Category: Trending

Sturgill Simpson meant to drop his latest album, Cuttin’ Grass, Vol. 1: The Butcher Shoppe Sessions, as a surprise release, but his plans were foiled when word leaked out early. Now, though, he has gotten his surprise album: Today, with no forewarning, he released Cuttin’ Grass, Vol. 2: The Cowboy Arms Sessions.

Like Butcher Shoppe before it, Cowboy Arms features re-recorded versions of songs from throughout Simpson’s discography. He described his second Cuttin’ Grass release as bolder than its predecessor, saying in a statement:

“On Volume 2, we recorded everything I was too afraid to do on Volume 1. For that one, everything was more conventional bluegrass, sort of straight down the middle. But as a benefit of the musicians all getting to know each other and feeling more comfortable, we took more chances and felt more like a band. That gave me the confidence to come in with songs that I was a little more worried how they would translate to bluegrass — but weirdly, it just underscored that, in the end, I guess I’m just a bluegrass songwriter.”

Listen to Cuttin’ Grass, Vol. 2: The Cowboy Arms Sessions below. He also performed Vol. 1 cut “All The Pretty Colors” on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night, so check that out below as well.

Cuttin’ Grass, Vol. 2: The Cowboy Arms Sessions is out now via High Top Mountain Records. Get it here.

Singer-songwriter FKA twigs (born Tahliah Debrett Barnett) has accused ex-boyfriend Shia LaBeouf of an escalating pattern of abusive behavior in a lawsuit (filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court). The pair first met during the 2018 production of LaBeouf’s Honey Boy movie, and a report from the New York Times (which includes an interview with Barnett) details the musician’s allegations against the actor, who has a well-documented history of troubled behavior, including being caught on video stating he “would have killed” former girlfriend Mia Goth while the pair were spotted fighting in Germany in 2015.

At the centerpoint of Barnett’s allegations is a February 2019 incident, for which she reveals that LaBeouf threatened to crash a speeding vehicle after a tumultuous trip to the desert. She alleges that he choked her, raged, and threw her against the vehicle. This followed a nearly year-long relationship, which Barnett alleges was an isolating and abusive one that often left her with visible bruises on her body. She also alleges that LaBeouf knowingly infecting her with a sexually transmitted disease.

Barnett was aided in her lawsuit by Karolyn Pho, another previous ex-girlfriend of LaBeouf’s, who corroborated Barnett’s accounts of possessive behavior and “rules,” including how LaBeouf directed them to speak to male wait staff at restaurants, along with guidelines about enforced physical affection. Pho also stated that LaBeouf once “drunkenly pinned her to a bed and head-butted her, enough that she bled.” In the lawsuit, Barnett accuses LaBeouf of “relentless abuse” (including but not limited to sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional distress). The musician also detailed how LaBeouf convinced her to move away from her professional circle in London, which further contributed to how she felt trapped and struggled to exit the relationship:

As Ms. Barnett grew more isolated, she said she felt as though her safety nets were unraveling. The gas station incident had happened in public, she said, and no one stepped to her aid; an early attempt she made to tell a colleague was brushed off. “I just thought to myself, no one is ever going to believe me,” she said in an interview. “I’m unconventional. And I’m a person of color who is a female.”

Slowly, with the help of a therapist, she began to strategize her exit. While she was packing to leave in spring 2019, Mr. LaBeouf turned up unannounced and terrorized her, according to a sworn statement from a witness, her housekeeper, in the lawsuit. When Ms. Barnett wouldn’t leave with him, the statement says, he “violently grabbed” her, picked her up and locked her in another room, where he yelled at her.

The New York Times attempted to contact LaBeouf for a statement about the lawsuit, for which his rep did not respond. However, the actor did send a return email that addressed his behavior in very general terms:

“I’m not in any position to tell anyone how my behavior made them feel. I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, only rationalizations. I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years. I have a history of hurting the people closest to me. I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt. There is nothing else I can really say.”

While speaking to the NYT, Barnett explained that she filed the lawsuit to show the public that abusive and isolating relationships “can happen to anybody.” She also explained her desire “to raise awareness on the tactics that abusers use to control you and take away your agency” while calling her experience with Shia “the worst thing that I’ve ever been through in the whole of my life.” As of now, news of any future proceedings by the Los Angeles Superior Court has not been detailed to the public.

(Via New York Times)

Dune director Denis Villeneuve fired off a scathing essay Thursday night that blasted Warner Bros. decision to stream its entire 2021 film slate on HBO Max, and two major stars are already backing him. In the op-ed, Villeneuve doesn’t hold back his anger and frustration at the studio for making the decision without even consulting him, and at one point suggests that “Warner Bros. might just have killed the Dune franchise.” Calling the HBO Max move a “hijacking,” Villeneuve echoed Christopher Nolan‘s earlier criticisms that Warner Bros. switched overnight from a studio that champions filmmakers to a lackluster streaming service. The Arrival director laid the blame at AT&T’s feet. Via Variety:

With this decision AT&T has hijacked one of the most respectable and important studios in film history. There is absolutely no love for cinema, nor for the audience here. It is all about the survival of a telecom mammoth, one that is currently bearing an astronomical debt of more than $150 billion. Therefore, even though “Dune” is about cinema and audiences, AT&T is about its own survival on Wall Street.

While Villeneuve doesn’t deny that public safety comes first, he says he readily made the concession to delay Dune up to a year so that it can be viewed safely in theaters where it is meant to be seen. The director also said that “no matter what any Wall Street dilettante says,” the future of films will be the big screen. “That is my strong belief. Not because the movie industry needs it,” Villeneuve wrote, “but because we humans need cinema, as a collective experience.”

Shortly after his op-ed was published, Villeneuve received support from Dune stars Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa who both shared his essay on Instagram with the message “Long live the theater experience!”

(Via Variety)

The American military is central to David Robinson’s identity. It’s why we call him “The Admiral,” a nickname that took root during his time at the Naval Academy and has followed him ever since. It was at the Naval Academy that Robinson blossomed into a force on the basketball court, winning the Naismith College Player of the Year Award, the Wooden Award, and being named a consensus first-team All-American, giving us the first tantalizing hints of his future Hall of Fame career.

But his time at the Academy wasn’t just about basketball. Robinson took his military obligation seriously. When the Spurs drafted him in 1987, they had to wait two years while he fulfilled his active duty requirements. Because of height restrictions, Robinson was prevented from serving at sea, but eventually became a commissioned officer in the Naval Reserve — despite the nickname, Robinson’s rank topped out at lieutenant.

Today, Robinson still keeps close ties with his fellow service members. He’s partnering with the USAA to promote one of college football’s biggest annual rivalries, the Army-Navy game that is set to kick off on Saturday, Dec. 12 at West Point. Though civilians won’t be able to attend because of COVID, the Army-Navy House promotion is giving fans an opportunity to win a trip to next year’s contest and offering an interactive way for fans to join the fun from home.

We caught up with Robinson this week to talk about the game and what it means to be able to help bring sports to the masses amid the turmoil around the country and restore some semblance of normalcy as we wrap up a year that has been anything but.

Obviously, it will be a different atmosphere without having fans in attendance on Saturday, so what’s the key to maintaining that fan engagement from afar?

Yeah, with the limited attendance at the game this year, just the Midshipmen and the Cadets will be able to go, but we know a lot of people want to be connected to the game. It’s such a big event for our nation and always a timely event when everyone needs encouragement. So we have ArmyNavyHouse.com, so people can come in and still feel connected to the game. They can send pictures of themselves celebrating, and someone’s going to win a trip to the next year’s game. So it should be an exciting way for people to be connected and enjoy the celebration together.

You’re talking about an Army-Navy game, so the energy is going to be there. No one wants to lose this game. There’s a lot at stake. The Midshipmen, students at both of the schools are counting on trying to get some extra days off or some kind of liberties or something. So there’s going to be some intensity there one way or the other. But it’s also a great feeling knowing that the whole country pays attention to it and it means something to others. So in that sense, it’s going to be a little disappointing that fans can’t be there, but certainly the intensity is going to be there. I think these guys know how to compete. They want bragging rights and they’re going to go out and play for it.

Your military service has always been a big part of your identity, so what are you personally most excited about for this game?

Well, I think for me just…I wasn’t able to really go to any games when I was there. So these last few years, about four years ago, I was able to go to my first game, and now, I just enjoy the pageantry of it. So to me, now that I know what it feels like to be in the stadium when all of this stuff is happening and the planes are flying over and just all this, it’s an amazing game and an incredible intensity. So I look forward to just seeing that and seeing how the guys are going to respond. You never know what’s going to happen in a game like this.

This is truly the heart of college sports, or what you kind of hope college sports is. There’s two teams. Either one of them can walk away with this win. And they’re going to play hard, and they’re going to play fair, and at the end of the day, they’re going to shake hands and work together to save the world. Yeah, it’s kind of the ultimate of what sports is about to me.

The game is typically held at a neutral site, but because of COVID, this will be the first time since 1943 that it’s going to be held at West Point. Is there a little bit of a home field advantage there?

[Laughs] A little bit. It’s all right. Without the full crowd there, maybe it’s not as intense as it would be, but it is what it is. I love it at the bigger venues. It means so much to the country, I think it’s nice to see them at those bigger venues. But certainly it’s not going to take away anything from this game.

It’s been such a challenging year, in so many ways, as we all try to navigate the pandemic. What does it mean for college sports, in general, to be able to move forward amid all these challenges and still host these major annual competitions that are such a huge part of the tradition?

I think it’s very meaningful. I know just personally, my wife and I were just sitting around when sports was kind of not happening. And we were looking at each other like, my goodness. We didn’t even realize how much it really meant to us day by day, just to have something to watch and something to cheer for. And you’ve always got a lot of things happening, but I think it means a lot to everyone to have some of these rivalries happening, just to show that life is going to get back to normal at some point.

You have three sons who are all athletes and have competed at the college level, so what does that mean to you just in terms of being able to come out and support all these young people, whose futures have really been put on hold and thrown into uncertainty this past year?

I love being able to support these kids because they’re our future. I know what it’s like when we’re there. We all feel like we’re young. We don’t know what we’re doing. But we’ve been trained as leaders. We’ve been trained in probably the best place on the planet to be trained as a leader. And so we know we got a lot of responsibility, and we know that we got to go, hey, if we got to lay down our lives for our country, that’s what we’re going to do. These are the most exciting kids to support.

They’re going to take on tremendous responsibility. They call me The Admiral, but nobody’s life is in my hands. The real admiral’s out there; they’re making decisions that impact people’s futures. And so it’s a big deal for these young guys because they know they’re going to be in that role of leadership soon.

You played in the basketball version of the Army-Navy game. What are some of your fondest memories from that experience?

I think part of it was just no matter how good we were, we never felt safe. We were ranked, I think we were 8th or 10th in the country at the time. And I think we beat them by one point. We went into West Point and you just never know what you’re going to get in a game like this. And I guess that’s part of what’s exciting about it.

To switch gears a little bit, what are you looking forward to most with the Spurs in the coming season?

Just kind of getting back at it. We have a lot of really good, young, talented guys, and it’s hard to keep a culture that you built for so many years. Obviously, our young guys want to maintain it and build upon it. But they really have to build their own culture. They have to figure out what being a part of the Spurs means to them. There’s not a Tim Duncan or Manu Ginobili or Tony Parker around anymore. So how do you maintain and build upon that and really take it to the next level? This is not their team anymore. This team belongs to these young guys, this young team.

And so, I just want to see our guys embrace it and accept the responsibility and enjoy the challenge of being Spurs. It’s what we’ve been able to do over the last 25 years that has been incredible from a worldwide standpoint, and in a small market, too. And so is it easy? No. No, it’s not. But it’s a great challenge for these guys to step up to it and say, look, we want to keep this excellence going. Can we do it? And my answer is, yeah, I think you can. But that’s not easy.

With Cyberpunk 2077 finally soldered into our membranes, we thought it’d be a fantastic opportunity to make an entire episode dedicated to one of our favorite genres: open-world.

Cybernetic fashion icon, SushiBAE, and card-carrying Maxxinista, me, AJ Lodge, aren’t afraid to prey on your nostalgia during this trip down open-world memory lane. We’re talking about great games in the genre that paved the way to today like SuperMario 64, spinning a yarn about our time wasted spinning webs in Spider-Man 2, and trying not to get in trouble with our stories about Grand Theft Auto driving school.

But it’s not just two millennials reminiscing about the good ol’ days of gaming! We’re deep-diving into the sCiEncE of what makes an open-world game so successful in the modern era and all the things that excite us (and scare us) about where the genre is headed. What makes an open-world game iconic? What can developers do to extend the longevity of an open-world game past its story campaign? What even is open-world anyway?! Big questions and entertaining (we hope) answers. If nothing else, it’ll be a nice break from your efforts to become best friends with pixel Keanu.

So take a break from Night City because UPROXX Recon is here to remind you about the fantastic world of open-world and that when it comes to these games map size doesn’t matter.

Griselda Records’ debut feature film Conflicted, which they announced in June this year, now has an official release date. With theaters shut down due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the title will come to Pay Per View, January 15, 2021. The announcement also features expanded cast information, identifying roles for Benny The Butcher, who leads as Hunter — basically, he’s playing himself — as well as R&B singer J Holiday, veteran actor Michael Rapaport, and Griselda godfather Westside Gunn.

The Buffalo-based label also announced the film’s soundtrack release date, January 8. Naturally, it’ll feature the Griselda core: Benny The Butcher, Conway The Machine, and Westside Gunn, as well as new signees Armani Caesar and Boldy James. In addition, Dave East, Lloyd Banks, Ransom, and more will appear, with production coming from late Griselda mentor DJ Shay, their in-house beatmaker Daringer, 808 Mafia, and more. The lead track, Benny’s “3:30 In Houston” has already been made available; you can check that out below.

The announcement caps one of the busiest years for the burgeoning indie label — actually, for possibly any indie label anywhere — as each member of the crew dropped multiple projects, from Pray For Paris to The Liz to Burden Of Proof. The sheer volume of releases has established Griselda as one of the most prolific rap groups in a long time, but their consistency has won them an ever-loyal fanbase who will undoubtedly be pressing play when the label’s film Conflicted hits next year.

Check out the trailer for Conflicted above.

The first time Margret Aldrich saw a Little Free Library she didn’t know what to think.

“I think I saw my first one back in 2010, 2011. And I’m a book person, my background is in publishing, so I immediately loved it. But, probably being Midwestern, I was like, ‘Is it really okay to take a book? Is this really free?’”

She’s not alone in that reaction. So much of our lives involves trading money for goods and services it’s disarming to encounter an unattended box — sometimes plainly decorated, sometimes whimsically designed — that simply gives away value items asking only that anyone taking a book also consider leaving a book. (If it’s convenient. No big deal if not. Please enjoy your book.) The idea takes some getting used to. But with 100,000 Little Free Libraries now spread around the globe, it’s starting to seem less shocking — and this year has made it seem more welcome than ever.

Aldrich was immediately drawn to the project. She wrote a book about it published in 2015 and joined the non-profit Little Free Library organization as its director of communications in 2016. By then, an idea that had begun in a garage in Hudson, WI — a small, riverside city not far from Minneapolis — had long since outgrown its humble origins, which can be traced back to a handful of wood from an old door.

A teacher who later shifted into arranging nursing fellowships, Todd Bol built the first Little Free Library in 2009. It was almost an afterthought, an attempt to pay tribute to his late mother, a teacher and avid reader, using materials left over from a home renovation project. Bol built a small box in the shape of a one-room schoolhouse and placed it atop a post. And that might have been the end of it. Except, the idea caught on.

With the help of Rick Brooks, outreach program manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Little Free Libraries started to spread. A second Little Free Library placed on a Madison bike trail led to others, and the Little Free Library began issuing charters to keep track of what libraries existed where. Beyond that, they kept the project simple, and easily replicable: a weather-proof box with a hinged door, some books, and a spirit of sharing and goodwill. Positive press inspired more libraries and the project spread beyond the Midwest, quickly surpassing the organization’s goal of outnumbering the 2508 libraries opened by Andrew Carnegie in the early years of the 20th century.

The project has outlived Bol, who died in 2018. It’s also run into some problems here and there, from occasional acts of vandalism, to permit issues to a trademark dispute involving another member of the Bol family. But the fundamental idea has prevailed, thanks to enthusiasts like Grant and Ashlyn, who serve as stewards (the organization’s preferred term) of a Little Free Library in Mid-City Los Angeles.

“As the daughter of a librarian, I’ve been kind of obsessed with Little Free Libraries for a long time,” Ashlyn says. “The idea of having your own place to help give books to others just seemed like the dream. I wondered if our neighborhood had enough foot traffic to justify it, but when the opportunity presented itself, we set it up and I was honestly so pleasantly surprised! We wish we’d done it sooner.”

Setting up a Little Free Library is just the beginning of a steward’s job. “I think it’s important that the Little Free Library is a source of recommended titles, as opposed to a dump pile of unwanted books,” Grant adds. “That can be a challenging ideal to live up to because it means you literally have to get rid of some of your favorite books! But it’s also a great way to pass things forward. We take the ‘curator’ role seriously. Whether it’s our addition or not, if something’s been in there for two weeks, we pull it and replace it with something else.”

Grant and Ashlyn try to maintain a diverse selection of titles, aiming for a mix of “kids books, YA, comics, non-fiction, genre fiction, self-help, memoir, and so on.” Of course, what gets dropped off remains beyond their control. The first book someone donated, From Scrawny to Brawny, got the hook after two weeks of sitting there without a taker and, as Grant notes, “There have been a few more kids’ books about the dogs who served in the Iraq War than we expected.”

The Little Free Library served as a welcome pandemic project for the couple, as it has for British artist and filmmaker Jeanie Finlay, who found herself stuck in her Nottingham home after spending 2017 and 2018 making the acclaimed documentaries Seahorse and Game of Thrones: The Last Watch then much of 2019 touring with her work. She sees her Little Free Library as an extension of the spirit of support and sharing necessitated by the pandemic. “There was a lot of sharing of plants, tools, food, etc.,” Finlay says via email. “People would leave things on their wall so they could be shared in a covid safe way. It got me thinking that it would be good to have a place for sharing books.”

To do so, she started from scratch. “I am a newcomer to carpentry but I thought I’d give it a go — making the library out of reclaimed wood and donated materials,” she writes. “I learned how to make it, designed and printed signage, created bookplates, and set up social media. I decided to launch on my birthday in August, my gift to the community.” That social media element is no small part of the project; Finlay regularly updates her library’s Instagram and Twitter accounts to shine a light on new arrivals and titles of particular interest. The library has also introduced her to some new acquaintances. “I was woken up a few weeks ago by one of the bin men,” she recalls. “His colleague had borrowed a book the week before so he’d brought me a bag full of crime novels to put on the shelves.”

Finlay’s not alone in using a Little Free Library as a way to foster community spirit in the midst of the pandemic. “This year of course is a year like no other,” Aldrich says, “We’ve really seen little free libraries both being established faster. And we’re hearing from [our stewards] their libraries are getting visited more than ever. More books are coming and going out of their Little Free Libraries.” The organization has found other ways to respond to the events of 2020 as well. Little Free Library’s Read In Color encourages the reading of diverse books by asking stewards to share books by Black, indigenous, people of color, and LGBTQ writers and by supplying some free books that fit that description free of charge.

Whether growth will continue at this pace post-pandemic remains to be seen. But then unpredictability is hardwired into the project itself. It’s flourished thanks to both stewards and visitors seeing the value in sharing books with no strings attached. And from there it’s taken on different permutations depending on each neighborhood and the stewards in charge. “Our goal with the little free library is to make sure that people who walk by always see something new,” Ashlyn says. (They’ve gotten good feedback, including a note reading, “Most Little Free Libraries have a garbage selection but this one is great!”) But the libraries also have a way of taking on a life of their own.

“One night, I noticed a strange light near the library at 11:30 p.m. one night and realized it was two very drunk women, with a torch, giggling and browsing the titles,” Finlay recalls. But she also feels like that’s as it should be. “It’s similar to when a film I’ve made is released: it’s not mine anymore. The library is now owned by the community. I am just a librarian.”

Tasting History host and creator Max Miller credits The Great British Bake Off for his success.

“A lot of the historic things that they cooked on that show in the first few seasons were medieval or renaissance,” he says. “So that just stirred me in that direction. It was only after a few episodes of my show when I started to branch out from that time period.”

Miller started his channel when COVID-19 lockdowns forced him into a work furlough from his day job in sales distribution at Walt Disney Studios. Over the past nine months, his following has exploded, garnering nearly half a million followers — many just as passionate about ancient foods and how to make them as Miller himself. He’s gone deep on ancient Aztec Tamales, Roman Parthian chicken, and even pancake recipes from the 1600s.

“I didn’t really start the channel expecting it to be a thing,” he says. “I started it to be something to keep me busy… I figured I would talk about what I enjoy and what I know and that’s history, specifically food history.”

With the quarantine dragging on, we reached out to Miller to talk about where he plans to take his channel next and tapped him for his legit Tudor Butter Beere recipe — so you can live out your Harry Potter cosplay fantasies as god intended: drunk and in the comfort and privacy of your own home.

***

Before we dive into the Butter Beere, what other colonial historical periods interest you and what’s getting you excited in the food world right now?

I really enjoy the Victorian era. I think it’s a really great transition to modern cooking. When you see the recipes it’s like “Oh I can recognize this as something that I’m eating today, but it’s just something different enough where it’s like “Oh, that’s a weird ingredient — canned squid jelly?”

They were big fans of anything made of gelatin.

Another time period, it’s more of a culture I’m fascinated with, is Chinese cooking. It’s so foreign to me. I’ve never cooked it until very very recently. Not only are the ingredients different, but the cooking methods are different… Everything about it is very interesting, seeing the tidal shifts in how it was done. When the Mongols came in, cuisine completely changed, and then when Western cooking came in and introduced chilis, again, it completely changed. But you can’t imagine Szechuan cooking today without chili peppers.

The throughline for Chinese history is so long and we know so much about it, relatively unbroken. It’s a nice thing to look at because it’s so big and has changed so much.

What type of food do you enjoy cooking yourself when you’re not on a historical quest? I imagine you’re not living on a diet of Medieval snacks.

Definitely! My diet does not consist of just medieval recipes! It’s nice when I find a dish that is so good that I can incorporate it into my daily cooking, like the Parthian chicken. But I’m much more simple when it comes to my daily cooking. Really simple, like sandwiches, hamburgers, pasta, it’s not as exciting as one might hope. I

It’s definitely not like Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen, for sure!

What’s the most challenging cuisine to approach?

Medieval cooking is rather daunting, I’m becoming more comfortable with it, but there are so many different aspects of it that take a lot of research. From the quantities that they’re talking about to the methods that they just leave out. You sort of have to guess or look at other recipes from the era to get context clues.

It’s also very very easy to assume you know what they’re talking about, and you don’t. When you look at a very ancient recipe, you can assume you know nothing about it, so you research every aspect of every word in the recipe. Whereas with medieval you see the word “marrow” and you assume you know what it means, but it might not actually be that way, because the word “marrow” in the 14th century could refer to different things.

It’s easy to stumble over things that you’re not expecting simply because you get a little cocky. You know what a pint is, but a pint in the 16th century is different than a British pint today.

Where are you planning on taking the channel in the future?

I’m hoping to get to do more mini-series within the series. I want to do an entire series of the foods they ate on the Titanic and an entire series of what specific groups of people in medieval Europe were eating. I just did an episode on peasant food, I want to do what monks would eat, and what knights would eat.

More throughlines in multiple episodes is what I’m looking forward to next.

When the pandemic is over do you plan on visiting a specific country for cooking inspiration?

Absolutely! That is my goal. The two places I’d like to go to most are Scotland and Japan. Japan because they treat food as an art form over there, so learning even just one bit of that would be amazing. And Japanese history is so fascinating.

Scotland because I really want to make haggis the way that haggis should be made, but it’s hard to find some of the ingredients outside of Scotland. Sheeps lung isn’t even legal in the United States, so you can’t make it here. I’d also love to talk to people who are making the food as their traditional food, not just historic recipes, but the food in Transylvania today, look into what they’re making today where it comes from. Those kinds of things.

Personally, why do you think it’s important to keep the history of recipes alive?

I think that history, in general, is so important to have because as they say history repeats itself. If we don’t learn the mistakes of the past we’re doomed to repeat them. We’re probably doomed to repeat them regardless! But while I won’t say that the foods were necessarily mistakes, it’s interesting to see how the food comes full circle, and ingredients that we haven’t really used in several hundred years crop up again and then we say “oh what a fantastic new ingredient that we just found” and then you look back and you see the Romans have been using that ingredient and it’s not new at all, we just forgot about it.

It helps you appreciate the work that goes into food. Not just the cooking, but the planting and the growing and the shipping, all of it, it’s such an important part of our lives that we often take for granted. To be able to see that history, see that work that went into developing these foods, is so important so that we don’t take it for granted today.

HOW TO MAKE 400-YEAR-OLD BUTTERED BEERE

Ingredients

• 3 Pints (1500ml/48oz) of good quality British Ale
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 lb (225g) demerara or brown sugar
• 5 egg yolks
• 1 stick (113g) unsalted butter

ORIGINAL RECIPE – “The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin” c.1594 (or 1588) Take three pintes of Beere, put five yolkes of Egges to it, straine them together, and set it in a pewter pot to the fyre, and put to it halfe a pound of Sugar, one penniworth of Nutmegs beaten, one penniworth of Cloues beaten, and a halfepenniworth of Ginger beaten, and when it is all in, take another pewter pot and brewe them together, and set it to the fire againe, and when it is readie to boyle, take it from the fire, and put a dish of sweet butter into it, and brewe them together out of one pot into an other.

Modern Method:

• Take five room temperature yolks and beat them with the demerara or brown sugar until light and frothy. Set aside.
• Pour the ale into a saucepan. Try to not create too much foam. Stir in the spices.
• Over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil, then turn down to low and simmer for two minutes. For a non-alcoholic drink, leave at medium heat and boil for 20 minutes.
• Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the egg and sugar mixture. Then return the pot to low heat until the liquid starts to thicken. Simmer for 5 minutes.
• Add in the diced butter and stir until melted.
• Froth the buttered beer with a hand whisk and let simmer for 10 minutes.
• Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow buttered beer to cool to a warm-but-drinkable temperature.
• Whisk again and serve warm. *This can be served cold by chilling the beer, then mixing it with cold milk (1 part beer/1 part milk)

“The true purpose of Uprisers is to collaborate, and tell the stories of activists, trendsetters, and people who we call “warriors of change” because collaborating and working on collections that provoke conversations and actions allow us to mobilize our communities.”

On the latest episode of The Show Up, we sat down with Michelle Hanabusa, the founder and head designer of Los Angeles-based activism-focused streetwear brand Uprisers for an inside look at the genesis of the brand, Hanabusa’s imaginative design process, and her efforts to help lift up her community when it was hit hard by the realities of Covid-19 and the racism toward the Asian American community that came with it.

Hanabusa left a cushy job in the music and fashion industry for the creative freedom that comes with running your own company. A risky move no doubt, but Hanabusa has never been one to shy away from risk, which is why when Covid-19 shutdowns threatened her young three-year-old brand, instead of giving up on her dreams she took that time to regroup with the rest of the Uprisers team. Together, they found a way to both build the brand and help people in need by starting a campaign to raise $1 million in support of BIPOC communities strongly hit by Covid-19 and shed a light on the racism facing the Asian American community.

“When I first started Uprisers there was this level of uncertainty because I wasn’t sure how people were going to respond to this type of messaging because we had this rebellious take… but overall it’s been so positive, people really resonate with that… Uprisers commitment to the community is really where Hate is a Virus was born.”

To find out more about Uprisers, Hate is a Virus, and how Hanabasa’s designs get from her mind to the page and into your closet, check out the latest episode of The Show Up above.

Mulatto and Lil Baby put on an elaborate burlesque show with the help of DC Young Fly in the video for “Sex Lies” from the deluxe version of Mulatto’s debut album Queen Of Da Souf. Depicting the Atlanta rappers getting prepared backstage, the video employs DC Young Fly as the host, who welcomes the masked guests to “Big Latto’s Sex Lies Experience.” Latto herself appears in some classic costumes, cavorting in a giant martini glass and carousing on a massive fruit spread.

The video makes reference to Mulatto’s recent live show controversty as well. The 21-year-old was criticized for performing at a concert in a semi-packed club, where attendees weren’t wearing masks. In the video, the showgoers are seated at the recommended six-foot space and wearing bulky paint respirators, while DC Young Fly reminds them repeatedly to “wear your masks.” Of course, it’s showy and sarcastic, which isn’t really needed — that cow has left the barn, so to speak — but it does make for a cool image thanks to the contrast between the guests’ classy dress and their Bane-ish headgear.

Watch the “Sex Lies” video above.

Queen Of Da Souf (Extended Version) is out now on RCA Records. Get it here.