Previously on Total Bellas: Nikki and Artem had their first fight and looked like they might be on the path to having their first baby.

Was There Anything About Wrestling On This Week’s Episode Of Total Bellas?

There’s a lot of Daniel Bryan in this episode, but the closest thing to a direct reference to his wrestling career is talk about how often he’s away from home.

Swerved

Much more than it was about wrestling, this week’s show was about babies. But it was not about babies in the way last week’s cliffhanger ending led viewers to think! It turns out Nikki isn’t actually pregnant, and Artem, the Total Bellas production crew, and the E! audience see and hear her pee on a stick (in a PG but gross way) in order to find this out. This is not a Best and Worst column, but I’m still going to give the pregnancy test scene a hard Worst.

Nikki not being pregnant raises the question for Nikki-and-Artem of if they both want a kid. Artem does, which the audience learns in this week, but Nikki has apparently known all along. Nikki doesn’t have a straight answer and spends the episode in conflict about her “ticking clock,” which she calls a “clicking tock” after an unknown quantity of wine. I think most women who are in their thirties and either want to have kids or think they might want to have kids experience this panic of like, “Do I need to think about my eggs now? Are they doing okay in there? Also, what about literally all of my other priorities???” and that’s what Nikki goes through here.

She also has a waiter knock about half a glass of red wine all over her at a restaurant and is very chill and nice about it, I will point out! It’s a very non-Diva moment for the former Divas Champion. Nikki goes into the Nice To Service People category now until proven otherwise.

Together Apart

Last week, both of this show’s central couples were ON THE ROCKS, and this week Bryan and Brie are on the rocks again, but actually start to make their way out of the quarry by the end. Brie is still trying to get them to spend more time together as a couple and Bryan thinks the obstacle to that is Brie prioritizing hanging out with Nikki over him (career stuff is in the background for Brie this week.) Since Artem and Nikki are staying at their house, one of Bryan’s examples of this is that he’ll walk into the living room at night and the other three adults in the house will be watching TV and staring at their phones at the same time, “averaging seven-hours-plus of screen time a day.”

Every other time Bryan and Brie have had one of these fights on this season of Total Bellas it has escalated to the point of “Oh, yikes, this marriage is actually not going well at all,” but they make some real progress this week! Brie can’t figure out a date night that works with both of their schedules and generally seems really overwhelmed, so Bryan eventually ditches the argument and makes the save, figuring out a time they could go on a mini-trip and leave Birdie with Kathy.

Previously, these two have hashed out specific problem-causing situations in their marriage, but that never seemed to help their emotional problems. Here, it seems like Bryan finally figures out a way they could actually connect more as romantic partners rather than just pointing out the problems with Brie’s attempting solutions. Sometimes I feel like Bryan gets a less sympathetic edit because his name isn’t in the title of the show, so it was cool to see him work outside the box to make the save this week.

Total Bros

This episode also includes the historic, first-ever Bryan-and-Artem subplot, which is basically the Total Bellas version of that episode of Girls that was called “Boys” and was mainly about Adam and Ray. (I was going to call Alex Karpovsky the Marty Jannetty to Adam Driver’s HBK, but then I googled him, and it seems like he’s doing pretty well these days, actually.)

The Bellas’ fellas’ storyline is that Brie and Nikki want them to bond, but it seems like they have nothing in common. Bryan likes yoga; Artem does not like yoga. When Artem suggests fishing, Bryan explains he isn’t interested because “I just always picture myself as a fish” and then gives a detailed description of what he thinks the experience of a being “fished” as a human would be like. But by the end of the episode, they appear to have formed a sustainable future-brothers-in-law-and-next-door-neighbors relationship through D.I.Y. I feel like we would need significant reality TV machinations to get some drama between these two, which is probably a positive thing for the real-life Danielson-Garcia-Chigvintsev clan.

Celebrity Nail Artist Instagram Of The Week

While the Bellas are getting their hair, makeup, etc., done for a photoshoot, Nikki outlines her pregnancy woes to mother-daughter celebrity nail artists Lisa and Alex Jachno. It turns out Alex’s Instagram is a pretty good source of pictures of nail art and pictures of celebrities in which you wouldn’t really notice their nails unless you saw it posted by a nail artist. That’s a recommendation for something to kill a few minutes of quarantine for you.

Before the league shutdown, Dwight Howard was in the midst of one of the most unexpected redemption stories in recent memory. He’d been bouncing around the NBA for several years, unable to stay healthy, unwilling to adjust his game to his waning athleticism, and he was quickly running out of options.

That’s when the most unlikely of options presented itself: a return to Los Angeles, where he’d alienated himself from the entire fanbase amid arguably the ugliest exit of his career. But, nearly a decade had passed, and the city and the organization proved that they could let bygones be bygones.

And before the season went on hiatus, Howard was proving unequivocally that he could be a contributing member to a title team. Naturally, Howard has been forced to field all sorts of questions about what went wrong the first time around, and that holds true even during the shutdown.

In a recent Instagram Live interview with Jared Dudley, Howard addressed what he believes went wrong back in 2012, confirming what most of us already suspected about the clash of titanic egos.

Howard had teamed up with both Kobe Bryant and an aging Steve Nash in hopes of one final championship run. But with Nash’s ongoing injuries and Howard’s inability to click with Kobe, the season ended in disappointment after a first-round sweep at the hands of the Spurs.

Howard quickly skipped town after that and had become a pariah among Lakers fans. But the chance to team up with LeBron James offered an opportunity — if not to rewrite history — then to correct some of the mistakes of the past. Howard as proving he could be a valuable role player in limited minutes, further endearing himself to a fan base that had previously written him off.

With the league methodically trying to figure out how to resume the season, the Lakers among teams opening their practice facility for voluntary workouts this weekend, although there’s still no clear path for a return. The NBA has said it will make a final decision within the next 2-4 weeks.

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It was all of yesterday WHEN we suggested that Timothée Chalamet should play the Tony Montana role in Luca Guadagnino’s Scarface reboot. Word must have gotten to Dune director Denis Villeneuve (directors love fan-casting), because during an interview with Empire, the Arrival filmmaker compared Timmy to another Al Pacino character.

In Dune, Chalamet plays Paul Atreides, a character previously portrayed by Kyle MacLachlan in David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel. “Paul has been raised in a very strict environment with a lot of training, because he’s the son of a Duke and one day… he’s training to be the Duke,” Villeneuve said. “But as much as he’s been prepared and trained for that role, is it really what he dreams to be? That’s the contradiction of that character. It’s like Michael Corleone in The Godfather – it’s someone that has a tragic fate and he will become something that he was not wishing to become.”

He also wears very casual pants.

Which Pacino character should Chalamet be compared to next? (Himself in Jack and Jill, obviously.) Dune, which also stars Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, and Jason Momoa, opens on December 18.

(Via Empire)

Tame Impala released the highly-anticipated fourth record The Slow Rush in February. But since Tame Impala’s mastermind Kevin Parker has had to shelve touring plans for the time being, the musician is finding creative ways to keep fans entertained for a good cause. Teaming up with the online radio platform NTS, Parker shared a shimmering remix of his album opener, “One More Year.”

Parker’s “One More Year” remix stretches the track into an 18-minute-long trance layered over a pumping beat. The musician remixed the track for charity, sharing it for NTS’ Remote Utopia broadcast. The broadcast features other artists like Jpegmafia, Black Midi, Khruangbin, and more while raising funds for the Global Foodbanking Network.

Just ahead of his The Slow Rush release, Parker spoke with Uproxx about his discography, saying that he expects his fans to have a different reaction to each project:

“I don’t expect people to be on the journey with me the whole way. I expect people to get on the train and get off the next station. It sounds like I don’t care about my fans, but in a way, I’d be slightly disappointed if everyone that liked the first album liked every album after that. It’s one of those things that just has to happen. I think it was Marilyn Manson that said, ‘I don’t make albums for my fans. I make them for a new audience.’”

Listen to Parker’s “One More Year” remix above.

The Slow Rush is out now via Modular. Get it here.

Pro wrestling during a pandemic just doesn’t seem to be going all that well for pretty much anybody. Between the lack of crowds to react in the venue, and missing roster members limiting the booking options, these shows are having a hard time holding the attention of fans, no matter how few their other options are. This week AEW Dynamite once again drew more viewers than NXT, but at the same time it drew the fewest viewers it ever has.

As reported by Showbuzz Daily, Dynamite had an overnight audience of 654,000 viewers, and a rating of 0.23 in the key 18-49 demographic. These numbers aren’t just down from last week’s 732,000 viewership and 0.28 rating, they’re also the worst numbers the show has had since the show debuted last October. The previous low for viewership came on November 27, when 663,000 people watched. The previous low in the demo rating was a 0.25, which they’ve had several times, most recently on April 22.

NXT’s numbers were also down this week. They had 604,000 viewers, compared to 663,000 last week. NXT also had a 0.15 rating in the key demographic, down from last week’s 0.18.

Dynamite fell from the #12 spot to #15 in the Cable Top 150 rankings, while NXT went from #33 to #46, managing to stay in the Top 50 for the second week in a row..

MTV’s Challenge: Total Madness topped the key demo ratings for the night with a 0.49. Hannity on FOX News had the most total viewers of the night with 4.7 million.

It’s worth nothing that this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite was pre-taped, whereas last week’s was live. NXT was pre-taped both times. With no crowd to leak spoilers, it’s not clear what the difference is, but maybe wrestling viewers can just sense the difference somehow.

That Upload season 1 ending. I just want to talk about it so much because it’s such a wild, crushing turn of events that leads into so many, many questions about what comes next for Nora and Nathan on the show. But in a time where the rules of time aren’t quite what they once were, perhaps a couple of weeks isn’t enough to assume that everyone with an interest in a streaming show has seen said streaming show. Especially considering that we’re all drowning a little in streaming options.

Still, Upload is very good, and we wanted to remind you of that and give a little hint, following the season 2 renewal, of where things might go. And so, when we got the chance to talk with series creator Greg Daniels about the upcoming Netflix series, Space Force (more on that closer to the premiere), we also delved into the decision to end Upload season 1 on a cliffhanger (without revealing what happened), the relationship between Nora and Nathan, what actors Andy Allo and Robbie Amell bring to those characters, and some of the rules of the road and ambition going into season 2, which they’re already in the process of writing.

All of this is, for the most part, spoiler-free assuming you have a basic understanding of the show from trailers and such. Though, again, if you have seen the whole season then there will still be value for you as well.

I’m curious because, obviously, Season 1 ends at a point where you can definitely call that a cliffhanger. If you hadn’t gotten to Season 2, would you have been satisfied with where that ended?

When I originally pitched it, I had two seasons worked out in advance. Maybe I was a little overconfident, but I do have a feeling of where we’re going. The amount of closure at the end is something I debated with Amazon, and after we shot it, we pulled back on some of the closing up of things. We’re pretty deep into Season 2 now with the writers, so I guess if they hadn’t picked it up, there would’ve been a good bit of wasted work. I have in my deal, I believe, that if they don’t pick it up, I can finish it as a graphic novel.

Interesting.

Yeah. I’ve been working on this for so long that I was worried about that if I didn’t get a chance to do it, so I somehow retained the rights to put it out as a comic book if it didn’t go forwards.

Is that still something where it could live beyond a Season 2 or go in different directions as a graphic novel or a comic?

Oh, that’s a good idea. I don’t know. I was mostly concerned with it never reaching the light of day at all when I put that in the contract. But with these 10-episode seasons, you generate so many ideas and you just can’t use all of them, so I think that that could be really fun to branch off.

You say you started with two seasons in mind, is that still the case or is there room to expand and go deeper now?

Oh no, I could go further. I could go further. I just had two seasons broken in order to show where I wanted to go.

Does this show end when we see Nora and Nathan together finally, or is there more story to tell when and if that happens?

Well, the romance is part of the show, but there’s also a mystery part, and then there’s, I would say, the sort of a more joyful comedy part, I guess, that’s more like a normal show. So if for some reason there was no more tension in the romance story, I think there would still be some possibilities in the other stories if we wanted to keep going. But I only have a few possible endings floating around; I don’t actually know how this thing ends.

Can you talk a little bit about what Robbie Amell and Andy Allo brought to their characters and just how the show changed from birth to where it is now?

Well, Andy has a tremendous likability to her and she’s just sort of radiant, so there were things where I had it in dialogue and then I changed it so that it was more like the camera’s on her face and we just see her thinking and feeling stuff, which was part of the goal, to be more cinematic with the show anyway. But from the beginning, when she came in to audition, I called an audible on some of the scenes and I made a new moment, which became the first moment that we introduce her in the subway where she’s looking over another subway rider’s shoulder and watching the Adam Sandler movie 50 First Dates and just having this really sincere emotional reaction to the romanticism of it. I was sort of playing it like it’s a classic old Hollywood romance and people in the future looking back on it very wistfully since the future has gotten less romantic.

Anyway, she’s really good at just letting the camera be on her face, so I probably wrote in that direction more for her. Robbie has this… to me, in terms of what makes him funny, I think he has sort of a Cary Grant energy. That’s a bit of an old reference, but he’s very, obviously, attractive, but he’s very composed and he’s very funny, but in a very subtle way. One of the, I think, breakthroughs for the Season 1 writers was that we would watch his comedy reel. He’s done a lot of guest comedy spots on different shows, playing off of Josh Gad and stuff like that, and you could see that he’s got a really good sense of humor, even though his resume leans more into the action area.

Yeah. This was definitely an introduction for me, specifically with him, to see him carry over that charm and really find that comedic rhythm that I didn’t necessarily know that he had. I hadn’t seen Andy in anything, either, so really it was interesting to see them both inhabit these characters. Was that part of the appeal of casting them, that when you see them, you don’t instantly remember them from a big comedy role?

Yeah, I think so. My wife is a TV executive, and she was the original programmer of The WB, among other things. She always says that television makes stars, and I think there’s something very pleasurable as a viewer to come into a show and not know really anything about the actors and just bond with them in their characters that are being presented to you. So yeah, I love doing that. I have had a good experience in finding casts that I really liked and then bringing them to the viewers.

The gray market is something that I thought was really fascinating. Is there room, going forward, to see other offshoots and other areas and alternate afterlives and things along those lines?

Yeah, I think that’s a really fun part of the show. We’re going to explore the (Luddite) world more and the different design and cybersecurity areas of the Horizon company. Yeah, I think that’s super fun to do. It’s expensive, but it’s very fun

Obviously, this is a show that uniquely has the ability to do things like that. Even stuff as simple as the level of detail with the names of companies and certain things buried in the visuals of the show really adds to the charm.

Thanks, that’s something that I always took from The Simpsons — if you’re going to have a mall, you better put jokes on all of the stores. I really like to put comedy in the visuals. I don’t know, for some reason that seems easier to me than… It might’ve been from doing cartoons for so long.

You’re plotting out season 2 now, you’ve got Space Force beginning shortly. How do you juggle the process of both of those shows going almost simultaneously?

Well, it isn’t easy, but it’s easier that it’s not the first season. When I was running The Office, I also launched Parks And Recreation, and there was a season where, with help, I was co-showrunning The Office with Paul Lieberstein and co-showrunning Parks with Mike Schur, and it was Season 2 of Parks and Season 6 of The Office, but the total number of episodes was almost 50 episodes in one year.

That’s insane.

Here, we’re talking like 20 episodes, maybe. The main casting is done and the tone is set. I know I’m going to be working very, very hard, I know that, but I think it’s doable. The hardest part is figuring out how to shoot nowadays. That is, to me, the hardest part. There’s a lot of information going around, some of the production executives are saying you should be on stages more and use more green screens, but then other things I’ve read would suggest the stage is not the best place in terms of circulation of a virus. I don’t know, some aspects of it are a little up in the air.

George Miller is working on a Mad Max Furiosa prequel that won’t star Charlize Theron. This reality, fortunately, didn’t stop the Academy Award-winning actress from recently participating in an oral history from The New York Times about the making of Mad Max: Fury Road. On-set tension surfaced as a topic of discussion, along with the cast’s experiences with the generally harsh conditions of desert shooting, but none of this has quelled Theron’s lingering enthusiasm for the film.

During quarantine, Charlize went into #TBT mode and had a ball on Twitter while posting behind-the-scenes photos that are new to fans. Her commentary is also fantastic. “I’ll never forget the feeling of seeing my war rig for the first time,” she raved. “[A]nd realizing holy sh*t, George is not f*cking around.”

Several other images followed, including talk of the “grueling, intense shoot” that she considers well worth the experience. What a badass character and a badass look.

Some softer moments received representation, too, including a cuddle with Charlize’s child, Jackson, who will one day be able to claim, “I spent most of the first year of my life in a war rig.”

Charlie also paid tribute to most of “my girls” and the legendary George Miller himself.

Max Mad: Fury Road is currently streamable on Amazon Prime.

The best “cheap” bottles of whiskey manage to be versatile yet accessible. What we mean by that is that you can use these expressions as a base for a cocktail or highball or, in a pinch, pour them over some rocks. You can drink them like a shot, too, if that’s your thing. (It might not be the easiest shot you ever take, but nonetheless — shootable.)

Cheap whiskey doesn’t have to be bad is what we’re getting at. Sure, you have the bottom of the bottom shelf bottles — you know, that stuff that comes in big plastic jugs that you can use as a cleaning agent in case you run out of Lemon Pledge. But we’re not there to talk about those. We’re calling out the bottles that come in actual glass but still won’t break the bank.

The ten bottles below are perfectly drinkable examples of whiskey from the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. We’re not saying these are the best whiskeys in the world. Pretty far from it. We’re saying that they’ll get the job done if you’re looking to tie one on and don’t have a lot of scratch to spare.

Heaven Hill Old Style Bourbon

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Heaven Hill Distillery, Bardstown, KY
Average Price: $8

The Whiskey:

Heaven Hill’s brands are going to come up a lot on this list. They’re the Kentucky distillery that’s shed all pretension to bring us solid whiskey at affordable prices with no bullshit. As with this whiskey, there’s little meddling besides classic distilling and aging with the added bonus of charcoal filtration to smooth things out.

Tasting Notes:

There’s the thinness to this sip that works in its favor. There are subtle notes of bourbon vanilla, caramel, and a hint of apple. The vanilla and caramel really carry through with a slight alcohol burn, minor woodiness, and bitterness that leads towards the swift and mild finish.

Old Fitzgerald Prime Bourbon

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Heaven Hill Distillery, Louisville, KY
Average Price: $9

The Whiskey:

Another Heaven Hill entry at a great price. Prime is a simple bourbon that meets the minimum requirements to be called straight bourbon. From there, it’s bottled and sent out without any fuss on the part of the distillery, making it easy-drinking and very affordable.

Tasting Notes:

This is simple bourbon so expect hints of vanilla, caramel, and oak up front. The sip flows towards a Graham cracker bite with a hint of fresh mint before the alcohol edges bring about a quick, warm finish.

Evan Williams Green Label Bourbon

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Heaven Hill Distillery, Bardstown, KY
Average Price: $10

The Whiskey:

Some would argue that Green Label is a step down from the more common Black Label or Bottled-in-Bond versions of Evan Williams. Well, if it is, it’s barely a half-step down. This bottle holds all the value of a dram of Evan Williams at a lower price. You can’t beat that.

Tasting Notes:

There’s mild simplicity at play here — with a nose of alcohol supported by vanilla, caramel, and oak. The sip then edges toward an almost dry coconut flake flavor with a mild fruit essence lingering in the background. The heat, vanilla, and oak kick back in on the finish.

Ancient Age Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, KY (Sazerac Company)
Average Price: $11

The Whiskey:

The name of the whiskey is kind of ironic, given it’s only aged for three years. Otherwise, like most of the bottles on this list, the making of this bourbon follows an “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” model, with a classic mash bill and old school methods throughout.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a deeper sense of the corn on the nose with a clear hint of vanilla and caramel. The sweetness moves into toffee territory as small flourishes of spice kick in. Finally, the sip settles into an oakiness with a nice dose of vanilla and a whisper of citrus.

Black Velvet Reserve Aged 8 Years

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Black Velvet Distillery, Lethbridge, AL (Heaven Hill)
Average Price: $13

The Whiskey:

This is a surprisingly quaffable rye from Canada. The ripple is that the rye and corn mashes are distilled and then blended and distilled again. Then the juice rests for eight years in new oak before bottling.

Tasting Notes:

Clear rye spice mingles with a bottle of fizzy and sweet cream soda. Dark fruits, black pepper, and toffee pop alongside a clear sense of alcohol. The oak comes in late with more vanilla-heavy cream soda that’s cut down by a hint of citrus at the very end.

Henry McKenna Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 40%
Distillery: H. McKenna Distillery, Bardstown, KY (Heaven Hill)
Average Price: $15

The Whiskey:

This brand from Heaven Hill is named after the Irish immigrant who was the first person (on record) to age whiskey in new charred American oak, creating bourbon. This accessible expression is meant to be a “table whiskey” much in the same vein as a table wine — i.e. very drinkable in everyday situations.

Tasting Notes:

Very mild spice, toffee, and vanilla mix initially. There’s a bump of fruitiness that takes a backseat to the classic bourbon notes. The toffee sweetness is cut by a mild oak and spice that leads to a brisk end.

Jim Beam Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Jim Beam Distillery, Clermont, KY (Beam Suntory)
Average Price: $15

The Whiskey:

It’s Jim Beam. It’s classic, easy, and affordable. There’s really not much more to say besides that this is a quality bourbon that has applications from shots to cocktails and everything in between.

Tasting Notes:

A hint of corn is dominated by clear bourbon vanilla and sweet caramel. There’s a clear sense of an apple orchard amongst the vanilla as the caramel edges towards maple syrup. The end is short, sweet, and full of vanilla.

Grant’s Family Reserve

ABV: 40%
Blender/Bottler: William Grant & Sons, Dufftown, UK
Average Price: $16

The Whiskey:

This blended scotch is a nice departure from this bourbon-heavy list. This is a mixing whisky by nature, though you can throw it over some rocks in a pinch. The blend is a mix of a few dozen different whiskies aged in three different types of barrels: New European oak, new American oak, and ex-bourbon barrels.

Tasting Notes:
Wet grains, wisps of smoke, and sense of oak come through up top. The sip has a clear dark spice edge with a note of caramel and straw. A minor bitterness comes into play with a small note of fresh herbs on the short end.

Ezra Brooks Straight Rye Whiskey

ABV: 45%
Distillery: MGP Indiana (Bottled at Lux Row Distillers, Bardstown, KY)
Average Price: $19

The Whiskey:

This new(ish) rye from Ezra Brooks is one of the more affordable ryes on the market. The mash bill leans heavily into the spicy grain with 95 percent being comprised of rye (the rest is malted barley).

Tasting Notes:

The rye is there but this one feels more like a spicy bourbon with a clear sense of vanilla and caramel next to oak. That vanilla and oak carry a mild peppery spice towards a medium-long end with a very distant echo of smoke.

George Dickel Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey #8

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Cascade Hollow Distillery, Tullahoma, TN (Diageo)
Average Price: $19.99

The Whiskey:

This Tennessee sour mash has a mash bill of 84 percent corn, supported by equal parts rye and barley (8% of each). The juice is mellowed over sugar maple charcoal and then aged in both medium and heavy charred barrels before being blended into the final bottle.

Tasting Notes:

Vanilla and pepper mingle with oak upfront. The sip has a refreshing balance of Christmas spices and pound cake mixed with a slight sense of corn, fruit, and wood. The finish offers a dialed-in sense of each element that slowly fades from your senses.

Hip-hop is moving as fast as ever. Luckily, we’re doing the work to have the best new rap music in one place for you. This week, there were new visuals from Migos, Lil Tjay, Fivio Foreign and Pop Smoke, Earthgang, Mozzy, G-Herbo and Polo G, as well as RMR, Future and Lil Baby. There were also new songs from Future, IDK, Rico Nasty, Yungmanny, and more. Here’s the rest of the best new rap music this week:

Apollo Brown & Che`Noir — “Hustle Don’t Give” Ft. Black Thought

Black Thought and Che Noir deliver reflective, resilient verses over soulful Apollo Brown chops on “Hustle Don’t Give.” Noir affirms, “Every inch to the stage, I put my pen to this page.” while Black Thought bemoans the plight of kids who “don’t stand for sh*t, not even the court bailiff.”

Drakeo The Ruler — “Bleed It” Freestyle

LA’s Drakeo The Ruler is making sure the movement doesn’t stop, even if he’s incarcerated. This week he released a freestyle of Blueface’s “Bleed It,” seemingly delivering his verse over the phone and feeding fans who support and advocate for him.

AZ — “Found My Niche”

Rap legend AZ is set to revisit a classic this summer when he drops his Doe Or Die 2 project. He gave his cult fanbase a reminder that his lyricism is still impeccable on “Found My Niche,” where he delves into a poignant tale of the relentless cycle of the drug trade in inner cities.

Teejayx6 — “How Teejayx6 & Kasher Quon Got Arrested”

On Detroit’s Teejayx6 latest track, he uses an awkward delivery to tell a story about him and his right hand man Kasher Quon crossing paths with the law.

Smokepurpp — “Off My Chest” Feat. Lil Pump

One of rap’s youngest dynamic duos linked up again on “Off My Chest,” a track that utilizes chimes as the basis for a banger that harkens to the glory days of their “SoundCloud Rap” come up.

Lil Skies — “Riot”

Lil Skies gets flossy on “Riot,” a CashmoneyAP-drafted trap burner which was paired with a video featuring the young Pennslyvania rapper and his friends turning up like everyone wishes they could these days.

Lloyd Banks — “Painted Houses” Feat. Vado

In the same month that 50 Cent called out Lloyd Banks’ work ethic in his latest book, the PLK has released his third song in as many weeks. “Painted Houses” shows “Banks Sinatra” and Vado talking filthy over a sinister beat that Griselda previously killed during their “Fire In The Booth” freestyle.

Kelow Latesha — “Hibiscus” Freestyle

Kelow Latesha is the latest artist from a buzzing PG County, Maryland rap scene. Last month she released the deluxe edition of her TSA album, and she’s already feeding her fans more. On her “Hibiscus” freestyle, she tears through an 808-based beat with clever lines like, “I’m carrying these n****s, I hurt my meniscus.”

Deante Hitchcock — Better

The Atlanta rap scene is so muddled that some of its gems go overlooked. Count Deante Hitchcock in that category, but that should change after more people experience his debut Better album. The 10-track debut features a who’s who of young Atlanta such as JID, 6LACK, Young Nudy. But even with the star-studded tracklist, Hitchcock makes his presence felt on the project, especially on the reflective “Remember.”

Kenny Mason — “Firestarter”

Kenny Mason talks his talk on his “Firestarter” freestyle, declaring “science, art, and pain, every field I play in I demolish,” over a neck-snapping, piano-based instrumental. The single is from his oxymoronic Angelic Hoodrat album.

Drixxie — I Found Heaven In My Hell

Philly artist Drixxie released his I Found Heaven In My Hell EP. The 11-track project showcases the genre-bending artist’s easygoing delivery, melodic flows and pensive lyrics over a smooth soundscape that ranges from the earnest infatuation of “Is It?” to “Sunny,” where he pleads “may all of my days be sunny.”

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