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 hottest R&B jams that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.

This week, Jazmine Sullivan released a new song on Friday (Nov. 20) titled “Pick Up Your Feelings,” Summer Walker is spreading holiday cheer with the release of her rendition of “Santa Baby,” and Savannah Re dropped her first project of the year. Check out the rest of the best new R&B below.

Jazmine Sullivan — “Pick Up Your Feelings”

Jazmine Sullivan is a singer with soul who knows how to make her listeners really feel the music and nothing less can be said for her latest single “Pick Up Your Feelings.” Jazmine is currently working a new album, which is good news because her voice is a necessary addition to all R&B playlists.

Summer Walker — “Santa Baby”

“Santa Baby” is a Christmas classic and ahead of the winter holiday, Summer Walker shared her rendition of the 1953 Eartha Kitt jingle. The song currently lives on LVRN’s upcoming Christmas compilation album Home For The Holidays, which also features fellow labelmates 6lack, Westside Boogie, OMB Bloodbath, Dram and more.

Savannah Re — Opia

Savannah Re is a Toronto R&B gem and today she delivered her project Opia to much acclaim. Nine songs deep, Savannah flexes her vocals on each track over a production that’s fitting for her emotionallly-filled silky smooth voice.

Bri Steves — “Sober”

Drunk FaceTime calls are a thing and in the spirit of relatability, Bri Steves has arrived with her latest vibe “Sober.” It’s a relatable bop for anyone who has been a victim of those drunken moments of weakness when fleeting thoughts of lust about a past lover seems to linger. “I wrote ‘Sober’ about my ex,” Bri said in a statement. “We’ve always had this toxic relationship, and I’d always call him when I was drunk. That’s what ‘Sober’ is all about – the past, just like the liquor…It’s all intoxicating.” The song is the follow-up to her previously released track “Stick Up” with fellow Philly rapper Poundside Pop and is expected to live on her forthcoming EP.

DaniLeigh — “Monique”

DaniLeigh put on a swaggy performance of “Monique” off her recently released project Movie for our latest episode of Uproxx Sessions. The Miami native brought her bossy, yet fun energy to the set and delivered a live performance of the Retro Future-produced track.

Luh Kel — “Feen” Feat. Trippie Redd

In a mission to bring love back to music, Luh Kel offered the deluxe version of his album L.O.V.E. today and it features a new song with Trippie Redd called “Feen.” Catching up with Luh Kel on set of the music video he told us about it. “This is my biggest budget video,” he said to Uproxx. I’m flying in the air and getting captured by a gust of wind with a bunch of video effects.”

IV4 — “Work 2 Hard”

Rising singer IV4 is offering one for all the hustlers out this week with her latest release “Work 2 Hard.” This is the follow-up to her second single of 2020, “Swimming” with Trippie Redd.

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

One of the best feel-good stories of a year that could use as many of them as possible has been Dave Grohl’s virtual drum battle with 10-year-old wunderkind Nandi Bushell. The pair has gone back and forth sharing videos in recent weeks, but during an appearance on The Late Show last week, Grohl admitted defeat. Now, Bushell has shared a comedic video in which she accepts Grohl’s concession.

Bushell’s video starts with clips of Grohl’s Late Show appearance and press coverage of it, set to epic cinematic music and sounds of thunder. Bushell then pops up against a stormy background and declares in rhyme, “Mr. Grohl, thou declare defeat at my feet. The rock gods of old watch you retreat. Your legend in history will echo in time. But still, you resign to a child of 3-foot-9.”

She them summons drum sticks to her hands and calls upon the spirits of some rock icons: Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, Jimi Hendrix, and Queen’s Freddie Mercury. Bushell continued, “The legendary Grohl wants to jam with me and we shall create the greatest rhapsody,” then let out one of her famous screams. She then ends with a fun nod to Tenacious D’s “Tribute” video, in which Grohl portrays the Devil, and concludes, “It has been an honor battling you, Mr. Grohl, and I can’t wait to write our song together.”

Check out Bushell’s video above.

With rare exceptions, like the trippy “Open Your Mind” scene in Doctor Strange or much of Thor: Ragnarok, the Marvel Cinematic Universe rarely gets weird. That’s what makes WandaVision so exciting. It’s a superhero show (the first MCU show on Disney+, in fact), but it has as much in common with I Love Lucy and The Office as it does Avengers: Age of Ultron, where Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch made her credited MCU debut. Also, there’s an all-powerful android with a purple penis. Things are going to get weird.

“I loved TV, and watched far too much The Dick Van Dyke Show and I Love Lucy and Bewitched and everything,” Marvel Studios honcho Kevin Feige told Empire about WandaVision‘s inspirations (there’s no such thing as “too much” The Dick Van Dyke Show). “We go up to the Modern Family and The Office style. The talk-to-the-camera, shaky-camera, documentary style.” I can’t wait to see Olsen’s Jim Halpert face. Feige also discussed why he wanted Scarlet Witch (and the purple penis guy, to an extent) to get her own show:

“If you look at the Infinity Saga, I don’t think any single person has gone through more pain and trauma than Wanda Maximoff. And no character seems to be as powerful as Wanda Maximoff. And no character has a power-set that is as ill-defined and unexplored as Wanda Maximoff. So it seemed exploring that would be worthwhile post-Endgame. Who else is aware of that power? Where did it come from? Did the Mind Stone unlock it?”

WandaVision premieres on Disney+ on January 15, 2021.

(Via Empire)

Ted Cruz has embraced an amped-up version of his usual fight against “tyranny” during the pandemic. He slammed a fellow senator as a “a complete ass” for wearing a mask, long after Cruz declared that the virus would disappear after election day (because he argued that the pandemic is a ruse meant to boot Trump out of office). The evaporation of the virus obviously did not happen, but the junior senator from Texas has continued to push back against COVID-19 restrictions, even as his state — especially in El Paso — has watched its morgues overflow as patients succumb to the virus.

Over the weekend, Cruz illustrated his thoughts on the CDC urging people to not travel for Thanksgiving (and to only mark the occasion with family members already in their household) with a Turkey meme that reads “Come and Take It.”

In doing so, Cruz drew a (misguided) reference to the “Come And Take It” flag that hails back to the Texas revolution. He’s appropriating the saying as in an attempt to place COVID restrictions into the “culture wars”… because he apparently thinks the Left is using the virus to attack Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Iowa State professor Brian Behnken posted a useful thread about how the flag’s been previously appropriated by the right wing, including the Second Amendment crowd, for their own ends. He also points out how Cruz is “fixating on a manly, heroic moment in Texas history,” the Siege of Bexar, while completely losing sight of context. Instead, Cruz is rallying for his right to gather for turkey while food lines in Texas stretch for miles and his state is suffering from an unfathomable loss of life.

In the aftermath of Cruz’s turkey dump, further roasting commenced, including this illustration from El Paso Artist Patrick Gabaldon, who posted his own drawing of a PPE-clad worker attending to a dead body set against the El Paso mountains and the saying, “Come And See It.” The drawing blasts those who refuse to take the pandemic seriously.

“Maybe if people see the devastation, maybe they’ll acknowledge it, and so you know when I see the come and take it with the turkey, I thought well you should come and see it,” Gabaldon told KTSM. “You should come and see what we’re dealing with and what our healthcare workers what our brothers and sisters and grandparents are dealing with.”

The roasting of Cruz’s dumb Turkey meme continued on Twitter.

And of course we got a Zodiac Killer recipe, one that’s well done.

The 2020 American Music Awards were last night, and Taylor Swift came home with one of the evening’s biggest awards: Artist Of The Year. Swift wasn’t there to accept her award live, but she had a good reason for that: In a pre-taped video, she revealed she was busy re-recording her old music.

Swift, of course, does not own the rights to the albums she released on Big Machine — Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Reputation — but beginning at the start of November, she was officially allowed to re-record the songs. Swift has already gotten started on that process, as she explained in her acceptance video, saying, “The reason I’m not there tonight is I’m actually re-recording all of my old music in the studio where we originally recorded it, so it’s been amazing and I can’t wait for you to hear it.”

Elsewhere in the video, she said, “This is a fan-voted award, which means so much to me. You guys have been beyond wonderful all the years of my career, but especially this one, when we’ve been so far apart. We haven’t been able to see each other in concert, but I still feel really connected to you through the music and your reaction to Folklore and all of the ways in which your imagination honored that album.”

Watch Swift’s acceptance speech above and revisit our review of Folklore here.

Deepfake audio technology is becoming incredibly convincing, so much so that Jay-Z apparently took legal action against an AI-powered impersonation of him this year. Eminem is the latest rapper to receive the deepfake treatment, and in a new digitally fabricated song, he goes after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The video was created by YouTube channel Calamity AI in partnership with another YouTuber, 30HZ. Calamity AI explains the song, “An Eminem diss-track written by Artificial Intelligence. We inputted the title ‘Mark Zuckerberg Diss in the Style of Eminem’ and let the A.I. write the rest. From there, we sent the lyrics to 30HZ, who synthesized and created the vocals. The audio was not record by Eminem.”

Lyrically, the track is hit-or-miss. Some of the words actually make sense as slights towards Zuckerberg, like when the song begins, “Yo, I’m comin’ for the Zuck / The epical CEO who’s on a sack of fail / When he ain’t doing shrooms and having sex in VIP / He’s rage-querying his ex-employees that he got rid of.” It later continues, “All the people that helped you build that sh*thole of a site / Are shaking their heads in shame at what you’ve become / And they’re running from your dreams like you’re the devil. Shieldin’ their eyes from the tragedy you’ve become.”

Then there are the parts that aren’t quite as focused, like the lines that dwell on Zuckerberg’s hair: “You got those glossy eyes, and you’re all hairy, too / You’re so hairy, you’re getting hairier every day / I’m making a Photoshopped picture of you tomorrow / I’m gonna make you into a real big hairy steamboat.”

Check out the song above.

If you’re a beginning bourbon drinker, you can easily pick up a few bottles in the $30-50 range that you’re sure to be happy with. Sip it over ice, mix it into an old fashioned, or even drink it neat. The joy of being a newcomer is that your expectations are significantly lower.

As you progress and your palate grows more refined, so too will your tastes. As your tastes evolve, the price tags on your favorite bottles will get steeper. It’s a boozy layer cake.

But no matter how elitist your palate eventually becomes, $100 will always get you a lot in the world of bourbon — where there are no international tariffs to be paid. In fact, there are lots of amazing, high-quality bottles for at or under $100. We’re talking actual sippers. To find them, we hit up the experts — asking a handful of our favorite bartenders to tell us the best bourbons for under $100.

Check their answers below.

Jefferson’s Ocean Cask Strength

Seth Falvo, bartender at The Hotel Zamora in St. Pete Beach, Florida

I really enjoy Jefferson’s Ocean Cask Strength. Despite its high proof, it drinks very smooth, and the salty, briny notes the bourbon picked up at sea complement the salted caramel and tobacco forward flavor profile of the base whiskey.

It’s a unique bourbon that belongs in any whiskey drinker’s collection.

Price: $83.99

Basil Hayden’s 10

Brennen Brainard, bartender at Gigglewaters Social Club in Clearwater, Florida

Basil Hayden’s 10 year is a great bourbon to drink neat. Clocked in at 80 proof, ice and mixers should be on the sidelines for this bottle. The characteristics and flavor would be lost if anything were added.

Do yourself a favor and pick one up after reading and you’ll see what I mean.

Price: $99.99

Pinhook Bohemian Bourbon

Cory Coose, bartender at Tak Room in New York City

Pinhook’s Bohemian Bourbon flagship, which was just released this year. Extremely reasonably priced and with a taste of high end. Fun spices along with some tropical fruits.

Can be used for all types of cocktails or just on the rocks.

Price: $53.99

Buffalo Trace

Josh Curtis, bar director at Carbon Beach Club in Malibu, California

Buffalo Trace is my favorite bourbon because it has such a unique flavor profile. Espresso, oak, toffee, custard, and mint rove across the palate. It’s perfect for sipping neat or mixed into your favorite cocktails.

One of the best value bottles on the market, if you ask me.

Price: $28.99

Michter’s US1 Bourbon

Ben Potts, owner and bartender at The Sylvester in Miami

Michter’s makes some great stuff. Their 10 year doesn’t quite hit the under $100 mark, but their core bourbon is fantastic. It has a great level of sweetness with hints of honey, vanilla, and charred oak.

Price: $43.99

Four Roses Small Batch Select

Blake Jakes, director of beverage at The Kennedy Bar in Pensacola, Florida

I’d have to say Four Roses Small Batch Select. They are usually always amazing and also high proof. I love that you can have 10 different Mash bills to choose from, which makes every single barrel truly unique.

Price: $63.99

High West American Prairie Bourbon

Hayden Miller, head bartender at Bodega Taqueria y Tequila in Miami

High West American Prairie is an excellent bottle that checks a lot of boxes. The flavor is superb, there’s enough heat to stand up to a cocktail, and it’s also easily sipped.

It’s filled with pleasing flavors of brown sugar, vanilla, and rich caramel.

Price: $36.49

Old Forester 1920

Bill Whitlow, owner of Proper Food & Drink in Covington, Kentucky

I don’t drop around $100 on bottles very often, but now and then I will throw down on a bottle of Old Forester 1920 or Four Roses Small Batch Select. Those are always on the shelf around here. If I can grab a bottle of Colonel E.H. Taylor Single Barrel or Barrel Proof at retail, I will jump all over either of those.

If I had to pick one for today, it would be Old Forester 1920 with its complex, highly sippable flavors

Price: $59.99

Angel’s Envy Bourbon

Juan Fernandez, bartender at The Ballantyne, A Luxury Collection Hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina

Angel’s Envy Bourbon. Angel’s isn’t a cheap bourbon, but it isn’t an expensive one either. I would have to say that it’s my favorite, thanks to is versatility. It’s great on its own straight, as well as in many whiskey driven cocktails.

It’s also not so expensive that I feel guilty adding it to cocktails.

Price: $52.99

Hudson Baby Bourbon

Crystal Chasse, beverage director at Talk Story Rooftop in Brooklyn

Hudson Baby Bourbon. Tuthilltown Spirits Distillery is only a few miles from where I grew up in the Hudson Valley. Aside from the savory notes the whiskey offers, I love to support local businesses. Hudson distillery was the first whiskey brand to bring the spirit back to New York and also help create the laws and state requirements to be allowed to produce whiskey in New York.

Price: $49.99

Hirsch The Horizon

Kevin Baird, bartender at Dead Rabbit in New York City

I really love Hirsch The Horizon’s distinguished, layered, rich yet dry flavor complex. This brand could possibly redefine the disposition of a high corn bourbon. Also, its slightly unconventional and not-too-fancy turquoise label with line work and symmetry provides a fun almost nautical accent to the juice.

Certainly, and attractive shelf piece.

Price: $39.99

It’s hard to a remember a time when the transition between two presidents was facing more scrutiny. The sitting president, Donald Trump, has been willfully and fruitlessly fighting off the results of a lawful election that saw Joe Biden selected to hold the office next. But Trump’s decision to litigate instead of concede has kept the entire nation rapt and watching how Biden and his team will handle the situation, and it also means that more people than ever are paying attention to Biden’s cabinet selections.

So tonight, when The New York Times broke the news that Biden is likely going to name Anthony Blinken as his Secretary Of State, research and commentary about this choice began to pour into my feed. As a music journalist, chief among the findings is that Blinken is definitely a music fan. Recently, Blinken was on TV segment and filming from his home as many are during the pandemic, and a guitar neck in the background drew some commentary:

In fact, Blinken is more than just a fan, he also makes and records original music. Operating under the band name, Ablinken, a pretty straightforward band name made of his first initial and last name — which is also his Twitter handle — the purported nominee has a couple guitar-centric songs uploaded to Spotify. His Twitter bio also currently directs followers to his Spotify: “Follow Ablinken on Spotify.”

The music internet and political internet do tend to cross frequently, but this is one of those times where it’s a welcome crossover. Check out more reactions to Blinken and his band below.

As a music critic, I’m happy to give my own take on the band. Blinken is the vocalist, and he has a deep voice with good tenor and just a hint of a polish, even if his phrasing is a little slow and clunky at times. The songs are both interesting melodically, but take a little too long to reach their groove. Ablinken sounds like a band with really good potential who needs to practice more and work on their lyrics. They cite ’70s classic rock and R&B as their influences, and that certainly rings true. The guitar solo on “Lip Service” toward the end, in particular, is great, but overall their slower number “Patience” is a little boring. Still, if they were playing in a little dive bar where I was having a beer, I wouldn’t leave. Hear Ablinken’s two tracks for yourself below:

(SPOILERS for this week’s The Walking Dead: World Beyond will be found below.)

It hasn’t reached nearly the heights of this season’s Fear the Walking Dead, nor is it anywhere as good as The Walking Dead is now, but the newest spin-off, The World Beyond, has finally reached the level of passably entertaining with a few cool tricks up its sleeve. It’s an interesting contrast to Fear the Walking Dead at the moment because Fear is telling compelling stand-alone stories — or mini-movies — while The World Beyond is trying to stretch a three or four-hour movie into 10 episodes.

It’s finally arrived to the third act, and it’s seriously starting to heat up, thanks in part to a twist in this week’s episode that few people saw coming. The episode itself largely concerns the death of Tony (and the presumed death of Percy) and the culprit behind it. Silas is the chief and only real suspect. Silas, like his father, has rage issues, and when he feels threatened, he loses his temper, become violent, and blacks out, forgetting the violence he perpetrates. We saw it earlier this season when Silas lost it and beat the holy hell out of a walker, and he’s been warning the others of his anger issues all season long.

In this episode, we finally get a flashback into his past relationship with his abusive father, who Silas violently beat to death, but only when his father first physically attacked Silas. In the Campus Colony, the reputation Silas had was of the guy who beat his father to death, and the reason he decided to go on this journey with Iris and Hope in the first place is that he wanted a “fresh start.” Tony’s death and Percy’s disappearance complicates things, because — though Silas doesn’t remember it — the most logical explanation is that he killed Tony. He was in the same room; the weapon used was Silas’s wrench; and he’s violently lashed out on a prior occasion, resulting in someone’s death.

Eventually, Silas even accepts that he was behind Tony’s murder himself, and rather than put the rest of the group in further danger, Silas decides to part ways with the group. Elton, who believes either that Silas didn’t kill Tony, or that Silas had good reason to kill Tony, also decides to leave the group and join up with Silas, because he doesn’t want to leave his friend to face the zombie apocalypse alone.

The one person who may have answers is Percy, who disappeared presumably into the river, where it’s believed that he would not have survived the undertow. It’s likely, however, that he survived, and that Silas and Elton will come upon Percy in the season finale and find out the truth.

The truth is probably this: Huck killed Tony.

Why would Huck kill Tony? Therein lies the twist. We learned in the opening episode of The World Beyond that Elizabeth — the lieutenant colonel of the CRM — has a daughter in the CRM. I believed that daughter was probably Isabel, the woman in the helicopter and with whom Althea in Fear the Walking Dead fell in love. I was wrong. Huck is Elizabeth’s daughter, and she’s been working with the CRM the entire time to help Iris and Hope journey to CRM headquarters in New York. When Huck left the group and traveled ahead, she was meeting with her mother at the CRM.

Chances are, Huck saw Tony and Percy as obstacles to that, and probably Silas, as well. Killing Tony removes those three complications, as well as Elton.

There does, however, remain some open questions. Iris and/or Hope is referred to by Elizabeth as the “asset.” Why? What do they want with Iris/Hope? Is she someone that they intend to try the cure on? Is she someone to whom they have already given the cure and want to see if it works? Or is she an “asset” because she is somehow being used as leverage to force their father to do something for CRM that he doesn’t want to do? Also, why is it necessary that they make the journey themselves? Why didn’t Elizabeth simply transport Hope/Iris by helicopter? What is valuable about the journey itself?

Most importantly, does this explain why Huck’s accent is so bad?

In any respect, it looks like Iris and Hope’s group will converge with the CRM in next week’s two-hour season finale.

BTS have been on a roll in 2020. Last week, the band welcomed their record Be, which impressively marked the K-pop group’s third studio release of the year. Continuing to keep up with the momentum, BTS brought their recently released tracks “Life Goes On” and “Dynamite” to the 2020 AMAs stage for a captivating performance.

BTS pulled out all the usual stops for their performance Sunday night. Opening with “Life Goes On,” the group reminded listeners of the importance of perseverance during tough times. But that wasn’t all. BTS then made a quick change to turn things up a notch with an energetic rendition of their hit “Dynamite.” The group wore pastel suits and shimmied around the stage with expertly choreographed dance moves.

Ahead of the group’s AMAs performance, BTS earned a number of accolades in 2020. Not only did the group release a head-turning amount of new music, but BTS also broke a handful of records. In August, the group made Billboard chart history by being the first all-South Korean group to ever top the Hot 100 with their buoyant song “Dynamite.” The song’s video also broke a few YouTube records. Their “Dynamite” video had the most concurrent viewers ever during a premiere and was also the fastest video to reach 10 million views, seeing nearly 100 million views in the first 24 hours alone.

Watch BTS perform “Life Goes On” and “Dynamite” at the 2020 AMAs above.