Category: Viral

UPROXX Sessions‘ latest star is Dax, who comes through with an uplifting performance of his single, “Black Lives Matter.” Dax hails St. John’s, Canada and has built a following on YouTube dropping remixes of popular songs like Tupac’s “All Eyez On Me,” Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady,” and XXXtentacion’s “Look At Me.”

However, he often flips the grim subject matter to project a more positive message, which has made him popular among his subscribers and a family-friendly fixture at events like celebrity basketball games, where he shows off the skills he developed playing point guard for Newman University. Artists with whom he’s worked in the past include Hopsin and O.T. Genasis, and he’s even had a short-lived spat with Tory Lanez.

As is probably clear from the title, “Black Lives Matter” finds Dax addressing current events like the recent increased scrutiny on police brutality and calling for unity. It’s certainly a bit of a departure from the mischievous performances of recent guests like Bino Rideaux and Guapdad 4000, but Dax delivers with his own upbeat brand of positive energy.

Watch Dax’s “Black Lives Matter” performance above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s new performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

The battle royale game Fortnite is as synonymous with popular dance moves as TikTok, which perhaps is why many dances you see on the social media network invariably end up in the video game. But on Thursday, one TikTok star called out Fortnite for what appears to be a use of a dance she made up and posted to social media.

As the leaked emote appeared online, many noted the similarities between Ana Coto’s viral TikTok of her roller-skating and dancing to Jennifer Lopez’s ‘Jenny From The Block,’ which has gone viral a number of times in 2020 on various platforms.

Coto, an actress who appeared in Ouiji, has a huge platform on TikTok, in part thanks to the video’s massive popularity. The impact of Coto’s 10-second TikTok is tough to quantify, but she’s largely credited with the explosion of popularity of roller skates while people passed time in quarantine. So when the tweet about the Freewheelin’ emote spread, Coto herself saw it and amplified the video both on TikTok and Instagram.

“Flattered but no dance credit,” Coto wrote, mentioning Fortnite directly while adding a nonplussed emoji. The dance is extremely similar to Coto’s, which sees her skating and moving her arms around basically in time to the leaked Freehweelin’ emote.

But curiously, the emote appearing without dane credit would come weeks after Epic credited another dance inventor for their work when the Renegade dance was added to Fortnite. That dance, which also was popularized on TikTok, got some run at the NBA All-Star Game — though creator Jalaiah Harmon wasn’t initially credited and featured. The game maker even had a TikTok dance contest recently, with a winner getting a licensed emote in the game as well.

According to The Verge, Epic wouldn’t comment on whether they have gotten in touch with Coto about the dance, and judging by her posts on social media she’s upset they mimicked her moves without approval. The Freewheelin’ emote isn’t in the game just yet, though, so it’s unclear what will happen before it’s officially launched.

[via The Verge]

LeBron James’ comments about the Lakers’ .500 record in the Bubble got the most attention, but it was Anthony Davis who put it most aptly. Whereas James remarked on “things you can’t control” off the floor, Davis was pretty plain in his analysis: The Lakers have much less margin for error because of their thinned-out Bubble roster.

“Especially now when we’re not making shots on a consistent basis, the chances are not in our favor when we (LeBron and Davis) aren’t playing well,” Davis said.

Maybe this was always true. Los Angeles, even with Avery Bradley (opt out) and Rajon Rondo (hand surgery), revolved around James and Davis. Having to rely on Dion Waiters and J.R. Smith, who haven’t played much basketball over the last calendar year, is not ideal during a championship run, and their adjustment period is certainly part of the reason the Lakers are missing open shots. But overall in Orlando, the Lakers are shooting 27.5 percent on open shots — those with four or more feet between the shooter and the closest defender. That’s hard to overcome.

When the numbers are that skewed, most of it can be attributed to bad luck. The Lakers will regress back toward their fifth-ranked effective field goal percentage before long. And James, who is shooting 42 percent at the Wide World of Sports, will certainly get nearer to his standard level of efficiency for the playoffs.

It was also Davis who acknowledged the obvious in this regard:

That doesn’t mean the solution is just as obvious.

Take Wednesday night’s 19-point loss to Oklahoma City, in which Waiters played a devastating 26 minutes. On a simple fast break — the Lakers’ bread and butter this season — Waiters effectively waved off an open James in the corner and tossed up a lazy layup that grazed the blackboard before giving the Thunder an advantage going back the other way. The Lakers lost Waiters’ 26 minutes by nine points because of moments like these.

While the scoring guard has the same first step and handle he’s always had and can still get inside pretty easily, he hardly knows what to do with the ball once he’s there. That makes it all the more glaring that the ball is not in James’ or Davis’ hands. Other Lakers role players like Alex Caruso, Danny Green and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope — heck, even JaVale McGee — know how to find and take their own shots in the rhythm of the offense. The ball doesn’t stick in their hands, because, again, they’re on the same team as two Hall of Famers.

It makes you realize how much the Lakers also miss Bradley. The team outscored opponents by 7.4 points per 100 possessions when Bradley played this season, and he was a key 3-and-D piece of their effective, nontraditional starting lineup. Without him, every lineup feels just a bit off.

Yet as Donny McHenry noted at Lakers Outsiders, Los Angeles is merely 19th on the season in three-point efficiency. This has been a weakness of the team all year, relative to the elite squads they’ll face in the postseason. And it’s not something we should trust Waiters or Smith — two guys who haven’t played in over a year — to fix.

The good news is there’s plenty to believe in going forward. Caruso, Caldwell-Pope and Green have all made fewer than a quarter of their threes in Orlando. Those are players you can definitely trust to nail open shots more consistently. They’ve all done it all season with this same core. It could just be a matter of getting their legs under them.

The recipe for James’ teams for over a decade has been simple: Play smart and when the ball is in your hands and no one is around, make the damn shot. There’s a reason guys like Deron Williams and Kyle Korver were on the court for Cleveland in the NBA Finals in their 30s. That reason is James. While shot-making is a relatively solvable problem, it’s also the top thing you have to do when you play with James.

What may be less solvable is whatever James was hinting at after the Lakers’ loss to Oklahoma City. Any guess is reasonable. It could be the strange routine of days in the Bubble, playing without veterans like Bradley and Rondo, or whatever it is Dwight Howard has been saying lately. James is a creature of habit, and this is unlike anything he’s faced.

That’s his problem to sort through, but in the meantime, we should listen to Davis. It would go a long way if the Lakers could just knock down open jumpers.

Rex Orange County went from recording songs in his bedroom to leading a sold-out UK tour. The singer’s 2019 Pony marked his major-label debut but the singer has been making music since he was young. Rex self-released his debut album Bcos U Will Never B Free in 2015 when he was still in high school and he’s celebrating his five-year career anniversary by releasing the effort on vinyl.

About his debut album, Rex said he never could have imagined how far he’s come since the 2015 effort: “I remember being 16, midway through my final years of school and feeling like I had a lot I wanted to say. I didn’t have a strong intention with the release of Bcos U Will Never B Free, I just felt determined to make something and put it out into the world. But with it came the idea and belief to pursue music as a career. I could have never predicted that I’d end up playing some of those songs to the people in all the places I’ve toured since. And I feel so lucky to still be making music 5 years on.”

Check out the Bcos U Will Never B Free album cover and tracklist below.

1. “Rex (Intro)”
2. “Paradise”
3. “Belly (The Grass Stains)”
4. “Corduroy Dream”
5. “Japan”
6. “Portrait Of Ned”
7. “Green Eyes, Pt. II”
8. “A Song About Being Sad”
9. “Know Love”
10. “Curfew…”

Bcos U Will Never B Free is out 9/4 via Sony. Pre-order it here.

When it comes to whiskey, it seems like there’s always a new, hot, hard-to-find bottle that was once widely available for $30. Almost overnight, seemingly random expressions become more popular than Members Only jackets in ’85. There’s no real mystery here. It happens because the right people agree on the quality of a certain dram and shower it with praise, then websites and magazines amplify that love.

Suddenly you have a shortage and people selling bottles on aftermarket sites. Then it shortens its aging to meet demand, gets dubbed overrated, and the cycle begins anew.

That’s exactly what happened in March of 2019, when Henry McKenna Single Barrel Bourbon won “Best in Show, Whiskey” at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. This reasonably easy to find $35 bourbon suddenly became the hottest whiskey in America. More than a year later, it’s still not easy to get your hands on a bottle. And it’s happening again right now.

The 2020 Ultimate Spirits Challenge saw Stagg Jr. Kentucky Straight Bourbon — a whiskey that retails for an extremely reasonable $49.99 — was awarded a 98 out of 100. Bourbon enthusiasts already knew that this was an underrated bottle, but after it was given such an incredible score the whole country has taken note.

There’s about to be a huge rush on this highly nuanced, complex whiskey expression. Check our tasting notes and get it while you can.

Stagg Jr. Kentucky Straight Bourbon

ABV: 64.2%

Distillery Name: Buffalo Trace

Average Price: $59.99

The Story:

While George T. Stagg seems like a made-up name, he actually did exist. The native Kentuckian was selling whiskey in St. Louis when he met E.H. Taylor and the duo collaborated to open one of the most well-known distilleries in the 1800s (now known as Buffalo Trace).

For his efforts, Stagg not only got one bourbon named after him, but two. The first bourbon called George T. Stagg was so named to pay homage to the whiskey innovator. It’s uncut, unfiltered, and is aged in new charred oak barrels for at least 15 years. The second whiskey to bear his name is also uncut and unfiltered but spends just a hair under a decade maturing. Clearly, less time aging didn’t stop the judges at the Ultimate Spirits Challenge from noticing that this is a truly special dram.

Tasting Notes:

From the first sip, you’ll understand why the judges loved this expression. Right off the bat, there’s a sweet, caramelized brown sugar flavor that slowly walks its way into rich, well-aged leather. That’s just the beginning of the Stagg, Jr. flavor rollercoaster. Just when you think you’ve reached the depths of its flavor; you’re met with rich cocoa sweetness followed by subtle Christmas spices before finally ending in a crescendo of creamy maple candy and toasted oak.

Don’t ruin this dram by mixing it or even adding ice. Simply open it up with a few drops of water and sip on it slowly while you let the rest of the world pass by unnoticed.

The coronavirus pandemic has been tough for a lot of industries, and that includes shipping. The US Postal Service, for example, expects to run out of money by the end of 2021 unless Congress steps in with some sort of reform. In April, Donald Trump issued an executive order that called for a review of USPS, which perhaps has something to do with a beef with Amazon.

Whatever the case may be, USPS is in a time of need, and Maggie Rogers is doing her part to help.

A fan of Rogers’ noticed something when making an order on Rogers’ website, tweeting, “When going to order Heard It In a Pastlife, I literally cried the happiest tears of hope. @maggierogers is supporting the @USPS by offering them as a her ONLY shipping method! She is in control of her music and this is such a powerful statement!!” Sharing the tweet, Rogers added, “USPS forever,” along with a red heart emoji.

The US Postal Service is an essential service for a lot of musicians and music retailers. Pitchfork noted in an April feature that Media Mail service is a key inexpensive option that allows independent artists to send CDs and records without breaking the bank. The publication quotes Jim Henderson, co-owner of California independent chain Amoeba Music, as saying, “Not having access to the USPS would certainly eliminate our ability to continue the free shipping offer, as alternate shipping options are dramatically more expensive and cumbersome to navigate, and would likely shut down the commerce part of our site entirely.”

Kids, I’m going to tell you an incredible story, the story of how Ted Mosby could have warned us about the coronavirus, but chose not to.

How I Met Your Mother, the Emmy-winning CBS sitcom that ran from 2005 to 2014, might not be on the same most-watched level as Friends or The Office but it’s still mighty popular, at least based on how often reruns air on cable. I assume it was while watching one of those old episodes that Reductress contributor Tara Millette noticed something peculiar. “Ted Mosby, in the year 2030, told the story of how he met his children’s mother and HE NEVER MENTIONED THE CORONAVIRUS ONCE,” she wrote. Here I was thinking that a dad telling his kids about all the women he slept with (cue the “Bang Bang” song) before meeting their mother was the worst thing about Ted — I was wrong.

Look, I’m not saying Ted Mosby is to blame for the spread of COVID-19, but it wouldn’t surprise me, either. Millette’s tweet caught the attention of How I Met co-creator Craig Thomas, who responded, “In his defense, Ted didn’t want to make the story overly long.”

Classic Shmosby.

Robin must be lording this over her American friends so hard.

Earlier in the week, Mission: Impossible 7 found itself under fire after reports began surfacing that production planned to blow up a bridge that Polish locals consider to be a “monument.” The film franchise is known for its infamously realistic stunts that could place Tom Cruise’s life into all kinds of danger. Seriously, it’s a miracle he’s still in one piece.

However, Polish officials were quick to point out that characterizing an old bridge as “monument” was not an accurate description and was stirring up unnecessary controversy. “I would not be fixated on the fact that the Pilchowicki Bridge is a monument,”Deputy Culture Minister Pawel Lewandowski told The Independent. “It stands in ruins and has no value. Not all old things are monuments.”

Now, writer/director Christopher McQuarrie has entered the fray, and in a twist worthy of the spy film franchise, there appears to be nefarious forces working in the shadows. In a rare open letter published in Empire, McQuarrie details how the production reached an “enthusiastic” agreement to blow up a bridge in Poland that was already in need of demolition. Blowing it up for a stunt was actually doing local officials a favor as it would pave the way for a new railway bridge that could potentially boost tourism. But according to McQuarrie within his letter, a disgruntled individual tried to sideline the stunt in an act of vengeance:

One individual, for reasons I cannot specify without revealing their identity, claimed they were owed a job on the production for which we felt they were not adequately qualified.

When this individual’s demands were not met, they retaliated.

After harassing members of our production publicly and anonymously on social media, as well as privately, this individual misrepresented our intentions and concealed their personal reasons for wanting to penalize us. They even tried to have this condemned, unsafe and unusable bridge landmarked in the hopes of preventing it from ever being removed and rebuilt (which we understand would be to the detriment of the area’s economic needs). Then they reached out to us to gloat about it. In short, this individual manipulated the emotional response of the people in a move that has now compromised our ambitions to bring our production to Poland.

Despite the recent controversy, McQuarrie states that he still plans to bring Mission: Impossible 7 to Poland and, hopefully, destroy a fair chunk of this bridge with the blessing of local officials.

(Via Empire)

As the Lakers look to shore up their chemistry and shot-making ahead of what they hope will be a deep playoff run, their Orlando seeding games are off to a rough start. Fresh off of a 19-point loss to Oklahoma City on Wednesday night, the 2-2 Lakers will be without LeBron James on Thursday as they take on the Rockets.

James is apparently struggling with groin soreness, something Lakers head coach Frank Vogel mentioned after the loss to the Thunder.

In four bubble games, James is shooting just 42 percent, quite uncharacteristic for him, especially during a portion in the season in which, typically, James would be rounding into postseason form. All that rounding is impossible in the unfamiliar confines of the Wide World of Sports complex, and James is struggling, as are the .500 Lakers.

With the No. 1 seed locked up, it’s no surprise Vogel would try to steal a night of rest for James, especially on the second night of a back-to-back. It might be just what James needs to feel better and look more like the player we know him to be. Guard Alex Caruso is also questionable for the game against the Rockets, who are 2-1 in Orlando and have been exploding on offense in a way that will be tough for the depleted Lakers to match.

TeaMarrr, Issa Rae’s first Raedio artist as part of her partnership with Atlantic Records, follows up her splashy debut single “Kinda Love” with another new single taking on a heavier topic: Racial inequality. Recruiting Wale for an energized and socially-conscious verse, TeaMarrr shared “Colors” today, speaking on the way people allow something as simple as skin color divide us.

Meanwhile, Wale’s verse cleverly uses colors associated with with various groups to call out police brutality, the topic of conversation in the public discourse for the past several months. “The Black hate the blue because the blue shoot whatever,” he chants. “Which mostly is the Blacks because the blue acting yellow.” It’s familiar territory for Wale, who released his “Sue Me” video earlier this year addressing similar topics.

In May, TeaMarrr also released her debut EP, saying at the time, “I want people to heal themselves with my sound. I hope they walk away thinking, ‘TeaMarrr is my new musical pharmacist.’ My catalog will heal whatever mood you’re in; if you’re in a lovey-dovey vibe put on ‘Kinda Love.’ If you’re angry at your ex and don’t understand why he couldn’t have done the one thing you asked him to, I definitely have a song for that too. Think of me as the sonic doctor prescribing music as medicine to help you heal.” That mission is on clear display with her latest as she seeks to heal racial divides as well as emotional wounds.

Listen to TeaMarrr’s “Colors” featuring Wale above.

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