Category: News

It’s no secret that we’re fans of Jim Beam’s lineup around here. But it goes beyond just liking the juice coming out of Clermont, Kentucky. Freddie Noe has been consistently upping the game of Beam’s lineup as he slowly takes the reigns from his father, Fred Noe. Part of that progress is the Noes’ batch releases of Booker’s Bourbon throughout the year, which they both select together.

The premium brand, named after Freddie Noe’s grandfather (and bourbon legend), Booker Noe, is a showcase for the beautiful product coming out of Beam’s Clermont rickhouses. This is the cream of the crop from Beam. That also means these releases are much sought after.

We were lucky enough to get to taste the latest release of 2021. This is actually the third release for Booker’s this year and is nicknamed “Bardstown Batch” after the small town the Noes (and Beams) have called home for generations. Let’s get into what’s actually in the bottle.

Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of 2021

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Booker’s Bourbon 2021 Batch 3, “Bardstown Batch”

ABV: 62.75%

Average Price: $90

The Whiskey:

The whiskey in the bottle is the classic Jim Beam mash bill of 77 percent corn, 13 percent rye, and ten percent malted barley. The barrels were aged for exactly six years and five months before the juice went into the bottle untouched at cask strength.

Tasting Notes:

“Classic” would be the best descriptor of the nose. It’s full of old cherry, dry leather, vanilla-laced tobacco leaves, rich caramel that’s almost chewy, and maybe a touch of sassafras that’s just leaning into root beer territory. A cherry sasparilla maybe? The taste veers away from that with deeply stewed apples that are almost a warm apple sauce with cinnamon, clove, and allspice kicking up some heat as minor notes of marzipan, cornmeal, and cacao lurk far in the background. The mid-palate explodes with heat that then mellows pretty quickly as the finish leans into creamy vanilla pudding spiked with cloves, leather, and a wet cedar vibe with mild cherry tobacco.

The Bottle:

Booker’s bottles are classic cognac bottles with plenty of wax, ribbons, and a wooden box for keeping it safe. While the plexiglass lid might feel a little janky, it makes sense when the box is sitting on the shelf. Overall, this can’t help but stand out on any bar car — in the box or out of it.

Bottom Line:

That high ABV doesn’t dominate the palate, which is nice. It makes an appearance and then goes away, allowing the flavor profile to shine through to the end. I need to try this with a rock or two. From a Glencairn and neat, it was really lovely and a nice way to round out 2021’s Booker’s releases.

Ranking:

92/100 — This was classic. It didn’t take me anywhere new but it didn’t need to. It’s an all-around great example of Booker’s that I’m going to continue to enjoy as the weather gets colder and the decorations go up.

Growing up in Indonesia, Farwiza Farhan always loved the ocean. It’s why she decided to study marine biology. But the more she learned, the more she realized that it wasn’t enough to work in the ocean. She needed to protect it.

“I see the ocean ecosystem collapsing due to overfishing and climate change,” she says. “I felt powerless and didn’t know what to do [so] I decided to pursue my master’s in environmental management.”

This choice led her to work in environmental protection, and it was fate that brought her back home to the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra, Indonesia — one of the last places on earth where species such as tigers, orangutans, elephants and Sumatran rhinoceros still live in the wild today. It’s also home to over 300 species of birds, eight of which are endemic to the region.

“When I first flew over the Leuser Ecosystem, I saw an intact landscape, a contiguous block of lush, diverse vegetation stretched through hills and valleys. The Leuser is truly a majestic landscape — one of a kind.”

She fell in love. “I had my first orangutan encounter in the Leuser Ecosystem,” she remembers. “As the baby orangutan swung from the branches, seemingly playing and having fun, the mother was observing us. I was moved by the experience.”

Courtesy of Farwiza Farhan

“Over the years,” she continues, “the encounters with wildlife, with people, and with the ecosystem itself compounded. My curiosity and interest towards nature have turned into a deep desire to protect this biodiversity.”

So, she began working for a government agency tasked to protect it. After the agency dismantled for political reasons in the country, Farhan decided to create the HAkA Foundation.

“The goals [of HAkA] are to protect, conserve and restore the Leuser Ecosystem while at the same time catalyzing and enabling just economic prosperity for the region,” she says.

“Wild areas and wild places are rare these days,” she continues. “We think gold and diamonds are rare and therefore valuable assets, but wild places and forests, like the Leuser Ecosystems, are the kind of natural assets that essentially provide us with life-sustaining services.”

“The rivers that flow through the forest of the Leuser Ecosystem are not too dissimilar to the blood that flows through our veins. It might sound extreme, but tell me — can anyone live without water?”

Courtesy of Farwiza Farhan

So far, HAkA has done a lot of work to protect the region. The organization played a key role in strengthening laws that bring the palm oil companies that burn forests to justice. In fact, their involvement led to an unprecedented, first-of-its-kind court decision that fined one company close to $26 million.

In addition, HAkA helped thwart destructive infrastructure plans that would have damaged critical habitat for the Sumatran elephants and rhinos. They’re working to prevent mining destruction by helping communities develop alternative livelihoods that don’t damage the forests. They’ve also trained hundreds of police and government rangers to monitor deforestation, helping to establish the first women ranger teams in the region.

“We have supported multiple villages to create local regulation on river and land protection, effectively empowering communities to regain ownership over their environment.”

She is one of Tory Burch’s Empowered Women this year. The donation she receives as a nominee is being awarded to the Ecosystem Impact Foundation. The small local foundation is working to protect some of the last remaining habitats of the critically endangered leatherback turtle that lives on the west coast of Sumatra.

“The funds will help the organization keep their ranger employed so they can continue protecting the islands, endangered birds and sea turtle habitats,” she says.

To learn more about Tory Burch and Upworthy’s Empowered Women program visit https://www.toryburch.com/empoweredwomen. Do you know an inspiring woman like Farwiza? Nominate her today!

Since she started teasing a new era of music, fans have been eagerly awaiting the follow up to Mitski’s seminal album Be The Cowboy, which landed at No. 3 on the 2018 Uproxx Music Critics Poll. Last month, her track “Working For The Knife” pointed to her next album, Laurel Hell, which she has now officially announced with the emotional track “The Only Heartbreaker.”

The single’s visual was co-directed by Maegan Houang and Jeff Desom and marks the first time the singer has been filmed in front of a green screen. It shows Mitski dancing through a forest and reeling in despair as she realizes that she’s unintentionally killing everything she comes into contact with.

Ahead of video’s release, Mitksi sat down with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe to discuss the track and her upcoming album. She noted that the song’s inspiration comes from a few realizations in past relationships:

“Sometimes you are just the bad guy in the relationship. Sometimes you’re the one who keeps making mistakes, who’s breaking your favorite person’s heart, and there’s nothing you can do about it because you can’t just suddenly be a better person. I wanted to capture a deeper, sadder feeling. You kind of realize, oh, maybe I’m the one always making mistakes because I’m the one always trying, and I’m the one who’s always looking ugly in the relationship because I’m the only one revealing myself. So I was hoping the first chorus was sincere. Like, I’m the bad guy, I’m the only heartbreaker. And the second chorus was hopefully ironic. Like, sure, I’ll be the only bad guy in this relationship.”

Watch Mitski’s “The Only Heartbreaker” video above and find her Laurel Hell album art and tracklist below.

1. “Valentine, Texas”
2. “Working For The Knife”
3. “Stay Soft”
4. “Everyone”
5. “Heat Lightning”
6. “The Only Heartbreaker”
7. “Love Me More”
8. “There’s Nothing Left For You”
9. “Should’ve Been Me”
10. “I Guess”
11. “That’s Our Lamp”

Laurel Hell is out 2/4/2022 via Dead Oceans. Pre-order it here.

Travis Scott and Live Nation have been named as defendants in a slew of lawsuits stemming from the tragedy at Astroworld Festival this past weekend but the latest confirmed suit is among the most saddening. The family of Ezra Blount, a nine-year-old who was trampled during Scott’s headlining set on Friday night, filed a negligence lawsuit against the rapper and Live Nation, according to Rolling Stone.

Ezra was reportedly sitting on his father Treston’s shoulders when the crowd surged toward the stage, crushing Treston to the point he passed out and lost track of his son. The family located Ezra at a nearby hospital after the show listed as a John Doe. According to the suit filed by the family, “He is currently in an induced coma on life support and has severe liver, kidney, and brain damage. To his young, growing body, these injuries will have life-long effects, impairing his quality of life and ability to grow and thrive.” The lawsuit seeks $1 million in damages.

The lawsuit also cites a report that the concert continued long after city officials declared a “mass casualty event” at the concert, a number that was reported as being around 37 minutes. The Blount family’s lawsuit is just one of 20, with that number projected to continue rising as more victims come forward.

Whether or not we like or even fully understand the point of them, NFTs seem here to stay, and there are no shortage of big name artists, musicians, and filmmakers clamoring to create and sell their own. Following Jay-Z, Eminem, ASAP Rocky, Doja Cat, SZA, The Weeknd, and even Gorillaz all getting involved and finding success in the digital art world, Steve Aoki is also getting involved in the industry via a powerhouse partnership with comic book legend and Spawn creator Todd McFarlane. Together, the pair are creating OddKey, a creator-focused NFT marketplace that puts “artists in control of their digital work and allow fans to resell NFTs for little cost,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

While the financial terms for artists selling on the platform have yet to be revealed, McFarlane compared the new venture to Image Comics, the creator-friendly publisher he co-founded back in 1992 in which writers and artists retained the rights and the majority of the profits to all their creations. According to McFarlane, he and Aoki simply don’t want to “control or own anything,” and are instead focusing on putting creators in charge of their own work and profits.

“You could say it’s the Image Comics model all over again except for NFTs,” McFarlane said. “We don’t want to control or own anything.”

McFarlane also stated he will be using the marketplace to sell his own original works as well, which may come as quite the shock to comic book fans considering the creator has always been reluctant to auction off his own works despite his Amazing Spider-Man No. 328 cover selling for $657,250 in 2012. In addition to McFarlane, Aoki will also be offering original NFT using “his visual and music skills.” Both McFarlane and Aoki have assured potential users that all artists using the platform will receive the same terms as them, ensuring financial equality for all OddKey creators.

“We are taking the same concept, the same dynamic, the same program that works for artists, creators and bringing it to this new stage where it’s the exciting wild, wild west of, ‘What is the future?,’” said Aoki. “We can dictate that.”

OddKey comes via Aoki Industries, and will be powered by Metaplex using Solana blockchain. For those interested in signing up, you might want to do so now — for a limited-time only, OddKey is raffling off 6,666 free NFTs of an image called “SPAWNOKI,” an amalgam of Spawn and Aoki, for those who sign up.

Over this past weekend, when Saweetie tweeted that she wanted to have babies, the internet at large was amused by one response in particular. After Nick Cannon posted a string of emojis in the replies, fans couldn’t help reacting as a result of the television host’s reputation as a “certified baby maker.” With seven children among four different women, it seems like Nick Cannon is shooting all silver bullets at a rate that would put Steph Curry to shame.

Of course, the hilarity of the situation wasn’t lost on Cannon, who turned the trend into one of the subjects of his show, The Nick Cannon Show, in a segment called “What’s Poppin.” “I guess I was all over The Shade Room this weekend,” he said. “Again, I think I’m very much understood. Saweetie tweeted she wanted some babies and I just replied with some emojis. As an expert on babies, anybody who can speak emoji knows what that says.”

Cannon joked that what he really meant was “Take time for making such a big decision.” He then had some fun with the responses, throwing up tweets reading such missives as “Here comes Fertile Myrtle” and “The celibacy clock is ticking.” He made sure to clarify though, that no harm was intended with his comment. “It was all in fun,” he assured the audience. “No disrespect. If she’s ready to have kids, get to it queen. We rockin’ with ya.”

Saweetie, meanwhile, recently made waves when she appeared on Snowfall star Damson Idris’ Instagram Story playing the piano in what appeared to be an intimate setting — just weeks after being linked to Roddy Ricch when the two were photographed at a basketball game.

You can watch the clip above.

Jimmy Kimmel has a bone to pick with Benjamin Franklin. On Monday night, the Jimmy Kimmel Live host made it abundantly clear that he is no fan of Daylight Saving Time. While Guillermo Rodriguez, Kimmel’s sidekick, was thrilled to get an extra hour of sleep, Kimmel admitted that he was not so lucky, “because I have a 4-year-old maniac living in my house.” Kimmel took a picture of the clock at the exact time his son came and asked for some French toast (it was 5:59 a.m.). Needless to say, he’s not a fan of the time change—and wanted to sway viewers to his way of thinking.

“And why? Why do we do this to ourselves? Daylight Saving Time is something Benjamin Franklin, who has been dead for 230 years, came up with as a joke—and it’s still screwing with us. It really was. For no reason. We don’t have to worry about conserving whale blubber for our lamps anymore.

Here in California, we voted to end this three years ago. We passed Proposition 7, which was supposed to give our local authorities the authority to end Daylight Saving. That was in 2018. It got 60 percent of the vote, and yet here we are in the dark again at 5 o’clock. I’m going around the house resetting all the clocks, looking at manuals—enough is enough! I got up before 6 o’clock this morning! Kids don’t know it’s Daylight Saving Time!”

Kimmel explained that the Secretary of Transportation is the person who’s in charge of Daylight Saving Time, which right now means it’s Pete Buttigieg. “Last time he was on our show, I asked him to end it,” Kimmel explained. “He said he’d see what he could do. You know what he did? He did nothing. He did nothing at all!” But Kimmel hasn’t lost all hope that he can do something about the clock change.

Now that Buttigieg has two-month-old twins, Kimmel is hopeful that “now maybe he’ll understand what a nightmare this is. Save us Penelope and Gus Buttigieg!”

In one last desperate attempt at hoping someone would listen, Kimmel shared that “even history’s worst man, Donald J. Trump, supports not supporting it… This is a bipartisan issue.” In order to help gain some momentum for his cause, Kimmel suggested that viewers get #GiveDaylightSavingTheButtigieg trending.

You can watch the full clip above.

It’s been a few years since we last heard from Baltimore duo Beach House, whose latest LP 7 arrived in 2018. But the band have apparently been hard at work on new music since then, as they’ve just announced an 18-track double LP alongside a massive North American and European tour.

Beach House’s upcoming eighth studio album, titled Once Twice Melody, is set to drop in full this February. But before then, the band will roll it out four songs at at a time over the course of the coming months. The first four songs will be available on November 10, the next on December 8, and the third on January 19 before the entire LP sees an official release a month later.

Check out Beach House’s Once Twice Melody tracklist and 2022 tour dates below.

1. “Once Twice Melody”
2. “Superstar”
3. “Pink Funeral”
4. “Through Me”
5. “Runaway”
6. “ESP”
7. “New Romance”
8. “Over And Over”
9. “Sunset”
10. “Only You Know”
11. “Another Go Around”
12. “Masquerade”
13. “Illusion Of Forever”
14. “Finale”
15. “The Bells”
16. “Hurts to Love”
17. “Many Nights”
18. “Modern Love Stories”

02/18/2022 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE
02/19/2022 — Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre
02/20/2022 — Grand Rapids, MI @ GLC Live at 20 Monroe
02/22/2022 — Kansas City, MO @ Arvest Bank Theatre at the Midland
02/23/2022 — Des Moines, IA @ Val Air Ballroom
02/25/2022 — Madison, WI @ The Sylvee
02/26/2022 — St. Paul, MN @ The Palace Theatre
02/27/2022 — Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theatre
03/01/2022 — Indianapolis, IN @ Egyptian Room at Old National Centre
03/02/2022 — Cincinnati, OH @ PromoWest Pavilion at Ovation
03/22/2022 — Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz
03/23/2022 — Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern
03/25/2022 — Austin, TX @ Moody Amphitheatre at Waterloo Park
03/27/2022 — Dallas, TX @ The Factory in Deep Ellum
03/29/2022 — Santa Fe, NM @ Lensic Performing Arts Center
03/30/2022 — Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom
04/01/2022 — Missoula, MT @ The Wilma
04/02/2022 — Spokane, WA @ Knitting Factory
04/03/2022 — Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre
04/05/2022 — Vancouver, British Columbia @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
04/06/2022 — Portland, OR @ The Keller Auditorium
04/08/2022 — Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley
04/09/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre
05/21/2022 — Dublin, Ireland @ The National Stadium
05/23/2022 — Glasgow, Scotland @ Barrowland Ballroom
05/24/2022 — Manchester, England @ Manchester Academy
05/26/2022 — London, England @ O2 Academy Brixton
05/28/2022 — Antwerp, Belgium @ De Roma
05/30/2022 — Brussels, Belgium @ Ancienne Belgique
05/31/2022 — Paris, France @ L’Olympia
06/02/2022 — Nimes, France @ Paloma
06/04/2022 — Barcelona, Spain @ Primavera Sound Festival
06/07/2022 — Cologne, Germany @ Carlswerk Victoria
06/08/2022 — Berlin, Germany @ Columbiahalle
06/09/2022 — Copenhagen, Denmark @ Falkoner Centre
07/08/2022 — Richmond, VA @ The National
07/09/2022 — Asheville, NC @ Rabbit Rabbit
07/10/2022 — Louisville, KY @ Old Forester’s Paristown Hall
07/12/2022 — Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theatre
07/13/2022 — Chicago, IL @ Radius
07/15/2022 — Toronto, Ontario @ Massey Hall
07/16/2022 — Montreal, Quebec @ M Telus
07/18/2022 — New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall
07/19/2022 — Brooklyn, NY @ Kings Theatre
07/20/2022 — Brooklyn, NY @ Kings Theatre
07/22/2022 — Boston, MA @ Roadrunner
07/23/2022 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Met
07/24/2022 — Washington, D.C. @ The Anthem

Once Twice Melody is out 2/18/2022 via Sub Pop. Pre-order it here.

Contrary to some of the chatter online surrounding the release of Netflix’s new movie, The Harder They Fall, multiple hip-hop generations have a strong affinity for the Western. Consider that one of rap’s earliest music videos, Juice Crew’s “The Symphony,” revolves around a Wild West theme. Another, Kool Moe Dee’s “Wild Wild West,” made the connection plain, as did Will Smith’s redux over a decade later on the soundtrack of the film of the same name.

So it’s no surprise that The Harder They Fall — directed by Jeymes Samuel, aka The Bullitts, a musician and music video director for Jay-Z, one of the film’s producers who also appears on the excellent soundtrack — plays more like a long-form music video in the vein of Beyonce’s The Gift than it does genre staples like A Fistfull Of Dollars or The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. Although it’s an important film in terms of representation of Black cowboys — who were actually just as prevalent as any other ethnicity — its true strength is as much in its soundtrack and visuals as its off-kilter storyline and mixed-bag performances.

Intriguingly enough, The Harder They Fall is far from the first movie to feature Black cowboys. In fact, it’s not the first one on Netflix this year, nor is it Samuel’s first effort. Those distinctions go to Concrete Cowboy and They Die By Dawn, respectively, although the former was a modern movie rather than a Western and the latter saw limited distribution (although, intriguingly, it also featured a strong emphasis on music, with Erykah Badu playing the same role as Zazie Beets, Stagecoach Mary, and featured another alumnus of The Wire in the late Michael K. Williams, playing Nat Love).

And while there has been much emphasis placed on the true-life inspirations of characters like Mary, Nat, Rufus Buck, Cherokee Bill, and Bass Reeves, the actual story of the films plays out more like the plot of Tombstone, with little of these real-life characters’ actual histories represented here. It’s not quite an affront to fictionalize real peoples’ lives to tell a historical fantasy, but it does feel a bit self-indulgent. The story, such as it is, doesn’t really need to use the names and likenesses of real people, and while it may generate interest in them, so too might have just playing their individual stories straight.

Meanwhile, the story itself is quite thin and feels almost like it was pulled together by committee, culling hot topics from Black Twitter without really putting much effort into making the pieces fit. Particularly, Rufus Buck’s motivations seem like a hazy reference to Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Idris Elba’s performance is almost sublimated by the overall focus on Jonathan Majors’ Nat Love and his quest for revenge against Buck, and the film’s biggest emotional twist comes in way too late, after a set of diversions that add nothing to its forward momentum other than possibly providing a small bit of revenge fantasy. That’s fine, but if it detracts from the emotional story you want to tell, it’s really unnecessary.

But the story and the performances feel almost secondary to the visuals. They’re beside the point. The point appears to be to set right the erasure of Black people from the grandiose history of the American West. To that end, Samuels goes to lengths to portray his characters as intelligent, savvy, and beautiful, shooting them against picturesque tableaus of deserts, forests, and steppes. While things tend to get a little bland whenever the characters come to a town, a sequence featuring Stagecoach Mary’s saloon could almost fit in on MTV in its heyday.

Likewise, the film’s soundtrack peppers in classic and contemporary soul and reggae cuts to highlight the characters’ travels and the action scenes. Dennis Brown’s “Promised Land” blares over a scene of Rufus Buck’s gang riding into town, Seal’s “Ain’t No Better Love” soundtracks part of the climactic shootout, and Barrington Levy belts “Here I Come” and “Better Than Gold” as Samuels’ camera glides over twirling six-shooters, swirling gunsmoke, and galloping horses. It almost feels like the cursory storyline beats are just breaks between the bits that The Bullitts really wanted to get to: The musical set-pieces that nearly do enough to justify the film’s existence on their own.

I’d go so far as saying that they could have just been the movie without needing a story, like The Gift and other, similar films that have become almost de rigeur for a certain class of prestige artist — like Jay-Z, whose “Moonlight” video Samuels directed, likely leading to the mogul’s funding of this endeavor. I’m not the first to notice this; Okayplayer’s Latesha Harris noted as much in her own review. Films like The Harder They Fall are needed, but what’s needed more is to get beyond the need for surface representation and to actually tell stories worth telling. The movie can also be a guidepost as well, pointing out how to make those stories look and sound as pretty as possible.

The Harder They Fall is streaming now on Netflix.

After spectacularly bombing in 2013, it’s easy to forget that After Earth is a movie that not only exists, but also marked a unique collaboration between Will Smith and director M. Night Shymalan. The sci-fi film was based on an original story by Smith, and at the time, the actor famously included his son Jaden in the lead role. Unfortunately, the film ended up being an epic disaster, and while most people left the film in the dustbin of time, never to be thought of again, Will Smith has opened up about the disastrous experience in his new memoir, Will.

According to Smith, the fallout from After Earth was so bad that Jaden actually asked to be emancipated, which deeply affected his father. Via PEOPLE:

“Fans and the press were absolutely vicious; they said and printed things about Jaden that I refuse to repeat. Jaden had faithfully done everything that I’d instructed him to do, and I had coached him into the worst public mauling he’d ever experienced.”

“We never discussed it, but I know he felt betrayed. He felt misled, and he lost his trust in my leadership,” Smith continues. “At fifteen years old, when Jaden asked about being an emancipated minor, my heart shattered. He ultimately decided against it, but it sucks to feel like you’ve hurt your kids.”

While Jaden never followed through on being emancipated, the After Earth experience left its mark. He pulled back from acting and has only starred in a handful of projects since the 2013 flop. However, like his dad, Jaden has always had a foot in both the acting and music world, and he’s been leaving heavily into the latter thanks to frequent collaborations with Justin Bieber.

(Via PEOPLE)