Category: Worldwide

Sometimes the best new R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm and blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the best new R&B jams that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.

This week, Trey Songz releases his album Back Home, Queen Naija delivers the visual for “Lie To Me” featuring Lil Durk, and Ella Mai performs her new single “Not Another Love Song” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

Trey Songz — Back Home

Award-winning singer Trey Songz made a return to his Virginia roots at the top of this year and during that time he conjured up his latest album release Back Home (in between fighting for social justice), which has finally arrived with 22 sensual and loving tracks. From the album’s opener “Be My Guest” to the previously released single “Back Home” featuring Summer Walker, Trigga really does seem to be right back home musically, as well.

Queen Naija — “Lie To Me” Feat. Lil Durk

Rising R&B star Queen Naija released her song “Lie To Me” featuring Lil Durk last week and this week she delivered (another) visual directed by Teyana Taylor for the catchy number. Naija’s debut album Misunderstood is scheduled for release on October 30 and is set to feature “Lie To Me” as well as her previously released songs “Pack Lite” and “Butterflies Pt. 2″ featuring Wale.

Ella Mai — “Not Another Love Song”

During Rihanna’s SavagexFenty show, Ella Mai surprised fans with her new track “Not Another Love Song” and this week she performed the song on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. It’s a deep R&B cut that explores all the swimming thoughts of a new love that’s drowning in vulnerability, over Boi-1da production. “Not Another Love Song” is a sweet introduction into the next era of Ella Mai.

Bjrnck — “Waiting On You”

Up-and-coming R&B singer Bjrnck performed a soothing live version of her song “Waiting On You” with a live band and it’s the closest thing we’ll get to a live show from talent like this during the pandemic. Bjrnck shows off her vocal talent with poise and proves why she’s up next.

Q — “Take Me Where Your Heart Is”

Florida native Q comes through this week with a visual for his soulful track “Take Me Where Your Heart Is,” which is the first release from his forthcoming collection of songs off The Shave Experiment . The project is expected to be released this fall and should be filled with enough moving soul-pop numbers to get through cuffing season.

Allyn — “Richie Rich”

As the follow-up to her Mozzy-assisted single “Tap In,” Allyn returns with her latest release “Richie Rich.” The up-and-coming R&B singer lets it be known that cash rules everything around her for anyone trying to get close.

MarMar Oso — “Slide” Feat. Eric Bellinger

MarMar Oso drops off an animated visual for “Slide” this week featuring Eric Bellinger of his project Marvin’s Room. “Slide” is the follow-up to MarMar’s remix to his viral song “Ruthless” with G-Eazy.

Yola — “Hold On” Feat. Brandi Carlile, Sheryl Crow, and Jason Isbell

Yola’s new single “Hold On” sees assistance from Brandi Carlile, Sheryl Crow and Jason Isbell on guitar for a soulful cut reminiscent of the 1960s, which was made to benefit the efforts of MusicCares and National Bailout Collective. The song was inspired by conversations Yola had with her mother growing up about the challenges of being a Black woman in America.

Riley — “Creepin’”

Amber Riley of Glee, now simply known as Riley, is finally listening to fans and has released some music this year with a 6-song self-titled EP that includes her song “Creepin,’” which just received the visual treatment

Sainvil — “Sweet”

Sainvil returns this week with another enigmatic R&B track in the form of “Sweet.” It’s the second single off his upcoming project aptly titled 2020 Was Hijacked. The visual features Sainvil soaking in a tub while crooning about the pleasures of oral foreplay.

Check out this week’s R&B picks, plus more on Uproxx’s Spotify playlist below.

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

Now that Logic’s making a ton of money streaming video games on Twitch, it would appear he’s got a lot of disposable income. It’s already well-known he’s pretty geeky — again, the man streams video games for a living — and it’s also equally well known that geeks love dropping insane amounts of money in pursuit of their passions. Lots of income and geeky habits are sure to produce some attention-grabbing results and according to TMZ, that’s exactly what happened.

When a rare Pokémon card went up for auction, Logic was more than willing to spend more than most folks make in a year to secure it — a record-breaking $226,000. The card — a “PSA 10 Base Set 1st Edition Charizard” — sold for $183,812.00 with a 20% buyer’s premium tacked on.

Logic copped the card despite recently complaining that his former label, Def Jam, wasn’t paying his collaborators for their work on his retirement album, No Pressure. He also backed Kanye’s accusations against labels, alleging that Def Jam wouldn’t pay Lil Wayne’s fee to appear on the album. Fortunately, should Logic release the mixtape he’s been threatening, his seven-figure Twitch deal should be more than enough to cover those fees and make sure everybody gets paid — and if he’s worried about royalties, maybe he should talk to ASCAP or BMI.

Many years after her previous album, Fiona Apple returned this year with Fetch The Bolt Cutters, one of the most critically beloved albums in recent memory. The album came out towards the start of the pandemic, and thus, she hasn’t been able to tour in support of it. Apple hasn’t really hopped on the livestream concert train yet either… before this weekend, that is. She and her band participated in the virtual New Yorker Fest on Saturday night (October 10) and performed Fetch The Bolt Cutters songs for the first time. She opted to play the album’s three opening songs: “I Want You To Love Me,” “Shameika,” and the title track.

She also chatted with Emily Nussbaum and discussed a number of topics. Regarding Trump and race, she said:

“I mean, the Supreme Court, all that — all the federal judges, my God. I mean, oh, my God. There’s Proud Boys and our president — our president is a White Supremacist who can’t even manage to deny that he is which I guess is good. But I mean, it’s been so insulting, the way that he’s just gaslighting people in America.

I threw my hands up here right now because I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I think that something good that’s happened this year, I mean, through all the bad stuff that has been happening, I think that, one big thing is happening is that I think that a lot of us have been looking at — or a bigger portion of white people had been examining themselves for the kind of racist tendencies they may have without thinking of themselves as being racist.

Like, thinking about like how do I think about this and why — I think that people are finally being able to, like, look at themselves without getting so defensive that they can’t hear what people need them to hear. I feel like we finally been, like, OK, this is too important. I got to check my ego out of this and just be like, I mean, look at myself and let me look at the people around me…

She also said of performing live:

“I think that — I hope that — what I’ve been told about, like, how this album has — had an effect on people or what it’s done for them, what I’ve been told that it makes me feel so proud and I feel like I really succeeded because I’ve always thought that in, like, putting on — like when you do concerts and stuff, when you do anything in public performance, I always — I don’t feel like I need to address people in the audience and tell them how good looking they are or tell them that — or really, like, shake their hands and I’m not saying that that’s bad, that’s wonderful.

And certain shows are great, like that and people go there to bond with each other and watching music. There are certain types of shows that you want to be able to, like, see the person pointing at you and smiling at you and saying, I see you and I love your outfit and shit and you want to have that experience.

But for shows that I do, the way that I want to do it is I want to actually go through something and forget that everybody’s and just go through something and really just do it for myself because I feel like that’s the kind of show that I get something more out of is when I’m watching something, somebody go through something private and I feel like I’m alone with that person and I’m part of that and I’m going through that, too.

And somehow, that connection works and each person in the audience can have that connection with you and be alone with you if you’re not talking to everybody.”

Watch the performance above, find interview clips below, and revisit our review of Fetch The Bolt Cutters here.

Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.

This week saw Doja Cat and Bebe Rexha team up, Reason drop his long-awaited album, and rising artists Kississippi and Petey making strong impressions. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.

Doja Cat and Bebe Rexha — “Baby I’m Jealous”

Not long after declaring that her third album is all done, Doja Cat returned with a new single, the Bebe Rexha-featuring “Baby I’m Jealous.” The groovy tune is a fun character-driven affair, with Rexha revealing her insecurities before Doja comes in as the full embodiment of them and assures Rexha it’s not her fault her man is lusting after her.

Trey Songz — Back Home

It hasn’t all been great for Trey Songz lately, as he revealed recently that he tested positive for COVID-19. Thankfully, he seems to be doing mostly okay, and he can now bask in a glow of a new album, Back Home. An expansive effort clocking in at about 70 minutes across 22 tracks, he peppered a handful of features throughout the tracklist, including guest spots from Swae Lee, Summer Walker, and Ty Dolla Sign.

Reason — New Beginnings

The TDE roster is one of the most stacked and esteemed in hip-hop, and now Reason has dropped his first new release as part of the storied label. Aside from labelmates Ab-Soul, Isaiah Rashad, and Schoolboy Q, he also gets assists here from contemporaries like JID, Rapsody, and Vince Staples.

Future Islands — As Long As You Are

The band’s Samuel T. Herring recently told Uproxx about the new album, “This one was really about us capturing our vision and how we heard things and taking the time to do that. The Far Field was just so rushed that we didn’t want to have that happen again, that there was a deadline that decided when the album was done. We wanted to decide when the album was done.”

Dinner Party — Dinner Party: Dessert

Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, 9th Wonder, and Kamasi Washington have linked up to form one of the year’s more interesting supergroups, Dinner Party. After releasing their self-titled album earlier this year, the group has returned with a more guest-packed version of it: Dinner Party: Dessert features new contributions from Herbie Hancock, Cordae, Snoop Dogg, Rapsody, Buddy, and others.

Benny The Butcher — “Timeless” Feat. Lil Wayne and Big Sean

The Griselda Records core has been on fire lately, with Westside Gunn, Conway The Machine, and Armani Caesar all dropping superlative releases lately. Now Benny The Butcher is getting in on the fun, as he shared the new single “Timeless,” which features hip-hop titans Lil Wayne and Big Sean.

Anderson .Paak — “Jewelz”

If you need to smile, hit up Anderson .Paak, because his is huge and contagious. It shines through even on his music, as it does on “Jewelz,” an upbeat and boastful track produced by Timbaland.

Victoria Monét — “Touch Me” (Remix) Feat. Kehlani

Monét didn’t include a ton of features on her latest album, Jaguar, but she made up for that last week by linking up with Kehlani. On the new remix of “Touch Me,” Kehlani adds some more sultry lyrics to a track that already had plenty of charge in that regard.

Wild Pink — “The Shining But Tropical”

Wild Pink has offered a new taste of an album, A Billion Little Lights, he’s expecting to drop in 2021, and John Ross recently told Uproxx of that record, “Making music is escapism and I get lost in the albums I make while I’m in the process of making them, this one especially. It’s a fantasy world where I can be somewhere else when I’m listening. There are old western elements as well as heavily electronic ones.”

Stevie Nicks — “Show Them The Way”

A skateboarding dude drinking cranberry juice has given Fleetwood Mac a new wave of popularity in 2020. Stevie Nicks probably wouldn’t have believed that if told in the ’70s, but regardless, the singer has capitalized on the moment by dropping “Show Them The Way,” her first new single in years that features another beloved rock icon: Dave Grohl.

Kississippi — “Around Your Room”

Kississippi (aka Zoe Reynolds) showed a lot of promise with her early material, enough to become the newest signee of Triple Crown Records. Her first new music since the announcement is “Around Your Room,” a playful, Swiftian effort that has us excited for whatever she’s cooking up next.

Petey — Checkin’ Up On Buds

Petey is impossible to not love. He’s a master of doing his own thing, and his own thing offers a lot of fun in a time when we could all use some. Ahead of his new EP, Petey dropped “Don’t Tell The Boys,” which has his characteristic blend of tongue-in-cheek lyrics and genuine moments that make his music a delight to play and replay and replay and…

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

The Fargo Frozen Five is Uproxx’s weekly collection of thoughts, observations, and goofball screencaps from each new episode the FX limited series’ fourth season. We do not guarantee that there will be five items every week. There could be four, or six, or a dozen. Who knows? This show doesn’t follow the rules. We shouldn’t have to either.

EPISODE 4 — “The Pretend War” (or, “The Puke-Scented Loot Sack”)

5b. The episode opened with Cannon’s gang staging a theatrical gun heist involving a ring of fire, which was cool to look at and kind of hilarious to think about. The whole thing was ordered by Loy Cannon as retribution for the attempted hit on his son (ordered by Gaetano without Josto’s knowledge), which was itself ordered as retribution for the robbery at the slaughterhouse (committed by Zelmare Roulette and Swanee Capps, on their own, with no Fadda involvement). The result of it all is that we are now teetering on a violent mob war based on a series of misunderstandings that appear to be growing instead of shrinking as the season progresses. To quote Doctor Senator in his reply to the Fadda’s consigliere over breakfast: “It seems to me that you ain’t tracked into all the critical goings-on in your house these days.” This applies to everyone and is also something I now desperately want to say to someone, just once in my life.

5a. During the fire-circled gun heist, in response to Calamita’s relentless lip-running, a member of the Cannon gang held the barrel of his gun in the flames and then pushed it into the Fadda hit man’s cheek, leaving an O-shaped burn wound on his face. I point this out for two reasons:

• It does not seem like something I want to happen to me, ever
• It is actually the second time this year a prestige period crime drama has featured a red-hot gun barrel searing someone’s flesh, as it also happened to my sad king Matthew Rhys in the early stages of HBO’s Perry Mason

One more makes this a trend, like the time a couple of years ago when multiple television characters were killed in air conditioner related events, including one on Fargo that involved a character named Nikki Swango and the actor Scoot McNairy, whose real name sounds more like a Fargo name than half of the real characters in the show. This all has very little to do with anything beyond me just wanting to point it out. Moving on.

4b. A good lesson to take from this week’s episode: Don’t go snooping around people’s apartments when you’re there to clean them, because you might stumble upon their secret murder closet filled with poisons and mementos from the various murders they’ve committed while serving as a nurse at a number of hospitals. Admittedly, this lesson might be too specific to be helpful to most of us, but it sure would have helped Ethelrida, who left her journal in Oraetta’s murder closet while doing the aforementioned snooping. One imagines this will come up again, probably sooner than later. The woman already tried to incapacitate her with an ipecac-laced pie for the crime of — as far as I can tell — having gumption. Snooping around the murder closet probably ranks as a more serious offense.

4a. Although now that I think about it, I guess there are really two lessons here. That first one, yes, sure, but also it’s flipside: Don’t leave plucky neighborhood teens alone in your apartment if you have a secret murder closet in your hallway that is filled with incriminating evidence. Also a little specific, I guess. But still.

3. Hey, speaking of misunderstandings and poison, let’s briefly track the action around the slaughterhouse robbery:

• The Smutnys took a loan from Loy Cannon and got in too deep
• Zelmare Roulette and her partner Swanee Capps heard about this and busted out of prison in part to help
• Swanee ate about half of the poisoned by that Oraetta brought for Ethelrida
• Zelmare and Swanee robbed a slaughterhouse that had recently been taken from the Fadda family by the Cannons, and the poison from the pie caused Swanee to vomit all over the money
• Zelmare gave the money to Thurman Smutny to pay off his debt, which he did
• Loy Cannon smelled the puke on the money and appeared to put it all together, after originally blaming the Faddas
• Everything is going to heck in about six different directions

Fargo is a fun show.

3b. On the subject of Zelmare Roulette: Both she and her niece, Ethelrida, appear to be afflicted with visions of creepy zombie-type monsters and/or indoor rainstorms where the precipitation is drops of blood. This is obviously not ideal for either of them, or for me, as I do not like creepy zombies or raindrops of blood, in general. It does raise the important issue of how this all plays out, though. It could lead to nothing, really, and just serve as a window into the family’s mental health issues that cause them to be the way they are. It could also, because this is Fargo, a show that once featured a literal alien invasion, result in the creepy zombie bonking Gaetano Fadda on the head with a frying pan and leaving him sitting on the ground with little cartoon birds fluttering around his head. Could go a lot of ways, really.

2b. Really just a magnificent week for the Fadda brothers. Mainly Josto. I know I’ve been focusing mostly on my sweet “if Charlie Chaplin had been a rodeo bull” son Gaetano, but let’s not overlook the work Jason Schwartzman is doing here. There was the enthusiastic lovemaking and windpipe obstruction with Oraetta, there was the scene where he got to yell at some underlings about talking back to him, and there was the scene where he held a gun to Gaetano’s jimmies while staring him down. Both of them are just going so big with so much of this in a way that works well in contrast to the quieter Cannon/Smutny side of the equation. I really like the scenes where Josto and Gaetano play out their sibling rivalry six inches from each other’s faces. There’s a strange dynamic between them. It always looks like Gaetano is two seconds from whomping his brother on the top of the head so hard that he ends up planted in the ground like a carrot, and yet Josto still carries himself like the one in control. Would I watch an entire season about their childhood? I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Picture a giant 8-year-old Gaetano terrorizing him elementary school. Maybe a cartoon. I’m willing to hear some other ideas here.

2a. Yes, yes, fine, Josto. But also: Gaetano. I was so excited when I saw the stand-off with U.S. Marshal Deafy Wickware brewing and I was only a teeny tiny bit let down that it did not explode like a can of soda in a campfire. I knew better. I knew it was too early for a full-on showdown. But I did kind of want it. I blame Justified for conditioning me to see Timothy Olyphant as a lawman and expect gunplay to break out. This did have a very Justified vibe to it, too, with two imposing figures trading barbs and stink eyes while a cloud of impending doom hovers over them. The main differences here are that a) there was that super Fargo thing where the strings kick in and the camera very slowly zooms in on someone to let you know things are about to get very intense, and b) Olyphant’s character was eating carrots while delivering his menacing speech about murdering mafia members in Utah by dragging them behind his horse until their heads popped off. My point is that I would really like to see Wynn Duffy from Justified introduced into the Fargo universe, exactly as is, Winnebago and all. That would be fun. For me. That’s what is important.

1. The biggest surprise of this episode, one filled with visions of monsters and fire-based gun heists and puke-scented money and secret murder closets, was that Fargo introduced us to the words “fluffy whiz bang”…

… and it was in reference to drugs and not some quirky hitman from Minnesota named Fluffy Whizbang. I’m somehow both ecstatic and very, very disappointed. I might go change my name to Fluffy Whizbang this afternoon to see if it helps. I don’t see how it can hurt.

With everything that’s gone on in 2020, numerous outlets have made efforts to recognize and amplify the individuals who have been working for social justice. The latest entity to pursue this goal is the Billboard Music Awards, instituting the first-ever Billboard Change Maker Award for the upcoming 2020 BBMAs and announcing its inaugural recipient: Killer Mike. The award will be presented during the show by Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, with whom Mike has worked over the past year.

Even before Mike was active in politics, meeting with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp in September and working with Mayor Bottoms on her transition team in 2018, he was outspoken about the need for social change — even when he occasionally put his foot in his mouth. Both in his solo output and as a member of Run The Jewels, Mike has been a loud critic of the American government, the criminal justice system, and Wall Street, while he’s also shown a willingness to work within the system to prompt change as well. In 2019, he filed a legal brief in a Supreme Court case about rap lyrics, stumped for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and helped him educate voters, and passed out meals in Atlanta during quarantine.

Mike’s being honored with the Change Maker Award specifically for using “his platform to educate, inspire, and motivate an entire generation to become the change they want to see.”

The 2020 Billboard Music Awards air Wednesday, October 14 at 8 pm/7 pm CT on NBC.

In the Game of Thrones oral history Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, George R.R. Martin shared his displeasure with the scene from the pilot episode where Daenerys and Khal Drogo have sex for the first time. In his books, it’s consensual; on the show, it’s rape. “Why did the wedding scene change from the consensual seduction scene to the brutal rape of Emilia Clarke?” Martin said. “We never discussed it. It made it worse, not better.”

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau also has a problem with the scene, as he revealed in an interview with the Times. “For Emilia to play that in series one was really tough and degrading, because what that character goes through is horrific,” the actor, who played Jaime Lannister, said. “She’s sold to a guy who rapes her, but her way of getting through that is a massive journey, right?” He also discussed the show’s, let’s say, polarizing ending.

“Because when you meet people, they’re not angry at all, are they? Then they get behind a keyboard and get opinionated and write a petition. I did a round table with hardcore fans, and we were all talking about the ending and what I found was that, yes, most had another idea for what would have been a great ending, but, ultimately, they just didn’t want the show to end.”

Coster-Waldau is referring to the petition to re-make the final season, which he almost donated to. And which his on-screen dad “would sign,” and his on-screen sister/lover might consider supporting, considering she’s not happy that Cersei didn’t have a “better death.” A Lannister always… comments on the Game of Thrones finale (not as catchy).

(Via the Times)

The Witcher TV universe will eventually include spinoffs and as least one movie, but for now, it’s enough to obsess over how Netflix is dropping Season 2 hints. A first look at Henry Cavill showed off new armor for Geralt after he joined up with Ciri, who’s looking like a warrior while embracing her fate, but where’s Yennefer of Vengerberg? Netflix released a hint about her whereabouts, but Geralt (with whom Yennifer experiences a stormy, on-off relationship in the books and movies) is not aware of where she is at all.

In fact, Geralt believes that Yennifer’s dead, and he’s operating under that assumption. Given how closed off he was to displaying human emotion before he fell in love with her last season, his belief might mess with his monster-hunting headspace. (A confused and saddened Geralt will be interesting to behold.) From the official Netflix logline:

Convinced Yennefer’s life was lost at the Battle of Sodden, Geralt of Rivia brings Princess Cirilla to the safest place he knows, his childhood home of Kaer Morhen. While the Continent’s kings, elves, humans and demons strive for supremacy outside its walls, he must protect the girl from something far more dangerous: the mysterious power she possesses inside.

Fortunately, Geralt is mistaken about Yennifer’s fate, as Netflix revealed last week in photos of her character.

“She used her full might, and the battlefield burned. Then she vanished from sight, But Yen will return,” reads the caption. So, the suggestion there is that Yennifer exhausted her magical energy while fighting the Nilfgaardian soldiers during a fire-filled showdown. Where is she now, though? She’s in chains… somewhere, and looking worse for wear. However, Netflix is promising that Yen will be back, and we’ll find out more when Season 2 arrives in 2021.

HBO’s ‘Lovecraft Country’ is ambitious and astounding and will undoubtedly blow your expectations away. Created by Misha Green, who’s working with Matt Ruff’s 1950s-set dark-fantasy novel as source material, the show counts horror visionary Jordan Peele and sci-fi maestro J.J. Abrams as executive producers. The show is full of literary and musical references, along with monsters, both in-your-face and figurative; we’ll discuss the resulting symbolism on a weekly basis.

Back when I reviewed Lovecraft Country, I wrote that the series makes a fine followup to HBO’s Watchmen, and that it’s the closest thing we’ll see to a second season of Damon Lindelof’s limited series. That statement was based upon five episodes, which (like Watchmen) subverted genre conventions (but with less comic-book-ness and more pulp splatter) to illustrate how Black history and horror are often interchangeable terms. I hadn’t yet seen this week’s episode, “Rewind 1921,” which performs its own retelling of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. And whereas Lindelof went cinematic with the burning of Black Wall Street in Watchmen, Lovecraft Country showrunner Misha Green leaned toward an operatic take. Yep, the LA Times even quotes series composer Laura Karpman as describing the episode’s feel as “a requiem” and “a piece of opera.”

The episode placement also brings a different vibe. Lindelof chose to begin Watchmen with the massacre, so that trauma was on display from the beginning, and we later learned characters’ connections to massacre survivors. In Lovecraft Country, we saw the effects of trauma first, especially with Montrose, a massacre survivor who has been downing liquor as strong as “gasoline” while struggling to cope with memories triggered by George’s death. Well, Montrose traveled back to Tulsa this week (courtesy of one of Hippolyta’s time portals) while helping Leti and Tic chase down the Book of Names, so they can do two things: (1) Save Diana; (2) Deter Christina.

Am I a little sad that Tic didn’t get to bring his new pet monster back in time to Tulsa, too? Yes, but while a raging monster eating racists in Tulsa’s Greenwood district would have been an amazing sight, it also (obviously) would have changed the course of history. However, Montrose realized that Tic was the “mysterious stranger” who beat the snot out of a white mob with a baseball bat in front of Montrose and George (and that links back up to Tic’s dream-vision of Jackie Robinson in the first scene of the series).

Lovecraft Country also (much more so than the Watchmen treatment) dedicated airtime to real-life figures who perished in the massacre. Montrose got the monologue while tearfully watching the mayhem unfold all over again:

“Peg Leg Taylor’s last stand on Standpipe Hill. Oh, that was something. Still, they burned down Briar’s tailor shop. Dr. Jackson, best Negro surgeon in all America, shot in the face. Mrs. Rodgers lost her invalid daughter. White Phelps took in Negros, hid ’em in the basement. Commodore Knox, they did him in the worst.”

And the invulnerable Leti walked through fire while holding the Book of Names as an operatic version of Sonia Sanchez’s “Catch the Fire” poem blazed as well. (Obviously, there’s a ton of CGI at work, but Jurnee Smollett did suffer a burn in another fire-filled scene during the making of this episode.)

As with the “Whitey On The Moon” episode, this show continues to crush the spoken word game with Sanchez’s poetry:

“Where is your fire? … Can’t you smell it coming out of our past? The fire of living… not dying. The fire of loving… not killing. The fire of Blackness… not gangster shadows. Where is our beautiful fire that gave light to the world? The fire of pyramids; The fire that burned through the holes of slaveships and made us breathe.”

Oh, and the past turned awfully circular here. We already knew that Tic’s ancestor, Hanna, was the only known survivor of the 1833 Ardham fire, and she escaped with the book, which she passed on to Nana Hattie, who noticed that something wasn’t right about Leti (her shoes). Leti confessed to being from the future and being pregnant with Nana Hattie’s great-great-grandson (George, author of the Lovecraft Country novel that Tic retrieved from the future). Nana Hattie chose to have faith and follow the course of history (instead of saving herself) while passing the book onto Leti.

Notably, Nana Hattie placed a spell upon the book so that it can only be used for good, not evil. This might be the key to Atticus defeating Christina, though it sure sounds like he’s gonna die according to the following: (1) Ji-Ah’s fox-sex-tentacle vision; and (2) Tic’s portal trip to the future. Whether or not he dies, one of Nana Hattie’s proclamations (“When my great-great grandson is born, he will be my faith turned flesh”) will likely echo in the mind of Leti through any future obstacle.

A lot of artistry went into this episode. It’s also wild that Lovecraft Country — although it was in production while Watchmen aired and had already been written, both with Matt Ruff’s novel and the HBO screenplays — follows up on Watchmen‘s comic-book-fueled dissection of generational trauma with pure fire. Leti, undoubtedly, has absorbed a great deal of ancestral trauma while holding the hand of the older woman burning alive. It’s powerful stuff and stands up to scrutiny from anyone who believes that Lovecraft Country is simply goofing off with haunted houses and horror tropes.

From there, we’ve got some loose ends.

Atticus vs. Montrose:

I’m truly hoping that son and (maybe) father managed to heal their rift (on a long-term basis) during their Tulsa time. Clearly, Montrose has been dealing with monsters from the past (both racists and homophobes) for decades, and he and Tic have been at odds for many years. Still, we saw Atticus reading Montrose’s favorite book in South Korea. Atticus suspected that Montrose favors The Count Of Monte Cristo because the protagonist successfully pursued revenge. Wouldn’t it be something if Montrose stepped up next week to save Tic from Christina? I’m here for it.

Christina vs. Leti and Atticus vs. Ruby:

Has Ruby had enough of Christina’s sh*t yet? I hope she’s on the brink of jumping ship there. Meanwhile, Leti (and by extension, her son with Atticus) is now protected by magic, courtesy of Christina bestowing her with the Mark of Cain. Presumably, this was a quid pro quo for Leti handing over negatives of those missing pages, but I think that Christina had no idea that Leti would end up holding the actual Book of Names due to this spell. This development might lead to Atticus stopping Christina from killing him. Still, he agreed to participate in whatever fresh hell that Christina plans to whip up during the autumnal equinox, and I guess we’ll see that go down next week.

William is “alive” again, and WTF:

Yeah, so Christina donned William’s skin again to spook-and-threaten Captain Lancaster and his goons. This grew complicated, though, because Lancaster was killed last week by Tic’s pet monster, and the cops are trying some sort of regeneration spell upon him that’s not working. We saw a suggestion of this horrific spell (it’s very Get Out, isn’t it?) in the “Strange Case” episode, in which Lancaster’s head appeared to be sewn onto a Black man’s body. Considering that Lancaster was tight with Hiram Epstein, I can only assume that the spell’s a result of Hiram’s Tuskeegee-esque experiments. Naturally, Christina-William’s thrilled to see it backfiring.

Someone please help Diana, this time for real:

In the last episode, Montrose proved to be the only person who noticed Diana’s distress while she was terrorized by the Topsy-Twin ghosts, who were a result of the cops placing a curse upon her over Diana’s incendiary comic strip. Unfortunately, he didn’t know that restraining her would allow them to attack and infect her arm, which withered away and died. Let’s hope the Book of Names holds the secret to reviving her beyond whatever half-spell Christina performed.

With all the grown-ups letting Diana down (disappearing on her and screwing up magical spells), I hope Lovecraft Country can come through for her during next week’s season finale.

HBO’s ‘Lovecraft Country’ airs Sundays at 9:00pm EST.

LeBron James is arguably the best player in basketball right now (and perhaps ever, depending on where your allegiances lie in the forever-ongoing Jordan vs. LeBron debate). Naturally, then, he has a ton of fans, but perhaps no celebrity supporter is an enthusiastic as Rihanna; She cheered so loudly for the baller during the 2015 NBA Finals that the Warriors owner had to relocate. Now that LeBron is in Los Angeles, Rihanna rocks the purple and gold, so she was pretty pumped when the Lakers closed out their series against the Miami Heat and came away with the 2020 title.

On Instagram, Rihanna shared a video of her and some friends at a tailgating party, complete with an RV, portable grill, and Lakers gear. Queen’s timeless victory anthem “We Are The Champions” is playing, and Rihanna and her cohorts sing and dance along to the track. Rihanna, wearing torn jeans and a Kobe Bryant jersey, takes time to bid farewell to Miami (who she supported during LeBron’s run with the team) and use a traffic cone to amplify her Queen cover.

Rihanna captioned her post, “if you ain’t on this time right now…bye. Lebron remains king, Lakers are the champs, and Kobe is proud. A.D thank you! #[trophy emoji] #Congratulations.”

Check out the video below.