Category: News

It is always refreshing to see new acts pay respect to artists who came before them in form of a cover. English singer-songwriter Griff accepted the challenge of reimagining Queen’s transcendent record “A Kind Of Magic,” opting to slow things down a bit but deliver the full magic nonetheless. The cover comes as part of a global expansion effort done by Coke Studio, including six other artists, like Dreamville’s Ari Lennox and K-pop band Tri.be putting their own spin on the 1986 song that reached No. 3 on the UK singles chart.

The aforementioned Coke Studio initiative is paired with the seven artists featured in a documentary titled The Conducter where viewers can see them perform “A Kind Of Magic” together. The 21-year-old tweeted her excitement about the endeavor on Thursday (May 19), sharing that this all started back in December.

The “A Kind Of Magic” cover follows Griff and Sigrid’s reworked single “Head On Fire” after the original iteration took home Best Collaboration at the BandLab NME Awards this past March where Griff also won the NME Radar Award.

Listen to her “A Kind Of Magic” cover above.

Griff is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

There is only one week left until the release of Tate McRae’s highly anticipated debut album I Used To Think I Could Fly, which has been relentlessly hyped up with eclectic singles ranging from vulnerable ballads to catchy anthems, plus a plethora of dancey music videos and emotive late-night television performances.

Today she’s back with a grandiose new music video for her cheeky song “What Would You Do?.” In typical Tate McRae fashion, she takes on a persona. Instead of a babysitter like she was in the “Working” video with Khalid, this time she’s a fed-up valet driver who gets revenge by stealing a car whose license plate is fittingly “2FLY4U.” To avoid getting caught, she tries on a bunch of different colorful wigs.

She also smashes a lot of glass, and dances in a leather suit, which checks out since she told Uproxx: “I always used to say ‘I’m a dancer who sings, not a singer who dances.’ That’s how it always went.” At one point, there’s a plane on fire. A lot goes on, basically.

Watch the video for “What Would You Do?” above.

I Used To Think I Could Fly is out 5/27 via RCA Records. Pre-order it here.

This also made labiodentals easier to produce, as indicated by a 2019 study published in Science magazine. You can catch the video below:

Researchers created two models—one of an edge-to-edge bite and the other of an overbite—to see which version was better for articulating labiodentals. The models clearly showed that the edge-to-edge bite required far more effort. Try to align your bottom and top teeth right now and say “fuh” or “vuh.” Not easy, is it?

The study offered the compelling argument that without the introduction to farming and softer foods, humans might have never incorporated labiodentals into their vocabulary. Even today, modern language used by hunter-gatherer groups use only one-fourth as many labiodental sounds as other languages affected by agriculture.

While the study was met with criticism, its findings offer an unprecedented concept: that our language is shaped not only by cultural and intellectual factors, but also by biological conditions. It also poses some new questions, such as what the spoken word actually sounded like thousands of years ago. It’s certainly an idea to chew on.

Recess will now be mandatory in Georgia for students in grades K-5, thanks to a new law under the state’s Quality Basic Education Act.

Georgia is the 10th state to make recess a requirement, joining Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Missouri, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Virginia and West Virginia, according to the National Association of State Boards of Education.

The bill, signed by Georgia governor Brian Kemp, states that recess could not be taken away by teachers or school officials as a “disciplinary” action. And it’s important to note that unlike PE, which provides physical activity but still contains rigid curriculum, recess is defined here as “unstructured break time.”

Granted, that might be the most boring verbiage ever. Is the word “play” just too chaotic? Regardless, having a bit of unbridled fun is proving to be just as vital to a child’s well-being and development as pure academia.

The American Academy of Pediatrics considers recess a necessity. It offers an essential “respite from rigorous cognitive tasks.” Mental breaks remain an important skill long after school is over. And the habit can be very hard to instill later in life. Just ask the adult writing this article. No amount of Pomodoro timers or right-brained activity lists seem to thwart my ever-constant need to be productive.

Besides, learning doesn’t stop at recess. A 2013 policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics states that “children develop intellectual constructs and cognitive understanding through interactive, manipulative experiences. This type of exploratory experience is a feature of play in an unstructured social environment.” Other studies have indicated that recess actually helps focus and productivity in the classroom.

Recess gives kids a time when they can imagine, move and socialize. Through interactive games in an open environment, they can build lifelong social skills like empathy, leadership, collaboration, conflict resolution … you know, all those things you have to relearn through trust falls at a company team-building retreat. Again, these are tools we will continue to use throughout our life, or at least as long as we’re around other people. Why not develop them on a daily basis?

Recess is perhaps more important than ever as we inch ever-closer to a post-pandemic world, after two-plus years of virtual learning while sitting in front of a computer screen. In fact, it could even be the key to collective healing, according to Elizabeth Cushing, CEO of Playworks. In an interview with USA Today, she noted that “our brains can’t take on the work of learning if we don’t feel safe. Because [recess] makes school feel like a fun, welcoming and inclusive place to be, play can be a really powerful, efficient and easy lever to pull to help kids feel safer.”

The No Child Left Behind Act enacted in 2001 placed an emphasis on standardized test scores. As a result, recess was largely depleted, if not cut out entirely. This was a mistake. Play is in itself a powerful learning tool, one that helps us throughout our entire lifetime. More states mandating this basic necessity is great news. It’s at least one sign that we are moving toward a world where joy, pleasure and human connection are part of a core curriculum. More happy, healthy humans, please.

During their respective collegiate tenures, both Trae Young and JJ Redick were polarizing superstars who opposing fans loved to hate. The hate grew so prominent that fans would chant “f*ck you” at them throughout games.

Recently, Young joined Redick on his podcast, The Old Man & The Three, to discuss an array of topics, including what that dynamic was like for them so young and early in their prominence on the national stage.

“I got comfortable playing that role as a villain,” Redick said. “As a 19-year-old, it really f*cked with me. It really f*cked with me. I’d heard chants in high school, but it’s not the same thing when you’re doing a nationally televised game and everybody is like, ‘Oh, I f*cking hate you.’”

After sharing his own experiences and journey navigating that sort of thing, Redick turned to Young and asked if it affected him during his one year at Oklahoma.

Young didn’t require much time to contemplate on the question before replying with a resounding, “Hell yeah, it messed with me.”

“We played at Texas Tech. I was born in Lubbock, so my dad played there,” Young said. “I’m going home, I’m thinking it’s gonna be crazy, it’s gonna be nice. Midway through the first half, you get one side of the whole arena is yelling, ‘F you,’ and the whole other side is yelling, ‘Trae Young.’ It’s like, did they set this up in harmony?”

“It did mess me up early. But I think going through that helped me go through the (NBA) playoffs and whatever. Now, whenever people say it, I’m able to just brush it off.”

Redick shared how after Virginia Tech upset Duke one year and Hokie fans stormed the court, certain fans taunted his family and prevented them from leaving the arena. Eventually, Redick’s father engaged in a “public dispute” with Virginia Tech’s athletic director. He said experiencing all of that prepared for anything thrown his way in the NBA. Young agreed.

“There’s nothing you can say that I have not heard at this point,” Young said. “That’s how I feel. I’ve heard it all before.”

Zach LaVine is among the biggest names on the market in the 2022 unrestricted free agent class. The Chicago Bulls’ All-Star guard has made clear he’s going into free agency with an open mind, telling the press recently that “I plan to enjoy free agency with what it is as a whole. I think you’re going to have to experience A-Z without making any fast decisions.”

Since then, there have been rumors that LaVine — who has said that he wants a max contract — will be a target for some teams hoping to make a splash. And on Friday, both KC Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago and Marc Stein indicated that the possibility of LaVine leaving the Windy City for somewhere else is more real than ever.

Via NBC Sports Chicago:

A prominent topic of conversation this week has been Zach LaVine’s future. Opinion — some of it educated, some of it guesswork — is varied on what the Chicago Bulls’ two-time All-Star guard will do when he hits unrestricted free agency on July 1.

But this much is certain: His return to the Bulls no longer is considered the slam dunk it once was.

In his latest newsletter, Stein echoed that sentiment by writing “There is much more hope in circulation than anticipated that LaVine can be lured away from the Bulls in free agency.”

LaVine joined the Bulls in the trade that sent Jimmy Butler to the Minnesota Timberwolves back in 2017. In each of the last two years, LaVine has parlayed his play into his first two All-Star nods, and in 2021-22, he averaged 24.4 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 4.5 assists in 34.7 minutes per game. It was the first season of LaVine’s career that his team made it to the playoffs.

There was something lovely about seeing people talk anew about the brilliance of The Kids In The Hall last week when the iconic Canadian sketch group made their return with a new season (available on Amazon Prime) a mere quarter-century and change after their previous finale. There’s a real sense of pride and humanity that swells when you realize other people like the thing you like (and have liked your whole life). That they get it. Kids In The Hall is now and forever a thing built for a specific audience with specific tastes. Never mainstream or conformist. That’s part of their charm. Part of why the new documentary about the troop, Comedy Punks, is so perfectly titled. And perfectly timed, too, coming out a week after the new season (the doc is also on Amazon Prime) to keep that conversation going, reminding fans that the Kids are back while, at the same time, illuminating their origins, feuds, reunions, and overall us against the world ethos.

Last week, we ran an interview with Dave Foley to share some of his thoughts on those same topics. This time, we’re talking with Mark McKinney about the show, the doc, creative ambition, not trying to force fan-favorite characters into rotation, and the absence of regret over the Kids’ long hiatus.

Hello.

I don’t know if you’ve been told, but I’m in a car.

That’s a pretty great mode of transportation.

Yeah. It’s one of my favorites.

Well, I do remember that you guys have fucked them in the past in Car Fuckers [a 2008 one-off sketch that seems impossible to find on the internet now].

We have fucked the automobile. That’s right. Directed by the Russo brothers.

Was it? I did not realize that. Honestly, now I really think Marvel had a missed opportunity. They should have put that on the poster for the Avengers films, “from the people that brought you Car Fuckers.”

Exactly, please note that I asked, “Where are they now?”

You really wrecked their career actually. Nice job.

Sorry. I feel bad, but there are two of them. They should be able to forage together something.

So the show is tremendous. It’d be weird if I was doing this and I had no affection for you guys, or your work. What is this for? Is this a Superstore DVD extra?

[Laughing] I am stealing that. I’m going to find a reason to put that on my Insta. Attention, Superstore DVD extra: Kids In The Hall.

So, the Comedy Punks doc is also great. You had mentioned there that you, yourself, don’t have any ambition. I thought that was funny because you can’t really tell. You’ve done a bit. Was that just an off-the-cuff joke, or is that something you honestly feel?

Well, I don’t know. What is ambition? Maybe it’s not competitive ambition. I have creative ambition, a lot of it. I mean, I’ve done a ton of stuff. But in a way, I don’t have a plan. I’ve never tried to scheme my career. And I think collectively, the Kids In The Hall have. And I think individually, I’m probably on the low end of ambition, of business ambition in the troop, but maybe not creative ambition. But it was also a bit, so I don’t know. But it’s something I noticed the other day when I was watching it at the Hot Docs Festival. I sort of went home going, “What did I mean by that? Am I talking to myself?”

I think for me it goes back to the beginning. I think I said this in the doc. But the Loose Moose Theater was a theater in Calgary that myself and Norm Hiscock, one of the eventual Kids In The Hall writers went and saw when we were 20 years old and trying to find a way to write comedy. You could have a theater sports team and be on stage the next week if you signed up. And I would never have been able to think my way on stage. It had to be like that. “Well, we’re doing it.” “Oh, we are?” I would’ve been too self-conscious. I have too strong a belief in orthodoxies, in systems, and stuff like that, too much of a WASP-y respect for law and order and meritocracies and hierarchies. You know what I mean? I would’ve tried to find my way nimbly through them. I’m much, much better when I’m forced into a reaction or an unselfconscious choice.

You all did a great job of weaving in the classic and the new. Going in, was that a concern? Not wanting to just give people a bunch of older material. Giving them a bit of new stuff. Was that part of the challenge that excited you?

Oh, very much so. I wanted this to be the Kids In The Hall, 30 years on. What would we write now? Old characters had to be apt. They had to fit. Otherwise, we weren’t going to be interested. It didn’t feel like that’s what this was about. This was like, holy cow, we got this amazing chance to stand on our feet in a television format as opposed to stage or something. And I wanted to see what that was for myself.

The characters that worked were bizarre. I didn’t sit down to write the Hotel La Rut characters again. I just found myself in a moment of COVID sloth, being too tired to get up and get my iPad. And I started muttering to myself in that language and Scott liked the idea. So we did it.

So there was no whiteboard with like, “Okay, we’ve got to do this character?”

No, no, no, no. We’ve never worked that way. Had we worked that way, we would be very successful, we’d be huge. But no, we never worked that way with an imperative on the material.

As you’re doing this and seeing the results, do you feel regret that you guys weren’t able to get more movies out to follow Brain Candy or to be able to otherwise capitalize on it? Obviously, there are a billion, different reasons why something like that didn’t come together, but I’m curious.

No, I think more like a kind of a radical acceptance that really the secret sauce of Kids In The Hall is the exact kind of contrast and bracing contrast that makes writing a single narrative movie kind of almost impossible. We wrote an original idea for Brain Candy. I think the Pythons were very smart to riff off the Arthurian legends and the Bible because everyone can contribute to that. Do you know what I mean? It’s the unifying force.

We kind of pulled back and forth over the threads of the story of Brain Candy. And that actually pointed the way to a revival. You know what makes us work? It’s a Scott monologue, followed by a weird piece by me, followed by a Dave and Kevin classic, followed by a Bruce. It’s the gumbo of that, that is the Kids In The Hall. I think now maybe if there was ever a window, we could go back and do something. An archetype.

‘Kids In The Hall’ and ‘Comedy Punks’ can both be found on Amazon Prime

Robert Smith has been teasing The Cure’s next record for a bit; they haven’t released an LP since 2008’s 4:13 Dream, though they’ve had some fun live singles and collaborations. A couple of months ago, the “Friday I’m In Love” singer told NME: “I know what it’s called – it’s called Songs Of A Lost World. It’s got artwork, it’s got a running order, it’s almost done! They’re so slow because of vinyl, but it might come in September. I’d rather it just came out. I can’t stand the anticipation.”

Yesterday, he finally gave another update at the Ivor Novellos, where he received the Icon Award. “We will be releasing a new album,” Smith told NME. “I get fed up of saying this now! We will be playing from October and the new album will be out before then. We walked on [stage at the Ivors today] to a bit of new music, actually. Hopefully no one recorded it!”

He continued: “Reeves [Gabrels] our guitar player has come over from America for the day just to finish a couple of solos, I’ve got to finish a couple of vocals. Essentially it’s a 12-track album. It’s there, it’s kind of half-mixed and half-finished. It’s a weird thing. It’s kind of evolved over the last two years. It hasn’t always been a good thing to have been left alone with it. You pick at it, like picking at seams, and everything falls apart.”

George Miller has directed four movies since 2000: Happy Feet, the dancing penguin movie; Happy Feet Two, the sequel to the dancing penguin movie; Mad Max: Fury Road, arguably the best movie of the 2010s; and Three Thousand Years of Longing, starring Idris Elba as a genie who grants Tilda Swinton three wishes. The man is a legend.

Three Thousand Years of Longing follows Dr. Alithea Binnie (Swinton), a solitary academic who purchases a trinket in a grand bazaar in Istanbul, as one does. Inside is a Djinn (Elba) who “offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom,” according to the official plot summary. “This presents two problems. First, she doubts that he is real and second, because she is a scholar of story and mythology, she knows all the cautionary tales of wishes gone wrong.” To satiate her, the Djinn tells stories from the past, which apparently involves spiders, swords, and lots of screaming.

It’s a whole new world, one where Idris Elba is a buff genie. A better world, imo.

Three Thousand Years of Longing premieres at the Cannes Film Festival today, May 20, before hitting theaters on August 31. If I had three wishes, I would use my first one to make it August 31 today, and spend the second on hurrying up production on Furiosa.

Blueface and DDG have a strong respect for one another, and it goes without saying they both like to have a good time. The two young rappers join forces on the new video for their collaboration “Meat This” to remind us of their proclivity to enjoy life. Blueface and DDG find themselves in the company of many women at the club or collecting stacks of money and gold to fund their expansive lifestyles.

“Meat This” kicks off the lead-up to their upcoming full-length collaborative project set to release later this year. Though there is currently no name for the project or set release date, the union makes sense as Blueface and DDG previously traded verses on the remix to the latter’s Platinum-certified record “Moonwalking In Calabasas,” in addition to “BGC” and a snippet that has been titled “Rich Guy.”

Blueface has been enjoying the success of the November release “Chose Me” featuring the bubbling sensation Blxst, as it topped Triller Global Charts earlier this month. As for DDG, he tapped Gunna back in February for “Elon Musk.” With Blueface last putting out a project in 2020, and DDG 2021, this is an exciting new direction for the two.

Check out the video for “Meat This” above.