Category: Viral

Microsoft’s Xbox Series X game event on Thursday was an opportunity to get gamers excited about the computing giant’s own next-gen console, starting with a very familiar protagonist in Halo‘s Master Chief. If you’re looking for differences between Sony and Microsoft in how they approach their latest consoles, you’ll have to look deeper than the events they’ve put on in recent weeks in lieu of the more traditional E3 and in-person showcases the industry has come to expect.

Both companies have already spent time teasing performance and instead focused on games, which ultimately may be what gets people to pick one console over another. But their approach to showcasing those games is also very similar. One of the biggest pieces of news from Thursday’s event was that Destiny 2 and its expansions would hit Game Pass on Xbox Series X. One can pretty easily make the connection to Sony giving away GTA V for the PS5, too. Old favorites are good, sure, but people want new games to make it worth shelling out for a new console. And Microsoft did show off at least glimpses at some considerable titles.

Here’s what we learned from Microsoft’s event.

Infinite Nostalgia

Halo Infinite led off the event, and for good reason. Master Chief has been with Xbox since the beginning, and we got both a cinematic showing the creation of Master Chief armor and some gameplay that looked pretty crisp, all things considered. The game looked less technologically impressive than others we’ve seen, but it did look like a good Halo game, if that makes sense.

The gameplay saw plenty of familiar weapons as Master Chief deftly took down Grunts, Brutes, and Elites to the familiar battle cries you’ve come to know and love of your Covenant enemies over the years. The Halo setting looked like the first few levels of the original game’s campaign. Everything was familiar and those who have played the series undoubtedly got a jolt of nostalgia watching Chief’s assault rifle-obstructed view of the Halo ring’s greenery and alien installations. Modern first-person shooters need a lot more than campaign nostalgia to be worth the squeeze, but Halo Infinite looked the part at first glance.

Here, Take This

Microsoft showed off a number of different games from its studios, and not to over-generalize, but there were a lot of shooters. Guns were everywhere, starting at the top with Halo and working down the rest of the hourlong show. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, CrossfireX, S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2, and Destiny 2 all featured gunplay on top of Halo‘s alien killers. State of Decay 3 featured a bow, sure, but it’s weaponry all the same. A Phantasy Star Online sequel also made some Dreamcast shooter die hards very excited.

There’s nothing wrong with shooters, of course, but it was a theme of the day for sure.

Honey I Shrunk The Survival Game

One of the sillier titles was a backyard survival game that looks a lot like Honey I Shrunk The Kids called Grounded. It was a bit of an oddball: an Obsidian survival game that looks cartoony and features children trying to survive as tiny shrunken kids in an oversized backyard. No oatmeal cream pies in sight, but it was tough to think of anything else even while leaf homes were assembled and ants and spiders were getting after some very small children in the trailer for this one.

Jack Black, Psychonaut

I’m not sure if Jack Black was on your video game event bingo card, but you were probably a big winner on Thursday if you expected to see him doing a song for Psychonauts 2. Some extremely trippy gameplay video was paired with a brief behind-the-scenes of Black in the recording studio making a song for the sequel to the 2005 Double Fine hit. The song was actually pretty good, and the vibrant scenes from the game are intriguing, but it was definitely more of a music video than a gameplay video that lets us know how the sequel will actually play.

Sooner Than Later

One interesting note The Verge pointed out is that Microsoft’s initial promise that its next-gen console won’t be immediately necessary to get the latest games wasn’t backed up by its presentation Thursday. Games like Forza Motorspot, Fable, Avowed, As Dusk Falls, Everwild, and State of Decay 3 were revealed for the Series X and Windows PC, but not the existing Xbox One. Previous quotes from Microsoft had indicated the company doesn’t want gamers to feel they need to rush to buy a new console, at least right away. But there wasn’t any real clarification on when those games were coming out and whether Xbox One gamers will get to play them.

What We Didn’t Learn
Well, the price. Of anything, really. Much like the PlayStation 5 event last month, there wasn’t a console price to be found on Thursday. In fact, we only really got glimpses of the console itself during the event, mostly at the end in a flash of its recap video.

There’s still the question of how much next-gen games will cost, with NBA 2K21‘s $70 next-gen pricetag undefined as an outlier or the new industry standard price. Thursday was more about hype and hope than reality, of course, but “Holiday 2020” is rapidly approaching and there’s still a lot to learn about what the industry will be like come winter.

Staying power is a fascinating thing in a world where so much seems to burst and fade. Is it the product of good luck? Surely that’s a factor, but probably not as much as talent, drive, and above all else, flexibility. People will, I am sure, deny or defer the credit for the decisions made to attain it. Humbleness (false or otherwise) is the default, but achieving staying power is a for-sure engineered thing.

Incredibly, it has been 15 years and 199 episodes since Robot Chicken crawled out of Seth Green, Matthew Senreich, Douglas Goldstein, Mike Fasolo, and Tom Root’s heads (a continuation of a concept born as a 1999 Late Night with Conan O’Brien sketch that Green and company made to avoid doing a regular interview). I say “incredibly” for its longevity, but also for all that has gone on in and around pop culture since then and the show’s ability to stay at the top of its game.

Again, it’s something engineered. But how? We sought to find out by talking with Green ahead of Robot Chicken‘s 200th episode (which airs Sunday on Adult Swim at midnight) about opening things up to other people’s ideas, a trail of broken toys, and how the show handles casting. And because Robot Chicken is all about specific retro tastes, we also delve a little into the cult classic rollerblade epic, Airborne.

How do you make this feel special while recognizing the 200 episodes and the achievement that that is?

I wanted to do something that still felt new and original and still felt like Robot Chicken. We used the regular episode format, but we did some very different things, and then packed it with some guest stars and ran a little bit of a narrative. Without giving away any spoilers, I’ll just say that I’m really happy with how it turned out, and I’m excited for people to see it.

I know going into season 10 there was a bit of a narrative as well, is it exciting to try to loop that into the show more?

The show is primarily a sketch show, so we really focus on that, but when there are opportunities to tell a longer sketch or a longer-form narrative, if a joke can sustain itself over several sequences, then we’ll play with that. The best thing about Robot Chicken, I think, is that it’s a little bit of a loose format, and so that gives us a lot of creative freedom.

How has the show changed and grown in terms of technical capabilities? Is it easier, is it quicker, are you able to do more?

It is a little bit easier. The thing is, you just get used to a process. When we first started the show, we were using a lot of toys straight out of the packages, and that required a lot of modifying to be able to animate them over hours, if not days. Just over time, we’ve refined the process of building the characters, or the technology is advanced with respect to how to capture stop-motion or technological improvements that give us better visual effects. Also, the longer you work at something, the more familiar you become with it, the faster, and hopefully, more high quality you’re able to make it.

Where are those toys, by the way?

All that stuff, unfortunately, breaks down almost entirely over the course of production. There’s very little we’re able to retain, and then you get the decomposition of materials like foam or plastic.

Action-figure cancer. Black spots. We all know it.

It doesn’t last too long. We save what we can. We repurpose anything that we can, but a lot of stuff just either dissolves or gets destroyed in the process.

You’ve been involved in pop culture for the longest time. Is it challenging to stay engaged in these worlds as things have changed and grown? Obviously there are certain elements of fan culture that might make it harder to stay engaged with these things, toxicity and such. Are you still as up for this stuff as you were when you started?

That’s an interesting question. There’s such a volume of content or media or pop that it is a bit impossible to stay as deeply connected as anything I’ve spent my life in study of. With Robot Chicken, we listen to other voices beyond mine. In the first season, it was just the four or five of us. Then in the later seasons, we’ve gotten dozens of other people involved in the writing and the concepting, so it’s not as on me to keep it all straight. But I’m still a fan of pop. I still like to pay attention to what’s happening, and I love discovering new things and becoming passionate about them.

Was it hard to make that decision?

It’s different than a narrative show with ongoing characters who are meant to evolve in a story. It’s a little bit easier, I think, to listen to other voices with respect to the pop culture they were influenced by or the inherent ironies they may have noticed about it. The best thing that I can do is not be such a control freak that I have to govern and dictate every aspect of our show. It makes it a little less fun for anyone else that wants to participate and I think it would ultimately be less fun for me to shoulder the whole weight of that burden. Making Robot Chicken is a 12-to-15-month exercise, and it can be all-consuming if I let it. Just in an interest to continue to evolve creatively and make other things, including continuing to perform, it’s critical for me to delegate responsibility and give other people the opportunity to improve on it.

With everything going on with casting… Mike Henry no longer voicing Cleveland with Family Guy, etc. You do a show where there’s a lot of voice work, and there’s a lot of character work. How does that go into your process going forward with the show and with anybody that you’re casting?

It’s tough with Robot Chicken just because we’re limited by our budget and how many people we can actually hire. If we have a character, let’s say, for example, there’s a Black character, and that character has more than one line or one word, then we will always cast a Black actor in the role. Where it gets tricky is in an episode of Robot Chicken, just based on our budget, we can hire five to seven actors, and each of those actors will do three character voices. So you may get one main character that has seven or eight lines, and then you may get two other characters that only have one or two lines. In an average episode of Robot Chicken, there’s over 60 or 70 characters, and each of those characters may have something as small as a gasp or a reaction or say, “Oh no.” In that instance, we simply can’t afford to tailor every casting to its appropriate counterpart. In any instance, especially in a long-form show like Crossing Swords, we always cast appropriately, but we also don’t make shows where the race is the detail, where the portrayal of the character is what the thing is about. All in all, I absolutely support inclusion and accurate representation and believe that there is room for all of the performers that want to make stuff, that want to perform.

I know you don’t have control over it, obviously, and you’ve been really respectful about the process — but Detours with Star Wars. A lot of content that’s been in a vault has seen the light of day. Do you think that’s something that’s a possibility? I’m not necessarily looking for the insider answer, but just in your gut, do you think, “Huh, there’s a want right now for something that people can unite behind,” and Is this a good time for that?

Well, I’ll only say that I stand behind what we made, and I appreciate the place from which it was conceived. I also understand that the entire mandate of Lucasfilm as a company and Star Wars as a brand evolved when George [Lucas] sold the company to Disney, and the decisions were made to make new movies and expand the brand. It’s just a different time. The real answer is: I don’t know. That doesn’t seem to be the current direction. The content exists, so you can never say never, but I also really respect the plans of the company to pursue the current direction.

This last one goes way back — how intense was it to film the race scene at the end of Airborne? I re-watched that scene last night, and it seems really intense for what it was in 1993. How much choreography and planning was involved in that?

That movie was produced by the same people that made The Passion Of The Christ and Immortal Beloved. They were not joking with respect to production. Rob Bowman, who’s gone on to be an incredible director and showrunner, directed that movie, and stylistically was swinging for the fences. That end sequence took over two weeks to do and covered dozens of individual hills, it was not an actual single hill. Between the team and the second unit camera team and then all of the rollerbladers doing all the stunts, everybody was just trying to make it sensational. In most cases, I had a stunt double doing any of the more dangerous things. I didn’t have to learn much more choreography than being able to stand up on skates without falling down. Also, my character was supposed to be terrible at skating, so anytime I fell or looked stupid, it only worked for the character. I love that movie, though. We had so much fun making it.

It’s just a fun, light, nice ’90s movie. It’s a fun watch.

It’s about a kid on rollerblades. People bring it up all the time, I’m glad you did. It’s such a fun one. Especially when we made it, it was the hope that anybody would ever see it but not the assumption. Especially because it came out, I think a back-to-school week and the poster art didn’t really show people what the movie was about. It’s always surprising that people saw it or liked it.

‘Robot Chicken‘s 200th episode airs on Sunday at midnight EST.

The NBA is gearing up for its restart next week, with scrimmage games taking front and center in Orlando as a host of teams prepare to resume an eight-game regular-season slate in Orlando to help determine which teams will qualify for a postseason run on the Disney World campus.

It hasn’t been without its hiccups. A couple of players broke quarantine early on, but since then, a second round of testing revealed no new positive tests for COVID-19, indicating that the safety precautions put in place are currently working and the return of NBA basketball is upon us.

Still, several players have been forced to leave the bubble in Orlando for various reasons. On Friday, news emerged that Clippers guard Lou Williams is the latest player to have to do so, as he needs to attend to a personal matter, but is expected to return to his team and participate in the restart.

That makes Williams the third Clippers player to leave Orlando recently, as Montrez Harrell and Patrick Beverley have each departed for personal reasons. Zion Williamson is another high-profile player who has left the bubble and who has no clear timetable for a return.

The situation leaves the Clippers badly depleted as they prepare to restart the season, though it’s clearly more important that they attend to their personal matters first before returning to Orlando.

By some appearances, it looked like the New York Knicks were ready to turn over a new leaf. Rumors indicated that they had targeted Tom Thibodeau for the head coaching job going into next season, and while Thibodeau isn’t viewed as a perfect coach, he’s a former Knicks assistant who has a reputation for raising a team’s floor, something that is desperately needed in New York.

That, naturally, turned out to be short-lived. No sooner had those rumors emerged that they were followed by reports of the Knicks trying to low-ball Thibs during negotiations. But Knicks do, appear, to have a backup plan in place.

On Friday, the latest of New York was that they have now pegged Jason Kidd as a top choice to take over. Kidd, a former Knick, would reportedly be on a tight leash, however, and would be subject to having at least some of his staff picked for him by the organization.

Via Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News:

The Knicks coaching search has turned messy with Jason Kidd emerging as a frontrunner after contract negotiations with Tom Thibodeau stalled, a plugged-in NBA source told the Daily News.

Kidd, an unquestioned Hall of Fame player, is viewed by the Knicks as a conduit to attracting free agents, but there are also people in the organization who are skeptical of his coaching ability following underwhelming stints in Brooklyn and Milwaukee. As a result, the Kidd hire would come with the caveat of the front office picking at least some of his assistant coaches.

Kidd is currently an assistant with the Lakers as they prepare for what they hope is a long postseason run in Orlando. According to the report, there is still some optimism that the Knicks could reach an agreement with Thibs, although it would entail him caving on some of his demands.

Kidd’s track record as a head coach hasn’t been without its controversy during both his stints in Brooklyn and Milwaukee, and sources for the Daily News say the Knicks’ choices for assistants to put in place could include Kenny Payne, Rod Strickland, and Mike Woodson, the latter of whom’s name has been brought up in conversations for the head coaching job of late.

(Via The New York Daily News)

Hip-hop is moving as fast as ever. Luckily, we’re doing the work to put the best new rap music in one place for you. This week, there were videos from Gorillaz and Schoolboy Q, Buddy, Trippie Redd and PartyNextDoor, Westside Gunn, and Kyle. There were also new songs from Drake, J. Cole, Gunna and Lil Uzi Vert, Smino and J.I.D, NLE Choppa, and Guapdad 4000 and Deante Hitchcock. Here’s the rest of the best new rap music this week.

Casanova — “Don’t Play Games” Feat. DMX

Fresh off of his Verzuz battle with Snoop Dogg, DMX linked up with Casanova, one of his sonic descendants, on “Don’t Play Games.” Based on the title and the two artist’s gritty reputation, you already know a lot of pain was dished out over this track’s horror movie keys and head-snapping drums.

Kevin Gates — “Difficult”

Kevin Gates declares “this just in: I’m goliath” over “Difficult’s” triumphant horns, before floating over the four-minute track with a slinky flow.

Reese LAFLARE — “No Hook” Feat. Benny The Butcher

Benny The Butcher is near the top of most people’s lists of artists who’d excel on a “No Hook” song. Reese LAFLARE and Benny’s latest is a sonic diversion from Benny’s sonic wheelhouse, but he proves his versatility, bouncing over the flailing beat and letting the pretenders know, “You never been like that you draggin’ it.”

Chief Keef — “I Thought I Had One”

Chief Keef is back with his latest single, taking it easy over a dense 808-based production and rhyming menacingly about a “hole so big I see what he thinkin’.”

Dave East — “Believe It Or Not”

This week, Dave East dropped off “Believe It Or Not,” which is not a single about him and J. Cole being The Boondocks’ Huey and Riley grown up, but a summery, typically reflective track where he delves into the New York underworld but also notes he’s “rappin’ and actin’, I’m jus’ tryna keep up with Pac.”

Currensy & Harry Fraud — The OutRunners

Currensy and Harry Fraud are one of the rap game’s most reliable connections. They gave us another example of why on the effortlessly smooth The OutRunners, a nine-track lyrical exercise which costars Wiz Khalifa, Rick Ross, Conway, and Jim Jones.

Cambatta — LSD: Lunar Solar Duality

Cambatta is one of the rap game’s most gifted lyricists, ambitious creators, and spiritually in-tune artists. That intriguing mesh is on display throughout LSD, his latest project out on Mello Music Group.

Flo Milli — Ho, why is you here ?

Flo Milli is one of the rap game’s most intriguing personalities. Her confident lyrics and infectious charisma bursts through the seams of her latest mixtapeHo, Why Is You Here. The 12-track, 30-minute project is a fun introduction fo Flo for the unaccustomed, and a strong introduction for ardent fans.

Lil Skies — “Lightbeam” Feat. NoCap

Lil Skies and NoCap hit the track in the video for “Lightbeam,” an easy-going track where the two take turns over a smooth, hypnotic instrumental.

Wifisfuneral — “Lost In Time” Feat. Coi Leray

Wifisfuneral and Coi Leray collaborated on an ideal track for these solitary times on “Lost In Time,” a minimalist track which left room for the two to croon longingly for romance.

Skimask The Slump God — “Burn The Hoods”

Ski Mask The Slump God and Cole Bennet speak to the time, as he commandeers a piercing, thrilling soundscape and explores the peril of Blackness with his characteristically daring flows.

Liljitm3n — “Better Life”

Florida’s Liljitm3n explored some of his life’s travails on “Better Life,” an aspirational track where he simply reflects, “Remember I ain’t have it, I have it,” and gushes about making his mother happy. The single sets the tone for his upcoming debut mixtape.

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

Last week Michelle Obama announced that she would be launching her own podcast to stream exclusively on Spotify. It’s to be called Higher Ground: The Michelle Obama Podcast, which (unsurprisingly) has us psyched — it’s Michelle Obama! She’s great! — and for her first guest, she’s snagged a pretty high-profile personality. Her husband, former President of the United States Barack Obama.

Honestly, Michelle could’ve chosen anyone as her first guest and we would’ve been just as excited, but giving us the chance to hear her chopping it up with Barack feels especially satisfying. It probably won’t be as juicy as Will and Jada’s Red Table Talk, but folks are definitely eager to find out. According to Deadline, in the debut episode which is set to air on July 29th, Michelle and Barack dive into an intimate conversation that covers community, their love for each other, and their respective journeys after leaving the White House

“Given everything that’s going on right now, from the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the ongoing protests and conversations that are testing our patience — and our consciences… not to mention all the challenges we’re experiencing due to the pandemic, I think that these days, a lot of people are questioning just where and how they can fit into a community,” begins the first episode, according to a preview obtained by Deadline.

While we’re sure anyone would jump at the chance to chat with Michelle Obama, it’s looking like most of her guests for this first season will be people she’s close to on a personal level. “I’m so excited to kick off my podcast on Wednesday — with Barack as my first guest!” writes Michelle on an Instagram post,

“Throughout this first season, I’ll be having more conversations like this one with the people closest to me… I’ll be having more conversations like this one with the people closest to me. My mother and brother stop by, as does my friend and mentor, Valerie Jarrett. You’ll also hear from many of my girlfriends, the women who’ve always been there with a shoulder to lean on, a perspective to think about, or simply an open line to vent to. In this time of social distancing, it’s more important than ever to invest in the relationships that make us who we are.”

Stream the Michelle Obama Podcast on Spotify beginning July 29th.

Hudson Mohawke, the Scottish producer, DJ, and one-half of the duo Tnght, has offered fans a new project. With no warning, Mohawke shared the EP Heart Of The Night, which reimagines several laid-back R&B hits as revved-up electronic remixes.

Mohawke’s four-track Heart Of The Night breathes new life into tracks like Beyonce’s’ 2003 hit “Baby Boy” with Sean Paul and Christina Milian’s 2004 number “Dip It Low.” Mohawke hangs onto the integrity of each song but turns them up a few notches, increasing the tempo while adding in several layers of explosive instrumentals.

Announcing the surprise release on social media, Mohawke described the effort as “classic rnb bootlegs” he’s made over the years. The producer also mentioned the EP arrives alongside an exclusive t-shirt designed by artist Chris Simpson which reads, “I wish that hudson mohawke was dead so that he could be my wife.”

Ahead of releasing Heart Of The Night, Mohawke’s project Tnght with producer Lunice returned after a six-year hiatus. The collaborative duo released their second EP, titled II, which boasted eight tracks propelled by forceful beats, warped vocal samples, and room-filling bass.

Listen to Mohawke’s “Baby Boy” above.

Heart Of The Night is out now via Warp. Get it here.

After a two-month delay, the 2020 WNBA season tips off Saturday morning with an ESPN double-header featuring four of the most exciting teams in the league. Here to hail the return of the women’s game is an excellent ad spot titled “Make Way” that proclaims “It’s time to not just know the WNBA, but the women behind it.”

The spot features the Chicago Sky’s Diamond DeShields, the Las Vegas Aces’ A’ja Wilson, the Los Angeles Sparks’ Nneka Ogwumike, the Minnesota Lynx’s Sylvia Fowles, the Seattle Storm’s Sue Bird, and is voiced by Los Angeles’ Seimone Augustus.

The league signed a new collective bargaining agreement in January, and WNBA players came together to dedicate the 2020 season to the Black Lives Matter movement and formed a Social Justice Council that will design and carry out initiatives to beat back against racism in America over the course of the season and beyond.

The 2020 season begins tomorrow at noon when Diana Taurasi and the Phoenix Mercury take on Ogwumike, Candace Parker, and the Los Angeles Sparks on ESPN. That game is followed by the WNBA debut of Sabrina Ionescu, the No. 1 pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft, as her New York Liberty take on Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart, and the championship favorite Seattle Storm.

Tequila is summer in a bottle. This couldn’t be more obvious than July 24th — when National Tequila Day lands on our (very empty) calendars. This Blue Weber-agave spirit is fresh, light, and full of vegetal sweetness. It’s the base for some of the best summer cocktails, including the Uproxx-beloved paloma and the happy hour staple the margarita.

While we’re all about sipping cocktails while we sit on a patio or porch, preferably overlooking a large body of water, we also enjoy tequila neat or on the rocks. Which means that we’re often looking for the good stuff. No dyes or additives, please.

Just like with anything and everything on God’s green earth, there are overly hyped, properly hyped, and correctly hyped bottles of tequila out there. But with National Tequila Day upon us, we’re not here to trash brands or sing the praises of brands that don’t need any more press. We’re talking about the bottles that don’t get the respect they deserve — so we asked some of our favorite bartenders to tell us their picks for the most underrated bottles on the market.

Don Julio Reposado

Nestor Marchand, director of food and beverage at Plunge Beach Resort in Lauderdale, Florida

Don Julio Reposado. It’s aged for 8 months in American white oak barrels. The result is a very mellow tequila with hints of cinnamon and sweet agave. Excellent tasting tequila.

Grand Vida Anejo

Shawn Brown, General manager of Wine World in Miramar Beach, Florida

This is tricky. Grand Vida Anejo. The packaging is not the best, but the tequila is very smooth and significantly less expensive and tastes better than Patron.

Don Abraham Reposado

Mohammed Rahman, bar director, Kata Robata in Houston

When thinking of top-shelf tequila, brands such as Don Julio, Patron, and Clase Azul are quick to appear into the forefront. A brand I believe deserves to be in that line up is Don Abraham. With offerings from blanco to extra anejo, this brand has been around for decades. My personal favorite being their reposado.

This expression is a great bang for your buck and never fails to satisfy, exhibiting traits any tequila enthusiast would immediately dub to be worthy of their adoration.

Don Julio Blanco

Reniel Garcia, bar director of Havana 1957 in Miami

Don Julio Blanco has a very nice pungent roasted agave aroma. The taste contained an obvious herbal character combined with some spice/peppery notes. The agave does emerge towards the end to round things out.

One of the better blancos I’ve tried. Perfect for margaritas and maybe neat if it tickles your fancy.

Casa Dragones Joven

Seamus Gleason, bartender at Hotel Jackson in Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Casa Dragones Joven. It’s silky smooth with a full body that doesn’t overwhelm the palate. A great sipping tequila for summer (or pretty much any other time of year).

Jose Cuervo Especial Gold

Robert Swain Jr., owner of On the Rox Bartending Service in the British Virgin Islands

One of my favorite brands of tequila by far is Jose Cuervo. It might not seem underrated in the classic sense, but it definitely is since it sometimes doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Whether it’s in a cocktail, on the rocks, or in a shot with lime and salt, it gets the job done.

Great flavor and very smooth.

Olmeca Altos Plata

Kurt Bellon, general manager and beverage director at Chao Baan in St. Louis

Olmeca Altos Plata is 100% agave that is reasonably priced so it can and should be found on the speed rails of bars across the country. With that said, for a well tequila, it is smooth with a pleasant nose and bucks the usual danger of ordering a round of tequila shots for the crew.

Cimarron Blanco

Tim Wiggins, co-owner and beverage director of Retreat Gastropub in St. Louis

Cimarron. Their blanco and reposado are both super tasty. I love the grassy hay-like flavor of Cimarron. It is difficult to balance freshness, dryness, and earthiness in tequila and I think Cimarron strikes that balance really well.

Siembre Azul Blanco

Jeremy Allen, Beverage Director of MiniBar Hollywood in Los Angeles

I really like Siembre and I wish more people knew about their small-batch, artisanal tequilas. Made from the highest-quality Blue Weber agave, you can’t go wrong with a bottle of Siembre Azul.

Writer’s Pick:

Casa Noble Anejo

The hierarchy of premium tequila brands, Casa Noble deserves a spot alongside Patron, Casamigos, Herradura, and Don Julio. Its anejo is made from 100 percent Blue Weber agave and is exceptionally smooth and full of vanilla, honey, and caramel flavors from aging in French oak barrels for two years.

Flo Milli has taken Twitter by storm with standout hits like “Beef FloMix” and “In The Party,” and today, she follows up with another big swing for hip-hop’s hit-making fences. The 20-year-old breakout star released her debut EP, Ho, Why Is You Here? this week and to celebrate, she released the video to favorite the new favorite “Weak.”

The video sees Flo playing the matriarch to a loyal legion of money-making men in tank tops and jeans, who attend to her as she flexes and preens. Her love for currency is displayed right down to her wardrobe; while she makes it rain dollar bills, money print adorns her swimsuit and her impressive durag. Lyrically, she lists then dismisses he men in her life who have let her down romantically, crowing, “These n****s weak / They’ve been textin’ me all week.”

Among the names that Flo Milli shoos away are Dennis, who doesn’t like to listen, Maleek, who is boring, and Eric, who already has a girlfriend. None of that matters to the Mobile, Alabama-born rapper, who boasts that, “I’ve been in my bag, don’t got time to be in my feelings.” Independent go-getters like Cardi B, City Girls, and Megan Thee Stallion have a worthwhile successor in Flo Milli — judging from the response to her tape, she’s going to join them in the upper echelons of rap stardom soon.

Watch Flo Milli’s “Weak” video above.

Ho, Why Is You Here? is out now. Get it here.