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No Beyoncé era arrives without its controversy, and her latest is no different. This past Sunday (February 11), Bey kicked off the era of her new album, Act II, which, given the sounds of the pair of singles “16 Carriages” and “Texas Hold ‘Em,” sounds like it will be a country album. Still, at least one country station was seemingly reluctant to play the new songs.

Yesterday (February 13), an X (formerly Twitter) user shared a note from an Oklahoma-based radio station on social media. The note was a response to a request to play “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which read, “We do not play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country music station.”

However, Entertainment Weekly has now reported that KYKC has added both “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” to its rotation. According to Entertainment Weekly, a representative from the station’s parent company, S.C.O.R.E., said that station manager Roger Harris “was removed and didn’t know otherwise” that Beyoncé had shared new country music.

Harris in an email to EW, “Up until now, she hasn’t been a ‘country artist.’ So..we responded to the email in the same way we would have responded to someone requesting a Rolling Stones song on our country station.”

KYKC themselves confirmed via X that Bey’s new music had been added to their docket, following an outpouring of requests from the Beyhive.

The publication also notes that Columbia Records is now pushing “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” to country radio.

Act II is out 3/29 via Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia.

The Boston Celtics comfortably hold the NBA’s best record at 42-12 as the league gets set for a week off for the All-Star break. Boston is hoping that this year they can finally snap their title drought, as they’ve been a perennial contender in the East for the last seven years, making five conference finals, but they’ve only reached one NBA Finals and fell short in that series against the Warriors.

Part of the problem the Celtics have faced in the past is their late-game offense can get stuck in the mud, which was the impetus for going out and getting Kristaps Porzingis this summer. The idea was to have a better third-option scoring the ball next to Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who can impact the game both inside the paint and outside the arc. The results have been terrific so far with Porzingis in Celtic green, but there are plenty of people taking a wait-and-see approach with this Boston squad, not being willing to fully buy-in to their greatness until they prove it in the postseason.

A regular complaint about the Celtics (particularly from former players on television) is that they are too reliant on three-pointers. Kendrick Perkins recently went on ESPN’s NBA Today and said he thinks Boston should post-up more with their perimeter players. Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla saw that clip and decided to poke some fun at Big Perk after Boston’s latest win over the Nets on Tuesday, deadpanning about needing to post-up more before having to explain that was a joke and the Celtics are second in post-up frequency and first in post-up efficiency.

It’s a pretty funny moment from Mazzulla, who has made it very clear that he believes in his system and the Celtics process on offense, and it’s hard to blame him for that right now with the results they’re having. They’ve been better in close games this year and while things can still feel a bit sticky, they are more dynamic in clutch situations with Porzingis.

As for the post-ups, I will give Perk this, if you’re first in efficiency it might not be a bad idea to push the needle a little more and add a few more chances per game, even if you’re already second in frequency. That said, I don’t think Boston’s particularly interested in changing their approach that has them four games clear of the Timberwolves for the best record in the league and they certainly put the ball on the block more than most think.

Madame Web might not be very good (in fact, it’s being called one of the worst comic book movies ever), but at least we got a Dakota Johnson press tour out of it. The actress has frequently dunked on her own film, called her single-episode appearance on The Office the “worst time of my life,” and failed to grasp what’s so funny about the iconic line “he was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.” To top it all off, Johnson had a hard time naming any of the recent Spider-Man movies.

I have never liked her more.

In an interview with Happy Sad Confused host Josh Horowitz, Johnson was asked if she knew the titles of the MCU’s Spidey trilogy. Her guesses: Spider-Man: Here He Comes, Spider-Man: And He’s Back, and The Goblet of Spider-Man. Eh, close enough. Besides, it’s confusing how all three movies have the word “home” in the title. Spider-Man should take a page from the Planet of the Apes book and name the fourth movie (TBD) something like Escape from the Spider-Man or Battle for the Spider-Man. That’ll clear up the confusion.

You can watch Johnson’s interview below.

Surrounding Usher’s big weekend performing the Super Bowl Halftime Show were reports that the R&B icon had married Jennifer Goicoechea, with whom he has two children. The two apparently got a marriage license in Clark County, Nevada on February 8, and a representative later said, “We can confirm that Usher and Jennifer Goicoechea took the next step in their relationship and did get married on Sunday night [February 11] in Las Vegas surrounded by close friends and family.”

Now, thanks to People, we know some more about what the wedding was like, and it was very Las Vegas. The publication notes the two got hitched at Vegas Weddings’ drive-thru wedding chapel The Fast Lane, which is just miles away from Allegiant Stadium, the site of Usher’s big Super Bowl performance.

People also got exclusive photos from the ceremony and they note, “Usher is dressed in an abstract, asymmetrical black and white tux, while Goicoechea rocks a chic all-white, off-the-shoulder pants suit with white designer glasses and sparkly nailed cream gloves to match.” They also report, “For the ceremony, the bride has a long, white veil draped over her short black bob, and the sheer material has the words ‘Mrs. Raymond 02.11.24’ in large embroidered writing across the front, as a nod to her taking the star’s last name and their wedding date.”

Daryl Morey is known for being one of the NBA’s more ambitious executives, and apparently, this meant checking in on whether he could pull off a move at the trade deadline for arguably the greatest basketball player of all time. A new piece by Ramona Shelburne and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN laid out the Golden State Warriors’ efforts to acquire LeBron James at the deadline, and apparently, Morey thought it’d be worth trying to get in on the fun, as well.

You might remember that James tweeted out an hourglass emoji in the lead-up to the deadline amid the team’s struggles to consistently win games, which certainly gave pundits plenty to talk about. Morey, however, took things a step farther and actually called up Lakers executive Rob Pelinka to see if he could work something out. That, uh, didn’t happen, because Pelinka just turned around and asked if he could trade for Joel Embiid.

After seeing James’ cryptic social media post of an hourglass a week before the trade deadline, Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey called Pelinka to probe on a James trade and was immediately told that James wasn’t available. In fact, Pelinka responded by asking Morey if Joel Embiid was available, sources said. And that ended that brief conversation.

Kudos to Morey and Pelinka for all of this, because it’s very funny. But hey, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take, so we can’t blame either of them for trying.

The last decade of the NBA has been defined by the battles between LeBron James and the Golden State Warriors. While they’ve been hotly contested and frequently have determined which team wins the NBA Finals, there’s always been a mutual respect there, and apparently, Golden State was interested in trying to bring James on board at the trade deadline.

A new piece by Ramona Shelburne and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN lays out an “unsuccessful bid” the Warriors made to acquire James last week. While it’s unclear what Golden State would have offered Los Angeles to make this happen, there were conversations involving major decision makers from both teams, which started with Warriors owner Joe Lacob contacting Lakers owner Jeanie Buss about whether they could work something out and Buss referring him to Rich Paul, who represents both James and Warriors star Draymond Green.

If the Lakers ever wanted a temperature check on James’ commitment, here was his chance to tell them. In the end, that answer for the Warriors and Lakers returned resoundingly on the eve of the trade deadline: Rich Paul told Lacob and Warriors GM Mike Dunleavy Jr., that James had no interest in a trade and wanted to remain a Laker, sources said. When Dunleavy Jr., reached out to Lakers GM Rob Pelinka in those pre-trade deadline hours, Dunleavy Jr., had been told the same: the Lakers wanted to keep James, sources said.

There was a rumor in the lead-up to the deadline that the possibility of James getting moved was very real, although Paul eventually said that he would remain in Los Angeles. It is almost impossible to imagine James suiting up in San Francisco alongside Green, Steph Curry, and Klay Thompson, but that certainly didn’t stop Golden State from trying to make that happen.

On February 10, at long last, Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign released Vultures I, their new album. That vaulted West up to No. 2 on Spotify’s Daily Top Artists Global chart for February 10, behind only Taylor Swift, with whom West of course has some history. On the February 11 chart, he surpassed Swift to take the top spot.

West seemed pretty happy about that. On Instagram last night (February 11), West took to his Story to share a tweet making note of the achievement, offering no additional context or opinions beyond the unadorned screenshot.

West’s Spotify win, though, didn’t last long: On the charts dated February 12 and 13, Swift had returned to No. 1. So, by the time West shared the news, it was outdated. Worth noting is that this all happened right after West dropped an anticipated new album, while Swift is currently getting by on months-old material.

This follows a report that Swift got West kicked out of Super Bowl LVIII this past weekend. As HipHopDX notes, former NFL player Brandon Marshall claimed that West had purchased tickets that would have placed him right in front of Swift. Marshall then claimed, “Taylor Swift gets pissed off, she boom boom makes a call or two. Everybody’s involved. He gets kicked out the stadium! He was trying to leverage her celebrity. […] That’s what he tried to do: he tried to sit in front of Taylor Swift.”

The publication notes, though, that despite what Marshall said, West was seen in the stadium multiple times, like when he was spotted in a luxury suite with Ty Dolla Sign and Anderson. Paak.

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

On February 10, at long last, Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign released Vultures I, their new album. That vaulted West up to No. 2 on Spotify’s Daily Top Artists Global chart for February 10, behind only Taylor Swift, with whom West of course has some history. On the February 11 chart, he surpassed Swift to take the top spot.

West seemed pretty happy about that. On Instagram last night (February 11), West took to his Story to share a tweet making note of the achievement, offering no additional context or opinions beyond the unadorned screenshot.

West’s Spotify win, though, didn’t last long: On the charts dated February 12 and 13, Swift had returned to No. 1. So, by the time West shared the news, it was outdated. Worth noting is that this all happened right after West dropped an anticipated new album, while Swift is currently getting by on months-old material.

This follows a report that Swift got West kicked out of Super Bowl LVIII this past weekend. As HipHopDX notes, former NFL player Brandon Marshall claimed that West had purchased tickets that would have placed him right in front of Swift. Marshall then claimed, “Taylor Swift gets pissed off, she boom boom makes a call or two. Everybody’s involved. He gets kicked out the stadium! He was trying to leverage her celebrity. […] That’s what he tried to do: he tried to sit in front of Taylor Swift.”

The publication notes, though, that despite what Marshall said, West was seen in the stadium multiple times, like when he was spotted in a luxury suite with Ty Dolla Sign and Anderson. Paak.

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

On Monday Jon Stewart did something he hadn’t done in nine years: He hosted The Daily Show. His stay will be temporary and limited: He’ll only be there through the election and only on Mondays. Who knows? Perhaps things will get so weird — it’s happened before! — that he’ll decide to stay on. (Or maybe he’ll go back to rescuing animals, another pursuit.) His maiden return drew some sharp reactions, but people were apparently stoked to see him back, at least if you judge the ratings.

Per Deadline, Monday’s episode drew in a ton of viewers. There were 930,000 linear viewers on Comedy Central. Across other stations where it was simulcast — CMT, Logo, MTV, MTV2, Paramount Network, Pop, and TV Land — and incluing repeats, it added another 920,000. That brings it to a total of 1.85 million viewers.

Some other stats: The show had the biggest rating share since 2015, when Trevor Noah took over, with a 4.21. Its ratings were up 110% over Noah’s final episode in 2022. And across social platforms it scored 11.1 million views.

As mentioned earlier, Stewart’s epic opening monologue, which ran some 20 minutes, wasn’t always well-received. He spent the bulk of it slamming not only Trump but Biden, arguing that people should be worried about how old both of them are, at a time when Biden’s age is the only one that turns heads. He didn’t touch enough on Trump’s other, shall we say, worrying qualities, and that he was joining the “Biden is too old” pile enraged some, like the hosts of The View.

Whether or not Stewart really believes the nice current president and the dictator guy are basically the same candidate — which they’re very, very much not — is something we’ll hopefully find out quickly into his nine-month stint.

(Via Deadline)

Lil Yachty is always looking to push the envelope with his music. Last year, he dropped his psychedelic album, Let’s Start Here, which was met with much critical acclaim. Tonight (February 13), Yachty teased a collaborative album with an equally creative artist and producer.

In a clip shared to his Instagram, Yachty is seen speaking to an unseen person, and revealed that he has worked on a collaborative album with James Blake.

“Granted, I think James has worked with a quite substantial amount of hip-hop artists,” Yachty says in the clip. “But this project, is just like— it’s so left. For both of us.”

Blake had previously hinted a collaboration between him and Yachty almost a year ago, when he shared a picture of the two in the studio via Instagram. Still, Yachty believes the album will take fans by surprise.

“Aside from that one picture that James posted—which, he doesn’t have many followers, actually—I don’t think people know that we know each other exists. So they’re just going to be like ‘What the f*ck? When did they do this?’”

At the end of the clip, a screen reads “Bad Cameo, a full-length album by James Blake & Lil Yachty.” Neither Blake nor Yachty have shared a release date for the album, but according to the caption of Yachty’s Instagram post, fans can expect the project “soon.”

You can see the teaser above.