Megan Thee Stallion made headlines today, as the rapper dropped her new single, “Hiss,” and had a lot to say — which, of course, has led the internet to talk. During the track, she appears to diss everyone from Drake to DaBaby, but one in particular has arguably caused the most buzz.

Megan’s “Hiss” included the lines, “These hoes don’t be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Megan’s Law. I don’t really know what the problem is, but I guarantee y’all don’t want me to start,” which has ignited a feud between her and Nicki Minaj.

Yet, some listeners might not understand the diss on the first try. Here’s what to know about Megan discussing Megan’s Law.

What Is Megan’s Law From Megan Thee Stallion’s ‘Hiss?’

Megan Thee Stallion’s “Hiss” used the Megan’s Law lyric to reportedly shade Minaj. The legal term was created to provide the public with information when it comes to registered sex offenders. This seemed pretty directed at Minaj, whose husband, Kenneth Petty, was previously arrested for failing to register as a sex offender.

Minaj later fired back against Megan’s diss in “Hiss” by sharing a snippet of her own. In it, Minaj appears to use Megan’s shooting incident, as she discusses the fact that she was shot in the foot.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The best new hip-hop this week includes albums, videos, and songs from Ice Spice, Lil Nas X, Megan Thee Stallion, and more.

What. A. Week. And while the girlies are certainly fighting — more on that in a minute — we can’t overlook just how many high-level releases came out in the past 24 hours. They include:

Ice Spice kicking off her album rollout with “Think U The Sh*t (Fart).” Goofy title aside, it’s a perfect illustration of how fun Ice Spice has been since “Munch” blew up.

Lil Nas X wondering “Where Do We Go Now?” as he prepares to release his documentary Long Live Montero.

And Megan Thee Stallion whacking a whole bunch of people who pissed her off with “Hiss.”

Other notable new releases include Flyana Boss, Russ, and Tierra Whack all returning to kick off their 2024 campaigns.

Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending January 26, 2024.

Albums/EPs/Mixtapes

Benny The Butcher — Everybody Can’t Go

The Butcher is here! Benny’s first full-length since 2020’s Burden Of Proof touches on a familiar theme in hip-hop: That of the believer faced with skeptics. Fortunately, he makes some pretty convincing arguments for potential investors with the help of Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, and more of hip-hop’s top stars.

Che Noir — The Color Chocolate Vol. 1

At only four tracks, Che Noir’s latest keeps ’em wanting more, but aptly demonstrates her prowess both on the mic and behind the boards.

Kevin Gates — The Ceremony

Remember when I called Fredo Bang one of the top practitioners of pain rap of the past decade? Well, the guy who wrote the book is back with 17 solid songs touching on trauma and the resilience to overcome it. The only two features are B.G. and Sexyy Red, making it one hell of a showcase for Gates.

Lyrical Lemonade — All Is Yellow

I can just hear all you old heads groaning right now. That’s fine, don’t give Lyrical Lemonade’s latest compilation a chance. You’ll only miss out on a showcase of some of hip-hop’s best and brightest rising stars (BabyTron, Latto, Snot, Teezo Touchdown), the ones your kids and their friends will be blasting for the next several years. You may as well get a jump on it, and learn to love it in the mean time. Plus Jack Harlow and Dave’s “Stop Giving Me Advice” is on there too.

Masta Ace & Marco Polo — Richmond Polo

The rap pioneer reunites with the MPC master for another set of tough lyrics over neck-breaking beats.

Ocean X KungFu — WGFU

I’m going to admit to having never heard of these two until today. An Atlanta rap duo in the vein of a grittier City Girls, their latest appeared in the suggested new albums section of Tidal today, and I’m glad I pressed play. It’s familiar stuff, but it’s entertaining as hell.

Singles/Videos

Big Jade — “Sanchi P’s Maybach Freestyle”

The Texas upstart continues to show off her lyrical dexterity with a hard-nosed take on Benny The Butcher’s J. Cole collaboration.

Chief Keef & Lil Yachty — “Say Ya Grace”

And just like that, Lil Yachty (sorta) redeems himself for that disaster of a collab last week. He should stick to this class of collaborators for the foreseeable future.

Courtney Bell — “Westside” Feat. Royce Da 5’9

Detroit isn’t just off-kilter beats and unhinged punchlines. Courtney Bell (who I previously profiled) came back this week with another display of hard-eyed, cold-hearted battle rap.

Erick The Architect — “Instincts” Feat. Westside Boogie

The Flatbush Zombie gets personal on his latest single and picks the perfect partner in the equally emotive Westside Boogie.

Heems — “Accent”

This ain’t “Combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bell.” The Queens rapper makes a triumphant return to the frontiers of underground, rhyme-forward rap with a newfound focus and gritty determination to challenge the status quo, the mainstream, and your preconceptions.

21 Lil Harold — “Sundown” Feat. JID

While 21 Savage has (rightly) earned plenty of attention and adulation recently, his young protege proves to be just as deserving early on… and in a true case of rap parallelism, attaches J. Cole’s mentee JID to a track in the same vein as “A Lot.”

Skepta — “Gas Me Up”

The grime stalwart returns for his first new solo single in a few years, and in true signature Skepta fashion, he brings a whole new sound. If we can expect more of this kind of innovation on Knife And Fork, the anticipation for the album is sure to go up.

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

Nothing can ruin a relaxing weekend or holiday like an email from the office. Even if there’s no need to take action until Monday, the unwanted intrusion of professional life can really suck the joy out of a Sunday afternoon barbecue.

That’s why the country that’s famous for giving its employees 30 days off a year and 16 weeks of full-paid family leave in May 2016 made itself even cooler with its new “right to disconnect” rule.

In France, if you’re a company of 50 employees or more, you cannot email an employee after typical work hours. The labor law amendment has come about because studies show that in the digital age, it’s increasingly difficult for people to distance themselves from the workplace during their off hours.

This new provision allows people to get the full advantage of their time off.

“All the studies show there is far more work-related stress today than there used to be, and that the stress is constant,” Benoit Hamon of the French National Assembly told the BBC. “Employees physically leave the office, but they do not leave their work. They remain attached by a kind of electronic leash — like a dog. The texts, the messages, the emails — they colonize the life of the individual to the point where he or she eventually breaks down.”

The rule stipulates that companies must negotiate policies that limit the spillover of work into their employees’ private lives. Although there are no penalties for violations, companies are to establish “charters of good conduct” that specify the times which employees are free from being digitally connected to their workplaces.

This right to disconnect amendment was passed as part of a controversial French labor law that some say will weaken unions and enhance employee job insecurity. The digital disconnect amendment was the one part of the law that’s been viewed favorably by the French public.

This article originally appeared on 11.12.17

This is a story about something really exciting.

Before I get into it, let me set the stage by explaining the terrible problem it’s solving.

10 years.

That’s how long it’ll be until the last wild elephants and rhinoceroses are gone.

100 of them are killed every day by poachers.

Even though elephants and rhinos are legally protected, the amount of money that can be made from the ivory in their tusks is just too much for some people to resist.

So poachers go after elephants and rhinos in secret. They kill them in out-of-the-way places that are hard to patrol, and they do it at night under the cover of darkness.

Every hour, another elephant or rhino family is broken forever.

Now the Lindbergh Foundation has come up with an idea about how to stop poachers.

They’ve been testing their idea for two years now, and it really works.

Air Shepherd uses drones and computers to watch over elephants and rhinos the same way a shepherd protects his sheep.

It’s an amazing international, hi-tech system.

The drones in Africa are decked out with normal and infrared cameras that see where the animals — and the poachers — are. Even in the dark of night.

That imagery is sent to computers in the U.S. Using special software, they send back flight plans to the drones that predict where the animals are headed, which keeps the drones on top of the poachers.

Local rangers are notified, and they sweep in on the poachers.

During the 600 tests they’ve run so far, precisely zero poaching has occurred.

It’s a fantastic system.

Seven African countries have already requested help.

The Foundation has provided the seed money. They need contributions, though, so head over to the Air Shepherd site to see how you can get involved in this amazing project.

Please let your animal-loving friends know about this breakthrough program that could keep elephants and rhinos from going extinct. It’s so exciting.

(Unfortunately, the Lindbergh Foundation’s video has been removed from YouTube. But here’s an NBC News report about the project.)

This article originally appeared on 03.12.15

Actor Mark Wahlberg recently attended a daddy-daughter dance with his 10-year-old, Grace. Sadly, Grace had no interest in seeing her father strutting his stuff on the dance floor.

“I didn’t get one dance,” Wahlberg told Ellen DeGeneres. “And I told her we were going to do the whole big circle and I was going to go off. And she said, ‘Dad, if you embarrass me, I will never talk to you again.’ But what she did do is she hung out with me.”

No matter who your dad is, especially if you’re a 10-year-old-girl, you have zero desire to see him dance in front of your friends.

But the parents at the dance probably would have had a blast seeing Wahlberg bust out some of his old-school ’90s Marky Mark moves.

However, Wahlberg couldn’t help but leave his mark on the music being played at the dance.

Let’s not forget, he didn’t get famous for his acting but for showing off his abs in the “Good Vibrations” video.

Being that Wahlberg’s time as a pop star was three decades ago, he couldn’t believe it when he heard the music being played at the dance.

“[Grace] sat there on the edge of the stage, by the DJ. And then I’m sitting there with one other dad and I’m like, ‘This is not an edited version of this song. There are explicit lyrics being played at a school dance for girls and I’m like no good,'” he said.

“I told the DJ and he’s like, ‘Oh, I thought it was.’ I said, ‘What are you doing?’ I’m hearing F-bombs and this and that’s not okay,” Wahlberg said.

He’s right. There’s no place for music with explicit lyrics at a dance for 10-year-old children.

Wahlberg says the DJ didn’t know he wasn’t playing the edited version, but it’s probably more likely that he didn’t even realize the song was a problem. Pop music these days is filled with a numbing amount of violent and misogynistic lyrics.

A recent study from the University of Missouri found that nearly one-third of pop songs contain lyrics that degrade or demean women by portraying them as submissive or sexually objectified.

Currently, three of the top five songs on the Billboard Top 40 contain the word “bitch.” One of them is sung in Korean.

It’s odd that Americans have become more sensitive to misogyny in pop culture in films, television, and comedy, but still have a huge cultural blind-spot when it comes to music.

That’s not a good thing, especially when pop music is marketed to teenagers.

“We know that music has a strong impact on young people and how they view their role in society,” said Cynthia Frisby, a professor in the Missouri School of Journalism.

“Unlike rap or hip-hop, pop music tends to have a bubbly, uplifting sound that is meant to draw listeners in,” Frisby continued. “But that can be problematic if the lyrics beneath the sound are promoting violence and misogynistic behavior.”

Let’s face it, pop stars are role models. Their examples show young people what to wear and how to behave. That’s not to say that kids will blindly follow someone just because they like their music. But it has an undeniable effect.

Wahlberg, and any parent who monitors what their kids are listening to, deserve credit for protecting the minds and hearts of their kids.

Frisby has some great advice for parents concerned about negative imagery in pop music.

“Ask your daughters and sons what songs they like to listen to and have conversations about how the songs might impact their identity,” Frisby said.

“For example, many songs might make young girls feel like they have to look and act provocative in order to get a boy to like them, when that isn’t necessarily the case. If children and teens understand that what they are hearing isn’t healthy behavior, then they might be more likely to challenge what they hear on the radio.”

He’s right. There’s no place for music with explicit lyrics at a dance for 10-year-old children.

Wahlberg says the DJ didn’t know he wasn’t playing the edited version, but it’s probably more likely that he didn’t even realize the song was a problem. Pop music these days is filled with a numbing amount of violent and misogynistic lyrics.

A recent study from the University of Missouri found that nearly one-third of pop songs contain lyrics that degrade or demean women by portraying them as submissive or sexually objectified.

Currently, three of the top five songs on the Billboard Top 40 contain the word “bitch.” One of them is sung in Korean.

It’s odd that Americans have become more sensitive to misogyny in pop culture in films, television, and comedy, but still have a huge cultural blind-spot when it comes to music.

That’s not a good thing, especially when pop music is marketed to teenagers.

“We know that music has a strong impact on young people and how they view their role in society,” said Cynthia Frisby, a professor in the Missouri School of Journalism.

“Unlike rap or hip-hop, pop music tends to have a bubbly, uplifting sound that is meant to draw listeners in,” Frisby continued. “But that can be problematic if the lyrics beneath the sound are promoting violence and misogynistic behavior.”

Let’s face it, pop stars are role models. Their examples show young people what to wear and how to behave. That’s not to say that kids will blindly follow someone just because they like their music. But it has an undeniable effect.

Wahlberg, and any parent who monitors what their kids are listening to, deserve credit for protecting the minds and hearts of their kids.

Frisby has some great advice for parents concerned about negative imagery in pop music.

“Ask your daughters and sons what songs they like to listen to and have conversations about how the songs might impact their identity,” Frisby said.

“For example, many songs might make young girls feel like they have to look and act provocative in order to get a boy to like them, when that isn’t necessarily the case. If children and teens understand that what they are hearing isn’t healthy behavior, then they might be more likely to challenge what they hear on the radio.”

This article originally appeared on 03.03.20

Actor Mark Wahlberg recently attended a daddy-daughter dance with his 10-year-old, Grace. Sadly, Grace had no interest in seeing her father strutting his stuff on the dance floor.

“I didn’t get one dance,” Wahlberg told Ellen DeGeneres. “And I told her we were going to do the whole big circle and I was going to go off. And she said, ‘Dad, if you embarrass me, I will never talk to you again.’ But what she did do is she hung out with me.”

No matter who your dad is, especially if you’re a 10-year-old-girl, you have zero desire to see him dance in front of your friends.

But the parents at the dance probably would have had a blast seeing Wahlberg bust out some of his old-school ’90s Marky Mark moves.

However, Wahlberg couldn’t help but leave his mark on the music being played at the dance.

Let’s not forget, he didn’t get famous for his acting but for showing off his abs in the “Good Vibrations” video.

Being that Wahlberg’s time as a pop star was three decades ago, he couldn’t believe it when he heard the music being played at the dance.

“[Grace] sat there on the edge of the stage, by the DJ. And then I’m sitting there with one other dad and I’m like, ‘This is not an edited version of this song. There are explicit lyrics being played at a school dance for girls and I’m like no good,'” he said.

“I told the DJ and he’s like, ‘Oh, I thought it was.’ I said, ‘What are you doing?’ I’m hearing F-bombs and this and that’s not okay,” Wahlberg said.

He’s right. There’s no place for music with explicit lyrics at a dance for 10-year-old children.

Wahlberg says the DJ didn’t know he wasn’t playing the edited version, but it’s probably more likely that he didn’t even realize the song was a problem. Pop music these days is filled with a numbing amount of violent and misogynistic lyrics.

A recent study from the University of Missouri found that nearly one-third of pop songs contain lyrics that degrade or demean women by portraying them as submissive or sexually objectified.

Currently, three of the top five songs on the Billboard Top 40 contain the word “bitch.” One of them is sung in Korean.

It’s odd that Americans have become more sensitive to misogyny in pop culture in films, television, and comedy, but still have a huge cultural blind-spot when it comes to music.

That’s not a good thing, especially when pop music is marketed to teenagers.

“We know that music has a strong impact on young people and how they view their role in society,” said Cynthia Frisby, a professor in the Missouri School of Journalism.

“Unlike rap or hip-hop, pop music tends to have a bubbly, uplifting sound that is meant to draw listeners in,” Frisby continued. “But that can be problematic if the lyrics beneath the sound are promoting violence and misogynistic behavior.”

Let’s face it, pop stars are role models. Their examples show young people what to wear and how to behave. That’s not to say that kids will blindly follow someone just because they like their music. But it has an undeniable effect.

Wahlberg, and any parent who monitors what their kids are listening to, deserve credit for protecting the minds and hearts of their kids.

Frisby has some great advice for parents concerned about negative imagery in pop music.

“Ask your daughters and sons what songs they like to listen to and have conversations about how the songs might impact their identity,” Frisby said.

“For example, many songs might make young girls feel like they have to look and act provocative in order to get a boy to like them, when that isn’t necessarily the case. If children and teens understand that what they are hearing isn’t healthy behavior, then they might be more likely to challenge what they hear on the radio.”

He’s right. There’s no place for music with explicit lyrics at a dance for 10-year-old children.

Wahlberg says the DJ didn’t know he wasn’t playing the edited version, but it’s probably more likely that he didn’t even realize the song was a problem. Pop music these days is filled with a numbing amount of violent and misogynistic lyrics.

A recent study from the University of Missouri found that nearly one-third of pop songs contain lyrics that degrade or demean women by portraying them as submissive or sexually objectified.

Currently, three of the top five songs on the Billboard Top 40 contain the word “bitch.” One of them is sung in Korean.

It’s odd that Americans have become more sensitive to misogyny in pop culture in films, television, and comedy, but still have a huge cultural blind-spot when it comes to music.

That’s not a good thing, especially when pop music is marketed to teenagers.

“We know that music has a strong impact on young people and how they view their role in society,” said Cynthia Frisby, a professor in the Missouri School of Journalism.

“Unlike rap or hip-hop, pop music tends to have a bubbly, uplifting sound that is meant to draw listeners in,” Frisby continued. “But that can be problematic if the lyrics beneath the sound are promoting violence and misogynistic behavior.”

Let’s face it, pop stars are role models. Their examples show young people what to wear and how to behave. That’s not to say that kids will blindly follow someone just because they like their music. But it has an undeniable effect.

Wahlberg, and any parent who monitors what their kids are listening to, deserve credit for protecting the minds and hearts of their kids.

Frisby has some great advice for parents concerned about negative imagery in pop music.

“Ask your daughters and sons what songs they like to listen to and have conversations about how the songs might impact their identity,” Frisby said.

“For example, many songs might make young girls feel like they have to look and act provocative in order to get a boy to like them, when that isn’t necessarily the case. If children and teens understand that what they are hearing isn’t healthy behavior, then they might be more likely to challenge what they hear on the radio.”

This article originally appeared on 03.03.20

A new trend in treasure hunting called magnet fishing has blown up over the past two years, evidenced by an explosion of YouTube channels covering the hobby. Magnet fishing is a pretty simple activity. Hobbyists attach high-powered magnets to strong ropes, drop them into waterways and see what they attract.

The hobby has caught the attention of law enforcement and government agencies because urban waterways are a popular place for criminals to drop weapons and stolen items after committing a crime. In 2019, a magnet fisherman in Michigan pulled up an antique World War I mortar grenade and the bomb squad had to be called out to investigate.

Fifteen-year-old George Tindale and his dad, Kevin, 52, of Grantham, Lincolnshire in the U.K., made an incredible find earlier this month when they used two magnets to pull up a safe that had been submerged in the River Witham.

George has a popular magnet fishing YouTube channel called “Magnetic G.”

After the father-and-son duo pulled the safe out of the murky depths, they cracked it open with a crowbar and found about $2,500 Australian dollars (US$1,800), a shotgun certificate and credit cards that expired in 2004. The Tindales used the name found on the cards to find the safe’s owner, Rob Everett.

Everett’s safe was stolen during an office robbery in 2000 and then dumped into the river. “I remember at the time, they smashed into a cabinet to get to the safe,” Everett said, according to The Daily Mail. “I was just upset that there was a nice pen on my desk, a Montblanc that was never recovered.”

The safe was stolen in the year 2000 nn#magnetfishinghttps://www.granthamjournal.co.uk/news/teenager-finds-safe-containing-thousands-of-dollars-9250637/u00a0u2026

— Grantham Journal (@Grantham Journal)
1650615191

The robber, who was a teenage boy, was apprehended soon after the crime because he left behind a cap with his name stitched inside.

The father and son met up with Everett to return his stolen money and the businessman gave George a small reward for his honesty. He also offered him an internship because of the math skills he displayed in the YouTube video when he counted the Australian dollars. “What’s good about it is, I run a wealth management company and… I’d love him to work for us,” Everett said.

Although the safe saga began with a robbery 22 years ago, its conclusion has left Everett with more faith in humanity.

“I was just amazed that they’d been able to track me down,” he said. “There are some really nice and good people in this world. They could have kept the money, they could have said they attempted to get hold of me.”

“There’s a big lesson there. It teaches George that doing good and being honest and giving back is actually more rewarding than taking,” Everett added.

Treasure hunting isn’t the only allure of the hobby for George. His mother says the hobby has taught him a lot about water pollution and its effects on local wildlife. “George is very environmentally conscious. He always has been since primary school,” she said. “When he first started to do this, he was after treasure. Everything ends up in the rivers and canals.”

This article originally appeared on 04.25.22

Everyone who attended college knows that your first year is just to get your bearings straight, but sophomore year is when the fun really begins because you know exactly how to work the system (and who is cool enough to hang out with). This is why a second season of Gen V is a much-needed addition to Amazon Prime’s The Boys universe. Who knows what those adolescent supes will come up with for their second year? The group has already been covered in blood more than a handful of times.

After a well-received first season, the gang was renewed for another semester at Godolkin University. “We couldn’t be happier to make a second season of Gen V,” showrunner Michele Fazekas and executive producer Eric Kripke said after the show was renewed last fall. “These are characters and stories we’ve grown to love, and we are thrilled to know people feel the same! The writers are already working on the new season—sophomore year is gonna be wild, with all the twists, heart, satire, and exploding genitalia you’ve come to expect from the show.” This likely means a lot more penis-related incidents, but nobody is complaining about that.

The beauty (or curse) of a fresh superhero universe is all of the fun possibilities for upcoming seasons. Here is everything we know so far about Gen V season two.

Plot

Season one followed the diverse group of young Supes as they learned to control and understand their powers, and hopefully, become world-famous heroes like The Seven. But unlike The Seven, these supes are all young adults with little-to-no self-control, so things are a bit on the wild (and bloody) side. Season two will hopefully explore more of the characters as they learn more about the dark side of their idols and look to gain more control over their own powers. And it will probably be pretty meta along the way.

Unlike other superhero franchises, Kripke says that he doesn’t want the plot to get too convoluted between the shows. “We try to keep the timeline super simple because all that folding-in-on-itself timeline stuff that I think other comic book universes find themselves having to do is just bewildering for me as a viewer. So it’s all very modular,” he told Variety. “It’s like there’s Season 3 of The Boys, and then after that Gen V takes place, and then after that The Boys Season 4 takes place. And then after that, Gen V Season 2 takes place. It’s all more like cars on a train than it is a plate of spaghetti.” All aboard The Boys train.

Cast

Season one of Gen V introduced the eclectic group of young Supes at the prestigious Godolkin University, including Jaz Sinclair as Marie Moreau, a young super who can manipulate her own blood (and help heal others). Lizze Broadway portrays Emma Meye, Marie’s roommate who has the peculiar ability to shrink herself, while London Thor and Derek Luh portray Jordan Li, a gender-bending supe.

Chance Perdomo, Lizze Broadway, Shelley Conn, Maddie Phillips, Asa Germann, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sean Patrick Thomas, and Marco Pigossi also star. Of course, we also got a fun little cameo from Homelander, which could mean that we could see more of The Boys show up in season two.

Release Date

While no release date has been confirmed, we will get another season of The Boys before we head back to college for Gen V, as the showrunners confirmed. This means the earliest release date will be sometime in 2025, or late 2024.

Trailer

If only we could watch trailers before the show is made, but alas, that technology has not been invented yet. Check out the trailer for season one below:

Uproxx cover star Russ might be best known for his beats-and-bars approach to straightforward rap or crooning through R&B ballads, but on his latest single “Drives” — his first of 2024 — he dips into a new well of inspiration: millennial soft rock akin to Plain White T’s’ 2006 hit “Hey There Delilah.”

Strumming an acoustic guitar and putting on a surprisingly adept falsetto, Russ reels off a tale of heartbreak (although it’s told from a third-person perspective this time around). Russ narrates as his sad protagonist smokes a bowl and hits the road while reflecting on her messy past relationships.

However, this time around, she learns her lesson; instead of going back to an old flame who flamed out, she looks forward to the future. It’s not exactly optimistic but there’s a thread of hope and resilience humming along under all of it. It’s pretty and plaintive, and honestly, I couldn’t be too mad at him for switching lanes for a while and seeing where “Drives” — and more tunes like it — will take him.

The Atlanta entertainer explained the departure in a post on Twitter, encouraging artists to make music that they want, not just what’s popular or expected. It’s good advice. Check out “Drives” above.

So I’m going to start this off with an uncomfortable story about something I did and the reaction from The Greatest Night in Pop‘s director, Bao Nguyen. Back in 2015, he directed a documentary about Saturday Night Live called Live From New York! that opened the Tribeca Film Festival that year. It was certainly well made, but any one film about the entire history of SNL is going to probably be stories fans of the show had heard before – and especially for me, who had been covering the show on a weekly basis at the time since 2010. The fact I covered the show meant I was expected to write a review of the documentary, which I did in a, I realize now, clumsy way. Then to make matters worse, I was asked if I wanted to talk to Nguyen and, not really thinking it through, I said yes, because I do enjoy talking about SNL, assuming there’s no way he read that review. (To this day I kind of assume no one reads anything I write and I’m always shocked when I find out the opposite.) So we got on the phone and, yes, he certainly had read it and questioned me why I even wanted to talk to him and I didn’t have a great answer. I’m still pretty embarrassed about this to this day. (We did speak again for his wonderful film Be Water and, I think, buried the hatchet a bit.)

I bring this all this for a reason. Because while watching Nguyen’s incredible documentary about the making of “We Are the World,” The Greatest Night in Pop, I kept thinking about Live From New York! and what I was trying to articulate. Both films concentrate on a piece of extremely famous popular culture history involving an endless list of extremely famous people. But the difference here is it’s about one night, versus almost 50 years, which allows time for the very entertaining nitty gritty asides. And most people haven’t heard these stories. I don’t want to get too much into Nguyen’s head, but he’s an obvious fan of pop culture and wants to tell a definitive story about part of that. And with The Greatest Night in Pop (which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival) he very much succeeds. This was the movie he was always supposed to make. I loved every single second.

Do I need to explain “We Are the World”? I don’t think so? But I will briefly just in case. After the across-the-pond success of Band Aid’s “Do They Know it’s Christmas?,” American recording artists decided to make their own song for famine relief. The song was a huge success and, in 1985, was impossible to avoid. Even to this day, it’s kind of hard to avoid while flipping through radio stations. (Which, when we rent a car without Sirius XM, we still do.) This also involved bringing dozens of the most famous recording artists in the world together for a marathon, overnight session to record the song. And each famous recording artist brought their egos. Sure, there was a sign at the door telling them to check them there, but that did not happen.

Nguyen assembled a really impressive lineup of current-day talking heads from the original recording – Quincy Jones, Lionel Ritchie, Cyndi Lauper, Huey Lewis, Sheila E, and even Bruce Springsteen – who all have pretty interesting things to say today. Huey Lewis still has a look on his face that says, “I can’t believe I was even invited.” And we learn his solo in the song was originally earmarked for Prince, who never showed up. We see in the doc Quincy Jones literally approaching Lewis, “Sing this for me,” he does, then Jones saying something along the lines of, “Okay you’re in.” Springsteen, very diplomatically, makes it pretty clear he’s not a huge fan of the song itself, but also that it’s more of a tool to deliver what they needed to do. And also the reason he sounds extra gravel-y on the song is because he had just finished the first leg of the Born in the USA tour the night before and his voice was almost shot. Then there’s Sheila E who feels she was only invited as a way to get Prince to show up … and it seems pretty clear she’s right.

Then there’s Stevie Wonder. What a treat. Quincy Jones warns us early on that Stevie Wonder and Cyndi Lauper were “troublemakers.” And not in an endearing. fun way. Cyndi at the last minute almost bailed because “her boyfriend didn’t like the song.” Then Stevie Wonder, out of nowhere halfway through the recording session, decides part of the song should be sung in Swahili. Everyone else’s face in the room has the, “What on Earth?” look. Finally, Waylon Jennings gets pissed off and leaves and doesn’t come back. Then, finally, someone tells Stevie Wonder that Ethiopians don’t speak Swahili. Oh, there’s more Stevie! Bob Dylan is kind of whispering his part and no one could quite relay to him what he’s supposed to do. Finally, Stevie Wonder does Dylan’s part for him in a perfect Bob Dylan impression and says, “Do it like that.” If you ever wonder why Dylan, who didn’t really use that “Dylan voice” as much in the 1980s, sounds like 1960’s Dylan on the song … well he was just copying Stevie’s instructions. Again, everything about this movie is incredible. Every single story is like that. And it was all recorded so we get to actually see it.

Again, this is the movie Nguyen was kind of born to make. I speak from some experience that it’s really difficult to (a) find a piece of pop culture history people still care about, (b) involves enough people who audiences still care about, (c) hasn’t been covered to death and (d) the people involved will actually talk about it. Nguyen just may have found the last one … and he nails it.

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