If you’ve been online this week you know that a rapper’s cousin’s friend’s testicles has been in the news quite a bit. At least, you know, a lot more than you’d probably assume.
We’re now five days into the discourse about Nicki Minaj’s tweet about vaccine skepticism, and after an offer to clear things up from the White House you’d think any hesitancy to get vaccinated against the novel coronavirus would be eased. Much like the swelling of testicles which, according to Minaj, a Trinidadian cousin claimed a friend experienced after getting a nuptials-ruining but potentially life-saving vaccine.
If Minaj and her anti-vax supporters aren’t swayed by some pretty standard ball-based logic, though, The Daily Show gave Trinidad’s health minister a platform to dispel the myth that getting the jab swells your balls enough that your fiancee will leave you for a person with more reasonably-sized genitals.
The segment, which you can watch above, does have a good amount of joking in it. As it should because, well, balls are funny and this is about as absurd as it gets. But about halfway through, Trevor Noah invited the Honorable Terrence Deyalsingh, Minister of Health for the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, to clear up misinformation and elaborate on the press conference he had earlier in the week following Minaj’s tweet.
Deyalsingh said that the nation has administered more than 1 million doses of vaccine across its population of 1.4 million, and they’ve only had five cases with abnormal side effects. None of which, of course, are swollen testicles.
“The advantages of vaccination far, far outweigh the minuscule risk,” he said, stressing also that Minaj’s claims that you must be vaccinated to work in Trinidad were also false. The minister also made it clear that vaccines of all kinds are safe and effective.
“This is not new,” he continued, stressing vaccine safety. “What is new is social media trying to throw doubt on this vaccine.”
The full segment is certainly worth watching, especially if all of the words above are completely bewildering to you. Hopefully, everyone’s testicles remain at their normal size and weight and we can all get through this pandemic as healthy as possible moving forward.
While it might be hard to hear it, we are now nearly two whole years into the current decade. Two. Whole. Years. Now, if you’re looking for a way to process that information — or simply want to soak in some nostalgia to escape it — I’ve got just the way to do it: a good ol’ fashioned retrospective.
Now that we are two years out, it’s the perfect time to look back upon the 2010s with newfound clarity and round up all the best things the decade had to offer. As it turns out, when it comes to games, it offered a lot. In the 2010s, we saw the creation of the Nintendo Switch and the rise of the “narrative-driven PlayStation exclusive.” We watched developers craft up bold new takes on our most cherished series, and got the chance to sit down with new stories that somehow already feel like classics. In short, it was a great decade for gaming, and if you don’t believe me, I’ve got a list of 20 games right here to back it up and maybe even get you a bit misty-eyed.
Oh, but before we get to that, let’s touch on just how I settled on these 20 games. When it comes to how this list was rounded up, I turned to trusty, aggregate review site Metacritic for aid. You see, while I absolutely could create my own personal list of the top 20 games of the 2010s, it felt most fair to turn to what both the critics and fans were saying to compile a list that won’t exclude any important titles I never got around to playing. So, now that we’ve got that cleared up, here’s a complete list of the 20 most well-reviewed games of the 2010s! As always, feel free to comment on what games you think are missing or shouldn’t have made the cut.
While the original Persona 4 was released in 2008, Golden (it’s enhanced edition) is absolutely worth the spot on this list because, quite simply, no one does enhanced editions like Atlus. Whereas many times a re-release of a game means it looks a bit better, some cool skins were thrown in, and a couple of hours of content were tacked on to its ending, Golden offers fans a massive expansion with in-game months of new content, a new character, two new “social links,” added voice actors, and several quality of life changes. It’s also thanks to Golden that the Persona series gained a ton more traction in the United States, directly contributing to how well Persona 5 performed over here. For those who’ve yet to dabble into the Japanese RPG series, if you like turn-based combat, time management sims, fantastic murder mystery stories, making life-altering choices, romance, and anime, this is me urging you to get on it.
Long before kids were doing Fortnite dances and accusing each other of being “sus” in Among Us, there was Minecraft. A cultural behemoth, the blocky survival-adventure game is the best-selling video game of all time and is somehow still incredibly popular and relevant. Don’t believe me? Check YouTube. Or Twitch. Or walk into just about any store selling children’s toys. I mean hell, as recently as last year, Microsoft reported the game hit 126 million active users in a month, which, just to put it into perspective, is about 123 million more than even the most popular MMOs. The game is actually so popular, it is now utilized in schools to teach chemistry and computer science. If there is one game on this list that has to go down and perhaps the most culturally significant, it’s gotta be Minecraft.
Time to crack open the spreadsheets folders because we’re going to talk about Starcraft for a second. A science-fiction, real-time strategy game famous for, well, being complicated as hell, Starcraft has earned itself a cult following with Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty being particularly loved by its fans. While the game was criticized for not having some of the features the first game had, overall it marked a massive improvement in terms of storytelling and overall gameplay in the series. If you love tactical thinking and a good space setting abundant in its own history and lore, Starcraft is definitely worth trying — though don’t blame me if it turns your hair grey.
Of course, what would any gaming list be without the inclusion of the one-and-only Mario? While a remaster of this game was just released earlier this year on Nintendo Switch, it’s definitely worth noting just how great the original game was when it hit the WiiU back in 2013. The first multiplayer 3D Mario title, Super Mario 3D Land was a brilliant and chaotic new direction for the series that — while not as revolutionary as some of the later Mario games on this list — offered fans a unique experience and a really enjoyable time.
If you’re a pen-and-paper RPG fan, Divinity: Original Sin II was made for you. The tactical, action RPG that allows you to play with up to three other people as you traverse a fantasy land has been praised for just how well it gets fantasy and what makes a good session of a game like Dungeons and Dragons so compelling. If you’re a fan of games like Diablo and are looking for something somewhat similar to play with friends, you’ll find Divinity: Original Sin II is a similar-yet-different take on the concept that you might love just as much as all the folks who gave it so much praise it wound up on this list.
You really can’t beat a classic, huh? While you might not have expected to see a Pac-Man game grace the “best games of the 2010s” list, it just goes to show you that some games are simply timeless. It’s a phenomenon we’ve seen it recently with the revival of Tetris in Tetris Effect, and it honestly makes perfect sense. While there are a plethora of massive, open-world, and story-heavy games pouring onto the scene (see this whole list, really), sometimes you need something mindless, easy to understand, and, simply put, fun. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX offered just that, as well as added several modes that shake up the series classic formula to add a more competitive feel.
The third title in the Bioshock series, Bioshock Infinite completely shifts away from the sunken city of Rapture and takes us up to the stunning, sky-high city of Columbia. However, despite this change in scenery, the game still maintains its predecessor’s efforts to question everything — most of all our morality and free will. Bioshock Infinite seeks to be an examination of American exceptionalism and its dangers, and while it sometimes stumbles in its studies, the overall experience is interesting and undeniably fun to play.
13. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (2011, 94%)
While it does feel a bit odd to include a game from 1998 on this list, it ranks too high and is far enough apart from the original to where it still feels right to include it. Plus, it’s honestly just a really fantastic game. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is widely regarded as theLegend of Zelda game all fans of the series should — and probably already have — played. The first 3D title in the series, the game revolutionized what The Legend of Zelda was at the time, and also went on to inspire the entire genre of action-adventure games, including creating the target-lock system. In 2011, Nintendo re-released the game on the Nintendo 3DS, allowing a whole new generation to get a chance to play the series which, on top of being groundbreaking at the time, has some incredibly fun bosses, level designs, and a really fun time travel mechanic that just doesn’t get old.
While superhero games weren’t always known for being the best in terms of quality, quite a few in the past decade have turned that reputation around a bit, most notably Batman’s Arkham series. Arkham City is the second title in the series, and follows a dying Batman as he takes on the Joker one last time, which, yes, they do say a lot but is actually true in this case. What makes this game so impressive is the number of twists and genuinely great story beats it has, along with its list of cameos that will leave DC fans more than satisfied with the amount of time they can and presumably will sink into it. Furthermore, the freedom to fly around a stylish Gotham, taking down baddies, picking up collectibles, solving puzzles, and listening to a fantastic soundtrack as you do so, is both incredibly liberating and immersive. Oh, and another plus, while the map size and side quests make Arkham City an open-world game that offers a lot, it doesn’t feel wildly overwhelming — which is a huge bonus for people desperate to completely clear their map, such as myself.
While there are a lot of games on this list that are a part of a larger series, none of them completely reshaped their franchise the way 2018’s God of War did. The first God of War games, released from 2005 to 2010, were hack-and-slash adventures that followed the story of the vengeful demigod Kratos as he slaughtered the Greek pantheon, and were honestly pretty vulgar and brutish. God of War 2018, however, ditched those qualities in favor of creating a more traditional and refined AAA experience similar to Red Dead Redemption or The Last of Us. While still brutal and centered around the idea of vengeance, the latest God of War follows an older Kratos and his son, Atreus, shortly after the death of his second wife. As they make their way to spread her ashes from the highest peak in the nine realms, Kratos is dragged once again into godly conflict — though this time, the Gods are Norse and his son is involved.
If you think Monopoly or Mario Kart are the best games for testing your relationship, clearly you haven’t played Portal 2 — and you should fix that, because it’s fantastic. A lesson in physics, logic, and, if you’re playing cooperatively, teamwork, Portal 2 is a puzzle-platformer heralded for its cleverness. However, while the game is pretty straight-forward, self-contained, and quite frankly small in scope compared to the vast majority of this list, it doesn’t stop it from also having memorable characters, moments, quotes (“The cake is a lie?” Yeah, it’s from Portal), songs, and an interesting story drenched in dark humor. If you want a game that’ll frustrate you, make you laugh, and make you feel like an absolute genius all within the span of fifteen minutes, you gotta try Portal 2. 9.Red Dead Redemption (2010, 95%)
Created by Rockstar, the powerhouse studio behind the Grand Theft Auto series, Red Dead Redemption is a big-budget, action-adventure game that quickly rose to fame for both its beauty on screen as well as on paper, and defied fans’ expectations for the company in a pretty major way. Set in America’s “wild west,” Red Dead Redemption tells the tragic tale of John Marston and the gang of cowboys he calls family, and is widely-regarded as one of the best stories in games. However, that’s not all it has going for it. Despite the game’s hyper-focus on its narrative, it also offers players an open-world experience that is populated by random events they can take part in, with their actions ultimately dictating their overall morality as well as how big of a bounty they have on their head. For those looking for a title that captures the feeling of a movie but still has an appreciation for fun gameplay, Red Dead Redemption is pretty high on the “must-play” list.
And speaking of games with extremely tragic stories, this list wouldn’t be complete without The Last of Us. The game follows a father named Joel and a young girl named Ellie as they traverse the end of times in search of a cure for the disease that destroyed humanity. It’s a heartbreaking, brutal, and sometimes frustrating story about the best and worst things we do for love that takes inspiration from some of the bleakest post-apocalyptic science-fiction and is sure to make you shed a few tears. And hey, the good news is, if you’re not planning on getting around to this one anytime soon, a television series based on the game is currently in the works over on HBO.
Ah, Skyrim. The game so nice, they ported it, well, on just about everything. Largely considered one of the greatest open-world games of all time, the high-fantasy RPG is renowned for the amount of freedom it gives players to exist and be whomever they’d like to be in a world full of magic, secrets, and, of course, dragons. While it feels extremely safe to say the main quest-line in Skyrim doesn’t hold close to the same amount of reverence as a lot of the titles on this list, Skyrim just isn’t really about that and that’s become something fans embrace. Whereas games as a whole have grown more “cinematic,” polished, and fairly linear as time goes on, Skyrim is a wide-open and sometimes-buggy sandbox folks simply love playing in — and what’s wrong with that?
As a studio, BioWare has become known for creating immersive RPGs set in brilliantly thought-out worlds, inhabited by compelling characters, and completely driven by player choice — and arguably none of their titles does any of this better than Mass Effect 2. In Mass Effect, you play as Commander Shephard, a tiny human in a vast universe who, with the help of a team of misfit allies, must save it. While each game in the series has an incredible story that runs throughout them all, what sets Mass Effect 2 apart from the other two entries in the series, is just how important that team of misfit allies becomes to you in it. While it boasts the largest party of all the games, it also feels the most intimate — allowing you to take on “loyalty missions” to better understand your team’s motivations, fears, and struggles as you grow closer to them. Relationships are key in this game, and if you don’t nurture them or make choices they agree with, it’ll cost you.
For whatever reason, I have unfortunately only sunk a few hours into Super Mario Odyssey, and I say this only to emphasize how much it stuck with me regardless of how long I spent with it. Despite only playing for a brief period of time, I still get songs from Odyssey stuck in my head, recall fun mechanics, or think of how lush one of the game’s many locations looked. Everything about it is simply infectious, but like, in a sugary, dazzling way. Super Mario Odyssey is a game brimming with life and Nintendo charm and has so many different concepts and mechanical gimmicks it’s a ton of fun to play regardless of if you’re generally more of a 2D Mario fan. Now, the last thing I’ll say is that those of you Nintendo fans who are bummed Mario didn’t make it even higher on this list… I wouldn’t be sweating it.
Grand Theft Auto feels like a series that needs no introduction because chances are you’ve either played it or have heard some of the constant controversy that surrounds the mature series. However, GTAVdoes deserve to be talked about because it’s one of the beloved games of the last decade, and for good reason. Grand Theft Auto V is what happens when a developer takes all the best pieces from their catalog of games and crafts them into exactly what their demographic is looking for. It has the realism and social commentary of previous entries in the series, the absurd nature of titles like The Bully, GTA: Vice City, and GTA: San Andreas, and, best of all, places them all in an engaging, story-filled sandbox that they clearly learned how to make when working on Red Dead Redemption. It’s a game for Rockstar fans, and Rockstar shows them even more love with the frequent updates the game is still getting.
If you read that previous excerpt on the first Red Dead and are pretty shocked its sequel somehow topped it, you have to understand that most fans find 2 did all the same things one did, but better. Set before the events of Red Dead Redemption, Red Dead 2 is an emotional slow-burn set in a hyper-realistic world with unparalleled — and at times straight-up baffling — attention to detail. In the game, you play primarily as Arthur Morgan, and get the unique opportunity to watch how his story directly leads to the downfall of John Marston. Much like any good Western, Red Dead Redemption 2 examines the themes of loyalty and honor — and raises the question of just when a person should stick to their guns, both literally and metaphorically.
Nintendo
2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017, 97%)
When you decide to completely revamp a beloved series with over 30 years of history, there’s a whole lot of pressure to get it right. Luckily for Nintendo, they nailed it. In the few years since its release, Breath of the Wild has become heralded as one of the greatest Legend of Zelda games of all time — which is no easy feat when you think of just how many titles in the series weigh in with nearly perfect scores. In Breath of the Wild, Nintendo shook off the series’ more linear formula in favor of creating a vast, open-world adventure, and while it was a major departure from what we had come to expect, it still feels like home sweet Hyrule and captures a similar feeling to what the earliest titles in the series inspired.
When it comes to who reigns supreme in gaming, does anyone really beat out the man in the little red hat? In typical Mario fashion, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is vibrant, fun, and full of cool ideas that push the series forward. However, in Galaxy 2, that “push forward” is actually more of a cosmic leap, and helped elevate the franchise to new heights, literally! While the game is decidedly more streamlined than Galaxy was, the physics-based 3D platformer is packed with all the “aha” moments its predecessor was missing when exploring space and its various planets. In addition, new power-ups, lush and dynamic environments, and even Yoshi were added into the second entry of the space-filled series and made it overall a ton more fun to play. Despite their differences, you can truly start to see where Odyssey started from when playing Galaxy 2, and considering they’re both on this list, that’s definitely a good thing.
An incredible woman has the perfect response for someone who says, “You speak so well … for a black girl.”
But that’s not all. Ernestine Johnson is just getting warmed up.
She has plenty more to say about what speaking, looking, and acting like an average black girl really means.
And nope, this isn’t another lesson in political correctness; it’s more about common sense.
She clearly explains it all 42 seconds in.
Oh, and my favorite quote that I’m taking and framing?
This one.
“See, the average black girl that I know, the average black girl that I know were Egyptian queens like Hatshepsut and Nitocris who were ruling dynasties and whole armies of men, excuse me while I set fire to this poem on my pen because I am tired. Tired of the stereotypes black girls have fallen into because of American mentality. Oh, but not half as tired as Ella Baker, Diane Nash, Septima Poinsette-Clark. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, Miss Fannie Lou Hamer, Daisy Bates, Anna Arnold Hedgeman, and Dorothy Height are far more tired than I am.” — Ernestine Johnson
And then the reporter takes a slight but somewhat harmless turn.
“When did you get up this morning to get ready?”
“Who did your hair?”
Now this is when Kevin starts to realize something is up.
“What about mani-pedi? Show us your mani-pedi.”
“Have you been dieting for months getting ready for this?”
“What about Spanx? Do you have any Spanx on tonight?”
You’re right, Kevin! It is f**ked up. Fashion is cool, but let’s give leading ladies a bit more credit, shall we? Why do actors get to answer all the interesting questions about their favorite movies and TV shows while actresses usually just get asked about their bodies? While this video is pretty funny, these types of superficial and sometimes invasive questions that actresses regularly deal with on the red carpet aren’t very funny at all. Check out the full video below.
With the population growing and most of it happening in cities, these Canadian journalists wanted to take a closer look at whether our sprawling modern villages are up to the task of housing more humans.
Over half of the world lives in urban areas. That includes over 80% of people in the United States and 81% of folks in Canada, where this report was produced. Therein lies the problem.
Lee says our living environment has shaped public health for the worse:
“The ways in which we’ve been designing our cities have been making us sick. … We’ve inadvertently designed physical activity out of our lives.”
A healthy diet and regular physical activity are some of the most important things we can do for our health as individuals, but flawed city design has restricted opportunities for people to make those choices, which has contributed greatly to what are essentially public health epidemics — ones that require public health solutions.
Most cities have been designed for cars, not for people.
Look out your window and see for yourself. Brent Toderian, former chief city planner for Vancouver, says it’s a big problem:
Toderian says city design that makes it easier for people to get around instead of cars is one way to make physical activity a more natural part of our lives. And a lot of major cities are beginning to look to Latin America for ideas about how to achieve that.
In the 1990s, Medellín, Colombia, was one of the most dangerous cities in the world.
The constant threat of drug-related violence made it a place people wanted to escape.
But today, Medellín stands as a model of creative urban design.
The city was desperate for change. And they may not have had the resources of the world’s richest city, but with a few smart infrastructure investments, like outdoor escalators, suspended gondolas, and public gathering spaces, Medellín has been transformed into a place where people are proud to live.
Medellín’s escalators cost only $6 million to build — “peanuts in the scheme of modern infrastructure projects.”
Architect Carlos Escobar sees these developments as much more than just infrastructure upgrades:
“The new transportation system in Medellín … is not only a physical solution. It is not only transportation. It is also a social instrument that involves the community, that integrates the community in all the city.”
Medellín is more connected than it’s ever been, which makes it easier for workers to get to their jobs, and it brings more action to the local economy, strengthens the community, AND encourages people to be physically active.
If you’d rather spend more time in your community than in your car, give this post a share and help spark more people’s imaginations. The solutions are out there. And they’re not as costly or far-fetched as a lot of us might think.
This was a fantastic news report by CBC News (great job, Canada!). Here’s just a snippet, but check out the whole video if you wanna nerd out a little more like I did:
I’ve written tons of things about minimum wage, backed up by fact-checkers and economists and scholarly studies. All of them point to raising the minimum wage as a solution to lifting people out of poverty and getting folks off of public assistance. It’s slowly happening, and there’s much more to be done.
But when it comes right down to it, where the rubber meets the road is what it means for everyday workers who have to live with those wages. I honestly don’t know how they do it.
Ask yourself: Could I live on this small of a full-time paycheck? I know what my answer is.
(And note that the minimum wage in many parts of the county is STILL $7.25, so it would be even less than this).
On Lil Nas X’s new album Montero, he recruited a handful of collaborators, including Jack Harlow, Doja Cat, Elton John, Megan Thee Stallion, and Miley Cyrus (but not Drake and Nicki Minaj). Now he’s apparently fielding requests for featured guests on his next album, because he responded to a collaboration-seeking message from a legendary four-piece: the Teletubbies.
The twitter account for Teletubbies shared mock-ups of the Montero cover art but with Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and Po replacing Lil Nas X. Along with the images, the characters put in a request to link up with Lil Nas X, asking, “.@LilNasX can we get a feature on the next album?”
Lil Nas X is totally on board, as he responded with an idea of how he thinks their collaboration could work out: “alright bet! me and tinky winky on the hook, dipsy & po on the verses and we’ll let laa laa do the outro.”
alright bet! me and tinky winky on the hook, dipsy & po on the verses and we’ll let laa laa do the outro https://t.co/Luqx2t25Jx
While a potential collaboration with the Teletubbies is a fun and silly thing, it wouldn’t be the most surprising thing if Nas, who is always up for a good time, actually got together with the beloved children’s characters and made it happen. He did once visit Elmo’s talk show to cover “Elmo’s Song,” after all.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Davante Adams is entering his eighth season in the NFL where he has fully established himself as one of the league’s best wideouts. Over the past five seasons, Adams has averaged 92 catches, 1,127 yards, and 12 touchdowns per year in Green Bay, forming a tremendous partnership with Aaron Rodgers.
The two have not so subtly hinted that this might be their Last Dance together, as Rodgers has made clear his desire to leave the Packers and Adams’ contract is up at the end of this season. For now, though, their focus is on righting the ship in Green Bay for this season after a 38-3 loss to the Saints in Week 1 gave them plenty to look at going into a Monday night showdown with Detroit in Week 2.
Adams spoke with Uproxx this week over the phone on behalf of Courtyard by Marriott about the focus of the team after that loss to New Orleans, learning how to not get too low or too high during the regular season, how he became one of the league’s most consistent receivers, his favorite young wideouts in the NFL, and more.
Obviously Week 1 didn’t go as y’all planned, but you got Detroit coming up and what’s been the focus as y’all look to bounce back and get back to .500 here?
Well, that’s a helluva way to put it. I mean, the focus is just getting back to playing Packer football, man. We know we got to do. It was just a weird game kind of started off weird and got away from us early. So, gotta come out swinging earlier on in that game, and, you know, take care of business, it’s pretty simple. We got the personnel, it’s just about playing better situationally and getting a good rhythm going early. So, looking forward to doing that.
Absolutely. What have you learned in your career about dealing with the mental grind the season and the ups and downs and trying to stay level? Because I know that’s something a lot guys talk about as important is being able to not overreact to big wins or big losses and understand that it’s a long season.
Yeah, it’s a really, really long season, even longer this year with the added game. So really it’s just about — I mean everybody understands that it’s tough to win a game in this league. So if you don’t come out firing and have your hard hat on early in the game and taking care of business, things can get out of hand and get away from you quick. I mean, the Saints are a really good football team. So, to bounce back for this week it’s just having that mentality of everybody doing everything that they can and giving it all that they have while they’re out there on the field and not letting any moment slip by. Because you can’t get plays back, so you always want to make sure you put your best film out there every opportunity you get. So that’s basically the consensus of the team right now everybody understands what they got to do. You know, I feel like certain people did play well, too. There’s a lot of things that we can take that we did well out there. Just the overall execution wasn’t there and it reflected in the score.
When you look back at the player you were when you came into the league to the player you are now, where do you feel like you have improved the most as a receiver as you’ve become one of the league’s premier guys at that position?
I mean this position, man, is so much about confidence. So the more you do in a row, the more confidence you build, and it’s about being consistent. So that’s what I pride myself on is being the most consistent wideout in the NFL. And I just want to get out there and show my fans, my coaches, my teammates, everybody that I can continue to go out there, week in and week out and do it. The more you do that and establish it to yourself, the easier it becomes and the more you’re able to sustain that. At least that’s my mentality, just continue to do it more and more times and it builds that within you to where you don’t feel like you can be stopped. And, if you do get stopped, it was just by chance or, you know it was the coverage dictated the ball go elsewhere or whatever the case may be. But I just always try to put my best foot forward and make sure my film always looks as good as possible.
There’s so much talent at that position now. Who are some of the young receivers around the league that you’ve been most impressed with in the last few years that have come in?
Obviously Justin Jefferson looked really, really good last year. Calvin Ridley has shown the world that he’s a baller. I mean, I don’t know if he counts as young, I don’t know, maybe like four or five years or something like that — I don’t know, the years are going by too fast, I can’t even keep up anymore. But there’s a lot of good young wideouts out there, man. Honestly, there’s dudes that are emerging — Scary Terry [McLaurin] out there, he’s doing his thing. A lot, a lot of good young wideouts man. It’s almost too many to count, to be honest. Excited to see Courtland Sutton get back out there this year. He’s another really good young talent, so it’ll be fun, man. A lot, a lot of good talent around the league.
You’ve got this partnership with Courtyard. How did that come about for you and how can fans get in on experiences like the the Super Bowl Sleepover?
Well, basically, what it what it is is, you know, the official NFL hotel, Courtyard by Marriott, they have a huge thing that the fans have been loving for years called the Courtyard Super Bowl Sleepover contest. That’s where a lucky winner will have opportunity to stay the night in a suite that they turn into a hotel room, and basically have the whole night to experience sleeping inside the Super Bowl stadium, while waking up there and being the first one to experience the Super Bowl morning and kick off their day in there. They’ve jazzed the rooms up and made them look really nice, so the whole experience is really cool. And, you know it’s just a thing that we, myself and Courtyard, both believe in, you know. The fans hitting the road and getting back in the stadium and packing the houses out just for that ultimate football experience. Fans can enter by submitting their story on social with the hashtag #CourtyardSuperBowlContest. So they want to get out there, whether they’re traveling far or it’s a close game or whatever, share your experience and then from there Courtyard and be able to assess who’s most fitting to be the lucky winner to experience that.
You get to travel around the country and kind of visits in different places around the league. What’s your favorite NFL city that you you’ve gotten the chance to go to in your career — maybe it’s somewhere that you get to go to kind of regularly or just a couple of times?
Well I got different spots for different reasons. Chicago has nice shopping, cool city to just walk around, go eat. New Orleans has the best food, for sure. Dallas, great stadium great vibe and energy in there. It’s always really electric in that building. So a few different spots, different reasons why I like them, but I’d say the food probably leads over everything, just because, I mean, I love me some Southern cooking. So getting down in New Orleans that’d probably be my favorite one, and being in that dome is always pretty cool too.
I was gonna ask about the food. I do a lot of NBA stuff and I know guys — cause they’re traveling, day after day — so a lot of guys have a go to restaurant, that way if it’s in that city, they are going to go there. Do you have that, where like if you’re on the road and you know you need a meal, is there a spot that you know that you’re going to go if it’s in that city?
I think is is not necessarily the exact same spot but we typically, whether we go as a widout group or, you know, just a few random teammates, I love to hit a steakhouse — you know Ruth’s Chris, Mastro’s, Fleming’s. You know, just because we don’t really have in Green Bay, believe it or not, there isn’t the most options out here to go and just eat at a really nice steakhouse. We got a couple of different spots, but you know some of the bigger chain steakhouses out there or some of the bigger cities that we get to travel to, so I take advantage and try to hit those up when we get on the road.
And what is your New Orleans spot. Is there a spot that you really like there because you mentioned that one specifically as your favorite for Southern food?
I’ll try different stuff, man. Pappadeaux’s, I mean, there’s a few different spots. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to — last year, we couldn’t even go — so I forgot a few of the names of the spots that I would hit, but that’s nothin that old Google doesn’t figure out for me when I pull up, always pointing me in the right direction.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
“Let’s break the rules.”
These are the words singer Kyle Dion blares out on the opening track to his third album Sassy. This idea of negating the world’s expectations isn’t a newly-discovered concept for the Los Angeles-based singer, he’s been doing that from the very start. From his 2016 debut Painting Sounds through his 2019 sophomore effort Suga, Kyle Dion has made his uniqueness very clear. He possesses the energy of a rockstar, has one of the more impressive voices in the R&B world, carries an impenetrable confidence like most rappers do, and he does all of this while traversing the world like an indie act. It’s these qualities that helped the singer craft his last album, Suga, one of the most impressive R&B albums in 2019. The album’s 13 tracks detailed the rise and fall of love filled with equally climatic and crushing moments. Each was accentuated by the singer’s ability to excellently portray the raw passion needed for whatever emotion was at hand.
With that being said, his invitation to break the rules is more so for we as listeners, and maybe even his contemporaries, to join him in moving against the expected flow of the world. It comes with the hope that we’ll find an exhilarating freedom in doing so. But how does a rule-breaker continue to break the rules in a way that’s still attention-grabbing rather than recycled, repetitive, and even exhausting? Well, for Kyle Dion, he does it by simply having fun. His third album Sassy taps into a different side of his personality, one he describes as “an exaggerated version of myself.” However, even Dion has set boundaries for his anti ways. “I’ll never make the same song or album twice,” he says over a Zoom call. “That just doesn’t stimulate me at all and I don’t want to hear that, so I wouldn’t make it.”
It’s a line of thought that Dion said multiple times to me during our conversation. Even without him saying it, one might have guessed it as his mantra after listening to Sassy. The 17-track album is lively in ways that even the most energetic moments of his previous two projects hadn’t reached. “Parmesan” welcomes your best dance moves while Dion sings of his saucy ways and “Drip” with Duckwrth picks up the pace for an infectious number that commends a woman’s spotlight moment during a night out. “Money” is a cut-throat record that happily accepts the idea that cash ruling everything around him while “Fix Vision” with Channel Tres praises a woman’s beauty on the beautifully constructed track.
Kyle Dion’s change of emphasis on Sassy came after he discovered a falling point with his 2019 album. “I remember going to my friend’s house and they couldn’t play a song of mine on Suga at a kickback or something because it was not the wave,” he says. “I want to be played at a kickback, I want girls to be twerking and sh*t. I want to be played at different things.” So after touring the United States and Europe, all while having a blast with friends as he created moments like partying and “peeing in a lake and sh*t” in Amsterdam as well as the “lit as hell” experiences of Chicago, Dion set his mind on making a more outdoor-friendly album. While some may have not caught on to his versatility yet, the singer is very aware of his Rolodex of talents. “I can do many things and I’m not scared to show people that I can do many things, I don’t want people to expect things.”
And there it began. Sassy and all its beauty slowly came together, and as Dion worked to put the pieces together, there was one thing he was sure of. “One thing that I’m always gonna be able to do is sing my ass off,” he proclaims. “I’m always going to incorporate that into everything that I do, but there are no rules in what I’m able to do. I can do whatever I want as an artist.” It’s this refusal to conform that also welcomes a surprising, unexpected, but pleasant guest appearance from Ja Rule on “Placebo.” The New York rapper’s appearance came after Dion jokingly mentioned him after Ja Rule and Jennifer Lopez’s “I’m Real” came to mind while recording “Placebo.” “We just felt like it was funny and kind of a stretch, but we put it out there to my team,” he says. “A member of my team knew Ja Rule’s camp, and we sent it out to them.” Well, it turned out to be a great move as they received more than was asked for. “We were so excited when he sent a verse back instead of adlibs and I was like, ‘Yeah, man, this shi*t’s crazy.”
Furthermore, Dion loved that I labeled Ja Rule’s guest appearance as unexpected because it plays into the random and freeform artist he strives to be. “Like you said, You didn’t expect the pairing and that’s what I love,” he boasts. “I don’t want anyone to expect anything from me because I’m ever-changing, I’m ever-growing, and evolving. That’s what it is.” For some, change is dangerous as it promises an equal chance of rejection as it does praise. It’s something Stormzy alluded to during an interview with Billie Eilish. “Your spirit sometimes wants to stick to what you know,” the British rapper said while speaking about the pains of a sophomore album. “But then you want to venture out and like you’re just trying to figure out… the world really loved me for everything I did the first time around, so how do I approach the second one?”
So in a world where many, understandably, cringe or shudder at the idea of sharing something completely different than what they’ve found great success in and have been typecasted to, Dion practically begs his peers to throw caution into the wind and show their full palette of colors. “People are scared bro, people are so scared to show the range [and] do different sh*t,” he says with a bit of frustration in his tone and later adds, “Do what you want in the moment [and] be unapologetically yourself.” It’s sound advice from the singer who’s spent half a decade doing this. Being a musician is founded on constant leaps of faith as you repeatedly subject yourself to criticism or acclaim with every release. However, there’s a reason the saying “you miss every shot you don’t take” exists.
One of my favorite aspects of Sassy comes right after Dion’s collaboration with Ja Rule. Following “Placebo,” the flashing lights and pyrotechnics that come with the show that Dion puts on throughout the album are replaced with a single dim light as the singer’s tender touch returns to the forefront. “Comfortable” provides a warm blanket to a lover in hopes that the gesture will provoke them into opening up and showing him their true self. “Kiss Me Back” uses an endearing collection of guitar chords to beg for reciprocation and his “Good Bye, Good Luck” interlude lets go of a love he so desperately hoped would last forever. This versatility, and mastery in controlling it all, is truly impressive. It’s sequenced perfectly into the album making it a smooth transition into this relaxed moment as well as one out of it as the singer laughs off his sad-boy moment to return to the fun and bring the album to a close.
Sassy is filled with color from top to bottom and Kyle Dion is aware of it. The album isn’t painted within some imaginary lines that were set for it. That would quite literally go against the boundary-breaking agenda that the singer set for it. Instead, it contains splatters of vibrant coloring all over the canvas, and even if it doesn’t amount to a beautiful work of art in society’s eyes, it’s elegant enough for Dion and he’s happy that he did it that way. “I just threw up on this album and [it’s] like, “What do I do now? What’s next?” he ponders as our conversation nears an end. “Just as a young man growing into myself, I’m so curious as to where I’m gonna be next and where I’m gonna go next, but I’m happy that I let that out.”
Being a rule-breaker requires you to put up blinders to how people may respond to you. Going against the grain is rarely applauded, and it’s something the singer understands with his third album. “I did this one unapologetically, this is how I’m feeling, take it, love it, or don’t,” he says to me. However, even this rebel can’t help but hope for one thing from the world that consumes Sassy. “Do what you want and f*cking respect people that just put their sh*t out there and be f*cking free, unapologetic, and exactly who they are,” he declares. “If you don’t like it, that’s fine, but you got to respect it. That’s what I want, people should do whatever they want. That’s it.”
I think we can all agree with that.
Sassy is out now via Kyle Dion/AWAL Recordings. Get it here.
Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga are getting ready to release a final collaborative album, Love For Sale, in just a couple weeks. Today, the duo offers another preview of it with the title track. The song, which originally debuted in the 1930 musical The New Yorkers, shows that Bennett hasn’t lost his vocal chops even at 95 years old and that Gaga remains an excellent accompaniment for the legend.
In a 2018 interview, Bennett said of working with Gaga, “I like a contrast when you sing a duet with someone. It’s what makes it most interesting. If the voices sound too much alike, then it becomes more of a chorus than a duet. We hand-picked everyone on the Duets projects so that it would be a good fit and I think each and every one of the tracks on those albums had their own style and feel to it, which was what we intended. Of course, I just love Lady Gaga and we so enjoyed singing ‘Lady Is A Tramp’ on Duets II that we decided to make a full album together and then tour as well. She just gets better and better and I think will have a fantastic movie career ahead of her as well.”
Listen to “Love For Sale” above.
Love For Sale is out 10/1 via Columbia Records. Pre-order it here.
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