Category: Viral

Joe Rogan is once again stirring up controversy. During the latest episode of his podcast, Rogan and his guest, comedian Tom Segura, discussed homelessness in Los Angeles, which took a dark turn as Rogan floated a particularly not great solution to the problem: Shooting them. After the potentially dangerous remarks were recently shared on Twitter, unhoused advocates have been publicly denouncing Rogan’s comments, and you can see why below:

Via Variety:

Tom Segura: When you see stuff like that on the streets, at least in Los Angeles or California, that’s protected property. Like by law. That’s that’s person’s property by law.

Joe Rogan: Oh, a homeless person’s property is protected?

Segura: Absolutely. If you were to try to move that or take that—

Rogan: You’d get arrested. Hilarious. But they wouldn’t arrest you if you shot somebody. Maybe you should just go shoot the homeless people.

Segura: I like your ideas.

Rogan: And if nobody claims it. I mean nobody does anything about violent crime in LA anymore.

Considering Rogan’s podcast reaches an audience of millions who swallowed his controversial opinions on the COVID vaccine, there’s a legitimate potential for violence following his remarks.

“It’s repulsive,” unhoused advocate Theo Henderson told Variety. “It’s infuriating because it’s not only out of touch, but the reality is that unhoused people are targeted by housed people. To advocate trying to shoot at unhoused people or just giving these dog whistles to people that do not see unhoused people as human beings — I can’t believe you’d advocate for it.”

Andy Bales, who runs the Union Rescue Mission in downtown Los Angeles, voiced similar concerns.

“I’m surprised and saddened,” Bales said. “The comments about beginning to kill homeless people hits too close to reality for any comfort, because murders of homeless people in Los Angeles went up 47% last year over the previous year…. There is a bit of an unfortunate vigilantism already in Los Angeles towards people devastated by homelessness and they don’t need any encouragement.”

(Via Variety)

In a recent episode of Math Hoffa’s My Expert Opinion, Method Man sat down in a barbershop, where he dropped tidbits of knowledge. When he got into label politics, he shared his thoughts on artists signing to labels owned by other artists.

“I always felt like you can’t sign to somebody who still trying to be an artist,” He said. “It’s hard. They can’t give you the time or attention that you probably need and deserve unless you are your own machine.”

By “machine,” he clarified that he was referring to artists like Drake, Lil Wayne, and Rick Ross.

Also in the episode, Method mentioned that he hated being seen as a sex symbol following the release of his 1995 hit single, “I’ll Be There For You / You’re All I Need,” which featured Mary J. Blige.

“I fought that ‘All I Need’ sh*t,” he recalled. “I didn’t wanna put it out ’cause it was at a point now where, when we were doing these shows [with] Wu-Tang, I would come out and it’d be girls screaming. Now, for me, it’s like, I’m grimy, same-clothes-for-three-days-in-a-row; who wants to go the sex symbol route at this point?”

Check out the full episode above.

A parking enforcement officer who was working on the set of NBC’s Law & Order: Organized Crime was fatally shot in the earlier hours of Tuesday morning, according to multiple reports.

The New York Post reports that the man, who was reserving spots for the production, was shot in Brooklyn around 5:15 am. He was rushed to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead around 6 am. The victim was shot multiple times in the face and neck. Law enforcement have yet to catch the shooter.

The victim’s co-worker said that this was the same job they had been doing for nearly six years. “We put up the fliers, cones and park the trucks. We come 24 hours in advance to start clearing out the parking. We park in our trucks, and we wait for the stars to come out,” he explained. “He was a great guy, always laughing or making somebody laugh, you know?”

NBC shut down production for the day, and released the following statement, as per the New York Post: “We were terribly saddened and shocked to hear that one of our crew members was the victim of a crime early this morning and has died as a result. We are working with local law enforcement as they continue to investigate. Our hearts go out to his family and friends, and we ask that you respect their privacy during this time.”

The series had just begun shooting its third season. The Law & Order spinoff stars Christopher Meloni, Danielle Mone Truitt, and Ainsley Seiger.

(Via Deadline)

Johnny Carson. David Letterman. Jay Leno. Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy Kimmel. Stephen Colbert. What do all those television personalities have in common? Sure, they’re all late-night television hosts… but what else do they have in common? You see it. Even if you don’t want to admit it just yet, you do. Let’s face it: Late night is a very white occupation. And sure, there have been some exceptions; Arsenio Hall, Joan Rivers, and Chris Rock spring to mind. But for the most part, the space has been dominated largely by older, white, straight, male, former stand-up comics. And before you scroll down to the comments to write “nuh-uh,” just hear me out.

Until very, very recently, there was one huge exception to this trend: Showtime’s Desus & Mero. However, last night, the show’s creators announced on Twitter that after four seasons, the show is coming to an end. Even worse, its two hosts, Daniel Baker aka Desus Nice and Joel Martinez aka The Kid Mero, were splitting up to pursue separate creative endeavors after nearly a decade of collaborations which included the Desus vs. Mero and Bodega Boys podcasts, the Desus & Mero talk show, and even an anime, Neo Yokio. The show’s cancellation isn’t just a loss of a beloved, underrated comedic pairing — it’s a loss for hip-hop as a whole.

Before Desus & Mero, it’s hard to find too many examples of hip-hop culture in the late-night TV space. Sure there was Arsenio Hall, doing his best to bring the fashion, music, and voice of the streets to America’s living rooms in the early ’90s. But while The Arsenio Hall Show was a landmark in bringing hip-hop to mainstream audiences, it was also watered-down, polished, and presented in a way that the whole thing slicker and more palatable to those audiences. It also largely avoided political topics, although the show did come under fire for booking — or not booking — some guests that audiences found controversial.

And certainly, hip-hop music remains a draw on late-night, with The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon employing a house band that comes from the rap world in The Roots. Rappers with new projects to promote are often booked as musical guests, performing their viral hits on shows like The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel Live! But more broadly, the Desus & Mero show was a chance to see hip-hop as a culture on TV, in a space that not many of us get to touch. They were not buttoned up. They didn’t wear suits. Their set was modeled after a New York bodega, the type of place where you’d actually find rappers hanging out.

Decked out in fitted caps and Timberland boots, they spoke in the sometimes coded slang of the streets, with all the swagger born of growing up in The Bronx. They interviewed the rappers that the bigger shows wouldn’t; in the past year, they’ve had guests like Baby Keem, Bobby Shmurda, Cordae, and Nas — both the Queens legend who made Illmatic, and the Fox News frustrating Lil Nas X. They debuted underground crooner RMR’s “I’m Not Over You” video. And they got their non-rapper guests to open up about not just their favorite rappers (watch Yo-Yo Ma play DMX!), but all sorts of down-to-earth topics. They interviewed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in their shared borough, taking the format beyond the confines of the studio.

And, in perhaps the biggest coup for the show to date, the duo interviewed former President Barack Obama, who roasted them as naturally as if they were having the conversation on a neighborhood stoop, rather than an empty rented auditorium undoubtedly surrounded by Secret Service agents. Whatever your feelings on the man’s politics, you have to admit that the moment lent legitimacy to hip-hop (and vice versa) in a way that, whether we want to admit it or not, is nice to see after three decades of politicians and pundits blaming rap culture for everything from school shootings to the overall decline of polite society.

So, pour one out for Desus And Mero. They showed that hip-hop could belong in yet another space that wasn’t made for it, that didn’t make provisions for it, and that mostly overlooked it. They brought us — our voices, our faces, our fashion, our outlook, our language, our interests, our culture — to millions of American homes. Late-night might have gotten a little less colorful without them, but those two guys from the Bronx undoubtedly opened a door — and the next Desus and Mero are likely right around the corner.

After two weeks, it’s probably safe to say that Saucy Santana’s Beyonce-sampling new single “Booty” is a hit. The girls love to throw it back, and alongside Latto (whose own anatomy-based single “P*ssy” is shaking up social media now as well), Santana gives them the perfect motivational anthem to do so. Today, the dynamic duo shared the twerk-tastic video for the single and yes, it is everything you should have expected, with teams of colorfully dressed men and women gyrating their derrieres to an interpolation of “Crazy In Love.” Santana even pays a visual homage to the “Crazy In Love” video, donning the same tank top and cutoff jean shorts Beyonce rocked in her “official” solo debut — and yes, that includes the cherry red high heels.

Saucy Santana timed the release of the song and the video perfectly, putting out the song just days before he was announced as one of XXL‘s 2022 Freshman Class. The video arrives on the tail of Saucy’s standout performance in the XXL Freshman Cypher, where he stole the show after running the anchor leg of the installment featuring Doechii, KayCyy, and SoFaygo. Santana is also proving to be pretty much bulletproof, shrugging off a fan backlash for sampling Beyonce after dissing her in old tweets when he was “miserable and broke.” He certainly isn’t either of those things anymore, and with “Booty” taking off, it might not be long until he has a chance to thank Beyonce for clearing the sample in person.

Watch Saucy Santana’s “Booty” video featuring Latto above.

In 2012, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o became one of the household names in the world of college football, putting forth a dominant senior season for the Irish while playing with a heavy heart after the loss of his grandmother and girlfriend on the same day.

However, as the season wore on, that story began to unravel some with it eventually coming to light that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, didn’t actually exist. It was one of the most bizarre and captivating stories in sports that year, as Te’o had been catfished but rather than saying that, created this vast hoax of his girlfriend dying in a car accident and using that as motivation for his season. The why of all of it remains a mystery, and we should learn at least some of what happened for the first time in a new Netflix documentary, Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist.

The documentary features interviews with Te’o, Ronaiah ‘Naya’ Tuiasosopo (who had created the Lennay Kekua identity), Timothy Burke who wrote the Deadspin piece exposing the story in 2013, and others from Te’o’s circle and Notre Dame. It figures to be a fascinating look at one of the strangest sagas in recent college football history and possibly provide some answers for why Te’o went to such great lengths to craft an elaborate narrative about Kekua’s death.

Back in 2019, HBO was working to put together a post-Game Of Thrones lineup as the monumental series came to its (widely panned) conclusion. As it turns out, HBO had not one but fifteen different prequel concepts from various writers for GOT-inspired shows, all inspired by George R. R. Martin’s works. Of that bunch, five were selected, and one eventually moved forward: Bloodmoon.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bloodmoon went into production about a year before Thrones was slated to end, and HBO had high hopes. Francesca Orsi, HBO’s executive VP of drama, recalls the plot being a unique take on the familiar GoT world fans love. “Bloodmoon really stood out as different, with unique world-building. Tonally it felt very adult, sophisticated, and intelligent, and there was a thematic conversation at the center of it about disenfranchisement in the face of colonialism and religious extremism.”

The execs were hopeful, and the show even went on to shoot a pilot on an estimated $30 million to $35 million (!) budget. HBO even snagged Naomi Watts, who was fresh off her stint in Twin Peaks: The Return, as the leading lady of the series (reportedly a socialite with a “hidden secret”). Also among the cast was Jamie Campbell Bower, who instead went on to star as a lead villain in Stranger Things, so it worked out for him in the end!

Despite the show moving ahead, Martin was worried about where the production was going, despite never seeing the pilot. “Bloodmoon was a very difficult assignment,” Martin explained. “We’re dealing with a much more primitive people. There were no dragons yet. A lot of the pilot revolved around a wedding of a Southern house to a Northern house and it got into the whole history of the White Walkers.” Because of this, HBO quietly scrapped the idea, and the pilot is probably sitting in the basement of a warehouse, abandoned alongside Days Of Abandonment, the short-lived Natalie Portman project.

Of course, the show couldn’t have been that bad, right? Robert Greenblatt, who was then chairman of WarnerMedia, said that it looked good, but there wasn’t a future for it. “It wasn’t unwatchable or horrible or anything. It was very well produced and looked extraordinary. But it didn’t take me to the same place as the original series. It didn’t have that depth and richness that the original series’ pilot did.”

Despite the various production snags, House Of The Dragon is finally hitting screens at the end of the summer. Let’s all hope that it was worth it!

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Among the many rap albums we’ve received in 2022, Babyface Ray’s debut album Face is certainly one of the better releases. Since its arrival at the beginning of the year, Babyface has done a great job promoting the 20-track project thanks to the numerous music videos he shared. That trend continues with a brand new visual for “A1 Since Day 1.”

The video for the song, which serves as the opening track for the deluxe version of Face, is a compilation of concert videos as well as backstage and behind-the-scenes clips from Babyface and his crew. Altogether, Babyface uses the video to showcase a solid lifestyle and what it’s brought him.

Two months ago, Babyface Ray shared the deluxe version of Face which added eight songs to the project. The additional songs presented features from Veeze, Baroline, Lucki, DJ Esco, and Lil Yachty while the original project called on G Herbo, 42 Dugg, Wiz Khalifa, Yung Lean, Landstrip Chip, Pusha T, and Icewear Vezzo.

In addition to the video for “A1 Since Day 1,” Babyface Ray, who was recently inducted into the 2022 XXL Freshman Class, has also shared visuals for “Family Over Money,” “6 Mile Show,” “Motown Music,” “My Thoughts 3/Pop’s Prayer,” and “Dancing With The Devil.”

You can watch the video for “A1 Since Day 1” above.

Face (Deluxe) is out now via Wavy Gang/Empire. You can stream it here.

Ahead of his upcoming album, God Save The Animals, singer/songwriter Alex G stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform the album’s second single, “Runner.”

Joined by a backing band of bass guitarists and a keyboardist, Alex delivered a slow, intimate version of the song, on which he recalls a special friend.

“I laugh when you say the wrong thing / Mouthing off to everybody else but me / They hit you with the rolled up magazine,” he sings.

God Save The Animals is set to arrive this fall. The album was written and recorded by Alex, alongside his bandmates Sam Acchione, Molly Germer, John Heywood, and Tom Kelly. Sticking to his signature approach, Alex demoed the tracks in his home studio, before later recording final versions across various studios. Co-produced with Jacob Portrait, the album was recorded in multiple studios across Philadelphia.

According to a release accompanying the album announcement, God Save The Animals “consequently features the work of some half-dozen engineers whom Giannascoli asked to help him produce the “best” recording quality, whatever that meant. The result is an album more dynamic than ever in its sonic palette and its thoroughgoing complexity.”

In addition to a new album, Alex also recently scored an indie horror film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.

Check out the performance above.

God Save The Animals is out 9/23 via Domino. Pre-order it here.

Ken Jennings is back to hosting Jeopardy! this week, and he certainly turned some heads with a quick joke he made during Monday’s episode. The Jeopardy! GOAT took the host podium back from Mayim Bialik as the rotation of temporary hosts continues for Season 38, and while we have no real indication of who will host the show come September’s Season 39, we immediately got a bit of the humor many fans have enjoyed from Jennings in his time as temporary host.

While Bialik has a more straightforward approach, Jennings isn’t afraid to drop some jokes into the proceedings if the mood is right. And on Monday he decided to make a joke about circumcision during Double Jeopardy. After a correct answer from contestant Erica in the Active Bible Verses category, Jennings awarded some “painful” money.

“Since no one had done this for 40 years, God told Joshua to get a knife & do this to male Israelites,” was the answer Jennings read, to which Erica responded “circumcise.” That’s correct, of course, but Jennings had to make a quick joke before moving on in the round.

“That is correct,” he said. “A painful $2,000 for you!”

It was over in a flash but certainly a bit suggestive for a syndicated game show airing after the local news. Reaction among fans seems to be mixed, with some applauding his return and the line while others have framed it as cringeworthy. And while it’s that kind of willingness to crack jokes that’s gotten Jennings in trouble in other areas in the past, it’s also something legendary host Alex Trebek was more than willing to do in his long tenure on the program. And something he even managed to do as a contestant on his record-shattering run of wins.

It’s inevitable to compare Jennings to Bialik given the veritable bake-off the co-hosting duties has become, and some of those comparisons are simply not very fair to either host, especially the extra criticism Bialik has gotten for her style and wardrobe. One major difference we’ve seen is Jennings’ willingness to go there for a joke, even if it doesn’t land with everyone. Still, it’s still far less cringeworthy than this incredible series of wrong answers from another show Alex Trebek once hosted, Classic Concentration. Agony, indeed.

[via NY Post]