Category: News

According to TMZ, Swizz Beatz and Timbaland are suing the company Triller. The pair who made the rap battle show Verzuz sold the idea to Triller, but Triller never paid up. Now Swizz Beatz and Timbaland want $28 million.

In January of last year, Swizz Beatz and Timbaland agreed to sell Verzuz to Triller, but Triller allegedly defaulted on the deal after just two payments. More information about this lawsuit is forthcoming and should unfurl over time.

The platform Verzuz was launched by Swizz Beatz and Timbaland that showcases beat battles held on Instagram Live. March of this year marked the two-year anniversary of the show. Since its inception, it has held numerous duels between the likes of The Lox, Dipset, Nelly, Ludacris, Keyshia Cole, Ashanti, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, E-40, Too Short, Gucci Mane, Jeezy, and many more.

To commemorate their success, Swizz and Timbo have partnered with Amazon Studios, Lena Waithe, her production company Hillman Grad Productions, and Good Trouble Studios for a special documentary titled Gifted & Black. It will highlight the rise of Verzuz, as well as the roots of Black music. According to Deadline, it will use “poignant interviews, gripping vérité and magnetic archival footage” to see how Black music impacts the culture.

Elon Musk may be the world’s most eccentric billionaire, but there’s one obsession he shares with others of the same wealth: He’s obsessed with going to space. No doubt he was peeved when Jeff Bezos, who’s not quite as unimaginably rich as he is, took one Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, to space. And no doubt he’s nonplussed that Shatner teamed up with The Daily Show to rip him a new one.

The Tesla honcho is the subject of the show’s latest Dailyshowography, which has previously treated the likes of Rudy Giuliani to unflattering life retrospectives. The one on Musk is no different. Shatner narrates, introducing his subject as “part Thomas Edison, part Iron Man, part annoying dude in the group chat.”

The video traces Musk’s upbringing in South Africa (with a little affectionate reference to the show’s own South African host) to a young, precocious inventor of, well, things that already existed, like a knock-off of Space Invaders. His first taste of extreme wealth came by more mundane means. “Like so many tech entrepreneurs, he earned his unimaginable wealth by doing something invaluable for society,” Shatner explains. “Selling a start-up you’ve never heard of to a company that doesn’t exist anymore.”

There are pit-stops at the mid-life crisis Musk had in his 20s, like when he bought a million-dollar car he couldn’t drive and later crashed, as well as starting a record label that produced powerfully lame electronic music. The most damning stretch covers his repeated promises that he and his team have licked self-driving cars — with repeated crashes followed by repeated goal post-moving. And of course, those unflattering vacation photos make a glorified cameo.

You can watch The Daily Show and Shatner drag Musk in the video above.

Things are not going especially well for Manchester United at the moment. Following a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Brentford over the weekend, United finds itself in 20th place in the Premier League. Even worse than a loss of that magnitude, or their current situation in the table (they’re in last), or the fact that they have to take on an angry Liverpool team this upcoming weekend, is the fact that the club seems to be completely directionless in just about every way.

It doesn’t seem to be the fault of recently-appointed manager Erik ten Hag, although some of his personnel decisions and hyper-commitment to a style of play that does not jive with the players he has at his disposal led to him receiving his fair share of criticism through two games. Those players have come under their fair share of criticism, too, as they looked listless last year and seem to fold mightily the second they get punched in the mouth. The team’s most prominent player, Cristiano Ronaldo, has been at the middle of a transfer saga for basically the last month or so. But still, they’re pieces in a puzzle that do not fit and don’t stand much of a chance to fit, while the rot that has made its way deep into the roots of the club in recent years has meant that the players are more a result of a larger issue than the single largest issue themselves. While not blameless — they could stand to run more — the current squad is the result of years and years of the club being poorly managed.

Instead, much of the blame has been laid at the feet of the Glazer family, the American owners of the team who have been excoriated for years for the myriad of ways they choose to run one of the biggest clubs — if you’d like to read some of why that’s happened, this piece and this piece get into it a bit. The Glazers double as the owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and while the team has won a pair of Super Bowls under their stewardship, they aren’t exactly revered for their willingness to spend big to keep Tampa Bay at the forefront of the sport. Still, it is nothing like their situation in Manchester, where fans have quite literally broke into the stadium in an effort to express how little they regard the family that is famous for never showing their faces at Old Trafford (which, by the way, is on the verge of needing a monster renovation).

People have been calling on the Glazers to sell for years and give control of United to people who actually are interested in doing what it takes to keep up with clubs that are better run, something they have resisted at every twist and turn. There has never been any sort of indication that there is even a potential buyer who can meet whatever price the Glazers would need to even sit down at the table. Despite that, Elon Musk decided to get a joke off on Tuesday night and tweeted that he’s gonna buy them.

This is probably not going to happen.

In the first half of the 2022 Major League Baseball season, the New York Yankees were the toast of the sport. The Yankees, led by an historic season from Aaron Judge, posted a blistering 64-28 record before the All-Star break, leading the entire American League field by 4.5 games and enjoying the best record in baseball during the mid-summer classic. However, things have spiraled for the Yankees in late July and August, headlined by 11 losses in the last 13 games.

On Tuesday, New York lost again to the Tampa Bay Rays at home and, during the eighth inning, the television broadcast captured a haircut being given… in the Yankee Stadium bleachers.

This could simply be an exercise in weird things happening during the relatively slow pace of a baseball game on a Tuesday evening. However, the synergy is undeniable with the Yankees tailspin, as New York is now 8-17 since the All-Star break. The Yankees still maintain a very comfortable division lead in the AL East, but the Houston Astros are now the frontrunners for the No. 1 seed in the AL and, more importantly, New York seems to have lost the plot.

It certainly helps that Aaron Judge has 46 home runs on the evening of August 16, but he is only one man. The Yankees are scuffling so badly that at least some fans would rather focus on haircuts than baseball.

The Indie group Martha‘s last album was the warm and witty 2019 LP Love Keeps Kicking. The inviting pop-punk songs strengthened their cult following, and fans have been waiting for new material ever since. Today is their lucky day, as the band have announced Please Don’t Take Me Back, arriving on 10/28.

The announcement comes with the release of the song “Baby, Does Your Heart Sink,” which right off the bat proves that they haven’t lost any of their charm. It starts with colorful, urgent guitar work and a bouncy rhythm. Speaking about the song, the band said, “‘Baby, Does Your Heart Sink’ is just your classic break-up song, but one designed to be played at the disco at the end of the world. If there are multiple timelines, worlds, and universes out there, you’ve really got to wonder how things are going in the others, don’t you?”

It arrives with a video shot at Sunderland’s Pop Recs, paying homage to the venue’s co-founder Dave Harper, who tragically passed away last year. “This was the first time we’d all been together as a band for a while, and it was a really fun day,” said drummer Nathan Stephens-Griffin about the video. “Pop Recs is a brilliant thing, and we want to support as much as possible – everyone should visit when they get a chance. We’ll be doing our Northeast album launch on that very same stage in early December and we can’t wait. Hopefully the people watching are more into it on the night though! It was also extremely cool to get to direct a video featuring a Futurehead and a Heartstring!”

Listen to “Baby, Does Your Heart Sink” above. Check out the album artwork and tracklist below.

1. “Beat, Perpetual”
2. “Every Day the Hope Gets Harder”
3. “Please Don’t Take Me Back”
4. “Irreversible Motion”
5. “Baby, Does Your Heart Sink?”
6. “F L A G // B U R N E R”
7. “Neon Lung”
8. “Take Me Back To The Old Days (Reprise)”
9. “Total Cancellation Of The Future”
10. “I Didn’t Come Here To Surrender”
11. “You Can’t Have a Good Time All Of The Time”

Please Don’t Take Me Back arrives 10/28 via Specialist Subject Records.

There are not many high school basketball recruits who have generated as much attention as Bronny James. It’s something that comes with the territory — being named “LeBron Raymone James Jr.” is assuredly going to turn heads when you step on the basketball court — but despite that, Bronny’s recruitment has been rather unique because, well, there just haven’t been a whole lot of reports about scholarship offers, visits, or anything else that normally comes in recruiting. Really the only major update on what his future holds that we’ve gotten is that Bronny’s dad wants to play with him in the NBA somewhere down the line.

On Tuesday, we received a rare update by way of Jamie Shaw of On3, who reported that Oregon are the frontrunners to land Bronny. Per Shaw, the Ducks boast “a lead” and as of now, “James is looking like he will end up in Eugene.” It caught on like wildfire on the heels of the 4-star guard’s monster poster dunk earlier this week, but on Tuesday night, LeBron decided to address the report directly.

LeBron took to Twitter and posted a legitimate update on where things stand with Bronny, saying that it’s been nothing more than a few calls at this point. While he did not say which schools are working to acquire his services, LeBron did say that Bronny will be the one to announce where he’s headed.

Bronny is about to enter his senior year of high school. On3’s consensus ranking has him as the number 44 prospect in his class.

Donald Trump has spent his entire life avoiding comeuppance, but that streak may be coming to an end. He’s hopping mad that the FBI searched the resort he now lives in, throwing around one dodgy excuse after another — and helping inspire death threats against government agents the Republican party has long held up as heroes. But an FBI search is no joke, especially if it involves a former president. Trump seems to secretly know this and is reportedly on the hunt for rock star legal representation. Problem is, no decent lawyer appears to want to work with him.

“Everyone is saying no,” a prominent Republican lawyer told The Washington Post. That’s a shame because, as an attorney who once worked on the Watergate prosecution team, who also turned down Trump, what he needs is a “first-rate, highly experienced federal criminal practitioner.”

That attorney said his excuse was that he simply didn’t have time. Others, though, are scared off by his divisiveness, his prickly personality, and his habit of stiffing vendors:

One lawyer told a story from early in Trump’s presidency of his legal team urging him against tweeting about the Mueller probe, only to find he’d tweeted about it before they got to the end of the West Wing driveway. Several people said Trump was nearly impossible to represent and that it would be unclear if they would ever get paid.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer, who even went to jail for Trump, had no good to say about him. He described him to the Post as a “very difficult client in that he’s always pushing the envelope, he rarely listens to sound legal advice, and he wants you to do things that are not appropriate, ethically or legally.”

In other words, a lifetime of being, well, Trump is coming back to bite him in the ass.

It’s not that Trump doesn’t already have a legal team. But longtime confidants, the Post reports, are worried that they’re not experienced enough or up to snuff to deal with something as outsized as a federal investigation that may include potential violation of the Espionage Act.

“You get these guys who just live to be around him, and mistakes get made,” one lawyer told the Post. “These guys just want to make him happy.”

Meanwhile, his legal team is busy trying to get the name of the alleged mole who ratted Trump out. So you can see where their priorities lay.

(Via The Post)

In January, Bad Bunny announced The World’s Hottest Tour, which is aptly titled considering his album Un Verano Sin Ti was one of the biggest LPs this year, if not the biggest after reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and earning 1.606 million equivalent album units in the US.

The tour just kicked off a few days ago in Orlando, Florida at Camping World Stadium, and the audience has been lucky not only to see Bad Bunny but also great openers. This includes DJs Diplo and Alesso, who will definitely do a good job of hyping up the crowds before Bad Bunny goes on. Diplo is most known for his hit “Where Are Ü Now” with Jack Ü and Skrillex as well “Heartless” and “Genius” with LSD, Sia, and Labrinth. Alesso is most known for “Let Me Go” with Hailee Steinfeld, along with “When I’m Gone” with Katy Perry.

The shows will definitely be packed to the brim with stoked fans. On the day of the Un Verano Sin Ti release, Spotify announced that he broke two records, with the LP becoming the most-streamed album in 2022 and Bad Bunny becoming the most-streamed artist globally in one day. It wasn’t too surprising, considering that last year the Puerto Rican star received the most streams on Spotify out of any other artist around the world.

The Kevin Durant saga continues to dominate NBA chatter in August, with everything from retirement pseudo-rumors to a bombshell on what Durant would need to stick in Brooklyn and endless speculation on which teams might remain interested in his services. One such team is the up-and-coming New Orleans Pelicans, with Christian Clark of NOLA.com weighing in with an interesting report on Tuesday. In short, Clark noted that the Pelicans could be a part of the Durant bidding, but any pursuit “would likely require” the inclusion of highly touted wing Brandon Ingram. However, Clark, citing league sources, reports that “the Pelicans are unwilling to do so.”

Ingram is one of a handful of players across the league regularly mentioned as hypothetical centerpieces in Durant packages, and it makes sense on some level. After all, the Nets are thought to be seeking high-level NBA talent in addition to draft compensation for Durant, and the 24-year-old Ingram has an All-Star selection and three-year averages of 23.4 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 4.8 assists per game since joining the Pelicans.

With that said, Clark notes plainly that Ingram is nearly a decade younger than Durant, perhaps fitting more snugly with the timeline associated with Zion Williamson and other young players in New Orleans. Ingram is also quite a bit cheaper when it comes to contract cost, and that could be a real factor for a small-market team such as the Pelicans moving forward into the future.

It would be difficult to find a credible trade package that the Pelicans could offer without Ingram or Williamson, so the unwillingness to include either player likely crosses off New Orleans before even considering that Durant may not prefer the Pelicans as a destination. At the same time, it is interesting that the Pelicans may not even be willing to think about Ingram, and the future is undoubtedly bright in New Orleans if Williamson can stay healthy next to Ingram, CJ McCollum, and an intriguing young roster.

Will Mark Zuckerberg ever complete his metaverse? Will anyone want to use it? The answers to those questions remain to be seen. But so far his vision of a future where everyone hangs in a virtual realm, sometimes as animal avatars, doesn’t seem to be gripping the public. Jokes have flown ever since he changed his company’s name from Facebook to Meta. The backlash has been such that people even agreed with something Bill Maher said. Now the latest image from this magical realm isn’t exactly inspiring confidence.

On Tuesday, Zuckerberg dropped a Facebook post announcing that Horizon Worlds — the free virtual reality game that launched in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. last year — was expanding to France and Spain. To celebrate, he shared a friendly image of his avatar inside the game, standing in front of cartoon version of the Eiffel Tower and a Spanish Basilica.

Zuckerberg avatar was…something. Childlike and soulless, it in no way betrayed the billions that have gone into its creator’s massive pet project that no one seems to be excited to see. Once it made it to the other big social media service, Twitter, the reviews were not good, with more than one person comparing to the Miis in Wii, Nintendo’s game system from 2006, when Facebook was only two years old.

Others argued that it was actually an accurate likeness, if not in a flattering way.

And it came so soon after people noticed a baby Jesus sculpture at LACMA looks like Zuckerberg.