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Discogs is the unofficial home to all things music. The site is a crowd-sourced and comprehensive resource for information and discourse on artist discographies, from commercial to bootleg releases. With Record Store Day adjusting to life amid the pandemic, users are flocking to the site to decide which exclusive vinyls they should pick up. That’s where one Discogs user came in. Inspired by Okayplayer’s shortlist of Black-owned record stores, one Discogs user has begun rounding up an growing catalog of Black-owned record stores to support.

As the #ShowMustBePaused industry blackout took place in June, Discogs user Ben Kessler decided to lean on the community to form an encyclopedia of Black-owned record stores. Speaking to Discogs about the project, Kessler said as the national conversation focused on Black voices, he wanted people to be aware of these independent record stores: “I thought it made the most sense to stand in solidarity with Black record store owners in this small way. Nobody should expect something in return for his or her support of what is right, but if someone was going to buy a record anyway, wouldn’t it make the most sense to buy it from someone who is already competing on the wrong end of an uneven playing field?”

Kessler continued that he sees vinyl-heads as a largely white group, but recognizes many of those buying vinyls focus on music from Black artists:

“I don’t think one has to be collecting records for particularly long to realize we are a largely homogeneous group. I’m 35 and have been buying records since I was around 12 or 13. White men are the vast majority of folks in record stores on both sides of the counter. This is despite the fact that we are often buying recordings created by Black artists or by people who owe, to say the last, a debt of gratitude to Black creators. All parts of the music supply chain should be representative of the people who make the music.”

At the time of publication, Kessler’s list boasts 29 entries, but he hopes the list will continue to grow with the help of the music community.

Check out and contribute to the list here.

Winning the Madden NFL 20 Celebrity Tournament wasn’t enough for Derwin James, it seems, as the Chargers safety is doubling down on his competitiveness in the game by spearheading the NFL’s Madden offerings this upcoming season. James will take on a new challenger each Tuesday in “Derwin James vs The World,” which will feature a different celebrity, musical artist or athlete taking on James each week of the NFL season.

The tournament is the keynote event of the Madden NFL 21 Championship Series, which will pair Madden competition with real gridiron competition among NFL players throughout the fall and winter. Also on Tuesdays, different NFL athletes will compete against competitive Madden gamers in a King of the Hill tournament, with gamers competing for a $1.4 million prize pool.

“Fans got a taste of my skills when I won the Madden NFL 20 Celebrity Tournament back in April, and this time, I’m back to quiet any doubters that I’m the best Madden player in the League,” James said in a statement. “I’m a huge Madden fan and I look forward to showing up every Tuesday to take on new challengers and ultimately test my skills against the season’s best Madden player.”

James’ games and the King of the Hill competition will be broadcast each week on the Madden Twitch page and the game’s YouTube channel. The game itself will be available on Friday, Aug. 28, while those who purchased the MVP Edition of the game have access starting Wednesday.

It’s hard to believe that almost two months have passed since Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds fired new shots in their years-long “feud,” but it just came roaring back to life on Tuesday. While appearing on The Jess Cagle Show, Jackman was asked what he’d get Reynolds for his upcoming birthday in October, and you can definitely say the gift idea is pretty crappy. Literally. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

“The first thing that came to mind was a game we used to play as kids, did you ever play that game, we used to call it Ring and Run?” Jackman began. “Where you go knock on someone’s door and run away. So of course my older brother took it to the next level and when you came to open the door there was a package that was on fire. The package was filled with various amounts of dog poo from the neighborhood. So you would stamp it out. That’s the first thing that came to mind.”

Jackman was also asked about a recent fan request that he and Reynolds star in a reboot of Face/Off, the ’90s action film from director John Wo that saw Nicolas Cage and John Travolta swap faces and do battle. Surprisingly, Jackman seemed into it, but he had one very specific condition. “Is it possible to shoot it where we are actually never together? Is that possible?”

The last time the two adversaries “met,” Reynolds crashed an X-Men virtual reunion in June prompting everyone to leave after the actor mocked the film franchise’s convoluted timelines. “It’s like a recap of Knot’s Landing,” the Deadpool star quipped as Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, James McAvoy, and Sophie Turner filed out one-by-one until only Reynolds and Jackman were left alone together.

(Via The Jess Cagle Show)

Moroccan-Canadian singer-songwriter Faouzia turned 20 years old recently, and she has already made waves in her young career. She has collaborations with David Guetta and Kelly Clarkson under her belt, and she has dropped some material unaccompanied in 2020. She shared “How It All Works” in July, and now she returns with another new one, the brief but blood-pumping “Born Without A Heart.”

Faouzia explained her musical background in a recent interview, saying, “I started performing at a really young age, and when people would come up to me after talent shows and such, they would always say the kindest and most supportive things! It made me think, ‘Hey!, Maybe I can start performing more often!’ Eventually, I decided that I wanted to start putting covers on YouTube and I released my first song when I was fifteen years old. It was a gradual process, but it has always been a passion of mine and I’m so happy that I get to do what I love.”

She also hinted at her plans for 2020, saying, “This year has been very unpredictable but one thing I know for sure is that there is a lot of music coming and I am so excited for everyone to hear it!”

Watch the “Born Without A Heart” video above.

The Empire Strikes Back is inarguably the greatest Star Wars film in the eleven movie franchise. A large part of that is because the movie took on a darker tone than its predecessor, introduced some twists, and featured moments that would become iconic not just in the history of the franchise, but in the history of film itself. However, a small part of the movie’s popularity owes a debt to the introduction of Boba Fett, a fan-favorite character that would become mythologized amongst Star Wars fans from the moment he appeared on the silver screen until now. Disney+’s The Mandalorian is pretty much just a show where Jon Favreau plays with his Boba Fett Star Wars toys.

That’s right Fett fans, your dude is about as wack as Captain Phasma.

While I’m no Fett fanatic, I can’t deny that Boba Fett’s armor is probably one of the dopest looks in Star Wars and now Adidas is celebrating the bounty hunter’s iconic metalwork with a new Top Ten Hi sneaker inspired by first Mandalorian. Featuring a rich olive green upper, this Top Ten Hi features all sorts of small details that call back to the bounty hunter’s armor that fans will no doubt fall head over heels for — like the slightly worn battle markings across the upper or the light blue tongue that resembles Fett’s undergarment, as well as red accents and Fett’s mythosaur skull signet at the heel. But easily the most recognizable feature is the utility-focused pouch affixed to the sneaker’s collar.

The shoe is being released in celebration of the 40th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, and follows a Luke Skywalker Stan Smith, a Lando Calrissian NMD R1 V2, and a Stormtrooper NMD R1. Now, all we need is a Yoda shoe and I think Adidas will have paid fair tribute to the film!

The sneaker is set to drop exclusively through the Adidas UK webstore on September 24th for a retail price of $111. Before all you Star Wars stans come at me, yes, I’m well aware that Boba Fett’s first appearance was actually in an animated portion of The Star Wars Holiday Special, which dropped on September 24th, 1978. So don’t come at me in the comments with that noise.

Get a full look at the sneaker below.

Princess Nokia continues her prolific 2020 by adding to her viral hit “I Like Him” with a captivating video. The track originally appeared on Everything Sucks, one of her two recently-released LPs. After months of pressure from fans, Princess Nokia has unveiled the song’s visual.

Directed by Sebastian Sdaigui, the video slates Princess Nokia as a cyborg femme fatale. The singer hooks herself up to a machine and out comes a lineup of her ideal men. “I like him / Like him too / He my man / He my boo / He my type / He so cute / I want him / And I want him too,” she raps.

Ahead of the “I Like Him” visual, Princess Nokia dropped two records simultaneously, Everything Sucks and Everything Is Beautiful. The two concept LPs show both sides of the rapper, one dark, mysterious and sensual, and the other positive, motivated, and whimsical. To celebrate the albums’ releases, Princess Nokia stopped by A Colors Show to give a bright rendition of her single “Gemini” and treated her songs “Balenciaga,” “Sugar Honey Ice Tea,” and “Green Eggs & Ham,” and “Gross” with cinematic visuals.

Watch Princess Nokia’s “I Like Him” video above.

Everything Sucks is out now via Rough Trade. Get it here.

NLE Choppa‘s new video for “Daydream” surrounds the teen star with a wealth of eye-popping images directed by Ethan Lader. With nods to the Black Lives Matter movement and the violence that follows rappers, the burgeoning star knows how to get attention and keep it, with the help of some green screen, CGI, and his own magnetic charisma.

Lyrically, the song is right in line with most of the rest of his debut album, Top Shotta, with Big L-esque shock value punchlines (“Why did you kill ’em? I did it for Satan”) and tough-guy threats (“Bag on his hat, he gone in a day / We know where he at, and we know where he stay”), but the video adds in some surreal imagery to keep things visually fresh, including having Choppa rap in a room full of chalk outlines, while standing on shark-infested waters, and while riding a speeding bullet. The most striking scene involves a bit of teenage wish fulfillment, as Choppa is confronted by police officers in riot gear and activates Superman-style heat vision to blast them away.

Watch NLE Choppa’s ‘Daydream’ video above. Top Shotta is out now via Warner Records. Get it here.

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

October is a big month for Netflix (then again, I’m not sure Netflix has ever taken a month “off”). There’s Aaron Sorkin’s probable-Best Picture contender The Trial of The Chicago 7; a remake of a film that actually won Best Picture, Rebecca; and the second volume of Unsolved Mysteries. Be sure to add The Forty-Year-Old Version to the list, too. Directed and written by Radha Blank, the black-and-white comedy is about a former-“30 Under 30” award-winning playwright (also Blank) who’s still struggling for her big break as she’s pushing 40, so she takes up rapping.

The Forty-Year-Old Version was a hit at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, where Blank won the U.S. Dramatic Competition Directing Award, with the Hollywood Reporter‘s Beandrea July calling it “a love letter to the people of pre-gentrified Harlem (she’s a New York native), to old-school hip-hop, to struggling artists, to young people with big dreams and to black women who dare to live life out of the box.”

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

Radha is a down-on-her-luck NY playwright, who is desperate for a breakthrough before 40. Reinventing herself as rapper RadhaMUSPrime, she vacillates between the worlds of Hip Hop and theater in order to find her true voice.

The Forty-Year-Old Version, produced by Lena Waithe, debuts on Netflix on October 9.

For years, Nas’ worst enemy — aside from Jay-Z, of course — was himself. In 2010, he explained the then-burgeoning sentiment that his albums weren’t representative of his talent, saying, “What happens is, a lot of time goes by with me being indecisive so it winds up with me kind of doing what I have to do really fast because I played around for so long. Then, the deadlines come.”

Then, in 2018, it seemed he’d found the perfect remedy in Kanye West, only for the equation to flip. Kanye was pulled into multiple directions by the disparate needs of each of his GOOD Music artists, with the result that very few of the Wyoming-recorded projects lived up to the considerable hype, including Nas’ own rushed project. Nas’ album Nasir may have been the greatest casualty, as fans had clamored for a Kanye-produced project from the rap pioneer for years, since at least their 2006 collaboration, “Still Dreaming” from Nas’ mistitled Hip-Hop Is Dead album.

Now, with another hit-making producer in his corner, Nas tries again and mostly succeeds. While he sounds revitalized here for sure, the true star here is Hit-Boy, who curates guests and beats for the Thug Poet’s most cohesive project in years. There are a few reasons that California-bred producer makes for a more potent partner for the Queensbridge rap icon.

For one thing, the two creators share a surprisingly similar artistic sensibility. Although Hit-Boy is best known for boisterous, well, hits like “N****s In Paris,” “Clique,” “Feelin’ Myself,” and “Racks In The Middle,” his preference has long been for the soulful, ‘90s-influenced loops evidenced on his work with underrated work with Audio Push and Dom Kennedy, the latter as the duo Half-A-Mil. In fact, the first fruits of Hit’s creative partnership with Nas can be heard on Half-A-Mil’s most recent project, Also Known As…

So while many excited observers were likely anxious to hear Nas’ complicated cadences touch something like the hard-hitting beat for “Backseat Freestyle” or Hit’s roof-raising work with Beyonce, the truth was that the two were always more likely to turn in something closer to a redux of Nas’ better-received mid-90s album, It Was Written. Which, when compared to most of his more recent output, is a definite plus.

Where Hit-Boy really benefits Nas’ sometimes scatterbrained and stodgy approach is in providing both focus and a long list of contacts who help ground him, making him more of a wise uncle sharing knowledge than an old man yelling at clouds. Without Hit as an anchor, would Nas have had the wherewithal to employ Lil Durk on the chin-lifting “Til The War Is Won” or add Don Toliver to his and Big Sean’s confessional “Replace Me?” Considering some of his choices on albums like Untitled or Life Is Good, it doesn’t seem likely he’d find those younger rappers as compelling as they really are with his old-head taste.

That’s not to say there isn’t anything here for Nas’ core fanbase. While Gen Xers may find names like Fivio Foreign and ASAP Ferg off-putting, they can find comfort in the reunion of the original lineup of The Firm (plus Cormega, minus Nature) on “Full Circle,” a warm slice of nostalgia to fend off the icy touch of Father Time. Uncle Charlie Wilson pops up as well, on “Car #85,” easily the album’s highlight and a chance for Nas to revert to the Nasty of old, recounting tales of his salad days in the peak of hip-hop’s Golden Era.

Although Hit’s production and excellent guest curation does inject Nas with a much-needed dose of youthful energy and hunger, it’s debatable how good a thing that is. There’s a lot of historical value in Nas’ ‘90s narratives but little in the way of emotional weight, and things get awkward when he overreaches. It’s certainly weird to hear him doing his best Drake impression on “All Bad” with Anderson .Paak — especially with the two-ton elephant in the studio.

Oh, come on. You knew this was coming. It’s the easiest target to aim for if you’re looking for a knock on this album, and Nas couldn’t even move it an inch to the left. Once again, he fails to use his art — the one place where he has absolute control over the narrative — to address Kelis’ accusations of domestic abuse. The failure is made even more stark by the vulnerability displayed by some of his guests — Big Sean reveals some of his and Jhene Aiko’s relationship woes and puts his and Kendrick Lamar’s tiff over “Control” to bed once and for all — and Nas’ own tendency to use women as his strawmen to make muddled points.

On “The Definition,” Nas takes aim at Gayle King for… being a good journalist, I guess? Then, he compares the likes of Gayle to more “respectable” examples like Shirley Chisholm, who lived and died in the pre-social media era and would likely have had far more to say on similar topics than Nas himself ever has. Sound familiar? In a time when Black women have consistently called out these false binaries and double standards, to go in the studio, write several bars about it, record them, listen to them back several times, and decide, “Sure, let’s go with that,” is beyond tone deaf, it’s outright misogynistic.

Which is… pretty much par for the course with this particular MC. No matter how good the production is, there’s always that looming respectability politician hovering over even his best work, ready to shush an outspoken woman or make a dull-witted, half-baked comparison. Someone, maybe one of Nas’ rivals, pointed out the discrepancy once upon a time: “Is it ‘Black Girl Lost’ or shorty owe you for ice?’” On King’s Disease, Nas’ flows and name recognition provide the perfect showcase for Hit-Boy’s impressive versatility, but the content, however well it’s presented, still seems to fall short where it counts. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

King’s Disease is out now on Mass Appeal Records. Get it here.

Heading into a critical Game 5, the Houston Rockets could finally get star guard Russell Westbrook back from an injury that has held him out of the postseason thus far. Westbrook has been upgraded to questionable on the Rockets’ injury report.

Westbrook has missed the first four games of the first-round series due to a right quad strain, but will reportedly test the quad on Wednesday afternoon during warmups and determine his status for the game, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

The Rockets have scored thanks to a patchwork of perimeter scoring threats so far in the series, but were out-executed by Oklahoma City in Game 4 despite making 23 three-pointers. A series that looked to be firmly in Houston’s control is suddenly even, but the Rockets could boast a trump card if Westbrook is able to make his way back.

The initial prognosis for Westbrook was that he could return near the end of the first round, so he is right on track here, and returning to a series that has been pretty even throughout. Of course, the storylines should Westbrook return to the court will be plentiful as well, with Westbrook returning to take on the franchise where he spent the first 12 years of his career before trading him last offseason.