Category: News

Earlier in July, it was announced that Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson, and Paul Simon would headline a special “Homecoming Concert” this summer in Central Park. Now, the full lineup is upon us, and it is stacked. Going down on August 21, the concert will feature The Killers, Patti Smith, Carlos Santana, Elvis Costello, Jon Batiste, Andrea Bocelli, Journey, Wyclef Jean, Barry Manilow, The New York Philharmonic, and plenty more. Check out the poster and the full talent list below.

“This is going to be an historic, monumental moment for all New Yorkers and all Americans,” said NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio in a statement. “I’ll put it plainly: You’re going to want to be here. This is truly once in a lifetime and we thank Clive Davis, Live Nation and Danny Meyer for all their efforts to help make this possible. This is a celebration of our city, of every working family who faced incredible challenges last year and overcame. This is a celebration for you.”

The Great Homecoming Concert Lineup:

Jon Batiste
Andrea Bocelli
Kane Brown
LL Cool J
Elvis Costello
Lucky Daye
Earth, Wind & Fire
Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds
Cynthia Erivo
Jimmy Fallon
Jennifer Hudson
Wyclef Jean
Journey
The Killers
Gayle King
Don Lemon
Barry Manilow
The New York Philharmonic
Polo G
Carlos Santana
Paul Simon
Patti Smith
Bruce Springsteen
Rob Thomas

The Homecoming concert goes down on 8/21 in Central Park and is free to attend. Tickets will be released to the public in “batches” starting August 2 at 10 a.m. ET. Get more information here.

Young Thug is on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts: A sentence I never thought I’d write but that I am so glad I now can. But wait… there’s more! He plays his set with a very (ahem) punk influence, hinting toward the eventual release of his next full-length album, which he’s been teasing for some time. And listen, if you thought Young Thug rapping to punk instrumentals wouldn’t be awesome, I genuinely do not know what to tell you. It’s great.

With a setlist including both new songs (“Die Slow,” “Droppin Jewels,” “Hate The Game,” and “Tick Tock”) as well as his current fan-favorite “Ski” from the YSL compilation album that dropped earlier this year, Thugger’s Tiny Desk Concert is everything you could want from one of these or from a live Young Thug performance.

Oh yeah, and you know Travis Barker pulls up to play drums because what even is a punk-rap crossover without Travis Barker on it? Thug’s flow also seems… I don’t want to say “improved,” but it’s very polished and clear and that’s obviously on purpose as he slides into his next evolution with all the finesse suggested by those constant “slime” and snake references he makes.

Watch Young Thug’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert above.

Young Thug is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn delivered stunning testimony during the January 6th Select Committee hearing on Tuesday morning. Despite efforts by Republicans to downplay the seriousness of the attack on the U.S. Capitol building following a Donald Trump rally, Officer Dunn’s testimony paints an even darker picture than what was previously known to many about the failed insurrection. While testifying to Congress, Dunn shared several instances of the MAGA rioters using racial slurs after spotting him inside the Capitol. Via Joy-Ann Reid:

Officer Dunn described men in tactical gear waving Trump flags, and wearing MAGA hats telling him they were invited by Donald Trump. He described a woman yelling “you hear that guys? This f—ng ni—er voted for Joe Biden!” Which was followed by a stream of n-bombs from the MAGA.

Officer Dunn says he had never been called a ni—er while in uniform. He describes fellow Black officers saying they had never been called ni—ers to their face before 1/6/21. One was told by the insurrectionists “put your gun down and we’ll show you what kind of ni—er you are.”

As Dunn continued his testimony, he noted that he had never seen anyone attack a Capitol Police officer, or even the Metropolitan PD, until January 6. According to Dunn, he attempted to defuse the situation peacefully, but again, he had racial slurs yelled at him.

Dunn ended his testimony by revealing his shock and anger at the racial motivations behind the attack, which he shared with a fellow officer. “I sat down on a bench in the rotunda with a friend of mine who is also a black Capitol police officer and told him about the racial slurs I endured,” Dunn testified. “I became very emotional and began yelling, ‘How the blank could something like this happen? Is this America?’”

(Via Joy-Ann Reid on Twitter, Aaron Rupar on Twitter)

UK post-punk stars Dry Cleaning have had an exciting 2021, what with the critical praise for their debut album, New Long Leg. Now, they’ve shared a special one-off double A-side single: “Bug Eggs” and “Tony Speaks!”

Recorded at Rockfield Studios in July and August 2020 during the same session for New Long Leg, these rarities were, up until now, only available in an expanded Japanese edition of the album. Lead vocalist Florence Shaw said that “‘Bug Eggs’ is about the confidence that comes with age, fragility and sexual desire.” Meanwhile, the lyrics to ‘Tony Speaks!’ were “written days after the Conservative party won the December 2019 UK election. I was thinking about climate change, environmental catastrophes and political campaigning.”

“I think our temperaments are important to the band,” Shaw recently told DIY of how the band has developed. “We’re a strange mix of pessimists and optimists. I think that’s something that creates a lot of the atmosphere of our music. A tension between two opposite things […] I think a lot of the writing that I do is trying to work out how I feel about things. I’ll have all these different bits of writing and I’ll think ‘I think these are all about love’, I’ll put them on a page and then I’ll think, ‘Does that help?’”

Listen to “Bug Eggs” and “Tony Speaks!” above. New Long Leg is out now via 4AD. Get it here.

With hits like “Cabo” and “Brothers,” 19-year-old Bankrol Hayden is making his name known, but despite the time and effort that goes into finding and then building on early success, Bankrol still has love for his time spent gaming with his friends back in the day and for what gaming has meant for him in his life. That’s part of why he’s set to be one of the key talents driving Xbox and Atlantic Records’ unveil of the Green Room, a streaming crossover event happening tonight at 6PM ET on Atlantic’s YouTube channel.

Hayden is set to be a member of one of the 10 squads playing Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare (additional guests include Seth Curry, A Boogie, and Vikkstar) for bragging rights and a share of a $10,000 prize pool. Uproxx spoke with Bankrol about the event, his training, and what song he’d put on the NBA2K soundtrack if he had the chance.

Talk to me about why you wanted to be involved with the launch of the series.

Bankrol Hayden: Yeah, it’s really cool. Honestly, I was excited when they told me about it, especially because GaryV is on it. I’ve always been a big fan of his. Also, I’ve just been playing video games since I was a kid. So it was good news when I got to hear that.

How much Call of Duty do you play?

I’m going to be honest, when I was little I played a lot of Call Of Duty: Black Ops, Black Ops Two. But I don’t play much Call Of Duty [now]. I’m actually getting into training right now. I don’t play that much to be real with you, bro. I play more 2K and Madden, I play a lot of GTA. I still play the OG Call Of Duty [games] and shit with my boys when I go back home. I used to go on zombies and go crazy. Nuketown. [In Modern Warfare 3] we used to be taking out the juggernauts. Now that bro brought that back to my memory, it would be every level you would get a new gun or something, but we would be taking out like three or four juggernauts every round. That shit was lit. This was before Black Ops Two, Black Ops One. Yeah, this is way back. But man, I’m really excited for the event. It’s going to be a great time. We’re going to have a blast.

So when you are playing, is it more of a relaxed, hang with friends thing, or just an escape from the world?

It just gets my mind off stuff. I used to be in the hospital and when I was going through surgeries and I was like, I’ve got a back surgery tomorrow, I would be like, okay, playing Fortnite is taking my mind off all that. Or playing Call Of Duty, playing 2K with my boys, with a headset on. That’s always kind of what video games did for me. But as I’m moving into my rap career, I’ve got to be focusing. I’ve got to watch how much time I spend on the game. So I actually put it away. It’s in my closet right now.

I like that. That means you’re really focused.

It was draining for me because I had it in my living room bro, and I was like, you know what? We are here to make music. That’s why we are in LA. But it’s still good and I like it. That shit really helps people’s minds.

When you’re playing 2K, who’s your team?

Man, bro, I liked playing 2K Blacktop, bro. That’s my favorite thing. You gotta watch what I did with Faze Blaze. I beat him in 2K. I like playing that stuff, but my team is going to be the Warriors because that’s where I’m from, out there in the bay.

Are they going back to the playoffs next year?

We’re going back to the playoffs with Klay [Thompson].

How do you feel about Giannis Antetokounmpo winning a championship?

Bro, that shit is inspiring, bro. Just seeing bro win, all the videos of him wanting it before, and now he’s here, it’s respectable. He deserved it.

What song of yours do you feel would be best on a 2K soundtrack?

I’m going to say “Costa Rica” with Kid Laroi remix. That shit would go crazy, I feel like. Or “Drop a Tear,” Lil Baby with me.

What was it like doing a song with Lil Baby?

Shoot man, it was a cool experience. We shot it in a church in Atlanta and all those people had great vibes. It was cool people and it was good, man. It was a good experience. It was crazy. Because I’m a big fan a Lil Baby. So I was like, man, this is surreal.

Bankrol Hayden is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

What do you get when you smash together elements of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The African Queen, Pirates of the Caribbean, and, strangely, a little bit of Maverick? And it stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt? Well, the good news is you get about an hour of a movie that could be deemed “entertaining” or “enjoyable.” The bad news is, after that first hour (and like so many movies inexplicably do today), someone decided, “Look, hear me out, what if about halfway through we make this movie super convoluted? Like to the point it would be hard to explain the plot to anyone?” And then someone else decided, “Yes, that’s exactly what we should do.”

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (whose movies I like a lot; though this does not feel anything like a typical Jaume Collet-Serra movie), Jungle Cruise is especially maddening because for the first act of the movie it truly feels like they were on to something.

Set in 1916, Emily Blunt plays Dr. Lily Houghton, a scientist who, in London, steals a mysterious arrowhead that will direct her to a fabled healing tree in Brazil. Even this scene lifts directly from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as Lily times the noise she makes breaking into a crate with that of a tool being used by the museum curator. And you know what? Fine! If you’re going to lift from other movies, that’s not a bad one to lift from. Soon after, Lily finds herself hanging onto a ladder for dear life as Jesse Plemons’s German Prince Joachim screeches at her to toss him the artifact and he will help her, straight out of the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Again, fine. (Also, Plemons is having the time of his life in this movie.)

Lily and her brother, McGregor (Jack Whitehall), arrive in Brazil and hire a rapscallion of a steamboat captain, Captain Frank Wolff (Johnson) to guide them to the area where the magic healing tree might be located. All the while being chased by Plemons’s dastardly Prince Joachim, who has a submarine. So as of this moment, we’ve got: Two charming leads, Johnson and Blunt. Some comedic relief from Jack Whitehall. And Jesse Plemons hilariously overacting as the villain. All in a race to be the first to get to a tree with magical healing powers. You know what, now we’re talkin’, how could this go south?

For reasons I will never understand, in 2021, what I have just described is, somehow, just not enough plot for a movie anymore. So, now, on top of all that we have the ugly CGI ghosts of 400-year-old conquistadors thrown in here, too. And the more time we spend with these ugly CGI ghosts, the worse the movie gets, to the point I just didn’t care anymore because it became all so stupid. And then on top of that we then have to learn about Captain Frank Wolff’s connection to these 400-year-old conquistadors. (I will not give that detail away, but after I saw this movie I told someone this particular plot point and they, still, think I am making this up.)

What’s maddening about Jungle Cruise is there’s a fun summer movie in here. I know this because, for the first hour or so, I was watching it. It was all set up. Some interesting characters are established (now, I wouldn’t go as far to say Johnson and Blunt have “chemistry” with each other, but I did believe two actual movie stars who can carry a movie were on screen) and the rules were in place of what these characters want to accomplish. And then they sunk it with utter nonsense. Look, I get this is a movie based on an amusement park ride (that I have never been on and know absolutely nothing about), but I was actually looking pretty forward to an “original” summer action movie. And for the first hour I kept thinking, by golly, they might have just pulled this off. And then, of course, it sunk into a CGI mess of a convoluted movie. My guess is that there was some sort of decree that every single aspect of the ride just had to also be included in the movie, which was a big mistake. I honestly don’t understand why almost every big-budget studio movie these days, the answer is, “More plot! This movie needs more plot!”

Honestly, my low tolerance for Jungle Cruise is because they had all the ingredients. This really could have been pretty good! It was like a runner with a big lead. All the runner has to do is not fall. Just finish the race and you’ll win. Anyway, the runner fell, which makes it much harder to watch than someone who was at the back of the pack the whole time.

‘Jungle Cruise’ opens on July 30th in theaters and via Disney+. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.</em

Don Lemon found himself in an unusual position while defending rival Tucker Carlson over the “Montana Man” confrontation. That’s quite a set of words there, so let’s back up. In the recent past, Tucker has acquired the reputation of encouraging harassment of outdoors mask wearers by his viewership. He also freaked out over what he called Don Lemon’s “white supremacist QAnon cookie jar.” During that episode, he drew unwanted attention to Don Lemon’s home while claiming that Lemon actually doesn’t care about diversity because he lives in a community that “is just 3% African-American.” As a result (and as Lemon revealed on air during his Monday night CNN broadcast), Lemon’s home was surrounded by paparazzi.

That made the issue of Montana Man (real name Dan Bailey) difficult for Lemon to wrap his head around, after the fly-fishing store owner confronted Tucker and called him “the worst human being known to mankind.” Lemon admitted to having “mixed emotions” on this issue, but he still defended Tucker’s right to shop in an outdoors store (or anywhere) with his family without being confronted:

“I don’t like it. I don’t like it when people do that because I would not want it to happen to me. But I have mixed emotions because Tucker has done this to people before… Tucker said some really nasty and silly things about me, and the next day there were paparazzi in front of my house, hiding, taking pictures… I don’t want it to happen to anyone, I don’t want it to happen to Tucker, but when you do things like that, I don’t know.”

Ana Navarro felt differently and made it clear that she felt no sympathy for Tucker. She pointed out that Dan Bailey was actually pretty calm and collected, considering how upset he was about Tucker sending out dangerous vaccine-misinformation to the Fox News masses every night. Still, Lemon disagreed, saying that Tucker might act “completely reprehensible and divorced from reality,” yet he still felt that the Fox News host had a right to “not be ambushed” in public. Meanwhile, social media is still a fan of Montana Man saying what a lot of people feel about Tucker Carlson.

B.J. Novak may forever be associated with his role as Ryan Howard, the douchey temp-turned-corporate VP-turned-temp again in The Office, but Novak had as much to do behind the scenes on the beloved comedy as a writer, director, and executive producer on the series. While he’s largely stuck to acting in the years since The Office ended, he’s about to embark on a whole new — and totally bonkers-sounding — adventure for FX on Hulu with The Premise.

FX is describing The Premise, which will feature an impressive lineup of guest stars, as “a fearlessly ambitious new series that uses comedy to engage with the biggest issues of our unprecedented modern era,” and based on the descriptions of the upcoming episodes, it seems like an appropriate summation. Like a purely comedic version of Black Mirror (minus the pig-f*cking… we think), The Premise will tackle topics like police misconduct, gun control, and immigration, with Novak writing (or co-writing) all five of the announced episodes and directing two of them.

The trick, of course, will be finding the right balance between comedy and current events, but something tells us that Novak’s got that under control already. Just look at the summary for the first episode, “Social Justice Sex Tape,” which features Ben Platt, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Ayo Edebiri:

“When a white, woke, twenty-something ally to social justice causes (Platt) discovers video evidence of a disputed police incident in the background of his highly embarrassing sex tape, a savvy young lawyer (Edebiri) and her mentor (Ellis Ross) strategize on how to best use the tape and witness to save an innocent man (Fowler) from prison.”

The Premise—which will also feature appearances by Daniel Dae Kim, Lola Kirke, Soko, Lucas Hedges, Kaitlyn Dever, Jon Bernthal, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Ed Asner, George Wallace, Boyd Holbrook, and Beau Bridges—will debut its first two episodes on Thursday, September 16 on FX on Hulu.

(Via Variety)

Julian Casablancas is a big-time New York Mets fan. The latest album from The Strokes, 2020’s The New Abnormal, features an song named after the MLB team, “Ode To The Mets.” Meanwhile, Casablancas’ other band, The Voidz, let the team use their song “The Eternal Tao 2.0” in a promotional video to kick off the 2021 season. Now, Casablancas got to experience what is surely a dream come true: He threw the first pitch at yesterday’s Mets doubleheader against the Atlanta Braves.

He strolled up to the mount in a vintage Darryl Strawberry jersey, which he accessorized with suspenders and a hat. Thankfully, his throw was innocuous and not meme-worthy, as he pitched it just a little outside of the plate. He also did a post-pitch interview on the game TV broadcast and talked about his earliest memories about the team and even suggested an idea for a new MLB rule.

Casablancas shared some photos from his pitch and wrote on Instagram, “thank you so much @mets @snytv was so fun throwing out first pitch today. wild. love you Mets.”

Towards the end of last year, Casablancas said he’d happily write a new theme song for the Mets broadcasts for free, saying, “The SNY song was driving me nuts. I used to watch a lot of games. I knew someone who worked for the Mets, who hooked me up with tickets sometimes. I had a whole song. I was like, ‘Let me do like the song for SNY for the game.’ It was kind of epic, rising — like an exciting game is gonna happen. But they just didn’t have their [stuff] together. And they were like, ‘We don’t have a budget.’ I was like, ‘You don’t need a budget. I’ll just give you the song. I’ll do it for free.’”

There are few athletes in professional sports more connected with his fans than Chargers running back Austin Ekeler. While on Sundays Ekeler is spending his time dodging tacklers and powering his way to the endzone, during his free time it’s not uncommon to find him engaging in a different kind of game. Ekeler is an extremely active Twitch streamer with over 28,000 followers and he uses that time on Twitch to engage with his fans in a way that many athletes aren’t able to. He gets to move past the walls of social media, or press conferences, and speak with his fans directly through Twitch chat. Ekeler really values this time he has with his fans on platforms like Twitch, because while he’s unable to put faces to names, there are people he’s gotten accustomed to seeing in his chat. These fans will show up every week just so they can have a chance to interact with Ekeler, and that connection is what makes his stream different from the average athlete Twitch stream.

While it’s not uncommon to see athletes streaming on Twitch these days, they aren’t always as interactive with their chats as Ekeler is with his. When the average athlete is playing Call of Duty, or Grand Theft Auto, they’re typically playing with their friends and occasionally commenting at what chat is saying. Ekeler on the other hand largely dedicates his stream to the chat aspect.

‘It’s really about forming these bonds with my community.” Ekeler told UPROXX. “There are people who, I’ve never physically met them, but I recognize their Twitch name and I feel like I know them. I recognize people who I’ve been seeing their names in chat for over a year now. I’ve told them that if they ever come to a game to hold up a sign that says ‘Hey Austin, I’m [Twitch Name]’ and I’ll run over to them no questions asked.”

The way Ekeler got into streaming is a similar story to how a lot of hobbies were formed within the last year. As the COVID-19 pandemic pushed people inside, Ekeler saw Twitch as a way to continue interacting with his fans due to events like meet and greets no longer being an option. As his brand as a Twitch streamer grew he formed the “Gridiron Gaming Group” to give other pro athletes a chance to stream and form their own communities as well. It didn’t take long for him to get other NFL players like teammates Mike Williams and Justin Jones to get on board.

However, while Ekeler was forming GGG he never forgot about the ones who helped him get to this point. It’s Ekeler’s love for his community that has made him want to give back to it so he formed a partnership with SteelSeries to give back to them. To give them the opportunity get some of this same gear that he’ll be using in his streams. It’s also an opportunity to continue building his brand as a streamer.

“It’s no secret my passion for gaming and esports runs deep, so I am honored to become the first pro sports athlete to serve as an ambassador and join the SteelSeries family,” Ekeler said. “SteelSeries is celebrating their 20th anniversary as the original esports brand and they continue to lead the way by pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo, so I jumped at the opportunity to align and collaborate with them as I continue to build my brand across sports and culture.”

While nobody has come to a Chargers game with a sign yet, Ekeler still feels the warmth of his community pushing him forward every day. He’s one of those guys that has a storybook background in how he reached this point in his life. He was a complete unknown coming out of college, but he chose to drop out for his final semester so he could put his entire focus on football and preparing to get ready. He had a standout performance at a Pro Day and, although he went undrafted, he found himself signing with the Chargers, making the roster, and in the backfield taking his first ever carry as a pro. He didn’t waste it.

Ekeler can tell you everything about this moment from whom he was playing, to the number of yards he ran, but despite his background, he doesn’t have a chip on his shoulder the way you’d expect. He’s instead thankful for not only being in this situation but for proving himself wrong more than anything else. He wasn’t supposed to be in this situation. “I’ve always been proving myself wrong.” Ekeler said. “I never thought I would be in the NFL. I never thought I’d be on the team. I never thought I’d be at this moment of my life.”

He shows that thankfulness in how he talks about his community. Despite being this ultra-competitive NFL player, he’s able to take that competitiveness and push it towards his growth as both a football player and a streamer. Of course, this doesn’t mean his competitiveness never comes out. He just tries to keep that on the field, or while playing League of Legends.

“I usually gotta play with the chat off on League or I’ll get tilted…the worst trash talk I’ve ever heard was in that game, because everyone is hidden behind a computer screen so they can’t see who the other person is.”

While League of Legends may retain its title as having the most toxic community in the world, fans of Ekeler’s can be happy that isn’t the case. His Twitch chat is very inviting and he tries to make sure everyone feels welcome. Go check him out and who knows, maybe you can be his first fan to bring their Twitch name to a game.