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Right now is the best time in recent memory to buy sneakers. No, we’re not talking about sneakers as an investment, we mean it’s a good time for true sneaker lovers, people who just want to build up their collection with the sort of silhouettes and colorways that pull eyes to you when you step into a room and get you those “love your shoes” compliments when you’re out on the streets.

You might be asking, “Why?” That’s a good question! There are a lot of reasons, from shifting trends to an over-saturated market, to a direct effect of greedy sneaker resellers scooping up everything they can the second a new shoe drops only to find an audience that is either disinterested or just tired of taking L after L on the Nike SNKRS app. We won’t go as far as saying the sneaker bubble has burst, people still care deeply about shoes and they remain the centerpiece of a lot of fits, but it’s never been easier to pick up an iconic pair of shoes without breaking the bank.

But just because we won’t say the bubble has burst, that doesn’t mean other people aren’t saying it. Last summer Bloomberg published a piece titled “The Sneaker Bubble Is Bursting Around Nike,” which pointed out that the 60%+ premium enjoyed by the Jordan 1 on the aftermarket in 2020 was now at a 2% discount on the resale market. Bloomberg credits several things for this sharp drop, namely inflation, but also, an innovation slump.

If you’re a sneaker fan you’ve probably noticed fewer Swooshes on the streets and more Adidas, Saucony, Hoka, New Balance, Puma, and Asics. It’s telling that one of the biggest sneaker drops at last year’s ComplexCon was the Jae Tips x Saucony Grid Shadow 2 and even more telling that that same release is selling for $4 less than the retail price on StockX.

So to help you build up your collection, we’re offering some tips and tricks for navigating the modern sneaker market. We hope you leave this article armed with the tools you need to finally get that dream pair of sneakers for cheaper than you ever thought possible.

Tip 1: Hit Up Outlet Stores

Buying online is tempting because it’s so easy, but you’ll be surprised at what you can find if you hit up an outlet. Scroll through the Reddit board r/Sneakers and every few posts you’ll find someone posting about a rare find they stumbled upon at any of the big brands’ outlet stores.

You’ll generally know you’ve stumbled upon a brand’s outlet if the word “Factory” is in the title. Most of the people who shop at outlets aren’t collectors or hardcore sneakerheads, they’re just people looking for a sale so you’ll be surprised at what you’ll find at these stores.

Just last month, sneaker YouTuber Seth Fowler posted a video where he picked up a handful of “sold-out” Air Jordan releases from the last year for at or below retail price by hitting up the Nike Factory store.

If you hit up an outlet hoping to find a specific pair, you might leave heartbroken, but if you’re not hunting for anything specific, you just might leave the store with something you didn’t know you always wanted, and those are the best surprises.

Tip 2: Hit Up Discount Stores

Stores like Ross, TJ Maxx, and Marshalls are the subject of many an article and forum thread, and that’s because these stores can be an absolute steal.

Take last year’s Jordan White Cement Reimagined. This sneaker was one of last year’s best with a colorway of legendary pedigree that sold out on the SNKRS app in minutes. The retail price was $210, typical for a Jordan drop, but at Ross many shoppers were finding pairs for just $84.99. That’s cheaper than its current StockX price of $325 (according to “last sale”).

So if you’re turning your nose up to discount retail stores, you’re messing up and potentially missing out on some surprising finds and the thrill of maybe paying way below retail.

Tip 3: Low Ball On The Aftermarket Sites

Resellers scoop up releases just because they’re on a brand’s release calendar without giving much thought to the actual demand. In previous years, this worked, but because there are a lot of great brands out there leading to more diverse tastes in footwear, the demand for any one release is lower than it used to be. So a lot of these releases end up sitting around on aftermarket sites collecting digital dust and take it from someone who has sold shoes on the aftermarket in the past — no one likes a product they can’t sell.

Just because an asking price is high doesn’t mean a shoe will sell for that price. You’d be amazed at how many pairs of sneakers can be had for a much more attractive price if you just ask. Make an offer lower than the asking price and you’ll find many sellers who are willing to unload a fresh pair that isn’t selling like they had hoped.

But remember, the sneaker market fluctuates, it won’t always be this way, so get the goods while you can because you never know when a new generation of footwear enthusiasts will spring up and shift trends once again.

Over the past few weeks, Drake has essentially become hip-hop’s punching bag. It started when Kendrick Lamar dissed him on “Like That,” from Future and Metro Boomin’s album We Don’t Trust You. Future and Metro have another new album, We Still Don’t Trust You, and it looks he’s taking more shots there, too. The Weeknd seemingly dissed him on the album, and it appears ASAP Rocky did the same.

On “Show Of Hands,” Rocky says (via Genius):

“N****s swear they b*tch the baddest, I just bagged the worst one
N****s in they feelings over women, what, you hurt or somethin’?
I smash before you birthed, son, Flacko hit it first, son
Still don’ trust you, it’s always us, never them
Heard you dropped your latest sh*t
Funny how it just came and went (Ha-ha-ha).”

The verse appears to reference Rocky having a sexual encounter with Sophie Brussaux, the mother of Drake’s son Adonis. The last two lines also seem to be taking a dig at Drake’s album For All The Dogs.

Drake has so far not explicitly responded to any of the recent disses he’s faced, except perhaps via cryptic messages.

Listen to “Show Of Hands” above.

We Still Don’t Trust You is out now via Epic Records/Boominati Worldwide/Republic Records. Find more information here.

During the Marvel presentation at CinemaCon, the studio revealed that the highly-anticipated team-up film, Thunderbolts, now has an asterisk next to its name. Given the film has already seen two actors exit the project, Steven Yeun and Ayo Edebiri, naturally fans are concerned about what the heck all of this means. Fortunately, Kevin Feige was on hand to calm everyone down while still serving up that famous Marvel secrecy.

“Yes, you’ll notice the asterisk on Thunderbolts*,” Feige told the CinemaCon crowd via Comic Book. “That is the official title of Thunderbolts* and we won’t talk more about that until after the movie comes out.”

The good news is that Thunderbolts* is filming in Atlanta as we speak. Florence Pugh recently shared an Instagram photo from the set where she revealed her new Yelena Belova/White Widow outfit and showed director Jake Schreier hard at work.

You can watch it below:

As for the plot of the Thunderbolts*, not much is known. On the surface, it appears that Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine will finally put together the team she’s building in the background of the latest Marvel films and Disney+ series. That team will reportedly be led by Yelena Belova (Pugh) and include Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olgya Kurylenko). The team will seemingly take its name from President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross who’s now played by Harrison Ford. However, the asterisk could change all of that.

We also know that The Sentry will be heavily involved in the film. Steven Yeun was originally cast in the role, but due to scheduling conflicts following the SAG-AFTRA strike, he had to bow out of making his Marvel debut. Lewis Pullman has reportedly stepped in as the wildly powerful Marvel comics character. Think Superman, but not entirely stable.

Thunderbolts* slams into theaters on May 2, 2025.

The main event of WrestleMania 40 promised to be a fever dream of run-ins and legendary returns when Cody Rhodes squared off against Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns under Bloodline rules, which meant there were no rules.

The match lived up to the hype, with Jimmy and Jey Uso flying off the ramp through a table, Solo Sikoa taking out Rhodes before John Cena made his valiant return, and The Rock walking down the ramp like Thanos, Mama Rhodes belt en tow and all. There was even a Seth Rollins cameo in Shield gear, which ended up being an important detail as the match came to an end.

When it came time to take things home, fans were caught off guard when The Undertaker’s bell rang out, the lights went out, and he chokeslammed Rock. That’s because over the last month, subtle hints gave WWE fans hope that Stone Cold Steve Austin’s glass would break, he’d hit the ring, and land a stunner on Rock for good time’s sake.

It started with Austin appearing on a loading truck:

And continued on the day of WrestleMania, when Triple H happened to tweet out a hype video at exactly 3:16.

After the event, reports from the Wrestling Observer noted Austin was originally intended to appear at the end of the match, but The Undertaker eventually took that spot.

Despite Austin’s exclusion, that didn’t stop Rhodes from finishing his story, winning the WWE Championship, ending Reigns’ historic run, and seeing his theme song climb to the top of the charts.

O.J. Simpson’s death was greeted with an outpouring of love… for Norm MacDonald.

Simpson leaves behind a, let’s say, complicated legacy; meanwhile, everyone loves Norm, who passed away in 2021. The connection between the two dates back to the 1990s, when the comedian hosted Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live. He made enough (extremely funny) O.J. jokes during “The Trial of the Century” to fill an 11-minute compilation — and to get in trouble with NBC producer Don Ohlmeyer, who was close to Simpson.

Ohlmeyer fired Macdonald from the Weekend Update gig after he continued to joke about Simpson following his acquittal. “Ohlmeyer is best friends with O.J. Simpson,” Norm once said. “If he can like O.J. Simpson, he can like me.”

While appearing on CNN on Thursday to promote his Max series Conan O’Brien Must Go (without chicken grease and hot sauce smeared all over his face), Conan O’Brien praised Macdonald’s constant skewering of Simpson, even at the risk of losing his job. He called it “some of the most brilliant comedy of anybody during that whole period,” according to The Wrap.

After Tapper pointed out that Macdonald was fired from Saturday Night Live for the incessant jokes, O’Brien explained that “the head of the network at the time was tight with O.J… That was a huge moment in history.”

Miss you, Norm.

You can watch a clip from Conan’s CNN interview below.

(Via The Wrap)

Drake has had a massive target on his back lately. In recent days, he’s been at the center of a beef with Kendrick Lamar, after Lamar dissed him on Future and Metro Boomin’s We Don’t Trust You. Now it looks like The Weeknd is getting in on the Drake bashing, too, on “All To Myself” from Future and Metro Boomin’s newest album, We Still Don’t Trust You.

What Did The Weeknd Say About Drake On Future And Metro Boomin’s New Album?

Here are the lyrics in question, via Genius:

“These n****s always yappin’, yeah
I promise that I got your back
Ooh, look at how we movin’, baby (Movin’, baby)
They could never diss my brothers, baby (Future)
When they got leaks in they operation
I thank God that I never signed my life away
And we never do the big talk (No, no, no, no, no)
They shooters makin’ TikToks
Got us laughin’ in the Lambo (Yeah)”

The lyric about not signing his life away appears to be a reference to Drake’s attempts to sign The Weeknd to his OVO Sound label early in his career. Then, the line about TikTok seemingly refers to Drake making music geared for a casual, TikTok-using audience, which The Weeknd finds laughable.

Listen to “All To Myself” above.

We Still Don’t Trust You is out now via Epic Records/Boominati Worldwide/Republic Records. Find more information here.

Sabrina Carpenter is gearing up to perform at Coachella this weekend (and perhaps host a surprise Taylor Swift cameo?). It turns out she’ll be bringing a new song to the desert, as today (April 12), she shared the single “Espresso.”

Carpenter told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about the track (as Billboard notes):

“Weirdly enough, ended up writing this song in France, and I think that that probably had a little bit of inspiration to how the song ended up feeling. It just had that excitement and that energy of almost kind of traveling the world. We wrote it in France and I remember it being a very, very quick process. I mean, from start to finish, I think that’s why you can kind of feel how fun it is. And I think for me, there was something really exciting about the fact that there was so much personality throughout the entire song, because those are the ones that are really, really fun to sing live with a crowd. Those are the ones that people, I think when they don’t know my music or who I am or anything, they can just tune in to a single song and kind of leave with a better idea of my sense of humor.”

Listen to “Espresso” above.

Conan O’Brien wrote for the series that coined the phrase “worst episode ever.” But on Thursday, he went on Hot Ones and made it the show’s “best episode ever.”

The former talk show host, who made his glorious return to The Tonight Show earlier in the week, appeared in the season finale of the web series in which celebrities nibble on chicken wings with a small amount of hot sauce on them — or in Conan’s case, guzzle the spicy stuff like a maniac.

Early in the interview, Conan confessed, “I grew up in an Irish house. An Irish Catholic home in Boston. I never saw a spice till I was about 52 years old. So I’m terrible with hot food. I grew up on tasteless food. So this is a whole new experience for me.” Before long, however, he boasted, “I don’t think there’s a wing here that I can’t eat like it’s ice cream. Seriously, I don’t think there’s a wing on this table that I cannot devour like it’s cool whipped cream!”

Conan regretted those words when he took a swig from an extremely spicy hot sauce. “I’m fine! I’m perfectly f*cking fine!” he shouted at host Sean Evans with chicken grease and sauce all over his face.

It’s the kind of committed-to-the-bit chaos that only Conan can provide. Here are some highlights:

When he wasn’t smearing hot sauce on his face, Conan provided insight on the worst thing a talk show guest can do.

“Tell the audience it’s not going well,” he said. “I‘ve seen it happen many times, it’s an amateur move because the host can do a lot to let people think it’s going great even if it’s not… [the] audience wants to see a good show, they want to see a good interview and I was always amazed when someone would come out and they’d be doing OK… and then would just go, ‘This just isn’t going well, is it?’… you look out at the audience and it be 200 people sitting there and I’d see 200 souls leave 200 bodies cause they were just told they were not getting a good show.”

You can watch the video below.

Steven and Ian open by talking about J. Cole’s botched diss track targeted at Kendrick Lamar. Is it lame to record a diss track and immediately apologize? Or is this actually a sign of personal growth? From there, the guys talk about the slumping ticket sales for Coachella. Is this a temporary bump or is the festival headed for a permanent downturn?

The guys also check in with the Fantasy Album Draft, with the release of new records by Maggie Rogers, Shabaka Hutchings, and Nia Archives. They also talk about early contenders for Album Of The Year from Q1-ish of 2024, including Waxahatchee, Vampire Weekend, and Mannequin Pussy. In the mailbag, there are two yay-or-nay questions on two very different bands: Khruangbin and Our Lady Peace.

In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks about the screamo band Heavenly Blue and Steven recommends the new documentary Lost Angel: The Genius Of Judee Sill.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 184 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

It appears J. Cole has chosen a side. Tonight (April 12), Future and Metro Boomin dropped We Still Don’t Trust You, the second installment of their joint album series. The album arrives three weeks after the release of their first collaborative album, We Don’t Trust You which features the controversial song “Like That” with Kendrick Lamar. On Lamar’s verse of like that, he notably says “Motherf*ck the big three / it’s just big me,” which many listeners thought was a shot to J Cole and Drake.

J Cole has since responded with “7 Minute Drill,” which was featured on his new mixtape Might Delete Later. Cole later walked his diss back and apologized to Lamar. Tonight, Cole made a surprise appearance on “Red Leather” on We Still Don’t Trust You.

Given recent events, Cole’s feature on the song has left fans divided, as some are interpreting his bars as a diss toward Drake.

“My energy was never on some toughest n***a sh*t / I was just a conscious rapper who would f*ck a n***a b*tch…blicks get to blasting / I turn into a track star,” Cole raps on his verse.

Though no direct shots were fired, the fact that Cole had dissed Lamar earlier in the week, apologized for the aforementioned diss, and then joined the party that was allegedly dissing Drake — all within the course of a week — tells fans everything they need to know.

You can listen to “Red Leather” above.

We Still Don’t Trust You is out now via Epic Records/Boominati Worldwide/Republic Records. Find more information here.