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Metro Boomin is finishing 2022 with a bang. The acclaimed producer dropped Heroes & Villains, his sophomore solo album, on December 2 after a bit of a false start. Metro Boomin compared the 15-track project to Dr. Dre’s 2001 as the latest GQ Hype cover star. But unlike 2001, Heroes & Villains is a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

According to Billboard, Heroes & Villains debuts at No. 1 on the chart dated December 17, with Metro Boomin’s biggest week of his career at 185,000 equivalent US album units in its first week. It marks Metro Boomin’s third career No. 1 album, following in the footsteps of its 2018 predecessor Not All Heroes Wear Capes and the 2020 collaborative album Savage Mode II with 21 Savage.

Heroes & Villains dethrones Taylor Swift’s Midnights, which has five nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 to its name. Midnights moves to No. 2 (143,000 equivalent units), and the top five is rounded out by Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss at No. 3 (78,000), Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti (55,000) at No. 4, and Michael Bublé’s Christmas at No. 5 (54,000).

Metro Boomin pulled out all the stops for the Heroes & Villains. The track list features John Legend, Future, Chris Brown, Don Toliver, Travis Scott, Young Thug, Gunna, 21 Savage, The Weeknd, Mustafa, and a posthumous verse from Takeoff.

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

Missy Elliott announced that she would be donating at least $20,000 to Norfolk State University during the institution’s Fall 2022 commencement ceremony over the weekend. The four-time Grammy winner joined the students of Norfolk State University to encourage the ’22 class of nearly 400 students never to give up and follow their dreams, ABC affiliate 13 News Now reports.

Elliott, a Norfolk, Virginia native, took a moment to share how proud she was of the students and pointed out how they should be proud of themselves, too.

“I am proud of y’all, and y’all should be proud of y’all self,” Elliott said. “I want you to look at each other and say, ‘You already won.’ Let ’em know! Ain’t no winning, you already the one. ‘Cause y’all coulda been doing anything else the last few years, y’all coulda been wildin’ out, but y’all decided to finish the course. And that’s major.”

Toward the end of the ceremony, Elliott presented a $20,000 donation, requesting that the funds go “to the area of greatest need,” a spokesperson for the school said.

During the event, the multi-hyphenate was also awarded a special honor from the university, the Presidential Commencement Medallion, and an honorary doctorate — making this her second honorary doctorate. In 2019, Elliott was bestowed with her first honorary doctorate from the prestigious Berklee College of Music alongside Justin Timberlake and conductor Alex Lacamoire.

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

The 5-7 Detroit Lions being favorites at home against the 10-2 Minnesota Vikings was the betting line that raised the most eyebrows this week, but the books knew what they were doing as Detroit rolled to a 34-23 win. They lit up the Vikings defense with 464 total yards of offense including 330 through the air, but it was their last completion that was the standout.

The Lions lined up their young star right tackle as a slot receiver on 3rd and 7 with two minutes to play and had him come in motion from left to right, but instead of acting as a pulling blocker, Sewell just kept running and caught the game-sealing first down completion from Jared Goff on an incredible play call.

It’s really a spectacular play design, because the edge player for the Vikings is bracing to get smoked by Sewell coming across on a block, so he just ducks and tries to absorb contact. When Sewell just keeps running, that means there is no one on the empty side available to cover him and it just comes down to whether Goff can get the ball out there and the big fella can show the soft hands to make the catch and reach the marker.

I particularly love the belly flop at the end to make sure he gets the first down, doesn’t try to do too much and fumble the ball, and also stay in bounds to force the Vikings to burn their second timeout. That play didn’t completely ice the game, as that honor went to the field goal the Lions kicked later in the drive, but it did ensure Minnesota would, at best, have under 30 seconds to try and pull off a miracle to force overtime. With the win the Lions improved to 6-7 and keep hope of a playoff berth alive in the bizarre NFC playoff race, while the Vikings finally succumb to a poor defensive performance after playing with fire for much of the year, falling to 10-3.

Ticketmaster’s blunders aren’t exclusive to Swifties. Bad Bunny completed his World’s Hottest Tour at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on Friday night, and some fans weren’t allowed to witness the year’s top-grossing touring artist. According to Billboard, Ticketmaster Mexico canceled several people’s tickets “at the entrance to the show saying they were fake.”

“Dozens of people who had arrived hours and some days earlier — coming from different places in Mexico and the U.S. — were not able to get inside,” Billboard reported. They relayed an individual tearful account from the scene and adding, “some desperate fans climbed over the main gates of the stadium trying to get inside but were blocked by security.”

Ticketmaster Mexico released a statement on Saturday about the debacle:

The statement begins by apologizing to those affected by the scam and promising “a full refund to legitimate ticket holders who were unable to access” the concert. The company also pinpointed “an unprecedented number of false tickets” on the platform as the issue. “This generated confusion and complicated the entrance to the stadium, with the unfortunate consequence that some legitimate tickets were denied entry,” the statement continues.

Ticketmaster Mexico shared it will work with PROFECO to sort out the aftermath and assist in preventing future ticket fraud.

Unfortunately, fans will likely have to wait awhile for a redo. Bad Bunny pulled off two headlining tours in 2022: El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo 2022 and World’s Hottest Tour. According to his new Billboard cover story, he became the first-ever artist to earn at least $100 million on two separate shows in one year.

Bad Bunny told the publication that he plans to take a break in 2023, citing his “physical health, my emotional health to breathe, enjoy my achievements.” One thing assuredly penciled into his 2023 calendar is the Grammys, where his Un Verano Sin Ti will be the first-ever Spanish-language album up for the Album Of The Year category.

SZA’s latest project seems to have us all in our feelings, including big stars like Lizzo. Fans and celebrities alike have been sharing their thoughts about the TDE’s artist highly anticipated second studio album, S.O.S.

A clip from Lizzo’s Instagram Live has been circulating where the “About Damn Time” singer can be seen giving a teary-eyed reaction to one of the album’s tracks, “Nobody Gets Me,” complete with a nice glass of wine.

Maybe celebrities aren’t so different from us after all.

Fans seem to agree with Lizzo’s sentiments. SZA definitely has a knack for making us all reflect on past relationships and the pitfalls of love.

“Same, girl,” one fan tweeted.

Another person pointed out how relatable Lizzo’s reaction was and admitted we all get a little emotional sometimes.

“She just like me,” they wrote.

Over the weekend, the 33-year-old singer dropped a video to the new song, tapping into her emo side. Shot in greyscale, the video gives off a relatable moody vibe. SZA can be seen atop a roof overlooking the city, adorned with her trademark baggy clothes, as she sings, “How am I supposed to let you go? / Only like myself when I’m with you.”

Watch SZA’s “Nobody Gets Me” video below.

Lizzo is a Warner Music Artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The DCEU is a mess right now. The comics movie line has two new bosses now, James Gunn and Peter Safran, and they have big plans on the horizon. There are a lot of surprising rumors floating around about what they have in store, and Gunn himself has acknowledged that some of them are true (though he won’t say which ones just yet). One project that’s reportedly safe from harm is Joker: Folie à Deux, the sequel to the stand-alone spin-off that turned Joaquin Phoenix into the second person to win an Oscar as the clown that fights Batman. And to prove that all is fine with it, its director shared a picture from the first day of filming.

It’s a simple image, showing Phoenix in what appears to be a barber’s chair, his face being shaved by someone next to him. “Day 1. Our boy,” wrote director Todd Phillips in the caption. There’s not much to tease out of the image. Is he still at Arkham Asylum? Who knows. It does share the same gloomy look as the first one. That’s not to say round two with Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck won’t be radically different. For one thing, it’s a musical. For another, it sounds like Arthur’s got himself a girlfriend this time in Lady Gaga’s spin on Harley Quinn.

In any case, Joker 2 seems to be safe from whatever Gunn and Safran are planning for the DC wing of Warner Bros. Discovery. Then again, those who made Batgirl assumed their film would actually see the light of day — although if one of its actors, Brendan Fraser, wins an Oscar this spring, maybe it will.

(Via THR)

The Buffalo Bills and New York Jets played in a defensive struggle in the first half on Sunday, as neither team had scored deep into the second quarter. Facing a 4th and inches just shy of their own 40 with 1:19 to play, the Bills lined up to try and draw the Jets offsides and succeeded in the funniest way possible.

Tight end Dawson Knox motioned under center to fake like he was going to do a quarterback sneak and Jets linebacker CJ Mosley jumped over the line and hit Knox with an RKO for the most impressive offsides penalty of all-time — which had Bills receiver Isaiah McKenzie very excited.

Look, it’s going to be 5 yards whether you barely flinch and enter the neutral zone or if you jump over the entire offensive line and clobber the quarterback (or in this case, the tight end lined up at quarterback), so you might as well get your money’s worth. Mosley did that in a big way, but unfortunately, this provided the spark the Bills needed to finally break the scoreless tie, marching for a touchdown with Knox finding the end zone on a flipping, diving effort to reach the pylon.

Knox earned that with his 4th and short acting job that got them the free five yards, but the Jets will be kicking themselves for falling for the ruse and giving the Bills the edge in what should’ve been a stalemate of a first half.

Mariah Carey doesn’t share the spotlight in December. But the “Queen of Christmas” (regardless of what the US Trademark Office says) made an exception during the first of two Merry Christmas To All! concerts at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena on Friday night, December 9. Carey brought out her 11-year-old daughter, Monroe, to sing a duet of “Away In A Manger.”

“This is our first duet,” Carey told the audience, according to Billboard. The record-breaking chart-topper also called Monroe and her twin brother, Moroccan, “the greatest gift ever” and shared that she and Monroe had been practicing their “Away In A Manger” duet “for a minute.”

Carey initially scheduled two one-off Merry Christmas To All! concerts at Scotiabank Arena and New York City’s Madison Square Garden on December 11 and December 13, respectively, but fan demand led to two added dates: Saturday’s show in Toronto and December 16 in New York.

Carey’s two-hour CBS Special of the same name will be filmed at Madison Square Garden on December 13 and later air on December 20.

Carey brought along Monroe and Moroccan, nicknamed “Roc and Roe,” to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in early November. She teased a potential collaboration with Millie Bobby Brown and foreshadowed what fans can expect from Merry Christmas To All!

“Expect the unexpected. I don’t know, darling. …I realized that the best thing I could do is just talk to the fans, be with the fans, sing to the fans, with them, and it’s an inclusive experience,” Carey told Fallon. “It’s so fun. The last time we did Madison Square Garden was pre-COVID [in] 2019. The most fun I ever had doing a show because it snows. I don’t want to give it away. I don’t want to give it away. But it’s festive.”

After Monroe’s surprise appearance in Toronto, one can only imagine what Carey will do at MSG.

The New York Giants had a very bad start to their divisional showdown with the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, falling behind 14-0 early in the second quarter. New York’s offense had nothing for the Eagles defense, and when they trotted out the special teams unit for their third punt of the game, disaster struck for punter Jamie Gillian when he just dropped the football and then panicked and kicked it off the ground.

What was already a disaster got even worse when they were flagged for an illegal punt. It turns out drop kicks aren’t a legal way to punt the ball and it was ruled a fumble at the Giants 43 with a 10 yard penalty giving Jalen Hurts and the Eagles the ball on the plus-33. On the first play after that catastrophic punt attempt, Hurts found AJ Brown for his third touchdown pass of the first half, putting Philly up 21-0 for what felt like the nail in the coffin early in the Meadowlands.

However, the Eagles couldn’t help but have their own punting mishap, as they had a punt blocked in their own end zone, with punter Arryn Siposs scooping it up and trying to run it for a first down, only to get absolutely cracked short of the sticks.

The Giants turned that into a touchdown to make it 21-7 and keep slim hopes alive of a comeback and prevent the Eagles from completely running away with the game in the first half.

With the help of over 26 million followers and one of the top songs on the social media platform this year, Lizzo has become the undisputed “Queen of TikTok.” Lizzo has been named the No. 1 music artist on TikTok this year, based on total video views, Variety reports. Her hit single, “About Damn Time,” was the app’s fourth-highest trending song this year.

The pop singer’s instructional dance video for the hit song was the seventh-highest trending video in 2022. Lizzo has also been named the app’s fifth-highest-viewed artist globally.

@lizzo

Joining Lizzo is other commercial juggernauts such as Bella Poarch, who came in second, Bad Bunny (No. 3), Charlie Puth (No. 4), and Doja Cat, who rounded out the top five. Selena Gomez, Billie Eilish, and Meghan Trainor were also included in the top 10 trending artists of 2022.

Here are the Top 10 TikTok Top Artists 2022 in the US:

1. Lizzo
2. Bella Poarch
3. Bad Bunny
4. Charlie Puth
5. Doja Cat
6. Selena Gomez
7. Nessa Barrett
8. Yung Gravy
9. Bille Eilish
10. Meghan Trainor

“We’re honored to celebrate our global community who shaped this year’s trends, shared new ideas, learned from one another, and turned their passions into careers and livelihoods throughout 2022,” TikTok chief operating officer Vanessa Pappas said in a recent statement, per Variety.

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