Category: News

When discussing Black music and the communities that created its genres, there are cities and sounds that immediately come to mind. The Bronx and New York City pioneered hip-hop, Houston culture and DJ Screw created the “Chopped and Screwed” sound, and New Orleans birthed jazz. From Philadelphia and Los Angeles to St. Louis and Nashville, dozens of cities across the country add to the overall history of music and American pop culture thanks to styles crafted by Black populations.

The musical landscape continues to expand but not without the impact of regional scenes cultivated by Black culture. Through the innovation of new generations and traditions passed down through ancestral guidance, Black people have produced various genres and subgenres that have influenced sounds of past, present, and future.

Below are 10 scenes that contributed to the neverending legacy of Black music in America.

Dayton, Ohio – Funk Music

Notable Acts: Ohio Players, Zapp (Zapp Band or Zapp & Roger), Lakeside, Slave, Faze-O

This small mid-western city contributed to the mainstream success and widespread impact funk music had on other genres and culture. Funk music itself began rising in popularity throughout the 1970s and 1980s While artists from all over created funk music, Dayton, Ohio became a central hub for funk bands and cultivated a unique sound and aesthetic.

Although artists not from the “Gem City” such as James Brown and George Clinton are heralded for their contributions to the genre, the surge of funk bands from West Dayton added greatly to the commercial success. Songs from Dayton funk bands have been sampled throughout the music industry. Zapp hits such as “Computer Love,” and “More Bounce To The Ounce,” have been reworked by everyone from Notorious B.I.G. and 2Pac to Mariah Carey and Usher.

“I really got a feel for what would make people get up and move,” Roger Troutman of Zapp told Los Angeles Times in 1997.

The style of music which incorporated hypnotic electric guitars, deep bass, and synthesized tones inspired the evolution of G-Funk in the 1990s and current hip-hop trends maintained today.

Washington D.C. – Go-Go Music

Notable Acts: Rare Essence, Junkyard Band, Chuck Brown, Backyard Band (Big G), EU, (Sugar Bear) New Impressionz, Pleasure Band

The funk-derivative drums provide Washington D.C. a unique sound native to the capital city. Go-go gained popularity in the 1970s when Black nightclubs were called “go-gos” and going to “a go-go” was the local thing to do. Go-go reached new heights in the 1980s when E.U.’s “Da Butt” was immortalized by Spike Lee’s School Daze, made it to number one on Billboard‘s R&B chart, and earned a Grammy nomination.

Go-go music has not only soundtracked the nightlife of the Chocolate City, residents use the sound to fuel local movements. In 2019, #DontMuteDC protests against gentrification used Go-go music as protest anthems. The Washington Post reported the silencing of a local store was the essential silencing and erasure of D.C. culture. In 2020, go-go was named “official music” of Washington, D.C. in a unanimous vote by the District’s city council.

“I don’t want my children to live in a D.C. that has lost its culture,” said community member Julie Guyot, “And if we lose this, we don’t live in D.C. anymore. We live in that federal city named Washington.”

New Orleans – Bounce Music

Notable Acts: Big Freedia, Magnolia Shorty, “MC T., DJ Jubilee, Juvenile, Katie Red

The heavy brass and fast-paced dance-inducing music has deep cultural ties to its native New Orleans. Bounce music originated in the 1980s and was popularized in the 1990s, built on the “Triggerman” beat and infused with energetic call and response lyrics, chants, and storytelling that paint a vivid picture of the NOLA lifestyle. The scene emerged from housing projects and wards and invaded New Orleans nightclubs, house parties, and block parties, and now international stages.

As a genre and culture, bounce embraced a carefree spirit and calls for shaking. Bounce was also one of the first hip-hop spaces to empower the LGBTQ+ community.

“We don’t call it twerking, we call it shaking,” local legend Big Freedia remarked to Indie Magazine in 2018. “We bend over, bust over, make it clap, show the hustle, pee the pants. It’s all bounce slang.”

Artists such as Beyonce, Drake, and New Orleans native Lil Wayne have drawn influence from bounce music for their biggest hits. Musicians not only create original bounce songs, but DJs also give new life to chart-topping hits with bounce remixes.

The Bay Area – Hyphy Music

Notable Acts: Keak Da Sneak, Mac Dre, E-40, Too Short

In the Bay Area and East Oakland specifically, the hyphy movement emerged as a homegrown wave in sound and style. The term was coined by rapper Keak Da Sneak in 1994, however, it was not until the 2000s that hyphy made waves nationally, when he served as a guest feature on E-40’s “Tell Me When To Go.”

As E-40 remarked to Complex for a 2016 oral history of the genre, “Hyphy is energy. Hyphy is a lifestyle. It originated with the streets. I credit people like Keak Da Sneak, Mac Dre, and plenty more. It’s really a way of life, just hard-headed and really energized, like, ‘He just a young hyphy dude. Man, he hella hyphy.’”

The hyphy culture has its own look, its own dances, and its own language. Cultivated through sideshows and other parties and shows where attendees showed off their fresh outfits, clean whips, and unique sounds.

Memphis – Crunk Music

Notable Acts: Three Six Mafia, Gangsta Boo, 8 Ball and MJG, La Chat

Once the beat drops on a Memphis crunk song either join in the melee or take cover. While some debate on the origins of the subgenre, on wax, Memphis musicians cultivated a sound and culture that laid the groundwork for the crunk music wave (and later snap music) that emerged in Atlanta during the late 1990s and early 2000s and brought mainstream by Lil Jon and the Eastside Boys.

Crunk music evolved from underground hip-hop scenes in the Tennesse city with DJ Paul, Lord Infamous, and Juicy J taking horrorcore to the club scene with original music crafted with aggressive call-and-response lyrics and drum-heavy beats, and distinct “gangster walk” dancing. They later formed the group Three 6 Mafia and released the crunk staple “Tear Da Club Up.”

In 2020, rising Memphis artist Duke Deuce released “Crunk Ain’t Dead,” paying homage to the original sound and the Bluff City. He even enlisted Juicy J, Lil Jon, and Project Pat for the remix. He filmed the video in his hometown and established the generational connection.

In an interview with Uproxx in 2020, Deuce defined the sound: “It’s crunk as hell,” he said. “For real, for real. Like on a whole nother scale. We took it back to the late eighties and nineties. Real, real crunk. We the gangster walking and all that”

Detroit – Techno Music

Notable Acts: The Belleville Three, Moodymann, Blake Baxter, DJ Starski, Underground Resistance

Most people recognize the Motor City for Motown Records, but techno music also calls the midwestern hub home. The genre is widely attributed to three high school friends, Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, and Derrick May who formed the Bellville Three. Together, the trio created electronic music from their basements.

“At the time, I didn’t even fathom that a person could put out their own record, so that was something that was enlightening for me,” said Atkins to the Detroit Metro Times in 2018. “I was like, ‘These beats I’ve been making, you mean I could put these beats out myself?’ So we did it.”

Although now more popular in Europe and associated with non-Black crowds, techno originated in Detroit and evolved through the local party and community scenes before going global. The entire genre was formed as an afrofuturistic idea in response to the despair of the inner city was brought to life by synthesizers, turntables, and progressive, mechanical sounds.

During the 1980s and 1990s when techno was being formed, Detroit faced an unemployment crisis, drug epidemic, and gun violence that combined to exaggerate poverty levels for mostly Black residents. Underground Resistance targeted Black men through techno music to provide an alternate identity and a way out.

Chicago – Drill Music

Notable Acts: Chief Keef, Katie Got Bandz, Lil Reese, Lil Durk, King Louie

One of the most defining sounds of the 2010s decade, Chicago drill music gave a voice to teenagers who craved an outlet to vocalize the ins-and-outs of their street culture. Before the term was assigned to the music, drill was a word that indicated violence, usually shooting. The teenagers who cultivated the drill scene were doing more than rapping about gang violence and other criminal activity. It told stories of loyalty, grief, an unfair criminal justice system, inadequate schools, and overall neglected communities.

“Like I said, I say what’s real,” Chief Keef remarked to the Chicago Tribune in 2012. “I say what’s going on right now. What we doing.”

The Chicago drill scene created the blueprint for emerging drill music centers in Brooklyn and the U.K, with artists such as Pop Smoke, Sheff G, Shaybo, Ivorian Doll, and Fizzler adding their own regional swagger to the midwest sound.

Chicago – House Music

Notable Acts: DJ Frankie Knuckles, DJ Ron Hardy, DJ Jesse Saunders, Steve “Silk” Hurley, DJ Lady D, Larry “Mr. Fingers” Heard

Modern EDM music has Chicago house music to thank for its existence. The Windy City’s underground club culture in the 1980s ushered in a new sound when DJs began to mix and create tracks of their own. Warehouse, the nightclub that many argue gave the genre its name, was a party haven for primarily Black and Latinx gay males where they could exist without judgment. DJ Frankie Knuckles, nicknamed the “Godfather of House,” began experimenting with disco records to develop what would eventually be called house music.

The genre was the result of the anti-disco movement which operated with undertones of homophobia and racism. A Chicago disc jockey Steve Dahl held a grudge against the glitzy genre after losing his job to the rise of disco and led the charge to destroy disco records in an explosion during a baseball game.

“House music has grown to be a million times bigger than disco, and the LGBT and Black communities in Chicago have thrived because of this music,” DJ Jesse Saunders shared with DAZED in 2018. “It has become a way of life for more than 33 years, and Chicagoans embrace their homegrown creations with a passion like no other. Just like New Yorkers hold their hip hop dear, so do to Chicagoans with their house music. This could have only happened in Chicago,”

House spread from Chicago to Detroit and New York, and eventually became a global party sound.

Miami – Bass Music

Notable Acts: 2 Live Crew, Sir Mix-a-lot, 69 Boyz, DJ Slice, Quad City DJs, DJ Nice & Nasty

The south Florida city known for fancy beaches and partying has other cultural influences to stake claim to. Miami bass music, sometimes called “Booty Bass” has influenced sounds from crunk to hyphy to trap. In the 1980s and 1990s, bass music reached popular heights. The uptempo, sexually explicit songs powered block parties, strip clubs, and more.

Raunchy rhymes rapped by the 2 Live Crew, key artists to the genre went to court to defend their right to rap and perform their content. The group was arrested after performing their top-selling album As Nasty As They Wanna Be at a Florida club. 2 Live Crew won the case, and the precedent became a victory for all musicians and the right to protect their lyrics and creative agency under the First Amendment.

“I stood up for hip-hop,” reminisced 2 Live Crew leader Luther Campbell — aka Uncle Luke — in a 2020 Variety interview. “Whether I get credit for it or not. I appreciate it if you understand the history and pay respect to people like myself.”

Atlanta – Modern Trap Music

Notable Acts: Dungeon Family, Gucci Mane, T.I., Young Jeezy, Outkast, DJ Drama, Lex Luger

Depending on who’s asked, the originator of “trap” music may differ, however, it is no question that Atlanta artists cultivated modern trap music culture and paved the way for one of the current most popular subgenres of mainstream hip-hop. Trap music artists discuss their drug deals, their customers, and the lifestyle that comes with living lavishly off of dirty money. This includes storytelling over aggressive 808s, strings, keyboards, and brass instrument sounds.

As the subgenre gained popularity, it grew from a gritty exposé of Atlanta street life and survival to a glamorous scene of designer clothes, gold grills, and flashy cars with slanging as the Kickstarter for wealth. Trap culture has the appeal of selling Cinderella stories over hip-hop’s best beats. Listeners are motivated to hustle until they have their own financial success story to inspire the next.

“My message is motivation, my message is evolution, and my message is believing in yourself,” Jeezy told GQ last year. “As long as that message is relevant, then the music will be timeless”

Today, Atlanta artists such as Migos, Young Thug, Lil Baby, 21 Savage, Future, and others have embraced elements of trap music to build their own musical style. Hip-hop artists in Atlanta have also used their fame gained through music to help lead social and political causes in the Peach State.

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

Zion Williamson has played 14 consecutive games. It’s the longest stretch of uninterrupted basketball of his 47-game career, coinciding with his most prolific run, one that’s seeing his game evolve and expand. His dominance has thrust the New Orleans Pelicans back into the playoff hunt, sitting just two games out of eighth and three games out of fifth — the cutthroat nature of the Western Conference means they’re also a game out of 14th.

Regardless of how the Pelicans opt to proceed, whether it’s prioritizing on-court youth development or pursuing Zion’s first taste of playoff hoops, they will be in good hands. The second-year trampoline-in-sneakers is quickly delivering on the palpable buzz that engulfed him as a prospect and continues today. Over his past 13 games, he is averaging 25.3 points on 69.3 percent true shooting, bringing his season-long tallies to 23.8 points on 63.9 percent true shooting.

His recent numbers are due for some slight regression, but not much. That’s why this period from Zion is so promising. He’s shooting 69 percent at the rim on 12 attempts per game and 76.2 percent from the line. Even if those marks slip to, say 65 percent and 70 percent, roughly his season averages for each, he’d still be at 65 percent true shooting, an absolutely absurd scoring clip for any 20-point scorer, let alone a 20-year-old fewer than 50 games into his career.

The grandest shift in recent weeks is New Orleans finally recognizing Zion should be its offensive initiator and structuring a scheme around his creation abilities. Running possessions primarily through Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, and Eric Bledsoe did not prove fruitful because none of them consistently sew advantages to benefit the entire offense, particularly the latter two. Ingram has blossomed into a gifted scorer and tough shot-maker, while his passing vision elevates to more complicated, valuable levels, but he does not bend defenses anywhere close to the degree Zion does.

So, the Pelicans have reoriented their offense and given Zion the keys over the past 13 games. Since then, they rank fourth in offensive rating (117.6), up from 22nd (106.8) during the initial 11 games of the season. Rather than predominantly functioning as a roller, cutter, and post-up scorer, he is granted the freedom to dribble up court, conduct pick-and-rolls as a ball-handler, target mismatches, and collapse defenses.

Twenty-one of his 33 pick-and-roll ball-handling possessions have occurred over the past 12 games. More than 35 percent of his field goal attempts happen after at least three dribbles. Last season, just 13.5 percent of his field goal attempts came following three-plus dribbles. Over his first 10 games of 2020-21, that number only ticked up to 18.2 percent. Similarly, 11.4 percent of his touches span at least six seconds throughout this time, quite the leap from 1.9 percent during the first 10 games and 1.8 percent of last year.

All of this, really, just conveys the fundamental principle of Zion’s evolution: He’s empowered to do more with the ball in his hands, and it’s paying dividends for himself and the entire offense, something that is typically a hallmark and barometer for viability as an offensive engine.

Deployment that views Zion as a wing creator rather than post-up big or roll man provides a runway to best exert his elite physical tools and skills. He has the handling chops, namely an in-and-out dribble, to forge slight advantages, upon which he strikes. There’s a distinct convergence of suddenness, ferocity, and delicacy in his attacking. He glides to spots in an instant, overwhelming defenders and barging through them, but is control of his movement patterns, capable of swift changes of direction or contorting in midair around help at the rim. The way he matches his blend of strength and quickness is not common, and affording him touches with space amplifies these traits and explains why his efficiency has spiked in recent weeks.

Zion is the rare interior-heavy scorer who warrants the usage to log 20-plus points a night. He wields the physical tools to live at the paint, often navigating his own path there rather than having someone else set the table for him. He leads the NBA in shots in the restricted area (12.2) and is showcasing how efficient one can be with a heavy saturation of attempts inside. Most guys who rely considerably on production at the rim are liable to defenses scheming away their preferred shot profile. Zion differentiates himself from that crowd because containing him downhill demands a rare, specific archetype — a long, mobile, strong-chested rim protector — and the mental fortitude to withstand blow after blow.

That sort of player is quite difficult to unearth and genuinely restrict Zion because of this newfound usage. Wall off the rim and he’ll rev up to pile-drive inside, utilizing strength, body control, touch, and mid-air adjustment. Whereas crowding the paint on his post-ups and rolls has worked previously, it’s much harder to do when he has the luxury of scanning the floor, formulating a plan and kicking into gear from the perimeter. He’s unlikely to be 25-point on 69 percent true shooting good all season, but the ease in which he frequents the rim in this new role means much of it is sustainable. He’s among the NBA’s premier paint scorers — perhaps the best — and is now given the chance to amplify those skills with greater optionality on each touch. Opponents have thrown a litany of assignments at him during these 13 games and he keeps discarding them.

Either he’s too strong for anyone who matches his fluidity or too quick for anyone who matches his size. If necessary, he’ll run an inverted pick-and-roll or snag a hand-off to induce a mismatch. Station him on the perimeter to open sets and more than not, the opposition finds itself compromised.

By diversifying his approach, the Pelicans broaden their scoring avenues on any given possession. He has more space to leverage his talents rather than being pigeonholed into a role that almost guarantees a shot every time with little creativity in the process and fires him into a congested paint where defenders are loading up to slow him. Post-ups, flex cuts, and ball-screens as the roller are still incorporated into his arsenal, but they’re becoming merely features as opposed to the entire arsenal and that’s critical to maximizing his offensive upside.

Treating him as a primary initiator is emphasizing the ripple effects of rim pressure. Shooting gravity engenders traps and doubles — think Stephen Curry, James Harden, Damian Lillard — to yield efficient looks for others, but the same applies to dominant interior scorers who create on their own like Zion. When he’s priming for a drive, he draws the attention of almost everyone on the floor. Help defenders try to identify the proper moment for a stunt, rotation, or dig because of his excellence inside, the product of absurd volume and quite good efficiency. Parlaying that attention into playmaking is easier when defenders exist within your line of sight, and his assist numbers over this 13-game evolution reflect that.

During the first 10 games of the season, he registered 16 assists and 29 turnovers. During his past 13 games, he’s trending significantly positive, with 50 assists and 29 turnovers. What once was nearly an 0.5 assist-to-turnover ratio has become nearly a 2.0 assist-to-turnover ratio. It’s the product of easily discernible passing reads on his heightened face-up and driving volume that threaten defenders and provoke them to help off of their assignment in an effort to stymie Zion’s individual prowess. Nothing eye-popping arises from these assists, but the spacious openings he regularly crafts by luring defenses into his orbit is something nobody else on the roster offers.

Recognizing Zion is the team’s on-ball catalyst has accentuated the strengths of everyone around him. Ball and Bledsoe slide back into their optimal off-ball duties instead of being forced to moonlight as ill-fitting on-ball creators. J.J. Redick is rediscovering his jumper, benefiting from the 20-year-old’s substantial gravity. Ingram can key in on his scoring repertoire and budding passing weaponry instead of trying to shoulder the load as a flawed offensive engine. Ball (60 vs. 75 percent), Ingram (32 vs. 54) and Bledsoe (48 vs. 60) are all scoring on assisted makes substantially more since Zion assumed the reins. Every perimeter player in the rotation aside from Bledsoe — Ball, Ingram, Redick, and Josh Hart — before and after Zion’s promotion have seen their scoring output bolstered.

The first ~35 games of Zion’s career saw him excel in a limited capacity, serving as a play finisher who wowed with explosive movement skills and tear-down-the-rim jams. He was very good, but it felt like everyone was only witnessing one layer of his game. Over the past few weeks, though, he’s elucidating why he is such a highly touted rising star. He’s a legitimate offensive initiator who stresses defenses with finesse, locomotive power, complementary passing vision, and a deft handle.

It took some time for everything to coalesce but, finally, the Pelicans understand who they have in Zion and an ascension is underway. They’re exploring the depths of his game and the entire team is better off for it.

During the Trump legal team’s disastrous appearance on the first day of their client’s impeachment trial, most of the scorn was reserved for Bruce Castor, and for good reason: his opening statement was not only long but rambling, earning comparisons to the bad public defender from My Cousin Vinny. But on Friday, it was time for his colleague David Schoen to get dragged on social media. The attorney spent nearly two hours defending Trump from accusations of inciting an insurrection, the highlight of which was not one but two epic videos of Democrats…saying the word “fight.”

A lot of Schoen’s arguments in defense of Trump — who delivered a fiery speech right before the Capitol riot on January 6 in which he used the word “fight” 20 times — involved false equivalencies. He implied there was little difference between things Democratic lawmakers have said and what Trump said right before the failed MAGA riot. Of course, there’s a big difference: only Trump’s speech was followed by a violent failed coup that resulted in five dead.

But that didn’t stop Schoen, who played a 10-minute montage comprised of simply Democrats saying the word “fight,” each one stripped of context. Was its epic length intended as a form of torture?

Oh, and by the way, there more than one of them.

Many pointed out that none of the included cases — including several involving Senator Elizabeth Warren — was immediately followed by an attempted insurrection.

Some pointed out that context was, in each and every case, a bit important.

What’s more, there was a big difference between another false equivalency Trump’s defenders have relied on: drawing a BS parallel between the failed MAGA coup and the BLM protests over last summer.

To some, the Trump lawyers’ reliance on whataboutism was a sign that they had no real argument.

Others felt bad for whoever had to painstakingly construct these lengthy monstrosities.

Some mocked some of the clips that were included.

Others pointed out that the word “fight” is often used in other contexts, which don’t lead to attempted coups.

There were a fair amount of “Fight Song” jokes.

But perhaps the montages weren’t as damning as they may have thought. There were reports that some of the senators included in the videos simply responded by laughing in derision.

Jared Leto has starred on a good TV show (My So-Called Life), he’s been in many good movies (Requiem for a Dream, Blade Runner 2049, The Thin Red Line, etc.), he’s won an Academy Award, he’s the lead singer of a popular rock band, and he inspired a very good joke from Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping about his popular rock band.

But to me, he’ll always be the guy who (reportedly) gave Margot Robbie a rat.

Back in 2015, actor Adam Beach, who played Slipnot alongside Leto and Robbie in Suicide Squad, claimed that the Joker actor “sent [Margot Robbie] a nice love letter with a black box with a rat in it — a live rat. It was beautiful. Then he sent bullets to Will [Smith] with a letter.” He also gave his co-stars a “dead hog,” as well as “condoms and anal beads” to Robbie, Smith, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. Leto might be TWISTED, but he denies the rat rumors. Kind of. The rat might be real, but it definitely wasn’t dead.

That comes from a GQ video where Leto breaks down his “most iconic roles,” including playing the Joker in the DC anti-hero movie. “We had a lot of fun with it, but it’s also interesting how this stuff all takes on a life of its own,” he said. Then: “But I never gave Margot Robbie a dead rat. That’s just, that’s not true.” (Ah yes, the ol’ “Monster Island is actually a peninsula” defense.) Leto didn’t give Robbie a rat, allegedly, but he did find “this place in Toronto that had great vegan cinnamon buns, and that was a very common thing.”

In defense of Leto: I, too, have not given Margot Robbie a dead rat.

Now we know where Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s talent and charisma come from!

On Wednesday night, he went on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to promote his new comedy special “Young Rock,” which is loosely based on his life and his story as a struggling, competitive wrestler and actor.

They discussed the casting of the show and the importance of finding the right person to play his Samoan Mom, and then Jimmy casually mentioned that he had recently seen The Rock’s Mom playing ukulele and singing a song at his grandparent’s grave in Hawaii on Instagram. The Rock told Jimmy, “she’s right here,” and called his Mom over to say hello.

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Ata Johnson, 72, jumped right into her son’s interview with a big smile, and together they burst into an unexpected rendition of “Savalivali Means Go For a Walk,” a Samoan song. Dwayne, 46, looked confused at first, and then he suddenly seemed like a little boy swept into the charms of his Mother, as he dropped his head in his hand and began to sing along.

Then Ata excitedly announced, “We have one more!” to which her son replied: “No we don’t have one more! What’s happening?” and burst into confused laughter.

The next song was just as charming, and Jimmy couldn’t stop blushing as they sang the words in perfect harmony together:

“We love you, Jimmy / Oh, yes, we do / We love you, Jimmy / and that is true. When we’re away from you/we’re blue. Oh Jimmy, we love you.”

Jimmy blew kisses back to her and said: “You just stole the interview. You’re unbelievable. You are a superstar!”

The Rock said on Twitter that his Mom had a great time because she absolutely loves Jimmy Fallon – “I think more than me, as she’s never sung this song to me!?”

On Instagram he also reacted:

“My mom ADORES @jimmyfallon like a son, so I thought she’d love to come on impromptu style and sing him a song w/ her ukulele.

But after the first song finishes she says , ‘We’ve got one more’…. to which I said, ‘NO WE DON’T HAVE ONE MORE’… 😂😂😂 🛑

But she started strumming anyway and the moment she started singing..

“WE LOVE YOU JIMMYYYYY OH YES WE DOOOOO….”

I fell in lock step with her and started singing too 🤷🏾

At this point I surrendered any control and power I thought I had and just let this big ol’ slice of goodness pie 🥧😇 be enjoyed!!!!

I’m a lucky son of a gun to have such a positive force of a mama. What a happy soul she’s got 🙏🏾

I’ll admit, her mana is pretty infectious ✨

People on the internet are obsessed with their adorable relationship, and now there are calls for Mom to release more songs.

People over at Upworthy’s Instagram continued their praise when we shared this fun clip:

We’ve always known The Rock is a good guy – now we see exactly why!

His new show “Young Rock” premieres next Tuesday on NBC.

The new documentary Framing Britney Spears has become a hot topic of conversation in recent days, and that’s also true as it relates to Justin Timberlake. Following backlash, he offered an apology to both Spears and Janet Jackson for “the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem.” After the apology, he received some feedback, including from his wife Jessica Biel.

Biel wrote in a comment on the post, “I love you,” followed by a heart emoji. Brandi Carlile also took a moment to share her thoughts in the comments, writing, “Really beautiful to read this. I think it’s going to speak to a lot of people’s pain. I can’t wait to see how you get involved with elevating women and marginalized people. you’re an inspiring dude to me.”

Timberlake wrote in his post:

“I’ve seen the messages, tags, comments, and concerns and I want to respond. I am deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right. I understand that I fell short in these moments and in many others and benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism.

I specifically want to apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson both individually, because I care for and respect these women and I know I failed.

I also feel compelled to respond, in part, because everyone involved deserves better and most importantly, because this is a larger conversation that I wholeheartedly want to be part of and grow from…”

Check out Timberlake’s post below.

It’s a long and, hopefully, fun road to finding the best bourbon. There are just so many bottles of good whiskey out there. Add in that craft whiskey is creating new bottles of bourbon constantly and the iconic distilleries and blenders are putting out new releases monthly … none of us will ever get to all.

So even the endeavor of finding the best bourbon is a bit of a non-starter. There’s just so dang much.

To help us in our longstanding lovefest with bourbon whiskey, we’re looking at the top 20 bourbon brands folks have actually been buying via online delivery service Drizly.com since the pandemic started. We asked the brand to give us their bourbon brand sales from the 13th of March 2020 to the present day — basically since the day the stay-at-home ordered went nationwide. To add a little nuance to this list (Drizly just named the brands, not the expressions), we’re calling out an entry point bottle for each distiller in the top 20 and offering our tasting notes.

20. Jefferson’s Bourbon

Entry Bottle: Jefferson’s Very Small Batch

ABV: 41.2%

Average Price: $40

The Whiskey:

Jefferson’s makes some interesting whiskey — partially their own-make and some sourced from independent distilleries around Kentucky. Their Very Small Batch is a blend of four contract distilled whiskeys that are aged eight to 12 years and then blended by Jefferson’s.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a lightness up top with lines of vanilla next to lemon oils plus a hint of wet brown sugar. The taste counterpoints that lemon with buttered popcorn and a note of spicy toffee. There’s a very mild wisp of ripe peaches-and-cream on the end as the spice and toffee fade away fairly quickly.

Bottom Line:

This is a good entry point into the wider and more interesting finishes Jefferson’s makes (like their aged-at-sea bourbon). Still, this is a quality expression to mix up some cocktails or highballs.

19. High West

Entry Bottle: High West American Prairie Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 46%

Average Price: $38

The Whiskey:

Utah’s High West is a tiny mountain distillery that operates as a world-class blender of sourced juice mixed with some of their own-make. This expression is a marrying of at least three whiskeys from varying sources (like MGP of Indiana and Four Roses) of two to 13-year-old bourbons with both low and high rye mash bills.

Tasting Notes:

This is a very subtle starter, with mild hints of vanilla and caramel and a little bit of green apple skin soaked in cinnamon juice. There’s a sweet caramel kettle corn on the palate that’s joined by honey smoothness and a touch of orange and chocolate (especially when water is introduced). The end is fruity, full of caramel, and hits back on that vanilla on a fairly quick fade.

Bottom Line:

Buying this bottle actually supports the wilds of America’s backcountry, with a cut of profits going to the American Prairie Reserve in Montana. The actual drink is a very solid cocktail base otherwise and, we’d argue, a suitable sipper over some rocks.

18. Michter’s

Entry Bottle: Michter’s US*1 Kentucky Straight Bourbon

ABV: 45.7%

Average Price: $47

The Whiskey:

Michter’s is a revival brand that has relied on Willett’s Kentucky Bourbon Distillers but now is operating their own distillery and laying down their own barrels. Their entry-point bourbon is a sour mash, small-batched, award-winning master class in bourbon.

The juice is a blend of 24 or fewer barrels of up to eight-year-old bourbons.

Tasting Notes:

This smells, tastes, and feels classic — with an opening of rich bourbon vanilla beans next to almost creamy caramel with a nice dose of cellared oak. The taste veers into sweet stone fruits with a touch more creaminess leading into the vanilla as mild spice peaks in. The end is slow, oaky, creamy, fruity, and has a touch of smoked popcorn when you add a little water.

Bottom Line:

This is a good bourbon to use as a baseline when you start getting into the good stuff. It’s approachable, sippable, and very mixable into your favorite whiskey cocktail.

17. Eagle Rare

Entry Bottle: Eagle Rare 10

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $40

The Whiskey:

Eagle Rare 10 is a marriage of at least ten-year-old Buffalo Trace whiskeys. Each barrel is hand-selected to bring in classic bourbon flavors that also feel deeply rooted and unique to the brand.

Tasting Notes:

This one opens boldly with orange rind and maple syrup next to touches of honey, worn leather, and toffee. The oak char and vanilla kick in, giving it a classic old-leather-chair-in-a-smoky-library vibe as hints of mint lead back towards the toffee. When you add a little water, there’s a dark chocolate bar with almonds that arrives.

The finish is short but sweet in all the right ways.

Bottom Line:

This is a great sipper if you can find it and at this price. Make sure to get some water in the glass to really let it bloom and then take your time with it.

16. Old Forester

Entry Bottle: Old Forester 100 Proof Signature Bourbon

ABV: 50%

Average Price: $26

The Whiskey:

This line of bourbon from Brown-Forman is a stone-cold classic. Their 100-proof expression is a mid-to-high-rye mash bourbon whiskey that’s made in the same way as their 86 proof. The key difference is after these barrels are blended, they’re barely touched with water, keeping the proof very hearty.

Tasting Notes:

Oak and caramel draw you in on the nose with a nice dose of cherry candy and a hint of coffee bitterness. The palate wallows in a nice dose of vanilla as a spicy apple pie with a buttery crust drives the taste. The oak, apple, and spice really power the dram home with a medium-length fade and plenty of bourbon warmth.

Bottom Line:

This is built as a mixing bourbon. Use it in cocktails or sip it in a nice highball.

15. W.L. Weller

Entry Bottle: Weller Special Reserve Bourbon

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $50

The Whiskey:

This expression from Buffalo Trace’s distillery is the “original” wheated bourbon. The wheat helps the bourbon soften a bit. But you’re really paying for all the knowledge and expertise from Buffalo Trace’s distillers, blenders, and nosers which all help make this a very approachable bottle of whiskey.

Tasting Notes:

Caramel creates a foundation on the nose with hints of honey and vanilla. Notes of butterscotch arrive alongside more honey, soft cedar, and a distant echo of florals. The wood and vanilla return and mingle with the honey as the long, warming finish (that classic “Kentucky hug”) takes its time coming and going.

Bottom Line:

The price of this bottle is going to vary pretty wildly. If you do get your hands on one, give it a shot first over ice and then fold it into your cocktail rotation.

14. Elijah Craig

Entry Bottle: Elijah Craig Small Batch Bourbon

ABV: 47%

Average Price: $32

The Whiskey:

Elijah Craig is one of Heaven Hill’s premier brands. The very low rye bourbon (ten percent) is a blend of eight to 12-year-old bourbons from Heaven Hill’s rickhouses, each hand-selected and masterfully blended.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a feel of cedar just after a rain shower alongside echoes of honey. The taste leads to honey-soaked baked apples with spicy cardamom and cinnamon. Finally, that charred oak kicks in, tying the whole drink together.

Bottom Line:

This is another workhorse whiskey. At around $30, you’re getting a quality bourbon that’s pretty old, all things considered. Give it a shot with some water or a rock to get a sense of the juice and then try it in your favorite cocktail.

13. Angel’s Envy

Entry Bottle: Angel’s Envy Straight Bourbon Finished in Port Wine Barrels

ABV: 43.3%

Average Price: $55

The Whiskey:

Angel’s Envy pulls their bourbon in from various Kentucky distillers. For this expression, they specifically blend six-year-old bourbons in small batches of eight to ten barrels. The juice then spends three to six months ruby port wine casks for a finishing touch.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a classic note of vanilla with maple syrup mingling next to hints of fat nuts and raisins that draws you in. The palate holds onto the vanilla and maple while adding in more of the nuts, dried fruits, and a touch of toasted oak. When you add a little water that oak gets cedary while a dose of dark chocolate arrives. The end lingers a fair amount of time as the nuts and fruit lead back to the maple sweetness.

Bottom Line:

This is a fine sipper with a little water or some ice. Really though, this is best as a killer cocktail base that can stand up to any concoction.

12. Wild Turkey

Entry Bottle: Wild Turkey 101

ABV: 50.5%

Average Price: $25

The Whiskey:

The father and son team of Jimmy and Eddie Russell have brought Wild Turkey to the forefront of quality whiskey and Wild Turkey 101 has become almost synonymous with the brand. The juice has a small dose of rye in the mash bill (13 percent) and spends around six years mellowing in a heavily charred oak barrel. The whiskey is then just touched with that soft Kentucky limestone water to bring it down to a robust 101 proof.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a clear vanilla edge that leads towards dark wood and a touch of toffee cut with spice. The body of the sip sweetens along with the wood while the vanilla stiffens like a pudding with a touch more of that spice sneaking it, bringing warmth along with it. The sip leans back into the sweeter notes of the wood as it warms you up on the medium-long fade.

Bottom Line:

This is really meant as a mixing whiskey. So, give it a shot in your next cocktail. You can also drink it on the rocks or in a highball if that’s your jam.

11. Blanton’s

Entry Bottle: Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon

ABV: 46.5%

Average Price: $100

The Whiskey:

Blanton’s bourbon is taken from the best cuts off the stills. The hot juice then goes into barrels and is stored in Buffalo Trace’s famed warehouse H. Single barrels are hand-selected to represent the deep flavors of bourbon according to Master Distiller Elmer T. Lee’s guidance in the last century. The results are just touched with water to bring them down to proof and then bottled as is.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a bold caramel depth that gives way to Christmas spices that lean towards nutmeg and clove. Hints of vanilla sneak in with a honeyed sweetness alongside wisps of oak, leather, and more of those spices. There’s a balance to the velvet texture that helps the slow fade warm you up with all those spices, vanilla, and a final note of dried corn.

Bottom Line:

This is built as a sipper. Add a little water or a rock, let it bloom, and then take your time enjoying this one.

10. Knob Creek

Entry Bottle: Knob Creek Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 50%

Average Price: $35

The Whiskey:

Jim Beam’s entry-level Knob Creek Bourbon blends bourbons from that have aged up to nine years in heavily charred barrels. The barrels are hand-selected for their flavor profile and married. Then they’re slightly cut with limestone water to bring the proof down a bit to 50 percent.

Tasting Notes:

The dram starts with a sense of buttery toast and echoes of rye spice. That rye leads to charred oak and maple syrup essence that mellows into hints of apple orchards. The oak, spice, and fruit bring about a long finish with plenty of warmth.

Bottom Line:

This will be a little hot to sip neat. Add a little water or ice to really open it up. Alternatively, this works nicely as a highball or cocktail base.

Regardless of how you use it, paying under $50 for a nine-year-old bourbon whiskey is a steal.

9. Buffalo Trace

Entry Bottle: Buffalo Trace Bourbon

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $32

The Whiskey:

This bottle was made to celebrate Buffalo Trace’s rebranding. The expression was devised by whiskey-making legend Elmer T. Lee as a sort of swan song. The juice is a straightforward bourbon that’s crafted to be affordable and drinkable however you like to drink it.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a clear sense of bourbon vanilla with a molasses sweetness on the nose. The taste sometimes has a sour edge that leads towards butter toffee, cinnamon sticks, light oak, and red berries. The end is short and sweet and touches back on the oak, vanilla, and cinnamon sticks.

Bottom Line:

The price point makes this a very accessible bottle to have on hand for pretty much any application from a neat sip at the end of the day or a longer cocktail-making-session over the weekend.

8. Evan Williams

Entry Bottle: Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond

ABV: 50%

Average Price: $17

The Whiskey:

Heaven Hill’s Evan Williams is a bar-back standard. Their most accessible expression, in our humble opinion, is their Bottled-in-Bond, or white label (they have a cheaper expression but we can’t recommend it with quite as much enthusiasm). The juice is standard Evan Williams that’s barreled in a federally overseen warehouse. Then after those barrels are blended, the juice is just brought down to 100 proof, allowing a bit more of that Heaven Hill craft to shine in the bottle.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a clear note of dry cornmeal supported by caramel, creamy vanilla, and oak. The body of the sip holds onto the corn as hints of black pepper counter dusty wood and a hint at spicy and chewy tobacco. The end is short, slightly spicy, and shows off that corn once again.

Bottom Line:

This is a true blue mixing bourbon that also works as a tasty shooter as a beer back.

7. Four Roses

Entry Bottle: Four Roses Small Batch

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $38

The Whiskey:

Four Roses stand out by having ten different bourbons they make from two mash bills (one high rye, one low rye) and five unique yeast strains for fermentation. Their Small Batch expression combines four of these bourbons in the blend: A low rye with “slight spice” and “rich fruit” yeasts and a high rye mash with the same yeasts.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a sweet woodiness that feels like cherry or apple next to a rush of dark yet sweet berries and a hint of cinnamon-forward spices. The taste holds onto the berries while the woodiness gets a little vine-y with a good dose of caramel underneath it all.

The end builds and silkens as the red berries become jammy as the spice and sweet wood fade out slowly.

Bottom Line:

This is a great bottle at a great price point. It’s also applicable to however you want to drink it: On the rocks, neat with a little water, in a cocktail, or as a highball.

6. Basil Hayden’s

Entry Bottle: Basil Hayden’s Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $45

The Whiskey:

Jim Beam’s Basil Hayden’s is an outlier from the rest of the brand’s high-end labels. It uses a high rye bill that they also use from Old Grand-Dad (28 percent rye). This expression is also small-batched and proofed all the down to 40 percent across the board, making it an incredibly accessible sip of bourbon.

Tasting Notes:

Touches of oak mingle with subtle vanilla and caramel with very distant hints of bright dried fruits on the end. The taste holds onto those flavors while amping up the sweetness of the dried fruit and adding a touch of leather and oak with a hint of peppery spice. The end embraces the lightness of the dried fruit as it fades out at an even pace.

Bottom Line:

This is a great candidate for mixing up cocktails. Though, we’d argue that you can easily sip this one the rocks with zero complaints.

5. Jim Beam

Entry Bottle: Jim Beam Black Extra Aged Bourbon

ABV: 43%

Average Price: $22

The Whiskey:

Jim Beam is the best selling bourbon in the world. A great entry point to the iconic brand is their Black Extra Aged expression. The juice used to be their eight-year-old bottle that they took the age statement off. The whiskey in the bottle is a blend of variously aged Jim Beam that’s selected for its depth of flavor before it’s blended, proofed, and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

Classic bourbon notes of vanilla and caramel mingle classic Beam notes of cherry candy and corn husks. The palate leans into the cherry while also adding a mild spice with a touch more vanilla, apple, and sweet wood. The sip is very light overall and doesn’t linger, making it very approachable.

Bottom Line:

This is built as a workhorse whiskey that’s both affordable and findable anywhere. It works on the rocks, in a highball, or as a base for any cocktail.

4. Woodford Reserve

Entry Bottle: Woodford Reserve Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 45.2%

Average Price: $38

The Whiskey:

Woodford’s bourbon has a slightly high rye content (18 percent) which gives it a unique drinkability and a nice hit of spice. It’s triple distilled in pot and column stills before being mellowed in oak for six to seven years, which is long for an entry-point bourbon.

Tasting Notes:

You’re beckoned in with hints of dark chocolate next to spicy tobacco, dried fruits, bourbon vanilla, and a hint of fresh mint. The taste delivers while adding buttery toffee, more spicy tobacco chew, and marrying of the dark chocolate to orange oils. The end is silken and has a bit more spice as it lingers for just the right amount of time.

Bottom Line:

This tastes like it costs twice as much. It’s a great sipper (with a little water or ice) or mixer.

3. Jack Daniel’s

Entry Bottle: Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $25

The Whiskey:

Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 is probably the most iconic and maybe beloved whiskey on this list — though it’s not technically a bourbon. The Tennesse whiskey comes from a very low-rye mash (only eight percent). The distillate then goes through a sugar maple charcoal filtration drop-by-drop through ten vertical feet of those coals. That juice then spends at least four years resting in Jack Daniel’s warehouses before it’s blended, cut with soft Tennessee spring water, and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a sense of vanilla wafers next to hints of roasted sweet corn and a touch of fruit. That fruit edges from banana to cherry as the sip touches on young oak with light spicy tobacco. The end is short, creamy, and full of that fruit.

Bottom Line:

Okay, Drizly, we’re on the fence about you adding this to your metrics. Yes, all Tennessee whiskey starts out as bourbon. But once it goes through the Lincoln County Process (a sugar maple charcoal filtration step), it’s hard to still call this stuff just “bourbon.”

All of that aside, it’s also hard to deny the power of a sip of classic Jack Daniel’s. It’s a workhorse whiskey that still goes down almost too easily.

2. Maker’s Mark

Entry Bottle: Maker’s Mark Bourbon Whisky

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $29

The Whisky:

Beam’s Maker’s Mark cuts their mash with red winter wheat, giving it a subtlety that makes this wheated bourbon very drinkable and mixable. The juice is barreled and then rotated through the warehouses before those jostled barrels are married, proofed, and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a burst of spice, fruit, and caramel sweetness that lean towards vanilla. The palate has clear bourbon notes of oak char, vanilla, and a slight woody/cinnamon spice that all give way to rich toffee. The sip draws to a close rather quickly with a slight return of the vanilla, fruit, and oak.

Bottom Line:

This is a good bourbon to use as a base for any cocktail — from an old fashioned to a Manhattan to a mint julep. It’s also a decent sipper on the rocks (in a pinch).

1. Bulleit Frontier Whiskey

Entry Bottle: Bulleit Bourbon

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $32

The Whiskey:

While most of Bulleit is still sourced, they are getting close to having their own-make in rotation thanks to Diageo converting the iconic Stitzel-Weller distillery into their own production center. This expression is a very high-rye (28 percent) bourbon that spends around six years maturing before it’s blended, proofed, and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

This is a classic bourbon with notes of rich vanilla next to caramel corn, mild spice, and oak on the nose. The vanilla gets creamy and the spice zeroes in on cinnamon as a slight tobacco chew arrives with notes of orchard fruits and brown sugar. The end is medium-length with a nice dose of wood, tobacco spice, and caramel corn with a hint more of vanilla.

Bottom Line:

This is built as a workhorse bourbon. You can sip it on the rocks or mix it up. Dealer’s choice.

The last time we checked in with Johanna Faries, the world was a little bit different. The Call of Duty League was on full display at opening weekend in Minneapolis, taking over the Armory in a blowout bash filled with celebrity guests like Vince Staples, live entertainment, and thousands of fans seemingly unaware of what the next 12 months would bring. For a league hoping to make a splash, live events were a big component of that, as was creating a sense of pride from city to city with the league attempting to organically grow fanbases in a way similar to how MLS built its way into 25-plus years of moving from survival to familiarity.

We all know what happened next, and rehashing it at this point feels a bit like shoveling snow in the Snow Belt during the winter. Sure, we’ll do it because we have to, but we know full well we’re just going to get buried again. Instead of using the pandemic as an excuse, CDL treated it like a chance to test in real-time with an unimpeachable excuse. If something didn’t work, well, it wasn’t working for anyone because these are [extreme ad you’d see on Hulu from April to July voice] unprecedented times. Along the way, a game that was always virtual to begin with and built on the backs of online communities went back to its roots. The live event component was always going to be a focus, but if no one could do anything in person, it was a lot easier to follow a league that could still play without gimmicks; no need for athletes to turn to esports while quarantined, no need for a league-wide bubble, no need for HORSE over Zoom or a live Peloton ride or altered schedules or expanded rosters.

Call Of Duty League was able to gain an immense amount of data in a short period of time, based off the pure fact that beta testing was critical for advancement in the first place. And entering Season 2, a milestone that can’t be discounted when looking at the bones of broken leagues that never got a second season (here’s looking at you AAF, we’ll always remember), Faries is more confident than ever. She’s also sporting a new title, as head of leagues for Call of Duty League and Overwatch League. Simply getting by has never been in her DNA; she’ll always challenge herself, her position, and the league she represents to be different, be better, and push harder.

In a time when fatigue is everywhere, those with the inertia to keep beating forward can’t help but be inspirational. So when Faries talks, there’s always the drive to listen a bit more closely, to make more eye contact, to sit up a bit straighter.

UPROXX Edge had the chance to explore a variety of topics with Faries in our in-depth interview, from the learnings of those early pandemic days to what to expect from CDL Season 2’s opening weekend from Feb. 12-14, and more.

Martin Rickman: Obviously in any 12 month period you have an opportunity to look back and reflect on things that grew, things that you’d change, things that worked and didn’t work, or you’d like to improve on, but going into probably one of the most cataclysmically strange years in recent memory, what have you looked back on that has helped inform you for where CDL is headed, but also really the future of esports has been heading?

Johanna Faries: It has been wild and it has been challenging, no doubt. I do have to say though, I think we have come out so much more resilient and so much smarter. After the pandemic, there was really this ability for us to not only pivot in a matter of weeks, but to do so with intentionality. And what I mean by that is really learning how to strategically pivot not only how we operated our live competitions, but also to really convey to the industry that esports has the ability to develop and produce world-class events and continue to scale growth. We saw subscriber count really start to grow on our YouTube channel. Really in the back half of last year, we started to hit those high watermarks in terms of viewership, obviously with Champs being the major culmination point for the season and the most-watched Call of Duty esports event in history. All of that, to me, pointed to the resilience of the team here at Activision Blizzard, certainly every single one of our organizations, all of our players.

And it also, to me, signaled that we were able to take so much time here in the offseason, regroup learn from what worked, what went according to plan, what didn’t go according to plan, and harness that into a very bold 2021. That’s why I think we feel a lot of momentum, a lot of positive energy, despite all of those challenges going into the next few weeks here, as we have all eyes on opening week.

You look back on those first few weeks of kind of real uncertainty and understanding of where world events were headed, but also the esports and Call of Duty‘s place in that world. I was at the L.A. event March 5th, I believe around there? That was the second to last public outing I had. And it’s now February of 2021. Even then I remember just there being this spooky feeling. It was overly calm and quiet and people were kind of on edge, but still were enjoying the matches and you could kind of just sense it wasn’t going to be the same anymore.

Those first few weeks, what do you kind of remember most that’s crystallized in your mind that allowed you to essentially say, “here’s where we are, here’s where we’re headed,” and then obviously learnings that developed out of that. Is there anything that sticks from that time?

It was interesting because it’s really it takes me back to how agile we were able to be, even as I think back to the L.A. home series. Everybody who touched this league, who had a role in this league never doubted for a second our ability to find a new way to orchestrate the rest of the season. That’s part and parcel of just the DNA in the people we have at CDL, kind of that grit and that focus on, look, we have the best and the brightest people, the best and the brightest minds in the business who can come up with creative solutions together to figure out new ways to create an event and new ways to drive success.

So there was definitely this sense of an impending challenge that was going to have to be faced head-on. At the same time, I felt like we were ready to face that challenge. When we were able to stand up our home series events and the remainder of the season in a more virtual-first, content-driven way, having moved out of the live event model so quickly, to me, it’s just one of the most inspiring memories that I have from last year, is that at no point were any of us in a position to think, “We’re going to get shut down” or “We can’t do this.” It was actually the opposite. It was, “How are we going to do this, and how quickly can we do it and make sure that everybody’s safe, make sure everybody can still deliver world-class experiences for our fans?”

The last point I’d say on that is that’s a little bit of a mark, a hallmark of esports in general. It was born in online spaces, as you know, and there’s this scrappy heartbeat to the esports community in general to just find creative ways to come together. So to see our fans turn out, be able to gather virtually for Champs, for example, in such a highly engaged way was such a high point not just from a metric standpoint, not just from the viewership standpoint and breaking those records, but from a teamwork and collaboration and people’s standpoint. It just was a really important moment for us, I think, as we capstone the season last year.

This was a situation where I was never worried about the scalability to move to remote and virtual the way that I was about every other sport. You didn’t have to put yourselves in a situation where you had to create a bubble at DisneyWorld. That’s not something that ever needed to happen. So you could come back to market with changes that were small enough, but also could have long-term, lasting effects on the future of the industry because of what you were able to beta test. I had wondered if you felt almost a sense of responsibility not just to the esports community, but to sports at large, as this outlet, as basically the folks that kind of came back first and gave everyone this thing to focus on that wasn’t the virus, so to speak.

Absolutely, we did, and we often feel that way at CDL, generally speaking, that we want to be leaders in these major conversations about where sports is going, where entertainment is going, where competitive events are going. For us to be able to dig deep into the well with technology and innovation and creative solutions that we had at the ready and, again, just great people, from our players to our GMs and coaches to the league office to, obviously, our owners and brand partners, everybody rallied to say, “Not only do we want to get back to a baseline, we can actually innovate in this new way. We can actually continue to see more growth, more scale.”

You see that here as we’re on the precipice of launching Season 2. Again, that’s why I often feel like through that challenge and being able to thrive through that challenge, it brought real attention not only to esports generally, but attention to the momentum that we’re feeling around CDL in particular, going into this year, where now we’re able to have real entrepreneurial conversations about, “What else do we want to do? What else can we explore?” versus feeling like the conversation is maybe akin to what traditional sports leagues have to focus on, which is, again, getting back to just baseline.

So it’s a real position of strength for us, and it’s been amazing to be a part of that.

It’s something you had mentioned about what’s in the DNA of gaming and of this industry. It hit everyone, even the people who weren’t gaming, even the people who hadn’t bought a console probably since an N64 or those who were just trying to understand or find something else. It really, truly was this moment where it was on full display, but it showcased the power of community. We talked even last year about combating that mindset and the potential stigma that has been surrounding these things for years and years. Well, if there was anything that could expedite that process, it was those few months. I was just curious if you kind of noticed just even a perception change overall or if there’s conversations you’ve been having that have really been enlightening or really exciting for you.

As you head into Season 2 that now we’ve got this establishment, but we also have this inflection point where the future is really untapped, and gaming can be – and this is our tagline that we use at Edge – that gaming can really be for everyone.

You’re 100 percent right in your analysis. I think what’s happened over the last year is we’re seeing a tremendous amount of new fan interest, new potential partner and potential investor interest, because they did see the agility, the resiliency, the viability, frankly, of esports as a product, whether if they were a brand partner and now they understand that we can not only host events, we can drive real, meaningful, highly engaged events with key consumers and key demos. So it’s really been amazing to see how many people now sort of call and say, “How do I get involved?” or “What you guys are doing is really amazing, and I’m ready to tune in. I get it now,” right? You’re right. There was this “aha” moment that happened where e-sports started to stand for something much bigger, just given its roots, but also its ability to innovate so quickly.

I would say even in the offseason, we had huge headlines that really help us continue to galvanize momentum and gather new audiences. You had 100 Thieves, obviously one of the biggest brands in gaming and entertainment, find their way into the league with the LA Thieves, a whole new swath of fans, both from yesteryear as far as Call of Duty esports, because they’re such a legacy brand in the space, but also the new demographics and fans that 100 Thieves reaches now are really leading into the LA Thieves and are really hyped for the start of the season. We had OpTic return to its founding father in Hector Rodriguez. Another huge beat here where fans of not just the franchise, but of what Call of Duty as esports has stood for, for so long coming back into the well, but seeing sort of all of this on display in a much more structured, much more bold form and fashion, given what we’ve focused on here in the last year for CDL.

We’ve got all the team rivalries. We have so many players who were playing in a different uniform last year that are now suiting up on different teams. You’ve got the likes of our champion in Clayster, now a Subliner in New York. So there’s all this tension there between Dallas and New York. There’s the battle of the North between Toronto and Minnesota. All of that didn’t exist a year and a half ago, and now we’re starting to see industry-wide intrigue in what we’ve built and this broader sense of fandom, given how rich and powerful these narrative arcs and these team and player base rivalries have already become so quickly.

The last part I would say is breaking through into the Call of Duty player base. A lot of what we’re announcing, even just in the last few days with our partner in YouTube, being able to offer account linking, being able to reward much more seamlessly for a Call of Duty player with incentives and meaningful in-game enhancements when they do tune in, all of that is part of the recipe for why I think we feel in the driver’s seat, going into 2021, and feel that we’re actually better for it, having taken the learnings from last year, but also seeing all that interest that you talk about that’s really grown and manifested in all these different ways over the last couple of months.

You’ve taken on, obviously, a bigger role as well. I was curious. In the new position, what have you taken into CDL from observing? Obviously, you worked closely with that side to begin with, but in more day-to-day operations with Overwatch, do you think that there are learnings, shared learnings that naturally have come out of it even from October to now that can help strengthen both leagues?

There are. I mean, constantly. We’re so efficient in that way in that we’re able to really think about “what’s working in Overwatch League? What’s working in Call of Duty League?” How do we think about how we cross-pollinate those strengths across both ecosystems and yet still make sure that we’re building unique, differentiated products? Because, obviously, these communities are different, and they expect different things from both of those leagues. So it’s really been awesome to have that type of purview, and I think you even see some of that come through in recent announcements that we’ve made and when you think about even just the season structure for both leagues.

A lot of the focus for both CDL and Overwatch league in the 2021 season will be on tentpole tournaments. We see how much engagement and excitement gets amplified around these major rapid-style tournament beats that we started to really level up last year. We’ve made that really part and parcel of the recipe for both leagues, coming up here in 2021, where we have much more stage-based play and these climactic capstones to each of those stages where the higher the stakes, the higher the prize pool money. But keeping a cadence that fans can really follow and really tune in for creates this ability to think about where do we want to be similar and what have we learned that can be applied to both systems that we think is really the right position for both, even inasmuch as we’ll see, again, unique aspects coming through for each week here in the coming year?

Where does Warzone factor into all this for you guys? I mean, obviously, there was an expectation that it would have success and would be a product that would be very viable for a lot of testing things out, trying out new items, anything that could help out from a map standpoint. But I have to imagine that you guys even were a little bit surprised at the phenomenon that it turned into, with celebrities, major musicians, sports players, people who were probably already gaming in the first place, but really never wore it on their sleeve as heavily as they did, because they simply just didn’t have the ability to do anything else since they were being stuck at home.

Yeah. I mean, it was very interesting timing in that regard, which no one could’ve planned or foreseen. But you’re right. I think Warzone was something to us that said, “Man, there’s still so much on the table,” as far as being able to take CDL and competitive Call of Duty to new audiences within the franchise. The same goes for COD Mobile, right? We’re starting to see just the franchise have this renaissance all over again, breaking its own records, but also expanding into so much more of the globe, because we’re so cross-platform and so multi-platform at that now.

So it’s been amazing. I think what’s been a part of the recipe, again, as we think about CDL Season 2 is how do we appeal to those audiences? The example of tuning in to earn rewards is a great one that can carry over whether you’re a [Battle Royale] fan of the franchise, whether you play campaign, whether you play all three modes of our sport and the multiplayer experience. How do we make that meaningful? How do we speak to our COD player base on their terms?

And you’re right. We’ve also enjoyed similarly what the franchise has seen for so long, being a mega-brand in entertainment, having these A-listers and the biggest household names in sports and music and movies, you name it. They’ve had such passion for this brand. Now, even in the nascent stage of CDL, we’ve seen so many of these household names being a part of CDL and asking us constantly, “How can I be a part of it?” We saw a lot of major celebs coming through our live events, and when we had to move to virtual events, they found their way in with other ways. Many of them have also become part owners in our franchise. It’s just been really amazing. It was awesome to see Post Malone telling everyone in social media last year to root for the Dallas Empire, heading into Championship Weekend, right? That’s something that only Call of Duty can really do as authentically as you see it being done, and it’s been awesome to see these types of big names and personalities coming into CDL.

You obviously mentioned some the storylines, which you don’t want to force anything like that, especially early on. There’s some things you kind of maybe expect to happen naturally, that certain cities will fight other cities because they always do in sports, or when a player migrates to another team, that’s going to create a natural rivalry. But part of what was exciting organically of being along for the ride is watching these things that you never even expected come about. But over the course of Season 2, are there other things that maybe you guys are pushing that still allow for that organic entertainment value?

It’s a great question. I would have to be honest and say we are so focused on trying new and different things as often as we can, right, and forego the ones that maybe don’t take, or they don’t scale as quickly as we’d like. But we really believe in that recipe of we are in this nascent stage. We are in an entrepreneurial moment. We are only in our second swing of forever, one might argue. So we should continue to always explore pushing boundaries.

The biggest difference, to your point about organic engagement, is while we at Activision Blizzard and the league and our teams are always sort of thinking about what new ideas can we bring forward, and we will hear as we continue to unfold the 2021 season and even beyond that, there was just such an amazing energy, we even felt, this last weekend, with the Kickoff Classic, which was in many ways purely organic engagement, and yet was outpacing the viewership we were experiencing in our regular season last year. Part of why we wanted to do that was to really start to give a primer to the strength of these rivalries, really showcase these brands that showcase the game, and the game design looks and feels so good. I mean, you could hear that from the community.

You could see it in the gameplay. This is as good-looking a sport as we’ve probably ever enjoyed, and that’s thanks to the partnership that we’ve had over the last several months with our studio partners, with our players, who inform how the competitive experience needs to be designed. You’ve got the shift to PC. We’ve opened up the ability for our pros to choose the controller of their choice, so it just brings in a little bit more of that engagement and that open funnel, the work we’ve done from a viewership enhancement perspective in making these broadcasts visually resonant and beautiful.

Then, again, to see so much engagement from fans, so much smack talk around LA Thieves versus Chicago, or is it going to be Toronto or Minnesota’s year, plus the stellar gameplay, those are the little things that really add up to that sense of boldness, better, that we’re constantly improving on the product, while also layering on these added new ideas that you’re talking about that we’ve either recently announced or will continue to announce in the coming weeks. There’s so much more for the fans to see. Even in the next 14 days, I’d argue, before we start things on February 11th, there’s just so much more to come. That speaks to this spirit of constantly trying to find ways to be better and to deliver better for our fans. So I couldn’t be more happy and I couldn’t be more excited. I think I speak for all of us at the league that we feel really well-positioned to put on a great second season here.

Just to kind of piggyback off of that, how has the relationship with YouTube continued to evolve to where you guys have the product, but you also have this distribution from a partner who’s really been so critical to bringing gaming into the overall societal consciousness and has been the steward for a long time now of basically doing exactly what Call of Duty was doing, anyway, which is making gaming accessible, making gaming relatable, but distributing it to the masses in a way that certain indie games can’t? No matter how powerful, no matter how much heart they have, no matter how creative they are, they’re just not capable of doing something like that with the reach that YouTube and what Call of Duty has.

YouTube has been an incredible partner. Again, we’re super psyched even this week, just seeing how much positive energy and pick-up there’s been about the announcement for account linking to create more of that seamless way not only to watch, to your point, but also search for CDL content. If you want to see any of the matches you missed from the weekend, you can go do that in a matter of seconds on a platform like YouTube. If you want to tune in and set your accounts to be ready to earn rewards, you can do that in a matter of seconds now with a partner like YouTube. If you want to watch non-live, original scripted content or docu-series that we’ve done about CDL, it allows for any part of the fan spectrum to dive in quickly and get the CDL content that they’re looking for immediately.

You just can’t imagine the power of that. To be able to be partners in that, I think we all feel we’re just scratching the surface of how we’re going to maximize that platform experience here, going forward. I even felt that last week. We were joking about the mainstream emergence of esports, to your point, when we were seeing CDL show up in the Presidential Inauguration show, of all things, through a major singer in Ozuna wearing one of our beanies. No one expected that, but, again, it stood for something much broader. Yet people who didn’t know maybe what Call of Duty League was or has have not yet really made it a part of their everyday experience are now able to go to a platform like YouTube, search for that, and get served up our kickoff classic content or other reasons to watch content that we’re delivering each and every day on the platform. So it creates that 360 funnel for fan development as well as we begin to show up in these more mainstream cultural places.

What does success look like for you in season two? What are the benchmarks that you’re trying to reach, and kind of knowing that this is a handicapped situation even now with the year, so there’s some house money you get to play with, but what are some of the things that you guys definitely are honing in on, moving forward here?

We’re going to continue to look at viewership around our live major moments in time. When I say majors, I really mean those major tournaments in particular, right? With our five stages in the regular season and restructuring the format of the season to have these pinnacle moments, where these high stakes tournament beats happen five times throughout the regular season are really important moments for us and how we think about bringing as much value and content and reasons to watch to those moments, because they’re so compelling. So really thrilled to think about viewership aggregation in that way, and then certainly just how do we continue to stretch into culture? How do we continue to think about fashion collaborations, partnerships and sponsorship collaborations driving not only the business goals that we all have here, not only at the league level, but also amongst our ownership group, but perhaps more importantly, just putting CDL in places where our Call of Duty player base can really have more of an attachment to what this league represents.

These are the best of the best players in the entire player base, and now we can really put them in a position to be more seen and to create more bridges back into our Warzone community, our MP community, our mobile community, and can really put this on display so that more of our player base really comes into the funnel. So I’ll be looking for those two things in particular, but I think we’re in for a fun ride. We’re super excited about what’s to come and can’t wait to get started here on February 11th.

This interview has been edited and briefly condensed for clarity.

Despite the sameness and stagnation of winter in a pandemic new days keep happening, and Friday brought news of a new collection of words tossed together in a kaleidoscope of weirdness and cancel culture backlash. That’s right: fired The Mandalorian star Gina Carano is apparently making a movie with far-right gadfly Ben Shapiro in an effort to battle “cancel culture,” presumably because Carano’s anti-Semitic, transphobic and coronavirus skepticism online wasn’t a proper justification for Disney not wanting her around.

News of this new entertainment venture hit social media on Friday, and though some conservatives celebrated the news there was a lot of jokes to be made at Carano’s expense. The fall from Disney mainstay to conservative martyr was abrupt, even for someone who had a long history of problematic posts on social media. But Friday was a swift change from topic of fan discussion to a full career pivot for Carano.

The idea that Shapiro could just start a movie company, and that be Carano’s next best move after getting fired by Disney for one of its most popular shows, was depressing for a lot of people.

Some used it as an opportunity to pitch their own ideas.

A lot of people referenced the reported difficulties Carano had in making Haywire, in which she had her lines apparently dubbed in after the fact by another actress.

There were a lot of Baby Yoda jokes. You know, kind of.

But mostly, it doesn’t seem like anyone is actually excited about a movie from these two. Unless it’s just to dunk on once again.

Some weren’t so sure there were not other “canceled” moviemakers interested in teaming up, though.

“In a society constantly driven to distraction by our phones, email, Instagram, etcetera, there’s something deeply, almost sub-consciously alluring about hot sauce and the pain it causes,” says Denver Nicks. “Hot sauce — especially really spicy hot sauce — commands your full attention.”

Nicks would know. The author and (and Uproxx contributor) wrote a book on the subject, titled Hot Sauce Nation: America’s Burning Obsession. His choice of subtitles was fitting back when the book was released in 2016 and has only grown more so. Last year, TruTV rolled out not one but two shows based around Complex’s “Hot Ones” concept — a game show and a traditional interview — and the number of sauces on supermarket shelves has continued to expand.

Nicks sees all of this as a good thing, further evidence of America’s culinary melting pot.

“It’s not just the sheer number of immigrants we have in this country,” he says, “but how they have transformed and enriched American culture, transformed all of us, and made hot sauce fiends out of many more of us than there were before.”

He makes a great point, but it does make picking the two (or five) hot sauces that you decide to spend your money on a little tougher. What elements deem one particular hot sauce better than another? Is it just about heat? Is it the chilies used? Vinegar ratio? Hype?

Also, when does a hot sauce get played out? Did the world turn on Sriracha just because it went super mainstream or did better options just naturally usurp it? These are questions that vex even Nicks.

“A good hot sauce is whatever you prefer at that moment,” he says. “I use different hot sauce on my gumbo — Crystal — than my tacos — Yucateco. My favorite hot sauces are Caribbean style, usually with lots of fruitiness, perhaps lemongrass, scotch bonnets or habaneros or other members of the Capsicum chinense chili species, and lots of heat. But I’m also very partial to a traditional, vinegar-forward, simple Louisiana-style hot sauce.”

This year’s hot sauce list — sourced from our writers and editors — leans heavy into the habenero. The whole world seems to have collectively agreed that its bright, fruity notes can be easily counterbalanced, opening the door to plenty of nuance without losing the fire. We also saw a fair number of classics getting love. Perhaps quarantine has made us all a little nostalgic for the hot sauces of our misspent youth? Or maybe the big brands continue to thrive because they’re that freaking good.

Check our 2021 “best hot sauce” picks below and add your favorites in the comments.

— Steve Bramucci, Editor, Uproxx Life

Poirier’s Louisiana Style Hot Sauce

Followers of the UFC can tell you that interim champ Dustin Poirier, aka “The Diamond,” knows two things well: how to punch people out and hot sauce. Hailing from Louisiana, Poirier grew up around cajun cooking and the southern sauces that come with it.

The profile harkens to those family dinners, with a winning mix of aged peppers, sea salts, celery, and garlic. Its heat is present, but dialed down on purpose, to allow for easy enjoyment.

“It’s got a kick for sure,” says Poirier. “But the burn doesn’t linger.”

The goal was to create a flavor that was so savory that it wasn’t relegated to the condiment shelf, becoming a key ingredient during the cooking process as well. And much like Poirier’s most recent bout, this sauce is a win. Heads up: Since the fighter took down Conor McGregor this stuff has been flying off the shelves even faster than before — so you might struggle to find it if you wait too long.

— Charles Thorp

Heat level: Bit of a kick, but not a roundhouse.

Price: $12

Marie Sharp’s Fiery Hot Pepper Sauce

On my first trip to Belize, I came home with a suitcase full of the hot sauce found in every Belizean restaurant. One taste and it’s clear why this carrot and habanero concoction is so ubiquitous: it’s freakin’ amazing. Even Hillary Clinton, famously a hot sauce aficionado, gave Marie Sharp’s a shoutout in her memoir, calling it her favorite.

She wasn’t wrong. Fiery Hot packs heat, but the burn is tamped down by the potent blend of carrot and habanero mixed with the uniquely Central American-Caribbean tang of onions, garlic, and lime juice. The velvety texture makes it easy to limit how much hot sauce you pour out, but even with only a few drops are needed per dish I still go through so much of this stuff that I’ve genuinely considered ordering their gallon option (hey, it comes with a free pump!).

— Ali Wunderman

Heat Level: Hot but sweet, like the perfect lover.

Price: $7

Queen Majesty Scotch Bonnet And Ginger

Queen Majesty was reccomended to us by Sean Evans, star of Hot Ones, and… what can I say? Dude knows his sauces.

This Scotch Bonnet & Ginger expression is more like a fruit puree than a thin, traditional “sauce.” The flavor captures the sweet notes of the peppers but balances them with the bright tang of ginger (rather than a lot of vinegar). What you end up with is a sauce that fits well with a variety of dishes.

As a longtime proponent of Jamaican beef patties, I’ll go out of my way to note that this is a great play for that dish. Also, it does great in a range of curries.

— Steve Bramucci

Heat Level: It’s not going to scorch you, but it will make you sit up straight.

Price: $10

Zatarain’s Cajun Hot Sauce

This is a new love of mine. Zatarain’s is a big Louisiana brand that makes everything from rice to gumbo mix. Recently, I was wandering around the grocery store (maks on, not actually wandering, etc.) looking for hot sauces and came across this one. The label promised aged chili and garlic in one bottle. I was intrigued. I brought it home and placed the sauce on my shelf next to my Valentina’s Extra Hot and made some chicken breasts in the ol’ sous vide.

I doused the sauce onto the chicken and it was a revelation. Zatarain’s Cajun isn’t overly hot but packs a nice little punch. The garlic is 100 percent present. There’s a light vinegar tang going on that’s sweeter than tart and way less egregious than standard Tabasco tang. Overall, this is a great sauce to have on hand when you want a subtle spicy bump with a garlic base.

— Zach Johnston

Heat Level: Mild and breezy, like the Big Easy.

Price: $2.28

Frank’s RedHot

Frank’s RedHot is simple — cayenne peppers, distilled vinegar, water, salt, garlic powder — cheap and readily available everywhere (your favorite fast food joint keeps it behind the counter, just ask) and yet when it comes to hot sauce it’s nearly unparalleled.

Rare and interesting peppers, a beautiful label, and a fancy bottle design?

Frank’s RedHot has none of them. But pass me a bottle and I hold in my hands the perfect accompaniment to wings, chicken sandwiches, French fries, eggs, stir-fries, and whatever the hell else you put hot sauce on.

Frank’s RedHot is made using aged cayenne peppers, giving it a nice spicy kick but unlike some of the other entries, you don’t spend too much time thinking about what makes Frank’s RedHot good. Instead, it’s a hot sauce that forces you to shut up and focus on your meal. That’s why it’s the GOAT.

— Dane Rivera

Heat Level: Medium

Price: $4.72 (for 23 ounces)

6LACK’s 600 Degrees Hot Sauce

Six months go, amid a summer that was shorn from its most enjoyable aspects, Atlanta-born singer 6LACK announced he would return with a new project. The upcoming effort, which would eventually be his 6pc Hot EP, was his first release in almost two years. However, it wasn’t just music the singer delivered to his fans. With the extended play came his new hot sauce brand, 600 Degrees.

As a big fan of 6LACK, I took interest in the hot sauce. His Atlanta roots drove even more curiosity, since that city is responsible for some of the best wings I’ve ever had. So I made the purchase, and I have to say — good call on my part.

For all of you veteran hot sauce lovers, you can take pleasure in 6LACK’s 600 Degrees without a glass of water beside you. The sauce is a melodic blend of age red peppers, distilled vinegar, and salt — pretty standard. The latter elements coat the tongue with a sour lime-like presence similar before the red peppers step in to provide the flavor and spice.

600 Degrees finds a happy medium between nonexistent spice and an intolerable heat, bringing just enough to wake the taste buds from their slumber. This hot sauce is defnitely worthy of a spot at a future cookout, but for now, keep it handy for your socially distanced dinners.

Heat Level: Very managable.

Sambal Olek

For me, there’s hot one sauce that rises above them all — Sambal Olek.

What pushes this one to the top is its simplicity. It’s a blend of spicy chilis, salt, and vinegar. That’s it. It’s thick and often gooey. There’s always a jolt of joy when you sit down at a table and there’s a tub of sambal on it with one of those tiny spoons for scooping all that hot peppery goodness onto any dish.

Seriously, you can scoop it on each bite of your burrito or throw a nice big dollop in a bowl of noodle soup or fry some up to spice up fried rice. That’s versatility.

— Zach Johnston

Heat Level: Medium to warm, depending on the brand.

Price: $2.38

Tabasco Habanero Sauce

I already like regular Tabasco. You really can’t make an old-school Bloody Mary without one. But, I get that’s it mild and very vinegar forward. This version, on the other hand, is not mild, still hits on those Tabasco notes, and packs some serious flavor.

The habanero really comes through with a clear earthiness and heat. That combines with the almost fruity vinegar for a really solid hot sauce worth using on multiple applications. I put this in my chicken soup, dose it on tacos, I’ve even put it on steak.

But, the best use remains a Bloody Mary. Nothing will both sober you up and prep you for another day of partying faster.

— Zach Johnston

Heat Level: Medium, full

Price: $2.08

The Last Dab XXX

This is created by the team at Complex’s The Hot Ones and my god is it good. It’s just the right amount of sweet on the front end and then… BLAM the heat comes.

And what heat. Two hybrid, lab-created peppers — Pepper X and Chocolate Pepper X — add so much fire to this that a few drops will endanger your whole meal. If you can handle it, this is a sauce that has all the fire without sacrificing taste. Plus you’ll sympathize with the celebs who go on The Hot Ones in a whole new way.

— Steve Bramucci

Heat Level: Meal-dominating type heat.

Price: $20

Price: $14.99

Texas Pete

Some items in the fridge or the cabinet just feel right. Whether they’re from childhood or simply regional standards (shouts to White Lily Flower, Duke’s Mayo, and Bertman’s Ballpark Mustard), there’s something to be said for sticking to the classics. For me, a hot sauce I’ll never do without is Texas Pete.

Sure, part of it is knowing its origins are every bit as intertwined with Winston-Salem as the college I went to, Wake Forest. But it’s also been on hand for some really important moments — from fish frys to backroads barbecue pilgrimages to dinners with friends — that helped crystalize my love for food and travel.

Pete’s is complex enough to stand on its own, beats the pants off most of the other major brands, and brings out the flavor of the food you’re eating rather than just masking or burying it. It’s just as adaptable in fried foods (a must on hush puppies) as it is in chilis or soups, and is killer with a BLT or a pimento cheese sandwich.

When I found it at Smart & Final in Long Beach, I audibly gasped. You never know when or where home will find you.

— Martin Rickman

Heat Level: Baseline burn

Price: $5.59

Dragon’s Blood Elixir

Apparently, the secret to dragon’s blood is apples, because this stuff has apple cider syrup, apple cider vinegar, and apple puree. You don’t necessarily taste the apples, but what you do get is a very fruit-forward flavor before the heat comes on. I love chilis for their taste, not just their spice, and Dragon’s Blood does an ace job highlighting the uniqueness of the habanero here.

You’ll want a solid few dollops to make it work, but there is heat there. It comes on late and doesn’t linger long, allowing the other flavors to shine and not disrupting your meal.

— Steve Bramucci

Heat Level: The exact level that makes a person say, “Oh, this is spicy.”

Price: $8

Pique

When Sol Food hit the scene in Marin County, the Puerto Rican restaurant brought some much-needed flavor and color to the region. This was, in part, thanks to painting their building a vibrant lime green, sticking out in a sea of beige. But mostly it was the delicious flavors of Puerto Rico, exemplified by their in-house hot sauce, Pique.

My husband always orders their choripan sandwich – chorizo, ham, and Swiss cheese baked between French bread — and it’s incomplete without a side of the bright orange hot sauce to dunk the whole mean into. This medium-spicy, vinegar-based hot sauce was so beloved by diners that Sol Food had no choice but to sell it online. It’s packed full of a variety of peppers — from spicy, fresh jalapeños and serranos to nutty, dried chile de arbols. The branding makes no effort to elevate itself, but trust me, you’ll want this on hand next time anything even remotely tropical lands on your plate.

— Ali Wunderman

Heat Level: Overt tang, covert heat.

Price: $14

Mago Ghost Pepper

Mago, made in Laguna Beach, has been on my radar for awhile now, but this isn’t an expression I’d tried until recently. I had a pretty horrible experience with ghost peppers a few years back and the name was scaring me off. I’m glad I circled back for this one.

Don’t get me wrong, Mago Ghost Pepper is spicy, but it’s also fragrant with carrots and bell peppers and features a nice note of smoke (not chipotle pepper intensity). The sweetness of the carrots has the same effect here that it has in some of the habanero-based sauces on this list: calming your mouth and activating a different part of your palate.

Since Mago isn’t very vinegar forward, I use it in a wider variety of dishes — from fried rice to garlic shrimp to stewed mushrooms. Even with big-flavor foods like those, this isn’t a sauce that lets you forget it’s there.

— Steve Bramucci

Heat Level: “Are those beads of sweat on your forehead?”

“Yes. Yes, they are.”

Price: $8

Secret Aardvark

Put simply, Secret Aardvark is a spicy, liquid version of your taco seasoning packet. If you like that sort of thing, as I do, you’ll love it. The peppers here are fire-roasted and you taste that smoke. There’s also a nice texture that comes from finely blended but not fully liquid tomatoes. Most of all, it’s the sweet/spicy balance and the nice fruitiness that makes this Portland-based sauce liven up dishes so well.

This one has been popular for a good long while, but it lives up to the enduring hype. Just as good (and similarly fruit-forward) is their drunken Jerk Sauce. It literally brings me back to Jamaica, and the jerk chicken shacks that line the road there, every time.

— Steve Bramucci

Heat Level: “Whew, it’s spicy for sure. Whew.”

Price: $8

Skinny Fats — Jãlatcha

I’ve been stanning for ketchup around these parts for a long time. When someone talks smack about it, I fight back.

Why? Because flavor-profile-wise the tang of ketchup is a fantastic counterbalance to many an umami-rich, carb-heavy meal (eg burgers and fries). You know what could make ketchup even better though? The most unsung of the chilies — jalepeño.

The flavor of a fresh jalepeño is bright and fruity and the heat comes in late, like a slow-rolling wave. It’s a joy and pairs really well with ketchup. Trust me, your hot dog will never be the same.

— Steve Bramucci

Heat Level: A nice bright kick, not a long, deep burn.

Price: $4.95

El Yucateco Chipotle

I love hot sauce. I put it on everything from mac and cheese to pizza to eggs. But I don’t need it to be so hot that it drowns out what I’m eating. That’s why I love El Yucateco Chipotle. In their line of sauces, it’s probably one of the mildest, but it has a smoky, sweet flavor with enough heat to make it worthwhile.

This sauce is made from chipotle peppers and clocks in at 3,400 Scoville units. Is that a lot? I actually have no idea. What I do know is that El Yucateco is fantastic.

— Chris Osburn

Heat Level:

Price: $2.75

Gringo Bandito Spicy Yellow

Remember the band Offspring? This is part of the line of sauces created by the band’s frontman, Dexter Holland. While that turn of events might sound strange, even stranger (and more interesting) is the fact that Holland, a Ph.D. in molecular biology, takes the sauce game very seriously and produces one hell of a product. (I’m not in love with the label or name, though.)

The Spicy Yellow is the best of the Gringo Bandito line. It utilizes scotch bonnets and habaneros and carries the fruity flavors of those two chilies throughout. There are also some nice garlic, onion, and black pepper notes. It’s an excellent pick for eggs and tacos and a step up from the brand’s own, more popular, traditional red sauce.

— Steve Bramucci

Heat Level: Warm but not overpowering.

Price: $7.50

Salsa Valentina

The first thing you should know about Salsa Valentina is that you can put both of your hands around the jar. This is no dainty, bottleneck hot sauce bottle. It doesn’t have an artisanal wooden cap like Cholula. Hell no. It’s a chubby, thick barrel-shaped glass container with a wide mouth plastic spout that lets you throw down thick streams of hot sauce all over your hash browns.

If I see it in someone’s cupboard, my respect for them goes up tenfold. If I had a one night stand and was offered this with eggs the next morning, I’d probably try to marry the guy. Valentina’s two distribution companies are in California and Texas, so expect to see it primarily in the Southwest. In New York, I found it in the regional food aisles of grocery stores, and very good diners, but it was scarce elsewhere — a shame because this is a well balanced, flavor-forward sauce that’s as cheap as they come.

— Caitlin White

Heat Level: Classic “hot sauce” level and not a bit more.

Price: $1.84

Truff — White Truffle Infused Hot Sauce

Look, I don’t know what to say. This stuff is hyped as hell (what hot sauce has 125K followers on Instagram?), Oprah chose it as one of her “favorite things” (twice!), and truffle oil is plaaaaayed out, but still… It’s freaking good. Like really good.

The heat and umami richness of the truffles are, quite literally, the perfect match. You get a hot sauce that hits those high, bright chili pepper notes and manages to have an “of the earth” mushroom quality. The fact that the sauce uses white truffle oil means it’s got a silkiness to it that most sauces lack and the heat, though it has a nice punch, doesn’t linger too long. In fact, I could use it turned up a quarter-notch.

Be warned: This sauce is pricey ($35). But if you’re having a dinner party post-pandemic and want a special bottle on the table that will elevate food rather than just making it spicier, this is a winner. The flavors are potent and the bottle is elegant.

Heat Level: Very Manageable

Price: $34.99

THE FINAL ENTRY — Two-Shack “Como El Otro” Hot Sauce

This hot sauce was included in the book Cooking With Spices by Mark Stevens (who writes for Uproxx). In the ultimate small world moment, it comes courtesy of John “Two-Shack” Nicks, father of Denver Nicks, interviewed above. As Two-Shack notes, there’s a lot going on. You can make it hot as you want by adding additional cayenne.

From the man himself:

“Many hot sauces are comprised of a mixture of vinegar, pepper of one or more varieties and salt. I like to make a more complex hot sauce. I liked the ‘Two Dick Billy Goat’ sauce at the Thunderbird Restaurant in Marfa, Texas. I tried to duplicate it and came up with this. It will not be too hot for most people.”

Ingredients:

• 1 cups apple cider vinegar
• ½ small can tomato paste
• 1 small tomatillo or green tomato, chopped
• 4 dried cayenne peppers, chopped
• 3 Pasilla Bajio chilies, seeded (or keep seeds if you want more heat)
• 2 Anaheim Peppers, pith removed (or mild Hatch Peppers, if available)
• 1 ½ tsp sea salt
• 1 small carrot, shredded
• 1 small red onion, chopped
• 1 ½ tsp of date molasses or blackstrap molasses as a substitute

Instructions:

Mix all ingredients together. Refrigerate