The bar has been set for the remaining 62 games that we’ll watch in the NCAA Tournament this year. In the first game of the 2021 NCAA Tournament, No. 7 Florida and No. 10 Virginia Tech went blow-for-blow for 40 minutes, and thanks to heroics from Hokies guard Nahiem Alleyne, that was not enough to determine a winner.

The Gators went into the final minute of the game with a five-point lead. But unfortunately for the 7-seed in the South Region, Alleyne caught fire, scoring seven points in the final 49 seconds of the game to tie things up at 64 and force overtime. The biggest moment came following a pair of missed free throws by Anthony Duruji — Florida was up by three, but he was unable to ice things with seven seconds remaining.

From there, Va. Tech’s Keve Aluma hauled in the rebound, found Alleyne, and the rest is history.

Regardless of whether or not the Hokies win the game, this is a shot that fans of the program won’t forget any time soon. They will, however, want to forget this dunk by Duruji that happened right at the start of overtime, because the Gators are going to take a picture of this and put it on posters across their basketball facility.

The best new hip-hop this week includes albums, videos, and songs from Benny The Butcher, Guapdad 4000, and more. The Buffalo bar bruiser and the West Oakland scam rapper have been teasing their respective projects for several weeks in the lead-up to their releases; meanwhile, Brooklyn real-life rhymer Kota The Friend pushed up his own release with respected producer Statik Selektah.

On the singles side of things, this week saw releases from the likes of Lil Durk, whose OTF crew shared their “Jump” video; Mick Jenkins, who linked up with dance Grammy winner Kaytranada for the groovy “Designer Frames“; and Rich Brian, who reflected on his artistic growth over the last few years with “Sydney.”

Friday saw the releases of Key Glock and Young Dolph’s “Sleep With The Roaches,” Lil Tjay, Polo G, and Fivio Foreign’s “Headshot,” and J Balvin’s “Tu Veveno,” along with the releases listed below.

Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending March 19, 2021.

Albums/EPs/Mixtapes

Benny The Butcher & Harry Fraud — Plugs I Met

On his last full-length project, released a bare five months ago, Benny worked extensively with aptly-named California hitmaker Hit-Boy. On his latest, he sticks to the one producer principle but changes gears with fellow soulful East Coaster Harry Fraud. With both, he delivers stripped-down, bar-heavy kingpin narratives, making sure to share all the dirty details that make his rags-to-riches raps less glamorous than grimy.

El Prez — Angels With Dirty Faces

LA underground veteran El Prez is nearly four years removed from his last project, 2017’s LabTrappinCalifornia. He wears the years on his earnest, straightforward, community-focused raps, including features from fellow fixtures of the West Coast scene Blu and Thurz.

Guapdad 4000 & Illmind — 1176

On the West Oakland native’s last album 2018’s Dior Deposits, he was an ostentatious adherent to the philosophy of “scam or die.” But on his newest release, he looks his demons in the eye on one of the most heartfelt, vulnerable coming-of-age albums in hip-hop history.

Kota The Friend & Statik Selektah — To Kill A Sunrise

Brooklyn indie rap hero couldn’t wait to release his latest and it’s easy to hear why. When you’ve got songs this sincere, they just beg to be heard. While Kota’s penmanship is as crisp as ever, credit must given to Statik Selektah, whose traditionalist rhythms bring out the best in his collaborator — Kota is just spitting on this album, he’s spitting some of the best bars of his career to date.

Tokyo Jetz — Cancel Culture

I’m having a hard time remembering when Tokyo Jetz was ever “canceled,” such as anyone ever can be. But rather than rehashing the debate about whether “cancel culture” is really a thing (it isn’t), I’ll just recommend her album Cancel Culture, which is better than its title might imply (a similar thing happened with Belly and Mumble Rap). The Floridian T.I. protege remains uncowed in the face of whatever misstep led to her album’s title, snapping with all the audacity of her peers — and a lot more finesse.

Singles/Videos

Benny The Butcher — “Thanksgiving”

With a video that directly touches on his 2020 shooting, Benny reels off a string of paranoid raps detailing the devastation the drug game can wreak in its wake.

Courtney Bell — “Deebo” Feat. Icewear Vezzo

Detroit’s grimy underground has received plenty of spotlight in recent months, but Courtney Bell stands out by having one foot in that scene and the other firmly in the progressive styles of predecessors like the rappers on Dreamville and TDE. It makes for an interesting blend.

E-40 — “I Stand On That” Feat T.I & Joyner Lucas”

Over a flute-driven, trappish beat, the two veterans trade rapid-fire, multisyllabic bars with the younger artist, bragging about their accomplishments, hood certifications, and principles.

TheHxliday — “Opps”

The Motown Records rap product takes a respectable swing at reviving the cloud rap style. It’s not a clean hit, but it’s a solid double.

J.I. — “Calling Out 2 You (Intro)”

The melodic rap style that has come to define New York’s biggest standouts in recent years is the foundation of J.I.’s style, and here, he uses it to great effect over some slow-building, regal-sounding triumph music.

L’Orange & Namir Blade — “Corner Store Scandal”

The art rap adherents have been working on a joint project titled Imaginary Everything and inspired by 1970s Blaxploitation movies. That aesthetic is evident in the woozy electric guitars and swanky brass work that buttresses Blade’s sinuous rhymes

Mother Nature — “Cloudz” Feat. Sir Michael Rocks

Chicago rhymes-and-beats traditionalists Mother Nature recruit one of the Windy City’s most well-respected vets for an elevated display of muscular rap over a spacey, futuristic beat that invokes some 5th-dimensional drill.

White Dave — “Appraise”

One of the standout tracks from the Judas And The Black Messiah soundtrack, “Appraise” features a simple, black-and-white video following the South Central native as he explains his worldview, as informed by police violence, Black business ownership, and a community-centered outlook on liberation.

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

Yung Baby Tate and Flo Milli released their exuberant collaboration, “I Am,” back in December, and today, they share the colorful, artsy video for the song directed by Andre Muir, who previously worked with Mahalia, Vic Mensa, and Adidas. The video, which features what I’m calling a “baby Beyonce” aesthetic, puts Black girl magic at the forefront, while the two women pamper themselves and flex their spiritual wealth.

Both rappers experienced big breakouts in 2020. Yung Baby Tate, who signed with Issa Rae’s Atlantic-backed record label Raedio, followed up her well-received, self-released 2019 debut Girls with After The Rain, a seven-song EP that featured “I Am” and 6lack on “Let It Rain.” She also landed a spot on Dreamville’s compilation Revenge Of The Dreamers III on the song “Don’t Hit Me Right Now” with Bas, Cozz, Buddy, and Guapdad 4000. Last month, she featured on Tkay Maidza’s “Kim.”

Meanwhile, Flo Milli came out with her debut album Ho, Why Is You Here?, in July, becoming one of the biggest breakout stars of the year. Since then, she’s featured on Rich The Kid’s “Nasty” with Mulatto and Rubi Rose and released her own singles “Roaring 20s” and “Back Pack” this year.

Watch Yung Baby Tate’s “I Am” video featuring Flo Milli above.

Yung Baby Tate is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Steve Bannon sure keeps himself busy these days. Between calling for Dr. Fauci’s head on a pike and celebrating his white-collar crime pardon from former President Trump (which isn’t working out totally well for him, by the way, because prosecutors aren’t dismissing the case), he’s always stirring up far-right fury in podcasting land. The Associated Press, however, is reporting that one of Bannon’s dreams has gone up in smoke, given that Italy is not at all happy that the ex-White House advisor and white supremacist wanted to set up tentacles in their country by launching a “gladiator” school on the hilltop grounds of a 13th century monastery.

The Culture Ministry in Italy moved to shut down those plans, and the country’s top administrative court upheld the sentiment while ruling that a Bannon-affiliated (and Human Dignity Institute-backed), far-right think tank could not spread its rhetoric in this school. A forty-page ruling laid down the law, so to speak, and the AP reveals how Bannon planned to raise money to run the school to train some sort of far-right hive mind. Australia news adds that the battle to shut down the school’s plans has been an ongoing fight for years, and here’s Bannon’s original vision for this thing:

Former Breitbart chief Bannon, a Catholic, is a trustee of the institute, and planned to turn the space into a hub where students would learn philosophy, theology, history, and economics, and receive political training. He was aiming the courses at right-wing Catholic activists and had been paying €100,000-a-year rent ($A153,000) on the former Carthusian monastery for the DHI to use the building from early 2018.

Bannon told CBS News in February 2019 that the school, called the Academy of the Judeo-Christian West, will be a “modern gladiator school” that teaches the foundational tenants of Western people. “It’s to give people kind of in mid-career that are looking to do something different, maybe get involved in media, maybe get involved in politics, maybe get involved in NGOs, to give them kind of the underpinnings of the Judeo-Christian West,” he said.

Naturally, Bannon is quoted by the AP as calling the court ruling a “joke” that “brings further shame on Italy’s already stained judiciary in eyes of the whole world.” He further slammed the Italian government as “corrupt” and “incompetent,” and he firmly believes that the shut-down of his school is a political move, which is, you know, not quite the insult that Bannon probably intends it to be. Certainly, Italy already has enough sinister organizations like the Mafia angling for greater power within its borders amid this pandemic. Dealing with cleaning up Bannon’s white-supremacist ideology is clearly an issue they hoped to ban ahead of time, rather than deal with after the fact.

(Via Associated Press & News.com.au)

After going quiet for a few months, IDK is back in action and he hasn’t missed a step at all. The DMV native returns with “Just Like Martin” and it’s a hard-hitting track that is sure to turning up as the weekend nears an arrival. The track is named after famed actor Martin Lawerence, which the rapper revealed in an Instagram post at the end of February. He references a famous line from the actor’s beloved self-titled TV show by rapping, “If we ain’t sexin’ (Yeah), you might have to get to steppin’.”

The single will hopefully kick off the campaign for the rapper’s upcoming album, U See 4 Yourself. The new effort will most likely arrive almost two years after his major-label debut, Is He Real?. Fans of the DMV rapper haven’t been deprived of music since his debut. IDK reconvened with his close collaborators for his IDK & Friends 2 project last year and blessed fans with a number of quality singles that include “2 Cents,” “King Alfred,” “Cereal” with DJ Scheme, JID, and Kenny Mason.

Watch the “Just Like Martin” video above.

IDK is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

One of the things about the pandemic we’ll always remember are the people who got caught on camera completely losing it because they had to wear a mask inside of a supermarket or restaurant.

These are the people who were given the opportunity to be either part of the problem or the solution to the global pandemic and they often unapologetically chose the former.

While some of these incidents result in ugly confrontations, a business owner in North Texas is having a little fun with the anti-maskers that frequent his restaurant. He’s posted a sign notifying them, upfront, that they will be charged if they don’t comply with his mark rule.

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via WFAA / YouTube

Legends diner owner Wayne LaCombe says that he charges “$50 if I have to explain why masks are mandatory” and “$75 if I have to hear why you disagree.”

The tongue-in-cheek sign has been getting a lot of attention at his restaurant and online. “People laughing taking pictures of it,” LaCombe said. “Mostly great reactions.”

The fact that the sign has been generating mostly positive responses is comforting because earlier this month Texas governor Greg Abbott lifted the state’s mask mandate, leaving many to fear a massive COVID-19 outbreak.

‘Mask surcharge’: Business owners’ sign gains attention

www.youtube.com

But, as a private business owner, LaCombe is allowed to create his own rules for his restaurant, so he hasn’t changed his mask policy. One of the main reasons why is that his clientele is older and more likely to be seriously affected by the virus.

“Our business is 50, 60, 70, 80-year-olds,” Wayne LaCombe said. “Unless we all work as a team, we’re not going to finish the race.” He asks his customers to wear a mask for his safety, too.

“I just can’t afford to get the virus. We’d have to shut our business down,” LaCombe said.

One customer had an issue with a restaurant owner telling him what to do about his health. So LaCombe’s wife, Kat, the co-owner and chef at the restaurant, had to take him to school on Facebook.

Kat is a retired RN with 28 years in oncology.

“I do have a Medical degree. 28 years as a Registered Nurse, specializing in Oncology. Also 5 years teaching nursing,” she wrote. “With my background in healthcare I feel that we are doing the right thing. At the restaurant we comply with city and state mandates. But some things must be done without someone telling you to.”

“I with my husband try to protect and respect the people who come to our restaurant,” she added. “The sign was a sort of joke….it was aimed at the people who feel the need to try to argue (and of course they’re not wearing masks at the time). No one wants this world to get back to normal more than small business owners.”

In the end, we’re all just trying to get back to normal, and hopefully, found some crumbs of joy along the way. Good for the LaCombes for sticking up for what’s right and protecting the health of themselves and others at a time when many around them are not. Also, that sign is one of the funniest things to come out of this dark time.

Sometimes the best new R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm and blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the best new R&B jams that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.

This week Joyce Wrice drops off her Overgrown project, Ant Clemons offers his new release “Story Of My Life,” and Ty Dolla Sign grabs Bryson Tiller for the remix to “Be Yourself.”

Joyce Wrice — Overgrown

Joyce Wrice arrives this week with her full-length project Overgrown. Many have been waiting for this as Joyce shows great promise. Overgrown contains features from Freddie Gibbs, Masego, and Westside Gunn, among others.

Ant Clemons — “Story Of My Life”

Ant Clemons is such a treasure and the award-winning singer’s latest single “Story Of My Life” shows why. With a voice that’s as smooth as it is relaxing, it’s time to get into the talented singer-songwriter if you haven’t already.

Ty Dolla Sign — “Be Yourself (Remix)” Feat. Bryson Tiller, Jhene Aiko & DJ Mustard

Ty Dolla Sign taps Bryson Tiller for the remix of his song “Be Yourself” with Jhene Aiko and DJ Mustard. Needless to say, it’s a perfect match.

Dee Gatti — “Clear My Mind”

Fort Worth singer Dee Gatti is here with another gracious slow jam in the form of “Clear My Mind.” The song is set to live on her debut EP Just Called To Say, set to be released later this year

Autumn Corin — “Myself”

Up-and-coming R&B singer Autumn Corin shares the music video for her upbeat cut “Myself” and she’s all about putting herself first. The song is the follow-up to her DDG assisted song “On Your Mind” and is just a taste of what’s to come.

Asiahn — The Interlude EP Orchestral Performance

As if Asiahn’s EP The Interlude could get any better, the singer offers a live orchestral version of the project. There’s something about hearing Asiahn sing live that does it.

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

In the cutthroat world of fast-food, there can only be one top dog for any given dish. Whether we’re talking chicken sandwiches, nuggets, bacon cheeseburgers, or french fries — every brand out there wants to be the best in the hearts and minds of diners. For 26 years, Pizza Hut has owned the stuffed crust pizza lane (not for lack of competition, shout out to Little Caesars for a valiant attempt) but now the Big Papa is stepping into the scene with their own mozzarella stuffed pie.

Yep, we’ve got a stuffed crust duel on our hands. Papa vs the Hut.

Today we’ll be pitting Papa John’s new “Epic Stuffed Crust” pizza against the OG — Pizza Hut’s original Stuffed Crust. The former is new, the latter has gone through some updates since first dropping on March 25th, 1995, and is the only permanent stuffed crust pizza on a national pizza chain menu. Right off the bat, we’re taking a point from Papa John’s for calling their own dish “epic,” but besides that, it’s going to be all about the taste.

Presentation

I attempted to order both pizzas the same way — pepperoni and spinach — but I ate these pizzas on separate days and ordered from Papa John’s before realizing that Pizza Hut dropped spinach as a topping. As a result, we’re giving Papa John’s back the point we took away for calling their dumb name. Both pies are back at zero now, let’s get into the way they look.

The Papa John’s pie had a noticeably drier appearance to it, the crust appeared much flatter when compared to Pizza Hut’s and while we appreciate the extra layer of cheese above the toppings, it just doesn’t look quite as appetizing as Pizza Hut’s pepperoni-loaded pie. Pizza Hut’s pie featured a bubblier crust that appeared to be bursting with cheese. It also looks like it was brushed with butter, giving it an appetizing glossy sheen.

Point Goes To: The Hut

Flavor

Presentation is important, but in any food review flavor is what we’re after. That’s where things take a big turn. Despite both being essentially the same pizza (damn you Pizza Hut, put spinach back on the menu!) these pies couldn’t taste more different. Once I bit into Papa John’s stuffed crust I instantly understood why it had a drier appearance than Pizza Hut’s — it’s because the dough had a fresh dusting of flour, proof that it was recently slapped into pizza form.

I’m a bit of a dough snob — I prefer to make my own — so it’s easy for me to pick up on whether or not I’m having fresh dough. Pizza Hut had the telltale signs of a frozen dough base with fresh toppings. That buttery gloss that I spotted? It was grease and it was a little overboard. The Pizza Hut pie came out floppy, a little wet, and the sauce was overly bright — to the point of being offensively acidic.

From a pure flavor perspective, just about everything — from the dough to the sauce to the pepperoni to the mozzarella cheese — tasted better on the Papa John’s pizza.

Point Goes To: Papa John’s

Crust

The two pizzas couldn’t be more different here either.

Pizza Hut’s crust wasn’t as packed with cheese as the little air bubbles on the crust led me to believe.

What you have is a very thin layer of what tastes like skim mozzarella, which is to say a little flavorless. It felt more like cheese in my mouth than it tasted like cheese.

Papa John’s crust tasted like it was full of significantly better quality mozzarella cheese. And because Papa John’s dough was significantly less greasy, the bites were filling without slipping into fatty-oily excess. I could actually taste the mozzarella, rather than just sense it.

Overall, Papa John’s didn’t leave me feeling like I was eating something I shouldn’t. Whereas Pizza Hut’s pie made me feel like I was engaging in a dare.

Point Goes To: Papa John’s

The Bottom Line

It might not look like a blowout, but Papa John’s probably deserves more than a single point win for how much better an overall experience the Epic Stuffed Crust pizza provides. Hands down, it’s the better pie.

Faith Hill’s “This Kiss” was one of the biggest country crossover hits of 1998, as it managed top-ten peaks on Billboard‘s Hot 100 and adult contemporary charts. Now, the song has gotten a 2021-ready reinterpretation via Alex Lahey, who covered the track as an Amazon Music exclusive. For her cover, Lahey cranked up the tempo and added electric guitars, turning the country-pop song into a modern indie rocker.

Lahey said of the cover in a statement, “For years, I’ve had this big idea of doing an indie rock cover of Faith Hill’s ‘This Kiss.’ Two key changes, that iconic chorus, a million vocal harmonies — what more could you want? It was such a treat pulling this together with my mates Oscar and Jess as we navigated the depths of Melbourne’s lockdown last year and I’m so stoked that Amazon Music are putting it out perfectly timed with International Women’s Month. Go off.”

Lahey last popped up with her 2009 album The Best Of Luck Club. As for Hill, she has kept mostly quiet in terms of music in recent years. Her latest album was The Rest Of Our Life, a collaborative effort with husband Tim McGraw from 2017. Her most recent solo album was 2008’s Joy To The World.

Listen to Lahey’s rendition of Hill’s “This Kiss” below.

We’ve all been finding different ways to pass the time during the pandemic. Some people caught up with old friends over Zoom or finished the books that they’ve been meaning to read for years (Paul Reiser’s complete works isn’t going to read itself), while others watched Friends. So much Friends. Billions of minutes of Friends.

USA Today reports that the NBC sitcom, which ended 17 (!) years, “was the most-watched comedy on broadcast or cable TV, with 96.7 billion minutes viewed, a 30 percent jump from 2019.” For comparison’s sake: Netflix subscribers watched 57 billion minutes of The Office last year (USA Today‘s data, compiled by Nielsen, does not include streaming). In second and third place were The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men, although older comedies saw a viewership increase in 2020, too, like The Andy Griffith Show (58.3 billion minutes, up 29 percent), I Love Lucy (9.3 billion minutes, up nine percent), and Good Times (6.9 billion minutes, up 24 percent).

Cable viewers also watched a ton of Urkel:

The growth rate was even larger for some shows with casts that are more representative of the nation’s diversity. Year-to-year viewing of ABC’s Family Matters (1989-1998), which focuses on a Black family, skyrocketed, recording 11.4 billion viewing minutes for a 392% increase from 2019… George Lopez (2002-07), built around a popular comedian of Mexican-American heritage, recorded nearly 11 billion viewing minutes, a 113% jump, while The Bernie Mac Show (2001-06) was up 71% to 3.3 billion minutes.

No wonder every old show is coming back, including, in a sense, Friends.

(Via USA Today)