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At almost 15 years in the game, Cardo is finally prepping for his first solo album in 2024. His historic run includes placements with a Mount Rushmore of hip-hop heavyweights, such as Wiz Khalifa, Meek Mill, Freddie Gibbs, Drake, Curren$y, Mac Miller, Nicki Minaj, Snoop, Travis Scott, Migos, and Kendrick Lamar. Inspired by his Dallas roots, Cardo’s brand of production is the next generation of Texas rider music — with his trademark sub-busting 808s paired with the melodic stylings of West Coast G-funk.

Most recently Cardo punched the clock with Larry June on his latest “Night Shift” and the pair’s labor manufactured one of the most cohesive rap projects of last year. His sonics are the perfect sound bed for Larry June’s signature humorous brags and bars. But despite his A-List affiliations, Cardo clearly still relishes the glory of cooking up with like-minded friends such as Larry June and Curren$y as much as producing hits the biggest chart toppers in music.

We sat down at a smoothie shop in Austin, TX to discuss Cardo’s newfound healthy lifestyle and smoothie obsession, we learned what gives him the bubble guts, his go-to spots in Dallas, and how his Grandma sparked his love for all things coffee. We also demystified Taffy Grapes, got put onto the goodness of ranch on spaghetti and the magic of wrapping a Snickers bar in a Little Debbie’s Honeybun.

So my first question is what’s on your rider?

First off, we got to kick it off healthy, we got to have hella alkaline water. Got to keep the pH levels right, you know what I’m saying? That good old alkaline for your body. I know a lot of people got they own opinions about alkaline, whatever. Definitely chicken nuggets, McDonald’s, preferably. Shout out to McDonald’s. We love french fries, so we got to have the french fries; 100 french fries for the gang so we can all eat. Of course, we got to have a few Caesar salads for the healthy people like myself, even though I’m a snack on them chicken nuggets too though, but I’m also (going) to try to play it healthy. (All of) That, some hot wings. It depends what kind of day it is, if we there for a minute, the rider list can get crazy. Definitely have espresso shots, coffee for me ’cause I love coffee. Shout out to my grandma for the coffee.

What type of sauce are you dipping the nuggets in?

Come on man, sweet and sour. And the barbecue too, the tangy barbecue. You can never go wrong with the barbecue. But that sweet and sour, come on, man, it’s hitting the spot every time, never fails.

 

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So would you say when it comes to snacks, are you more like a sweet or savory kind of guy? Like salty stuff or more like candy, cookies and fruits and stuff?

I like savory things. I don’t like too sweet. I used to love Zebra Cakes and then when I got older Zebra Cakes just taste like pure sugar, like marshmallows. So I grew out of that phase. Like Honeybun, same thing.

So you’re Little Debbie’s guy?

Yeah.

… as a kid?

Always, man. When I was a kid, I used to go to the corner store (and) get a Zebra Cake for 25 cents. I used to get some shit for a whole dollar, get that, an A&W cream soda or root beer, or I get the Starbucks Frappuccino. Either way, get that Honeybun, get the snicker. You get the Snicker, you can wrap the honeybun around and melt it.

Wait, what? Explain that, please.

So what me and my cousin and my brother used to do, we get the Honeybuns, we get a whole four pack and then we get the Snicker. We put the Snicker in the middle of the honeybun, wrap it up like a taco almost put it in the microwave, fold it down.

Oh, in the microwave too?

Yeah. Put it for a good 15 seconds. That motherfucker is like a delicacy, like a nice little hood dessert.

That sounds amazing.

Yeah, it’s a honey-nicker. Or a honey… We had a different name for it, ’cause we can’t go with the honey one. What is it some ghetto shit? Some good ghetto gold for you to cook up with.

You said you’re a little more on the salty side, so what’s hitting on the salty side?

You could never go wrong with… What’s the name? They got a whole bunch of different bags. They got the pecans, they got the…The pistachios. They be coming in different flavors. They be like clustered with like…

Oh, with the fruits and dry… Sahale, it’s called?

That’s an amazing snack to have. Not only is it healthy — it’s a little on the sodium side — but it’s a healthy snack. Get in your protein.

So when you’re in the studio cooking up, are there specific foods or snacks that you need to have around? You have a home studio or are you out?

Whenever I’m out, I usually like to have the fruit bowl.

What’s in your fruit bowl?

Pineapple, mango, dragon fruit, kiwi. I like tropical fruit. Might be some soursop, you never know. Soursop looks a little weird, but we love it. It’s good for your gut and everything, it’s good for your soul.

What’s soursop for people that may not know? That’s something I’m not even really that familiar with.

I’m not even sure where the fruit even hails from, I just know from reading up on it and what is the benefits of it, and it tastes like juicy fruit bubblegum.

So fruit in the studio and that’s pretty much it?

Definitely have to be water, I got to be hydrated.

What’s your alkaline water of choice?

Essentia. And I love Core too, Core is amazing water. Put a little chlorophyll in there, get your healthy on, get on about your unhealthy eating habits for a quick second, and get back to it.

And do you have a time of day when you are snacking or what are your habits?

I’m a real snacker, I don’t like to eat dinner like that. I’ll snack on some, I don’t know, some noodles. Not only just regular noodles, some ramen noodles from somewhere, from K-pop or something like that. Places around the way around the neighborhood (in Dallas) and kind of go from there.

 

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When you’re on the road and you get to a hotel or your destination, is there stuff like food or snacks that you got to have in your room so you feel settled and comfortable?

I’m taking the Snickers out of there, automatically. Taking the M&M’s, the peanut M&M’s, you know what I’m saying? You can never go wrong with peanut M&M’s. Sometimes they have the Clif bars in there. I take the Clif bar depending on the flavor. If it’s the macadamia peanut butter one, it’s over with, I’m taking it. With the white chocolate? Taking it all.

When you get there and there’s nothing in the room, what are you stocking up with?

I’m just leaving that room, going to a whole ‘nother hotel. I’m playin’. I’ll go down to CVS and grab some Funions, I might grab the Doritos, the sweet chili ones. The purple pack, it’s me and my son’s favorite chips ever. And I might grab a Sprite. Can never go wrong with a Sprite. Might get a little bubble guts from eating these snacks or something, might have to calm the guts down, the bowels.

How did you get into the healthy wave of food? What was that for you that made you change or get more into that side of things?

I feel like health is important. For you to get wealth, you have to have health first. Your health got to be in the greatest shape. I see family members suffer, go through things and that made me look at life differently and try to change up my habits too. And also my father had cancer, this is a long time ago. My dad, he’s been in remission for over 20 years now. God is good. That’s what matters.

I know a lot of artists don’t like to eat before they perform, after the show, are you going out to eat? Are you getting room service or Postmates? Or what’s your move?

Man what? We going to get something to eat. I like diner spots. I like unique hole in the wall, mom and pop shops. I feel like without these mom and pop restaurants, I don’t even think there’ll be any kind of color to the cities. You can go to Ruth Chris, and you go to Prime and there’s nothing that you’re going get out of it, compared to a Mom and Pop type restaurant. Go to a Rudy’s or Heartache or a Hutchins (all in Dallas).

 

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What are we ordering at Rudy’s?

Now, we’re going to get the two-piece wings with the fries, get the extra pickles. Might get that serendipity. You can go to Hutchins, you get the ribs, they got everything man. You can go to… Blacks too. Blacks is all barbecue as well. Fuel City Tacos…

 

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Do you have a favorite steak spot in Dallas? I know everybody thinks about Dallas for steak.

Yeah, that’s a real battle. You could say Truluck’s, you could say Drake’s.

And what’s your order? Are you a ribeye, sirloin? You getting a tomahawk?

I want the wagyu. I want to do a tomahawk, that’s some Flo Rida shit. You ever see that picture with Flo Rida with the big tomahawk? I’m going to go with the Wagyu. I’m not really a steak kind of guy. I feel like steak is like zombie meat, damn near. I mean, but it’s good for you too, protein. But I could never go wrong with a T-bone. A butterflied filet.

What sides are we getting?

I’m going to get the mashed potatoes. We’ll get the mac and cheese. If they got a broccoli salad, that’s going to make it even better. I love broccoli, I love cucumber. So if they got cucumber salad, oh yeah, I’m in heaven with it.

Are there any foods or snacks in Texas that are regional that other people should know about or may not know about that are amazing?

They got the candy lady that sells the pickles, the candy grapes and shit. But I feel like Chicago kind of started all that. First place I ever seen people doing that was Chicago.

Wait, what type of grapes?

Taffy grapes.

Okay, please tell us what those are.

The first ones I got was at Chicago at Harold’s. I don’t even remember which Harold’s it was. Me and Don C and my cousin Mike-Mike was there. It might’ve been off of Wabash over by Lakeshore when it used to be open and seeing them my cousin was like, “Yo, these grapes right here, taffy grapes, these different. They have candy on them.” Soon we got them and shit, bro we was standing in front and ate them all, we went right back in, got some more.

They’re fresh grapes?

Fresh grapes but they candied, they put taffy and all that shit on them.

 

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Going back, you had mentioned your Grandma getting you into coffee and espresso. Can you break that down a little bit?

Shout out to my grandma Annie Brown, I just talked to her. She told me the first day I was born, the first week she gave me my first sip of coffee, a teaspoon or something like that. I didn’t believe my grandma, but apparently she did. And then ever since then, I always loved coffee. From day one, I would drink anything coffee tasting or coffee flavored, like ice cream, cookies, you name it. Listen, this is how I know my daughter is me all day, ’cause she loves anything coffee flavored. Bro, I eat the chocolate covered coffee beans. I go so crazy on them. I be geeked for like a whole week off of those, just running. But I love it though, this is a coffee smoothie.

I’m glad you said smoothie because obviously we’re at a smoothie place. What’s your go-to smoothie? I saw you drink the green ones and all that?

I love Green ones. I love my little healthy glow ones from over at Clean Juice. I think that’s Tebow’s juice shop, that he owns, or franchise. But yeah, my go-to is the glow one. It has celery, apple, ginger, chlorophyll, I put chia seeds in there extra. I keep it simple though, just to get rejuvenated, give my bowels a good swim.

 

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Did you like the taste right away or was it a learning curve for you?

I loved it. I always loved it. I was drinking smoothies since I was a kid. So it was always something I been a fan of. Like this fruity flavor, I was a pina colada type of guy.

And then for healthy food, people that are just starting to get into that, what are some things that you would recommend that they try to get their foot in the door?

Beyond Meat, like a burger. I had a vegan chopped cheese that tastes like a real chopped cheese. Fucking blew me away. So that’s for starters right there.

I like eating buffalo cauliflower or cauliflower pizza, it’s not bad as people think, it’s amazing to me. If you got your little dipping sauces or whatever, make sure they ain’t over the calorie limit, you good.

I even eat the lettuce wrap burgers and shit, like the keto shit. My girl got me into that, so I started doing that more. She’ll get the little wrap from Cheesecake factory, even though I know people have hate towards the Cheesecake Factory, it will always have a place in my heart, always.

So speaking of franchises, if you could own or operate any restaurant, somebody’s like, yo, I’m going to give you a free Franchise of a restaurant, it’s yours and you can take it and run with it. What would be your pick of something that’s out there already that you would love to work on?

Automatically McDonald’s, for My kids. Everything I got to do has got to be for my kids. So when I do it, my kids going to be like, “Damn, my dad is running McDonald’s? What? I get free Happy Meals every day? I get a cheeseburger every day?” Generational, generational, generational income. Their kids, kids, grandkids, grandkids, grandkids, grandkids won’t have to worry about a thing in life ever.

If you could be the ambassador or a Spokesperson for any restaurant or food or snack brand, what would your pick be?

It got to be Doritos. It got to be Doritos. Man, we grew up eating Doritos. Doritos may be a part of our life and our family since the beginning of the times.

So Sweet Chili is your number one Doritos flavor?

Yeah, me and my son go crazy over that. We damn near be fighting over them last bag of chips.

And so your kids like a lot of the same foods that you do?

My son, he a little picky, but I’m trying to open them up more to try new things. My daughter though, she’s grown into it ’cause it’s one of them things, it takes a little process for her to kind of do some things and it goes from there.

And is there anything that they like that you feel is weird or you’re like, whoa, that’s different, kids are growing up eating this?

Yeah, my daughter, I try to get her into new things ’cause she’s more open to it versus my son. My son, he ain’t about to eat nothing that has pizza sauce on it.

When he orders pizza it has to be straight cheese bread. I don’t mind it, but I’ll be trying to break him out of that. My daughter, she’d be willing to try it, it just got to look good to her. If it looks any kind of discoloring, like green or whatever, hell no, I ain’t touching that. She’ll grow to it naturally though I feel like ’cause it’s just like me, same way.

I ain’t start liking eating pickles until I got 35, 36 years old. Here I am, 39 I love pickles now, pause.

Is there any food trend or weird thing that you’ve seen lately with food where you’re like, why are people doing that? It sounds kind of nasty, but-

I ain’t going to lie about that pink sauce shit. The pink sauce thing. Remember the lady came out with that pink sauce last year. I’m not trying to talk down on her or nothing like that, but it was mixing dragon fruit I think and making it almost like a ranch-based sauce.

Like a dipping sauce?

Yeah, I didn’t even want to try it because it was pink and it looked like Pepto Bismol. I thought that was so weird.

And is there anything that you eat that people might think is weird or unappetizing?

I’m glad you asked that, ’cause I just seen somebody talking about it, but I’m probably going to get ate up about this. But with spaghetti, I put a little sugar in my spaghetti, yes. Not like a shitload of it. I mean, I come from a black background, my mama Black. So I know that different households do not do the same, like how my mom makes spaghetti.

My mom put real sugar in spaghetti. But what I do, I put ranch on mine.

Just ranch and spaghetti?

And hot sauce. I got to have the turkey sausage, I got to have the nice little meat sauce.

In the spaghetti as well?

Yeah.

You ever considering having your own wing franchise? Considering Cardo Got Wings?

We’re working on it, man. We’re working on it. The ideas are definitely endless. They’re definitely endless.

And where’s your favorite wing spot, period?

Oh, you going try me like that? Oh shit. Rudy’s Chicken for sure at the crib. Hutchins for sure at the crib as well. And then Chicago Harold’s, even Uncle Remus. Even JJ’s. Man, I’m everywhere in New York.

 

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What’s a good wing spot in New York?

I want to say… No, they don’t got a good wing spot in New York. I ain’t going to lie, Blue Ribbon. Blue Ribbon got some amazing – That’s some bougie wings, that shit is fire.

You can’t go wrong at Blue Ribbon.

No. They got a location. They got one that’s in the LES, then they got another one that’s around the corner from the Sixty. This one was different though. They make a different fried chicken compared to the other one. Their sauce at the Sixty, they do it with the little wasabi… And I hate that shit, I hate wasabi. I’m not a big fan of wasabi. Wasabi just taste like the devil’s asshole, pause.

 

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It’s been almost a year since Carmy got stuck in that refrigerator and you’ll probably be delighted to know that he did, in fact, make it out. Or the entire third season of The Bear is just a hypothermia-induced delusion, but no matter what, The Bear is returning this month. And with that comes a series of chaotic interviews with the cast, including Ayo Edebiri.

Edebiri was on The Tonight Show chatting with Fallon when the host asked for “something about the season.” Edebiri, a woman of the people, did not disappoint. “Okay, we do a crossover with Shogun, so it’s like a crazy,” Edebiri began. “Carmy hits his head, and the world of Shogun overlaps with world of The Bear and as he tries to find his way back to full health he starts to see the characters from our world and their world. You have to watch it, it will make sense,” she said, before adding, “No spoilers!” Hopefully the big heads at FX aren’t too upset about this.

Jokes aside, Fallon then mentioned that Edebiri made her directorial debut this season. Edebiri says she never had the directing bug until she met director Chris Storer.

“I was like 22 or something and when we first met he was like ‘You’re a director’ and I was like “No, I just think im nosy.’” Luckily, most directors are nosy, so she fits in well with that crowd. “I still think it’s because I’m nosy and opinionated, I don’t know.” Nosy and opinionated are the two best words to describe Irish royalty, so it fits!

Check out the full interview above. The Bear returns on June 27th.

It’s what Bridgerton fans have been waiting for: the mirror scene.

In season 3, episode 5 of the Netflix series, Penelope Featherington (played by Nicola Coughlan) and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) engage in the show’s lengthiest (and “hottest”) sex scene to date. It goes on for nearly six minutes.

“Luke and I decided entirely what we wanted to show on camera,” Coughlan said about the scene. “We had a lot of say in the mirror scene in particular, how that was shot and that we wanted that to be front-facing into the mirror and undress in front of it. It was like an amazing moment, and also I was like, when I’m 80, I’m gonna look back and be like, ‘My boobs look great! They’re all my own and they’re sitting up there.’ No regrets.”

Things got so heated between Coughlan and Newton, they accidentally broke a piece of on-set furniture during filming.

“We did break a piece of furniture while doing one of those scenes,” the actress told Entertainment Weekly. “I didn’t know what it was gonna be like, but it’s a little bit like a stunt in which they’re like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna do this, this, and this.’ But then they gave us freedom to like, we had a lot of say in how we did those scenes and what we wanted to do.” She added, “It was fun.”

Hopefully Coughlan’s parents are enjoying the PG cut of the mirror scene — or they can watch the clip that Netflix uploaded to its Twitter account. Porn is allowed on the “everything app,” but this is still probably all that the streaming service felt comfortable sharing.

Bridgerton season 3 part 2 is streaming on Netflix now.

If Goldenvoice’s No Values festival was on your radar over the weekend, you likely heard about the traffic. Once inside the festival, it was all anyone wanted to talk about, overshadowing the punk event that was set to jolt nostalgia into locals’ bloodstreams while also connecting genre legends with today’s exciting upstarts. But for most, getting into the event was an ordeal. Those who arrived early waited hours to park, and those who arrived a bit later were met with worst-case-scenerio freeway traffic. The latter is obviously not the festival’s fault, and I can’t speak to the logistics of how the former went wrong, but regardless, No Values didn’t begin on the right foot for many in attendance, and that unfortunately will be the lens from which the festival is viewed.

The uphill battle to endure discomfort in the name of fun is essentially the narrative of music festivals in general. If you are going to a fest to drink, get high, and watch bands, generations have decided the experience is ultimately worth it. The task felt a bit more precarious at No Values, especially with an influx of bands several decades past their prime that could make even the youngest attendees contemplate their own mortality, dwell on the passage of time, and question their place in the world. At one point, a guy walked through the crowd offering ibuprofen out like it was LCD at a Phish concert.

But enter Turnstile and The Jesus Lizard, two bands on opposite ends of their careers, but both operating in a perfect space to make a music festival work as designed. For different reasons, these are two bands that can force the audience to put whatever outside baggage they brought into the day to a dark corner to visit later. For an event that asked the audience to wrestle with the adage “punk’s not dead,” you couldn’t have asked for two better bands to testify in punk’s defense.

For The Jesus Lizard, their booking at No Values wasn’t really indicative of the festival’s vision in the first place. They’re a band generally more revered in the indie space, but their post-punk and noise roots tangentially aligned them with many of the more directly punk bands on the bill. Still, seeing frontman David Yow, now in his 60s, immediately look at the audience during his band’s afternoon set and get a huge grin on his face set the stage for an ageless, egoless performance. He smiled because he knew he wanted to be in that crowd, and it only took him a few moments before he was crowdsurfing, joking about needing to give his family his phone, keys, and wallet. Soon he’d be raising his middle finger, kicking his legs in the air, complaining about the lack of beer on stage, and generally showing any of the younger generation of performers on the bill just how it is done. Hell, he probably showed the veterans a thing or two.

But a big part of what made The Jesus Lizard’s set so affecting was the juxtaposition in how Yow looks with how he acts. No shade on a man in his 60s, but, well, he looked like a normal man in his 60s. His hair is mostly gone, his body not particularly nimble. But it all felt like a smokescreen for what he still contains inside. I watched him climb back onto his tall stage with little help, unbutton his shirt and showcase a sturdy physique, and, most importantly, recapture the chaotic energy that made his band a thing in the first place. This wasn’t nostalgia like so much else at No Values. This was vitality.

Turnstile couldn’t be in a more different place. In some ways, they feel like the only rock band right now, showing the kind of meteoric ascent that appeals to critics, passive radio listeners, Taco Bell customers, and angsty teens that is all but nonexistent in 2024. And though people in the audience wore their finest devil locks and Social D patches, Turnstile were in the prime position to actually win new fans that could, and should, fuck with them.

Just as The Jesus Lizard underscored vitality, so did Turnstile. Where one wore their aging bodies as a badge of honor, Turnstile projects the youth and beauty that could make the crustiest old punk feel 22 again. Their brand of grooving hardcore borrows from just about any genre prevalent in today’s youth culture, but it’s the underlying energy and self-belief that makes Turnstile feel bigger than any stage they play on. And the “Free Palestine” flag they brought with them portrayed a band not afraid to ruffle the feathers of the old guard. This is their world now, and they’re not going to put their principles on hold for anything.

Often times when walking around No Values, it felt like a hall of mirrors put through a time portal, everything a little distorted from how it should be and how you remembered it. For many, it might have been a welcome diversion from whatever their current life is like to return to their youth, their innocence, if just for a day. But the festival was at its best when it was in the moment of now, where Turnstile and The Jesus Lizard were operating. When the PBRs are going for $16, they were about as punk as it gets.

Check out some exclusive photos of Turnstile and The Jesus Lizard at No Values festival below.

When the EA Sports team invited me down to their Orlando campus as part of a press trip for an early preview of their upcoming football titles, I was far more excited by the re-launch of the EA Sports College Football franchise. It was the game that became such a big part of my life in high school and college, and has me more excited than any video game release in the last decade.

To me, Madden is what it is. I don’t get the game every year — I skipped Madden 24 — and tend not to play it as often or for as long. My issue with Madden isn’t the glitches that go viral, as that is just part of a modern simulation game that has so many combinations of things that can happen on any given play. My issue has been the game often feels the same year-to-year in terms of gameplay, and the kinds of modes I care about, namely Franchise, have felt like they’ve been on the backburner for awhile in favor of things like Ultimate Team.

As such, I wasn’t particularly hyped to get an early look at Madden 25, but after their presentation my interests were piqued. What they were talking about sounded like things I wanted to hear. For one, Franchise mode has been beefed up significantly (and I’ll have more to come on that with the lead designers on the mode), with 74 new dynamic storylines that keep the mode fresher for longer, and are season-long challenges rather than weekly checkpoints. As someone who has always preferred the career modes to online play, that’s exciting news and I’m genuinely intrigued by how it plays.

However, a good story mode only matters if the game itself plays well. Every year we hear about new gameplay updates, but they don’t always result in the game feeling all that different. This year, however, I was blown away by how much fun I had once we got on the sticks, particularly because the new running game engine is nothing short of spectacular.

The big gameplay innovation unique for Madden 25 (i.e., not in EA College Football) is BoomTech, a new physics-based tackling and ball-carrier system, within an updated FieldSENSE system. For years, the game has mimicked real life by putting a lot of focus on the passing game, which has yielded some terrific results but also left the running game feeling a bit left behind. This year, with BoomTech, they have made huge strides in the running game, creating what I think is the most fun Madden game I have ever played.

Their goal with BoomTech was to completely revamp how ball carriers and tacklers interact, with a physics-based engine that leans on player size and stat attributes to determine everything. That means the offensive player reacts differently to getting hit by a defensive tackle than they do a cornerback. Also, a bigger ball-carrier will react to hits differently than a smaller one, which means if you fire up the game and play as the Ravens, with Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry, the same hit by the same defender will have a different end result.

They also made the contact system far more dynamic. Your running back will also, depending on ratings, be able to bounce off tacklers and recover, with their attributes dropping as they’re off balance but steadily growing as they recover to get back to full strength. That means if you get hit on the side by a smaller player, you’ll have a good chance of bouncing off, but if you get hit again quickly, even by a weaker hit, you’ll likely go down. However, if you can avoid that second hit for a second as you regain your footing, you’ll have your full attributes again and might be able to shrug off or avoid another tackler down the field.

The EA team also completely revamped the Hit Stick and Ball Carrier Control system, where your timing will matter considerably on the Hit Stick. If you go to early, like I often did, your guy will dive at the ground, if you’re slightly early or slightly late, the impact is lessened, but if you time it up just right, you’ll light up the offensive player. Your angle of attack will also matter to the success of the tackle, as hitting someone square will have a greater impact than coming in from the side. On offense, the same physics apply to trying to truck a defender, and using the right stick to try and perform jukes and moves now requires more skill. That is not something I have, but watching the demo with one of the developers who is great with it showed how you can get explosive athletes like Lamar Jackson or cover athlete Christian McCaffrey to dance through the defense with properly timed moves and combinations. Their goal was to dial back how impactful the single big juke was, and task the player with having more control throughout the run in order to evade the defense.

Ball carriers also have a better feel for the game, and instead of running square through tight holes, they’ll get skinny, tuck the ball away, and duck through traffic between the tackles. That’s important because they continue to hone in their blocking system, as offensive line play has likewise been upgraded. You can slide protection at the line of scrimmage (half slides or full slides), and when running the ball, the linemen are much better about playing assignment football and their individual success or failure is independent of the rest of the line — and, like everything else in the new game, their success is ratings dependent. That means if you’re building a team, you can no longer just ignore your line, because everything is ratings-based and if you haven’t invested well enough in the trenches, you won’t be able to game the system.

To really put the new running system to the test, I played as the Los Angeles Chargers and put Greg Roman and Jim Harbaugh’s playbook through its paces. For one, the depth of the playbook was tremendous, and I was very impressed by how the things they talked about in the presentation actually bore out once we got to playing the game. That’s not always the case, as every year they list out a number of new innovations, but they don’t always make the game feel all that different. With the running game, you can feel a difference in Madden 25 and it has me more excited for the launch than any Madden game of the last decade.

Playing on All-Pro with the Chargers against the Seahawks, I had the Gus Bus absolutely rolling. It was so much fun running Inside Zone, picking your way through the middle of the defense, and then Outside Zone, stretching it wide when your tight end got a good seal, or cutting it up behind the guard or tackle when the defense set the edge. There was success to be found on most plays, but you were often presented with two or three bad options and one (maybe two) good ones on each play. That’s how real football works, and it is a real joy to assert your will as a team by running the dang ball in this game. I stayed in that I-formation and played proper football for four quarters, turning Justin Herbert almost exclusively into a play-action merchant, and piled up 63 points.

With Gus Edwards, a power back, I was able to experience the new BoomTech system at work, bouncing off tacklers that take bad angles. At the same time, he’s not nearly as dynamic in the open field, which is, again, true to life. How you like to run the ball is going to really determine what back you want to put on your team, because for someone like me that lacks the finesse and stick skill, but has a good feel for finding holes between the tackles, a big back was ideal because success was less about the moves I could make in the open field and more about whether I could run downhill between the tackles and dish out contact as much as I took it.

That also will impact your playbook choice, because I was incredibly impressed by how realistic each play design operated. If you run Duo, your linemen will work their doubles off the ball and look to get next level on the backside backers, with your job being to track the linebacker hit the correct side of the hole. If you run Zone, you’ll have to be patient, and figure out which of your lineman wins his assignment and who is getting to the second level to pave the way, cutting it upfield or stretching it out wide depending on how the blocking shakes out. This makes for an incredibly fun and rewarding running experience, where nothing feels predetermined and the success of a running play is largely on whether you make the right read or not as the ball-carrier to find the hole and hit it quickly.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you this will be the perfect Madden game, but it certainly feels like a genuine step forward for the franchise. I have always been frustrated with line play and running the ball in football video games, but the improvements in those areas in Madden 25 are legitimately fantastic, and if you want to get down and dirty in the trenches, this is the game for you.

Uproxx was invited on a hosted trip by EA Sports for reporting on this piece. They did not review or approve this story. You can find out more about our policy on press trips/hostings here.

The Despicable Me franchise has been very good to Pharrell: He’s been involved on the music side of things since the first movie, and the second film’s breakout hit “Happy” was a No. 1 single and is the biggest song of Pharrell’s career. Well, Despicable Me 4 is set to hit theaters in July, and ahead of that, Pharrell has a new song from the movie, sharing “Double Life” today.

The tune isn’t as general and movie-agnostic as something like “Happy” (“Who will you be tonight? / That’s the question / Who will Gru be tonight? / That’s the question,” goes the song’s refrain), but it has a great groove and that Gru refrain is actually catchy as hell. This probably won’t be a world-changing single like “Happy,” but it’s in the upper tier of kids movie soundtrack fare.

This follows the Black Yacht Rock album Pharrell quietly released earlier this year. Uproxx named it one of the best albums of 2024 so far, and Uproxx’s Aaron Williams noted, “The most compelling thing about this album is watching a master at work, with a focused goal, crafting some of the best music of a long and storied career in service of shedding light on an oft-maligned musical mode.”

Listen to “Double Life” above.

Last week, Rihanna sent fans into a hopeless spiral when she was photographed wearing a T-shirt dress that read “I’m retired.” Fans couldn’t help but interpret this message as a reference to the long-running joke about Rihanna taking forever to release a new album (her last on, Anti, came out in 2016). But in a recent interview, Rihanna said they shouldn’t give up hope just yet — and revealed the item she’d actually wear to signal her music-making days are done.

As Rihanna told Extra (according to the Los Angeles Times) on Monday (June 10), “That was just me looking into the future. I’m not retired. I just like that dress. I got it as a gift and I loved it.… They didn’t read the second line, I’m not retired, I’m just retired from dressing up — it’s a lot of effort.” As far as how she’d alert fans to the end of her music career, she said, “Wait for the ‘I Quit’ T-shirt.”

She also denied resurfaced pregnancy rumors after having two babies back-to-back, joking, “Can I get my six-pack back first? I don’t think I ever had one, but still. Let me go to Carnival one summer? Please, one summer.” However, she did admit she would like to try adding a girl to the mix. Although Rihanna has been more focused on motherhood than dropping that coveted ninth album, her maybe-husband ASAP Rocky did say that she’s been working on new music, so perhaps that T-shirt is staying in the closet — for now.

Squatters’ rights laws are some of the most bizarrely misused legal realities we have, and something no one seems to have a good answer for. Most of us have heard stories of someone moving into a vacant home and just living there, without anyone’s permission and without paying rent, and somehow this is a legal question mark until the courts sort it out.

According to The National Desk, squatters’ rights are a carryover from British property law and were created to ensure that abandoned property could be used and to protect occupants from being kicked out without proper notice. It should go without saying that squatter law isn’t meant to allow someone to just take over someone else’s property, but sometimes that’s exactly what happens.

It’s what happend to Flash Shelton’s mother when she put her house up for rent after her husband passed away. A woman contacted her with interest in the property, only she wanted to do repairs and look after the home instead of paying rent. Before anyone knew it, she had furniture delivered (which she later said was accidental) and set up camp, despite Shelton’s mom not agreeing to the arrangement.

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But since the woman had expressed her intention and already moved in, the matter was out of police hands, as Shelton found out when he tried to contact the local sheriff.

“They said, ‘I’m sorry but we can’t enter the house, and it looks like they’re living there, so you need to go through the courts’,” he shared in a YouTube video.

Shelton rightfully didn’t want the expense of a court battle, so he took matters into his own hands—not with violence, but with logic. He had his mom lease the home to him, and then told the squatter that she had to move everything out because he was moving things in.

“If they can take a house, I can take a house,” he said.

He was calm and clear about her having to get everything out within the day or he would have people come and take it, and thankfully, she didn’t put up a big fight.

That experience made him realize how squatter law can be abused, but that there’s a faster system for removing a squatter than to go through the court system. If a squatter can move in and force a homeowner to take them to court to prove they are living there illegally, then he could simply move in alongside the squatter, putting the squatter in the position of having to take the homeowner to court instead.

“The legal process is so slow, and at some point when they’re in there, you’re going to feel like they have more rights than you do and that’s how you’re going to be treated. So even though you it’s your house and you’re paying the mortgage or whatever, at some point squatters feel like they have more rights than you, so they don’t have an incentive to leave until a judge tells them to, until they’re actually ordered to, and that could take months.”

After successfully removing the squatters in his mother’s house, Shelton has been tackling similar squatter situations for other homeowners in California, earning him the nickname “The Squatter Hunter.”

“All I’m doing is becoming a squatter and flipping this process on them,” Shelton told CBS News. “I figured if they could take a house, I could take a house.”

According to CBS, he’s successfully removed a dozen squatters in the past year. “”I’m not going in and I’m not hurting anyone,” he said. “I’m not kicking them out, I’m not throwing them out.” He’s literally just moving in himself, setting up cameras, and then creating small annoyances until the squatters get fed up enough to move out.

California isn’t the only state that has seen issues with squatters. There are squatter stories from all over the U.S. of people moving into a property and refusing to leave without a court order, tying owners up in lengthy, expensive legal battles.

Shelton even has a Change.org petition to try to get squatter laws changed to “make squatting in residential maintained homes criminal.” Making squatting illegal “will shift the burden of proof onto the squatter and make the crime punishable with restitution an option for damages,” the the petition states.

Watch Shelton share his personal story:

This article originally appeared on 4.5.24

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon has been gearing up for a second season, which is subtitled The Book Of Carol because during the zombie apocalypse, good friends go to France when they believe their platonic soulmate is in trouble. Daryl isn’t still in trouble, but Carol doesn’t know that, and although it will be lovely to see them back together again, Daryl’s real best friend didn’t have a trip to France in the cards.

That would be Dog (portrayed by Seven the dog), who was so beloved by Daryl and the audience that he received his own backstory and remained a fixture in the series for several seasons. We also know that Dog survived The Walking Dead finale, so hopefully, he was enjoying a nice belly rub from Judith every day after Daryl left.

As much as the audience would have loved some “Dog” scenes at the Nest or, you know, in front of the Lourve, it would have been horrible to watch Dog suffer atop a capsized rowboat with Daryl as he floated to France. So it made sense that he wasn’t seen in Daryl’s spin off, but he was sorely missed:

Sad news arrived on Thursday when The Walking Dead‘s X/Twitter account announced, “Rest in peace, Seven. #TWD’s best boy.”

Norman Reedus also took to his Instagram story and later made an Instagram post to mourn the “best TV buddy ever.”

Dead City got in on the sadness, too: “Rest in peace Seven. You will forever be in our hearts. Dog. The best damn tv pal of all time”

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon will return on September 29 with a dog-shaped void in Daryl’s heart.

Megan Thee Stallion‘s new album Megan is on the way, but before its release, she’s made a big change to one of the most important parts: the cover art. Thee Stallion had the album’s cover updated across DSPs from its original version; on the new cover, a nude-ish Megan emerges from a giant egg. This re-aligns from the old cover, which depicted Megan coming out of a monarch butterfly chrysalis hanging from a tree. The original cover drew complaints from fans — along with Ice Spice’s Y2K cover — for featuring an awkward design.

Meg almost certainly saw fans’ jokes about the original cover, which deviated heavily from the established snake theme of her promo so far. Having released singles like “Cobra,” “Hiss,” and “Boa,” representing the way snakes shed their skins, the butterfly theme of the cover also nodded to the concept of transformation, but seemingly came out of left field. Speaking of left field, positioning the subject to the extreme left of the cover is pretty much a day-one design class error — not that it can’t be done to make an artistic statement, but here, the decision was misplaced (along with Meg). You can check out the new cover for comparison below.

Megan is out on 6/28