Category: News

Lil Baby is setting himself up for a pretty strong 2021 and while he’s yet to share a project with the world this year, the Atlanta native has delivered a few songs that prove the rapper’s success will only continue. Following efforts like “Real As It Gets” with EST Gee and “On Me” as well as a number of collaborations with the likes of Russ, Lil Durk, Drake, and more, Lil Baby’s latest release is one fans did not ever expect. The rapper joined forces with Kirk Franklin for their new track, “We Win,” which will appear on the soundtrack for the highly-anticipated movie, Space Jam: A New Legacy.

Now, if it’s hard to imagine what a song with Baby and Franklin sounds like, allow me to twist your mind a bit more and add that the new effort is supported by production by Just Blaze. For what it’s worth, the trio definitely makes it work in providing a motivational banger that will surely be useful for Space Jam: A New Legacy. The triumphant track finds Baby detailing his harsh past and how he overcame it to find success today.

The new song arrives after Lil Baby joined DJ Khaled, Roddy Ricch, and Bryson Tiller in the video for their Khaled Khaled track, “Body In Motion.” As for what’s next, Baby and Lil Durk are set to release their Voice Of The Heroes joint project in the coming weeks. The effort was set to be released on May 28, but the duo opted to delay it out of respect for DMX, whose posthumous album, Exodus arrives on the same day.

You can press play on “We Win” in the video above.

There’s no excuse to be sleeping on Polo G at this point. The Chicago proved he was here to stay last year with his impressive sophomore project, The GOAT and his success only carried into 2021. Polo G landed his first No. 1 record with “Rapstar,” a track that spent two consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. He also revealed that his upcoming album would be titled Hall Of Fame, and before it arrives, the rapper calls on another artist that many hold to a high regard for his latest single, “Gang Gang.”

The Chicago joins forces with Lil Wayne for the new track. which finds both artists moving back and forth between sharp raps and doses of autotuned croons. Altogether. the two rappers use the song to detail their undeniable fame, flaunt their expensive cars, and prove that their street credibility is intact and far from something that can be questioned. The new effort also arrives with a video that sees Polo G treating himself and a number of women to a nice dinner before joining Lil Wayne for an energetic house party.

Aside from “Rapstar,” Polo G has done a great job building anticipation for his next album, Hall Of Fame. The other single that fans can expect to hear on the album, “GNF (OKOKOK)” was another great example of what the rapper has to offer on the project. Elsewhere, guest appearances with the likes of Rod Wave, Lil Tjay, Fivio Foreign, and more prove the Chicagoan has certainly improved his craft ahead of the release of Hall Of Fame.

You can listen to “Gang Gang” in the video.

After ending 2020 in the Christmas spirit with his jolly single, “Holiday,” Lil Nas X set the internet, real-world, and pretty much everything else ablaze with his following single, “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).” From the satanic images that were present in the song’s video to the Satan Shoes, the singer was the talk of more than “Old Town Road” thanks to the song. Now that the dust has settled, Lil Nas is back with his latest single, “Sun Goes Down.”

Lil Nas opens up about life’s demons on the new song and how they nearly pushed him over the edge and into dangerous depths where he contemplated things like suicide. “Don’t wanna lie, I don’t want a life,” he sings on the track’s chorus. “Send me a gun and I’ll see the sun.” Its accompanying video captures him revisiting his past life to reminsce on the hard days. Lil Nas’ new track comes a few months after he shared a string of TikTok videos that detailed his bouts with depression and suicidal thoughts.

“During college I was depressed, had no friends and…. my grandmother passed. I started going to the doctor a lot in fear that I would die soon… hypochondria,” he said in one of the videos. Later on he revealed, “I got news that my mom wasn’t doing so well in rehab with her addiction. Also me and my boyfriend broke up. During this time old town road was still killing it while I was… spiraling. I found myself in a hotel room contemplating ending it all. But I didn’t.”

Press play on the video above to hear the new track.

Earlier this week, the LAPD revealed that they are investigating claims made against T.I. and his wife Tiny which allege that the two drugged and sexually assaulted multiple individuals between 2005 and 2010. While some who are dealing with similar accusations would normally stay quiet and let their lawyer do the talking, T.I. has opted to deliver a piece of his own mind through his new track, “What It’s Come To.” The song takes aim at the sexual assault accusers and sees the rapper emphatically deny the claims against him.

“Go put yo face and reputation on it / These kind of claims deserve more than anonymous provocative conversation, don’t it?” T.I. raps. “Willing to face whatever consequences for his vision … while I’m up against some lyin’ ass b*tches/Damn, this is what it’s come to.”

Allegations against the rapper and Tiny were first brought forth by The New York Times back in February. In it, the publication revealed lawyer Tyrone A. Blackburn represented eleven women who said they were victims of the couple’s acts. Two additional women would eventually come forward with allegations against T.I. and Tiny, both of who were also represented by Blackburn. One of the victims claims T.I. drugged her drink and took her to a hotel where she was sexually assaulted despite refusing the couple’s advances.

You can give the song a listen for yourself in the video above.

If you weren’t already a fan of The Linda Lindas, you will be after watching their furious, completely punk rock performance in an LA library from a few weeks ago. To celebrate AAPI Heritage Month, which falls during May, the Los Angeles Public Library hosted a series of performances including “TEENtastic Tuesdays.” But when the Linda Lindas took the stage a few weeks ago on May 4, the bar was set to a whole new level.

Relating the experience with a boy who was taught racist behavior by his parents, the girls break out into an epic rager that takes down not only him, but all the other “racist sexist boys” in the world.

“A little while before we went into lockdown, a boy in my class came up to me and said that his dad told him to stay away from Chinese people,” one of the band members begins. “After I told him that I was Chinese he backed away from me. Eloise and I wrote this song based on that experience. So this is about him and all the other racist, sexist boys in this world.”

The band then delves into the song, which has racked up over a million views after it was shared on Twitter by an appreciative fan with the caption: “This is the first band I will be RUNNING to see once I get my second shot.” She’s not wrong! I will be lining up to buy a ticket too. Check out their incredibly heavy and totally excellent performance of “Racist Sexist Boy” below.

Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler is, by his own account, “stupidly locked in” for the playoffs and a first round matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks,.

“I think I’m stupidly locked in, I can tell you that,” he said Thursday. “The amount of film that I watch, the amount of time that I spend on the court working on my game, trying to figure out where everybody’s going to be at on the floor. It’s a different type of year for everybody. I’m not the only one that’s like this, everybody is, but I think they expect me to be dialed in, locked in. Be a completely different individual player on both sides of the ball, in every aspect of the game, and I like it. It’s kinda like you don’t hold anything back and you leave everything out there. That’s what I’m here for. ”

This quote is just very on-brand for Butler, the guy who established himself last year as a bonafide star in leading the Heat to the NBA Finals in the bubble and is having an under the radar All-NBA caliber season this year. Compared to last year, he’s scoring more, averaging more steals, averaging a career-high in assists and having his overall best shooting season in lifting the Heat to the 6-seed.

It’s also funny considering he’s the same guy who once played with third-string Wolves players in practice and played the team’s starters off the court just to prove a point. Butler is something like the NBA’s Chuck Norris where there’s a lot of myth surrounding the truth of actually how good he is. Quotes like “I think I’m stupidly locked in” should called Jimmy-isms or Butler-ims or something more bombastic.

Butler also had another very tremendous quote Thursday when asked about ex-Bulls teammate Bobby Portis, who now plays for the Bucks.

It is, however, fun to have Butler — with this persona and presence — taking the Heat into the playoffs to face the Bucks who, mind you, they beat last year in the playoffs en route to the NBA Finals. It’s a 3-6 matchup this year, but once again the Heat are the underdog as the lower seed seeking an upset. To get there, we are apparently going to see the “stupidly locked in” Butler try and ruin the Bucks’ title chances.

There are a lot of legendary Inside the NBA moments, but some of the funniest ones involve one of either Shaq or Charles Barkley (often Shaq) saying something so ridiculous that the rest of the crew can’t stop laughing and making fun of how ridiculous they are. One of the great examples is Shaq’s absurd gas tank theory, which sends Ernie into absolute despair every time it comes back up.

However, there’s a different Shaq moment that sticks out for Charles Barkley, as he and Conan O’Brien reminisced about during Chuck’s appearance on Conan on Wednesday night. Conan asked about how Shaq has…a unique mind, and the two started talking about the time Shaq thought the moon was only a 10 hour flight away because he could see it outside in Atlanta, but he can’t see California which was just a five-hour flight away.

It is, truly, one of the most ridiculous Inside the NBA segments, and based on the fact that it only has 17,000 views on YouTube at this moment indicates to me that not enough people have seen or appreciate the sheer absurdity of it.

This too gets an incredible Ernie reaction, as he is physically pained having to listen to this conversation.

The best part is Shaq announcing later in the show that he’s been informed it is a 3-day flight to the moon, not 10 hours, and then declares that means he was 26 hours off. Shaq Math is apparently the cousin of Steiner Math.

After the Wizards lost to the Celtics in Boston and the Pacers crushed the Hornets in Indiana on Tuesday, the final Eastern Conference play-in game was set for a showdown for the 8-seed in Washington. With the way Indiana played against Charlotte, the hope was for a competitive game — as we saw between the two in the regular season in three high-scoring shootouts that went Washington’s way — but unfortunately for the Pacers, the game was all-but decided by the mid-third quarter in what became a 142-115 blowout win by the Wizards.

Russell Westbrook and Bradley Beal, as they’ve done throughout the second half of the season, led the way for Washington. Westbrook finished with 18 points, 15 assists, and eight rebounds, bouncing back from a dismal showing in Boston to be the sparkplug he has been for the past few months. Beal, meanwhile, had 25 points, five boards, and four assists in the win, as both players got to enjoy the fourth quarter from the bench after dominating the third quarter, 48-31.

The lasting image of the game is the celebration after Westbrook’s pass to Beal for the third quarter dunk, as TNT’s sideline camera captured an incredible shot of both of them.

For Indiana, it was a disastrous defensive effort and an equally poor offensive showing in the win or go home setting. Domantas Sabonis had a 19-point, 11-rebound, 10-assist triple double and Malcolm Brogdon had 24 points, but they just could not keep up with or contain the Wizards from the second quarter on. Washington had, effectively, a layup line going any time they wanted it and the Pacers will be going back to the drawing board — possibly with a new coach — as they enter the offseason.

Washington will now head to Philadelphia on Sunday for their Game 1 against the Sixers in a series that will pit one of the NBA’s best defenses in Philly against an offense that has been absolutely rolling over the past couple months.

This week on Top Chef, it was time for the most famous of Top Chef challenges, the one we’ve all been waiting for, RESTAURANT WARS! That’s when two teams of chefs go head to head, toe to toe, crudo to crudo, and fight to the death (culinarily) for the right to be named the best at preparing food (God, humans are so awesome). The big question this year was whether the teams would be able to avoid committing any restaurant war crimes, like genocidal ceviche or bouillabaisse ethnic cleansing.

I kid, but this year’s restaurant wars would look a little different. Why? Because they filmed this show during the quarantine. The big change this year was that Restaurant Wars would be a “chef’s table” challenge. Which, as Padma explained, is a “tasting menu experience that can cost hundreds of dollars a head, with the chefs taking center stage.”

Chefs taking center stage, you say? Hey, why haven’t we done it this way before? In concrete terms, this meant: no patrons, no hosts, no waiters — just cheftestants and judges, sitting inside a thin facsimile of a restaurant. Which is to say, a lot like every week of Top Chef. Only now with a seven-course tasting menu and the demand that the chefs’ dishes fit a concept.

Speaking as a guy who made his Bravo TV debut in last season’s Restaurant Wars (I played “Husky Boi Who Enjoys Dessert”), even I have to admit that I enjoyed this new patron-free, waitstaff-free incarnation of Restaurant Wars. Sure, I got some decent joke mileage out of day-rate waiters claiming to not recognize Padma Lakshmi (I can understand maybe not knowing who she is or her name but every facet of her persona screams “famous person” from 30 yards away) but at the end of the day, it really is about the food. Content, decor, and dining experience influence how that food is perceived, but waiters running food to the wrong tables or mixing up tickets is mostly just a distraction from that drama, not a compliment to it. Yes, those are all important aspects of running a restaurant, but so is doing your taxes. And I ain’t watchin’ that show. Is this Top Chef or Top Middle Manager?

The teams were chosen via coin flip, in honor of the way this year’s host city, Portland, got its name (had it landed differently, Portland, Oregon might be called Boston, Oregon). Thus proving that history isn’t always interesting.

The teams shook out this way:

TEAM HEADS:

Shota, Jamie, Byron, Maria

Restaurant Name: Kokoson

Concept: Latin-Asian fusion. Or more specifically, Latin food persented in the style of Japanese kaiseki.

Team Leader: Shota

Front Of House: Maria

Thoughts:

“Kokosun” was intended as a portmanteau of the Japanese and Spanish words for “heart” — kokoro and corazón — which made me think the restaurant name was going to look more like “Kokozón.” Kokosun looks funny to me, but hey, that’s why they’re chefs and not English majors (thank God). More importantly, the concept was nuanced but fairly clear. I thought at first it meant that the food would just be Latin and the service style Japanese, but with dishes that included “sesame mole” and “shrimp machaca,” I suppose the dishes themselves were actually Latin-Asian hybrids. That kind of thing can be disastrous, but they made it work. Mostly it seemed they succeeded through solid planning. They had clear roles — Maria as front of house — and a clear structure that inspired creativity from the chefs rather than hindered it.

Team Grade: A- (winner)

TEAM TAILS

Sara, Gabe, Chris, Dawn

Restaurant Name: Penny

Concept: Seafood. Any damn kind of seafood.

Team Leader: Gabe

Front Of House: Everyone/No One

Thoughts:

I actually forget why they chose the name “Penny,” which probably says a lot right there. This seemed like the textbook example of when too-loose management and structure can actually hinder creativity. Everyone wasting time wondering what’s going on and what their responsibilities are when they should be thinking about and developing their dishes, concept, service style, etc. “What if everyone just did everything?” is not a great way to share responsibilities, it turns out. Rather than loose and fun, their lack of a front-of-house manager just meant everyone was hyper-focused on their dishes and left the guests feeling neglected and the environment tense.

Never has a room so desperately needed a Brian Malarkey or a Richard Blaise. And I promise, I never say that.

Notable Critique: “I like the driftwood.”

Team Grade: C+ (loser)

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THE RANKINGS:

8. ((Eliminated)) (-5) Sara Hauman

AKA: Tails. Yogurt. Portlandia. Trapper Keeper. Manic Pixie Cream Sauce. Fiddlesticks. The Queen Of Comedy.

The chef I nicknamed Tails landed on Team Tails! What sweet validation! You know, in an entirely coincidental kind of way.

I admit I’ve been a little hard on Sara this season. But only because I feel like pop culture has finally moved beyond “socially awkward people are cute!” and Sara never got the memo. I understand being self-conscious and hyper-self critical but there also comes a time when you have to quit hand-wringing and put your goddamn name on it. Self-doubt? It’s not that special! Choke it down and pretend like the rest of us.

All that being said, I actually cried out “Come on!” when Sara got eliminated this week. Come on! True, Sara made a creamy halibut dish that everyone hated and a salmon skin dish they loved, which was more or less the same pattern as her teammate Chris, who made a bad pasta and a good ice cream, and the judges seemed to like Chris’s ice cream more and hate his pasta less than Sara’s salmon skin and creamy halibut. BUT, shouldn’t history factor into this *just a little*?? Sara has been near the top of every challenge and Chris should’ve gone home three episodes ago.

Christ, I know I just got through saying I was fed up with her Anxious Annie act, but you’d think Sara deserved the benefit of a little doubt by now.

Notable Quotes:

“I’m about to ‘turnip the beet!’ lol!” (Sara didn’t actually say “lol” but I feel it was strongly implied). “I’m a little worried, because ‘global cooking’ doesn’t generally do well as a concept.” “I need to embrace the weird.”

Notable Critiques:

“I honestly did not enjoy this dish at all.” (the halibut). “This dish was quirky and I think that’s when you’re at your best.” (the salmon skin)

7. (+1) Chris Viaud

AKA: Stretch. Butter. Kelso. Kelpso.

HOW IS CHRIS STILL ON THIS SHOW?? I realize that I was gone last week, but uh… remember when Chris served the healthcare workers grilled chicken breast because he thought that would be comforting? Mmm, yeah, who doesn’t want to tuck into a gloriously mealy, flavorless piece of edible sheetrock? Just like mom used to make! Also, grilled chicken breast is the very definition of “hospital food.”

Chris’s brilliant reasoning continued this week, when, hot on the heels of last week’s “chicken breast will be great comfort food” debacle came the equally brilliant reasoning “they thought my yolk-dough pasta was dry last time I made pasta so I’ll use whole eggs this time.” I realize I’m not a professional chef here but “less fat” is not generally a solution to dryness (hey, but enough about my fetishes…).

His pasta turned out “dry” and “brittle,” with Amar Santana asking “are there eggs in this pasta?” which is almost never a good sign. Chris needed a Hail Mary to stay in this competition and surprise surprise, he actually completed one. It was his dessert that saved him, which was, of all the f*cking things, seaweed-flavored ice cream. This was not only not disgusting but apparently so good that Dale Talde demanded seconds. Unreal.

In honor of this epic algae culinary buzzer beater I’m changing Chris’s nickname from Kelso to Kelpso.

Notable Critiques:

“Flavor-wise this dish is good, but his pasta technique is just not there.” “I wanted to hate this dessert but I really love it.”

6. (even) Byron Gomez

AKA: Manolo. Burger King. Goldblum.

I’m not sure where to put Byron, who did both of his dishes with Jamie this week — a sockeye salmon crudo with rocoto curry sauce, and a tres leches cake with pineapple compote. By the way, that tres leches was basically the spiritual opposite of Chris’s seaweed ice cream. If “seaweed ice cream” is an awful-sounding thing that I would never order in a million years, tres leches cake would get my order roughly a million out of a million times. And remember, I say this in my official capacity as Stocky Daddy Who Saved Room For Cake.

The crudo received mixed reviews — delicious curry and nicely cured salmon, but did they fit together? The judges, not surprisingly, loved the dessert. So where does that leave Byron? Hell if I know. Byron has turned staying int the middle of the pack into a science.

5. (+2) Maria Mazon

AKA: Gas Can. Backdraft. James Brown. Mole Maria.

It was a little touch-and-go for Maria there at the beginning, when we didn’t know how her boisterous style as front-of-the-house manager would fit a fancy-schmancy chef’s tasting menu dinner. It felt a little like she was cracking Bud Heavies during tea at the Plaza at first there. “Do you usually interrupt your guests’ conversations like this?” Richard Blaise asked early on. This is a great point, waiters should be seen and not heard. Think of them as the opposite of Josh Gad.

But if Maria’s style was overly intrusive, it was also welcoming, and miles better than Team Penny’s tension-thick cold shoulder. In the same vein, Maria’s main dish was a lengua sando (another automatic order for this lengua-lover) which seemed perhaps a little down-scale for a fancy kaiseki dinner. But that quickly didn’t matter when the judges tasted how good it was. As Richard Blaise said it (I’d nickname him “Quippy” if he was still a contestant) “You’re all dressed up and the next thing you know you’re eating tongue sandwiches.”

“Tongue sandwich” is what I’m going to call making out from now on, by the way. “Ayy, why you lookin’ so good all of a sudden? I oughta give you a tongue sandwich.”

Anyway, Maria finally got her first win this week. It was well deserved, though I’m not sure how much of that was because of her food.

Notable Quotes:

“I’m like Monica from Friends, the hostess with the mostest.”

Notable Critiques:

“Can I dip it? I’m in.” “In a menu like this, I think you wanna have the fun sandwich up front.” “This her best mole yet.” “This is the best tongue I’ve ever tasted.”

Wow, Padma. The best tongue you’ve ever tasted? Brutal burn for all of her current and ex lovers. Sorry, Sir Salman Rushdie, you may have a knighthood but your kiss game is trash.

4. (-2) Jamie Tran

Aka: Splat. Police Academy. Womp Womp.

Fine, I admit it, Jamie and her god damned sound effects finally starting to grow on me now. I never thought it would happen. It felt relatable when Jamie characteristically attempted to explain her dish using a series of chop sounds, whooshes, and onomatopoeia. And this week’s new judge Kristen Kish was like, “Uh, what the fuck?”

And all the other judges were like “Oh, right, you guys haven’t met before, that’s just Jamie, we think she was dropped on her head as a child or something.”

But Jamie let her food do most of the (*chopping sound effect*) again this week and it worked out for her, with solid returns on her salmon with curry, short rib with puffed rice, and tres leches cake. The first and last of those were co-productions with Byron. If only they could somehow compete as a single person.

Notable Critique:

“I think it’s lovely, but it’s a lot.”

3. (+1) Gabe Erales

AKA: Good Gabe. Canelo. Fozzy. The Foz. Masa Father. Jamón.

On the one hand, Gabe quickly became the de facto leader of Team Penny, which speaks to the confidence he inspires in people. On the other hand, he wasn’t a very good de facto leader. The concept was vague, and people’s duties were unclear. “Let’s all just be front of the house” may have seemed like an acceptable compromise at the time, but it was a bad one. No FOH manager, no expediter, no coherent concept… let’s just say this defeat didn’t come as much of a surprise.

The more obvious solution would’ve been Gabe as front-of-house manager. Did you see this guy during the Drive-In challenge? The crowd loves him! Even this week they were clamoring for more Big Fozzy. But instead of keeping the guests entertained, Gabe kept his eyes on the food the whole time, leaving his guests to be lulled into a becalmed stupor by the dulcet tones of an immersion blender and the chefs cursing at and second-guessing the food those guests were about to eat. Oops!

Even Gabe’s food, usually his strongest point, wasn’t really his saving grace this week. His seafood tostada amuse should’ve been right in his masa wheelhouse, but the chefs thought it was alternately too big and too hard to eat (insert “your mom” joke here). The only reason Gabe didn’t go home this week was… well, that he was on a team with Chris and Sara. I’m chalking it up as an off week for one of this season’s favorites, but we’re running out of weeks here.

Notable Critiques:

“I like these flavors but it’s very weighed down by the size.” (insert additional “your mom” joke here)

2. (+3) Shota Nakajima

AKA: Beavis.

Steve had Shota ranked five when he took over for me last week, which I suppose was understandable based on Shota’s admittedly pretty weak grey un-seared drumstick disaster last week. Though keep in mind he also won the quickfire challenge in that same episode. (Steve also tried to nickname Shota “Big Gulp” even though I’m 90% sure I already used that one on somebody in years past).

This week, Shota proved that I knew what I was talking about when I put him in the top three in all these rankings. Shota arguably had more to do with his team’s victory than anyone. By coming up with a clear, coherent concept and delegating responsibility, everyone seemed to know both the team goal and how their own duties fit into that goal, which allowed everyone to flourish. He didn’t need to yell, belittle, patronize, or threaten, he simply communicated well and delegated liberally. That’s some damn fine leadership! If Shota was an NBA coach or a businessman he could write five shitty books about it.

It was also largely due to Shota’s kaiseki knowledge that his team’s concept even worked at all. He knew what each course was supposed to be and that freed his teammates from the old “blank canvas problem.” Unlike Team Penny, they had a roadmap. Oh, and his food was pretty good too. Lotus root tempura? Hell yeah, man. Hell yeah.

1. (even) Dawn Burrell

AKA: Hothead. ‘Sheed. Legs. Breaking Dawn. Milk Carton. The Sphynx. Zeus.

Dawn has been getting a little better every week — coming a long way since the first two episodes when I named her Milk Carton on account of one of her components was always going missing. She has really solidified her status as a favorite these last few weeks. She makes food that sounds good and tastes good that people like. Simple as that!

Stuck on directionless Team Penny, this week Dawn proved that she could sail the seven seas in a container ship full of turds and still come out smelling like a rose. Is there any doubt that Dawn would’ve won if she hadn’t been on the losing team? First, she made a crab salad on a corn puff dish that managed to out-masa the masa-father, Gabe, and then she came through with a scallop in ham hock broth with cajun xo sauce that both managed to delight XO snoot Melissa King and had the rest of the judges picking up their bowls to drink. It even looked and sounded delicious on TV.

The only possible argument against Dawn this week was that you could say that she sandbagged her team by not being clearer about what she was cooking. They called her a poor communicator, said she was “not present” enough, that she was “off in her own little world” — for a second there I thought I was in a relationship argument. Maybe Dawn wasn’t as good a teammate as she could’ve been, but on the other hand, if everyone else had been able to handle their shit as well as Dawn did everything probably would’ve been fine.

I’m nicknaming Dawn “Zeus” because she came down from “Mount Olympus” (because she was in the Olympics, get it) to suffer humans briefly while kicking ass. Is that one a stretch? Oh yes. Do I feel slightly embarrassed about it? And how. I’m also nicknaming her The Sphynx, for reasons that should already be clear above.

Notable Critique:

“You had me at ‘ham hock broth.’”

One interesting wrinkle here is that Last Chance Kitchen revealed someone who would be returning to the show two episodes ago and that contestant has yet to show up on the actual show. When will the big reveal happen?? Is there another wrinkle still to come??? Discuss.

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Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

It seems like Chris Webber and Jalen Rose might on their way to a reconciliation.

Earlier this week, after Webber was named to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame 2021 Class, he appeared on ESPN and was interviewed by Rose and Maria Taylor.

“I love you my brother. Congratulations,” Rose said. “You made it to the Hall of Fame. Well deserved.”

“Jalen Anthony Rose, it’s crazy, man,” Webber said. “And thank God for your beautiful, wonderful mother, cause you know what she did for me.” Rose’s mother, Jeanne, died in February due to lung cancer.

It was the first public or private interaction between the two childhood friends and ‘Fab Five’ teammates in several years and, according to Webber, he didn’t know it was going to happen.

“I didn’t know he was going to interview me,” Webber said Thursday on The Dat Patrick Show. “Thought Maria was. … He knows, we got to go into a room and talk, fight, wrestle, something. … That was the first time we talked. It was an awesome moment.”

Webber and Rose grew up as childhood friends in Detroit before both starred on the local prep scene. They then starred together on the iconic ‘Fab Five’ team at Michigan before both had long NBA careers.

The relationship, though, fractured after the Ed Martin scandal. In 2003, Webber pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal contempt and admitted to giving $38,200 Martin, a prominent Michigan booster, in 1994 as partial loan repayment. This led to the Wolverines have to forfeit wins from Webber’s two seasons and Final Four banners being taken down. More recently, Webber declined to participate in a Fab Five reunion and in the 30 for 30 documentary about the team that Rose produced for ESPN — Webber is working on his own documentary on the team currently.

“It was a moment of ‘whoa, I haven’t talked to you in a while,’”, Webber said. “… No matter how it happened, I appreciated the moment, I appreciated being able to share that with all of Detroit, having Jalen do the interview, but yeah we didn’t talk (beforehand), but it wasn’t awkward.”

“Hopefully it’s a start,” Patrick responded.

“Yeah,” Webber said.