Category: News

When Jack Harlow admitted he didn’t know Brandy and Ray J are related, who could have predicted that it would lead to Brandy offering to hand him the lyrical fade — let alone following through? That’s right, Brandy, the R&B veteran who once starred in her own sitcom and gave the world “I Wanna Be Down,” actually decided to flex her mic skills and take full advantage of the viral moment.

Given that Jack made his embarrassing confession on Hot 97’s Ebro In The Morning show, it’s only right that Ebro was also the one to debut Brandy’s “First Class” freestyle. Hijacking the beat from Harlow’s own No. 1 single, Brandy spits a sinuous flow full of throwback ’90s-esque knowledge drops and references to Ray J’s “indestructible” glasses.

Jack is used to going viral for something or another, but when he appeared on Ebro In The Morning to promote his new album Come Home The Kids Miss You, he probably had no idea that he’d be the topic of discussion for a gap in his ’90s pop culture knowledge. Challenged to name a Brandy song for the show’s “White Ish Wednesday” segment, Harlow needed several hints, one of which was “Ray J’s sister.” When he wondered aloud “Who’s Ray J’s sister?” Twitter turned up on him for not knowing something that many considered obvious (the kid is just 24 years old and Brandy’s been out of the spotlight for pretty much his entire adult life).

When Brandy caught wind, she jokingly declared on Twitter, “I will murk this dude in rap at 43 on his own beats and then sing [h]is ass to sleep.” Jack gamely responded on his Instagram Story, using a clip from Brandy’s chorus on Kanye West’s 2005 song “Bring Me Down.” It looks like the ball is now back in his court after Brandy’s follow-up, although he may have the last laugh anyway; “First Class” is No. 1 for its third week, and if nothing else, this is great free promotion.

Calvin Harris is back with funky new grooves, right on time for the summer. Ahead of his hotly anticipated new album, Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2, the DJ/producer has announced a new single called “Potion.”

“Potion” will feature Dua Lipa and Young Thug, and the track itself will contain a beachy, ’70s-inspired instrumental — at least that’s what we’ve gathered from a teaser Harris shared on social media earlier this work.

Thug previously collaborated with Harris on “Heatstroke” on Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, which also featured Ariana Grande. Lipa also collaborated with Harris on the 2018 standalone single, “One Kiss.”

Not much is known about the second chapter of Funk Wav Bounces, which arrives five years after its first. However, Harris has confirmed the album is set to drop this summer. Harris previously teased another track, thought to be called “New To You,” which was revealed by a picture of sheet music to be played by an orchestra.

The collaboration comes as Thug is currently being held in Fulton County Jail, alongside Gunna, for RICO charges. The two were not granted bail and are set for trial in January 2023.

Young Thug and Dua Lipa are Warner Music Artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Last month, Haim launched the The One More Haim Tour and last night, the trek brought them to Toronto for a show at RBC Echo Beach. While they were in the city, they met up with its proudest resident, Drake, who shared a photo of himself with the sisters.

It’s a happy image, with Drake sporting a wide smile with his arms around the Haims, Alana smiling with her eyes closed and tongue out, Este striking a tongue-out-arms-crossed pose, and Danielle going for a more subtle smirk. Drake captioned the post, “Just met the Beatles.”

Haim later shared the same photo and referenced Drake’s caption, writing, “We’re the Beatles.” Este also shared the photo on her personal account and wrote, “reunited.”

This was surely a major moment for Alana, as she’s been a longtime Drake superfan: In a 2014 Cosmopolitan interview, she described a custom Drake phone case she made for herself, saying, “I found these crazy Drake stickers, so I just stuck them on my phone. Basically, it’s the best thing that now I get to see Drake’s face on my phone 24 hours a day.” She added, “I’m the biggest Drake fan of all time. I mean, we all are. We all constantly fight about who gets dibs on Drake. But I think Danielle, my middle sister, is the frontrunner. She’s actually obsessed with him.” After being told about Drake and Rihanna’s breakup, she also noted, “I want to marry Drake, but if anyone could steal my spot in Drake’s heart, it would be Rihanna.”

Later, the two would appear in the same 2015 “Mean Tweets” segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, while Alana and Este were seen attending Drake’s birthday party in 2017.

While Democratic Senator Chris Murphy (who formerly represented the district that included Sandy Hook Elementary School) took to the floor to beg for gun control, GOP Senator Mitt Romney’s not exactly a portrait of action in the wake of Tuesday’s Texas school shooting, which left at least 19 children dead. Romney, who’s been doubling down on foot-in-mouth syndrome this year already, decided to take to twitter with a “thoughts-and-prayers”-style tweet. In doing so, he claimed to desire “answers” on how to solve the problem of having essentially no gun laws and being surprised each time this happens.

“Grief overwhelms the soul,” Romney wrote. “Children slaughtered. Lives extinguished. Parents’ hearts wrenched. Incomprehensible. I offer prayer and condolence but know that it is grossly inadequate. We must find answers.”

To say that the Internet had receipts for Romney (to the tune of almost $14 million in NRA dollars) would be an understatement. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence keeps a running list of gun lobby donations to U.S. lawmakers. Writer Bess Kalb’s tweeting out a thread of these donations (timed to lawmaker reaction tweets about this latest school shooting), and Romney’s a centerpiece, alright.

In fact and as human rights attorney Qasim Rashid points out, “Mitt Romney is America’s #1 recipient of NRA money, with $13,647,676 in NRA contributions in his bank.”

Soledad O’Brien was quick to respond to Romney: “I frequently call this man a coward. Maybe one day the words he says and what he actually does, will match.”

Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg called Romney’s bluff, and the Romney pile-on began, since he seems to have forgotten his staunch opposition to any new federal gun laws as these shootings continue.

Clearly, thoughts and prayers won’t do anything to bring these children back, although one can expect the push-and-pull in the Senate to reach another peak soon.

[WARNING: do not read unless you’re caught up on Better Call Saul]

Have you recovered from the Better Call Saul midseason finale yet? Probably not! It’s OK. The sixth and final season doesn’t resume until July, so you have time to emotionally process the events of “Plan and Execution,” specifically the final moments, when Lalo breaks into Jimmy and Kim’s apartment and shoots poor Howard in the head.

It was not a happy ending for Howard (or anyone, with the possible exception of Irene), but there’s a happy ending to come. Maybe. Probably not. Following the midseason finale, AMC released a teaser for the final six episodes. “So, after all that,” Jimmy says in a voiceover as we look at black-and-white footage of the apartment. “A happy ending.” The context is unclear, but it’s probably a morbid joke from creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. There are few happy endings on Saul or Breaking Bad (except this one).

In a post-midseason finale interview with EW, Gould discussed Lalo’s decision to go to Jimmy and Kim’s apartment instead of the laundromat: “One of the questions that I hope people who are watching the show are asking is: “Wait, why did he go to Jimmy and Kim? What’s he up to? Is he just settling old scores because he can’t get to Gustavo Fring now? Or is there something else going on now?’ Answers will be forthcoming.”

Better Call Saul returns to AMC on July 11.

In a press conference, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr shared some powerful words following the Uvalde, Texas school shooting, which resulted in 22 fatalities as of this morning. Taylor Swift caught wind of that and has used what Kerr said to share her thoughts on the situation.

Re-posting the Kerr video, Swift added, “Filled with rage and grief, and so broken by the murders in Uvalde. By Buffalo, Laguna Woods and so many others. By the ways in which we, as a nation, have become conditioned to unfathomable and unbearable heartbreak. Steve’s words ring so true and cut so deep.”

In the original video, an emotional Kerr summarizes the situation and says in part:

“In the last ten days, we’ve had elderly Black people killed in a supermarket in Buffalo, we’ve had Asian churchgoers killed in southern California, and now we have children murdered at school. When are we gonna do something?! I’m tired, I’m so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there, I am so tired of the moments of silence. Enough! There’s 50 senators, right now, who refuse to vote on HR-8, which is a background check rule that the House passed a couple years ago. It’s been sitting there for two years. And there’s a reason they won’t vote on it: to hold onto power. So I ask you, Mitch McConnell, I ask all of you senators who refuse to do anything about the violence and school shootings and supermarket shootings, I ask you: Are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children, and our elderly, and our churchgoers? Because that’s what it looks like.”

Olivia Rodrigo took time during her performance at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles last night to address the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. She is one of many public figures, along with Finneas and Matthew McConaughey, who has vocalized their stances on stricter gun control laws in the US.

During her Sour tour performance, Rodrigo said, “I wish we would never have to worry about our safety or our lives at places that are dedicated to our learning and growing. And I’m so heartbroken that this is the reality that we’re living in — and we need stricter gun control laws in America.”

Rodrigo has also been vocal about reproductive freedom. During the Washington DC stop of her Sour tour, she said to the crowd, “When a woman tells us her body should never be in the hands of politicians, I hope we can raise our voices to protect our right to have a safe abortion, which is a right that so many people before us have worked so hard to get.”

In addition to using her platform to discuss reproductive rights and gun control, Rodrigo has also maintained that all attendees at her concert should be vaccinated for COVID-19. So much so that a father recently posted a video of himself burning Sour tour concert tickets he had purchased for his children in protest of the vaccine requirement.

Truth be told, there’s not a whole lot to admire about MyPillow founder Mike Lindell. Sure, he reportedly kicked a terrible drug and alcohol dependency and went on to start a successful “As Seen on TV” business that keeps him swimming in thick gold crucifixes, but he’s not the world’s most rational man. Still, Jimmy Kimmel—who has maintained an odd fascination with the pillow magnate, especially given his regular and very public failures—admires his moxie.

On Tuesday night, Kimmel seemed amazed that despite a $1.3 billion lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems still hanging over his head, and no one seeming to be listening, Lindell is “still screaming about the voting machines.”

In a bizarre and shaky clip shot from the inside of a car, it was fairly difficult to make sense of anything Lindell was saying. There was something about “a copier machine,” people saying “WHAT?!?” and corruption, though it all just sounded like a mad man’s Mad Libs. What was clear is that Lindell is imploring people to go to his website, SueMikeLindell.com, where they’ll find a template to submit… something?! But it really doesn’t matter, because this is what you get when you go to that site:

The site’s nonexistence was not lost on Kimmel, who noted that if you visit the URL, you’ll get a notice that “this site cannot be reached… just like Mike himself.”

“But you do have to hand it to Mike,” Kimmel added. “He’s been putting his time and his money where his mustache is.” As of April 2022, Lindell admitted that he has so far spent about $35 million of his own money attempting to prove that Trump is the true winner of the 2020 presidential election.

You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 8:25 mark.

On Tuesday, shortly after 11:30 a.m. CDT, the first reports of gunshots heard at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas—just about 85 miles west of San Antonio—were reported. As of this morning, a total of 21 people, 19 of them children, have been confirmed dead in what is just the latest school shooting, a tragedy that feels like an everyday occurrence in America (and nowhere but America).

While it’s easy to feel helpless in the wake of such a tragedy, a clearly emotional Stephen Colbert took a moment at the very beginning of his Tuesday night show to remind viewers that there’s something very important they can do in helping to curb this national epidemic of violence: vote! Colbert’s message was heartfelt and poignant:

There is NOTHING that can ever be said that can approach the immeasurable grief of those families. But while we’re at it, let’s pray this time our leaders show a modicum of courage in trying to prevent this from ever happening again.

But prayers won’t end this. Voting might. So when you vote, ask yourself this question: Who, running for office, has publicly stated that they’re willing to do anything and everything in their power to protect your children from the criminally insane number of guns in America?

Colbert went on to remind everyone that “This year, your vote is not a theory. Because we’re just a few months away from the midterm elections and tonight there are primaries in five states.”

You can watch his full commentary above.

Riding high on a stream of rave reviews and the prevailing winds of audiences who’ve shown their eagerness to return to theaters, Top Gun: Maverick is locked and loaded to be Tom Cruise‘s best opening weekend ever at the global and American box office. According to analysts, Cruise is looking at a potential $92 to $100 million box office haul in the states with that number virtually doubling when you throw in international box offices for a projected grand total of $180 million, a career best for the actor.

On top of the strong word of mouth, Top Gun: Maverick is also being aided by what Deadline is calling one of, if not the biggest number of theater showings ever. We’re talking a Marvel-scale release and then some:

In U.S. and Canada, the co-financed and co-produced Skydance sequel is booked at 4,727 theaters; arguably the widest release ever, besting the location count of 2019’s The Lion King (4,725 theaters), and the pandemic debuts of Spider-Man: No Way Home (4,336 theaters) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (4,534 sites). Previews start at 3PM on Thursday. However, yesterday, theaters coast to coast hosted “Top Gun Tuesday,” a special pre-opening fan event which started at 7PM presented in Dolby Cinema, IMAX, and other premium large format screens.

Cruise personally saw that Top Gun: Maverick never went to streaming and reportedly used his clout to prevent the film’s release on Paramount+. He also claims to have called up theater owners during the pandemic and calmed their fears by telling them that Top Gun and Mission: Impossible films are coming. Clearly, Cruise’s strategy worked as theaters are giving Top Gun: Maverick all the runway it needs for a massive opening weekend.

(Via Deadline)