Category: News

Nearly six months after Polo G dropped his third album, Hall Of Fame, he’s gearing up to share its deluxe reissue. The record, which houses “Rapstar,” Polo G’s first No. 1 song, also became his first chart-topping album, having spent two weeks on the Billboard 200. The rapper announced the deluxe version, which is titled Hall Of Fame 2.0, earlier this month and later shared the first single for it: “Bad Man (Smooth Criminal).” Now, with a little over a week left until it arrives, he unveils the tracklist.

Hall Of Fame 2.0 adds 14 songs to the album’s original 20, while bringing on Lil Baby, Moneybagg Yo, Yungliv, NLE Choppa, and Lil Tjay as additional guests. At the time of its announcement, Polo G shared a trailer where he spoke about the inspiration behind it. “Hall Of Fame 2.0…That was me beating my chest, really coming into my own as an artist and showing I’m gonna stay,” he says. “But before I just close out this chapter, I feel like we should turn up this one more time.”

You can view the deluxe tracklist for Hall Of Fame 2.0 below.

1. “Bad Man (Smooth Criminal)”
2. “Don’t Play” Feat. Lil Baby
3. “Start Up Again” Feat. Moneybagg Yo
4. “Heating Up” Feat. Yungliv
5. “Black Man In America”
6. “Young N Dumb”
7. “Unapologetic” Feat. NLE Choppa
8. “Fortnight”
9. “Decisions”
10. “With You”
11. “Partin Ways”
12. “Suicide” Feat. Lil Tjay
13. “Piano G”
14. “Alright”

Hall Of Fame 2.0 is out 12/3 via Columbia Records. Pre-order it here.

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

Several hundred people have been arrested for their involvement in the Capitol siege on Jan. 6, and they’re an eccentric bunch. The QAnon Shaman may be the most flamboyant perpetrator, but at least he wasn’t arrested while touring in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. That honor belongs to someone else.

According to The Daily Beast, the feds belatedly arrested one James D. Beeks, a 49-year-old musical theater actor who they say was among the violent hordes who breached the Capitol building as Congress was certifying the election of now-president Joe Biden. He was charged with obstruction of Congress and entering a restricted building or grounds.

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1463305470077292547/photo/1

When he was arrested, he was still on the cast list, under his stage name “James T. Justis,” for a touring production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s game-changing rock opera, which takes a reverential yet cockeyed look at the final days of the son of God. He played Judas, the show’s co-lead, who is portrayed as a tragic and quasi-sympathetic character, turning Jesus into the Romans because he’s fears he’s let his messiah complex get in the way of his social activism.

Beeks’ past theater credits include Broadway productions of Kinky Boots, Aida, Ragtime, and Smokey Joe’s Cafe. On his YouTube page, he bills himself as a “Top Michael Jackson Tribute artist.”

But Beeks’ CV is more versatile than most. Two weeks before Jan 6., he reportedly paid dues to the Oath Keepers, the far-right militia group who believe the federal government has been coopted by a shadowy cabal and who encourage their members to disobey law enforcement. While many who showed up that fateful day did so wearing homemade body armor, Beeks came bearing a jacket from Michael Jackson’s tour for the album Bad.

The Jesus Christ Superstar touring show that featured Beeks was due to play Milwaukee Tuesday night, with performances scheduled through Sunday (save Thanksgiving, of course), before moving onto to Toronto. For the role of Judas, at least, it appears they may have to go with an understudy. Still, this perhaps isn’t the most shameful thing to befall Andrew Lloyd Webber in the last couple years.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Even on an NFL Sunday, the sports world was captivated by an on-court squabble between LeBron James and Isaiah Stewart. James caught Stewart with an elbow in the eye and drew blood, which led to Stewart exploding and trying to chase James down on the floor despite myriad obstacles in his way. For their roles, Stewart was suspended for two games and James was suspended for one contest, but the dialogue continues, and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith made waves on Tuesday by indicating that James “has never been feared” by his colleagues.

“LeBron James is too phenomenal and too great not to be incredibly respected, but in my estimation from the people that I’ve spoken to covering the league, he’s never been feared,” Smith said as part of his extended comments. “LeBron is not somebody that instills fear in you.

“With LeBron, you believe you could take him,” Smith went on to say. “You believe that he could be had.”

Immediately following Smith’s monologue, former NBA standout JJ Redick, who was co-hosting on Tuesday, took Smith to task for his comments.

Redick began by describing Smith’s comments as “crazy” and indicating that no one “has ever challenged LeBron” in a physical confrontation. From there, he continued to push back on Smith’s comparison between James and Michael Jordan, pointing out that James developed in a different era, both on the floor and in the media environment.

Ultimately, it seems as if Smith and Redick were kind of arguing different things, but Redick’s viewpoint that LeBron absolutely instills fear is obviously credible. For one, he played against James on the biggest stage repeatedly but, even removing that affiliation, it stands to reason that James, as one of the best players and most physically imposing figures in league history, would provide some level of fear to the opposition. Alas, somehow James and Jordan are always compared, and this is apparently a semi-new way of pitting the two against one another.

Investigators are still working to find the two suspects responsible for Young Dolph’s murder last week. Authorities have already shared photos from surveillance camera footage that capture the shooters moments before they fired into Makeda’s Cookies, a bakery in Memphis that Dolph frequently visited. Now, Tennessee police officials have connected the vehicle used in Dolph’s murder to another shooting that occurred earlier this month. The white Mercedes Benz that the suspects used in Dolph’s shooting was also used during a November 12 shooting in Covington, Tennessee, which is about 40 miles north of Memphis according to NBC News.

Captain Jack Howell of the Covington Police Department says the Mercedes followed another vehicle after a high school game earlier this month. When it came to a stop at an intersection, two individuals exited the Mercedes and fired about 40 rounds from high-powered rifles into the other car, which was occupied by two women. One of the car’s occupants died from their injuries while the other remains hospitalized. Howell said Covington police are working with Memphis officials in order to find the suspects, who they believe are from the Memphis area. The connection between the two crimes was made when the Mercedes was discovered in a Memphis neighborhood on Saturday.

The news comes after Dolph’s longtime partner Mia Jaye and Key Glock, who was Dolph’s cousin by marriage and is also signed to the later rapper’s label Paper Route Empire, both shared touching tributes to Dolph on Instagram.

Acting is just a gig. If a performer is cast as, let’s say, a doctor, it’s not a requirement that that they have any medical knowledge, nor that they even be smart. (That said, Andy Daly can play one anytime.) This is what General Hospital, the near-60-year-old soap that occasionally employs Stephen A. Smith, is finding out the hard way: As per The Hollywood Reporter, they just lost longtime cast member Steve Burton to the vaccine requirements that have become a mainstay of the industry (and have gotten some bewildering pushback). And he’s not even the show’s first one.

Burton made the announcement on his Instagram page, where he revealed the show had “let me go” after his applications for medical and religious exemptions from the vaccine mandate were denied. His reasons for applying were vague; he mentioned “personal freedom” and said, “I don’t think anyone should lose their livelihood over this.”

The loss of Burton comes a day after General Hospital aired the last show featuring Ingo Rademacher, who also departed the show over their vaccine mandate. When news of his departure broke earlier this month, it came the day after his fellow cast members called him out for sharing an anti-trans meme on social media.

Like Rademacher, who had been on the show since 1996, Burton was a General Hospital veteran. He first joined the show in 1991, left in 2012, only to return in 2017. He played Jason Morgan, a character who originated in 1981 and underwent many, often dramatic changes over the decades. During Burton’s tenure alone, been a mob enforcer, a businessman, a restaurant owner, and a coffee importer.

One thing Morgan never was was a doctor.

“Maybe, if one day these mandates are lifted, I can return and finish my career as Jason Morgan, that would be an honor,” he said. What he didn’t seem to realize was that people like him refusing to get vaccinated is what’s going to make the pandemic, and their attendant vaccine mandates, last longer than it should.

(Via THR)

Earlier today, the 2022 Grammy nominations were revealed, and as expected, it had everyone talking. Some artists themselves nominated for one of the show’s 86 awards. Others did not. One who didn’t is Machine Gun Kelly, whose album Tickets To My Downfall failed to get a single nod. After the nominations were announced, he took to Twitter to share his thoughts, writing, simply, “Wtf is wrong with the grammys.”

Tickets to My Downfall was released on September 25, 2021, which falls in the eligibility window for the upcoming award ceremony, namely between September 1, 2020, and September 30, 2021. After its release last fall, Tickets To My Downfall topped the albums chart, giving him his first No. 1 album. Kelly will have another chance at Grammy gold when he drops his next album, Born With Horns, with Travis Barker.

The 2022 Grammy nominations proved to be huge for other artists. Jon Batiste received the second most nominations in the award show’s history with 11, right behind the 12 nominations Michael Jackson and Babyface received in 1984 and 1997, respectively. “WOW!!” Batiste wrote in a tweet afterward celebrating the feat. “Thank you God!! I love EVERYBODY! I’m so grateful to my collaborators and to my ancestors [crying emojis] 11!”

After Batiste, Justin Bieber, Doja Cat, and HER, are tied for the second-most nominations for the 2022 Grammys, with eight. Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo were next up, receiving seven each.

Last week ended with a bombshell: Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges related to shooting three protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, killing two. Since then, the Illinois teen, who largely kept quiet during the last year and change, has been making the interview rounds. First stop was Tucker Carlson, of course, where he accused Joe Biden, when he was running for the job he now holds, of “defaming” him by linking him with the people now cheering his getting off scot-free.

On Tuesday, Fox News’ Peter Doocy tried to come for the president, or at least the White House press secretary. He asked Jen Psaki, his frequent sparring partner, if Biden ever planned to apologize, specifically but not exclusively for a video he released before he won the 2020 election where he grouped him in with other violent militia and white supremacist groups who terrorized the country then, and now.

Psaki began by contextualizing Doocy’s question. “This is about a campaign video released last year that used President Trump’s own words during a debate as he refused to condemn white supremacists and militia groups,” she said. “And President Trump, as you know from history, as many of you covered, didn’t just refuse to condemn militia groups on the debate stage, he actively encouraged them throughout his presidency.

“So what we’ve seen are the tragic consequence of that — when people think it’s okay to take the law into their own hands instead of allowing law enforcement to do its job,” she continued. “And the president believes in condemning hatred, division, and violence. That’s exactly what was done in that video.

When Doocy asked about another similar comment Biden had made about Rittenhouse, she pointed to the notorious photo he posed for alongside members of the Proud Boys, all of them flashing a white power symbol, Rittenhouse included.

In an interview with NewsNation released Tuesday, Rittenhouse placed the blame for that photo on his then-lawyers, including pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Lin Wood, whom he later fired. He said that they’d put him “in situations like that with people I don’t agree with,” that he didn’t know flashing OK had become a white power symbol, and that he had assumed those in the photo with him “were just a bunch of, like, construction dudes based on how they looked.”

Meanwhile, Rittenhouse’s current lawyer has slammed those on the right who’ve tried to exploit Rittenhouse’s case for personal and financial gain, including Matt Gaetz. He was also irritated with Tucker Carlson, but not enough, apparently, to stop his client from making him his first interview.

(Via Raw Story)

Tuesday night’s matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks won’t feature LeBron James. For the first time in James’ career, the future Hall of Fame inductee was suspended for a basketball game following a scuffle in Detroit in which he caught Pistons big man Isaiah Stewart, who started bleeding and lost his cool.

James tried to get Stewart’s number to apologize, but at the end of the day, both guys got suspended — Stewart’s reaction meant that he got one more game tacked onto his. Despite this, Stewart got some support on Inside the NBA from Shaquille O’Neal, who thought his reaction was the sort of thing he had to do in that situation.

“LeBron’s been in the league, what 18, 17 years? Shaq said. “He’s never been that guy. When you’re going strength against strength, and you’re stronger, sometimes, you gotta put that extra uh in there. As he put the uh into him, a guy got hit in the face. Now, Stewart reacted like he was supposed to react. You hit somebody in the face…”

Kenny Smith came in and said he didn’t have to do that, but Shaq had his back, saying, “somebody hits you in the face, you either gotta hit ’em back, or act like you wanna hit ’em back, it’s the only two options.”

As soon as she picked up a violin for the first time, Yuli knew it was the instrument for her. The musician has been playing violin since a young age, but her passion for the music meant she was the kind of kid who never had to be told to practice. Now, years later, Yuli tells Uproxx how she hopes to defy expectations and show that violin “is for everybody.”

For Uproxx’s New Normalists series presented by Instagram, Yuli explains that she began playing violin by accident. Hailing from Detroit, she got involved in her public school’s music program in second grade where she was presented with the option between several different instruments. Yuli was revolted by wind instruments upon seeing their spit valves, so she instead picked up a violin as her instrument of choice.

Though she’s been playing since elementary school, Yuli knows that people don’t expect her to be a talented violinist upon seeing her. “When most people think of violin, viola, they think it’s a certain class that you can’t be a part of,” she told Uproxx. “I’m a Black woman, I’m playing this instrument. Maybe you haven’t seen this but you’re going to enjoy it and you’re going to feel connected to it. I want to show people that this is for everybody.”

As a seasoned musician, Yuli is most proud of her craft when she plays for kids. “I love to make them aware that there are people who look like them who can play these instruments and do it well,” she said. Though she does enjoy “changing people’s perspective” with her craft, she always remains her most authentic self — no matter what.

Watch Yuli detail her passion for violin in Uproxx’s New Normalists series above.

Eight years ago, florist Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richmond, Washington refused to serve a gay couple, Robert Ingersoll and Curt Freed, for their wedding. The couple was deeply hurt by her decision because Ingersoll had been a long-time client of the flower shop.

“After Curt and I were turned away from our local flower shop, we canceled the plans for our dream wedding because we were afraid it would happen again. We had a small ceremony at home instead,” said Robert Ingersoll in a statement.

The couple sued the shop with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union under Washington’s anti-discrimination law. The rule states that businesses that are open to the general public cannot refuse to serve someone based on their sexual orientation. The law specifies that this form of discrimination is illegal even if it’s based on someone’s sincere religious beliefs.

Stutzman, who was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) claimed that her “religious freedom” granted her the right to discriminate against the couple and that being forced to sell flowers to them violated her freedom of speech.

Barronelle Stutzman, the Washington State florist who was sued over refusing to serve a gay coupleu2019s wedding, has withdrawn her appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.https://www.advocate.com/news/2021/11/18/washington-florist-settles-gay-couple-ends-court-battle?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=newsu00a0u2026

— The Advocate (@The Advocate)
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According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the organization has a long history of promoting homophobia:

“The Alliance Defending Freedom is a legal advocacy and training group that has supported the recriminalization of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ adults in the U.S. and criminalization abroad; has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad; has contended that LGBTQ people are more likely to engage in pedophilia; and claims that a “homosexual agenda” will destroy Christianity and society.”

The case went all the way to the state’s Supreme Court who unanimously ruled against Stutzman.

The Court believes that selling flowers to a gay couple for their wedding wasn’t an endorsement of same-sex marriage. “As Stutzman acknowledged at deposition, providing flowers for a wedding between Muslims would not necessarily constitute an endorsement of Islam, nor would providing flowers for an atheist couple endorse atheism.”

However, the fight didn’t stop there. Stutzman filed with the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case back to the state of Washinton to take another look. A year later, the state reaffirmed its decision. Then, the case was sent back to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court denied a petition by Stutzman and her lawyers in July of 2021, over the dissent of conservative judges Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito.

Earlier this month, the court battle came to an end when Stutzman agreed to withdraw her petition and agreed to pay $5,000 to Ingersoll and Freed. The couple has agreed to donate the money to an LGBT youth charity.

Barronelle Stutzman of Arlene’s Flowers said she will turn the “struggle for freedom over to others” after settling with Curt Freed and Robert Ingersoll.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/washington-state-florist-same-sex-wedding-settlement_n_61983c8be4b0451e54fa20cd?d_id=2859022&ncid_tag=tweetlnkushpmg00000016&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=us_politicsu00a0u2026

— HuffPost Politics (@HuffPost Politics)
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Her lawyers say that Stutzman is “at peace” with the settlement because she can “finally retire with her conscience intact, and she knows that the legal effort to protect the artistic freedoms of creative professionals” will continue in other challenges.

The couple hopes that their hard-fought battle means that other same-sex couples won’t have to endure the same discrimination they did.

“We hope this decision sends a message to other LGBTQ people that no one should have to experience the hurt that we did,” Ingersoll in a statement.

Stutzman fought against providing flowers for a same-sex wedding because she believed doing so violated her religious beliefs. But does she understand that her high-profile court cases stretching over eight years probably did much more harm than good for her faith?

The number of people who identify as Christian has been on a steep decline for the past ten years in America and a major reason is the religion’s views on LGBTQ issues.

If more people went out on a limb to promote the ideas of peace and love that were at the core of Christ’s teachings, they’d bring a lot more people to the faith than by making sacrifices to promote intolerance.