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Music titans Questlove, Black Thought, Live Nation, and Universal Music Group have been named in an explosive fraud lawsuit. According to Rolling Stone, Questlove (real name Ahmir Thompson) and Black Thought (real name Tariq Trotter), co-founders of hip-hop group The Roots, the group’s manager Shawn Gee, and band employee Munir Nuriddin are being accused of working together to “scheme to defraud” the estate of the band’s late bassist Leonard Hubbard’s widow and estate out of money owed to them.

After forming Grand Negaz, Inc. to manage the band’s business dealings in 1993, a financial agreement was made to clearly state ownership percentages to ensure everyone knew their respective compensation splits. Thompson and Trotter took 37 percent of stakeholders’ interest, while member rapper Malik Smart (who died in 2020) and Hubbard retained 17 percent each. However, in addition to that, the lawsuit claims Hubbard was to be granted 25 percent of the group’s recording and publishing earnings, as well as a 33 percent stake in the band’s touring performance company.

The lawsuit presented by Hubbard’s widow and estate is seeking “restitution for property, money, and benefits” that were not provided to him as outlined in the paperwork. While the matter is being litigated, they are requesting that the courts “freeze” The Roots’ trademark “until a value can be determined for the brand.”

Hubbard departed from the group in 2007 to seek medical care after being diagnosed with blood cancer, and later died in 2021. The suit alleges that beginning in 2014 up to the current day, Thompson, Trotter, and others, “through a pattern of racketeered behavior, fraudulently converted, divested and absconded with monies lawfully belonging to the Plaintiff Decedent.”

The lawsuit also accuses the musicians of forming a new business, Legendelphia, in 2013, to allegedly transfer funds from their business Grand Negaz, all without the approval of Hubbard. As for where Live Nationa and Universal Music Publishing Group is named, the suit accuses Gee of “deactivating Hubbard’s personal royalty account.” It also accuses that Gee, Thompson, and Trotter of “sending a letter be written from Legendelphia to Universal Music Publishing Group to divert Hubbard’s royalties to Legendelphia” instead of Grand Negaz, Inc.

No public statement has been released by The Roots, Thompson, or Trotter. All parties declined Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.

When Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker formed Boygenius, they introduced a new concept: the meta supergroup.

Back when supergroups first emerged in the late 1960s, they were synonymous with young men whose egos were fueled as much by hubris and cocaine as they were by genuine artistic inspiration. That era came and went before the members of Boygenius were even born, but Bridgers, Dacus, and Baker are nevertheless committed students of rock history and well-versed in the conventions of the form. Hence the band name, a witty potshot at the “dude auteur” archetype at the heart of supergroup culture. And then there’s the cover of their 2018 self-titled EP, which slyly mimicked Crosby, Stills & Nash’s iconic 1969 debut. (Bridgers took it one step further by entering a social-media feud with the actual David Crosby, which was extra meta considering that she feels like the Crosby of Boygenius.)

At the start of the promotional cycle for their first full-length album, The Record — one can assume the bravado of that title is also self-aware — Boygenius emulated another lauded “dude auteur” band of yesteryear, Nirvana, on the cover of Rolling Stone. But it was the article inside the magazine that really showed how Bridgers, Dacus, and Baker have redefined the supergroup idea. You know how the supergroups of the classic-rock era inevitably fell apart because the people in those bands could not stand one another? Well, that’s not true of Boygenius. They are the most well-adjusted and emotionally stable supergroup in rock history. They are supportive, democratic, non-competitive, and non-hierarchal. They even attend group therapy sessions together, purely as preventative care to avoid potential future conflicts. “We’re obsessed with each other,” Bridgers gushed. “I like myself better around them.”

Friendship, we can all agree, is good. Though there’s something about how the frictionless interpersonal dynamic of Boygenius is aggressively asserted in everything written about them that seems like a statement about 1) how this superstar collective is different than the rest and 2) how Boygenius is a corrective to the sorry history of media narratives that pit women against each other. It’s another layer of self-consciousness placed on an already acutely mindful operation. Given that the singer-songwriters in Boygenius made their bones writing authentically about dysfunctional relationships, the idealized sisterhood being sold here feels meme-ified for internet consumption. Their magazine quotes demand to be quote-tweeted, rather than merely liked. It’s not that supergroups normally don’t talk like this, no band ever talks like this.

As a fan of Bridgers, Dacus, and Baker individually, I feel like it’s worth taking a moment to ponder why the dude-auteurs inside of all those ill-fated mega ensembles ended up falling out with one another. Because it’s not just the drugs or the pettiness or the toxic male energy. In a band, you have to cede part of yourself for the better of the whole. You must negotiate, accommodate, and compromise. In the process, you will dilute your voice for the sake of the group identity.

And that’s the unresolvable problem of every supergroup, even the smart and thoughtful ones. The complaint about supergroups historically is that they never seem to be as good as the members are on their own. And that’s due almost entirely to the sacrifices that being in a band requires. You can’t be the you that you are on your solo records; you lose you in order to have us.

For all the care they have taken to avoid the pitfalls that felled their predecessors, this is the one issue that the members of Boygenius are unable to avert. The math works against them. On The Record, the sum does not equal the parts.

Each member of Boygenius has an instantly recognizable style. Bridgers is the Elliott Smith acolyte whose whispery delivery belies lyrics loaded with scathing and occasionally violent imagery. Dacus is the keen observer with an eye for wry literary detail. Baker is the emotional brutalist with a Christian impulse to self-flagellate.

The best parts of The Record spotlight those idiosyncrasies. On the hushed folk number “Cool With It,” they each take a verse that plainly signifies their singular voices — Baker is self-deprecating, Dacus tells a short story, and Bridgers quietly seethes. “The Satanist” follows a similar structure, and again Dacus’ sardonic verse wins out. (“Will you be a nihilist with me? / If nothing matters, man, that’s a relief / Solomon had a point when he wrote Ecclesiastes / If nothing can be known, then stupidity is holy.”)

The chunky alt-pop of “The Satanist” also highlights the most appealing musical gear on The Record, which extends from the rock-oriented arrangements on Dacus and Baker’s most recent solo efforts. The winning early single “Not Strong Enough” suggests that moving in a Sheryl Crow direction would also significantly leaven Bridgers’ mellow sonic tableau, while the delightfully sludgy “Anti-Curse” reveals that Baker might be well-advised to make a full-on grunge record.

Where The Record falters is when the proximity of these writers’ work inadvertently makes the songs sound one-note and samey. What Bridgers, Dacus, and Baker share is a generational fixation on mediated emotions — it’s not just about how you feel, but also how the other person might be feeling and what those feelings are supposed to mean and then resenting the implications of those projected interpretations. Their songs unfold like the sort of self-interrogations that insecure people instinctively fall into whenever they have an awkward social encounter that they subsequently spend the rest of the night running over endlessly in their minds in the mistaken hope that they can finally “solve” it.

That perspective is obviously relatable to people who experience the world via multiple screens. But on The Record — particularly on the album’s weaker second half — it can feel repetitive and oppressive. There are no less than three songs in which a moment of significant emotional catharsis occurs during a road trip. (If he were a woman in his 20s, Bruce Springsteen could be a member of Boygenius.) While delivering big emotions is the bread and butter of these writers, The Record occasionally veers from empathetic truth into corny manipulation. The worst offender is the would-be showstopper “We’re In Love,” a relentlessly maudlin ballad in which Dacus literally says “Damn, that makes me sad” while reflecting on still more heartache in a karaoke bar.

Moments like that made me wonder if Boygenius would benefit from a little more hubris and blow. Then again, the fame-powered grandiosity inherent to the supergroup experience works against the strengths of these artists. What sounds fresh and perceptive on their solo records can come across as overblown and cliched here. As it is, I’ll take the intimate insights of Punisher, Home Video, and Little Oblivions over the indulgences of The Record any day.

Anticipation is high for Chlöe’s solo debut album, In Pieces. Just days before its arrival, Chlöe stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! to debut a new song from the project.

On her latest song, “Cheatback,” Chlöe has no desire to exact revenge on an unfaithful man. In this case, she’d prefer to give him a taste of his own medicine.

Over a simple acoustic guitar, Chlöe reminds the cheater that she has plenty of people knocking on her door, and she isn’t afraid to play the games he has been playing with her.

“Find another boo from the hood with some tats / Give him what’s yours, show him I can throw it back / Maybe then, baby, you’ll know how to act / if I cheat back / Send him new pics in that outfit you like / Say I’m with my girls while he spendin’ the night / Maybe then, baby, you’ll know how to act / if I cheat back,” she sings on the song’s chorus.

Fans can hear the official version, which will feature Future, upon the release of In Pieces this week. In the meantime, check out the performance above.

In Pieces is out 3/31 via Parkwood/Columbia Records. Find more information here.

Last year, Rage Against The Machine’s lead singer, Zack De La Rocha suffered a foot injury that led to the cancellation of their European tour after he pushed through to finish their North American run. Now, in a new interview with Rolling Stone, the band’s guitarist, Tom Morello, reveals he doesn’t exactly know when they’ll retake the stage — if ever.

“We’ll see. If there is to be any more shows, we will announce it as a band. I don’t know. I know as much as you do, honestly. Right now, we’re in a time of healing,” Morello said.

“There is no term,” he added. “Rage Against The Machine is like the ring in Lord Of The Rings: It drives men mad. It drives journalists mad. It drives record industry people mad. They want it. They want the thing, and they’re driven mad. If there are Rage shows, if there are not Rage shows, you’ll hear from the band. I do not know. When there is news, it will come from a collective statement from the band. There is no news.”

However, he did make a point during the interview to note that if it was an indefinite hiatus as a band, they would say that. Morello also said that it was de la Rocha’s orders from his doctor that prompted the European tour not happening — as flying brought risks of blood clots.

“I hate cancelling shows,” De La Rocha previously wrote. “I hate disappointing our fans. You have all waited so patiently to see us and that is never lost on me…I hope to see you very soon.”

Given the band has only played a handful of shows during their many years as a group, only time will tell.

It seems like Hugh Grant is frustrated with the state of movie sets these days. On the one hand, he must have had fun starring in Dungeons & Dragons alongside his costars, which consisted of what he called “very attractive” men — the movie stars Chris Pine and Regé-Jean Page, so you see where he’s coming from. On the other hand, it seems like he’s mad that nobody on set is as close as they used to be anymore. Maybe he just wishes he was really best friends with Kate Winslet or Paddington?

Grant stopped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where (after the 3:00 min mark) he brought up how film sets are “weird” now because nobody bonds the way they used to, thanks to cellphones and social media. “You know, in the old days, by the end of the second week, you were all getting drunk in the evening and having dinner and falling in love with each other and all that,” Grant told Colbert. “And all that stopped ’cause of telephones. Really everyone goes home and looks at Twitter. It’s so sad.” His solution? To ban all phones from set so that the cast is forced to hang out with each other…for better or worse.

Colbert responded, “So, if there weren’t telephones on set, there’d be more affairs going on?” Grant seemingly agreed. “Yeah, I think so. You know, [Quentin] Tarantino bans telephones from sets and quite right too, and the people there, they do all shag each other — or so I’m told.” Once Upon A Time In Hollywood star Timothy Olyphant confirmed that Tarantino doesn’t like for anyone on set to use phones. Why Grant thinks this would lead to an affair is a little questionable, but hey, he had starred in about 400 romcoms, so he’s seen it all.

While Grant and Tarantino have yet to work together, the director has praised Grant’s ability to turn a rom-com into a classic piece of cinema, calling him the “perfect leading man” back in 2015. He even said that he could “see him in my stuff,” meaning that perhaps Grant will get a new role in a Tarantino movie and get to ditch his phone for a while! It seems like that’s what he wants, anyway.

You can check out the interview above, where Grant also mentions his “incredible ass” near the end. It’s important.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Hey you, yes you. Do you like movies with a good cast made by a good director? Boy do I have a film for you. Asteroid City is directed by Wes Anderson (it’s his 11th film overall, and first since 2021’s fantastic The French Dispatch) and stars Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan, and Jeff Goldblum. You know you’ve put together a stacked cast when Margot Robbie is listed 18th on the poster.

You can watch the Asteroid City trailer above.

Set in a fictional American desert town in 1955, Asteroid City is about “the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention, organized to bring together students and parents from across the country for fellowship and scholarly competition, [being] spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.” That world-changing event appears to involve aliens, and everyone who was in Asteroid City at the time of first contact being held in quarantine.

To pass time, Anderson regular Schwartzman has an awkward interaction with his dead wife’s father, played by Hanks, and poorly flirts with an actress played by Johansson. “I do a nude scene, you wanna see it?” she asks, while he fails to react. “Huh? Did I say yes?” Schwartzman replies. He didn’t say anything. “I meant yes, my mouth, my mouth didn’t speak.”

Asteroid City will get a limited release in theaters on June 16th before expanding on June 23rd.

The final Succession season will soon be upon us. How many episodes remain until the Roy family’s story ends?

Sadly, not enough episodes shall happen, but there’s something to be said for the show coming to an end while it’s on top. However, HBO has dropped the final trailer, which of course points towards more turmoil after Tom’s betrayal of Shiv in the third season finale. The group dynamic completely flipped with Logan circling wagons to stay in power, but maintaining that power won’t be easy. And as the trailer suggests, he may be attempting to divide the Roy siblings by wooing Roman to the dark side.

Heck, all sides are dark when it comes to Waystar Royco, which has kind-of been in the can for awhile, and maybe Alexander Skarsgard’s character will rule the world in the series finale. But again, how many more episodes will this take?

Ten. That means we have about two-and-a-half months of weekly event TV when the tinkling opening notes of the theme song might cause chills to run down your spine in the best way. Event TV has been back for awhile (starting with House of the Dragon), but it’s staying strong this month with the returns of not only Succession but also Yellowjackets and Ted Lasso. We live in highly entertaining times.

Succession returns for its fourth and final season on March 26.

In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo is tasked with bringing the One Ring to Mordor and destroying it. Along the way, he fights orcs, spiders, and a fish-loving lil freak. Ari Aster sees a lot of similarities between the fantasy trilogy and his new movie, Beau Is Afraid, which he called “a Jewish Lord of the Rings, but he’s just going to his mom’s house.” No word on the orcs and spiders, but if it’s anything like every Jewish gathering my family has hosted, there will be fish.

A24‘s Beau Is Afraid stars Joaquin Phoenix in a “decades-spanning surrealist horror film set in an alternate present” about an “extremely anxious but pleasant-looking man who has a fraught relationship with his overbearing mother and never knew his father. When his mother dies, he makes a journey home that involves some wild supernatural threats.” In the behind-the-scenes video above, Aster, who also directed Hereditary and Midsommar, said he’s been thinking about this film for 10 years. “If you pumped a 10-year-old full of Zoloft and had him get your groceries, that’s like this movie,” he added.

Beau Is Afraid, which also stars Nathan Lane, Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan, Kylie Rogers, Parker Posey, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Hayley Squires, Michael Gandolfini, Zoe Lister-Jones, and Richard Kind, comes out on April 21.

The campaign for a local TV anchor and meteorologist just grew by two. After news of Mississippi on-air talent Barbie Bassett might have been fired for using rapper Snoop Dogg’s lyric and signature catchphrase, “For sizzle, my nizzle,” social media was filled with debates. Following a segment discussing the mogul’s new wine venture, Bassett used the slang to close out the segment.

After hearing about the supposed firing through social media, Charlamagne Tha God and Whoopi Goldberg took to their respective platforms to vocalize their support for the fellow TV professional.

During Monday’s The Breakfast Club broadcast, the shock jock posed the question, “She can’t say ‘Fo shizzle, my nizzle?’” After thinking about the line further, he added, “Oh, I guess because it’s a derivative of n****,” before exclaiming, “She might not even know what nizzle means.”

The mogul said, “That’s the thing with hip-hop; hip-hop is so big and mainstream. Who can consume it, and who can’t? Who can repeat slang, and who can’t?”

Charlamagne has been in the hot seat several times for his remarks on-air and online. Pulling from his experience surrounded by controversy, he was sure to close the discussion with, “That’s not a fireable offense.”

Moved by the story, Goldberg, who was recently suspended for making “insensitive remarks” on air, also came to the anchor’s defense. As the headline was discussed amongst The View’s panelists, Goldberg passionately declared, “There has to be a book of stuff that nobody could ever say, ever, ever, ever. Include everything,” she said. “The things that change, ‘You can say this, but you can’t say that, but next week you might not be able to say this,’ it’s hard to keep up. It’s hard to keep up. And if you’re a person of a certain age, there’s stuff we do, and we say.”

Goldberg took it even further, adding, “Just because we’re on television doesn’t mean we know everything. We don’t know everything you’re not supposed to do. And if there is something someone says if you’re not going to give them the opportunity to explain why they said it, at least give them the grace of saying, ‘You know what? I’ve just been informed that I should not of done that,’ as opposed to, ‘You’re out.’”

Although the network has not released a formal statement, Bassett is no longer listed under the news team on its website. In addition, Bassett’s professional biography has also been scrubbed from the website.

A couple days ago, Saturday Night Live announced the hosts and musical guests for their upcoming April episodes. It appears Britney Spears may have seen that, because that same day, she took to Instagram to reflect on one of her own times hosting SNL by sharing a funny clip from her opening monologue.

Posting the 50-second clip, Spears wrote, “Funny SNL skit [rose emojis] !!!”

The video comes from the May 13, 2000 episode, on which Spears was both host and musical guest, her first time in either role. In the clip, Spears starts, “Now that I’m here, I think this is a perfect place to clear up some crazy, crazy rumors I keep hearing about myself, like that I can’t perform without lip-syncing, OK, which is not true.” From there, she goes on to discuss a Grammy Awards performance, but as she speaks, her voice is muted and comically replaced with an obvious voiceover recording.

She then added, “Oh yeah, there’s one more, oh yeah, the one about my boobs being fake. That is just ridiculous! I mean, come on! I’m 18 and I’m still growing, you know?” As she speaks, though, her “breasts” move around in an unnatural way, due to some sort of device hidden under her shirt.

Spears more seriously addressed lip syncing allegations in a 2017 interview, saying, “A lot of people think that I don’t sing live. Because I’m dancing so much I do have a little bit of playback, but there’s a mixture of my voice and the playback. It really pisses me off because I am busting my ass out there and singing at the same time and nobody ever really gives me credit for it.”