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How does an album that is underrated come to be properly seen, decades later, as great? How does an album become underrated in the first place? Who decides these things anyway?

To answer these questions, it’s worthwhile to ponder the story of the 11th LP by The Rolling Stones, Goats Head Soup.

When The Rolling Stones released Goats Head Soup on August 31, 1973, it was easy to argue that it was a success. An unlikely mix of druggy funk-rock jams and sentimental ballads, it not only swiftly topped the charts in various countries around the world, it also produced a genuine international hit single, “Angie,” that crossed over into the pop space like no other Stones song in years. As a touring act, they performed two successful runs that year in Europe and along the Pacific Rim, playing for several hundred thousand people. With the possible exception of Led Zeppelin, The Stones still seemed like the biggest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.

And yet, in spite of all those statistical signifiers, Goats Head Soup was widely perceived as not only a failure, but as a harbinger of a greater artistic decline. In the press, reviews ranged from qualified praise to open hostility. Rolling Stone gamely admitted that it had initially dismissed Exile On Main St., so the magazine was now prepared to cautiously endorse Goats Head Soup, in spite of reviewer Bud Scoppa’s only intermittent enthusiasm. “If they’ve played it safe this time, their caution has nevertheless reaped some rewards,” he wrote, in anticipation of eventually loving the album. The upstart Creem magazine was naturally more skeptical, calling Soup “future muzak” and backhandedly praising The Stones as a “perfect corporation.” In a separate pan, Creem‘s resident philosopher critic Lester Bangs sniffed, “There is a sadness about The Stones now, because they amount to such an enormous, So what?”

The implication was that The Stones were already over the hill in 1973, the year of glam and Philly Soul, and also the period during which Mick Jagger turned 30. Even critics who reviewed it positively thought of Goats Head Soup strictly as brand management, product delivered in lieu of real inspiration and invention.

When I started reading music books in the late ’80s as a budding grade-school classic-rock student, I found that Creem‘s take on Goats Head Soup had won out over Rolling Stone‘s guarded optimism. Time and again, Goats Head Soup was positioned as a sloppy and ill-considered departure point, a downward spiral from the heights of the “classic” ’68-’72 period that produced Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile On Main St. It formed a trilogy with the band’s other mid-’70s albums, It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll and Black And Blue, as a bad stretch of road between Exile and the triumphant 1978 comeback LP, Some Girls, as The Records Best Left Ignored By Future Generations.

Even Rolling Stone came to adopt this position. In the first two editions of the Rolling Stone Record Guide, which I read religiously as a music ignorant lad, Goats Head Soup was saddled with a pitiful one-star rating, with critic Dave Marsh declaring it “a mistake, a jumble or the beginning of the end.” Around the same time, in the magazine’s comprehensive Illustrated History Of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Robert Christgau called Goats Head Soup “musicianly craft at its unheroic norm, terrific by the standards of Foghat or the Doobie Brothers but a nadir for the Rolling Stones.”

As for the band members, they also turned their noses at the poor Soup. In an interview with famous British rock journalist Nick Kent, The Stones’ longtime pianist and unofficial conscience Ian Stewart called it “bloody insipid.” Guitarist Mick Taylor — whose feelings about Goats Head Soup were perhaps tempered by not getting proper credit for co-writing one of the better tracks, “Winter” — referred to it as “not one of my favorite albums.” And then there’s Keith Richards, who has routinely badmouthed Goats Head Soup over the years, including in his iconic 2010 memoir, Life, in which he compares it unfavorably to Exile. In Keith’s view, it was a “marking-time” album crowded with too many sidemen and not quite enough Stones.

In a way, he’s right — ringers like Nicky Hopkins and Billy Preston are all over the album, whereas Bill Wyman plays on only three tracks. Also, Keith himself was slipping into a heroin coma around this time. (An alternate theory is that Exile, which is widely viewed as Keith’s album, was criticized by Mick Jagger as being unfocused, which obliged Keith to slag Goats Head Soup — a Mick album through and through — in return. When Mick years later offered his own criticism of the album, he made sure to pin it on his partner: “I mean, everyone was using drugs, Keith particularly,” he told Rolling Stone in 1995.)

In my own book, I referred to Goats Head Soup a great “bad” album, meaning I really love it in spite of its weaknesses. (Or, rather, because of its weaknesses, as listening to a band like The Stones fall apart will always be more interesting than hearing a typical band at their relatively meager best.) But now I wonder if this album really is “bad” at all, or if I simply read too many rock books telling me it was bad during my formative years. After all, whenever I put on Goats Head Soup now, it just sounds like a great “great” album. So many of the tracks stand up superbly well: “100 years Ago,” “Coming Down Again,” “Winter,” and “Star Star,” along with the hits “Angie” and “Heartbreaker (Doo Doo Doo Doo).” If Keith Richards has internalized all that criticism of Goats Head Soup, maybe I did, too.

I bring all this up because there’s a new box set coming out on Friday that attempts to rescue Goats Head Soup, once and for all, from its bad historical reputation. The case made in the liner notes — this is a “lost album” that’s “been sitting in front of you all along” — is the sort of intriguing revisionism that’s become increasingly common in the classic rock reissue market.

This expansive Goats Head Soup reissue — outfitted with the de rigueur selection of outtakes, demos, and live tracks — is part of a mini-trend of using the box-set format to reassess formerly maligned albums, a gambit that has similarly worked for the likes of Don’t Tell A Soul by The Replacements and Monster by R.E.M. If you instinctively recoil at the thought of reconsidering a record you decided long ago is garbage, it’s worth pondering how putting certain “garbage” albums in a newly reverent context can change what those albums mean, providing a new way to hear music that was formerly drowned out by so many entrenched and infinitely reiterated opinions.

In the case of Goats Head Soup, the outtakes don’t add a whole lot to the picture, as enjoyable as they are. The much-ballyhooed “Scarlet” basically is a studio jam with Jimmy Page, which (clearly) is awesome even if the song itself doesn’t amount to much. Two other previously unheard tracks, the cowbell-mad “All The Rage” and the funk-rock workout “Criss Cross,” are better if not exactly essential. For serious Stones-heads, the demos portion of the box set will disappoint for what’s not included, namely embryonic versions of tracks like “Waiting On A Friend,” “Tops,” and “Short and Curlies” that wound up on subsequent records. The Soup sessions, which commenced in November 1972 at Dynamic Sound Studios in Kingston, Jamaica — Wyman remembers their space as being “little bigger than an out-house” — were, contrary to the slovenly reputation of the album, highly productive, helping to lay the groundwork for future Stones releases over nearly a decade. But the box set’s rather stingy pick of outtakes doesn’t really reflect that.

The live album Brussels Affair, originally issued in 2011 and then taken out of circulation ahead of this box set, is another story entirely. Compiled from two shows performed during the European tour, Brussels Affair for a time was due to come out after Goats Head Soup. (When plans to add some studio cuts to the live tracks resulted in enough material for an entirely new studio LP, It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll, the live album was scuttled.) As it is now, nearly 50 years later, Brussels Affair dispels the notion that The Stones were simply on auto-pilot in 1973. On the contrary, they were still very near the peak of their powers as a live act, stretching out like never before on jammy versions of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Midnight Rambler” — at nearly 13 minutes, it goes on longer than even the Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! cut — while also energetically tearing into the murk of the Exile material and the funk of the Goats Head Soup songs. (Keith, as always, remained agnostic, supposedly pulling a knife on Billy Preston at one show for playing his organ too loud.) While it’s not quite as good as Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!, Brussels Affair outclasses every other official Stones live LP.

But the main attraction here, as it should be, is the album itself. All these years later, Goats Head Soup benefits from not having the generational baggage that boomer critics projected on it in the moment. In 1973, The Rolling Stones were an avatar for larger cultural disappointments — if the utopian aspirations of the ’60s never came to fruition, that had to mean that The Stones were frauds, too. This idea is echoed over and over in contemporary assessments of Goats Heads Soup. It colors the assertion that this album marks the point when they became merely a “professional” band and stopped being a revolutionary one.

If that charge sounds familiar, perhaps it’s because music critics tend to eventually turn against bands who linger on into middle age. All criticism is autobiography, after all, and writing about legacy acts often reveals the insecurity that music critics have about their own relevance. But for The Stones, it was especially difficult because they were among the first rock bands ever to actually grow old. And on Goats Head Soup, specifically, they dared to sing about aging while also sounding like they were worn out. Tempos slightly lag, even on the fast songs. The keyboards and guitars blur in and out of focus. Jagger sounds either mournful or contemptuous. More than ever before, The Stones actually seem vulnerable, even fragile.

I imagine that was particularly galling for boomers, the most Peter Pan-obsessed of all generations. It was just easier to dismiss Goats Head Soup as a “safe” retreat than to contend with their super-human decadent princes staggering fearfully into adulthood. But in its own way, a song like “100 Years Ago” is risky, because Jagger admits that he’s no longer a young man and wishes he still was: “Sometimes it’s wise not to grow up,” he sighs. And yet you have no choice but to do it. Goats Head Soup is where they finally accepted this.

Everywhere you turn on Goats Head Soup, the bleakness of the grown-up world looms. The romantic ballad “Angie” is a breakup song in which true love is crushed by the logistical impracticality of incompatible lives. “Winter” uses the titular season as a metaphor for a time when “a lotta love is burned out,” likening the early ’70s to a frigid wasteland. Again, this was not a band that usually expressed any misgivings about their sins or triumphs. After the supposed moral reckoning of Altamont, they put out their two most gloriously amoral albums, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main St. Contrast that with Goats Head Soup, which contains at least two tracks — “Coming Down Again” and “Heartbreaker” — that can be loosely described as anti-drug (or at least “drug wary”). Who could believe this? The Rolling Stones, of all bands, was sick and tired of the rock ‘n’ roll life. Even the requisite “life on the road” party jam, “Star Star,” cynically depicts backstage trysts as a series of cold, passionless transactions between the haves and wannabe haves. The song rocks, but the lyrics hardly depict a world that you would want to live in. If Exile is about raging against the dying of the light, then Goats Head Soup is simply the dying of the light.

If you grew up with The Stones in the ’60s and early ’70s, I can imagine how much of a bummer Goats Head Soup must have felt in the moment. But for those of us who came along later, and without the generational baggage, Goats Head Soup has an incredible, melancholic beauty. Yes, the band is exhausted. But the album itself is about exhaustion; they were either too honest or too tired to not foreground it. And that resonates now in 2020 more profoundly than, say, an untouchable classic made by indestructible millionaire rock stars in the south of France. For all the well-worn mythology around this band, the Goats Head Soup post-apocalyptic Rolling Stones — the band who felt old before their time, and sensed that their lives might have already peaked — feels newly, hauntingly fresh.

Goats Head Soup will be reissued on Friday via Polydor/Interscope/UMe. Get it here.

It’s easy to forget that Game of Thrones was Kit Harington’s first credited on-screen role. The biggest TV show of all-time? Not a bad way to kick off your career. But what’s next for the King of the North, now that the length of his hair is no longer breaking news? Harington plays Black Knight in Marvel’s recently-retitled Eternals, and he also stars in the new season of Netflix’s Criminal, the trailer for which was released on Wednesday.

Criminal — which should not be confused with Criminal Minds — is an anthology series where each episode centering around one case. “Four new cases, four new suspects, one room that changes everything,” the Netflix tagline reads. “It’s about how someone reacts when a photo is put down in front of them or what happens when the air conditioning in the room goes off. It becomes about the environment and about the about the human interaction between the cops and the detectives,” creator Jim Field-Smith explained. Harington stars in one episode where his character is accused of manipulating a woman, while Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda), Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe), and Kunal Nayyar (The Big Bang Theory) appear in the other three.

Criminal season two premieres on Netflix on September 16.

Now that John Boyega has “moved on” from Star Wars, after starring in The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker (which he admits does have “some disappointments”), he’s able to talk freely about his time working with Disney. “It’s so difficult to maneuver,” he told GQ. “You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is, do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are, and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”

The Attack the Block star says that Star Wars (and by proxy, directors J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson) “knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver, you knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know f*ck all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience…’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.” He continued:

“I’m the only cast member who had their own unique experience of that franchise based on their race. Let’s just leave it like that. It makes you angry with a process like that. It makes you much more militant; it changes you. Because you realize, ‘I got given this opportunity but I’m in an industry that wasn’t even ready for me.’ Nobody else in the cast had people saying they were going to boycott the movie because [they were in it]. Nobody else had the uproar and death threats sent to their Instagram DMs and social media, saying, ‘Black this and black that and you shouldn’t be a Stormtrooper.’ Nobody else had that experience. But yet people are surprised that I’m this way. That’s my frustration.”

Boyega is refreshingly candid, especially for someone in his profession, as he showed back in June during a Black Lives Matter speech. “I’m speaking to you from my heart,” he spoke through a megaphone. “Look, I don’t know if I’m going to have a career after this, but f*ck that.” About that moment of honesty, director Steve McQueen, who worked with Boyega on Small Axe, said, “He shone very brightly and I rang him a few days after to say thank you.” Small Axe opens the New York Film Festival on September 25.

(Via GQ)

A summer without live concerts or festivals due to COVID-19 has meant that music fans have to get their fix through virtual experiences. Timbaland and Swizz Beatz’ Verzuz battle series has been a saving grace through these difficult times, putting together iconic match-ups like Alicia Keys vs. John Legend, DMX vs. Snoop Dogg, and Brandy vs. Monica to provide necessary entertainment and a brief escape to celebrate the culture’s architects. On July 27, when Timbaland asked his followers who the next Verzuz matchup should be, a confident Juicy J, who already wanted to challenge Dr. Dre, quote tweeted him with another unexpected request: Nas.

On that day, Rap Twitter exploded with divided opinions on who would win. “That was funny,” Juicy says by phone, chuckling.

“Nas is my favorite rapper,” he continues. “It’s not so much Nas, I consider whomever. I want people to understand that I’ll go against whomever. My catalogue speaks for itself. I got a solo catalogue that’s amazing and I got a catalogue with Three 6 Mafia that’s just as amazing. So it’s like I could really go up against anybody.”

Tweets by spirited fans were all across the board, ranging from “Juicy J bout to wash Nas with Blue Dream & Lean” to “Wait y’all think Juicy J is better than Nas? 2020 is different.” Juicy knows stylistically it doesn’t make sense, but no one should ever count him out.

“A lot of people don’t want to give me that juice ‘cause they so stuck on what they stuck on. But if anybody looks at my track record, you cannot deny [it]. It’s facts. I’ve sold hundreds and millions of records. C’mon. I’m a cold motherf*cker, man. I’m just as good as anybody else,” Juicy says. “I wouldn’t say I’m a lyricist or someone like a Nas. Nas got them bars. To me, Nas is one of the greatest. He’s like my No. 1. If someone says Juicy what’s your Top 5? I’ll probably say Nas is No. 1. I’ll give him that. But at the end of the day, Juicy J is definitely up there with the greats.”

Juicy J — rapper, producer, entrepreneur, music executive, mentor, and father to his daughter Kamai Houston — has accomplished a lot in his lifetime. He could be someone who announces his retirement tomorrow and you’d be perfectly fine celebrating his storied career and influence in pop culture — Shutdafukup! catchphrases and all. Well into his 40s, the living legend who stays “trippy, mane” refuses to slow down, gearing up to release his fifth studio album, The Hustle Continues, via eOne on October 14. The title represents Juicy J moving forward with his life as a new father, proud owner of his masters, and independent musician after leaving Columbia Records, as well as brokering new business deals like launching LA-based cannabis brand Asterisk* with his partners Gary Vaynerchuk and Cody Hudson.

To have a hustler’s spirit means possessing passion and drive, which Juicy puts forth in everything he’s associated with. Take it back to 2010 when Juicy J first dropped Rubba Band Business with Lex Luger, the mixtape that solidified him as a solo rapper. He remembers having a lot of doubt that no one would take him seriously. “I never thought somebody would want to listen to me,” he says. “It just kind of happened by surprise. And it is still happening by surprise. I was always a grinder. I always kept working and kept hustling and kept moving forward. I was always trying to do this and produce this. Or help this artist out or help that artist out. I was helping a bunch of artists out. I was jumping on a bunch of features and people started looking at me and started to consider me as a solo artist. Things just started to get bigger.”

After DJ Paul and Juicy J released their solo albums, Scale-A-Ton and Hustle Till I Die, in 2009, the group’s tentatively titled Laws Of Power album was put on hold. Juicy J says work on new Three 6 Mafia music was sounding different and they needed to evolve because “the waves of music were sounding different.” But as Juicy started to grow his buzz, Wiz Khalifa saw an opportunity for him to be part-owner of Taylor Gang Entertainment where he signed as an artist and A&R in 2011. Juicy caught a second career wind under Wiz, but that left the future of Three 6 Mafia in limbo.

“I always felt like Three 6 Mafia could make a comeback,” he says. “But it always had me kind of nervous and scared to even do that. Because we’ve done so much in music that I didn’t want it to be like, ‘Aw, they’re not good enough.’ Or ‘Aw, they got old.’ Or they’re not creative like they used to be or things ain’t the way they were. We never really went down that road to bring the group back.”

“There always been thoughts,” he adds. “I even recorded a couple songs and I got Lord Infamous — rest in peace to him — with a couple of his verses on. I always thought about it, we just never really pursued to do it.”

In 2020, before the coronavirus halted live entertainment indefinitely, Three 6 Mafia agreed to do a reunion tour. Juicy was able to rock a few shows with Triple Six, performing to tens of thousands of people and revisiting classics that are decades old. “Even though we are older and we’ve all been through different things in our lives, it felt like it was 1999 or ’92 or ’93 again,” Juicy says. The renewed energy has positioned him for The Hustle Continues, and allowed for some great synergy in terms of the label that will release it. Alan Grunblatt, eOne’s President of Urban Music, signed Three 6 Mafia to their first record deal.

While The Hustle Continues is a title that’s been floating around since 2014, Juicy J says he’s the type of person that just goes with the flow. Originally, the album was set to be mostly him with just one special feature, but he has since brought in a bevy of younger talent: ASAP Rocky, Lil Baby, Young Dolph, Key Glock, Logic (who he calls his best friend), NLE Choppa, Megan Thee Stallion (who he calls “the verse killer”), Ty Dolla Sign, Rico Nasty, and Jay Rock. The album is “98 percent” produced by him, but he collaborated with other producers such as Internet Money, Lex Luger, and 6ix.

As he explains using a basketball analogy, the veterans and the rookies need to coexist on the same court so they can grow with each other. “You need those people as coaches,” he says. “You know, people that stand over your shoulder and be like ‘let’s do it this way, let’s do it that way.’ I learned things from them and they learn things from me.”

Juicy J says you get a little bit of everything on this album: ‘90s Juicy, 2000s Juicy, and 2010s Juicy. The perfect example of this is “Take It” which features Rico Nasty and the late Lord Infamous, merging nostalgia with the next generation. Originally, Juicy’s idea was to make “Take It” a Three 6 Mafia reunion song.

“I had that song done,” he says. “I produced that with a friend of mine named 6ix, Logic’s producer. We did that and I had this Lord Infamous song just sitting in the vaults. And I was like, ‘Man, I got this song sitting up here.’ So I took them and I combined them. You will hear the beat change. It’s a combined type of record. It’s a dope song. I love the song. I was in the studio with Rico and I listened to it the other day. I was like, ‘Man.’ Every time I hear it I get chills. I feel like he’s in the studio with me.”

It’s not surprising that after The Hustle Continues drops, Juicy J is already thinking about his next album. On Twitter, he’s been teasing a Juicy J and Wiz Khalifa collaborative project that still needs a name. In a genre where your age means everything for your relevance, Juicy is arguably outworking everyone, proving hip-hop has no age limit. He’ll continue to work with up-and-coming artists and keep his ear to the streets, adding to a rolodex of who’s who in hip-hop that could be useful if he wants to run a major label as president or CEO.

With all that Juicy’s done in his career, it’s fair to wonder what he would want to leave his legacy on?

“I think it is still being written,” he says. “But I’m the Michael Jordan of rap music. I’m that guy. When they mention Jay-Z and Nas, they gonna have to mention Juicy J as far as being great.”

The Hustle Continues is out on October 14 via eOne.

BTS have teamed up with South Korean automaker Hyundai for promotional endeavors before, but they went above and beyond for the latest campaign. Hyundai is launching a new electric vehicle line-up brand, IONIQ, and they got BTS to write a song, “IONIQ: I’m On It,” and film a video for it. Although it’s a song for a commercial, the group took the track seriously, and the result is a fun, disco-inspired tune that stands evenly alongside their beloved discography.

Hyundai notes that each member of the group has “lyrics that reflect a new future.” Those are “time of newness” (V), “time of adventure” (Jungkook), “time of inner self” (RM), “time of hope and encouragement” (Suga), “time of emotion” (Jimin), “time of creation and inspiration” (J-Hope), and “time of continuous effort” (Jin).

RM said of the song, “For this special project, we have all focused on individual moments that are important to us. For me, time for inner self is extremely important, I believe we all need time for reflection to be able to grow.” Suga added, “We hope this song will inspire everyone to find time for what matters most and they can do the right thing for a cleaner future.” Jimin also said, “Individually we all look for different things in life, but collectively we come together for a better future.”

Watch the “IONIQ: I’m On It” video above.

The Utah Jazz are going home after losing Game 7 of their first round series against the Denver Nuggets. It was a thrilling game, one that came down to a Mike Conley shot at the end of regulation that rimmed out, fell to the floor, and punched Denver’s ticket to the second round.

Immediately following the game, an emotional Donovan Mitchell couldn’t help but hitting the deck and laying on the ground in an apparent attempt to process that the season came to an end. This led to a really cool moment where the first person to run over to and console him was Jamal Murray of the Nuggets, the player with whom Mitchell has gone shot-for-shot for much of this series.

Murray praised Mitchell after the game and said that the two “bring the best out of each other.” The Jazz star also spoke to the media, but took an interesting approach, one that touched on the current moment in the United States where racial injustice is front of mind. As he explained, while Mitchell was feeling pain, it was trivial compared to those who have lost a loved one to acts of police brutality feel far too frequently.

“The pain that’s on my face right now and the way I feel, I can only imagine what’s going through these victims’ families,” Mitchell said. “And I know I’m probably gonna go back there and cry again and sh*t, but I just wanna go out and just say look, man, this is a game. People lost their family members to police brutality and racism and sh*t. I can only imagine. So I wanted to say that, I wanted to get that out there, because the way that I’m feeling right now is nothing compared to that. And I appreciate the NBA and everybody in this league for continuing to push that message, because it’s not stopping.”

Basketball players have used their time in the Bubble to keep individuals like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd (among numerous others) in the national conscience, going as far as to strike last week in an attempt to get owners to commit more resources to battling systemic oppression following the shooting of Jacob Blake. While it is good to see Mitchell continue to use his platform up until the very end for these purposes, it is nevertheless equal parts dispiriting and maddening that he — along with the other members of the NBA family who opt to do this — has to in the country that claims to be the greatest in the world.

ASAP Mob first got their start back in 2006 thanks to the late ASAP Yams who formed the group alongside ASAP Bari, ASAP Kham, and ASAP Illz. In the following years, ASAP Rocky, ASAP Ferg, and others would join ASAP Mob and help boost its popularity. Nearly a decade after their start, ASAP Mob will continue without one of its strongest members as founder member ASAP Illz revealed on his Instagram story that ASAP Ferg rapper is no longer a part of the collective.

“Ferg aint ASAP NO MORE sorry guys,” ASAP Illz said on his story. “That n**** burnt out, songs dumb trash mr anthem cant get right.” In a second post, Illz would further voice his frustration and explain his reasoning in removing Ferg from the group. “Damn right I ain’t no yes man nut n****a don’t respect that sh*t. y’all rather have a n**** who’s not even half way on my level around just cause he a Yes man and do Whatever you want at the snap of your fingers sh*t goofy.”

After his messages about removing ASAP Ferg from the group, ASAP Illz shared screenshots of Ferg texting him and requesting that they speak about the issue on the phone. Having no desire to talk to Ferg, Illz’s screenshot shows him dismissing Ferg, telling him to “f*ck off my line.”

Check out the screenshots from ASAP Illz Instagram story above.

Going out in public is much more dangerous for a Black man in American than a white man. A Black man is nearly three times more likely to be killed by the police.

He’s at 1.5 times greater risk of being the victim of homicide than a white man and 3.3 times more likely than a Hispanic man.

Even though black men and white men sell and use recreational drugs at nearly the same rates, black Americans are 2.7 times as likely to be arrested for drug-related offenses.

The sad reality that Black men face led the mother of Cameron Welch to create a list of 16 rules for him to follow when he leaves the house. She gave him the list at the age of 11, and at 18, he has it memorized so he shared it on TikTok to show people what life’s like as a Black man in America.

“In this moment in our country, it was necessary for me to use my voice, so I put out the video,” he told The Huffington Post. “I wanted people to hear and understand the real truth of a Black man’s daily experience.”

“Jus some unwritten rules my mom makes me follow as a young black man #blacklivesmatter,” Welch wrote on the TikTok video.

— Don’t put your hands in your pockets.

— Don’t put your hoodie on.

— Don’t be outside without a shirt on.

— Check-in with your people, even if you’re down the street.

— Don’t be out too late.

— Don’t touch anything you’re not buying.

— Never leave the store without a receipt or a bag, even if it’s just a pack of gum.

— Never make it look like there’s an altercation between you and someone else.

— Never leave the house without your ID.

— Don’t drive with a wife-beater on.

— Don’t drive with a du-rag on.

— Don’t go out in public with a wife-beater or a du-rag.

— Don’t ride with the music too loud.

— Don’t stare at a Caucasian woman.

— If a cop stops you randomly and starts questioning you, don’t talk back, just compromise.

— If you ever get pulled over, put your hands on the dashboard and ask if you can get your license and registration out.

The list of rules shows that Welch’s mother understands the reality of being a Black man in America and wanted to do her best to keep him safe when she’s not around. It’s also a sad reminder of the discrepancy between how white and Black teenagers are treated in this country.

A white teenager would never have to worry about wearing a hoodie or avoiding staring at a white woman. Parents of white children don’t have to warn their kids about being seen as a thief when they walk down to the corner liquor store.

“Saving this video for my future son,” one TikTok user told Welch.

“His future shouldn’t be like this,” Welch wrote back.

In a follow-up video, Welch talks about how he says goodbye to his friends after hanging out.

They don’t say, “I’ll see you later” when heading home. Instead, they say, “Stay safe.”

“Every Black man has that feeling of, ‘Am I gonna come home today?” he says in the clip.

The Denver Nuggets advanced to the Western Conference Semifinals on Tuesday evening, toppling the Utah Jazz and becoming just the 12th team in NBA history to erase a 3-1 series deficit. It wasn’t smooth sailing for the Nuggets, however, as Mike Malone’s team gave up a 19-point lead in the second half and needed to avoid disaster in the form of a potential game-winner as the buzzer sounded.

There is plenty to unpack from a memorable contest and, to that end, here are three takeaways from Game 7.

1. It was a throwback Game 7 in the most unexpected way

Coming into Tuesday evening, this was one of the most offensively potent series in recent memory. Jamal Murray and Donovan Mitchell headlined the action with monumental scoring displays and, while defensive moments did occur along the way, no one would mistake the first six games for the NBA basketball played in the early 2000’s. In Game 7, though, everything changed.

Neither team even approached one point per possession offensively, as evidenced by the 80-78 final score. Both teams deserve significant credit for defensive execution and effort, with the common theme of Game 7 slogs persisting. Still, this was a level that no one could have expected, with Rudy Gobert and Nikola Jokic truly stealing the show from their perimeter counterparts.

After a rough first half, Gobert was utterly dominant after halftime, producing 13 points and 17 (!) rebounds while playing all 24 minutes. He keyed a pair of huge runs from the Jazz in the second half, finishing around the rim and denying Denver’s attempts in the paint.

Jokic was consistently great in Game 7, finishing with a game-high 30 points and 14 rebounds. Though his offense was steady and efficiency throughout the series, Jokic reached new heights defensively in Game 7 and, with Murray struggling and seemingly hampered by a leg issue down the stretch, the All-NBA center converted the eventual game-winner.

Poignantly, the game ended with a bizarre sequence, as the Nuggets controversially decided to attack the rim after a Mitchell turnover. Denver missed in transition, setting the stage for Mike Conley to get a shot up before the horn.

It certainly wasn’t pretty, but it was competitive, grueling and everything Game 7 is supposed to be. This time, though, it just didn’t have very many points.

2. Mixed feelings abound for the Jazz

The Jazz blew a 3-1 lead. That isn’t great under any circumstances, especially when the team with the advantage is unable to convert multiple opportunities to close things out before Game 7. Honestly, it is tough to avoid a negative takeaway from that kind of collapse, and the rumblings could follow Utah.

On the other hand, the Jazz should be excited about the breakout of Mitchell, the strong play of Conley and another solid-or-better overall season. Mitchell likely can’t maintain the complete absurdity of the first six games against Denver, but he flashed tremendous, adding to an already impressive profile for a young lead guard. Conley struggled at times this season but, in the crucible of a playoff series, he did what the Jazz needed him to do and, with a lucrative contract option, he is likely to return to Salt Lake City.

It has to be bitterly disappointing for the Jazz to see their season end this way, particularly after a notably impressive comeback in a win-or-go-home scenario. Such is life in the NBA Playoffs, though, and Utah didn’t melt down in quite the way that the 3-1 margin could indicate.

3. The Nuggets will need to be (much) better against the Clippers

Murray was unbelievable in this series, scoring 50 points twice and scoring 36-plus points in four of the seven games. Through that lens, there isn’t much more he can do. Jokic had fewer grandiose moments in the series but, after an exceptionally ugly defensive start in the early going, he settled in, made plays and operated as the All-Star entity that he is. Elsewhere, though, Denver’s performance against Utah won’t be close to enough against the L.A. Clippers.

Granted, the Clippers weren’t quite as dominant as some predicted in the first round against the Dallas Mavericks, with Luka Doncic giving Doc Rivers’ team fits at times. Murray isn’t quite Doncic, even while acknowledging his brilliance in this series, but Denver does have a varied, effective offensive attack that should be able to generate quality looks against even a stingy defense like the Clippers.

On the other end, things might be ugly if Mike Malone can’t find answers in a hurry. Denver improved drastically over the course of the series against Utah but, against L.A., they won’t have the luxury of time. Furthermore, the Clippers have an undeniable force in Kawhi Leonard, with the Nuggets likely unable to neutralize him.

If the Nuggets deploy the defense that was the worst in the NBA Playoffs until Tuesday evening, Denver will be heading home in short order. If the defense of the last 10 quarters or so emerges, Denver could have a puncher’s chance against the Clippers, but they’ll also need to combine that effort with the obscene shotmaking from Murray (and Jokic) that flashed to the surface on a consistent basis against Utah

Mozzy already has one album under his belt, Beyond Bulletproof, which he released back in May. But he’s not been resting on his laurels. He’s announced a new album called Occupational Hazard, which will arrive on September 22, making it his second full-length release in 2020. He also released a sinister new single, “Death Is Callin,” which now has a video. It finds Mozzy and crew getting together to plan a home invasion, but the group are soon forced to flee the scene once shots starting ringing out behind them.

While Mozzy is withholding the album’s tracklist for now, the pre-order for the album reveals that it will contain 14 songs. That’s one more song than Beyond Bulletproof, which sported guest appearances from G Herbo, Polo G, Eric Bellinger, Blxst, and more. That album stood as one of the best releases of May, thanks to singles like “Body Count,” which produced a new spin on the quarantine-recorded video. That album also gave Mozzy his highest-charting album, peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard charts.

To learn more about Mozzy, check out his interview with Uproxx here.

You can watch the video for “Death Is Callin” above.

Occupational Hazard is out 09/11 via EMPIRE. Pre-order it here.