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Wale Makes A Powerful Statement About Race In His Clever, Seven-Minute ‘Sue Me’ Video

Wale capped off 2019 by dropping his sixth album, Wow… That’s Crazy. The record begins with the Kelly Price-featuring “Sue Me,” and now Wale has shared a lengthy visual for the song. In the seven-minute, Kerby Jean-Raymond-directed video for the track (which Wale previously asserted has “one of the greatest beats ever“), Wale plays with race. The video follows a struggling white teenager who has the unfortunate experience of getting racially profiled at a “Morebucks” coffee shop.

Wale says of the clip:

“What if you could walk through a day in the life of an average African American young man? What would you see? What would you hear? What would you face? We wanted to redefine the whole narrative and allow everybody to step into these shoes. I’ve never been more proud of a video than what we did here. Kerby really brought this vision to life, and Reebok helped make it a reality. I hope it makes you think a little. While you’re thinking, stay safe and stay home!”

He also previously said of Wow… That’s Crazy as a whole, “Hands down, this is my most personal project. Somebody told me the other day that this is a beautiful, healing album, and it’s the beginning stages of healing from black trauma. It’s unapologetically black, but it’s also a healing — the good and bad that comes from all the sh*t that comes from being a black man or a black woman in America.”

Watch the “Sue Me” video above.

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

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Report: A Red Sox Video Operator Was Suspended By MLB In Its Sign-Stealing Probe

After weeks of investigation, MLB has determined that specifically within the Red Sox organization, it was not manager Alex Cora who was at the center of the team’s sign-stealing efforts. Rather, it was a video operator named J.T. Watkins.

This news comes from Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic, who note that Cora, who was suspended by commissioner Rob Manfred for his efforts in a separate Houston Astros’ scandal and subsequently fired by the Red Sox, was not found to have spearheaded Boston’s rule-breaking during the 2018 regular season.

So while Cora remains out of baseball for this year, “Watkins will be suspended without pay for the 2020 regular season and prohibited from serving as a replay room operator for the 2021 regular season and postseason.” Though Manfred has repeatedly laid blame at the hands of managers and general managers in such circumstances, Watkins allegedly “acted as a rogue employee.”

Watkins and 30 of the 34 Red Sox players interviewed by the league denied Watkins’ cheating, according to the report from The Athletic. The league investigation also determined that the Red Sox sign-stealing efforts did not continue in the 2018 postseason, when they won the World Series, or in the 2019 regular season. Boston will also forfeit a 2020 second-round pick as part of the punishment to be handed down by the league.

Manfred is reportedly quoted in the investigation’s official report as saying, “Many players told my investigators that they were unaware that in-game sign decoding from the replay station had been prohibited in 2018 and 2019.”

Those same players, according to Watkins, “were aware that they were supposed to routinely provide him with sign information gathered when they were on second base.” Clearly, Watkins was at the center of the efforts, but the report seems to leave much undetermined.

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Lil Dicky Has Donated A Hefty Sum To Benefit Relief Funds On The One-Year Anniversary Of ‘Earth’

One year ago today, on Earth Day, Lil Dicky recruited some of today’s biggest stars to lend a hand on his charitable single “Earth.” The track saw verses from the likes of Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, and Katy Perry. He even tried to call up Kanye West to be on the track but couldn’t reach him because the rapper had changed his number. Though the track came out a year ago, Dicky aims to continue the song’s philanthropic message by donating a large amount of money to assist in the fight against both climate change and the global pandemic.

Dicky has offered an impressive $800,000 in donations to benefit various organizations. Arriving across six grants, Dicky’s charitable act will benefit Amazon Frontlines, the Carbon Cycle Institute, Global Greengrants Fund, Quick Response Fund For Nature, Shark Conservation Fund, and The Solutions Project. Along with donating to specific charity groups, Dicky is offering over $200,000 to his newly-minted COVID-19 x Climate Response Fund.

In a statement, the rapper explained his reasoning behind the large donation:

“I’m very honored and humbled that we’re able to give this money to these organizations, and super thankful of all of the artists on this song who made this possible. And of course, thank you to every Earthling out there for listening and spreading the word. Unfortunately, the fight to save this planet isn’t even close to over, and we’re going to have to amplify our efforts way more to turn this thing around. Because pretty soon, it’ll be too late. Even though times have never been scarier with the COVID-19 pandemic, it has shown me something: that we can modify our day-to-day behavior to adapt to a crisis when it’s right in front of us. Even if you don’t feel the climate crisis at every moment, it is truthfully right in front of us.”

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

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Steve Kerr Said ‘Nobody Resented’ Scottie Pippen And ‘He Was Beloved’ By 1997-98 Bulls

Much of the second episode of “The Last Dance,” which aired Sunday on ESPN, centered around the hardship of Scottie Pippen’s upbringing and the ways it impacted his NBA career, including the infamous seven-year contract he signed in 1991. That has led many to revisit Pippen’s impact on those Bulls teams and place in the NBA hierarchy historically.

In an interview with Rachel Nichols on The Jump on Tuesday, Warriors coach and then-Bulls guard Steve Kerr praised Pippen mightily.

Aside from being “the best defensive player in the league by far,” Kerr said Pippen also was vital in the locker room. “Scottie was sort of the counter-balance to (Michael Jordan’s prickly personality),” Kerr said.

Another focus of part two of the series was Pippen’s decision to undergo surgery at the start of training camp rather than over the summer. Pippen made no mistake about the fact that the delay was intentional, as he wanted to enjoy the offseason rather than rehabbing. Kerr, however, insisted there were no hard feelings from the team.

“We felt his frustration with him,” Kerr said. “Nobody resented him for having that surgery later. We all just understood … Let’s give him his space, and he’s going to be there in the second stretch of the season for us.”

Whereas Jordan in the film calls Pippen “selfish” for making the decision, Kerr’s perspective is probably more representative of other teammates. Jordan understandably felt the weight of Pippen’s departure heavily, as the Bulls got off to a rocky start (which we also see in the second episode) and Jordan had to, as always, shoulder a heavy load. Still, the documentary is also built around the acidic atmosphere around the team due to the way Jerry Krause and Jerry Reinsdorf managed it.

Considering the financial circumstances and soured relationships around the Bulls at that time, Pippen’s decision to wait on his surgery is a relatively minor offense. And as Kerr says, Pippen had enough built-up goodwill from teammates and others within the organization that he was given the space to make his own decision rather than kowtowing to Jordan or Krause again.

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The Rock Has The Biggest Home Gym I Have Ever Seen


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‘Westworld’ Will Return For Fourth Season (And More) As HBO Reveals The Series Is Only Halfway Done

When Evan Rachel Wood’s Dolores whispered “Welcome to the end of the game,” to Ed Harris’ frazzled William, Westworld fans were quick to theorize that season three would bring a surprise ending to the robot series. Guess again.

The HBO original has been officially renewed and will continue its technological war between humans and hosts into a fourth season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Not only that, but the series is apparently far from finished as the showrunners, husband and wife team Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, have plans for a season five and six, which means Westworld is only halfway through its full story.

“From the Western theme park to the technocratic metropolis of the near future, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed every twist and turn from the minds of master storytellers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy,” HBO programming president Casey Bloys said in a statement announcing the pickup. “We can’t wait to see where their inspired vision takes us next.”

Considering the series has a history of long gaps between its seasons, it probably won’t come as a surprise that a season four release date has yet to be determined, and production delays from the current pandemic will almost certainly be a factor. In the meantime, it will be surprising to see if Harris reprises his role as the Man in Black after he recently told THR that he wasn’t exactly thrilled with his season three storyline.

First of all, I really enjoyed playing the Man in Black, right? Then all of the sudden, he’s the Man in White. So I wasn’t the happiest camper to tell you the truth, because I really enjoyed the part I was playing, and I was hoping that he, the Man in Black, would continue to somehow be prevalent in the story.

Harris went on to say that the sudden character change was “jarring” and “hard to enjoy” before repeating once again that he wasn’t a fan of William’s arc. “I didn’t like it,” he said. “I still don’t. But that’s my problem.”

(Via THR)

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Snoop Dogg’s Hair Is Apparently An Expert Earthquake Detector

In case you couldn’t tell from the inevitable, uniform reactions from Los Angeles’ transplant population on Twitter, a 3.7-magnitude earthquake hit LA in the wee hours of the morning, prompting the aforementioned flurry of “Earthquake!” tweets. However, native Angelenos, who are well-accustomed to having the ground move at random points throughout their lives, didn’t even notice the tremors. One native who slept through the shakes was Snoop Dogg, who posted a hilarious reaction video to Instagram after discovering that not only was there an earthquake, but that his hair apparently felt it before he did.

“They said we just had an earthquake,” he quipped. “They said we just had an earthquake.” However, Snoop’s often carefully-manicured coiffure had come undone, prompting him to wonder, “The f*ck happened to my hair?” This led to the theory that, “We must’ve had an earthquake because my hair didn’t look like this when I went to bed. My hair must’ve got scared and gathered itself up to protect itself from the earthquake.” However, despite all this apparently happening in his sleep, Snoop maintained his insistence that he remained unaffected. “I didn’t feel it… I’m going back to bed,” he declared.

While Snoop was more than willing to joke about the shakeup on Instagram, some of his fellow famous people seemed a bit more… shaken. Cardi B wondered, “Who felt that earthquake?” while Chrissy Teigen combined both reactions into a single tweet: “You’re telling me the earthquake busted in mere minutes after it becoming earth day?? An icon.”

Watch Snoop’s hilarious reaction above.

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Andy King Is Marking The Fyre Fest Anniversary By Hosting A Livestream Festival

Last year, Netflix released the explosive documentary chronicling the failure of the high-profile Fyre Festival. The festival landed the founder Billy McFarland in jail and Ja Rule in hot water. But the documentary also generated viral success for Andy King, who quickly became a meme after revealing what he almost had to do to save the festival. King now aims to flip the script and bring people together through a virtual festival experience.

King is hosting the livestream music festival Room Service, a three-day live event with an eclectic lineup of musicians. Boasting acts like A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Gallant, Mxmtoon, Yungblud, and more, the entire festival benefits charity. Room Service is free to view, but virtual attendees are asked to donate to funds which will benefit the non-profit organizations Feeding America and Sweet Relief to provide support to those in need during the pandemic. The festival goes down from Friday, April 24 to Sunday, April 26, which is almost exactly three years after Fyre was scheduled to take place.

In a statement, King detailed his excitement about the virtual festival: “I’m beyond thrilled to host Room Service this weekend and bring everybody some well-deserved joy and distraction. This festival gives us a chance to translate the anniversary of Fyre into some real good that’s needed in the world right now.”

Watch the Room Service Music Festival trailer above and check out the full lineup below.

Room Service Music Festival

The three-day festival kicks off 4/24. RSVP here.

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

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Muffet McGraw Is Stepping Down As Notre Dame’s Women’s Basketball Coach

Muffet McGraw is among the most legendary women’s basketball coaches of all-time, having accrued 936 wins in her career, including 842 in her 33 years at Notre Dame. During that time, the Irish went to nine Final Fours and won a pair of national titles, most recently in 2018, and McGraw was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.

On Wednesday, McGraw and Notre Dame announced that she would be stepping down as head coach of the Irish in a move that stunned the hoops world. McGraw said “the time has come to step down,” and issued thanks to Notre Dame’s leadership, the fans, and players she coached over her tremendous 33-year tenure in South Bend.

Not only was McGraw a tremendously successful coach, but she also used her platform to speak out about issues of gender inequality and the need for more women in leadership positions not just in sports but across politics and business. Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick also issued a statement of appreciation for McGraw and for how much she cared about not just helping the women she coached become better basketball players, but also developing skills beyond the court.

“It is inevitable and appropriate that as we mark Muffet’s retirement from coaching today, much of the focus will be on the remarkable record of competitive success that makes her a Hall of Fame coach,” Jack Swarbrick stated. “But my reflections go more to her as an educator, friend, and role model. Every time I had the privilege of stepping into her classroom, be it at practice or courtside during a game, I was struck by how much she cared about her students and how important it was for her to use basketball as a vehicle to help develop future leaders.

“Winning over 900 games and two national championships make Muffet a legendary coach; nurturing “strong confident women who are not afraid to use their voice and take a stand” makes Muffet a teacher who made a difference in the lives of every student-athlete she taught. While we will not have the benefit of Muffet as our coach going forward, we will make certain that through her ongoing work with Notre Dame Athletics we continue to enjoy all that she has to offer as an educator, friend, and role model.”

McGraw retires ranking sixth among D-1 coaches in wins, fifth in Final Four appearances, fourth in NCAA Tournament wins, and won three National Coach of the Year awards. Former Notre Dame player, assistant coach and, most recently, assistant coach with the Memphis Grizzlies, Niele Ivey will take over as the Irish’s new head coach.

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Usain Bolt Knows The World’s Fastest Man Can’t Exactly Slow Down

MIAMI – It’s slightly jarring seeing Usain Bolt sitting. The world’s fastest man has a frenetic energy about him, placed somewhere between a coiled snake and Sonic The Hedgehog in a ball. And yet, there’s a calmness to that conservation of energy, as he peers beyond the horizon at any given time. He knows he can escape, he knows he has an exit strategy, he knows at any moment, he can teleport. Even motionless Bolt doesn’t fade; instead, there’s a glow, a rolling boil that brings you in and welcomes you.

There won’t be an Olympics this summer. That date has been pushed into 2021, and those seeking medals and the sort of fame that Bolt captured with his eight Golds over three games will have to wait. Everyone watching to find new heroes has to wait. Everyone’s waiting for something now. Bolt’s astounding run has been given new life on NBC Sports Network as they replay the best of the most recent games, and the fastest man alive seems even faster now, in motion as everything else is frozen.

UPROXX Sports got the chance to speak with Bolt the week of the Super Bowl from the Gatorade Bolt24 lounge, as he contemplated meditation, what’s next, and how sitting still just isn’t in his DNA.

Martin Rickman: I was just reading something this morning about Tyreek Hill potentially trying to do some Olympic qualifying. It had me remembering again that discussion about whether or not you would play wide receiver, way back.

Usain Bolt: For me, I told them especially if [Aaron] Rodgers called me, because I’m a Green Bay Packers fan. If he called me and said listen to me, one year, two years, I’m ready. I’ll do it. I’ll try. I’m a fan. I’m a Green Bay Packers fan so it would be good.

I’ve talked to Michael Phelps about this not too long ago that the hard thing for guys is trying to find that balance between training but also enjoying your life. And for him, he said it’s taken him years to almost de-program himself.

Yeah. I think, for me, I couldn’t survive that. I remember me and my coach when we started, we butted heads on the same thing because he wanted me to be on it, on it, on it. And I was like, coach, I can’t do this. If I don’t get a break from this, I’m going to go crazy.

So we kind of understood each other where he would let me, I would train, but I’ll do my own thing a little bit. And when he needs me to get serious, he was like, listen, we need these few months to be focused. And then I was, alright, cool, and I shut everything down, and I’ll focus on this work. So to be honest with each other, where it gave me my space to live a little bit at a certain time of the year. But I know where he’s coming from. It’s hard cause at some point, this is why at the end of my career, people wanted me to go on to this Olympics. And it’s hard because all my life, all I knew was track and field. I’ve been doing it since I was 10 years old. All I knew. So now I’m retired, I can live, I can do things, I can travel, I can go on vacations finally, and do things that I really want to do, man.

When you’re the fastest man in the world, slowing down isn’t always the easiest thing.

I don’t think I’ve actually slowed down. I think I do more work now, but I do have more time to, I can pick my schedule here. I can say this is when I just want to stay in Jamaica and chill, work with who I need to work with, or go on vacation with my girlfriend. We can chill, but it’s still busy.

That energy doesn’t stop. You don’t destroy energy. You just transfer it.

Transfer it, right.

My parents were down in Montego Bay not too long ago, and they were saying pictures of you are still everywhere. What does that mean to you to basically be carrying that flag with you everywhere you go?

It feels good. When you work as hard as I did to get to where I wanted to be, it’s something that people really appreciate the work that I’ve done, and they show their love. Even now, I go there, people I deal with appreciate what you’re doing. People are trying to get me back into track and field. “You should go back. Keep running.” So it feels good to know that people really appreciate me. It feels good.

Aside from traveling, what are some of the things that you like to put your energy in now? And what have you learned about yourself in this process of starting your next chapter?

I try to focus more on my charity work. I got more time than I had to do a lot more things. I can pick my schedule. It’s much easier. There’s so much going on in the world right now, especially with kids. It’s hard for them. So I try to help kids as much as I possibly can.

Yeah. I know you’ve been known to get on that Peloton bike every once in awhile. Do you have an instructor that you like?

Ally Love. Yeah. That’s the only workout I do really. I’ve tried a few at the start, but I think the reason why I got into it is because she’s kind of Caribbean. Every now and then, she gives me the nice, Caribbean vibe. I like it. I do it all the time.

Yes, it’s funny. So Phelps does it, Cam Newton does it, a few of the other guys I’ve talked to over the years.

It’s good. It’s right in my room. You just get up and get on it. For me, that’s why it’s so good. Because I think when you retire, it’s hard to get back into the gym because all you know all your life is work, work, work, work. So to me, having this in my room works out very well because you get up and you go, I really don’t want to work out today, but you go it’s there. Just give it 30 minutes and so it works out.

It’s taking control because working out can be work. But it’s also life, and it’s been life for you for so long.

Yeah, you got to keep fit. I noticed that I put weight on quickly now that I’m retired. I’m not working out. Nah, I need to work out. It’s strange just putting weight on. Every time I go on the scale, it just keeps going up. I say, no, I can’t do this. So now I’m taking control trying to stay fit so the Peloton works real well.

Recovery is so important when you’re doing what you do, but especially after you’ve been at this level and now you’re bringing it down to a certain place. What types of routines do you get into for recovery?

It’s not as stressful now. It’s just all about hydration. You’ve got to stay hydrated because I’m not competing at high levels. I don’t have to stretch out, I still get massages. At this point, it’s all about exactly the regular people now. You feel like you don’t need to hydrate, but you do. Especially if you live in hot-air climates, because a lot of people get dehydrated, and you don’t even know it. You need to keep drinking through the day. Water helps, but Gatorade helps a lot. For me, electrolytes are very important. No sugar, no artificial flavors. It’s what you need so I always try to get people, especially my friends, they go, you could just drink water. You can drink water all day and you can still be dehydrated. I said, I will explain something. The reason the Gatorade works is because of the electrolytes. You get back your energy, and then you feel good. They’ve learned [to listen to me] over the years.

It doesn’t hurt that it’s got your name on the bottle.

Yeah, yeah. It doesn’t hurt that I get free Gatorade. And they get the benefit. [Laughs.]