Ana de Armas showed off her action movie bonafides in a scene-stealing performance in the most recent James Bond film, Spectre. Now she’s joined another iconic franchise, this time as the lead.
From the World of John Wick: Ballerina is set between the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4 and stars de Armas as Eve Macarro, who is “beginning her training in the assassin traditions of the Ruska Roma,” per the official plot synopsis. In other words, she’s a ballerina assassin (it’s a big year for ballerina hybrids).
You can watch the trailer above.
From the World of John Wick: Ballerina also stars Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Norman Reedus, and from the John Wick films, Ian McShane, the late Lance Reddick, and, yes, Keanu Reeves.
“I’m in pain,” de Armas said about filming Ballerinalast year. “My body, my back, everything hurts. I’m sore, I’m bruised.” She also described what it’s like doing stunt work with John Wick himself. “This man is just rolling and throwing me and doing these crazy stunts, and I’m like, ‘I can’t complain anymore. I’m done.’ Because he’s doing it. He truly is the best.”
From the World of John Wick: Ballerina opens in theaters on June 6, 2025.
Even if you don’t know who Ebru Yildiz is yet, you’ve at least seen her photos: She’s photographed notable artist portraits for the likes of Lucy Dacus, Interpol, Pink, Idles, David Byrne, Uproxx cover star Snail Mail, and perhaps most famously, Mitski.
Born and raised in Ankara, Turkey, Yildiz moved to New York City in 1998, but she didn’t start taking photographs right away. It’s her intercontinental journey from music lover to noted music photographer that brings Yildiz into the Sound + Vision limelight (her work with Mitski yielded a nomination for Best Merch Design).
Yildiz’s passion for her craft is palpable in her images. This isn’t just someone who loves to take photos: This is a photographer who loves to get to the root of her subjects and the stories beneath their skin. While she shoots in both color and black and white mediums, it’s in the latter that Yildiz’s style leaves the most lasting emotional response. There’s a raw humanity captured in her shots where an artist seems to show multiple sides of themselves with just one look. Her work with Mitski on the singer’s latest album, The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We, doesn’t just grace the cover of the album. A series of shoots help to peel back the layers of the artist’s mystique, uncovering the stories within the gorgeous, fractured Americana of the album and prod at the essence of what makes Yildiz’s subject a generational one.
Yildiz shoots for magazines, labels, and her own personal projects, like Phosphene, a photography zine featuring some of her favorite subjects. The love of the game is at the core of Yildiz’s work and it’s what makes her a unique and important figure in music photography today. We caught up with her by phone from her home in New York City, shortly before she took off to Turkey, where she was curating a photography exhibit entitled Beyond The Spotlight: Chronicles In Music History.
“So many of my heroes and friends are in it,” said Yildiz, a perfect envoy to make sense of the visual side of the music world.
Ebru Yildiz
What brought you out to New York in 1998 initially? Were you already into photography?
No, I actually came to study advertising and marketing [laughs]. So it wasn’t related, but I grew interested in the graphic design part, and within that, I got interested in photography. I randomly took a printing class that got this all started. My love for music has always been there, so I started taking my camera to concerts. Before that, I don’t think I was very good at shooting anything. I would try to take photos on the street and stuff, and I don’t think my personality suits that. I sucked so bad! So when I started taking photos at concerts, I was excited because I really loved it.
At what point did you move away from concerts and get into shooting portraits for musicians and artists? Was there some proverbial “big break” moment, or somebody you worked with that just led to more?
I’d always been interested in portraits, but I wouldn’t dare to do it at first. When you’re shooting a concert, you don’t have to interact with anyone, and you can do whatever you want in a photo pit because you’re not dependent on the other person: You’re working on your own and you have no direct connection with the person you’re photographing. So that felt comfortable, yet it was my natural gateway into taking portraits, because I started taking photos of my musician friends.
When you start taking portraits, your personality starts coming into play. You have to be talking with people, and at the same time, you have to be directing what you want to do and be in control of the light. It’s more challenging in many ways and this is why I was scared of portraits in the beginning. But there was also a fear of that human interaction, because I started as a fan. Whenever I’m shooting, I’m their biggest fan, that admiration is in play, but you don’t want to come across like it. There’s a real critical balance, too. It took time and eventually I made a conscious decision to not shoot live music anymore and to shoot only portraits. I threw myself into that and rented a small studio and focused on portraits from then on.
You’ve worked with people who are enigmatic, like Mitski, or even Julian Casablancas recently, who’s notoriously very particular about the way he looks in photos. How do you break down that wall you’ve alluded to, to make them feel comfortable and to be able to create alongside them?
First of all, I need to prepare myself before the shoot starts in a lot of ways, even if it’s an artist that I’m already familiar with. I do a lot of research to see what’s out there, how they photograph, and what works for them, just to get an idea of general visual history that they have on the internet, along with their personal history, so I know things about them that I can talk to them about. I go into the shoot knowing what I’m gonna do, but once a shoot starts, plans dissipate often, because it totally depends on the interaction you have with the person or what kind of mood they’re in. It’s the preparation that puts me at ease, because I get insanely nervous before every single shoot [laughs], regardless of who I’m shooting. I have butterflies all the time. Until the minute I meet them, I’m so nervous. But once I meet them, everything just kind of slows down in my head because I know I’m prepared and I get into work mode.
Once I’m there, during the shoots — full day, half day, whatever — I don’t eat, drink, or go to the bathroom. I’m completely in it. Taking photos really excites me. I love, love, love it, and I think people realize that I love what I’m doing, so it becomes contagious and they want to be a part of that. I talk a lot and ramble sometimes because I have to stop midway to tell them to turn left or look up… madness during the shoot.
Ebru Yildiz
It’s interesting the way you describe that, of how you try to get a reaction or have your subject share that passion and sink into the process, because I see a lot of that in the latest The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We shoot with Mitski. I think I can say pretty definitively that it’s some of your best work. It’s so visceral and raw, and you get so much out of her in these photos — different reactions and sides of her that come through in these images and inspires so much in my mind. Take me into that photo shoot in Nashville. What was it like?
I met Mitski way back in 2016 when she was doing photos for Puberty 2. Not the cover, but her press photos. So we already had a relationship that started eight years ago or so, and we’d done other shoots recently, like the album artwork and press photos and a [Phosphene] zine together. So we had a relationship, a little bit of history, and that brings some trust, so we both know what we’re capable of in a way.
That shoot is a really, really special one. Let me start from the beginning: When I started that project, she sent me some inspirations and said that she had a couple of things in mind. I took that and turned it into a 10-page inspiration board, and we had an idea of what we wanted to do in general. We rented a location and spent three days there, part days so we weren’t exhausted.
I have to say, a lot of things depend on how invested the person you’re photographing is, and Mitski has always been really invested. She’s one of those artists who never does anything half-assed. If she’s doing a photo shoot, she’s doing it and gives her energy, does her best so you can do your best.
The shoot was really intimate. She didn’t want any styling, any hair or makeup. To be honest, all the females in the music industry are expected to look a certain way. Usually, the inspiration is something more glamorous, but our inspiration board was this imagery that was a little bit grotesque — she didn’t really fit into what people expect from her. There was a specific way that she wanted her audience to experience her art and her album.
As a photographer, especially a female photographer, we all grew up with the male gaze. All the white male photographers told us what a woman needs to look like. So when I started photographing, I made a point that I don’t want the woman that I photograph to look that way. I want a woman’s strength to show through their personality and not necessarily how they look or all the other stuff.
That totally comes through for sure.
I’m not saying that I don’t want to make the women that I photograph beautiful or powerful. But I don’t think the beauty or sexiness or this and that that people seem to be concerned with has to come through physical appearances, if that makes sense. I feel like every woman that I photograph is incredibly beautiful in their own specific way. So this shoot with Mitski was the ultimate representation of that. She didn’t even ask to see the photos even once midway through, or say, “Is my hair looking good,” or whatever. There wasn’t anything like that, which was very freeing on both of our ends. It was one of the most wonderful shoots I have ever done. I remember as we were leaving, I thought, “This is one of the best things I’ve ever done and I haven’t even seen the photos yet.” It was the feeling and it felt so good and really right. It was excellent.
So like in this shoot, you work a lot in black and white. What is it about that particular medium and aesthetic that’s powerful for you as a photographer? What is it that you get across in black and white that feels different for you in what you’re trying to evoke as opposed to full-color images?
I love color photos, too. There’s time and place for it, and if the project I’m working on requires it, I have no problem working in color. But I prefer black and white for my personal work. The reason behind it is multifold: One of them is that color is very time-specific in my head. Like when you see a color photo from the ’60s and ’70s, you can tell the time period immediately. Same goes for the 2000s when digital came along. And the other thing is, when you look at a color photo, I feel like the first thing you see most of the time, you get distracted — I go for emotion and mental state in my photos and I think that a lot (most) of the time, color kind of complicates that, because your attention gets distracted with colors. When it’s black and white, it removes one level of distraction so you’re more focused on the photo.
Most importantly, all my inspiration, all the photographers I look up to — Diana Arbus, Sarah Moon, Deborah Turbeville, Bill Brandt, Jim Marshall, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon — are from older times, where color photos weren’t even in the picture. That has an effect. I also first started photography in a black and white printing dark room. So there are all these different levels to it. Some are practical, some are conscious, and some are unconscious decisions.
One thing I really like about your work is that it’s not just limited to Pink or Interpol or Mitski. Looking at some of the acts you’ve worked with a lot, like Chelsea Wolfe — I love your Chelsea Wolfe photos — Emma Ruth Rundle, A Place To Bury Strangers, other more emerging acts, I get a sense that you work with a lot of artists that you love, or as you mentioned earlier, friends. How do you balance that, working on the things you love and matter the most to you while also trying to make a living at the same time?
To be honest, I love doing personal projects. In the past, some of my inspirations were Life photo essays. In the past, publications used to assign photographers and send them out to places for days at a time to get a photo essay about a person. I find that really meaningful, because you get to see different aspects of a person. I really wanted to do that because there wasn’t anyone out there willing to assign me anything like that. So I started doing personal projects. What better way to do that than reaching out to people that you actually love?
While I do work with bigger artists, it’s not as if I wouldn’t work with anyone who doesn’t have X number of followers. Most of the time, I don’t say no to jobs. I accept what comes to me. Because of that, I got introduced to a lot of emerging acts, like photographing Mitski for the first time eight years ago. Sure, she was known then, but not like she is now.
Ebru Yildiz
Yeah, you shot Idles six years ago and look at where they are now.
Yes! With Idles, I heard one song on a friend’s Instagram Story when they were playing a show in New York. I didn’t even hear a full song, just part of one on his Story, and I fell in love with them. I didn’t even see the band, just heard the music.
So their label [Partisan] is one that I work with a lot and photograph a lot of their artists. I reached out and I said, “Who is this band? I’d love to take some photos with them if they have time.” And it kinda happened the same day. They played one night, and the next day, I was taking photos and I hadn’t even seen them live at that point. It’s a perfect example because I really enjoyed their music and wanted to have a record of them as a photographic document in a way.
What kind of advice would you give to creatives or aspiring photographers who are trying to find their way or channel their passion, or maybe they already are and want to take it to the next level?
The most important thing is for them to keep going. Sometimes the expectation, especially with Instagram and such, people are oftentimes after overnight success. In my experience, it doesn’t happen that way most of the time. If you’re going in for immediate success, you might be setting yourself up for failure. Instead, if you’re doing it because you love doing it, you just need to keep at it until you can make money from it. Until that comes, there’s no shame in making money from other jobs.
Like anything else, I have no doubt that if anyone has passion for it and keeps doing it, regardless of recognition or getting money or not, if they keep doing it, I can’t see why they wouldn’t be successful.
The just-released teaser trailer for The Last Of Us season 2 is a lot to process. There’s the introduction of Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, Isabela Merced as Dina, and Catherine O’Hara as a mysterious character; Joel’s (Pedro Pascal) fatherly affection for Ellie (Bella Ramsey); and lots of very expensive shots of the two of them crossing the country’s snowy terrain on horseback. There’s also a strong focus on music, not only with Ellie playing the guitar, but also the song that plays throughout the trailer. But what song is it?
The Last Of Us season 2 teaser trailer is soundtracked by Pearl Jam‘s “Future Days,” the final track from their 2013 album Lightning Bolt. It’s a deep cut in the band’s discography, but one that makes sense if you’ve played The Last Of Us video games. Much of The Last of Us Part II, the game this season is based on, is set in Pearl Jam’s home turf of Seattle, Washington.
You can watch the trailer above. Here’s the official logline: “After five years of peace following the events of the first season, Joel and Ellie’s collective past catches up to them, drawing them into conflict with each other and a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one they left behind.”
The Last Of Us season 2 premieres on HBO and Max in 2025.
Each week our staff of film and television experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.
Scrubs, Ted Lasso, and Shrinking creator Bill Lawrence’s comedy empire expands with Bad Monkey, a good show with a fun premise: Vince Vaughn plays a former cop who is now a health inspector in the Florida Keys. “But after stumbling upon a case that begins with a human arm fished up by tourists, he realizes that if he can prove murder, he’ll be back in. He just needs to get past a trove of Floridian oddballs and one bad monkey,” according to the plot synopsis. The show is based on author Carl Hiaasen’s novel of the same name, and has fun summer binge written all over it.
There’s been two big changes to Only Murders in the Building: the season is largely set in Los Angeles instead of New York City, and Selena Gomez is now Emmy nominee Selena Gomez. But what hasn’t changed is that the Martins, Steve and Short, are as funny as ever. Outside of that trio, the season 4 cast also includes Melissa McCarthy, Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, Zach Galifianakis, Molly Shannon, Kumail Nanjiani, Richard Kind (!!!), Meryl Streep, Jane Lynch, Michael Cyril Creighton, and recent Oscar winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
You might know Brian Jordan Alvarez from his videos on TikTok and Instagram as TJ Mack, the singer of earworm “Sitting.” He’s also the star and creator of English Teacher, about a teacher who “often finds himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. Evan wants to be a principled person but often runs into trouble because of it.” His first lesson to his students: sitting is the opposite of standing.
There’s a few things you should know about Slow Horses:
1. As we previously wrote: “Each season is six episodes long and focuses on a distinct mystery or conspiracy and is full of little twists and turns and double-crosses. Sometimes there are stolen diamonds. Sometimes the slow horses will reveal themselves to be drug addicts or gambling addicts and it’ll muck everything up for a little. Sometimes you’ll be watching someone do something and assume they’re taking a brave and bold stance for righteousness and then realize they’ve been manipulated into accidentally doing the bidding of someone smarter and more conniving than they are.”
2. There is so much farting. Like, even more than you think.
The old man is back, and now he’s even older! In season 2 of the John Wick-like FX series, former CIA agent Dan Chase (played by Jeff “The Dude” Bridges) and ex-FBI assistant director Harold Harper (John Lithgow) are tasked with finding Emily Chase (Alia Shawkat) after she is kidnapped. But “as the stakes rise and secrets are uncovered, Emily finds herself in an identity crisis with dire implications,” according to the official plot synopsis, while Zoe McDonald (Amy Brenneman) makes “surprising moves into Chase’s world.”
If you have an unhealthy relationship with television shows (if you’re reading this, you probably do), have I got a movie for you! Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow follows two outcasts played by Jaden Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine who bond over a shared affection for The Pink Opaque, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-like series with a deep, very ’90s lore. It’s a wonderful film not only about nostalgia, but also gender dysphoria. There’s a killer soundtrack, too.
The first Marvel Cinematic Universe show with a bare butt scene is a WandaVision spin-off about Kathryn Hahn’s breakout character, Agatha Harkness. Prepare to have *that song* stuck in your head again. The “gayest show” in the MCU stable also stars Aubrey Plaza, Patti LuPone, and Joe Locke.
8. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (Netflix)
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Following the (uncomfortable) success of Dahmer, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s “Monster” limited series returns with Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. This time, the focus is on the Menéndez brothers (played by Nicholas Alexander and Chavez Cooper Koch) and the media sensation around their trial after they killed their parents (Javier Bardem and Chloe Sevigny). They also appeared on a basketball card. A third season has already been announced with Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam as Ed Gein.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: more movies should star Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen. So thank god for His Three Daughters, which follows three estranged sisters (bet you can guess who they’re played by!) as they reunite to care for their ailing father. The single-setting drama is one of the best movies of the year, which, again, is what happens when you put Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, and Elizabeth Olsen in the same cast.
Colin Farrell’s scene-stealing performance in The Batman resulted in him being turned into a meme and, probably more impressively, getting a spin-off on Max. The Penguin explores Oswald Cobblepot’s (or as he’s called in the show, Oz Cobb’s) rise in the seedy Gotham underworld. The series, which also stars Cristin Milioti, Clancy Brown, and Theo Rossi, is getting comparisons to another crime drama in the HBO / Max family: The Sopranos. Not too shabby.
There’s a good chance you’ve already seen Inside Out 2. It is the highest-grossing movie of 2024 after all. But now you can watch it again and again (especially if you have kids) on Disney Plus. The Pixar film brings back Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger from the original, and adds new emotions, including Maya Hawke as Anxiety and Ayo Edebiri as Envy. For more on the making of Inside Out 2, read our interview with director Kelsey Mann.
Based on Junji Ito’s supernatural and frequently disturbing manga of the same anime, Uzumaki is about the peculiar occurrences, many of which involve spirals, happening to the residents of the small Japanese town of Kurouzo-chu. Or as the official plot description reads: “Everything from a strange whirlwind, billowing smoke from the crematorium, and the residents is turning into spirals. People’s eyes spin in whirls, a tongue spirals, and the bodies twist unnaturally. In an attempt to escape the curse of the spirals, Kirie decides to flee from Kurouzu-cho, but can she get away from this turmoil?” The first of four episodes premieres on September 28 at 12:30 a.m. during Adult Swim’s Toonami block, and is available the next day on Max.
Yeah yeah yeah, it’s another prequel based on a famous horror movie, but hear me out: Julia Garner. The actress, so good in The Americans, Ozark, and The Assistant, plays dancer Terry Gionoffrio, who is taken in by a rich couple (Dianne Wiest and Kevin McNally) following an accident. Soon after, weird stuff begins to occur, as you might imagine from a Rosemary’s Baby prequel. If nothing else, you can count on Garner giving an excellent performance.
After former SNL head writer Harper Steele came out as a trans woman, she and Will Ferrell went on a two-week road trip across America. Will & Harper follows their journey. “What if we went on a road trip together, giving her a chance to go into a cowboy bar or whatever places she misses, and I can be by her side and lend support as a friend?” Ferrell said about the origin of the documentary. “At the same time, it would give us a chance to reconnect and figure out what this transition means to our relationship.” If only all SNL cast members from the ‘90s were so open minded…
It’s crazy that we live in a time where a new movie starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt is somehow flying under the radar. But don’t miss Wolfs, which reunites the Ocean’s Eleven hunks for an action comedy in which they play professional fixers who are begrudgingly forced to work together. The film is directed by Jon Watts, who made the MCU’s Spider-Man trilogy. Coincidentally, Clooney is one of the few MCU mega-star holdouts (unlike Pitt in Deadpool 2, which kind of counts?).
HBCU institutions have a rich music culture. Over the last few decades, its various schools across the country have helped boost the careers of numerous artists by providing a space for their music to thrive. The shortlist of artists who have seen this effect include Jeezy, Lil Boosie, Rich Homie Quan, Migos, Young Thug, Young Dolph, and more. Additionally, the importance of music can be seen through HBCU bands that are extremely important to the fabric of school life. It comes to life through big displays like the annual Battle Of The Bands competitions and smaller instances like the infamous Grambling vs. Southern rivalry football games.
With all this being said, it’s no surprise that HBCUs have also produced some of the music’s most famous artists. From legends like Lionel Richie and Common and present day stars like Megan Thee Stallion, SZA, and Metro Boomin, the spirit of HBCUs runs through a number of artists — even if their tenure at the institution was short.
Ahead of homecoming season, we decided to spotlight ten artists who have connections to an HBCU. Scroll down for the list of artists and the institutions they attended.
Megan The Stallion (Texas Southern University)
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In 2021, the same year that she went No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts for her “Savage” remix with Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion graduated from Texas Southern University with a Bachelor’s degree in Health Administration. During an interview with Rolling Stone in 2021, Megan spoke about being in school “for so long” and how she balanced her rap career after deciding to ramp up her semester load to finish sooner. “Every time I had an assignment or something due, one of my managers would just pull me to the side and be like, ‘Hey Megan, you know you got to do this presentation today.’ Or ‘Hey Megan, you know you got to turn this assignment in today,’” she said. “I would have not been successful this semester without my team.”
SZA (Delaware State University)
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SZA attended Delaware Statue University after graduating from high school in 2008. The singer majored in marine biology and earned straight As for her first two semesters before losing interest. In a 2023 interview with Elle, SZA opened up about her experience in college. “I’m like, ‘I told you I was smart and I proved my point. I have to leave now,’” SZA said, recalling a conversation with her mother. A few years later, the singer met TDE president Terrence “Punch” Henderson Jr., signed to the label, and the rest is history.
Metro Boomin (Morehouse College)
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Multi-platinum producer Metro Boomin spent just one semester at Atlanta’s Morehouse College before dropping out to pursue music. He spoke about the decisions that led to him leaving the school during a 2017 interview with GQ. “As grateful as I was to be there, I didn’t want to be there,” he said. “It was bittersweet, because I knew for a fact that I need to put all of my time into music. School is the same as producing: If you want to make it far, there are a million, trillion people trying to do the same thing. If you’re not in over-grind mode, it’s probably not going to work the way that you want it to.”
Rick Ross (Albany State University)
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Grammy-nominated rapper Rick Ross attended Albany State University on a football scholarship, but dropped out of school soon after. Ross’ pursuit of a music career kicked into gear at the turn of the century, and in the decades after, Ross’ ties to Albany State University have remained strong. In 2022, he spoke to students at the school for the homecoming convocation ceremony, where he told students that “the greatest job you will ever have is being CEO of your life.”
2 Chainz (Alabama State University)
Just like Rick Ross, 2 Chainz also attended an HBCU off an athletic scholarship. His, however, was a basketball scholarship to Alabama State University. In a 2017 interview with The Daily Beast, 2 Chainz said that he left ASU after his freshman year after he “got into some trouble.” He later returned to the school to complete his degree. In another conversation, this time with Rolling Stone, 2 Chainz addressed rumors that he graduated with a 4.0 GPA. “Don’t believe anything on Wack-ipedia,” he said. “There’s a lot of false stuff on there, to the point that every time I try to fix one thing, something else comes out.”
Wale (Virginia State University & Bowie State University)
Our collection of HBCU scholarship athletes continues with Wale. The DMV rapper initially attended Robert Morris University on a football scholarship before transferring to Virginia State University. His football career would come to an end when he transferred to another HBCU, Bowie State University, but Wale would later drop out to pursue a music career. It was at VSU that Wale discovered his musical talents. In a 2021 conversation with The Ringer, Wale recalled spitting freestyles art the school’s Foster Hall. “The guy that was across the hall from me in my dorm was like, ‘Keep going, keep going. You tight,’” he said. “People really started f*cking with me at Virginia State.”
Killer Mike (Morehouse College)
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Earlier this year, Killer Mike won his first Grammys as a lead artist for Best Rap Album with Michael and Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song with “Scientists.” Those awards came more than 20 years after Mike won his first Grammy thanks to a feature on Outkast’s “The Whole World.” That song was the result of Mike and Big Boi’s friendship which came about through Mike’s attendance of Morehouse College in the 1990s. “The deciding factor for me getting into Morehouse was probably my homeroom teacher,” Killer Mike told the Seattle Times. “He was a Morehouse man. His name was Mister Lee-Roy Arnold.”
He added, “I think [Mr. Arnold] saw something in me, because he pushed me and messed with me for five years, to the point where he bet me all my book money for the first year that I would not get into Morehouse.”
Common (Florida A&M University)
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Before Common achieved his dreams of being a successful rapper, the Chicago native was enrolled at Florida A&M University under an academic scholarship as a business administration major. Common would only stay at the school for two years before dropping out to pursue rap. In 2019, nearly 30 years after he attended, Common would be honored with a doctorate degree in fine arts and invited him to speak at that year’s commencement ceremony. In his speech, Common said that his activism, which went on to be ever-present in his music, began right at FAMU where he says his experience was unlike anything he went through in hometown of Chicago.
Erykah Badu (Grambling State University)
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Erykah Badu nearly graduated from Grambling State University with a major in theater, but she left the school in 1993 to focus on her music career. Four years later, she delivered her debut album Baduizm, a masterclass in neo-soul that’s still heralded as a classic today. In an interview with the school’s newspaper The Gramblinite, Badu recalled her time at the university. “I auditioned for several plays while at GSU at the Floyd L. Sandle Theatre,” she said. “I danced with the Orchesis and was involved in a rap group called ‘CP Posse,’ which stands for Cultural Production.”
Lionel Richie (Tuskegee Institute)
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While all the artists on this list did not experience the HBCU life until their adult years, Lionel Richie’s time at an HBCU dates back to his childhood. The legendary singer grew up on Tuskegee Institute’s campus before attending the school and earning a Bachelor’s degree in economics with a minor in accounting. “In my world growing up on campus, we were surrounded by gospel music because of the choir,” Richie said of his experience to The Austin Chronicle. “R&B music was the music they played on the college campus.”
Industry‘s third season is coming down to the wire with Eric’s (Ken Leung) head growing closer to exploding with each passing moment. As well, the audience is still likely recovering from that blowout between Harper (Myha’la) and Yasmin (Marisa Abela), and there’s a sense that the damage isn’t done yet, but at least we know that Harry Lawtey is taking care of Rob’s pure heart.
HBO has revealed that a fourth season is in the works, and the acclaimed and increasingly popular series is gearing up to release the third season finale, so when will that happen? This isn’t simply a question for the busiest TV watchers out there because the series recently swapped out time slots:
When Will The Industry Season 3 Finale Come Out?
Blame it on that Gotham stinker, The Penguin, for needing to adapt to a different time if you’re watching on HBO linear format. In that case, Industry‘s season finale, which arrives on Sunday, Sept. 29, is shifting back to 10:00pm EST for you.
However, if you are streaming on Max, you can still catch any followup of Henry Muck’s fetish at 9:00pm EST. There’s a chance that you might need to rewatch the finale, though, so thank goodness for dueling time slots and the power of on-demand episodes via streaming services.
The American Music Awards 50th Anniversary Special is set to air on October 6, at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT) on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. As for what the two-hour show will entail, performers were just announced.
As Billboard notes, participating are Brad Paisley, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, Green Day, Jennifer Hudson, Kane Brown, Mariah Carey, Raye, and Stray Kids. Also expected to appear are Carrie Underwood, Gloria Estefan, Jennifer Lopez, and Jimmy Kimmel.
Carey is performing a medley of songs from her 2005 album The Emancipation Of Mimi to start the 20th-anniversary celebration of the beloved project. Stray Kids, meanwhile, will give a performance honoring the history of boy bands. Jennifer Hudson will honor Whitney Houston with a tribute performance while Brad Paisley will honor the late Charley Pride. Raye will cover James Brown’s 1966 song “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” and Green Day will play the recent single “Dilemma.”
All in all, the broadcast is set to feature “new performances, artist interviews, special guests, and never-before-seen footage from [Dick Clark Productions]’s extensive archives,” and “themed highlights from AMAs’ show archives, each culminating with an original performance or artist interview.”
As for the regular AMAs, this year’s edition will take place on May 2025, and it’ll be the first yearly show since the edition that aired on November 20, 2022.
In it, that week’s host Sydney Sweeney plays a waitress at the wings-and-beer-and-cleavage chain who is getting better tips than her co-workers for… reasons. The sketch, and the entire episode, was criticized for too many jokes about the Euphoria star’s body, but on a recent episode of Dana Carvey and David Spade’s Fly on the Wall podcast, cast member Bowen Yang explained that she was a good sport about the whole thing. In fact, she encouraged it.
Sweeney is “an example of a host who came in and understood how she was being consumed and perceived already,” Yang said, according to The Daily Beast. “She came in and was like, ‘Please, everyone, make jokes about my boobs.’ She was practically begging everybody.” Sweeney is on the joke; otherwise, she wouldn’t wear a “sorry for having great tits” sweatshirt.
Yang also discussed the “terrible” SNL host who made multiple cast members cry, although he still didn’t reveal who it was. “Imagine you stay up until 4 a.m. writing a sketch and then the host is like, ‘I f*cking hate this.’ Your nerves are frayed, you’re going to have some weird, bizarre emotional response,” he said. At least we know it wasn’t Sydney Sweeney.
After years of the idea seeming impossible, it’s happening: Oasis is going on a reunion tour. The band announced the run last month, confirming a few dates in the UK and Europe while noting, “Plans are underway for Oasis Live ’25 to go to other continents outside of Europe later next year.”
Now it looks like shows in the US are in the cards and ready to be announced soon.
Citing “sources close to the tour,” NME reports the tour will supposedly hit North America, visiting Toronto; Chicago; East Rutherford, New Jersey; Boston; Los Angeles; and Mexico City. Beyond that, other international locations include Seoul, South Korea; Tokyo, Japan; Melbourne, Australia; Sydney, Australia; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Santiago, Chile; and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The official dates and locations are expected to be announced “in the coming week or so.”
There was speculation the band would perform at Glastonbury in 2025, but the group shut that down with a statement: “Despite media speculation, Oasis will not be playing Glastonbury 2025 or any other festivals next year. The only way to see the band perform will be on their Oasis Live ’25 World Tour.”
The Connecticut Sun ended the Indiana Fever’s season on Wednesday night in a thrilling 87-81 win in Game 2 of their first round series. Alyssa Thomas led the way with 19 points and 13 assists, as the Sun withstood every run from Caitlin Clark and the Fever to respond with a counterpunch of their own.
The win set up a second round series between the Sun and Lynx that figures to be fantastic, while putting an end to the biggest story in the WNBA this season. Clark’s rookie year was nothing short of spectacular, as the No. 1 pick in this year’s Draft set rookie records and led Indiana to its first playoff berth since 2016 in her first season. Her popularity led the Fever to smash attendance records, both at home and on the road, as well as TV ratings records on every network that carries WNBA games nationally.
Clark has expanded the WNBA’s reach, but not everyone that claims themselves as a Clark fan has come into the league in good faith. Clark has been used as a proxy in culture war arguments, and some fans have crossed the line with racist comments towards other players. Clark has called it “unacceptable” for so-called fans to use her name to push negative agendas, but the issues persist. Most recently, Sun guard DiJonai Carrington has gotten racist attacks online after an accidental eye-poke in Game 1, which got spun by some as being an intentional act despite Clark laughing off the idea it was anything purposeful.
After Game 2, Thomas spoke out on the verbal abuse Carrington and the Sun as a whole have dealt with from Fever fans, calling it unacceptable and noting there’s no place for that kind of behavior in the game.
The full answer from Alyssa Thomas about their treatment from Fever fans.
While there are no easy answers for how to stop this kind of behavior, Thomas did hope the Fever would “check their fans” and make it clear that there’s a difference between supporting the team and being derogatory towards opposing players. There is a tendency to be wary of the blowback from making statements towards your own fans, but anyone that would stop supporting you for asking them not to make racist or hateful comments isn’t someone you should want to welcome into your fan base anyways.
As many pointed out, the statement felt like it came a bit late, as this has been an on-going issue. Angel Reese spoke earlier this year about how she’s dealt with racism, death threats, and people coming to her address. While there is, unfortunately, no way to stop people from saying terrible things online, the league certainly could be more proactive with fans in the arena and hopefully that will be a greater point of emphasis next season.
The surge in popularity this past season was great for the WNBA’s bottom line, but for a league that champions diversity and inclusion, they have some serious work ahead of them for how to continue fostering that environment. Clark’s presence has accelerated a lot of things for the WNBA, and the challenge for the league is to keep up with changing demands, both positive and negative, with protecting players as best they can being chief among them.
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