Category: News

Doja Cat provided one of the highlights of this year’s Grammys ceremony with her futuristic performance of “Say So.” It turns out that was a special moment for her, since she “cried like a baby” (in a good way) after she left the stage.

She spoke about it with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, describing the post-performance scene:

“So I performed, it was the first time that I’d ever performed and then cried like a baby after. And I don’t do that, I don’t cry. I just get off stage and I’m like, ‘Yeah, we did it, yeah.’ But for this, literally the director for the whole thing, he came up to me and I was walking off stage and he was like, ‘Thank you so much. You were amazing.’ And I’m like, ‘[sobbing] Thank you.’ And we were rushing out and I couldn’t talk to him. And I was just dying. […] [It was] ugly, ugly. Everybody was holding each other’s shoulders and looking at each other. It was really, really corny, but it was the sweetest, greatest, most intimate moment I’ve ever had.”

She also talked about preparing for the performance, saying:

“I feel like when you think of a Grammy performance, it’s like, three months of rehearsal and like it’s a huge deal, blah, blah, blah. And it is, but we had two weeks to put this together. So we had the two weeks of rehearsal for choreography, but I think that the concept was definitely something that we had for two months, three months. So visually, all that was kind of locked in by the time we started dancing. So I rehearsed for two weeks and then it was really, really difficult at first. Look: we tried different prototypes. I did the boots at the end, but we were trying to do heels. Heels were like… it was scary, but I really wanted to try. It looked so good, it had such a good silhouette.”

Watch Doja speak about her Grammys performance (and her new song with SZA) above.

Sometimes a film wears its elevator pitch on its sleeve, and I didn’t have to read the Wikipedia page to know that Voyagers was sold as “Lord of the Flies in space.” The film, from Neil Burger (Divergent, Limitless, The Illusionist) stars Tye Sheridan from Mud, and Lily-Rose Depp from Johnny Depp’s loins, in a film about a group of genetically-engineered teens on a journey to colonize a distant planet. In the process of their journey, they encounter jealousy, cynicism, lust, and eventually discover that the real habitable planet was the friends they made along the way. The premise, it turns out, is actually better than the pitch, but the movie is so dead set on mimicking the conventions of YA fiction that it squanders its own potential. Voyagers could’ve been a lot more than a teen drama.

With the Earth getting hot and crowded, a team of scientists decides that humanity’s best bet is to create genetic combinations of their best citizens and send them on a journey to colonize a promising-looking planet. The journey will take 86 years, all but guaranteeing that these first-generation lab children will die before ever realizing their only “goal” in life. They exist solely to pass the mortal baton and eventually grandfather a team of future colonists. The future space teens are raised in isolation on Earth, sheltered from the natural world in order that they never come to miss it. Soon one of the scientists, played by Colin Farrell, volunteers to chaperone this suicide mission, little knowing how horny the space teens will eventually become. Farrell, his eyebrows bigger and more expressive than ever, his hair dyed a slightly unnatural shade, turned into Henry Rollins so gradually I didn’t even notice.

There’s a metaphor for life in there, obviously, having to find meaning in a journey even knowing you won’t be around to see its destination. And also for science, the idea of dutifully helping human knowledge advance incrementally, knowing it won’t be enough to save you or loved ones. It’s easy to wonder if it might be better to just drink yourself into a stupor and spend all your time pursuing sensual pleasures, leaving all the sowing and tilling for some other sucker. Who cares? It’s all ultimately meaningless anyway, right?

Personifying this latter view is the steely-eyed Zac, played by Fionn Whitehead. Only he comes to this realization not naturally, but because he, along with the ship’s babyface, Christopher, played by Tye Sheridan, stopped drinking the “blue drink,” which they discovered was spiked with a drug to keep them celibate and docile until procreation time. (Saltpeter, incidentally, has been a widespread military rumor going back generations). In one creepy scene, Zac applies his penetrating Charles Manson gaze to Sela, played by Lily-Rose Depp, staring her down while he emotionlessly gropes her right breast like he’s testing fruit at the supermarket.

The big question here is, why the saltpeter drink? Voyagers‘ stakes are the same with or without it. The bad drug plot feels like a hangover from Limitless, and the characters discovering their emotions is a leftover from Divergent, and both are largely unnecessary impositions on the movie at hand. Voyagers does this over and over, adding baggage from other stories rather than exploring its own premise (which, again, is actually pretty good). Christopher and Zac quickly get railroaded into their respective Ralph and Jack roles before we really get to know them, as if Burger can’t simply let this material be what it wants without trying to crowbar it into something else.

Sheridan is one of the best actors of his generation and Whitehead has perfected an effective if somewhat one-note “wild-eyed sociopath” look. While Hollywood nepotism has occasionally gifted us great onscreen talent (Carrie Fisher or the Gyllenhaal siblings come to mind), at this stage of her career, Lily-Rose Depp doesn’t seem to have quite figured out how to put her striking features to good use. Not that Burger’s scattershot screenplay is doing any of these actors any favors. Meanwhile, Burger’s most conspicuous trick as a director is a recurring montage effect, juxtaposing lightning bolts, sprouting plants, and extreme weather to convey the idea that the teens are becoming dangerously horny. It’s like the train-going-through-tunnel/space-shuttle-taking-off sequence from Naked Gun, delivered unironically. She cannae take any more, captain! The teens are about to blow!

Burger softpedals and PG-ifies his own obvious horniness so much and so often that it only serves to make him seem like a bit of a creep. Is it Zac who needs to go to horny jail or Burger?

Goofiness and occasional sub-par acting is forgivable in YA space fiction. Less acceptable is the consistent disrespect and disregard Voyagers shows toward its own characters and premise. If the eternal question is “what did you want this movie to be?” Voyagers’ consistent, unmistakable response is “sort of like other movies.”

‘Voyagers’ hits theaters nationwide April 9th. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

Brad Pitt recently made headlines for doing his own stunts in his next movie, Bullet Train. When reached for comment, Tom Cruise responded, “Lol.” In the Mission: Impossible series alone, the actor has climbed the Burj Khalifa, held his breath underwater for six minutes, shattered his ankle while jumping from one building to another, had a knife inches away from his eye (not worth it for Mission: Impossible 2), and hung off the side of a plane, all for our enjoyment. Our enjoyment, his pain.

While appearing on Friday’s episode of The Graham Norton Show, Cruise discussed his various injuries over the years. “I am a very physical actor and I love doing them. I study and train and take a lot of time figuring it all out. I have broken a lot of bones!” he said. “The first time of any stunt is nerve-wracking, but it’s also exhilarating. I have been told a few times during shooting a stunt to stop smiling.” I wonder who has broken more bones: Tom Cruise or Johnny Knoxville? A follow-up question: can Tom Cruise be in Jackass 4?

Cruise also revealed that he worked “seven days a week” during the pandemic to finish Top Gun: Maverick and M:I 7. “They shut down Mission and said we wouldn’t film for another year, so I had to figure it out,” he said. “We worked with governments, doctors, and our crew to keep everyone working – I haven’t had that banana bread moment yet.”

That’s because he’s a cake guy.

(Via the Daily Mail)

It’s hard to imagine asking the question, “Who is Awkwafina?” now.

With a handful of blockbusters under her belt, a history-making Golden Globes win for her role in The Farewell, and a string of viral hits, the woman once-known as Nora Lum from Queens is anything but unfamiliar. In fact, her swift rise to fame with films like Ocean’s 8 and Crazy Rich Asians and the creative influence she now wields with shows like Nora From Queens is so renowned, it’s almost impossible to remember a time when she wasn’t disrupting Hollywood norms by way of feminist hip-hop odes to her vagina and diss tracks directed at former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s New York soda ban.

Almost.

But it’s important to remember where Awkwafina came from because her success story, however unlikely, is proof that representation is worth fighting for. That, to win that fight, you have to be able to adapt, to roll with the punches, and yes, to get fired from you office job for unapologetically comparing your genitals to an operatic ballad.

It all started on Youtube. (Doesn’t everything?)

Well, really it started before that. Lum, the daughter of a Chinese-American father and a South Korean mother, was predominately raised by her grandparents in Forest Hills after her mother died when she was young. She turned to music at a young age, studying classical and jazz trumpet at New York’s LaGuardia High School. When she was in her teens, she created the alter-ego “Awkwafina” a riff on the bottled water brand that also rebranded her awkward comedy into a moniker of self-confidence. She received a degree in journalism and women’s studies from SUNY before taking a series of odd jobs including (but not limited to) vegan bodega worker, newspaper intern, an employee of an air conditioning company, and publicist for a book publishing firm.

That last is the position she was ultimately fired from after her single “My Vag,” a decidedly feminist take on rapper Mickey Avalon’s tribute to his own genitalia, went viral in 2012, netting over 400,000 views on Youtube. The song, a comedically infused, unashamed homage to that specific body part began, like many of Awkwafina’s great ideas seem to do, as a joke. She taught herself to compose beats on her Macbook when she was 19-years-old and quickly penned the song, creating a music video with some friends to accompany it and uploading it to the internet a couple of years later. She’d follow it up with similarly bawdy, unfiltered riffs on everything from gentrification in New York to soda bans and collaborations with comedy icons like Margaret Cho that poked fun at Asian stereotypes. Eventually, her viral fame ended up costing her a 9-5.

“I was working at an office company and my boss somehow figured out that I made a video and she immediately fired me. So, that was pretty sad,” Awkwafina told Galore. “But then, it was like, ‘Yo, I gotta do this because not only did I just get laid off, but I have this video out. So, if I walk into Cleary and Gottlieb for an interview, they’re definitely going to be like, ‘Oh my god, do not hire her.’”

She’d float for a while after that, starring on an MTV series, producing her debut album Yellow Ranger, connecting with other Asian-American rappers in the game, and even taking part in a documentary called Bad Rap that landed at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. She hosted a truly unhinged (in the best way) web talk show titled Tawk set in bodegas and laundromats around the city and featuring her grandmother, “Grammafina,” doling out sage advice in leather-arm-chair supporting interludes.

But as passionate as Awkwafina was about her music — she once described it as the only thing she has complete control over — she recognized early on that to build a lasting career in Hollywood, she’d need more than a handful of Internet-famous accolades.

“It was a career that was completely new to me that I felt I was blessed and completely lucky to have to the point where I didn’t trust that it would be a lasting career,” the artist told The Ringer. “Life doesn’t work that way. It couldn’t be that good. What happened was not that I became luckier, but I learned that it is a career and it is a job and you have to work to preserve it.”

And so she pivoted, harnessing her innate comedic sensibilities to land bit roles in feature films like Neighbors 2 and shows like Hulu’s Future Man. When the news of her Ocean’s 8 casting came along — the announcement that had Reddit boards and established entertainment writers querying just who the hell Awkwafina was — the once organic transition from comedy hip-hop to acting took on new meaning. Suddenly, Awkwafina was a name that resided on the same casting sheet as Academy Award winners like Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathaway, and Cate Blanchett, not to mention pop idols like Rihanna.

Then came Crazy Rich Asians, a rom-com featuring an all-Asian cast that managed to dominate the box office and give audiences a moving, authentic portrayal of Asian culture and the importance of family at the same time. The experience shooting the film prompted Awkwafina to become more vocal about the need for inclusion and diversity in the projects she was being pitched.

“Here I am with an all-female cast and an all-Asian cast,” she told The Guardian. “I’m fairly new to this industry and I have not experienced some of the struggles I’ve heard about. Time’s up and it’s about time. No more bullshit characters for women, especially Asian American women. Don’t piss off whole communities of people.”

Awkwafina has gone on to make history a handful of times — as the first Asian-American woman to win a Golden Globe for a major acting role in a drama film and as just the second Asian woman to host an episode of Saturday Night Live in the show’s 40 plus year run. She’s created a popular comedy series loosely based on her own life for Comedy Central, voiced characters in multiple Disney films, been tapped for a role in Marvel’s first Asian-led superhero flick, released an NYC guidebook, and become a leading figure in the Times Up movement.

And she’s done it all without following in other’s footsteps, remaining true to herself while pushing the limits that were once delineated for her. Oddly enough, even with that eclectic resume, we have the feeling she’s just getting started.

In 1979, a sketchy Canadian pimp named Paul Snider pitched an LA gas station attendant turned nightclub owner named Steve Banerjee on his big idea: a sort of go-go club where men stripped for women. Banerjee gave Snider one night a week at his club, and the concept, which went onto become the Chippendales, took off. Banerjee cut Snider out of it, and Snider went on to kill himself and his ex-wife, Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten, the following year.

Incredibly, that’s just the prologue for the larger story of the Chippendales phenomenon, and not even close to the end of the mayhem, murder, and power struggles. It’s all detailed in Welcome To Your Fantasy, a new podcast whose final episode was just recently released.

Welcome To Your Fantasy is a history of the Chippendales, and through that, a portrait of America during the Chippendales’ heyday. It began as a cheap idea to make money, but quickly declared itself part of “the cause,” an important front in the war for women’s liberation. Of course, for Banerjee, an immigrant from India, it was also the source of his wealth and the root of his growing paranoia, which would come to a head later. It’s the conman’s curse, to live in constant fear of one day being treated the way they treat others. The Chippendales itself would carry on without Banerjee, and like many American phenomena, would start off lurid and scruffy before becoming Disneyfied and homogenized.

It was also the perfect story to tell for Natalia Petrzela, a historian of the late 20th century, Associate Professor of History at The New School, and author of FIT NATION: How America Embraced Exercise As The Government Abandoned It. She’s been hosting another weekly history podcast, Past Present, for the past few years, but takes her first stab at multi-episode narrative in Welcome To Your Fantasy. I spoke to her via Zoom this week.

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So Paul Snider, the guy who supposedly actually came up with the idea for Chippendales, is just sort of a footnote here. At what point did you realize that this was such a crazy story that you didn’t even really need to cover Paul that much?

So we never set into it to write the Dorothy Stratten story because that story’s been told before. Let me put it this way: when we realized there was this crazy murder-suicide Playmate story, we’re like, oh, this has to go in there. But then actually, as we started writing out the story of Chippendales, and of the drama between Nick De Noia and Steve Banerjee, and especially doing all this original reporting that came through, looking at all the racial discrimination stuff and talking to so many different people, we were like, okay, this is a really important story, but for the story that we’re telling, the Paul Snider-Dorothy Stratten thing, it’s almost just foreshadowin. Since we didn’t learn that much new stuff about Paul and Dorothy, I think we give our listeners a taste of how it relates to Chippendales and then they can go on and immerse themselves in Star 80, or some of the other work that’s been done on that.

I mean, you could make the case that Steve Banerjee had an effect on that story as well, right?

Yeah. I mean, look, the story of Paul Snider is a guy who, as I understand it, constantly felt like he was getting a bad deal and constantly felt like other people were pulling one over on him. And he had this proximity to fame and celebrity that he could never quite break into, even as he understood himself as responsible for it. And so you see that with his rising resentment towards Dorothy, but I think, yeah, towards Steve Banerjee too. I mean, I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be Paul Snider, and I am not sympathetic to him, but you get this idea, hey, you should have guys take your clothes off. You’re the first emcee. And then basically you leave, get no credit for it, and it blows up huge. I think that that must’ve contributed to the level of his resentment.

I mean, it was like the one thing he was right about in his whole life–

Well look, this is not the Paul Snider rehabilitation tour, the guy’s awful. But he spotted star quality in Dorothy, right? He’s the one that told her to become a Playmate and photographed her in dubious circumstances. But he did have a certain talent. I just think execution was not his strong point, and he seemed like such a noxious figure that even if he had good ideas no one wanted him around.

The Chippendales story feels like a compelling story at any time, really, but was there any particular reason that you wanted to tell the story now?

I got attracted to this story in part because as a woman growing up in the 21st century, I’m constantly being marketed empowerment in what I think are really laughable, almost insulting, ways. Like, buy this bodywash, you’ll be empowered, buy this underwear, buy these Spanx. And so this idea of marketing empowerment in cynical ways to women is interesting to me. So when I first started looking at the early advertising of Chippendales, and it was like, ladies of the 80s, come and stuff dollar bills in these men’s g-strings, and finally get yours, that to me was a really interesting and I think kind of foundational example of the way that women are cynically sold their own empowerment.

In movies you see that, where the idea is that “we need more female stories.” And so they’re like, well, what if a superhero was a girl? This kind of seems like that as applied to a stage show.

Yeah. Look, I think we have come a long way, and we probably even had come a long way in 1979 when Chippendales launched, in thinking that the idea of empowered, sexually liberated women is a good thing, and a cultural force worth amplifying. I’d rather have been alive in 1979 and been marketed Chippendales than in 1850, let’s put it that way. However, I think that there are always going to be a lot of people out there who have a pretty shallow commitment to these causes and see these moments more as things to profit from that as genuine moments for solidarity or any of these kinds of grander causes.

And I think you totally saw that in Chippendales. They were ready to say, “Yeah, we believe in sexual liberation.” They didn’t use the word feminism but, “We believe in the cause.” But basically they believed in women’s liberation because, one, it made them rich, and two, more “sexually liberated” women were more sexually available to the men who would show up at the clubs. So I don’t really think it was such a radical proposition, even as it was a really new idea for a show. And I don’t want to diminish that.

So tell me about Steve Banerjee, who’s sort of the key figure in all this. What was he like? Who was he? What was his deal?

So Steve Banerjee was an Indian immigrant, came to the US via Canada. Really, in some ways, followed a kind of typical immigrant story of that moment. There was this big piece of legislation in 1965 in the US that opened up America to Latin Americans and South Asians, and many came, and many who were more educated, like him, to get their foot in the door, became franchise business owners. So he had a couple of gas stations, which totally fits with this Indian immigrant narrative. And then he was super ambitious. He had these American business icons as his idols, Hugh Hefner and Walt Disney. Keep in mind, the America in which he made his fortune was Reagan’s America, where you have all of this celebration of capitalism and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. What is different about him, and makes him a kind of dubious character is, one, that he made his career in this kind of sex work-adjacent business of men taking off their clothes for women, which made a lot of people in the Indian community, but also in the culture writ large, raise their eyebrows at him. But also he had totally dubious criminal ways of becoming so successful. Welcome to Your Fantasy is really oriented around a murder that happens, but he didn’t start with murder. Steve Banerjee from the beginning is making false calls to the police, to the fire department, to the press, trying to set up arsons, putting out hits on other people — I mean, this is a guy who sees criminality as a legitimate way to make his American dream come true. And I think, honestly, that doesn’t separate him that much from some other business leaders.

What was the cultural climate of the 80s that made this idea work so well?

I think by the 80s, you already have a kind of mainstreaming of women’s liberation in a way that’s not radical. By then you can talk about women’s empowerment, and it doesn’t mean a man-hater who doesn’t shave her armpits. It could be a woman secretary working 9:00 to 5:00 who likes to go out for drinks and party after work. So I think that’s really important. Because this idea would not have worked in, say, 1969 the way it did 10, 15 years later. I also think that the kind of flashiness of the post-disco nightclub scene was a part of the appeal.

I also think the media culture of the moment. These guys began as a nightclub act in LA, then they opened this big New York club. There was a traveling show. But the thing that made them such a big deal really was daytime TV. They were on Sally Jesse Raphael, Donahue, all of these talk shows. And they took this somewhat sleazy act of men taking off their clothes for women, did it at 9:30 in the morning on network television, and also talked about it like it was this thing that was at the cross-section of all these cultural and political things that were happening. So it both mainstreamed it and made it more of a big deal. It’s not some nightclub act. This is about morality and this is about women’s empowerment and all of that. And so I think that media culture was really super important.

Do we have anything that has that kind of media power now, that daytime television had? Why do you think those went away and has anything replaced it?

We don’t have that kind of coherent media culture that we did then. Not everybody watches daytime TV in that way. And that was happening just as cable TV was starting to make its way into American households. So you still had people who were mostly beholden to whatever was what was on the networks. So do we have something like that today that’s as unifying. I mean? If you’re very much online, like I think you and I are, you want to say the Twitter memes are. But no. That’s a snapshot, or a tiny slice of America. So I think we have a much more fragmented media culture. And I don’t think there’s something that rises to that sort of unifying level, the way that we did back then.

This is maybe not the best example, but let me try it out here: The Dirty John podcast, which was prestige media. It was LA Times journalism. Then it was a podcast. Then I think there was a Bravo knockoff, then there was some network thing. So it hit a whole variety of places in a way that I don’t think one thing in any single place still has that kind of unifying power.

You talked about the Chippendales arc. It kind of conquered the world, and then sort of became tame in the process. Is that just the natural order of capitalism?

I think for something to become mainstream, sure, in some ways it needs to keep shocking and being interesting, but it’s also got to reign in a lot of the things that will make it objectionable to most people. And you absolutely see that with Chippendales. I mean, there was certainly a lot of drugs and sex and bad behavior always going on behind the scenes, but one of the remarkable things that happens is you see an evolution, a very deliberate one from all of that kind of debauchery being totally out in the open, because it’s just like a strip show in this West LA club, to when they are in calendars, going on talk shows. Nick De Noia, who’s really managing them, is like, “You do not talk about sex at the club, drugs of the club, violence at the club,” anything like that because there’s this sanitization that has to go on to make it mainstream.

Of course, that ultimately makes it kind of less interesting, I think. Today Chippendales is still around. I don’t have the numbers of how well they’re doing, but they’re out there. But they are not positioning themselves as something edgy at all. I don’t think that they could anymore, in part because they were so successful at it, right? They’re, I don’t want to say a victim of their own success, but that lack of edginess is a result of their own success.

In terms of the central feud, the Nick De Noia-Steve Banerjee feud, what was their main disagreement?

I think that Steve Banerjee and Nick De Noia needed each other for their success, but they also were totally opposed in their sensibilities, and both power-hungry and kind of egocentric in their own ways. The actual thing that brought them to their fatal conflict was that they had signed this napkin deal, which was supposed to resolve their growing enmity. You had Steve in LA, and Nick was in New York, and then Nick and Steve signed on a napkin this deal that said that Nick would get the profits from the touring show in perpetuity. So Nick could take Chippendales dancers out on the road. He would make all the money from that.

Steve thought that that was fine because there was essentially no touring show at the time. Well, Nick took that as a kind of inspiration or a motivation to establish a very robust touring show. And he kind of would taunt Steve a little. He had to go 100 miles away, so he’d go like 101 miles away to set up the show, to not compete with the other clubs. So as Steve saw Nick making a lot of money from that, his rancor only grew. And then also Nick was a very public, flashy, charismatic guy in a way that Steve wasn’t. And so Nick would go on all the talk shows and be referred to as like, here’s Mr. Chippendale. And he would say, “We’ve created this thing for women.” And so my feeling is that Steve Banerjee’s resentment also grew that he was sort of out of the limelight in that way.

When they were doing the photo shoot on the beach and someone started shooting at them, did we ever find out who was actually shooting?

Look, there’s one guy, I think, who would come to firearms when it comes to male model calendars, and that I think is Steve Banerjee. So it was never confirmed, but we know from the timeline that this was the era in which Steve was getting more and more anxious about competition, and competition from within the ranks. Remember, that guy Dan Peterson, he had been picked out of a lineup outside of Chippendales and been like, “Come work for me.” And now he’s out making his own calendar. So we don’t know that it was Steve Banerjee, but I would say much evidence points to that fact.

Steve Banerjee, he wouldn’t be the guy pulling the trigger, right? He was hiring people to do that.

He was hiring people. And Ray Colon is a pretty significant character in the podcast. Ray Colon was hired by Steve Banerjee to do odd jobs. Which were everything from fix the sound system at the club to go do this arson, to go make sure Nick De Noia dies. So we don’t know who pulled the trigger at that Skin Deep shoot that Dan Peterson was at, but I would highly doubt that it was Steve Banerjee himself, but someone he probably put up to it.

I get when rich guys are like, “Ooh, I need to hire someone to take someone out.” A lot of rich people do that. But very few of them actually find people that will actually do it, and not just double-cross them and take the money.

Well, I think that kind of speaks to the fact that Banerjee, he was respectable and had money and all this, but he was at the fringes. It wasn’t like this guy was this investment banker who goes to this buttoned-up office every day, and has no contact with sort of the seedy side of society. He’s running a strip club basically. And so he did have contact with… I mean, Ray Colon was a pretty shady character. So he has connections, I think, to people who might be more willing to do that kind of work.

‘Welcome To Your Fantasy,’ is available now, exclusively on Spotify. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

Certain members of Congress keep making headlines for their anti-vaccination stances, but there are plenty of good eggs in the bunch. That would include Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-LA), who decided to throw down a rendition of Matt Monro’s “Born Free” in order to motivate people towards the needle.

It’s an alright show from a guy who knows he can’t sing (and freely admits as much), but he’s doing it anyway to bring attention to the cause:

Born free
As free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart

Hey, he’s doing better than I would have done, and he didn’t pull out the Kid Rock song that’s also entitled, “Born Free,” so he’s scoring major points with this daring venture. And he’s got a good sense of humor about it all: “I’m Senator Kennedy. I can’t sing very well but I’m free. Be free. Be cool. Get the vaccine. I did. It works.” Well, Kennedy gets it. There’s been plenty said about freedom and lockdowns, but the sooner we can get back to normal-ish life, the better. And herd immunity through vaccination is the fastest way to get there without more loss of life, which (logically speaking) can only help Americans get back to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

For the past few days, there have been reports about the status of DMX’s health, and none of them were promising. Now, sadly, the tragic day that fans were hoping to avoid has arrived: It was announced today that the legendary rapper has died at 50 years old. The news was confirmed in a statement from DMX’s family, which noted that he died while surrounded by loved ones in the hospital.

People in the music world had been sharing some tributes to DMX recently as news about his health was revealed, and now that his death is official, more tributes to the rapper are pouring in.

Biz Markie wrote, “RIP DMX. No one radiated more agony, pain, and atomic energy. The Cerberus from Yonkers, who suffered for all of our sins and his own. Maybe the rawest rapper of all-time, no pretense or frills, just pure adrenaline, lawless genius, and reckless abandon. The struggle incarnate.”

Missy Elliott also wrote, “Even though you had battles you TOUCHED so many through your MUSIC and when you would PRAY so many people FELT THAT! This is heavy for the HipHop family but your LEGACY LIVES ON & your SPIRIT. Continued Prayers for X family & friends for STRENGTH/HEALING.”

Check out some more reactions below.

Despite hailing from Liverpool in the United Kingdom, an ocean away from the birthplace of rock and roll, The Beatles’ importance in the influence of American popular music can not be understated. But why do they keep getting compared to American rap groups from Atlanta, namely Migos and Outkast? In a recurring social media gag, every so often some prominent figure on Twitter declares a modern rap group “bigger” or “better” than The Beatles, setting off another round of vigorous and — it must be stated — mostly irreverent, tongue-in-cheek debate.

On one side are The Beatles’ defenders — those who believe that even feigning to compare them to newer acts, across genres, generations, and geography, amounts to nothing less than musical sacrilege. On the other, a mass of folks who seem delighted to do nothing more than joyfully impugn the legacy of the most successful rock band of all time by arguing for one group whose biggest breakout involved the repetitious invoking of a luxury design house and another whose most mainstream hit was accompanied by a video that parodied the height of Beatlemania.

Caught in between them are bewildered music fans who can’t help but wonder how the artists being compared even relate to each other and why either side seems so intent on making such a fuss over the others’ opinions. Some may wonder how Migos, barely a decade into their career, or Outkast, more than a decade past their golden years as a respected rap duo, even merit discussion alongside the act that held more Billboard records than any other until very recently. However, the answer is not so simple as comparing plaques, and the motivations of both sides are more complex than they appear.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone takes these declarations all that seriously — and if they do, that’s their prerogative. Art is subjective; one person’s most successful rock band of all time is Quincy Jones’ pick for “worst musicians in the world.” For someone whose tastes run more toward blasting bass-heavy, 808-ridden triplet raps through the streets of downtown Atlanta than dropping the needle on the psychedelic meditations of a groovy quartet of shaggy-haired British misfits, making the claims that “Stir Fry” is greater than “Penny Lane” might seem pretty reasonable.

But for an elder generation who grew up with The Beatles, it’s a slap in the face — which is part of the fun for their disruptive detractors. For many of hip-hop’s formative years, rock-chauvinist music critics and fans denied the nascent movement’s musicality, value, and validity as an art form. Fans of rap endured sneering comments that dubbed rap “crap” (haha, so clever) and demeaned the poetry in its often blunt, plainspoken lyrics. Used to lofty, esoteric references to walruses and thinly veiled references to the wonders of LSD — you know damn well that’s what that song is about — rap’s tendency to drive home its points with the force of a nail gun rubbed them the wrong way.

By the same token, their criticisms got under rap fans’ skin, but all rap fans could do was rankle privately and defend the value of the form publicly, through multiple waves of indecency witchhunts led by the likes of Barbara Bush all the way up to Bill O’Reilly. Even today, Cardi B has to defend herself from the Tucker Carlsons of the world almost weekly. But now that rappers like Cardi and Migos are the best-selling acts in the country (an easily quantified claim to make thanks to the advent of streaming), their legitimacy is already assured and all that’s left is to return four decades’ worth of grief one trollish tweet at a time.

Furthermore, The Beatles are no longer a group that defines youth culture. Where once they shocked the world, sent teen girls into hysterical paroxysms, and made concerned mothers clutch their pearls even as they tapped their feet, they’re beyond tame by today’s standards — they’re lame. Furthermore, The Beatles’ prime was a long time ago. We’re in an era where most news items, hit singles, and viral discoveries have a shelf life of about 18 months. For younger millennials and Generation Z, a group that had their own “mania” 50 years ago and no new hits in the last 30 would barely register against the non-stop deluge of new content we’re asked to consume just to keep up these days.

And while The Beatles ruled radio in their day, the average 13-year-old today has probably never even willingly turned one on for their own benefit — if they even know what radios are (again, thanks to the advent of streaming). Many can likely only name a handful of songs — songs that, to them, probably sound how the tunes Captain America was listening to sound to elder millennials and Generation X. It’s their grandparents’ music, and while grandparents can be cool, their taste usually isn’t. So while older hip-hop heads — and it’s usually members of the aforementioned “X-ennial” generation who actually post the tweets in the first place (see: Ron Funches and Donald Glover) — plot to torment their own elders as a means of resistance and revenge for all the pestering of their formative years, for the zoomers, it’s a way to assert their own tastes and identities, as well as indulging in their generations’ unique taste for digital chaos (see: Lil Nas X).

However, that alliance is mostly one of convenience and circumstance and there are already signs of it fracturing. Consider this: Outkast’s last major hit came out almost 20 years ago. That’s just long enough to be retro — which is only a few more years away from being terminally uncool. Time marches on, and Father Time remains undefeated. So while Migos and Outkast may be better than The Beatles today, tomorrow, they might just be inferior to the Polo Gs and Lil Nas Xs of the world. And The Beatles? Well, you know what they say: Everything old is new again. Maybe in another 10 years, they’ll be back in fashion after some 17-year-old samples “Hey Jude.”

Indiana Jones 5 is still happening, despite Harrison Ford being 80 years old by the time the film comes out in 2022. The plot is still being kept under wraps for the follow-up to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but we do know that it won’t involve aliens (probably) or Mutt Williams (definitely) and Logan‘s James Mangold will direct. Also, as Lucasfilm announced on Friday, Phoebe Waller-Bridge will star alongside Ford in a mysterious role. The campaign to let Fleabag play a villain begins now.

“I’m thrilled to be starting a new adventure, collaborating with a dream team of all-time great filmmakers,” Mangold said in a statement. “Steven [Spielberg], Harrison, Kathy [Kennedy], Frank [Marshall], and John [Williams] are all artistic heroes of mine. When you add Phoebe, a dazzling actor, brilliant creative voice and the chemistry she will undoubtedly bring to our set, I can’t help but feel as lucky as Indiana Jones himself.”

Waller-Bridge is now two-for-two in iconic Harrison Ford franchises: she voiced activist droid L3-37 in Solo: A Star Wars Story, which includes an Indiana Jones easter egg. Plus, if you’ll recall (I don’t blame you for not remembering every detail of Solo), L3-37 is essentially “uploaded” to the Falcon, meaning she’s been with Ford this entire time.

Aw. What are porgs if not space guinea pigs? Maybe keep the snakes away, though.

(Via Lucasfilm)

In news that the music world hoped would not arrive, it’s been reported that DMX has tragically passed away at the age of 50. The news arrives less than a week after he suffered a reported drug overdose at his home. According to TMZ, the incident occurred at 11 p.m. last Friday and resulted in him being rushed to a White Plains, New York hospital.

Upon his arrival, the rapper was reported in “grave condition” and placed in the facility’s critical care unit. TMZ also reported that the overdose triggered a heart attack. After some conflicting reports about his status, it was clarified that he remained on life support with little brain activity. The rapper then spent days in the hospital with family, friends, and supporters hoping he would pull through. But on Thursday night, word of his passing was reported by his family in an official statement.

DMX’s passing is a sad ending to his long-documented battle with drug addiction. It’s one that began when the rapper was tricked into smoking crack by his rap mentor at just the age of 14. In recent years, his battle landed in the eyes of the public through multiple trips to rehab — one in 2017 and another in 2019. In both situations, he was forced to cancel concerts in order to get a grasp on his addiction.

In 2019, his rehab announcement was made through an Instagram post. “In his ongoing commitment to putting family and sobriety first, DMX has checked himself into a rehab facility,” the caption read. “He apologizes for his canceled shows and thanks his fans for their continued support.”

Despite these past bumps, DMX seemed to be heading toward a better path and was preparing to release his upcoming album, one he said would arrive with features from Griselda Records, Pop Smoke, and U2’s Bono.