Category: News

After a successful run as an esteemed experimental indie group in the 2000s and 2010s, Yeasayer called in quits in 2019. Despite that, the Brooklyn band has been in the news lately thanks to a lawsuit they filed against The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar. They sued the artists over their Black Panther song “Pray For Me,” which they attested sampled and altered a “distinctive choral performance” from their 2007 song “Sunrise,” claiming the sample was “immediately recognizable.”

However, it appears they have decided to not push the issue any further: Pitchfork reports that documents filed in a New York federal court say the band “confirmed to their satisfaction that no copyright infringement occurred.”

The lawsuit was initially filed this past February by the band and their We Are Free, LLC, against The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, producers Doc McKinney and Frank Dukes, and the labels UMG, Interscope, Aftermath, and Top Dawg Entertainment.

The Weeknd previously denied the copyright claims in court documents, saying his song “does not capture any actual sounds” from Yeasayer’s track, adding, “Each and every allegation contained in the complaint not specifically admitted herein is denied. The sound recording of ‘Pray For Me’ does not capture any actual sounds from the sound record, ‘Sunrise.’”

In what’s surely an official contest that Jake Gyllenhaal is fully aware of (disclaimer: it’s not.), Tom Holland is offering one lucky winner a weekend away with his Spider-Man: Far From Home co-star.

While sharing a photo of the two actors at a 2019 comic book convention, Holland solicited his 35 million Instagram followers for a caption to to the humorous pic and promised the winner a getaway with Gyllenhaal, who has yet to respond to Holland’s generous offer. Then again, he hasn’t said “no” either, so you never know.

You can see Holland’s full Instagram post below:

As of this writing, Holland’s post has 2.8 million Likes and over 51,000 comments, so that’s a whole lot of captions to sift through. But if some lucky fan does get a chance to spend the weekend with Gyllenhaal, they might want to think twice about sharing any personal details with the Velvet Buzzsaw actor. Gyllenhaal recently made headlines after it was revealed that he shared a very personal piece of information about his childhood friend Chris Fischer during his wedding to comedian Amy Schumer. Via ET Canada:

Gyllenhaal’s speech was shown in part during “Expecting Amy” and it is not what you would expect.

“We’re going to start this off with Chris is the only uncircumcised one amongst the four of us, which was a mystery to us as young boys because we only knew the penis to be one way,” Gyllenhaal said.

That’s a whole lot of TMI, Mysterio. Although, it was probably right at home in Schumer’s docuseries that premiered Thursday July 9 on HBO. The three part behind-the-scenes special is an unflinching and intimate look at Schumer’s life as she navigated an extremely difficult pregnancy while still working on a comedy tour that eventually left her hospitalized. Fortunately, everything worked out in the end, and mom and baby had a safe and healthy delivery.

(Via Tom Holland on Instagram)

The international food conglomerate Goya is dead to a lot of people on social media right now — #BoycottGoya has been trending since yesterday afternoon. Important voices in food are speaking up. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is cracking jokes about prepping her own adobo seasoning (have at it, it’s easy!). And, in the final stage of the cycle, the counterprotesters have started a hashtag of their own.

What’s all the drama about, you ask?

At the signing of the White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative, the head of Goya, Bob Unanue, praised Donald Trump in a press conference on the White House lawn, saying, “We’re all truly blessed to have a leader like President Trump.” People began calling for the boycott shortly after the words escaped his mouth — naturally connecting Trump’s aggressive actions toward Mexican and Central American immigrants and his continued disdain for Puerto Rico with the fact that Goya sells food marketed directly to those communities.

Prominent figures in the food world spoke up.

As did former presidential hopeful Julian Castro.

Naturally, that was counterbalanced by calls to buy Goya products from the right. And there were plenty of “well, actually” tweets pointing to Goya’s thousands of employees and its charitable history. (It should also be noted that the brand had a similarly positive relationship with the Obama administration.) A more productive branch of the conversation noted that you can buy these types of products from small-time and local operators instead of huge multi-national corps.

From that inciting incident and subsequent spin-out sprung plenty of questions. Should we all be boycotting Goya? Is there a company less aligned with aggressive actions against immigrants to buy these products from? Do Twitter boycotts actually work?

These are all valid angles to explore and we’ll get to them, but first a more pressing question: Does this surprise you? Because it probably shouldn’t. Not if you understand how colonization has shaped the North/ Central/ South American and Caribbean foodways. Not if you’re willing to look at the situation within a broader context of how mainstream food is produced and who profits from it.

Goya is a Spanish-American company. (You know Spain, right? The conquistadors?) And in that same spirit, the brand highjacked Indigenous American foods for colonial profits. It’s literally a tale as old as time. Prudencio Unanue Ortiz immigrated from Spain to Puerto Rico then New York and founded Goya in New Jersy in 1936. In the beginning, it was focused on importing Spanish olives and olive oil to the New York City marketplace. Eventually, the company turned to Indigenous ingredients like beans, corn, chiles, and spice mixes that were popular across the Caribbean, Mexican, and Central American diasporas. Three generations later, the Unanue family operates a billion-dollar enterprise peddling beans, masa, and sauces, among other products. They still import Spanish products but they’re far better known in the U.S. for their beans and spice mixes.

This makes Goya the epitome of colonial erasure of Indigenous food culture by colonialists hailing from Spain — one of history’s most vicious colonial perpetrators. While it’s easy to understand the brand’s importance to the Latin-descended people of the Americas (and their frustrations with the company’s praise of Trump), the deeply colonial attributes of the whole situation should also be noted.

Though they tend to align with whoever is in power, the Unanue family is known for it’s GOP allegiance. Andy Unanue, who also works in the conglomerate food world and is Bob’s brother, toyed with running for Congress as a Republican back in 2008. And neither Unanue has ever hidden their support for Trump or the Republican party — both of which have continually fought to suck wealth from Indigenous communities via various pipeline projects.

For what it’s worth, #Boycott (insert brand name here) initiatives have been shown to have little effect. Studies of these online actions have indicated that when it comes to revenues, social media brouhaha rarely has any impact on the bottom line of a company this big. In part, that’s due to the fact that most of the people tweeting about this today won’t be tweeting about it tomorrow. And while it’s easy to make your own adobo mix, it’s even easier just to buy it when no one’s looking. Controversies die and consumer memory is short.

What this story does speak to is the blindspot people seem to have around these foods, their histories, and who is profiting off them. Companies like Goya are colonial, capitalist multi-national brands that commodify Indigenous products from the Americas and give nothing back to the Indigenous people who often grow and harvest those same products (or even pay respect to the food cultures that birthed them). Even companies like La Costeña, a Spanish-Mexican company, trade in colonial ideals by selling off Indigenous foods to the wider market. In La Costeña’s case, they control 69 percent of the world’s chili market. Chili is an Indigenous American staple, shared with the world. There’s no evidence online of La Costeña offering targeted support of Indigenous communities. Their charity programs pretty much stick to earthquake relief and children rehabilitation centers in Mexico City (both very valid in the broader scheme of things, of course).

This matters because the Indigenous peoples of what is now Mexico live in some of the worst poverty in the Americas and still deal with serious discrimination from the near majority European-descended populace. Spain and Portugal were and still are European colonial powers. Their descendants still rule in places from Argentina to Brazil to Cuba to Mexico to the United States. And colonizers — like the Goya/Unanue family — are still actively funneling money away from Indigenous communities and leaving them in abject poverty while they become billionaires off of traditional foods.

So yes, you can/ should be pissed off at Goya and La Costeña and any colonial company hoarding the wealth of chilis (a billion dollar a year industry), vegetables, or spices grown on Indigenous land. It’s a legitimate frustration, even on the days Goya’s CEO doesn’t praise the president.

Lost in the Twitterness of all this is the White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative itself. Jovita Carranza, an administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, broke it down in the Miami Herald as “a coalition designed to help Hispanic Americans reach their dreams through innovative educational and career pathways.” In short, that means the SBA is setting aside money to ensure people in the Hispanic community in the U.S. have access to small business loans to start-up companies.

It’s an entrepreneur booster for low-income families who live marginalized lives in the U.S. a narrative that was almost entirely obscured by the din of the #BoycottGoya talk. (Thankfully, while many pieces of the conversation were lost, people did urge boycotters not to throw food away, but rather donate it to food banks.)

So with the social media fury already burning out, where to next?

Well, if you want to be part of broader systemic change, make the extra effort to buy these food products from Indigenous producers directly instead of huge multi-national colonial corporations. We don’t need European colonial companies like Goya sifting those profits away from some of the most vulnerable people on Earth while shipping worldwide and making an outsized carbon footprint. You can always buy Puerto Rican spices from non-conglomerate owned Puerto Rican producers. Or buy your beans from the Indigenous folks who are actually growing them. And if you just can’t bear the weight of that inconvenience, pressure Goya and other brands profiting off of Indigenous ingredients and techniques to include Indigenous communities in their charitable initiatives.

Conversations about food have both deepened and broadened over the past few years, particularly in recent months. The time is ripe to ask ourselves tough questions about what we eat, who profits from it, what that means, and how our purchasing affects the planet and the people (particularly the most vulnerable people) living on it. None of it is quite as easy to wrestle with as a Twitter boycott, but it’s far more significant in the long run.

Dallas-born singer Tayla Parx made a name for herself last year with her debut album We Need To Talk. Now, the singer is gearing up for another big release. Teasing her upcoming sophomore record Coping Mechanisms, Parx shared the groove-driven track “Dance Alone” in May as a reflection on human connection. On Friday, the singer followed up her single’s release with a vibrant new video.

Directed by Qwely, Parx’s “Dance Alone” video makes the most of her quarantine. Opening in her mood-lit room, Parx exudes joy as she gets up on her feet, gracefully shimmies down her stairwell, and showcases her best dance moves around her colorful home.

In a statement alongside the video’s release, Parx said she hopes the video makes her fans feel more connected: “We’re all stuck inside, while coping with being away from loved ones more than usual. We need human connection, but at least when you’re home dancing in your pajamas while blasting your favorite song, you feel a little less alone. You have the music to keep you company. Show me you’re dancing alone if you can relate.”

Watch Parx’s “Dance Alone” video above.

Tayla Parx is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

While whiskey gets a lot of attention from mainstream media at the moment, rum has quietly become the fastest-growing spirit category in the world. Rum was the spirit of choice, even in North America, for centuries before whiskey came along. Now it’s back, bigger and better than ever.

One of the biggest reasons rum is gaining so much popularity is due to the tireless work of the world’s only Rum Ambassador, Ian Burrell. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Burrell on the road a few times at cocktail competitions like Bacardi Legacy and big industry conventions like Bar Convent Berlin. So believe me when I personally attest: there’s no one who loves rum more than Burrell. His energy and knowledge about the spirit are second to none.

When I heard Burrell was working with legendary rum maker Richard Seale to marry African and Caribbean rums for the first time, I knew the collaboration would be something special. The fruit of their labors was Equiano Rum, which became available in the U.S. just last month ($60 per bottle). To celebrate this new endeavor and the new rum, I called up Burrell so we could chat about rum in general, Equiano, and the importance of telling stories via the spirits we drink.

How does one become the official rum ambassador of an entire spirits category?

Well, first of all, nobody actually hired me or made my job official. I actually created my own job. What it was is I looked around to see if there was a go-to person that could teach me about the rum category and there wasn’t. So I decided, “Well, why not me?” So it’s self-taught. I’m still learning about the category of rum. It’s just fortunate that over the years many rum brands I’ve worked with have actually then bought into what I do and the story and believed in what I’ve said. They’ve basically honored me by saying, “You’re helping the category grow to the status where it is now.” So they’ve acknowledged me as that ambassador that I awarded myself for the category of rum.

I’m very lucky to be in a position where a lot of companies are paying me to actually travel around the world to talk about the category itself.

It’s an interesting thing because it feels like rum is really making a big comeback right now. What do you attribute that to? Is it people getting sort of burned out on bourbon or is it just that there are so many good rums right now so it’s impossible to deny?

I would say it’s a combination. I mean, you’re right, when it comes to things like bourbon and other whiskeys, a lot of people are looking for that next new thing that they could tantalize their taste buds with or introduce to their friends to. A lot more people are becoming more discerning as well, and a lot of that’s to do with the internet. Social media is bringing the world and knowledge together. People seek to find out what it is they’re drinking. There are the social aspects of it as well. Rum has basically grown because of all of these factors. Then there’s the fact that there are more and more rum brands being creative in a category that, as we know, was one of the biggest spirit categories in the world 200 to 250-odd years ago. Now, it’s starting to gain more traction. So all of these factors have all come into place to get rum to where it is now. Where it is seen as a fast-growing category.

There are so many different styles of rums out there. I always like to say there is a rum for everybody just because of the fact that if you’re into your spirits that you want to sip neat, at cask strength, add a little bit of water, or be a connoisseur of the spirit, there are rums out there for you. If you want something easy drinking that you want to mix with your favorite mixer, or maybe a couple of cubes of ice, there are rums out there for you. If you just want a rum in a cocktail and have a smile on your face and have fun, and create that party vibe, there is a rum out there for you.

So it’s one of those categories that ticks lots of boxes and appeals to a wide breadth of people. And all of that is all coming together at the same time. It’s like all these stars are aligning, and that’s why I see real growth in the rum category.

Right on. I was looking through your Instagram and you’ve got lots of very good informational posts. For instance, you just posted about Appleton 21 and 23. And then you point out that if your rum doesn’t say, “Years old,” on the label, it’s probably bullshit. What do age statements generally mean on rum?

Because rums are made in so many different countries around the world, you’re going to have different interpretations of what rum is. And what is surprising to a lot of people, because they just look at rum as one category — the Wild Wild West — is that they fail to understand that there are lots of rum regions that have strict guidelines and rules to how they make their particular product. Now, because there are different regions, everyone’s going to have their own interpretation. A lot of them have been influenced by a colonial connection to the particular region, so their interpretation of rums are going to be self-defining. For example, Jamaica, when they make rum, their mindset is been connected to the old English colonies, the English way of thinking of spirits or how it’s made, how it’s defined.

When you put an age claim on your product, that would normally mean the minimum that particular product has spent in a barrel, which is the norm in, say, Scotland. It’s a norm that’s observed in Ireland. It’s a norm that’s in England. So naturally, if you have England colonizing parts of the Caribbean — Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana, etc. — then they’re going to have that mentality. But then you have other white countries that colonized parts of the world, like Spain. And they’re used to doing things in a slightly different way when it comes to age and product. So when we look at rums, we see things like solera age. That’s an “average” style of aging where they’re using blends of younger products with older products, and they quite happily talk about the oldest product used in that blend or how long it may have been used in that system.

That’s the part that’s that can be confusing to consumers. You will have some brands that would use 23 on their label, and it’s not an homage to Michael Jordan. It’s the fact that they have some rums inside their blend that have been aged for 23 years but are no longer 23 years old. So to put 23 on the label and say in their marketing that they have some old rums inside it at that age, but they are using younger rums. Then the consumer is confused because they don’t really understand the rules and regulations of that particular country. They might adopt or think that the benchmark is the Jamaica way of defining stuff or the Barbados way of defining stuff, where they only put the minimum age on their label.

So you see 23 on a rum from, say, Central America, and you don’t really understand about the rules and regulations of that particular country, you may think it’s 23 years old, when in reality it may be only six years old with some 23 inside it. That’s the confusing part of rum. So if it does say, “Years old,” on there, or it says, “Minimum Aged,” and then it has that number on there, then by trading standard laws, that would be the correct way of labeling that particular product from an English colonial ideology. But if you’re into your rums from, say, Guatemala, or even Nicaragua, or Panama — again, Central American countries that were ex-colonies from the Spanish empire — they use average aging. They use solera aging. So you have to understand that what you’re paying for is not a product that’s been in the barrel for a minimum amount of years. It’s a blend of rums. Now it may taste great, but you have to understand and know what you’re paying for.

I always like to say to people, “Enjoy what you like, but know what you’re paying for.”

That’s really good to know. Another technical question, you see “rums” like Tuzemsky in the Czech Republic, which is made from sugar beet and not sugar cane. Is there a standardization of rum like bourbon has to have 51 percent corn or scotch single malt has to be 100 percent barley?

Well, you have to break it down and look exactly. In fact, exactly what you just said there. You were talking about a product coming out of Czech Republic, which used to be defined as rum by their own exporting standards, but can no longer be called rum once they joined the EU, because it wasn’t by definition rum. It was a local spirit that used rum as a way to promote or market its product and has done quite well. So Tuzemsky is not rum, and we know that because they’ve taken rum off their label. So to be defined as a rum internationally, you have to be made from sugar cane or variants of.

But also of interest to me when you were making that analogy, you mentioned scotch. There is no global definition of what whisky is, but there are regional and geographical definitions of what whisky is. So a Scotch whisky will be completely different from an American whisky. And when we go to America, we look at regions in Kentucky or look at Tennessee. Although they’re very, very similar, they have certain guidelines of where they have to be made and what they are made of. Even India has different definitions of whisky. They even use a sugar cane as a distillate. It has to have a certain amount of sugar cane and then it has to have a certain amount of grain inside the barrel for some of their whiskies.

So there are regional definitions or geographical definitions of whisky, just the same as there are with rums. It’s just that with rums — because it’s widely accepted around the world — that there will be different interpretations of what rum is to those vast majority of different countries.

And then some countries don’t even call their product rum. A prime example is Brazil. Cachaça. If I made a cachaça in Jamaica, I could sell that as rum. But I couldn’t make a Jamaican rum in Brazil and call it cachaça. I’d have to call it rum or aguardiente. So it’s all about regional reputations.

Let’s talk about the launch of Equiano, which is a marrying of African rum and Caribbean rum. Can you walk us through what the bottle is and how it came to be?

Yes, so Equiano is the world’s first African and Caribbean rum. What we mean is we have rum from the African continent blended with rums from the Caribbean. It’s like going full circle. As we know, Africans were enslaved and then brought over to the Caribbean to actually build, not only the rum industry but the agriculture industry. It has all been built on their sweat and tears. So rum is always connected with that because sugar cane is one of those symbols that we will always connect with some form of enslavement. Rum has that connection. That dark history. So I wanted to be involved with something unique, especially as a person who believes in the category as a whole. And I said, if I’m going to get involved with a brand, it has to really be promoting a category. Also, it has to be telling a story.

So the opportunity came where I worked with my partners, where they said, “Where would you ideally like to work with? We’ll create a blend?” And I said, “Well, I’d love to have a rum from the African continent. The best rums I’m tasting at the moment from Africa are coming out of Mauritius.” So it has to be a blend of Mauritian rums, and I said, “it has to be a blend of either Barbados or Jamaica rum because I have a connection to Barbados and Jamaica.” So I put it to a friend of mine named Richard Seale, who is an award-winning master distiller and blender. He’s making some of the best liquid in the world at the moment, not just rum. And he loved the idea of creating a little bit of history, of blending and importing rums from the African continent into his distillery and blending it with some of his rum. So that’s how that came about.

It’s more than just the bottle too. There’s a lot of story around the name.

The name is important as well because, again, it tells part of the story. Olaudah Equiano was a freedom fighter, revolutionary, an abolitionist, an entrepreneur, and also a person that really showed how the world should be looking at each other back in the 18th century. And we’re seeing a lot of that today. He was enslaved when he was 11 years old and brought to Barbados. He was sold there and sent from Barbados to America. He was sold again there and came to England. He knew that slavery was wrong because he lived it. Peddling flesh is wrong. So he wrote a book of his memoirs, and it opened the eyes for a lot of people of what enslavement of Africans was about.

And because of his campaigning, because of his storytelling, he basically started the ball rolling for the abolition of slavery worldwide. He’s an important part of that movement. And again, that’s very topical today for where we are when we’re looking at human beings as equals. We felt that it’s important for the rum to pay homage and tell a story. It was important for the rum to make that same journey as well. Travel from Africa, going to the Caribbean and then going to the U.S. and to Europe.

Then the other thing I said we have to do is we have to give back. So a percentage of our profits will be going to ground level charities and foundations that are fighting against enslavement around the world and equality projects.

It’s just a great story. So let’s get a little more insular to the rum. What flavor profiles were you looking to highlight when you put these blends together?

Oh, great question. Well, first of all, Mauritius originally was a Dutch colony which became a French colony and then an English colony. There was a lot of changing hands. When you go there, the rum distilleries have been influenced by that French colonial ideology, which is making rums from fresh sugar cane juice. But they also retain some of the influence from England as well. So they’re making rums from molasses. Some are using pot stills, some are using column stills. So I wanted to try to get that influence there. I also wanted to take advantage of the French oak — the Cognac casks — that they have in abundance out there because of the connection to France.

So we had to have a rum that was still complex with a lot of flavor, especially for people that want to sip and savor the spirit neat. But, we also wanted a rum for bartenders to enhance in cocktails. It had to, most importantly, work with rums from Barbados, which was the second place we chose. Richard Seale, the rums that he creates, I like to call them sweet rums. And when I say sweet, in the Barbados terminology, it’s a naturally sweet, not sweetened. Another important thing, we couldn’t add any sugar to the actual rum. It had to be all-natural. No spices, no sugar. It had to be all coming from the types of barrels and casks that we’re using. So that Cognac cask has been tropically aged for a minimum of 10 years in Mauritius, and they’re now sent by boat to Barbados, where once Richard Seale gets hold of it, he then blends it with rums that are aged from a minimum eight years in Barbados. They’re vatted and sat down together for a little while and then bottled.

I’ve heard you call this a “drinking rum.” What’s the mean exactly?

Yeah, that was my ideal, a drinking rum. Some people say to me, “What do you mean by drinking rum?” I’m like, well, a lot of people categorize rums and they say, “Oh, is it a sipping rum? Is it a mixing rum?” I’m like, well, any rum could be sipped. Any rum can be mixed. It all depends on the person who’s drinking it, but more importantly, how you want to drink it. So this rum needs to be drunk. Drink it neat, on the rocks, with your favorite mixer, in a cocktail, anyway that you see fit.

It has to be versatile enough to do that. But it also has to appeal to a wide breadth of rum drinkers that are on different journeys. I want the person that’s into their single casks or their cask strength rums to be able to sip it and say, “Yeah, man, that tastes good. Good flavor, 43 percent alcohol. This is a session rum for me.” I can do the whole bottle of Equinao with friends in a session. And I want the rum novice to also come on board and say, “You know what, I can drink this with ginger ale or a ginger beer, and I still taste the flavor’s rum, but it’s not offensive to me because it’s not challenging for me.” I wanted to rum that wasn’t challenging for the new drinker but was complex and flavorsome enough for the experts. It seems quite hard to do, but in theory, when you have an artist like a Richard Seale actually doing the final blending of the product, it becomes quite easy in that respect. That’s what we were looking to create with the flavor profile of that rum.

In late 2019, Tinashe released her first independent album, Songs For You, after securing her release from RCA Records. The album was well-received by both critics and fans as it marked a return to moody R&B form for the “2 On” singer, as well as a maturing of her sound. Today, Tinashe released a video for the album’s 11th track, “Touch & Go” featuring 6lack, but added a twist: the video is for a remixed version of the track produced by burgeoning 22-year-old EDM star Tarro.

Tarro’s remix transforms the sensuous bedtime ballad into an all-out pop jam, while the video gives Tinashe the space to showcase her penchant for avant-garde fashions and passionate choreography. Shot in front of an elaborate array of LED screens, Tinashe vamps for the camera in a green gown as images of cityscapes and tour footage zoom by behind her, staging an eye-popping light show while she sings of a wishy-washy lover who just can’t seem to make up his mind.

Earlier this year, Tinashe was among the first artists to begin to perform live from her quarantine quarters, highlighting her skill at seeking out innovations in music. Her reaching out to Tarro continues that trend and may just help launch the young producer to further stardom. Tinashe has made something of a habit of remixing Songs For You tracks as well; last Friday, she shared Zhu’s remix of her Ms. Banks-featuring single, “Die A Little Bit.”

Watch Tinashe’s “Touch & Go (Remix)’ video with 6lack and Tarro above.

Netflix’s revival of Unsolved Mysteries has brought a new generation of amateur crime-solvers to the fold, and Redditors are attempting to help crack the case for one of the show’s new mysteries. The true-crime show has gotten plenty of attention on the streaming service in recent days, and one case in particular has gained steam as fans believe they discovered an overlooked key to the case.

The collection’s first episode, “Mystery On The Rooftop,” details the case of Rey Rivera, a 32-year-old Baltimore man whose body was found apparently crashed through the roof of a the Belvedere Hotel, where his car was found after days of searching. It took days to find his body, but things get strange when investigators try to piece together what happened. There was no easy access point to the roof of the hotel, for one, and his phone and glasses were not shattered when found with his body.

Strangely, Rivera’s wife later found a note taped to the back of a computer that contained rambling references to the Freemasons, Kubrick, and other entertainment he’s fond of, including a David Fincher movie called The Game. According to some Reddit sleuths, the case actually has some strange similarities to the 1997 Michael Douglas movie, in which a man is caught in an increasingly-elaborate scheme to make him think the life he’s living is not real. Through the complex series of events, he jumps through the roof of a glass-ceilinged roof in the movie’s climax.

Via Reddit user /zumalightblue:

“The whole movie is about this crazy game…that makes you think you lose everything in order to let you appreciate life again. Rey was an unsuccessful movie script writer and maybe he got involved in [something] that tried to imitate The Game in some way.”

With nothing else making much sense, many have attached themselves to this theory as the key to unlocking the mystery and suggesting that Rivera may have been acting out the movie. But those actually involved with the show and that know Rivera aren’t so sure. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, co-creator Terry Dunn Meurer says that the fan theory has been addressed with Rivera’s wife, but neither are convinced it is the key to the case:

“I spoke to [his wife] Allison Rivera about that,” Meurer tells EW exclusively. “She’s spent a lot of time with that note, as did the FBI, just going through the note trying to figure out if there were any clues or anything else in there. She doesn’t place any significance on the movie The Game. Rey liked a lot of different types of movies. He was just a guy who was interested in everything. If he had only ever left just that writing or if it was the only thing he had ever written randomly, then people would be a little bit more suspect. But this is what he did all the time. He kept so many journals full of random writing. Allison feels that she’s been through all the journals just trying to find any clue that could help her figure out what happened to him, and she couldn’t find any real or strong connections in The Game.”

According to that, the coincidences are just not enough to make any real connections. The Game was one of many things he listed, for one, and it wasn’t something he seemed to be stuck on according to his wife. Certainly, new perspectives are the point of Unsolved Mysteries, as the show quite literally presents cases stuck in neutral and with no leads. But according to its creators, The Game may be a popular lead online, but in reality, it’s another road to nowhere in particular.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Since demonstrations broke out across the country in June protesting police brutality, many artists have used their platforms to spotlight prominent issues. Paramore’s Hayley Williams has been vocal about the protests on social media, but a recent merch item posted to the band’s store had fans pointing out insensitivities. Williams took the backlash as an opportunity to listen and learn from fans’ comments, eventually deciding to remove the merch from their store while thanking fans for continuing to educate her.

Last month, a Paramore fan shared art that reimagined the band’s cover of their 2007 album Riot! with the names of many who have lost their lives to police brutality. Williams promoted the artwork online but decided to take it one step further. On Friday, Paramore announced they would be selling versions of the poster through their store with proceeds benefitting to the organization Color Of Change and the NAACP.

Shortly after Paramore announced their campaign, fans said they appreciated the band’s intention but labeled the for-sale poster callous. One Twitter user said it was “disrespectful to the people who have passed” and another pointed out that “the names of dead Black people should not be merchandise that white people can hang up as some kind of decoration.” Many suggested Paramore should commission Black artists to design merch and instead donate those proceeds to racial justice organizations.

Williams combed through feedback and took the critiques to heart. Just an hour after the original poster was announced, Williams said they would be removing it from their store. “the last thing that we, as white people, should do in the midst of this is cause more confusion and potential harm,” she wrote.

The singer then went on to apologize to those she offended and thanked her fans for pointing out her insensitivities and “continuing to educate and have hard conversations.”

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

Decisions on whether to play the 2020 season are due soon across MLB, and Buster Posey of the San Francisco Giants became the latest to opt out, citing concerns over the recent birth of adopted twin daughters.

Not only is the task of raising two newborns a ton of responsibility, but Posey told media on Friday that they were both born prematurely and will have to spend time in the ICU for “some time.” He did relay, however, that the twins are doing well.

Daughters Ada and Livvi are stable, but Posey didn’t want to risk travel and the general busyness of the season while his wife tended to the babies and the medical challenges they face. Posey admitted he may not have opted out if their birth had not been premature.

After many NWSL and NBA players opted out to keep safe during the pandemic, the MLB setup only poses more health risks, as baseball players will be asked to travel to different markets all around their region of the country and play a much longer 60-game regular season plus extended playoffs. It wouldn’t be a surprise to hear more stars like Posey decide against playing this year before we actually make our way to Opening Day in a couple weeks.

Terence Winter is an HBO all-star due to his involvement with The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire (Vinyl? Never heard of it), and now he’s taking his talents to HBO Max. Winter and War for the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves are leading a new Batman show for the streaming service, this one centered about the Gotham Police Department. The still-untitled series is set within in the same universe as Reeves’ The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as the Dark Knight, and “will build upon the motion picture’s examination of the anatomy of corruption in Gotham City, ultimately launching a new Batman universe across multiple platforms,” according to HBO Max.

Hopefully “multiple platforms” includes Happy Meal toys. More from HBO Max:

The series provides an unprecedented opportunity to extend the world established in the movie and further explore the myriad of compelling and complex characters of Gotham.

Will Pattinson show up on the HBO Max series? Probably not, for the same reason that Robert Downey, Jr. and Scarlett Johansson weren’t regulars on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Unless producers trick the quarantine king into thinking it’s a cooking show.

“This is an amazing opportunity, not only to expand the vision of the world I am creating in the film, but to explore it in the kind of depth and detail that only a longform format can afford,” Reeves said in a statement, “and getting to work with the incredibly talented Terence Winter, who has written so insightfully and powerfully about worlds of crime and corruption, is an absolute dream.” After hearing about this show, I looked up whether there any Batman references on The Sopranos. There aren’t, at least none that I could find, but I did stumble across a (cursed) video entitled “TONY SOPRANO meets THE JOKER (NSFW),” so, y’know, if Winter is looking to add some HBO spice to Gotham…