Category: News

Zion Williamson may have been the most anticipated rookie in a generation, but it was another incoming player who stole the show among his draft class this season. Grizzlies rookie Ja Morant was absolutely sensational throughout the entirety of his first season in Memphis, which earned him a near-unanimous vote for Rookie of the Year.

The award voters were told to only consider each players’ performances until the shutdown in March, but that certainly didn’t stop Morant from continuing his stellar play in the Bubble in Orlando, where he helped lead the Grizzlies all the way to a gutsy play-in game against the Blazers, where they eventually fell.

Nonetheless, the many achievements in his young career deserve to be celebrated, and what better way to do that than to have an adorable baby animal named after you? That’s what the Memphis Zoo decided to do this week when they named their newest giraffe calf after Morant, with the perfectly fitting “Ja Raffe.” See for yourself.

We have some new hooves on the African Veldt. His name is Ja Raffe to celebrate @memgrizz’s @JaMorant winning @NBA Rookie of the year. Read more in our latest ZooNews Blog. #memphiszoo #GrindCity #giraffe @zoos_aquariums #babyanimal pic.twitter.com/nwPK8olK9x

— Memphis Zoo (@MemphisZoo) November 19, 2020

Ja and the rest of the Grizz will look to build on a promising season when the new campaign kicks off next month, and depending on how the rest of the roster plays, perhaps the Memphis Zoo can start a trend and start naming other new arrivals after guys on the roster. Until then, we’ll be keeping close tabs on both Ja’s and their progress in the coming season.

Big Sean continues to roll out videos for his acclaimed comeback album Detroit 2. The latest is the eerie, psychedelic “Wolves” featuring Post Malone, which finds the two stars contemplating the circumstances that left them with a predator’s instincts for survival. Much of the video is shot on a massive soundstage, where the two perform and actors channel spooky characters reflecting Sean’s sometimes dangerous upbringing.

Detroit 2 is Sean’s first new album since 2018’s I Decided and also features appearances from Anderson .Paak, Dom Kennedy, Jhene Aiko, Lil Wayne, Nipsey Hussle, Travis Scott, Wale, and Young Thug. Before recording, Sean stepped away from the rap game to recover his mental health and in the lead-up to the album’s release was forthcoming in interviews about how depression and anxiety nearly got the better of him despite his cocksure rap persona. When he came back, he did so with a vengeance, not just dropping a swarm of videos from his own project but also popping up on tracks from the likes of Benny The Butcher, Hit-Boy, Freddie Gibbs, and Nas.

Meanwhile, Post Malone has launched his own show on Facebook revolving around one of his favorite pastimes: Beer pong. Uproxx’s Derrick Rossignol interviewed him about it; you can check that out here.

Watch Big Sean’s “Wolves” video featuring Post Malone above.

One of the biggest revelations of this year in the NBA was how Jaylen Brown, the 24-year-old Celtics wing just starting his second contract, took on a more sizable role in the players’ association, as well as a voice of leadership around the league more broadly. It was no surprise then when GQ decided to profile Brown, or that Brown was brutally honest in the interview.

The whole story contains incredible nuggets from Brown and is worth reading, but one part sticks out most if you’re an NBA fan keeping track of Brown from afar. When asked about the social justice initiatives and overall activism from the league in 2020 and beyond, Brown responded that it can’t stop now.

Via Michael Pina of GQ:

“I think the NBA needs to make that a lifestyle,” he says. “It’s getting harder and harder for us to accept and entertain people who feed into our demise and then go back and look in the face of our communities and not hear their tears. Not see the struggle that they deal with every day and not want to help.”

Brown’s inability to not say what he’s thinking gets revealed a few times during our conversation. He’s not afraid of conflict. At one point, I casually refer to civil rights—a term that Brown evidently objects to, particularly that first part.

“Civility is what we were asking for in the past,” says Brown. “I think civility is settling for less. And I think we need to change that energy.”

Many will remember that Brown was in the streets protesting much of the summer, including driving from Boston down to Atlanta by himself to be part of marches in the southern city. Brown also was and remains among the key voices in the union and, as writer Pina outlines in this story, a leader in the aftermath of Jacob Blake’s shooting as the NBA determined a course forward.

The NBA’s partner league, the WNBA, has long made activism core to its mission, and this season upped the ante to full-blown political organizing and collective action. Perhaps the NBA has more roadblocks to doing the same, but if Brown believes it, you can bet it will be heard around the league.

(GQ)

Click to download here.

Tony’s got a list and he’s checking it twice, on a very Sopranos Christmas episode.

On this week’s episode of Pod Yourself A Gun, Rachel Fisher, host of the Hollywood Crime Scene podcast, joins Matt and & Vince to talk about The Sopranos season 3 episode 10, “…To Save Us All From Satan’s Power.”

That Jesus guy – he was the real gangster. He had wisemen wandering all across the desert to bring him frankincense, myrrh, and gold, just for being born. Marone! That’s a good earner.

Meanwhile, before the Satriale’s Christmas party, Tony has to schlep all over town finding a new Santa to replace the snitch friend he murdered, taking care of his good-for-nothing sister’s Russian, and transferring some “cannolis.”

In a truly delightful moment on the pod, Rachel explains to Matt and Vince that the cannolis Tony was transferring were not food. We also listen to some voicemails and discuss Jackie Jr’s motorboating technique. It’s a great mother-jumping episode.

Stop writing that contemporary Christian rock album and start writing a five star review on Apple Podcasts. (-written by Brent Flyberg)

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Barack Obama stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live on Thursday night to promote his new memoir, The Promised Land, and while the former president was prepared to talk about his personal life, he clearly wasn’t expecting how personal things would get. In the middle of a conversation on Donald Trump and his crazy conspiracy theories, Kimmel pivoted to a theory of his own about Obama’s love life that came way out of left field. In a nutshell, Kimmel wanted to know (after the 18:00 min mark above) if Obama and his wife Michelle got busy the night that SEAL Team 6 took down Osama bin Laden.

The question understandably caught Obama off guard, who sat there stunned for a moment while Kimmel explained his reasoning. “When I read the book and you were talking about hearing people outside the White House chanting ‘USA, USA, USA,’ I had an image in my head,” Kimmel quipped to Obama who quickly gathered his senses and even leaned into the gag. Via Vulture:

“I suspect that she was asleep because the truth of the matter is, most of the time, by the time I was done working, she’d be snoozing,” Obama laughed. Look, a queen needs her beauty rest! “You don’t have to make excuses, it’s okay,” Kimmel lets him off. “I experience the same thing.” But Obama keeps it real: “It’s not an excuse; it’s a lament.”

Awkward questions about his sex life aside, Obama’s interview included several digs at Trump, including how Navy SEALs might need to drag him out of the White House. This also including the clip below where Kimmel asked if Obama made his memoir 700 pages long so Trump couldn’t read it. Not missing a beat, Obama offered a witty retort on how it wouldn’t even take that much effort.

(Via Jimmy Kimmel Live)

In his first full season in Los Angeles, Anthony Davis accomplished exactly what he set out to do and helped lead the Lakers to a championship. In the process, he added an undeniable sense of credibility to an already stellar career and laid the groundwork for success alongside LeBron for the next few years.

So it makes little sense to read anything into the fact that he’s being meticulous about his new contract with the team. Davis isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, despite opting out of his current deal and technically entering free agency. The Lakers know he’s planning on re-signing. The question now is for how much and how long.

According to the latest reports, Davis doesn’t feel the need to rush anything, despite the free agency moratorium officially opening at 6 p.m. ET on Friday. No, Davis will apparently take his time to consider both his immediate future with the team and a framework for whatever might come after.

Via Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN:

Klutch Sports CEO and Davis’ agent, Rich Paul, will be in contact with Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka after 6 p.m. Friday, sources said, but Davis plans to wait minimally through Thanksgiving as he considers his options on the length and structure of maximum contract deals.

Davis, 27, has several possible scenarios on a new deal with the Lakers, including a three-year, $106 million deal that would include a player option on the 2022-23 season — a structure that would align Davis with the end of LeBron James’ deal.

Davis could do a two-year, $68 million deal with an option after next year — or longer deals for four years ($146.7M) and five years ($189M).

It’s unclear exactly which way Davis is leaning, whether he’d like to stay in L.A. long-term or to keep his options open and see exactly where LeBron is physically after next year — although if their championship run in Orlando is any indication, he’s shown little sign of slowing down despite his age after winning his fourth Finals MVP.

Still, a lot could change between now and then, and LeBron himself opted for shorter-term deals during his last stint in Cleveland, which ultimately opened the door for his signing with the Lakers. Regardless, fans in L.A. don’t seem to have anything to worry about with Davis.

(Via ESPN)

Luh Kel dropped his album L.O.V.E. back in October and ahead of its release the rising R&B star invited Uproxx for an exclusive behind the scene peek at the making of his music video for “Feen” featuring Trippie Redd.

The set I arrived at was located in one of Hollywood’s elusive canyons where it was cold, windy, dusty, with a spread of million-dollar cars on the lot. When I got there, Trippie was shooting his part in the cave, lit by a crackling fire. While Trippie shot his part of the visual, I sat with Luh Kel, who was on day three of the shoot, and he told me more about the creation of “Feen.”

“The meaning of the song is just feigning about a girl when she not around you and you want her around,” he told me in between shots. “I got Trippie Redd on it. I felt like it matched his vibe so we sent him the song. He got on it. Sent it back and we started shooting the video. This is my biggest budget video. I’m flying in the air and getting captured by a gust of wind with a bunch of video effects.”

Directed by Matt Zoley, “Feen” finds Luh Kel dehydrated in the middle of the desert, yearning for his love and reminiscing about the good times before being appeased with a flowing of water that turns into a clear homage to Busta Rhymes’ music video “What’s It Gonna Be?!” Kel and the woman he’s been desiring then ride off in a shiny Lamborghini to a dark cave where Trippie lets off his verse over a warm wood fire while surrounded by angels.

“I recorded it with Scott Storch. He made the beat,” he added. “We was in the studio in February and now it’s October. Trippie just sent the verse last month.”

Luh Kel’s album L.O.V.E. also features additional production from Scott Storch and the 18-year-old musician says he’s just trying to “bring love back into the world” with the project.

Watch Luh Kel’s music video for “Feen” featuring Trippie Redd above.

Chadwick Boseman’s death is one of those moments we will probably always remember where we were when we heard the news. It’s not important what we were doing, it’s just important we all know what we were doing. It felt like a gut punch in a year where we’ve all been punched in the gut so often we didn’t realize there was anything left to hurt. I avoided writing about his death at the time because I simply wasn’t prepared to face facts. Basically, I’ll address that when I have more headspace to properly process what this means. In a world surrounded by so much grief, it was too difficult to add this on top of everything else. Besides, he still had another movie coming out, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, that people in the know were describing as perhaps his finest performance. Chadwick Boseman was gone, but there was still a sense he had one last gift to give us before he said his final goodbye. And I guess I wasn’t ready to say goodbye until we got to see that one remaining gift.

Which is why Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is such a difficult movie to watch. While watching, it’s impossible not to face facts: this is it. And, my goodness, Boseman is just so alive in this movie. This is not an “understated” performance. It’s like watching an athlete give it all on the field and we are left there wondering how this man isn’t just completely exhausted. Yeah, turns out Boseman did have one last gift for us. And, my gosh, he didn’t disappoint. He’s pure dynamite. It’s devastating.

Based on August Wilson’s 1982 play of the same name, it’s set around blues legend Ma Rainey (Viola Davis, who is incredible) at her recording session in 1920s Chicago – which is fraught with problems and drama. Boseman plays Levee, a trumpeter in Ma Rainey’s band who doesn’t understand why he isn’t getting more attention for his musical talents. Boseman’s performance of Levee makes him both unbearably likable, mixed with just enough frightening ambition that leaves us wondering what Levee might be capable of doing.

But there’s no getting past that, besides some pretty nifty and stylized opening credits, this looks and feels like a play. And, look, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Normally I do prefer movies based on plays to feel a little more … open. But, here, especially under the unique circumstances, it becomes all about the acting. And the thing is, I probably won’t be saying near enough as I should be about Viola Davis’s performance. She brings it. But I know I’ll be watching many, many more great Viola Davis performances over the coming years. It just was never lost on me, while watching Boseman, that this was it. And I guess we’ll never know if he knew if this was it or not, but, I’ve used the word gift a few times already, but it truly is. To get this one last great performance as a way to say goodbye to this man so many people love, well there’s no other way to say it.

It just feels like in any other year we’d still be mourning Boseman. But this year, well, we still need to just get through it all before we can truly go back and look at what we all lost. But, in the meantime, we get to celebrate this great actor one more time. Who, here, is so full of life. Playing a character who is full of joy, pain, talent and anger. Again, it’s the kind of performance you just want to applaud. You can kind of envision it, the cast coming out to take their bows as Boseman steps forward one last time. And then Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom ended … and that was it. This whole time, thinking, well, there’s still one more movie coming, that is now over. It’s desperately sad. It’s the end of a career cut far too soon. But we won’t forget. And we won’t forget this one last shining jewel of a performance. And for that, we should all be grateful.

‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ will stream via Netflix on November 25th. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Here is something that I believe: Robert Englund should have won the Oscar over Michael Douglas in 1988 for his performance as Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. No, really. The “greed is good” speech from Wall Street is fine and whatever, but it’s no “welcome to primetime, bitch” or “What’s wrong, Joey? Feeling tongue-tied?” Unfortunately, we can’t go back in time and take away Douglas’ Oscar, but we can return to the 1980s through Stranger Things, which cast Englund for season four.

Englund is set to play Victor Creel, “a disturbed and intimidating man who is imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital for a gruesome murder in the 1950s,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. The horror movie icon is one of several new additions to the Netflix hit, along with Tom Wlaschiha (Jaqen H’ghar from Game of Thrones) as a Russian prison guard who “befriends” Chief Hopper and Jamie Campbell Bower (young Grindelwald in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1) as “Peter Ballard, a caring man who works as an orderly at a psychiatric hospital. Tired of the brutality he witnesses day after day, Peter may be poised to take a stand.” Other new cast members include:

-Nikolaj Djuricko as Yuri, a seedy and unpredictable Russian smuggler who loves bad jokes, cold hard cash, and crunchy peanut butter;

-Mason Dye as Jason Carver, a rich sports star whose perfect world begins to unravel in the face of a new evil;

-Sherman Augustus as Lt. Colonel Sullivan, a no-nonsense man who believes he knows how to stop the evil in Hawkins.

Hopefully all the extra time between Stranger Things seasons has allowed the Duffer Brothers to write at least one “on a scale from 1 to 10, your pain is going to be an Eleven, bitch”-type joke for Englund. But, y’know, better than that.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

Matt Berninger worked with an esteemed roster of collaborators on his debut solo album Serpentine Prison, and now he has added another after the fact: He got Future Islands to contribute a new remix of “One More Second,” and they really put their mark on the track.

It immediately sounds more like a Future Islands song thanks to the band’s signature persistent bass sound in the opening and then throughout. Another major element of the band’s sound, soaring synths, is also used in full effect here to really make it sound like Berninger’s vocals are laid atop a Future Islands track.

Berninger is a fan, as he said of the re-worked track, “Every time I put on Future Islands my impression of the human condition improves. Their remix of ‘One More Second’ kills me.”

Fans wanting to learn more about the collaboration can look forward to tomorrow, as Berninger and Future Islands’ Samuel T. Herring will be talking about it on Instagram Live.

Berninger recently told Uproxx about what it was like recording Serpentine Prison with Booker T. Jones, saying, “We moved really fast. We recorded everything in 14 days including almost all the overdubs. He would say, ‘Matt we got that one, let’s move on to another fish.’ He’s like, ‘We don’t need to keep catching this tuna. Let’s go find a shark.’ He moves fast.”

Listen to the Future Islands remix of “One More Second” above, compare it to the original version below, and revisit our interview with Berninger here. Also check out our recent chat with Future Islands here.