Category: News

Nearly 25 years after its release, fans of Aaliyah are finally able to listen to her 1996 sophomore album One In A Million on digital platforms. The move came after years filled with her biggest supporters begging for her music to be made available on streaming services, as only her debut Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number could be heard.

One In A Million was re-uploaded following a deal between Blackground Records and EMPIRE Records, with the former being the label the project was released on. After the early success of One In A Million on streaming charts, Blackground’s founder Barry Hankerson released a statement that thanked fans for their support.

“As the owner of Aaliyah’s catalog and label Blackground Records, I want to thank you all for allowing One In A Million, to chart #3 in the world,” he wrote in the caption of an Instagram post. “I cannot take the credit for managing Aaliyah as that was never a title I held. That title belonged to Diane Haughton and her husband who managed Aaliyah from the start of her career until her passing. I want to thank Diane, Aaliyah’s manager, for allowing and choosing Blackground Records to become her label.”

Hankerson went on to thanks Jomo Hankerson for their contributions to the Blackground company during its music industry heights before he shifted his attention to the fans.

“Thank you to all of her many fans for keeping her music alive,” he added. “I’m sorry it took so long, but when you lose a family member so unexpectedly, it takes time to deal with that type of grief. I decided to release Aaliyah’s music in order to keep her legacy alive.”

You can view his message in the post above. Get it here.

One In A Million is out now via Blackground 2.0/EMPIRE. Get it here.

Megan Thee Stallion is riding high right now. After announcing a brief break — one that her team labeled a “period of regeneration” — back in April, the Houston rapper made her return in June and it’s been nothing but good things from her. In the more than two months that followed, Megan dropped her “Thot Sh*t” single, earned the second most nominations for the 2021 MTV VMAs, and impressed with her “Outta Town Freestyle.” Luckily for her fans, the Houston rapper is far from done.

On Sunday, Megan returned with the “Tuned In Freestyle.” She delivered the showcase of her relentless rapping abilities with a matching visual that captured her in the studio twerking and enjoying a nice glass of wine. The two-minute freestyle also delivered a reference to Normani’s “Wild Side” single, as Megan raps, “I wanna show my wild side, make them doo doo doo.”

The new freestyle comes after she shared an update about her upcoming sophomore album. “I feel like this project is definitely something very well thought out,” she says of her next album. “This project is me talking my sh*t, getting back comfortable with myself, getting back to the Megan that was on the come-up.”

You can listen to the rapper’s freestyle in the video above.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Ted Lasso’s second season is giving fans of the Apple TV series exactly what they wanted, but two people in particular aren’t happy with a joke from a recent episode. The Jason Sudeikis comedy about a fictional lower tier soccer club poked fun at a real lower tier soccer club that happens to be owned by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.

The joke is quick and doesn’t mention them by name, but comes when a character mentions the club that was purchased in 2020. Higgins, who runs the fictional AFC Richmond, is talking about a potential deal with Wrexham, the club the actors own.

It’s a fairly harmless joke, and pretty predictable considering it’s an easy connection to the show’s Americans in English soccer theme. But it clearly caught the attention of McElhenny, who also has a TV show on Apple TV with Mythic Quest. In a tweet sent out on Saturday, Reynolds responded publicly to the joke, demanding some of Lasso’s famous biscuits “to avoid legal action.”

“While we hold the incomparable Jeremy Swift in no ill regard and are honored to be mentioned on the platform that’s brought us high-quality programming ranging from Mythic Quest season one to Mythic Quest season two,” the statement said. “We must insist that you cease and desist from the casting of any doubt regarding our commitment to the club, the fans, and the entire Wrexham community.”

The demand was to get said biscuits before Wrexham’s match over the weekend, and while Apple’s Twitter account said they’re working on the request, it doesn’t seem like that happened.

It’s a fun back-and-forth between the two sides, which helps everyone do a bit of harmless promotional work for their collective shows and teams. But we’ll have to wait and see if anyone actually gets biscuits out of the deal.

Donald Trump has contracted coronavirus and been vaccinated against it, but it’s long been clear many of his supporters are against vaccinations. Much of that is his doing, of course, as he downplayed the dangers of coronavirus and held back about mask mandates and other mitigation efforts while in office and after his term ended.

Regardless of his own personal dealings with the virus, many of his biggest supporters are anti-vax and have fought against mask use and other safety measures. And that was made very clear on Saturday when Trump was actually booed at his own rally for talking about vaccines and their efficacy.

Appearing very wet in Alabama on Saturday night, Trump told his supporters to “take the vaccine” and actually saw some people booing him for it.

“That’s okay, that’s all right. You got your freedoms. But I happened to take the vaccine,” Trump said, walking his comments back after he heard boos. “But you do have your freedoms, you have to maintain that, and you got to get your kids back to school.”

The rant is classic Trump, meandering through a very brief encouragement to get vaccinated before wondering about their effectiveness and concluding “but it does work.” Trump told the crowd that they would be “the first to know” if Trump’s vaccine doesn’t stop another breakthrough case, whatever that means, but it’s a brief look at just how severe the anti-vax sentiment is among Trump supporters.

The Chicago Bears are going to start their season in Los Angeles against the Rams with Andy Dalton as their starting quarterback. That is the decree of head coach Matt Nagy, despite a fan base that is desperate to see rookie Justin Fields be handed the reins.

This has been the plan all along, but as the preseason rolls along, Dalton’s performance has not been particularly inspiring and Fields has provided enough glimpses into his immense talent to get the Bears faithful very excited about his prospects and impatient at the idea of someone else starting the season under center. This all reached a fever pitch on Saturday when the Bears hosted the Bills in their second preseason game of the season and got thoroughly trounced by Buffalo, who started ex-Bear Mitchell Trubisky to rub salt in the wound.

The scoreboard in a preseason game isn’t all that important, but seeing Trubisky carve up the Bears (20-of-28, 221 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs) while Dalton mostly struggled to get anything going with the Chicago offense pushed fans over the edge. They booed and chanted Justin Fields’ name, giving the rookie a standing ovation when he finally entered the game in the third quarter. After the game, the rookie made clear that he wasn’t thrilled with that response, calling it “disrespectful” to Dalton and hoping that Bears fans would cheer whoever was on the field (via NBC Sports Chicago).

“I really think it’s kind of disrespectful to Andy, them cheering my name out like that,” Fields said. “Just cheer him on, you know? That’s not helping Andy play better, to cheer my name. That’s not doing none of that.

“My advice to them would be just cheer whoever’s on the field.”

Dalton played all of the first half and finished 11-of-17 for 141 yards, 1 TD, and 1 INT, but 79 of those yards came on one TD pass and the offense stalled on the first few drives of the game — Dalton had a clever quip that he didn’t hear any boos after the touchdown, so as long as he produces he’s not worried about it. It wasn’t entirely on Dalton, as the offensive line issues for the Bears have been very apparent, but that also has underscored for some why Fields should play. Fields was 9-of-19 for 80 yards through the air, making a couple terrific downfield throws but likewise struggling to consistently move the ball passing. The difference, though, between he and Dalton was his 46 yards rushing on four attempts, all scrambles that helped extend drives and pick up first downs.

There are two schools of thought with a young quarterback and a bad offensive line, and there’s merit to both. One is that if he misses on processing what he sees at the line, it could lead to disaster — as we saw when he failed to go hot on an overload blitz on Saturday and took a scary helmet-to-helmet shot.

On the other hand, Dalton is not mobile enough to extend plays and avoid pressure in the same way as Fields, which leads to faster checkdowns or throwaways in order to get the ball out of his hands. The rookie, instead, has a serious weapon in the form of his legs and that too was on display on Saturday.

Both arguments have validity, and it’s clear that, at least in the beginning, Nagy is choosing to start the veteran and keep his rookie on the bench to learn a bit more before throwing him into the fire with a shaky offensive line. However, Fields’ request that Bears fans will accept that if the offense struggles under Dalton will likely go unheard, even if the plan is somewhat understandable.

SZA’s musical releases have been far and few since she graced the world with her classic debut album, Ctrl. At one point the singer went two years without a single, a streak that ended with the release of “Hit Different.” She quickly followed up that single with “Good Days,” a track that grew to be her most successful track as it entered the top-10 of the singles chart. Since both efforts, things have quieted done a bit for the singer, outside of her “Kiss Me More” collaboration with Doja Cat, but it looks like things could change soon.

Early Sunday morning, SZA took to Twitter to share three new songs with fans, titled “I Hate You,” “Joni,” and “Nightbird.” The songs were shared to a Soundcloud account the singer created, one separate from the official one she has. In a tweet, she defined the release of the records as “dumping random thoughts” and promised to share more “word vomit” in the future. Additionally, a fan asked her if she can “start Sza Sunday’s and drop random thoughts once a week,” to which the singer replied “Yes .”

Another fan thanked her for the new records but also requested another song fans have patiently waited for. “We love you but we also love Shirt,” they wrote, speaking about her presumed next single, “Shirt.” The singer gave a comforting response and simply wrote, “She nex.”

You can listen to the three songs above.

The Delta variant of coronavirus continues to ravage the world, and in the United States the south is unquestionably a virus hot spot as large portions of the population refuse to get vaccinated. Recent days have seen a number of news stories emerge about people who had publicly railed against masks and vaccines.

A number of conservative radio hosts have died of COVID after casting skepticism on mitigation efforts or even being skeptical of the pandemic’s existence. But the biggest is Phil Valentine, a Tennessee radio host who mocked vaccines with a parody song. His death was announced by his station on Saturday.

According to the Daily Beast, Valentine had a late change of mind about the vaccine while on his death bed. But he spent a lot of time in life downplaying the risks of the virus and the efficacy of vaccination.

Though Valentine downplayed the efficacy of vaccines and even went so far as to record a parody song mocking them, he reversed his opinion while in the hospital, advising his family members to get the jab.

He had said of the vaccine, “I have a very low risk of A) Getting COVID and B) dying of it if I do. Why would I risk getting a heart attack or paralysis by getting the vaccine?” He also said at the time that he had been taking the anti-parasite medication ivermectin, which is meant for animals.

This is a tweet, for example, that Valentine sent out last month.

His last retweet, in fact, is pretty grim as well.

The disconnect between what conservatives are saying about coronavirus and the reality of dealing with it is jarring. And the more it continues, it seems inevitable that more stories like this will continue to make headlines.

Kendrick Perkins and Draymond Green pretty clearly do not like one another. Perkins was a pretty vocal critic of USA Basketball before it ended up winning a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, and in the aftermath, he was on the list of people Green seemed to greatly enjoy calling out after the team ascended to basketball’s mountaintop. Green also made it a point to mention Perkins on IG Live after the game while he and Kevin Durant were walking to a press conference.

Well apparently, any beef that exists between these two is real enough that Perkins wants Green to back all of this up. Perkins appeared on the Road Trippin‘ podcast and made clear that he’d be down to step into the ring with Green, although he has some skepticism that Green would want to do the same.

“He’s not even my former teammate, but he feel like that I talk sh*t, and I feel like he talk sh*t, is Draymond Green,” Perkins said. “Like, if I had to get in the ring and really put these paws on somebody, it would be Draymond Green. But I really think he don’t want that smoke, and history tells me he really don’t want that smoke.”

The safe bet is that this is never going to happen, but hey, with how many national TV games the Warriors have next season, maybe Draymond and Perk will cross paths sometime.

Saturday night was supposed to be a celebration in New York City, but severe weather ruined the party in a big way. New York’s Central Park was the site of a “homecoming” concert that featured a slew of entertainers. The “We Love NYC” event, held during a still-ongoing pandemic, had another issue to deal with on Saturday night as hurricane Henri approaches the east coast of the United States. As the star-studded concert played out on Saturday, outer bands of the storm caused some severe weather in New York. And after reports of lightning strikes, the concert was abruptly ended and the 60,000 attendees were told to leave immediately.

So immediately, in fact, that the show ended right in the middle of a Barry Manilow song. Video airing on CNN on Saturday saw Manilow performing until a man came on stage and cut him and his band off, then an announcement told people to seek shelter amid inclement weather.

Manilow was right in the middle of performing “I Can’t Smile Without You” when the camera panned to a suddenly-worried crowd and the music stopped. An announcement told the crowd to “please seek shelter for your safety” because of lightning in the area, and chaos ensued as people raced out of the park ahead of the storm.

The concert was about halfway finished when the storm hit the city, and acts like Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Patti Smith and Elvis Costello never saw the stage. Manilow did sing again, though: for Anderson Cooper on CNN.

It’s a disappointing end of the concert for sure, though it certainly was called off for good reason.

Hopefully every made it out of there safely and prepares for the storm coming through this weekend.

Facebook has attempted to change the narrative about its reputation as a place where misinformation runs rampant among its users, but it’s finally had to admit that anti-vaccine and coronavirus misinformation has been some of the most popular pieces of content on the site in recent months.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that Facebook acknowledged as much after a week where it shared some information about what’s popular on the social media network. Earlier in the week, Facebook detailed some of the most shared and liked content on the site in the months of April and June of 2021, highlighting that instead of right-wing pundits that content was about Aaron Rodgers and online CBD. But that disclosure made skeptics wonder why the company wasn’t sharing information about other months.

And on Saturday, Facebook revealed details about what was popular during other months of the year: coronavirus misinformation.

Facebook said Saturday evening that an article raising concerns that the coronavirus vaccine could lead to death was the top performing link on its platform from January through March of this year, acknowledging the widespread reach of such material for the first time.

It also said another site that pushed covid-19 misinformation was also among the top 20 most visited pages on the platform.

All this comes weeks after president Joe Biden said that Facebook was “killing people” by spreading misinformation not properly moderated by Facebook. The article has full details about what Facebook revealed, but it’s another reminder that the site has amplified some of the worst parts of anti-vaccine skepticism that’s prolonged the pandemic and helped keep wide swaths of the population unvaccinated despite overwhelming evidence that it’s safe, effective and life-saving for millions of people.

[via Washington Post]