Bandcamp, the site where musicians can independently sell their music, has committed to waiving their fees on the first Friday of each month. The site aims to allow artists the opportunity to better profit from their music and assist those whose livelihoods have been affected by the pandemic. Labeled Bandcamp Friday, artists collectively made a whopping $4.3 million on the first day of the fundraiser. But today’s Bandcamp Friday is specifically aimed at supporting artists who are donating their proceeds to funds and organizations in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

On the first Friday of June, Bandcamp put a spotlight on labels and artists who have committed to donating the money they make from Bandcamp Friday to non-profit organizations. While the website doesn’t feature every single musician who plans on donating revenue from the day to non-profits, Bandcamp has shared an alphabetical list of hundreds of labels, stating the specific organizations they plan on benefitting. Well-known indie labels like Sup Pop, Rough Trade, Sacred Bones, Joyful Noise, and Merge all made the list.

Rough Trade, in particular, is releasing the entire Parquet Courts discography to Bandcamp for the first time. Proceeds earned from Parquet Courts’ music will be donated directly to Black Lives Matter. Polyvinyl has committed to sharing 100 percent of digital revenue with its artists and donating $5 of each physical order to NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Check out Bandcamp’s full list of artists and labels here.

If you’ve been wondering where Jinder Mahal went after declaring his return to Monday Night Raw following 10 months away following knee surgery would be a, “hero’s journey,” we have the answer. Per a post made on Instagram on Friday morning, the Modern Day Maharajah has gone, “under the knife again to fix some knee issues.”

And … well, that’s all we have right now. No word yet on what type of surgery Mahal had or how much time he’ll miss.

As mentioned, Mahal had just returned to action after 10 months away for a previous knee surgery. That injury came way back in June of last year — I can’t remember April right now, much less “June of last year” — when he ruptured his patella tendon in a match with Mustafa Ali in Denver, CO. He defeated Akira Tozawa in short order before declaring that this run would be a hero’s journey, punctuated by reports that he’d been re-positioned as a good guy, counter-intuitive to his normal role of capitalizing on Singh Brothers run-ins and making people boo him for speaking a foreign language.

We hope this surgery was preventive maintenance and not another 10 month vacation, and wish Jinder a speedy recovery. If nothing else, you can’t have a magical 3MB reunion if you don’t do Mahal vs. Drew McIntyre for the WWE Championship first.

Lori Loughlin recently pleaded guilty in an attempt to end her college admissions scandal. In doing so, she (technically) agreed to a few months’ worth of prison time (although, to be realistic, she might not serve time at all due to COVID-19 concerns). Her youngest daughter, Olivia Jade Giannulli, has meanwhile been tiptoeing back onto Instagram, where she addressed the George Floyd protests this week in one of her Instagram stories. In doing so, she delivered a mini-lecture on how people should “use our WHITE PRIVILEGE” to end racism, and it did not go well.

“As a person who was born into privilege based on my skin color & financial situation, i was not always aware that these issues were still so present. And that makes me feel awful. But that also fuels me,” she typed. “I’m not racist and i never have been but i need to speak up about this because just not being racist isn’t enough. It outrages me. It makes me feel sick. It brings me to tears. THERE SHOULD NOT BE SUCH A GAP BETWEEN PEOPLE LIKE THIS. We need to support and stand up and speak and use our WHITE PRIVILEGE TO STOP THIS.”

A backlash ensued on the tone-deaf nature of Giannulli’s argument (which was not only shouty but unwieldy and full of judgment), if you look at the full screenshot below, with plenty of tweets like this one.

Essentially, people were not happy at Giannulli framing her argument as if she had never benefited (including her college entrance) from her own privilege. Us Weekly reports that she has responded by making a donation to the National Bail Out Fund (to bail out protesters) as part of the “BLM Donation Challenge.” She also posted a screenshot of her donation receipt and called upon several acquaintances and her older sister, Bella Rose Giannulli, to do likewise. It’s a small gesture, but an important one, although Olivia Jade will hopefully learn from this misstep. It certainly won’t hurt for her to step back from delivering lectures to do more listening before speaking.

South Central, Los Angeles rapper Drakeo The Ruler — real name Darrell Caldwell — was recently acquitted of murder and attempted murder charges by Compton court, but remains in jail as the district attorney refiled charges of criminal gang conspiracy and shooting from a motor vehicle in August 2019. Despite a hung jury, a retrial has begun, leaving the burgeoning artist’s future in at least a little doubt.

However, Drakeo refused to let that stop him from offering the world more of his poetic insights. Today, he released a new album titled Thank You For Using GTL, named for Global Tel*Link telephone system used by the Men’s Central Jail where he’s currently incarcerated — and on which he recorded the verses for the 18 tracks produced by JoogSZN. It’s his first all-new project since 2017’s Cold Devil and features verses from ALLBLACK, Lil 9, Rio Da Young OG, and JoogSZN himself.

Joog explained how the project came together in a press release. “”I plugged my phone into my computer when Drakeo called, and we recorded all the tracks over a period of 36 hours. His aunt put money on the phone so we could do this album. Some lyrics were off the top, some were written. We planned create a tape before he went to jail and I held onto some of the beats intended for that time. I would preview the beats over the phone, Drakeo would pick which ones match for each song. My set up was super simple. I propped my laptop up on a cereal box, hooked up a Beats Pill directed at the phone so Drakeo could hear the beat as he rapped and I had the phone line recording directly into my landline so I could get the cleanest audio possible.”

In addition to this, Drakeo told Uproxx he got the other inmates to quiet down when he was recorded to allow for minimal background interference on the files. The end result is a fascinating collection of authentic reflections of Drakeo’s experiences and unique worldview and approach to rap. “My message to fans is that I’ll be out soon,” Drakeo said in the press release. “I’m not guilty and I’ll keep putting music out till out I’m out. I’m going to always be myself regardless of the situation I’m in. I’m just going to get better and better… Just because I’m in jail, I’m not gonna lower the bar. I don’t do what everybody else does.”

Thank You For Using GTL is out now. Get it here.

In May of 2015, XXXTentacion released a song called “Riot,” which came out months after the shooting of Michael Brown and the unrest that followed in Ferguson, Missouri. The song hasn’t been available on streaming services for some time now, but this week, in light of current events, XXXTentacion’s estate put the song on Spotify, Apple Music, and other platforms.

On the song, XXXTentacion is critical of the practice of rioting, expressing his belief that rioters often don’t consider the consequences of their actions: “Look in all the stores you wreckin’, n****, I reckon / Think about the people who own it for ’bout a second / I know you got your problems, but brother, they got theirs / This is not a game, quit violence and grow a pair.”

The song is barely over a minute long, but in that time, XXXTentacion gets his point across. The version of the song on streaming services now is actually slightly shorter than the original from 2015. The new version ends with a couple lines from former KKK leader Jeff Berry’s speech during a rally, which was featured in the 1998 documentary The Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History: “We see, I see, death before the children / White guys and white girls hanging from the buildings.” The original song sampled more of the speech.

Listen to “Riot” above.

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Hip-hop is moving as fast as ever. Luckily, we’re doing the work to put the best new rap music in one place for you. This week, there were new tracks by YG, Cupcakke, and Lil B, and a new video from Key Glock. Here’s the rest of the best new rap music this week:

Conway — “Front Lines”

On “Front Lines,” Conway feeds the menacing beat his usual dose of gruff, braggadocious lyrics, but then spends the second half of the song indicting police brutality, proclaiming, “We ain’t takin’ no more, we ain’t just pressin’ record/ Can’t watch you kill my brother you gon’ have to kill us all.”

Dave East — “Menace”

Dave East pays homage to classic West Coast cinema in the video for “Menace,” a brooding track from his Karma 3 album where he reflected, “I was too down, and nobody noticed, I was too young to be at them funerals.”

Apollo Brown & Che Noir — “94”

Che Noir and Apollo Brown’s As God Intended album is dropping this July on Mello Music Group. This week they dropped another single, a reflective ode to 1994 where Che Noir rhymes “Illmatic dropped same day I came in this world,” and pays homage to Nas and the other rappers’ who’ve informed her impressive craft.

Songs of The Moment

The whole world has been affected by the death of George Floyd, including a rap game that has always discussed police brutality. Society’s collective disdain for racial injustice has manifested in a week of tense uprisings and calls of justice for Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and more people who have been murdered by the cops. This week, several artists have released songs that will someday serve as a portrait of this tumultuous moment:

Jim Jones — “The People”

“Everytime we dig our way out, we sinkin’ like a sand trap / We need more than reparations man, why can’t you understand that?”

Dre — “Captured On A iPhone”

“Tell me what you’d die for? / This for the souls that ain’t get captured on the iPhone”

TeejayX6 — “Black Lives Matter”

“How the f*ck my mama gonna sleep at night and the police keep killin’ us? / I can’t even go outside no more, I’d get shot for bein’ innocent”

Icewear Vezzo — “No More Pain”

“Black is Black, rich or poor they treat us all the same / No standin’ still, gotta fight, that’s just part of change”

Nappy Roots — “Blind Faith”

“Life is good if you livin’, everybody should save the children / Every cop should hate the killin’”

Papoose — “Tribute”

Distressingly, Papoose was able to use all 26 letters of the alphabet to rhyme about someone who was slain by the police.

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

Finding a very solid cheap bourbon is pretty easy these days — there are some good values to be scored for under $30. But the truly sippable stuff isn’t found on the bottom shelf. The real sweet spot for quality, bang-for-your-buck, easy-to-drink-straight bourbon is the $30 to $50 range. The various expressions at that pricepoint can shock you with their value, often over-performing far more expensive bottles.

Is it worth buying one bottle of bourbon for $50 when you can buy two for $25? That’s really for you to decide. If you’re mixing cocktails, maybe not. But if you like to sit with a dram and really savor it, the answer is likely “yes.” Especially if some savvy shopping puts you in a position where you’re getting $75 in history, flavor, and distilling expertise.

The ten bottles of bourbon below are some of our favorite bourbons that cost less than $50. They’re easy-drinking, complex, and available for delivery right now.

Buffalo Trace Bourbon

ABV: 45%
Distillery: Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, KY
Average Price: $30

The Whiskey:

Buffalo Trace has a massive line of brands under their shingle. This is their signature bourbon, which has gone fairly unchanged since the distillery opened 200 years ago. Buffalo Trace tends to keep their exact mashbills to themselves, but it’s likely this is their Mash Bill #1, which is high on corn and low on rye (around ten percent).

Tasting Notes:

Classic bourbon vanilla greets you with a flourish of fresh mint and a rum-like molasses darkness. That sugariness gives way to brown sugar and buttery toffee next to hints of oak and dark spice. There’s a modicum of heat on the end as the oak and vanilla linger.

Evan Williams Single Barrel

ABV: 43%
Distillery: Heaven Hill Distillery, Louisville, KY
Average Price: $30

The Whiskey:

Evan Williams’ basic expression is a great go-to cheap bourbon. It tracks that their Single Barrel expression would make an easy-drinking step up from the rail behind the bar. This particular expression is hand-selected from Heaven Hill’s rickhouses to meet the distiller’s high standards and directly bottled with no fuss.

Tasting Notes:

Charred oak comes through strong, next to a dose of deep caramel. Honey and orange mingle with apple and cinnamon spice. There’s a long-lasting warmth at the end (the Kentucky hug!) as the oak, caramel, and orange bitterness fade.

Balcones Texas Pot Still Bourbon Whisky

ABV: 46%
Distillery: Balcones Distillery, Waco, TX
Average Price: $30

The Whiskey:

This well-crafted Texas bourbon is an outlier. This dram is a Texan grain-to-glass experience that focuses in on the texture and flavors that make bourbon so unique, and delicious.

Tasting Notes:

You feel Texas emanating from the glass with whiffs of old leather, apple orchards, earthy honeycomb, salty kettle corn, and plenty of oak. The honey and leather carry through as lines of spicy pecan pie with a buttery crust and sandalwood bounce through the taste. The spicy warmth, leather, and oak last on the senses long after the dram goes down.

High West American Prairie Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 46%
Distillery: High West Distillery, Park City, UT (MGP Indiana)
Average Price: $37

The Whiskey:

This whiskey is a blend of two to 13-year-old bourbons that High West sources, mostly from MGP out in Indiana. The whiskeys have unique mash bills that lean into the corn but have plenty of rye (their MGP juice is 21 percent rye). Sourced or not, the alchemy levels are high and the dram is a very easy sipper.

Tasting Notes:

Mellow notes of caramel meet vanilla on the front end. The sip is full of crackling sweet corn with notes of butter mingling with candy corn sweetness and a hint of milk chocolate. The vanilla carries through to the end with an echo of fairground candied apples dusted in spice.

Eagle Rare 10-Year Bourbon

ABV: 45%
Distillery: Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, KY
Average Price: $40

The Whiskey:

This is probably the best sipper on this list. Buffalo Trace’s Eagle Rare is a masterful bottling of their best ten-year-old barrels with no interference whatsoever. This is just plain old great bourbon done well.

Tasting Notes:

Charred oak, worn leather, rich toffee, fresh honey, and a rush of orange zest open this one up. Dark and bitter cacao powder mixes with honey-roasted almonds as warm spice weaves in and out. A subtle dryness takes over as the leather, oak, and warmth fades ever-so-slowly away.

Weller Special Reserve Bourbon

ABV: 45%
Distillery: Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, KY
Average Price: $42

The Whiskey:

Sticking with Buffalo Trace, Weller Special Reserve is a fantastic example of a wheated bourbon. This expression tosses out the peppery rye grains for a more nuanced and, dare we say, fruity wheat. The softness of this expression makes it the perfect summer sipper.

Tasting Notes:

Orange trees and spring wildflowers come to mind with a sense of caramel. The dram edges into a butterscotch sweetness with a honey backbone as the florals peak. The end is brief yet satisfying as the oak, florals, and sweet corn caramel cuts out.

Basil Hayden’s Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Basil Hayden’s Distillery, Clermont, KY (Beam Suntory)
Average Price: $44

The Whiskey:

Basil’s is Beam’s high-end sipper that is way too cheap for the quality it offers. This juice is well-crafted with care and bottled to highlight classic notes of bourbon next to textures and flavors that’ll keep you on your toes as a bourbon lover.

Tasting Notes:

Spiciness next to black tea bitterness and a hint of fresh sprigs of mint greet you. That spiciness carries through as a note of toffee sweetness mingles with the fresh herbs, florals, and mild oak. The sweet edge and oak fade slowly as your senses fill with warmth.

Four Roses Single Barrel

ABV: 50%
Distillery: Four Roses Distillery, Lawrenceburg, KY (Kirin Brewing Company)
Average Price: $48

The Whiskey:

This Single Barrel expression from Four Roses ages for a minimum of seven years before it hits just the right spot for bottling. The juice is made from Four Roses’ recipe number one, meaning it has a very high rye mash bill with 35 percent of the spicy grain in the mix.

Tasting Notes:

There’ll be some nuances but expect maple syrup covered spicy stewed pears with a hint of vanilla and bitter cacao. Once it hits the palate, the sip leans into dark red cherries with floral sweetness and sharp peppery spice. The oak, spice, vanilla, and syrup coalesce on the long-lasting finish.

Angel’s Envy Straight Bourbon Whiskey Port Finish

ABV: 43.3%
Distillery: Angel’s Envy Distillery, Louisville, KY (Bacardi)
Average Price: $48

The Whiskey:

Angel’s Envy is all about the finish. Their signature bourbon is finished old port casks for three to six months after spending up to six years aging in oak. The best barrels are then small-batched with no more than 12 other barrels at a time.

Tasting Notes:

Vanilla and maple syrup dance with dried fruits and roasted nuts. The vanilla and syrup carry through and pick up notes of tart red fruit and bitter dark chocolate. The oak and sweetness last the longest, as a very subtle and plummy hint of wine pops at the very end.

Heaven’s Door Straight Tennessee Bourbon

ABV: 45%
Distillery: Heaven’s Door Spirits, Nashville, TN
Average Price: $50

The Whiskey:

Bob Dylan’s whiskey takes it time to show itself. The bourbon has 30 percent “small grains” in the mash bill alongside the corn. The juice then spends eight long years mellowing in oak until it hits the right high marks, as judged by the distiller.

Tasting Notes:

Cherries stewed in spice and maple syrup alongside an oily pod of vanilla open the sip. The vanilla forms a foundation for dry cedar, Christmas spices, rich caramel, and the slightest wisp of smoke. The caramel and vanilla dominate as the warm end slowly fades to black.

Apologies aren’t easy. Let me revise that statement: genuine, uncanned apologies aren’t easy to make, and apologies that also arrive without an undercurrent of defensiveness are tough stuff. Yes, it’s difficult to admit to being wrong, for we are stubborn. It’s even more unsettling to turn inward and examine how and why one messed up and take steps to right that wrong. Some people are reluctant to do so for various selfish reasons, and the art of the high-profile apology is littered with many attempts that fall short at fostering voices of progress. Yet this weekend saw something different happen. Following Hamilton‘s initial delay in voicing support for George Floyd protesters, the show’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, came forward with a detailed apology and accepted full responsibility for what had (and in this case, what hadn’t) happened.

“We spoke out on the day of the Pulse shooting. We spoke out when Vice President Mike Pence came to our show 10 days after the election. That we have not yet firmly spoken the inarguable truth that Black Lives Matter and denounced systematic racism and white supremacy from our official Hamilton channels is a moral failure on our part,” Miranda said.

Miranda’s apology was an impactful one, but it’s worth noting that the timing of his statement — after CNN host Don Lemon called out a telling silence from the entertainment industry — does matter. Yes, Miranda had already voiced support for protesters on his personal social media, but Lemon made a valid point about equating silence to a lack of “moral courage” and fear about “your reputation and your brand.” It’s an absolutely fair assessment about the complicity that arises from inaction.

For whatever reason, Hamilton‘s social media accounts slipped through the cracks on the Floyd protest response. This does not appear to have been intentional, but when it comes to a trailblazing Broadway show, in which a diverse cast portrays America’s Founding Fathers, silence comes across as its own statement. Miranda’s video apology (he was later joined by Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller) fully acknowledges the error with this delay, which is not consistent with (as he points out) the show’s immediate statements about the Pulse nightclub massacre and VP Mike Pence’s attendance of the Broadway production. That the show swiftly acted on previous occasions is no excuse for current inaction, admitted Miranda in a video posted to Hamilton‘s Twitter page:

“As the writer of the show, I take responsibility and apologize for my part in this moral failure… I’m sorry for not pushing harder and faster for us to speak these self-evident truths under the Hamilton banner, which has come to mean so much to so many of you.”

Miranda’s full statement can be read here, and he does pay tribute to “the black and brown artists who created and revolutionized and changed the world through the culture, music and language of hip-hop” while bringing this show to life each time it’s performed. All of his declarations are true, but there’s something even more important within his apology: it is not what’s often referred to as a “non-apology apology.”

You’ve seen this countless times: when the person or organization in question issues a statement that begins with an “I’m sorry” but reads as a fake apology. The essence of said statement is that “I’m sorry if you were offended by my remarks/action/inaction” and that “no offense was intended,” and maybe even “I’m sorry that you reacted/feel that way.” These are words that are meant to shift the burden of an offense to the person who is upset or has otherwise been wronged, as if they are simply too sensitive or uncomfortable and should perhaps adjust their barometer. Non-apologies are, essentially, a defense mechanism that allows an offender to carry on without an iota of self-examination. As we continue to observe, though, our nation remains deeply wounded, and non-apologies only further infect existing injuries, rather than encourage a healing process.

That kind of apology didn’t happen here. At no point did Miranda (or Seller, who added that “silence equals complicity and I apologize for my silence thus far”) apologize for how anyone reacted to the Hamilton production’s silence. Instead, the pair understood the harm that results from inaction and accepted full responsibility. Miranda also expressed gratitude for those who are “holding us accountable” to use words and actions to support the liberty and safety of those working for progress.

As a nation and as a collective people, we entered 2020 unprepared on multiple levels, but it’s exceptionally difficult to comprehend that the murder of George Floyd happened. Yet from the officers who ignored pleas from bystanders to a system that allowed police brutality to flourish, it was a sadly inevitable outcome. For over eight minutes, Floyd struggled to survive, and Derek Chauvin disregarded his pleas in a frankly inhuman way. Floyd’s murder is, by the very definition of the word, “senseless.” Following centuries of oppression and decades of progress, the U.S. timeline remains steadily punctuated by violence against Black men (and women) by law enforcement. With each of these tragic occurrences, waves of protests aim to mark their names. This is the case from the 1992 LA police acquittals in the Rodney King case to fatal law enforcement encounters for Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Laquan McDonald, Philando Castile, Terence Crutcher, and too many more, when even one such death is inexcusble.

It’s not only senseless but unfathomable as well, and many of us feel ill-equipped within our own privilege to speak out in an adequate way during these protests. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeffrey Seller recognized, even if they were a few beats late, that they had a duty to do so. As activists put on masks to exit the relative safety of their homes, they are mobilizing to protest against an ongoing, formidable threat that can’t be extinguished by a vaccine. The very least that prominent Hollywood figures can do is support them, and all due respect goes out to Hamilton for admitting their error, making the right kind of apology, and pledging support against racial injustice.