After tossing out the possibility in a recent music video that he will not participate in the NBA Dunk Contest ever again, Orlando Magic forward Aaron Gordon confirmed his stance to Stephen A. Smith on First Take.
Gordon said the dunk contest requires so much planning and practice that it actually takes away from his ability to fully focus on the stretch run of the NBA season, and after two near-losses, he’s ready to put it in the past.
Instead, the down time during the NBA’s hiatus has helped Gordon focus on how important it is to him to make it back to the postseason.
“(The 2019 first-round series against Toronto) was the most exciting basketball I’ve ever played,” Gordon said. “That’s the focus, to be in the big games and to win for Orlando.”
Gordon has long been seen as a hinge piece of Orlando’s core, but has fluctuated between roles and playing styles in a way that has made it hard to pin down what exactly he is as an NBA player. The Magic haven’t helped by drafting big man after big man, forcing Gordon to play small forward rather than the 4 or 5 spot, which would give him more consistent physical advantages.
Asked what needed to happen to make his playoff performances stand out more than his Dunk Contest performances, Gordon said he needed to play with more discipline and be more consistent.
Should the NBA season resume, the Magic would enter the playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference.
With the 30th anniversary coming up in September, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air cast reunited on Will Smith’s Snapchat show, Will From Home. In (virtual) attendance was Smith (he’s the titular Will, and he’s at home… it’s a complex premise), Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton Banks), DJ Jazzy Jeff (Jazz), Tatyana Ali (Ashley Banks), Karyn Parsons (Hilary Banks), Daphne Maxwell Reid (Aunt Vivian), and Joseph Marcell (Geoffrey). The great James Avery passed away in 2013, but the reunion will include a tribute to Uncle Phil.
In the clip below, Smith teases Ribeiro for coming up with his character’s name:
“The reason that my character’s name is Will Smith is because of you, do you remember that? It was such a deep insight that you had. You said, ‘Because people are going to call you that for the rest of your life!’”
Sadly, calling Will Smith “Willenium Smith” did not catch on.
Smith also asked his co-stars how they felt about being recognized by The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air fans, with DJ Jazzy Jeff admitting that he was annoyed when people would ask him to do his and Will’s handshake. “You would see in people’s eyes when they were about to sneak the handshake and I would just grab their hand and hold it,” he said.
The Will From Home finale is airing in two parts: part one is out now (and available here), while part two will premiere on Thursday, April 30, at 6 a.m. EST.
It’s hard to promote an album these days with the world being how it is at the moment. Still, Selena Gomez has found a way: Today, she has shared a new version of her recent “Boyfriend” video, except it has been carefully re-created with dolls instead of people.
Gomez herself didn’t actually sit down, meticulously reposition dolls and other props, and make this video frame by frame, though. Instead, she turned to somebody with more experience in that arena: a Instagrammer/YouTuber who goes by “Selena Gomez Doll.” Good news for folks who like this “Boyfriend” video: over the past few years, Gomez Doll has also re-created other Gomez videos in the same fashion.
The person behind the Gomez Doll account was certainly thrilled when they discovered that the real Gomez followed them on Instagram, writing last month, “I cannot believe that Selena actually followed me!! i woke up and saw a message that said selena followed me and i was so confused.. i can’t believe it was actually true!!! i can’t believe my idol actually followed me!! i’m still shaking, this was so unexpected!! i’ve been a hardcore selenator since 2012 and i’ve been making stop motions on youtube and pictures on this account for almost 6 years, never did i think that selena would actually follow me!! i’m so happy right now ahhhhhhhhhh!!! this honestly feels like a dream come true!!”
Watch the “Boyfriend” video above, and check out some other re-made videos from Selena Gomez Doll below.
Hulu is on a roll with it’s animation offerings. After dropping a trailer for Solar Opposites, the latest animated series from Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland, Hulu is back with a peak at its latest original: Crossing Swords.
In case you couldn’t tell from the stop-motion aesthetic, Crossing Swords is the newest brain-child from Robot Chicken creators John Harvatine IV and Tom Root that focuses on a young man’s journey to become a knight in a noticeably raunchy medieval kingdom. Whether the show is a deliberate riff on Game of Thrones isn’t known, but it definitely has that flavor to it with its horny, power mad queen, dragons, and a whole bunch of gratuitous violence and nudity.
From the synopsis:
Crossing Swords stars Nicholas Hoult as Patrick, a good hearted peasant who lands a coveted squire position at the royal castle. However, his dream job quickly turns into a nightmare when he learns his beloved kingdom is run by a hornet’s nest of horny monarchs, crooks and charlatans. Even worse, Patrick’s valor made him the black sheep in his family, and now his criminal siblings have returned to make his life hell. War, murder, full frontal nudity—who knew brightly colored peg people led such exciting lives?
In addition to Hoult, the stop-motion comedy series boasts an impressive voice cast that includes Tony Hale, Luke Evans, Adam Pally, Seth Green, Tara Strong, Yvette-Nicole Brown, Wendi McClendon-Covey, Maya Erskine, Breckin Meyer, and more.
A full season of Crossing Swords will be available for streaming on June 12.
American single malt whiskey might be the next big thing to hit the American whiskey scene. Whereas bourbons and ryes have mash bills (grain recipes) with two, three, and sometimes four or more grains and cereals, American single malt has only one grain. Malted barley is the star of the show.
There’s little to no place to hide when you only have one grain to work with. That means American single malts — like Scotch or Japanese single malts — have a certain clarity of focus by design. It also means that we’re dealing with a very different flavor profile than your average bourbon or rye, since there’s no corn, wheat, or rye at play. To create distinct expressions, American single malt distillers often experiment with aging and barrel types, evident when you compare their bottles to common bourbons and ryes, which both have fairly strict aging rules.
The ten whiskeys below will introduce you to American single malts in a major way. These are the bottles that’ll help you elevate your whiskey game and expand your palate. You can also get any of these bottles delivered right now, just in time for another weekend in quarantine.
Virginia Distillery Port Cask Finished Virginia-Highland Whisky
ABV: 46% Distillery: Virginia Distillery, Lovingston, VA Average Price:$36.97
The Whisky:
Okay, we’re already cheating a little with this choice. While this is made from 100 percent malted barley, it’s made from a Scotch single malt and a Virginia single malt. This is technically a blend of two single malts to create one whiskey that’s then finished off in port casks from a port winery in Virginia.
Tasting Notes:
Apple orchards, ripe figs, and fresh honey lead the way here. Sweet and crisp apples play next to dark chocolate cut with powdery cinnamon and clove as hints of oak and smoke linger in the background. An almost rummy sense of brown sugar peeks in late as the warmth, oak, and figgy nature of the sip fades slowly away.
Kings County Distillery Single Malt
ABV: 47% Distillery: Kings County Distillery, Brooklyn, NY Average Price:$45.99 (half bottle)
The Whisky:
This is an American single malt made in Brooklyn by way of Scotland. The spirit is made in New York from malts acquired from England and Scotland. Scottish pot stills are employed for the double distillation. Then the hot juice goes into Kings County’s own ex-bourbon barrels for up to four years.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a sense of fruit and dried flowers on a dry edge, cut with honey. That honey carries through and dried orange zest mixes with dried straw and an echo of peaty smoke. The malts shift toward creamy as the honey, earthiness, and light oaky touches take center stage before the dry, slightly medicinal final notes.
Old Line Single Malt American Whiskey
ABV: 43% Distillery: Old Line Distillery, Baltimore, MD Average Price:$51.99
The Whiskey:
This whiskey is a bit of West Coast meets East Coast. The Maryland-made tipple has a base of malted barley grown all the way out Pacific Northwest. The juice is then aged in small-format 10-gallon charred new white oak casks. The smaller casks mean shorter aging times, so this expression only spends two years mellowing.
Tasting Notes:
Those malts come through with a sense of oaky char and plenty of fruit. Honey is present and mixes well with the vanilla. There’s a slight wisp of smoke and a hint of spice on the malty and full finish.
Del Bac Dorado Mesquite Smoked Single Malt Whiskey
ABV: 45% Distillery: Whiskey Del Bac, Tucson, AZ Average Price:$58.23
The Whiskey:
Usually, Scotch single malt uses malted barley made with peat. This small, family-run distillery out in Arizona changes that up by using locally grown mesquite wood to malt their barley. It’s a great way to really imbue a local flavor into single malt. The copper pot distilled juice is then aged in white oak barrels under the Arizona sun.
Tasting Notes:
It should come as no surprise but tobacco smoke is front-and-center with a hint of dark chocolate cut with spicy chili. The smokiness turns those chilis towards chipotle with the chocolate bitterness fading as a burnt sugar note sails in alongside a clear billow of campfire smoke.
All that smoke, spice, and vegetal nature fade slowly like the coals dying down at the end of a spring evening.
Deerhammer American Single Malt Whiskey
ABV: 59.9% Distillery: Deerhammer Distillery, Buena Vista, CO Average Price:$53.99
The Whiskey:
This is a grain-to-glass distillery that takes their whiskey-making very seriously. This expression is made from a mash fermented via open air for days and is then distilled in direct-fire copper pot stills. The juice then goes into charred new white oak and is aged at the base of the Rocky Mountains for at least two years.
Tasting Notes:
Dark, spicy chocolate bars dipped in fresh honey greet you. That bitter chocolate carries on with the spice as a sense of caramel and sweetened coffee come into play. Oak, grassy bales of hay, and rich toffee take hold on the long, warming end.
Copperworks American Single Malt Whiskey
ABV: 52% Distillery: Copperworks Distilling Company, Seattle, WA Average Price:$64.99
The Whiskey:
Seattle’s award-winning waterfront distillery has its roots in craft beer. Co-founder Jason Parker has brewed beer for Seattle craft icons Pike Brewing (he was their head brewer), Fish Brewing, Redhook, and Pyramid. In fact, Copperworks’ entire ethos for making whiskey is based on its craft-beer heritage. It’s a good ethos, as Copperworks is now a multiple award-winning craft distiller.
Tasting Notes:
Bales of hay next to freshly broken honeycombs mingle with notes of sherry plum and a hint of roasted nuts. A dried fruit nature takes over with malts covered in treacle with a whisper of orange Necco Wafers. A sourdough malted bread loaf baked with pecans kicks in late as the sip ends on a warm-yet-sweet final note.
Balcones Texas Single Malt Whisky
ABV: 53% Distillery: Balcones Distillery, Waco, TX Average Price:$69.99
The Whisky:
This Texas whisky does things a little differently. The mash bill is made from 100 percent unpeated barley, giving the mash a very clean line of malts. The juice is then aged in various sized barrels in the Balcones rickhouse, on various floors. Once the right notes are hit, the whisky is then blended and aged in single large-format barrels for a finishing touch.
Tasting Notes:
A fruit bowl brimming with bananas, pears, and peaches mingle with light notes of rose water cut with citrus oils and honey. The sip turns towards a toasted sourdough slice with plenty of butter and a dollop of orange marmalade. That toast fades as the oak rises to the fore — along with burnt sugar, malty earthiness, and a lingering sense of citric acid.
FEW Single Malt Whisky
ABV: 46.5% Distillery: FEW Spritis, Evanston, IL Average Price:$69.99
The Whisky:
FEW also brings their own flourish to the single malt game. They use both smoked and unsmoked barley, using cherry for smoking. This is also a grain-to-glass distilling experience so all the barley is sourced with 100 miles of the distillery.
Tasting Notes:
Marzipan and a wisp of smoke open this one up. There’s a clear sense of grainy malts next to mild notes of spice and fruit with an echo of herbal oils. The oak is more reminiscent of a lumberyard as more hints of fruit with vanilla enter the mix near the sweet-yet-mild finish.
Stranahan’s Sherry Cask Single Malt Whiskey
ABV: 47% Distillery: Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey, Denver, CO Average Price:$80.82
The Whiskey:
This one is all about the finish. Stranahan’s takes their 100 percent malted barley that’s been aged for four years and transfers it to special sherry casks. They source 500-liter (i.e. huge) casks from Andalusia in Spain. They specifically choose casks that have been aging sherry for up to 40 years.
Tasting Notes:
Freshly threshed straw mingles with ripe cherries and tart apples alongside a note of leather. The cherry carries through with nice hits of walnuts, figs, tart red berries, and a honey sweetness that’s cut by a slight salinity. On the palate, the dram hits notes of a creamy and buttery pudding filled with all that fruit, counterpointed by a slash of chili spice on the quick finish.
Westward American Single Malt Stout Cask
ABV: 45% Distillery: Westward Whiskey, Portland, OR Average Price:$95.00
The Whiskey:
Westward starts its distilling process in true Pacific Northwest fashion by using craft beer techniques in the mash to make their base American single malt. After four years of aging, that expression is moved into barrels that have been seasoned with stouts from a long-list of Oregon’s craft brewers. The whiskey spends another year in those barrels, giving the single malt a clear line of brewery-focused whiskey throughout.
Tasting Notes:
Orange zest, Christmas spices, toasted oak, and rich dark chocolate come through upfront. The sip really embraces the dark chocolate notes as burnt sugar sits next to vanilla, dried orange, and slight roasted almond flavor. The dark chocolate hits a bitterness note — balanced by the oak and spices — which carry the vanilla and sweetness to a long and warming finish.
Brooklyn rapper Kota The Friend may seem atypical compared to the average person’s idea of a hip-hop star. For one thing, he says his ultimate goal is to help other artists surpass him — an ostensible no-no in the hypercompetitive world of rap. But Kota didn’t join the game to be on top — instead, he wants only to make music to encourage others to pursue their own dreams, hyping them up all the way and living up to his genial sobriquet.
Kota’s seemingly counterintuitive approach has endeared him to rap fans of all stripes though, as he grew his audience from the low thousands to garnering millions of streams on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube in the few short years that he’s been active. His 2019 full-length Foto was a critical favorite, proving as well that hip-hop still has a niche for low-key personal music in a time where it can feel like everything needs to be supersized just to get noticed.
The amiable rapper followed up his shining moment in 2020 with an EP titled Lyrics To Go, Vol. 1, displaying his lyrical prowess in a series of one-minute, freeform verses. He plans to follow that with another full-length, Everything, dropping on May 8 and featuring appearances from fellow New York breakouts Bas and Joey Badass, as well as Chicago upstart Tobi Lou.
Over the phone with Uproxx, Kota turned out to be as approachable as his name suggests as he broke down the albums features, being vulnerable in his music, and being okay with having “fame, not clout.”
How have you been keeping busy during quarantine? What have you been up to?
Honestly, during this quarantine I’ve been tightening a lot of loose ends that I’ve been letting off because I’ve been working on an album. I’ve been trying to make time for my son and right now, I’m doing pretty much simple stuff — getting my health insurance in order and now that the album is pretty much wrapped up, getting my life together so I can roll out the album the right way and in a very peaceful way.
Right. Adulting is hard when you actually have stuff to do, but then when you have time to slow it down, you can just catch up on all those little things. So, talk to me about this new project, Everything. What have you been working on? What is the difference between this one and Foto?
I wasn’t even going to make an album this year and out of nowhere, I just made a good song. And it always starts like that with me — I make a song that inspires me to keep going in that direction and creating a project. I think the difference between this one and Foto is that this one is just a lot more up tempo. It has a lot more bops than Foto does.
One thing I wanted to focus on with this one is, I wanted to make it just a really feel-good album. I didn’t want one song to be a downer. I wanted every song be uplifting and just really get people hyped and get people in a good mood or feel a really good version of nostalgia. So, I think this one is definitely more positive then Foto and less heavy but still meaningful and it still represents who I am.
The title is Everything, which you said is “less heavy,” but that’s heavy. What inspired the title and what does that mean to you, and what do you think it’ll mean to the average listener?
When I was in college, I was in a little hip-hop trio and I named the first album Anything. I named the second album that we did Everything. So, it’s not only bringing it back because I feel those are just great ideas for names for albums, but Everything is really, “Yo what means everything to you? What does having everything mean to you? What does it mean to have everything?” So, right back to me just making a really positive album, I wanted to make a project that was about manifestation and manifesting the things that you want as an individual and only speaking good things.
Because as an artist, when you’re really speaking your truth, your words are powerful and you bring a lot of stuff that you talk about in the music, it actually comes true and it comes to life. So this album, I’m pretty much talking about all the things that I want, what means everything to me, what’s important to me, and what I put before everything else. We have other people on the album — fans, actors, and artists — just talking about what means everything to them on the interludes.
That’s fire. That makes me do some thinking. How have you manifested this position in hip hop? Because you do occupy a very interesting space. You aren’t a major label artist but at the same time, you really built a following and a movement and people are really checking for you. How did you manifest that and what does that position mean to you?
It means a lot to me because I think one thing that I represent to a lot of people is freedom, to do what you want and to say what you want and just to do what makes you happy. I manifested this by just working hard and keeping my head down and staying on the grind. This is one of the things that means everything to me. I used to write about being where I’m at and traveling the world and touring.
Coming back to the concept of the album, “what means everything to you?” That’s a daunting concept to try and be that vulnerable and that honest. What are some of the challenges that come from trying to express such a complex idea and what are some of its rewards?
Everybody I asked the question to, they’re taken aback by the question. Like you were saying, it’s a heavy question, but I feel, once people get to answering, everybody’s answers are very similar. Once people actually think about it, everybody has a similar answer, which is, “My family or my friends or I want to travel, I want to get to know other cultures and I want to understand people.”
I think that, especially in times like this where there’s rich, poor, middle class, whatever, everybody values similar things. I think it doesn’t really have any challenges when once you think about it for a little bit. But at first, I feel like people are taken aback.
This album also has some interesting guests. You have Bas, Tobi Lou, Joey Badass — those are names that I’m personally a huge fan of. How do you navigate these relationships within hip-hop when you’re doing it on an independent level, as opposed to you have an A&R who can reach out and plug you in? Do you ever run into resistance or is it just a natural process?
It’s a very natural process for me, but there are people that I wanted on the album that may not be able to get on it. Whenever I’m making a project, I want to get people on it that I’m a fan of. It’s not always about getting a big name or anything like that. On my last album, Saba was the only rap feature, period. He was the only one. I did that for a reason: Because he is one of the most talented writers that is rapping right now. So I wanted him because his pen game was just that strong and I wanted him on that track.
But this one, it’s just everybody that I know. It’s people that I know, people that I’ve met, I met Bas in Vegas. Joey, he’s from Brooklyn, so I used to see him on the train. I’m just a big fan of Tobi Lou. I’ve always spoken highly of him and we met over the internet and have gotten cool. I try to keep all my relationships just regular. If somebody can’t do the album, then that’s cool too. It’s all love.
Earlier this year, you dropped a project called Lyrics To Go, which is not only the name of one of my favorite Tribe Called Quest songs, it’s an incredible concept. What led to the recording of Lyrics To Go and why did you feel it was so important to put out something between these two more fleshed-out projects?
I was like, “Yo I want to put out something before I put out the album,” because I wanted to put out a ton of music. That’s all I knew that I wanted to do in this year. I actually used that name to create a video series on YouTube that I would just do for my fans. I would put it on YouTube, I put it on Instagram, and it was just something I did when I had no fans.
I just stood still and I rapped a verse over any beat, over a popular beat or a YouTube beat. I would do a one minute verse and those started going viral and that’s how I gained momentum and that’s how I picked up fans. So a lot of my day-one fans know me for “Lyrics To Go,” the video series that I used to do. All along, people were like, “Yo, you need to put out an album or a project with just Lyrics To Go’s on it.” That was the perfect time in between projects to just drop that for the people.
Do you ever have moments where it just hits you that, “Oh sh*t, I’m famous,” or do you feel you’re not famous yet? If not, then what gauge do you use to determine whether or not you’ve become famous, whether or not you’ve made it?
I look at fame like, “Drake is famous.” I remember, he just said it in one of his new songs, he said, “This is fame, not clout.” For a minute I looked at that and I was like, “Yo, that makes sense. Fame and clout is different.” So I would say I’m popular and people know about me and people like the music, but I do have those moments where I’m like, “Wow, people actually know who I am.”
If I posted a picture and 40,000 people like it, you sit down and think about what 40,000 people actually is. It’s a lot of people and so it’s definitely, I don’t think I ever want to get that much more famous than I am right now. I think at this point I just want to make music and then fade into the background and help other people do what they got to do and get to the point where I’m at and beyond me.
When you drop this album, what is the ideal outcome for you?
Whenever I drop an album, I try hard not to have any expectations. Right now, I just want it to be heard. You never know how people are going to take it. I would hate to go into something thinking that, “Yo, this is a home run,” and then nobody’s fucking with it, so I just go into it like, “Yo, I made this project and I really put my all into it. I put everything I had into making this album. I made so many calls, so many late nights, overnights working on beats, I produced the whole album. I recorded myself the whole time. I tried to get the best engineer, I invested money into it, so much money and just to make sure it’s good.”
At this point, I’m just going to give it to the people and whatever they say is what they say. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I just hope that people listen to it, digest it, and just appreciate that I made an album.
Everything is due May 8.
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