Category: News

Thundercat ended 2021 by releasing “Satellite” with Genevieve Artadi and Louis Cole, which appeared on the season five soundtrack for Issa Rae’s show Insecure. The year also saw him win a Grammy for his fourth album, It Is What It Is. Now he’s extending his reach to the small screen: He recently made an appearance on the Disney+ Star Wars spinoff The Book Of Boba Fett, playing a body-modification artist with a robot hand.

The singer’s appearance on the show, his official acting debut, was rather quick, with just a few lines of dialogue as his character spent the scene operating on an injured individual.

Thundercat’s The Book Of Boba Fett appearance comes after he appeared on Kaytranada’s “Be Careful,” from his late 2021 EP Intimidated. He and Bootsy Collins also joined Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars, aka Silk Sonic, on their album An Evening With Silk Sonic album.

You can see a sped-up clip of Thundercat’s appearance in The Book Of Boba Fett in the video above. Later this year, Thundercat will serve as one of the opening acts for The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 2022 Global Stadium Tour.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid is having a monster season, perhaps his best to date, and on Wednesday night against the Orlando Magic, Embiid put forth perhaps his most dominant performance of the year.

In just 27 minutes, Embiid tied a career-high with 50 points in a 123-110 win for the 76ers. Embiid was incredibly efficient, shooting 17-23 from the field and 15-17 from the line. Whatever kind of shot he wanted, he got and he got to the line essentially at will. In addition to his 50 points, Embiid had 12 rebounds, 3 blocks and 2 assists too.

He certainly could have scored more too had he stayed in the game, as he had 47 points through three quarters and only played three minutes in the fourth. He was so dominant that the 76ers didn’t need him in the fourth quarter.

Just look at how Embiid was scoring too. This wasn’t just him battering Magic big men inside and getting to the line. He was hitting fadeaways off a quick post-up and dunking by taking one dribble from the three-point line and just about every other move in his bag. This was a complete scoring performance, with the Magic just having nothing for him.

To take it a step further, the Magic as a team only outscored Embiid 52-20 in the 27 minutes Embiid was on the floor. This game was absolutely peak, MVP-level Embiid. The way he’s playing, and with performances like this, he is absolutely one of the best players in the entire league right now and if the Sixers continue climbing the East standings, he’ll have a tremendous case for the league’s top individual honor by the end of the season.

The Washington Wizards nearly erased an 11-point deficit in the fourth quarter against the Brooklyn Nets, coming up one point shy in a 119-118 loss, which naturally means that any lost possession in the fourth quarter was incredibly costly.

For a lot of Wizards fans, one particularly play will stand out as the reason they lost when they had a possession stolen from them by Nets assistant coach David Vanterpool, who lost his mind and reached out to deflect a pass from Spencer Dinwiddie to Kyle Kuzma, leading to a Kessler Edwards steal with 5:42 to play and the Nets up 109-103, and somehow Brooklyn got away with it.

It is really incredible, especially considering how close one of the referees is to the play and misses Vanterpool stick his hand out onto the court and deflect the ball away from Kuzma, who can’t believe it just happened and that no one else apparently saw it. Edwards retrieves the ball and the Wizards had to retreat on defense despite it, at minimum, needing to be their ball side out and, quite possibly, that earning the Nets bench a technical foul and the Wizards getting a free throw out of it. Kuzma commits a foul to stop play and yell at the ref, understandably furious about what just happened.

While it’s impossible to pin a loss on one play, this happening in the fourth quarter of a one-point loss is truly stunning and Washington fans are rightfully furious. It’ll be interesting to see how the league handles this because one would think a fine has to be on the way for Vanterpool, who immediately knew he’d done something very wrong as he spun away to the bench.

On Monday, New York magazine published a profile of Joss Whedon, the fallen TV and movie maven, who has been accused of all manner of abuse from several former colleagues. Among them was Charisma Carpenter, who played Cordelia Chase on both Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show that made Whedon’s name, and its spinoff Angel. She alleged that he “created hostile and toxic work environments,” and often singled her out. In the profile, Whedon vaguely admitted to some accusations and denied others. And Carpenter, like others, isn’t having it.

Early last year, Carpenter opened up about her history with Whedon, claiming that he started emotionally manipulating her after she became pregnant during Angel’s run, at one point called her “fat,” and fired her the season after she gave birth. Whedon addressed the allegations, saying only that he was “not mannerly” but denying that he’d called her “fat.”

The profile — in which he sharply pushed back against Ray Fisher, the Justice League actor who accused him of different forms of abuse and who dramatically cut down his role as Cyborg for the initial finished product — did not sit well with Carpenter.

In an Instagram post that began with the hashtag “#IStandWithRayFisher,” Carpenter called Whedon a ““tyrannical narcissistic boss who is still unable to be accountable and just apologize.”

Fisher was also displeased with what Whedon said in the piece, including calling him a “bad actors in both senses.” In a Twitter post that began with him showing solidarity with Carpenter, Fisher slammed both “the influence of a White male shadow puppeteer,” as well as the New York reporter who printed a wild conspiracy from Whedon defenders in which original Justice League director Zack Snyder “tricked” Fisher into thinking Whedon was racist. Fisher called that “nonsense.”

Early in the New York profile, Whedon admits that he’s “terrified” of “every word that comes out of my mouth.” But clearly he should have been even more scared of what was on his mind.

(Via Deadline)

The Batman himself Robert Pattinson has been cast in new film from director Bong Joon-Ho. This will be the director’s first film since his mega hit Parasite, which won numerous accolades after its release in 2019. Based on the upcoming novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, the currently untitled movie will be a sci-fi thriller set on a frozen ice world called Nifheim, which is becoming unsuitable for humans.

The novel, which will be released on February 15th, focuses on Mickey7, a clone known as an “expendable,” which is basically a disposable human, who refuses to let another clone work in his place after he is presumed dead. It’s unclear if Pattinson will play the titular clone character, but one can only hope that audience will see several clones of Pattinson roaming around an ice planet. St. Martin Press, who is publishing the novel, describes the story as The Martian meets Dark Matter.

This will be Bong Joon-Ho’s eighth feature film and his first to be distributed by Warner Bros. The director took home numerous awards for Parasite in 2020, including Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Original Screenplay, in addition to other prestigious accolades. Similarly, Pattinson has eleven MTV Movie Awards for his portrayal of Edward Cullen in the Twilight series.

The Miami Heat entered Wednesday night with a chance to swipe the No. 1 spot in the East all by themselves with a win over a scuffling Portland team and a loss by the Bulls against Cleveland.

While mid-January standings aren’t exactly the most important thing in the world, it would be an impressive feat for a Heat team that spent much of December weathering some significant injury absences, along the COVID ins and outs the entire league was dealing with. Now with Bam Adebayo back, the Heat are nearing full strength as they enter the second half of the season — although Kyle Lowry missed the Blazers game for personal reasons.

Already without Lowry, Miami saw its second backcourt star leave the game early when Jimmy Butler got tossed for two technical fouls in succession by two different referees in about 3 seconds of real time.

The first one is absolutely earned, but it certainly looks as though Butler was turning away from the refs and getting the last of his frustration out when the second official stepped in and hit him with a second. It almost looked like the first ref gave the second a look like “don’t do that I just gave him one,” but at that point the second T had been given and Butler was tossed, making Miami’s task all the more difficult for the remainder of the night.

Gunna’s latest album, DS4EVER, is an example of simple yet extremely successful marketing. Since the rapper began promoting the new album, he’s used the slogan “Pushin P” and the blue letter “P” emoji to promote it. The phrase “Pushin P” has varying definitions, as Gunna has often explained. Fans have taken a liking to the ad campaign, which was boosted by the song of the same title from DS4EVER, which features Future and Young Thug.

Fans of the phrase include IHOP, who showed it some love on Wednesday by tweeting, “We’re always pushing pancakes,” with the “P” in pancakes being the blue letter “P” emoji. Gunna quoted the tweet and wrote, “IHOP Pushin P,” with a pair of emojis. But he didn’t stop there. The rapper also posted a screenshot of IHOP’s tweet on Instagram and tagged the company, who reposted it and wrote, “With all this syrup, it’s drip season here at IHOP, too,” with the “P” and pancakes emojis.

DSEVER4 surprised many by debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, making for his second chart-topping album.

You can view the Twitter and Instagram exchanges between Gunna and IHOP above.

DS4EVER is out now via 300 Entertainment / Atlantic. Stream it here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Last fall, few went to go see Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel. But a lot of people went to go see Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, even though it wasn’t one of those superhero movies the director so despises. And why not? It had Jared Leto delivering both the film’s hammiest performance and the most accurate Italian accent. And it had Lady Gaga, who got so into the role of duplicitous Patrizia Reggiani that she thought the woman she was playing sicced “large swarms of flies” after her.

Now we’re learning more about scenes that were cut from a movie that’s already 12 minutes longer than Goodfellas. During a panel discussion, one person had a question for Salma Hayek, who plays hack fortune teller Giuseppina “Pina” Auriemma, about her time working with Gaga. Hayek said the two had a “delicious relationship,” and she apologized that people “didn’t get to see all of the scenes” that wound up being eliminated.

Gaga interjected, saying that the two characters “developed a sexual relationship.” It was something the two basically improvised. “This is a testament to [Scott] as a director because he allowed us to go there, and I remember being on set with Salma and going, ‘So after Maurizio [Adam Driver’s character, whom Patrizia has whacked] dies, maybe it gets hot?’ And she was like, ‘What are you talking about?’”

“You think she’s kidding,” Hayek added.

Gaga wasn’t sure if those scenes would ever see the light of day, saying, “Director’s cut, who knows.”

So there you have it. Not only can Ridley Scott, who’s 84, film two incredibly long movies back-to-back, one of them during a pandemic, but he’ll keep shooting scenes that may never make the final cut, just because his actors think it may be fun.

(Via IndieWire)

Over the last several decades, self-avowed good businessman Donald Trump has declared bankruptcy no less than four times. But in that time he’s been able to avoid any serious legal trouble. That might end soon. As per ABC News, the investigation into the Trump Organization by New York Attorney General Letitia James may still be underway, but they’ve already found plenty of damning evidence.

“Thus far in our investigation, we have uncovered significant evidence that suggests Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit,” James said in a statement released Tuesday night.

There are still three people James and team need to speak with: Donald J. Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump. All three have already been subpoenaed, but, predictably, they have yet to respond. Said James: “The Trumps must comply with our lawful subpoenas for documents and testimony because no one in this country can pick and choose if and how the law applies to them.”

Investigators have been reviewing whether the Trump Organization employed fraudulent or misleading valuations of their holds so as to reap a bevy of economic benefits, ranging from loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office is conducting their own parallel investigation, which has already led to its chief financial officer receiving criminal charges.

The Trumps have inevitably denounced the investigation in the usual Trumpian ways. James has accused them of using “delay tactics and litigation in an attempt to thwart a legitimate investigation into its financial dealings.”

There is one member of the Trump family who’s cooperated with James’ investigation, which began in 2019: Eric Trump. But he wasn’t all that helpful. Over a six hour sit-down, Trump pled the fifth amendment a surely Guinness-breaking 500 times. Just another sure-fire sign that someone is definitely innocent.

Last year, Richmond, Virginia rapper Fly Anakin delivered three projects. He kicked things off with the EP Smokebreak alongside Pink Siifu. Then followed a deluxe edition of his 2020 release FlySiifu’s, which also featured work with Pink Siifu. Finally, he released the seven-track EP Pixote. With a new year ahead of him, Anakin is back in action with new music and an exciting announcement.

On March 11, Anakin will release his debut album Frank and today he shared its first single, “No Dough,” which finds him rapping for a little under two minutes about the importance of keeping a steady income, all with production from Madlib. Frank, which Anakin joked is his “fourth debut album,” will arrive with 17 songs and contributions from Henny L.O., Pink Siifu, Billz Egypt, Nickelus F, and Big Kahuna OG.

You can view the artwork for Frank above and its tracklist below.

01. “Love Song” (Come Back)
02. “Dontbeafraid” Feat. Henny L.O.
03. “Sean Price”
04. “Underdog Theme”
05. “Kenneth Cole Collections” (Skit)
06. “WaxPoetic”
07. “Black Be The Source” Feat. Pink Siifu and Billz Egypt
08. “Ghost” Feat. Nickelus F
09. “Class Clown (Interlude)”
10. “Bread (Skit)”
11. “No Dough”
12. “Grammy Snubnose”
13. “Bad Business (Killswitch)”
14. “Poisonous Primates”
15. “Fly Away (Skit)”
16. “Telepathic” Feat. Big Kahuna OG
17. “Bag Man”

Frank is out 3/11 via Lex Records. You can pre-order it on Bandcamp here.