Category: Viral

In May, Kamasi Washington released Fearless Movement, which was a long time coming: The project was Washington’s first album since 2018’s Heaven And Earth. Now, with a fresh album to promote, he has taken his talents to NPR’s iconic Tiny Desk Concert series.

His four-song setlist featured “Lesanu,” “Street Fighter Mas,” “The Rhythm Changes,” and “Asha The First.” Of particular note is one of Washington’s band members: Rickey Washington, a flutist, soprano saxophonist, and Kamasi’s father. Kamasi himself was in top form, as he’s fresh off a tour in support of the new album.

Washington previously called Fearless Movement his “dance album,” saying, “It’s not literal. Dance is movement and expression, and in a way it’s the same thing as music — expressing your spirit through your body. That’s what this album is pushing.” He also said, “Being a father means the horizon of your life all of a sudden shows up. My mortality became more apparent to me, but also my immortality — realizing that my daughter is going to live on and see things that I’m never going to see. I had to become comfortable with this, and that affected the music that I was making.”

Check out Washington’s full Tiny Desk performance above.

By this time next year, the fifth season of Stranger Things will have (hopefully) premiered! And just as quickly ended, since it’s also the final season. It’s the most anticipated batch of episodes (eight of them, all of them “very long”) for a Netflix show in the streamer’s history, so no pressure, the Duffer Brothers!

Here’s everything we know about Stranger Things season 5, including plot details, the cast, and the show’s “best episode” yet.

Plot

Stranger Things season 5 is eight episodes long, and the journey to the series finale will be “heartbreaking,” “bonkers,” and “completely insane.” It also might make you cry. “The end of this episode when we were reading it — just us reading it — about halfway through, people started crying,” star David Harbour said about the finale on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “Then about the last 20 minutes, it was just uncontrollably crying, waves of different people.” He added that it’s “the best episode they’ve ever done.”

Specific plot details are tough to come by, but there’s almost certainly going to be a time jump in the “biggest, darkest, scariest” season yet.

It’s also going to be a “full-circle” season, as Will, who has been relegated to the sidelines since season 1, is “going to be a big part and focus,” Matt Duffer told Collider. “We’re starting to see his coming of age, really. Which has been challenging for a number of reasons, some of which are supernatural. But you’re starting to see him come into his own.” Ross added, “[It’s] setting up us coming full circle back to season 1. I think you’ll see that with a couple of the character arcs, not just with Will. But also with Steve and Nancy, and her relationship with Jonathan where things are not fully resolved. The characters have maybe made steps, like in the case of Will, but that journey isn’t over yet. All of that is going to play a huge role as we try to wrap this thing up.”

Stranger Things will take a page from another popular genre show’s book (forgive the mixed idiom) by enlisting Frank Darabont to direct an episode. It’s his first time behind the camera in over a decade. “What really dragged me out of retirement was that my wife and I really love this show,” The Shawshank Redemption director told The Daily Beast. “Our content now is so filled with horrible people doing horrible things for greedy reasons but Stranger Things has so much heart. That positivity is something I really responded to.”

And I’m positive that Stranger Things will nail the ending.

Cast

Almost everyone will be back (too many!), albeit three years older than the last time we saw them. The confirmed season 5 cast includes Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Brett Gelman (Murray Bauman), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Jamie Campbell Bower (Henry Creel / Vecna), Cara Buono (Karen Wheeler), and Amybeth McNulty (Vickie).

Newcomers to the Stranger Things universe include The Terminator / Terminator 2: Judgment Day legend Linda Hamilton. “I don’t know how to be a fangirl and an actress at the same time,” she said about appearing on the show. “I’m gonna work on that.” As for Joseph Quinn, he has a “feeling” that he’ll return as Eddie Munson. “Or maybe I don’t,” the Gladiator II star teased. “Who knows? I don’t know! Who knows? Maybe I do.”

Release Date

An exact date hasn’t been revealed but Stranger Things season 5 will premiere sometime in 2025. It’s unknown if every episode will be dropped at once, or if the season will be split into two “volumes,” like in season 4.

Trailer

Still no trailer but you can watch a behind-the-scenes video.

A few years ago, Sons Of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter announced his return to TV with Netflix’s The Abandons, which he created and wrote as an epic Western series. Filming appeared to be going swimmingly from an outside perspective with Sutter regularly Instagramming his on-set perspectives, but clearly, something went seriously amiss at the eleventh hour.

As the lore initially went, Netflix had been shopping around for a Western series, and let’s be honest, that quest to do with the Taylor Sheridan Effect over at Paramount+, which was ironic considering that Sheridan portrayed Deputy Hale on SOA and was not thrilled with how that show wrote him off. Are we suggesting, however, that Sutter meant to hop on the Sheridan bandwagon? Hell no. Sutter stepped up to the challenge after being inspired by a Bonanza bingewatch and declaring, “I do love the genre, and over the pandemic, I tried to get a western IP.”

Still, the latest rise of the Western is a trend that Hollywood has been chasing. That Effect even extends to photoshoots to promote an A24 wrestling biopic with Westerns popping up everywhere on streaming services. Fast forward to this month, and things fell apart with Sutter’s involvement in The Abandons. The show is still going to surface on Netflix, so let’s not waste any more time in piecing together what to (and what not to) expect from the troubled series.

Plot/Logistics

First, let’s refresh on the show’s plot synopsis:

As a group of diverse, outlier families pursue their Manifest Destiny in 1850s Oregon, a corrupt force of wealth and power, coveting their land, tries to force them out. These abandoned souls, the kind of lost souls living on the fringe of society, unite their tribes to form a family and fight back. In this bloody process, “justice” is stretched beyond the boundaries of the law. The Abandons will explore that fine line between survival and law, the consequences of violence, and the corrosive power of secrets, as this family fights to keep their land.

Sutter loves a good matriarch story, and with The Abandons, he worked in two overarching examples. Over a year ago, he told Tudum that the show will illustrate “what must transpire to drive the morally sound to become the dangerously corrupt,” and “The Abandons explores those complex compromises through the most powerful human instinct — the love and protection of mothers.”

Filming began earlier this year, and as noted above, Sutter outwardly seemed to be happy with where the production was going, but things presumably got too epic as reported by Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva:

The departure is believed to stem from creative differences over the direction of the big-scale production as it is wrapping filming and headed into post. I hear an alarm went off at Netflix when the initial cut of the dense first episode, which sets the scene and introduces the large group of main characters, came in at 1 hour and 40 minutes. Cutting that down to an hour proved impossible, so a decision was made for the episode, written by Sutter and directed by Bathurst, to be split into two. That required creating a cliffhanger in the middle of the episode with additional scenes on both ends to wrap the premiere and kick off Episode 2.

Given that the season was nearly done filming, “creative differences” feels like pushing the definition of that term in this situation.

Still, Sutter is known to suddenly leave a production, as was the case with SOA spin off Mayans M.C.. With that incident, he admitted to have written an anti-Disney joke into the biker soap opera as a form of protesting the Disney/FX merger. He also called himself “an abrasive dick” after he admittedly “ruffle[ed] a few mouse ears” of incoming Disney overlords. This followed him preemptively pulling the plug on The Bastard Executioner after one season, although that was likely the best move with that medieval-set series but also sits as another example of Sutter making sudden moves, for better or worse.

Still, his departure from The Abandons felt shocking, mainly because Sutter created and wrote this baby, but filming has now entered its final weeks under the oversight of executive producers Rob Askins and Otto Bathurst.

Sutter hasn’t spoken on the subject of his departure at this time.

Cast

The ensemble cast is led by Gillian Anderson and Lena Headey, who will both portray the aforementioned strong matriarchs. Gillian’s character, Constance Van Ness, is a widow of a mining tycoon, although she manage to double that fortune, and Headey portrays Fiona Nolan, an adoptive mother of orphans.

Naturally and fortunately, several faces from Sutter’s Sons of Anarchy universe will be present. Those include Ryan Hurst (RIP Opie), Michael Ornstein, and Mayans M.C.‘s Clayton Cardenas.

From there, almost too many names exist to mention, but we will try: Patton Oswalt, Nick Robinson, Aisling Franciosi, Natalia del Riego, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Lucas Till, Lamar Johnson, Jack Doolan, Jonathan Koensgen, Katelyn Wells, Brían F. O’Byrne, Sarah Grace White, Michael Greyeyes, Marc Menchaca, Michiel Huisman, Toby Hemingway, and Haig Sutherland.

Release Date

The Abandons will somehow debut in 2025 without Kurt Sutter, which remains unbelievable.

Trailer

Netflix hasn’t dropped a teaser yet, but here is a recent clip from Sutter’s Pie podcast episode with Ryan Hurst (who always has to be mentioned with an “RIP Opie”), who explained how his real-life best friend, Jackson, convinced him to be Jax’s best friend on TV, too.

Darkside reunited to drop the album Spiral in 2021, which was their first album in eight years. Now, they have something else in the works that’s a long time coming: Today (October 21), they’ve announced the Psychic Spiral Nothing tour, which will feature their first North American dates in 11 years, over about a month in March and April.

Tickets will be available starting with an artist pre-sale on October 22 at 10 a.m. local time. Following that is a Spotify Fans First pre-sale on October 24 at 10 a.m. local time. Then there’s a general pre-sale starting on the 24th. Find more information here.

On top of that, there’s also a new song, “Graucha Max.” A press release notes the song was completed during 2023 sessions, and that it’s “the first studio composition that the band have released as a trio and a preview of things to come,” the trio consisting of Nicolás Jaar, Dave Harrington, and now, Tlacael Esparza.

Listen to “Graucha Max” above. Find Darkside’s upcoming tour dates, which include their current European run, below.

Darkside’s 2024 Tour Dates: Psychic Spiral Nothing

10/22/2024 — Glasgow, UK @ QMU
10/24/2024 — London, UK @ Alexandra Palace Theatre
10/25/2024 — London, UK @ Alexandra Palace Theatre
10/28/2024 — Istanbul, TR @ Maximum Uniq Openair
10/30/2024 — Thessaloniki, GR @ Principal
11/01/2024 — Torino, IT @ Club to Club
11/03/2024 — Paris, FR @ L’Olympia
11/05/2024 — Luxembourg, LU @ Den Atelier
11/06/2024 — Gent, BE @ De Vooruit
11/07/2024 — Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
11/08/2024 — Utrecht, NL @ Le Guess Who?
03/13/2025 — Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed
03/14/2025 — Detroit, MI @ Masonic Cathedral Theatre
03/15/2025 — Toronto, ON @ HISTORY
03/16/2025 — Montreal, QC @ MTELUS
03/18/2025 — Boston, MA @ Roadrunner
03/19/2025 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore
03/21/2025 — New York, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
03/23/2025 — Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
03/25/2025 — Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl
03/26/2025 — Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
04/04/2025 — Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
04/05/2025 — Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
04/06/2025 — Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
04/15/2025 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union Event Center
04/16/2025 — Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom

We’ve gotten a handful of holiday songs from Jimmy Fallon over the past few years. There was 2021’s “It Was A… (Masked Christmas)” with Megan Thee Stallion and Ariana Grande, “Almost Too Early For Christmas” with Dolly Parton in 2022, and “Wrap Me Up” with Meghan Trainor last year. Now, he’s got some more on the way, as those and others will be included on Fallon’s newly announced album, Holiday Seasoning.

The project is set to drop soon, on November 1, and aside from the aforementioned, it also features Cara Delevingne, Chelsea Handler, the Jonas Brothers, Justin Timberlake, The Roots, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and Will Ferrell.

Check out the album’s cover art and tracklist below.

Jimmy Fallon’s Holiday Seasoning Album Cover Artwork

Jimmy Fallon’s Holiday Seasoning Tracklist

1. “Christmas Ding Dong”
2. “Holiday” with Jonas Brothers
3. “Hey Rudy” with The Roots
4. “Wrap Me Up” with Meghan Trainor
5. “You’ll Be There” with Justin Timberlake
6. “It Was A… (Masked Christmas)” with Ariana Grande and Megan Thee Stallion
7. “How You Know It’s Christmastime”
8. “New Year’s Eve Polka (5-4-3-2-1)” with “Weird Al” Yankovic and The Roots
9. “Chipmunks & Chestnuts”
10. “One Glove” with Will Ferrell
11. “Merry Happy Christmas” with Chelsea Handler
12. “Coquito”
13. “Hallmark Movie” with Cara Delevingne
14. “Weird Cousin”
15. “Thanksgiving Eve”
16. “Almost Too Early For Christmas” with Dolly Parton

Holiday Seasoning is out 11/1 via Republic Records. Find more information here.

Amazon is somehow doing supervillains and obligatory heroes better than anybody else right now with not only The Boys and Gen V but also a humble little show called Invincible, which hails from The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman and slides right into this streaming service’s penchant for pulling off adult-oriented subject matter with its superpower beings.

And the show looks good, too.

Invincible‘s striking visuals hail from a hefty reliance upon crisp, hand-drawn 2D animation brought to life through voice work from The Walking Dead cast members, including Steven Yeun and Ross Marquand. Additionally, the current wait between seasons will be much shorter than the one that came before, so let’s not squander any time and, instead, talk out what to expect next.

Release Date

Feb. 6, 2025 is official. The Invincible social media accounts were thrilled to announce the much shorter wait between seasons this time: “Felt good to update this!!!” The news was accompanied with an image of Mark Grayson/Invincible emblazoned with an “I will be there no matter what.” Also, the show will not take a mid-season hiatus this time after Robert Kirkman previously acknowledged that the split-season approach is “not the best” method for viewers.

This teaser hits well with Mark and Cecil verbally sparring over Mark staring at his phone instead of defeating Viltrumites. Tick tock, Mark.

Plot

While easing into plot talk at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Kirkman suggested that a detailed road map already exists after Amazon revealed that not only a third season will be coming but a fourth one as well. To that end, he promised that the third season might feel like a series finale due to bringing (so many) aspects of the show to a climax, but viewers should not fear. Via Games Radar, Kirkman explained his reasoning:

“The stakes of the season are really high and the content of the season is really dense. So we’ve set up a lot of stories in season 1 and season 2 that are kind of coming to a head in season three. And so in a lot of ways, every episode does kind of feel like a finale. There’s something big about every episode, there’s a massive conclusion in every episode, there’s some kind of huge evolution of a character or story turn that happens in every episode. I’m really excited to finally get to see season 3 because it’s gonna be crazy.”

Not only will this be a jam-packed season, but Variety revealed that Kirkman added, “Season 4 dwarfs Season 3 in a lot of really crazy ways. It’s an escalating show where each season is going to be bigger, crazier, more intense, and that stuff really kicks off with Season 3.”

Hopefully, that means that Mark will end up in a better headspace after processing his father’s misdeeds in playing a long game to help the Viltrum Empire take over Earth while also building himself another family on another planet. There will, however, be more Bad Dad on the scene with Kirkman adding that slightly more Omni-Man will be seen on screen, but this will remain “the Mark Grayson-Invincible show; it’s not the Omni-Man show.”

This season will, however, make room for Cecil Stedman’s backstory, and meanwhile, Oliver/Kid Omni-Man, son of Nolan and Andressa, will be growing like a Thraxan weed because I guess Mark needs more to worry about. Sigh.

Cast

The Invincible cast continues to be almost too large, although the show makes use of every character, so perhaps I should not complain. In addition to Steven Yeun (Mark Grayson/Invincible) plenty of J.K. Simmons (Nolan Grayson/Omni-Man) will be present, along with Sandra Oh (as the long suffering Debbie Grayson) and Walton Goggins (as the long exasperated Cecil Stedman).

The rest of the cast includes Seth Rogen (Allen, the Alien), Ross Marquand (The Immortal, Aquarius, Omnipotus, Kursk, Proprietor), Scoot McNairy (King Lizard), Sterling K. Brown (Angstrom Levy), Zazie Beetz (Amber Bennett), Jason Mantzoukas (Rex Sloan/Rex Splode), Zachary Quinto (Robot), Gillian Jacobs (Eve Wilkins/Atom Eve), Kevin Michael Richardson (the Mauler Twins), Lea Thompson (Carol), Tatiana Maslany (General Telia/Queen Aquaria), Ben Schwartz (Shapesmith), Daveed Diggs (Theo), and Calista Flockhart (April).

Trailer

No trailer yet, so it’s a fine time to remember that Invincible isn’t simply an action fest. Enjoy the comedy below, y’all.

ESPN’s attempt at finding a third broadcaster for its top NBA booth will apparently be a work in progress to start the 2024-25 season. On Monday, the network announced its plan to identify a second in-game analyst to join Mike Breen and Doris Burke for its premier broadcasts, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Richard Jefferson will get the first opportunity during Wednesday night’s game between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Milwaukee Bucks.

The catch: Jefferson will not be the only broadcaster who works with the established duo. Tim Legler, the longtime NBA analyst with the network who has slowly added color commentary to his list of responsibilities, and Jay Bilas, who is ESPN’s primary men’s college basketball analyst, will also get opportunities, with Andrew Marchand of The Athletic noting that others might get a shot, too. Previously, Marchand reported that all three of Jefferson, Legler, and Bilas were on the network’s list of names it was considering, along with Turner analyst Grant Hill.

ESPN has historically had a three-person booth for its top NBA broadcasts. For years, it was Breen with Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson, but after both analysts were let go last summer, the network had to change things up, opting to go with Burke and Doc Rivers. That didn’t last long, though, as Rivers left ESPN to take the Milwaukee Bucks’ job, which led to JJ Redick getting promoted. He lasted for the remainder of the season before departing the network to become the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.

When your new backyard turns into the neighborhood’s hottest club, of course, T-Pain’s going to stop by to show some love to the crowd and sing some of his hits!

Once Zillow helped Austin-based couple Lex and Hannah find their dream home, the only thing left to do was celebrate. And, because no one throws a party quite like UPROXX, we immediately got to work building an intimate performance venue and DIY dance floor in the newlyweds’ backyard. Decked out with a photobooth, DJ, lounge area, and local bites, the stage was set for hip-hop icon T-Pain to bring the energy, welcoming Lex and Hannah to their new home via some of his biggest hits. With “Bartender” blasting from the speakers, friends toasted the couple as they reveled in reaching another life milestone together.

Watch the full surprise performance above and stay tuned to Uproxx and our program hub for more of Lex and Hannah’s inspiring journey with Zillow.

As prolific and combative as rap has been this year, the one rapper who could be said to have been more productive than almost any other (while staying stubbornly uninvolved in any of the various beef that’s been going on) is Lil Yachty. He’s worked with everyone from BIA to Pharrell (twice) and dropped a slew of tracks ranging from grungy rock to boisterous battle rap.

And, apparently, he’s just getting warmed up. On Sunday (October 20), he released videos for three new songs: “All Around The World,” “Cry Me A River,” and “we Ball Forever.” Each of the three songs displays a different side of the Atlanta rapper, who tries out wildly different flows and vibes, from singsong boasts on “All Around The World” to heady, intricate rhyme schemes on “Cry Me A River.” Meanwhile, on “We Ball Forever,” Yachty contemplates all the beef going on hip-hop at the moment and dismisses it, deciding that getting paid for self-expression is much more desirable.

Even so, he hasn’t quite been able to completely avoid controversy this summer. In July, he confirmed that the rapper Karrahbooo had parted ways with his Concrete Boys collective, but the split became acrimonious in August, with Karrahbooo accusing the group of bullying her and Yachty airing her out for haughty treatment of his staff.

Still, Yachty has done what many of his peers and contemporaries have been unable to: Keep the focus on their musical output rather than controversy.

You can watch all three of Yachty’s new videos above.

One of the biggest question surrounding the New Orleans Pelicans as they entered the 2024-25 NBA season involved the future of Trey Murphy. Among the NBA’s most promising two-way wings, Murphy has blossomed into an important part of the team’s core, but ran the risk of entering this year without a contract extension, which would have let him hit restricted free agency next summer.

But on the final day that the two sides could work out a deal, the Pelicans were able to get something across the finish line. According to Marc Stein and Shams Charania of ESPN, Murphy agreed to a 4-year contract extension worth $112 million that will keep him in New Orleans going forward. Charania went on to report that the deal has no incentives or opt-outs.

While Murphy has dealt with some injury issues and is a little older than the rest of his rookie class — he turned 24 during the offseason — getting him on a deal worth $28 million a year is a good bit of business for the Pelicans, as he is the exact sort of 3-and-D wing that teams covet. Last season, Murphy averaged 14.8 points in 29.6 minutes per game while shooting 38 percent from behind the three-point line.

Currently, Murphy is out with a hamstring strain that will cost him some time at the very start of the season. All eyes in New Orleans will now turn to Brandon Ingram, as the team’s high-scoring wing is slated to become an unrestricted free agent next summer.