Category: News

We’ve all been finding different ways to pass the time during the pandemic. Some people caught up with old friends over Zoom or finished the books that they’ve been meaning to read for years (Paul Reiser’s complete works isn’t going to read itself), while others watched Friends. So much Friends. Billions of minutes of Friends.

USA Today reports that the NBC sitcom, which ended 17 (!) years, “was the most-watched comedy on broadcast or cable TV, with 96.7 billion minutes viewed, a 30 percent jump from 2019.” For comparison’s sake: Netflix subscribers watched 57 billion minutes of The Office last year (USA Today‘s data, compiled by Nielsen, does not include streaming). In second and third place were The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men, although older comedies saw a viewership increase in 2020, too, like The Andy Griffith Show (58.3 billion minutes, up 29 percent), I Love Lucy (9.3 billion minutes, up nine percent), and Good Times (6.9 billion minutes, up 24 percent).

Cable viewers also watched a ton of Urkel:

The growth rate was even larger for some shows with casts that are more representative of the nation’s diversity. Year-to-year viewing of ABC’s Family Matters (1989-1998), which focuses on a Black family, skyrocketed, recording 11.4 billion viewing minutes for a 392% increase from 2019… George Lopez (2002-07), built around a popular comedian of Mexican-American heritage, recorded nearly 11 billion viewing minutes, a 113% jump, while The Bernie Mac Show (2001-06) was up 71% to 3.3 billion minutes.

No wonder every old show is coming back, including, in a sense, Friends.

(Via USA Today)

Do not cross Pooh Shiesty and Gucci Mane. That’s the main message behind their song “Ugly,” which they dropped the video for today. The persistent minor keys and muted percussion highlight a menacing beat from Nile Waves and Doc Playboi, while the duo’s cold-eyed verses stack blocks of rhymes dedicated to conveying one intimidating theme: If you challenge these two Southern trap veterans, “Sh*t get ugly.”

The video is a straightforward affair, with the two rappers aiming guns and lasers at the camera alongside a bevvy of ski-masked models who are just as heavily armed despite being more scantily clad.

The song comes from Pooh’s recently released Shiesty Season mixtape, which introduced the Memphis MC to a wider audience after he signed to Gucci’s new 1017 label in 2020 and featured prominently on the label’s first compilation album Gucci Mane Presents: So Icy Summer. Thanks to those big moves, and singles like “Guard Up” and “Back In Blood,” he’s become a breakout star to watch — and earned enough to be able to buy his mom a new house.

Watch Pooh Shiesty’s “Ugly” video with Gucci Mane above.

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

It’s 2021, and even the White House doesn’t have a clear-cut drug policy when it comes to marijuana use.

Biden White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki found herself sending out a series of tweets to clarify the administration’s stance on marijuana use after a handful of staffers were reportedly fired for their past drug use. According to a report by The Daily Beast, dozens of staffers had been “suspended, asked to resign, or placed in a remote work program” after disclosing past marijuana use during routine background checks. The move to punish staffers, many of whom lived and worked in states (including the District of Columbia) where marijuana use is legalized came as a surprise for younger White House employees, who were under the impression the current administration would be more lenient when it came to past drug use.

“The policies were never explained, the threshold for what was excusable and what was inexcusable was never explained,” a former staffer explained to The Daily Beast.

In fact, the Biden administration had taken a stance in its early days on marijuana, initially telling staffers that past recreational use of the drug would not immediately disqualify someone for a position at the White House. Psaki addressed the controversy on social media after The Daily Beast broke the story maintaining the administration’s commitment to creating hiring policies that more accurately reflect our changing times and downplaying the number of staffers affected by this policy change.

It’s not just the White House that’s struggling to update its drug policies thanks to the growing number of states legalizing marijuana across the U.S. — the FBI and the NSA have their own disparate thresholds for potential candidates and policies of past administrations have also wildly varied. Still, it seems a bit perplexing that cracking down on the security clearance of a few staffers who might have lit up years ago is the most pressing item on Biden’s agenda right now.

In a fiery segment on Thursday night, Stephen Colbert put former president Donald Trump on blast for his role in “amplifying” the anti-Asian hate that led to the recent shooting in Atlanta. While highlighting Trump’s continued rhetoric that blames China for the coronavirus pandemic, which Trump has frequently called the “Chinese virus” or “kung flu,” Colbert efficiently argued that the former president uses hate as a tool to “blame his own failings on a foreign country,” which will continue to cause racial violence like we saw in Atlanta.

“Our former president bears a particular responsibility for amplifying this form of hatred, just as surely as he bears responsibility for the series of events he incited on January 6th,” Colbert argued before tearing into fallout of Trump’s presidency. Via The Guardian:

“This will always be part of his legacy,” Colbert concluded. “He will be remembered as a hateful man who left a stain not just on the White House pillows but on our whole society by inviting his Maga minions to an all-you-can-hate racist buffet.”

The Late Show‘s host argument echoes a similar warning from actress Olivia Munn, who has been speaking out since the Atlanta shooting in an effort to raise awareness that Asian-Americans have had a “target on our backs” since the start of the pandemic. “It feels like it’s open season on us. And we need help and we need people to care about what is happening to us,” Munn told TODAY. “You look at what happened in Atlanta. This doesn’t happen in a vacuum.”

In a time when albums often come out the same day they’re announced, the road to Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over The Country Club has felt especially long; She first revealed the album’s title nearly a year ago, back in May 2020. Now, it’s finally out, and to mark the occasion, Del Rey has shared a video for the album-opening “White Dress,” in which she roller skates down a desolate highway.

In a September 2020 interview with Jack Antonoff, Del Rey said of the song, which was then titled “White Dress/Waitress,” “Now that [the album] done, I feel really good about it, and I think a defining moment for this album will be ‘White Dress/Waitress.’ […] We did that early on, and it started with you just playing the piano. […] What I like about that song is that for all of its weirdness, when you get to the end of it, you understand exactly what it’s about. I hate when I hear a song that has a great melody, but I have no idea what they’re talking about. In the grunge movement, a lot of the lyrics were super abstract, but the melodies and the tonality were such a vibe that you felt like you knew exactly what the singer was thinking. Nowadays, you get a beautiful melody but you don’t really know what the person is talking about, or if it’s even important to them.”

Watch the “White Dress” video above.

Tee Grizzley switches up his flow on his new song “White Lows Off Designer” — a likely side effect of collaborating with one of the most melodic rappers out, Lil Durk. The woozy-sounding single finds the two Midwestern MCs reflecting on the street code — “Loyalty no option / Please don’t start no drama” — with singsong flows that make the gritty subject matter sound almost beautiful.

Although he hasn’t announced any projects coming out this year, Tee Grizzley appears to be slowly rolling out a new collection of music for 2021. He most recently put out the video for “Late Night Calls,” his first solo single of the year after sharing a pair of singles featuring his little brother Baby Grizzley, “Twin Grizzlies” and “Gave That Back.”

Meanwhile, the resurgent Lil Durk has been a hot commodity for features ever since popping up on Drake’s single “Laugh Now Cry Later.” New Jersey newcomer Coi Leray tapped Durk to add a verse to her breakout single “No More Parties,” R&B revivalist Kehlani put him on her “Love You Too,” and Lil Baby is working on a joint mixtape with him.

Listen to Tee Grizzley’s “White Lows Off Designer” with Lil Durk above.

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

For a team that’s made two conference finals appearances in the past few years, things haven’t quite gone as planned for the Boston Celtics this season. The expectation was that they’d be at or near the top of the East standings and that Jayson Tatum would be blossoming into an MVP candidate.

But COVID safety protocols and other injuries have cost this squad significant time, and as a result, they’re currently fighting for their playoff lives as they try to keep a tenuous grasp on the eighth and final seed. And it hasn’t been all off-the-court stuff that has put them in this predicament.

The Celtics have looked listless and disjointed, unable to put together the consistency they need to make a real run at a conference title. The team’s heart and soul, Marcus Smart, thinks the answer is pretty simple.

Marcus Smart: “We gotta have fun again. We’re not having fun. We’re not playing with that energy, that same fire. That’s just what it is. We gotta pick it up. We gotta continue to try to help one another. Nobody said this was going to be easy.”

— Chris Forsberg (@ChrisForsberg_) March 19, 2021

The Celtics have been playing .500 ball of late, winning just five out of their last 10 and clinging to a game-and-a-half lead over the ninth-place Bulls. As a result, the Celtics figure to be active before the trade deadline to try and address some of their lingering lineup issues. But as it stands, they’ll need to put together a pretty impressive turnaround if they want a shot at making some noise in the East playoffs later this spring.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — I am not joking about this

I have good news and interesting news. Good news first: The team behind Justified is getting the band back together. Showrunner Graham Yost and his crew are coming back to FX with a show called City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, also based on an Elmore Leonard novel, which is great both because shows/movies based on Elmore Leonard novels are often terrific (Justified, Jackie Brown, Get Shorty, Out of Sight, etc.) and because the people involved here had really nailed Leonard’s style and voice by the end of the show. Variety has the specifics.

The team behind “Justified” is reuniting to develop an FX series based on the Elmore Leonard novel “City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit,” with Timothy Olyphant potentially returning as Raylan Givens, Variety has learned exclusively.

According to sources, as the project is in the very early stages, nothing is set in stone as of yet, meaning Olyphant could star in the series or appear in a smaller role, but no deal has yet been made.

And you probably saw the interesting news in that blockquote: Timothy Olyphant may or may not be reprising his role from Justified in the series, in some way, ranging from guest star to series lead, depending on the negotiations, which are ongoing, and yes, I do find it a little funny that Variety reported it a) now and b) this way, because for all we know he’s just going to show up for five seconds in the pilot as a wink at the audience who is currently half-frothing at the mouth and shouting “RAYLAN BACK???” at the prospect of him leading another full series. As a lover of both shows where Timothy Olyphant wisecracks while wearing a cowboy hat and chaos in general, I support all of this very much.

But it does bring up another point. One of my favorites. One that I seem to be the only one making, which is fine, because everything needs to start somewhere and with someone, so it might as well be now and with me. And the point is this: If we are going to go about the business of extending the Justified universe, in any way, even as small as a brief Raylan Givens cameo in a new series set in Detroit, then we should really consider giving Wynn Duffy his own television show.

What a terrific television character Wynn Duffy was. Just layers on top of layers, many of them courtesy of the writers and many courtesy of Jere Burns, who portrayed him. He was a career criminal who played any angle that worked for him. He lived in a Winnebago — excuse me, a Wynnebago — with a muscular henchmen named Mikey who may or may not have been his lover. He had the whole thing outfitted with satellite television so he could watch women’s tennis. He was the person who Raylan threw a bullet at and said “Next one’s coming faster,” which remains just about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. He, at multiple times in the series, ended up with another person’s brain splattered across his face, and yet he always escaped unharmed. He was a well-groomed cockroach in a bathrobe and I loved him very much.

And here’s the best part, with a slew of Justified spoilers coming in quite hot: He got away. After all that he did, after well over a dozen interactions with Raylan Givens, a man who rarely met someone more than twice without shooting them, he got away clean. He’s maybe — I could be missing one here — the only bad guy on the show who did not end up dead or in jail. The last we saw of him, in a sendoff so perfect that I’m smiling again just thinking about it, he was fleeing Kentucky in a van for a (probably) fictional company called Down On All Fours Grooming whose slogan was “the experts of doggy style.”

While this is, again, just a beautiful goodbye to an unkillable charming sleazebag, it’s also… I mean… let’s put it this way: Have you ever, in your entire life, seen or heard of a better spinoff set-up than any of this? Wynn Duffy traveling the country doing crimes out of a dog grooming van, setting up roots in one location just long enough to make a score and then bolting, maybe finding another musclebound henchman/lover if he ever gets over the death of Mikey, which could take a while, because I still am not over it and I barely knew him. Why can’t that be a show? Why isn’t that a show already? Why isn’t it called All I Do Is Wynn and why aren’t there like four seasons on Hulu and why isn’t the main promo picture for it a closeup of his face with someone else’s blood on it? Maybe he’s sipping a cucumber water, too. I’m just spitballing here.

It’s a good idea. It’s probably my best idea for a Justified spinoff, at least. Definitely top three, right up there with a prequel about Raylan and Boyd in high school together (starring Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins as teenagers, Pen15-style) and an alternate history where Boyd gets to live out his fantasy of getting out of crime and going legit as the owner of one or many Dairy Queen franchises. I really want to see Boyd as an ice cream magnate, especially after I got to ask Walton Goggins about it and he gave this answer.

I think he would have been a very successful Dairy Queen franchise owner, very successful. And that episode in particular, it’s very … All of this shit is very personal to me. I’m a poor kid from Georgia. We’re divided on a lot of things in this country. The one thing that a lot of us aren’t divided on is poverty. And for me, Boyd Crowder was what I wanted to say about rural America and my version of it. And that for him, there was a glass ceiling, and he couldn’t break it. And all he ever wanted was that, was the ability to escape a life that he came from, and to be somebody, and to be respected in a different way, and not through fear and intimidation.

With my story, I participated in kind of all of it. And I said, “We got to say this, man.” Because there was a dude in my hometown whose dad had four Dairy Queen franchises, and he made it. He was a success. And so, to answer your question, as fastidious as Boyd Crowder was, and as great of a compartmentalizer as he was… yeah, I think you would have seen Dairy Queens popping up in places that you never anticipated.

I think about Justified a lot. I guess that’s the point I’m making here. That and the thing about the Wynn Duffy show. So those two points, really.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — It is really saying something when a movie is too bad for me

This is a clip from Me You Madness, a new film that was written and directed by (and stars) Louise Linton, wife of former Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. It is hilarious. There’s no getting around that. The whole brief clip is undeniably, almost perfectly hilarious, from the dialogue to the “party mode” to the selection of the Taylor Dayne song to the thing where her scene partner and co-star is Ed Westwick, best-known for a starring role in Gossip Girl and most recently seen being accused of sexual assault by multiple women, which goes a long way toward explaining how he went from Gossip Girl to this. He appears to full-on sneeze around the 0:30 second mark of the clip. Again, hilarious.

So, of course, I cleared out a couple of hours to watch Me You Madness. I love awful movies. They are one of my great passions in life. Which is why it brings me no pleasure at all to report the following: Me You Madness was so bad I turned it off after about 20 minutes. Do you understand? This movie was too bad for me. For me! The same person who, earlier this week, was quoted on the damn DVD cover of Money Plane calling it “the most important movie of the summer.” A movie being too bad for me is like a lake being too wet for a fish. It’s unheard of.

And yet!

The movie has nothing going for it. At all. It somehow manages to be completely boring despite being about a woman who murders and eats people and has nonsense solo dance parties on the roof. It’s almost impressive how little energy any of it has despite… all of those things happening. I didn’t like it or hate it. I just kind of nothing’d it. It was aggressively nothing.

Luckily, kind of, at least for me and you, Dan McQuade at Defector did watch and blog this movie. The whole thing. He came to many of the same conclusions.

The movie is a mess. There are innumerable dance scenes, both from Westwick and Linton, none of which are interesting. It is allegedly a comedy, but there are almost no attempts at jokes, even. There is one half-decent joke, and the movie immediately runs it into the ground. It features lots of fancy cars and furniture—rented, per the credits—but none of it is specific enough to be memorable. There is a ridiculous “happy ending” in which the two main characters, who appear not to have aged at all, suddenly have three children.

Again, I should have loved this movie. I should have gotten almost unending joy out of it. I probably should have, at some point, been blurbed on this DVD cover, too. It has everything I could ever ask for out of a trainwreck film experience: vanity project, insane plot, no budget, sneezes that were not edited out of the final cut because the director was, presumably, watching herself dance, etc. The fact that I — me, the person who also wrote a review of Speed Kills, a VOD movie in which John Travolta plays a speedboat racer who gets involved with the mob — could not finish it might be the most damning criticism anyone could offer. Just watch that clip a few times. Anything beyond that results in rapidly diminishing returns.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — I am really just very proud of everyone involved here

The key thing you need to know here is that Scott Frank was the creator and showrunner of The Queen’s Gambit, a show that became a megahit for Netflix despite the fact that it was about chess. That was some kind of trick right there. Watching people play chess is just about the most boring thing possible, especially if you, like me, are a huge chess dope. I could not believe how into that show I was. I assume I was not alone in this reaction. All of which explains why Scott Frank is now a very hot commodity in Hollywood.

There are a few ways you can go when you get a little heat like this. You can use it to make a big passion project, something you’ve wanted to make forever but never got anyone to sign off on. You could double-down on your success by making a sequel-type project for a massive pay raise. Or, if you’re smart, like Scott Frank apparently is, you could create a new show and set in the South of France and plan to film it on-location there for a few months.

The series is called Monsieur Spade and will star Clive Owen as famous Maltese Falcon detective Sam Spade and, honestly, I’m just very proud of everyone involved in this production. Via Deadline:

The predominantly French language series will be produced by French production company Haut et Court (The Returned, The Young Pope) and will be shot entirely on location in France. It is being eyed as an international co-production with a premium cable network or streamer.

Co-written by Frank and Fontana and to be directed by Frank, Monsieur Spade centers around writer Dashiell Hammett’s great detective, Sam Spade, played by Owen, who has been quietly living out his golden years in the small town of Bozuls in the South of France. It’s 1963, the Algerian War has just ended, and in a very short time, so, too, will Spade’s tranquility.

Good for them. Good for all of them. Good for Scott Frank for figuring out how to live in the South of France on someone else’s dime for a significant chunk of time. Good for Clive Owen, who will also play Bill Clinton in the upcoming Lewinsky-themed season of American Crime Story and probably will need to play a detective who lives in France after all of that. Good for Dashiell Hammett’s estate for cashing this check. But most importantly, good for me, because I found an excuse to post that GIF of Clive Owen doing some excellent sunglasses business in Duplicity.

No losers in any of this, really.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — A heartfelt congratulations to Glenn Close

Something incredible happened this week. I promise this is not just me getting carried away with a strange fact and going too far with my excitement. It might be a little bit me getting carried away with a strange fact and running too far with my excitement, but it’s not, like, just that. I am not overselling this. It is really, truly wild. I did not think it was even possible.

Here’s what happened: The nominations for the 2021 Oscars were announced on Monday. And then the nominations for the 2021 Razzies were announced. And after they were both announced, after the honors for the best and worst of the past year of film were official, after the dust had settled, Glenn Close had been nominated for an Oscar and a Razzie for the same role.

Close was nominated for best actress in a supporting role, along with Maria Bakalova in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Olivia Colman in The Father, Amanda Seyfried in Mank and Yuh-Jung Youn in Minari. Monday marked Close’s eighth Oscar nomination. She has yet to win.

As far as the Razzies, the actress was nominated for worst supporting actress along with Lucy Hale and Maggie Q in Fantasy Island, Kristen Wiig in Wonder Woman 1984 and Maddie Ziegler in Music.

Do you see what I mean now? About this being incredible? Other actors have been nominated for an Oscar and a Razzie in the same year, with the most notable example being Sandra Bullock. But no one has ever been nominated for both for the same role. We are in uncharted territory here. One group of people saw her performance in Hillbilly Elegy and said, “Well, this is one of the best acting displays I have seen this year,” another group of people saw it and said, presumably, “More like Hillbilly Smell-egy.” The same performance! I am fascinated by this. Not fascinated enough to, say, watch Hillbilly Elegy at any point in my life, but still, pretty fascinated.

To be very clear, though: None of this is intended as a dig at Glenn Close. Glenn Close is great. Always has been. I want her to win an Oscar someday, in large part because this is now her eighth nomination and she hasn’t won yet. Now that I think about it, it would be kind of great if she wins both the Oscar and the Razzie this year. I want it to happen. Lots of people have Oscars. Fewer people get to make history.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — This is cool

This is a video of Tiffany Haddish learning that she won the Grammy for Outstanding Comedy Album while filming an episode of Kids Say the Darndest Things. It’s great. Watch it right now. Watch it again if you watched it earlier in the week. Send it to everyone in your phone. See if you can watch her get emotional about it without getting a little emotional yourself. It’s impossible.

I think my favorite part is the thing where she starts to explain the historical significance of a Black woman winning the award and one of the little girls on the set is like “Yeah, I already knew that.” She said it nicer than that, and it’s all very sweet, but it’s a good reminder that you should always try — using reasonable means — to have a child around you when you get good news. You never know what those guys are going to say. It’ll either make the experience so much more rich and pure or it will yoink you back to Earth immediately because kids are honest. Like, there was an equal chance here that one of the girls could have said “Beyoncé has lots of Grammys.” Which would have been great, too. Kids really do say the darndest things. Someone should make a show about it.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Paul:

As a fan of prestige television shows and NBA basketball, how excited are you about this new show about the 1980s Lakers? I’ve got to imagine you’re through the roof. I’m expecting 2,500 word recaps of each episode. I hope it spawns an entire new genre of television shows about famous historical basketball teams. Which team would be the most interesting for this kind of show and who plays Allen Iverson, because I assume your answer is the 2000-01 Philadelphia 76ers?

Here’s the best part about this email: Paul sent it last week, before the news dropped that Adrien Brody would be playing Pat Riley in this series. I was already excited. Now, I’m basically in outer space. Adrien Brody makes… let’s call them “choices.” He popped up in the most recent season of Peaky Blinders as a Sicilian mob boss and his performance was kind of like “what if Adrien Brody did an impression of Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone in The Godfather?” It was mesmerizing. It gives this new Lakers show very strong American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson vibes, which I could not be happier about.

Which brings me to Paul’s question. Surprisingly, my answer has nothing to do with my beloved Sixers, although I did type the phrase “we should let Allen Iverson be the next James Bond” into a Slack room earlier this week, and I stand by that. No, my answer is much more obvious than that. I need a multi-season series about the 1990s Chicago Bulls. Basically just everything from The Last Dance but dramatized and spread out over 30-40 hour-long episodes. I want to see Jordan gambling at 2 a.m. with a game the next day. I want entire episodes about Rodman. I want Jerry Krause and Jerry Reinsdorf to both be played by Paul Giamatti in different makeup and I want it on my television as soon as possible. None of this is unreasonable.

Thank you.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Texas!

A pair of River Oaks museum intruders are still on the run after they were chased by police Tuesday night as they boarded a boat on Buffalo Bayou and disappeared into the city’s storm drain system.

Yes, hello, hi. This article now has my full attention. I turned off the television and wiped everything else off my desk if one dramatic whoosh. My floor is a mess. It’s worth it. I can’t have any distractions. I must know everything about this at once.

When police responded to the museum, they spotted the pair running out of the building.

Police say the suspects appeared to have a motor boat waiting for them in Buffalo Bayou, which borders the museum.

They took off down the bayou, but when they spotted officers on the Shepherd Drive bridge, the suspects turned around and went in the opposite direction, according to Lt. Larry Crowson.

They fled the museum…

… AND HOPPED IN A MOTORBOAT…

… AND THEN WERE INVOLVED IN A MOTORBOAT CHASE.

KIND OF.

I GUESS THE COPS JUST SAW THEM FROM DRY LAND AND THEN THEY TURNED AROUND.

WHATEVER.

LET ME HAVE THIS ONE.

When the HPD dive team spotted the two suspects with the boat in the culvert, the pair jumped down a storm drain and ran off, according to police.

Officers followed them in, but ultimately couldn’t find the suspects.

During the storm drain search, HPD lost cell phone and radio connection with a couple of officers, who were then considered missing. The officers were eventually located unharmed.

PROSECUTOR: … and with all that said, do you think you can be a fair and impartial juror on this case?

POTENTIAL JUROR: So they stole some art and fled in a speedboat and then lost the cops in the drainage system?

PROSECUTOR: That is what they are accused of.

POTENTIAL JUROR: Then I cannot be impartial.

PROSECUTOR: May I ask why?

POTENTIAL JUROR: Because I love them.

According to MFAH, no works of art were damaged and nothing was removed from the premises. They are examining camera footage and are in contact with the police.

Wait.

Hold on.

They didn’t even steal anything?

They just snooped around and then fled in a speedboat.

That doesn’t make any sense.

Unless…

Dear Lord…

WHAT IF IT WAS A DISTRACTION?

What if the whole point was to get written up in the news and discussed in this column?

What if someone is reading these sentences right now and not paying attention to their job?

What if it’s a security guard at the Louvre?

SOMEONE CHECK ON THE MONA LISA.

Staten Island rapper CJ has a bonafide hit on his hands with his Bollywood-sampling single “Whoopty,” tightening drill’s stranglehold on the New York rap scene. Now, he looks to further ingratiate himself with the Big Apple’s rap fans by giving them a remix of the song just for them. The “Whoopty NYC Remix” features a pair of Empire State stalwarts in the Bronx-bred, underrated hitmaker French Montana and the recently-released rabble-rouser Rowdy Rebel.

Featuring a slightly re-worked sample, the remix sees the three rappers delivering updated verses boasting of their money, fame, and respect in the rap game. When the original came out, I was struck by how similar to French Montana I thought newcomer CJ sounded; on the remix, that comparison is heightened and enhanced, but it also shows just how versatile both rappers really are to not completely step on each other’s toes (the effect is similar to when Ghostface did a song with Action Bronson, and suddenly everything just clicked for the younger rapper).

Meanwhile, Rowdy Rebel’s comeback campaign appears to be proceeding swimmingly. After surviving a six-year bid, he’s returned with a more polished flow and gameness to take on any and all new musical trends, unwilling to become the out-of-touch oldhead that laments how much things have changed. It’s a good look for him and his feature has the added benefit of a cross-co-sign effect for CJ; the younger rapper gets the approval of older fans while the older rapper gets to stay cool in the younger generation’s eyes. It’s a win-win and to be honest, another collaboration wouldn’t go amiss.

Watch the video for CJ’s “Whoopty NYC Remix” featuring French Montana and Rowdy Rebel above.

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

“I feel like respect is the most important sh*t ever,” 23-year-old rising rap star DDG firmly proclaims over a mid-day Zoom call with Uproxx. “I feel like being respected is better than being loved. If you ain’t gonna love me, you at least gotta respect me. Disrespect is not tolerated on my side.”

Today, the Pontiac, Michigan-bred rapper is celebrating the release of his latest project Die 4 Respect with legendary producer OG Parker. From the sound of their 11-track collection of songs, respect should be on the way.

“I feel like OG Parker don’t get enough respect,” DDG further asserts. “He on the radio every day, people don’t even realize it that this n**** — he’s a G.O.A.T., he’s a genius.”

Alternately, many may know DDG from the YouTube space. However, he’s fully aware that the idea of one of the top Black YouTube creators transitioning into the music space to become one of the biggest stars in the world, is an idea that may take some time for people to get used to.

“Just because I come from this different platform don’t mean that I don’t deserve the same respect as a motherf*cker that went to jail 10 times and got out and made some songs and got lit,” he says.

DDG isn’t necessarily asking for anyone’s respect, though. He’s simply taking it.

With nearly 10 million combined subscribers on YouTube and a loyal base of supporters who show up for DDG at all costs, that should be easy. It makes even more sense when the music aligns with the talent and that’s what DDG delivers on Die 4 Respect.

Getting to this point has been a windy road. In 2014, he lost his older brother Darion Breckinridge. He recalls being woken up at 4 o’clock in the morning with the tears of his big sister telling him the heartbreaking news. He raps about the moment on the track “Hood Melody” featuring NBA Youngboy.

“A lot of people don’t make it out of Pontiac,” he says. “That’s why when you search for Pontiac, I pop up. Not to sound cocky or nothing but DDG is Pontiac. That’s because not a lot of people make it out that motherf*cker. That’s why I keep it in my name. I keep PontiacMadeDDG in my Instagram name, in all my social media handles because I like to let people know where I come from and that sh*t made me who I am. It made me change my ways and it made me want more for myself. It made me want to get my mom out of there.”

For Darion’s funeral, a fund was set up for people to donate. With some of the leftover funds, his mom asked him if he wanted a car or a camera. He ultimately chose a camera with a combined effort to focus on school so that he could make it out the city.

“I was always heavy into the school side,” the high school valedictorian admits. “I used to stay after school. I was like a little nerd and into robotics. I was like a cool nerd. I had all the girls.”

While working at TJ Maxx in high school, he quit after making his first $200 check from creating videos and having fun on YouTube.

“I’m wondering if I can make $400,” he remembers. “I’m wondering if I can make $1,000. Then I got to college, freshman year, it got to a point I was making like $700 a month, which is nothing. But I’m in college, that’s crazy. I’m 18 and it get to a point where I’m making like 10, 15K, 20K a month. This was before I really got into music. I did a song with Zaytoven before I even went to college. That was like when I was 17 years old, and I just never really took music too serious. I was focused on YouTube.”

While majoring in Broadcasting at Central Michigan University, he was rocking expensive threads like Bape hoodies and Yeezy attire on campus. Much like quitting his job at TJ Maxx, DDG made the decision to drop out of college after reaching over $10,000 a month in revenue.

“It was an 8 a.m. class and I had to pass it for my major,” he says of the moment he decided to longer go to school. “My major was broadcasting and my minor was acting because that’s what I wanted to do. I’m like, ‘Man, I don’t want to wake up for this no more. It’s sophomore year, I’m making 15 bands a month.’ So I’m like, ‘I’m done going to class.’ Let’s see, let’s take a leap of faith. I’m sitting in my dorm and I skipped class for three weeks straight. You know college, they don’t call you, they don’t care if you come to class or not.”

It was around the time that the killer clowns phenomenon was going viral on social media that he began to make that type of money off his own killer clown videos.

“I’m the hottest Black creator there is,” he says of that moment. “There is nobody that’s more lit than me. I’m on some other sh*t. Whatever is lit on YouTube, I’m doing because I’m making money. 2017, I’m dropping diss tracks every week and I’m beefing with my buddies. But it’s not like real beef on my side. I really don’t care. I’m just finessing. I make a diss track on Lil Yachty.”

The diss towards Lil Boat came about after hearing the Atlanta rapper spit, “S, K, T, D, D, G,” in a freestyle to Tay-K’s “The Race.” Though DDG knew Yachty was not talking about him, the clever creative chose to take things full-throttle with not only a diss track but with an accompanying video that he also edited himself.

“The sh*t gets 12 million,” he recalls. “It goes crazy, like the biggest video I ever had.”

Yachty actually ended up responding to his diss track by hopping on Twitter to deny any knowledge of who DDG is. Now the two have a song together titled “Rule #1.”

“Me and Yachty cool at this point,” he tells me. “I DMed him, I’m like, ‘Man, I’m just messing, bro. I know you ain’t shout me out. I’m just finessing. Don’t even mind that sh*t.’ I got that squared away.”

Soon after, YouTube had a devastating crash and his monthly income went from 50k to $8,000. Not one to panic, he chose to adapt and made the decision to focus on music with the understanding that people may not take him too seriously.

“I know they ain’t gonna rock with me off the jump because I’m this full-blown YouTube dude,” he says.

Once his song “Lettuce” with Famous Dex earned 5 million views on Worldstar Hip Hop, he began to turn things up a notch.

Among other songs he released during this point in time is the track “No Label” where he boasts about all the labels after naming Atlantic and others being on his line offering him million-dollar deals.

“I’m in my bag. I’m lit right now,” he says of that time period. “So I was just feeling myself and I knew where I was headed. I knew where I was going. It was just I always know where I’m going. I know I’m going to be the biggest artist at some point. It’s just about me being patient and making sure I follow all the steps to get to that point and not lose sight of the journey rather than looking at the destination.”

In that song, he raps about copping a Wraith, which he eventually manifests in 2019.

“When I made that song, I couldn’t afford a Wraith at the time, but I knew I was on my way,” he says. “I knew how much money I was making and I knew as long as I saved up for a little bit, I was going to get that Wraith.”

“I go ahead and I do a song called, ‘Take Me Serious,’ shot in downtown LA, shot the music video,” he remembers. Next was his R&B record “Arguments,” which was the song that got him signed to Epic. The song was part of debut album Valedictorian to which he admits to being disappointed in.

“I just think when Valedictorian was coming out, truthfully, I felt insecure about my music,” he laments. “I felt like, ‘I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough to work with these people yet. I didn’t put in the groundwork to work with these people yet.’”

One thing he learned about his process in making Valedictorian from his process in making Die 4 Respect is that making music takes time. It can’t be dealt with in the same rapidness that he creates his YouTube videos. Especially if he wants to be taken seriously as a rapper in this game.

“I already put the groundwork in, man,” he says of his journey so far. “I went on two solo tours and I’m headlining both of my own tours and I’m selling it out. It’s like at this point, nobody can tell me that they don’t take me serious. Nobody can tell me that I’m not an artist. It sounds dumb. I just wanted to prove people wrong at this point. I’m more impactful than a lot of rappers that’s already lit because I got kids on lock. Every minority kid, every minority teenager know who I am. That was my goal. That was me at one point. I want these people to look up to me. I just got a cult following.”

The burgeoning star has a staunch army of supporters who show up for him for not just entertainment but inspiration. He knows that he’s spawning a generation of Black kids who are vlogging because of him and he takes pride in that.

Before our conversation, he recounted how he was recently on Instagram live motivating his fans and said someone had sent him a DM, thanking him for helping them to become a millionaire.

“If I ever met 50 Cent when I was a kid, I would’ve cried and now people look at me like I’m 50 Cent,” he says. “The little kid that I used to be is my supporters. They look up to me like I used to look up to him. I’m their favorite like he used to be my favorite. So it’s just a dope feeling, man.”

DDG himself gathers inspiration from those he looks up to the most and if he can help it, is on his way to becoming just as great. After all, he’s barely getting started and already has two gold records under his belt including his breakout hit “Moonwalking In Calabasas.”

“I’m going to be lit,” he proclaims. “I’m finna to be him very, very soon and I’m excited for that. I want to know what it feels like to be Meek or Drake. I want to know what it feels like to be Diddy. I want to know what it feels like to be 50 Cent. I want to know what it feels like to be Lil Baby, to be on top of the rap industry. I want to know what that feels like and I’m chasing that experience and I feel like that’s what really keeps me going.”

DDG is confident and poised to win at this juncture.

“I really feel passionate about it to the point where I’d die about this sh*t like you gonna respect me at the end of this,” he expresses. “At the end of my road, everybody gonna respect me. That’s how I feel.”

Die 4 Respect is out now via Epic Records. Get it here.