Category: Worldwide

Patti Smith‘s “We Love NYC” set might’ve been rained out last weekend, but the queen of punk and poetry never slows down. Today, Smith has shared a new EP, Live At Electric Lady, in partnership with Spotify. The seven-song LP, her first solo recording since her 2012 studio album Banga, features live renditions of her classics (“Ghost Dance,” “Broken Flag,” and “Birdland”), plus covers of Bob Dylan‘s “One Too Many Mornings” and Stevie Wonder‘s “Blame it on the Sun.”

“We are very proud to be part of Spotify’s Live at Electric Lady series, our favorite recording studio,” Smith said in a press release. “It was a unique challenge and offered us an exciting and innovative platform. We are grateful to Spotify for their generous support and willingness to present a live performance with all its possibilities of risk and revelation.”

Electric Lady’s GM/Partner, Lee Foster, added:

“Prior to recording, I had been discussing cover song options to present to Patti with Tony Shanahan, Patti’s MD and longtime bassist/pianist. We’d yet to mention to Patti that we’d hoped to record a cover during the session, so she was unaware at the time. Days went by and Tony and I couldn’t find the right song together. Then, as we’d just begun to agonize over it, he called me excitedly and asked “is ‘Blame It On the Sun’ from Talking Book [Stevie Wonder’s 1972 album recorded at Electric Lady]?’ I looked quickly to confirm and told him yes. For no reason at all that morning Patti had texted him to say that the song was stuck in her head and that she wanted the band to learn it. Kismet.”

Spotify and Electric Lady Studios previously released an EP from Jon Batiste, which dropped in July. Additional recordings will feature Japanese Breakfast, Dominic Fike, Faye Webster, Bleachers, Remi Wolf, and Natalie Bergman, “with more surprises to come,” according to a press release.

Live At Electric Lady EP tracklist:

1. “April Fool”
2. “Ghost Dance”
3. “Blame it on the Sun” (Stevie Wonder)
4. “Broken Flag”
5. “Birdland”
6. “One Too Many Mornings” (Bob Dylan)
7. “Peaceable Kingdom”

About 20 months after the world became aware of Covid-19 as a real problem, mankind still sees no easy way out of the pandemic. The delta variant has erased much progress against the virus after cases plummeted earlier this year, and yet, some people are still raging against the idea of masking. Many of those people also feel that their freedom would be abolished by vaccinations, as illustrated by a recent CNN video montage of people freaking out on the subject. That included a male anti-vaxxer raging during a city council meeting: “Your children and your children’s children will be subjugated!” And then there are the comparisons by anti-mask ranters who are labeling anyone who doesn’t share their views as “Nazis” whose “mandates are against the Nuremberg Codes.”

Don Lemon has run out of patience. Via Mediaite, Lemon grew exasperated over a parent who flew off the hook with a conspiracy theory about how masking in schools is “a plan to shut down schools and to use them as camps to physically isolate men, women and children.” Yep, the Holocaust comparison followed close behind: “Now, we know that concentration camps were something that the Nazis did, but it can come here at any moment, and we need to be aware.”

Oh boy. And here’s Lemon’s unapologetic response: “Just because you can have kids, does not mean you should. Yeah, I said it.” He wasn’t done yet: “It would be funny if it weren’t for the fact that people’s lives are at stake. The misinformation, the lies, they’re killing us.” There’s not much commentary that can be added to that. Either one agrees or disagrees with him, but hopefully, he change the minds of a few people on the fence, and they’ll see how silly it is to rage against a piece of cloth, one that could have prevented the delta mutation from surfacing if used properly.

(Via Mediaite)

This Friday, August 27, the iconic Atlanta-based rap duo who put the Dirty South on the map with their cosmic slop-washed ethos is reissuing the album that saw them break through to the mainstream 25 years ago. Andre 3000 and Big Boi, better known as Outkast, are putting out a 25th-anniversary edition of ATLiens and to celebrate, they’ve shared a new Rafatoon-directed animated video for the album’s fan-favorite track “Two Dope Boyz (In A Cadillac).” The psychedelic visuals capture the duo in their mid-90s aesthetics (you know, before Andre started dressing like a mid-century dandy) and yes, cruising in a Cadillac convertible.

The ATLiens reissue will come with newly mixed, hi-res 24-bit sound with the previously unreleased instrumental tracks, in multiple formats. Legacy Recordings is dropping a limited-edition four-LP version, Get on Down’s version will come with a custom gatefold jacket and a glow-in-the-dark 45rpm single of “Elevators,” and Vinyl Me, Please has a two-LP neon green and blue galaxy vinyl. You can find out more here.

In addition to the collector’s edition vinyl re-releases of ATLiens, the boys will celebrate their breakthrough classic with a mobile video game being produced by F That digital agency that will find them defending their hometown from — what else? — an alien invasion. The release date is still TBD.

Watch the “Two Dope Boyz (In A Cadillac)” video above.

Lorde is in the midst of a week-long takeover on The Late Late Show, and it has gone well so far. She started the week by performing “Solar Power,” then returned on Tuesday with “California.” Both of those songs are taken from Lorde’s new album Solar Power, but for last night’s appearance, she dug deeper into her catalog.

Instead of another Solar Power cut, she busted out her popular Melodrama single “Green Light.” For the performance, she kept things simple, joined on stage by a pianist and some warm, sunset-colored lighting.

Back when the song came out, Lorde told Apple Music of it, “The song is actually about a heartbreak. And it’s not something that I really am used to writing about. It took me a while to be able to figure out how to write about that. It was my first major heartbreak. The song is really about those moments kind of immediately after your life changes and about all the silly little things that you gravitate towards. I say, ‘She thinks you love the beach, you’re such a liar.’ What the f*ck, she thinks you like the beach?! You don’t like the beach! It’s those little stupid things. It sounds so happy and then the lyrics are so intense obviously. And I realized I was like, ‘How come this thing is coming out so joyous-sounding?” And I realized this is that drunk girl at the party dancing around crying about her ex-boyfriend who everyone thinks is a mess. That’s her tonight and tomorrow she starts to rebuild. And that’s the song for me.”

Watch Lorde perform “Green Light” above.

In a sentence that there is no chance anyone could have possibly seen coming under just about any circumstance, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is coming to Fortnite. While King will not be a playable character in the game, a trailer and a post on PlayStation’s blog explained how this is going to work.

The experience is called “March Through Time” and will send players back in time “to a re-imagined Washington, DC called D.C. 63.” While there, gamers will receive the opportunity to “witness the Civil Rights teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King.”

This experience was built by members ChaseJackman, GQUanoe, XWDFr, and YU7A. In D.C. 63, players will travel to the Lincoln Memorial and the United States National Mall where Dr. King made his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.

The Experience will also feature museum-inspired points of interest and quests you can complete with other players. These quests should bring an important reminder that relates to Dr. King’s speech: We move forward when we work together.

Here is the trailer, which features a bunch of Fortnite characters walking on the National Mall to the Lincoln Memorial (we then get an image of King’s “I Have A Dream” speech being given at the same location) before they are then transported to a museum.

This Saturday, Aug. 28, marks the 58th anniversary of King’s most famous speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Smoking with Snoop Dogg seems like one of those life experiences you wind up telling people about for the rest of your life. Case in point: Nearly every celebrity, from Seth Rogen to Nick Jonas — and even non-celebrities like Florence Pugh’s mom — who has ever had a session with Snoop has a story to tell and really enjoys telling it. However, for the rest of us, the prospect of receiving a pass to the left from the Doggfather might seem woefully out-of-reach. One might even go to extreme lengths to smoke with the Dogg, like someone in Philadelphia apparently did according to the local news.

The perpetrators in question reportedly stole three Snoop Dogg bobbleheads from three grocery stores in the Philadelphia area, rushing in and making off with the statues. But, they’re not just any bobbleheads; each one is three feet tall and was sent to the stores by Corona as part of his “La Vida Mas Fina” campaign. One of the thieves went so far as to put the Snoop statue into a grocery cart and roll it right out the front door. Police won’t say that the thefts are related, but my unprofessional advice is to check out the local head shops. Something tells me the thieves probably spend a lot of time there.

According to CBS Philly, the statues might sell for over $1,000 on eBay, which could explain the extreme measures the thieves went to in order to secure them, but there’s always the possibility they just wanted a cool conversation piece for their bud holes (you just know Jason Mendoza would steal a Snoop Dogg bobblehead). Unfortunately, we don’t know what Snoop thinks about all this yet, but whenever he wakes up, it’s a safe bet he’ll post about it on his Instagram.

Watch the CBS Philly report on the thefts above.

Mark Hoppus is in the midst of cancer treatment, and we know that because the Blink-182 member has been transparent with his fans about how things are going on that front. Now he has pulled back the curtain even more: In a pair of “how it started/how it’s going” posts shared on his Instagram Story, Hoppus showed the text message that served as his first contact with his doctor about what ended up being the cancer diagnosis.

The “how is started” post shows the texts, the first of which was sent at 7:34 a.m. on April 20. It reads, “Hi Jill. For the past couple days I’ve had this dull sore lump in my shoulder kind of right where it connects to my neck that could either be fatal lymphoma or a sore muscle. At what point should I be concerned and have it looked it?” With no subtlety, the doctor replied, “I need to see you!!!” The pair then set up an appointment for that afternoon.

As for the “how it’s going” post, Hoppus shared a photo of himself flashing a peace sign at the camera as he receives treatment.

Meanwhile, Hoppus got a message of support from Tom DeLonge yesterday, who shared a vintage photo of the two of them and wrote, “@markhoppus is almost done with his treatment… send him [love] to power him through this last stretch!”

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

We’re quickly approaching the September release date of NBA 2K22 and while we’ve gotten a lot of info about new features for the game and what they plan to do for the NBA, they haven’t given as much info about the WNBA yet. On Thursday, that changed as the team behind NBA 2K released some new information about how they plan on handling The W mode feature in their game.

The two biggest changes are going to be the addition of a new progression system and what they’re calling the “Off-Day experience.” These changes are meant to give players playing through a WNBA career more to do than just play regular-season games.

The changes will start with NBA 2K22 with a new badge progression feature. These badges will improve the player in skills such as finishing, shooting, playmaking and defense. This will give players the ability to customize how they want to play with their MyPlayer. Every skill set will have a meter that is filled as you play games. Playing games will also earn badge points that allow the player to equip more badges in the skills they want to improve. Managing and editing your badges will be easy with the ability to create custom loadouts specific to your MyPlayer.

When you’re not playing games, NBA 2K22 will have activities for you to continue to shape your player. These off-day activities can affect your progression stats, popularity, and in-game currency. The three off day activities available to players in The W will be:

• Scrimmages
• Team Practices
• Contact Workouts

While scrimmages build up team chemistry, team practices can help players fill up their skills and talk to their coaches. Contact workouts are interesting because it will give the player an opportunity to learn new skills while also interacting with other stars such as Candace Parker, A’ja Wilson, and Nneka Ogwumike. These workouts can build up the connections players have with these stars by playing games of 1-on-1, 2-on-2, or 3-on-3. Once these contacts are made the player will have a contact they can always go back to in future workouts. This means hanging out with the WNBA’s biggest stars in your free time and of course learning everything they have to show you.

We’ll need to see how these changes all work out in NBA 2K22, but they sound like promising new additions to a mode that needs more features. While we one day want to see just as much to do on the WNBA side of the game, as there is to do on the NBA side, it’s nice to see that more content is being added. Hopefully future iterations will continue building on this.

That Joe Rogan is one of the world’s most popular podcasters (though his influence may be waning) seems like a random joke perpetrated on all of us by the universe. But there’s no denying the fact that the comedian and his The Joe Rogan Podcast wield a baffling amount of power and influence over the 11 million-plus people who listen to his podcast. And while Rogan himself has admitted that he’s a “f*#king moron… who [is] drunk most of the time” and that he’s “not a respected source of information—even for me”—especially when it comes to scientific matters like COVID and vaccines—that hasn’t stopped him from railing against vaccine mandates and other public health issues. Now he’s pissed that people who actually paid real money to see him do comedy might have to show proof that they’ve been vaccinated that he’s offering to refund anyone who refuses to do so.

As Mediaite notes, Rogan was joined by Meghan Murphy—a Canadian journalist who is perhaps best known for being banned from Twitter in late 2018 for making what the social media site deemed transphobic comments—last week, where they somehow conflated a wide range of topics, from BLM to COVID lockdowns, and pointed fingers about the current mandates that they believe are violating our rights. When talk turned to New York City specifically, Rogan made it clear that he blames Mayor Bill de Blasio specifically for requiring that anyone who wants to dine or be otherwise entertained indoors be vaccinated and show proof of it. But mostly he just seemed annoyed about how it might affect the turnout for an upcoming show he has slated for October, noting:

“I have a problem because I have a show there in Madison Square Garden in October, and I’ve already sold 13,000 tickets. And now they say that everybody has to be vaccinated and I want everybody to know that you can get your money back… If someone has an ideological or physiological reason for not getting vaccinated, I don’t want to force them to get vaccinated to see a f***ing stupid comedy show.”

Finally, something Rogan and I can agree on: that his comedy is f***ing stupid.

(Via Mediaite)

It has been a few months since Saweetie announced her breakup with Quavo, but that hasn’t stopped some fans of the couple from hoping for a reconciliation between the two rappers. However, that outcome seemly less than likely after Saweetie herself snuffed out a recent tabloid report that the two had begun spending time together again. Jack Harlow/Saweetie shippers, rejoice!

Earlier this week, Hollywood Life, a gossip blog, published the report that Saweetie and Quavo had reunited, quoting a “music insider” saying that they were “both in New York and have quietly been spending time together on the DL.” Aside from the fact that “quietly” and “on the DL” mean the same thing, there’s little else to the story in terms of reliable sourcing, but when has that ever stopped the Twitter speculation machine from running at max capacity?

Today, though, the ultimate primary source weighed in: Saweetie herself. Quoting the tweet linking to the article, she definitively shut down the report while directing attention back to her actual business, “Pinocchio ass article,” she scoffed. “Anyways back to this #saweetiemeal.”

It isn’t the first time Saweetie dismissed public perceptions of her private business. In a May interview, she similarly redirected the conversation to her business plans. “I want 900 million dollars,” she said. “I look at Rihanna. I look at Kylie. I look at all the girls who are working in the worlds that I’m in. I kind of averaged out the money between all these women I admire, and 900 million is the number. So if I’m having a bad day, I’m just like, ‘900 million, girl! Go!’” Her recent collaboration with McDonald’s may well get her one step closer; earlier this week she launched her merchandise collection with the fast-food giant and recently told fans her album is finished.

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