Category: News

Big Sean and Hit-Boy brought their What You Expect EP single “What A Life” to the Tonight Show stage on Thursday with a thrilling, elegant performance. Decked out in matching tailored suits and enjoying a luxurious meal in a stately lounge, the dynamic duo is presented with a mic for Sean and a beat machine atop a grand piano for Hit-Boy. While the performance begins while they’re still seated, they smoothly slide from their well-appointed booth to a makeshift stage in the center of the room, where Sean goes for broke and Hit shows off his finger drumming skills.

The new project, which finds the two frequent collaborators paired up for a full five tracks that demonstrate the breadth and depth of their chemistry, is also the first of Big Sean’s new label venture independent of his past association with Kanye West’s GOOD Music. The timing of its release turned out to be opportune as well, as Ye’s appearance on the Drink Champs podcast just days later found Sean’s onetime mentor throwing him under the bus by saying that signing Sean to GOOD was the “worst thing” he ever did. Sean laughed off his old boss’ digs, although he did point out that Ye still owes him millions from their initial deal.

Instead, Sean and Hit focused on the positive, following up with more videos from the EP, including “The One” and “Chaos,” showing that they’ll both be just fine without help from the mercurial Mr. West.

Watch Big Sean and Hit-Boy’s late-night performance of “What A Life” above.

Seth Meyers has no love for Paul Gosar. The conspiracy theory-lovin’ Congressman was a main topic of Meyers’ “A Closer Look” segment on Thursday, and with good reason. On Wednesday, Gosar became the 24th person in American history—and the first in more than a decade—to be censured by the House of Representatives and stripped of his committee assignments for tweeting a violent anime video in which he’s seen murdering Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez then going after Joe Biden.

Gosar, whose own sister called him a “sociopath” and whose entire family seems to be disgusted by him, wasn’t about to go down without a fight though. He attempted to defend himself by saying that, “No matter how much the Left tries to quiet me, I will continue to speak out. If I must join Alexander Hamilton, the first person attempted to be censured by this House, so be it. It is done.”

Meyers brushed off the Hamilton comparison and spoke for most people when he said he’d be terrified to hear Gosar rap. But what he really loved about Gosar’s comments is “when these idiots try to sound smart and adopt a defiant tone by using dramatic language like, ‘So be it. It is done.’ You don’t sound like a Founding Father—you sound like Cousin Greg.”

Meyers directly addressed the Republicans who are complaining that this censure is a waste of time by pointing out that“This whole thing would have been much easier and taken up much less time if you’d just been willing to step forward and say, ‘It was a deeply stupid tweet.’ But, to be fair, he is a deeply stupid man.” He went on to say:

“While Democrats were focused on signing a widely popular infrastructure bill into law, these lunatics were defending the insane behavior of one of their most unhinged and reckless members. [Louie] Gohmert offered perhaps the dumbest defense, claiming he tried to freeze the video to see the violence but couldn’t find it… Then there was Matt Gaetz, who tried to dismiss the video in question as just a cartoon while neglecting to mention that it was specifically doctored to make AOC the target of violence.”

Between defending Gosar and attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, Meyers lamented that “This is what the modern Republican party is. There’s no behavior too grotesque for them to defend, as five years of Donald Trump proved.”

You can watch the full segment above.

The amount of Gecs the world has is growing at an exponential rate. 100 Gecs formed in 2015, then in 2019, they released their debut album, 1000 Gecs. Last month, they confirmed they have a new album, 10000 Gecs, dropping early next year. They teased a new song last week, and now “Mememe” is here.

It should come as no surprise, but the video they shared for the song is pretty bizarre. It’s shot largely with a strong fish-eye lens, often from the perspective of inside of a mouth. In the clip, Dylan Brady and Laura Les dance around a park as they don wizard costumes and sing the song. As for the song itself, it doesn’t stick to one genre for all that long, as it moves between pop-punk, ska, industrial, and electronic sounds. As the duo tends to do, though, they combine these disparate elements into a surprisingly cohesive and delightful whole.

The band releases the song as they’re in the midst of wrapping up their current tour, which they started in October. They’re playing The Observatory in Santa Ana, California tonight, then they’ll be in Los Angeles tomorrow, then they’re taking a break before December shows in Philadelphia and New York City.

Watch the “Mememe” video above.

There’s apparently no bad blood between Scarlett Johansson and Marvel following her Black Widow lawsuit that led to some tense statements from both the actress and Disney, Marvel Studios’ parent company, in the press. During a star-studded red carpet event on Thursday night where Johansson was the recipient of the American Cinematheque Award, the actress was supported by her fellow Avengers. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, and Samuel L. Jackson were in attendance for the event in Johansson’s honor, which saw Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige reveal that the actress’ time with Marvel was not over yet. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

Feige went on to praise Johansson’s skill as an actor-producer, a first for the MCU, saying how she helped bring in director Cate Shortland and shape the film as an ensemble “with equally fantastic” actors. “That’s what a smart producer does. She is a very, very smart producer,” said Feige before confirming an unannounced project.

“We are already working with Scarlett on another non-Black Widow related top-secret Marvel Studios project with her as a producer,” he said.

As for the elephant in the room, Johansson spoke freely about the Black Widow lawsuit, which she feels was a necessary move not just for her, but her fellow actors.

“I feel mostly very fortunate that nobody will have to go through what I went through and that it’s made, I think, a positive impact in the industry and hopefully for artists and creatives’ lives and livelihood,” Johansson told THR.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — Listen to me

I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I feel like I’m onto something good here, so just hear me out: I want to hear Brian Cox from Succession swear at the Muppets.

My reasoning for this is simple and straightforward: I think it would be funny. Take a second and picture it now. Brian Cox in all his grumbly, growly, Logan Roy glory, as ornery as a grizzly bear, addressing a cheerful Kermit and Fozzie as they run up to him with some cockamamie Muppet scheme or problem, hearing them out and as the veins begin to rise up from inside his temples, and then, when they finally finish… blammo.

Any cuss word will do, I suspect, although the classic Logan Roy EFF OFF would be ideal. And any Muppet will do, too, although the Kermit and Fozzie thing would be best because of their boundless optimism and cheer. Gonzo would also work, just because of the silliness and anarchy he brings to every scene he’s in. I actually started visualizing that as I was typing it, Brian Cox shouting filthy profanity at a fuzzy blue puppet with a long hooked nose, Gonzo freezing and looking into the camera, all of it. I’m laughing now. I kind of can’t stop. I’m going to have to take a break until I stop. I miggt make a typo.

Okay, I’m back. And here’s the thing: This is a good idea. Not every actor plays well off the Muppets. Some people go a little too big, or can’t turn off the voice in their head that’s like “HOLY CRAP I AM TALKING TO KERMIT, THERE’S A GUY RIGHT THERE DOING THE VOICE.” Some of them go too cute. The trick, which I say as someone who has watched many Muppet things many times, is to play it dead serious. This is why Michael Caine was perfect as Scrooge in A Muppet Christmas Carol and it’s why Charles Grodin was even better than perfect in The Great Muppet Caper. Look at a king do work.

I think Brian Cox has this quality, too. I think it for a handful of reasons, starting with the gravitas and extending to the thing where his children on Succession — especially Roman and Kendall — are basically human Muppets already. This can work. I know it. Let him play a cranky CEO of a company the Muppets work for. Remake A Muppet Christmas Carol with him as Scrooge. Have him show up as Miss Piggy’s wealthy uncle who doesn’t approve of her romantic relationship with a frog. I don’t care. The only important things here are that Brian Cox is on screen with the Muppets and that he swears at them.

I’m aware that this second thing is a break from tradition. The Muppets can skew chaotic at times, teetering toward naughty with little glances straight into the camera to let the adults in the audience know that they grasped the double entendres one of them made. But there’s not, like, actual adult content. There’s not anything above PG happening here. People will be a little mad about it, if there’s cussing in a Muppet movie. I get that. I do. But allow me to present my reasoning in a simple three-part case:

• It would be hilarious
• I would like it
• Just let me have this one thing, Jesus Christ, come on, I don’t ask for much

Think it over, Disney. We can tinker with the age restrictions somehow. It doesn’t even need to be a lot of cussing. I’ll settle for one. I would prefer if there are more, in part because I’d like to hear Miss Piggy cuss back at him, but I’m willing to compromise. Let Brian Cox tell one Muppet to eff off. For me. For us. For the people. I think we all deserve it.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — We’re not so different, you and I

Red Notice is not what I would describe as a “good” movie. It’s, like, fine. It’s fine. It’s a perfectly fine, perfectly disposable movie to watch on a Friday night while you’re doing one or two other things. It’s got The Rock and Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot and they’re all wearing fancy clothes in fancy establishments in fancy locations around the world. The last 20ish minutes of the movie is basically wall-to-wall twists. There are so many twists. Too many, some might argue. I will not argue this, though, only because I have other business to get to.

Near the end of the movie, The Rock and Ryan Reynolds sit down for a conversation and The Rock says the two of them are “not that different.” I wish I could have put money on someone saying something like that at some point in the movie. I’ve never seen a movie with more “we’re not so different” energy in my entire life, and I hunt these kinds of movies out on purpose. I literally turned to the person I was watching it with less than 15 minutes into the action and said “Someone is gonna give the ‘not so different’ speech before this ends” and then I whooped and gloated when it happened. I am not a fun person to watch a movie with.

And then, a few days later, it happened again. I was watching the new Bond movie, No Time to Die, with a different person, and James Bond and Evil Rami Malek (whose character almost certainly had a name) sat down for a chat near the end, and I said, excitedly, as I saw what was starting to happen, “THEY’RE NOT SO DIFFERENT.” (Again, you do not want to watch movies with me.) Moments later, Evil Rami Malek said this…

Hmm. Not exactly the line, but basically the line. You see this sometimes, where they try to class it up a little with fancy language. My personal favorite is when someone says “we’re two sides of the same coin.” I have been trying to jam this into a conversation organically for well over a decade and it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe one day. Maybe I’ll just say it to the guy who delivers my food tonight, unprompted, as I hand him his tip with an unexplained menace in my eyes. Either way, to my shock and utter delight, after Evil Rami Malek’s little speech, James Bond said this…

TWICE

THEY DID IT TWICE

THEY REALLY AREN’T SO DIFFERENT AFTER ALL

The only logical takeaway here is that everyone in Hollywood is making movies specifically tailored to me and my incredibly stupid sensibilities. I appreciate this very much

ITEM NUMBER THREE — I need to see Kristen Stewart’s gay ghost-hunting show

Kristen Stewart is out doing press for her new Princess Diana movie, Spencer. This is good news because Kristen Stewart rules. She just sneers and scoffs and screws with people and it’s great. Someone asked her about her Oscar chances and she replied that she didn’t give a shit. She said she wants Guy Fieri to officiate her wedding. She has settled into a nice little groove as a talented rascal and I respect it a lot.

She also, in a big fancy profile at The New Yorker, said this:

In addition to “The Chronology of Water,” Stewart is writing a TV series with Meyer and developing a gay ghost-hunting reality show with a friend, which she has described to me as “a paranormal romp in a queer space,” with elevated aesthetics. “Gay people love pretty things,” she added. “So we are aiming for a richness.”

Two things are undeniably true here: One, I want to watch Kristen Stewart’s gay ghost-hunting show very much; two, there is at least a 40 percent chance this isn’t a real thing and she made it all up to screw with our nation’s most prestigious magazine. Whatever is happening here, I respect it. There are no losers here. Not me, not you, not Kristen Stewart, and not the ghosts, who will either be left alone if it’s a goof or treated to wonderful richness if it’s real. Real win-win on our hands with this one.

I’ll tell you what, man. Between this and the thing where Robert Pattinson blew up his microwave while making pasta during a GQ profile, it seems like the set of Twilight was a fun and chaotic place. Good for all of them.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — It is kind of wild that there wasn’t already a series about the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape, right?

A few things:

• This is the trailer for the upcoming Hulu limited series Pam & Tommy, about the release of the infamous sex tape featuring Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson
• I am kind of amazed it took us — like, as a society — this long to make a limited series or movie about all of this, in part because it has everything a flashy limited series needs (sex, crime, fame, rock stars, bombshells, etc.) and in part because every other semi-notable event from the 1990s has already been mined for content
• It is staggering how much Lily James and Sebastian Stan look like Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, to the degree that it feels like the makeup department should be nominated for a more significant award than just an Emmy, like maybe a Nobel or MacArthur Genius Grant
• More shows should feature Seth Rogen and Nick Offerman as sleazy dudes with mullets who are organizing a heist

We are absolutely watching this one, folks.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — All Ridley Scott wants to do is make movies and talk shit

Ridley Scott is 1,000 years old (84 next week) and has directed 600 movies (56 according to IMDb, including those in production). He has two out making the rounds now, House of Gucci and The Last Duel, which could not be more different if they tried. He directed Gladiator and Alien and Blade Runner and Thelma & Louise. He has the legacy and bona fides to say pretty much anything he wants to these days, which is good, because the only thing Ridley Scott loves more than making movies at a breakneck pace is talking a lot of shit.

This brings us to an interview he did with Deadline a few days ago. I encourage you to go read the whole thing. It is long and comprehensive and a classic example of a master in his field holding court. I feel like you could learn as much about movie-making in a 20-minute conversation with Ridley Scott as you could in a Master’s program at USC. Maybe more. But that’s not what I want to talk about here. What I want to talk about here is Ridley Scott talking shit.

Let’s pull out some highlights, just stripped completely of their context.

So, it’s gone grotesque; it makes no sense whatsoever. They can’t measure their genius by that amount of money. It doesn’t make sense, right? They found a window with a genius item [holds up his cell phone] and I think the fucker who made this has fucked up probably this entire millennium new generation.

Off to a terrific start. It’s important to note here that this isn’t just “old man yells about kids these days.” He’s making a point, more or less, about technology and its effect on society. But mostly I like that he’s roasting a long-dead Steve Jobs. I think Steve would have appreciated it.

I think that’s where we are today because we really want to get on with our lives and do what we need to do, and hopefully, the people we vote for don’t fuck it up, and mostly they do.

Perfect. Excellent. Basically the entire human experience in a single sentence. And it’s here better.

There’s nothing worse than a guy who can’t dance, pretending he can. Nothing worse. There’s no way I will go near a dance floor, and my wife is Costa Rican. What can I tell you? I look like a fucking idiot, right? So, it’s best not to dance.

“So it’s best not to dance.”

I would honestly take an entire philosophy course taught by this man. Again, this is in an interview about some movies he made. I still think you should read the whole thing to see how he got here, but it’s also amazing as a stand-alone life lesson.

Almost always, the best films are driven by the characters, and we’ll come to superheroes after this if you want, because I’ll crush it. I’ll fucking crush it. They’re fucking boring as shit.

There’s a long list of directors who jump at the chance to talk trash about superhero movies when they’re asked about them, but what I love here is that Ridley doesn’t even wait for the question. He’s just spraying bullets willy-nilly at this point. And as he mentions in his next paragraph, Gladiator and Alien and Blade Runner are all, at their heart, superhero movies. It’s not the idea of them that bothers him. It’s what’s being done with them now.

It’s fun to picture him saying this exact quote to, like, the person behind him in line at the bank instead of an entertainment journalist. Just totally out of the blue, like it’s his version of small talk. Which it might be. Take a second and work up that mental image. It’s a delight.

In The Last Duel, there’s no French accent. That would’ve been a disaster, and yet, it’s all French. Who cares? Like, shut the fuck up, then you’ll enjoy the movie.

Ridley Scott, if you are reading this, and I am extremely confident you are not, please start a podcast.

ITEM NUMBER SIX — Look at this freakin’ guy

Well, guess what: there’s going to be a Baby Yoda balloon at this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. As there should be. I know it’s easy to get irony poisoned by the world and start scoffing at things that are honestly pretty blatant attempts by massive conglomerates to sell adorable toys to children, but also, like, chill out. A little. Chill out a little. Be vigilant about the things that matter and keep the people close to you close at all costs but also it’s fine to admit that Baby Yoda is cute as hell and this balloon kind of rules. There are lots of other corporate-ass balloons out there. Snoopy has a balloon. So does Spider-man. Just relax and enjoy. Look at that guy up there. Look at his little face.

Decider went and got the scoop on it all, talking to some of the people involved and everything. I am both glad they did and insanely jealous I did not get the Baby Yoda balloon exclusive. I’m a journalist! Kind of!

Hmm. I appear to have veered off course. Again. Let’s go to the blockquotes

“How do we find something that’s so relevant in pop culture, but also feels like it’s fun?” Mariotti recalled. “And so you start going around and… You’re in the pandemic. There’s not a lot of new… Very little movies, very little new TV shows coming out. And the one piece of content that was kind of like our cowbell for the entire time has been Mandalorian.”

I mean, yeah, that’ll do it. And again, the bigger surprise here is that there hasn’t already been a Baby Yoda balloon. Feels like a no-brainer. I’m glad we’ve righted this historical wrong.

“When I first saw this balloon in person, I saw the feet dangle in the back and I was like, it’s so cute from behind,” Ben Butcher, senior vice president of creative for Funko recalled. “We’re going to win any cute awards for this show.”

I do not think the Cute Awards are a thing but if they are, then yeah, I think this one is pretty much locked up. I’m going to tune in just to see if you can hear the crowd’s audible un-mic’d “awwww” through the television. If this makes me a sap and chump, then fine. I earned this one. I’ll accept it.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Amanda:

This is a little off-topic for you, but I know you’ve discussed audiobooks and audiobook narrators in the past, and I was wondering if you have a favorite reader.
My previous champion was Kate Winslet, whose reading of Roald Dahl’s Mathilda should have won her an EGOT (yeah, I know only one of those awards is applicable to audiobooks, but her reading is that good). But I recently started listening to Beverly Cleary’s Henry Huggins series with my kids, and I have a new champ.

Two of the books we’ve listened to so far are read by Neil Patrick Harris. He is, expectedly, a delight. But today we started listening to his reading of “Henry and Ribsy,” and, about five minutes in, NPH is tasked with singing a dog food jingle.

And he SINGS it. Like, he puts some body into it. It’s goofy and charming and weird and I loved it so much and I am so glad I had kids if for no other reason than to share moments like this with them.

First of all, I love it. It’s a good email. And it’s got useful information in there, too. Be more like Amanda, everyone. More emails like this. About whatever. Let’s get weird.

To answer the question: I do not think I have a single favorite narrator. I think a lot of it is a matter of matching up a person with the right subject matter. Like, Meryl Streep does the audiobook for Heartburn by Nora Ephron and, as you can imagine, it’s pretty much perfect. And I suspect I would listen to any audiobook narrated by John C. Reilly. Imagine him reading… I don’t know… the Harry Potter books. That would be awesome.

To answer your question, though, here are three specific favorites:

• Barry Bostwick narrating Skinny Dip by Carl Hiassen, because that book is a blast and his voice is smoother than glass
• Dennis Quaid narrating The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe, because that books whoops ass and Dennis Quaid has the right “whiskey and unfiltered cigarettes” kind of voice to capture the whole cowboy/spaceman vibes of the earliest astronauts
• Rosie Perez narrating a chapter of Beastie Boys Book, because, like Neil Patrick Harris, Rosie sells the hell out of that sucker

This was a good chat. Thank you, Amanda.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To France!

Three tonnes of oysters that were ready to be sold have been stolen from a farm on the Île de Ré (Charente-Maritime) in south-west France, amounting to losses of around €20,000.

SACRE BLEU

WE HAVE AN OYSTER HEIST

Oysters are traditionally eaten during Christmas and end-of-year celebrations in France.

CHRISTMAS IS RUINED

Approximately 30,000 tonnes of oysters are produced in Charente-Maritime by a thousand or so small farmers each year, which represents one third of the national production.

I’m just going to say it: I have no grasp of what 30,000 tons of oysters looks like. Like, I have no way to make sense of that figure. It… it seems like a lot of oysters. But I would consider 50 oysters to be a lot of oysters. Really anything over about 35 oysters is just “a lot of oysters” to me. So 30,000 tons of oysters might as well be all of the oysters in the world. I kind of want to see it now. I’m officially curious. If you or anyone you know has the ability to get, say, five tons of oysters in one location, call me. I won’t be weird about it. I just want to look at them.

I don’t know. I guess it’s not all that important considering this next part.

Thefts of the mollusks are common in the area in the run up to Christmas. This is despite the fact that oyster beds are monitored by gendarmes, who use technology such as trackers camouflaged as oysters and drones.

See, this is the thing about reading: Prior to this article, I had no interest in the worldwide oyster market. Now, I might quit my job to write a screenplay about Jason Statham trying to steal thousands of tons of oysters from a heavily-guarded oyster farm — and we are talking lasers and armed goons here, just to be clear — owned by an international oyster tycoon played by Christopher Walken, who, surprise, bankrupted Statham’s father’s small oyster farm decades earlier, sending him into a life of crime. You would watch that movie. Don’t lie to me.

DON’T LIE.

Paul Pierce was recently minted as an NBA Hall of Famer, a legendary Boston Celtic who was the face of the franchise for more than a decade, finally earning a championship ring in 2008 when the Big 3 Celtics beat the Lakers in the Finals. For many, the indelible image of Pierce is Game 1 of that Finals, when he left in a wheelchair, apparently in agony, only to return later to help the Celtics to a 98-88 win.

For some, it’s a heroic image — Pierce’s Willis Reed moment. For others, it’s one of the NBA’s great conspiracy theories that Pierce’s quick return to the court was because he wasn’t actually injured, but that he was whisked off the court in a wheelchair because he pooped his pants — Lamar Jackson, when accused of rushing off the field for a poop emergency himself, cemented Pierce’s legacy by simply saying “I didn’t pull a Paul Pierce.”

Pierce added fuel to the fire by jokingly admitting that was the case while he worked for ESPN, which didn’t help his case and in the time since he has spent a portion of seemingly every interview being asked about it and vehemently denying that he pooped his pants. The latest instance of this came on the “What Did I Miss?” podcast with Michelle Beadle on The Athletic, where Pierce tried to offer some logic as to why the pooping your pants theory doesn’t make sense.

“If you poop your pants, does it make sense to sit down and mush it in a wheelchair?” Pierce asked Beadle. “I would walk back there and go straight to the bathroom. Why would I need a wheelchair if I pooped my pants? You don’t sit down on your poop, right? It doesn’t make sense.”

I’ll be honest, this is a pretty good explanation on the surface. However, I would counter by saying that if the goal is to make it look like you didn’t poop your pants in an NBA Finals game, you no longer care about the damage done but covering it up. And if the goal is to keep up appearances, you would not hurriedly walk to the bathroom, but ensure that no one could see what happened to those white shorts by being taken off in a wheelchair.

The unfortunate thing for Pierce is that, at this point, there is nothing he can say that will dissuade people from believing this theory who are already all-in on it. The best thing he can do is to just say “I’ve explained what happened there, people are going to believe what they want but I know the truth and it’s not what happened,” and quickly move on. That would do a lot more for stopping the questions from being asked as much than getting riled up about and producing soundbites that remind everyone of the incident and only further lead to people analyzing the tape like the Zapruder film to try and prove that he’s lying.

It won’t be long now before the year-end lists start rolling out, which means it’s time to look ahead to what we can expect in 2022. This week, Steve and Ian give their takes and predictions for albums coming out next year, including Mitski, Beach House, Big Thief, and many more. They each give their confidence ratings between 1 and 10, and discuss the indie rock landscape that these albums will be released upon. Some of their opinions are informed by early listens of the records, while others are pure theorizing.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian is spreading the good word about Buds, the hotly anticipated new record from Connecticut outfit Ovlov. Meanwhile, Steve is enjoying the debut album from Irish quartet Pillow Queens, which actually came out last year and sounds like The Cranberries with a slightly punkier vibe.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 66 on Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

In 2010, Earl Sweatshirt was just another member of the upstart LA skate-rat rap crew Odd Future, who were all still about a year away from their explosive leap to mainstream notoriety. Their punk-inspired, DIY ethos was only just beginning to ruffle feathers at the tastemaking blogs who just didn’t get what their whole thing was about, and Earl had yet to be shipped off to boarding school, which is what prompted the “Free Earl” movement among their fans and made him one of the group’s standouts alongside Tyler The Creator and Syd Tha Kid.

On “2010,” Earl’s new single and video, he reminisces about those days before fame, when he was just a depressed teen butting heads with his professor mom. The Ryosuke Tanzawa-directed video captures Earl with soft focus and muted lighting as he roams his house, smoking, and thinking back on a time when things weren’t quite so simple but were perhaps just complicated in a different way.

Fans have been eagerly awaiting Earl’s next album, with frequent teasers in interviews from Vince Staples and The Alchemist only stirring the pot, but until it’s ready for release, the LA native has been featuring with impressive regularity on tracks from other cerebral spitters like Armand Hammer, Boldy James, MIKE, Navy Blue, and Wiki. When the follow-up to 2019’s Feet Of Clay is finished, it’ll have more than enough support from hungry underground rap fans to end up being one of the biggest releases of any given year.

Watch Earl Sweatshirt’s reflective “2010” video above.

A lot of positive energy has been flowing Britney Spears’ way over the past few days, as it was last Friday that her years-long conservatorship was officially brought to an end. Now, another major pop star, Lady Gaga, has offered some words of support, as she applauded Spears’ role in getting herself out of her conservatorship.

During a red carpet interview at the Los Angeles premiere of House Of Gucci, Gaga was asked if she would collaborate with Spears, to which she enthusiastically responded, “Of course I would! Of course.” She was then asked what her favorite Spears song is, and noted after some hesitation that “Oops!… I Did It Again” is one of her top picks.

Gaga then continued, “She’s a woman in this business that showed a lot of power in her sexuality, even in her youth, in a way that for me as a young woman was just so inspiring and empowering. I’d like to say this, truly: We can all root for her, but the person that changed her life was her. So this change that’s happening for her, it happened because of her, I believe. I’m excited for her future and I wish her all the best.”

In the wake of Young Dolph’s murder on Wednesday this week, expressions of mourning and condolences have poured in on social media from both Dolph’s peers and his biggest fans. On Thursday night, his partner Mia Jaye posted a response on Instagram thanking supporters and expressing her own grief at his sudden loss.

“Thank you to everyone for all of your prayers, love, support, calls, messages,” she wrote on an Instagram Story. “I may not see them all but when my eyes are not full of tears, I catch a few. Nonetheless, all the genuine positive vibes, energy and prayers are welcome… because Lord knows I need them.”

In another post, she wondered, “How am I going to tell my babies that daddy is never coming home?” The question accompanied a video of Dolph helping the couple’s daughter — one of two children — do situps, showing how much of a family man he really was, even though longtime fans already knew. Previously, he’d suggested the reason behind his planned (and oft-delayed) retirement was to stay home and play with his kids all day.

Dolph was killed Wednesday in a shooting at a local bakery he frequented. Two men drove up and opened fire — one with an automatic weapon — killing him at the scene. Memphis police continue to investigate, and despite shutting down rival rapper Yo Gotti’s restaurant as a precaution, have yet to announce suspects or arrests. Meanwhile, a man was shot near a vigil being held for the hometown hero, leading to a separate arrest.