Category: Worldwide

One of the most tiresome arguments about the NBA is the suggestion that players today are soft compared to previous generations. Old timers love to wax ecstatic about the glory days when men were men and a good hard foul was just and a rite of passage in your initiation to the “No Boys Allowed” league.

Over the years, however, the NBA has wisely cracked down on aggressive actions, imposing hefty fines and mandatory suspensions for anyone who crosses the line and throws a punch. It’s achieved the intended result, which has been far fewer incidences of skirmishes and shoving matches devolving into dangerous all-out brawls.

The other casualty of the new era has been the role of the enforcer, the resident tough guy who had everyone’s back and was ready to take one for the team when the situation called for it. There are few better examples than Kenyon Martin, who definitely earned his reputation as someone you didn’t want to cross (just ask J.R. Smith).

In a first-person essay on BasketballNews.com, Martin talked about what fed into his on-court demeanor and why he wasn’t worried about taking a fine and/or suspension if the situation called for it.

“If we’re just playing basketball and getting physical, that’s fine. When I was on the Clippers, we faced Zach Randolph and the Grizzlies in the playoffs and it was very physical, but there was mutual respect and no bad blood after each game. But if someone is being disrespectful, at the drop of a dime, I’ll slap the shit out of them. Then, I’ll deal with the three- or four-game suspension, whatever the consequence is. Years from now, I’ll forget about those three games I missed due to suspension, but you’re going to remember the time Kenyon Martin slapped the shit out of you.”

Martin’s NBA career spanned 15 seasons and five teams, including an All-Star selection in 2004 and back-to-back Finals appearances with the Nets in 2001 and 2002. His son, Kenyon Martin Jr., was selected by the Houston Rockets with the 52nd overall pick in the 2020 Draft.

This Friday will mark five years since Erykah Badu shared her But You Caint Use My Phone mixtape with the world. The project arrived after a five-year hiatus following her 2010 New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh) album. It was also dropped without the knowledge of her Universal label as she released it straight to iTunes before adding it to other retailers the week after. With the anniversary rapidly approaching, Erykah took to Twitter to celebrate the project and announce the return of the phone line that debuted with But You Caint Use My Phone.

The singer made the announcement on Twitter saying, “‘But You Caint Use My Phone’ mix tape Is 5 today. Remember when y’all figured out my # & were FaceTiming me on the trap phone? Well in honor of BYCUMP anniversary and CONTROL FREAQ RECORDS, I’ll be opening up my phone line on Thanksgiving Day… stay tuned.” In addition to But You Caint Use My Phone, Badu also recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of her classic sophomore album, Mama’s Gun, earlier this week.

The announcement comes in what’s been a semi-active year for the legendary singer. Her highlight moment of 2020 came when she joined Jill Scott for a soothing Verzuz battle back in May. She also held a quarantine livestream performance from her bedroom and joined Teyana Taylor, HER, and Brandy for a BET Hip-Hop Award cypher this year as well. On the musical side of things, her only contribution in 2020 came alongside Slingbaum and D’Angelo for their “Behoove” track.

Check out Erykah’s tweet above.

For more than three months, the NBA restart experiment proceeded without any major incidents and, most notably, without a single new case of COVID-19 inside the Bubble in Orlando. That was due in no small part to the comprehensive safety protocols put in place to protect against the deadly virus that sent the country into lockdown.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t a few minor hiccups here and there. A couple of players broke quarantine for food delivery and an unauthorized guest and were forced into isolation for a period of time, while others were forced to depart the Bubble to attend to family emergencies and the like.

Clippers guard Lou Williams was among those who left Orlando to pay his respects at a funeral for a close family friend, the fallout of which provided some high comedy that continues to this very day. Williams, of course, had to undergo another mandatory 10-day quarantine upon his return after it was revealed that he had visited the Magic City gentlemen’s club in Atlanta.

Now, it appears Magic City Kitchen is offering free shipping on his signature dish, the “LouWill Lemon Pepper Wings,” which will run you $109 for a 50-pack. Here’s more from their posting on Goldbelly.

“The notorious, top-selling LouWill wings! To make these wings, naked wings are tossed in honey BBQ sauce and sprinkled with lemon pepper seasoning, just the way NBA star Lou Williams likes them!”

Because Sweet Lou remains perpetually above reproach in our estimation, it only made the whole situation that much more enjoyable when he filed a trademark for the nickname “Lemon Pepper Lou.”

With the country going back on lockdown again amid another surge of COVID-19, Magic City has clearly learned from Lou’s past mishap and is doing the responsible thing by offering customers the opportunity to enjoy their favorite wings without having to expose themselves to others during the pandemic. I can think of few better holiday gift offerings that sending your loved one a 50-piece of lemon pepper goodness.

Out of all the artists in the music industry, Bad Bunny has been one of the most active names this year. The Puerto Rican artist has already released two albums this year with March’s Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana and May’s Las Que No Iban a Salir. The former became the highest-charting Spanish language album ever after it peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard album charts. While two albums is already quite productive for a calendar year, Bad Bunny isn’t slowing down anytime time soon as the Latin act announced his third album of 2020 would arrive this Friday.

Bad Bunny took to his social media to announce El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo and revealed its tracklist. The singer presents sixteen songs on the upcoming project with guest appearances from Rosalía, Jhay Cortez, and ABRA. The announcement arrives shortly after the singer landed a role on the upcoming third season of Nacros: Mexico.

On a more unfortunate note, Bad Bunny was recently forced to cancel his 2020 AMAs performance after he tested positive for coronavirus. While his appearance was missed, he did go home with two awards in the Favorite Male Latin Artist and Favorite Latin Album categories at the show.

Check out the artwork and tracklist for El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo below.

01. “El Mundo Es Mio”
02. “Te Mudaste”
03. “Hoy Cobré”
04. “Maldita Pobreza”
05. “La Noche De Anoche” Feat. Rosalia
06. “Te Deseo Lo Mejor”
07. “Yo Visto Asi”
08. “Haciendo Que Me Amas”
09. “Booker T”
10. “La Droga”
11. “Dakiti” Feat. Jhay Cortez
12. “Trellas”
13. “Sorry Papi” Feat. ABRA
14. “120”
15. “Antes Que Se Acabe”
16. “Cantares De Navidad”

El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo is out 11/27 via Rimas Entertainment.

The music world is still high on their disappointment with the Grammys after they did not nominate The Weeknd for their 2021 show. The snub left the music world, and the singer’s adoring fans especially, up in arms after The Weeknd ruled much of the year thanks to his After Hours album and the many highlights that came from it. The Weeknd shared a tweet hours after the nominations were revealed that called the award show “corrupt,” a claim The Recording Academy refuted. A day after The Weeknd’s tweet, Drake and Nicki Minaj took to Instagram to call for changes to occur while showing their support for the singer.

“I think we should stop allowing ourselves to be shocked every year by the disconnect between impactful music and these awards and just accept that what once was the highest form of recognition may no longer matter to the artists that exist now and the ones that come after,” Drake said the post to his Instagram story. “It’s like a relative you keep expecting to fix up but they just can’t change their ways. The other day I said @theweeknd was a lock for either album or song of the year along with countless other reasonable assumptions and it just never goes that way.” He added, “This is a great time for somebody to start something new that we can build up over time and pass on to the generations to come.”

Continuing his message in a second post, Drake mentioned Lil Baby, Pop Smoke, PartyNextDoor, and Popcaan as other names who he felt were wrongfully left off the nomination list for the 2021 Grammys. Nicki Minaj showed her support for The Weeknd by reposting Drake’s first message to her Instagram story. This comes after she re-expressed her frustration with losing the Best New Artist award to Bon Iver back at the 2012 Grammys.

You can check out Drake’s message in the tweet above.

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

When you’re a top-flight NBA prospect heading into the biggest night of your life, the sensory overload can be a bit much to handle. There are an awful lot of people sticking cameras and microphones in your face asking you to sound off on any number of topics, and as the old saying goes, if you go on air often enough, you’re bound to say something silly.

For example, No. 1 overall pick Anthony Edwards, in an interview with ESPN prior to the draft, admitted that he’s “still not really into” basketball and that if the NFL came calling, he’d go do that instead, partially because you don’t get fined as much for celebrating.

But that might only be the second silliest thing he said in that interview. Unprompted, Edwards went on to take aim at Damian Lillard’s rapping ability, explaining that he’s got a burgeoning rap career of his own and implying that he is a better lyricist than Dame. As you might imagine, that didn’t sit well with teammate CJ McCollum. Here’s what he had to say about it during a recent appearance on the Load Management podcast.

“He better work on that jumper… you can’t run in the West.” @CJMcCollum on Anthony Edwards after he called out Dame’s rapping ability.

EPISODE: https://t.co/L8q0OoksRs pic.twitter.com/fttrYoGfUw

— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) November 24, 2020

CJ was elusive on the question of whether Dame DOLLA might be cooking up a diss track in response, and we are all free to read what we will into Dame’s conspicuous silence on the subject so far. The Blazers and Timberwolves will meet three times during the regular season, and this should add a little extra spice to the proceedings as the Blazers are surely eager to give the rookie his Welcome-to-the-League moment.

Rina Sawayama’s thrilling year is about to come to an end, but the rising pop star isn’t going to conclude it without some new music. She’s already released her beloved Sawayama debut album and on Wednesday she added on to it with her brand new single, “Lucid.” The track is one that would thrive on the dance floor as the club-ready single also finds Sawayama pushing the limits of what we know as pop. Along with the new song, the singer also spoke about “Lucid” in a statement.

“It’s about living a different life through dreaming, whether it’s to be with the dream girl or to be the dream girl,” she said. “Me and Lauren Aquilina wrote this together on the floor of my tiny rented living room back in early 2018.” She added, “I’ve kept this song secret for 2 years so I’m so excited to finally release it to the world! 2020’s been a tough year so I wanted to finish it off with a dance bop to take us into a more hopeful 2021.”

In addition to the new single, Sawayama will also share a deluxe version of her debut album next week. The new release presents a Bree Runway guest appearance and eleven additional tracks to the album’s original thirteen songs. The deluxe will arrive on December 4 with the album’s original songs appearing on disc one and the new additions appearing on disc two.

Listen to “Lucid” above and take a look at the disc two tracklist below.

01. “LUCID”
02. “We Out Here (Bonus Track)”
03. “Bees & Honey (Bonus Track)”
04. “Love It If We Made It (The 1975 Cover)”
05. “XS (Live)”
06. “STFU! (Acoustic)”
07. “Bad Friend (Acoustic)”
08. “Chosen Family (Acoustic)”
09. “Comme Des Garçons (Like The Boys) [Pabllo Vittar Remix]
10. “XS (Remix)” Feat. Bree Runway
11. “Bad Friend (Dream Wife Remix)”

Sawayama (Deluxe) is out 12/4 via Dirty Hit.

It’s been a long while since we’ve heard news from major music festivals following the shutdown of the live music industry. But with the COVID vaccine looking promising, it looks like some are already gearing up for next summer. Madrid’s Mad Cool Festival returned to share their 2021 lineup — and it features some big-name artists.

If things go well in the next few months, the festival will be ready to kick off the weekend of July 7. The headliners include Cardi B, Twenty One Pilots, The Killers, Deftones, Kings Of Leon, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Pixies, and more. Other artists slated to appear are Carly Rae Jepsen, Glass Animals, Angel Olsen, Waxahatchee, Anderson .Paak, Kali Uchis, The War On Drugs, Haim, Phoebe Bridgers, Major Lazer, Gus Dapperton, and Sylvan Esso.

While the festival has announced a handful of exciting acts, there is more to come. Mad Cool still has two more headliners and a handful of other artists they have yet to unveil.

Concertgoers who purchased tickets to last year’s canceled Mad Cool festival can still use their same tickets, but the festival is doing even more roll-out. Per high demand, Mad Cool is making 1,178 4-days passes available for purchase this year.

Check out Mad Cool Festival’s 2021 lineup above.

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

Brittany Kinley, a mother from Mansfield, Texas, had a hilarious mom fail her and she’s chalking it up to being just another crazy thing that happened in 2020.

When Kinley filled out the order form for her son Mason’s kindergarten class pictures, there was an option to have his name engraved into the photos. But Kinley wasn’t interested in having her son’s name on the photos so she wrote “I DON’T WANT THIS” on the box.

Well, it appears as though she should have left the box blank because the computer or incredibly literal human that designed the photographs wrote “I DON’T WANT THIS” where mason’s name should be.

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Kinley shared the photo on Facebook where it’s gone viral receiving over 16,000 likes and 38,000 shares.

via Brittany Kinley / Facebook

“I’m sure everyone needs a good laugh these days so thanks to my latest mom fail…you’re welcome in advance haha,” Kinley captioned the photo. “Mason got his kindergarten pictures and I didn’t want his name on the bottom so I typed in “I don’t want this” and they freaking printed this…”

Having “I DON’T WANT THIS” printed on a photo that represents 2020 resonated with a lot of people on Facebook. Probably because it’s what we’ve been saying to ourselves day after day of being stuck in the house or going outside and seeing normally busy places turned into ghost towns.

“Love! This is something I would definitely do!! and… it’s the motto for 2020,” a commenter named Chrysa wrote.

“This is a 2020 MOOD! Trying to smile but deep inside we are all I DON’T WANT THIS,” Omar added.

But Kinley is just happy she’s given people the chance to laugh in such a trying year.

“I think 2020 has been such a hard year for everyone and people need some positivity and a good laugh,” Kinley said according to Today.

“I’ve gotten so many messages from people saying they haven’t laughed this hard all year and that it made their day,” she added. “I never thought it would have that effect but I’m so glad we can spread laughter in a crazy time like this.”

Mason now feels famous after all the attention his photo is getting. “He’ll occasionally ask how many more people is he making laugh,” Kinley said, adding “his teachers gave him a round of applause and yelled, ‘I do want this!’ during drop off!'”

Kinley has tried to get a hold of the company that printed the pictures but she hasn’t had any luck as of yet.

“It’s not their fault. It was my mom fail,” Kinley said, “so no bad feelings there!”

Even if she does get new photos printed that don’t say, “I DON’T WANT THIS” she has to keep a few of the original shots because they’re sure to be a perfect reminder of the year nobody wanted.

The major flurry of offseason moves, whether via trade or free agency, have come to an end, but there are still some players on the market and deals trickling in as teams around the league fill out their rosters.

On Wednesday, one of the biggest unsigned names remaining found a home, as Hassan Whiteside reportedly agreed to a one-year deal with the Sacramento Kings, as they add another big man to their roster.

Depending on the money involved, it’s likely a low-risk move for the Kings, although Sacramento fans will have their concerns about adding Whiteside to a froncourt with younger players they’d like to see get more minutes to develop — namely Marvin Bagley Jr. who is looking to find a rhythm in Year 3 after a sophomore season marred by injury. Whiteside joins Bagley, Richaun Holmes, Nemanja Bjelica, and Jabari Parker in the frontcourt on a roster that has some promising talent but also seems to be firmly in the tier below the large group of playoff contenders in the West.

While Whiteside does bring legitimate rim protection and rebounding, his desire to chase blocks can be used against him by opposing offenses as he’ll rotate out of position and offensively he is best served as a lob threat and clean-up man. This isn’t a needle-moving signing by the Kings, but it’s also not some kind of disaster as some may try to paint it. Whiteside is a useful player, particularly in the regular season, and the Kings can use those players so long as he doesn’t cut into time someone like Bagley is spending on the court.