Mobb Deep’s seminal The Infamous is 25 tomorrow, an age that too few of their morbid muses saw. In their Queensbridge brethren Nas’ Time Is Illmatic documentary, there’s a harrowing scene where he’s looking at a group picture of his Queensbridge neighbors and pointed out how many people were currently incarcerated or had succumbed to the streets. The Infamous explains how such pictures become memorials.

The grim project was an outlier in the subgenre deemed “gangsta rap.” The term “real” has become pretty hollow, but Mobb Deep’s landmark sophomore album is as grim and bare as it gets. The 16-track release didn’t display the late Prodigy or Havoc celebrating the material trappings of illicit funds, or weaving hyperbolic stories about being the next Scarface, or dishing clever wordplay that sugarcoats their violence.

On the Ghostface Killah and Raekwon-featured ”Right Back At You,” Prodigy raps, “As long as I send your maggot ass to the essence / I don’t give a f*ck about my presence” with a chilling steeliness. Why does he devalue life? Because “I’m lost in the blocks of hate,” he rhymed in the next bar.

As Prodigy, who died in 2017 from accidental choking, explained in his My Infamous Life autobiography, they were still hanging out in Queensbridge even as signed artists. And Mobb Deep wasn’t just a name. The duo ran with a hoard of friends, many of whom were selling drugs, committing robberies, and doing anything else they felt like they had to do to get by. Prodigy and Havoc were telling their version of the 41st and Vernon Blvd story just as they did on Juvenile Hell, their debut album released on 4th & B’way Records.

But while Juvenile Hell reflected a couple of teenagers who were still finding their way as artists, businessmen, and young men, The Infamous reflects two people who were fully tapped into their craft. Prodigy has reflected that the cultural jolt that was Illmatic influenced them to step their rap game up. And Havoc was a burgeoning producer who has said he got help “formulating his production” from Q-Tip, the album’s mixing engineer who initially helped them get their footing in the industry.

Tip is highly regarded for his A Tribe Called Quest work, which was the sonic DNA behind artists like Kanye West and Pharrell, but he also deserves credit for helping the Mobb craft The Infamous’ dark soundscape. Songs like “Survival Of The Fittest” and “Eye For Eye” are sonically divergent from his bright, jazzy Tribe offerings.

Album executive producers Matt Life and Schott Free also played a big role, by cutting their 20-track demo into what we hear today. Life told Complex that “Schott worked closely with them on how the rhymes were coming and I worked closely with them on how production was coming.” With the help of a brilliant team, Prodigy and Havoc crafted an album so dark that their genius is the only thing that shone through.

The album is unflinching in its grim depiction of violence and death. Their menace was a reaction to an environment that either ignored them or criminalized them. Lower Manhattan is regarded as the brain trust of America’s economy, but abject poverty ruled just a river over. Early ‘90’s New York was still reeling from the effects of the ‘80’s crack era. Families were broken. Violent crime was sky-high. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani let the NYPD be unabashedly predatorial and racist, harassing young people of color in the name of “lowering crime.” These factors created “a war goin’ on outside no man is safe from,” as Prodigy rhymed on “Survival Of The Fittest.” Consider some of his other bars from the song:

If I’m not at home, puffin’ lye, relaxin’
New York got a n**** depressed
So I wear a slug-proof underneath my Guess

The correlation between their depression and homicidal ideations is the bedrock of the project. They tried to smoke to self-medicate. They tried to “Drink Away The Pain,” but the pain still persisted. Even when Prodigy rhymed about going to meet a woman on “Trife Life,” his paranoia won out and they ended up running from a mysterious black van. Havoc and Prodigy’s storytelling captured the peril of their era with a jarring bluntness. Both men are talented lyricists, but they never let technical theatrics get in the way of conveying bare bars. There are esteemed studies about poverty’s effects on Black youth that will never hit as hard as Havoc rhyming, “thirteen years in the projects — my mentality is what, kid?” on “Shook Ones Pt. II.”

Prodigy, in particular, showed out throughout the album which many regard as his finest lyrical showing. Of course, there’s the iconic “Shook Ones Pt. II” verse, but he was locked in throughout the project. His mix of Queensbridge slang (deemed “the dunn language”), reflective insights, and graphic threats marked him as a one-of-a-kind voice in the rap game. He complicated profound ideas, as evidenced by this smack of reality on “Give Up The Goods:”

I’m tryna tell these young n****s crime don’t pay
They looked at me and said, “Queens n****s don’t play
Do your thing, I’ll do mine kid stay outta my way”

Though they aspired for “the life of violence and guns,” the album doesn’t have any of the commercial pizazz of their peers’ projects, which may explain the modest gold album status 25 years later. But commercial accolades could never explain The Infamous’ impact. They told a story that needed to be told over a suite of production that could very well be the best ever on a single project. Havoc has expressed interest in participating in a Verzuz song battle, and Swizz Beatz has implied that he’ll be facing The Alchemist, a Mobb Deep affiliate whose production style reflects that he was impacted by The Infamous. It’s unknown when or if that battle will take place. In the meantime, one can run up The Infamous to celebrate the legacy of Havoc and Mobb Deep.

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 — Genius is rarely appreciated in its time

Bosch is a show about a loose cannon detective who plays by his own rules but also gets results. The sixth season premiered last week. Over the run of the series, Bosch has taken down serial killers, murderous housewives who are in cahoots with crooked cops, meth rings run by international mercenaries, and now, this season, murderous housewives who were kind of in cahoots with crooked FBI agents and a right-wing militia. Bosch is the best. It’s much better than I’m making it sound, as it should be, what with a slew of alums of The Wire both on and behind the camera, but also, as we discussed just last week, it is also a show where someone will tell Bosch to stay in his lane and Bosch will reply “my lane has no lines.” Based only on the amount of time I spend talking about it, there’s an argument to be made that Bosch is my favorite show. I’m okay with it.

But that’s not why we’re here. It is, in a way, but it’s also not. This has nothing to do with the quality or the structure of the show. This is not anything resembling high-level television criticism. No, this is me pointing out that in episode four of the new season, after Bosch’s daughter announces that she’s made breakfast, he does something amazing.

Look at how Bosch eats pancakes.

LOOK AT HOW BOSCH EATS PANCAKES.

Is this… do people do this? Do other people eat pancakes like this? Because I have been alive for over 30 years and I’ve eaten hundreds — thousands? — of pancakes in that time, and been around lots of other people while they were eating pancakes, and I’ve never seen anyone do this. It’s fascinating to me.

It’s also, kind of, genius, right? Instead of dumping the syrup on top and having it slide and slop around the top of the pancake, the entire bottom side gets an even coating. And when you go to cut off a piece with your fork, you can just slide it through more syrup as you pick it up. This is a life-changing development for me. I’m going to have to try this now. I really don’t see any way around it.

I swear to God, sometimes I feel like the show does little weirdo stuff like this just to delight me, personally. Like, and I know bring this up a lot but I love it and will never apologize, look how Bosch puts his hands in his pockets.

What a delightfully strange man. What a beautiful television show. There was no reason to include a closeup shot of Bosch eating pancakes like this. It was not necessary to the plot or anything else for that matter. Someone involved in the show just really wanted to get two points across:

• Bosch is so dedicated to playing by his own rules that he even refuses to eat pancakes by the book
• There are endless possibilities in life if you have an open mind

It’s a beautiful message. I just hope we’re ready to accept it. True genius is never recognized in its own time. Galileo was tossed in prison for claiming the Earth revolved around the sun. Walk Hard and Popstar both bombed at the box office despite being objectively perfect movies. I consider these injustices to be equal. And I will add Bosch’s pancake-eating method to the list if I see any of you mocking it in response to this. The man is a visionary. Let him create.

Probably not a lot of fun to wash that dish, though. Maybe paper plates next time.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Politics is, briefly, related only to this video and not extending one single inch beyond it in any direction… good

This column is and always will be a politics-free operation. There are many reasons for this, but the main ones are that I would never do that to you and I would never, ever do it to myself. Thinking about politics too much warps your brain. I value our time and well-being too much for that. My promise to you.

That said, exceptions will be made very sporadically for politics-adjacent things, in very special circumstances to be determined by me on a case-by-case basis. If a dog wins a race for mayor, it’s going in here. If a sitting Congressman appears on 9-1-1 as the victim of a violent koala attack at the zoo that he or she instigated by taunting the koala with an ice cream cone, it’s going in here. And if Danny Trejo appears in a video that warns people about an ongoing pandemic and is posted on the official Twitter account of the Governor of California, well, as you can see, that’s going in here, too. I have never been more motivated to wash my hands than when Danny Trejo yelled into the camera about it.

This is also a good opportunity to remind you that Danny Trejo is awesome. Awesome as an actor and awesome in general, but also awesome in a very specific “he once ran to the scene of a car accident to help and ended up bonding with a special needs child who was temporarily caught in the mangled wreckage” way. Here, look:

He said he works with special-needs children so he knew how to keep the little boy calm.

“He was panicked. I said OK, we have to use our superpowers. So he screamed ‘superpowers’ and we started yelling ‘superpowers,” Trejo said. “I said do this, with the muscles. He said ‘muscles.’”

“We got kind of a bond. I kept facing him away from the accident.”

Between this and the handwashing advice, it’s not unreasonable to assume Danny Trejo has saved more lives than Batman.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Blessed Beastie Boys

Apple+ is rolling out its big fancy Beastie Boys documentary, Beastie Boys Story, this weekend. It’s a two-hour stage show directed by Spike Jonze that is filled with stories, both funny and sad. Uproxx’s Mike Ryan liked it even though he’s never been a big Beastie Boys fan. I liked it and I am a huge Beastie Boys fan, to the degree that I own Beastie Boys Book in both hardcover and audiobook format. I’ve mentioned the audiobook in this column a few times. It’s great. A bunch of the chapters are read by their famous friends and fans, including one read by Rosie Perez that can only be described as a performance.

The surviving members of the group, Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond, are doing press for the project now. Kind of. If you’re familiar with Beastie Boys at all, you probably know that they don’t so much “do press” as they “screw around with reporters for a while.” They’re rascals, these guys, especially Horovitz. This brings us to their GQ interview this week, which is fun and informative and closes with this exchange.

OK, you guys have to go. Before you do, can I just get some advice, to the people self-isolating all over—

AH: Advice on what?!

How to make it through—

AH: A global pandemic?! What the fuck do we know!!

It’s important to note here that this is good-natured, not him just being a jerk. The man simply refuses to give straight answers to two questions in a row. He’s the best. Beastie Boys are the best. Watch the documentary. Listen to their albums again. Get a little sad about Adam Yauch. Again. That’s what I’m doing this weekend.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Let’s check in with some quarantined celebrit-… GOGGINS

Welcome to the latest edition of Let’s Check In With Quarantined Celebrities. Two weeks ago, we saw The Barefoot Contessa and Queen of America Ina Garten make a cocktail the size of a prize-winning watermelon. Last week, in what can only be described as a smorgasbord, we had three entries: Matthew McConaughey teaching us about proper face mask construction in character as a man named “Bobby Bandito”; Martha Stewart leaving admittedly drunken Instagram comments under pictures of farm animals; and January Jones tap dancing, which was someone the wildest of the three. It’s a scary time right now, but it is also a little hilarious. Silver linings.

Anyway, this week we are highlighting Walton Goggins making cocktails on his Instagram and talking you through both the preparation and this current situation as a whole. “But wait,” you say, impatiently, “didn’t Stanley Tucci just go viral for making a Negroni? Why don’t you talk about that instead of Walton Goggins and his cocktail?”

Well, two reasons, smart guy. One, because I love Walton Goggins. Two, because Walton Goggins made a damn Negroni last week and NO ONE TALKED ABOUT IT.

COME ON.

I hope he does mai tais next. If he does, and you see me on Twitter like 45 minutes later firing off profanity- and typo-filled all-caps drunken tributes to Allen Iverson, just let me be. I’m having fun.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — We must not take Andre Braugher for granted

The seventh season of a Brooklyn Nine-Nine just ended. It is understandable if there’s some fatigue for the show on your part. That can happen with anything. I admit that I’ve fallen victim to it sometimes, which explains why I’m posting screencaps from last Thursday’s episode this week. It was a good episode, though. Really good. Someone stole Holt’s beloved corgi, Cheddar, and he went full-on John Wick to get the dog back.

At one point in the episode, when he was confronting the kidnapper, he shouted “YOU TOOK THE WRONG FLUFFY BOY.” I swear sometimes the writers on this show put the wildest stuff they can think of into the character’s mouth just to hear Andre Braugher say it with his voice. What a great voice it is. Imagine him saying, like, “Acapulco booze cruise.” You can hear it in your head right now, can’t you? I can. It’s beautiful.

Let’s all agree to never take this for granted. There is a very silly show on television that puts very silly phrases into Andre Braugher’s mouth every week and then he says them with the gravitas of a man doing King Lear in a park without a microphone. I know there’s a lot going on right now. There was a lot going on before all this new stuff started happening. There is entirely too much going on.

But this is happening, too. File that away.

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.

Landon:

How much time per year do you think you sit around and daydream about what you would do if you were a billionaire? I catch myself thinking about it at least once a week. Maybe more. I bet if I added it all up it would be over 24 hours of the year.

You seem like a guy who has a lot of ideas about what he’d do if he becomes suddenly rich. What do you got? Self-funded reboot of Franklin & Bash? Self-funded Air Bud movie where he tries a case at the Supreme Court? I don’t know why I think all your ideas will involve self-funding projects like this.

Landon, thank you and also how dare you. But mostly thank you. This is a good email. It’s one of those “two things can be true at once” situations. Let’s discuss both things.

THING ONE — I realized a long time ago that I will never be a billionaire. There are a lot of reasons for this (lazy, no good ideas, etc.), but the main one is that at some point I’d wake up and realize I had, say, $50 million and immediately be like, “Well, that’s enough money to last me forever. Time to shut it down.” I doubt I’d even make it to $50 million. I’d probably check out at $10 million. Maybe even $5 million. My greatest dream in life is to do something noteworthy and lucrative and then just disappear, so everyone’s like “What happened to Brian? Remember him?” but I’m just like peacefully chilling in coffee shops and sleeping in a lot. So that’s the first thing.

THING TWO — I would 100 percent build myself a house that had a secret passage. I won’t tell you where it will be or how to get into it but let’s just say you shouldn’t grab the hardcover edition of Still Foolin’ Em by Billy Crystal off the shelf in my library unless you want to be transported to A SECRET ROOM FILLED WITH WONDER.

What’s the point of being a millionaire or billionaire if you don’t have a secret passage in your house? I don’t get it. It’s like these people have never seen a movie.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Ireland!

On Easter Sunday, while on her afternoon stroll, the Irish novelist Denise Deegan realized she still had not yet called her mother. “Hello,” she said cheerily into her phone. “Hello,” a man on the street replied.

Looking at the man’s face, she realized the voice belonged to the actor Matt Damon.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am both sad and ecstatic to report that Matt Damon is stranded in a scenic Irish town where the locals adore him and have become very protective of him. How did this happen? Glad you asked.

The Damon sightings in Dalkey and neighboring Killiney, which together are sometimes referred to as “Ireland’s Amalfi Coast,” began in mid-March. According to an assistant to Mr. Damon’s agent, this was when he arrived in the area to shoot scenes for “The Last Duel,” a soon-to-be-suspended medieval drama directed by Ridley Scott. It was also not long before the pubs closed and the police began checking if people were straying beyond their permitted two kilometers.

Is it crazy that I already think this will make a better movie than whatever exactly The Last Duel is or will become? Matt Damon quarantined in Ireland with a gaggle of locals who are charmed by him? I feel like if this were maybe 1999-2008, this would already be a go project. Like, people in Hollywood would have it greenlit with a script in production and… oh, let’s say Minnie Driver as one of the charmed locals. You know this movie. I bet you can see it all in your head right now. There’s a scene where he gets ready to go home and she gets upset because he’s just leaving them all behind. He goes to the airport. She runs through the terminal to catch him. It’s too late, his plane left.

But wait.

That’s him sitting in the lounge. He never got on the plane. Etc. etc. etc. Basically a big budget Hallmark movie.

Most encounters begin the same way: Matt Damon smiles, and the resident pretends not to know who he is. “I think it’s an Irish thing,” Ms. Deegan said. “We don’t want anyone who is a celebrity to think that we are in any way sycophantic.”

I love this. Tons of Irish people trying to play it cool while Jason Bourne strolls around their town. I hope there’s one guy who has no chill and just shouts like “OI! DAMON! WHEN ARE YA MOIKING ROUNDERS 2?” every single time he sees him.

And not only had Mr. Damon found a relatively safe new home, his new admirers became an army of protectors. This was made clear when the New York Times reporter assigned to write this (me, for better or worse) requested anecdotes via the town’s unofficial Facebook page.

Who needs a security staff when you have an entire town filled with highly protective Irish people? This is something worth filing away, too.

As former-FBI agent Brian O’Conner, Paul Walker was an integral part of The Fast and the Furious family, but even though he tragically passed away midway through production on Furious 7, the franchise soldiered on. The Fate of the Furious came out in 2017, followed by the Rock and Statham-starring spinoff Hobbs and Shaw and the upcoming F9. But was there consideration given to halting the FF series after Furious 7?

In an interview with Maxim, Tyrese Gibson, who made his Fast debut with 2 Fast 2 Furious, discussed the decision to continue. “People will say Paul is not in it, so why are you guys continuing? That’s exactly why we’re continuing cause we made the shift in my mind saying we have to do this for Paul,” he said. “But the biggest decision came from us talking to Paul’s family and them giving us their blessing. The last movie that Paul did was 7, and then to see Paul’s father, mother and brothers at the premiere of Fast 8, it just sends the message that they’re fully supporting us every step of the way.”

At the Fate premiere, with Walker’s mother Cheryl and daughter Meadow in attendance, Vin Diesel spoke about his “brother Pablo,” saying that there “wasn’t a second we made this movie, not a minute, not a day that went by that we weren’t thinking about [Walker]: how to bring him into the movie, how to represent him, and how to make something that he would be proud of.” The movie also ended with a sweet tribute to the late actor.

F9 is (re-)scheduled to come out on April 2, 2021.

(Via Maxim)

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Jon Moxley‘s career hasn’t slowed down since leaving WWE. The former Dean Ambrose is currently the AEW World Champion and New Japan Pro Wrestling‘s IWGP United States Champion. He’s also making career moves outside of the squared circle, starring in Cagefighter: Worlds Collide, a new movie that will premiere on Fite TV on May 16.

With Spandex talked to Moxley about Cagefighter, his work in AEW and NJPW, how he’s dealing with social distancing, and more. That conversation is below and has been edited for length and clarity.

With Spandex: How did you get involved with Cagefighter?

Jon Moxley: It actually was pretty fortunate for me. I got a call from Jay Reso, who wrestling fans know as Christian. He was working as an executive producer on the movie. It was very shortly after I had left the previous place, WWE, and was a free agent, and he said they were looking for somebody who was a recognizable pro wrestler who’s available and I had just happened to become available.

It seemed like such spooky timing that I almost immediately just said, “Yeah, I’m probably in. Just send me the script and let me take a look at it.” From being friends with Christian I knew that he wouldn’t be involved in some real crappy movie, so I just said, “Let’s go” and pretty much jumped in right away. It’s a movie about kind of all my interests, all kind of rolled into one, and a good story about overcoming adversity and so forth, and a chance to play a hate-able antagonist who gets defeated and it sounded like fun.

How similar is your character in the movie to what people see of you on AEW Dynamite right now?

It’s probably sort of similar except that in this movie I’m playing the antagonist, so to speak, the bad guy, so you want to be a little hate-able. You want to be a little full of yourself, pompous, whatever it is. Kind of bring a little bit of that quality that Chris Jericho has perfected over the years… He just says something that just makes you want to punch him right in the nose. That’s what I had to bring to this role.

A fun part about it was that Christian, before the movie even started, told them – because a lot of the lines in this movie obviously are me doing pro wrestling style interviews or, you know, trash-talking and hyping this fight at a press conference or whatever – he told them, “Maybe not so much script him. Maybe let him ad-lib a lot of that stuff because that’s kind of what he does for a living so he’s probably better at it than you’d be at writing it for him.”

We had a big press conference scene that was one of the funnest things I’ve ever done because it was just an hour of me sitting up on this podium and yelling and screaming profanities and calling this man every name in the world and just saying whatever came to my mind and just going off and ad-libbing. I got to ad-lib ninety-something percent of everything I say in this movie, and they gave me the freedom to do that. So hopefully the way I come across in this movie makes everybody wants to get up off the couch and come punch me in the face.

Did you do any special training to get ready for the MMA fight scenes?

Yeah, I planned on coming into this in the absolute best shape of my life, trying to look like Clubber Lang in Rocky III and Thunderlips in Rocky II or whatever it was. But I ended up having surgery and getting hurt, so I didn’t train like I wanted to, so I came in not in actual peak, peak shape for a role like this… I barely made the window for where I could do the movie. I thought I was going to have to pull out of it for a minute. So I’m hoping that somebody with Photoshop or some kind of special effects could make me look a little more jacked than I actually am in real life in the movie.

I did a lot of hard work with Alex [Montagnani] who plays Reiss in the movie. He was originally the fight coordinator. He put the original fights together, which is a whole other art in itself, fight coordinating. For me, it’s fun, it’s not even like work, really. That’s the funnest part of movies is putting together these fight scenes and doing them; it’s kind of like playing around when you’re a kid. You think what the character would do, like “How would this character throw a punch?”

For example, I had been working my ass off at – I’m not good at throwing kicks. That’s not really my thing. So I’d been working my ass off trying to perfect techniques for throwing legs kicks, body kicks and I think got pretty good at it, and then once we’re putting the fight together… it was like “Well, this guy wouldn’t throw kicks.” My character’s more of a rough-house brawler, not necessarily going to have perfect technique kind of guy, just swinging for the fences, which is going to heighten my lack of skill in that department. So I was like, “Damn, I worked on them kicks for nothing.” But maybe I’ll bust them out in pro wrestling. You always kind of learn something by picking it up along the way. That’s what’s cool about this movie is it just kind of blends all my interests together.

Kind of changing the subject, you mentioned you’re known for ad-libbing a lot of promos, and last year you had some promos that kind of blew up when you started wrestling in New Japan with Shota Umino. You cut this promo after a match with him and then you guys started teaming together and he’s wrestling in the UK and he has “Shooter” on his gear now. Were you planned to be more involved with him at the time of your match, or was that something that happened after that first promo got a lot of attention?

It was a small thing that grew into a funnier big thing. It’s kind of the brainchild of a guy named Gedo who’s New Japan’s booker. In New Japan, everybody’s involved in, like, a group. You’ve got Chaos and L.I.J. and the Bullet Club and you have some people who are just kind of rogue independents like me. So, on the off days in the G1 you have tag matches, but I wouldn’t have any tag partners. So basically, it was a way to get me a tag partner. I would beat him, respect his toughness, and then I decide to make him my, like, young boy tag partner thing. But he has such a funny – I don’t know what it is about him. There’s something funny about him.

I was coming to New Japan to finally be this serious, kickass competitor, but when I looked at him and the camera’s on I just couldn’t help – because I enjoy doing, like, improv comedy on the fly sometimes, I think have a bit of a knack for deadpan humor and stuff like that – so I just couldn’t help but make the situation kind of funny, because this was the opportunity for some comedy gold here with Shota. As soon as I called him Shooter I knew everyone was going to start calling him Shooter, which I thought was funny too.

And then when he was going to the UK, I gave him one of my jackets that I had worn to the ring for him to wear to the ring because I was like, “Okay, I guarantee when he goes to the UK everybody’s going to chant ‘Shooter’ at him” and people are going to pay more attention to him and he’s going to gain experience more quickly. So hopefully when he comes back and he’s a big star and the king of Japan and I’m all old and broken down and broke in America he throws me a bone.

I know you’re still a champion there, but looking back on your time in New Japan so far, is there any match or moment that really stands out to you?

Yeah, getting to work with Minoru Suzuki was a dream come true, just kind of a dream match that I was hoping for one day. I didn’t think our paths would ever cross, and it was like that would be a really cool, kind of bucket list opponent to check off. But you never know when you’re going to have your last match or you’re going to get hit by a bus or you’re going to break your neck or whatever. You never know when it’s your last day until your last day. So I thought before I retire, it would be really cool to get a chance to wrestle him once. And we did and it was an extremely physical and violent affair and it was exactly the kind of just in your face action we both like to bring and it was very cool.

And just the whole getting to work at the Tokyo Dome. I had missed the two previous WrestleManias and I got to do two nights straight in the Tokyo Dome, so that kind of made up for it in my mind. Getting to do a Texas Death Match in the Tokyo Dome was like, come on, that’s like Christmas for me. Are you kidding me? That was awesome.

And I’m kind of proud of my efforts throughout the whole G1, being able to go through the whole G1 at full octane every single night, and I was battling through a couple injuries too, like everybody was. The locker room during the G1 looks like a triage unit… It’s the toughest tournament in pro wrestling, so to be able to do that was kind of a badge of honor. Yeah, I love wrestling in Japan. I love the fans over there.

In AEW, do you have a moment that has really stood out to you or that you’re most proud of so far?

Yeah, there’s a bunch of them. This went from Tony and Cody sitting at my kitchen table one day telling me how “We’re going to do this thing and what we want to do” and it was all this top-secret TV deal stuff that nobody knew yet and it seemed so far from reality. I was like “Really?” It sounded too good to be true. And once it started, there were a few months and a couple shows before this TV deal started, and it was like alright, this is going good now but once we have weekly TV, it’s on. Can we really do this?

And when we had that very first show on October 2nd and I was standing back behind the entrance by the monitors and there was a little clock reading 9:58, 9:59. I was watching the Inner Circle do the angle and watching it close the show, and when it hit ten o’clock it was like, we did it. We did a live two-hour show and didn’t screw up. It happened. And it was like we scored a touchdown.

And it was funny because the crowd kind of realized it too. Right when it hit ten o’clock they were, like, booing the Inner Circle bad guys, and then everybody started applauding. It was like the fans went, “This is real! They did a live two-hour show.” It was like we were all on the same team. That was the first really cool moment of like, wow this is real, we’re doing this. We’re forging ahead, and we don’t know what’s coming. We’re like Lewis and Clark going west. We don’t know what’s coming, but we’re going. So it was pretty cool.

Lately, you guys have been doing shows without fans. Does that change anything about how you work or perform?

Oh, definitely. Having an audience is such a critical element of pro wrestling and if nobody’s in the building it just sucks so much of the energy out of everything and it’s really challenging. Everybody’s kind of finding different ways to work around that, whether that’s the way you shoot it on camera, or lot of people are doing different cinematic style matches and stuff. It’s definitely tough.

When a building is going crazy and it’s all loud it can almost be like a mask and stuff. It keeps the energy going more, and so [without fans] you’ve got to dial up the physicality, you’ve got to keep everything tighter. I was really proud of the match I had with Jake Hager the other week in front of no people because it was just like kind of a real physical, realistic and we beat the actual crap out of each other. It was kind of what we had to do.

It’s not ideal for anybody to wrestle in front of empty arenas, but as long as everybody’s safe and so forth… You know, the whole world right now is going through real hard times and struggling and there’s a lot going on out there, so the best we can do in pro wrestling is just provide a slight distraction for a minute.

So what people believe is that you guys taped a lot of shows and now have gone on hiatus from filming. And you guys changed filming locations a few different times. Was there ever a thought that because people are closing down more businesses and types of gathering, we should just take a break from filming now? Or was it always like the show must go on?

I don’t really know. We filmed in Jacksonville the last time I was there, and I haven’t left my house in almost four weeks. So that question’s kind of not in my wheelhouse. I wouldn’t really know the answer to that question. I heard a lot of different stuff, but that’s kind of above my pay grade, so to speak.

This might be a similar thing, but you guys have Double or Nothing coming up, and there are no plans and people don’t know where the venue is either. Do you know if there are plans to do the show with a different format, or if any kinds of changes are planned for Double or Nothing?

Dude, if I had any answers, I would give them to you. I got nothing.

Okay, I had to ask. Here’s another question: of all the more up and coming talent in AEW who maybe weren’t known a national level before, have you been especially impressed with anyone?

Everybody, man. I think everyone that’s been given the ball in AEW has really taken it. Joey Janela instantly became one of my favorite opponents and people that I didn’t know before AEW. He was my first match in AEW, and I didn’t realize that was kind of a dream match to a certain percentage of the audience because of both of our styles. We just instantly clicked in and out of the ring. The kid’s really taken the ball and ran with it and done the best with everything he’s been given.

Darby Allin’s one of the hottest rising stars in the business. Sammy Guevara really took that opportunity with the Inner Circle and just dug right in and took the ball and ran with it. Everybody in the women’s division who’s been given the ball has taken it and ran with it, and everybody’s really doing everything they can to maximize their minutes.

I think the key is that everybody’s gotten the chance to be themselves. Nobody’s been handed some script, and nobody’s been told what they’re going to be or who they’re going to be. Everybody’s just going out and being themselves and giving authentic performances and fans can tell the difference.

If you were going to give advice to less experienced wrestlers on how to perform authentically, what do you think is kind of the key to doing that?

It takes some time because when you first start out you don’t know what you’re doing, so it’s hard to have any confidence. So it’s about listening to smart veterans and people who have your best interests at heart and so forth at the beginning, but once you get some experience and start branching into what specifically you’re going to be, it’s about being unapologetic and just doing things the way that you feel is right to do them, and doing what feels right to you. I mean, like look at The Young Bucks, who are the best tag team in the world. They flouted every convention that’s been thrown at them over the years and so forth and now are just undeniably the best tag team in the world.

Like for me, once I kind of stopped caring and stopped doing the things that I think are going to get me somewhere or whatever by conventional means, then, all of a sudden, that’s when things start taking off for you. When you just say “screw it, let’s see what happens” and you just be you, then that’s when stuff really takes off for people. And I’m far from the only example of that… It’s almost like once you stop caring and you just do whatever gets over, you just kind of go with it and don’t care about any criticisms, that’s all of a sudden when you find your groove, if that makes any sense. Play the music you want to play the way that you want to play it, you know?

I have one last question for you: How are you dealing with the whole stay at home order situation?

Well, I got a pretty sweet deal, all things considered. I’m just kind of hanging out here in Vegas with my wife, who’s my favorite person to hang out with anyway, so I’m pretty lucky to be stuck in the house with her. She’s cooking me meals and we’re just hanging out watching movies and training in my garage and my back yard, hanging out with the dogs and staying safe.

I can’t complain about my situation. A lot of people out there have it a lot worse and my heart goes out to all those people. Hopefully we come into some good times pretty soon. You never think you’re going to live through something like this, and we’re living through it. I’m not going to complain about my situation whatsoever. I’ve been on the road for 300 days a year for so long, so I’m trying to enjoy the fact that I couldn’t go anywhere even if I wanted to.

This morning, Eminem teased something when he revealed he was hopping on Sway In The Morning, as his tweet included the hashtag “#loveyourdj.” It turns out that Em appeared on his SiriusXM Shade45 to announce a contest, which will give out a lot of money to a lot of DJs.

People in the music industry have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic since most concerts and festivals have been canceled or postponed. So, Eminem and The Marshall Mathers Foundation are ready to help some of them out with the “Love Your DJ” contest, which is only open to DJs from his home state of Michigan. The first 500 DJs to submit their SoundCloud mixes will automatically receive a check for $313, which means a total of $156,500 will be dispersed.

Additionally, a panel of judges from Shady Records will select 15 grand prize winners, whose mixes will be given the chance to feature on Shade45, as a part of the “Love Your DJ Mixshow Takeover” beginning May 2. Mixes will be judged “on sound quality, originality, and texture of the entry, as it fits within the sound of Shade45 programming on SiriusXM.”

Also during the takeover, Eminem will host “Music To Be Quarantined By,” a show featuring hip-hop songs that Em thinks fans should listen to while at home. The show kicks off on May 2 at Noon ET on Shade45.

Find the full “Love Your DJ” contest rules here.

As Georgia Governor Brian Kemp orders his state re-opened, business owners in Atlanta are split in their reactions to the order. Some, like Killer Mike, agree with Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms that it’s too soon to re-open. Mike said he refused to re-open his chain of barbershops, because he doesn’t want to risk the health of his employees and customers. However, others are willing to get back their employees back to work, so they can feed their families.

According to TMZ, 2 Chainz falls into the latter category. The rapper owns two restaurants in Atlanta, Escobar Restaurant and Tapas, and told TMZ he and his business partner Snoop Dillard, will begin dine-in service on Monday, April 27. The restaurants were service takeout only for the past month, but sales have been down 95% and the restaurants were forced to furlough 80% of their staff. According to Dillard, the plan is bring back 65% of restaurant staff, which comes to around 80 people.

Chainz and Dillard are imposing safety precautions such as temperature checks at clock-in, mandatory gloves for all employees, masks for the cooks, and single-use paper menus. They hope that they will be able to host sit-down service safely, with live DJs on the weekend and even hookahs, since most customers bring their own hoses. The restauranteurs already donated “hundreds” of meals to local medical workers and told TMZ they are planning on giving more to workers at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Piedmont Atlanta Hospital.

On their Diamond-certified debut album Licensed to Ill, the Beastie Boys referenced Columbo, the Smurfs, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Barney Miller star Abe Vigoda, The Honeymooners, The Mary Tyler Moore Show actor Ted Knight, Mister Ed, The Gong Show, and variety show mainstay Phyllis Diller. Michael “Mike D” Diamond, Adam “MCA” Yauch, and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz’s pop culture-dropping lyrics continued throughout the entirety of their discography, including a Sleestaks namedrop on Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, so it’s surprising that they didn’t appear in more TV shows.

Looking at their IMDb, the Boys have dozens of “Themselves” credits for when they performed on Late Show with David Letterman and SNL and American Bandstand, which is definitely worth watching. They were also on the British series The Big Breakfast in 1994, where, according to this helpful YouTube description, they were joined by “puppets, Zig and Zag, inside the bathroom. MCA is dressed like his Sir Stewart Wallace character from the ‘Sabotage’ music video and has a Southern accent for some reason. Mike D is his usual cool self. And King Ad-rock has no idea what the hell is going on. My guess is that he was fried.” Good guess. But their pre-Beastie Boys Story filmography is sparse, relegated mostly to brief cameos in 1985’s Krush Groove, also featuring the Fat Boys and Run-D.M.C., and 1988’s Rick Rubin-directed Tougher Than Leather. Which makes their appearance on Futurama all the more delightful.

Ice Cube has Friday. Queen Latifah has Chicago. Beastie Boys have Robot Hell.

In the Futurama season one finale “Hell Is Other Robots,” after Bender (voiced by John DiMaggio) becomes addicted to electricity after “jacking on” after a Beastie Boys show at Madison Cube Garden, he joins the Temple of Robotology, where he vows to stop sinning. But when his co-workers, including Fry (Billy West) and Leela (Katey Sagal), become annoyed by his new holier-than-thou attitude, they attempt to bring him back to the dark side using alcohol and Hookerbots. It doesn’t take much work for Bender to return to his immoral ways, but when he denounces Robotology, he’s visited by the Robot Devil (Dan Castellaneta), who sends him to Robot Hell. “We know all your sins, Bender, and for each one we’ve prepared an agonizing and ironic punishment,” the Devil tells Mr. Rodriguez, while music begins to play. “Aw crap, singing,” Bender whines.

Yes, but also: the Beastie Boys.

“Hey, Bender, gonna make some noise / With your hard drive scratched by the Beastie Boys / That’s whatcha, whatcha, whatcha get on level five,” they rap before Bender and the Robot Devil plunge further into Hell. “Robot Hell” is notable for two reasons:

1) It’s the first musical number in the show’s history (“Whalers on the Moon,” although catchy as heck, does not count), later leading to the holiday-themed “Back to Work” and “I Want My Hands Back” from series highlight “The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings.”

2) It contains one of the few lines of original dialogue in “Hell is Other Robots” from Mike D, who earlier in the episode had his head passed around at a concert like a beach ball (“Don’t forget to pick up a T-shirt!”), and Ad-Rock, who also provided the voice for Yauch (MCA was unavailable). But even getting just two of the Beasties was challenging.

“I’m a huge Beastie Boys fan, so this is a big thrill for me to have them on the show,” executive producer David X. Cohen said on the DVD commentary for the episode. “[But] there are only two actual boys in the episode, since we were never able to record Adam Yauch. I went to New York City with Ken Keeler, a writer on the show, and we waited three days by our cell phones, we were in theaters, restaurants, killing time. We’d had to stick on the very edge of the building, so we would have cell phone reception, ’cause they could call us at any moment, telling us they were willing to record, but they never were. So we went to New York for three days and flew back to L.A., not having done it.”

Eventually, they were about to record Mike D and Ad-Rock, who Cohen called “very nice once we got them in the studio.” They did have one demand, though: they “didn’t wanna” perform “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!),” according to “Hell is Other Robots” writer Eric Kaplan. Instead, what you get is “Intergalactic” and “Super Disco Breakin’,” both from Hello Nasty, which came out a year before the episode aired, and “Sabotage.”

It’s never explicitly stated why the Beastie Boys are in Hell, but that’s not my biggest question about the group’s cameo. This is: why Futurama? Futurama is great and all, don’t get me wrong, but it’s weird that the Beastie Boys were never on The Simpsons, right? A Simpsons guest spot is a right of passage for any musician, unless your name is Bob Dylan, Prince, or Bruce Springsteen, but through 680 episodes, the closest the Beastie Boys have come to Springfield is “Fight For Your Right” playing in one episode and “Girls” in another. (Technically, they could still show the Rappin’ Rabbis how it’s done, but it wouldn’t be the same without MCA, who died in 2012.) They apparently agreed to the appearance because they were “all big fans of Matt Groening, particularly Adam Yauch,” according to their publicist, which makes things even weirder. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for this — or maybe the Beastie Boys just like space stuff.

Either way, they seemed to enjoy the experience: on “Too Many Rappers,” a single from their final album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, the Beastie Boys stated that they’ll be in the rap game “until the year 3000 and beyond,” an apparent nod to Futurama. And all those decades later, they’ll still be busting mad rhymes with an 80% success rate.

Rap music is moving as fast as ever. Luckily, we’re doing the work to put the best music in one place for you. This week, there were new videos from Wale, Lil Baby, Missy Elliott, ASAP Ferg, and Jpegmafia. There was also new music from Isaiah Rashad, Ab-Soul, and an UPROXX session from Eddy Baker. Here’s the best of the rest:

Fivio Foreign — “Demons & Goblins” Feat. Meek Mill

Well, at least 2020 is someone’s year. Fivio Foreign continued his ascendance with “Demons & Goblins,” a menacing drill track that Meek sounds intriguingly at home at with his lithe flow.

Wiz Khalifa — “Still Wiz”

This week is the week of 4/19-4/25. Take a wild guess on what day Wiz decided to drop a commemorative single. On “Still Wiz,” the Taylor Gang boss drops some bars over a modern remake of Dr. Dre’s classic, rhyming, “gas in my joint, what you smokin’ don’t flatter me.”

Earl Sweatshirt — “Whole World” Feat. Maxo

Earl Sweatshirt dropped off “Whole World,” another jazzy, introspective track where he bemoans the “whole world round me crumblin’ in my vision” with an assist from Maxo.

Lil Pump — “Illuminati” Feat. Anuel AA

Lil Pump linked up with Anuel AA on “Illuminati,” his first official single since July of last year. The track follows up in the spirit of “Gucci Gang,” repeating tongue-in-cheek iterations of “Illuminati” during a dark, funeral-themed video. The LA Archdiocese might have something to say about this video too.

Masego — “Veg Out”

This week, Masego dropped the latest entrant in the quarantine anthem contest with “Veg Out,” a piano-driven trap burner where the talented artist harmonizes about the virtues of realizing, “we can wait a while don’t wanna burn out.”

Quelle Chris & Chris Keys — Innocent Country 2

Quelle Chris, Chris Keys, and a host of lyrically gifted guests give us food for thought throughout Innocent Country 2, a long-awaited followup to their 2015 cult classic. The duo picks up their impressive chemistry like it’s been five months instead of five years on a project that runs the gamut of jazzy, experimental, and soulful boom bap.

Kembe X — Keitel Sword Feat. Icecoldbishop

To complete a TDE trifecta, Kembe X unleashed his “Keitel Sword” and chopped off the heads of a million nameless MCs on his latest single. The single showcases him unleashing a furious, rapidfire rhyme filled with reflective gems over a twangy beat.

Rod Wave — “The Last Sad Song”

Rod Wave dropped “The Last Sad Song,” a self-aware track where he culls through his emotional turmoil. The video was filmed so recently that he’s wearing a mask, which fits in with his friend’s sage advice to “stay away from f*ck n****s and the corona.”

Kahri 1K — “Fort Night”

Kahri 1K paid homage to the Menace To Society classic in the video for “Fort Night.” The entrancing single’s mini-movie shows Kahri and his crew getting involved in a heist that takes a fantastic turn.

Ransom — Director’s Cut (Scene Two)

Ransom and producer Nicholas Craven’s Director’s Cut EP was one of the best projects of March. The Jersey-Montreal connection is looking for a double up with the followup project, featuring six more tracks of Ransom delivering graphic lyricism over Craven’s soulful, arresting production.

Rockie Fresh — “VS Ideas”

On Rockie Fresh’s confessional “VS Ideas,” he pleads “everything I do I put my soul in it,” over a dreamy Mathaius Young production.

MyNameIsJabee – “Checmate” Feat. Atmosphere & Lil B

Jabee lets us know “you can’t shake hands with a clenched first” on the ever-jazzy “Checmate,” which was produced by Statik Selektah and features an affirming verse from the Based God himself.

Slayter – “Mob Shit” feat. Fenix Flexin & Capolow

It’s bicoastal connection on “Mob Shit,” which is every bit as menacing as the title suggests. Each MC takes turns talking greasy over spaced-out production.

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

Face masks have become an essential part of everyday life during the coronavirus pandemic, so much so that there are shortages of them worldwide. Companies who didn’t used to make face masks have shifted their focus and started manufacturing them to help out with the pandemic. Now, Universal Music Group and Bravado (a division of UMG) are teaming up with some of the world’s most popular artists to sell new masks for a good cause.

The We’ve Got You Covered fundraising initiative now offers masks with branding from a number of major artists, including Billie Eilish, The Weekend, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Blackpink, The Rolling Stones, Tupac, Queen, Imagine Dragons, Slipknot, and others. The masks, which are available for purchase now, cost $15 each, and all of the net proceeds will be donated to MusiCares. Mask from more artists are set to be added in the near future.

Bravado CEO Mat Vlasic said of the project, “I’m humbled and grateful to work with artists and partners who are passionate and driven to deliver a program that supports those that need it most during this unprecedented time. [This initiative] will continue to grow and evolve thanks to the hard work from everyone here at Bravado and UMG, along with our artists across the globe.”

Check out all the available face masks here.

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