Category: News

Both G Flip and Mxmtoon garnered much attention last year after they released their respective anticipated projects. G Flip shared her debut LP About Us while Mxmtoon unveiled the pair of EPs Dawn and Dusk. After sharing mutual admiration for each other’s music, the two singers decided to join together for a breezy collaboration. Tapping producer Rostam, G Flip and Mxmtoon debut the single “Queen” alongside a powerful video.

Directed by Adam Kiers, the “Queen” video is dedicated to strong women everywhere. Explaining her inspiration behind the track, G Flip said:

“‘Queen’ was written about the strong women around me, the queens that raised me and the queens I’ve met through my years. My idea of a queen is not necessarily linked to gender; queens come in all forms and walks of life. To me a queen embodies power and strength; they embrace all they are fiercely yet gracefully. The song was written one sunny day in LA, I was chillin’ on Rostam’s lovely white couch and he turned around to me and said ‘how about we write a song about Queens’ and I replied with ‘f*ck yeah!’”

Echoing G Flip’s excitement about their collaboration Mxmtoon added, “So happy to be a part of ‘Queen’ with G! She and Rostam were such a joy to work with and so so much fun to collaborate with on creative as well. I’m so glad that it’s still possible to make art and music with someone even when they’re on the other side of the world, and I’m lucky that I got the opportunity to feature on G’s song. ‘Queen’ is a power anthem for any person, and I’m so excited for people to love it as much as we do!”

Watch Mxmtoon and G Flip’s “Queen” video above.

Incoming Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush is fresh off calling out GOP lawmakers for throwing tantrums over metal detectors at the U.S. Capitol in the wake of the failed MAGA coup. She then headed into House proceedings where she proceeded to light up those of her Republican colleagues who are steadfastly refusing to support impeaching Donald Trump for the second time. As one Twitter user noted, she didn’t even need a full 30 seconds to let her speech fly, fast and furious.

“Madam Speaker, St. Louis and I rise in support of the article of impeachment against Donald J. Trump,” Bush proclaimed. “If we fail to remove a white supremacist president who incited a white supremacist insurrection, it’s communities like Missouri’s 1st District that suffer the most… The 117th Congress must understand that we have a mandate to legislate in defense of Black lives. The first step in that process is to root out white supremacy, starting with impeaching the White-Supremacist-In-Chief.”

Cori Bush’s address was followed by “boos” from some Republicans.

Bush was joined in her sentiments by fellow Democrat Cedric Richmond (from New Orleans), who’s headed into the Biden administration as a senior advisor. He dropped a fiery speech with a special flourish at the end.

“Some of my colleagues, some of which may be co-conspirators,” Richmond declared. “Let me suggest to them; stand up Man up. Woman up. And defend this constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic including Donald J. Trump. In the first impeachment, Republicans said we didn’t need to impeach him because he learned his lesson. Well, we said if we didn’t remove him, he’d do it again. Simply put, we told you so… Richmond out.”

That’s quite a mic drop.

Trump’s been bleeding allies left and right since he incited a violent uprising on Capitol Hill last week, but he’s now starting to lose the support of his favorite news network.

The talking heads on Fox & Friends — Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, and Ainsley Earhardt — gathered to break down the Democrat’s push to impeach Trump after he welcomed his MAGA mob to D.C. and told them to march on the Capitol. Currently, the House is voting on impeachment articles — a vote expected to pass — and there are rumors that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might also be open to the idea of voting Trump out of office. While Kilmeade crowed over the optics of impeaching the president with just a week left in his term, fellow host Doocy held nothing back in condemning the network’s beloved presidential cash cow for his actions in recent days.

“If a Democratic president did what happened last week, would the Republicans in the House and Senate vote to impeach him if they could? The answer is yes,” Doocy said.

An exasperated Kilmeade still seemed confused as to why Congress would be hung up on the idea of impeachment, even with Trump walking out the door, to which Doocy responded, “I think the members of Congress just want some accountability.”

Doocy’s distancing from Trump is indicative of a bigger push from pro-establishment Republicans to separate their political agendas from the disgraced outgoing president ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration. Considering Trump is at least indirectly responsible for instigating a coup and stirring up a violent mob to attack members of the House and Senate and impede the democratic process, it seems right that members of his party should want to condemn him — even if it’s just for the optics.

Doocy alluded to that fact, reiterating how damaging the riots and the looting on Capitol Hill was for the morale of the nation, prompting Kilmeade to compare what happened last week to the Black Lives Matter protests happening in places like Portland, Washington last year. Doocy was not having it.

“Brian, I don’t think what they were trying to do in Portland was overthrow democracy,” Doocy clapped back. It’s possibly the only clear condemnation we’ll see from Fox when it comes to the domestic terrorists still supporting Trump so soak it in, folks.

All eyes were on the state of Georgia in recent months when the state flipped blue in the November presidential election. Some of Democrats’ success was thanks to Stacey Abrams‘ Fair Fight organization, which actively fought voter suppression in the state. In order to raise money for the organization ahead of the election, Death Cab For Cutie made a handful of covers available for 24 hours in the form of The Georgia EP. After the fundraiser was wildly successful, raising over $100,000 in a day, the band has now made the EP available on streaming services.

Speaking about the EP’s accomplishment in a video statement to fans, Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard said:

“Because we are so happy with the results of the recent Georgia runoff elections, we have decided to release our EP ‘The Georgia E.P.’ – originally released on Bandcamp for 24 hours in early December – today on all streaming services, so that everybody can take a listen to it. It will also be available soon on peach vinyl, which we’re all very excited about. It’s an EP of covers of acts from Georgia including Neutral Milk Hotel, Vic Chesnutt, R.E.M., TLC, and Cat Power, and we had a blast making it. We raised over $100K for voting rights organization Fair Fight, which we’ve always been big supporters of; we’re really stoked. So, we hope you enjoy it and we hope to see you guys in person very soon.”

Stacey Abrams thanked the band on behalf of Fair Fight for their support following the generous donation. “Fair Fight is grateful for the support of Death Cab for Cutie in our fight for free and fair elections in Georgia and nationwide,” she said. “‘The Georgia E.P.’ helps tell the story of Georgia just as their contributions have helped us write the next chapter.”

Watch Death Cab For Cutie’s video statement above.

The Georgia EP is out now via Atlantic. Get it here.

Death Cab For Cutie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

With The Falcon and the Winter Soldier finally nearing its Disney+ premiere after being delayed by the pandemic, Anthony Mackie is tempering expectations about whether or not the series will see him officially don the mantle of Captain America. While sitting down with The Jess Cagle Show, Mackie downplayed fan assumptions that his character, Sam Wilson/Falcon, will take up the shield despite promotional imagery heavily implying that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Via Collider:

“We don’t know that yet. The show, the idea of the show is basically, you know, and at the end of Endgame, Cap decided he was going into retirement and he asked me if I would take up the shield, but at no point in time did I agree to or say that I would be Captain America,” and went on to enigmatically remark, “So, the show walks the line of who is going to take up the shield and who’s going to be Captain America if Steve isn’t coming back.”

What’s interesting about Mackie’s remarks is that back in March of last year, it was confirmed that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will show Falcon becoming the new Cap. The person who confirmed that information? Anthony Mackie. The Marvel star stopped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where he opened up about the feeling of playing the first Black Captain America on the big screen.

“It is monumental, man. I mean… to have Marvel select a young Black man in America to represent the moniker of Captain America is is unprecedented,” Mackie said. “There’s nothing that can compare to that. There’s – it… it moves me not only that my kids get to see a Black man as Captain America, but all of their friends white, Black, Latino, and Asia can see a Black man as Captain America.”

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier starts streaming March 19 on Disney+.

(Via The Jess Cagle Show)

James Harden pushed all of his chips to the center of the table after the Houston Rockets lost to the Los Angeles Lakers by 17 points on Tuesday night, making it clear that he does not believe the situation in Houston in salvageable. One day later and a report indicates that the Rockets have identified the two offers they view as best, with a decision potentially coming sooner rather than later.

According to Shams Charania and Sam Amick of The Athletic, Houston has a pair of offers on the table. One, from the Philadelphia 76ers, is about what you’d expect: Ben Simmons would be the centerpiece, while the pair report that the two sides “have discussed in potential packages is 2019 first-round pick Matisse Thybulle, with Houston having interest in the defensive-minded forward.”

The other comes from the Brooklyn Nets, and while any players that would be included are up in the air, the report indicates that Brooklyn would include what can only be described as a shocking amount of Draft capital in a deal.

The Nets have prepared a package to Houston for Harden featuring all of their four future first-round picks and three future pick swaps, multiple sources said. This would place significant pressure on the team to win immediately and the potential partnership between two former star teammates in Harden and Kevin Durant. Nets general manager Sean Marks and his front office have built an impactful culture around their players, and have been able to keep strong future flexibility in the process. For the Nets, there could be hesitation to mortgage future assets with this type of ferocity. Brooklyn does not owe any extra firsts or have any owed to it, so it has four firsts and three swaps available.

The players who would get moved almost seem secondary to the fact that seven first-round picks would, to one extent or another, be put on the table in this deal. This is not to besmirch the players who would get moved — Brooklyn has a number of ultra-talented youngsters and guys who can make this work financially — but this would be a case of a team giving up essentially all of its future in order to win right now.

Harden trade rumblings have been going around all season long, but having said that, things seem to be accelerating following Tuesday night. Now, the question is whether things progress to the point where Harden is no longer on the roster before the Rockets play the Spurs on Thursday evening.

Ariana Grande dropped a video for “34+35” a couple months ago, but she’s not done with the song yet. Today, she took to social media to reveal that she’s dropping a remix for the song on Friday. The quick teaser video she shared features three silhouettes with question marks over two of them, suggesting that Grande will be joined by two other artists on the track.

This has prompted much speculation about who Grande got on the song, and Doja Cat’s name was so widely mentioned that she became a trending topic on Twitter. A common theory/hope is that Doja (who features on Positions track “Motive”) and Minaj (with whom Grande has collaborated on multiple occasions) will be revealed as the mystery guests, while others think that it could be Chloe x Halle.

Grande previously discussed the song in an interview on the Zach Sang Show, saying, “I’ve been very nervous about ’34+35′ because I don’t want it to distract from the rest from the album, but I do love it, and sonically, it’s one of my favorite things we’ve ever done.” She also added of the track’s importance to the album, “I just think it’s ridiculous and so funny and stupid. It’s like absolutely absurd. It was just a fun thing. We heard the strings that sounded so like Disney and orchestral and full and pure, and I was like, ‘What is the dirtiest possible most opposing lyrics we could write to this?’”

It was no coincidence that James Harden’s public proclamation that the Houston Rockets “aren’t good enough” to put it together this season came after a blowout loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. According to Kelly Iko of The Athletic, it was in large part a reminder to Harden that the Lakers are playing a different game than the Rockets, with Iko writing that “Harden knows the team as currently constructed can’t defeat the Lakers in a seven-game series.”

The loss, Iko reports, reinforced Harden’s urgency to “maximize the window he still has” to win the first championship of his career. To that end, the story states that the Brooklyn Nets remain at the top of Harden’s list of landing places, though Iko reports other contending teams would still be acceptable to Harden.

“We’re just not good enough,” Harden told reporters postgame on Tuesday. “Chemistry, talent-wise, everything. And it was clear the last few games. From the beginning of the game, they’re just a veteran team obviously, championship team, and one of the best teams we have in this league.”

Since Harden privately asked out, reporting has confirmed that Houston’s asking price is quite high, including likely a blue-chip young player in addition to multiple first-round picks. It’s hard to say that Harden’s play and his actions have raised his value — he’s averaging 24.8 points per game, the lowest he’s averaged since joining the Rockets — but now, Harden is doubling down in order to secure a trade and put himself in better position to beat the defending champions.

Since President Donald Trump’s Twitter account was “permanently suspended” due to “the risk of further incitement of violence,” most of his children have stayed quiet on the social media platform. Ivanka hasn’t tweeted anything since referring to the MAGA rioters storming the Capitol building as “American Patriots,” Eric is one week sober from sharing misinformation online, and there’s no other Trump kids to speak of, except Donald Trump, Jr. He’s been on a roll lately, paying tribute to casino magnate (and Trump donor) Sheldon Adelson, retweeting numerous conservative voices, and presumably mourning Parler, the right-wing Twitter. But even while he continues to retweet himself, DTJ is looking to “blow Twitter away” and save “free speech in America.”

He just needs some help from the world’s richest man.

“Wanted to come up with something to deal with nonsense on the censorship that’s going on right now, and obviously only targeted one way. Why doesn’t Elon Musk create a social media platform?” Trump, Jr. said on Instagram (where his dad is also blocked). “I mean, this guy put manned people into space. He did so privately. He took on big government and did it better, cheaper, faster than they ever could. This is the guy to do it.” (The president, according to the president’s son, is apparently not “big government.”)

Don Jr. said he considered Mr. Musk to be the right person to stand up against Twitter after the tech mogul took on “West Coast high tech” for turning into the “de facto arbiter of free speech.”

He suggested that the new platform can regulate against hate speech or violence but at the same time provide a platform to neutral commentators and not turn into a “leftist organization” that de-platforms people with conservative thoughts. “I am not looking for a conservative echo chamber, I want a platform to argue my ideas versus someone else’s and not just people in a place telling me what I want to hear,” Mr. Trump said.

If there’s one thing the internet needs, it’s more places where strangers can argue with each other. Anyway, let’s see if Elon is interested:

He’s watching Rick and Morty again.

(Via the Independent)

In addition to a jam-packed schedule of five games throughout Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the NBA announced multiple new ways to honor the late Dr. King next Monday.

First, that will include an ad spot featuring audio of an old speech of King’s imploring people to “learn how to love” set atop images of NBA players like Bradley Beal leading marches this summer during the Black Lives Matter uprisings and players in the Bubble with messages on their jerseys and demonstrating together.

In addition, the league released new warm-up shirts with the message “Honor King” splotched across the back and a line from his famous “I Have A Dream” speech of his on the front: “Now is the time to make justice a reality for all.”

Prior to tip-off of the games, Caron Butler will reprise his role as host of a virtual roundtable discussing Dr. King’s vision and legacy in the context of the modern social justice movement. Butler will be joined by NBA lifer Wayne Embry, former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, and Terri Freeman of the National Civil Rights Museum.

The slate of five games to commemorate the day is highlighted by a Bucks-Nets and Warriors-Lakers double-header on TNT.