Category: Viral

On October 5, 2004, De La Soul released their seventh studio album, The Grind Date — their first independently released album, and the only one you could stream online until very recently. In honor of its 20th anniversary, the pioneering New York rap duo has announced a special edition reissue on CD and vinyl along with two new tracks. The first, “Bigger,” features R&B singer Choklate and can be streamed above. Four instrumentals will be included, as well as the Sean Paul-featuring bonus track “Shoomp,” which was previously only available on European and Japanese editions of the album.

In a statement, group member Posdnous wrote, “With the 20th anniversary of Grind Date, we just feel blessed in knowing that we put together this album that, right now, with its re-release feels fresh, it doesn’t feel outdated, the lyrics feel relevant. It really feels good to know that with the re-release of this album, it takes myself and Mase back to knowing that this album was the first album done outside of our Tommy Boy relationship, and it stands the test of time alongside that catalog, so yeah, it’s a blessing.”

Listen to “Bigger” above and pre-order the 20th-anniversary edition of The Grind Date here.

The Grind Date 20th Anniversary Tracklist:

01. “The Future”
02. “Verbal Clap”
03. “Much More” Feat. Yummy
04. “Shopping Bags (She Got From You)”
05. “The Grind Date”
06. “Church”
07. “Doo Good In Church” (Skit)
08. “It’s Like That” Feat. Carl Thomas
09. “He Comes” Feat. Ghostface Killah
10. “Days Of Our Lives” Feat. Common
11. “Come On Down” Feat. Flavor Flav
12. “No” Feat. Butta Verses
13. “Rock Co. Kane Flow” Feat. MF DOOM
14. “Shoomp” Feat. Sean Paul

Bonus Tracks
01. “Bigger” Feat. Choklate
02. “Respect”
03. “Verbal Clap” (Instrumental)
04. “Shopping Bags (She Got from You)” (Instrumental)
05. “The Grind Date” (Instrumental)
06. “Days Of Our Lives” Feat. Common (Instrumental)

The NBA All-Star Game is only a few weeks away. In three weeks, the league will make its way to San Francisco for a weekend of festivities that will cap off at the Chase Center on Sunday, Feb. 16. And on Thursday, the Inside the NBA crew let everyone know the most important part of the game: The five players from each conference who earned a starting nod.

Here’s who will represent both conferences as starters in the 2025 edition of the All-Star Game:

Eastern Conference

Backcourt: Jalen Brunson, Donovan Mitchell
Frontcourt: Karl-Anthony Towns, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jayson Tatum

Western Conference

Backcourt: Steph Curry, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Frontcourt: Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Nikola Jokic

As a reminder, the NBA is doing things a little differently for its All-Star Game this year. Instead of breaking things up into two teams, the league will divvy up the All-Stars between three teams, while a fourth team will be comprised of the winners of the Rising Stars Game. The winner will be determined via a mini-tournament, with a pair of semifinals and a final, with each game going to 40 points.

To break up the rosters, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenny Smith will hold a draft among the players selected to the All-Star teams, while Candace Parker will helm the team that wins the Rising Stars Game. While we know the 10 players who will be designated as starters, the remaining All-Stars will be announced next week.

Just months after wrapping up Brat Summer — and a few weeks away from kicking off her tour for the ubiquitous album that spawned the meme season — Charli XCX is one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. Soon, she’ll be one of its most prolific movie stars, as well. In addition to four previously announced film roles, the undercover film buff is also producing and starring her own feature, The Moment, which will be distributed by every film buff’s favorite studio, A24.

According to Variety, Charli’s producing under her own imprint, Studio365, while Scottish photographer and filmmaker Aidan Zamiri will direct. Zamiri also co-wrote the screenplay alongside veteran writer Bertie Brandes (whose bylines include Vice, i-D, and Mother). Finally, A. G. Cook, who produced a sizable slice of Brat (and Charli’s prior albums), will compose the score. There are no details on the plot, other than its inspiration by an original idea of Charli’s.

The singer’s upcoming film slate is likely to keep her pretty busy for the rest of the year, and includes 100 Nights Of Hero, I Want Your Sex, and The Gallerist, all in post-production. She recently showed her comedic chops with a slew of SNL sketches.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Kid Cudi’s Los Angeles home had been broken into by a man who took the opportunity to shower and have a meal at the rapper’s expense. Although the home invader was arrested by Los Angeles Sheriffs and charged with felony burglary and theft of utilities, the bizarre details of the incident prompted some fans to make light of Cudi’s misfortune — and he’s not pleased.

On his Instagram Story, Cudi responded to the amused reactions to the break-in, writing:

I see the internets running w things and making jokes this sh*t is not funny.

The person that broke into my house was a crazed fan that has been stalking me for years without me knowing. He’s been to shows, events I’ve done in the states and overseas. He drove across the country and broke into my house hoping to talk w me about collabing and ideas he had. There is nothing funny about this. My privacy was violated, and now I have to protect myself. I don’t feel safe now. He rummaged through personal things, my fiance’s stuff, took a shower and ate, all while thinking he was gonna have a conversation w me. This was an unhinged 34-year-old man.

While he reminded fans of his current hiatus from social media, “I’m not online to see the comments,” he also warned, “word got back to me people are making light of this and it’s not okay,” asserting, “If I’m standoffish when u see me in public now, this is why.”

Despite Cudi’s recent run of bad luck, which included a broken foot and a canceled tour, he recently said he was excited to share his new music, which could be happening soon.

This year’s Oscar nominations dropped on Thursday and include Original Song nominees that were overshadowed by an unheard of Original Score snub of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the Challengers. (Yet as a consolation prize to viewers, their joint wizardry will soon be heard in The Gorge, coming to Apple TV+ on Feb. 14.)

The Oscars ceremony itself won’t air until March 2, and there’s plenty of time to drink in the ten Best Picture nominations if you want to be fully prepared. Still, ten movies is a significant time investment, so maybe you’re itching to see why Best Supporting Actress nominee Ariana Grande weighed in the way that she did, but can you stream these movies yet? We rounded up the answers below:

Anora: The Mikey Madison-starring Neon movie isn’t on a streaming service yet but can be rented on VOD and Amazon Prime.

The Brutalist: Adrien Brody’s latest acclaimed film (honestly, he cannot stop) isn’t available as an at-home option right now, but as an A24 movie, it will eventually stream on Max.

A Complete Unknown: Ditto for Timothée Chalamet’s turn in this Bob Dylan biopic. The Searchlight Pictures movie will land on Disney+ and Hulu sometime in the near-ish future.

Conclave: This Focus Features movie is already streaming on Peacock.

Dune: Part Two: Denis Villeneuve’s Arrakis-based sequel with more Timothée Chalamet (and Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, and Rebecca Ferguson) is currently streaming on Max.

Emilia Pérez: This Netflix musical extravaganza, starring Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, and Selena Gomez, is available at the source.

I’m Still Here: This Brazilian Sony Pictures Releasing movie received a limited theatrical release on January 17, so it’s not on VOD or streaming yet.

Nickel Boys: This Amazon MGM movie received a limited theatrical release on December 20 and hasn’t hit Prime Video/Amazon for streaming at present.

The Substance: This Mubi movie is streaming over on Mubi, but don’t eat anything before watching Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley as One.

Wicked: No streaming dice yet here, but Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande’s Oz witches can be viewed on VOD and for rent on Prime Video/Amazon.

Jimmy Butler is still a member of the Miami Heat. This is despite the fact that he clearly wants a trade, the Heat seem like they want to get rid of him, and he has at least one team desperate to bring him on board in the Phoenix Suns, which would presumably give Butler a lucrative contract extension once the summer rolls around if they pulled off the very difficult deal to get him on board.

The tough thing for Phoenix is their paths to acquiring Butler are pretty narrow, and as this has dragged on, there’s been reporting that indicates Butler would be open to going anywhere if it meant getting out of Miami. As it turns out, though, there is an exception to this, according to Marc Spears.

“I was told today from someone close to the situation that his wishlist is just out of Miami,” Spears said on NBA Today. “With the exception to Memphis. Doesn’t wanna go to Memphis … but he does wanna finish his career wherever he goes.”

Now, it is interesting that Memphis gets this distinction, although it’s fair to assume that Butler wouldn’t want to go to a team in the middle of a complete rebuild like Washington or Utah. Still, Butler would presumably be a pretty good fit on the Grizzlies, which have been looking for a wing to slide in alongside Ja Morant, Desmond Bane, and Jaren Jackson Jr. forever, so it’s interesting that this is the one place that he specifically does not want to go. But then again, it’s Jimmy Butler, so perhaps this is all a Jedi mind trick to get Pat Riley to send him to Memphis.

The NBA has spent a lot of energy in recent years trying to get some juice back into All-Star Weekend. They have tinkered with the format of just about every competition they have over the weekend to try and make it a bigger deal.

This year, the big change is to the All-Star Game itself, which will feature a mini-tournament between three teams of 8 All-Stars and the winning team from the Rising Stars competition. The new format mimics what they’ve done with the Rising Stars game, which has been an improvement if for no other reason than it keeps things moving. When it comes to the Saturday Night competitions, the most important thing is to have the biggest names participating.

That’s not a difficult thing to do with the Three-Point Shootout, as they regularly get stars to shoot, but the Skills Challenge and Dunk Contest have not been particularly popular among All-Star talent in recent years. The Dunk Contest’s issue is the risk-reward balance for stars is just not right, so you rarely get the biggest names participating. The league recently turned the Skills Challenge into a team competition in an effort to get bigger names involved — they got Giannis to participate alongside his brothers — and tried a similar approach this year to get LeBron participating in Saturday night festivities for the first time in two decades.

According to Chris Haynes, the league invited LeBron and Bronny James to be part of a Skills Challenge team, but they declined the invitation. Being the first father and son to participate in the Skills Challenge isn’t exactly the kind of accolade that’s getting LeBron all that excited and I think they realize there’s not a ton of upside to participating, while there’s a very good chance to become memes if things go wrong. I will give the NBA credit for recognizing this as the rare chance to get LeBron doing something on Saturday night, but unfortunately for them, the James family will not be one of the Skills Challenge teams.

We’re not far from the Super Bowl now, as the big game is set to go down on February 9. Now is about the time that the commercials start being shared online, and today (January 23), Taco Bell has unveiled their new Doja Cat-starring spot.

The ad starts by showing off a “Drive-Thru Cam” set-up at a Taco Bell location, which a voiceover explaining, “This year, Taco Bell is making fans the stars of their big game ad, not celebrities.” As this is happening, a couple in the drive-thru poses for a photo, and when they look at the shot, they notice they got photo-bombed by Doja.

An employee then chastises Doja, saying, “For the last time: No famous people!” Doja fires back, “I want to be in this ad!” They bicker band and forth before Doja eventually gives up and leaves… or rather, hides in the bushes.

Doja has fostered quite the relationship with Taco Bell in recent years. In 2021, she lamented the loss of the chain’s Mexican pizza and later landed one of her songs in a Taco Bell ad. The next year, she did a Super Bowl commercial for the restaurant, and later this year, she bragged about helping to bring Mexican pizza back to the Taco Bell menu.

Check out the commercial above.

Peter Sutherland is back in action. Night Action, that is.

The second The Night Agent season is now streaming on Netflix, and the story will take Gabriel Basso’s out-of-the-basement operative to Bangkok and New York City. Sure, there are a few D.C.-based scenes as well, but in contrast to the first season, Peter’s new assignment is very off-the-books. Until it isn’t.

Don’t worry, though. If you crave longer streaming TV seasons, then Peter’s return will gift a substantial amount of time to you, compared to other current ultrapopular spy series.

How Many Episodes Are In The Night Agent Season 2?

For this new season, The Night Agent remains committed to delivering 10 episodes. A third season will also surface, although Netflix hasn’t yet revealed if the same tradition will continue.

As hinted above, Peter’s lengthy assignments stand in contrast to The Diplomat‘s recent six episode season that riled people up due to the finale’s seemingly abrupt ending (but will continue with an eight-episode third season). Netflix’s Black Doves and Apple TV+’s Slow Horses also favor the six-episode structure, but Peter goes long. That’s simply his thing.

This series also delivers forgivably complicated plots, so that the “longer” seasons don’t feel padded, and of course, this second season somehow includes plenty of Rose (Luciane Buchanan) despite the parting of ways for the doomed couple in the first season finale. Maybe that’s because Peter won’t stop answering the phone, even when he manages to successfully go AWOL.

The Night Agent‘s second season co-stars Brittany Snow, Teddy Sears, Arienne Mandi, and Amanda Warren, and be sure to carve out plenty of weekend time if you plan to binge.

Ahead of going on a stadium tour together, SZA will join Kendrick Lamar during the Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show.

In the announcement video, Lamar can be seen talking on the phone while walking the field at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, where the Super Bowl is being held this year. “You know this field a lot bigger than people think so that’s a must,” he says. “Exactly. Nah, I been thinking about a guest performer.” The clip then cuts SZA pouring blue Gatorade on Lamar as “Hey Now” from GNX plays.

You can watch the video from Apple Music above.

What song will SZA and Lamar perform together? “30 For 30” from Lana? “Luther” from GNX? Or going further back, “All The Stars” from the Black Panther soundtrack? We’ll find out on February 9, followed by the kick off of the Grand National Tour in April.

“Rap music is still the most impactful genre to date,” Lamar (who previously appeared alongside Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Mary J. Blige during the Super Bowl LVI halftime show) said in a statement when he was announced as the headline performer last year. “And I’ll be there to remind the world why. They got the right one.”