Athletes Unlimited, a new women’s sports venture backed by big-name investors such as Jonathan Soros, Kevin Durant, and Jessica Mendoza, will kick off in August, and according to Emily Caron of Sportico, the television rights will belong to ESPN and CBS, with all 30 matches broadcast live.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Athletes Unlimited model, the league is bypassing owners, home cities, and set rosters with the intention of putting the league in the players’ hands. Rosters are drafted each week by team captains, and scoring is accumulated by individuals rather than teams, in a system not unlike fantasy sports. It’s a fascinating concept: If you get attached to a certain player, you tune in for them above all, and now ESPN and CBS are making it easier to do so.
According to Caron, CBS will air seven of the contests while ESPN will take the other 23 (with some seemingly hitting ESPN+). Broadcasts will also focus on the athletes as well as digital innovations, as with many leagues attempting to play during the pandemic:
“Athletes Unlimited said production will focus on the players and innovative technologies, including social media integration, in-game player audio and new graphics. In-house digital and social content will also be created to complement the live game linear coverage.”
Details are not yet available regarding how (or where) Athletes Unlimited will construct its quarantine bubble, but the company already announced it will launch a similar league for women’s volleyballers in the fall.
Despite being the first African-American heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson hasn’t been the subject of a biopic in half a century. That’s about to change: As per Deadline, HBO has announced a limited series, called Unruly, about the legendary pugilist, and it will star two-time Oscar-winner and future Blade Mahershala Ali.
Ali has long said that playing Johnson on screen was his “dream role,” although it won’t be the first time he’s played him. Back in 2000, two decades back, he starred in a stage production of The Great White Hope, Howard Sackler’s 1967 play, whose title refers to racist boxing promoters and press’ search for a white boxer to end his pioneering streak. It was turned into a movie in 1970 which starred James Earl Jones as “Jack Jefferson,” the play and film’s stand-in for Johnson.
The project, which comes from Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman’s Playtone, will be based on the last major screen work about the fighter, the 2004 TV documentary Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, which was helmed by Ken Burns. That film featured Samuel L. Jackson as the voice of Johnson, alongside such august company as Jeffrey Wright, Keith David, Billy Bob Thornton, Ed Harris, Alan Rickman, Brian Cox, and more.
Johnson took the boxing world by storm in the early 20th century, but his success proved a double-edged sword. He was hounded by racists, who exploited the fact that he was married to a white woman to get him sentenced, on trumped-up charges, to a year in prison. That caused him to flee to Europe before returning home to serve his sentence. Johnson’s story has long been embraced by Black resistance movements and has inspired untold works of art, among them Miles Davis’ fusion classic A Tribute to Jack Johnson.
It’s been nearly five years since the announcement of TM88 and PartyNextDoor‘s rumored collaborative release, Party At 8. The project has mostly been shrouded in mystery, though a few leaks have kept the idea of it actually coming to fruition alive since.
Uproxx recently caught up with TM88 for an Instagram Live Session, where the award-winning producer provided some intel on Party At 8 and its status. The 808 Mafia member said it all began when the two linked up at a Los Angeles recording studio and ended up making a few songs that evening.
One of the songs, presumably titled “For The Night,” was leaked and TM88 played Uproxx an exclusive snippet of the reworked version by request.
“I really just had to go in and change up the vibe and all that sh*t. But I can let you hear like a little bit of it,” he said from his Atlanta studio before hitting play on a song that is more vibrant and robust than the original.
“I’m working on it still,” he said after playing nearly 30 seconds of the track. “I want him to hear the finished product.”
However, the leaked track isn’t the only Party and TM songs in existence, apparently.
“Man, I think we got like nine or ten songs,” he revealed when asked how many tracks they’ve created.
According to TM, Party At 8 is still being worked on and there’s no scheduled release date. For the time being, fans have one of TikTok’s favorite tracks, “Blue Jean Bandit” featuring Young Thug, Moneybagg Yo, and Future and can expect more hits from the production genius all 2020.
PartyNextDoor released his third studio album Partymobile back in March, landing at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 chart, and has been unleashing a string of visuals from the project such as the animated “Savage Anthem” and “Loyal” featuring Drake.
Hopefully, the appropriate time and space will align for TM88’s and PartyNextDoor’s Party At 8 to finally materialize.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
IDK previously indicated he would “never put out a project like IDK&FRIENDS again,” as he tweeted back in 2019, but thank goodness he didn’t keep good on that promise. He recently dropped IDK & Friends 2, which also serves as the soundtrack for Kevin Durant’s documentary Basketball County: In The Water. Now he has teamed up with one of his aforementioned friends, PnB Rock, on a video for their collaboration, “End Of Discussion.”
The lyric video is a simple visual (as lyric videos tend to be): IDK and PnB Rock sit in front of the camera, wearing disappointed looks on their faces and smoking as two girls twerk behind them.
Aside from PnB Rock, IDK & Friends 2 also features appearances from ASAP Ferg, Wale, Juicy J, Denzel Curry, Maxo Kream, Xanman, Rico Nasty, Big Flock, Yung Manny, Big Jam, Weensey (BYB), Alex Vaughn, and Ronny J. Producers on the project also included Jersonmade, Michael Uzi, Ronny J, Juicy J, FNZ, Acyde, Teo Halm, Jeff Klienman, Nils, Wonda, Blue Rondo, DJ Money, Vontae Thomas, and others.
Set to follow IDK & Friends 2 is the rapper’s next album, U See 4 Yourself.
Watch the “End Of Discussion” video above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Casey Short and Julie Ertz shared a joint message on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon as a follow-up to the emotional on-field moment they shared during the opening night of NWSL Challenge Cup action over the weekend, when Short began to cry while kneeling during the national anthem and Ertz embraced her.
The moment generated a broader dialogue over continuing to play the anthem before sports games. In response, Short and Ertz, who are also teammates for the U.S. Women’s National Team, gave fans insight into their internal conversations as teammates and pledged to keep seeking out meaningful action rather than the gossip such public moments can often be reduced to once the internet gets hold of them.
“This moment of helplessness was overwhelming for many reasons including, frustrating in not having a clear answer for change, the hurt in each other’s voices, and our black teammates and friends who have emotionally poured out every ounce of their heart to us,” the teammates wrote.
While the rest of the letter does not go onto list any specific actions being taken or seek to correct the record in any way, it is important. The teammates reaffirm their religious faith and how it has helped them connect, and seem to try to turn the topic away from what happened on Saturday not on the pitch and toward real action.
After a five-year hiatus following their latest record Caracal, Disclosure’s return to music was less than conventional. The UK duo shared one new song each day for a week, which comprised their EP Ecstacy. Shortly after their EP’s release, the duo heralded their next album with their title track “Energy.” Now, Disclosure return with another preview of the record in the form of the energetic number “My High” with Aminé and Slowthai.
Disclosure’s “My High” video takes after the single’s vibrant spirit. Directed by Simon Cahn, the visual centers around the ill-fated protagonist who was just admitted to the hospital. His time in the hospital was short-lived, as he’s wheeled out into the parking lot and taken over by Aminé, Slowthai, and a group of rowdy teenagers.
Speaking about the track in a statement, Disclosure gushed about their collaborators: “We always wanted to work with rappers, we just didn’t know any and we had no means of contacting them… there aren’t a lot of rappers in Reigate. Writing ‘My High’ with Aminé was a lot a fun, he’s hilarious and may as well be a comedian. He writes so quickly and it’s amazing to watch. He brought so much energy to this already very energetic tune that when we got home to London in January, there was only one guy capable of matching it… slowthai.”
Watch Disclosure’s “My High” video above.
Energy is out 9/28 via Capitol Records. Pre-order it here.
In a lengthy Instagram post on Monday night, Colorado Rockies infielder Ian Desmond told a story about returning to the Little League fields he played on as a child in Sarasota, Fla., and how the return to his past ultimately inspired him to sit out of the upcoming 2020 MLB season.
Though much of Desmond’s post centered on the part that baseball, his coaches, and his teammates played in his career and life, not all of the memories are happy. Desmond reminisces in the post about his white teammates chanting “white power” after their pregame huddle, and of being abandoned by his stepfather after a game. Yet the trip through Sarasota also made Desmond realize how hard it is for some to have those experiences, especially today as the wealth gap grows. Desmond also wrote that leagues like MLB don’t do enough to support young athletes.
“I got to experience (sports) because (the fields were) a place where baseball could be played by any kid who wanted,” Desmond writes. “It was there, it was affordable, and it was staffed by people who cared.”
Desmond then turns his attention to MLB, calling out the “labor war,” “racist, sexist, homophobic jokes,” and “cheating,” in addition to a huge diversity problem, with no Black owners, one Black GM, two Black managers, and Black players making up less than eight percent of the league.
“If baseball is America’s pastime, maybe it’s never been a more fighting one than now,” Desmond writes, comparing the systemic racism of broader American society to the mechanisms within MLB. As a biracial man, Desmond says he has hardly ever been comfortable as an MLB player, and wants to open doors for more underserved young athletes. Desmond will spend time when he would have been playing instead reinvigorating Sarasota Youth Baseball.
This is a problem. It’s a real problem. It’s not the biggest problem we have right now, I’ll gladly concede that much, but still, the point stands: Once you hear the song “Ja Ja Ding Dong” from Eurovision Song Contest, the new Ferrell-McAdams movie that is burning up Netflix, you will have an impossible time getting it out of your head. It burrows in there with its little teeth and claws and hooks itself to particularly sturdy parts of your brain. It’s not so much an earworm as it is an eartick, holding on for dear life as you try to pluck it out of there. Luckily, I am here to help. I, too, suffered this fate, living with “Ja Ja Ding Dong” lodged into my brain for days on end. And I have a simple, easy tip for getting it back out as soon as you’re ready.
I’ll get to that in a minute, though. The first thing you need to know is that they did this on purpose. Everyone involved openly admits it. The writers of the song, Gustaf Holter and Christian Persson, said as much, telling Vulture they “wanted it to be super-cheesy, but also incredibly catchy at the same time,” and adding “’stupid-catchy,’ we call it.” Well, my friends and tormentors, you did it. Congratulations.
I think there are two parts to its catchiness. The first is the call-and-response of it all. It sounds like a real song you’d hear in a real pub in real Iceland, with its “Ja Ja” prompt followed by its “DING DONG” chant. This is the chunk of it that really gets in there. I bet, if you live in a bustling city or along the main drag in a smaller town, you could stick your head out the window right now and shout “Ja Ja!” and at least one person would shout “DING DONG” back at you. If it doesn’t work today, give it a week. If it doesn’t work in a week, try yelling “WILL YOU PEOPLE PLEASE WATCH THE EUROVISION MOVIE ON NETFLIX! COME ON!” It’s a good movie. It’s fun. They will thank you. Eventually.
The second part of its catchiness is the naughty lyrics. Hoo boy, are they naughty. Not since “Let’s Duet” from Walk Hard has a fun and peppy little fake movie song made the 11-year-old child in me chuckle this much. I mean…
Jaja ding dong (Ding dong)
My love for you is growing wide and long
Jaja ding dong (Ding dong)
I swell and burst when I see what we’ve become
Jaja ding dong (Ding dong)
Come, come my baby, we can get love on
Jaja ding dong (Ding dong)
When I see you I feel a ding-ding dong
The song itself sounds so sweet and innocent that you can almost be lulled into a trance where you forget how dirty the lyrics are. It could be an issue if you have children who are, say, 8 and 11 years old and hear it one single time. This brings us to a quote from the director of the film, David Dobkin, also from the Vulture piece: “I played it one time in my house — one time! — and my 11-year-old and 8-year-old were singing it for weeks.”
It is very funny to picture two young children being as obsessed with the song as this bearded maniac, a tortured soul and my favorite character in this movie, possibly any movie.
Netflix
I can relate to this man. Anyone who has seen the movie can. There are other goods songs in there, too. “Double Trouble” is legitimately fun and bouncy, and could have been the for real song of the summer in that small late-90s slice of time when Ace of Base owned the charts. “Volcano Man” is preposterous on every level and still might end up on multiple playlists I listen to in my car. This is one of the reasons Eurovision Song Contest works as a movie, and it’s the same reason that Walk Hard and Popstar worked as music biopic satires: The humor lands better when the songs are good. These songs are good. All of them. But I only want to hear “Ja Ja Ding Dong.”
This brings us, finally, to the simple trick I’ve discovered to get the song out of your head. You’re going to kick yourself when you realize how easy it is. All you need to do it sit in a quiet spot in your home, close your eyes, and th-
AHAHAHA
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
YOU FOOL
THERE IS NO GETTING “JA JA DING DONG” OUT OF YOUR HEAD
Sadie Dupuis may be best known for leading Speedy Ortiz, but don’t forget that she’s done some great solo work as Sad13 as well. She dropped her solo debut, Slugger, in 2016, and four years later, she is back with its follow-up. Dupuis announced her next Sad13 album, Hand Painting, with its lead single, “Ghost (Of A Good Time).”
Dupuis calls the song a “party song about not going out,” with press materials adding that the track is “an oddball dance anthem for the introverts and anti-nostalgists among us, inspired by a recent Bushwick basement show with a 1 a.m. start-time she would have tolerated a decade ago.”
Dupuis said of the album, “I worked on Haunted Painting throughout 2019, writing, arranging and recording from home, then finishing the songs in studios around the country in between Speedy’s fly-in dates. It’s maximalist, and more true to me and my tastes than any record I’ve done.”
Watch the “Ghost Of A Good Time” video above, and check out the Hand Painting art and tracklist below.
Wax Nine
1. “Into The Catacombs”
2. “WTD?”
3. “Hysterical”
4. “Ghost (Of A Good Time)”
5. “Oops…!”
6. “Good Grief”
7. “Ruby Wand”
8. “With Baby”
9. “The Crow”
10. “Take Care”
11. “Market Hotel”
Haunted Painting is out 9/25 via Wax Nine. Pre-order it here.
If Christopher Nolan banning chairs from his sets sounded too good to be true (of course Christopher Nolan wouldn’t allow his cast and crew to sit down), that’s because it is.
In a recent conversation between Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman, The Dark Knight Rises actress told her Les Misérables co-star, “Chris also doesn’t allow chairs…. He doesn’t allow chairs, and his reasoning is, if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they’re sitting, they’re not working.” That’s the kind of method madness that titillates first-year film school bros, but a Nolan spokesperson told IndieWire that it’s simply not true.
“The only things banned from [Nolan’s] sets are cell phones (not always successfully) and smoking (very successfully),” spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak said. “The chairs Anne was referring to are the directors chairs clustered around the video monitor, allocated on the basis of hierarchy not physical need. Chris chooses not to use his but has never banned chairs from the set. Cast and crew can sit wherever and whenever they need and frequently do.” Look, here’s a chair on a Nolan set. Two of them, actually.
warner bros.
As for the cell phone ban, that’s to protect against leaked photos and videos. No wonder Tom Holland hasn’t been in a Christopher Nolan movie yet, and never will.
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