After winning the UFC heavyweight title in August 2019, Stipe Miocic could go more than a year before he defends the belt. While the promotion moves forward with fights, beginning May 9 with UFC 249, there are no immediate plans for the two-time heavyweight champion’s next bout due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead, he’s focusing his energy on serving his community as a volunteer firefighter in northeast Ohio. It’s that role as a first responder that makes him so grateful for his partnership with Modelo, which recently donated $500,000 to First Responders First, an initiative of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Thrive Global, and the CAA Foundation to support American healthcare workers battling COVID-19.

Modelo and Miocic are celebrating Cinco de Mayo by encouraging people to toast first responders and post their support on social media with the hashtag #CincUp. For every post, Modelo will donating $1 to the First Responders First initiative.

“It’s awesome, Modelo is such a great company. They always put people first before them and they’re always looking to help. It doesn’t get better than that,” Miocic told Uproxx Sports over the phone. “The whole idea of celebrating Cinco at home, at the same time, looking to give back with the #CincUp, it’s just awesome.”

While Miocic has been hard at work outside of the Octagon, he’s kept returning to the UFC in the back of his mind, whenever that might be.

“I’ve been training, but not really,” Miocic said. “I can only do so much at home. It’s tough. Right now, my gym is closed and it doesn’t look like it’s going to open any time soon here in Ohio.

“Definitely, the break is nice,” he continued. “I was out for a little bit with the torn retina. I was ready to get back in the swing of things when this all hit. It’s nice, but at the same time, it sucks because you lose your routine. In hindsight, it’s all about making sure my family is ok. We’ll get past this and get back to normal, but right now, it just sucks.”

As the UFC ramps up building cards and scheduling fights, Miocic isn’t opposed to Dana White’s efforts over the past month “as long as everyone is safe.” Still, while UFC 249 takes place next weekend and “Fight Island” will be up and running soon, Miocic’s mind is elsewhere.

“Right now, I’m not worried about fights,” Miocic said. “We’re doing the best we can to help with the pandemic. We’re trying to keep our head down and keep moving forward until this clears up. We’ll get through it soon.”

When he does fight again, it won’t be rushed. He’ll follow in the footsteps of Amanda Nunes, who pulled out of the UFC 249 card in order to ensure she’s fully ready and in fight shape, and make sure that he’s not cutting any corners before his next time in the Octagon.

“As long as my gym is open and I can get a full fight camp, I’m down to fight anyone,” Miocic said.

As for who Miocic would fight next, there’s no guarantee, but he’s expected to give Cormier a rematch in what would be their trilogy bout for the heavyweight crown. His last fight with Cormier resulted in surgery to repair a torn retina stemming from several inadvertent eye pokes. Miocic hasn’t necessarily forgiven Cormier for that, saying, “I’m glad I can see, it’s all I really care about. That’s it. I’ll leave it at that.”

For now, Miocic will continue to do what he can for his community until he can step back into the Octagon. But when that day comes, it may not take long until he’s participating in a super fight.

For a decade, as fans debated whether or not Drake truly has a career-defining classic in his catalog, the primary argument against him was always that his lack of editorial touch hurt his projects. They were always just a few songs too long, just a little bit out-of-sequence, needed to better balance his seemingly opposing melodic and rhythmic instincts. While this isn’t an argument that his latest mixtape, Dark Lane Demo Tapes, is that classic — it isn’t — it certainly shows that those arguments were well-founded. A Drake willing to kill his darlings is a Drake capable of crafting a project that isn’t just a compelling collection of songs but a cohesive statement, a solid exhibit of evidence in his case for being one of rap’s greatest of all time. With Dark Lane Demo Tapes, Drake finally delivers a concise, thrilling project without the filler.

Dark Lane is also just a couple of songs away from being the project most rap fans hoped they’d get ever since Drake was crowned hip-hop’s savior in 2009 after the release of So Far Gone. Because his big breakout came with the leak of “Brand New” a half-year before, Drake’s fan base has always been split between the bars-first/only purists who heard him shout out Slum Village and Phonte Coleman — and work with both on his 2007 tape Comeback Season — and those who first discovered him through the guts-spilling emo-R&B he pioneered with “Brand New.” While those loyalties have always shifted and clashed, on his latest, Drake comes as close to a platonic ideal as he ever has.

By paying homage to classic rap-first cuts like Jay-Z’s “Song Cry” and Eminem’s “Superman” on “When To Say When” and “Chicago Freestyle” — both released as a double music video a few months before the mixtape was conceived — Drake shows his longtime supporters that he hasn’t forgotten his roots. Meanwhile, as he gives his R&B fans just enough with “Not You Too” and the elongated deliveries he’s best known for elsewhere to keep them on board, he never lets the slower moments overwhelm the tracklist has he did with Views or Take Care. He also gets the plodding, moody heartbreak anthem out of the way early so the rest of the album has a strong, engaging pace.

It helps that he uses some of the more fascinating production of his career here. While it’s widely accepted that Drake makes indisputably strong tracks with his usual partners in crime, 40 and Boi-1da, here he branches out — and not in the culture-vulture-y, affected Caribbean accent way that usually gets him flogged on social media. While he does once again borrow from a pre-existing musical subculture — UK drill, with its sparse drums and airy, eerie synthesizer sounds — the style meshes more readily with his normal voice and flow, keeping him from having to adopt any questionable regional deliveries, the super Top Boy–esque dialect on “War” notwithstanding.

As usual, he shares his stage with both common collaborators and rising stars, with the usual mixed outcomes. While “Desires” with Future gets lost in the wash, “D4L” with both Future and Young Thug is captivating, while Drake spotlights some of drill’s New York contingent — in the form of Sosa Geek and Fivio Foreign — on the futuristic “Demons.” Employing Playboi Carti for “Pain 1993” turns out to be the one misstep, as Carti is nearly impossible to understand with a squeaky, rushed delivery that sounds like he’s on a completely different project. Of course, bringing Chris Brown into any project is always a miss — “Not You Too” doesn’t really benefit enough from his presence to make the potential backlash worth it. Fortunately, Long Beach native Giveon almost makes up for it as a Sampha stand-in on “Chicago Freestyle.”

The most remarkable thing, despite all of Drake’s forward-looking production, incorporation of English slang, and successful TikTok baiting with the infuriatingly catchy “Toosie Slide,” is the fact that, for once, Drake seems to have figured out “When To Say When” (pun intended). Instead of forcing listeners to slog through every single thing he’s recorded over the past two years, he instead brings his butcher knife to the edit bay, chopping the fat and presenting a product that’s easy to digest and earns its repeat listens. We can only hope he keeps the lessons in mind when he releases the follow-up, “official” album he’s been teasing later this year.

Dark Lane Demo Tapes is out now on OVO / Republic Records. Get it here.

The streaming universe weaves a complex web already, and with HBO Max launching soon, things might look even more confusing. It’s safe to say that if any service can rival the likes of Netflix and Disney+ in terms of sheer sign-up numbers, then it’ll probably be HBO Max. The library will be jam-packed and include not only loads of movies and TV shows that make up existing HBO programming fare, but also a wealth of content that falls under the WarnerMedia stable. Importantly for many folks, HBO Max will also be the only place to stream every episode of Friends. Then there’s this added bonus: an expanding slate of wonderful-sounding HBO Max Original TV series and movies.

Subscribing seems like a done deal for anyone willing to shell out $14.99 per month, but there are still some relevant issues to iron out. One major question on peoples’ minds, for good reason, is how HBO Max will differ from the other two HBO streaming services (HBO Go and HBO Now) already offered. You’re probably also interested in pricing and timing details, along with the good stuff: details on exactly what will be included in the package. Some of the particulars — like which current HBO subscribers will get HBO Max at no cost — remain somewhat muddled, so let’s sort through what we know.

Launch Date:

It’s the easiest detail. May 27 is go-time, so expect the vast majority of the existing HBO Max library to land then, along with a handful of original TV series (to be detailed later in this piece) and movies with followups to come.

HBO Max Vs. HBO Go And HBO Now:

– HBO Max is the newcomer streaming platform from WarnerMedia. At launch, the service will feature 10,000 hours of premium content, which includes HBO’s entire library, HBO Max Originals, a massive slew of Warner Bros. movies and TV shows, and much more. (We’ll talk the catalog stuff out soon.)

– HBO Go is the on-demand streaming service that HBO cable subscribers already receive as part of their subscription. The service includes HBO’s original content (TV series, documentaries, specials, and a decent chunk of movies), and access is tied into your specific cable TV package.

– HBO Now is a standalone, on-demand streaming offering for people who don’t hold a cable or satellite package but still want to subscribe to HBO and watch on a smart TV, laptop, tablet, phone or other compatible device. The current price for this service is $14.99 per month, and many current HBO Now subscribers will automatically receive HBO Max access (when the service launches) without any added cost.

If You’ve Got HBO, Do You Get A Free HBO Max Upgrade?

Maybe. The current guidelines just aren’t that clear-cut. We do know that neither HBO Go nor HBO Now will be erased from existence for the foreseeable future. You can keep on doing your thing independent of HBO Max and pretend that HBO Max doesn’t exist, but you probably will want to take advantage of the expanded library if you can.

– HBO Now subscribers who pay straight through HBONow.com will automatically receive access to HBO Max when it launches. At this time, it remains unclear whether those who pay for HBO Now as an add-on service through Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple, or Roku will also gain access to HBO Max with no extra charge, but hopefully, that detail will be firmed up before May 27.

– HBO subscribers who pay for the channel through Charter or an AT&T package will receive HBO Max at no added charge. That includes subscribers to the AT&T-owned DirecTV, IPTV, and AT&T TV, which means that millions of these HBO customers are in luck. However, those who subscribe to HBO (and, in turn, HBO Go) through a cable TV service may or may not be in luck. As it stands, there’s no deal between HBO and many cable TV service companies, but that could change at any time.

The Cost Of HBO Max:

– If you’re not already an HBO Now subscriber (or a fortunate package holder as described above), then HBO Max’s standard price will run $14.99 per month. That’s a higher price than Netflix’s standard plan ($12.99) and lower than its premium plan ($15.99). HBO Max also runs the same baseline price as HBO Now, but there’s a way to sign up now and lock into a special 12-month HBO Max rate for $11.99 per month. A limited (and unspecified) number of these discounted subscriptions are up for grabs before May 27, so visit the HBO Max home page to take advantage of the offer.

So, What Will HBO Max Include?

As mentioned earlier, one of HBO Max’s big boasts will be Friends (and the upcoming reunion special). That’s been the headline, but there’s much more up for grabs.

– Everything HBO, which includes all original HBO TV series, past and present. So, we’re talking about everything from Game of Thrones and Westworld to The Wire, along with The Sopranos, Veep, and Sex and the City. Basically, this means the whole back catalog of HBO programming in addition to new episodes as they air, and all of the HBO original movies, documentaries, and specials.

– Licensed TV content (much of it from Warner Bros) will include some high-demand series from past and present, including Rick And Morty, South Park (although new episodes won’t drop until the day after Comedy Central airs them), and The Big Bang Theory. Many CW series (including superhero and dramatic/soap-operatic fare) will also be folded into HBO Max. Tons of content from CNN, TNT, TBS, truTV, Cartoon Network, and Looney Tunes will also be on tap.

– Lots of movies (about 18,000 of them), which includes whatever is already available on HBO or one of their existing streaming services, plus all Warner Bros. movies, including The Matrix trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter franchise, and so on. Under the Warner Bros. umbrella, comic book movies that fall under the DCEU (Justice League, Suicide Squad, Shazam, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and more caped dudes) and outside it (Joker) qualify. In addition, there’s plenty of classic movies up for grabs (The Shining, The Goonies, The Wizard Of Oz, etc.) along with every Studio Ghibli anime movie.

Max Originals (TV Shows And Movies)

AVAILABLE AT LAUNCH:
– Love Life: A romantic comedy series starring Anna Kendrick and Scoot McNairy
– Legendary: A reality competition series showcasing the underground ballroom community (expect plenty of vogue-ing) with a judging panel that includes Megan Thee Stallion
– On The Record: The documentary film that explores allegations of sexual abuse and harassment made against hip hop mogul Russell Simmons
– Craftopia, a youth-friendly crafting competition show that takes things to extremes
– Kid-geared programs including fresh New Looney Tunes offerings and The Not Too Late Show with Elmo

COMING IN 2020:
– The Friends reunion special, which will be unscripted
– Doom Patrol‘s new episodes for added DC flavor
– Raised By Wolves, a Ridley Scott-directed TV series in which androids raise humans
– The Flight Attendant, a dramatic TV series starring Kaley Cuoco
– A quarantine cooking series starring non-chef Selena Gomez, who receives assistance from culinary masters, all to benefit pandemic food-relief charities
– Search Party, Season 3 for the existing mystery comedy TV series
– Close Enough, an adult-oriented animated comedy series
– Expecting Amy, a docuseries from Amy Schumer about doing stand-up while pregnant

DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED:
– An American Pickle, a film starring Seth Rogen in dueling roles: (1) A 1920s laborer who awakens 100 years later in Brooklyn; (2) The immigrant’s grandson, a computer coder, who baffles his grandpa
– Three projects from J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company, including a Justice League Dark TV series, along with Overlook (inspired by and including characters from Stephen King’s The Shining) and Duster (a 1970s-set adventure about the life of a crime syndicate’s getaway driver)
– Five Conan O’Brien-hosted-and produced stand-up comedy specials, in which Coco will feature rising comics and hopefully stay funny in his own right
– Rap Sh*t, a comedy series produced by Issa Rae about three women attempting to take over the Miami music business
– A documentary movie about Anthony Bourdain
– The Boondocks: two new seasons and a standalone special
– College Girls, another coming-of-age comedy series from Mindy Kaling about, well, the life of female college students
– Multiple new DC Comics TV series, including a new show from Greg Berlanti (Riverdale); Strange Adventures, an anthology series about mortals interacting with superhumans, also from Berlanti; and DC Super Hero High, a comedy series from Elizabeth Banks
– Super Intelligence, a comedy film starring Melissa McCarthy as a woman whose dating adventures are of great interest to AI
– Bobbie Sue, a comedy film starring Gina Rodriguez as an attorney who’s a little fish in a big pond, which might be how we all feel while deciding what to watch on HBO Max when the enormous library arrives

HBO Max launches on May 27.

The Dirty Projectors continued their nearly two decades-spanning career last March with the EP Windows Open. But the four-track EP is not the band’s final project for the year. Instead, Dirty Projectors have an ambitious plan in the works. The group’s latest EP was not a one-off effort. Rather, the band plans on releasing an impressive five EPs over the course of the year. Announcing their plan, the group shared the next EPs’ lead single, “Lose Your Love.”

“Lose Your Love” arrives on the forthcoming effort, Flight Tower. The track’s exuberant instrumentation lays the groundwork for the accompanying feel-good lyrics. “I never want to lose your love / I never want to let you down / In wilderness we won’t give up / Just hold on let yourself be found,” keyboardist/vocalist Felicia Douglass sings. For both “Lose Your Love” and Flight Tower as a whole, Douglass took the lead. The singer built each track off the forthcoming EP around her high-reaching alto and penned the lyrics in collaboration with Dirty Projectors’ longstanding member Dave Longstreth.

Watch the “Lose Your Love” video above and find the Flight Tower EP cover and tracklist below.

1. “Inner World”
2. “Lose Your Love”
3. “Self Design”
4. “Empty Vessel”

Flight Tower is out 6/26 via Domino. Pre-order it here.

At a loss for what to buy for your mom? Can’t go wrong with a subscription box.

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“What could have been.”

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Images of people in New York crowding a park and not wearing masks went viral this weekend. Here’s what coronavirus experts say about parks and beach trips.

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“Music isn’t sports, no matter how much we want to rank and score it,” Grayson Haver Currin wrote late last year in a brilliant piece about how year-end lists might be losing their utility. And while I generally agree with this sentiment, lately I’ve been thinking about how music IS like sports, whether we like it or not. And it’s not just Billboard charts or Pitchfork scores that make it that way. It’s the constant competition for the public’s limited attention, where artists need to push themselves in relation to their peers to rise to the top, in hopes that quality and creativity reign, rather than being the loudest or best promoted.

In the recently omnipresent livestreaming space, it’s particularly tempting to compare efforts in relation to each other, and that makes the best music livestream moments stand out. On Friday, for example, YouTube was the place for a weekend dance party unlike any other. Producer extraordinaire Mark Ronson offered up his Love Lockdown: Video Mixtape, a 90-minute fundraiser for the World Health Organization that saw him spinning records from his past (or that he simply enjoys) with guest appearances from a number of the tunes’ contributors. A song like his latest (excellent) album’s title track, “Late Night Feelings,” found vocalist Lykke Li beaming in from her cell phone to give an intimate, psychedelic interpretation. There was a selfie-stick sporting “Dancing On My Own” rendition that saw Robyn rolling around on the floor, Dua Lipa presenting “Electricity” from what appeared to be her backyard, and even an Inception-style DJ set within a DJ set from A-Trak that would impress even Christopher Nolan.

Whether it was incorporating something as simple as the Kanye West music video from which the endeavor’s title was taken or something as batshit as Jurrasic Park‘s Sam Neill covering “Uptown Funk,” Ronson’s offering hit on elements missing from many of the livestreams that have populated the pandemic world. It demonstrated thinking outside the box. It sounded great. It used unprecedented times to create something that wouldn’t have occurred otherwise. It felt necessary and fun. It was worth sharing with friends, worth experiencing as a community, and provided lasting value that could stretch beyond this quarantined moment of human history.

If that sounds like a knock on the rest of music livestreams, it’s not meant to be. Since touring effectively ended in the middle of March, musicians big and small have been faced with their own unprecedented crisis. Fledging artists have seen a primary revenue stream disappear, while larger ones have rallied around their extensive teams suddenly facing financial uncertainty. And since then, many have been tirelessly offered up everything from solo acoustic performances and DJ sets to IG Live interviews and beat battles. Tegan And Sara started a project where they discuss Sara’s garden with fans. Erykah Badu is providing guided mediation. Even our own People’s Party debuted a live series, bringing the great interview style of Talib Kweli to an audience suddenly lacking for new content.

To criticize the livestream experiments that fall short feels both ungrateful and mean-spirited. Much of it looks to either serve fans or literally raise money for those in need. Most of the artists are offering up their time and creativity without expectations of personal monetary compensation. And while the most cynical lens can easily (and probably deservedly) mock Gal Gadot’s “Imagine” debacle or the recent UK-centric Foo Fighters cover that saw participants ranging from Sean Paul to Rag’n’Bone Man, doing so undercuts the environment that’s spawning such work. The world is frightening on levels that most have never experienced, and musicians are throwing everything they have against the wall to see what sticks.

There have been clear highlights over the last couple of months. Death Cab For Cutie leader Ben Gibbard has taken the time to give his catalog a close look for comforting home sets. The Verzuz series and Club Quarantine quickly captured social media’s attention by mixing viral moments with star-spotting in ways that feel as close to a real club experience as you can get without leaving your couch. Travis Scott’s next-level Fortnite appearance launched a now-No. 1 single. Virtual festival experiences like Warner’s PlayOn Fest or 100 Gecs’ Minecraft festival gave new meaning to communal moments. Coachella’s new documentary allowed for the world’s best music festival to own its usual weekend despite being postponed until fall. And though people like Mark Ronson are showing that artists are just scratching the surface with regards to what is possible in entertaining the socially isolated, Post Malone recently showed that innovation is only one way to capture the public’s attention and imagination.

On Friday, April 24, America’s favorite genre-defying teddy bear, Post Malone, unveiled his contribution to the livestream world: a Nirvana covers set. When it was announced earlier that week, there was quick brushback from rockists sure that Posty was not meant to hold a candle to the alt-rock titans. Even with Courtney Love giving her blessing for the charity event, plenty were skeptical as to what, if anything, Posty could offer the classic songs. But once the 90-minute performance commenced, it was clear that Post Malone wasn’t just taking up space for bored music fans to wade into the weekend. Instead, he delivered the definitive moment of the quarantine music experience.

Malone showed he meant business with the great backing band, anchored by Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. He crafted a setlist that expanded beyond a few well-known Nirvana hits and showed the depth and breadth of their catalog. He pounded beers, smoked cigarettes, cracked jokes, and featured solid sound and camera work (those last two were particularly refreshing). He simply had a blast sharing the music that he loves, and likewise, people had a blast watching him. Word of mouth quickly spread on social media that this was a performance that had to be seen, with a level of enthusiasm that is rare for livestreams. Fans are surely grateful for all the content musicians had been giving up until that point, but Post Malone showed that the potential to bring people together was still unexplored.

Post Malone’s Nirvana set was unpretentious and filled with joy, enough so that Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic tweeted out his emotional response during the set. And, it ultimately achieved its goal in raising more than 4.3 million dollars for the WHO. As someone that witnessed one of the rare Nirvana semi-reunion performances, I can honestly say that Post Malone held a candle to the real deal, giving the best interpretations of Nirvana songs that have been heard outside of the original band. Who would have thought that would be something we’d experience together during this genuinely terrible time? And along with Ronson’s inventive set a week later, these appearances argue that we’ve yet to see the limits of what can be achieved by musicians during this particularly dark and weird time. Creativity is the ultimate currency of the artist, and only after several weeks of testing the water and thinking on the fly are we seeing lasting, memorable moments. It’s possible that it won’t be viable to see live music in person for many more months, if even this year. And while the ramifications of that on everyone from the musicians to the extended members of the music industry is hard to overstate (in short: it’s bad), there is some solace in the fact that there will continue to be livestream creations that extend what we have thought is possible.

We’re about two weeks out from another quarantine milestone: Charli XCX is releasing a collaborative effort that she has crafted with her fans entirely during social isolation. Whereas the majority of new songs released in the past couple of months are holdovers from before the pandemic, Charli has very publicly been making an album that couldn’t have existed at any other time. It is to be seen whether the album will be more than just a timestamp from the months that people were confined to their homes, but the music has so far shown an eagerness to transcend that, created in the public eye on social media and with frequent livestreamed updates. Like Ronson and Posty, Charli is trying to take a big step in owning this particular moment, in setting the bar higher, in creating art meant to last and be remembered instead of providing a momentary distraction. It has always felt a bit vapid to look at times of political unrest or, as we are experiencing now, a health and financial crisis, only to ponder “the great art that will come out of it.” But in a time that feels like a content bombardment, there is comfort in knowing that the best is yet to come and that great artists are rising to the occasion. Sports might be generally on pause right now, but in the music world, winners are still emerging.

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