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UPROXX Sessions is back with a chest-thumping performance from LA upstart Bino Rideaux, who arrives with his new single, “Mismatch,” to show why he’s one of the West Coast’s fastest-rising future stars.

A recent Def Jam signee, Bino has been raising his profile over the past year with a series of unforgettable guest verses, appearing alongside names like Dave East, Drakeo The Ruler, and Nipsey Hussle. Earlier this year, his Def Jam debut, Ouside, further established him as one to watch with its 03 Greedo-esque blend of witty punchlines, warbling delivery, and C-walk-inducing beats. He was joined on the project by stars Mozzy and Ty Dolla Sign, delivering further co-signs of his talent from some of California’s premiere talents — talents he’s bound to equal, sooner or later.

Check out more UPROXX Sessions performances from the West Coast with Guapdad 4000 and 1TakeJay, and watch Bino’s performance of “Mismatch” above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s new performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

The 2019-2020 NBA season came to an abrupt halt on March 11 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the season effectively three-quarters of the way through, many storylines, records-to-be, and developing comebacks were left in the lurch; all the bizarre, beautiful, and too-absorbing minutiae of the league halted. This is a look back at the most compelling of those suspended narratives in an attempt to figure out what could have been while reconciling, maybe wrenchingly, that however the season concludes, this will be a year in basketball that never fully happened. Welcome to Year None.

Chris Paul looking out on the plains of Oklahoma and deciding, “here’s good,” was not how anyone thought this was going to go. He’d been all over the map, from Type A to mercurial, but he’d yet to make a trip to quietly sustained, let alone stay there. It could’t be a pioneer story, because Russell Westbrook had been the tale told ‘round the TV’s glow in Oklahoma City living rooms for years, but it could be, maybe, a cowboy one.

Paul is a loner. He likes it best. Where it’s been difficult for him is where he is not expected to run efficient circles around everyone — his adversaries, his teammates — and instead must circle the proverbial wagons. Where he’s delayed, either by the minds around him not churning through the metrics of the floor, basketball as data, a map, or by his own sense of perfectionism. To Paul, like the rare handful of others — Kyle Lowry, Damian Lillard — who can look out at a court underway and already see all the ways it’s going to unfold, basketball is best when it’s hard. Make no mistake, he can make it look easy: his rapid, flowing drives, his lazy-looking pull-up jumpers. But his mind, while working, is a set of gritted teeth.

It’s why so many find it hard to be a fan of Paul, because it’s not easy. He can be snappish, standoffish, assertive, smug and a taskmaster, all in one game. And he doesn’t necessarily have the kind of flair others do who when making these same demands. Jimmy Butler can be obstinate, but he’s flashy, cool, funny. And Lowry, who is similar to Paul in how he gets under guys’ skin, stays there and stays annoying, is beloved because he is tough, compassionate, and, most of all, loyal. Paul has a lot of these same qualities, if you watched him as the proverbial mayor of Lob City then you understood instantly how much he meant to a team regaining its identity and simultaneously being squeezed of it with every year they almost made it.

But backing up, you can’t unravel the trickier parts of Paul without tracing the difficulty of his career back to its beginning. In high school he was named North Carolina’s Mr. Basketball and in college he punched another player in the groin the the last game of his sophomore year. He went fourth in the NBA draft and played the first two years of his professional career for the Hornets in Oklahoma City, because New Orleans was dealing with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. It would have been disruptive for anyone, but to be named Rookie of the Year in the aftermath of that, playing for a city that has a gravitational pull toward it in the south, especially hailing from a half day’s drive away, and not getting to claim it, would have been like a weird stasis.

He had a hefty contract extension and a budding team on his shoulders when the Hornets fired Byron Scott. Paul, 24, criticized the decision by questioning why he was never consulted with it. For any player, this kind of inquiry is a tightrope — lean too far in one direction and your alignment looks torqued by favoritism, go the other way and it’s clear you’ve got a larger say in the team, the likes of which a rare few superstars get to voice — but for a third year player it sent Paul tumbling into the kind of scrutiny he’s never, not yet, not really, escaped.

The through line of Paul’s career has more been the process of unraveling one knot after another. He almost never made it to Los Angeles, his trade, instead of being between two franchises, fell to David Stern. The NBA being the temporary holders of the Hornets franchise before new ownership arrived, and Stern, determined to play the role of aggressive owner seemed incensed with getting the best deal for a team he was, essentially, playing pretend with, famously rejecting a trade that would send him to the Lakers. Eventually, he would be allowed passage to Los Angeles, but instead of the legendary purple and gold, it was for the often cellar-dwelling red, white, and blue of the Clippers.

Cruelly, it seemed the pace of those largely unmarred years in New Orleans finally caught up, jackknifed, and blindsided Paul just as the velocity of his career — his real career — was about to get underway. As analytical and diligent as he can be, the kind of basketball Paul got to play in L.A. in bright, flashing bursts was what he should have been doing all along. He was the perfect oscillator between Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, his speed the humming center that kept things tight, together, with these starburst offshoots that had him rocketing alley-oops to the thundering hands of Jordan or Griffin. He played so fast but it never felt downhill, and there was always a hum of immaculate control growling out from under his smirk.

He relished the attention, loved being on what was touted as the underdog team in a market where it was actually impossible for that to be true, because it was still big enough, with revenue and fans enough, for two. Paul knew, he’s one of the smartest players in the league when it comes to control, autonomy and the optics of a career, he would never play where there was a real chance of being eclipsed. But the myth of it made it so there would always be eyes on him.

The Clippers nailed the repetitions of heartbreak. As soon as Paul got there the team went farther than it did in five years, and then never past that. Injury dogged Paul and Griffin in a bitter relay, lapsing them both for long bouts so that even in the rare times both were healthy and back to playing together, that rhythm of those first two seasons never quite came back full bounce.

When Paul made for Texas the team came apart behind him, their speedy reactor gone. The value of Paul’s stardom seems to fluctuate a hell of a lot more than others in the league in his echelon, when it should be handled the way we do gold and measured against. It took seven players, a fully functional starting lineup and two relief guys if that is more decipherable, a first round pick and money all talking to get Paul to walk under the bleached out cerulean skies of Houston. He hadn’t left it all behind him, though, injury clung to his body like an incorrigible burr. But when he played — oof. If you didn’t like Paul before, found him calculating, full of himself, man you were not going to like him here.

It’s a shame that the Rockets were not able to better alchemize whatever it was between Paul and James Harden, because when it spilled out on the floor, it was scorching. Paul played, when he played, both of those seasons mean. He understood intimately that with Harden there was no point in trying to establish a dialogue, a two-way relationship where all the signs were already pointing in one, extremely ISO direction. All Paul really did was take the mandate of the Rockets and play, crushingly, along. Mike D’Antoni wanted ball dominant, he got it. But just when it seemed he’d fallen completely into the tunnel of himself there would be smoke signals on the horizon, messages back home. He favored Clint Capela and Nene with the kind of lobs he once served Griffin and Jordan, but it felt lonesome, too earnest for the Rockets, and it wouldn’t be long until he was back on the perimeter, passing to no one and tossing daggers whenever he got half a look.

Houston was averaging 57 wins a season and Harden wanted Paul gone. So much so that with just one year ticked off Paul’s four-year, maximum extension, and Daryl Morey having promised him explicitly that OKC was not an option, the Rockets sent him just out of state lines in something that looked a lot, initially, like exile.

But if this past summer showed us anything, it’s that the Thunder — which, of course, once traded Harden — understand that it’s better to trade a star and get things back rather than ask them to stick around before they end up leaving. With Paul George, they got two seasons out of a player who was initially anticipating a skimming stopover and who, when the Thunder did right by George and sent him home, was reluctant to leave. Westbrook’s departure too, as abrupt as it was for Paul, could be rooted in reunion. Weary and wary, when Paul showed up on the disorienting back of summer 2019, he took his new team to dinner. He had, after all, come a dizzying full circle.

And something’s happened this season as the brace of expectation has slipped — Paul’s stayed healthy. Without reeling between pressure and disappointment as he did with the Clippers, and finally able to step into the proverbial sun and out from Houston’s exhausting isolation, Paul’s loosened up. He’s playing pure point with more confidence than he ever did in L.A. and has a younger roster that’s much easier with itself around him. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, OKC’s best new hope, has fit snugly under Paul’s wing, but is, generationally, a different kind of player than Paul has known. An astute, quick learner on court as much as off, tapped in at all times and aware of a much wider world than Paul was at that point in his career. This Thunder team takes him seriously, but they tease him, giving the veteran in Paul a new kind of levity. Add in the stunningly effective firebrand of Dennis Schröder off the bench and the steady, no bull Steven Adams, and Paul is, for the first time, on a team that’s got nothing to prove.

Strange things happen when teams are taken out of “official” contention, they typically play better. Billy Donovan has a light hand and is willing to let things roam on court, partially due to seeing the long road of a rebuild rise up in front of him, and because he’s learned to work with what he’s got. For all his perceived faults, Paul isn’t really an outsider. A loner on court in how much he plays inside his own head, yes, but he was thus far happiest on a team humming along at the same clip, an important part of something. In Oklahoma he gets to have that again, he also, if he wants it, gets to have the kind of say in a team that he wanted the first time he set foot in the Sooner State a decade ago. In December, he bought them all suits. If he stays through the tumult of this season, who knows what next Christmas can bring.

What if the end of Paul’s rope isn’t? What if it’s adjustable as he is, a lasso he can use to snag what he wants the last range of his career to look like? Out there on the plains he’s got nothing but full vantage in every direction, a team to teach and learn from, and plenty of space. Out there on the plains, Paul has all the more room to run.

In the early to mid-1980s, The Go-Go’s were like lightning in a bottle. They were everywhere. With three hit albums in a row, spawning classic songs we still hear over and over on repeat today – “Vacation,” “Head Over Heals,” “Our Lips are Sealed,” “We Got the Beat” – the band (the first to feature an all female lineup who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to have a number one album) couldn’t be stopped. But it did, abruptly. After the success of their album Talk Show, Jane Wiedlin quit. Then Belinda Carlisle embarked on a solo career, talking Charlotte Caffey with her as her songwriter. When you watch Alison Ellwood’s new documentary on the band (which premieres this Friday night on Showtime), it’s the voices of drummer Gina Schock and bassist/guitarist Kathy Valentine that stick out the most because they both kind of still seem as bewildered as we all do.

But Valentine’s voice is unique because she was the last of the core members to join the band, and had been writing a memoir, All I Ever Wanted, so her recollections were acutely clear. Valentine, who wrote the band’s biggest hit, “Vacation,” joined The Go-Go’s prior to their first album, replacing bassist Margot Olavarria who didn’t like the direction the band was going away from punk. In the film, Valentine is literally introduced as, “a badass musician,” who learned all The Go-Go’s songs “on a three day bender on coke.”

The film is a fascinating look at a band that had piles of success. But disputes over money, and the perils of addiction, led to the breakup of one of the era’s great bands. Ahead, Valentine looks back at her career with The Go-Gos (which still continues today; pre-pandemic they had scheduled a tour in support of the new film), why she thinks the band isn’t in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and about that time she suggested hiring Rob Lowe for a Go-Go’s video.

It’s always tricky talking to the subject of a documentary because you never know how they feel about it.

Well, I was really happy to do this and excited that we were going to have a documentation of the band that really uplifted us and celebrated our achievements and everything we accomplished and also conveyed, I think, just the journey that we took. So, it was really exciting. And I think Alison Ellwood, the director, she did an amazing job. Because we weren’t walking around with video cameras and certainly didn’t have cell phones and phone cameras, so there wasn’t a huge amount of content. It took a lot of talent and artistry to make such a great narrative without the amount of content that you might want as a filmmaker.

You have a great intro into the narrative. When you join the band you’re literally described as a “badass musician.” That’s a good way to enter a story.

Oh, thank you. Because sometimes I felt a little bit like a footnote. So thank you for saying that. I’m glad that’s the impression you got.

Oh, no. I thought your perspective was one of the most interesting parts of the story.

Well, I had an advantage because I released a memoir in March.

I’ve read many excerpts from it.

Oh, cool. Well, I had been writing that book for several years, so I was pretty steeped in Go-Go’s, the timeline, and I’d really explored my feelings. And so, I had kind of that advantage.

I had always wondered why the band broke up so, what seemed, abruptly. I remember when the third album came out, Talk Show, I was young and had just started listening to Top 40 radio. “Head Over Heals” was on the radio that whole summer. I remember being like, “Why would they just go away?” I couldn’t figure that out.

Me either.

Yeah, I got that impression while watching the film.

I didn’t understand it either.

Do you watch this film and thing about what could have been if you kept going?

Well, but in a way, it did keep going. And it kept going for decades much longer than a lot of other bands.

Oh, sure. But there’s a big gap in there.

Well, I think the shame is that by the time we kind of started healing and coming back together to doing things, I think it’s one thing to be in your 20s and in a band and you can just go on the road forever. You can go do all this stuff, but it’s a lot harder when you have families and pets and homes and you live in different cities. So, I think that the biggest loss is that there hasn’t been a lot of creative output from the band. But in terms of just keeping something intact, there’s something remarkable that there is any intactness at all to this band. And I think the documentary really celebrates that. We have endured. And even without a massive amount of creative output, what we did does hold up over time. It’s classic, it’s not dated. We can play the songs without feeling silly to play them even in our 60s. None of it was childish or so youth-oriented that it can’t be done now. You know?

For sure.

The things that we accomplished are strong enough and worthy enough that they have endured, which I think is remarkable. And I’m glad that the documentary kind of embeds that in the consciousness of people that are interested in, or curious about, the band.

“We Got The Beat” lives forever opening Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which is still on cable nonstop…

Well, I mean all of the hits, I hear all of the time in different ways. I hear “Vacation”, “Head Over Heels,” “Our Lips Are Sealed” constantly. But when it came out, we were just really happy, because we loved the film. We thought it was a great film, and I think it might’ve been the first time that we had anything in a movie. And that was kind of at a time when, of course, you had amazing soundtracks with music of rock and pop bands.

I’m not just saying this because you wrote it, but I think “Vacation,” that’s the one I think I hear the most in just daily life, back when we had daily life. You could just be at a bar and “Vacation” would come on.

Yeah, I still get excited when I hear a Go-Go’s song. I mean, I could just be walking around in the supermarket and I kind of want to go, “Hey, that’s me!” And I’ve been doing this a really long time. So for people that wonder what it feels like, I can tell them it feels really, really cool.

I think you have full right to do that next time the world is normal and you hear a Go-Go’s song in a supermarket. I don’t think anyone would frown upon that if you celebrated something like that.

Well, we’ll see. If I could get a discount, I would do it.

Well, see? There you go.

“Hey, that’s me. How about 50 percent off?”

“You’re playing my music. Could I at least get half-off this Lean Cuisine?” Or whatever you happen to be buying that day.

Exactly. Given the way things are. I might need it.

My favorite shot in the “Head Over Heals” video is of you with the plane going behind you. Was that a difficult shot to get? Because you have a look on your face like, “Oh, I think we just pulled it off.”

Well, I mean, everybody got to have a little kind of solo thing and I liked that mine was off the location. And driving out to the airport and finding a place… and there wasn’t the technology there is now, so they had to, I don’t know what they did or how they got it so that it was in slow motion. So it was pretty awesome. And my favorite part is when Gina’s head peaks in the frame, like she can’t let me have my moment. She has to get in there. It reminded me, at my wedding, we were doing family wedding pictures, and Gina photobombed the family wedding pictures. And she photobombed me on my solo in the video.

I’m always surprised at how many people don’t know the video for “Turn To You.” That video is amazing. And Rob Lowe is in it, strangely. I don’t know why it isn’t more popular.

I don’t know either, because it was the first time that we had a major director, too. All of our videos before felt very kind of, I don’t know, kind of crappy almost? Just like, I don’t want to say amateur, because that sounds mean, but they just didn’t seem slick. You know what I mean? So when we got Mary Lambert, she’d done Madonna and stuff.

And she directed Pet Sematary.

Yeah. So this was before that. She directed “Material Girl.” And when she gave us a storyline, where we actually got to play roles and be in drag, oh my God, we were just so thrilled. And it was actually me that suggested Rob Lowe, because he was a friend and I saw that there was a part for a “heartthrob” kind of guy at the party. And I was like, “Oh, I know just the version.” And he loved the band, so he was friends with all of us, and he was like, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” Making videos are… it’s not a short day, that’s for sure, so it’s always a pain in the ass to some degree.

You should get a lot of credit for suggesting Rob Lowe. That wasn’t like you suggested this person we’ve never heard of today.

I know. I don’t know why he’s not more proud of it. He should put it first and center of his resume.

That should be on his Twitter profile. “Hey, by the way, check out this video I’m in.”

Exactly. I know.

In the film we learned “Mad About You” was written for The Go-Go’s before it became a solo hit for Belinda Carlisle. I watched a clip of her performing that on Late Night with David Letterman with Charlotte. Is that a tough moment for everyone else?

Well, when I was writing my book and I wrote about being sober, it wasn’t until I got sober that I realized why it would have been impossible for Charlotte to continue on in the band when she got out of rehab for heroin addiction. I mean, I didn’t go to rehab. I just stopped drinking, and I could do very little other than sit on the couch for three months. I was scared to go to a restaurant. I didn’t think I would be able to go out and have fun or have a meal. So I was almost immobilized with the change in my life. So to have expected Charlotte to get out of rehab for heroin addiction and to just dive in to making an album with people that had a lot of dysfunction and toxic energy, by that point, it would have been detrimental to her survival. So I had to get sober before I understood why she couldn’t do it anymore.

And Belinda just, she wasn’t having fun anymore. And we also had managers that knew that they had a successful act in the star, whether the band survived or not. So there was a lot of forces working against us. And of course, looking back, I think it absolutely needed to happen. And I think that I don’t know what the outcome would have been if we hadn’t. Who knows what it would have been? But it is what it is.

And the main thing is that for decades now, despite ups and downs, and we broke up twice, we’ve had people be seriously on the outs, we’ve had a lot of nasty fights and stuff, but we’ve endured and there’s a bond between us. And the documentary has given us a lot of healing and forgiveness, and we are in a better place than we have been since we were young and hungry. We’re probably in the best place we’ve been since the early days, which is really nice. Really, really nice. Because there’s people from bands who don’t speak to each other. We’re in touch multiple times a week. And this is after decades of all that other stuff happening. And more than anything, our music has endured.

In the film, it’s pointed out how The Go-Go’s aren’t in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Because this year, Pat Benatar got the second most amount of fan votes, but she didn’t get in. From from an outsider’s perspective, is this obvious sexism? Or is it something else? Because it doesn’t make a lot of sense for her or you.

Well, I think that there’s a committee in place that has one viewpoint, and I’m not sure what they use for their viewpoint. But I would argue that there are bands that might not have been as successful or artists that are women that have not been as successful as some of their other inductees, but that are still very, very relevant to women in rock and roll, going back to Suzi Quatro or to Fanny. I mean, these bands and these artists might not have had number one records or sold millions in the United States, but they were absolutely influential and did something that hadn’t been done before, just like The Go-Go’s did.

So, I think they have to look at women’s role in music with a different lens other than what they are using for Janet Jacksons or other people who do get in. That’s one way: somebody sold piles of records and are popular. And all the tourists that come to Cleveland are going to know that artists. That’s one thing. But if you’re truly a museum that is archiving and presenting to the public a historical perspective, there are very accomplished women from the ’60s, the ’70s, the ’80s and onward, that I think it’s just, maybe they need a different lens than sales or popularity.

A couple of years ago Def Leppard got in. And I like Def Leppard. But there are a lot of bands that had their mark on culture like that, just like The Go-Go’s did, and maybe aren’t at Janet Jackson level, where it seems like women get the short end of that lens, as you put it.

Yeah. I mean, I don’t have a problem with Def Leppard either, but where’s the MC5? It’s very arbitrary. I know that the people that actually run the Rock Hall of Fame are good people, and they are advocating for more representation of women. But I don’t think that they make the decision. It’s a certain committee, and the committee members are very secretive who’s on it, because obviously they don’t want to be lobbied or harassed or whatever. So I don’t know who they are. They’re the gatekeepers.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

In 2018, the story broke that former Smallville actress Allison Mack was arrested for her involvement in an alleged “sex cult” known as NXIVM. For years, rumors had swirled about Mack’s ties to the mysterious self-help group, but the allegations were just that, rumors. However, following her arrest and the trial that followed, it became clear that the rumors were more accurate than anyone could’ve imagined.

As the bizarre court case unfolded, Mack not only admitted to trying to recruit Harry Potter star Emma Watson into the alleged sex cult, but Mack also took credit for one of the more salacious NXIVM rituals: Branding the pubic region of the groups’ “slaves.” Considering Mack revealed this information to the New York Times while facing trial, it wasn’t exactly a surprise when she pleaded guilty to multiple felony counts.

Of course, the larger question is how did Mack, whose Smallville co-stars described her as a genuinely warm, sweet, and smart person, fall into a wild cult with alleged ties to human trafficking and sexual slavery? That’s where HBO’s The Vow comes in. In a new teaser focusing on NXIVM’s promises of overcoming fear and living to your full potential, the documentary promises an in-depth look at Keith Raniere, the man responsible for the self-help group’s formation and descent into abuse and manipulation that ensnared Mack and others before becoming the target of law enforcement.

Here’s the official synopsis:

THE VOW follows a range of people who joined the self-improvement group, NXIVM. The organization has been under siege, with various charges including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy brought against its highest members – most notably founder Keith Raniere, who was convicted in June 2019 and is currently awaiting sentencing. The series takes a deep, nuanced look at the experiences of a number of people deeply involved in NXIVM over the course of several years. Amidst claims by NXIVM participants of both profound transformation and devastating abuse, the series, like Noujaim and Amer’s previous films, seeks to reveal the issues behind the headlines and explore the emotional toll of unfolding events on these individuals.

The Vow premieres August 23 on HBO.

(Via HBO)

Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, former Republican presidential candidate, and icon of conservative values has died a month after being hospitalized with COVID-19.

Cain went to the hospital with serious symptoms on July 1st, after testing positive for coronavirus two days before. Thought it’s impossible to determine where he contracted the virus, it’s notable that he had attended President Trump’s Tulsa rally on June 20, where he was photographed in close proximity with others in a crowded seating area where no one was wearing a mask. Others who attended the rally also tested positive, including some of Trump’s own campaign team.

Any death from any disease is tragic. But it would be foolish and short-sighted to simply express sadness that Mr. Cain died from COVID-19 without also acknowledging that his death from the virus was likely avoidable. While many people who were actively trying to avoid getting infected have unfortunately still contracted the virus, Cain had been going about business as usual, attending crowded rallies and doing “a lot of traveling” around the time he caught the virus, according to his familly.

We’ve been told by public health experts since the beginning of the pandemic that older people and people with certain health conditions are at a much higher risk than others of dying from the disease and therefore need to take extra precautions. Cain was 74 years old—well into the age group at high risk. He was also a stage 4 colon cancer survivor. Though he has been cancer free for many years, he still may have been at a higher risk of suffering complications from the virus as a cancer survivor. As the American Cancer Society website states:

“Some cancer patients might be at increased risk of serious illness from an infection because their immune systems can be weakened by cancer and its treatments. Most people who were treated for cancer in the past (especially if it was years ago) are likely to have normal immune function, but each person is different. It’s important that all cancer patients and survivors, whether currently in treatment or not, talk with a doctor who understands their situation and medical history.”

We also know that Black Americans are many times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white Americans. While much of the reason for that is likely due to socioeconomic disparities, statistically speaking, being a Black man in the U.S. put Cain at even greater risk from the virus.

Cain’s age, health history, and race were three risk factors that we know of for sure. Anyone with that many risk factors should absolutely be taking public health recommendations to socially distance, avoid crowds, and wear a mask when in public seriously.

Denial that the virus can and does kill people literally kills people. Following partisan narratives that the virus is a hoax, or that numbers are skewed, or that masks don’t work or aren’t necessary can literally kill people.

Some will call that fearmongering, but it’s not fearmongering to simply state these known facts about public health. Some may call it disrespectful to use Cain’s death as a cautionary tale, but it’s not disrespectful to point out that a person who flaunted their refusal to follow health recommendations has died of the very thing those health recommendations are in place to avoid. It’s truly a tragic irony. No one should take pleasure in it, but no one should deny it either. We’re knee deep in a pandemic—a reality that far too many people are unwilling to fully internalize. It may be a slower emergency than we’re used to, but it’s an emergency nonetheless.

I hope Cain’s loved ones are receiving the support they need to help them deal with his passing. And I hope everyone who has risk factors for COVID-19 sees his death as a warning sign to take coronavirus seriously and follow the guidance of public health officials whose entire job is to protect the public from exactly this scenario. Rest in peace, Mr. Cain.

Rye whiskey is a step to the side of bourbon. A whiskey variant that some people swear by and others pretty much ignore. The use of rye grains in the mash bill (recipe) makes for a dram that tends to have more heat via a peppery spiciness. Ryes also lean more into fruity/floral natures, compared to bourbon’s vanilla foundation.

As for production, ryes are made under the same rules as bourbon except for one. Whereas bourbons need a minimum of 51-percent corn in their mash bills, ryes need at least 51 percent rye grains as their base. That other 49 percent can be made up of a mix of any other grain or cereal.

The other major ripple with rye whiskeys is the Canada factor. In Canada, the term “rye” is used colloquially to refer to Canadian whisky overall. And yes, that means that there are Canadian whiskies with zero rye grain in their mash bills that people will still call “rye” when asking for a dram at a bar. It’s slightly confusing, but you can always ask before ordering.

The ten ryes below aim to bridge the gap between the low-end offerings and the higher-end stuff that might be a little too pricy for every day sipping. Overall, these are all quality bottles that live up to their price point and are (for the most part) widely available.

Sazerac Straight Rye

ABV: 45%
Distillery: Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, KY (Sazerac Company)
Average Price: $32

The Whiskey:

Sazerac Rye is a great entry point for a refined touch and a throwback to the 1800s. The brand was named after the famed Sazerac Coffee House on Royal Street in New Orleans where the Sazerac cocktail was born. This expression is a true classic.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a hint of vanilla that’s in place to support the clear notes of star anise, clove, and black pepper. The body of this sip leans into a Christmas cake overloaded with spices and candied fruits, with a crack of pepper over the top and a lush-yet-subtle sweetness.

Finally, the spices fade towards a dark licorice essence on the warming final notes.

Bottom Line:

The only way to make a Sazerac is with this. It’s also a very decent highball base.

Lot 40 Canadian Rye Whisky

ABV: 43%
Distillery: Hiram Walker Distillery, Windsor, ON
Average Price: $40

The Whiskey:

Lot 40 is a true rye whisky. The mash bill is comprised of 90 percent Canadian rye and ten percent malted rye. The juice is blended by a Canadian blending icon, Dr. Don Livermore, who’s often been called the mad scientist of whisky.

Tasting Notes:

Caramel spiked with orange zest combines with mild rye spiciness and a slight savory fruit presence. The sip leans into fresh florals with a coriander feel, alongside notes of pepper and cardamon. A hint of that caramel sweetness returns with a flourish of vanilla as the sip luxuriates in the rye spice.

Bottom Line:

Solid sipper but also a worthy Old Fashioned base.

Oak & Eden Rye & Spire

ABV: 45%
Distillery: Sanctified Spirits, Westlake, TX
Average Price: $40

The Whiskey:

At first glance, Oak & Eden feels like a gimmicky brand. But that heavily charred oak spire in the bottle adds that little extra something that helps elevate this expression. The mash bill is 95 percent rye and the juice goes through standard aging in new American oak.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a real sense of floral notes married to rye spice up top. Wildflowers, peppery spice, rich caramel, and charred oak lead towards a hint of bitter espresso. The sip embraces all that bitter, floral, and spiciness and slowly fades towards a billow of pipe tobacco on the end.

Bottom Line:

This is designed for cocktails. Try it in a Manhattan.

Woodford Reserve Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey

ABV: 45.2%
Distillery: Woodford Reserve Distillery, Versailles, KY (Brown-Forman)
Average Price: $40

The Whiskey:

Woodford’s master distiller Chris Morris took nearly ten years to get this one just right. The juice is made from a meager 53-percent rye mash bill (the rest is malted barley). The whiskey is then aged until it hits the right spot and is small-batch bottled.

Tasting Notes:

Black pepper and cedar bark counterpoint marzipan and apple orchards with a hint of pear. The taste broadens the spices towards clove and more pepper while a lush floral nature sits next to molasses sweetness and a hint of fresh mint. That molasses mixes with the spice as the sip slowly dissipates from your senses.

Bottom Line:

This is a great workhorse whiskey. On the rocks, in a mint julep, or deep in a highball — it all works.

Sagamore Spirit Rye

ABV: 41.5%
Distillery: Sagamore Spirit Distillery, Baltimore, MD
Average Price: $45

The Whiskey:

This rye, originally sourced from Indiana, is a blend of high-rye and low-rye whiskeys that are cut with spring water from a Maryland farm. The expression was the brainchild of master distiller Larry Ebersold who spent 30 years at Seagram’s mastering his trade, giving this bottle some serious history to live up to.

Tasting Notes:

This one opens with classic notes of vanilla, caramel, and Christmas spices. Those Christmas spices carry on and are supported by brisk orange zest, candied fruit, and wet brown sugar with a faint hint of straw. The sip hits a fatty walnut edge as the spices slowly fade through the senses.

Bottom Line:

This one would make a great gift around the holidays.

Russell’s Reserve Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey 6 Years Old

ABV: 45%
Distillery: Wild Turkey Distillery, Lawrenceburg, TN (Campari)
Average Price: $45

The Whiskey:

Wild Turkey’s Jimmy and Eddie Russell worked together to create Russell’s Reserve and this rye serves as a crucial gateway to the line. The juice is aged for six long years in heavily charred barrels and placed specifically in the center of the rickhouse. Then the Russells hand-select bottles for small-batch bottling.

Tasting Notes:

This is accessible and classic at the same time. The sip has the rye signifiers of both peppery spice and crusty bread. The florals and fruitiness are dialed in and accentuate the rye spice but never overpower it. The oak is present as a supporting act to the spice as a hint of vanilla pops in late in the dram.

Bottom Line:

Try this one and get lost in the rest of Russell’s Reserve offerings. (It also makes a great Sazerac.)

Templeton Rye Aged 6 Years

ABV: 45.57%
Distillery: Templeton Rye, Templeton, IA (MGP Indiana)
Average Price: $45

The Whiskey:

Templeton Rye is a solid sourced rye. The Iowa based company has started distilling and aging its own juice, so this bottle from Indiana will soon be gone. For now, the juice is a classic 95 percent rye base that’s modeled on a pre-prohibition taste to create a throwback feel.

Tasting Notes:

The sip opens with a sense of cream soda vanilla and sweetness next to bright fruitiness that leans almost tropical. The fruit and vanilla carry the sip through a mild oaky stage towards building levels of spice.

That spice soon overpowers the fruit and vanilla on the short end.

Bottom Line:

Solid mixer. We’re patiently awaiting their homegrown spirit in 2022.

Michter’s US*1 Single Barrel Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey

ABV: 42.4%
Distillery: Michter’s Distillery, Louisville, KY
Average Price: $48

The Whiskey:

This expression from Louisville’s Michter’s is a star of the style. The fact that you can grab a single barrel expression of this quality at around $50 per bottle is fantastic. This bottle could easily be $75 or more (and often is on the secondary market).

Tasting Notes:

Orchard fruit and black pepper greet you along with a touch of fresh mint and freshly mowed green grass. It’s the wildflowers and pepper that carry the sip with a note of tart apple covered in very light salted caramel. The barrel starts peeking through near the long end as the spice fades out and a billow of campfire smoke puts the cherry atop the sundae.

Bottom Line:

It’s billed as the perfect cocktail base but we’d argue that it makes for a great sipper too.

Balcones Texas Rye 100 Proof

ABV: 50%
Distillery: Balcones Distillery, Waco, TX
Average Price: $50

The Whiskey:

This rye is Texas in a bottle. The expression is made of 100 percent rye from a mix of Elbon Rye sourced from Northwest Texas as well as crystal, chocolate, and roasted rye. The juice is then aged for just under two years in a hot Texas rickhouse and cut with Hill Country spring water and nothing else.

Tasting Notes:

Cherries dipped in chocolate support black tea bitterness, light oak char, and rush of cracked black pepper. The pepper leads the way as the bitter chocolate leans into espresso bitterness and the sip gains a creamy toffee nature. The dram ends with a flourish of roasted peanuts and more of that bitterness from the dark chocolate.

Bottom Line:

This is the perfect highball base or sipper that could easily be twice the price.

Basil Hayden’s Dark Rye

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Jim Beam, Clermont, KY (Beam Suntory)
Average Price: $50

The Whiskey:

This expression is a combination of Kentucky, Alberta, and California in a bottle. Kentucky rye from Beam is layered with Canadian rye from Alberta Distillers and then Californian port. That makes this a “flavored” whiskey technically. Either way, the result is a deeply layered and satisfying dram.

Tasting Notes:

Cherries and raspberries mingle with black molasses and a hint of oak. Those notes carry on and allow the spice and vanilla to peek up through the rich sweetness and tart berries. The molasses becomes a more familiar caramel flavor as the fruits dry out and the vanilla, oak, and spice pop in for a late final bow.

Bottom Line:

A great “specialty” rye to try at a reasonable price point.

This week brings us the online release of The Secret: Dare To Dream, a romantic comedy adaptation of Australian television producer Rhonda Byrne’s famous 2006 self-help book The Secret, which Oprah helped spawn a kind of self-actualization cult. From what I can glean about the book, which was itself adapted from a documentary Byrne produced, inspired partly by Wallace D. Wattle‘s 1910 book, The Science of Getting Rich, the gist of The Secret‘s thesis is “think positively and good things will happen,” a philosophy it calls the “law of attraction.”

Now there’s a rom-com version, sadly not titled “Magnets: How Do They Work?” (“Rules of Attraction” was also taken). It stars the random shuffle dream team of Katie Holmes (ex-Mrs. Tom Cruise), Josh Lucas (the voice of Home Depot), and Jerry O’Connell (the current Mr. Rebecca Romjin), with direction from Andy Tennant (Hitch, Sweet Home Alabama) and a script adapted by Bekah Brunstatter (This Is Us). Dare To Dream delivers The Secret‘s philosophy in classic Nicholas Sparks movie format, complete with deferred scholarships, single mothers finding love, and copious Spanish moss.

Holmes, constantly doing the weird side-faced smile that got her through Dawson’s Creek, plays Miranda Wells, a widowed mother of three to whom bad things just keep happening (presumably because she’s such a gloomy grumbleguss). On top of her dead husband, she needs a root canal she can’t afford, has a hole in her kitchen ceiling from a tree branch, and a beat-up minivan that needs a new bumper. She lives in gorgeous coastal Louisiana (seriously, Spanish moss is like crack for the directors of pseudo-religious schmaltz), where she works as some kind of vaguely defined fishmonger with strong feelings about softshell crabs. She’s too proud to let her boss, played by Jerry O’Connell, pay for anything, even though he wants to, even though he’s also her boyfriend. This man is named, improbably, “Tuck Middendorf.”

One day a gratingly sunny stranger with obnoxiously good posture hoves into Miranda’s life. That’s Bray, played by Josh Lucas (muthafuckas act like they forgot about Bray), who secretly has traveled all the way from Nashville to deliver Miranda a manila envelope, unbeknownst to her even after she rear-ends him with her car (it’s like they’ve been… brought together… by some kind of… mysterious attraction). He quickly becomes her unhired handyman, fixing her bumper and roof while delivering choice nuggets of wisdom to her grateful children. “Nature can be very powerful but so are you,” and “coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

He is, essentially, a Magical Negro, rendered here in a Josh Lucasite shade of Caucasian. He’s even a professor of engineering at Vanderbilt, a great Magical White Bro job. We know basically from the jump that Bray’s secret Macguffin envelope will inevitably contain the solution to all of Miranda’s problems (will it just be a fax that says “DUMP TUCK MIDDENDORF?”) but it’s almost as if he has to wait until she puts on a sufficiently happy face before she can be worthy of receiving good news. Remember, kids, if bad things happen to you, it’s all your fault.

The first night Bray meets the Wells children, Miranda is busy ruining their dinner of microwaved chicken tenders (a clumsy dolt! the perfect relatable rom-com heroine!) while the children loudly fantasize about pizza. This is when Bray delivers his first soliloquy comparing mental desires to physical magnetism and assuring the children that they can have everything they want if they can only imagine it. The children all speak aloud the type of pizza they want, and literally seconds later the doorbell rings, revealing a pizza delivery guy with a couple hot pies even though a hurricane is about to hit.

It’s a staggeringly idiotic scene. But here’s where I admit that I don’t think everything The Secret preaches is entirely bankrupt. At one point, Josh Lucas tells his hotel clerk “How can you achieve your goal if you can’t see it?”

If you strip away the unsolicited nature of this advice and pedantic delivery, there’s a kernel of genuine if obvious wisdom there: the first step towards achieving your goals is identifying what they are. That’s not so crazy!

Of course, because we are a nation of idiot children, it’s not sufficient to offer this reasonable advice, as one adult would to another, we have to convince people that they can literally manifest fresh hot pizzas with their mind. This is a close cousin to the kind of prosperity doctrine peddled by overscrubbed pastors at nü-Christian megachurches everywhere. It’s not enough to promise everlasting life in a forever utopia to all those who do unto others, love thy neighbor, and remember the poor and the meek, and whatnot. This is America, we need the good shit tomorrow. Strike that, right now. Not only will you go to heaven, you might even get a Lamborghini. It’s the gentle reassurance of religion mutated by capitalism’s relentless drive for instant gratification.

As Hunter S. Thompson wrote in 1972, “This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.”

I think about that quote a lot lately, for obvious reasons, and it rattled around in my head more than a few times while I was watching The Secret: Dare To Dream, a movie whose relevant insights are constantly undercut by mind pizza. It’s like we’re so accustomed to constant grifting that we can’t even recognize good advice unless it’s delivered in the form of a wild-eyed huckster making outrageous claims. “Visualize my goals and achieve them, that’s sounds pretty goo–” “ALSO YOU GET A RANGE ROVER AND A HOT SWEATER HUSBAND!”

Anyway, just shut up your brain and listen to your wise uncle Josh Lucas. He’s a professor at Vanderbilt, for God’s sake, and have you seen this man’s posture? If you can stop being such a nattering nabob of negativity for a while you just might find yourself dumping your shitty boyfriend, going back to school, and living in a gorgeous mansion with a wrap-around porch outside Nashville. With Spanish moss as far as the eye can see and a soft-shell crab in every pot.

‘The Secret: Dare To Dream’ opens on premium video On-Demand July 31st, from Lionsgate films. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

As the Philadelphia 76ers get ready for their first game at the Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando on Friday night against the Indiana Pacers, Joel Embiid is running a giveaway in Philadelphia in which fans can win Mountain Dew/Process-themed Under Armour sneakers.

The bright-green sneakers, adorned with Embiid’s signature phrase, “PROCESS,” will be given away through riddles post on Embiid’s social media accounts that will lead fans to different spots in Philadelphia. Three winners will be selected who find each secret location, where they will scan a QR code to claim their potential prize.

The giveaway will give fans an opportunity to interact with Embiid from a distance as the NBA tips off from its clean site in Orlando.

If they win, fans will receive a pair of HOVR Havoc 2 sneakers, designed specifically around the Mountain Dew brand as well as Embiid’s trust for The Process. The design was done by Texas-based Dank and Co. and certainly will be unique for the winners to wear around Philadelphia during the 2020 NBA season.

Embiid and the Sixers begin the seeding round of games on Saturday at 7 p.m. ET as they take on the Pacers in a game with potentially big seeding implications for the NBA playoffs.

Masks have become more important in everyday life this year than they’ve been in recent memory. Wearing a mask in public is a safety measure, yes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t look cool while doing it, too. A bunch of artists started selling their own masks towards the beginning of the pandemic as part of a Universal Music Group/Bravado initiative, and now Travis Scott is getting in on it, too.

He’s going at it on his own, though. Through his Cactus Jack brand, he has started offering a collection of new coronavirus-related merch. His web store was updated today to add branded hand sanitizer for $12, face masks for $25, and SafeTouch tools for $30.

The masks have the Cactus Jack logo embroidered on one side. Meanwhile, the hand sanitizer comes in a spray bottle, is 72 percent alcohol, and is agave-scented. Then there’s the touch tool, which reads, “I ain’t touching that sh*t.”

It is not clear if, like has frequently been the case with sales of masks and similar products during the pandemic, any portion of proceeds will go towards a charitable cause.

All items are available on Scott’s shop, and can only be shipped to the continental US. Check them out here.

Sam Smith delivered their last album in 2017 with The Thrill Of It All, an effort that would go on to give them their first No. 1 album in the US. Standing as their sophomore effort, The Thrill Of It All arrived three years after Smith’s debut album In The Lonely Hour, so in the name of consistency one could expect Smith’s third album to arrive at some point this year. But, has been the case recently in the industry, it’s probable the coronavirus threw those plans off, if they were even in motion in the first place.

Nonetheless, Smith returned with new music earlier this year with their Demi Lovato-featured single, “I’m Ready.” Now, Smith drops their second single of the year alongside another popular name.

Cruising through with Burna Boy, the two connect for their first-ever collaboration, “My Oasis.” Serving as the follow-up to their “I’m Ready” single, Smith’s second release of 2020 should be a more promising sign that their third album will arrive this year. The track also arrives after Smith shared their thoughts on the coronavirus. “I didn’t get tested but I know I had it. 100% had it,” they said. “Everything I read completely pointed to that. So, yeah. I definitely had it.” The track also arrives exactly one month after he delivered a joyful video for his “Wonderful” video.

Listen to “My Oasis” above.

Burna Boy is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.