Category: News

Saweetie is stepping up to lend a helping hand to her Asian American community. The rapper, who is of Filipino descent, announced that she is teaming up with Gen. G, the leading esports company that connects the United States to Asia, for a string of workshops. The Icy Baby Workshops begin next week and see the rapper learning skills and covering topics that include gaming, cooking, music, lifestyle, and fashion, and beauty.

According to Revolt, Saweetie’s overall goal is to bring awareness to both AAPI entrepreneurs and her Icy Baby Foundation, her non-profit that aims to inspire “Black, brown and other underserved youth through financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and technology training.” Saweetie also spoke about the workshops in a press release.

“Now is the time to come together and support each other as we fight to end Asian Hate,” she said. “I am excited to partner with Gen. G to connect with our fans in new and inventive ways to have real conversations about making positive changes in our community.”

Gina Chung Lee, VP of Brand for Gen. G, also spoke about the new endeavor as well.

“So many Asian Americans are in the forefront of gaming, music and fashion but rarely get the spotlight that they deserve. It’s great to partner with an advocate and entrepreneur like Saweetie,” she said in the press release. “As an AAPI woman growing up, there wasn’t always mainstream representation and celebration. It’s very meaningful to be able to shape and empower the next generation of leaders across all digital platforms and create cool content while doing so.”

The workshops will begin on June 14 with the launch of her new Twitch channel. The first lesson will see her beside Twitch chef Triciaisabirdy and DJ Bella Fiasco as they dive into a discussion about food. On June 16, she will discuss fashion and beauty and the next day her conversation will be focused on gaming.

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

The “Big 5” is an old term from the colonial era, denoting the five wild animals in Africa that were the most sought-after kills for trophy hunters. Killing those five—lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo—meant ultimate success in the big-game hunting world.

Now there’s a “New Big 5,” but instead of a barbaric goal for trophy hunters, it’s a beautiful goal for wildlife photographers.

The initiative was created by British wildlife photographer Graeme Green with the goal of raising awareness about threats to the world’s animals including habitat loss, poaching, illegal animal trade, and climate change. In a global call for votes, 50,000 wildlife lovers shared which animals they most wanted to photograph or see in photos. And the winners are:

Elephant. Polar bear. Lion. Gorilla. Tiger.

These five animals will serve as global ambassadors for all the world’s wildlife, including the one million species currently threatened with extinction.

The New Big 5 of Wildlife Photography – The Results

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New Big 5 project founder Graeme Green said in a statement, “The 5 animals that wildlife lovers around the world have voted to include in the New Big 5 of Wildlife Photography — elephants, gorillas, tigers, lions, and polar bears — are not just some of the most beautiful, incredible animals on the planet. All 5 also face serious threats to their existence. The New Big 5 are the tip of the iceberg. They stand for all the creatures on the planet, so many of which are in danger. From bees to blue whales, all wildlife is essential to the balance of nature, to healthy ecosystems and to the future of our planet.”

Jane Goodall has also praised the initiative, saying, “We now have the results of the New Big 5 project. These 5 animals — elephants, polar bears, gorillas, tigers, and lions — are such beautiful and remarkable species, and are wonderful ambassadors for the world’s wildlife, from iconic species to little-known frogs, lizards, fish and birds. So many face threats to their survival from issues such as poaching, habitat loss and climate change. A million species are at risk of extinction. If we work together, we can stop this from happening. There is always hope. Change is possible if we each play our part.”

The New Big 5 project encourages travelers to visit the places where these animals are found and support conservation efforts in those areas. Ultimately, it’s a celebration of wildlife and nature photography and a call to action to save species under threat.

Humanity has learned a lot since the original Big 5 days, but trophy hunting still exists and there’s much to be done to protect the world’s wildlife. Hopefully the New Big 5 will inspire more people to work on conserving the environment and protect ecosystems so that animal life large and small can flourish.

I’m sorry to do this to anyone who remembers its release, but Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64 is going to be 24 years old this upcoming August. Yet, despite the game’s age, it is still beloved to this day. That’s because Goldeneye is one of those legendary games that was at the perfect moment in the perfect time. It was the first major console first-person shooter to take off. Its multiplayer was the stuff of legends and dominated college dorm rooms well beyond the N64’s lifespan.

People love Goldeneye, even in this current generation of lifelike video games and massively upgraded mechanics. And the latest example of that adoration for the series can be found in Far Cry 5 and its arcade mode. Fans recently discovered that when you enter that mode and search for “GE64” you will find a map that is an incredible homage to Goldeneye.

This just goes to show how much people still love Goldeneye. Nostalgia is a powerful tool and that someone was willing to recreate it in an entirely different game just shows the level to which people adore this game. What’s also impressive is how good it looks. A lot of people will remake their favorite levels of games in creation games such as Mario Maker or Dreams, but there’s usually a pretty obvious fake skin on top of it. This looks pretty close to what a modern-day version of ‘Goldeneye 007’ would look like, making it that much better.

Middle Earth keeps getting bigger and bigger, and the latest project in the Lord of the Rings universe is apparently a feature-length anime. An animated Lord of the Rings film is reportedly coming from New Line Cinema and Warner Animation, who have roughly $5.8 billion reasons to keep expanding the blockbuster film series with new stories from the J.R.R. Tolkien universe.

According to Variety, The War of the Rohirrim anime has some serious backing lined up and will feature a story Rings fans are eager to see play out on the silver screen. According to the report, voice casting is already underway and we already know the feature will tackle some important lore.

The stand-alone feature will depict the bloody saga behind Helm’s Deep, the fortress depicted in “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” and the man in whose honor it’s named: Helm Hammerhand, the legendary King of Rohan who spent much of his reign locked in a prolonged and costly war.

Veteran anime filmmaker Kenji Kamiyama, who helmed Netflix’s “Ultraman” anime series, will direct the film from a screenplay by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (“The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance”). Joseph Chou (the “Blade Runner: Black Lotus” TV series) is producing.

It’s all part of the ever-expanding Rings universe, which is starting to include projects on a variety of networks and extending beyond movies. As Variety’s reporting indicates, the anime film will directly tie into the more traditional Lord of the Rings movies from Peter Jackson, which includes the original trilogy and the number of Hobbit-related projects. That includes Philippa Boyens, who penned the Oscar-winning Return of the King screenplay, consulting on the anime project. The Amazon LOTR series, however, will apparently not be directly tied to this project.

That’s probably because, well, the series is set many, many years before the original trilogy’s events in Middle Earth. Still with us? Well, it’ll all make a bit more sense when the series and this film are actually released. But there’s certainly a lot to look forward to here.

[via Variety]

After a strange upload and takedown of her first new single, “Solar Power,” Lorde is now back in business. Sharing the title track and first video for her third album cycle, the New Zealand singer-songwriter also shared a lengthy newsletter with more detail for fans shortly after the video officially dropped today. She let subscribers know that today is, fittingly, the only solar eclipse of the year, and confirmed that her third album will be a summer one. Solar Power is, according to its maker, “sexy, playful, feral, and free,” and a ” celebration of the natural world.”

Check out her full letter about the album below, and if you haven’t heard the first single yet, watch the “Solar Power” video above.

“You ready?
There’s someone I want you to meet.
Her feet are bare at all times. She’s sexy, playful, feral, and free. She’s a modern girl in a deadstock bikini, in touch with her past and her future, vibrating at the highest level when summer comes around. Her skin is glowing, her lovers are many. I’m completely obsessed with her, and soon you will be too.

It’s my divine pleasure to be introducing you, at long last, to my third studio album, SOLAR POWER.

The album is a celebration of the natural world, an attempt at immortalising the deep, transcendent feelings I have when I’m outdoors. In times of heartache, grief, deep love, or confusion, I look to the natural world for answers. I’ve learnt to breathe out, and tune in. This is what came through.

The first song, also called SOLAR POWER and written and produced by myself and Jack, is the first of the rays. It’s about that infectious, flirtatious summer energy that takes hold of us all, come June (or December, if you’re a Southern Hemisphere baby like me but I know that’s literally IMPOSSIBLE for you all to wrap your little heads around so don’t worry about it!!).

I made everything with friends here in New Zealand. My best mate Ophelia took the cover photo, lying on the sand as I leapt over her, both of us laughing. The director who made my first ever music video, Joel, helped me create the videos, building an entire cinematic universe that I can’t wait for you to see. I made something that encapsulates where I’m from — my family, my girlfriends, my outdoors, my constant ruminations, and my unending search for the divine.

There’s SO much more detail to come — a truly comical amount of detail, honestly. You can look to the natural calendar for clues. I’m trying to listen to what’s out there more, and the vibe I got was that you’re ready for this, that you need it. I want this album to be your summer companion, the one you pump on the drive to the beach. The one that lingers on your skin like a tan as the months get cooler again.

Today’s the only solar eclipse of the year, did you know that? Feels right.

LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LET’S GO

SOLAR POWER TODAY — TOMORROW — FOREVER

ELLA XX.”

A magical thing about the internet is that it is very easy to find archived articles from the past to find quotes, and that is something Charles Barkley should’ve maybe looked into before going on his latest rant about the current state of the NBA.

Barkley was asked about the Brooklyn Nets and their prospects of winning it all on a conference call for the American Century Championship golf tournament and said he’s rooting against the Nets this postseason before launching into a rant against guys teaming up to go win championships, via Sports Illustrated.

“KD is a great player, and I think he’s a great kid,” Barkley said on a conference call for this weekend’s American Century Championship golf tournament. “I don’t know him that well, but I’m not a fan of superteams. So listen, if they win it, they win it, but to be perfectly clear, I’m rooting against those guys. I root against all superteams.

“If I’d known you guys were going to make fun of me for not winning a championship, I would have joined a superteam back in my day—me and Patrick [Ewing] and Karl Malone and John Stockton. But I feel good about my legacy. I’m pretty sure Patrick and John and Karl do, too. LeBron [James] started this superteam thing [in Miami], and hey, it’s the way the game is played now.”

…

“To go back to my day, even though we didn’t win the championship, the Sixers were worth watching. The Knicks were worth watching. The Pacers were worth watching when Reggie was there, same thing with Atlanta and Dominique. I just don’t think it’s good for business, but these young kids, they all fold to peer pressure and feel like they’ve got to win a championship or their life sucks. I don’t believe that. Listen, there’s not many people I’d trade my life with.”

Barkley is far from the first former player to complain about super teams, but he also seems to be conveniently forgetting the time he forced his way onto a contender by threatening to retire if the Suns didn’t trade him to the Rockets in 1996 so he could play with two-time champs Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler in order to finally win a championship. You can read all about it still, right here, including quotes like this:

Barkley said he was pleased with the way the deal had worked out.

“I’m excited because . . . I called the shots,” he said of the trade. “When push comes to shove, I think you have to stand up to the system.”

Those Rockets just weren’t able to ever fulfill on the promise of having that trio, despite a tremendous 96-97 season, and win a championship in their later years. This isn’t to say Barkley was wrong to have wanted to get to a contender in 1996, but to point out the selective memory he and others seem to have when it comes to taking issue with things current players do that they likewise did.

To act as though he wasn’t incredibly aware of how important winning a title was to his legacy when he was playing is ridiculous, as is the idea that players just now started wielding their power to get where they wanted to go. Players certainly have different avenues they can go to make that happen and more make such pushes sooner rather than later in their careers, but for Barkley to act as though trying to team up with other stars is something completely foreign to his generation of players is, to say the least, laughable.

Mexico is getting in on the whisky craze. This makes a lot of sense, given that corn (bourbon whiskey’s main ingredient) is originally from Mexico. In fact, for anyone who understands that lineage, it’s downright exciting. So when I heard there was a corn whisky being fermented, distilled, and aged in Mexico, I knew I had to try it.

I’ve been seeking out 100 percent corn whiskies and bourbons for a while now, especially red and blue corn varietals. That led me to long-term friendships with folks like Jared Himstedt over at Waco’s now-renowned Balcones — which makes some of the best blue corn whiskies on the market, using home-grown Indigenous blue corn.

In theory, this whisky feels very adjacent to what Himstedt is doing — reaching into Mexico’s ancestral past to distill whisky using Cacahuazintle corn. That’s the white corn that’s been used for masa, tamales, tortillas, and general corn-based foods for thousands and thousands of years in Mexico. It’s vital to the culinary conversation and now, perhaps, it could be vital to the spirits conversation, too?

Let’s see what’s in the bottle!

Abasolo El Whisky de Mexico

ABV: 43%

Average Price: $40

The Whisky:

This is billed as the first 100 percent corn whisky from Mexico. The spirit is made from Cacahuazintle corn that’s prepared via nixtamalization (traditionally: soaked in limewater) to enrich the corn’s bioavailability. The corn is then hulled and ground and mashed with local yeast and spring water. The spirit is twice distilled and then aged for two years in a combination of used bourbon barrels and new American oak. Finally, the juice is married, proofed, and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

The nose reminds me of a paper bag that held yellow masa with a touch of day-old popcorn and knock-off Werther’s Original candies. There’s a continuation of that paper masa bag that leads towards a softer cornbread vibe, next to a shallow yet slightly sweet corn note mid-palate and a final bow of vegetal spice with maybe some dry straw and alcohol warmth.

The Bottle:

The bottle feels like a throwback to the bottles you’d see in old Tex-Mex joints in the 1980s. It’s heavy, dark brown, and ridged for easy pouring. The big white label gives you all the information you need without feeling overstuffed. Overall, this is a cool centerpiece bottle.

The Bottom Line:

This was interesting. I’m a big corn whisky fan and seek it out. I think this expression and brand are on their way to being something bigger and bolder. But… it’s a little thin right now. I’m more inclined to use this in a cocktail to see what can be mined from the flavor profile in that context.

Rating:

80/100 — it’s fine. No rough edges. But it’s very one note of “old and dry corn” without any real “whisky” depth.

As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.

Well, it’s been quite an exciting week for Lorde fans! After the superfans made her trend simply because they miss her last week, she seemed to take notice, and shared an update for fans on her website. The album cover (single artwork?) and title, “Solar Power,” were clue enough that at least a new song was on the way, and her note hammered the message home: “Arriving in 2021… Patience is a virtue.” After endless memes of the revealing image on the album cover circulated the internet earlier this week, today the new single temporarily hit streaming services, causing further uproar.

The new single, titled “Solar Power” as the teaser suggested, featured both Phoebe Bridgers and Clairo, and seemed to come as unexpectedly as the update did. Except, then the song was pulled down, suggesting perhaps it was an unexpected development for the Lorde camp, too. Regardless of the earlier snafu, all appears to be right with the world now as the track is officially back up on streaming services and available for your listening pleasure, along with a brand new video. This is clearly the beginning of a whole new era for everyone’s favorite New Zealand star, and Jack Antonoff is back onboard for production, so buckle up for a whole new project from Lorde apparently coming soon.

Joe Biden arrived in the UK on Wednesday, marking his first overseas trip as president. One of the main goals of his trip is to let European leaders know that America is back after Donald Trump mocked our closest allies and promoted an “America First” agenda during his presidency.

The White House says this trip will focus on America’s commitment to rallying world democracies and defending shared values.

He’ll participate in the G7 and NATO summits and meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin during his trip.

First Lady Dr. Jill Biden backed up the president’s message of unity on Thursday by wearing a black jacket with the word “LOVE” emblazoned on the back when the couple met with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie.

When asked about the meaning of the jacket, Dr. Biden didn’t mince words.

Q: “Can you explain the message on the back of your jacket?”

.@FLOTUS Jill Biden: “Oh, the love? I think that we’r… https://t.co/a00eXdpLe7

— CSPAN (@cspan)
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“I think that we’re bringing love from America,” she told reporters. “This is a global conference, and we’re trying to bring unity across the globe. And I think that’s important right now that people feel a sense of unity for all the countries and feel a sense of hope after this year of the pandemic.”

If the jacket looks familiar, it’s the same one she wore two years ago to kick off her husband’s presidential campaign.

This isn’t the first time Dr. Biden has sent a direct message through her clothing. Last year, during a campaign trip to Iowa she wore black skinny jeans with the word “VOTE” written on each calf.

It’s hard not to juxtapose Dr. Jill Biden’s message of “LOVE” with a notorious jacket worn by former First Lady Melania Trump in 2018 that read: “I really don’t care, do u?”

Trump wore the jacket while visiting children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. The message appeared to be incredibly callous given the Trump administration’s cruel treatment of migrant children.

Former First Lady Melania Trump with her “I really don’t care, do u?” jacket vs. current First Lady Jill Biden with… https://t.co/tExU7hITfs

— Emily C Rodvold (@EmilyC_R)
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A spokesperson for the former First Lady said that she hadn’t intended to send a secret message through her jacket. Her husband later tweeted that the message was directed at the press.

President Biden shared his message of unity during a speech at the Royal Air Force Mildenhall on Wednesday.

“We’re going to make it clear that the United States is back and democracies of the world are standing together to tackle the toughest challenges and the issues that matter most to our future,” the president said. “Our alliances weren’t built by coercion or maintained by threats. They’re grounded in democratic ideals, a shared vision of the future, where every voice matters.”

Before his speech, Dr. Biden made some remarks about supporting the U.S. military and their families. She got a big laugh from the crowd when she demanded her distracted husband “pay attention” to her speech.

Most principals give heartfelt speeches to the outgoing senior class at high school graduations. Most principals do not, however, sing a heartfelt song to them as they prepare to make their way in the world.

North Carolina principal Marcus Gause did just that, singing an impressive rendition of “I Will Always Love You”—a song written by Dolly Parton but most famously performed by Whitney Houston—to the students leaving his care. Not only is his a capella perfomance at the podium sweet, but the man can seriously sing.

In North Carolina, this principal stood at the podium on Graduation Day.

Instead of just a speech, he performed Wh… https://t.co/EmmHpdTBDo

— Goodable (@Goodable)
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The graduating class of T. Wingate Andrews High School in High Point cheered on their principal as he crooned to them and pointed to them repeatedly, changing the words “my darling, you” to “my Red Raiders, you.” They knew he was singing directly to them as he sang, “I hope you have all you’ve dreamed of, and I wish you joy and happiness. But above all this, I wish you love.”

Even North Carolina’s Attorney General, Johs Stein, praised Gause’s performance, tweeting, “Mr. Gause has just raised the stakes for every NC principal this graduation season,” North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein tweeted Wednesday.

Gause told ABC News that he was a bit nervous because “nobody sings behind Whitney Houston and the greats like Dolly Parton.” However, he said, “the lyrics were really what I was trying to portray to my students.”

“One of the things that the pandemic has really taught us is that we need more love, that students know that we love and care for them,” he added.

Indeed. Beautiful performance with a beautiful message for your students, Principal Gause.

Principal sings ‘I Will Always Love You’ in farewell to students | WNT

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