Category: News

In a whirlwind turn of events Wednesday, it appears that Kanye West is still running for president. Despite earlier claims that the rapper removed himself from the race, a new report shows Kanye actually completed the first necessary step in becoming an official candidate for the 2020 presidential election.

A report from TMZ Wednesday contradicts recent news that Kanye pulled out of his bid for the White House. According to the report, the rapper did quite the opposite. Apparently, West has now filed the first form required by the Federal Election Commission to make a presidential campaign official. The paperwork declares the Kanye 2020 committee serves as the “Principal Campaign Committee” and backs Kanye as their candidate. TMZ’s report states Kanye 2020 said they are affiliated not with the Democratic nor Republican party, rather the BDY, which stands for Birthday Party.

The next step for Kanye is now to file another necessary form with the FEC, the Statement of Candidacy, which states he has either raised or spent over $5,000 in campaign activity. After Kanye files this paperwork, his campaign will have legal status under the federal campaign finance laws.

So far, Kanye has been endorsed by some big-name celebrities. Elon Musk was the first to publically show his “full support” for Kanye 2020, though he has since backpedaled on his endorsement, and Chance The Rapper similarily declared his support of Kanye over Biden.

After news broke that Megan Thee Stallion was with Tory Lanez when he was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon on Sunday, Megan herself posted a clarification of one of the details of the report to Instagram. While it had previously been reported she was cut by broken glass during the altercation that prompted the arrest, she revealed that she was actually shot and was taken to the hospital by police for surgery to remove the bullets.

Megan addressed some versions of the report that had apparently erroneously claimed she was also arrested. “The narrative that is being reported about Sunday morning’s events are inaccurate and I’d like to set the record straight,” she wrote. “On Sunday morning, I suffered gunshot wounds as a result of a crime that was committed against me and done with the intention to physically harm me.”

She again establishes that she wasn’t arrested before elaborating, “The police officers drove me to the hospital where I underwent surgery to remove the bullets. I’m expected to make a full recovery, but it was important to me to clarify the details about this traumatic night.”

Fortunately, she wasn’t seriously injured and says that she’s “currently focusing on my recovery so I can return back to my life and back to making music as soon as possible.” She also says she learned a lesson from all this in the caption. “This whole experience was an eye opener and a blessing in disguise,” she assured her followers. “I hate that it took this experience for me to learn how to protect my energy.” See the post below.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Chicago indie rockers Whitney returned last August with their sophomore effort Forever Turn Around. The album received critical acclaim and even led Chicago’s mayor to officially declare the record’s release day, August 30, Whitney Day. While the band had to cancel the remainder of their tour behind the album, Whitney appeased fans by sharing two covers earlier this year, “Take Me Home Country Roads” with Waxahatchee and “Rain.” But the band didn’t stop there. Whitney ended up recording several more covers which they will share in the upcoming record, Candid.

Whitney announced Candid Wednesday by sharing the track “Hammond Song,” which is a cover from The Roches 1979 debut album. Along with “Hammond Song,” Candid sees Whitney reworking some of their favorite tracks that similarly fall outside their musical comfort zone.

In a statement, drummer and singer Julien Ehrlich detailed how the band came to fall in love with “Hammond Song:”

“This could’ve been as simple as saying we really love these songs and we love our bandmates and making a covers record just felt right but it truly became an exploration into how we can evolve as a band going forward. We both discovered ‘Hammond Song’ because Chris Coady sent it to us years ago as a reference for recording when we were making the last Smith Westerns record. It became a song that was always around for us and then we showed it to the rest of the band. This cover is the longest Whitney recording ever and pretty much everything you hear on it is totally live, save for the horns and the slide solo. For a five minute song, if you mess up one part you have to do the whole thing live all over again.”

Listen to “Hammond Song” above and find Whitney’s Candid cover art and tracklist below.

1. “Bank Head”
2. “A.M. A.M”
3. “Take Me Home, Country Roads” Feat. Waxahatchee
4. “High On A Rocky Ledge”
5. “Something Happen”
6. “Strange Overtones”
7. “Hammond Song”
8. “Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying”
9. “Rain”
10. “Rainbows And Ridges”

Candid is out 8/14 via Secretly Canadian. Pre-order it here.

Jon Hamm has officially joined the very long list of actors who’ve been trying to bring back Fletch.

In a collaboration with Superbad director Greg Mottola and Miramax, Hamm will star and produce in a modern-day update of the detective movies made famous by Chevy Chase in the 1980s. Like the Chase films, Hamm and Mottola will pull from the Fletch novels by author Greg McDonald, but this time around, they’ll be jumping right into the second book Confess, Fletch. Via Deadline:

In a mysterious chain of wild events, Fletch finds himself in the middle of multiple murders — one of which pins him as a prime suspect. While on a quest to prove his innocence, Fletch is tasked with finding his fiancée’s stolen art collection, the only inheritance she’s acquired after her father goes missing and is presumed dead. Zev Borow, consulting producer of the Lethal Weapon TV series, will be penning the feature adaptation.

Much like the revolving door of actors who’ve tried to get a new adaptation of The Crow off the ground, Fletch has seen numerous talent attached to a reboot over the decades. Prior to Hamm landing the role, Jason Sudeikis almost starred in a “gritty reboot” of the detective series that was announced back in 2014, but never materialized. Den of Geek details a laundry list of other hopefuls, including Ryan Reynolds, Ellen DeGeneres, Dave Chappelle, John Krasinski, Ryan Reynolds, Jimmy Fallon, Justin Long, and Chris Tucker.

But, wait, there’s more! At one point, Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence was working on a Fletch film that would’ve starred Zach Braff or Joshua Jackson, and Kevin Smith came very close to adapting Son of Fletch with Jason Lee. However, Smith eventually had to swap out Lee for Ben Affleck, but by that point, apparent creative differences had derailed the project.

In short, best of luck, Jon Hamm.

(Via Deadline, Den of Geek)

Rising South Coast Music Group rapper Toosii is a storytelling prodigy. With the release of his Platinum Heart mixtape in February and its accompanying deluxe version, the North Carolina-based artist is preparing for the release of his next effort After The Storm. The project is expected to be filled with the handful of melodic snippets that he’s been teasing his millions of Instagram followers throughout the lockdown.

The 20-year-old bubbling rap star — born Nau’Jour Grainger — was raised in Syracuse, New York, and moved to Raleigh when he was in the eighth grade. It’s only recently that the “Love Cycle” rapper began to take his music career seriously. He is currently signed to the same label as Grammy Award-nominated artist DaBaby and before COVID-19 put an end to concerts, fans might’ve caught him opening up for likes of Summer Walker, Polo G, City Girls, NBA Youngboy and Moneybagg Yo, among others.

Its promising tunes such as the empathetic fan favorite “Red Lights,” the subtly sincere “5 Stars” and affectionately loving track “Mercedez” that separates Toosii apart from the rest of the up-and-coming musicians.

Speaking with Uproxx over the phone, Toosii, who just landed in Los Angeles and was doing a little shopping on the Hollywood strip, discussed with us on how he plans on keeping the momentum going.

What brings you out to LA?

I came with my producer. My producer got some work to do out here, so I just came with him to take a trip, catch a flight, and get right back.

You just dropped Platinum Heart deluxe with quite a few new songs on there. I saw a TikTok that you made where you’re talking about artists making albums with 20+ songs. What made you want to go ahead and add the extra songs to that project?

I felt like it needed to be light on the album that I have already put out. I felt like it didn’t have enough light yet. There’s been a whole world that don’t know about me. I feel like there’s more people who need to know about me.

Out of the songs that you added, which one’s your favorite?

Probably “Got Her Own.” “Got Her Own” — that’s a top hit. I’d say the reason “Got Her Own” is my favorite is it’s so real. I feel I got it rolling. It’s just got that vibe. That sunset, rolling down Hollywood Boulevard vibe.

I’ve noticed that you have a great appreciation for Nipsey Hussle. How has he influenced you?

Honestly, just as far as like his head spin and keeping a level head and understanding what’s really going on in the world. A lot of people in my generation follow the wrong thing. Then, Nipsey was the main reason that I started investing and saving my money and doing the things that I wanted to do, because, the OG made that look like it was cool. I grew up around dope boys and doing some smack, some had guns and stuff like that. Basically, Nipsey was like a breath of fresh air. It’s like, “Yo, you don’t got to do that type of stuff.”

There was this Instagram a few days ago talking about how, when you were growing up, there were certain people that you looked up to and now you feel like you are that person, and now you have that responsibility.

Like I said, I come from a place where we don’t really got nobody to look up to. So, the people we looking up to either dead or in jail right now and if they not, that doesn’t change what I got. But, just to be that dude now that’s riding through the hood, with the nice car, jewelry, and money bag because it’s everything that they want. Knowing that I could be that big influence and doing it the right way. That’d mean a lot.

How do you want your music to make people feel?

A lot of my fans are people who’ve been through things and I make insightful music that gives you that cry you need. You ever had a good pain? Like a pain that hurt, but it don’t really hurt, because it also feels good. I make that kind of music. To be a fan of Toosii, you’ve got to go through something. You had to be through something to be a fan of it.

I also saw that you kind of addressed people comparing you to Roddy Ricch and Lil Baby recently but it doesn’t really bother you that much. Why do you think people compare you to those two people in particular?

Honestly, I can’t tell you. It might be the type of music that I make, my type of beat selection, but I don’t even mind. The comparisons really don’t bother, because I could see them comparing me to somebody who wasn’t doing everything that they needed to do. If they feel like those is the type of influences, I mean, those are good influences. I’m not tripping.

I know you’ve been out there protesting. What type of changes you would like to see society take as far as their treatment of Black people.

Honestly, as far as what we would need as far as the change, I can’t speak on that because, we’ve got people that be hurting for 400+ years. You see what I’m saying? And that’s something that you just can’t bring back. But as far as the respect, that’s something that got to be fixed.

I see you’re a little heartthrob and the ladies love you. So, these questions are going to be for them. What’s your type?

I like girls like my mom. I won’t lie. You got to be hardworking and loving. My mom is hardworking and loving. You got to have those two things.

Would you date a fan?

Yeah, I definitely will, because to date me, you got to be a fan of my music. You got to like my music.

All these snippets that you have. What are you doing with all of them?

They about to be released. After The Storm coming soon.

How soon is that coming?

You can look for it in about a month or so.

Is it going to be all the ones everyone’s been begging for or will it have some new stuff on there, too?

All of it.

Entourage actor Kevin Connolly has been accused of sexual assault by costume designer Gracie Cox. In a lengthy piece from The Daily Beast, Cox alleges that, in 2005, he was “mildly flirtatious” on the set and later “attacked her” at a wrap party event for The Gardener Of Eden, which was his directorial debut. A few hours after the article containing the allegations surfaced, Connolly released a statement to Us Weekly, to which he called the incident a “mutual consensual encounter.”

While speaking to the Beast, Cox said that he took her to a VIP area at his party. “As soon as we were alone in that area, he started to kiss me,” she stated. “I didn’t know how to respond — but before I could even think about what to do about it, he pulled me into one of these little side [booths], and pulled down my pants, and turned me around, and within no time was inside of me. I was just in shock.”

Connolly says that she spoke out to warn people that Connolly “is dangerous,” and she found it “infuriating” that he later directed Dear Eleanor and described the film as a “female empowerment movie” to reporters.

You can read Connolly’s full statement to Us Weekly below:

“Kevin strongly supports victims of sexual assault and believes their claims should always be heard. As someone who has worked in the industry for decades, he has treated people with nothing but respect and has maintained a stellar reputation, therefore, he was completely shocked to learn of the allegations made by Gracie Cox from a wrap party in 2005. Kevin acknowledges the lack of professionalism on his part, but he adamantly denies that it was anything other than a mutual consensual encounter.”

(Via Us Weekly & Daily Beast)

It’s one of the great unknowns of the Too Much TV Era: what would Donald Glover’s Deadpool show have looked like?

In 2017, it was announced that the Atlanta creator, along with his brother Stephen, would serve as showrunners, executive producers, and writers for an FXX animated series based on the Merc with a Mouth. Sounds good! Unfortunately things fell apart due to “creative differences,” leading to Glover leaking pages from the unmade series (Stephen later tweeted that the “Taylor Swift episode” was “the last straw lol”). We might never learn what really happened, as not even Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld knows for sure.

“What I don’t really understand is, given the audience, why isn’t there a Deadpool cartoon yet? Like, I don’t understand that. Right? That was a gut punch,” Liefeld told Collider about Glover’s axed show, which included a then-topical joke about Jennifer Lawrence biting Beyoncé. At least we still have Deadpool 3 to look forward to. Right…?

“You know what? There may not be another Deadpool, and I’m fine. Because I have to live with the fact that I had two amazing experiences, two movies I’m extremely proud of, I love knowing everybody on those movies. The work they did was fantabulous, those movies are here to stand the test of time.”

Liefeld added that “in the world we live in, nothing is guaranteed. And it takes a lot to make movies. And post-quarantine, it’s weird.” Deadpool making a fourth-wall-breaking joke about subscribing to Disney+ is the catharsis the world needs right now.

(Via Collider)

As the roster dominos begin to fall in Orlando during the NBA restart, one of the decisions with the biggest short- and long-term impact is what happens with the Indiana Pacers and Victor Oladipo, who missed most of the 2019-20 season with a ruptured quad tendon but had been working his way back when the league pressed paused in March.

After initially saying he would not play for the remainder of the season, Oladipo still traveled with the team to Orlando to be around teammates and practice. Those practices have gone so well, according to Oladipo himself as well as head coach Nate McMillan, to the point that it’s now a “strong possibility” that Oladipo indeed takes the court at some point for the Pacers at Walt Disney World.

Oladipo explained why he has gone back and forth, saying, “It was hard for me to assess where I was at…with Corona and all of that, I couldn’t really control it.”

Most players did not have access to in-person sessions with team medical staff until last month. While players like Bradley Beal, Kelly Oubre Jr., and Davis Bertans have chosen to sit so as to not risk further injury, Oladipo represents a major swing factor in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

The Pacers are currently fifth in the East standings, likely set to face the Heat or Sixers in the first round. Without Oladipo, Indiana would be hard-pressed to put together a competitive series. A healthy Oladipo would make them a pretty interesting team, with Malcolm Brogdon and Domantas Sabonis both playing at an All-Star level as well.

As artists continue to search for alternative income after a near-complete shutdown of the entertainment industry, Atlanta trio Migos claim that they have already lost out on a fortune due to “glaring conflicts of interest” between themselves and their attorney Damien Granderson. Variety reports that the group has filed a complaint against Granderson, saying he “abused his position of trust as Migos’ fiduciary from the moment he was retained as Migos’ lawyer” and “cheated [the group] out of millions of dollars.” The suit accused the attorney of professional malpractice and unjust enrichment.

The conflict of interest claim stems from the fact that Granderson also represents their current label, Quality Control Music, and favored the label in contract negotiations. Granderson also helped the group negotiate it’s now-defunct deal with 300 Entertainment, as well as the split with 300 that found them contracted to Capitol Records in 2017. They assert that the exit deal cost the group “millions of dollars” to arrange but that Granderson hid the terms of QC Music’s exclusive deal with Capitol that “would allow Capitol to distribute all albums that QCM produced and that QCM was actually profitting far more handsomely than was apparent from the face of the documents that Granderson personally presenteed to Migos for immediate execution.”

The new suit was filed by attorney Bryan Freedman, who noted that a 2018 amendment to the group’s deal with Capitol “triggered an extension of the exclusive recording agreement between QCM and Migos, which Granderson knew to contain terms that were unconscionable for Migos.” The suit also alleges Granderson took “more compensation that is customary for other laywers in the field,” while requiring little of Quality Control despite “far-above-industry-norm compensation.”

Migos haven’t specified an exact dollar amount in their complaint, but seeks recompense for the above-noted “millions of dollars” of lost income.

When New Balance decided to re-enter the basketball space in 2018 with the signing of top prospect Darius Bazley as an intern out of high school and landing Kawhi Leonard as the face of the brand, there were plenty of skeptics as to whether they could make a splash in the crowded hoops sneaker market.

Their first step back into the hoops arena, the OMN1S, ended up being a major hit as one of the best-reviewed performance basketball sneakers and developed a devoted following, something that was helped by a successful marketing campaign around their “Fun Guy.” Leonard has moved on to his own signature sneaker with the brand, but the OMN1S remains their flagship model and the line is finally evolving from a mid-top to a low, with a wide release slated for July 30 on NewBalance.com with a Berry Lime colorway.

The impetus behind the low-top version of the OMN1S is Bazley, who like many perimeter players prefers a low-profile sneaker that allows a bit more flexibility and lightness to their game. For Jonathan Grondin, the design director for New Balance basketball, the process of creating a high-performing low-top sneaker from a mid has been a long process, but one in which they believe they’ve succeeded.

Grondin has been hearing from fans since the launch of the OMN1S about a low-top version, but as he notes, taking a mid and turning it into a low is a far more technical process than just lopping an inch or two off the top.

“The process started with just consumers,” Grondin told Dime. “Darius Bazley, most specifically, he preferred a low from the first time he tried on our shoe, so we worked with him to kinda lower it, per se, but I think it was the conversation with the Instagram people where, turning a mid into a low isn’t as easy as just cutting off the top. I reflected on my experience doing baseball for 5-7 years, where every shoe we do we do in both versions, but you do that planning for it. And it’s such an art. Sometimes you just have to smush it, the whole thing down, to make the proportions work. Sometimes it’s just cut and adjust, and in this case the fit was so good in the OMN1S, we were so afraid we were going to lose it going to a low so we really focused on that.”

Given the rave reviews of the traction and fit of the OMN1S, Grondin’s first task was figuring out how to replicate that in a low. Happily for him, there wasn’t any adjustment needed for the sole, and the FitWeave upper was easily transitioned to a low-top to keep that same snug fit in the forefoot. As he said, “Fortunately we were able to keep the lower two-thirds of the shoe, basically as is, once we got the proportions visually to work.”

The big task was adapting that upper third, from moving the strap that’s at the top of the OMN1S mid to the custom sock that locks in the top of the foot, and, most importantly, the heel, which is molded with a ridge that helps lock the heel of the foot into the shoe.

“The hardest part is the 3D Adapt Ultra Heel, where our fit comes from fully being able to engineer exactly every millimeter of the inside and outside of this component, and just chopping that off or trying to shrink it wasn’t easy,” Grondin says. “So, like, we really tried to hold this [pointing to the heel of the OMN1S mid], there’s a ridge inside here where when your heel goes in the shoe it feels like a ball and socket. Like, your foot just snaps into it in a weird way. The interface with the shoe is next level for us, and the challenge was how do we duplicate that in a low. So we tried to hold the internals exactly as is while adjusting everything else and we successfully did it, but that was the biggest challenge was trying to match that heel fit and not sacrifice the great reviews the shoe’s been getting.”

Bazley was a major impetus behind them beginning the process of creating a low-top version, but the testing of the shoe starts at the high school and college level for New Balance, long before they let it get to their NBA stars.

“I think he authenticated it and sort of validated it at the level of the NBA, but truthfully if we didn’t have all the people we had wear testing it prior, we wouldn’t have had the confidence to put it on Darius’ foot at that point,” Grondin says. “Like, we have to believe — when we first started basketball we did focus groups and we had wear testers, and all of a sudden once you get Kawhi, Darius, [Spurs guard] Dejounte [Murray] at this point, we feel like we have to be confident enough in the shoe before we even let them try it. But you see what happens when shoes explode at that level or when they fail or god forbid someone gets hurt. So, truthfully, at this point, they’re the final sign-off. They’re not part of the process of validating that fit until the end.”

The input from all levels of basketball is important for Grondin, as it’s not just a shoe that has to perform for NBA players. Since it’s a sneaker released to the public, it has to work for everyone. That means the cushioning has to be firm enough to handle the power of an NBA player, but soft enough that the casual player can still flex the shoe and not battle blisters. This leads to months of testing and feedback from their network of testers, then building on that with conversations with the players and many more in the NBA to dial in the performance aspect and make sure it’s going to allow their stars to be confident.

“We work with their team doctors. We work with their strength and conditioning coaches. We have meetings with the equipment guys for all these teams,” Grondin says. “The relationships we’ve formed with all these teams we have players on goes very deep. It’s not a hobby to any of these people. It’s big business, which I think was somewhat eye opening. I think we figured it’d be a little bit bigger than what we do with baseball and some of the running — not like, track and field — but it’s really particular. Which I appreciate, it’s why I got into design. The minutiae of making athletes better and being on the edge of performance is what I’m all about.”

From there it was a process of making the aesthetics of the low work. The logo, which lives high up on the OMN1S, had to be shifted, a process he said they spent months on, tweaking and rotating the logo by “millimeters” until they had it how they wanted it. Ultimately, they landed on a look that is unique to the low but still recognizable as an OMN1S, making it something that, as Grondin said, can work “wearing it out with sweats on a Chipotle run.”

New Balance’s return to the basketball space was a labor of love and months of work, and that same passion and effort is evident in hearing Grondin talk about the process of creating a low-top version of their popular debut line.