Category: News

Lil Baby stole the show in 2020 and his sophomore album, My Turn is complete proof of that. The project grew to be the best-selling album of the year thanks to efforts like “We Paid” with 42 Dugg and “Sum 2 Prove,” and helped push the Atlanta rapper into a new tier among hip-hop acts. However, the pandemic-riddled year wasn’t a bright spot for Baby only. Nearly a thousand miles northwest, Chicago native Lil Durk also elevated his artistry. Throughout 2020, he dropped two projects, Just Cause Y’all Waited 2 and The Voice, with both debuting at No. 2 on the album charts, a career-high for him.

With the rappers’ respective success came a new height of popularity and more eyes on them. While some prefer to take advantage of the new attention for their benefit, Baby and Durk — who hatched some chemistry of their own through frequent collaborations — decided to make the most of their increased status for their newly-released album, Voice Of The Heroes. Just like the last however many collaborative hip-hop albums we’ve received over the past decade, the project looked to answer one question: Was it worth the hype?

Yes, but not by a significant margin. The thing with hip-hop joint albums over the past decade is most of them are either underwhelming or age poorly. Huncho Jack is an example of the former while Drake and Future’s What A Time To Be Alive — minus a few highlight tracks — fits the shoe of the latter. Voice Of The Heroes sits in the middle of these. It wasn’t a disappointment nor will it age poorly. The project did what it needed to in highlighting the rappers’ best talents while inviting each other to their respective worlds to experience it and try a hand at thriving in it.

Examples of this arrive fairly often throughout Voice Of The Heroes. “Who I Want” sees both rappers tell their side of a “hustle and love” story with production that allows Durk’s laxed and woozy bars to be palatable with Baby’s grittier approach to the subject. The same occurs on the project’s title track, which doubles as the intro to the album. “Voice Of The Heroes” creates a space for both Durk and Baby that allows them to deliver a melodic sermon about life’s past and current struggles, the things they’ve overcome along the way, and their legacy that takes shape through each release. While there are songs that certainly complement both rappers, there are others that see one of them at an advantage.

“Medical” carries a piano melody that would’ve made the song ideal for placement on Just Cause Y’all Waited 2 and Durk shines because of it. Elsewhere, “Man Of My Word” and “How It Feels” sound like they were cut from the cloth of Baby’s My Turn fabric and released with slight alterations. “That’s Facts” is by far the best song on Voice Of The Heroes and it’s a jacket that fits Baby extremely well, but let it be known that Durk slides with ease on the track as well. Lastly, Durk treats his supporters to a pair of “No Auto Durk” offerings — which finds him rapping without his trademark autotune filter — through his verses on “Still Runnin” and “Lying.”

Lil Baby and Lil Durk’s project could have been a slimmer release. Outside of their excellent collaboration with Rod Wave on “Rich Off Pain,” the last third of the album is a bit of a drag that makes the energetic and diverse offerings that arrive before it feels like a distant memory. While today’s streaming world welcomes lengthy projects for the sake of a boost in sales, this writer will rarely be fond of projects that push past the 40-45 minute duration mark. This isn’t to say that the music in that section is bad, but in almost all cases, even the best things in life get tiring after a while.

Voice Of The Heroes is not the career-altering release that Baby and Durk’s respective 2020 projects put forth, but that wasn’t the expectation set by the rappers or their fans before it was released. The project delivers a satisfactory showcase in collaboration between two of this generation’s best rappers. Just like Future and Young Thug did when they shared Super Slimey in 2017, Lil Baby and Lil Durk recognized the potential in joining forces at the relative heights of their careers. Unlike the Atlanta rappers’ effort, Voice Of The Heroes is much closer in proximity to Baby and Durk’s best work. While this project isn’t heroic in any sense, Voice Of The Heroes is certainly better suited to save the day than most of the joint hip-hop albums we’ve received in recent years.

Voice Of The Heroes is out now via Quality Control/Alamo/Motown. Get it here.

In the world of console shooters, there are two giants: Call of Duty and Battlefield. While Call of Duty is more well-known for its yearly releases, Battlefield has always followed a more traditional development cycle between games. We haven’t seen a Battlefield game since 2018 and we’re all starved for a new one, especially on modern consoles.

The wait is finally over. We have an official name, trailer, and release date for the upcoming Battlefield game, Battlefield 2042. Reaching this point wasn’t easy for DICE, and some of the excitement was subdued due to a handful of leaks and rumors coming out early, but the game itself looks exciting and we’re going to see some gameplay of it around June. More importantly, we have an October release date and pre-order info.

The announcement came alongside an absurd trailer to reveal the game. We all expect game trailers to go a little over the top, but this is one of the craziest we’ve ever seen. It’s all cinematic, so unfortunately, there’s no gameplay to really glean from, but if the game is half as ridiculous as this trailer, then Battlefield 2042 is going to have some of the most memorable setpieces we’ve ever seen in a video game.

Of course, what we all really want to know about Battlefield is the details of the gameplay. What DICE is teasing so far sounds really promising — 128 players per match on next-gen consoles and dynamic weather that can be used against your opponent. Ever wanted to fight someone in a tornado? Well now you can!

Battlefield V was a great game, but at the end of the day, it felt like more Battlefield and not much else. Battlefield 2042‘s new features early on sound like the type of stuff that can only be done on next-gen consoles, which is exactly what fans of the series want to see after waiting this long. With a gameplay teaser coming in June, it will be exciting to see what this all looks like in action.

Giannis Antetokounmpo’s free throw shooting has come under the microscope during the NBA playoffs. This is for a few reasons, with the most prominent one being he just hasn’t been particularly good at it. The two-time league MVP is at 53.5 percent from the charity stripe this postseason, and while he’s never been lights out from the line, this is still the worst he’s shot on free throws in his postseason career.

The other big reason: It takes Antetokounmpo a lot of time to get a free throw off, something that led to him getting hit for a 10-second violation during a crucial trip to the line against the Miami Heat.

It’s very rare that these get called, but Antetokounmpo does take his time getting free throws up, so this is, by the letter of the law, the correct call. It also led to opposing fans having some fun at his expense, something that was especially true during Game 1 against the Brooklyn Nets. The team put up a clock on the video board to keep track of how long it took him to get free throws off, and according to Peter Botte of the New York Post, the NBA didn’t particularly like this.

An NBA source said the league ordered the Nets to cut out the gamesmanship tactic of a timer shown on the overhead scoreboard at Barclays Center during Game 1 of their playoff series against the Bucks whenever the two-time MVP was at the line. The league doesn’t advocate teams inciting the taunting of other players, the source added.

Instead, the Nets showed an inset video of longtime fan Mr. Whammy extending his arms forward and shaking his fingers at the Bucks star during his free-throw attempts during Monday’s blowout Game 2 victory.

While it is very understandable that the NBA does not want teams openly prodding opposing players, credit where it’s due: this is a good bit of banter by the Nets. Then again, they won Game 1 by eight points and Game 2 by 39, so maybe they should keep rolling with Mr. Whammy.

Bleachers are back in a big way. In one of the best bits of news so far this year, Jack Antonoff announced the return of his band with a third full-length album, Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night, coming this July. Along with another new single, “Stop Making This Hurt” — which follows up earlier tracks “Chinatown” and “45” released back in 2020 — the band recently performed another new track on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, “How Dare You Want More.”

Today they’re officially sharing the song, along with a live video of Jack that was filmed while the song was being recording, including some of the live takes that made it into the final version. Like “Stop Making This Hurt,” the newer single gets a huge dose of saxophone for a jazzy, Springsteen-ian feel, even if the lyrics themselves are a bit more morose. Typical Bleachers winning formula right there.

Check out that video above, and also keep an eye on the developing story that is Jack requesting Stubhub disallow price-gouging on tickets for their upcoming tour. His suggestion? If the platform can’t enforce that, then at least donate some of the markup to Ally Coalition. Honestly it’s a little strange more artists aren’t speaking up about the state of ticket resell scam…. kudos to Antonoff for saying something.

Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night is out 7/30 via RCA. Pre-order it here.

It’s been a few months since a video was released of Morgan Wallen using a racial slur around his friends. Following the controversy, the singer was briefly removed from radio airplay and disqualified from the receiving the top CMA Awards. But there are still a number of fans who have been fervent supporters throughout his racial slur controversy, and they want to be heard.

A group of fans got together to purchase seven massive billboards across Nashville. The signs protest Wallen’s disqualification from the CMT Awards, which air Wednesday night, and beg for his forgiveness by mentioning the Bible verse Mark 11:25. They feature an image of Wallen’s recognizable mullet with text reading, “The fans speaking, enough is enough,” and, “Music industry we want to be heard!”

Wallen was at first fairly vocal about the situation. Immediately following the video’s publication, the singer made a vague promise to “do better” and has said he won’t tour again this summer. But despite his promises, the singer reportedly ghosted the Nashville NAACP, who sought to educate Wallen on racial justice issues, after he set up a meeting with them. Before that, the singer made his first public appearance following the incident at Kid Rock’s Nashville bar, where he played several of his songs on stage.

Space Jam: A New Legacy, an inexplicably controversial movie, is the first Looney Tunes film to receive a theatrical release since 2003’s Looney Tunes: Back in Action. The HBO Max series is great, but this is unacceptable. The world would be a better place with more Looney Tunes in it, even in a sequel to an $80 million Nike commercial.

A New Legacy swaps Michael Jordan for LeBron James, who gathers the Toon Squad, including Bugs, Daffy, and Lola, to defeat the evil Goon Squad. Also, Don Cheadle plays a computer algorithm named Al-G Rhythm and Mad Max is involved somehow.

Enough talk about Pepe Le Pew. Let’s focus on how weird Space Jam 2 sounds.

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

When LeBron James and his young son Dom are trapped in a digital space by a rogue A.I., LeBron must get them home safe by leading Bugs, Lola Bunny and the whole gang of notoriously undisciplined Looney Tunes to victory over a powered-up roster of professional basketball stars as you’ve never seen them before. It’s Tunes versus Goons in the highest-stakes challenge of his life, that will redefine LeBron’s bond with his son and shine a light on the power of being yourself.

Space Jam: A New Legacy hits theaters and HBO Max on July 16.

DMV rapper GoldLink returns this week with the lead single from his newly announced album Haram!, which is set for a June 18 release on Squaaash Club/RCA Records. The genre-mixing artist said of the new single “White Walls,” “It’s destructive, it’s ‘wrong,’ it sounds crazy + it’s a pop song. PLAY IT LOUD!” The visualizer for the song features drone shots of GoldLink in an abandoned-looking city, cut with infrared shots that look just like the Predator’s heat vision. This time around, GoldLink goes for a more bass-heavy sound, with a menacing 808 loop backing distorted vocals spitting boastful rhymes.

Haram! will be GoldLink’s first release since the acclaimed Diaspora, which came out in June 2019. It’s a 15-track album with features from Bibi Bourelly, Flo Milli, NLE Choppa, Rich The Kid, and Santigold, and was created as GoldLink lived in Amsterdam and London during the pandemic and its resulting rounds of quarantine. “White Walls” also contains a shot at Sheck Wes, who GoldLink previously called out on “Justine’s Interlude” after singer Justine Skye accused the “Mo Bamba” rapper of abuse.

GoldLink had a relatively quiet 2020 while creating this album, only poking his head out to share the funky “Sorrow, Tears, And Blood” with Dreamville singer Ari Lennox.

Listen to “White Walls” above. Haram! is due 6/18. Pre-save it here.

After a tumultuous season defined by the inability to secure a postseason berth and reports of friction in the locker room, the Indiana Pacers have reportedly decided to fire head coach Nate Bjorkgren. The news of the decision, which means Bjorkgren will not get a second year at the helm of the franchise, comes via Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

Wojnarowski confirmed the reports that Bjorkgren’s style rubbed players (and, as an added bonus, those within the organization) the wrong way, and as a result, the Pacers will target someone with more head coaching experience in the search for his replacement.

Bjorkgren came to the Pacers after a stint as an assistant coach with the Toronto Raptors. While he had professional head coaching experience before, all of it came in the G League, and his first year as the head coach of an NBA team came with major growing pains that the organization decided were not worth continuing to work through. The team was hampered due to injuries, which played a major role in Indiana going 34-38 and losing out on a chance to make the postseason via the play-in tournament.

The reports of Bjorkgren being in trouble popped up during the season, and ultimately, they turned out to be true. Now, the Pacers will try to find a coach that can get them back to the postseason.

The first season of Netflix’s new post-apocalyptic series, Sweet Tooth, is a journey. It’s a journey through endless woods and eerily idyllic neighborhoods — through the tragic inevitability that is death, and the preciousness of life. However, there’s no denying that by this journey’s end, we are left in a pretty grim situation and with way more questions than answers. If you just finished it up, you’re probably wondering what’s next for Gus, Jepperd, and the rest of Sweet Tooth‘s motley crew. If you haven’t, here is your sign to minimize this article and do so now, firstly because it’s well worth the watch, and secondly because big spoilers for the first season follow. Like, bigger than Big Man big, so consider yourself warned.

Before we talk about what the second season of Sweet Tooth might have in store for us, let’s recap where we left off. When the first season of Sweet Tooth comes to a close, nearly every last character in the show is in pretty damn close to the worst position they could be in. For starters, our sweet young buck Gus has been captured by Last Men and is currently awaiting a pretty grisly death at Dr. Singh’s forced hands. While he does finally find some semblance of the family he’s been looking for among the hybrid children he is imprisoned with, many of them were raised by Aimee Eden who is currently grappling with her grief and anger at losing them. Included in this group of hybrids is Wendy, the long-lost sister of Becky (aka Bear) and Aimee’s adopted daughter, and only time will tell when she’s up next on the lab table.

Meanwhile, Aimee has recovered the nearly-fatally wounded Jeppard, and while he is thankfully still alive, he’s forced to reconcile with Gus being stolen and him being in no condition to go out and get him back. Oh, and this is all on top of the big reveal we got earlier in the episode that Jeppard is husband to a missing wife, and father to young hooved hybrid. Perhaps the only character with some good luck is Birdie, Gus’ “mother” who is currently seeking a cure for the Sick up in Alaska. Right before the final episode fades to black, we see her making contact with Becky, who is sure to fill her in on things and get even more balls rolling.

So, all things considered — and unless this show wants to end in an appalling bleak manner — a second season of Sweet Tooth feels necessary. So much so that it is almost shocking it wasn’t announced as a two-part series initially. As things stand right now, we still don’t know what caused hybrids or the Sick, or if the two are at all related. None of the show’s characters have gotten their happy endings, nor have they even fully plunged into their bad ones. And while the show is based on a comic series by the same name, there are enough deviations from the source material that we can’t really point to it as a solid indicator of what to expect in future seasons. For example, in the show, certain major characters, such as Aimee, have been added, and key plot points, like Jepperd turning in Gus to the Last Men to retrieve his wife’s bones, were scrapped. While this could be a bit frustrating for comic fans, it is enthralling not knowing exactly how things will ultimately play out for the Sweet Tooth crew.

However, even now a second season of Sweet Tooth has yet to be confirmed, despite Netflix Geeked Week addressing the show during their June 8 festivities. That being said, Sweet Tooth did only hit Netflix on June 4, so it seems likely the streaming service is waiting just a bit longer to see how it does before giving the showrunners the green light. Luckily for Sweet Tooth fans who might be feeling a bit nervous after Jupiter’s Legacy was given the ax, the show its been received extremely well by both viewers and critics. While both shows jumped to the top of Netflix’s most-streamed content list, Jupiter’s Legacy currently rests at a 45 on Metacritic whereas Sweet Tooth is sitting pretty at 75. It seems likely the announcement will come later this year, and until then at least we’ve got plenty of other Netflix original series to tide us over.

Ahead of Loki‘s Disney+ premiere, Tom Hiddleston stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday night where he fired a very specific threat at Matt Damon, much to the delight of the late night host who has a long-standing “feud” with the actor.

It all goes back to 2017 when Damon made a cameo in Thor: Ragnarok. Except it wasn’t just any cameo, he was playing Loki, or at the very least, an Asgardian actor playing Loki in a stage production celebrating Loki. Anyway, that was enough for Kimmel to find an opening to steer Hiddleston’s jealousy towards Damon. Via Entertainment Tonight:

“Were you disappointed when you found out he would be playing your character?” Kimmel asked.

“Loki, as we know, contains multitudes, and somehow contains Matt Damon, even in that suit,” Hiddleston joked. “It’s kind of like Matt’s trying to bump me from my own character.”

Kimmel, completely agreeing, said, “He’s taking things that don’t belong to him, and getting into places where he’s not welcome.”

With Hiddleston now committed to the bit, he warned Damon that turnabout is fair play. “Next time there’s a new Jason Bourne movie, maybe in another reality there’s another Jason Bourne,” Hiddleston said while pointing to himself. “It might show up around the corner.” Naturally, Kimmel chimed in that Hiddleston would be “a million times better.”

Of course, it may be a little too late for Damon. The actor reportedly filmed another cameo for Thor: Love and Thunder, so he might want to make sure he’s still locked in for the next Bourne movie. Maybe double-check that contract.