11, if you’re winning your one-on0one battle, it’s gonna be some good things happening out there. We got a lot of talent on this team, and part of having a lot of talent is spreading it out and letting guys make plays, getting guys comfortable. Everybody’s just doing their job at this point.

You’re a couple weeks into the season. You have a new offensive coordinator in Ken, but he’s a guy who has been around your team for a while. Has he brought anything new or different? Or did he come in and say “we’re good at what we do, I don’t want to mess with that”?

He was around a team already, he was already a part of this team. It wasn’t like we brought a guy that didn’t know anybody or didn’t have a relationship — I knew Ken already, I knew coach Dorsey, coach Dorsey’s a great guy. We used to talk a little junk when he was in the quarterback room, but I still have the same amount of respect and love for him that I had when he was the quarterback coach. He’s around those quarterbacks and those guys that help you get the ball, so you better be nice to those guys. But now that he’s the OC, I got complete trust in him. He’s over there drawing it up, he’s figuring out ways to do XYZ, and I’m just part of the show now, I’m just trying to be a part of his show now. He’s done pretty well, I know it’s still early, but I’m just happy that we’ve got so much talent that’s being utilized.

What’s it like going out there every day — in practice, games, whatever — with all that talent around you at wide receiver, at tight end, running back, offensive line, and with a quarterback who can get everybody on the ball? Is it just a pure iron sharpens iron attitude among you guys every day?

Every day. I feel like every day, it’s a competition level not only with yourself, but the people next to you. I refuse to let anybody slack, you just see these guys how hard they work me, I’m like, “y’all won’t catch me slacking, because one thing about being accountable, the only way I can hold you accountable is because I hold myself accountable.” It’s more like an everyday grind, and we know what we got to do, we gotta go. [Jordan Poyer] always come, to me with before warmups and is like, Stef, we gotta go, we gotta. He screams it at the top of his lungs, we gotta go. And I’m like, you’re damn right.

And on that quarterback specifically, I don’t know if there is another quarterback and wide receiver duo in the league I like watching more than you two, because there’s just so much joy.

Yeah.

Was that a day one thing and what is about the two of you, both on and off the field, that has made that relationship so strong?

It was for sure a day one thing. I get attribute it to God, especially, just aligning where I am in my life now and in the past. He makes no mistakes, and meeting a guy like that, bro, I never want to be without this guy. He’s good in my book. I love him as a brother, I’m always pulling for him, he’s a hell of a talent, and everybody gets to see it. That’s my guy, man.

You joined the Bills right before Josh had his monster, breakout year, what is the area where you’ve seen the most growth from him from that first day?

Him being mature, him making good decisions consistently. Him making plays was already in his DNA, I think he sharpened up his arm a lot, too, like I’d be trying to tell him, “man, you got to take a little bit off that throw, you’re throwing it too hard.” He has just that special talent that, some things you can coach and then some things you can’t. And I think he has that talent that you’ll just be like this, “let me just sit back and watch him.” And I can’t sit back and watch, I gotta try to get open, but sometimes, I get caught up in like, damn, that’s a good quarterback.

I could ask about so many different guys, but the one I want to ask about, didn’t play last night, is Gabe Davis. Like I said, I know a ton of Bills fans, everyone loved him and then the nation learned about him with that game against the Chiefs. What is it about him that makes him so dangerous next to you, Josh, Dawson, Devin, everyone else in that offense?

He meshes well. He does everything, he blocks extremely well, he works extremely hard, he gets a lot of passes in, he has great hands, he’s a big receiver. He’s one of those guys that, look, you better look out for him, you gotta watch out for him. He got nicked up in these past couple of days, but he’s a guy, I guarantee, if this was a playoff game, he would have been out there. It was a regular season game, they probably held him back a little bit just as a precaution because we need him. I feel like that’s a guy that we need. I know I anticipate him being back this upcoming week, but that’s like little bro, and little bro’s coming into his own. I told him last night, look, you ain’t playin’ now, some of those balls, I gotta get a couple, steal ’em while I can. And he just said, bro, I got you, I’ll be back soon, so, I look forward to your return.

I’m fascinated in the Bills Super Bowl talk and whether that’s something you guys hear. Is that something you pay attention to, do you ignore it? What goes through your head when everyone on ESPN says “I think the Bills are winning the Super Bowl”?

People talk about it more than we talk about it, 100 percent. That’s the last thing that … I don’t bring it up in conversation, like, “damn, we’re gonna win a Super Bowl, I’m gonna win a Super Bowl.” Nah, that’s not in front of mind, front of my mind is what I’m doing this week and everything that’s in front of me. Don’t play with any food that’s in front of you, and your next meal will be your next meal, but worrying about the future too far ahead? Live in the present, be present, and embrace the present, right now is where we are. We can’t control where we’re gonna be, but we can control how we’re gonna get there, and the type of effort and the amount of effort we put in.

A colleague of mine spoke to Trevon recently and he said “I can ask him about stuff about receivers, and he can ask me stuff about corners or whatever looks or things we see.” What are the sorts of things that you get out of talking to your brother who plays the position on the field that is designed to stop you?

I’m asking him what is he looking at, like, when you see this right here, tell me what are you looking at? Tell me what routes you like. He knows that I can run any route in the book, but what do you like, what do you know? So like, I’ll give him that, and then with receivers, I’ll always give him body language, lean, fast guys — if he ain’t that fast, he gonna have to show you that he’s fast. Initially, guys can run by you, but it’s not that many blazers, everybody pretty much run the same speed. So, I just tried to give him the little things and the minor details, because corner is detail oriented. Somebody like me, I play a little bit unorthodox, I play with a different split, I play with a different route, I just do things differently so people don’t catch a bid on what I like to do. But for him, a receiver gotta run those routes, he got to be at the same depth, he got to be able to leverage everybody else. I think I got a little bit more freedom, so I try to give him the stuff for the vanilla guys so you can get you some.

And last one: 3-0 Terps vs. 3-0 Michigan this week. What do you think’s gonna happen?

It’s gonna be an exciting time. Michigan is a hell of a football team, but I believe in coach Locks. He got some good things going over there, get those guys the ball. He’s gonna keep making things exciting over there at Maryland.

After bringing the box office back to life with last year’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage, the little alien love story that could, things have been awfully quiet on the Tom Hardy front. A little too quiet. Turns out, there’s perfectly good (and surprisingly badass) reason for that: Hardy’s been traipsing across England while winning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournaments.

According to a report in the Teesside News, Hardy showed up unannounced to a tournament over the weekend, much to the surprise of his opponent who had no idea what was happening until the 44-year-old actor came out to fight him.

“I recognised him straightaway. Everyone knows who Tom Hardy is, don’t they?” Danny Appleby told the small town paper. “I was shell-shocked. He said ‘just forget it’s me and do what you would normally do.’”

After gaining his composure, Appleby took on Hardy, which he thought would be an easy fight against a celebrity. Not so much. Via Teesside News:

“He’s a really strong guy,” he continued, “you wouldn’t think it with him being a celebrity. I do okay, I’ve done about six tournaments and I’ve been on the podium in every one. But he’s probably the toughest competitor I’ve had – he certainly lived up to his Bane character, that’s for sure.”

After the match, Hardy reportedly chatted it up with folks and revealed that he actually has family in the area. He’s “genuinely a really nice guy,” Appleby said about Hardy. The actor even posed for the tournament sponsor’s Instagram account where he can be seen holding his win certificate made out to his real name: Edward Hardy.

(Via Teesside News)

Floyd Mayweather’s last non-exhibition boxing match came in 2017, when the former world champion stepped in the ring with UFC legend Conor McGregor and picked up a TKO in the 10th round to move his career record to 50-0. Mayweather has opted to do a handful of exhibition bouts since then, while McGregor’s MMA career has floundered in the years since, with two losses to Dustin Poirier, a loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov, and a win over Donald Cerrone.

Now, it looks like the pair are going to step into the ring again sometime in 2023. Mayweather spoke to the Daily Mail recently and explained that once he gets past a pair of exhibition bouts, including one on Sept. 25 against Mikuru Asakura, his focus will shift to getting a rematch against McGregor lined up.

“We don’t know if it’s going to be an exhibition or a real fight,” Mayweather said. “But there’s been talks of both. I would prefer an exhibition.”

Mayweather went on to say that his preference is for the fight to be an exhibition, as “I am not into fights where I am going to take any real punishment. So, guys like Conor McGregor and guys that don’t really hit hard such as YouTubers or UFC guys, I don’t really mind colliding with those kinds of individuals but nothing where I am going to put myself in a position where I am going to harm myself or hurt myself.”

The last time the pair stepped into the ring, Mayweather reportedly earned something in the ballpark of $275 million, while McGregor took home $85 million.

In a new clip making the rounds online, Offset spoke to Complex‘s Speedy Morman, and was asked about who his “GOAT” (greatest of all time) rapper would be. His response? None other than Jay-Z.

“I gotta say Hov — all his sh*t is platinum,” Offset said. “So, sometimes the success is the reason why people say he’s the greatest of all time, what he did after Rap. Bro, on Rap, you can’t play with him! You can’t play with him since the beginning of time. He always had the biggest records, he always got the biggest people and did the biggest records, and he still come back and make impactful records, right now.”

“That’s a fact. Some of them more than platinum,” Speedy replies.

“If Jay do a verse right now, everybody wanna hear it to support what the man saying,” Offset continued. “Twelve bars, ’cause it’s not a—then he so up but his flows be so relatable.”

Offset also lists his GOAT interview moment. While Speedy lists his interview with Ray J, Offset lists a tense 2017 red carpet moment featuring Akademiks. “You got to look at act two though, during the interview,” he said.

At that year’s BET Awards, DJ Akademiks found himself in the middle of a feud between his Everyday Struggles cohost Joe Budden and Offset’s group Migos. Things went south after Akademiks pointed out that member Takeoff didn’t have a verse on the trio’s hit song “Bad And Boujee.” Budden walked out of the interview, which only escalated things before security stepped in to stop an altercation.

Watch Offset’s Complex interview responses above.