It’s probably not a huge leap to think that sticking Trevor Noah in a room with Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner and asking them to find three things they have in common would be an arduous task. “Ummm… breathing?” But one thing we now know they could all wax angrily about is Instagram’s annoying new redesign, which is geared toward becoming more like TikTok and erasing the people you actually follow from your feed.
Earlier this week, Jenner—who is the most followed woman on Instagram, with 350 million people creeping her every post—posted an open letter to Instagram, which is now part of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta family, telling the company to “Make Instagram Instagram Again.” On Wednesday night, The Daily Show host joined her in her Insta-hate:
If you’ve been on Instagram lately, you may have noticed that it, ummm, it sucks. Right? Everything is an ad and your feed is full of people you don’t follow, which is so confusing. ‘Cause I’m scrolling, and I start reading someone’s post and I’m like, ‘Do I know this person? Was I supposed to be at this wedding?’ And then you look and it says ‘Because you follow your friend, we thought you might like a post from a stranger.’ No I don’t!!
While everyday users of what has always been known as a photo app have been complaining as the company has quietly rolled out these changes, Noah said it took criticism from the aforementioned Kardashian-Jenner clan—or, as he calls them, “the royal family of Instagram”—for the company to actually respond. And what Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri essentially said is that he doesn’t really care what the platform’s users are saying because they know what you want better than you do. In other words: They’re standing firm in their commitment to pushing more video content from people you’ve never clapped eyes on in your life.
“Yeah, that’s right people,” Noah mocked. “You thought Instagram was for pictures of your friends. Well that’s OVER! You were always bitching about brunch pics? Now you’re going to be begging to see them. You’ll be like, ‘Please! Was it eggs? Was it avocado toast? I just want to know what my friends were eating!!”
You can watch Noah’s full Instagram takedown above, beginning around the 6:10 mark.
Over the past month, Mark Hamill has been tweeting the props he “permanently borrowed” from the sets of various Star Wars movies. When asked what’s the “most valuable” Star Wars-related thing he’s in possession of, the actor wrote, “My boots from the very 1st film. Don’t know their value because I’d never sell them.”
His five-robot-fingered discounts didn’t end there.
Hamill also kept the “Stormtrooper helmet I wore rescuing the Princess” and an “Imperial Death Star Employee’s cap” from A New Hope, and “1 pair #3PO hands” and “1 pair #3PO feet” (for his son, Nathan) and “1 prop rubber frog” from Return of the Jedi. He doesn’t have anything from The Empire Strikes Back, besides memories of a fractured nose, or any of the sequel movies, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker. I get why Hamill wouldn’t want anything from Episode IX, but he should have at least kept a porg. Those round boys go for big money on the black market.
Hamill will soon appear in Netflix’s The Sandman as Merv Pumpkinhead, who, you guessed it, has a pumpkin for a head. How difficult is it to smuggle a pumpkin through security? Asking for a… friend.
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.
We’re at the point where it’s both reductive and inadequate to call Rico Nasty just a rapper. And Rico’s new mixtape, Las Ruinas, is exhibit A in the argument that what the Maryland artist does is way too expansive, creative, and intriguing to be constrained to the labels it has been given so far. Some of those labels include punk-rap, emo-trap, scream-rap, and sugar trap – the last term Rico’s own, coined on one of her first mixtapes. Las Ruinas explodes those paradigms, throwing Paramore, Run-DMC, Lil Uzi Vert, and Nicki Minaj into a blender and letting it rip, creating something entirely different from any of its influences.
In the run-up to the release, Rico insinuated that the tape would show a softer side of the brash, ‘80s-inspired artist than her debut album, Nightmare Vacation. Insomuch as it accomplishes this mission, there’s still a lot of yelling – which is actually a good thing. When artists try to get confessional, they can sometimes lean too heavily into the emotion, making for a mawkish, melodramatic affair. Rather than getting bogged down by maudlin ballads, Las Ruinas opts to expand the sonic palette of its predecessor, which in turn allows Rico to try new things without really leaving her lane. It’s a neat trick.
Part of it is that Rico’s lane is really wide. She’s already established herself in the hyperpop lane, where plenty of these new tracks reside. The album opens with “Intrusive,” all warped-synths and overblown bass kicks, with Rico rasping her way through the uptempo track, occasionally embellished with spacey vocal effects. “Black Punk,” meanwhile, takes the tempo down a tick and adds some Korn-ish guitar – it’s not exactly punk, or nu-metal, but it’s clearly influenced by both. The flavor of Rico’s own secret sauce is what ties it all together and keeps any single element from dominating the mix.
The closest she comes to a recognizable, single genre effort is the emphatic “Blow Me,” which borrows the thumping drums of Memphis trap with a hypnotic instrumental loop from the Atlanta strain, then finds Rico splitting the difference between her “Own It” flow and the one from “Fashion Week” for a cavalier call-out to challengers. It’s an impressive show of her improvement since Nightmare Vacation, as she mocks, “Your bitch ain’t bad, she a eyesore / Truth hurts, baby, you should lie more.” It’s just one of a litany of guffaw-worthy rhymes on the album, and you can almost hear her snickering as she says them.
Rico even manages to put her own specific twist on a rising trend with “Jungle,” Rico’s remix of Fred Again..’s pulse-pounding house jam. Remember when I said Black people were coming back to reclaim dance music? Rico definitely got the memo. What’s truly awesome about the confidence and comfort she displays on this track is that she appears just as cozy on Nirvana-esque ballad “Easy,” the dreamy “Focus On Me,” and the album’s closer, “Chicken Nugget.”
The latter, an ode to her son Cameron, is a true triumph; in it, Rico opens up about how Cam opened up her own world. “Now I see why my mama yelled at me,” she reflects. “I can see how she was obsessed with me.” It’s exactly the sort of vulnerability peeking out of the thrash-rapper facade that strengthens her image as a badass. There’s real passion and heartache – the kind born of the implied and well-known struggles of motherhood, highlighted by the usual teenage angst – fueling her outbursts. At the same time, by pulling off the mask, even slightly, Rico makes herself more relatable, more endearing, and more human than many of her peers in the SoundCloud-bred, screamo-rap scene, whose “rage” has always struck me as at least a little bit manufactured.
The eclecticism displayed on Las Ruinas might leech some of its replay value or turn off listeners looking for a more consistent listening experience. It’s cohesive but chaotic, so throwing it on when you’re in one mood might mean you have to skip around to find the tracks that suit that mood. While it’s far from a road trip staple or a surefire party starter, there’s lots here to love – most of all, its star, who proudly made this album for herself, doing exactly what she wanted to do. Its real value might be in once again pushing open the boundaries for the next weird little kid who doesn’t want to stick to one thing but take up every available inch of whatever lane they drive in.
Las Ruinas is out now on Atlantic Records. Get it here.
Rico Nasty is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Louisiana rapper JayDaYoungan (real name Javorius Scott) is dead at 24 years old after getting shot on Wednesday (July 17) morning, according to New Orleans’ Fox 8.
JayDaYoungan and his father, Kenyatta Scott Sr., were both shot in a Bogalusa double shooting, which took place at around 5:50 p.m. in the 600 block of Superior Avenue. Scott was transported to a hospital and is in stable condition.
Last night, the Bogalusa Police Department shared a Facebook post that reads, “We can now identify the victims as Javorius Scott, A.K.A. JayDaYoungan and close family member Kenyatta Scott Sr. We can also confirm that Javorius Scott has died as a result of his injuries. Kenyatta Scott Sr. has been transported to another facility and we have been told he is in stable condition. Detectives are currently conducting interviews and working leads. Further information will follow as it becomes available.”
Mindy West, the manager of a Bogalusa gas station, told Fox 8 of the rapper, “He’s been in here often. He was never rude or anything when he came in here. He was really friendly. He’s really popular out this way for sure.”
CBS WWL reports in recent months, investigators connected JayDaYoungan to gang-related crimes in rural Louisiana, and that he was sentenced to prison in June for possession of a firearm while under indictment or felony. He was under indictment for a felony crime in Harris County, Texas. In the Louisiana case, a judge sentenced the rapper to time served after seven months in prison.
The rapper’s most-streamed song on Spotify is the Platinum single “23 Island,” a track from the 2019 mixtape Misunderstood that has over 120 million plays. The song’s YouTube video also has over 173 million views. Other noteworthy songs include “Elimination” and “Opps.” The rapper has collaborated with artists including Latto, Dej Loaf, Moneybagg Yo, Kevin Gates, YFN Lucci, Boosie Badazz, and Lil Durk. JayDaYoungan’s biggest chart success was Misunderstood, which peaked at No. 43 on the Billboard 200.
JayDaYoungan is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
This week, we heard about how ex-President Trump is apparently freaking out with worry over Fox News host Laura Ingraham maybe secretly hating him. He can’t be thrilled with the conservative news network airing a montage of Trump voters who now rave about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for 2024, and this has left him wondering if he’s still got Fox News allies left. Sean Hannity, obviously, would never turn on Trump unless circumstances were undeniably dire. And it looks like, at least for now, that Ingraham hasn’t switched sides.
Nor has Laura’s brother, Curtis, who calls his sister out when she says something particularly filled with spin. The Ingraham family must have a lot of fun at Thanksgiving dinners! He’s not a fan of her on-air passive aggression or her vaccine lies, and Curtis is now calling out Laura for “projecting again” while bending over backwards in a segment called “The Hunting of Donald Trump” (she calls this a “complete farce” on behalf of Attorney General Merrick Garland) which Curtis described as a “pathetic” move.
“Farce”?!?! Self projecting again Laura? Whar you won’t spin in order to avoid facing the truth. This attempt is beyond pathetic. @IngrahamAngle@Acynhttps://t.co/HbP8YqUnK8
Here’s more of what Laura had to say, via Fox News:
Whatever your views on Trump in 2024, this Garland news should really disturb you. Bowing to the demands of Biden himself and anti-Trump forces in Congress, Garland is no better than the average, I don’t know, prosecutor working for Vladimir Putin. Political opponents are relentlessly hunted, prosecuted, then jailed by a sham ministry of justice there. In the New York Times doesn’t press his exposes of Putin’s vendetta-style justice. But they take the proper justification for Garland’s investigation, they take it all at face value. No concern about potential political bias or political motivations. I wonder why.
From there, she began to ramble about Hunter Biden, which sounds about right from Laura’s usual deflect-deflect-deflect M.O. So in other words, Trump can breathe easier about Laura’s loyalty, but he’ll never win over Curtis.
Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has been residing in Highland Park, Illinois for years now, a Chicago suburb that was recently where the tragic July 4 shooting took place. The singer hosted and played a benefit for victims at his tea house Madame Zuzu’s, and debuted a new Smashing Pumpkins song about the massacre, called “Photograph.”
“It’s tough because the shooting was literally one block away from where we’re at right now,” Corgan said on an interview with CBS Mornings when asked what the benefit meant to him. “Our business was closed for a week by the FBI, so during that time of course we were so shocked by what had happened and of course the damage to our community and not only the carnage that happened but the psychological effects, the mental health effects. 1,200 people a day have been going to the local high school seeking mental health care. So we felt that void and we wanted to step in that void.”
When introducing “Photograph,” he said, “This is my reaction, I guess you could say, to what happened.” On an acoustic guitar, it’s emotionally charged, grappling with mortality and pain.
Watch him perform “Photograph” at 1:37:00, as well as other previously released tracks, here.
Christopher Nolan‘s next film, Oppenheimer, just dropped its explosive first teaser for the biopic starring Cillian Murphy as titular maker of the atom bomb. While the preview doesn’t reveal much, it does lean heavily on the gravity of unleashing the “power of the sun” that will ultimately lead to “mankind’s destruction.” Adding to the foreboding atmosphere is a Doomsday Clock counting down to the film’s release in July 2023.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the film is Nolan’s first project with Universal Studios after he ended his relationship with Warner Bros. Clearly, his new home was excited to have the director because the studio let him pack Oppenheimer with one hell of a cast.
Just check out this murderer’s row: Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Dane DeHaan, Alden Eherenreich, and Matthew Modine. Via The Wrap:
Murphy stars as J. Robert Oppenheimer in a story that “thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it.”
Oppenheimer was a theoretical physicist and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. And during wartime he was the head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, at which he was given the title the “father of the atomic bomb” for his role in the “Manhattan Project” that for World War II first developed nuclear weapons. He also supervised the Trinity Test, which is where in New Mexico the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated.
Saul Goodman made his Breaking Bad debut in the episode “Better Call Saul.” Will Walter White and Jesse Pinkman make their long-awaited Better Call Saul appearance in an episode titled “Breaking Bad”? That appears to be the case, based on a listing from TV Passport. Next week’s episode is allegedly called “Breaking Bad,” with a plot synopsis that reads, “The partners escalate their enterprise to new levels.” Now, before getting too excited, the partners could be Gene and Jeff, not Walt and Jesse, although it would be very funny (and very Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould) if they threw another curveball at viewers and it was two totally brand-new characters. That would go over well with the same cranks who called “Nippy” the “worst episode ever.”
Earlier this year, Better Call Saul co-creator Gould confirmed that Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul would reprise their Breaking Bad roles on the prequel series, while Bob Odenkirk teased that it would be multiple appearances. “[It was] so good. Seeing Bryan and Aaron playing Walt and Jesse… It’s not just one time… And it was great,” he said. There’s only three episodes left: they’re running out of time.
It would be fitting for Walt and Jesse to show up in the antepenultimate (a word I have never used before but now will say all the time) episode of Better Call Saul, considering the antepenultimate (see?) episode of Breaking Bad was “Ozymandias,” arguably the best episode in TV history. It’s hard to imagine Better Call Saul topping “Ozymandias.”
Then again, Breaking Bad, as great as it was, didn’t have Kim Wexler, so…
(Spoilers from The Boys will obviously be found below.)
With The Boys‘ most recent season finale (and that “Herogasm” money shot) in the can and a bit of a wait for the college-aged spinoff, the show’s flagship series is still keeping the Compound V burning bright with a series of imaginative-and-profane featurettes. The latest happens to be an astrological analysis, as recounted by Nate Mitchell who portrays Black Noir (RIP) and could, in fact, be back again in Season 4 as a “different” character (who might be a new Black Noir), according to showrunner Eric Kripke.
For now, though, Mitchell is here to remind me of one of my favorite annual running jokes on Twitter. That would be the late-January chorus of “[p]lease use a condom on Valentine’s Day. There are already too many scorpios.” You can’t help but giggle a little bit at that remark, yes? There are a few Scorpios who are near and dear to my heart IRL, but boy, they’re messy people: Emotional and lugubrious and reactionary and the most watery of all water signs (and I can say that as a Pisces).
Wouldn’t you know it (at least, according to Mitchell’s predictions, which I am accepting as fact because this is all fiction) test-tube kid Homelander is a total Scorpio with a side of twin-faced Gemini. It’s canon now, baby!
As is “Homelander farting.” Hey, they said it, not me.
In addition to the hit-you-over-the-head Homelander revelation, Mitchell pins Annie January as a Capricorn (her name even tells us as much) and The Deep as a showy Leo with Cancer undercurrents, and Queen Maeve gets a Pisces moon, which tells us how she really feels inside (nearly as emotional as a Scorpio, but she can keep her sh*t together a little bit more) with her Aries self blazing on the outside. I’m feeling that from her. Next, Mitchell explores all of Black Noir’s personality facets while walking through possible signs, and man, I’m not crying (you are definitely crying).
The Boys is currently streaming three full seasons on Amazon with one season of the animated The Boys: Diabolical to fill in some blanks.
Back in May, Cara Delevingne stole the show at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards, whether she was taking not-so-great photos of Doja Cat or having enthusiastic interactions with Megan Thee Stallion, which led to accusations of her “fetishizing Black women” and just being a bit too much. Now, Delevingne has spoken about that fateful night on The Tonight Show.
During an interview yesterday, Jimmy Fallon showed a photo of the Only Murders In The Building actor holding the train of Megan’s dress on the BBMAs red carpet and asked for the story there. Delevingne noted Megan invited her to join her at the show and help her memorize an acceptance speech, but Delevingne didn’t think she’d end up being a noticeable part of the proceedings. On the red carpet, Delevingne noticed Megan struggling with her train, so she helped out by moving it around for her.
She then spoke about that aforementioned Doja photo (not directly but seemingly so based on context), saying, “I walked in and I had a seat in the front row. I’m like, ‘I’m not meant to be here.’ So I was like, ‘Hi!’ And then I was getting on the floor, taking pictures. That’s what what I do because I’m like, I don’t know, I was just really excited. I was like, ‘Let me get my angle, guys, I’m a photographer!’”
She added, “I was living my best life, but people found it a bit odd, which… people find me odd, but that’s me. No shame!”
Check out the interview above.
Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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