Category: Worldwide

DaBaby is a rapper who is well-known for his sense of humor and love for trolling. His videos are full of funny imagery and he’s maintained a detached sense of amusement on social media, even when fans call for his head. So when Twitter lit up with the so-called “Nate Robinson Challenge” — basically, “planking” from a few years ago — after the NBA star was knocked out by Jake Paul during their exhibition match on Saturday, DaBaby was entertained enough by the meme to perform the pose himself while in the studio with Paul a few days later.

Nate seems to have taken the defeat — and subsequent trolling at his expense — in stride. He posted a pair of humble messages to his Instagram, thanking his fans and NBA brotherhood for their support, and graciously expressed his appreciation for the opportunity, even if he didn’t quite receive the outcome he would have liked.

Jake Paul, meanwhile, exploited the attention with a new song, “Park South Freestyle,” and began challenging even more fighters such as Conor McGregor (he might regret that one if McGregor accepts). For his part, DaBaby appears to be hard at work on music once again, despite releasing an EP honoring his late brother just weeks ago.

Check out DaBaby’s Nate Robinson Challenge entry above.

Spotify has been the toast of the music world today as music fans are sharing their Wrapped lists of what they listened to the most over the year. For some, though, Spotify becoming a trending topic has made them think about how much they prefer Bandcamp, a famously artist-friendly distribution platform.

Posthuman, an artist who has about 4,600 monthly listeners on Spotify, noted the difference between his income via Spotify and Bandcamp, writing on Twitter, “in 2020, I made around £300 profit on Spotify from Posthuman tracks. I made around £3000 profit on Bandcamp from Posthuman tracks. I mean… it’s still a very long way from making a living & without live/DJ gigs it’s sh*t. But the comparison is stark.”

He continued in subsequent tweets, “Perceptions of what artists make financially from music sales & streams can be way off the reality. Obviously, radio play & adverts can change things dramatically, and more mainstream music means much higher plays. If you’re a fan of underground music — especially of artists who usually play out live or DJ — take a moment to think about how they are surviving right now. You’d be surprised at artists you think are ‘big’ who are struggling to pay the rent. I’m lucky to have a partner who still has a job, and to have a pretty small mortgage. Also my label brings in a bit of cash too, though I try & pay my artists much higher cuts than standard. But I have artist mates who are higher profile than me who are utterly broke right now.”

DJ Food, an artist with around 38,000 monthly Spotify listeners, responded to Posthuman’s tweets, “I totally up my last 3 PRS [royalty] payments earlier for 2020 so far. Apple/itunes just over the £10 mark, Spotify, google/youtube all around or under the £5 mark, Amazon didn’t even make it over 50p.”

Although not a direct response to Wrapped or about Bandcamp, Operators member Devojka had a viral tweet recently (it’s at about 196K likes as of press time) about paltry Spotify royalty payments, writing a few days ago, “Spotify gave me $2.25 for a song I wrote that was streamed on their platform 125,000 times. Seems fair.”

In response to Devojka’s tweet, rapper Show You Suck noted that he has found a compromise between the two platforms, tweeting, “THIS IS WHY I PUT SINGLES ON SPOTIFY AND MY FULL PROJECTS GO TO BANDCAMP ONLY.”

Some other artists made direct appeals to fans to support their favorite artists on Bandcamp, like composer Darius Holbert, who wrote, “I appreciate all of these year-end Spotify lists, but a quick PSA: Music is made by real folks w families to support, esp during these tricky days. Buy from bandcamp.com or other artist-direct sites, dont just stream. It’s $10 vs $.00003 to them.” The band The Subways also noted, “Spotify’s all well & good. Share your kajillion plays of your favourite bands. But also visit bandcamp & online merch stores to help artists at this very difficult time.”

Adding onto a post about items added to their Bandcamp store, record label Lost Map summed up the sentiment of the aforementioned tweets, writing, “A gentle reminder that Bandcamp is much much better than Spotify.”

Bandcamp has been especially good to artists in 2020. In March, they launched a popular fundraiser that became a regular occurrence, for which they gave artists their share of profits from sales on some Fridays. During the first such Friday, artists made $4.3 million. The final Bandcamp Friday will be held this week, on December 4.

Check out some artists’ reactions to Spotify Wrapped here.

White House press secretary and Donald Trump campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany offered an, uh, interesting defense for the administration’s decision to continue holding holiday parties despite coronavirus cases surging across the nation. During a Wednesday press conference, McEnany fired back at questions about whether it was responsible for the White House to engage in holiday celebrations as medical experts have been repeatedly warning against large gatherings going back before Thanksgiving.

“If you can loot businesses, burn down buildings, engage in protests, you can also go to a Christmas party. You can celebrate the holiday of Christmas,” McEnany said in a clear rebuke of the Black Lives Matter protests during the Spring. However, she quickly pivoted to a more sensible defense of the holiday parties. Via CNN:

“You can do it responsibly, which is why the East Wing has noted that a lot smaller guest list, masks are going to be available, social distancing is going to be encouraged, hand sanitizing stations, among other measures. But we will engage in the celebration of Christmas and there will be a Hanukkah celebration as well.”

You can watch McEnany’s remarks below:

As CNN notes in an earlier report, the White House is still flouting CDC guidelines despite McEnany’s list of precautions. Current size restrictions is capped at 10 people for Washington, D.C., and yet, First Lady Melania Trump recently held a “thank you” party for several dozen volunteers who helped with this year’s Christmas display. According to social media photos, guests did not follow social distancing guidelines and were close together in the White House foyer.

But even before the winter coronavirus surge, the White House was the site of at least two outbreaks, the first being the Rose Garden event celebrating Amy Coney Barret’s Supreme Court nomination, which allegedly infected President Trump, and the second when Vice President Mike Pence’s staff was infected shortly before the election.

(Via CNN)

It’s been a very good week-plus for Aubrey Plaza. She’s one of the best things about Happiest Season (it’s hard to stand out in a stacked cast with Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, Victor Garber, Alison Brie, and Mary Steenburgen, but she found a way), and Deadline reported that she’s set to star in Guy Ritchie’s next movie with Jason Statham. I’m as excited for a Plaza/Statham press tour as I am for the actual movie. Speaking of good pairings, Adam Sandler interviewed the Parks and Recreation actress for Interview magazine, and he had a lot of good things to say about Black Bear.

“This movie is unbelievable. Your performance killed me,” he told Plaza about her role in the meta-drama. “I loved you in it. I couldn’t believe what I saw. This is just a monumental performance. People are going to be so excited seeing this. You dove in there so deep. But let’s talk about other shit first. I’ll ask you some questions.”

Here is one of Sandler’s questions:

When you’re making a movie, how do you handle eating?

And another:

Do you take naps during the day like me?

There is a one hundred percent chance he was wearing gym shorts while doing this interview. “What you did in the last 20 minutes of that movie — with the drunk of it all, and the emotions of it all, and the ups and downs — was so on the money,” Sandler later told Plaza. “I’ve never seen anyone play drunk and have to go through what you did. I was so happy it was you and not me, because I could not handle what you do.”

Find out what Plaza does on December 4, when Black Bear hits digital.

(Via Interview)

Hugh Keays-Byrne, the actor best known for playing Toecutter in George Miller’s original Mad Max and Immortan Joe in Mad Max: Fury Road (one of the best movie of the 2010s), has died. He was 73 years old. The news was broken by filmmaker Brian Trenchard-Smith (and later confirmed by the Hollywood Reporter), who wrote on Facebook, “I am sad to report that our friend Hugh Keays-Byrne passed away in hospital yesterday. A former Royal Shakespeare Company actor who settled in Australia co-starred in my Man From Hong Kong, and achieved world wide recognition as the Toecutter in Mad Max, and Immortan Joe in Mad Max: Fury Road.” He continued:

“Hugh had a generous heart, offering a helping hand to people in need, or a place to stay to a homeless teenager. He cared about social justice and preserving the environment long before these issues became fashionable. His life was governed by his sense of the oneness of humanity. We will miss his example and his friendship. Vale, Hugh.”

Edgar Wright also paid tribute to Keays-Byrne, tweeting, “It’s a sad day to have to say goodbye to The Toecutter and Immortan Joe. RIP Hugh Keays-Bryne, who played indelible baddies in the first and last Mad Max films – 36 years apart,” while Mohawk director Ted Geoghegan added, “I’m continually floored that he played Toecutter, the central antagonist of 1979’s MAD MAX *and* Immortan Joe, the central antagonist 2015’s MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. Thanks for all the entertainment, sir.” He was also a mask-wearing legend. Keays-Byrne shall ride eternal. Shiny, and chrome.

Claud, the first signee of Phoebe Bridgers’ newly minted label Saddest Factory, ushered in a new era of music with their lighthearted single “Gold.” Now returning with some big news, Claud announced their upcoming debut album Super Monster with the reflective single “Soft Spot.”

Over a warm-toned guitar, Claud sings of dealing with the emotions behind unrequited love. Speaking about the inspiration behind the single, Claud said, “I have a soft spot for lots of people, places, and things. This song is about knowing I can’t be with this one specific person, but my feelings won’t go away… I still hope I run into them, or they randomly text me about something. It’s just me romanticizing what I can’t have and being like ‘but what if…’”

Claud’s vibrant Super Monster cover art was also unveiled alongside the single. It’s a self-portrait depicting Claud triumphantly ascending and leaving their stuffy neighborhood behind. The artwork was actually inspired by a drawing by the late singer Daniel Johnston that Claud came across while visiting Electric Lady studios, which was titled “Claud and the Super Monster.”

Listen to “Soft Spot” above and see Claud’s Super Monster cover art and tracklist below.

1. “Overnight”
2. “Gold”
3. “Soft Spot”
4. “In Or In Between”
5. “Cuff Your Jeans”
6. “Ana”
7. “Guard Down”
8. “This Town”
9. “Jordan”
10. “That’s Mr B*tch To You”
11. “Pepsi”
12. “Rocks At Your Window”
13. “Falling At The Rain”

Super Monster is out 2/12/2021 via Saddest Factory. Pre-order it here.

When it comes to jars of pre-made pasta sauce, I’m basically a blank slate. I may have eaten it once or twice in college; I don’t remember. For the most part, I look at pasta sauce in a jar the same way I look at soup in a can: more emergency ration than everyday food. Fit more for a bomb shelter than a pantry. Incidentally, I do remember eating Phyllis Diller-brand chili out of a can growing up, so it’s not as if I was raised by ascotted gourmands in a French boulangerie or anything.

To be clear, it’s not that I thought that you’d burst into flames or explode in cellulite if you ate pasta sauce from a jar. I just thought… why? It doesn’t seem like that much of a time saver. For a really simple pasta sauce, you could put some olive oil in a pan, brown some garlic, throw in a chopped tomato or two, maybe some cream and parsley if you nasty, and you’ve got yourself a sauce. That takes maaaaybe five minutes longer than it would take to heat up sauce from a jar, and that’s being generous. In either case, less time than it takes water to boil, so it’s moot anyway.

Jarred pasta sauce seems to exist on the premise that pasta needs an elaborate sauce, which it doesn’t. Most times, a little cheese and pepper works just fine.

That being said, these are simply my personal biases as an Italian-American kid inculcated with the standard prejudices. It doesn’t mean they’re right. A few weeks back, I learned to make fancy Top Ramen with Chef Melissa King, and I wondered if perhaps Italians could take a lesson from the way Asian-Americans have learned to live with and remix the instant versions of their traditional foods, rather than fighting against them. It’s possible, just maybe, that Italians are a smidge pedantic and over-precious. That’s not to say I’ve become a full jarred-sauce convert, I’m just saying I went in trying to keep an open mind.

The Method

My God, I had no idea there were so many different jarred pasta sauces. Clearly, this is a growth sector. Prego and Ragu have at least five different varieties each, plus every celebrity chef, brand, and restaurant seems to have one. This list could’ve been 50 sauces long, but I imagine nobody wants to read all that and I sure don’t want to eat all that. I ended up choosing 10 sauces, mostly from brands that I’d heard of and tried to limit my sample to marinara or the closest variant thereof.

To serve, I used a sous vide bath to heat them all up to 110 degrees inside their jars. I then sampled each, both as a dunking sauce for some store-bought garlic bread, as well as mixed with spaghetti. I used Barilla brand spaghetti. I didn’t test them with fresh noodles because if you’re taking the trouble to make fresh pasta (try my recipe) and you put sauce from a jar on it you are clearly insane.

Generally Speaking

Virtually all of these sauces were pretty passable as a dunking sauce for garlic bread. If I were ever to actually use them, it’d probably be for that purpose, or as a pizza sauce. If you’re doing the work for home-made pizza, I can definitely see the validity in just having a jarred sauce on hand. Also, and not that it would’ve mattered, but I tasted these blind, thanks to my spouse (*Borat Voice* MAH SPOUSE), who was kind enough to plate and number them.

The Competitors

Also, Truff’s super fancy Black Truffle Pomodo, which arrived after I took this photo.

The Rankings

10. LITTLE ITALY IN THE BRONX MARINARA. Price: $8.99

Notes: Porridgey texture. Few visible tomato seeds. Darker in color. Tastes very processed, like canned tomato soup or Chef Boyardee. I grade this one a D.

Thoughts: The jar said all the right things — “crafted from Imported Italian Tomatoes, Fresh Garlic & Sea Salt” — plus the charming, Godfather-esque picture of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx on the label. Yet this one, more than any of the others I tasted, had that “canned” flavor I associate with tomato soup or canned pasta. It definitely needed… something.

Oddly, it was the second most expensive of the bunch.

9. BERTOLLI VINEYARD MARINARA (with Merlot Wine). Price: $3.69

Notes: Chunkier, but no tomato seeds. Darker red color. Not great on bread, surprisingly. Tastes fresh and vegetal but somehow… not really in a good way? It’s kind of like mushy, underseasoned veg and the spice balance is baby food bland.

Thoughts: This one didn’t necessarily taste bad so much as unfinished. If you simmered it for 10 minutes and added a little salt and pepper I could see it being decent. But that sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

8. RAGU OLD WORLD STYLE SAUCE (TRADITIONAL). Price: $1.91

Notes: This one just looks sad and processed. It’s dark in color and with a ketchupy consistency. Taste test confirms. Similar canned, Chef Boyardee-type flavor, though maybe not as bad as number two [The Little Italy].

Thoughts: I actually didn’t look at individual prices at all until the end, but it’s funny that the second most expensive sauce and the cheapest ($1.91! How about that!) tasted the most similar to me.

7. LIDIA’S TOMATO BASIL SAUCE. Price: Normally $8.99, but on sale for $5.99.

Notes: Bread test: good texture, visible tomato seeds, which makes me think it’s fresher for whatever reason. Taste is sweet and tomato-y. Full bite with the noodles gives more pepper flavor. It has a mildly spicy finish. Maybe an uncooked bell pepper flavor? Solid “meh.”

Thoughts: I imagine that “uncooked bell pepper” I thought I detected was probably the basil. This one looked and tasted fresh, like real tomatoes, I just found the spice mix slightly off. It was the spiciest, but the other spices were just not quite right.

6. NEWMAN’S OWN MARINARA. Price: Normally $3.19, on sale for $2.79.

Notes: Porridgey in texture. Dark red, with no seeds, which makes me think “less fresh” in my head for whatever reason. On bread: tastes like standard pizza sauce. Is that dried oregano, maybe? Ketchup-like texture. Sweet and tomato-y but otherwise not that well spiced.

I grade this a C. It tastes like canned pizza sauce.

Thoughts: Paul Newman has been dead since 2008. Makes you wonder who’s really been making the sauce over there.

5. MEZZETTA ITALIAN PLUM TOMATO MARINARA. Price: $5.99.

Notes: Lighter red with visible tomato seeds, which at least makes me think it’s going to be fresher. This tastes much different than the others, way less straight canned tomato flavor. Although I think maybe it’s just much oilier. It definitely doesn’t have that tomato soup flavor but I’m not sure I love what it has, either.

Call it a C+.

Thoughts: This is the one I probably would’ve bought first, just based on the jar design and look alone. It also has the kind of name that makes you want to make the Italian hands whenever you say it. Ay, Mezzetta, where-a you puttem-a you-a papa medallione? This one was just such an outlier in terms of flavor and texture that it might’ve just been a weird juxtaposition. It had so much more olive oil than the others, you could see the oil just looking at it (not necessarily a bad thing, I generally have a fair amount of olive oil in my homemade sauce). Which makes a lot of sense, considering I mostly knew Mezzetta as an olive brand before this.

Y’all laundering olive oil over there??? Someone should look into this.

4. PREGO TRADITIONAL. Price: $3.99.

Notes: Medium red in color with green (?) flecks in it. Kind of a puree texture. Good with the bread, though noticeably sweet, even with the bread. Much more visible herbs than the others. On noodles: sugar, sugar, sugar! This one is just straight sugar, it’s practically a jam. That being said, it does mask the canned flavor very well. It’s pretty good in these small bites though I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t want to eat a lot of it.

Thoughts: Yes, this one had the most sugar of any of the brands. Making your pasta sauce this sugary is sort of like putting a super heavy limiter on your audio track. It makes it stand out in a crowd right away, but you lose all the dynamic range in the flavors and you’d end up probably getting sick of it real fast.

It tastes good, but in a way that feels like cheating.

3. CENTO MARINARA. Price: $7.49.

Notes: Nice texture, not too ketchupy. Darker red in color. Some visible seeds. Tastes balanced on the bread. On the noodles it’s a little thin, but the spice balance is right and it tastes like “real” tomatoes. This tastes the most like my homemade marinara to me. Though it doesn’t especially knock my socks off, either.

Has a marinara ever knocked my socks off? Probably not. I give this a solid B+.

Thoughts: I could definitely see using this as a pizza sauce if I got lazy. I think I’d still rather make a bunch of sauce myself and freeze it, but this is certainly passable.

2. TRUFF BLACK TRUFFLE POMODORO. Price: $30 for two, at Neiman Marcus.

Notes: Obvious truffle smell, not hard to guess which sauce this is. Beautiful orange-red color with dark flecks (presumably truffles). Nice purée texture, no visible seeds, oil coats the noodles just right. The lighter reds seem fresher for whatever reason. Tasting… oddly I don’t taste truffles nearly so much as I smell them. Taste-wise it’s much heavier on sweet-tomato, though not artificially sweet-tasting, like a lot of them. It’s also probably the spiciest, both black pepper and something else. Maybe crushed red pepper?

Tomatoes and spice are the dominant flavors.

Thoughts: A late-entry into the contest, Truff sent us their black truffle sauces while I was writing this. For the record, I didn’t ask for it and this is not advertorial. I can’t deny that it’s pretty good. And it has truffles, so it’s sort of cheating. For $30 I could get a gourmet plate of freshly-made pasta at a restaurant. At that price, a jar of truffle sauce should make me feel like a Tuscan piggy with a snout full of fungi — this just doesn’t.

That being said, the quality difference between this and the $3 stuff is pretty obvious, and it’s a pretty solid spicy tomato sauce.

1. PIONEER WOMAN FOUR CHEESE PASTA SAUCE. Price: $4.99.

Notes: Pretty color, nice texture — clearly more “body” in this one. Maybe one of the cheese-based sauces? Good on bread, as they all have been so far (I tasted this one third). With pasta — best so far. Definitely some meat or cheese flavors detected here. This is very clearly not an entirely plant-based sauce. The spice mix is nicely balanced. Oil seems emulsified.

Solid B+.

Thoughts: This was just the first jar I grabbed off the shelf, and I left it in the challenge even though it wasn’t strictly a marinara, just to see what would happen. It would be surprising that a decidedly non-Italian sauce from the cowboy lady with the gingham label (*dismissive wanking motion*) would be my top choice, but then it’s not very surprising in light of the fact that it was the only sauce with cheese.

That being said, it was pretty tasty. The spice balance was on point. I ate all of my tiny little spaghetti bowl of it. I could definitely see putting some of this out for a bread-dunking sauce and it being a hit.

Snoop Dogg wears about a billion different hats, with his latest one being donned over the weekend when he hopped into the announce booth for the Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr. fight and turned in a performance that got a whole lot of people into the idea of him being around boxing more frequently. According to Ryan Kavanaugh of Triller, the company that put on the fight, fans are going to get their wish sometime soon.

Kavanaugh spoke to TMZ and revealed that he’s joining forces with Snoop on a boxing league called The Fight Club. Apparently, the Tyson-Jones fight — which ended in a split draw after eight rounds — was just an appetizer for something even bigger in the works.

“I can tell you that the main fight — I can’t say it yet — but it’s gonna be something that everybody wants to see,” Kavanaugh said. “If you thought (Tyson vs. Jones) is big, I think that this would be even larger from a worldwide-appetite perspective and something that people want to see.”

It is unclear whether the plan is to have fights between older fighters that are still big draws or if this would be used as a way to elevate some of the biggest up-and-coming names in the sport. Regardless, as long as Snoop is in the announce booth, we suspect people are going to be really, really happy.

After spending 2019 promoting her album On The Line, Jenny Lewis has mostly laid low in 2020. She dropped a charity single at the top of the year and did some Postal Service things in October, but in terms of public activity, not much went on between or since then. However, she returned with a new song today: “Unblu” is a downtempo collaboration with Chicago rapper Serengeti (real name David Cohn) on which they both provide hushed vocals.

The pair also shared a note about their collaboration, revealing that his is one of five songs they made while collaborating remotely during the pandemic. Lewis made the tracks on her phone, which were then further produced by Andrew Broder.

Watch the “Unblu” video above and read the duo’s note below.

“Jenny met Dave down a long hallway in a former Communist Media Center in East Berlin during the People Festival of 2018. Dave asked Jenny to sing on a song about Tom Selleck passing on the part of Indiana Jones. Can you imagine a world where Tom Selleck is Indiana Jones?

A fast friendship was born as they skulked about, cracking jokes and chatting about their mutual love for boxing.

Jenny threw a show for Dave at Dino’s in East Nashville when they returned from Europe. The bartenders said it was the best show they ever had. Jenny was among the 9 fans that attended and danced their asses off.

To cap the torrid evening, Dave said ‘J, I need 7 tracks! Just piano or guitar or whatever!’ Jenny inquired if one would do?

Then the world shut down and Jenny & Dave hunkered down in Los Angeles & Chicago, respectively. Jenny smoked weed every day and Dave stayed totally sober.

The result is five songs made on Jenny’s iPhone, for Dave. Beats, bass, drums, digital tanpura & topline, sent via text, ripe for Dave’s poetry. To accompany the music, Jenny made videos on her phone during the witching hours, editing while under the covers.

Then Jenny texted the tracks to another People alumnus — Andrew Broder in Minneapolis — who co-produced and mixed the songs, taking them from Garageband phone music to music that gently thumps you. Music to dance around your living room in a Day-Glo bathing suit to. Music to go bananas to while watching the news & Forensic Files on mute.

Thank you for reading this.

Enjoy, Jenny Lewis & Serengeti

P.S. It’s almost Christmas!”

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

Thanks to her prominent role in The Clone Wars animated series, Ahsoka Tano is a fan-favorite in the world of Star Wars. So when Rosario Dawson was tapped with the daunting task of playing the first live-action version of the beloved character, she received some surprising inspiration for the role. In a new interview, Dawson revealed that The Mandalorian showrunner Dave Filoni, who shepherded Ahsoka through both The Clone Wars and Rebels, told her that the wayward Jedi is in a similar place as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings. Via StarWars.com:

“It was just interesting playing with an amalgamation of all that,” Dawson says. “I wanted to kind of have some her playfulness and her fun — the cocky eyebrow thing that she does. You know that she’s got that feistiness. You know that she’s willing to push the rules a little bit in order to get what needs to get done. But I also really like that she does have that wisdom. She’s gone through a lot. She’s really gone through a lot of things. And she’s grounded, more than when you first meet her as a young teen. It was really fun to find moments to throw homages to the different aspects to Ahsoka that I’ve always loved.”

Dawson’s portrayal of Ahsoka has been a smash hit with Star Wars fans who are receiving much credit for the actress landing the role. She recently revealed to Vanity Fair that Filoni saw tweets fan-casting Dawson and Ahsoka, and he kept them in his back pocket in case he ever got the chance to make a live-action version of the animated hero. Clearly, those tweets came in handy.

(Via StarWars.com)