Category: Viral

Kanye West has been a busy bee on Twitter recently, but especially yesterday. He spoke deeply about musicians not owning their master recordings, he shared his recording contracts page-by-page, and he posted a video of himself peeing on one of his Grammy Awards. He crossed the line with one of his tweets, though, in which he shared a journalist’s phone number. That resulted in him being temporarily blocked from tweeting, but it appears he found a way to communicate on the platform.

Last night, conservative political commentator Candace Owens shared a message that apparently came from Kanye himself, as she tweeted, “Kanye wanted me to let everyone know that his Twitter account has been locked out by the Twitter Gods.” She also included the hashtag “#FreeKanye.”

As for the offending tweet in question, it appears it had been deleted since yesterday afternoon. As CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy noted noted yesterday, in these situations, Twitter “hides tweets that break its rules from public view, and locks the account until the owner logs on and removes the tweet.” So, Kanye could regain his tweeting ability soon, if he hasn’t already. His most recent tweet was posted at 1:39 p.m. ET on September 16.

Having graduated in the top 10% of Reserve Officer Training Corp (ROTC) cadets nationwide in 2012, Pat Robinson was ready to take on a career in the Air Force full speed ahead.

Despite her stellar performance in the classroom and training grounds, Robinson feared other habits she’d picked up at Ohio University had sent her down the wrong tracks.

First stationed near Panama City, Florida, Robinson became reliant on alcohol while serving as an air battle manager student. After barnstorming through Atlanta’s nightclubs on New Year’s Eve, Robinson failed a drug test and lied to her commanding officer about the results.

Eleven months later, she was dismissed. Feeling ashamed and directionless, Robinson briefly returned home to Cleveland before venturing west to look for work in San Francisco.

After a brief stint working at a paint store, Robinson found herself without a source of income and was relegated to living in her car. Robinson’s garbage can soon became littered with parking tickets and her car was towed. Golden Gate Park’s cool grass soon replaced her bed.

“My substance abuse spiraled very quickly,” Robinson said. “You name it, I probably used it. Very quickly I contracted HIV and Hepatitis C. I was arrested again and again and was finally charged and sentenced to substance abuse treatment.”

Two failed attempts to get clean later, Robinson knew she desperately needed to pick herself up. During her third stay at a substance abuse treatment facility, Robinson learned of Back on My Feet — a nonprofit that combats homelessness through the power of running — who was there to extend a hand.

After working through the 12-step program for 60 days, Robinson labored through running her first mile after joining Back on My Feet.

“I kept asking myself while I was running — am I trying to kill myself?” Robinson said. “I couldn’t remember the last time I ran. But the volunteers were all happy and wanted to get to know me. I was all skeptical and quiet and questioning why they were so happy.”

As she continued to run with Back on My Feet, Robinson realized that their joy came from a genuine sense of support and encouragement between the volunteers.

Courtesy of Back on My Feet

“Members were pushing each other beyond our limitations,” Robinson said. “I was still doing treatment for Hepatitis C and HIV and I had to just set my pain aside and push myself every single moment otherwise I would give myself an excuse to be stagnant and depressed.”

After she received treatment for Hepatitis C, Robinson’s energy level skyrocketed. She began studying to be a personal trainer, taking fitness classes and worked with Back on My Feet to rebuild her professional and financial outlook by creating a resume and going through credit reports and housing applications.

Back on My Feet also set Robinson up with financial literacy workshops at the Capital One Cafe in San Francisco.

“They definitely motivated me to see a financial life beyond my imagination but instead a reality of wealth,” Robinson said.

Capital One has partnered with Back on My Feet’s since 2017 and helps its members establish themselves financially. Back on My Feet members have the chance to sit with Cafe ambassadors for one-on-one sessions to answer their questions and go over personal financial necessities like balancing a budget, managing credit and making a plan for financial independence.

“They are people who are starting all over again from scratch and we are here to give them clarity for whatever questions they may have,” said Denza Young, a San Francisco Capital One Cafe ambassador. “Capital One truly is reimagining banking because everything they do: their belief system, their challenges… everything is connected to their money. When they can get clarity on whatever it is that gives them their hurdles it helps them set their goals and think about self-care differently.”

In addition to offering free workshops, Capital One provides grant support to Back on My Feet. In May, Back on My Feet awarded Capital One with its Corporate Pacesetter award.

“It is no surprise that this nonprofits’ values align closely with ours in bringing humanity to banking and empowering our customers in their journey to be financially successful,” said Nerissa Davis, West Coast Market Executive for the Capital One cafe network. “We are so proud of the people we are able to support through our partnership with Back on My Feet and look forward to continuing our journey together to make a difference in the community.”

This partnership has empowered members like Robinson to pursue personal, professional and financial goals that they once saw as unattainable.

Robinson began training for The Giant Race and received word just days before running her first half-marathon that she had been hired as a personal trainer at a local fitness studio.

With her new-found path, Robinson now had confidence to achieve a goal that once seemed unthinkable.

“To me, crossing that finish line meant the culmination of salvation,” Robinson said. “If you would have told me five years ago that my life was going to be spared and that I would be given the courage and ability to cross any finish line, I would’ve deemed you crazy, even though I was the one truly in psychosis.”

Her personal progress aside, for Robinson, it’s the impact she has on others that means the most.

“The accomplishment that I’m most proud of is being able to give back to Back on My Feet by leading Workout Wednesdays,” Robinson said. “People call this my career, but I call it a blessing.”

While the COVID-19 pandemic forced her fitness studio to close, Robinson continues to help those around her through leading socially distant runs with Back on My Feet members. She has also been creating a video for San Francisco Community Health to send to their clients so they can exercise at home.Since March, she has cooked and distributed hundreds of meals to support people in her neighborhood facing homeless — a challenge she knows all too well.

“I haven’t touched a harmful substance in three years and to me that means freedom,” Robinson said. “To anyone who is currently struggling with addiction or experiencing housing insecurity, ask for help, and know that help is on the way. Don’t be afraid.”

The Western Conference Finals are set, and after a couple of more days of watching the Clippers get eviscerated on social media, we can turn our full attention to a series that hardly any of us would’ve anticipated, one that is perfectly emblematic of the way chaos continues to reign supreme inside the NBA Bubble in Orlando.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but the playoffs are all about adjustments, and teams that are unwilling or unable to fine-tune their rotations and/or their playbooks, no matter how talented or how well-executed, tend to find a one-way ticket home. The Los Angeles Lakers, for instance, understood this reality when they enacted their own small-ish lineup to counteract the Rockets in the second round.

It’s a move that helped earn them a spot in the conference finals, where they will encounter a different animal entirely, one led by a 7-foot play-making colossus for which there are no easy solutions. But Frank Vogel understands that he’ll have to demonstrate some flexibility once again if wants any chance of slowing Nikola Jokic and company, and that will likely require deploying some combination of JaVale McGee and Dwight Howard.

Via Dave McMenamin of ESPN:

“‘Joker’ is one of the most unique players in the world, and one of the most unique players ever to play the center position in this league,” Vogel said Wednesday. “He can basically hurt you in all ways. He can hurt you at the 3-point line, in the pocket, playing the 4-on-3 game in the post, and obviously with his passing. …

“It does make this series a little different — a lot different, actually — in terms of how much we’ll use our centers. I don’t want to get too much into detail, but obviously we’re going to be the L.A. Lakers, who we’ve been all year. We adjusted to a small-ball team last series, but I would expect us to return to form.”

Though Howard and McGee saw scant playing time against the Rockets, they’d both been a critical part of L.A.’s run to the No. 1 seed in the West during the regular season. They’ve each mostly taken it in stride, although Howard was candid during a recent interview about his struggles to stay positive during this stretch while also dealing with the isolation of the Bubble.

A lot to take in from Dwight Howard’s first public comments in about two months, but this stands out: “There’s really nothing to do to be honest with you. There’s nowhere to go. There’s no way to release anything.” pic.twitter.com/KJu1ndFV92

— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) September 16, 2020

Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals tips off Friday at 9 p.m. ET on TNT.

Earlier this week, the music world was met with the news that Cardi B filed for divorce from her husband Offset following three years of marriage, according to a report from TMZ. During their marriage, Cardi and Offset had one daughter, Kulture, who currently two years old. Looking to offer some consolation, Lizzo sent Cardi a bouquet of flowers with a warm message attached that read in part: “Flowers for a flower! Congrats on all your success this summer.” In the message, Lizzo also promised to send Cardi “something good this week” in addition to the bouquet.

Overjoyed by the gift from Lizzo, Cardi showered the “Truth Hurts” singer with praise in a video her to Instagram story. “Isn’t Lizzo like the nice person in the world? Look what she sent me!” Cardi joyfully said in the video while flaunting her new flowers. “She is just a beautiful ass person, I just love her so much. These are so pretty.”

Cardi’s gift from Lizzo serves as her second highlight of the week after her “WAP” collaboration with Megan Thee Stallion returned to No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart following a two-week absence from the top position.

You can see Cardi showering Lizzo with praise for her gift in the video above.

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

“I’ll tell you a secret. The last act makes a film. You can have flaws, problems, but wow them in the end, and you’ve got a hit.” — Script Guru Robert McKee, to Charlie Kaufman, in Adaptation.

Never has the “wow them in the end” adage been illustrated more effectively than in The Usual Suspects, directed by Bryan Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie, which hit theaters 25 years ago in August-September of 1995. It’s a movie with plenty of flaws but the ultimate trump card: a home run ending that makes those flaws vanish from memory.

Singer and McQuarrie had worked together once before, on Public Access, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, despite fairly tepid reviews. The two had known each other from childhood — in Princeton Junction, New Jersey — where Singer’s mom and McQuarrie’s dad had run together on an unsuccessful bid for a township committee seat. Singer supposedly met Kevin Spacey at an afterparty for Public Access. The idea for The Usual Suspects came to McQuarrie, Finding Forrester style, title first.

While waiting in line for a screening at the festival, a friend asked McQuarrie about his next script. “I said, ‘I was reading this article in Spy magazine called “The Usual Suspects.” I thought that would be a great title.’” As for the story, McQuarrie said, “I guess it’s about…the usual suspects. The guys who always get arrested for some type of crime. I figure they meet in a police lineup and decide to work together. I told Bryan. He forgot about it a few seconds later.”

That this half-assed, barely formed kernel of an idea would go on to win two Oscars (one for lead actor Kevin Spacey and one for writer Chris McQuarrie) and be recognized by the WGA in 2017 as the 35th greatest screenplay of all time, is a perfect illustration of the adage “writing is rewriting.”

Of course, with its director and lead actor becoming varying degrees of unemployable in recent years (Spacey hasn’t been in anything since 2018) — not to mention one of its stars, Stephen Baldwin turning full MAGA grifter (as well as becoming Justin Bieber’s father in law) — The Usual Suspects feels a little like a time capsule of the recently canceled. But all that would come later.

In the first two acts, it’s easy to wonder if this perennial fixture of best-of lists is overrated. Christopher McQuarrie was 27 when it came out, Singer 29, and in certain ways, their youth shows. While Singer had gone off to film school, McQuarrie hitchhiked in Australia, worked first at his uncle’s detective agency and later as a movie theater security guard, and The Usual Suspect feels like McQuarrie tried to cram every oddball character and weird story he came across in the course of his peripatetic young adulthood into this one, impossibly dense script.

It’s a movie that’s as much of its time as it is of its creator. The dialogue, in particular, is smart-alecky, swear-filled, and slightly smug in that particularly early-90s-indie-movie kind of way, like an amalgamation of Tarantino, Shane Black, and David Mamet, where creativity counted for more than naturalism (it probably always does). When the police round up the titular usual suspects, to a man, each character has something casual and sneeringly cool to say to the arresting officers.

“Don’t you guys ever sleep? …F*ck you pig.” -McManus

“…Think you brought enough guys?” -Todd Hockney, as he tosses an oily rag directly at the camera

It’s all Shane Black snappy and Steven Soderbergh slick. The cool-guy sarcasm probably suits Kevin Pollak’s character (Todd Hockney) the best, but it extends to virtually every character. They’re slightly undifferentiated in that way, all in some way guys who would blow cigarette smoke in your face behind the minimart, a very specific Gen X conception of “cool.” No one flinches at having a gun stuck in their face, no one looks at explosions.

Lots of nineties crime films had that in common. You could draw a straight line through Hockney describing what he’s going to do when he goes to prison (“F*ck your father in the shower and then have a snack?”) to Samuel Jackson’s character in The Long Kiss Goodnight (“Nah, I usually sock ’em in the jaw and yell ‘pop goes the weasel‘”) to pretty much any Samuel Jackson line in Pulp Fiction. Where the Shane Black version is slightly more comic book pulp, McQuarrie’s tough guy swear nuggets tend more towards writerly, and slightly tortured. Think Ryan Philippe growling “shut that c*nt’s mouth or I’ll come over there and f*ck start her head” in The Way Of The Gun (McQuarrie’s follow up to The Usual Suspects).

It doesn’t sound like something someone would actually say, but it sticks in your head. Leather jacket guy masculine was just kind of how dialogue was written in the early ’90s, the same way arch self-referential shouting (with big, bugged-out eyes) is in favor now. You can watch The Usual Suspects, a movie that has exactly one female character (Edie Finneran, the “downtown lawyer” that Gabriel Byrne’s Keaton is “tappin’”) and consists of about 85% gay panic insults (you could make a drinking game out of how often a character derisively refers to a group of men as “ladies”) and see basically what Troy Duffy was attempting and failing with Boondock Saints. “What if there were some dudes who were really cool and also had guns, like a bunch of Andrew Dice Clays in a Ray Chandler novel?”

In a lot of ways, The Usual Suspects is the platonic ideal of the ’90s tough guy neo-noir. It’s far more about the idea of telling a crazy story — a crazy story within a crazy story, really — than it is about any one character growing or changing or learning something about life. The only thing anyone really learns in The Usual Suspects is who Kaiser Soze is.

Early on in the film, the characters feel more like “types” than people (as may happen in a heist movie format that grew out of the idea of guys meeting in a police lineup). Even if they don’t entirely come together as flesh-and-blood humans, Usual Suspect‘s characters get by on novelty value, and it some ways it’s driven by the cosmic synergy of oddball writing and oddball acting. Benicio Del Toro’s rendering of “he flip you, flip you for real,” is unforgettable, even if, upon rewatch, his overplucked hustler “Fenster” doesn’t contribute all that much to the plot. Later in the film, we meet “Kobayashi,” a character with a Japanese name, played by a Lancastrian actor, using an accent that could best be described as “vaguely Indian.” It’s a character that only someone with a face as singular as Peter Postlethwaite could’ve pulled off.

McQuarrie throws so much at you — the lineup, the ring of corrupt cops the gang torches in “New York’s Finest Taxi Service, the downtown lawyer with the ambiguous connections, the fence named “Redfoot,” another heist, a massive drug deal at a harbor, two drug gangs, and finally, Kaiser Soze — that you eventually just submit, letting the facts wash over you without trying to make the connections. Usual Suspects‘ narrative is so convoluted I can’t even follow the Wikipedia synopsis. You think, I must’ve been tricked the first time I watched this. There’s no way this comes together the way I remember. How many goddamn Macguffins does this movie have?

Upon my latest rewatch, I was again convinced, right up until the final five minutes, that The Usual Suspects couldn’t possibly hang together. That it was all an elaborate parlor trick, that we force it to make sense to keep from feeling dumb for not getting it, a Band-Aid that makes you feel okay about having watched it. And then, once again, Chazz Palmintieri and Giancarlo Esposito (the future Gus Fring), with an assist from Dan Hedaya, hit a last-second buzzer-beater, meticulously explaining away every conceivable plot hole. Hot damn, they really did pull it off.

In some ways, The Usual Suspects feels even older than 25. Despite the very nineties style of dialogue, as a narrative it seems to come from the classic, mid-century school of manufactured suspense, where revealing information in drips and delayed gratification were everything. Films rarely trust audiences to hang in there for the big ending reveal anymore. And as a viewer, I’m less accustomed to having to wait for it or being able to trust that my patience will be rewarded.

In The Usual Suspects, you can see the essential blueprint for every Christopher Nolan movie that was to come: keep the audience on their heels with endless subterfuge until you can knock them out with the final reveal. Nolan’s low-budget debut, Following, would debut three years later, and he would go on to (arguably) innovate more than Bryan Singer as a visual storyteller, but as a writer he still has a lot in common with McQuarrie (the other Chris).

To note the obvious, that “they don’t make ’em like that anymore,” is a bittersweet observation. For five or 10 years it felt like every aspiring auteur in Hollywood was trying to make The Usual Suspects, the same way every comedian in the late aughts and early 20-teens was trying to be Louis CK. Whether it was sex scandals or just changing tastes that brought them down (with all due respect to McQuarrie, who never had a sex scandal and seems to have successfully evolved), these were both styles that were widely imitated and rarely pulled off, a hyperspecific flavor of white male cool. 25 years later, we can be simultaneously glad that The Usual Suspects exists and relieved that fewer filmmakers are trying to rip it off.

Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

The 2020 Emmys are going to look a bit different this year. Sure, our country is on fire, and a pandemic has forced people across the world to stay indoors — both robbing us of the pageantry of awards seasons past, and simultaneously saving us viewers from suffering through cringe-inducing red-carpet interviews. And the show, which last year boldly chose to go sans emcee, is once again tapping Jimmy Kimmel to host, this time virtually. But no, the most important change to the Emmys this year, one that might end up influencing future nominations and winners to come, has to do with the very bones of this decades-old trophy contest.

We’re talking about the Outstanding Drama category. Earlier this year, the Television Academy announced they were lifting a long-standing rule that once limited the drama and comedy series categories to just five nominees, regardless of submissions. That meant that a more diverse lineup of worthy stories should, theoretically, populate those categories moving forward.

It worked, sort of. Currently, eight series are nominated in the Outstanding Drama list, and yes, they cover the entire spectrum of what the genre can do. They’re stories about businessmen descending into madness and dragging the people they care about off the metaphorical moral cliff with them. They’re high-brow soap operas about the complicated, toxic bonds of the one percent, complete with sausage parties and white-boy raps. They’re dystopias imagining the subjugation of women and the rise of radical theocracies; neon-drenched nostalgic odes to the ’80s with Demogorgons as villains; ancient monarchies trying to adapt to more modern times; money-laundering enterprises on lakefront casino boats; on-the-run road trips in space… you get it.

None of the Outstanding Drama nominees this year fit easily into their designated box, but what’s even more confusing for fans, voters, and critics cursing each other on their shared slack channels when one excitedly champions Ozark or questions the cuteness of Baby Yoda* is how disparate, and how immeasurably different, these nominees are from each other.

Even as someone who’s spent years tuning into these kinds of awards contests with a carefully curated ballot in hand, I’m questioning how reasonable it is to pit this current crop of nominees against each other. How does a voter look at The Mandalorian and find anything comparable to qualify with a show like Succession or Better Call Saul? How do we watch The Handmaid’s Tale, a feminist sci-fi series trading in heavy themes of fanatical religious oppression and climate change and bodily autonomy and hold Stranger Things, a fun ’80s romp about a group of kids fighting off fantasy-inspired monsters, as its mirror? And where in the hell does a show like The Crown, a stuffy-yet-beautifully-wrought chronicle of British history, get off fighting for a top spot against a dimly-lit crime saga like Ozark and the queer romantic espionage thriller, Killing Eve?

We’ve had this problem before of course. In 2015, the Television Academy outraged voters when it named Orange Is The New Black a drama instead of a comedy, crafting a completely inane rule that limited comedies to a 30-minute run time. And it’s not like the Outstanding Drama category hasn’t been diverse in the past, with shows like Westworld and Game of Thrones popping up over the years. But what’s puzzling now is how interested the Emmys seem to be in crowding its major awards categories in the name of “inclusion” without making the effort to actually honor the distinct, unique storytelling those shows are doing.

Is The Mandalorian a drama? Sometimes, but it’s mostly an action-packed odyssey with sci-fi roots. Is Stranger Things a drama? Sometimes, but it’s also a coming-of-age comedy wrapped up in a fantasy-adventure. The third season of The Handmaid’s Tale felt more like a thriller than anything else, as did the most recent installment of Killing Eve, but even then, it’s hard to compare the two. Of all the nominees, Succession (which should and probably will come out on top), Ozark, Better Call Saul, and The Crown feel like they share similar genomes, grounding their stories in reality, focusing their seasons on complicated, nuanced relationships. That’s not all a drama can be, but if we’re going to start vetting and validating the art form, it’s a helpful common denominator.

By opening up its drama race, the Emmys hoped to include critically approved, fan-favorite shows that would attract more viewers to counteract dwindling ratings over the past few years. When a show like The Mandalorian gets that kind of recognition, it brings with it a large fanbase that might tune in to see it take home hardware, which is fine. The Mandalorian was terrific even if its main draw was the adorable meme-generator that was Baby Yoda. But that means shows like Pose and Euphoria don’t make the cut, shows that might better face off against a Succession or Ozark because of their shared DNA.

This was always going to be an issue during the Age of Peak TV — the sheer amount of quality TV means we’ll continue to have genre-defying series appreciated and lauded by critics and academy voters. But if we’re going to start changing things, if we’re going to really embrace stories that aren’t traditionally honored during awards seasons (which I hope we do) can’t we simply take the extra step to create new categories or different scoring methods that give these shows their rightful due? Can we have races decided by fans, can we find ways to include specific sub-genres, can we appreciate what these shows do well with labels that match the stories they’re telling? I’d like to believe we can.

I’d like to believe one day we’ll have a sci-fi series category which might finally force older voters to watch and appreciate the merits of that genre. Or one that gives the many creative horror/thriller sagas on TV their deserved time in the awards show spotlight. We do it for other categories — the Creative Arts Emmys recognize everything from set design to costuming by separating them into contemporary, fantasy, and half-hour narrative programming — so there’s precedent. And even with the current pandemic halting production on dozens of shows, there’s no reason to believe that storytelling on TV is going to reign things in or slow down anytime soon.

So, shouldn’t the Emmys start trying to keep up?

* The events described above are purely hypothetical. Uproxx writers don’t use dark magic unless they’re forming a summoning circle for more seasons of What We Do In The Shadows.

It’s been a big year for Taylor Swift, and it just keeps going. The singer’s most recent feat found her at the 2020 American Country Music Awards, performing”Betty,” off of her new album, Folklore. The performance found her retreating to her country roots, being the first time in seven years she’s played the AMC. Taylor performed a stripped-down version of the song, Taylor delivered a soothing performance of the country-leaning song.

Her performance comes after she landed six consecutive weeks atop the Billboard albums chart thanks to Folklore, a streak that began with a monster debut of 846,000 first-week sales. She also tied Whitney Houston for the most overall weeks spent atop the Billboard albums chart among female artists. Since the Folklore‘s release, Taylor has been very interactive with fans, revealing Easter eggs hidden in her “Cardigan” video as well as who some of people that inspired the album. She even surprised indie record stores with autographed copies of the album.

Taylor recently got on board with a fan’s Folklore adaptation idea, which was based on the song “The Last Great American Dynasty.” The film will feature the all-star cast of Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Taylor herself.

Back in May, during slightly more optimistic times, ABC gave the renewal order to Stumptown, a novel spin on the crime drama, in which Cobie Smulders played a down-on-her-luck veteran with PTSD and gambling debts who reinvents herself as a private investigator. Alas, it was too good for this world: As per Variety, the show has become the latest to be unexpectedly cancelled, despite the previous promise of more to come.

Among the main reasons? According to one source, the fault partly lies with the pandemic. COVID-19, still raging with no end in sight, has done a ton of damage to television scheduling needs, and some four months after giving the order for more, ABC wound up changing its mind, nixing the second season.

For fans of the show, don’t give up hope. The makers will reportedly be shopping the series around to other networks, hoping one can fit it into their schedule. Other shows that have been axed due to coronavirus complications include I Am Not Okay with This and The Society, both on Netflix.

Along with the always welcome Smudlers, Stumptown — based on the graphic novel series by Greg Rucka — also featured Jake Johnson, Camryn Manheim, and Michael Ealy. May they return for more, ensuring that it won’t end up belonging to the storied “one season and done” gang, populated by the likes of My So-Called Life, Freaks and Geeks, Firefly, and Terriers.

(Via Variety)

Following the release of Nicki Minaj’s 2018 album, Queen, a leftover song from the album suddenly landed on the internet. The track, which is titled “Sorry” and features a verse from Nas, was intended to appear on Queen, but due to a failed sample clearance of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song “Baby Can I Hold You,” it was left off the album. But the song ended up in the hands of Funkmaster Flex as he premiered it on his HOT 97 radio show. Soon after, the song leaked to the internet. As a result, Chapman sued Nicki for unpaid royalties from the unauthorized sample and sought to prohibit her from officially releasing the song and performing it. Almost two years, a judge made a decision on the case, clearing Nicki.

According to Variety, U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips found that Nicki did not commit copyright infringement and that the song falls in line with the “fair use” principle. In her ruling, Phillips wrote, “Artists usually experiment with works before seeking licenses from rights holders and rights holders typically ask to see a proposed work before approving a license. A ruling uprooting these common practices would limit creativity and stifle innovation within the music industry.”

Prior to the ruling, Nicki claimed that the lawsuit was not justifiable as she did not release “Sorry” for profit and had no control in the song being leaked online. According to court documents, she also claimed that Chapman “is not the owner of the copyright in issue and therefore lacks standing to bring the claims alleged in the Complaint.”

(via Variety)

Finally, after months of rumors, potential leaks, promises, and a giant stare down between two console giants. We have a price for the PlayStation 5. While Microsft has been giving a slow drip feed of news about its new Xbox console since December, Sony has been oddly quiet for most of 2020. They’ve given small insights into the power of the console, and even showed off some games with the design back in June.

But with Holiday 2020 quickly approaching and an Xbox price plus release date revealed on Twitter, everyone was waiting for Sony to do the same. Well they finally have and alongside that price reveal we, of course, got some video games. A few new titles, and some more insight into a few we already knew about, here is what we learned about the PlayStation 5 during the price reveal event.

A Price And Release Date

Let’s start off with the obvious one. We finally have a price for the PS5. Fans have been anticipating this for months now with many on the fence about which console they want likely letting the price be the deciding factor for them. There was even more pressure to release a price point when the Xbox Series S was announced to only be $300.

This created an interesting predicament for Sony. Go too high and they risk alienating fans and pushing them straight to their biggest competitor. Go too low to match the Xbox and they risk taking a loss on the consoles themselves just to beat the Xbox in sales. As a result of that, we get a $400 digital only console and a $500 disc console. This feels about as low as they could possibly go while not losing too much, if any money, on sales for the PS5.

So we now have two consoles, each with $500 versions, and a cheaper but still powerful digital only version. The next generation console race is officially on, with the PS5 dropping on November 12 (with preorders already underway).

Final Fantasy 16

Likely the biggest video game related announcement was that Final Fantasy 16 is coming to the PlayStation 5. The latest in the extremely popular JRPG franchise appears to be in a fantasy type setting, but as any Final Fantasy fan knows there will surely be some sci-fi like elements alongside it. The bits of gameplay we did get to see showed a return of the fast paced action style combat that was in Final Fantasy 15 along with some beautiful cutscenes.

Final Fantasy always comes with plenty of hype attached to it, which is to be expected of such a giant title, but it traditionally also comes with delays. Final Fantasy 15 had a development time of 10 years and went through numerous changes. While the game that was shown during the PS5 event had an extensive trailer with voice acting and story set pieces you can never count out a delay when it comes to Final Fantasy. Still, it’s extremely exciting!

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Fans of the first Spider-Man game on PS4 and Into The Spider-Verse were already plenty excited when Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales was unveiled during the first PS5 event, but the second one swung in even harder. This came with gameplay, set pieces, a tiny bit of story, and a release date. Spider-Man: Miles Morales is going to be a PS5 launch title that looks strong enough to convince many people that it’s worth getting the console on launch day.

This game has just the right amount of flair to be a Miles Morales title. Anyone that saw Into The Spider-Verse knows that there is a certain style, substance and coolness to him. This game captures that, as it looks cool, sounds cool, and I’m already extremely excited to play it when the console releases in November.

Let’s Live Our Harry Potter Dreams

The Harry Potter RPG “Hogwarts Legacy” was created to appeal to one specific audience. Every single millennial who grew up a fan of Harry Potter always wanted one thing. They wanted to one day play a game that let them be a Wizard or Witch in the Harry Pottery universe. That dream has never been fully realized until potentially this game.

This trailer hit on all the right notes and everything about it gave off the same charm and wonder that Harry Potter gives off for fans. It is exactly what a Harry Potter game should be. It isn’t a PS5 exclusive, but Sony getting this game to be shown off during their event is likely going to get at least a handful of buyers looking at the PS5 just for the Harry Potter game. That’s a huge win for them.

New God of War

The end card for the PS5 price reveal event was simple. It was the reveal teaser for God of War: Ragnarok and that is all we know. Fans of the 2018 God of War will surely be excited with that game being a serious Game of The Year contender. If Ragnarok is anything like its 2018 counterpart, there is plenty to be excited about.