Category: Worldwide

The government recently released a report on decades of UFO study, with a kind of anticlimactic conclusion: We still don’t know if those unidentified objects were indeed manned by aliens. (The creator of The X-Files, of course, is skeptical of its findings.) In the meantime, there are if not bigger than other fish to fry: According to New Atlas (as picked up by The New York Post), our solar system is about to get a visitor — not extraterrestrial life but an eccentric “miniature planet.”

Astronomers call it 2014 UN271, and it’s of an awkward size: too large to be a comet, too small to be a planet. (Though it could still be either.) It was only discovered in 2014 (hence the catchy name), and it’s somewhere between 100 and 370 km (62 and 230 miles) wide. It also has an extremely bizarre orbit: It passes around our sun, moving both inside our solar system and through the Oort cloud that marks the boundary of interstellar space.

That orbit, by the way, runs a whopping 612,190 years. That means the last time it was near our home planet was circa the Stone Age.

2014 UN271 isn’t due any time soon. Right now it’s about 22 Astronomical Units (AU) from the Sun. For comparison, Earth is 1 AU from it. Meanwhile, Neptune is 29.7 AU, which means it’s actually closer to us than the last planet in our solar system. The closest it will come won’t be until 2031, getting close to the orbit of Saturn.

That means when it’s nearby in another decade, 2014 UN271 won’t be visible to the naked eye, like Haley’s Comet, which won’t be back in our neck of the woods until 2061. But there should be plenty of amazing NASA footage. Anyway, mark your calendars!

(Via New Atlas and NY Post)

After emerging from a brief hiatus, Megan Thee Stallion marked her return by dropping her sweltering song “Thot Sh*t.” Megan is leading the pack at the 2021 BET Awards Sunday night with an impressive seven nominations. To celebrate, the rapper pulled off a eye-catching rendition of her hit “Thot Sh*t” track.

Taking the stage in an all-black outfit, Megan was joined by a crew of backup dancers to strut her stuff for her “Thot Sh*t” set. The rapper delivered her cutting lyrics while dropping it low as a projected image of a diamond flashed behind her.

Ahead of her performance, Megan’s “Thot Sh*t” song caused quite an uproar from both sides of the political aisle. One GOP congressional candidate, DeAnna Lorraine, was very outspoken about her distaste for Megan and Cardi B’s song “WAP” last year. So when Megan dropped “Thot Sh*t,” Lorraine thought the song was throwing direct shade at her.

On the other hand, “Thot Sh*t” became the subject of a boycott by Black TikTok creators. According to Mashable, Black TikTok creators were fed up over the tendency for non-Black TikTok users to co-opt their dances — and get more attention. Those on strike noted how popular TikTok users like Addison Rae and Charli D’Amelio essentially copied already well-known dances, which were oftentimes created by Black users, and used them to boost their fame.

Watch Megan Thee Stallion perform “Thot Sh*t” and ” above at the 2021 BET Awards.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

After years of mixtape releases that eventually put the Memphis native on a pedestal high enough to drop official albums, Moneybagg Yo is arguably having the best year of his career. It’s in large part due to the success of his fourth album, A Gangsta’s Pain. The positive reception of that album and its song helped land Moneybagg a spot in this year’s lineup of BET Award show performers. He graced the stage with a brief performance of “Wokesha” before transitioning into a laid-back rendition of “Time Today.”

His set comes weeks after A Gangsta’s Pain became the first No. 1 album of his career at the beginning of May. Two weeks later, the album reclaimed the top spot on the albums chart, making it one of a few albums to do so on the Billboard 200 this year. The album’s success can be credited to it’s post-release promotional run as the rapper shared several videos for tracks like “A Gangsta’s Pain” and “Free Promo.”

On a more recent note, Moneybagg Yo dropped “Rookie Of The Year” in support of Memphis Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant’s film, Promiseland. The rapper also joined Belly in a video for their “Zero Love” collaboration. Moneybagg will also headline the 2021 Brocolli City festival with Lil Baby later this year.

Scroll up to watch a clip of Moneybagg’s BET Award performance.

H.E.R. has just released an excellent new album, Back Of My Mind, and was part of Amazon’s Prime Day concert film alongside Kid Cudi and Billie Eilish, so she’s been in the spotlight a lot lately. All that wasn’t enough to stop her from entering her BET Awards performance tonight by descending from the ceiling on a floating platform while playing the drums herself. Is there anything she can’t do? The multi-talented artist was performing the intro off her new album, “We Made It” during tonight’s show, and after kicking things off with the drums, she later put on a guitar to shred the guitar solo toward the end of the track.

Though it’s one of the earliest performances in the show, and it will be hard for people to top Cardi B and Offset announcing that the “WAP” rapper is pregnant with their second child, H.E.R.’s live rendition of this track is still going to be one of the highlights of the night. She’s become a cultural force in the R&B world in just a few short years, but clearly, this woman is a career artist. Check out her performance above and if you haven’t spent any time with her new album, Back Of My Mind yet, definitely give it a spin.

Migos recently released the third installment of their ongoing Culture series, and Culture III offered more of the same triplet flows and lightning fast rap verses that have been their signature from the beginning. With the impact of Culture III — including a collaboration with none other than Drake on “Having Our Way” — of course the Atlanta trio would be a presence at tonight’s BET Awards. Of course, the beloved group has been up against some heavy charges with the drama that went down between Quavo and Saweetie, who were formerly one of hip-hop’s hottest couples and had a rather brutal, public breakup. Aside from allegations of cheating, which Quavo deflected, some expensive gifts have been rescinded, and Saweetie is ready to move on.

Another related couple is doing much better though, during their performance tonight of “Type Sh*t” off the album — a collaboration with Cardi B — the one and only “WAP” artist announced that she’s pregnant again. Though her own relationship with Offset has been a little tumultuous, it looks like the couple is happy to be expanding their family. Check out the video of their performance and Cardi’s big announcement above, along with a newly shared photo on Twitter below.

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

Lil Baby has formed an era of his own thanks to the release of his 2020 album, My Turn. Despite being more than a year removed from dropping that project, the Atlanta rapper is still enjoying moments that are rooted in the album’s arrival. He was crowned Songwriter Of The Year at this year’s ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Awards and the showed credited “Emotionally Scarred” and “The Bigger Picture” as some of Baby’s best work. Now, the rapper finds himself onstage at the 2021 BET Awards where he performed “We Win” alongside Kirk Franklin. The duo was backed by a group of dancing backup singers as they shared a fiery performance the song, which serves as the lead single for the upcoming Space Jam: A New Legacy soundtrack.

In addition to performing at the show, Baby also received three nominations at the BET Awards. “The Bigger Picture” was nominated in the Coca-Cola Viewers’ Choice Award category while “For The Night,” which finds the rapper alongside DaBaby and the late Pop Smoke, can be found in the Best Collaboration category. Lastly, Lil Baby himself was nominated in the Best Male Hip-Hop Artist.

As for what’s next, Lil Baby will begin a string of festival and concert appearances now that the world has reopened for live shows. He slated to appear at the following festivals: Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash, Rolling Loud’s Miami and New York shows, Made In America, and Brocolli City. He will also hit the road with Lil Durk for their Back Outside tour.

Scroll up to see a clip of Lil Baby’s performance at the 2021 BET Awards.

Supernatural ran a whopping 15 seasons, and over that time it was one of the most reliable shows on television. But on Friday there was some rare real-life drama. Recently co-lead Jensen Ackles announced he and his wife were launching a prequel to the show, which would follow the parents of brothers Sam and Dean Winchester. Ackles said he would narrate the show. Great news! But there was one snag: He evidently forgot to inform co-star Jared Padalecki, who took that to mean he wouldn’t be involved. And Padalecki was pissed.

If you were worried that one of TV’s great sibling non-rivalries was kaput, then fret no more. On Sunday, Padalecki took to Twitter to reassure fans that they’d patched things up.

“@JensenAckles and I had a great talk, as we do often, and things are good,” the actor wrote. “The show is early in the process with miles to go. We’ve travelled a lot of roads together, and sometimes those damn roads have bumps. Bumps don’t stop us. Once brothers, always brothers.”

Even though Padalecki’s post was unmistakably forgiving, it was also a bit cryptic. Why didn’t Ackles inform his longtime on-screen bro, with whom he chats “often,” that he was moving ahead with a prequel? Do the words “early in the process” mean there’s still a chance Padalecki could be involved in some fashion? But whatever, he says they’re cool, so they must be cool. Carry on, everyone.

(Via IGN)

As everyone anticipates the release of Madden 22, we’re also waiting for news on another football game that is on the way. 2K Games, the developers of the dormant but never forgotten NFL 2K franchise, have their own NFL game on the way. Announced back in 2020, 2K has been working on an arcade-style football game with the NFL license. When it releases it will be the first game to use the NFL license not developed by EA since ESPN NFL 2K5.

For fans of the NFL 2K series, don’t get too excited. The major label here is “arcade” as opposed to the “simulation” style games that Madden is known for. Basically, 2K can’t make their game a realistic sim the same way EA Sports develops their Madden games. This is partially why EA Sports executive producer, Sean Graddy, isn’t too concerned about a competitor having the license. In fact, he welcomes the addition of more NFL games and says it’s good for the industry as a whole, via Gamespot.

“As far as the other products that [the NFL is] working with, I honestly think it’s a good thing for the industry and the market because you’re seeing more players engaging with with the NFL and getting excited about the league, getting excited about players,” he told GameSpot. “And when they want to get the simulation experience, they come to Madden. So I think it’s a good thing.”

What Graddy is saying does have a lot of truth to it. For fans of sports games, there is a notable lack of the arcade-style games that many of us grew to love during the PS2/GameCube/Xbox generation of consoles. Games like NFL Street were beloved for the wacky and unrealistic ways the game was played, and seeing games like that come back is a definite plus for video games as a whole. It brings in not only sports fans, but people who maybe don’t enjoy realistic sports but like the arcade game versions of them.

If 2K’s NFL game can capture the spirit of some of those arcade classics, and Madden can become the best simulation game out there, then NFL fans could be in for two must-get purchases every year. If that happens then Graddy would be correct, it would be good for the industry as a whole. But it’s hard to not think that some part of him wishes EA Sports was also developing the arcade game. Why aren’t they? We’ll never know for certain.

So far, Olivia Rodrigo has received no real pushback for constantly referencing and incorporating pop culture totems from the past few decades into her own work. She’s used a melody from a Taylor Swift song, earned comparisons to Paramore’s “Misery Business” in the single “Good 4 U,” and diehard Lorde fans would swear the bridge from “Drivers License” sounds familiar. But imitation is the highest form of flattery, right? Well, not if you’re Courtney Love, apparently.

The Hole frontwoman took umbrage with Olivia’s new press photo for her Sour prom concert film, below:

Love posted the pic to her own Instagram account on Friday with the following caption: “Spot the difference! #twinning! @oliviarodrigo ”

For reference, Hole is alluding to her Live Through This artwork from 1994.

“Love u and live through this sooooo much,” Rodrigo commented in reply. To which Courtney responded: “Olivia — you’re welcome. My favorite florist is in Notting Hill, London! Dm me for deets. I look forward to reading your note.”

She also shared the same post on Facebook, and made a few more comments there in response to fan reactions, including the idea that the prom photos was a reference to Stephen King’s Carrie. “As stated in another comment “Carrie” is an entirely different concept to my original idea. I made that so clear at the time. Don’t dare gate keep my life. Especially as I’m luckily still alive to correct your presumption. Based on ? Pigs blood ? I don’t copy.”

She further noted that she expects flowers and a note, and will be done with it.

“I’ve asked her for flowers and a note, your [sic] right. It’s rude not to be asked. I know Ellen von unwerth isn’t amused. And just to clarify? The Brian de Palma classic “Carrie“ is another thing. My cover was my original idea. A thing you maybe have to actually live life to acquire ? I don’t know. Anyway. Disney? Yes it’s rude. X”

And finally, that she doesn’t consider her call out to be bullying because stealing an original idea without asking permission “is rude.”

“Your version isn’t mine. Stealing an original idea and not asking permission is rude. There’s no way to be elegant about it. I’m not angry. It happens all the time to me. And really I’m very gracious or say nothing. But this was bad form. That’s not bullying or bomb throwing . This persons music has nothing to do with my life. Possibly never will. It was rude And I have every right to stick up for my work. Don’t gatekeep me ! I’m honorable as f*ck to my fellow artists, and I expect the same.”

Check out the full Facebook post here.

It’s been less than two days since Tyler The Creator shared his sixth album, Call Me If You Get Lost, which arrives two years after the Grammy-winning Igor. But unlike that album, this newest release found him heading back to his old brash rap sound, thanks to DJ Drama, who appeared as the album’s host. After reading through some of the new album’s positive reviews, Tyler hopped on Instagram Live to share some words about his latest release.

“Shoutout rap music, I love it,” Tyler said. “DJ Drama, I love you. What you did for rap — phenomenal. From all the Waynes, all the Dedications, from P the In My Mind Prequel mixtape, to Clipse for the We Got It For Cheaps, from Lupe mixtape run all the Farenheits, the Revenge Of The Nerds, to JAY-Z, to Andre [3000] … to Westside Gunn for making me wanna just rap again.” He added, “I love it. I love rap. It changed n****s lives.”

Recently Drama explained what made working with Tyler unique from other artists. “Normally in these types of situations, if I do a Gangsta Grillz with somebody, they compile their music together and hand it over to me, and then I’ll go in on my own without them and do my thing and return the finished product,” he said. “With Tyler, it was a little different: I came in, gave him an abundance of things—even more than what I had originally placed—and just gave him enough material to choose from and layer it out.”

You can watch Tyler’s livestream in the video above.

Call Me If You Get Lost is out now via A Boy Is a Gun/Columbia. Get it here.