Landing a hit record is already hard enough, but a Diamond-certified song is even harder. Luckily for Kanye West, he recently achieved both thanks to one of the most popular songs off his third album Graduation. The Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) announced that the rapper’s 2007 track “Stronger” just became his first Diamond-certified single. What that denotes is that the single sold at least 10 million copies since its release 14 years ago.
Four months after its release, “Stronger” became the rapper’s third No. 1 single when it reached the top of the singles chart at the end of September in 2007. Additionally, the song won a plethora of awards, which includes Best Hip-Hop Video at the 2007 BET Awards, Video Of The Year, Best Director, and Best Editing at the 2007 MTV VMAs, and Best Rap Solo Performance at the 2008 Grammy Awards.
One of the most infamous stories behind “Stronger” is that it was reportedly mixed more than 75 times before and after its release. West worked with eight audio engineers and 11 mix engineers from all over the world on the song, but it wasn’t until he called on Timbaland to re-do the track’s drum programming that he felt satisfied. Still, West later decided the song wasn’t nearly as good as Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” which he sampled for “Stronger.”
In exactly one month, 88Rising, the record label and management company home to Asian and Asian-American artists, will deliver the third rendition of their Head In The Clouds festival. It’s an event the group has hosted every year since 2018, with the exception of 2020, due to the pandemic. Ahead of the showcase’s kick-off on November 6, 88Rising announced a new addition to the festival’s lineup: DJ and producer Illenium.
Illenium’s addition to the fest comes after he shared Fallen Embers earlier this year. He joins an already stacked lineup for Head In The Clouds. Other performers for the showcase include Joji, Saweetie, Guapdad 4000, Japanese Breakfast, Beadoobee, and many more.
During an interview with Uproxx about the festival last month, Ollie Zhang, 88Rising’s Chief Of Staff, spoke about the diversity of the showcase’s lineup.
“I think that’s always been 88Rising’s mission from since the start, ever since we were just shooting videos and putting them up on YouTube,” he said. “The goal was always to highlight all different types of music. Asian music is so broad and diverse. Everyone’s coming from a different place and we want to be able to represent that on the stage as well.”
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Believe it or not but Rocket League has been going strong since 2015. The idea is so simple. Take a car, give it some rockets, give players a soccer ball with two goals, and let them loose. The result is one of those games that is incredibly easy to sink hours into.
With a game this popular there have been plenty of crossovers with some of entertainment’s most famous cars, such as the Fast & Furious series. Unsurprisingly, this trend has no sign of stopping anytime soon and with the new James Bond movie, No Time To Die, coming to the theaters on Friday it was the perfect opportunity for Rocket League to embrace a new crossover.
James Bond has had a lot of different cars over the years, but the Aston Martin Valhalla will be the car making its way into Rocket League for any Bond superfans that want to use it in the game. It’s really a perfect combination when seeing it in action. Bond’s cars have always had modifications made to them and rocket boosters are a common one so it only makes sense that he would use it to score goals in Rocket League. How else is he going to spend his time when he’s not saving the world?
Anyone interested in using Bond’s car in Rocket League can do so for free, as it’s available on the Epic Games Store, PlayStation Network, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo Game Store.
Earlier this week, Verzuz announced that Big Daddy Kane and KRS-One would face off in the series’ next battle. It will be the third consecutive event between New York rappers following last month’s matchup between Fat Joe and Ja Rule and the one between The LOX and Dipset in August. Big Daddy Kane and KRS-One’s battle is a bit different than past hip-hop Verzuz events in that it will find viewers going a bit further back into the genre’s history, as the respective rappers both had their biggest moments in the late 1980s and ’90s. Speaking to HipHopDX, Big Daddy Kane explained why this Verzuz is important for hip-hop.
TrillerVerz III Weekend | Brooklyn, NY | October 16-17
“This is bigger than me and KRS,” he said. “This is about the Golden Era of Hip Hop, to show that artists like MC Lyte, Doug E. Fresh, Public Enemy, Chubb Rock, Yo-Yo, Rakim, and Kwame are still putting in work and ripping stages.”
Big Daddy Kane and KRS-One’s Verzuz takes place on October 17 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The battle will kick off at 7PM EST and tickets for the event are available can be purchased here. Back in June, during a sit-down with HipHopDX, Big Daddy Kane called KRS-One and Rakim the only rappers who would make sense as opponents for a Verzuz.
“If we can get it to happen with me and KRS-One, I would rather it be like a battle format,” he said. “If it’s going to be me and Rakim, then we might as well just do it with the music. You know what I mean? I don’t really see him as a battle rapper.”
An actor is rarely exactly like the character they’re playing. It’s called acting. But sometimes the disconnect between a performer and the fictitious character they’re playing is too wide to ignore. The public has known since last December that Letitia Wright, the Guyanese-born English actress best known for playing brilliant scientist Shuri in the Black Panther wing of the MCU — a character that been seen as an inspiration for young, STEM-interested girls — has some kooky thoughts about the COVID-19 vaccines. But after a new report claimed she was spreading anti-vaxx misinformation on set of the BP sequel, people still couldn’t believe it.
Buried in a new report by The Hollywood Reporter on the industry’s attempts to get cast and crews fully vaccinated is a depressing bit about Wright, who is singled out as one of the few actors in the industry to share anti-vaxx views on social media. (The only other one named in the piece is Rob Schneider — august company indeed.) But Wright appears to be going further than the “makin’ copies” guy. A source on the set of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever tells THR that “she has espoused similar views about the COVID-19 vaccines on the Atlanta production.”
Back in December, Wright got into hot water for sharing a video on Twitter of someone spouting anti-vaxx nonsense, including something about an “ingredient allegedly being added to the COVID vaccine to detect those who have not taken it.” After pushback, Wright deleted the post, but later defended herself, saying, ““If you don’t conform to popular opinions. but ask questions and think for yourself….you get cancelled.” Soon thereafter she deleted her account altogether.
But in the ensuring 10 months she’s allegedly not been swayed by such development as the FDA giving full approval to Phizer, with Moderna and Johnson & Johnson en route. There are no details about what Wright is reportedly saying, but when news hit social media, Wright received another, even more severe backlash.
There were two main reactions to Wright’s alleged anti-vaxx position. One marveled at the idea of Shuri — again, an unimaginably brilliant scientist, responsible for some of Wakanda’s coolest high tech gizmos — being played by someone who’s terrible at science.
Letitia Wright being an anti vaxxer playing Shuri who is a brilliant scientist and would probably have been the leading developer of a Covid vaccination … pic.twitter.com/BYw9aYHM4x
You’re playing SHURI, one of the smartest people in the MCU. Someone who works on the greatest technologies man hasn’t even seen. And you’re anti-vaxx. Ma’am. pic.twitter.com/TDFRHUTdpl
— Luvvie is the #ProfessionalTroublemaker (@Luvvie) October 6, 2021
Please don’t insult Shuri as a character due to this Letitia situation. Shuri is an important character for Black girls and is just as important as T’Challa in terms of representation.
— J.C: Let There Be Rotis (@unvpologetic_bi) October 6, 2021
It’s crazy how Shuri is one of the smartest characters in the MCU and yet her actress has no sense https://t.co/PhkXBFyCHv
— The (Slightly) Scarlet Witch (@mastermxnds) October 6, 2021
Shuri, the most intelligent character currently in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
I don’t necessarily think Shuri should be recast, but I definitely think it’s more clear than ever that Nakia should inherit the Black Panther mantle instead
— Drac U. Law, Vampire Attorney (@PinkRangerLB) October 6, 2021
just fire her and recast Shuri, she’s putting peoples lives at risk and she shouldn’t be allowed to just get away with that https://t.co/c4pqgW90eg
Wright has yet to comment on the allegations, but just a reminder, over a year-and-a-half into a once-in-a-century public health crisis: scientists are smarter than you. Yes, even if you’re a Hollywood actor. In the meantime, perhaps she doesn’t want to run into fellow Disney employee Giancarlo Esposito in the commissary.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s swing to the right under the Trump presidency puts abortion rights in peril throughout the United States. The Court’s decision not to act on a Texas law that bans abortions after about six weeks has opened the floodgates for other states to restrict freedoms.
The Texas law deputizes its citizens to report those who’ve had an abortion after the fetus has a heartbeat or anyone who assisted in the process. Reporters whose information leads to a successful conviction can be awarded up to $10,000 by the state.
The law is astonishing in a state that claims to value freedom. What’s more authoritarian than paying your citizens to snitch on each other for their personal health decisions?
“No matter where you live, no matter where you are, this moment is dark,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood, told the crowd at the Rally for Abortion Justice in Washington.
#NOW: The Women’s March is back in the nation’s capital for the Rally for Abortion Justice, a multi-city round of p… https://t.co/qGFbaj8jeb
In December, the Court is set to hear another landmark case in which the state of Mississippi is asking the justices to strike down a longstanding legal precedent that prevents restrictions on abortion access before a fetus is viable outside of the womb, which is at around 22 to 24 weeks.
Mississippi wants to ban abortions after 15 weeks.
Legal experts believe that if the court sides with Mississippi it could lead to an “inevitable cascade” of laws that would ban abortion.
“The Supreme Court since Roe v. Wade has said that there’s a right to choose abortion before viability,” Mary Ziegler, a professor at Florida State University College of Law and author of the book, “Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present,” told PBS.
“So if the court is going to uphold this law as we expect it to, the court will either have to overrule Roe entirely or we’ll have to see that pre-viability bans are OK and potentially open the door to all kinds of legislation and to a decision overruling Roe down the road,” she added.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of Americans stood up to support abortion rights at 660 rallies across the country. The rallies were organized by the Women’s March, in partnership with more than 90 groups, including Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Center for American Progress.
“I think it’s important to understand that pretty much everybody knows somebody that’s had an abortion,” Women’s March Executive Director Rachel O’Leary Carmona told CNN.
“It’s important for us to hear all these stories,” she said. “It also is a bit of a tragedy that you know, folks have to put their pain out on display for us to be taken seriously. So what we’re trying to do today is make sure we all lift our voices in solidarity with each other to make sure the folks in power hear our message.”
While this is a dark time for women’s rights in America, many who came out to the rallies used their creativity to express their anger at this unprecedented assault on women’s rights.
Here are some of the most creative and powerful signs from Saturday’s pro-choice rallies.
Where is the movement for #AbortionJustice? Where was the media? https://t.co/LlcxTYdrWo
I was so happy to meet an amazing online & Orange County activist @kristine_kenyon & her brilliant daughter in person for the 1st time @ the #WomensMarch in Laguna Beach.
Dave Chappelle’s six-show run for Netflix has mirrored a tumultuous period in American history. Over the last four years, Chappelle’s specials have covered the Trump presidency, social unrest following the murder of George Floyd and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wedged between the specials, in 2020, Chappelle delivered a solemn commentary on the death of Floyd entitled “8:46.”
Throughout his Netflix run, Chappelle has unapologetically tackled third-rail topics such as cancel culture, sexual abuse in Hollywood, race relations, the opiate epidemic among “poor whites” and LGBTQ issues.
And he’s often done it with brilliant humor and grace. This time? Not so much.
“Comedians have a responsibility to be reckless…” – Dave Chapelle in his new Netflix stand-up special, The Closer… https://t.co/sQD7j6sA6x
This string of specials has come during an uncertain time for comedy when social media and political correctness have had a chilling effect on what a comedian can say. Or, at least what some comedians say they are allowed to say. One of the main goals of comedy is to figure out where the line of appropriateness is at a given time and to prove it by leaping over it.
Comedians deserve a lot of leeway for what they say because their job—when done correctly—is essentially jumping off a cliff to give the rest of us a better understanding of the current state of humanity.
Chappelle’s Netflix specials have been refreshing because they’ve pushed the cultural envelope at a time when social media backlashes can ruin a career.
In 2017’s “Equanimity,” the comic begins by saying that he doesn’t, “as a policy,” feel bad about anything he says onstage. He later expounds on his point, saying:
Everybody gets mad because I say these jokes. But you have to understand this is the best time to say them. Now more than ever, I know there’s some comedians in the back—motherfuckers, you have a responsibility to speak recklessly, otherwise my kids might not know what reckless talk sounds like. The joys of being wrong. I didn’t come here to be right, I just came here to fuck around.
This week, Netflix released Chappelle’s final show in the series, “The Closer,” which promised to tie a bow around the entire project. The promise was enticing.
“I need you guys to know something, and I’m gonna tell you the truth, and don’t get freaked out: This is going to be my last special for a minute,” he said, later explaining that “The Closer” will complete his “body of work” for Netflix.
One brilliant riff about rapper DaBaby early in the show highlighted America’s lopsided view of race relations and LGBTQ rights. But it also kicked off a recurring theme that would haunt the rest of the performance: the idea that the Black and LGBTQ communities are pitted against one another in the fight for social justice.
Dave Chapelle once again hitting the nail on head with the truth about DaBaby and the LBGQT community situation🧐 Ne… https://t.co/9y3PNoG2ds
Ten minutes into the show he began an hour-long rant about gender where he hit back at critics who’ve called him transphobic.
“Any of you who have ever watched me know that I have never had a problem with transgender people. If you listen to what I’m saying, clearly, my problem has always been with white people,” he maintains.
This would make sense if all trans people are white. But that’s far from true. In fairness, earlier in the special, Chappelle does make a joke about the differences he sees between white and Black gay people when it comes to their experiences with the police. However, a bit about gender wasn’t on solid ground:
“Gender is a fact,” he reasons. “Every human being in this room, every human being on earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on earth. That is a fact. Now, I am not saying that to say trans women aren’t women, I am just saying that those pussies that they got … you know what I mean? I’m not saying it’s not pussy, but it’s Beyond Pussy or Impossible Pussy. It tastes like pussy, but that’s not quite what it is, is it? That’s not blood. That’s beet juice.”
Chappelle is wrong here, too. Gender and sex are two different things. Sex, according to the World Health Organization, refers to “the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex persons”; whereas, gender is “the socially constructed characteristics of women and men—this includes norms, behaviors and roles.”
Over the next half hour or so he discusses hitting a lesbian woman in the breasts, confronting a trans woman who was bothered by his work and the “frumpy dykes” of the #MeToo movement.
In the end, he tries to claim a moral high ground and fly above the fracas he created by recalling a night he let an inexperienced trans woman, Daphne Dorman, open for him at a show in San Francisco.
After the show, they discussed his views on transgendered people.
“She said, ‘I don’t need you to understand me.’ She said, ‘I just need you to believe that I’m having a human experience,'” Chappelle said.
“I said, ‘I believe you, bitch.’ Because she didn’t say anything about pronouns. She didn’t say anything about me being in trouble. She said, ‘Just believe that I’m a person and I’m going through it,'” he continued.
Later, Dorman died by suicide. Chappelle doesn’t examine why she would have taken her own life. Or contemplate the fact that trans people are ten times more likely to attempt suicide than those who are not.
Instead, he tries to smooth things over by saying we all need to have empathy for one another and that means that LGBTQ people should take it easy on comedians such as himself and Kevin Hart who’ve been chastised for anti-LGBTQ jokes.
“Empathy is not gay. It is not Black. Empathy is bisexual. It must go both ways,” he said. “Will you please stop punching down on me, people?”
Yes, multimillionaire Kevin Hart may not have been able to host the Oscars for some homophobic jokes he made a decade ago. But that doesn’t equate to the type of discrimination that pushes many people like Dorman to die by suicide.
Chappelle is one of the rare comics who’s talented and honest enough to help us make sense of one of the most divisive eras in American history. Unfortunately, “The Closer” shies away from the job. Instead, we are treated to a man who professes not to care about his critics, going the extra mile to provide us with a muddled, sorry-not-sorry explanation for his jokes that fails to convince.
A comedy club is not a court of law and comedians should be able to win on an emotional appeal instead of making an intellectual argument. But Chapelle’s most recent special plays out more like an act of stubborn defiance than an honest assessment of gender in the United States.
It’s not every day you see a show go from being rejected for for ten years to breaking records as the most popular streaming service’s most popular program ever, but then again, not every show is the critically-acclaimed phenomenon that is Squid Game. Since it’s release on September 17, the brutal Korean drama has taken over the world, and with award season around the corner and some pretty exciting news from the Television Academy, it seems its domination has only just begun.
According to Variety, the Television Academy has officially confirmed Squid Game is eligible to participate in the Primetime Emmys. The report states that, according to an Academy spokesperson, “because Squid Game was produced under guidance from Netflix, which is an American company, and it was always intended to be distributed in the U.S., it can be entered in the Primetime Emmy race,” meaning we can probably expect to see its name pop up more and more as award season draws nearer. While this might not seem like a big deal, rest assured it really is, as the Television Academy’s formal guidelines make submitting foreign television programs a bit of a nightmare, if we’re being honest:
“Foreign television production is ineligible unless it is the result of a co-production (both financially and creatively) between U.S. and foreign partners, which precedes the start of production, and with a purpose to be shown on U.S. television. The producer of any production produced in the U.S. or outside the U.S. as a co-production between U.S. and foreign partners, in a language that is substantially (i.e. 50% or more) in a language other than English, shall have the discretion to enter the production and its individual achievements in any category where they are eligible in the Primetime Emmy Awards competition or in the awards competition of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, but not both.”
However, since Squid Game was produced internationally, it is also eligible to enter the International Emmys. Ultimately, Netflix will have to select only one category to compete in, as Academy rules and regulations strictly prohibit entrants from participating in both. Considering how ultra-competitive the Primetime Emmys are — as well as how violence-adverse they can typically be — there’s really no telling which one Squid Game will partake in.
Variety also notes that already folks are beginning to call Squid Game “television’s Parasite” — the hit Korean film that became the first non-English film to receive the best picture Academy Award in 2020 — and are anticipating the series’ bringing home some groundbreaking awards. However, regardless of what awards Squid Game ultimately takes home, the praise the show is already receiving reflects an interesting shift in the type of content American audiences are watching, and could open the doors to even more international titles making it big in the states.
Back in late July, a furious Mike Lindell pulled his My Pillow ads off Fox News. They wouldn’t air a commercial for his disastrous voter fraud symposium, which would have likely ended in yet another lawsuit. So he took his toys and went home. The détente only lasted two months, and Lindell quietly started airing ads again. But now, a mere week later, he’s already making next level conspiracy theories about the network (that could get him sued again).
Mike Lindell’s latest conspiracy theory is Fox News asked for Dominion’s lawsuit so they could fire Lou Dobbs. pic.twitter.com/0ryqF1gnXc
As caught by Raw Story, Lindell went on Steve Bannon’s podcast to float yet another of his treasure trove of unhinged theories — not only about the voting machine company that’s currently suing him for $1.3 billion, but also involving the network with whom he allegedly patched things up.
“I still believe Fox said, ‘Hey, come and sue us quick so we can fire Lou Dobbs,’” Lindell told Bannon.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Bannon interjected with a laugh, before adding the bewildering words: “You’re going pure conspiracy theory.”
“I think they invited the lawsuit,” Lindell continued. “After November 3rd, after they called Arizona early, they didn’t talk about the election. You go back in time and you can’t find them talking about the election. They were too busy talking about Hunter Biden’s laptop after the fact.”
He then dug himself further in. “I believe because they were sued by Smartmatic which was kind of weird,” he continued. “And all of the sudden, they invited Dominion in and then fired Lou Dobbs the next day, whenever it was. And then nobody could go on Fox anymore and talk about the 2020 election. It’s a good excuse for Fox.”
Not to waste time fact checking Mike Lindell, but, as The Daily Beastpoints out, he may be mixing up the Fox News lawsuits:
Fox announced the cancellation of Dobbs’ Fox Business Network program one day after Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit against the network and several of its hosts, including Dobbs. Dominion’s $1.6 billion suit against Fox came nearly two months later. (Fox has filed a motion to dismiss both lawsuits.)
Lindell has proven, time and again, that he doesn’t seem to mind being sued for a purely abstract amount of money. He even invites it. But Bannon appears to want to avoid egregiously large lawsuits. While he let his guest blather on, he made sure to interject, as a way of distancing himself should Johnny Law come ringing his doorbell. Even Steve Bannon doesn’t want one of those My Pillow lawsuits.
It seems as though Jimmy Fallon was still reeling from getting trounced by H.E.R. in a solo guitar battle a year ago, that he hadn’t picked up the axe since. That all changed last night when the host of The Tonight Show hopped on stage and lent a hand to country music superstar Chris Stapleton’s performance of “You Should Probably Leave.”
Fallon had some big shoes to fill in Stapleton’s usual guitarist Dave Cobb, who is not just a stellar player himself, but also the producer behind recent notable albums from Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, Jade Bird, Barry Gibb, and Stapleton too. It helps that Stapleton is about as flawless and commanding of a frontman as they come and it’d be nearly impossible to notice if Fallon faltered, since who can really take their eyes and ears away from Chris Stapleton? But credit to Fallon, who totally held his own and even joined Morgane Stapleton on backing vocals.
Stapleton is having an extended moment to say the least. He leads the way with five nominations at this year’s Country Music Awards including Entertainer and Album of the Year (for Starting Over). He’s also in the midst of the extensive “All-American Road Show” Tour, which features special guests Sheryl Crow, Margo Price, Little Big Town, and more. See the full list of remaining dates here.
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Award!
Congratulations to Yeezy and @DefJamRecordings!
#RIAATopCertified pic.twitter.com/JubcdD6CXI
J.C
(@mastermxnds) 
johnny
(@Tchalla_Fett) 
