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.
I encourage every artist to make the music you wanna hear. Every session that’s gonna sound like something different but it’s so important to chase your own satisfaction. Once you make something you love enough to share with other people, that’s when it’s time to drop it. But the…
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.
Megan Thee Stallion’s “Hiss” video continues the snake-y theme of her last single, “Cobra,” but adding some more surrealistic imagery that celebrates Megan herself.
The opening shot features an embryonic Megan gestating inside a snake egg, then the video slithers swiftly through a series of stunning shots of Megan surrounded by reflections of herself, including a dogpile of nude body parts, an Alice In Wonderland-like tiny room, and a literal hall of mirrors. She also watches herself on a wall of dozens of screens showing her performing and rocks a Cruella DeVille-esque black-and-white ensemble. Even more snake imagery appears at the end and throughout, Thee Stallion styles in a slew of slinky, risqué looks showing off her hard-earned curves.
“Hiss” continues the rollout of Meg’s first independent album, on which she’s promised to take to task all of the forces that aligned to try to bring her down in the past few years. The song itself contains a series of strategic strikes against those who’ve wronged her, from Nicki Minaj to all the men who made light of her shooting by Tory Lanez.
Watch The “Hiss” video above.
Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Ice Spice may be a New Yorker, born and raised, but that didn’t stop her from shooting her raucous “Think U The Sh*t (Fart)” video on Miami’s iconic Ocean Drive. From cruising the bay in a speedboat to turning up on the beach, Ice Spice and her crew show off their assets and twerk up a tornado in the video, which very much resembles her clips for “In Ha Mood” and “Deli.”
Something tells me the bigger budget, higher concept videos are still in the works as Ice Spice prepares to release her debut album sometime this year. For now, it just looks like she’s having the time of her life and still enjoying her meteoric rise the way any 24-year-old would.
Even before Ice released the video, “Think U The Sh*t (Fart)” was already generating buzz among fans, as many interpreted the song as a bit of a diss record directed at Latto. In an apparent callback to Latto’s 2023 hit “Put It On Da Floor,” Spice raps, ““I got my foot on they necks, I can’t let up / She all on the floor, told her get up / She my son, but I ain’t her mammy / Bitches can’t stand me.”
Whether or not that means her rumored beef with Latto is really happening, it certainly looks like the anticipation for Ice Spice’s inevitable album release is going to be sky high.
Watch Ice Spice’s “Think U The Sh*t (Fart)” video above.
With a showdown brewing between the federal government and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has rejected a Supreme Court order that allows Border Patrol agents to take down razor wire meant to deter migrants from entering the country, did you ever stop and wonder if this whole thing is really about sperm? Dilbert creator Scott Adams sure did.
In what is easily Adams’ most deranged screed yet, the cartoonist theorized that America does not have a “racial and political divide.” Instead, he argues that the country’s real problem is a “broken mating system” from women not getting enough alpha male sperm to keep them “satisfied,” or whatever. The whole thing goes right off the deep end and quick.
When men and women have adequate mating strategies, they put their focus on mating, and in so doing they become biologically satisfied. Or at least it keeps them busy.
But when mating strategies fail — for a variety of social reasons, like now — men become dangerous and women become batshit crazy and start defending DEI and open borders and anything else that increases the odds of women being around additional sperm.
Right, of course, the border crisis is really about sperm-hungry women flooding the country with potential donors. It’s so obvious. That’s why Democrats have become the “woman party” and Republicans have become the “man party,” according to the guy who wrote a comic strip where the characters’ names are Dilbert, Dogbert, and Catbert.
“Democrat men are pleasers, so they play along with the single women to increase their mating options,” America’s top sperm-theorist wrote. “Republican women are inclined to back their protectors, which is also a good mating strategy.”
You can read Adams’ super weird sperm screed in its entirety below:
Here’s a reframe for understanding basically everything wrong with the country right now.
We think we have a racial and political divide. We do not. We have a broken mating system (marriage).
When men and women have adequate mating strategies, they put their focus on mating,…
Booker’s Small Batch Bourbon Whiskey is one of the most beloved Beam releases, year after year. In fact, it’s four of the most beloved releases — as there are usually four distinct barrel-strength expressions delivered every year. And while it’d be easy for the team at the James B. Beam Distillery in Clermont, Kentucky, to just release four drops of the same small batch mix of their bourbon at cask strength, they go way beyond that.
Each batch of Booker’s Small Batch released throughout the year is a 100% unique blend of Beam bourbons. That means that each whiskey has its own vibe, tasting notes, and proof.
Thanks to every distiller and blender having to get their labels approved well in advance by the TTB (the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau at the Department of the Treasury in Washington, DC), we already know which bottles are dropping this year. They’re the following:
Booker’s Small Batch Kentucky Straight Borubon 2024-01 “Springfield Batch”
The year’s first release is coming out in March (with a few probably trickling out in late February).
Springfield, Kentucky is associated with the Jim Beam BBQ Classic. So, “Springfield Batch” may be another “BBQ” or “food” themed version of Booker’s Small Batch when it comes to the flavor profile.
The “proof” and “age” on the TTB-approved label are just placeholders.
The price will be between $89 and $99 suggested retail price. But expect $99-$129 at retail.
Booker’s Small Batch Kentucky Straight Borubon 2024-02 “The Beam House Batch”
The second Booker’s release will be hitting shelves in May as an official “spring” release.
“The Beam House Batch” likely refers to the old family home that’s perched above the main tourist welcome center on the Clermont, Kentucky campus.
The “proof” and “age” on the TTB-approved label are just placeholders.
The price will be between $89 and $99 suggested retail price. But expect $99-$129 at retail.
Booker’s Small Batch Kentucky Straight Borubon 2024-03 “Jerry’s Batch”
The third Booker’s release will drop in September, making it a late summer/early fall drop.
The “proof” and “age” on the TTB-approved label are just placeholders.
The price will be between $89 and $99 suggested retail price. But expect $99-$129 at retail.
Booker’s Small Batch Kentucky Straight Borubon 2024-04 “Master Distillers Batch”
2024’s last Booker’s expression will drop in December.
The moniker “Master Distillers” likely means that Fred and Freddie Noe (the father/son team who share Master Distilling duties at Beam) collaborated on this one.
The “proof” and “age” on the TTB-approved label are just placeholders.
The price will be between $89 and $99 suggested retail price. But expect $99-$129 at retail.
Around this time of the year in 2020, things were a lot different for Montreal native Alicia Creti. The then-21-year-old singer was studying finance at Montreal’s Concordia University despite having dreams of being a full-time singer. Four years later, and Creti is now just a couple of weeks away from releasing her debut EP Self/Less.
The upcoming project accounts for the multiple life journeys that brought Creti to this very moment. Whether it’s the up-and-down relationships that are detailed in songs like “Crazy” or the tough conversations she had with both herself and the people close to her. In the end, the upcoming EP’s title track is a moving and eloquently honest ballad that details the unintended effects of being selfish toward one’s desires.
Ahead of the release of Self/Less, Alicia Creti took a moment to talk with Uproxx about her upcoming EP, its latest single, her upcoming tour with Mahalia, and more.
When did you then realize that you could make a career out of your love for music?
It was the beginning of the pandemic, so it was like 2020. I met Amisha Shakar on the internet. I was studying finance at Concordia University in Montreal [and] it was my last year. It’s very strange because I was thinking I had a year left and I was getting anxious in the wrong ways. In my brain, for my entire life, I envisioned myself on a stage. Picturing myself looking into the future, that’s what I saw. It was where I am right now, but what I was actively doing was not that.
My friend convinced me to just post on TikTok and it could go viral. TikTok was a brand new app, so everybody was going viral. It wasn’t like today. I went viral and it got me connected to Amisha. It really just took one person looking at me and being like, “What do you want?” and I was like, “I want to be an artist, I want to make music for the rest of my life.”
In just a couple of sentences can you define “Self/Less” with the way it’s stylized on your new single and explain its meaning?
It’s about a difficult conversation that I had with my brother, essentially just trying to prep him for the fact that I would eventually need to move to LA. It was genuinely one of the hardest conversations that I’ve had because my brother is everything to me. I’ve put him first my entire life and I’ve put everybody first my entire life.
Consequently, I ended up finding myself feeling ultimately self-less. That’s kind of where the concept stemmed from. I was putting everybody before me my whole life and ultimately ended up feeling like I needed an identity. Everything was for other people around me and always being strong for others that I really lost myself. When I started making this project, it was one of the first steps that I took to putting myself first and doing something for me.
It was recently announced that you’ll be opening Mahalia’s In Real Life Tour. What’s something you’re looking forward tour about those run of shows and what’s something you’re nervous about?
I’m looking forward to just being on that stage and I’m so grateful to Mahalia for this opportunity, she’s incredible. I’ve been a fan for a minute. I found her with “Do Not Disturb” and that’s what put me on to her. So the fact that we’re here now is crazy. I’m nervous about being on the road for so long. I’ve never done a tour like this before and I’ve had some issues with my voice during the first year that I was coming to LA. I even got surgery for this because I kept losing my voice. I got sinus and deviated septum surgery. So, I’m a little nervous about losing my voice, but I am prepared for this and I got the vocal warm-ups and the vocal rest that’s gotta happen when we’re driving from one place to another. It’s also a shorter set per night, so it’s not like I’m singing all day long, but that is really my main concern. Making sure that I don’t lose my voice.
What would say is your proudest moment in the process of creating your upcoming project?
I’ve written the project and finished everything and I’ve been sharing it with my family during the process that it was being made. Now we’re finishing the mixes and the masters and that’s when you really see all the songs come to life in their their final form. I’m just proud to be able to share this with my family, especially my nana who’s on one of the tracks on the project. Even sharing this with my brother and my whole family. I think that has been the best moment and all of this, to be honest. It’s brought us closer, I don’t know how we can get closer than we are, I’m close with my family. So yeah, I think that it’s just the connection that the project is allowing for, it’s been really, really special.
What is one message you want to leave with fans as they listen to this song and eventually the Self/Less project?
Don’t let anything hold you back from being your most authentic self, doing what you love, and doing things for you. You have one heart, mind, and soul in this life and it would be a shame if you didn’t put yourself first and I don’t think that it’s selfish at all.
Self/Less is out 2/16 via Atlantic Records. Find out more information here.
Alicia Creti is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Every once in a while, there is a new fast food dish that just stuns me into silence. I take a bite and then just sit for a few minutes, processing the questions running through my mind. “Why did they make this? Who is it for? What other ideas ended up on the cutting room floor so this could hit the menu? Why can’t they just listen to the fans and bring back whatever dish we’ve been complaining about not having?”
They’re not fun thoughts to have. But this is my lot in life as a food reviewer.
I want to bite into a new dish and go “WOW — I need to tell everyone about this!” It’s happened before. I was lucky enough to pick up a Popeyes Chicken Sandwich before the hype caused it to sell out. And I pinky swear that I wanted it to happen with KFC’s new Spicy Mac and Cheese Wrap. Desperately.
A piece of fried chicken wrapped in a tortilla with mac and cheese, a three-cheese blend, and spicy sauce? Get me high then sign me up!
But alas, that’s not what happened. Here is everything wrong with the Spicy Mac and Cheese KFC Wrap.
Spicy Mac & Cheese KFC Wrap
Dane Rivera
Tasting Notes and Thoughts:
As you can tell, this actual wrap doesn’t look even half as good as the press photos would suggest. I don’t even know where to begin here, this dish is just lazy. KFC takes a single extra crispy chicken strip, wraps it in a chalky, undercooked tortilla, adds a minimal amount of mac and cheese, douses it in sauce, and calls it a day. The quality control on this dish is horrendous, I took three bites until I got to the mac and cheese, but the flavor barely registered under the spicy sauce.
All it did was make the dish more mushy.
I’ll give the wrap this: the sauce is great — it has a cayenne pepper flavor with a creamy savory texture, and is a natural pair for the crispy chicken strip, which is also pretty good thanks to its tender texture, and black pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder heavy flavor. Might have the makings of an incredible sandwich there.
But what is the draw in having it wrapped? Or adding mac & cheese?
Dane Rivera
The tortilla is a throwaway, and the amount of mac and cheese is so minimal it might as well not even be there. You’d be better served ordering chicken tenders with a side of mac and cheese. Then you can go nuts dipping the tenders in even more cheese than this wrap provides.
The real draw here is that it’s $5 for two wraps. But while that might seem like a great value, it’s actually not money well spent.
The Bottom Line:
Don’t order this. Not even if you love KFC’s chicken tenders and mac and cheese. Order those together as part of a combo if you want an adequate amount of both foods. Otherwise, you’re essentially just getting a chicken tender in a bad tortilla with an admittedly great tasting sauce.
“Dry January” is coming to a timely end. But we’re still deep in winter and the weather… isn’t great. The end of alcohol abstinence and cold weather calls for a warming and fun drink that’s a low lift to make. The progenitor of the espresso martini — the Irish Coffee — is perfect for that. It’s vibrant, full of caffeine to keep you going, and has just the right kick of whiskey goodness.
The boozy mix of coffee, alcohol, and whipped cream topping dates back to the coffee houses of Vienna in the 1800s. The drink was wide-ranging — with tons of different alcohols used, depending on the coffee house denizens’ whims — and hugely popular. The version we recognize today traces back to a bar at an airport in Ireland. The mix was served to American tourists in the 1940s arriving in Ireland on a Pan-Am flight after a long trip over the Atlantic. The rest, as they say, is history.
Below, I’m going to break down how to make this deliciously invigorating and creamy drink. It’ll warm you up during the cold winter days and ease you back into “Not Dry February.” Let’s dive in!
Also Read: The Top Five Cocktail Recipes of the Last Six Months
The key ingredient is Irish whiskey. I’m going a little deeper and using a good Irish-American whiskey, Four Walls. That mixing whiskey uses a nice dose of American rye whiskey, adding a drier and spicier depth than your average honeyed Irish tipple. It truly works wonders with the coffee and cream.
The rest is pretty easy. If you don’t have an espresso machine at home, you can easily grab a double shot from Starbucks and bring it home. Or you can use regular coffee from your machine. You won’t have the same consistency (pure velvet), but you will have a nice drink.
Lastly, I like to use a milk frother for the cream. It gives it the right light airyness without making the cream too dense. You want to be able to easily sip through the cream without it blocking the boozy coffee beneath it. That said, you can use a whipped cream canister in a pinch. But a Milk Frother is like $6 on Amazon — so it’s a worthwhile investment anyway.
Quick note:
Sometimes recipes will call for a half-ounce of simple syrup as a sweetener. I tend to lean away from that as the whiskey is sweet enough. That said, if you really need sweeteners in your coffee, then add a little bar syrup. In the same vein, you can also add flavored sweeteners like hazelnut, cinnamon, cherry, almond, vanilla, or whatever syrup to take the drink in those directions. Just make sure to keep it under a half-ounce.
Add the espresso and whiskey to the coffee mug and stir a couple of times.
Froth the cream with the milk frother and use the barspoon to add the cream to the top of the coffee, it should naturally float on top of the coffee/whiskey mix.
Dust with nutmeg if so inclined. Serve.
Bottom Line:
Zach Johnston
This drink just hits perfectly right now. It’s warm and creamy with a nice espresso bite. The frothed cream is easy to drink through and gives you a nice finish of silkiness by the end of the cocktail.
The whiskey shines through nicely and matches the nuttiness of the espresso with a touch of clove, cinnamon, and allspice countered by a soft caramel sweetness. It’s a delightful sipper and pairs amazingly well with a freshly fried glazed doughnut.
Brittany Howard is a bona fide rockstar in her own right, with the Grammy Award wins to back it up. Somehow, she apparently still feels the need to justify her talents to the masses. Her latest single, “Prove It To You,” is Howard’s upbeat response to skeptics.
Having already shared two records (“Red Flags” and the title track) from her forthcoming album, What Now, Howard decided to take an alternate route to her creative destination. Known and rewarded for her brazen rock sound, on “Prove It To You,” Howard shows that she has other infectious sounds up her sleeve.
Flooded with fuzzy notes, a higher BPM, and flirty lyrics such as, “I’ve never been any good at falling in love / I fall so hard I never get up / Don’t hurt me, girl / I can’t take it no more / Makes me ask what I’m doing it for / ‘Cause I love the way you make me feel / I hope I do it for you, baby / All I wanna do is prove it to you,” Howard leave the rockstar life behind her for EDM.
What this music phase is for Howard sounds good on her. Hopefully, she dives more into it on What Now.
Listen to “Prove It To You” above.
What Now is out 2/2 via Island Records/EMI. Find more information here.
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