Category: News

Shamir just released a new album, Cataclysm, in March, but he’s already ready for more. He announced an upcoming self-titled album back in July, and now he is back with a personal new preview of it, “Running.” He says of the song:

“‘Running’ is a song I wrote about a time in my life when I was a part of a toxic friend group where I was the only non-cis person. The song is from the perspective of me now realizing how much it affected my mental health after being a few years removed and realizing how much I was dulling myself down so I did not stick out any more than I already did — and also how that directly made me experience gender dysphoria for the first time ever.”

Press materials indicate that Shamir “re-imagines ’90s pop and rock for the modern world” and suggests it is “his most accessible album since 2015’s debut Ratchet.” That aesthetic description applies to this indie-leaning track. Shamir’s explanation of the single is also reflected on the hook, on which he sings, “Done giving up my light / just to stay in the dark / Can’t navigate unless I / lose my religion, lose my sight / running with you through the night.”

He also previously said of naming his album Shamir, “I felt like it didn’t need a name, cuz it’s the record that’s most me.”

Watch the “Running” video above.

Shamir is out 10/2 via Shamir. Pre-order it here.

As New York drill’s popularity rises, it appears the subgenre has attracted the attention of some bigger name artists who are ready to jump on the train. ASAP Ferg and Lil Wayne, from New York and New Orleans respectively, are the latest artists to zero in on the burgeoning phenomenon by way of guest appearances on Jay Gwuapo‘s new song, “No Ceillings.”

“No Ceilings” is, of course, the name of a well-known Wayne mixtape, which makes him an appropriate addition to the Axl Beats-produced track. Meanwhile, Ferg takes the train from Harlem to Brooklyn to join the festivities, fitting right in along song the crooning of Wayne and Gwuapo. Wayne runs the anchor leg with a warp speed verse that finds him maintaining his energy from Funeral and the “What’s Poppin” remix — both of which feel like they came out ten years ago, but actually dropped this year.

Gwuapo, who turns just 19 years old this year, was profiled in XXL for its “What I Do” freestyle series. He went viral in 2018 with his song “Downbad,” accumulating millions of streams on Spotify and YouTube, and released his debut album From Nothing Pt. 1 in 2019 on Polo Grounds/RCA Records.

Listen to Jay Gwuapo’s “No Ceilings” featuring ASAP Ferg and Lil Wayne above.

On Twitter, conservative pundit and billionaire defender Tomi Lahren has been tweeting pro-Trump messages like, “The only way @realDonaldTrump loses in November is if the Dems get their way with mail-in ballot fraud and the ‘all you can vote’ buffet” and “The average American has a voice in Trump’s America and the forgotten American will come out in droves in November!” But on Cameo, she called the president a “jackass.”

“Because President Trump is wise like an owl, or as you guys would say in Hindi – I hope I’m pronouncing this right – President Trump is wise like an ullu. I hope I said that right,” Lahren said in a video that was first posted to the website where C-list celebrities thrive before going viral elsewhere. As noted by the BBC, “In popular perception ‘ullu,’ the Hindi word for owl, has come to be associated with someone who’s an idiot or not very bright.” This was all part of comedy writer Ali-Asghar Abedi’s plan:

“I paid conservative commentator Tomi Lahren $85 to call President Trump a jackass. To be clear, she didn’t actually say ‘jackass’: she said ‘ulloo,’ which literally means ‘owl’ in Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi. But colloquially ‘ulloo’ means ‘jackass’ and the term is only used pejoratively in India. That’s right — Tomi sold out, albeit unknowingly, for just $85. What price dignity, eh?”

Abedi admits that the goof was “juvenile,” but “given that the Republican National Convention may be beyond satire, pranking the likes of Lahren may be one of the few ways we can derive comedy from this absurd event.” It could have just as easily been “Ben Shapiro, Jesse Watters, Mark Levin, Sarah Palin or Kimberly Guifoyle,” Abedi writes, although none of them are on Cameo. You can get Sean Spicer for $199, though. Or if that’s too pricey for a goof, the Chicks on the Right will only set you back $37.

That’s money horribly spent.

(Via BBC and the Independent)

While the RNC poured sugar on America on Wednesday night, The Daily Show host Trevor Noah joined the NBA in calling for change for what’s truly happening in the U.S. In doing so, Noah compared the Kenosha police shooting of Jacob Blake (who was left paralyzed after being shot seven times in the back) to the treatment of Kyle Rittenhouse. The latter is a white, 17-year-old vigilante who opened fire on Black Lives Matter protesters (killing two of them) with a semi-automatic rifle. He has since been charged with first-degree intentional homicide. However, he was apprehended by police in a very different manner than Blake, and Noah wants to call attention to this discrepancy.

It’s a heated subject, made even worse by Tucker Carlson eclipsing himself while defending Rittenhouse, with people calling for his Fox News firing as a result. Whereas Noah calls BS on Rittenhouse and his militia buddies for driving to Kenosha to “protect a business” when, really, they must have had other, more violent designs.

“Let me tell you something. Nobody drives into a city with guns because they love someone else’s business that much. That’s some bullshit,” Noah argued. “No one has ever thought, ‘Oh, it’s my solemn duty to pick up a rifle and protect that T.J. Maxx.’ They do it because they’re hoping to shoot someone.”

Noah asks why the unarmed Blake was shot while exiting his vehicle, yet Rittenhouse was peacefully taken into custody after clearly committing an act of violence:

“And while what happened with those shootings last night is tragic, what happened afterwards was illuminating. It really made me wonder why some people get shot seven times in the back, while other people are treated like human beings and reasoned with and taken into custody with no bullets in their bodies.”

Noah further wondered why “warning shots” don’t seem to be a thing, since police brutality incidents appear to escalate from demands to deadly force. “Are we really meant to believe that the only two options a cop has is do nothing or shoot somebody in the back seven times?” he wondered. You can watch the full The Daily Show segment below, but in other Trevor Noah news, he’s spoofing Donald Trump’s 1990s New York Times pro-death-penalty ad about the Central Park Five again. Enjoy this faux-lawyer ad for “Trevor Noah & Associates & Sons Presidential Attorneys.”

Tekashi 69 had a hot return to music after his release from prison, with his Nicki Minaj-assisted “Trollz” hitting No. 1 on the charts after “Gooba” peaked in the third spot. With all he’s been up to (which includes ill-advised and maskless meet-and-greets in the streets), fans have been wondering when his second album will be coming out. It turns out the answer is “soon.” Yesterday, Tekashi announced that his new album is called TattleTales and that it’s coming out next week, on Friday, September 4.

Tekashi says in a video of him walking down a street that he shared on Instagram, “We just landed in Chicago and all that. Yo, I got a huge announcement for y’all: I’m droppin’ the album September 4. TattleTales, the album. I think the killers, the hitters, is over here. Try to keep it down. September 4th. Yo, listen. September 4th, the album’s coming.”

A full tracklist isn’t available at the moment, but pre-order links reveal that album will feature 13 tracks and run for about 32 minutes. Included on the release are the four singles Tekashi has released in 2020: “Gooba,” “Trollz,” “Yaya,” and “Punani.”

Check out the TattleTales album art below.

TattleTales is out 9/4 via 6ix9ine. Pre-order it here.

In her March video for “Never Worn White,” Katy Perry revealed that she was pregnant with her and Orlando Bloom’s first child. Now, the pair have revealed that their daughter, Daisy Dove Bloom, was born.

The announcement was made on UNICEF’s Instagram page, after which Perry and Bloom (both UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors) re-shared the post on their own pages. The image is a black-and-white photo of Daisy’s hand holding onto Bloom’s thumb, with Perry holding her daughter’s hand. After declaring that they are “floating with love and wonder from the safe and healthy arrival of our daughter,” they went on to explain how not all mothers around the world are as fortunate as they are to have access to adequate healthcare. They also set up a donation page to “help every mother and newborn get the care they need.”

Read the full post below.

“We are floating with love and wonder from the safe and healthy arrival of our daughter.

But we know we’re the lucky ones and not everyone can have a birthing experience as peaceful as ours was. Communities around the world are still experiencing a shortage of healthcare workers and every eleven seconds a pregnant woman or newborn dies, mostly from preventable causes. Since COVID-19 many more newborn lives are at risk because of the increased lack of access to water, soap, vaccines and medicines that prevent diseases. As parents to a newborn, this breaks our hearts, as we empathize with struggling parents now more than ever.

As UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors, we know UNICEF is there, on the ground, doing whatever it takes to make sure every expecting mother has access to a trained health worker and access to quality healthcare. In celebration of the heart we know our daughter already has, we have set up a donation page to celebrate DDB’s arrival. By supporting them, you are supporting a safe start to life and reimagining a healthier world for every child. We hope your [heart] can bloom with generosity.

Gratefully-

Katy & Orlando.”

One of Stephen Colbert’s responsibilities as The Late Show host is to stay up to date with the news, but you can’t blame him for not watching the Republican National Convention. Seeing the not-coked-out photos of Donald Trump, Jr. online is good enough for him, thank you very much. Colbert opened Wednesday night’s episode of The Late Show with a confession: “I did not watch much of the convention tonight. And fullest disclosure: I did not watch any of it.” But you missed… a sh*t-ton of flags.

“Because right now in America, we’re facing a global pandemic that has killed 180,000 Americans, heavily armed Rambo wannabes are murdering people in our streets, the strongest hurricane in the history of the Gulf Coast is making landfall as I speak, and the RNC’s message is: Who’s up for four more years?” Colbert said. He knows that not watching the RNC means “I didn’t do my job tonight,” but “I feel great about it”:

“Why should we pay attention to what they’re saying if none of what they’re saying tonight is about what’s happening in America right now? Why should we watch their reality show if it doesn’t reflect our reality? Why subject ourselves to their lies that stick to your soul like hot tar? Lies like: Donald Trump cares whether you live or die.”

Colbert later covered the Trump administration pressuring the CDC to change coronavirus testing guidelines and the shooting of Jacob Blake. “That is why voting in November is so important,” he said. “Because Donald Trump does not care if you live or die of COVID, or racism, as long as he wins.” Watch the clip above.

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” is more explicit than most No. 1 songs, which is a challenge for radio. People want to hear the song on their favorite stations, but many of its lyrics aren’t suitable for the airwaves. So, as artists often do, Cardi recorded a clean version of the tracks, replacing the lyric “wet-ass p*ssy” with “wet and gushy.” Now Cardi has revealed that she doesn’t care for that change at all.

She guested on Australia’s Kyle And Jackie O Show recently, and she and the hosts got to talking about “WAP.” Kyle asked Cardi for a reminder of what the clean version of the titular lyric was, and she responded, “‘Wet and gushy.’ Ugh, I don’t even like saying it.” The hosts insisted the clean version comes across as grosser to them than the explicit original, and Cardi added, “I would have had to replace it with, ‘Now from the top, make it drop, bounce that big ol’ booty,’ because that was the only thing that rhymed. It was really hard for me to clean this song up because nobody could convince me to keep ‘gushy,’ because I hate the word ‘gushy.’ Ugh!”

Listen to the full interview here.

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

John David Washington’s first credited role is technically “Student in Harlem Classroom” in Malcolm X, starring his Oscar-winning father, but his first credited role where his character has a name was Ballers. He starred on the HBO series alongside another football player-turned-actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who gave John “The David” Washington some helpful advice before he started filming Christopher Nolan’s Tenet.

“Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson gave me some great advice before he sent me off to the grad school of Nolan. He said, ‘Make sure you eat and stay hydrated.’ He always was telling me to hydrate when we were shooting Ballers,” Washington told Total Film. “I used to think it was funny, but I see what he means now. Hydration is key when it comes to that stuff, man.” You’d need water if you had to eat Robert Pattinson’s dry-ass pasta, too.

Washington also discussed Nolan’s audition process, or lack thereof:

“I guess I never looked at it like an audition process. I’m sure it was, but it never felt that way in the initial meeting. I was informed that Christopher Nolan wanted to meet me, so I appeared at his office, and we talked for several hours about everything and anything but the movie, really. It was like a first date, ‘getting to know you’ thing. It was like: ‘Are you cool?’”

It was love at first impossible-to-spoil script.

(Via Total Film)

The Portland Trail Blazers and the Los Angeles Lakers were scheduled to play Game 5 of their first-round series on Wednesday, but that contest and all other games were officially put on hold as players chose to sit out in protest of the recent police shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man who was trying to break up a fight in Kenosha, Wisconsin last weekend.

Damian Lillard was already going to miss that contest anyway after suffering a right knee sprain against the Lakers on Monday night, and his status for the remainder of the series was unclear even if the Blazers were able to extend it to a Game 6 with a win on Wednesday.

Given the latest developments and the uncertainty surrounding the remainder of the season, Lillard is reportedly returning to Portland on Thursday for further evaluations on his injured knee, according to the team.

Lillard had been spectacular during his time in Orlando, leading Portland through a gritty eight-game regular-season gauntlet to earn their spot in the postseason and delivering several unbelievable performances that earned him MVP of the seeding games.

Lillard and the Blazers certainly made the most of their opportunity with a healthy Jusuf Nurkic back in the lineup and in the process reminded us just how dangerous they can be at full strength. Unfortunately, they appeared to have run out of gas in their first-round series against the Lakers after a stunning victory in Game 1.

Now, Lillard and the Blazers will look toward an uncertain future as the fate of both the current season and next season hang in the balance as the players and owners work collectively to find a way forward.