Category: Viral

Rick Ross has some new legal troubles to deal with. The rapper was sued by St. Louis concert promoters after he missed a show back in January 2021. Antoine Meeks and Orland Watson filed a lawsuit earlier this month that seeks $74,000 in damages from Ross. According to the St. Louis Business Journal, Meeks, whose company is Black Luxury Entertainment LLC, and Watson, who’s connected to Rockhouse Entertainment, claimed Ross was contracted to appear at the Pagent in St. Louis, but the show was eventually canceled after he didn’t appear for the concert.

Prior to the cancellation, Meeks, Watson, and their respective companies said Ross was set to receive $60,000 in two payments through their contract. The first $30,000 was paid on October 21, 2019, while the second half would be given at the time show. The promoters also paid $6,000 for the venue, $3,300 to accommodate Ross’ travel expenses, $4,100 on marketing and promotions, and $25,000 on “production costs.”

As he awaits further details in this lawsuit, Ross will most likely continue work on his upcoming album, Richer Than Ever. Back in September, he said the project was 95% complete. He and Drake are also reportedly working on a joint album, which former NFL wide receiver Chad Johnson revealed in a tweet. “The joint album they’re doing together [will] unseat all projects they’ve done to date,” he wrote.

On Friday DMX’s posthumous album, Exodus was released. Fans of the late rapper can rest assure knowing that the final body of work was completed before DMX tragically passed. Swizz Beatz, who executive produced Exdous, also revealed that a bulk of the project was completed after DMX and Snoop Dogg’s Verzuz battle last summer. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Swizz spoke about the energy DMX had while he recorded the album — or lack thereof.

“We’d been talking about this record for a long time, but after we did Verzuz [in July 2020], he was ready,” Swizz said during the interview. “He saw that the people were showing him love and the fans were ready.” He added, “X was tired. The whole time we were doing the album, he was excited, but he was like, ‘I think this is going to be my last album.’ I was just like, ‘Let’s get through this and then let’s see; let’s judge it later, let’s not judge it now.’”

Swizz concluded, “I just tried keeping him in the now spirit, instead of thinking about what he’s not gonna do. But obviously, he knew something we didn’t.”

The famed hip-hop producer also shared his own feelings about the album now that it’s out. “I can at least listen to a song now without breaking down,” Swizz said. “I’m making it look strong, but I’m crushed, I’m destroyed, I’m hurt. But I had to pull this through for him and his family and for his legacy.”

You can read the full Rolling Stone interview here.

Exodus is out now via Def Jam. Get it here.

Maybe the most terrifying idea ever introduced on Black Mirror, that grim sci-fi anthology show about evil tech that’s almost certainly right around the corner, is the “cookie,” a digital clone shown in their pitch black holiday special entitled “White Christmas.” They’re copies of people who are 100% sure they’re the real person, not a clone. And they’re invariably tortured by non-clones. At one point a cookie made from a to-be-convicted murderer is trapped in a small cabin and forced to experience time at 1,000 years per minute, for days on end.

Anyway, good news, everybody! A slim variation on the Black Mirror “cookie” might become real. In a new piece in Aeon magazine (as caught by Insider), a philosopher, Dr. Rebecca Roache, speaks about overseeing a team examining ways technology could transform punishment. One idea they’ve come up with is using biotechnology to trick the mind into thinking they’re serving a 1,000-year sentence in an afternoon.

“There are a number of psychoactive drugs that distort people’s sense of time, so you could imagine developing a pill or a liquid that made someone feel like they were serving a 1,000-year sentence,” Dr. Roache tells the publication.

That seems…not humane? Surely no therapist on earth would be equipped to deal with someone convinced they’ve just spent over 12 times an average lifespan in what sounds like a form of solitary confinement. (Incidentally, the title of the Aeon article is “Hell on Earth.”)

But there’s more! The team has another idea involving uploading minds to computers, which is even more Black Mirroresque. Dr. Roache writes on her blog:

“If the speed-up were a factor of a million, a millennium of thinking would be accomplished in eight and a half hours… Uploading the mind of a convicted criminal and running it a million times faster than normal would enable the uploaded criminal to serve a 1,000 year sentence in eight-and-a-half hours. This would, obviously, be much cheaper for the taxpayer than extending criminals’ lifespans to enable them to serve 1,000 years in real time.”

Cruel and thrifty! Dr. Roache tried to spin it as a positive by asking tough questions about our current system of punishment, which is also barbarous and also not very effective:

“To me, these questions about technology are interesting because they force us to rethink the truisms we currently hold about punishment. When we ask ourselves whether it’s inhumane to inflict a certain technology on someone, we have to make sure it’s not just the unfamiliarity that spooks us,” Dr Roache said.

“Is it really OK to lock someone up for the best part of the only life they will ever have, or might it be more humane to tinker with their brains and set them free? When we ask that question, the goal isn’t simply to imagine a bunch of futuristic punishments – the goal is to look at today’s punishments through the lens of the future.”

These are interesting ideas, well worth discussing. But people couldn’t get past how Black Mirror-y it was.

And just to stress this point, if people are comparing your idea to Black Mirror, it’s probably one worth ditching.

(Via Aeon and Insider)

Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema has become one of the most controversial figures in Congress, and that’s saying something. She has long touted herself as someone who can reach across the aisle, but in an age when almost all Republicans colleagues are intransigent Trumpists, that’s become a quality does more harm than good. She refuses to kill the filibuster, and she got heat for the flamboyant and bizarre way she voted down a bill to increase the minimum wage.

Sinema also, along with West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, made a big show of trying to “implore” their GOP colleagues to vote to launch the Jan 6. commission, which would examine what led to the failed MAGA coup that kicked off 2021 and which she herself had called “ciritical.” That didn’t work, to the surprise of no one aside from perhaps Sinema and Manchin. But even Sinema herself may not have been convinced: As per azcentral, she was a no-show for the vote on Friday.

No reason was given, so perhaps she did have a good excuse — although if she did, she also maybe would have provided that when asked by the press. Her spokesperson, when pressed, merely said “she will be entering into the Congressional record that she would’ve voted ‘yes.’” So consider it a kind of phantom vote for a bill that died 54-35, failing to get enough Republican support.

When news broke that Sinema wasn’t even there to vote, people were pissed.

Some invoked her viral “f*ck off” ring.

Some called her the Democratic Susan Collins, the GOP’s excuse for an “across the aisle” Republican who also rarely does the right thing.

(Via azcentral)

For decades, the greatest film of all time was Citizen Kane. Then it lost its perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes due to a bad review — not even a new bad review, but an old one, from when it was released in 1941. So cinema’s finest accomplishment was now obviously Paddington 2. Why? Because, unlike Orson Welles’ ceaselessly inventive masterpiece, it had was 100% fresh on an internet review aggregation site. And because people really liked this nice movie about a kind talking bear who’s a fount of decency in a cruel and uncaring world.

But no more. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a new negative review has been filed to Rotten Tomatoes. The pan comes from Film Academy’s Eddie Harrison, and for the record it’s not a mere piece of trolling, and it’s even thoughtful and well-written. His argument is that the movies betray the original Michael Bond creation. He talks about it being a “beloved fixture of my childhood,” but he also contextualizes it in history. Being the misadventures of an immigrant from Peru, they were, he says, initially “part of a wave of stories designed to help kids understand the multi-cultural make-up of society.”

They were also intentionally very modest. “Paddington’s adventures are traditionally small scale; putting up some wallpaper or fixing a tap,” Harrison writes. “The Paddington movies see him going to jail, organising a prison break or running along the roofs of moving trains like Indiana Jones; that ain’t my Paddington Bear to be sure.”

He goes on to call the Ben Whishaw-voiced Paddington “over-confident, snide and sullen,” as well as “manky-looking.” He concludes that he’s a “sinister, malevolent imposter who should be shot into space, or nuked from space at the first opportunity.”

Fair enough! The world would be a very boring place if we all agreed on everything, including movies with an excellent villainous Hugh Grant. Paddington 2’s reign as the greatest film of all time — an honor it only achieved semi-jokingly anyway — was brief, but even with “only” 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s still in august company. In fact, it’s right up there with Citizen Kane.

(Via THR)

In the wake of the late DMX’s tragic, untimely death, his fans and peers have been sharing their memories and stories that reveal just what made him such a formidable force in the hip-hop world. Who better to testify to X’s power as a live performer than one of the best and most influential New York rappers in the game, Jay-Z. As the clip below shows, in a recent episode of LeBron James’ show, The Shop on HBO, even Jay-Z found X a tough act to follow. Just as he showed his fallibility in a recent episode by admitting he sometimes forgets his own lyrics, Jay let James and crew know that following up a DMX set was no easy feat.

“X is about to go on, and I’m like, you know, I wanna see,” he begins. “X is going before me. And then he goes (growls), and the f*cking arena goes crazy. First of all, it’s deafening… and I’m like oh sh*t.” Jay goes on to explain the other elements of X’s set that get the crowd hype, including ripping his shirt off halfway through his set, and then, of course, leading the entire crowd in prayer as a closing act. Then, after all that, it’s time for Jay-Z to take the stage — a tough act to follow indeed. Check out his retelling of the set above, it showcases exactly why Jay is such a successful figure in pop culture in the first place, he’s a great storyteller. And if you’re craving more DMX, check out the posthumous Exodus album his label released this past Friday.

With the Clippers against the ropes, Kawhi Leonard picked the team up and responded in Game Three with a win in Dallas, bringing the Clippers closer in the series and keeping their championship hopes alive.

Leonard finished with 36 points on 13-17 shooting, played excellent defense around the floor, and gutted out an impressive 43 minutes despite consistent injury management over the past several seasons. He was able to consistently create openings for himself in the mid-range and get to the line.

Though the Mavs got off to a hot start and a double-digit lead in the first quarter, Los Angeles came back quickly to finish that period down just 34-31.

Still, Luka Doncic gave it all he had on the other side, putting up a 44-9-9 line that is right up there with his incredible performances through both of the past two playoff series between these two teams.

For the most part, nobody on the Clippers could guard Doncic, and Patrick Beverley went to the bench early in the game after a technical foul and did not play in the second half. Instead, we saw Clippers coach Ty Lue pivot to playing Terance Mann even more and even playing Rajon Rondo on Doncic at times.

Mann brought energy in his 19 minutes, scrapping defensively on Doncic and also getting into it with Willie Cauley-Stein at one point in a play that earned Cauley-Stein a technical foul. The physicality that came between these two teams in the Bubble has continued into this series and led to more than a few dust-ups.

The series will stay in Dallas on Sunday at 9:30 p.m. ET as the Clippers look to make good on their title dreams.

The Boston Celtics have taken a game off of the Brooklyn Nets. A perfect storm in Beantown came together to help the 7-seed in the Eastern Conference cut their series deficit to the 2-seed in half, as Boston picked up a 125-119 win on Friday night.

The man of the night, as is so often the case when good things happen to the Celtics, was Jayson Tatum. The All-Star forward set a playoff career-high with 50 points on 16-for-30 shooting with seven assists, six rebounds, two steals, and a block. He was magnificent, having an answer for seemingly anything and everything the Nets tried to throw at him and playing a major role in Boston overcoming an early 19-4 deficit.

Another thing that usually happens when Boston wins: Marcus Smart was able to score efficiently, dropping 23 on 8-for-11 shooting. Add in that Tristan Thompson (19 points, 13 rebounds) and Evan Fournier (15 points, five rebounds), and the Celtics were able to weather a not particularly good scoring night from Kemba Walker (six points on 3-for-14 shooting, although he had eight rebounds) and a mere 10 points off the bench.

It also helped that Brooklyn had an off night by its lofty standards. James Harden and Kevin Durant were unreal — the former scored 41 points on 11-for-18 shooting and a 7-for-12 clip from three with 10 assists and seven rebounds, while the latter scored 39 on 13-for-24 shooting with nine boards.

Outside of them, though, there wasn’t a ton of offensive output. Kyrie Irving, in his return to Boston, score 16 points on 6-for-17 shooting, while the remaining six players combined to score a total of 23 points.

It is still a testament to how well the Celtics played that they were able to win. For their relatively off night, Brooklyn still hit 45.2 percent of their attempts from the field, 42.1 percent of their threes, and made 27 free throws, which would be good enough to win under most circumstances. Boston, however, was scorching from the field, making 50.6 percent of their field goals and 41 percent of their triples. Thompson, in particular, deserves a tip of a cap for his work on the offensive glass, as he hauled in nine offensive boards, which ties a playoff career-high.

Despite all of this, the Celtics still barely held off the Nets, a reminder of how good Brooklyn can be and how fine the margins are when dealing with a team this talented. But for a Boston squad that has been to hell and back this year when it comes to injuries and players missing time due to COVID-19 protocols, picking up a win and making it a series against one of the favorites to win the Eastern Conference is a nice boost. And who knows? If Tatum can have a few more games where he goes toe-to-toe with any combination of Durant, Harden, and Irving, perhaps Boston can elongate this series a little bit more.

Game 4 between the Celtics and Nets will take place on Sunday evening. Things are slated to tip off at 7 p.m. EST on TNT.

After cleaning up with a whopping ten wins at the Billboard Music Awards last Sunday — you hear that, Grammys? — The Weeknd is doubling down on his promise that new era is coming. Though the R&B superstar didn’t even get to tour behind his most successful album yet, due to the blight that was COVID-19 on 2020 live events, he’s already unveiling a new concept anyway. After teasing the new era as “The Dawn” in one of his many acceptance speeches at the BBMAs, Abel hopped on Twitter this afternoon to double down on his promise.

“Ladies and gentleman, the…” he wrote, a cryptic teaser that had fans quickly filling in the blank: “Dawn is coming.”

Of course, it’s also a reference to a now-beloved SNL meme, when Daniel Craig introduced the star on the show. So do with it what you will!

Tesfaye’s After Hours era was a dark one punctuated by his constant red suit and facial injuries and bandages, a visual shtick that kept fans guessing as to how he’d show up to public events. If the “Save Your Tears” performance at the Billboard Music Awards was any indication, that visual is now down. His crips black suit with a long trench was the new look, and even if Ariana didn’t join him for the BBMAs performance, her appearance at his iHeartRadio Music Awards for their new remix was another indication that the pair might have more new music in the works. This was Ari’s first appearance after her secret at-home wedding, so it’s a big deal that she made it out on that stage.

Whether The Dawn era includes Ari or not, it’s definitely coming soon. And new music from The Weeknd is the perfect way to head back into festival season.

The first two games of the Atlanta Hawks’ series with the New York Knicks have been defined by cagey, hotly-contested basketball, with the Hawks coming back to narrowly win Game 1 at Madison Square Garden and the Knicks rallying to defend their home court in Game 2. On Friday night, the series shifted to Atlanta, and the Hawks very much managed to rise to the occasion.

While the game’s first quarter was tight, Atlanta blew the doors open in the second and managed to keep New York at arm’s length for the remainder of the game from that point on. By the time the final horn blew, the Hawks picked up a 105-94 win to put the 5-seed in the Eastern Conference up on the 4-seed, two games to one.

Two things defined this game, with the first being Atlanta’s ability to get whatever it wanted on offense from a variety of players. As a team, the Hawks shot 42-for-81 (51.9 percent) from the field and 16-for-27 (59.3 percent) from three. Trae Young, as he oftentimes does, led the way with 21 points and 14 assists, but every member of Atlanta’s starting five scored in double-digits, as did a pair of players (Danilo Gallinari and Kevin Huerter) off the bench.

Young didn’t have his most efficient game by any stretch, going 8-for-19 from the field and 2-for-6 from three, but his sheer gravity and ability to make plays led to him setting up his teammates with ease. He didn’t need to have a gigantic scoring night — even though he was the team’s top scorer — because Young was able to pick apart the vaunted Knicks’ defense with his passing.

Also defining this game was how horrific the Knicks were offensively. Atlanta’s defense deserves credit, as it once again frustrated Julius Randle (14 points on 2-for-15 shooting and an 0-for-8 mark on two-point attempts). Beyond him, though, New York’s offense could not do anything outside of giving the ball to Derrick Rose and getting out of the way.

Rose, to his credit, was quite good, scoring 30 points on 13-for-21 shooting while knocking down three of his five triples.

But otherwise, the Knicks’ offense was just flat-out bad. The team scored on 29 of its 81 field goal attempts and nine of its 30 threes, good for percentages of 35.8 percent and 30 percent, respectively. If not for some especially good free throw shooting from Randle (8-for-8) and Nerlens Noel (10-for-12), the final score could have been uglier. Credit goes to the Hawks, of course, which competed on defense and made the Knicks work for seemingly everything.

The series is hardly over, of course, but New York will need to figure out how to get its offense going in order to keep the Hawks from wrapping things up quickly. But for now, both teams will get a day off before returning to the floor on Sunday. The game tips at 1 p.m. EST on ABC.