Category: News

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

ITEM NUMBER ONE — It’s about to get pretty ugly out there

Well, guess what: We’re almost out of shows. I did not expect to type that sentence at all when this year started. I expected to have the opposite problem, a waterfall of televised content tumbling down onto me in a neverending rush, battering me about the head and face as I gasped for air, or perhaps some other slightly less dramatic but still accurate analogy. I kind of can’t believe we’re here. But we are. It’s going to get weird.

We’ve seen it with movies already. This has been a summer without a box office, not because the movies aren’t finished, but because studios want to hold them until people can pack into the theaters to see them. It’s a little infuriating to know that the ninth Fast & Furious movie, with its magnet plane and possible haunt to the cosmos, is done and sitting in a damn vault somewhere and I can’t have it until next year. I know it’s probably not in a vault. I know it’s just a file on a computer. But if I pretend it’s in a vault, I can pretend we’re going to steal it like they stole the vault at the end of Fast Five, complete with millions of dollars in property damage to downtown Rio de Janeiro. I need this. Do not take it from me.

Television has been scooting along in a more normal fashion, though, largely because things were filmed and banked and could be distributed through the normal channels to the content-starved homebound populace. That reservoir is quickly drying up. A look ahead at the coming premieres is… it’s kind of dicey. HBO has Lovecraft Country, Amazon has season two of The Boys, and Netflix claims to have a mountain of produced shows hidden away, which a) includes a new cartoon in which an animated Jake Johnson cusses at a youth basketball team, which has all of my support; and b) makes me picture a scenario where they’re the only outlet with new shows in a few months, and they start holding us hostage and extorting us to release them. Real supervillain stuff. Headquarters in a hollowed-out volcano and everything. Can’t rule it out.

The big takeaway here is that we’re all going to have to switch it up and start some rewatches if we want to stay sane. Or continue our rewatches. It’s not as easy as it sounds. There’s an art to a rewatch. Some shows work better with multiple viewings than others. There are some shows I loved very much that I never want to watch all the way through again. An example will help: The Americans is a near-perfect show. I would recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it and needs something to watch. I never want to watch it again, though. It was so stressful. I’m convinced it took six months off the end of my life. But it’s good. Same with a show like The Leftovers. God, did I love The Leftovers. But do I want to rewatch a show about mass sudden death and the ensuing, society-wide grieving process during a real-life pandemic? No. No, I do not.

So then, like, what? You can tell from the image at the top of this page that I’m going to mention Justified again. That’s a perfectly rewatchable show. It’s smart and funny and cool and doesn’t rely on twists that lose their punch a second time through. The Sopranos is always a good choice. So are hangout sitcoms like New Girl and Happy Endings. I started Watchmen again a few weeks ago, just flicking on an episode here and there, and that has proven to be both timely and a blast. Any show that lets Regina King do this is good for multiple viewings in my book.

You know what isn’t working so well for me right now, surprisingly? Parks and Recreation. It’s one of my all-time favorite shows, one I’ve watched straight through a few times, one I used to leave on all day while I did other things, one that has occasionally soothed me to sleep. But something feels weird about it now. Maybe it’s the boundless optimism clanging against the present situation. Maybe it’s the sting of watching people get through difficult situations by being together in small enclosed rooms. I still haven’t put my finger on it, not exactly. It’s very strange and yet not even a top 100 strangest part of the year. I hate it.

This is what I mean, though. We’re all going to have to think through this rewatch situation more carefully than we expect. Some shows we think we’ll turn to are going to hit a little different right now. Some shows are just not meant to be watched a second time. It’s going to get really weird out there, really soon. I’ve been watching an episode of Columbo from before I was born, which, to be fair, is not a brand new development, but the pace has picked up significantly. There’s going to come a point before this is all over where this column contains an 800-word screed about the episode where Columbo solves a murder using his knowledge of women’s underpants. I was not ready to hear Peter Falk say the word “panties” even once, let alone many times. In my defense, there’s really no way to prepare for it.

See what I mean about things getting weird? We’re still months away from a vaccine. This is just the tip of the weirdness iceberg. The important thing to remember is that we’re all in this together. And that Regina King rules. Those two things, basically.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Cash those checks, people

There’s this great quote from Michael Caine. Way back in 1987, the veteran actor appeared in Jaws 4, a not very good movie that had no business at all having someone like Michael Caine in it. He was asked about all of this sometime later, as will happen when one conducts many interviews over the course of a long Hollywood career, and replied with this terrific collection of words: “Somebody said, ‘Have you ever seen Jaws 4?’ I said, ‘No. But I’ve seen the house it bought for my mum. It’s fantastic!’”

I bring this up because Quibi is still at it. The fledgling, bite-sized streaming service is still plugging away. There’s that trailer for a new show with Kevin Hart from a few weeks ago. There was a Fugitive show starring Kiefer Sutherland re-announced this week. There was an animated show starring Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds announced this week, too. This week. At the end of July. After about three weeks of progressively worse updates about the state of the company and its disturbing lack of a subscriber base. If Quibi is going to go down, it’s going to go down swinging. Or spending. Definitely spending.

Which brings me back to that Michael Caine quote. I am honestly so proud of the many celebrities who are cashing checks from Quibi this year. Especially the ones who are just signing up to work with the company now. Talk about a no-lose situation. If the show works, you get to be the hero who saved Quibi. If it doesn’t, no one remembers it 10 years from now except for you and maybe the contractor who built your new pool house. Probably not even the contractor. He’s just happy the check cleared, too. Even if Quibi never makes an impression on the entertainment industry, at least it stimulated the economy during a pandemic, I guess.

It’s kind of like… I’ll tell you what it’s kind of like. Before the internet made everything accessible the second it is created, celebrities used to pad their bank accounts by flying overseas and to do commercials for foreign markets. Some of them, because cultural differences are never more pronounced than in frantic 30-second blasts of commercialism, would have seemed weird as hell to American audiences. But no one cared, because they never aired in America. It was just an easy check. That’s Quibi right now. No one is watching, but the money still spends. It’s got to be kind of liberating. Good for them.

Actually, now that I think about it, my feelings about these people padding their income on Quibi’s dime — the celebrities, yes, but also all the writers and crew members and craft service workers — can also be summed up with a Michael Caine quote. A nice little bookend. Take it away, Mike.

The man has a way with words.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — I do not see a situation where it ever comes up in this job, but let’s be clear anyway: Please do not spray me with tear gas

Everyone’s favorite number one boy, Succession’s Kendall Roy himself, actor Jeremy Strong, is about to appear in a movie called The Trial of the Chicago 7, directed by Aaron Sorkin, about the arrest and prosecution of a group of counterculture figures who protested the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. These are the facts, and the facts are important, because the facts provided context for this next blockquote, which is taken from Vanity Fair’s inside look at the film and is freaking astounding.

The most die-hard Method actor was Jeremy Strong, who once worked as Daniel Day-Lewis’s assistant and seems to have inherited his role model’s relish for total immersion. Filming the riot scenes on location in Grant Park, he insisted, before the cameras rolled, that a former Chicago cop playing one of the storm troopers hurl him to the ground before every take. “Jeremy begged me to spray him with real tear gas,” adds Sorkin. He declined.

A few things:

• Please consider this your periodic reminder that actors are very strange people, not always in a bad way, but always in some way
• This raises a number of questions, most importantly “Did Jeremy Strong poop in his own bed to prepare for the scene in Succession where Kendall pooped the bed?”
• Imagine overhearing this conversation on set, as you, not as a jaded Hollywood lifer

Anyway, I repeat: Please do not spray me with tear gas, even if I ask you to.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Marthaaaaaaa

Noted lifestyle enthusiast Martha Stewart set portions of the internet ablaze this week by posting the above selfie on her Instagram page. The clamor is understandable. Martha Stewart is about to turn 79 years old. Most people that close to 80 have trouble taking selfies let alone looking glamorous in them and posting them on Instagram. Good for her. Good for Martha Stewart. It’s not what I want to talk about, though.

The selfie caused such a ruckus that CNN got Martha on the phone to talk about it. This was a good decision on their part. Because when you ask Martha Stewart things, you get answers like this.

“Well, I had just had a very dear friend over for lunch and then I took a long swim and I was getting out of the pool. I was trying to take pictures of my gardens out there. And then the camera automatically went to, you know, selfie mode. I don’t know why,” Stewart said in an interview Thursday. “And I looked at it and I looked so nice because of the sun streaming down. So I snapped the picture and I sent it to the internet.”

I love the phrasing of “I sent it to the internet,” like you would send a package to a friend. I’m going to start talking about my tweets like this. It won’t work nearly as well. Maybe I won’t do it. Either way, this is also not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about this.

She said she had no idea it would solicit so much reaction.

“No, I don’t post to cause a stir,” Stewart said. “I post to treat my audience.”

“I post to treat my audience.” What a legend. What an absolute maniac. I love her. I hope she lives forever and remains exactly the same. I hope she does so for a few reasons, but mostly that one, and definitely most this next one. You see, comedian Chelsea Handler posted her own pool selfie as a tribute to Martha, and lots of people hopped in her replies to praise her for it. Martha hopped in, too. Not so much to praise her, though. To say this: “I’m so happy that you liked my post well enough to emulate it. I do think my pool is a little bit prettier than yours and that my facial expression is a little more relaxed.”

She went on to compliment Chelsea on other things, which is fine, but not the point. The point is that you should never cross Martha Stewart. This is how she responds to tributes, for the love of God. She will absolutely gut you like a fish if you look at her wrong. Metaphorically, for sure, and maybe literally, too.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — There is nothing less surprising than Tom Cruise making a movie in outer space

A few weeks ago, we learned that Tom Cruise and Elon Musk want to make a space movie. Not just a movie about some space, mind you, or a movie set in space: a movie actually shot in space. This was quite possibly the least surprising news any of us will hear all year. Tom Cruise and Elon Musk are both very ambitious, very intense, kind of loopy dudes. The bigger surprise here is that they had not already shot a movie in outer space. That feels like some extremely 2015 news, when you think about it, which you really should.

And things with the space movie are continuing apace. A studio has been sucked into the project’s orbit. Everything is becoming more real by the day. Variety has a look at the nuts and bolts of the project and where it stands now. As you can probably imagine, there are a few logistical problems here.

The stakes are also high from a filmmaking standpoint. As one person familiar with the project put it, “you can’t be sure what you’re going to get up there, and you have one shot to do it.”

That’s a good point. You’re not going to be doing a bunch of re-shoots if you whiff on something. And you’re not going to get multiple takes of the trickier shots. And there’s also, well, this.

A major issue for any company considering the project is insuring Cruise and the filmmaking team, as no scripted production has ever conceived of shooting action sequences outside of Earth’s orbit. The movie is also said to not yet have a script.

I love that the last sentence is just tacked on there, in large part because it raises two very funny possibilities: One, that Tom Cruise and Elon Musk basically got a $200 million movie greenlit with nothing more than “but we shoot in space”; two, until the script is written, there remains a slim chance that the movie they shoot in space won’t even be about space. They could just shoot a regular-ass movie in space. God, that would be hilarious. Hundreds of millions of dollars and all the scientists in the world for a movie about, like, Tom Cruise as the principal of a troubled high school. Put a green screen on the space station and CGI-in the classroom around him. Sell it to Quibi for all I care. Let’s do it all, people.

READER MAIL

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

From Roger:

Can we talk for a minute about the Bachelor-themed Holey Moley episode? You think a show about people getting violently thrown into pools of water can’t get any better and then they go and put everyone in tuxedos and cocktail dresses. The one girl was wearing a dress so short they actually had to blur it out when she got wiped out by the windmill. That’s a real double whammy of embarrassment.

My friend, we can absolutely talk about the Bachelor-themed episode of Holey Moley. We should have talked about it two weeks ago when it aired. This is on me. I let us both down. I can and will do better.

That said, I think you hit the nail on the head here. Adding formalwear to what I have lovingly referred to as “a bozo circus of misadventure” was an all-time genius television programming decision. It was perfect. Just a perfect hour of nonsense summer television. About as perfect as Roger’s email, which came with the subject line “An excuse for you to post more Holey Moley GIFs.”

Roger, thank you. I will do just that.

BLAMMO

POW

THWACK.

Truly our nation’s finest television program.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Italy!

Police in Italy have intercepted a package containing hundreds of coffee beans that were hiding illegal drugs inside them.

This raises a number of questions. Like, for example, how? And why? Mostly those two. How and why? The why applies to a few things, including “why is that sentence structured in a way that makes it seems like the coffee beans did this of their own volition?” But let’s do the how first.

Around 500 beans had been cut open, stuffed with cocaine, and carefully taped closed again with dark brown tape.

Well, okay. That seems magnificently inefficient, but okay. I’m not a drug smuggler. I’ve never smuggled a single drug. Maybe I’m just some naive doofus. Maybe this is just how things work. Maybe these guys are criminal geniuses who have unlocked the secret to drug smuggling. Although… they did get caught. So maybe not.

Anyway. How did they get caught? How does one discover cocaine stuffed inside coffee beans?

Police said suspicions were initially raised when they saw the name “Santino D’Antonio” on the packets — a mafia boss in the American action film John Wick.

This, to be clear, is hilarious. These goofballs went to the extremes of meticulous planning, cutting open hundreds of individual coffee beans to stuff them with cocaine before taping them shut, only to get busted because they couldn’t stop themselves from getting cute on the packaging. This is one of the main reasons I am not a drug smuggler, for the record. I’d get on the burner phone and be like “Hello, this is… uh, this is… Picasso… Valentine and I th-…” and the agents on the wiretap would look at each other in the eye, laugh, and say “We got him.”

So I get it, is my point.

Police intercepted the beans after they had been sent from Medellin in Colombia to Milan’s Malpensa airport.

The 2kg package contained 150g of cocaine powder.

Police also released a picture of the operation’s mastermind in the moments after the seizure.

I’m sorry, but Sad Pablo Escobar Sitting On A Bench Swing On Narcos will never not be funny to me.

070 Shake, moniker of innovative hip-hop Danielle Balbuena, released her debut album Modus Vivendi back in January. The musician turned heads with her brooding tones and electric edge on the record. Now, Balbuena has implored an artist across genre lines to reimagine one of her Modus Vivendi tracks. Balbuena tapped Tame Impala’s Kevin Park to share a remix of “Guilty Conscience.”

Parker’s influence on the remix is immediately clear. The musician warped the song’s production to take on a washed-out sound, seemingly flowing in and out of consciousness. Distorted synths open the song and Balbuena’s vocals are decreased several octaves. The result of Parker’s remix is three-and-a-half minutes of pure bliss.

This isn’t the first time Parker and Balbuena have worked together. The duo previously linked to collaborate with Kanye West on his track “Violent Crimes,” which appeared on the rapper’s 2018 record Ye.

Parker’s remix follows his recently released fourth record, The Show Rush. In an interview with Uproxx alongside the album’s release, Parker said he wants to be more “fearless” with his music going forward: “It’s difficult to put into words, but I know exactly what I want to do. I want to continue the progression of being more fearless and bold. I want to make more music. One thing I know for sure is that I won’t take five years next time. I want to be more liberal with myself creatively because I’m so inspired these days by the idea of just being like, ‘F*ck it,’ and not being precious, and not overthinking things in the way that I probably did early on.”

Listen to Tame Impala’s “Guilty Conscience” remix above.

Modus Vivendi is out now via Getting Out Our Dreams. Get it here.

Two years ago, Breakfast Club personality DJ Envy reminded Migos members of a 2013 nightclub show they did for him for just $3,000. Quavo noted that he didn’t remember the show. Quality Control Music Co-Founder Pierre “Pee” Thomas clarified that the performance was an “early” occasion in which fellow founder Kevin “Coach K” Lee was getting the group booked for “promo.” Breakfast Club co-host Charlamagne jokingly replied, “so K told y’all it was for free but he took the $3,000.”

Everyone laughed, and the conversation meandered without explanation. But after the trio’s recent lawsuit alleging financial malpractice by their former lawyer — who is also a QC lawyer — that exchange isn’t so funny in hindsight. There’s trouble in paradise after the Migos’ suit and Cardi B distancing herself from QC, who once acted as her management. Apparently, Migos are just the latest act who didn’t realize they were in a bad deal until way after the ink was dry.

Variety reported last week that Migos filed a lawsuit accusing their attorney Damien Granderson of professional malpractice and unjust enrichment. They’re seeking “millions of dollars” in compensation from Granderson and his firm.

The complaint alleges that Granderson saw the then-teenagers as “easy targets,” and didn’t disclose that he represented their label QC, which was a “glaring conflict of interest.” The extensive lawsuit, filed by their new attorney Bryan Freedman, claims Granderson “abused his position of trust as Migos’ fiduciary from the moment he was retained as Migos’ lawyer,” and locked them into a contract amendment that prevented them “from ever being free of paying excessive compensation to QCM, from ever being signed to any other record label, and from ever obtaining negotiating leverage to secure reasonable terms in connection with the distribution of its musical recordings.”

Granderson helped the group negotiate its (now expired) 2014 distribution deal with 300 Entertainment, as well as an exit deal with 300 that allowed them to sign to Capitol Records in 2017. The lawsuit claims that Granderson withheld the full scope of the Capitol deal, showing Migos a contract that said one thing when the reality was that QC was receiving “far-above-industry-norm compensation” from their proceeds.

Days after the lawsuit, Cardi B, Offset’s wife, tweeted “I don’t have no managers. NONE AT ALL! My lawyer handle my business.” Cardi is signed to Atlantic Records, but signed to QC for management in 2018, when the label and her husband were on better terms.

Granderson, nor his firm, have replied to Migos’ accusations, but Pee called the claims “nonsense” on Instagram, adding that “it is unfortunate that the same people that we have worked hard for, provided opportunities for, and championed for are now alleging that we have participated in any kind of immoral or unfair business practices…especially while we are dealing with the death of [QC rapper Marlo],” who was shot and killed earlier this month. Pee noted, “I love my artists and I love my team. Everyone has their own lawyers,” but also said, “I understand in this business that you are not always going to end with the people you started with. I say that to say, I am not forcing anybody to be in business with us that has a problem and cannot communicate and does not want to work as a unit.”

It looks like QC may be set to go on without their onetime flagship act. It was the group’s initial run of high profile singles — leading up to the mammoth “Bad And Boujee” — that helped the label ascend from a local indie into the actualization of Billboard’s 2015 commendation as “the most important hip-hop label in America.” By 2018, their roster of Migos, Lil Yachty, City Girls, Lil Baby (with proximity to Cardi B through management) was one of the most powerful crews in the game. Pee bought Offset and Takeoff luxury vehicles for their birthdays. On the surface, everything was lovely, and it certainly looked like they were “family.” But per usual in rap, it may have all been under false pretense.

Almost every major rap imprint marketed themselves as a family — then artists on the label exposed financial practices that weren’t brotherly love. It’s hard to think of an iconic rap crew where no one ever had a financial gripe.

Numerous artists have accused Diddy of bad business on Bad Boy Records. All of the Hot Boyz (including Lil Wayne as a solo artist) fell out with Birdman over unpaid wages at Young Money/Cash Money. Beanie Sigel says former Roc-A-Fella co-CEO Dame Dash owes him money to this day. Few people know that Tupac came to a similar realization as Migos when he realized that his lawyer David Kenner was also the Death Row Records lawyer. He had an argument with Suge Knight about malpractice in the months before he died, and some people felt he was set to leave the label. The rap icon died with just $105,000 in his bank account despite grossing more than $60 million worth of records at Death Row. Death Row observers noted that Suge Knight would often give artists cars and other trinkets instead of actual checks. Snoop Dogg reflected to Arian Foster in 2018 that Suge “gave you what he felt you should have. We got a lot of money, but it may not have been what we were supposed to have.”

Most recently, artists like Kanye West, Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Uzi Vert, and Mase sought to be released or fairly compensated from deals they perceived as unfair.

Artists boasting contractual harmony are sadly the exception to the rule of industry rule #4080 (“record company people are shady”). Since the days of the mob running the music industry, young Black artist’s talent and poverty were systemically exploited for unfair deals that promised access to glitz and glamour but no financial security. The unfair deals were bad enough, but a lot of artists didn’t even get what they were owed from them. Now, instead of doo-wop and jazz singers, there are hoards of young rap and R&B acts being exploited by execs every day, including Black people who can be just as predacious and deceptive as white label execs while feigning Black solidarity.

Migos’ claims harken to their QC mate Lil Yachty’s fogginess on his own contractual situation. In 2016, he divulged to The Fader that he didn’t know his publishing situation. Publishing allows an artist to earn income from licensing opportunities like TV, movies, and video games. He had an infamous dustup with Joe Budden a year later on Everyday Struggle, after it came out that he didn’t know whether he was in a 360 deal. Days later he said that he knew the details of his deal, but simply didn’t know the 360 term. Regardless, the moment was alarming. Coach K was a family friend of his. If QC couldn’t show the then-teenager the ropes, then perhaps actual strangers stand no chance.

And to be clear, no one knows what happened between Migos and QC except the parties involved in the lawsuit. But it’s not farfetched to believe that Migos, as three young, hungry artists, signed whatever was in front of them like so many of their peers. It’s not surprising that they respected and trusted Coach K and Pee to do right by them, and were too blinded by the trappings of fame to properly vet their lawyer. It also wouldn’t be surprising if they were yet another act who grossed millions and may never receive fair compensation due to deception.

Outsiders could simply fault naive artists for not knowing what they’re signing, or not having the right people read over their deal, but that’s a shortsighted reaction to this epidemic. It’s important to advocate for music business awareness, and artist unions. It’s more important to do the work necessary to uprooting the economic conditions that make people feel like a record deal is their only opportunity out of poverty or that they even need a major label. But the only way this cycle fundamentally changes for the better is for the industry to also be held accountable and challenged to change. We shouldn’t be fine with a business model where labels seek every penny they can get out of undereducated artists who are often in their teens or early 20s when signing. If that’s “just business” then that “business” needs to end.

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

Triple J’s Like A Version is akin to an Australian take on BBC Radio One Live Lounge, in that they also task artists with putting their own spin on somebody else’s song. The latest participant in the series of Gordi, who stepped up to the plate to take on Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball.”

“Wrecking Ball” is a huge anthem and a tough track to take on, but Gordi delivered a strong showing. She kept the verses intimate and didn’t belt it out on the chorus as much as Cyrus does on her original. That, along with the more synth- and guitar-driven instrumentation, gave her rendition a more alternative feel.

In an interview accompanying the performance, Gordi drew parallels between her life and that of Cyrus’ famous Hannah Montana role, saying, “My friends use to point me out and call me ‘Hannah Montana’ because I was kind of leading this double life of being a musician and then also going through medical school. It’s a nod to Hannah Montana, covering Miley Cyrus.”

Meanwhile, Gordi has had a different pandemic experience than most musicians. She was working as a doctor as recently as this past January, and was prepared to re-enlist her medical services to help deal with the coronavirus. When she returned to Australia in March after touring, he signed up to help in a COVID clinic, but fortunately, her services didn’t end up being needed. She told Uproxx in a recent interview, “There was a two week period where I was like, ‘OK, I’m getting ready to go into this and go back to work.’ But then the numbers just went off a cliff in Australia and all my friends that are working in hospitals were like, ‘We have nothing to do, because not even the regular patients are coming in, let alone any COVID patients.’ I actually still haven’t set foot back in a hospital.”

Watch Gordi cover “Wrecking Ball” above.

Cole Bennett has directed some truly wild videos in his time as hip-hop’s go-to shooter for up-and-coming rappers, but his latest for Ski Mask The Slump God’s comeback single “Burn The Hoods” might be his most unhinged.

Rather than flex his jewelry, cars, clothes, house, and female companions, Ski Mask opts for a more political statement in “Burn The Hoods.” That makes sense, because look around. But Ski Mask, being Ski Mask, takes his politicization to the most radical extreme, ideating a crew of “Kluxbusters” (Ghostbusters, but for the Ku Klux Klan) and goes hunting for white supremacist scalps like Brad Pitt in Inglorious Basterds. Does this make Cole Bennett the Quentin Tarantino of rap music videos? Who knows, but I enjoyed this probably way more than I should have.

Ski Mask the Slump God’s had a relatively quiet couple of years since dropping his debut studio album Stokelely in 2018. However, it appears he hasn’t lost any of his hyperactive swagger since then; pairing it with this newfound political edge makes his comeback even more potent. While there’s no doubt he’ll be back to rapping about his usual comedic topics, for now, he may be capturing the surreal, semi-militant zeitgeist better than anyone else.

Watch Ski Mask The Slump God’s “Burn The Hoods” video above

Bridger Walker, the six-year-old boy who heroically shielded his little sister from an attacking dog, has already been praised by Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Spider-Man. Now, he can Star-Lord to the list of Avengers who are blown away by his brave actions.

In a video message posted to Instagram, Chris Pratt reached out to Walker and apologized for being the “last guy in the world to have seen your story.” The actor is currently filming Jurassic World: Dominion, one of the few films to resume production during the pandemic, but he felt compelled to take a moment and let Bridger know how inspired he was by his tale of courage. Pratt also encouraged his millions of Instagram followers to reflect on the last time they did something truly selfless and to think about the heroes in their own lives.

“I think we could all benefit from asking ourselves when was the last time we did something courageous,” Pratt wrote. “And who do we look up to? Who in our lives puts their life on the line in the name of safety? They are the true heroes.”

You can see Pratt’s message to Bridger Walker below:

If you’re not familiar with Bridger’s story, Pratt told folks to check out the link his bio, and true to his word, the actor links to the original Instagram post from Bridger’s aunt. The caption features the incredible story of the young boy’s bravery and his willingness to sacrifice his life for his little sister when a dog charged the two of them and attacked Bridger, leaving him with 90 stitches.

The now-viral story caught the attention of Marvel’s biggest names. So far, Bridger has an authentic Captain America shield coming his way from Chris Evans, an official invitation to join the Avengers from Chris Hemsworth, a visit to the set of Spider-Man 3 courtesy of Tom Holland, and a secret surprise en route from Robert Downey Jr., who also told the young hero to call him on his next birthday.

(Via Chris Pratt on Instagram)

The Los Angeles Sparks started the 2019 season with so much excitement and were quickly pinned as potential challengers in a wide open title race. But on September 22, star player Candace Parker sat on the bench with her head on her chin dejectedly watching as her team got swept by the Connecticut Sun in the WNBA semifinals. Despite losing in the semifinals, the Sparks didn’t have a catastrophic season by any means — they finished third in the league standings with a 22-12 overall record and made the playoffs for the 19th time in 23 seasons. Injuries to players like Parker, a two-time MVP, Alana Beard, Maria Vadeeva and Alexis Jones certainly hampered the team along with the suspension of Riquna Williams. But other issues also followed the team around last season, with Williams’ suspension over an alleged act of domestic violence, an “unprofessional” culture and a lack of fight in important games that culminated with head coach Derek Fisher’s curious decision to bench Parker for all but 11 minutes of game three against the Sun.

This season, the Sparks are without Chiney Ogwumike and Kristi Toliver who opted out; to replace them, the team signed Reshanda Gray and Te’a Cooper. Seimone Augustus, who spent 14 years with the Minnesota Lynx, joined the Sparks in the offseason along with Kristine Anigwe and former Atlanta Dream players Brittney Sykes and Marie Gülich. This is Fisher’s second season in charge, and he has been working to integrate those new players and improve the team’s culture. With a healthy mix of veteran returners and new additions, the Sparks look strong going into the 2020 season and will once again expect be among the contenders.

WUBBLE ROSTER

Kristine Anigwe
Seimone Augustus
Te’a Cooper
Reshanda Gray
Chelsea Gray
Marie Gülich
Nneka Ogwumike
Candace Parker
Tierra Ruffin-Pratt
Brittney Sykes
Sydney Wiese
Riquna Williams
KEY PLAYERS TO WATCH

Candace Parker: Parker has been the cornerstone of the Sparks franchise for years, and is still expected to carry a decent amount of the load for this team despite this being her 12th season in the league. The star forward had an unlucky season last time out, after suffering a left hamstring injury in preseason and struggling to find her form in the games that followed. She finished the year with career-lows in points and rebounds per game with 11.2 and 6.4, respectively. That being said, last season’s struggles could potentially fuel her performance this summer and see her return to the heights she is capable of. Much of the Sparks’ title hopes rest on Parker’s ability to stay healthy this summer in Bradenton.

Nneka Ogwumike: The six-time All-Star is key to everything in Los Angeles, from leading the conversation in the locker room to putting up numbers on both ends of the floor. Last season, Ogwumike led the team in scoring with 16.1 points and 8.8 rebounds on 51% shooting from the field. When Ogwumike and Parker are at their best on the court together, there are very few defenses that can stop them. In 2018, Los Angeles had a plus-9.4 net rating when they were on the floor together compared to 1.4 overall. The Sparks will be counting on the veteran duo to bring some of that chemistry and tenacity to IMG Academy.

EXPECTATIONS

The team was forced to go big last year with its lineups, with 6’4 Parker, 6’2 Ogwumike, 5’11 Gray, 5’7 Williams and 5’11 Ruffin-Pratt garnering the most minutes. This year, all of those players return and Augustus is 6’0 so the team will likely look similar on the floor. Despite last season’s plethora of height, the Sparks under-performed in rebounding and blocks per game, finishing seventh and ninth in the league in those categories, respectively. Los Angeles will continue to rely on Gray to knock down three-pointers and help carry the scoring load for the team after her strong 2019 numbers. If the Sparks can stay fit throughout the season, they should have a good chance at challenging for the championship.

X-FACTOR

Chelsea Gray: Gray has steadily improved since entering the WNBA in 2014. Last season, the 27-year-old averaged 14.5 points and career-highs in rebounds (3.8) and assists (5.9) per game while starting every game for the third season in a row. She also shot 42% from the field and 38% from beyond the arc, earning her her third consecutive All-Star nod and a spot in the three-point contest. For her efforts, the point guard was named to the All-WNBA First Team for the first time in her career after finishing second in the league in assists and 13th in scoring. Gray provided a much-needed spark for Los Angeles last season, finding a balance between creating her own shot and finding her teammates, and the team will need that again this year.

BIGGEST ON-COURT QUESTION

Do the Sparks have enough depth? Granted, this is a shorter WNBA season with each team playing only 22 regular season games as opposed to the typical 34, so perhaps team depth will be a slightly overrated factor this year. However, a shorter season means that injuries can hurt teams even more and if Parker or Ogwumike go down ,for example, do the Sparks have enough talent to fill those shoes? Furthermore, the Sparks are one of the oldest teams in the league with an average age of 28 years and plenty of aging stars like the 34-year-old Parker and 36-year-old Augustus. It may be tough for some of the newer players on the team like rookie Te’a Cooper to adapt so quickly to the league, especially in such an unusual season.

Last week, Logic revealed that No Pressure, which was released today, would be his final album because he is retiring from music. He didn’t give a specific reason for walking away from rap, although he did note, “Now it’s time to be a great father.” Now, though, he has spoken more about his main reason for leaving hip-hop behind: He’s “over it.”

In a video interview with Billboard shortly before the release of No Pressure, Logic said:

“I just wanted to retire because I’m over it man. Not even in a negative way, I’m just over it. I love music and I’m gonna continue to make music on my own. I can’t not just make music. It’s a journal for me. It’s how I express myself. It’s how I heal, but with Logic, I’m stepping away. And the thing is, too, I’m not trying to make it this big show like, ‘Oh my God,’ because it’s not that deep. You either believe me or you don’t man. I don’t give a sh*t. I’m over here doing my thing.”

He also spoke about his perception in hip-hop, talking about how gate-keeping journalists made him feel bad:

“Those are the people that made me feel bad about myself. Those are the people that made me wanna kill myself at times. Those are the people who made me depressed and told me I’m not good enough, I’ll never be good enough, you don’t belong because I’m a white-passing corny [rapper] because I like sci-fi and all this other kind of sh*t, but that’s who I am.

I’d rather be perceived as corny or whatever the f*ck case may be than peddling and actually being ‘authentic’ to the life I grew up in: selling drugs, cooking crack, shooting guns, being around motherf*ckers — that’s not what I represented. So those same f*ck boys who say sh*t like that, they won’t even know that they’re talking about when you have people like the RZA singing my praise, Killer Mike, [and] I got Wu-Tang on a track. I sit back and I go, ‘Those are the people if anybody tries to say what they’re saying, it doesn’t make any sense.’

To be able to have a queen like Erykah Badu on speed dial and she shows me love is like, I can’t f*cking believe that. I can’t fathom that. She’s just the epitome of music, soul, and hip-hop. When you people like that, like real spitters and real MCs showing you love, it don’t matter what the writer or what the editor says because that writer wishes they can f*cking rap. But I understand that and I know that. That’s why I just shut the f*ck up.”

Just because Logic is moving over to Twitch doesn’t mean he’s totally done with music, though, as he said he wants to help rising rappers: “There’s some people on Twitch that like to do giveaways. I wanna make beats for up-and-coming rappers on the spot and give it to them for free, and if they take it, don’t charge them and don’t even take publishing.”

Watch the full conversation here.

With the release of his sixth studio album No Pressure this week, Logic plans to officially conclude his career as a rapper. He ends his tenure in hip-hop with six studio albums and six mixtapes, a novel, and two Grammy nominations for his anti-suicide anthem “1-800-273-8255.” All told, he’s had a pretty impressive career — so why is he bowing out now, just as he’s reached the sort of success that many longer-tenured rappers are still striving for?

Before No Pressure’s release, Logic revealed an exclusive streaming deal with Twitch worth “seven figures.” For those unfamiliar, Twitch.tv is a website where viewers watch other users play video games. Because I am old enough to remember leaving a quarter on an arcade machine screen to save my place in line and the proceeding agonizing wait for my turn, this behavior confuses and upsets me, but to each their own.

While I certainly can’t begrudge Logic leaving the rap game behind to pursue his passion, watching him do so sets off an uncomfortable buzz of recognition in the back of my mind. Hip-hop has seen this story play out before and the conclusion it implies remains as concerning as ever, even with the slight twists Logic’s version brings to the narrative. Hip-hop outsiders continue to use hip-hop to build an audience and abandon the craft for more desirable pursuits as soon as they can.

We’ve seen it happen before with pop stars like Miley Cyrus. We’ve seen it happen with ostensible rappers like Lil Dicky, Post Malone, and Awkwafina. It shouldn’t be lost on any observer that these are non-Black performers who adopted the traits of hip-hop, a Black genre of music, to gain popularity or experiment with their craft then return to country crooning or swap rap for a far more lucrative career in other arenas such as TV and film.

And yes, I know Logic isn’t “technically” a non-Black artist; he reminds us all he’s biracial so much it’s been a meme for the last five years of his career. But he does fit the profile of a hip-hop outsider. It took him two albums to shake off most of the stigma that pursued him early on, that he was more a talented mimic of greater artists like J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar than a really good rapper in his own right.

Once he did, he still never seemed to garner the respect of the hip-hop establishment, despite many obvious bids to do so. He collaborated with Wu-Tang and Eminem, he brought rising stars like Joey Badass and YBN Cordae on tour with him, and he adopted ever more technical cadences in his attempts to prove his chops. It got him called the worst rapper to pick up a mic by Joe Budden — a sentiment many seem to agree with.

For whatever reason, Logic never seemed to fit into hip-hop’s status quo. Maybe it was his earnestness, or the Rubik’s cube gimmick, or his love for overly complex album concepts. Even so, he does leave behind a long list of projects that prove that at least he was willing to give hip-hop the old college try. Yet, his departure still leaves behind an aftertaste that feels too familiar to those of us who have called out the disposable treatment of this culture we love.

Take Nora Lum, aka Awkwafina. When she appeared in 2012 with her jokey rap debut “My Vag,” she rubbed plenty of critics the wrong way. It seemed more like she was doing a parody of a culture she was not clearly a part of rather than participating in an inside joke. Some assumed she was punching down with her “Blaccent” and old-school rapper mannerisms, rather than showing appreciation for the craft.

Her later career moves have certainly emphasized that early skepticism, as she pivoted from purveying pithy punchlines to delivering award-winning turns in films like The Farewell. Watching her on the promotion trail/victory lap for Crazy Rich Asians, there was little evidence of the hip-hop caricature persona she cultivated for her Yellow Ranger album. While we can’t assume someone else’s intentions, it certainly looks like she used Awkwafina to get her foot in the door before code switching right back to Nora to ensure her mainstream success.

Likewise, Post Malone has taken flak recently for his three-album transformation from “White Iverson,” complete with braids and gold teeth, to the country-fried pop star who delivered the world “Circles” and became the pitchman for Doritos. While there’s no hard rule that says rappers can’t roam around in cowboy hats and rodeo suits, Malone’s transformation sends a clear signal to his growing audience: He’s “safe” now.

To be clear, this is not an indictment of white or Asian rappers. It’s not meant to condemn every single rapper to that one lane for the rest of their lives. Obviously, artists should pursue avenues that interest them — maybe not running for President, though. But there is an obvious difference in how Black rappers creating Black music are perceived in the public eye and what kind of moves they’ll be allowed to make.

Lots of rappers steam on Twitch; in 2018, Stereogum profiled Danny Brown as one of the platform’s first superstars. Yet, there was no announcement of a seven-figure exclusive deal for him, or any of the many other rappers who stream games there. Again, I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. Maybe Twitch pursued other rappers and Logic was the first to say yes. Maybe Logic was the first rapper to pitch an exclusive deal with Twitch. Having a massive audience from his rap days certainly helped, in that case.

Having an existing audience probably also helped Lil Dicky when he pitched Dave to FX. I called Dave one of the best comedies on TV and it is. But you and I both know that the show would have had a different path if it were pitched by Big Sean or Lil Baby. The last hip-hop-oriented comedy produced by a rapper that I can remember is Daveed Diggs’ The Mayor, which was also excellent. That’s Daveed Diggs from Hamilton. Someone with serious chops and connections in theater and television. He (barely) got his show off the ground, and it was canceled before its first season had aired in its entirety.

Of course, FX also airs Donald Glover’s Atlanta. But to get his foot in the door, Glover had to be a multihyphenate genius who self-financed his feature film debut Mystery Team and had years and years of television work, from writing on SNL to appearing on Community. Lil Dicky walked in the door and told FX’s execs they’d be crazy to not pick up his show. He’s only put out one album. To his credit, he keeps hip-hop at the forefront of his show, which is all anyone can ask.

Dicky acknowledges the privilege he has and uses it to highlight real figures in rap such as guest stars on his show like Gunna, Trippie Redd, and Young Thug and co-stars Taco and GATA. The show constantly lampshades Dave’s ignorance and privilege, using him as a foil to highlight the genuine social issues that Dave is maybe a little too cocksure to speak to in his music on the show. The show’s self-awareness is its saving grace and that self-awareness could go a long way toward mitigating that nasty aftertaste I mentioned before.

Hip-hop is a culture that means a lot to a lot of people, but the folks who started it, who live in it, who breathe it in every day, and who are marked by it by society — for better or worse — can’t leave it, no matter what we do. Jay-Z will always be, first and foremost, a rapper in people’s minds, as will Snoop Dogg or Nas or 50 Cent or Drake or Kendrick Lamar. Even Will Smith, one of the biggest actors on the planet, is just as well known for the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song as he is for his last few movie roles.

So, whenever a hip-hop outsider switches careers, the message it sends is “hip-hop isn’t good enough” and that plays into all the problems of our society. But it also runs counter to what we know from evidence; hip-hop is the biggest genre in America — and maybe even the world. If the music and culture are good enough to use to build an audience, then the people who live in that culture should be good enough to get the same opportunities as outsiders who fake the flow to blow up.

Gunna and Young Thug cause a classic case of culture clash in their new video for “Dollaz On My Head,” from Gunna’s 2020 album Wunna. The deluxe version of Wunna released today, and to celebrate, the YSL Records team linked up to take over a mansion and turn their neighbors’ lives upside down.

The video opens as Gunna tees off at sunrise on the balcony of his massive mansion. After a drive goes awry and lands in the cake his new neighbors have brought over, his crew invites the awestruck WASPs in for an education in how nouveau-riche rappers live. There’s some typical confusion from both sides, but soon enough the white family has settled in and begun to enjoy the hedonistic abandon of their rapping next-door residents. Before you know it, dad’s getting high, mom’s lounging around with Wheezy, and the kids are bopping down the hallways to Mike Will’s thumping soundtrack.

Gunna’s lavish video lifestyle extended to real life recently as the Atlanta rapper turned 27. Young Thug and Roddy Ricch both chipped in for some extravagant gifts, which included both a new car and some expensive jewelry.

Watch Gunna’s “Dollaz On My Head” video featuring Young Thug above.

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