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Ellis Embarks On An Introspective Journey In Her Reflective ‘Pringle Creek’ Video

Ellis shared her shimmering debut record Born Again just a few weeks ago. To celebrate the album’s release, Ellis returns with a pensive video accompanying her debut’s title track.

Directed by Justin Singer, the video follows the singer as she begins the journey of a long drive through some canopy-lined backroads. Ellis becomes contemplative on the drive as she frequently looks longingly to the open meadows that she passes.

Ahead of the video’s release, Ellis spoke with Uproxx about her album. The singer said that being raised in a conservative Christian family has influenced her songwriting:

“A huge part of my journey was leaving the church, and it was sort of devastating at the time. It was like a breakup or something. Everything I had ever known crumbled — I’m sure you can relate to that bit. Since then, I’ve just been trying to figure out who I am without it, and that’s been a whole other journey. Luckily, my parents are very open-minded and kind of going through the process alongside me. They like reading a lot and I think they started reading liberal Christian perspectives. We have amazing conversations and I feel really lucky because I know that’s not the case for a lot of people who go through leaving religion. Like you said, it’s not something you ever fully shake. Especially in that intense environment that we grew up in. I’ve seen things I can’t explain. I can’t really rationalize.”

Watch “Pringle Creek” above.

Born Again is out now via Fat Possum. Get it here.

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Is the ‘cure worse than the disease?’ Health stats from the Great Depression show it’s not.

We’ve been “locked down” for nearly two months, and people are are understandably tired of it. Millions of Americans are out of work, which means many have also lost their employer-provided health insurance. Our economy has slowed to a crawl, businesses are shuttered, and everyone is worried about the sustainability of it all.

“We can’t let the cure be worse than the disease,” people say. The president himself has repeated this line, the implication being that the impact of the lockdowns will be worse than the impact of the virus. Just today in his press briefing the president mentioned suicides and drug overdoses as tragic consequences of the lockdowns, stating that more Americans could die of those causes than the virus if we fall into an extended economic depression.


Is that true, though? While no one can predict the future, death statistics and economic history in the U.S. do not support that idea at all. Not even close.

Let’s start with suicides. During the two worst years of the Great Depression, 20,000 Americans per year took their own lives. That’s tragic—but it’s nowhere near the number of Americans that have died of COVID-19 just in the past month.

Screenshot via Worldometers

Of course, the U.S. population has nearly tripled since the Great Depression, so we can’t compare that number directly. But even if we triple those Great Depression suicides to 60,000 a year to account for population change, that’s still not as many Americans as have died of COVID-19 in just the past 5 weeks.

Using a different calculation, there was a 25% increase in suicides during the Great Depression. With ~48,000 suicides in the U.S. in 2018, a 25% increase would also put the annual number at 60,000. No suicide number is a good number, of course. But by no math in the universe is an extra 12,000 deaths per year anywhere near the 80,000 Americans who have died of COVID-19 in the past two months.

Our COVID-19 deaths have averaged around 2000 per day for weeks while under lockdown. At no time in our history, through bad economic depressions and horrific world wars, has 2000 Americans died of suicide per day. Even if our suicide numbers tripled—a 12 times greater increase than during the worst years of the Great Depression—that would still be less than 400 people dying of suicide per day. A terrible number, but not nearly as terrible as 2000 per day.

What about drug overdoses? Well, that’s a little trickier to gauge. I’ve not seen any statistics about drug overdoses during the Great Depression, and we already had an opioid crisis flourishing before the pandemic hit. I imagine it’s probably harder for people to get the drugs to feed an addictions right now, so I’m not convinced that there would be an enormous increase in drug overdoses. But for the sake of argument, let’s say drug overdoses doubled. Highly unlikely, but let’s go with it.

In 2018, the last year for which we have statistics, 184 people per day died of drug overdose. If we double that, we’re talking around 370 people per day—still less than one-fourth the number of Americans dying of COVID-19 per day in the past month.

Even added together, those extreme suicide and drug overdose scenarios don’t add up to our current COVID-19 situation. And once again—those numbers are with lockdowns in place.

What about starvation, though? Surely millions would die of starvation or malnutrition in a tanked economy, right? Well, no—for a couple of reasons.

1) The reality is if anyone starves to death in the U.S., a country that has the ability to produce more than enough food to feed our population, that’s a mismanagement of resources, not an inevitable outcome of an economic crash.

2) Americans didn’t die of starvation in large numbers during the Great Depression.

In fact—are you ready for a rather mind-blowing statistic—the overall health of Americans didn’t decline during the Great Depression at all. It improved.

People lived years longer during the Depression. Life expectancy rose. Mortality rates dropped in every category (except suicide) across practically every demographic.

In fact, this pattern shows up consistently during economic booms and recessions. More people die—and die at younger ages—during economic booms. Vice versa during recessions. Counterintuitive? Yes. But that’s what the data shows. (Here’s the 2009 study that shows these trends during the Great Depression.)

We could debate the reasons for this, but it doesn’t really matter. The point is, if the “cure” is a lockdown that results in an economic depression and the “disease” is the virus spreading unchecked. we have no evidence that the cure is or could be worse than the disease, at least not in terms of death counts.

Now clearly, there are huge problems with a tanked economy. Mental health issues increase. Life is hard. People struggle and suffer and we certainly should not minimize that. BUT…

Mass death and mass illness also cause suffering and mental health issues, while also hurting the economy.

I’ve seen people say we open back up, shoot for herd immunity, and just accept the fact that people will die. But that notion completely ignores the economic impact of having a big chunk of the population too sick to work. As we hear more and more people describe their COVID-19 journeys, it’s becoming clear that even infected people who don’t have to be hospitalized can still be very ill for weeks.

Let’s do some quick herd immunity math. Reaching herd immunity means 70% of the population would have to get the virus. (Some say 60%, some say 80 or 90%—let’s go with the middle.) That’s 229 million people in the U.S. We don’t have a good enough hold on this virus to know how many people have already have it or how many would be asymptomatic, but a current guess for asymptomatic cases is 25% to 50%. Let’s go with the higher.

That would mean 114.5 million Americans being symptomatically ill. It’s impossible to know how severe each person’s case would be, but if even half of those with symptoms got flu-level ill, that would be 56 million people too sick to work for weeks. Some would have lingering health issues afterward to boot. What would that kind of mass illness to do to the economy?

And we haven’t even gotten to the people dying yet. We don’t have an accurate mortality rate, but let’s go with a conservative 0.5% death rate (meaning 99.5% of people who get it, survive it). We’re still talking 1,135,000 deaths if we shoot for 70% herd immunity at that death rate. That basically means we’d all know people who died of this disease.

I’m pretty sure mass grieving over a huge death toll in a short period of time isn’t great for the economy, either. (Perhaps instead of deciding how much death and illness we’re willing to tolerate, we could take this opportunity to fundamentally rethink how our economy works? Just a thought.)

Granted, all of these numbers are based on data that keeps changing as we learn more about the virus and its impact. We don’t know enough yet to say anything for sure. We don’t even know if people are truly immune yet. We do know the virus is real, and that it’s more contagious and more deadly than the flu. Everything else is a best guess.

Essentially, there are no good options before us at the moment that don’t involve great losses of one kind or another. But by no historical or statistical measure do we have evidence that the cure worse than the disease—at least with the data we have right now.

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Charli And Dixie D’Amelio Have Officially Left The Hype House, And The Internet Is About To Change Forever


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Protestors In Clearwater, Florida Are Calling For Gyms To Reopen By Working Out Outside Of A Courthouse

Despite Florida being one of the quickest states to reopen during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, that process doesn’t seem to be moving fast enough for folks who are desperate to work up a sweat and get back to their gym routines. According to local Clearwater (FL.) NBC News affiliate WFLA, on Monday afternoon a small group of protestors (20-30 people in total) gathered outside of the Pinellas County Courthouse to protest the state’s phased reopening and call on gyms to reopen so employees could get back to work and customers could start getting fit with professional equipment again.

During the protest, several attendees began defiantly performing squats and push-ups on the courthouse steps, which hopefully made it clear that they didn’t need gyms to reopen at all and could just, you know, workout outside or in their homes. “See those pushups you’re already doing outside?” you can imagine public officials saying while rubbing their temples. “Keep doing them… outside!”

Florida is currently in phase one of its reopening process which notably doesn’t include gyms. When gyms do get the go-ahead to reopen, they’ll have to limit their capacity to 75% and will have to adopt new strict protocols to increase sanitation procedures and ensure social distancing. Considering that there was already a problem with people not wiping down their equipment in Pre-COVID-19 times, keeping things controlled and sanitary right now as gyms do reopen seems incredibly important.

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Becky Lynch Discusses Pregnancy: ‘I’ve Always, Always Wanted Kids’

As you’ve almost certainly heard by now, Becky Lynch revealed last night that she’s expecting a baby, and relinquished her WWE Raw Women’s Championship to Asuka, who won the Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match that turns out to have been for Becky’s title all along. While the Raw segment was great, there obviously wasn’t much room to go into detail about Becky’s feelings or plans. It didn’t take long, however, for a lot more to come out.

Shortly after the segment ended on Raw, Becky tweeted gratefully about her feelings and her future:


She had also already given an interview to People.com, which went up almost immediately after word got out. As she explained there, the only question she had about being a mother for a long time was when it would be possible.

I’ve always, always wanted kids. I’m just so career-focused that it became one of those things that, when you’re chasing a dream for so long, I always wondered, “Am I going to get around to it? Is it going to happen for me?”

But once Seth came into the picture, things became clearer:

When we got together, things started to look a lot clearer and I knew he was the person that I wanted to have kids with — that this was going to happen and it was just a matter of when. Seth is one of the smartest people I know. He’s just got an insane work ethic, insane integrity and he is the most generous, kindhearted person. He’s very, very focused on what the right thing to do is and always looking to grow and correct himself and be better so he can be the best person for me, and now, the best father.

The first pregnancy test came up negative, but Becky knew better and tried again.

I took the first one wrong. Then I took a few more tests until I got a digital one that just said the word “Pregnant.” I was with Seth at the time and he just threw his hands up in the air, all excited!

And once she knew there was a baby on the way, her whole outlook had to change:

Of course, you start to become nervous, too, because you’ve lived your whole life as thinking for yourself and yourself alone. Now you have this whole other person that you have to look after and grow, and make sure that you’re doing everything that you possibly can to make sure that they are the healthiest and the safest that they can be. But we’re just so, so excited. Just so excited for how much love we’re going to give that little thing.


Beyond becoming a mother, Becky clearly doesn’t know what comes next. Will she return to the ring, or move on to an acting career? Only time will tell.

It’s just such a joyous time and then such a sad time too. I loved this and I’ve given my life to this. I’ve achieved everything that I want to achieve in this business. I don’t know what the next chapter is because I only know what it’s like to think for myself when I’m by myself. So I don’t know what it’ll look like and how my priorities shift and what I’m going to want in the future. So, everything’s open.

WWE won’t be the same without Becky Lynch, but knowing how happy she is with this turn of a events can only bring comfort to her fans. And whether it’s in WWE, on the big screen, or elsewhere, it seems safe to assume we’ll see her again down the road.

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Kehlani Loves With A Heart Just Like Ours On ‘It Was Good Until It Wasn’t’

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Three years have passed since Kehlani delivered her debut album, SweetSexySavage. Yet, before its arrival, she was already a celebrated artist thanks to her 2015 mixtape, You Should Be Here. The mixtape gave Kehlani her first Grammy nomination for Best Urban Contemporary album while also landing on several year-end lists. You Should Be Here also presented an emphasis on emotional presence, a theme that Kehlani would incorporate into her future work and overall artistic style.

A nine-track EP, dubbed While We Wait, and a number of quality singles made the three-year gap between her first and second albums far less grueling than the wait periods experienced with her R&B contemporaries. Returning with her sophomore effort, It Was Good Until It Wasn’t, the album arrives after a rollercoaster pair of years that found her highs and lows pulled apart by Twitter know-it-alls. It Was Good Until It Wasn’t finds Kehlani detailing her own heart when it comes to love. At the album’s conclusion, she proves that her tendencies in love and a willingness to give her all are anything but flaws in her eyes.

Confident in her abilities to not only support but uplift and protect her partner, Kehlani looks to change her potential lover’s secluded and tunnel-visioned approach to the world on the Jhene Aiko-featuring “Change Your Life.” Agreeing with Aiko that the song’s subject is far from “incomplete,” Kehlani pushes forth with her persuasion. “But now you seein’ that it’s more than body, face, and smile / You see me, and you look beyond it, you feel inspired,” she sings. “I’m here to excel with you / Here to break bread with you.” This narrative continues on “Bad News” as Kehlani expresses distrust in the world — one that constantly aims to break her down — and its ability to protect her lover from any dangers. “Take your time away from the bullsh*t,” she begs. “Just be on some cool sh*t with me.”

The phrase “it takes two to tango” comes alive on It Was Good Until It Wasn’t. Kehlani wears her heart on her sleeve in every relationship and despite unfavored results, she proudly keeps her sleeve rolled up where her heart remains unmoved. Convinced the world is unable to handle a love like hers, she labels herself a “Serial Lover” on the Boi-1da-produced track and considers a break from chasing the romantic experience she longs for. Break or not, with pure intentions and a “heart full of gold,” changing her approach to love is not up for consideration. In an attempt to convince her partner that the streets aren’t as informed as they pretend to be, Kehlani places her best foot forward on “Everybody Business.” Self-aware of her best and true qualities in love, she reminds listeners and her latest lover that she’s never been a “half-assed lover” or one to dish her heart and body out to any and everyone. Regardless of the ending, Kehlani rests assured knowing she was never at fault, singing, “Can’t make me feel bad for nothin’ / Don’t make me feel bad for lovin’.”

Throughout the album, Kehlani proves that being a fearless lover is a consistent quality she brings time and time again. Placing it all on the table in the beginning, when it comes time to leave Kehlani admits to struggling to pick up her belongings and exit without delay. On “F&MU” and “Can You Blame Me” with Lucky Daye, she confesses to picking fights to ensure her ex-lover does not depart from her life for good. Enthralled by the newfound bedroom passion that follows moments of anger and frustration, Kehlani and her ex-lover keep each other at arm’s length as they are far from ready to let go of this fiery experience, one that she details on “Toxic.” Why? Well, as she says on “Can You Blame Me,” “Rather call you out than no one call my phone / Hold my grudge instead of havin’ none to hold.”

Kehlani’s It Was Good Until It Wasn’t reminds me of the growing love-themed YouTube series My Crynicles, which features the stories of Sierra McKie, a young college student, and her failed romantic relationships. No amount of hurt between Kehlani and Sierra seems to deter them from giving their heart along with the shirt off their back. While the pain from broken hearts will sting for a considerable amount of time, there’s one thing they will never experience: guilt for their unapologetic love as more times than not they are the party that is wronged.

The naivety Kehlani held on You Should Be Here and SweetSexySavage vanished from existence on It Was Good Until It Wasn’t. She no longer pouts at failing attempts at love instead, she leaves herself with two options: stay or leave. However, this isn’t the overarching theme on her sophomore album. Rather, Kehlani presents her latest love stories while justifying her reasons for giving her all from the get-go, time and time again. The think pieces and comments from the know-it-alls become null and void once the realization arrives that Kehlani left it all in the bedroom, a quality that deserves to be, if anything, celebrated and heralded.

It Was Good Until It Wasn’t is out now via TSNMI and Atlantic. Get it here.

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

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Tony Hawk Announced A Re-Release Of The First Two ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’ Games

It’s been five years since Tony Hawk’s name was put on a console video game. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 hit shelves in the fall of 2015, and almost immediately, fans were asking for a new game, as THPS 5 was panned from the jump. There’s no word on a brand new game coming any time soon, but in a bit of good news, the series will get back to basics a little later this year.

Word began circulating on Tuesday morning, Hawk’s 52nd birthday, that the first two Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games would be re-released later this year. Twitter user @Wario64 claimed to have gotten a text from Hawk that laid out the details of what’s going to happen.

Soon after, Hawk took to Twitter and confirmed the news, announcing that Tony Hawks’ Pro Skater 1 + 2 will come to major consoles on Sept. 4, 2020.

A trailer also dropped for the updated games, which showed off the updated look at some of the classic locations from the original games.

While the series did a ton of evolving over the years — as was the case with the more story-driven releases like the Underground series and Project 8 — the first two games were beloved by gamers and skaters alike. While the games won’t hit shelves for a few more months, this is still one heck of a way to celebrate Hawk’s birthday.

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Nick Hakim Reflects On Human Connection With The Slow-Burning Album Teaser ‘Bouncing’

Nick Hakim aims to translate the yearning for connection to music. Continuing with his goal, the New York-based musician shares “Bouncing,” the second single to arrive ahead of his upcoming sophomore album, Will This Make Me Good.

The song’s accompanying video, directed by Nelson Nance, depicts a group of people expressing themselves through movement and connecting with each other through dance. About the video, Nance said: “The ‘Bouncing’ video asks the viewer to question our drive to find spectacles and how the pursuit of such can lead to becoming a spectacle. There is nothing inherently wrong with viewing or being a spectacle but I think it’s healthy to question if our energy is being put in the right place when interfacing with what draws our attention.”

The song itself boasts all-encompassing instrumentation that melts together with Hakim’s slow-burning cadence. In a statement, Hakim said he wrote the song during the coldest day of the year: “‘Bouncing’ is a sound bath where I wrote about one of the coldest days in New York I remember, while lying in my bed, restless by a radiator. It’s about feeling uneasy.” But while the song was written during a different time, its theme resonates with what the world is currently facing. “It’s such a dark climate these days,” Hakim said, “With what’s going on politically and how immigrants are being treated here in the US. The travel ban, the camps.”

Listen to “Bouncing” above.

Will This Make Me Good is out 5/15 via ATO Records. Pre-order it here.

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23 No-Prep Dump Dinners If You (Like Me) Are Tired Of Cooking So Much


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Run The Jewels Finally Share The ‘Run The Jewels 4’ Release Date And Tracklist

When Run The Jewels first began, they came out the gates blazing. Their self-titled 2013 debut was quickly followed the next year with Run The Jewels 2. The wait for RTJ3 was a bit longer, as that one dropped in late 2016. Now it’s been about three-and-a-half years since their last album, and fans have been waiting for info about Run The Jewels 4. Finally, though, El-P and Killer Mike have revealed the release date for their next collaborative album, along with the art and tracklist.

This morning, El-P took to Twitter and wrote, “RTJ4 DROPPING IN 24 DAYS,” which gives the album a June 5 release date. Shortly after that, he shared the album’s cover art and tracklist, and noted that pre-orders would be live today at noon ET. The 11-song tracklist has a handful of featured guests, including Greg Nice, DJ Premier, 2 Chainz, Pharrell Williams, Zack De La Rocha, Mavis Staples, and Josh Homme.

Check out the Run The Jewels 4 art and tracklist below.

Run The Jewels

1. “Yankee And The Brave (Ep. 4)”
2. “Ooh La La” Feat. Greg Nice and DJ Premier”
3. “Out Of Sight” Feat. 2 Chainz
4. “Holy Calamaf*ck”
5. “Goonies vs. E.T.”
6. “Walking In The Snow”
7. “Ju$t” Feat. Pharrell Williams and Zack De La Rocha
8. “Never Look Back”
9. “The Ground Below”
10. “Pulling The Pin” Feat. Mavis Staples and Josh Homme
11. “A Few Words For The Firing Squad (Radiation)”

Run The Jewels 4 is out 6/5. Pre-order it here.