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This year, Adult Swim‘s tradition of April Fool’s Day pranks that are actually funny (what a concept!) was themed around Smiling Friends.

Created by Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack, the weird and wonderful animated series follows the employees at Smiling Friends Inc., which aims to make people smile. The first episode of season two premiered, but the prank was Adult Swim airing three episodes from season one, all remade with puppets.

You can watch those below.

The season two premiere isn’t currently available online, so if you missed it, you’ll have to wait until May 12 at midnight on Adult Swim (or the next day on Max) to watch it. Here’s the trailer.

The idea for Smiling Friends came from a shared love of shows like South Park. “Zach and I both grew up loving South Park and other similar cartoons,” Cusack told Animation Magazine. “I used to love drawing as a young kid, and I’ve dabbled in filmmaking, but I got into animation in my early 20s and I made some shorts for YouTube. Yes. Zach and I actually met online, and we both realized we had common interests in making silly little cartoons. And we both loved the idea of making a purely comedic show like Smiling Friends.”

Hadel added, “Our goal was to have a show featuring a group of loveable characters, with a simple kind of concept, which we could take anywhere we wanted to.”

You can watch season one on Adult Swim’s website.

Coming off of his first MVP campaign, Joel Embiid picked up where he left off to start this season, dominating opponents and averaging 35.3 points and 11.3 rebounds per game. Unfortunately, the star big man was in and out of the lineup with a nagging knee soreness issue and at the end of January he suffered a torn meniscus when Jonathan Kuminga fell into his leg late in a loss to the Warriors.

After having surgery at the beginning of February, the hope was that he’d be back by the playoffs, but that would be dependent on his rehab going smoothly with no setbacks. That has happily been the case, as Embiid has steadily hit all of his checkpoints in rehab and gotten back into on-court work, and on Monday word broke that he is expected back in the Sixers lineup this week, with Tuesday’s showdown with the Oklahoma City Thunder as a real possibility for his return.

This is obviously a big deal for the Sixers and for the Eastern Conference playoff race as a whole. Philly is currently in eighth in the East, 1.5 games back of Miami and 2 games back of Indiana for sixth. It would likely require a perfect 7-0 finish to the season to have a chance at passing both teams in the standings to get a guaranteed playoff berth, but if the Sixers have Embiid they’ll be the favorites in any Play-In matchup. Should that be where they end up, if Embiid is indeed at full strength (or close to it), the Sixers would be quite the draw for either the Celtics or Bucks in the first round.

After delivering thought-provoking and critically-acclaimed features like Ex Machina and Annihilation, Alex Garland is dropping a new kind of film in this month that could be his last directorial outing. In Civil War, America has become a modern-day warzone as the states of California and Texas join forces to fight the federal government.

Given the country’s increased politicization that’s already being heightened heading into the presidential election, Civil War is already embroiled in controversy, but that’s not why Garland has announced that he’s “not planning to direct again in the foreseeable future.”

While Garland still plans on writing — he’s returning to the 28 Days Later series he started with Danny Boyle — he has no interest in directing for quite some time, or ever again. However, his reasonings don’t have to do with his films often being misunderstood or the increased pressure of working with higher budgets. It comes from not wanting to disappoint his actors.

Via The Guardian:

“The pressure doesn’t come from the money. It comes from the fact that you’re asking people to trust something that, on the face of it, doesn’t look very trustworthy.” He gives, as an example, sitting in a car park outside Atlanta, asking his Civil War cast to believe that one day the VFX blue screen behind them will be a night sky lit up by mortar fire. Or on Ex Machina where, “Alicia [Vikander] and Sonoya [Mizuno] are trusting that nudity is going to be dealt with thoughtfully and respectfully … [when] cinema leans towards not doing that.”

Heading into Civil War‘s theatrical release, Garland is increasingly zen that the film will generate a whole lot of weird reactions and that there’s not much anyone could do about it.

“It all could and will be misunderstood,” he told The Guardian. “It would be out of your control as it is out of mine.”

Civil War opens in theaters on April 12.

(Via The Guardian)

Keeping track of all the new albums coming out in a given month is a big job, but we’re up for it: Below is a comprehensive list of the major releases you can look forward to in April. If you’re not trying to potentially miss out on anything, it might be a good idea to keep reading.

Friday, April 5

• A Lily — Saru l-Qamar (Kewn Records)
• Annie-Claude Deschênes — Les Manières De Table (Italians Do It Better)
• Azalia Snail — Powerlover (Cloud Recordings)
• bad tuner — look at me through me EP (Foreign Family Collective)
• Babebee — whatislove2u? EP (Epitaph)
• Beatenberg — The Great Fire of Beatenberg (Leafy Outlook)
• Benson Boone — Fireworks & Rollerblades (Night Street/Warner)
• The Black Keys — Ohio Players (Nonesuch)
• Bnny — One Million Love Songs (Fire Talk)
• Caleb Landry Jones — Hey Gary, Hey Dawn (Sacred Bones)
• Cedric Burnside — Hill Country Love (Provogue Records)
• Conan Gray — Found Heaven (Republic Records)
• Cuffed Up — All You Got (Hit the North Record)
• Dana Gavanski — Late Slap (Full Time Hobby)
• Drahla — angeltape (Captured Tracks)
• Dustin Kensrue — Desert Dreaming (BMG)
• Flung — All Heartbeat (Get Better Records)
• Grace Cummings — Ramona (ATO)
• Gustaf — Package Pt. 2 (Royal Mountain Records)
• Jane Penny — Surfacing EP (Luminelle)
• Kate Clover — The Apocalypse Dream (SVR)
• Katie Pruitt — Mantras (Rounder Records)
• Khruangbin — A LA SALA (Dead Oceans)
• Last Dinosaurs — KYO (Nettwerk)
• Lizzy McAlpine — Older (RCA)
• The Libertines — All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade (Republic)
• Lo Moon — I Wish You Way More Than Luck (Thirty Tigers/The Orchard)
• Maggie Rose — No One Gets Out Alive (Big Loud Records)
• Marcus King — Mood Swings (American/Republic)
• Marv Won — I’m Fine Thanks For Asking (Mello Music Group)
• Mount Kimbie — The Sunset Violent (Warp Records)
• Novo Amor — Collapse List (Believe Recordings)
• Ohio Players — Observations In Time: The Johnny Brantley/Vidalia Production (Omnivore Recordings)
• Old 97’s — American Primitive (ATO)
• Palace — Ultrasound (Captured Tracks)
• The Pernice Brothers — Who Will You Believe (New West Records)
• Phosphorescent — Revelator (Verve Records)
• RiTchie — Triple Digits [112] (Injury Reserve)
• Sinkane — We Belong (City Slang)
• Still Corners — Dream Talk (Wrecking Light)
• Temple of the Fuzz Witch — Apotheosis (Ripple Music)
• Tori Kelly — TORI. (Epic)
• Vampire Weekend — Only God Was Above Us (Columbia)
• Various Artists — Rebel Moon — Songs of the Rebellion EP (Netflix Music)
• Vegyn — The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions (PLZ Make It Ruins)
• Wisp — Pandora EP (Interscope)
• X Ambassadors — Townie (Virgin)

Friday, April 12

• Aaron Lee Tasjan — Stellar Evolution (Blue Élan Records)
• Aaron West And The Roaring Twenties — In Lieu of Flowers (Hopeless Records)
• Asha Jefferies — Ego Ride (Nettwerk)
• Baby Rose and BadBadNotGood — Slow Burn (Secretly Canadian)
• Bad Bad Hats — Bad Bad Hats (Don Giovanni)
• The Ballroom Thieves — Sundust (Nettwerk)
• Blue Bendy — So Medieval (The state51 Conspiracy)
• Blue Öyster Cult — Ghost Stories (Frontiers Music Srl)
• Bodega — Our Brand Could Be Yr Life (Chrysalis Records)
• Bridget Kearney — Comeback Kid (Keeled Scales)
• Clarissa Connelly — World of Work (Warp)
• Cosmo Sheldrake — Eye to the Ear (Tardigrade Records)
• Cruush — Nice Things Now, All The Time EP (Heist or Hit)
• Dog Date — Zinger (Pop Wig Records)
• DRAM — DRAM&B (WAVER Records)
• English Teacher — This Could Be Texas (Island Records)
• Girl In Red — I’m Doing It Again Baby! (Columbia Records)
• Greyhaven — Stereo Grief EP (Solid State Records)
• Heavenly Blue — We Have the Answer (Secret Voice)
• Humbird — Right On (Nettwerk)
• James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg — All Gist (Paradise of Bachelors)
• Jess Ribeiro — Summer of Love (Labelman)
• Kenny Garrett and Svoy — Who Killed AI? (Mack Avenue)
• Letters Sent Home — Forever Undone (SharpTone Records)
• Leyla McCalla — Sun Without the Heat (ANTI-)
• Louisa Stancioff — When We Were Looking (Yep Roc Records)
• Maggie Rogers — Don’t Forget Me (Capitol)
• Mark Knopfler — One Deep River (EMI)
• MELTS — Field Theory (Fuzz Club)
• Meshell Ndegeocello — Red Hot & Ra: The Magic City (Red Hot Organization)
• METZ — Up on Gravity Hill (Sub Pop)
• Nia Archives — Silence Is Loud (HIJINXX/Island Records)
• Nicolette & The Nobodies — The Long Way (ArtHaus)
• The Reds, Pinks & Purples — Your Worst Song Is Your Greatest Hit (Slumberland/Tough Love)
• Torn Boy — 1983 (Independent Project Records)
• Tusks — Gold (One Little Independent Records)
• Tyler Hubbard — Strong (EMI Nashville)
• Will Hoge — Tenderhearted Boys (EDLO Records)
• Work Wife — Waste Management (Born Losers Records)

Friday, April 19

• A Certain Ratio — It All Comes Down to This (Mute)
• Air Formation — Air Formation (Club AC30)
• Alex Sopp — The Hem & The Haw (New Amsterdam Records)
• Alix Fernz — Bizou (Mothland)
• Anne Wilson — REBEL (Capitol Christian Music Group)
• The Bacon Brothers — Ballad of the Brothers (Blackbird Record)
• Banners — All Back to Mine (Nettwerk)
• bbymutha — sleep paralysis (True Panther Records)
• Bill Frisell — Orchestras (Blue Note Records)
• Billy Morrison — The Morrison Project (Virgin Music Group)
• Blue Lab Beats — Blue Eclipse (Decca)
• Blunt Chunks — The Butterfly Myth (Telephone Explosion)
• Brainstory — Sounds Good (Big Crown)
• The Brother Brothers — The January Album (Compass Records)
• Chanel Beads — Your Day Will Come (Jagjaguwar)
• claire rousay — sentiment (Thrill Jockey)
• Cloud Nothings — Final Summer (Pure Noise)
• Couch Slut — You Could Do It (Brutal Panda)
• Dog Park — Festina Lente (Géographie)
• Forest Blakk — Undone (Love & Loss) EP (Atlantic Records)
• High on Fire — Cometh the Storm (MNRK Heavy)
• HighSchool — Accelerator EP (PIAS)
• Infinite River — Tabula Rasa (Birdman Records)
• Jewelia — Little Wins (Last Gang)
• John Canning Yates — The Quiet Portraits (Violette Records)
• Judith Hill — Letters From a Black Widow (Regime Music Group)
• The Juniper Berries — Death and Taxes (Earth Libraries)
• Kassa Overall — Live At Third Man Records (Third Man Records)
• Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds — That Delicious Vice (In the Red)
• Lauri Porra — Matter and Time (Platoon)
• Lie Heavy — Burn to the Moon (Heavy Psych Sounds)
• Life’s Question — Life’s Question EP (Flatspot)
• Local Natives — But I’ll Wait For You (Loma Vista)
• Lord Spikeheart — The Adept (Hekalu Records)
• LUCI — They Say They Love You (Don’t Sleep Records)
• The Melvins — Tarantula Heart (Ipecac Recordings)
• Merzbow — Tsubute Mosaic (Modern Obscure Music)
• Moonpools — Hide and Seek EP (Young and Aspiring)
• NOFX — Half Album (Fat Wreck Chords)
• Pearl Jam — Dark Matter (Monkeywrench Records)
• Pillow Queens — Name Your Sorrow (Royal Mountain Records)
• Raffi — Penny Penguin (Outside Music)
• Riley! — Keep Your Cool (Counter Intuitive Records)
• RLY — Generation EP (Darco Recordings)
• Seafood Sam — Standing on Giant Shoulders (drink sum wtr)
• SeeYouSpaceCowboy — Coup De Grâce (Pure Noise)
• Stephanie Lambring — Hypocrite (Almost Autonomous Records)
• T Bone Burnett — The Other Side (Verve Forecast)
• Taylor Swift — The Tortured Poets Department (Republic Records)
• Tei Shi — Valerie (self-released)
• Tourist — Memory Morning (Monday Records)
• UB40 — UB45 (SRG Records)
• unpeople — unpeople (SharpTone Records)
• Valley Lodge — Shadows in Paradise (Tee Pee Records)

Saturday, April 20 (Record Store Day)

Find the full list of Record Store Day releases here.

Friday, April 26

• Alien Ant Farm — Mantras (self-released)
• Anders Osborne — Picasso’s Villa (5th Ward Records/Missing Piece Group)
• Anitta — Funk Generation (Republic)
• AWOL — Tear ‘Em to Bits (Flatspot Records/Last Ride Records)
• Babehoven — Water’s Here In You (Double Double Whammy)
• Billy Tibbals — Nightlight Stories EP (Silver Arrow Records)
• Blitz Vega — Northern Gentlemen (FutureSonic Records/CEN/The Orchard)
• Brother Ali — Love & Service (Travelers Media)
• Bullion — Affection (Ghostly International)
• Charley Crockett — $10 Cowboy (Son Of Davy)
• Corridor — Mimi (Sub Pop)
• Ellis — No Place That Feels Like (self-released)
• Eric Slick — New Age Rage (Thirty Tigers)
• Fat White Family — Forgiveness Is Yours (Domino)
• Glassing — From the Other Side of the Mirror (Pelagic Records)
• Hayden Everett — I Miss the Sky EP (Nettwerk)
• Hovvdy — Hovvdy (Grand Jury)
• Inter Arma — New Heaven (Relapse Records)
• Iron & Wine — Light Verse (Sub Pop)
• Jane Paknia — Orchid Underneath EP (Eat Your Own Ears)
• Jeff Beal — New York Études (Platoon)
• Jess Glynne — Jess (EMI)
• Joyer — Night Songs (Hit the North Records)
• Justice — Hyperdrama (Ed Banger Records)
• Kathryn Williams & Withered Hand — Willson Williams (One Little Independent)
• Lawrence Rothman — The Plow That Broke the Plains (KRO Records)
• Liz Brasher — Baby Damn (Blue Elan Records)
• Loren Kramer — Glovemaker (Secretly Canadian)
• The Lostines — Meet The Lostines (Gar Hole Records)
• Luke Hemmings — boy EP (Arista Records)
• Mandy — Lawn Girl (Exploding In Sound Records)
• Maria Chiara Argirò — Closer (Innovative Leisure)
• Microwave — Let’s Start Degeneracy (Pure Noise Records)
• Mister Goblin — Frog Poems (Warner Music)
• Neil Young + Crazy Horse — FU##IN’ UP (Reprise)
• Nisa — Shapeshifting (Tender Loving Empire Records)
• Owen — The Falls of Sioux (Polyvinyl)
• Parsnip — Behold (Upset The Rhythm)
• PartyNextDoor — PartyNextDoor Four (4) (OVO Sound)
• Pet Shop Boys — Loneliness (Parlophone Records)
• Pigeons Playing Ping Pong — Day in Time (No Coincidence Records)
• Porij — Teething (Play It Again Sam)
• The Rifles — Love Your Neighbour (Cooking Vinyl)
• Sega Bodega — Dennis (ambient tweets)
• Six Organs of Admittance — Time is Glass (Drag City)
• St. Vincent — All Born Screaming (April 26)
• Yosa Peit — Gut Buster (Fire Records)
• The Zutons — The Big Decider (Icepop)

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

We’re now just days away from the 2024 edition of Dreamville Festival, which is set to go down on April 6 and 7 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Shortly before the event, though, there have been some significant lineup changes.

In a message shared on social media this morning (April 1), Dreamville organizers wrote, “We are excited to share that 50 Cent and Hunxho have been added to the lineup! See you this weekend! Due to unforeseen circumstances, Chris Brown and Muni Long are no longer performing at Dreamville Fest.”

Worth noting is that today is April Fools’ Day. However, it seems there’s nothing particularly funny or prank-like about the lineup change, so it would appear this news is legitimate.

Aside from 50 Cent and Hunxho, the Dreamville lineup features SZA headlining the first day alongside 50, while J. Cole and Nicki Minaj lead Day 2. Elsewhere on the poster are JID, Lil Yachty, Schoolboy Q, Sexyy Red, Jeremih, Rema, Jeezy, Monica, Rae Sremmurd, Key Glock, EarthGang, Teezo Touchdown, Amaarae, Lute, Luh Tyler, Domani, Bas, Cozz, Omen, TiaCorina, and Chase Shakur.

Check out the new lineup poster below.

Dreamville Festival Lineup For Saturday, April 6

SZA
50 Cent
JID
Lil Yachty
Schoolboy Q
Sexyy Red
Jeremih
Earthgang
Teezo Touchdown
Amaarae
Lute
Luh Tyler
Domani

Dreamville Festival Lineup For Sunday, April 7

J. Cole
Nicki Minaj
Rema
Jeezy
Monica
Rae Sremmurd
Key Glock
Bas
Hunxho
Cozz
Omen
TiaCorine
Chase Shakur

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

In the latest episode of his inexplicably popular podcast, Joe Budden mused that Drake is being paid to hang out with St Louis rapper Sexyy Red, whose career has been booming since the release of her viral hit single “Pound Town.” “You think [Drake] just likes being around Sexyy Red?” he challenged.

Big Sexyy isn’t sweating Joe’s hater energy though (that man needs to take more naps). After seeing a clip of the episode on Twitter, she only had three words to respond: “They so dumb.”

She wasn’t the only one to point out the absurdity of Joe’s conspiracy theory. YesJulz of all people had a very reasonable take, writing, “Drake has always embraced rising talent organically. He probably does like being around her that much- she seems to be fun and have good energy. This perspective says more about the commentator than the subjects.”

Meanwhile, another fan’s take was a bit more acidic but cut right to the bone of how goofy Budden’s reaches have gotten. “two rappers doing one song together plus a few concerts and a video cameo is now suspicious activity we need to analyze with great scrutiny…everything is so stupid and corny,” he wrote.

And while Drake’s ongoing friendship with Sexyy Red could have any number of motivations, Budden’s beef with Drake is probably a lot easier to figure out.

Sunday (March 31) was a good day for Metro Boomin. His and Future’s collaborative album We Don’t Trust You debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — Metro’s fourth-career No. 1 album and Future’s ninth, according to Billboard. The album earned 2024’s largest week by any album, with 251,000 equivalent US album units, as per Luminate.

Hours later, ESPN’s Omar Raja recorded LeBron James rapping Kendrick Lamar’s verse on “Like That” during the Los Angeles Lakers’ warmups ahead of their game at the Brooklyn Nets. James, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, proceeded to do what he does in the Lakers’ 116-104 win. The 39-year-old logged 40 points on 13-of-17 from the field with nine three-pointers. Per ESPN, James tied his career high for threes in a game and joined Michael Jordan “as the only players in NBA history with multiple games of 40 points or more after turning 39.”

Metro Boomin was delighted, posting on X (formerly Twitter), “bro was warming up to Like That then went 9/10 from 3 and 13/17 for 40 points [exploding head emoji, three steam-from-nose emojis, flexing emoji] #WEDONTTRUSTYOU.”

By the time James was spotted spitting “Like That,” he and the Lakers had already run onto the court to “Ya Ya” from Beyoncé’s newly released Cowboy Carter, as seen in a video posted by Jasmine (@hausofJazzy) on X.

Cowboy Carter debuting at anything lower than No. 1 next week would be a bigger upset than James’ Lakers winning the West, and then it can almost already be penciled in that Metro and Future’s We Don’t Trust You sequel album will recapture No. 1 after its April 12 release date.

Jackass legend Steve-O was all set to guest on Bill Maher‘s Club Random podcast, until the host refused to stop smoking weed.

During a recent episode of Wild Ride! with Steve-O, host Steve-O told his guest, political commentator Patrick Bet-David, that he watched him on Club Random and found the way that Maher spoke to him to be “rather insulting.” The conversation then turned to marijuana, which Maher frequently smokes because he thinks it makes him look like the coolest guy in the world. It’s also the reason Steve-O didn’t appear on his show.

“I’m a clean and sober guy,” Steve-O said. “It’s very important that I maintain my sobriety.” He’s been sober for nearly 16 years (the before-and-after pic is striking) and “there’s nothing that I value more than my sobriety,” so he found it “upsetting” that when he agreed to appear on Club Random as a guest but only if Maher didn’t smoke, the host declined. “I said I’d happily go on there, but while I’m on, out of respect for my sobriety, could you refrain from smoking pot? And he said, no. That’s a deal-breaker,” Steve-O explained.

You can watch Wild Ride! with Steve-O above (the Maher talk begins around 41 minutes into the video).

Hip-hop, more than most other music genres, is full of beef. There’s a whole thing between Drake and Kendrick Lamar right now. Azealia Banks is usually saying something about somebody (most recently, it was Beyoncé). Kanye West is upset with Kai Cenat. As for the reason behind all this anger, Lil Yachty thinks he has the answer.

In a video that made the rounds online over the weekend, Yachty says, “I personally think that rap n****s are so angry and so mad and so ‘grr’ all the time because they ugly… as f*ck. A lot of rappers don’t like what they see when they wake up, and they realize they probably only get women because they have money. Me, on the other hand, am gorgeous. And it’s like, I’m happy, you know? Life’s great. I got some money, decent looking, I smell great.”

Yachty, of course, has a strong sense of humor, so he’s likely joking around, at least a little bit, here.

Appearance aside, Yachty certainly has a lot to be happy about at the moment. A few days ago, it was announced that he teamed with Quality Control and HYBE to start his own record label, Concrete Rekordz.

As Donald Trump continues to drown in multi-million dollar judgments and legal fees, the former president has become increasingly aggressive in finding new ways to fleece the MAGA faithful. Trump has been selling everything from Bibles to mini speakers that look like him.

“I assume it’s way too loud and never dies,” John Oliver quipped during the latest episode of Last Week Tonight. “You know how you can never tell which Airpods are yours and which are your friends, because all the cases look the same? Well, if you get these, you lose all your friends instantly — problem solved.”

The late night comedian did not hold back as he walked through the most recent examples of Trump using his legal troubles to whip up donations.

Via The Hollywood Reporter:

Oliver then showed a video, which appeared to have low production value, of Trump saying to his supporters: “We’re fighting. We’re winning. You see what’s going on. So whatever you can do to help financially would be fantastic, because we have to beat it if it’s $5 or $10 or $100, whatever you can do.”

Replied Oliver: “That is a man who talks nonstop about how he’s one of the richest men on Earth, begging strangers for money in a hostage video that looks like it was filmed in a house haunted by the world’s tackiest ghosts.”

However, what Oliver found most baffling is that Trump may have found a way out of his money problems thanks to Truth Social receiving an $8 billion valuation that the late night host says is “utterly divorced from the underlying business, which is a mess.”

“Its stock is trading incredibly high because Trump supporters believe buying it is a way to simultaneously own the libs, give Trump money and, they’d argue, make a profit themselves,” Oliver explained before comparing the Truth Social situation to a more popular meme stock. “The GameStop movement was at least nominally about wresting financial power away from sh*tty rich a**holes and restoring it to the little guy, whereas this movement is about funneling the little guy’s money directly to the sh*ttiest rich a**hole there is.”

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)