With the COVID-19 quarantine still in full-effect in many parts of the country, some recordings artists have figured out how to use it to their advantage with weekly releases like Guapdad 4000’s Rona Raps or regular livestreams like Tory Lanez’s Quarantine Radio. Singer/songwriter PJ has adopted the former formula for her cover series, The Quarantine Tapes.

Each week PJ, who was previously best-known for her 2016 LP Rare and her more recent “Diary Entries” like “Smoke,” “Run For Your Money,” and “Honest,” covers a song from one of her fellow artists, including Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now,” Justin Bieber’s “Yummy,” and Roddy Ricch’s “High Fashion.” For her latest rendition, she puts a trap&B spin on Doja Cat’s standout single, “Say So,” which you can check out below.

PJ explained the origin of the song to Uproxx, calling it one of the biggest songs of the year. “I met Doja Cat last year Grammy Weekend, and she was a sweetheart,” she said. “But I f*ck with the song so much, I wanted to add it to The Quarantine Tapes, and Jay The Great really helped me put in a different space. He added this R&B trap vibe and I added a little ‘old school R&B.”

In addition, PJ announced that for her latest edition of her other ongoing campaign, Doing My Part W. PJ, she’ll be taking over Uproxx’s Instagram for live discussion with fans on Friday, May 1 at 4pm PST/7pm EST, during which she’ll break down her writing process and some of her credits so far.

Listen to PJ’s “Say So” cover above and tune into Uproxx’s Instagram on Friday for episode two of Doing My Part W. PJ.

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

Anne Hathaway has mentioned before that when she first auditioned for The Dark Knight Rises, she assumed she was playing a very different Batman character than her now fan-favorite portrayal of Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman. However, Hathaway has never confirmed the identity of the mistaken character, until now.

In a new interview with BBC Radio 1, Hathaway reveals that after scoring an audition with director Christopher Nolan, she waltzed into the room under the very confident impression that she was gunning for the role of Harley Quinn. She even came dressed for that part. As we all know, that obviously wasn’t the case, and Nolan was looking for an actress to play Catwoman. Unfortunately, Hathaway didn’t know that until a good hour into the audition when she was forced to quickly switch gears. Via CBR:

“I came in and I had this lovely Vivienne Westwood kind of beautiful-but-mad tailoring top with stripes going everywhere. And I wore these flat Joker-ey looking shoes. And I was trying to give Chris [Nolan] these crazy little smiles,” Hathaway explained. “About an hour into the meeting he said ‘Well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, but it’s Catwoman.’ And I was shifting into a different gear. ‘Now ok, we’re slinky. We’re slinky. And I hate my shirt. I love my shirt, but I hate it right now. We’re slinky.’”

As for why Hathaway thought she was auditioning to play Harley Quinn, she doesn’t say. To put this delicately, Heath Ledger’s Joker clearly wasn’t going to be back for the sequel. Then again, there were internet rumors at the time that the film would focus on Harley Quinn continuing the Joker’s plan in the final film, so maybe Hathaway and/or her agent latched onto that. The incredible thing is that she essentially auditioned for the wrong character, and yet still managed to stick the landing and walk away with the coveted Catwoman role. That takes skill.

You can watch Hathaway talk about filming The Dark Knight Rises right at the beginning or jump to the 2:00 mark for the Harley Quinn audition mix-up:

(Via BBC Radio 1)

The Raw Women’s Champion is headed to prestige TV. On this morning’s episode of WWE’s The Bump, Becky Lynch revealed that she will guest star on the season five premiere of Billions, and it’s because the showrunner is a big fan of wrestling and of The Man specifically.

Brian Koppelman, the co-creator and showrunner of Billions, called into The Bump and how the Billions-Becky connection came about. He was a fan of wrestling as a kid during the Bruno Sammartino era and that The Man revived his fandom:

Becky Lynch brought me all the way back in over the past few years. The arrival of somebody who has that much power, charisma, force, integrity in what they do in the ring, and the fact that it was a woman who seemed to combine the most important aspects of so many of the greatest wrestlers ever – when I see Becky, I don’t think of women wrestlers necessarily, I think of Dusty Rhodes being a working man, I think of all these different people who found a way to synthesize their character with who they really were.

Koppelman and Lynch became friends after the TV writer wore one of her shirts at a Billions event, which Lynch saw on Twitter. Ahead of the fifth season of the show, Koppelman and his writing partner David Levien came up with something for Lynch to do on the which. They don’t give any hints (will the world finally get that Paul Giamatti-Becky Lynch interaction it needs?), but say her part is “a lot of fun.”

Billions will start its fifth season, with a guest appearance from Becky Lynch, on Showtime on May 3.

As basketball fans rehash the feud between Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan that dates back all the way to the 1988 playoffs, longtime NBA executive Rod Thorn, who worked on the league side during the construction of the Dream Team roster for the 1992 Olympics, said Wednesday that Thomas’ name “never came up” during his conversations with Jordan about the Dream Team.

It had long been assumed that Jordan made it a requirement that if he played, Thomas could not be on the team. Most who believe that theory won’t be persuaded by Thorn, but on Golic and Wingo on Wednesday, Thorn made it clear he did not ever hear from Jordan that Thomas should not play.

“There was never anything in my conversations with (Jordan) that had to do with Isiah Thomas,” Thorn said.

Episodes 5 and 6 of The Last Dance, which airs this weekend on ESPN, will revisit the Dream Team, while last week’s episodes looked back at Bulls’ rivalry with the Bad Boys Detroit Pistons and Thomas’ fractured relationship with Jordan. It is widely believed that the Pistons’ decision to walk off the court before the clock had expired in Game 4 of the teams’ 1991 series was the final straw in the relationship between the two NBA legends.

Though Thorn’s statement is well taken, any other person tasked with organizing Team USA, of course, could have easily spoken in private with Jordan to make sure his conditions were met if this was something he demanded. While the Dream Team won the gold without Thomas and Jordan is clearly a higher priority than Thomas, it’s still impossible to believe that Thomas, a 12-time All-Star and Finals MVP, was organically left off the list for the 1992 Olympics.

In our age of technology, it can be hard to discern what is real and what is a “deepfake.” Deepfakes are photos, videos, or audio files that have been manipulated by AI technology so seamlessly that they seem convincingly authentic. While deepfakes are usually used for explicit reasons or to put Nicholas Cage’s face on nearly everything, Jay-Z is now dealing his own deepfakes. The rapper’s Roc Nation is reportedly flexing copyright law to remove a deepfake audio clip of Jay-Z singing Billy Joel and reciting Shakespeare from YouTube.

AI-powered videos have appeared on YouTube which uses a computer-generated text-to-speech model programmed to learn Jay-Z’s speech pattern. The technology resulted in a convincing clip of Jay-Z reciting Shakespeare’s “To Be Or Not To Be” monologue from Hamlet and another of him singing along to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” But Jay-Z’s Roc Nation is doing what they can to remove the clips through filing a copyright strike.

The strike was first spotted by The Verge, which reported that Roc Nation was using copyright law to attempt to get the videos removed from YouTube. Roc Nation’s endeavor to get a deepfake removed from YouTube by using copyright law is the first of it’s kind, as the lyrics to Joel’s song are protected under the law. According to The Verge’s report, Roc Nation also claimed that the “content unlawfully uses an AI to impersonate” Jay-Z’s voice.

Following Roc Nation’s claim, the videos were temporarily taken down by YouTube which, according to the report, would be the first time the video streaming service has removed AI-generated voice impersonations. However, the videos have since been temporarily re-instated because Roc Nation’s takedown requests were found to be “incomplete.”

After tossing out the possibility in a recent music video that he will not participate in the NBA Dunk Contest ever again, Orlando Magic forward Aaron Gordon confirmed his stance to Stephen A. Smith on First Take.

Gordon said the dunk contest requires so much planning and practice that it actually takes away from his ability to fully focus on the stretch run of the NBA season, and after two near-losses, he’s ready to put it in the past.

Instead, the down time during the NBA’s hiatus has helped Gordon focus on how important it is to him to make it back to the postseason.

“(The 2019 first-round series against Toronto) was the most exciting basketball I’ve ever played,” Gordon said. “That’s the focus, to be in the big games and to win for Orlando.”

Gordon has long been seen as a hinge piece of Orlando’s core, but has fluctuated between roles and playing styles in a way that has made it hard to pin down what exactly he is as an NBA player. The Magic haven’t helped by drafting big man after big man, forcing Gordon to play small forward rather than the 4 or 5 spot, which would give him more consistent physical advantages.

Asked what needed to happen to make his playoff performances stand out more than his Dunk Contest performances, Gordon said he needed to play with more discipline and be more consistent.

Should the NBA season resume, the Magic would enter the playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference.

Mother’s Day’s on Sunday May 10th. Are you ready?

View Entire Post ›

View Entire Post ›

*audible gasp*

View Entire Post ›

Wait, Mad-Eye Moody is Bill Weasley’s DAD?

View Entire Post ›