In the midst of an absolutely packed New Music Friday that included releases from the recovering Lil Tjay, the newly solo Offset, remaining Migos members Takeoff and Quavo, and a DJ Khaled set with huge new contributions from both Eminem and Jay-Z, DMV rapper IDK returns with a new dual single of his own titled “W13.” Consisting of the separate tracks “Drive” and “Free Slime,” “W13” enters the fray with two completely different vibes, demonstrating IDK’s growing versatility.
In “Drive,” which you can play above, Jay utilizes a jazz-laced, flute-driven instrumental to deliver a heartfelt love letter to the lady in his life. “I’d rather be with no life than without you, baby,” he croons. “I could never doubt you lady.”
Then, on “Free Slime,” he switches gears with a soulful, Dilla-esque beat that morphs into a more forceful blend of boom-bap and trap. Here, he talks gangsta, spitting menacing threats of dubious reality — perhaps as a way to comment on the way Young Thug’s lyrics have been used against him in an ongoing racketeering case. You can check that one out below.
Trevon Diggs had a breakout in his second season with the Dallas Cowboys in 2021, as the former Alabama standout piled up a league-high 11 interceptions as the premier ballhawk in the NFL.
Entering the 2022 season, the Cowboys are the favorites to win the NFC East and are looking to put all of their talented pieces together into a group that can become a real contender for the first time in a long time. Diggs, along with fellow young standout Micah Parsons, bring some youth and an edge to the defense, while Dak Prescott gets ready for his seventh season under center for the Cowboys, helming an offense that has the potential to put up big numbers on a weekly basis.
With the season just a couple weeks away, we got to talk with Diggs earlier this week on behalf of his new partnership with SAXX Underwear alongside his brother, Stefon. The defensive-minded of the Diggs brothers told us why he thinks this defense in Dallas can be “special” in 2022, why he doesn’t like the “aggressive” label, playing his way, and how he and Stefon help make each other better on the field.
How has training camp gone so fa and how are you feeling with the season a couple weeks away?
I’m super excited for the season. I’m ready just to get out there and you know, being able to go out there and compete with my teammates, you know, try to get a Super Bowl.
What is what’s the biggest difference in your approach coming into camp now from when you came into the league?
I know what to expect. I know what’s out there. A lot of football under my belt now, so just knowing the ins and outs of everything and really just ready to go out there and compete.
You got this partnership with with SAXX. How did that come about? And what was it like getting to shoot this spot with with Stefon?
It was really cool, this being one of the first things we’ve done together. It’s been really good. I’m excited to see where it goes. It’s pretty catchy but pretty cool. Just the opportunity, we’re thankful for it. We’re excited to make the SAXX world grow and just help out as much as we can.
Having a brother who’s starred in the league and stars at the position that you go up against every day. How do you guys push each other and make each other better? Because I’m sure you talk plenty and spend plenty of time together in the offseason.
Just being able to ask a question about everybody. Him being familiar with the position and him going against guys. Obviously, you know, I can ask him about stuff about receivers and he can ask me stuff about corners, or whatever looks or things we see. We’ve got that relationship where we touch base at least once a week to discuss everything and just to see what we know and pick our brains a little bit. So it’s always been a blessing to be able to have that.
The Bills are one of the favorites in the AFC, you guys are one of the favorites in the NFC. Do you guys let each other dream about what it’d be like to go up against each other in the Super Bowl? As that’s a real possibility.
It’s a possibility [laughs]. A real possibility. But we try not to talk about it as much as just go through the year and whatever happens, that’s what’s supposed to happen.
What for you specifically are the things that you’ve been working on this offseason and looking to to bring into year three on the field?
Just my game, you know, just improving. Doing things a little differently, taking more of a leadership approach to trying to help out everybody — help the young guys. Just do anything I can to help this team win, honestly. Like I said, I got a couple years under my belt now, got a lot of football under my belt.
What have you learned about — obviously you’re aggressive and going after the ball and interceptions are a big part of your game. What have you learned about balancing that with with trying to limit big plays and maybe picking your spots and that sort of thing?
I don’t like the term aggressive. I play football you know if I see something I’m gonna react. It’s not like I’m not gonna react. I know a lot of people take that for me being aggressive or playing a certain type of way. I really just honestly know, I just know what’s going on. I know. So I react. And it may look like it’s aggressive, it may look like I’m guessing or something but I just know. I don’t know how to explain it.
But you know, I just go out there and play my game how I play my game. I don’t try to be like nobody else. I just do things how I do them and at the end of the day we play man almost every play. So there’s not much that you know — there’s a lot of things that you can run back and stop man or do whatever you need to do to help your football team know. So I just tried to help my team win as much as possible, and that’s just what I’m here for.
Do you like that that challenge of being the DB on on a team that does play a lot of man and giving that chance where you know, you know it’s going to be one-on-one a decent amount of the time?
Yeah, for sure, because only a certain amount of people can play man. We’re one of the teams that plays man. And that just says a lot about us and our defense.
What have you seen from the from the rest of the group in camp and what what are you most excited about going into the season for this defense as a unit?
We got another year together. You know, last year just that being our first year that we put up amazing numbers as a defense. So us being familiar with everything, everybody, everyone knows their role. This defense could be really special.
And then on the other side you get to go up against Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, and those guys every day. What are you seeing from the offense that fans should be excited about in Dallas?
Yeah they should be excited about the whole season and the whole team you know. We got some special guys on this team and we just trying to bring home another Super Bowl.
Since the ’80s, Rick Rubin has been consistently praised and hailed as one of the most important producers in music. One of his most frequent collaborators is Red Hot Chili Peppers, as he’s produced all of their albums since their 1991 breakthrough Blood Sugar Sex Magik (except for 2016’s The Getaway, which Danger Mouse produced). That said, Josh Klinghoffer, RHCP’s guitarist for The Getaway and 2011’s I’m With You, didn’t see Rubin as an asset.
In a recent interview with VWMusic, Klinghoffer was asked about his takeaway from his time as a Chili Pepper. He teased some strong feelings, saying he’s “incredibly conflicted” about his output with the band because with both albums he was a part of, “producers got in the way of us truly making great music or a great record.”
He didn’t mention Danger Mouse by name but he did call out Rubin directly, saying, “I like almost all of the songs that we wrote together, but seldom did we capture them in the best way. I will say that in the case of I’m With You, I feel Rick Rubin was way more a hindrance than a help. He told me once, ‘I just want to help the songs be the best they can be.’ I should’ve said, ‘Well, then get your driver to come and get you.’”
The 2022-23 schedule for all 30 NBA teams has finally been released, and it allows fans the opportunity to start marking their calendars and planning around the can’t miss games on the schedule. While not every team shares the same goals for the 2022-23 season, they all have games where fans will be circling dates and trying to make sure they’re in the building for or at least able to watch on TV, and here we are going to highlight five such games for each team.
In this space, we will peek at the New York Knicks, with myriad storylines to capture. A season after exploding to the No. 4 seed in the East, regression came for New York with the Knicks needing a late push to reach 37 wins. A lot went wrong for the Knicks, headlined by Julius Randle’s struggles, but New York has an infusion of guard talent with Jalen Brunson now in the fold. New York did send out several rotation veterans, including Nerlens Noel, Alec Burks and Kemba Walker, but the Knicks brought in a quality center in Isaiah Hartenstein and an intriguing draftee in Trevor Keels to support Brunson. New York will, as usual, be in the spotlight whether they get Donovan Mitchell or not, and the Knicks have a number of standalone matchups to showcase what the team hopes is real progress.
Below is a glance at five marquee matchups for New York this season.
November 9, 2022: at Brooklyn Nets (ESPN, 7:30 p.m. ET)
It is always a party when the two New York squads get together on national television. There is a bit of extra juice in the wake of the news that Kevin Durant will be sticking around Brooklyn for a while, and Barclays Center should be lively on this particular night. In addition, the Knicks and Nets could conceivably be battling for playoff positioning, even if in different tiers, and the stakes are real for a November matchup between cross-town rivals.
November 15, 2022: at Utah Jazz (TNT, 10:00 p.m. ET)
This could go two ways. One path is that Donovan Mitchell is still a member of the Jazz, and the Knicks are coming to Salt Lake City after months of rumors, playing in front of a national TV audience. The other path is that Mitchell is a member of the Knicks and returning to Utah for the first time in an opposing uniform. Either way is pretty interesting.
December 25, 2022: vs. Philadelphia 76ers (ESPN, 12:00 p.m. ET)
The NBA’s biggest regular season audience arrives on Christmas, and this is the opener of the day. It is debatable that the Knicks “earned” inclusion on the Christmas slate after a pedestrian season a year ago, but Madison Square Garden is a character in itself. This is also a conference matchup against a very good Sixers team, and Joel Embiid will enjoy the extra spotlight of the holiday.
December 27, 2022: at Dallas Mavericks (8:30 p.m. ET)
This is the only regionally televised game on the list, but it is a good one. For one, the Mavericks project to be very good again, and Luka Doncic is must-see television. The real appeal in this one is the return of Jalen Brunson to Dallas, though, and there is enough buzz about his exit from the Mavericks that some extra emphasis could be on this matchup.
March 5, 2023: at Boston Celtics (ESPN, 7:30 p.m. ET)
There are a few real options in the second half of the season, but a prime time national TV game against the reigning Eastern Conference champs takes top billing. It’s a good measuring stick for the Knicks, especially if New York is still competing for the postseason by March, and Boston projects to be excellent once again.
Considering it debuted to juggernaut ratings, renewing House of the Dragon for season two would seem like a no-brainer. But with everything going on HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, nothing is a sure thing right now. Fortunately, the Game of Thrones spinoff is proving that the franchise, like Robert Baratheon’s seed, is still strong, and the Targaryen family drama is officially coming back to another season.
The move came relatively quickly following the series premiere of Dragon on Sunday, which delivered 10 million viewers overnight — an HBO record for a series opener and roughly on par with the premiere of Game of Thrones season six. Now HBO reports that in the days since, the premiere’s viewership has climbed to 20 million viewers in the U.S. across linear, On Demand, and HBO Max platforms.
“We are beyond proud of what the entire House of the Dragon team has accomplished with season one,” Francesca Orsi, Executive VP of HBO Programming said in a statement. “Our phenomenal cast and crew undertook a massive challenge and exceeded all expectations, delivering a show that has already established itself as must-see-TV.”
Clearly, the series is a much-needed win for HBO’s troubled parent company, which has already enacted some drastic cuts on the streaming side of the premium channel. On top of layoffs, HBO Max has been aggressively cutting content following the shocking decision to shelve Batgirl.
However, while things are wildly in flux for WBD’s streaming strategy, it seems to know not to mess with HBO’s broadcast offerings. The network recently released a sizzle reel showcasing its upcoming series including the highly anticipated adaptation of The Last of Us, and of course, the now-renewed House of the Dragon was prominently featured.
If a band has been around for over a decade, they’re bound to have at least one polarizing album in their discography. Arctic Monkeys’ last album Tranquility Base Hotel And Casino fell into that category, though many fans and critics revered it. On this week’s Indiecast episode, hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen revisit Arctic Monkeys‘ legacy after the band announced their return and upcoming album, The Car.
Of course, there was plenty of controversy in music news this week for Indiecast to unpack. The first came in the form of a Harry Styles cover story in which he was lauded the “new king of pop,” a title that instantly outraged Michael Jackson’s fans and family. The main headline-making story this week was about the intersection of AI and music. Capitol Records dropped the recently signed AI artist FN Meka, a virtual “robot rapper” with racist overtones that ignited a greater conversation about ethics in the AI world.
In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian gives props to Maryland band Pianos Become The Teeth, whose recent album leans into moody Radiohead influences. Meanwhile, Steven talks about his recent profile of Bartees Strange.
New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 103 here or below and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.
Lil Nas X always has something going on and now he can add another item to the list: He’s the new US ambassador of high-end beauty brand Yves Saint Laurent Beauté. Nas spoke about that in a new interview with Complex, during which he also teased some other things he has coming up.
For one, his new ambassadorship isn’t his only new collab, as the rapper noted, “I have some unexpected things, collaborations coming up. I wouldn’t want to ruin those, though.” He also said, “I do have something very special coming really soon around the time of my tour starting. That’s something I’m super excited about music-wise.”
As for that tour, he described it, “Without giving it away, all I can say is it’s more of a show than it is a concert.”
When it comes to what he hopes fans get from his upcoming music, he’s not quite sure yet: “I wish I could say, but I feel like I won’t even know what this era represents until I’m further along. I’m very much a person that just goes along with the flow and does things as they come. But I’m sure it’s going to be something really special and really exciting.”
He also talked about the new partnership, saying, “Building my brand is an ongoing process as I continue to try new things, but I’m all about having fun, standing out and making a statement, and creating great music. Everything I do is an extension of that, and I’m always looking for ways to break the mold — this partnership with YSL Beauty does that. I thought they were pretty cool and I loved the aesthetic that they were bringing. So I was like, ‘Yeah. Let’s do it.’”
Today, fans were blessed with the highly anticipated release of “Hold Me Closer,” a collaboration between Britney Spears and Elton John. In a new interview with The Guardian, John opened up about how the song came together, and it turns out that getting the “Toxic” singer on wasn’t initially his idea.
“I want to do one every year for a fun, happy summer record,” John said about duets that revisit his classics. He and Watt made a “Tiny Dancer” remix and weren’t sure who should be the guest vocalist. Then, David Furnish, his husband, came up with an idea.
“He said it would be wonderful for Britney Spears to do it,” John continued. “I said, ‘That’s a pretty amazing idea.’ She hadn’t done anything for so long. I’d been following what’s been happening to her for a long time.”
In that same interview, the producer Andrew Watt discussed being blown away by Spears’ vocal abilities. “She’s unbelievable at layering her voice and doubling, which is one of the hardest things to do,” he said. “She really pushed herself vocally. Sometimes when you produce, the greatest thing in the world you can do is say nothing, so I just let her do her thing.”
Comedian Nikki Glaser filled in as the final guest host on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Thursday night, and she clearly wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to burn almost every politician in Washington from both sides of the aisle. During her monologue, Glaser unveiled a little segment she called “Nikki’s Speed Roast” where she went to town on everyone from Donald Trump to Nancy Pelosi and all points in between. Not even Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were safe. By the time Glaser was done, she had hit over a dozen politicians, and here’s a taste of what she said about each of them:
Donald Trump: “What can you say about Donald Trump that he hasn’t already heard at this point? Oh I know, ‘yes, I’d love to have sex with you.’”
Joe Biden: “Joe Biden he’s so old – he had COVID 1.”
Mike Pence: “Mike Pence is so boring and white CBS just picked him up for three more seasons.”
Kamala Harris: “Listen, I know we’re having fun, but on a serious note I do want to say: Kamala Harris is still missing. And if you have any information on her whereabouts please contact her parents they miss her.”
Lindsey Graham: “He looks like the head of a group called Grandmothers Against Interracial Marriage.”
Nancy Pelosi: “Okay, it would be easy to make a joke about Nancy Pelosi’s looks, but I actually think the embalmers did a really good job so I’m not gonna go there.”
Mitch McConnell: “Good ‘ol scrotum neck.”
Pete Buttigieg: “What a trailblazer this guy is. He proves that just because you’re gay, does not mean you’re cool.”
Matt Gaetz: “Look at him. What a ladies man, right. No, I’m sorry, I mean what a child’s man.”
Bernie Sanders: “Bernie Sanders looks like the guy you sit next to on a southwest flight who eats hard boiled eggs out of a plastic bag.”
Rudy Giuliani: “Rudy Guiliani, 9/11 was your shining achievement, and now it’s your blood alcohol level.”
Ted Cruz: “Everything is bigger in Texas except your sad, soggy penis.”
And finally, Glaser went especially hard on Marjorie Taylor Greene: “Marjorie Taylor Greene is proof that the left and the right really can come together. I mean, just look at her eyes. I actually appreciate this woman, because now I know what it would look like if I had a daughter with Mickey Rourke.”
Samaritan makes a half-hearted case for the viability of Sylvester Stallone as a comic book superhero, but not for itself as a viable movie. Samaritan, (written by Bragi F. Schut, directed by Julius Avery, hitting Prime Video August 26th) feels a little like the comic book version of “Cleaver,” the horror movie conceived by Christopher Moltisanti in The Sopranos — a concept dreamed up by a grandiose producer and executed by hired gun creatives, with varying levels of buy-in on the concept.
The saturated cinematography is, well, at least a choice, and Sly, still filming fight scenes as a super strong old man at the age of 76, is occasionally compelling, but the casting is disastrous and the dialogue has the distinct flavor of a late homework assignment.
In a lengthy opening animation sequence (giving Samaritan the feel of having been pulled from a comic book even though it’s not) we learn that 25 years ago, two super-powered vigilante brothers, Samaritan, who fights to save humanity from their darker impulses, and his brother, Nemesis, who fights to punish humanity for their darker impulses, died in a climactic battle with each other. Or so we thought!
This is basically a Cliff’s Notes, genericized version of the central conflict in X-Men — where Professor X was the conciliatory leader of mutant superheroes and Magneto was his militant, terroristic foil, as an allegory for Martin Luther King and Malcolm X in the Civil Rights movement. Should we try to change the system from the inside or tear it down and start all over? Or do we just say to hell with it and punch each other for a while? We love more generic versions of stories we already know, don’t we, folks?
It’s probably not much of a spoiler to reveal that Stallone, topline-billed star of the movie Samaritan, plays the older, garbageman-in-a-green-hoodie version of the superhero Samaritan. No one knows his secret, but one kid, Sam, played by Javon “Wanna” Walton has some suspicions. Sam, like virtually everything else in this Nickelback song of a script, is sort of a stock character, the superhero “fanboy” who knows, and believes in, the hero more than the hero does himself.
Walton, best known for playing “Ashtray” in Euphoria, is about the worst choice imaginable for this role. Everything that makes him a good choice to play the younger brother of a xanny-addled, mumble-mouthed drug dealer in a spiritual ripoff of Kids works against him as the starry-eyed, voluble sidekick of a superhero in whatever Samaritan is supposed to be. Walton, a boxer and gymnast before he was discovered as an actor (the one scene of him shadow boxing is far more impressive than anything else he does, the kid very clearly has hands) seems solid at projecting silent menace. He evokes the sullen, jaded air of having seen too much for someone his age. Basically, the exact opposite qualities of the precocious, verbose, naively optimistic bullied fanboy they’re asking him to play here. His scenes are essentially a cacophony of sour notes, and he gets the most screen time of any actor in Samaritan.
Not that Samaritan‘s dialogue is doing Walton any favors either. At one point, Sam takes his suspicions about Samaritan’s true identity to the local nerd, played by the great Martin Starr in his 90 seconds of screen time. “Look, kid, I’m a journalist,” Starr says. “An intellectual.”
“I know!” says Sam. “I love your work!”
What even is this dialogue? Was the screenwriter being chased? Most of the words in the Samaritan script consist of exactly this kind of brutally utilitarian exposition, feeling like it was improvised on the fly, the kinds of things porn actors say to establish the basic facts of the scene before they commence with the fucking.
The big question for the makers of Samaritan is, which part was supposed to be the fucking? Was it Sylvester Stallone as a superhero? Pilou Asbaek (Euron Greyjoy) as the villain with a snake tattooed on his head? The steak is readily apparent in Samaritan but you’ll spend the whole movie searching in vain for the sizzle. Usually when you overtly acknowledge the tropes and standard story beats in a movie like this, it’s for some purpose, some comment about what we like about or what it means to be a comic book movie. Samaritan is really none of that, it’s more like discount comic book movie slurry.
And with an occasional whiff of weird politics. Asbaek’s bad guy, naturally, idolizes Nemesis, who he says “hurt people who deserved to be hurt,” and “always punched up.” When he inspires roving gangs of looters, it’s hard to wonder if Samaritan is meant as some kind of broadside against the woke mobs Fox News convinces its viewers have destroyed liberal cities.
Which, honestly, fine. Stallone has spent most of his entire career making wonderfully enjoyable action flicks out of reactionary politics. Samaritan, for better or worse (worse), isn’t even close to that coherent.
‘Samaritan’ hits Prime Video August 26th.Vince Mancini is onTwitter. You can access his archive of reviewshere.
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