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Of all the characters on FXX’s breakout hip-hop comedy Dave, the heart and soul of the show is arguably the fast-talking, indefatigable GaTa. GaTa is show creator Dave Burd’s — aka Lil Dicky — hype man both on the show and in real life after a chance meeting at the studio leads to an off-kilter kinship that often casts GaTa as Dave’s externalized, irrational confidence. While Dave believes he’s destined for rap greatness, GaTa functions as both his mirror and his mouthpiece, broadcasting the type of stereotypical hip-hop boastfulness that seems silly coming from the awkward, neurotic Dave. And when Dave himself falters, it’s GaTa who blasts him back to reality or finds a way to “gander” and “wiggle” the group into position to win.

GaTa is a naturally charismatic motormouth both on the show and in real life, but in the show’s fifth episode, we find out that his gift of gab comes with a price: There are times he’s liable to “ramp up,” going into full-blown manic episodes that need to be regulated with medication. He tearfully reveals this information to Dave’s merry band of misfits, finally feeling that he’s found a home, with a team of forgiving weirdos who understand and accept him. The moment was a breakthrough, both for the show’s GaTa, the real-life GaTa, and for the show’s audience, who realized that Dave wasn’t just funny; it could get tender, with genuine human moments that showed the heart behind the laughs.

Uproxx found out just how charming GaTa really is by phone, as we discussed the importance of Episode 5’s revelation, the acceptance the show has found from people who never expected to be Lil Dicky fans, and the lessons GaTa’s learned behind-the-scenes of the rap game after making the shift from artist to hype man and back again.

The natural starting point feels like Episode 5: “Hype Man.” It was an important episode to me personally because I have bipolar people in my family. What was the process of shooting that episode and what has the reaction been?

First and foremost, man, I want to say I’m glad that my story touched you and connected with you. I really appreciate that. As far as the process goes, I had to sit down with Dicky because it’s his TV show, it’s based around him. And he came to me with the idea like, “Yo, I want to share your story.” At first, I was against it because I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to put it out there because there’s such a heavy stigma around bipolar and mental disorders, especially in the Black community. It’s nothing that we really speak on, on a day-to-day basis. But just having the support system that I had, my manager, Mike Hertz, and Dicky, my mom, and my sister, they were behind me and they were very supportive. And they also let me know that I would be helping people. So that’s what ended up making share my story and the process.

What’s the reaction to the show itself been like? Because a lot of people, I think took a minute to sidle into it and figure out what was going on. And then once they saw it, almost universally the thing that I see people saying is, “Oh, GaTa, GaTa, GaTa, GaTa.” Like, “GaTa makes this show.” So what have been some of the positive reactions that you had to the show and do they surprise you in any kind of way?

Yes. Most definitely. The reaction has been crazy. It’s been phenomenal. And the first like couple of days out there so far — it was overwhelming. I didn’t know that I was going to touch that many people. I’m still getting messages, and DM’s, and emails to this day like, “Oh man, episode five changed my life. I’m bipolar, my mom bipolar.” Or they got whatever mental challenges they face. It touched a lot of people. As far as the reaction: My fan base is growing, a lot of media outlets reached out to me, and a lot of people been writing a lot of positive things. But the most positive thing that I got out of this besides the fame and besides the success and the kudos and all that, is just touching people.

What was the backpack salmon thing about?

They just tied it into real life. I’m always known for trying to be over-the-top and exotic. And I always try to just be myself and try different things. That’s why I pulled the salmon out my backpack because I’m a heavy seafood lover.

How do you not laugh at Dicky? Because he’s funny. He’ll say something and I’ll be like, “Man, now how does he get away with doing this stuff with a straight face?”

Oh, yeah. He was born to do this man. He’s just a natural as far as comedy, he’s always cracking jokes out. I’ll be around him a lot. So I know how to hold my composure. Because you got to think about it, I just been in places where he doing interviews live on the radio station and he just say the funniest thing ever and I can’t even laugh because it’s recorded live on air. So it’s like, I know how to hold my composure. But he a real funny dude.

There’s going to be a scene I’m excited for from the promos where he’s going to show how good he is at basketball. He’s a great basketball player. I see him all the time at the celebrity basketball games in LA. I’ve never seen you play. So I just want to know whose game is nicer, yours or Dicky’s?

I’m going to be honest, all the way 1000. He’s better than me, period, in basketball. It’s not even about being athletic, me being athletic or whatever, me being tall. He just really got game. He just knows the fundamentals of basketball. He’s a great shooter, he got speed, he can go any side. He a good player.

He’s a shooter.

He’s a shooter. Absolutely.

So in doing all of this, I think it’s exposed some people to GaTa from back in the day, back when you were doing joints with Tyga like “Exquisite” or “Blow Up Big.” I would really love to know how did you define “making it” back then, how do you define it now, and do you feel like you’ve made it by either of those criteria?

“Making it” back then was knowing how to market yourself and know how to make money off yourself. So back then, I figured out how to do that. That’s how I was able to collaborate with Tyga, whoever I worked with back in the day. I knew I would position myself and keep myself hot. As far as making music and making money, I’ve considered I made it back then. But once you make it and you get to a certain level, you want to keep striving for more. So once I tasted a certain level, I wanted to just keep going up. And now I consider myself making it because I’ve done something that I’d never thought I would be able to do, which is acting and being on a television show and leading like a main cast in a supporting role.

So, I consider myself making it because I took a step outside the box. I was known for music, I was known for traveling the world, rocking stages, being a hype man. Now I’m a supporting actor in a show. So I consider myself making it on both levels, back then and now. Because I took a break too for a while. After the music died down, I had to find myself, I had to reinvent myself. I had to keep recording music, I had to go through stuff: A lot of challenges, a lot of family issues. And then I met up with Dicky and I reinvented myself, my train of thought. I’ve developed more patience as an artist, as a businessman. And if you asked me today, am I making it now, I’m going to say yes. I made it back then and I made it now. I just made it bigger on another level like I wanted to do.

Absolutely. You know that’s crazy, is we actually just published an article on UPROXX about how Dave and Atlanta are pretty much the only two shows I’ve seen ever in my entire life that give a semi-accurate representation of what trying to get in the music business is actually like. I really wanted to just see how accurate was the scene where you and Dicky meet at the studio?

It was pretty similar but not to the T, because it is television. But I definitely did meet up with Lil Dicky at a studio. I definitely did listen to his music. We got to vibe out. But it wasn’t exactly how I met him. But I think they did a great job on giving you the perception of how it is being in the music industry, when it comes to collaborating with other artists, and reaching out to other artists, and going through somebody else’s homeboy’s auntie’s mama’s cousin who you think number you got. They did a great job because that type of stuff go down in the music industry. Like a text message can change your life, or you bumping elbows at a club just because your homie gave somebody $40 just to gander to get in. That’s how the industry is. They did a great job just by showing you that. And I appreciate Dicky even showing people this much game. It’s real.

Dave airs Wednesdays at 10pm on FXX. Watch it here.

Previously on Total Bellas: The twins took a trip to Mexico and their dad took a turn for the sleazy when he referred to them and their stepmom as triplets.

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

Yes! Daniel Bryan returned and his WWE schedule is a part of the subplot about Brie’s car getting stolen from their driveway while he isn’t there.

It looks like Brie and Bryan will address their marriage issues more seriously again next week, but here they just buy a huge amount of security equipment because Brie’s freaked out about being home alone with a small child. She also says that Bryan being on the road so much makes her feel like a single parent sometimes, which could seem like an exaggeration for the cameras, but is how the kids of multiple wrestlers have described how they grew up, even if they have a good relationship with their wrestler parent now. That note might make it seem like this was another episode that tried to address some serious problems, but don’t worry, this one just focuses on very dumb and fake problems!

Non-Essential Drama

After a weirdly heavy start to the season, this week’s episode of Total Bellas ditches the somewhat concerning family drama for the tried and true reality show staple of manufactured-feeling family drama that makes almost everyone involved look like a maniac.

The first storyline to which we’re introduced is the conflict around the family photo Kathy wants taken for her birthday, which she does not want to include Artem. She wants “something timeless” and for some reason, Nikki and Artem’s relationship doesn’t seem timeless to her! She must not have been convinced by them publicly announcing their couple-hood with a dance video set to this song.

As if this wasn’t enough, Nikki faces further persecution from her family when her brother JJ accuses her of the crime of Aunt Favoritism because she spends more time with Birdie than she does with JJ’s kids. There’s some armchair psychology justification in there that it’s not really about Aunt Favoritism, but about his issues from being the third wheel to a set of twins all his life. This is understandable but doesn’t make this man’s sniping at Nikki seem any less ridiculous. Both JJ and Kathy act like the antagonists of r/relationships posts this week.

The storylines converge at a family photo photoshoot from one of the windier regions of hell. The Garcia-Bella-Laurinaitis-Danielson clan attempts to enact Kathy’s genius plan to take the real photo secretly before Artem gets there, then a fake one with him after he gets there, and then Kathy will just put up the fake one when Artem’s over, I guess. Artem, a man in his late thirties who is by far the most chill person on this show, could not possibly understand she only wants well-established family members in the photo! (He ends up understanding very easily.)

The Bellas are late, it’s too windy to take a good photo, Nikki and JJ yell over each other about her aunt misdemeanors, and when Artem gets there JJ just immediately reveals the scheme to him in an act of revenge. It’s all very stupid, but it’s the type of fun stupid this franchise is built on.

Non-Essential Business Of The Week

This week’s scene settings included a smorgasbord of non-essential businesses and the most exciting one to learn about was MALIBU WINE SAFARIS. Artem, Kathy, and Nikki spend a morning here for their resolution scene, which includes the mother and not-yet-son-in-law bonding over Artem faking out Nikki with a non-proposal. More importantly, this is a place where you get to drink wine and be driven around in an open-air vehicle to look at giraffes and stuff. This is a genius business idea. In an alternate universe, a stupider version of me just might be protesting coronavirus safety restrictions with a sign that says “I need to go on a wine safari!”

Bella Lines Of The Week

This was not a great week for one-liners aside from Brie still calling barbed wire “bob wire,” but there was a very cute scene of Nikki letting Birdie do her makeup and get her like halfway to sad French clown. Say what you will about Nikki, but she does seem like a top-notch Fun Aunt.

John Laurinaitis Compliment Of The Week

This time around, the compliment is from me. Props to Johnny Ace for just showing up for the family photo disaster scene in a magenta shirt that matched his wife’s pants and not participating in any drama! Although John Laurinaitis’s voice (he is truly America’s Honma in that regard) would have elevated that scene even further, so I hope he gets more involved in dumb stuff on this show in the future.

Tiger King was the most-watched title on Netflix (and therefore, probably the most-watched title of any series in the country) for a record 25 days. The story of Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, and a bunch of very large cats was not only an intriguing one, it also came out at the right time, which is to say, a very bad time for going outdoors. But Ricky Gervais, who has his own Netflix show, thinks there’s another reason you can’t go two conversations without someone asking, “Oh my gosh, have you watched Tiger King?”

While discussing the “surreal” world we live in, where “being odd is what’s normal” and not every doctor looks like George Clooney, Gervais told Deadline that “everyone in that is madder than the last. You may not meet those people, but they’re out there. There are millions of them.” The After Life creator used Tiger King as an example.

“The thing about that is, when the first person says, ‘Can I keep a tiger?’ The answer should have been, ‘No, of course you can’t, that’s mental. It’s 500 pounds and it eats people, of course you can’t keep a f*cking tiger.’ So how on Earth did they get to there being more captive tigers in America than in the wild? That’s how many people there are that are like that…”

In other words, the world is full of oddballs, and we (so says Gervais) are fascinated by them, especially though the distance of a Netflix docuseries. He’s right. The only zookeeper I want to meet in real life is Kevin James, thank you very much.

(Via Deadline)

Popularity is a fickle thing, both in real life and online. When it comes to viral clips online, sometimes things are instantly clear they will be big, while others build slowly. Things happen all the time that go unnoticed, only to be unearthed much later by the masses. Further still there are little secrets known by a small group that get stumbled upon and reintroduced for a wider audience to embrace in a new way.

Apparently that last part is happening to old Jeopardy! clips right now, as two notable viral moments from the show’s recent past have gotten new shine as life in quarantine continues. Viral moments of smart people failure are nothing new, but seeing old clips of said moments pop up much later is a fascinating revisitation of game show history. The first came on Thursday, in which a moment of contestant interaction between Alex Trebek and Susan Cole went viral once again.

In the clip, Cole’s nerdcore hip-hop gets roasted by Trebek as for “losers,” and the new tweet alludes to Trebek’s battle with Stage IV cancer as a reason he simply doesn’t care about hurting others’ feelings. The clip is taken a bit out of context, as the actual interaction doesn’t end as abruptly and Trebek generally isn’t nearly as cold-hearted as he appears here. But the moment from the Oct. 12, 2016 episode has lived on far longer than Cole’s win on the night and the $67,800 she won over three games.

Its reappearance on Thursday seems to have sparked a resurgence of Jeopardy!-related moments hitting the timeline once more. We already know new episodes of the show are running thin, and reruns featuring Ken Jennings (which I certainly lobbied for) are on the way. But on Friday, in the middle of the dang NFL Draft, ESPN’s SportsCenter Twitter account tweeted a two-year-old video clip of contestants missing an entire Jeopardy! category on football.

The moment is fairly infamous in the Jeopardy! world, which is why for some this feels quite old. In fact, the moment actually inspired a new Jeopardy! football category, one that Trebek wrote and actually included drawings he did of signals officials make during games.

None of this is as old as the clip that circulated on Thursday, which happened in 2016 and seems to pop up online every few months or so. But it does show that people are extremely bored these days, and any sort of joy or comedy, no matter how dated, is worth another watch or two these days.

“Quarantine Kit” features interviews with our favorite actors, musicians, chefs, athletes, and artists about their personal methods for killing time, staying fit, and keeping social distance during isolation.

Matt Healy is lead singer and guitarist for the Grammy-nominated rock act Trivium. The band recently released their highly-anticipated album What The Dead Men Say, produced by Josh Wilbur, and planned on a massive North American tour this summer, now postponed. Despite Heafy’s comfort performing in-front of thousands of fans, he also enjoys the slow pace of life quarantine demands. We caught up with him over the phone from his home in Florida this week to chat about how he’s been spending time.

“Being on the road as often as I am I have gotten used to building my own schedule,” says Heafy. “The typical rock musician workday is 90 minutes tops, so there is a lot of dead time, which is why a lot of guys get into bad habits. On the other side, if you are smart and regimented, you can make your day into anything you want.”

STAYING TONED: Standing Pull-Up Bar (check online here)

So usually when I am not confined in my house, I do jiu-jitsu four times a week, yoga two times a week, and then weights about twice a week. I remember one day I was flying back from Europe and I saw Creed during the trip. I saw the kind of shape that Michael B. Jordan got into and was inspired to hit the gym even more. I started thinking about what I was never really that good at. I was never too big on pull-ups, so I bought a standing pull-up bar and make sure that I do sets of ten all day.

The circuit that I usually do is ten pull-ups, ten push-ups, ten kettlebell deadlifts, ten squats, ten calf raises, ten superman, and ten leg lifts. I also do Ashtanga yoga, the bottom series on Tuesday and the top series on Thursday. I do a lot with my wife as well, who has been trying to get back into training after having the kids.

STAYING ENTERTAINED: Chernobyl (watch on HBO here)

In the past, my wife and I really tried to watch only happy television shows and movies, but since the world has changed the way it has, we have since shifted our tune to watching programs like Tiger King and Chernobyl. Before we had been flying through shows like 30 Rock and Parks & Rec. Those shows are great because they allow you to truly disconnect and shut off your brain fully. But we are also liking the darker shows now because they allow us to put things into perspective. I mean at least things aren’t that bad.

I think what made it even more intense while watching the first episode of Chernobyl was the fact that it kind of plays like how I feel like this current pandemic is playing out. A bunch of people in power trying to downplay what is really going on. I was watching the last episode and thinking that at least I wasn’t living through them.

STAYING CREATIVE: Twitch

It’s tough that we had to cancel our tour. That is really killing me. But at least we get to communicate with people online for free, and I am still streaming on my Twitch pretty much every day. I am usually doing a lot of Trivium play-throughs for the fans and then I will also do covers that come in as requests. I even have played through some of the albums, as a way to make up some of the dates that we canceled. I am a high anxiety person, but it is calmed by knowing that I have a lot to do. That is why I like holding myself accountable for a schedule.

STAYING PLUGGED IN: Overwatch

Overwatch is my favorite game right now. That was the first one that I started streaming, I jumped into Fortnite for a little bit, but I found that the skill gap just became too much. There are 12-year-olds who are just gaming all day that are better than the pros. So Overwatch is still my go-to, and I’m better at it than anything else too. I really enjoy the Battle Royales. And this one I can play after taking a break, and still manage to stay competitive. I play games towards the end of the day, once I am done with playing songs for the fans. I usually end up playing with people from the channel, set up some 6×6 matches, and get going.

STAYING HEALTHY: Peloton

I recently got a Peloton, and to be able to bike on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is really great. I think for those people who are able to manage their schedules, figuring out what you can do from home is really helpful, and can be applied once we all move past the quarantine life.

Check out Trivium’s new album “What The Dead Men Say” here.

Ever since the release of Kehlani’s debut album SweetSexySavage in 2017, anticipation has been high for a follow-up. However, the Bay Area singer chose to complete her next project at her own pace rather than rush out something just to capitalize on her buzz. While she did share the While We Wait EP in 2019, she also stayed relatively low-key — aside from a handful of singles including “All Me,” “Toxic,” and “Everybody’s Business” — as she worked on her upcoming full-length. Today, though, she revealed just how far along the new album is: It’s done, and it’s coming out in just two weeks.

The singer revealed the album’s title, release date, and cheeky cover artwork all at once on her social channels. It’s called It Was Good Until It Wasn’t and it drops Friday, May 8. The cover art features an unconventional shot of the artist standing on an overturned wicker chair and leaning over a brick wall away from the viewer while holding trickling water hose. It gives the impression that she’s spying on her neighbor’s yard while neglecting her own lawn-watering duties, which may be a hint of the album’s content — or just a clever, oblique reference to current events, since we’re all basically stuck in our houses right now.

Either way, we’ll find out when It Was Good Until It Wasn’t hits DSPs 5/8 courtesy of Atlantic Records.

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

Jessie Reyez released her long-awaited debut album Before Love Came To Kill Us earlier this year. Before its release, the singer had spent the months prior teasing the album with a handful of singles and accompanying videos. Rather than releasing videos with intricate choreography like some of her pop star counterparts, each one of her visuals tells a story. On Friday, the singer released her harrowing “Same Side” video, and it details a dark narrative.

The visual opens with Reyez sitting alone in a room and attempting to calm herself before she loads several bullets into a gun. The singer sets up camp inside a junkyard and waits, gun in lap, for a car to arrive. Eventually, a white van pulls up and her victim is thrown out onto the ground. Pointing her gun at her victim, who is actually her ex-lover, Reyez tries to muster up the courage to pull the trigger. But, her plan doesn’t go quite as expected.

While the video seems like it doesn’t end well for Reyez, the distressing visual is actually the prequel to her 2019-released visual “Crazy.” The previously-released visual opens seconds after the ending plot twist in “Same Side.”

Ahead of the visual’s release, Reyez said in a statement that she felt uneasy releasing an album during a global pandemic: “It messed me up because I was like ‘I don’t want to seem insensitive,’” she said. “I’ve grown up thinking about death as something that could easily happen tomorrow. But I know that for everybody else, there’s a lot of fear right now. I’m conflicted. But I’ve decided I’m putting it out because indecision never did anything for nobody.”

Watch Reyez’s “Same Side” video above.

Before Love Came To Kill Us is out now via Island. Get it here.

Before his untimely death earlier this year, Brooklyn drill rapper Pop Smoke had become a highly-sought feature for rappers who wanted to get in on the ground floor of his seemingly inevitable rise to stardom. Fortunately, he was able to collaborate with at least a few of them before he passed, including Atlanta trap rap favorite Gunna, whose new album Wunna has been in the pipeline for a 2020 release for a while.

During a recent livestream on Instagram with his fans, Gunna decided to preview a few songs from Wunna, including his collaboration with Pop Smoke. Unfortunately for fans, he cuts the song off before revealing too much of the track, but it finds Pop crooning on the chorus, an atypical sound for the usually gruff 20-year-old. Take a listen below.

Gunna himself has become an in-demand guest for much of the rap game as well. Within the last few months, he’s appeared on tracks with Young Thug (“Quarantine Clean“), Nav (“Turks” with Travis Scott), and Lil Uzi Vert on the feature-filled Luv Vs. The World 2. He also dipped his toe into the drill sound with former Pop Smoke rival Casanova on the latter’s “So Drippy” before kicking off his own album’s promo campaign with “Skybox.”

Watch Gunna preview his collaboration with Pop Smoke above.

When Florida declared pro wrestling an essential business, whether that had anything to do with Linda McMahon’s promise to pump money into the economy there or not, it meant that companies besides WWE would be able to go back to work there. Now it looks like AEW is planning to take advantage of that opportunity.

Dave Meltzer at the Wrestling Observer reports that on May 6, All Elite Wrestling plans to resume shows at Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida. There will be no crowds, obviously, but according to Sean Ross Stapp at Fightful.com, AEW has confirmed that the plan is to do the shows live.

The AEW roster, including World Champion Jon Moxley, has been sheltering at home since The first week of April, when they pretaped a whole bunch of episodes at QT Marshall’s gym in Norcross, GA. At the time, the word was that those pre-recorded episodes would get them all the way to Double Or Nothing on May 23. As for that show, it doesn’t currently have an announced venue, even though AEW says it will still run as a PPV despite the originally planned venue cancelling.

Now it sounds like they’ll have new live episodes on TV in time for an updated build to whatever Double Or Nothing is going to be. According to Meltzer, some members of the AEW roster are already in quarantine in anticipation of the new shows, including those from California and New York who weren’t brought in for the previous tapings. That means we might see SCU, the Young Bucks, Private Party, and Kris Statlander, among others, for the first time in a while.