Category: Viral

Chicago soul singer Jamila Woods is a year removed from her critically hailed album Legacy! Legacy! and appears ready to begin releasing new music, starting with the sultry, NSFW video for new single “Sula (Hardcover).” Channeling ethereal soul stars of decades past like Erykah Badu and Nina Simone, Jamila’s latest finds her ruminating over the nature of love and life as a young, Black woman. She seems to weigh her options between “freedom” and motherhood, love and sex, and criticizes the world for limiting her options.

The video revolves around some “secret garden” imagery, as Woods begins the clip wandering the neighborhood until she comes to a locked garden gate. Opening it, she reveals a curated wonderland of knick knacks and heirlooms evoking old cultural traditions. Photos of Woods’ musical inspirations adorn bookcases and shelves bearing books like The Souls Of Black Folks and she luxuriates in their presence before stripping down to her birthday suit. Remember Erykah Badu’s “Window Seat” video? It’s a lot like that, but from the front.

“Sula (Hardcover)” is a remix of “Sula (Paperback),” the single Woods released in August inspired by Toni Morrison. Where the song originally had a softer, simpler composition, here, it’s built-up and percussive, illustrating exactly the versatile qualities Woods sings about in the lyrics.

Watch Jamila Woods’ “Sula” video above.

On the new episode of Indiecast, Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen make the argument that Deerhunter might be the last great American indie band. It’s an interesting claim for sure, but one that makes more and more sense as the discussion continues. It all starts when the duo is digging deep into the band’s 2010 album Halcyon Digest in celebration of its tenth anniversary, when Hyden and Cohen reveal that Deerhunter is the last band in the true sense of the word: an entity that exists as a collective, rather than an identity that’s actually driven by one person.

The Atlanta band marks an interesting divide between the indie bands of the aughts and those of the 2010’s. The aughts had full-fledged bands like The Strokes, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective. The biggest names in 2010s indie, on the other hand, are more of a solo project with a backing band, with projects like Car Seat Headrest, Snail Mail, Soccer Mommy, and Mitski all revolving around one creative personality.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, we have Lomelda’s impressive new album Hannah and Jeff Tweedy’s forthcoming book How To Write One Song.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 8 below and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. Stay up to date and follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

Anybody who knows anything about Drake is fully aware that the rapper is a huge basketball fan. He had the time of his life during the Toronto Raptors’ championship parade in 2019, and he got himself a personalized championship ring worth more than an annual salary at a high-paying job. Drake has been known to play ball himself from time to time (like a run he had with Justin Bieber and Quavo earlier this year), and that includes the Sanctuary Basketball League, his recreational league.

The league championship recently went down (on Drake’s literal home court at his Toronto mansion), and his team came out ahead. Naturally, Drake did some celebrating, and it went above and beyond the conclusions of most rec. leagues: There was confetti, champagne, championship shirts, championship hats, and a raised platform in front of a media wall.

Drake actually got in a bit of a beef after the league finals. Everyday Struggle co-host Wayno commented on Drake’s celebration, “Of course he won the championship in his gym lol.” Drake fired back, “U love to chat about next man ur a nerd.” Wayne responded, “I’m the nerd? nah Gz you just bothered by anything, imagine being bothered after winning a championship.”

Ultimately, this could be the most notable basketball championship in Toronto this year, as the Raptors are fresh off a loss to the Celtics in a back-and-forth seven-game series.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe expanded on Thursday when it was announced that “Alison Brie-type” Tatiana Maslany will play She-Hulk in an upcoming Disney+ series. The Orphan Black star has yet to respond to the news, and neither Marvel nor Disney have made it official, but Mark Ruffalo, ever the rebel, went ahead and congratulated his “cuz.”

Ruffalo, who’s played Bruce Banner/the Hulk in the MCU since 2012, tweeted, “Welcome to the family, cuz!” Maslany’s Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk is Bruce’s cousin, who becomes the not-so-jolly green giant after Bruce gives her a blood transfusion. Marvel describes the family members as being “close allies. Though they come to blows on a few occasions, for the most part they are fierce allies with strong family ties. Jennifer is one of the few to understand the Hulk and his plight.” Family, am I right?

She-Hulk now has a star (Maslany), a director (Kat Coiro), and a showrunner (Jessica Gao), but can we expect a cameo from Ruffalo? “There’s some talk about it, but it’s all kind of preliminary,” he said earlier this year. “It would be nice to see Banner, Hulk, Professor, somebody show up to help and to guide or be a gentle guiding presence of She-Hulk as a friend.” Hulk should bring along my dude Korg along, too. He and She-Hulk would get along swimmingly. (Can a Hulk swim? Save that for season two.)

In June 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez handily defeated a 10-year incumbent in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th congressional district. That sparked discussion of a party shift toward embracing Democratic Socialism, which must have struck fear into the heart of Tucker Carlson, given AOC’s immense popularity. Well, Carlson soon found himself on-air admitting that he’s not opposed to basic principles of Democratic Socialism during a discussion with Harvard professor and philosopher Cornel West. Given that Carlson’s been behaving in a particularly virulent manner lately — including how he’s defended the Kenosha vigilante teen murderer because of the “property rights” often championed by the far-right (like people are really trying to take those rights away) — the 2018 clip has now resurfaced.

This clip is part of a larger discussion of DNC Chair Tom Perez’s characterization of AOC as the future of the Democratic party. Carlson seemed concerned the “radical left” is going “mainstream,” and he asked West to appear on air to explain the movement. Carlson, of course, cited the failure of Venezuela, and he wished to explore whether Democratic Socialism was aggressively picking away at the Democratic party. West, who is a leading member of the Democratic Socialists of America, explained that, yes, there are different forms of the branch around the world, some successful and some not.

In this mini-clip that’s now circulating anew, West needed less than a minute to boil down the essence of his argument.

“The fundamental commitment is to the dignity of ordinary people and to make sure they can live lives of decency,” West explained. “It is not an ‘ism,’ brother. It’s about decency, it’s about fairness and it’s about the accountability of the powerful.”

Carlson’s response? “If that is what democratic socialism is, then I am basically on board,” he said. “I do think that ordinary people, middle class people, ought to have dignity. And I think that our current systems make it hard for them to have dignity.”

Since 2020 is such a dumpster fire (and Tucker’s making a spectacle of himself lately by blaming Lindsey Graham for Trump dishing on his COVID lies), it’s not too surprising to see that this clip is circulating afresh. And people dig it.

Happy Friday, everyone.

The Weeknd’s new album After Hours is only about six months old now, but he’s not promoting it like he has previous albums. That’s not his fault, though, as the pandemic has limited options on that front. What he has been doing, though, is working on new music. In a new Rolling Stone profile, he said that he could actually have a new album out during the pandemic.

The piece concludes by noting that The Weeknd has “begun producing some of the new songs he’s written out of a makeshift studio in his condo.” The Weeknd himself said, “I might have another album ready to go by the time this quarantine is over.”

He also suggested that his new music is different from After Hours, and that the whole album cycle will be cinematic in nature: “I’m guilty of wanting to outdo my last album, but it’s never like, ‘I’ve got to do the same type of song.’ I’m so happy I’m not like that. My palette is so wide. […] I’m trying to find a perfect balance with the film and the music, and so far it’s going really well. I think I might have cracked the code.”

The Weeknd also said that, on a distinct note, he has been writing songs about characters in movies and TV shows he has been watching during the pandemic: “I’ll write about their relationship or something in a song. It might never see the light of day. That’s an exercise. I love doing that.”

Elsewhere, he admitted that the pandemic has made it more difficult to enjoy the release of After Hours like he has previous albums, saying, “I’ve been cooped up here for the last four months. Usually you go to a club or you go driving. You hear [your music] on the radio. I really haven’t been able to enjoy the fruits of my labor.”

Read the full feature here.

At the root of the Jurassic World franchise — even moreso than Jeff Goldblum’s “life finds a way” utterance or his iconic, heaving chest — is a cautionary tale of bad decisions made by mankind and the hubris that follows. These humans simply cannot resist theme-park-ing homicidal dinosaurs and genetically engineering breeds while imagining that they won’t bite back if given the chance. Well, they always seize the opportunity, and one can hardly blame them. I’d be incensed as a massive reptile if puny humans tried to cramp my style, too, but this franchise’s audience knows the drill, and that’s why they show up. Somehow, watching characters ooh-and-ah over cute little baby dinosaurs, who rapidly reach adulthood and terrorize all who dare to tread upon Isla Nublar, never gets old, nor does watching a peaceful, idealistic sight like this one…

…transform into a threatening spectacle like this one. Yep, the Indominus Rex, the Mosasaurus, and the Carnosauris are all at it again.

Fortunately, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (which by now, you realize is an animated spinoff) is wise enough to insert some Velociraptors as well, including an obligatory cameo from Blue. To do less would be unforgivable, since this is essentially a Clone Wars equivalent: a canon offering meant to tide over audiences while they wait for the sixth franchise feature-length offering, Jurassic World: Dominion, to arrive. Considering that this Netflix original’s visuals arrive courtesy of DreamWorks Animation (at the behest of Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment), this series is even more striking at times than the live-action set pieces. With Steven Spielberg, Colin Trevorrow, and Frank Marshall as executive producers, this series means business.

The end result is more family-friendly than what we’re used to from the PG-13 films, but it continues the fine tradition of scaring kids’ pants off. Still, there’s a good chance that they’ll also enjoy watching dinosaurs stalk humans afresh because the six teenage characters — all shipped off for a summer camp billed as the opportunity of a lifetime — of this series are worth rooting for. Granted, they’re mostly not wild about each other from the beginning but must band together when sh*t hits the fan. It’s also worth noting that the human characters are drawn in a relatively basic way, so the dinosaurs are what’s visually popping, along with lush surroundings. Overall, it’s a gorgeously rendered show with views from tree-top cabins and zip-line adventures aplenty.

Bioluminescence, man. It’s a little bit trippy at times, and DreamWorks (of How To Train Your Dragon, Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and so on) was clearly the animation studio for this gig. The show looks wonderful, but it’s worth stressing that this can be an intense watch at times (with teens having no Chris Pratt to dig the characters out of trouble) and probably a little too much for the youngest kids out there. I certainly wouldn’t let this series act as a babysitter, unless said kids are already quite familiar with the movies.

The biggest question for our purposes, though, is whether the adults will dig this series. I do believe many will appreciate the effort (and visuals that are better than Clone Wars and Rebels), unless you really need some curse words with your dinosaurs. Again, it’s canon with developments (and uncovered secrets) relevant to the franchise (it takes place at about the same time as the first Jurassic World flick), so it’s worth watching on that note. The eight episodes are breezy (less than half an hour apiece) and barrel into each other with momentum as the teens whirl across the island in an attempt to survive. Before one knows it, cliffhanger upon cliffhanger turns into a bingewatch.

There’s another bonus here: the teens might even remind people of 1980s John Hughes movies. So at first, they’ll appear as two-dimensional stereotypes (athlete, popular social-media maven, basketcase, and so on) who are mildly unlikeable, but they gain depth and emotional range once they must start working together. They’re a diverse bunch, both culturally and regarding their chosen pursuits, and it’s actually pretty enjoyable to watch a group of resilient teens take matters into their own hands when all the adults were dumb enough to (1) Send them to a “luxurious” island camp full of absolutely lethal creatures; and (2) To breed these creatures in the first place.

Even with an adorable Ankylosaurus on the scene, we all know what to expect here: potential nightmare fuel. That’s always the case with the movies, and the spirit stays alive in the animated counterpart. The show earns the attention of devotees, and it might even be a worthwhile introduction to the movies for adults who haven’t watched any of the movies. It’s not a massive time investment and definitely doesn’t feel like one, and it’s a pleasant (although intense) diversion. For sure, Isla Nublar is also a fitting place to get lost while rooting for humans to escape incredibly visible threats, and forgetting about the invisible one stalking the world today.

Netflix’s ”Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous’ streams on September 18.

When the Emmys air this weekend, there might be a bit more attention paid to the Contemporary Hairstyling category than in years past. You can thank Schitt’s Creek’s Moira Rose for that. Or really, you can thank hairstylist Ana Sorys, who joined the show in its third season and was the mastermind behind some of star Catherine O’Hara’s most iconic looks. The two managed to usher in a sort of Wig-aissance with a line-up of over-the-top extensions, colorful coifs, and scene-stealing postiche that felt as eclectic and unique as the character’s definingly winsome vernacular.

It’s not hyperbole to say the show changed the way we look at hair and its relationship to our own identities, although that does feel like the kind of grandiose endorsement daytime’s brightest star would appreciate. So we chatted with Sorys about the legacy of the show, the mind-blowing looks of its final season, and if we’ll ever see the wig wall again.

You joined the show in season three. Did you want to change anything in terms of the wigs Catherine had been wearing?

What I learned about Catherine — what I learned about Moira — was that she used her wigs as more of a mood and a feeling as opposed to what she looked like. She never knew what type of wig she was going to put on. It was always a last-minute thing. So when I came on the show, I decided that I was going to have a lot of wigs prepared, so if she had an idea in her mind of how she wanted to feel, I had it available. It was a lot of doing hair on the fly.

So how did that process of finding the right wig for the right scene work then?

Sometimes we’d do a wig fitting, and it’s not even a scheduled wig fitting. It’s the end of the day and it’s time to go home, and Catherine would always come into the trailer to say goodnight, and then we would just, she would try on a wig backward, or she would go through my bins and just have fun. I remember we spent, it must’ve been an hour and a half trying on wigs one night just cracking up. I think that was more of how the process went.

Moira goes on a journey in the finale season. How do her wigs reflect that?

In season five, a lot of the wigs were dark. We had a dark green wig; we had the black wig for cabaret; we had the crow that was black. I shop all year round and research, and I figured, season six, I wanted it to be a little lighter. I thought I just wanted to brighten things up. For instance, in season six, episode one where she’s coming out of the closet and she has this crazy white poodle wig that I bought in New York. She put it on backward, and it just looked like, I mean, “What the heck was that?” If we had put a dark wig on her in a dark time, in a dark closet, it just wouldn’t have felt the same.

And in the last episode, for instance, when she and Alexis are in the room together, she has the short wig on. That’s actually from Judi Cooper-Sealy, who was her hairstylist since her SCTV years. She had passed away and Catherine brought this wig with her from California. She said, “I know this isn’t Moira, but I’d like to incorporate this wig somewhere as an ode to Judi.” So, we decided that it would be a good time to do it during that scene. And to make it more Moira, I said, “I’m going to sew some colorful pieces into this wig.” We did that literally at the last minute, while she was in rehearsals. So we still have an ode to her old hairstylist and some color.

We can’t talk about specific looks without talking about her Viking Priestess get-up from David and Patrick’s wedding. I’m guessing that wasn’t done on the fly?

Yeah, for that scene, we did do a little bit of planning. When we got the script, I went to Catherine and I said, “I know you’re going to be wearing this headpiece and this very long robe. What were you thinking for your hair?” And I showed her reference of this huge donut hairpiece that I thought would look good around the hat. So we drew a sketch of it, and we measured her head and measured the hat. And for weeks, I had worked on this piece. The crew would watch me walk around with this stuffed pantyhose that I was trying to figure out how I would wrap the hair around it, so it would stay clean and endure the whole day.

I tried sewing it. I tried doing all these things, and I just couldn’t figure out how it was going to work. Dan came to me the night before, and he said, “You’ve been working on this for so long.” He’s like, “You don’t have to have it. This is something extra, so don’t worry about it.” And I was like, “No way! We are doing this.” I found my glue that I used to put my tiles down in my kitchen and I used tile glue, and it worked perfectly. It didn’t change the color of the hair. It tucked it in place, it didn’t darken it. And her hair, we started out with, I think it was 40 inches. And two days later I said to Dan, “You know what? I think that hair should be longer.” So I added an extra 22 inches to it. In the end, it was 62 inches of hair.

And no one saw it until the day of?

Right. We didn’t tell the crew what she was going to look like. We wanted it to be a surprise and when she walked onto set, it’s a moment in my career where I watched everybody’s face, especially Dan’s face… they could not believe it. Everybody started clapping. It was so worth it.

When did you realize Moira’s wig collection had become something bigger than just a running joke on the show?

It was when we started seeing people dressed up as Moira in drag. That’s when we were like, “Oh my God, this is a thing now.”

It’s so markedly different than how any other TV series would use a hairpiece or wig, even other comedy series.

I think that people are starting to realize that it’s okay to wear a wig just for fun; not to change the way you look, but change the way you feel. Most people wear hairpieces and extensions, and it’s more about wanting to look like other people. A Moira wig is more about expressing yourself and how you feel. It’s about wanting to be different and it not being an issue.

Can you even compare what you guys did on the show with the other work you’re nominated against at the Emmys this year?

It’s interesting because I’ve had people ask me, “So, what do you think of your chances of winning an Emmy?” I made a decision not to look at any of the other work, and not to compare myself as an artist for the work that I did on the show. We did this very organically, and we had a lot of fun with it, and it was more about how we made the fans feel. You know? At the end of the day, I think the only thing that matters is how you make people feel when they’re watching TV and watching your work.

The wigs became such a big part of Moira’s storyline. They were part of the comedy. Jokes were written in the script about them. Who came up with their names and backstories?

Well, for instance, in season six, episode one, where she’s calling out the names of her wigs because she’s worried that they’re going to burn in the fire. So the wigs, the names of the wigs are the names her best friends. They were Catherine’s best friends in real life. And when that episode premiered on TV, she invited those specific friends to her house to watch the episode, and those friends saw her call out their names on the show. She didn’t tell her friends that she was going to do that.

Which cast members went home with which wigs?

So, Catherine, she took the pink wig with her and she has the Sunrise Bay look. There was this one wig that I got from Japan. It was like a Harajuku blue wig, an anime, wig. We didn’t end up using it, but Dan said, ‘I want to take that one.’

And you have the rest?

I have them all packed away and labeled by episode, scene numbers, and seasons. I am pretty much in charge of what happens to them now, which is nothing. I didn’t want them to go into a production closet. Who knows if we’re ever going to need them again? So I just want to make sure that they’re in a safe place.

For an exhibition at The Met maybe?

That would be amazing. Yeah, we have to talk to Dan about that. He’ll love it.

Or you could just create a line of wigs. I’m sure fans would open their wallets for that.

Yeah, I’ve had women who were going through chemo contact me and ask me about wigs. They say, since they’ve seen Moira’s hair on TV, they’re having fun with wearing wigs as opposed to just wanting to blend into society. They’re actually wearing a pink wig or wearing a green wig, and it brightens their day. Who knows? Maybe there might be a Moira wig collection that you could buy in the future.

A virtual table read of scenes from Cameron Crowe’s 1982’s high school-set comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High brought together an impressive collection of talent on Thursday, including Shia LaBeouf (seen here doing some Spicoli method acting), Morgan Freeman, Henry Golding, John Legend, Matthew McConaughey, and Julia Roberts. Also in Zoom attendance: Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt, “appearing on screen together for the first time since their 2005 divorce,” according to People. They were cast as Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates) and Brad Hamilton (Judge Reinhold), meaning the got to reenact the scene every 14-year-old boy remembers from Fast Times:

The two actors shared a hilarious moment in the script in which the character of Brad has a sexual fantasy about Linda, resulting in a live reading between the two exes that caused laughs by everyone.

It must’ve been really hard for Brad Pitt to play a character named Brad who goes gaga for Jennifer Aniston. The scene elicited delight from the other famous people (McConaughey was grinning the entire time) and online, where reactions ranged from, “Jennifer Aniston is playing it so fucking cool but Brad Pitt is clearly embarrassed. I LOVE MY DIVORCED PARENTS,” to, simply, “All these actors reacting to Brad Pitt’s character jerking off to Jennifer Aniston’s character.” Come for (stop giggling) the Brad and Jen; stay for the Morgan Freeman saying the words “pumping slowly.”

The virtual table read raised money for CORE and REFORM Alliance.

Dua Lipa has made the most of the pandemic on an artistic front. Future Nostalgia came out around the start of lockdown, and for much of the year, she has made multiple appearances on late-night TV, including a guest-hosting spot on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. She found herself back on TV last night, this time to team with James Corden on The Late Late Show to parody two of her biggest hits, re-working them to be about dating during the pandemic.

The two swap lines in the first verse of “Don’t Start Now,” singing, “What a year for dating, crazy / Nothing is the way it was / People texting exes sex pics / From the basement at their mum’s / You have human contact / don’t know what you’ll contract / so your first date’s always on Zoom.”

In the second chorus, the pair instructs, “Wear a mask, wash your hands / It’s not like you have other plans / It’s awkward but it’s cool / following all these COVID rules.”

That line serves as a transition into the “New Rules” portion of the parody. Some of the fresh regulations include, “Up your waxing game / No one’s seen you naked since February,” and, “Stalk their Instagram / You gotta background check if you wanna slam.”

Watch the video above.

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