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Spotify Wrapped is the perfect way to music fans to end the year: New music releases slow down in the weeks leading up to Christmas, so it’s a good time to reflect on what the past year in music was like. Well, good news: Spotify Wrapped 2023 was unveiled today (November 29). Aside from offering users a look at their own listening habits, Spotify also unveils what artists, songs, albums, and more were the most popular on the platform over the past year.

This year’s top artist shouldn’t be a major surprise: It’s Taylor Swift. Between her two new Taylor’s Version albums (Speak Now and 1989) and The Eras Tour (and all the buzz that created around her catalog in general), Swift was huge in 2023, as she topped both the global and US most-streamed artists charts.

Check out the top 10 artist lists for both the world and just the US below, and find more of Spotify’s year-end data here.

Spotify’s Most-Streamed Artists Globally For 2023

1. Taylor Swift
2. Bad Bunny
3. The Weeknd
4. Drake
5. Peso Pluma
6. Feid
7. Travis Scott
8. SZA
9. Karol G
10. Lana Del Rey

Spotify’s Most-Streamed Artists In The US For 2023

1. Taylor Swift
2. Drake
3. Morgan Wallen
4. The Weeknd
5. Bad Bunny
6. 21 Savage
7. SZA
8. Zach Bryan
9. Kanye West
10. Peso Pluma

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

Cardi B has long been open and proud about her time working in the strip club, before she came to fame through her music. Those days are behind her now, though, so she’s presumably not practicing her moves as often as she used to. The way Cardi sees it, when it comes to twerking, she’s rusty and just not very good at it anymore.

In a recent social media post (as HipHopDX notes), Cardi shared a video of herself with her backside to the camera as she twerked and shook it around. She wasn’t impressed by herself, though, as her on-screen text read, “Body on 10, Twerk on 0 [crying laughing emoji].”

Judge for yourself:

Meanwhile, there’s a chance Cardi will share something new before 2023 ends: A couple weeks ago, she said, “I was thinking about, you know, being really quiet, being private. But I don’t know. Maybe I should just… I don’t know, maybe I should put a lil’ something something out before the year ends. It depends, though, because… hmm, would y’all mind if I just do, like, a video? I don’t know, if I do a music video that’s just probably in my kitchen because I don’t really have nothing planned for, like, right now. I don’t know. I’ll think about it by the end of the day. I don’t know, I don’t know. I just feel like I gotta talk my sh*t a little bit. You know what I’m saying? I don’t know, I don’t know.”

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Teacher Bret Turner thought he’d kick off the morning with his first-grade students using a little riddle.

On the whiteboard in the front of the class, he scrawled it out in black marker:

“I am the beginning of everything, the end of everywhere. I’m the beginning of eternity, the end of time & space.”

One student raised their hand, the first to venture a guess.

Now, the answer, of course, is the letter “E.” (Get it!?) But the student had a different idea.

“Death?”

Turner later described the incident on Twitter in a post that’s now gone massively viral. “Such an awed, somber, reflective hush fell over the class that I didn’t want to tell them that actually the answer is the letter ‘E’, which just seemed so banal in the moment,” he wrote.

u201cThe first guess from one of my 1st graders was u201cdeathu201d and such an awed, somber, reflective hush fell over the class that I didnu2019t want to tell them that actually the answer is the letter e, which just seemed so banal in the momentu201d

— Bret Turner (@Bret Turner)
1514935897

People on Twitter got a huge kick out of the somewhat dark, existential moment. But there might just be an important lesson buried in this story somewhere about how to process “the end.”

Many users who replied to the Tweet were impressed by the unnamed kid’s thoughtfulness and ability to understand the concept of death at such a young age. (How many first graders would peg death as “the beginning of eternity?”)

But it turns out that kids are much more perceptive than we give them credit for.

An article in National Geographic breaks down the three key truths that children must eventually learn about death. First, that it’s irreversible (people who die aren’t just on vacation). Second, it makes your body non-functional (people who are dead aren’t just asleep). And third, it’s universal (everything and everybody dies eventually).

Some studies have shown that kids start to understand the concept as young as 3 years old and gradually learn to accept the many layers of it in the years that follow.

It takes time for anyone to fully grasp the gravity and foreverness of death. But we ought to learn to appreciate the whimsical, partial understanding that young children have.

Some Twitter users who read Turner’s account of the riddle accused the student in question of having a morbid personality or an unusual fascination with the macabre. After all, few adults would be brave enough to blurt out something so dark.

It’s a lot more likely the kid just hasn’t been conditioned to fear death yet, to speak about it in hushed tones — if at all. This might be the same kind of kid who finds out his grandma has died and says, casually, “Oh, OK. Bye, grandma! See you soon!”

When you think about it, that’s actually a pretty sweet and remarkably peaceful way of thinking about death. So let’s stop rushing kids into having adult-sized worries about the world and let them discover it at their own pace.

As long as it gives us funny moments like this one, anyway.

This article originally appeared on 01.12.18

Eight teams are still alive in the race to win the NBA Cup for the first time. After the dust settled on Tuesday night’s slate of In-Season Tournament games, group play officially came to an end, which means the Knockout Rounds are on the horizon.

In the Eastern Conference, the Milwaukee Bucks earned the top overall seed, and as a result, they’ll square off against the New York Knicks, which earned the Wild Card. The other game pits a group of up-and-comers in the conference, the Indiana Pacers, against a juggernaut in the East, the Boston Celtics. The Western Conference is just as fun, as the Los Angeles Lakers grabbed the No. 1 seed and will take on the Phoenix Suns, while the Sacramento Kings won a thriller on the final night of the group to earn a home game against the New Orleans Pelicans.

Shortly after the dust settled, the NBA announced the television info for the four quarterfinal matchups. Here’s how it breaks down (all times EST):

Monday, Dec. 4

Boston Celtics vs. Indiana Pacers, 7:30 p.m., TNT
New Orleans Pelicans vs. Sacramento Kings, 10 p.m., TNT

Tuesday, Dec. 5

New York Knicks vs. Milwaukee Bucks, 7:30 p.m., TNT
Phoenix Suns vs. Los Angeles Lakers, 10 p.m., TNT

The four winning teams are heading to Las Vegas for the semifinals and finals of the inaugural In-Season Tournament. The semis will take place on Dec. 7, while the finals will be held on Dec. 9.

Group play in the inaugural In-Season Tournament came to an end on Tuesday night. The league put eight games on the slate, with many of them holding some significance as we try to figure out who is going to move on to the Knockout Rounds with a potential trip to Las Vegas on the horizon.

Very little was guaranteed heading into the action on Tuesday, but now, the dust is settled and we know exactly which teams will continue to compete for the NBA Cup. Here’s how it all looks.

Eastern Conference

Coming into Tuesday night’s slate of games, all we knew was that the Indiana Pacers were moving on by nature of winning Group A. Groups B and C, however, were still undecided, while the team in second place in Group A (the Cleveland Cavaliers) had its eye on earning the conference’s one Wild Card berth.

The top of Group B ended up being pretty simple: The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Jimmy Butler-less Miami Heat, 131-124, to move to 4-0 in the group and secure the top spot. Group C ended up being a little trickier, but ultimately, a Boston Celtics win over the Chicago Bulls and a Brooklyn Nets win over the Toronto Raptors put the Celtics atop the group and through to the quarters. And as for the Wild Card spot, the New York Knicks took care of business against the Charlotte Hornets, thereby earning themselves the 4-seed.

As a result, here’s how the quarterfinals will play out:

1. Milwaukee Bucks
4. New York Knicks

2. Indiana Pacers
3. Boston Celtics

Western Conference

Similar to the Eastern Conference, we knew one thing coming into Tuesday night’s slate of games: The Los Angeles Lakers were moving on as the winners of Group A. Before we learned which team would win Groups B or C, a Minnesota Timberwolves win over the Oklahoma City Thunder sent the Phoenix Suns through via the Wild Card.

Group B was easy enough, as the Houston Rockets needed to beat the Dallas Mavericks to move on to the quarters. If they lost, however, that would mean the New Orleans Pelicans got sent through. It took 41 points from Luka Doncic, but fortunately for the Pelicans, they got just that, as Dallas picked up a 119-115 win to send Houston home and New Orleans on to the next round.

Minnesota’s win did provide a little bit of clarity in Group C, as their win by only three points meant that they were eliminated. That meant all eyes were on the final game of the night between the Sacramento Kings and the Golden State Warriors, and as long as the Kings did not lose by 12 or more points, they would advance. Otherwise, the Warriors would go to the top of the group. And while Golden State led by as many as 24, the Kings stormed back and outright won the game, picking up a thrilling 124-123 victory in one of the best games of the season so far.

1. Los Angeles Lakers
4. Phoenix Suns

2. Sacramento Kings
3. New Orleans Pelicans

These games will all take place on Dec. 4 and 5, with the schedules for those nights coming sometime soon. Once the quarters get all sorted out, the four remaining teams will make their way to Las Vegas for the semifinals and — should they win that game — a spot in the final with the NBA Cup on the line. Both semis will take place on Dec. 7, while the final will take place on Dec. 9.

The Boston Celtics needed to leave no doubt in their game against the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday night. Needing a win by at least 23 points to have a chance to advance to the knockout round of the In-Season Tournament, Boston was incentivized to do whatever it took to pick up a win. They ended up getting across the finish line — they picked up a 124-97 victory and had other results go their way to help them win their group and move on — but one method they used rubbed the opposing head coach the wrong way.

With the team up by 32 points in the fourth quarter, Joe Mazzulla had Jrue Holiday intentionally foul Andre Drummond to send him to the free throw line. The Hack-a-Andre approach isn’t unusual — Drummond is not a particularly strong free throw shooter — but to do it in this situation clearly upset Bulls coach Billy Donovan, to the point that Mazzulla and Donovan met up near midcourt to discuss while the game was going on.

After the game, Donovan met with the media and made clear that he understood why Mazzulla did this, but expressed that he didn’t like the spot it put Drummond in and pointed out that this happened because point differential is one of the tiebreakers used to determine which teams move on in the In-Season Tournament.

Mazzulla addressed it after the game, and gave Donovan credit for understanding the situation they were in. And while he benefited from the strategy, Jaylen Brown told the press that he wouldn’t be especially happy if he was on the other side of this.

This is not the first time that someone with the Celtics addressed the emphasis on point differential. Over the weekend, Jayson Tatum expressed that he’s “not the biggest fan of” point differential being part of the equation.

Were the powers-that-be trying to stop Robert De Niro from railing against Donald Trump, again? That’s what it seemed like on Monday, when the legendary actor went off-script at this year’s Gotham Awards. During a tribute to his latest film, Flowers of the Killing Moon, De Niro openly called out the Gothams and Apple, who produced the film, accusing them of messing with the teleprompter, editing out a section in which he railed against the former president. But the real reason for the elision may be a lot more boring.

Variety did a morning-after on the awards show, in which they tried to get to the bottom of why De Niro had to pull out a paper version containing his full speech, which he then read to the crowd in protest. Long story short: There were allegedly multiple versions of the speech from various times, and the wrong one (allegedly!) got sent to the teleprompter less than ten minutes before the show started.

It still sounds a bit fishy. Soon before show time, a woman “overheard identifying herself as an Apple employee” told the teleprompter operator to upload a new version of the speech. Six minutes before showtime the teleprompter company received an email from Apple with the revised speech, which omitted specific references to Trump. Instead it mentioned how “watching the news today” makes it seem like “we actually are living in a post-truth society.”

A source, though, says it was really more a mere miscommunication. Though there was a version that kept the focus mostly on the film itself, neither Apple nor the filmmakers allegedly knew that De Niro hadn’t signed off on that version.

The Gothams themselves had no part in what proved the most headline-grabbing part of the evening.

Anyway, it all worked out, sort of. De Niro got to deliver the once deep-sixed part of his speech after all, calling out John Wayne for once saying the Native Americans deserved to have their land taken from them, trashing Ron De Santis for whitewashing slavery in Florida schools, and painting Trump as a liar and racist who uses “Pocahontas” as a slur.

Some other good stuff happened that night too. The Gothams heaped awards upon the immigration drama Past Lives, the German drama Anatomy of a Fall, the Netflix show Beef, and Flower Moon co-star Lily Gladstone, but for another film, The Unknown Country. Everyone’s a winner.

(Via Variety)

Teyana Taylor and Iman Shumpert have made headlines recently, amid Taylor’s reported filing for divorce. And of course, like with every celebrity divorce, a barrage of rumors has followed the news of their separation. But Taylor has since taken to social media to clear some of these rumors up.

Is Teyana Taylor pregnant?

On Monday night (November 27), Taylor attended the 33rd Annual Gotham Awards in New York City following the release of her movie A Thousand And One. Taylor was nominated for Outstanding Lead Performance for her role as Inez de la Paz in the movie. While on the red carpet of the Gotham Awards, Taylor wore a tight-fitting black dress. As always, Taylor’s look was a serve. However, fans began to speculate on social media that the singer is pregnant.

Taylor caught wind of the comments, and took to Instagram herself to clear the air. Per HipHopDx, Taylor explicitly stated that she is not pregnant, however, appeared bloated as she really needed to use the bathroom.

“Auntey ain’t preggo y’all! I just had to pee,” Taylor commented on a post on Hollywood Unlocked‘s Instagram post. “Y’all know that pee pouch ain’t nothing to play wit. My kangaroo pouch ass.”

While Taylor is in the middle of a divorce, she is gearing up for an exciting 2024. In January, fans will see Taylor on-screen once again, this time as Mary Magdalene in The Book Of Clarence.

The boys of BTS are currently serving mandatory time in the Korean military, but they’re still managing to keep fans fed while they’re away. Tonight (November 28), Disney+ shared the official trailer for their upcoming docuseries BTS Monuments: Beyond The Star.

In the trailer, the boys are seen navigating global fame. The footage takes us back to the beginning of their career, to crossing over as international pop sensations. We see the boys celebrate as they win various awards and sell out various arenas on tours.

Fans will also see the BTS members grapple with the darker side of fame. In one clip, RM says “We worked our tails off, life was difficult.”

Though it’s not super clear to what RM is alluding, his bandmate, Suga, doubles down on this, saying, “I was going to run away, for real.”

According to a press release, fans will get a “glimpse into the countless obstacles and challenges the band encountered in reaching their global career-defining milestones, as well as the members’ daily lives and inner thoughts.”

The docuseries will premiere with two episodes, beginning December 20, with two additional episodes premiering every Wednesday. BTS Monuments: Beyond The Star will span across eight episodes.

You can see the trailer above.

A Lawton, Oklahoma, student who goes by the Facebook user name Rose Lynn had the last laugh after being sent home from school for wearing an outfit deemed “distracting.” Rose Lynn believes her outfit attracted the attention of school officials because of her figure.

She proved it by posting a photo on Facebook of her modest outfit, which consisted of black leggings, a t-shirt, long cardigan, and boots. In her post, she wrote that she was sent home “because I’m developed farther than the average girl my age,” and because she’s a “CURVY woman.” Rose Lynn also thinks the appropriate response shouldn’t have been to tell her to cover up, but to teach boys to “to respect the boundaries of young ladies.”

Her father, Lance Miles, agrees with her. “If she was built like a board or as round as a ball she wouldn’t have been sent home but [since] she has a figure she was told she had to change,” he said in the comments of her Facebook post.

“This is 100 percent on [Lawton Public Schools] because they have left the rule up to interpretation. She has been taught that if you believe in something, do what you must and be prepared for the consequences. She has done that,” he continued.

Rose Lynn’s post:

“So today I was sent home from class, after being in school for two hours, for my outfit. Because I’m developed farther than the average girl my age, I am required to go home and change… Because I look like a CURVY woman and may distract young boys, I have to miss class and change my outfit.

So once again, society has failed to advocate young ladies, by confining them in a box, where they are stripped from their sense of self respect and self expression, rather than teaching young men to respect the boundaries of young ladies. My response: #Feminism #YoullDistractTheBoys #SocietyIsFailing”

On the day Rose Lynn was sent home, she was due to take a 20-minute algebra exam. She asked school officials if she could take the test before changing her outfit, but her request was denied. So the next day, she got her revenge.

Rose Lynn returned to school wearing an oversize t-shirt. On the front she scribbled a quote from school officials in black Sharpie, “It doesn’t cover your crotch”; on the back, “You’ll distract the boys.” That day, Rose Lynn was called to the office and sent home again. This time it wasn’t for her outfit but for not wearing her student I.D., which she had left in the classroom after being called to the office.

This article originally appeared on 05.17.19