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Nas’ New York state of mind stretches far beyond his native Queensbridge neighborhood. While the “One Mic, One Gun” rapper recently revealed that he’d love to collaborate with Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen during his appearance on The Late Show hosted by Stephen Colbert, his love for New York musicians runs deep.

As the mogul’s tour made a stop at Madison Square Garden on Friday (February 24), Nas took a moment during his set to pay homage to Trugoy The Dove (real name David Jolicoeur) of De La Soul. The Long Island native passed away early this month.

The sold-out crowd joined us as Nas played the opening verse on De La Soul’s hit single “Buddy” before proclaiming, “Make some noise for Trugoy, De La Soul. Rest in Poetry!”

When the news first broke of Trugoy’s death, Nas took to Instagram to share a touching note. In the now archived post, Nas wrote, “‘Trugoy The Dove. You showed us it’s ok to have fun, not sad or too too deep or fight the power, tho it was very much fight the power what u did so genuis. Thank you.’”

Nas isn’t the only figure in music to pay their respect to the late rap trailblazer. Quest Love, Busta Rhymes, Common, as well as Trugoy’s surviving groupmates Maseo And Posdnuos, also broke their silence with a heartfelt message on social media, writing, “You were the heart of our group. You brought so much creativity, energy, and passion to our music, and your influence will be felt for years to come.”

Last week brought some bad news: Succession’s forthcoming fourth season will be its last. On one hand, in an age of endless spinoffs and revivals, it’s good to be reminded that some things can just come to an end, before they slide into a sad decline. On the other, Succession is really freaking good and it will be sorely missed. Among the many people sad about the news is its creator, Jesse Armstrong. He’s even open to some kind of spinoff. Problem is, HBO brass is not.

In the same New Yorker interview in which Armstrong confirmed the show was ending (in a bit caught by The Guardian), he also lamented the idea. “I feel sad, and I have the circus-has-left-town feeling that everyone gets who works on a production that’s good, and this one particularly so,” he confessed. “I imagine I’ll be a little bit lonely, and wandering the streets of London in a funk.”

Still, while Armstrong admitted he “never thought this could go on forever,” he’s not against the idea of reviving it in some fashion, saying “there could be something else in an allied world, or allied characters, or some of the same characters.” He added, “Maybe there’s another part of this world we could come back to, if there was an appetite?”

Problem is, should Armstrong one day wish to follow through on this idea, whatever form it should take, he may have to convince the powers that be. When asked by Variety if Succession could get some spinoff, HBO and HBO Max content CEO Clay Bloys wasn’t optimistic.

“I don’t think so,” Bloys responded. He did add, “I always say ‘never say never.’” However, he remained practical. “It doesn’t seem to me that there’s something in Succession where you would go, ‘Let’s follow just this kid’ or whatever. It doesn’t seem like a natural thing to me.”

That being said, Bloys added, if [Armstrong] said I want to do this, then I would follow Jesse’s lead.”

So there you go! There may or may not one day be more Succession in some form. Who’s to say. In the meantime, the fourth season debuts on March 26 on HBO.

(Via New Yorker, Variety, and The Guardian)

In 2021, Doja Cat released her third studio album, Planet Her. The album, which centers on the fictional planet that the “Say So” hitmaker created, not only launched her into pop superstardom but earned several chart-topping hits. It’s been nearly two years since its release, and now, Planet Her has surpassed six billion streams on Spotify, making it the most streamed album by a female rapper in the streaming platform’s history.

“‘Planet Her’ by Doja Cat has surpassed 6 BILLION streams on Spotify. It is the most streamed album by a female rapper in history,” Pop Base reports.

The album featured guest appearances from some of music’s biggest acts —Young Thug, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, and SZA — showcasing her growth as an artist. Doja was no longer the “Mooo!” girl known for her quick-witted internet humor. Instead, she was a certified hitmaker. The project even helped the rapping songstress nab a Grammy nomination for Best Album at the 64th Grammy Awards.

While she didn’t walk away with the top award that night, she still got the Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for her mega-pop hit “Kiss Me More,” featuring SZA.

Regarding new music, what Doja Cat has under her sleeve is unclear. She noted that the album could be influenced by rap or maybe even “rave culture.” Most recently, she’s said she wants to take a more “masculine direction” with the album.

Either way, Doja has proved herself as more than a meme star, and the world will be waiting with its ear to the ground for her next project and whatever direction she takes it.

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

Woody Harrelson hosted SNL for the fifth time on Saturday night, which puts him in the august company of the “Five Timer’s Club.” Good for him! He celebrated the milestone with a rambling monologue that went on for over six minutes. For the most part it was affably meandering. He even started telling a story before taking numerous detours, returning to it only at the end — at which point it was revealed he seemed to be telling a weird anti-vax joke.

Harrelson began by addressing how divided America has become. Calling himself a “redneck hippie,” he said, “You know, the red in me thinks you should be allowed to own guns. The blue in me thinks – squirt guns. So, I’m red and blue which makes purple. I’m purple.”

He talked about his famous weed habit, as well as how he didn’t drink for seven months (then enjoying it again for “five glorious months”).

Harrelson eventually settled on a story about a script he’d read after hosting the show in November of 2019. What was it about?

“The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes, and people can only come out if they take the cartels’ drugs, and keep taking them over and over,” he explained. “I threw the script away. I mean, who is going to believe that crazy idea?”

No one laughed at that, but they did at his second punchline: “Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day long.”

So is Harrelson anti-vax? Was he just joshing? He’s a pretty kooky guy, so it’s a little hard to tell, although the anti-vax contingent on social media quickly turned him into a hero. Others may have forgiven him by the time he got to a pretty funny send-up of Brendan Fraser’s movie The Whale.

This year’s Oscars are a couple weeks away, but this year’s ceremony lives in the shadow of what happened last year. Will someone make like Will Smith and slap another presenter? Probably not! But the Academy board isn’t taking any chances. Last week they announced they had established a “crisis team” that will try to prevent any similar incidents. The move was widely mocked, including on SNL’s most recent Weekend Update.

“Guys, it’s not going to happen again. I’m sure you wish it would, for ratings,” racked co-host Colin Jost about the move. He then speculated on some ways they could advertise a possible assault.

“If anything the promo should be, ‘Who’s going to get slapped this year?’ Can Ana de Armas beat the Tár out of Cate Blanchett? Which Banshee will knock the shoes off Marcel the Shell? And who has what it takes to Whale on Brendan Fraser?”

The Academy’s paranoia was one of many topics touched on during this weekend’s segment. Jost also laid into Donald Trump for his cynical appearance in East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a horrific train derailment, which had been parodied earlier on the show.

“Donald Trump visited East Palestine, the site of the recent train derailment, because Trump usually tries to make himself look better by standing next to a train wreck,” Jost joked. He had a few more jokes on the matter.

“The train that derailed was carrying highly toxic vinyl chloride, which I think is something Trump recommended as a cure for COVID,” Jost told the crowd. He then moved on to Trump handing out bottles of his long-ago-discontinued branded spring water. “Said residents, ‘Thanks, but we’d rather drink the toxic train water.”

Meanwhile, Michael Che took on both Marjorie Taylor Greene, who he called the former “Cocaine Bear,” alongside a picture of her State of the Union get-up, and slammed her call for a “National Divorce” by declaring her “the most divorced-looking woman I have ever seen.”

Che then moved on to Ron DeSantis, whose forthcoming memoir, called The Courage to Be Free, has a title, Che said, “sounds like a Black history book he’s banned.”

You can watch the most recent Weekend Update in the videos above and below.

Last week, Donald Trump made his way to East Palestine, Ohio, the site of the horrific train derailment that caused a toxic airborne event. It was a calculated move: In a presser, he rambled about his discontinued line of spring water. He later went to McDonald’s. Seeing that SNL has a top shelf Trump impersonator in James Austin Johnson, there was no way they wouldn’t start their latest show by taking it on.

“It’s wonderful to be here in the town of East Palestine, not a great name,” Johnson’s Trump declared. “To come here and see these wonderful people who have been abandoned by Biden. He’s on spring break in Ukraine with his friend Zelensky in the T-shirt, very disrespectful.”

Thus began a rambling soliloquy, not to different from Trump’s own, with him talking about speaking to a farmer who said the event had poisoned his land, leaving him with nothing to eat but dirt.

“And I said, ‘Well, what are you doing eating the dirt? Don’t eat the dirt,’” he recalled. “‘Don’t eat the dirt. You should be eating the cold McDonald’s I brought you and the bottled water and Trump ice. I’ll be honest, I just put my sticker on some Dasani.”

He even praised the newly contaminated area. “I’ve heard all about your situation with the water, but I was looking at your river, and it’s so shiny,” he said. “I’ve never seen water so beautiful — beautiful rainbows and discolorations. It’s wearing makeup Fenty Beauty Water by Rihanna.”

And then he laid into Rihanna, as Trump inexplicably did.

You can watch the Colkd Open in the video above.

Every single week, our TV and film experts will list the most important ten streaming selections for you to pop into your queues. We’re not strictly operating upon reviews or accrued streaming clicks (although yes, we’ve scoured the streaming site charts) but, instead, upon those selections that are really worth noticing amid the churning sea of content. There’s a lot out there, after all, and your time is valuable.

10: TIE. Ant-Man And The Wasp (Marvel studios film streaming on Disney+)

One can fairly argue that the MCU has grown too, well, complicated. Not complex but complicated, like a Facebook status that describes a relationship that you can’t quit. That’s kind-of where Marvel Studios sits with Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, and it’s worth following that up (or even prepping for it) while heading back to the days when silly old Ant-Man was a breezy breath of superhero air. Then he showed up to inform us of “America’s Ass” in the MCU, and man, he used to be such a good time.

10: TIE. The Consultant (Amazon Prime series)

The opposite of a good time: when Christoph Waltz is here to scare the hell out of you while evaluating your workplace and all who reside within. This darkly comedic thriller will likely appeal to fans wanting a Severance-type fix, although get ready to have nightmares about Waltz sizing you up by smelling you. HR is gonna have a hell of a time with that practice.

9. The Walking Dead (AMC series on AMC+ and Netflix)

This franchise’s flagship series ended last fall, but it’s anything but finished telling stories. Daryl Dixon, Negan and Maggie, and Rick and Michonne will all return for more dodging of Walkers (and the terrible humans who surround them). Before that happens, Fear The Walking Dead will return for its final round before putting a fork in that spinoff, and people clearly cannot get enough of going back to where it all began on streaming.

8. Harley Quinn: A Very Problematic Valentine’s Day Special (HBO Max special)

Sure, the love story here is incredible because this show has carefully paced any idea of romance out while not ignoring the very real issues that complicate the Harlivy dynamic. For that, one can appreciate that this show loves to be gratuitous with profanity and other R-rated matters, but it’s also true to the characters’ souls. As well, it’s also correct that Bane would make violent love to skyscrapers while frustrated, so here’s to keeping things ultra real.

7. The Whale (A24 film streaming on VOD and Amazon)

Brendan Fraser has been “back” for awhile and expressing exquisite frustration in one of his finest performances ever on Doom Patrol. However, he’s Oscar worthy (and nominated as such) in this Darren Aronofsky picture where he plays a morbidly obese father attempting to reconnect not only with his daughter but with the meaning of humanity. He deserves all of the awards for this one, along with a lengthy career “resurrection” affectionately known as the Brenaissance.

6. Infinity Pool (Elevation Pictures film streaming on Amazon Prime)

Mia Goth remains the best in the business at portraying unhinged nightmares within nightmarish scenarios, and here, she’s got the run of Alexander Skarsgard in a movie that makes garden-variety hedonism seem tame. This film also makes the otherwise unthinkable idea of sticking to an all-inclusive resort’s grounds seem like the wisest idea in the universe.

5. Bel-Air (Peacock series)

The rough streets of West Philly are no match for Will’s spirit, and this show remains so much darker than its 1990s counterpart, but Will is heading into a “Fresh Start” while realizing that he has many tough lessons to learn, and not everything is what it seems. This season, Jabari Banks returns as Will with Adrian Holmes as Uncle Phil and Cassandra Freeman as Aunt Viv. Also, rapper Saweetie will will surface for a cameo, and Olly Sholotan returns as Carlton, who will not be doing the dance popularized by Alfonso Ribeiro’s version.

4. Party Down (Starz revival streaming on Hulu)

More than a decade later, Adam Scott and most of the rest of the gang (other than Lizzy Caplan) make a catering-team comeback. He’s having a bit of a moment lately between this revival and Severance, but the truth of the matter is that Adam Scott has always been in demand, and we’re lucky to see so much of him on TV. Jane Lynch, Ken Marino, and Martin Starr also return with guests including James Marsden, Quinta Brunson, Nick Offerman, Bobby Moynihan, and Jennifer Garner.

3. Outer Banks (Netflix series)

The characters in this series simply cannot relax and enjoy Poguelandia for very long, so get ready for more mystery and searches for treasure and danger and intrigue. Ultimately, this is all covered with a fine soapy layer, and the show remains as bingeworthy as ever with the audience no doubt soon asking for more.

2. You (Netflix series)

The second half of this fourth season will arrive in a few short weeks, but for now, Stalker Joe is not only out of his element but completely not himself when someone starts to stalk him. You don’t have to wait too terribly long, in terms of actual time, to find out who’s doing this, but it kind-of feels like forever for those of us who miss the way that the show sent Joe careening down a path of his own destruction. Hang tight, though, because there’s always time for Penn Badgley’s horrible character to hit his groove again.

1. The Last Of Us (HBO series streaming on HBO Max)

The most recent episode of this series delivered a gut punch that left viewers reeling, so let’s hope for some levity soon. Or at least, maybe the Internet can conjure up a sex-icon claim about this show again, and we’re not talking (this time) about Pedro Pascal. Craig Mazin did it again, and by that, I mean that he pulled off another epic production after helming Chernobyl and helping to save the Game Of Thrones audience from watching “a complete piece of sh*t.”

Brendan Fraser earned an Oscar nomination for his worthy art-house stunting in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale. Fortunately for his heart, he did not go method and gain 450 pounds to portray his character, but SNL host Woody Harrelson’s The Hippo counterpart didn’t fare so well. The five-timer host donned a fat suit to play an actor who kind-of pulled a Ryan Gosling, but even worse. Remember when Gosling gained 60 pounds for The Lovely Bones, only to get sacked by Peter Jackson after showing up on set?

As it turns out, some sort of miscommunication happened there, and Gosling was out of luck and in need of many gym visits after literally drinking melted ice cream for his cause. In the case of Harrelson’s SNL sketch character, all of that extra weight went to waste when the whole The Hippo movie went down the tubes. This turned into a case of “triabetes,” and of course, Chloe Fineman’s character also felt pretty screwed over a needless dye job. Ouch.

This sketch arrives at a time when method acting has increasingly been put on blast. Most recently, Brian Cox called out Jeremy Strong’s adherence to the practice as “f*cking annoying,” and Jared Leto has been confirmed to have made a spectacle of himself during pee breaks while filming Morbius.

In light of this, a 450-pound weight gain does roll out as ridiculous as it looks on SNL, yet Harrelson only had to commit to a fat suit to pull off this sketch. Whew.

This article originally appeared on 07.11.17

Madalyn Parker wanted to take a couple days off work. She didn’t have the flu, nor did she have plans to be on a beach somewhere, sipping mojitos under a palm tree.

Parker, a web developer from Michigan, wanted a few days away from work to focus on her mental health.

Parker lives with depression. And, she says, staying on top of her mental health is absolutely crucial.

“The bottom line is that mental health is health,” she says over email. “My depression stops me from being productive at my job the same way a broken hand would slow me down since I wouldn’t be able to type very well.”

She sent an email to her colleagues, telling them the honest reason why she was taking the time off.

“Hopefully,” she wrote to them, “I’ll be back next week refreshed and back to 100%.”

Soon after the message was sent, the CEO of Parker’s company wrote back:

“Hey Madalyn,

I just wanted to personally thank you for sending emails like this. Every time you do, I use it as a reminder of the importance of using sick days for mental health — I can’t believe this is not standard practice at all organizations. You are an example to us all, and help cut through the stigma so we can all bring our whole selves to work.”

u201cWhen the CEO responds to your out of the office email about taking sick leave for mental health and reaffirms your decision. ud83dudcafu201d

— madalyn (@madalyn)
1498854569

Moved by her CEO’s response, Parker posted the email exchange to Twitter.

The tweet, published on June 30, 2017, has since gone viral, amassing 45,000 likes and 16,000 retweets.

“It’s nice to see some warm, fuzzy feelings pass around the internet for once,” Parker says of the response to her tweet. “I’ve been absolutely blown away by the magnitude though. I didn’t expect so much attention!”

Even more impressive than the tweet’s reach, however, were the heartfelt responses it got.

“Thanks for giving me hope that I can find a job as I am,” wrote one person, who opened up about living with panic attacks. “That is bloody incredible,” chimed in another. “What a fantastic CEO you have.”

Some users, however, questioned why there needs to be a difference between vacation time and sick days; after all, one asked, aren’t vacations intended to improve our mental well-being?

That ignores an important distinction, Parker said — both in how we perceive sick days and vacation days and in how that time away from work is actually being spent.

“I took an entire month off to do partial hospitalization last summer and that was sick leave,” she wrote back. “I still felt like I could use vacation time because I didn’t use it and it’s a separate concept.”

Many users were astounded that a CEO would be that understanding of an employee’s mental health needs.

They were even more surprised that the CEO thanked her for sharing her personal experience with caring for her mental health.

After all, there’s still a great amount of stigma associated with mental illness in the workplace, which keeps many of us from speaking up to our colleagues when we need help or need a break to focus on ourselves. We fear being seen as “weak” or less committed to our work. We might even fear losing our job.

Ben Congleton, the CEO of Parker’s company, Olark, even joined the conversation himself.

In a blog post on Medium, Congleton wrote about the need for more business leaders to prioritize paid sick leave, fight to curb the stigma surrounding mental illness in the workplace, and see their employees as people first.

“It’s 2017. We are in a knowledge economy. Our jobs require us to execute at peak mental performance,” Congleton wrote. “When an athlete is injured, they sit on the bench and recover. Let’s get rid of the idea that somehow the brain is different.”

This article originally appeared on January 24, 2018

Kara Coley, a bartender at Sipps in Gulfport, Mississippi, got an unusual phone call on the job last week.

“Good evening,” Coley answered. “Thank you for calling Sipps!”

A woman on the other end of the line asked, “Is this a gay bar?”

Sipps welcomes everyone, Coley explained to her, but indeed attracts a mostly LGBTQ crowd.

“Can I ask you a question?” the caller followed up. “Are you gay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Coley said.

Then things got interesting.

“What was the one thing you wanted from your parents when you came out?” the woman continued.

Coley, who’s tended bar for about 17 years, was a little caught off guard. In all her years of experience fielding requests and helping others working in the service industry, she’d never received a question like that.

“My son just came out to me,” the woman continued on the other end of the line. “And I don’t want to say anything that may mess him up in the head.”

Coley thought for a moment. Then she asked the woman if she accepted her son for who he is.

The woman answered “yes.”

“You should definitely let him know that you love and accept him!” Coley said. “I think everything will be OK from there!”

The woman thanked Coley for her input and they parted ways.

Later that night, in the early hours of Jan. 19, Coley decided to post the entire interaction to her Facebook page, noting how “random” it all had been.

In the days following, her post went viral, amassing over 1,500 likes and hundreds of shares.

So I got the most random phone call at the bar tonight! 😀Me:Good evening Thankyou for calling Sipps!Lady on phone: Is…
Posted by Kara Coley on Friday, January 19, 2018

The post’s comment section soon filled with love and gratitude for Coley’s simple but endearing answer.

“My heart is truly touched by this,” one Facebook user wrote. “A parent wanting to support correctly, and a beautiful response. This is progress. This is love and acceptance in the rawest form.”

“Kara, this old granny lesbian is so grateful for you, and for a parent that thought outside the box to get advice!” another user chimed in. “Keep being you!”

“[The response] has been amazing,” Coley writes. She believes her post struck a chord with friends and strangers alike because people are looking for encouraging news: “Every day people wake up and there’s so much negativity in the world — people just need a breath of fresh air!”

For parents to an LGBTQ child, it’s still vital to understand the facts too, Coley noted: “Educate yourself [on LGBTQ issues] and do a little research.”

Ideally, parents should have access to better resources than their local gay bar when it comes to getting help with LGBTQ parenting. At the end of the day, though, the best thing you can do as a parent is make sure your kid understands you’re there through thick and thin.

“Just knowing you have someone in your corner takes a little weight off your shoulders,” Coley wrote.

Learn more about being a good ally as a parent of an LGBTQ child at PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). If you’re a young LGBTQ person who needs help, resources are available at The Trevor Project.