Category: News

Georgia’s restrictive new voting laws have been the talk of the political spectrum in recent weeks, as the state has lost plenty of business in the wake of passing of SB 202 in March. Ryan Coogler, who’s no stranger to the state, made it clear in a letter that he is vehemently against the bill, but also shared that he would not move Black Panther II‘s filming out of the state as a result.

Coogler shared a letter about the situation to a variety of sites, including Shadow and Act, in which the director laid out in detail the harmful impact the bill has on limiting voter access and the reinstitution of a modern-day poll tax. It’s a worthwhile read to see in granular detail the naked attempt to limit the democratic process after what occurred in Georgia in November and January, largely due to the efforts of minority voters.

“The fight for full enfranchisement is fundamental to the African-American struggle in this country and to this country’s claim to functioning democracy,” Coogler wrote. “As an African-American, and as a citizen, I oppose all attempts, explicit and otherwise, to shrink the electorate and reduce access to the ballot.”

The letter also contained some important, specific details about production on the sequel to Black Panther. Many institutions have protested the law’s passing by moving events out of Georgia, such as Major League Baseball’s annual All-Star Game. But Coogler said he and Marvel will not move Black Panther II‘s filming out of the state and will instead vow to fight the law’s passing through a variety of methods and advocacy while working in the state.

Our film [Black Panther II] is staying in Georgia. Additionally, I have made a personal commitment to raise awareness about ways to help overturn this harmful bill, and continue to get educated on this matter from people on the ground. I will encourage everyone working with me to tap in with the local community directly affected by Senate Bill 202 and to leverage their influence and resources to aid in the fight for this particular and essential pillar of democracy.

I will also be donating to Fair Fight Action. You can do the same at www.stopjimcrow2.com.

Moving the film out of Georgia would have sent a huge shockwave through the entertainment industry and made Marvel and Disney the target of another round of cancel culture discourse from conservatives and right-wing media. So while that may have been a strong message to the state that its laws are extremely unwelcome, the message may have ultimately been muddled by the mediums it went out on. Still, Coogler makes it clear he and others working on the film are opposed to the legislation and its passing will not go unnoticed.

[via IndieWire, Shadow and Act]

Sometimes good R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm and blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the hottest R&B jams that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.

Queen Naija returns with an updated take of her debut album with Missunderstood… Still while Emotional Oranges give fans another reason to be excited for their upcoming Juicebox project thanks to their new single with Becky G.

Queen Naija — Missunderstood…Still

Towards the end of last year, Queen Naija slipped in one of the more impressive R&B projects of the year with her official debut, Missunderstood. Almost six months later, the 18-track effort gets extended with seven additional songs for Missunderstood…Still. Features from Ari Lennox and J.I. The Prince Of NY look to breathe new life into the singer’s project. Naija and Lennox also delivered visuals for their “Set Him Up” collaboration.

Emotional Oranges — “Down To Miami” Feat. Becky G

After making their mark in 2019 with The Juice, Vol. I and The Juice, Vol. II, Los Angeles-based R&B duo Emotional Oranges laid low for most of 2020, but now they’re back in action with plenty on new music on the way. Their newest release, “Down To Miami” with Becky G, takes advantage of the impending summer thanks to its warm production. The song is also expected to land on the duo’s upcoming Juicebox project.

Chris Brown & Young Thug — “Go Crazy Remix” Feat. Mulatto, Future and Lil Durk

Chris Brown and Young Thug joined forces for their Slime & B album nearly a year ago and to this day it’s an effort that is still being pushed thanks to the success of their “Go Crazy” single. Following a remix with Lil Durk, Mulatto, and Future, the five artists come together for a video that features sky diving, polar temperatures, a therapy session, and much more.

Phabo — “Slippery” Feat. Destin Conrad

Residing in St. Petersburg by way of San Diego, Soulection singer Phabo is slowly making a new for himself in the R&B world. He gained attention at the end of 2020 for his “LNF” track and things have only improved with his latest effort, “Slippery.” Laced with a guest appearance from Destin Conrad, the two singers debut the visual for the sultry track.

Sinead Harnett — “Hard 4 Me 2 Love You”

Sinead Harnett readies her upcoming album, Ready Is Always Too Late, which her brand new single, “Hard 4 Me 2 Love You.” The piano-driven ballad sees the British singer expressing the difficulties in love with her partner. The somber track arrives after three previous she released with help from Earthgang, Masego, and VanJess, which will all appear on Ready Is Always Too Late, out May 21.

Jacquees — Quemix 4

Jacquees is back and seemingly ready to take back the R&B crown he once claimed a few years ago. This campaign begins with the release of his Quemix 4 mixtape. The 13-track DJ Drama-hosted project finds the Atlanta remixing a number of popular tracks from today and yesterday including Usher’s “Can U Handle It,” Trey Songz’s “I Need A Girl,” and Coi Leray’s “No More Parties.”

Andra Day — “Phone Dies”

Andra Day began her year with a Golden Globe win for Best Actress In A Motion Picture — Drama thanks to her role in the The United States Vs. Billie Holiday film. She created the soundtrack for the film, a project that stood as her first full-length effort since her 2015 Grammy-nominated Cheers To The Fall. Now she’s back with “Phones Dies” produced by Anderson .Paak, a release that will hopefully lead to more music.

The Shindellas — “Money”

Nashville trio The Shindellas arrived with an thrilling video to their late 2020 video, “Money.” The all-female group flaunts their dance moves in sparkling outfits as they let their voices roar for the soaring track. On it, they share their hope for a world driven by love rather than money. While that might not be the case yet, they promise their own lovers that a good heart will always precede any dollar amount when it comes to them.

Tay Iwar — Love & Isolation

Two years removed from his Gemini project, Nigerian singer-songwriter Tay Iwar returns with his latest body of work in Love & Isolation. The seven-track project is a deeply personal ode to self-healing that also marks a transition from era to era for Iwar. “The intention is for people to feel and tap into themselves,” he said in a press release about the EP. “It’s a perfect self-healing EP post-pandemic.”

Marzz — “Cleopatra”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa8TUCFbGPE

Marzz signed on as the newest act to the Keep Cool imprint, joining a roster that boasts names like Lucky Daye, VanJess, Normani, and more. After dropping her first single under the label a couple of months ago, the Louisville native returns with her second effort, “Cleopatra.” On the track, which is carried by production from Timbaland, Marzz delivers her outlook on life as a woman while impressing with her songwriting skills.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Raleigh, North Carolina rapper Toosii has seen the heights of success since his entrance to the music world a few years ago. His 2020 album Poetic Pain debuted within the Billboard 200’s top 20, his single “Love Cycle” recently went gold, and he received glowing co-signs from his South Coast Music label DaBaby and others as he becomes a prominent hitmaker in his own right. On his new song, “What It Cost,” however, he spends some time contemplating the downsides of his rise to stardom and the work it takes to remain at the top.

“I came from rags to riches, I ain’t tryna go back to the rags,” he reflects on the chorus. “I never knew tears was what it cost.” The video opens with a side profile shot of Toosii in the studio, explaining his worries to an unseen listener before launching into a split-screen narrative that contrasts his prior conditions with his current ones, making “rags to riches” about as literal as it gets.

“What It Cost” is the second single from Toosii’s upcoming mixtape Thank You For Believing, due May 7 via South Coast Music and Capitol Records, following “Back Together” released earlier this month. You can pre-order the tape here.

Watch Toosii’s “What It Cost” video above.

Around this time last month, Lord Huron announced a new album, Long Lost, and so far, the group has shared a pair of songs from it: the driving single “Not Dead Yet” and the breezy “Mine Forever.” Now they’re back with another preview of the album (which is set for release on May 21), the title track.

The new song is a cowboy-style ballad, complete with a spaghetti Western rhythm and prominent string arrangements. There’s also some ’50s-style piano playing to liven up the verses for good measure. The aesthetic of the album so far has been particularly cowboy-indebted, so this stylistic direction is a pleasant non-surprise.

On the track, Ben Schneider seems content to be “long lost” in the expanses of nature, singing on the chorus, “Send me to the mountains / Let me go free forever / I’ll be running through the forest / Dancing in the fields like this.” He later adds that if he’s going to die anywhere, he’d prefer if it was away from an urban center, “Leave me where the moonbeams carve through the leaves like blades / Lay me in the tall-grown grass in a shallow grave / Let it have me.”

Listen to “Long Lost” above.

Long Lost is out 5/21 via Whispering Pine Studios Inc./Republic Records. Pre-order it here.

Is Mike Lindell a 2006 romantic-comedy starring Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker? Because he had a failure to lunch.

Frank, the “free speech” social media site from the sweaty pillow tycoon who fancies himself the next Jeff Bezos, was supposed to launch on Thursday at midnight for VIP subscribers. But it turns out Lindell is maybe not the most reliable and trustworthy fellow. “As the hours passed and Thursday turned to Friday morning, some Telegram followers of Lindell’s verified Telegram channel were left puzzled,” Newsweek reported, with users leaving comments like, “It seems the site did not go live the way it was supposed to. Not sure what the issue is but it is a huge letdown that’s for sure. After all the hype.” Another wrote, “No communication, no text….no one knows what is going on. Doesn’t feel good.”

The reason for the apparent delay was not immediately clear… In recent weeks, Lindell had promoted the platform as a free speech hybrid of Twitter and YouTube, claiming that it may eventually boast hundreds of thousands of users. He claimed dedicated servers meant it would be resistant to takedown attempts.

It appears the launch has been pushed back to Sunday. Unless this counts as “live.”

Lindell revealed earlier this week that Frank users can say whatever they want on the platform, as long as it’s not “the four swear words. The c-word, the n-word, the f-word, or God’s name in vain.” He’s also “not worried about Amazon taking it down.” Now we know why: there’s nothing to take down if there’s nothing up.

Lindell has gone full galaxy brain on us.

(Via Newsweek)

Kyra Sedgwick stopped by The Drew Barrymore Show on Wednesday where she shared a story about the first and last time she was invited to Tom Cruise‘s house. According to Sedgwick, it all went down while she was very pregnant in the early ’90s, and she and her husband Kevin Bacon were at Cruise’s house for a screening of A Few Good Men, which also starred Bacon. The whole thing was a pretty big deal. Along with Cruise and Nicole Kidman, there were other famous celebs like Demi Moore, who was in the film, and Bruce Willis. “It was a flow,” as Sedgwick described the festivities, which she says she’s not often invited to, and possibly, for what happened next.

“There was this, like, fireplace mantle, and I was looking around and there was this little button underneath the mantel,” Sedgwick told Barrymore. Thinking that something “interesting” might happen, like a hidden room, Sedgwick pressed it. Nothing happened. At that point, Sedgwick became concerned and decided to tap Tom Cruise on the shoulder and confess to pressing the button just to give him a heads up. Unfortunately, he did not have good news: Sedgwick had pressed the “panic button,” which turned into a huge ordeal.

“And so the cops came, they had to stop the screening. They had to see Tom I think there were more than like five cop cars, it was something,” Sedgwick explained to a laughing Barrymore. “I didn’t get invited back.”

(Via The Drew Barrymore Show)

Beach Bunny dropped their debut album, Honeymoon, in early 2020, and one of the highlights was the single “Cloud 9.” Now that song has gotten a facelift thanks to new contributions from Tegan & Sara. Aside from the feature, some of the lyrics have also been updated to make the song more inclusive for a variety of listeners.

On the original chorus, the first lines go, “But when he loves me, I feel like I’m floating / When he calls me pretty, I feel like somebody.” That remains true of the first chorus on the new version, but the pronouns are updated to “she” on the second chorus and then “they” on the third and final chorus.

Tegan & Sara said of remaking the song, “We’re massive fans of Beach Bunny, and when we heard ‘Cloud 9’ for the first time, [we] fell in love with the brilliant lyrics and addictive melody. We love that Lili [Trifilio] was up to let us experiment with changing the pronoun in the chorus to she. The efforts made to make the song relatable to everyone isn’t just about inclusivity: we think it’s a great indication of the flexibility and creative spirit of the band at its core!”

Listen to the new version of “Cloud 9” above.

Tegan & Sara is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

My Chemical Romance kicked off 2020 with some great news: They were planning a reunion tour, their first shows in 9 years. Of course, not long after that announcement, the world delivered some bad news of historically significant proportions: the coronavirus pandemic. The band pushed their touring plans back to 2021, but now it turns out, with the pandemic still raging on, that this wasn’t enough of a delay: Today, MCR announced that they have once again delayed their tour, which is now set for 2022.

The band said in a statement, “My Chemical Romance is postponing our 2021 touring plans until 2022. We are deeply sad, but those emotions are only a fraction of the depth of feeling we have all experienced watching the suffering and loss of the past year. We just want to be as sure as we can be that everyone is safe. Refunds will be offered to anyone who wants them. We are sorry if this is disappointing, and we REALLY can’t wait to see you in 2022.”

The upcoming shows will be the first time the band has gone on tour since they performed in support of their 2010 album Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys.

Check out the revised tour dates on the band’s website.

The currency that started out as a bit is officially making people worried there’s a cryptocurrency bubble. But if you’re in on the fun, well, you may have just made a lot of money this week. Dogecoin, the dog meme-based cryptocurrency, has had its own meteoric rise along with retail stocks like AMC Theaters and GameStop in 2021. And on Thursday, that rise went from a pipe dream to the crypto being worth some serious money. Especially for investors who got in when it was largely worth nothing.

As CNBC detailed, Thursday saw a nearly 400 percent rise in the crypto, adding $20 billion to its market value in a 24-hour period:

Dogecoin has been climbing again in the past week, hitting 10 cents a coin for the first time on Wednesday. It’s risen by a whopping 400% in the last seven days.

On Friday, a Reddit user posted a picture of their dogecoin holdings on the Robinhood investing app.

“Hey guys I just became a Dogecoin millionaire,” the user said, showing a balance of $1,081,441.29 in their account.

The currency has trended a number of times in recent months, but the huge rise in its value is attributed to a number of things. Elon Musk, frequent supporter of both memes and also cryptocurrency, tweeted once again about the joke crypto that’s somehow gotten some significant legs after a long stretch of essentially being worthless. Some have speculated that helped the rise considerably.

But the recent initial public offering (IPO) of CoinBase, a crypto exchange platform, has played a part along with Robinhood, the stock app that also saw users flood to it during the retail stock craze from earlier in 2021.

The excitement around Coinbase’s debut led to a surge in the prices of bitcoin and ether. Bitcoin hit a record high of more than $64,000 on Thursday, while ether briefly topped $2,500 for the first time Friday morning. Dogecoin has been no exception to the frenzied interest in these digital assets.

Dogecoin has attracted a following among users of Robinhood. On Thursday, the U.S. online brokerage said there was a “major outage” in its crypto trading feature after facing “unprecedented demand.” The feature is now back online, Robinhood said.

While you had to have gotten in on the Bitcoin craze years ago to truly strike it rich with entire coins, a number of people have made an absurd amount of money on Doge because they had a lot of the joke currency simply lying around in huge amounts. Its first jump in value in December of 2003, for example, made the price of a single Dogecoin jump from $0.00026 to $0.00095. The idea that it’s worth more than an actual quarter or so now, essentially, is what all the fuss is about for some very meme-centric crypto traders. A lot of which are currently freaking out on Twitter.

All of this, of course, has more traditional investors worried about a potential cryptocurrency bubble. It’s important to note, of course, that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that were all the rage a few weeks ago have already seen pretty precipitous drops in value. But it’s all fun and games until the global economy crashes (or we cook the planet mining crypto), right?

Back in 1996, Chris Swanson, Ben Swanson, Eric Weddle, Jonathan Cargill founded the Bloomington, Indiana-based label Secretly Canadian. Indie music fans know the label well, of course, as it has been home to many era-defining artists, like The War On Drugs, Whitney, Jason Molina, and plenty of others. Now that the label has been around for 25 years, they are celebrating in a number of ways.

All of these ways are part of the year-long SC25 initiative to help fight homelessness in Bloomington, which aims to raise a quarter of a million dollars for Bloomington organization New Hope For Families. The label shared a statement about the initiative, which also addresses the recent fatal FedEx shooting in Indianapolis, writing:

“Like all of our neighbors here in Indiana, the Secretly family are devastated by the news that developed overnight. Our hearts are with all of those affected by the tragedy in Indianapolis.

Secretly was founded in 1996, just down the road in Bloomington, and today we are sharing plans — long in the works — to mark our 25th anniversary with a mission to aid families experiencing homelessness in our hometown. Though our hearts are heavy, we feel more connected to our local community than ever, and it is with grief and gratitude that we go forward with these plans today.”

The celebration will include the SC25 Editions series of rereleases, a collection of 12 albums re-issued in limited editions. Releases will arrive in groups of four throughout the year, and the first set includes Jens Lekman’s When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog, The War On Drugs’ Wagonwheel Blues, Tig Notaro’s Live, and Whitney’s Light Upon The Lake.

On top of that, there’s also the SC25 Singles series, which will feature “25 new, rare and unreleased songs, covers and collaborations from artists both within and outside the Secretly Canadian family.” The first two of these singles have been released today: Stella Donnelly’s cover of Jens Lekman’s “If I Could Cry (It Would Feel Like This)” and Porridge Radio’s rendition of Scout Niblett’s “Wet Road.” Proceeds from all the aforementioned releases will go to New Hope For Families.

Learn more about the SC25 Editions series here and listen to the new Donnelly and Porridge Radio tracks below.