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Kid Cudi’s rollout for Insano takes a big leap forward with “At The Party,” featuring both Pharrell and Travis Scott. In September, the Cleveland rapper pushed the album back, advising fans that it wouldn’t arrive until January, but in terms of the sort of tracks that’ll hold them over ’til then, you could do way worse than “At The Party.”

A loopy, bass-heavy beat backs rap verses from all three participants, who each perform with a buzzy filter and a droning delivery. The effects are cool and help make the three verses more lively, considering none of the three has ever really been anyone’s idea of a showstopping rapper. The features are also fitting since you can usually hear a lot of Pharrell’s influence in Kid Cudi’s music and even more of Kid Cudi’s influence in Travis Scott’s music.

They’re just two of the planned features for Insano, which Cudi teased would also include contributions from fellow genre-benders like ASAP Rocky, Lil Yachty, and Young Thug. Cudi also recently collaborated with Lil Durk on the song “Guitar In My Room” but it remains to be seen whose project it’ll show up on, if any.

Listen to Kid Cudi’s “At The Party” above.

We’ve seen Keanu Reeves do it all: shoot guns, race around the world, and destroy men with his bare hands. But for his latest project, he’s narrating the story while someone else does some risky stunts. The man needs some rest, let him be.

Reeves narrates Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story, Hulu’s latest sports docuseries which recounts the story of 2008’s best underdog story. Reeves is, famously, a fan of going very fast, so this makes him the perfect person to tell the story. In the trailer, Reeves says that the story of Brawn GP ” barely seems believable,” which is why he’s the perfect man for the gig.

The doc features race footage and interviews with team owen Ross Brawn himself, plus former F1 executive Bernie Ecclestone and champ Jenson Button. Here is the official description:

Witness one of the most incredible sagas in Formula 1 history, the story of Brawn GP. Starring and hosted by Keanu Reeves, this gripping four-part series offers exclusive first-hand insights from racing legends and highlights the drama, both on and off the track.

In 2008, Honda’s racing team fell into administration, and in an unprecedented first for the sport, their rivals united and returned the team to the racetrack. With Ross Brawn at the helm and the team rebranded as Brawn GP, all was well — until they realized they had inadvertently created a fierce competitor.

The series will hit Disney+ and Hulu on November 15th. Check out the trailer above.

In his opening press conference following his trade to the Los Angeles Clippers, James Harden expressed some frustrations about the way he was used during his time with the Philadelphia 76ers, going as far as to express his belief that he was “on a leash” during his tenure with the team.

“I’m not a system player,” Harden told the assembled media on Thursday. “I am a system.”

Harden’s most prominent running mate in Philadelphia, reigning NBA MVP Joel Embiid, was asked to respond to that sentiment, and made clear that he didn’t fully agree with Harden’s assessment of the situation.

Embiid said “I don’t think so” when asked if he got the sense that Harden was unhappy with his role in the aftermath of the team’s win over the Toronto Raptors on Thursday, and expressed his belief that Harden “did a lot of great things for us.”

“In my opinion, I just feel like we allowed him to just be himself,” Embiid said. “And we gave him the ball every single possession, because he’s really good — I mean, he’s an amazing player. Obviously, being that great of a passer, I think we gave him the ball, if you would watch the game, we gave him the ball every single possession to just go out and, you know, do his thing. And from there, he had to make decisions as far as getting guys open or looking out for himself. But I thought he did a pretty good job of getting us into an offense and just passing the ball, getting guys open. That’s the reason why he won the assist title last year.”

Embiid went on to speculate that there may have been discussions between Harden and the team’s coaching staff that fed into his perception of his role, but from his perspective as a teammate who would often share the floor with him, “we allowed him to have the ball every single possession.”

Following the devastating events of last week’s episode, which saw the Temporal Loom explode and spark the destruction of the Time Variance Authority, Loki is once again slipping through time just like his return to the TVA in the Season 2 premiere. However, that’s where the similarities stop.

In the premiere, Loki’s friends were still working at the TVA. Now, they’re scattered across different branches of reality with no memory of their lives working for the time-controlling agency. With the help of O.B. (Ke Huy Quan), Loki is able to gain some control over his time-slipping as he works to get the team back together. However, what Loki doesn’t know is that Miss Minutes activated the TVA’s Fail-Safe Protocol, which is disintegrating branches and everything in them.

Just as the Trickster God gathers Mobius, B-15, Casey, and Sylvie (whose memory notably stayed intact) in O.B.’s lab, Loki watches in horror as everyone he cares about starts to unravel into spaghetti right in front of his eyes. The whole thing gave off hardcore Avengers: Infinity War vibes, and Marvel fans definitely picked up on it.

You can see some of the reactions below:

While that was terrifying, watching his friends unravel gave Loki the push to gain full control of his time-slipping, bringing him back to the moment before they all disintegrated. He’s essentially leveled up going into the Season 2 finale.

More importantly, the tension was relieved so Marvel fans could go absolutely bananas over Episode 5’s romantic comedy vibes. And not for Loki and Sylvie. No, the vibes were off the chart for Loki and Mobius as their reunion had all the hallmarks of a rom-com, right down Loki looking wistfully at Mobius through a window.

You can see some of the reactions below:

The Loki Season 2 finale streams November 9 on Disney+.

The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony is scheduled for Friday night, November 3, beginning at 8 p.m. EST at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The 2023 class features (but is not limited to) Missy Elliott, Kate Bush, Willie Nelson, Rage Against The Machine, Sheryl Crow, The Spinners, and the late George Michael.

Additionally, Olivia Rodrigo is set to perform with Crow during the ceremony, which will also welcome to the stage the likes of Elliott, Nelson, Elton John, Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton, Dave Matthews, HER, New Edition, St. Vincent, Stevie Nicks, Adam Levine, Carrie Underwood, Common, Ice T, LL Cool J, Miguel, Queen Latifah, and Sia as presenters or performers.

That is a lot to cram into one night, so how long is this year’s Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony expected to last? Well, considering it hasn’t happened yet — and there’s no official time limit, as far as anyone can tell — there’s no way to definitively know. However, as per Cleveland.com, the 2022 Rock Hall Induction Ceremony “lasted well over five hours.”

So, if you’re planning on watching the Disney+ livestream (as reported by Billboard in September), settle in. But if you’re a particularly patient person, you could also just wait until January 1, 2024, when ABC will air a three-hour edited broadcast beginning at 8 p.m. EST.

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

There were plenty of narratives swirling around Doja Cat heading into the launch of her Scarlet Tour. Questions surrounded the size of the venues on the tour, her first honest-to-goodness tour since falling into her glittering success era in the middle of a global pandemic; whether she’s been going through some kind of breakdown after shaving her head and seemingly going on a year-long crusade against her most devoted fans; whether or not she’s a “real” rapper.

It’s a shame the people propagating such narratives probably weren’t in attendance at Staples Center in Los Angeles Thursday night (alright, fine… Crypto.com Arena. UGH). Not only did the Los Angeles native handily address each of those narratives but she and her opener Doechii also batted down a few of those that have been bandied about concerning the state of so-called “female rap” (gross) for the past few years (and especially the past few days).

With much of Doja’s success coming during the live music shutdown of 2020 and her opening slot on The Weeknd’s recent stadium tour nixed after surgery, there were observers — loud ones — who thought that Doja wasn’t “ready” for arenas, or that she wouldn’t be able to sell out an arena tour, especially after pissing off “core” fans by insulting “stupid” stan account admins who clung to their parasocial connection like a life raft in a hurricane at sea.

Well, consider that myth busted; it’s fitting that Doja’s hometown show brought all the drama to Tinseltown — and none of the gimmicks that far too many other acts half of her stature have resorted to for attention. Born and bred on the internet, Doja’s well-versed in the online chatter about her, and systematically dismantles every complaint in her Scarlet Tour set, which is presented in five acts and finds her confronting both the haters and the unhinged alter ego her latest album is titled after.

Accusations of Satanism are skewered by a churchy staging of “Shutcho,” while Doja assumes a classic Jesus pose during “Attention” that irreverently takes the piss out of worrywarts who read malintent into something as commonplace as a bat tattoo. She subtly knocks down criticisms of her struggle with her biracial origins (her mom’s white, her dad’s South African) with an African traditional dance to open “Woman.”

Then she adds Brazilian bossa inflections to her biggest hit, “Say So.” This is telling. She’s previously reinterpreted the disco-pop hit as a rollicking rock anthem and alien EDM dance floor bop, saying she got sick of performing the song the same way over and over during the pandemic. By infusing it with diasporic influences, she revels in her heritage, recapturing a part of herself so many seem so eager to snatch away.

She proves her rap chops again and again throughout the night, but also her singing. The Badu impression on “Often” reaches fully-fledged neo-soul vocalist dimensions on her Hiatus Kaiyote cover “Red Room.” And I shouldn’t need to point out that her stagecraft at this point is beyond even some of her predecessors.

On Thursday, the native Angeleno even incorporated a Staples tradition, the in-game kiss cam, imbued with her own meme culture-obsessed humor, and handled an unplanned mic malfunction with her signature humor, pulling a face I really wish I’d gotten a photo of. And you want to talk props? How about a massive robotic spider, like something out of The Matrix, hovering over her head, or being flanked by a giant walking eyeball during “Paint The Town Red,” complete with attached optic nerve?

More than anything else, it looks like the narrative she is most interested in debunking is one she has maybe fed into a bit herself. On stage Thursday night, she looked like she was actually having fun performing… Check that. She looked like she was having the time of her life, like all the effort and time and money she’s put into this thing was actually worth it for the 90 minutes she spent up there captivating and communing with her audience — the “real” fans.

The ones who bought tickets, who overlooked or ignored the narratives, who put the music first, the way she does, the way she always has. She put on a show, not just for them and not just for Doja Cat, but also for Amala, the girl who loved music so much she made it her life against all odds (and sometimes her better judgment). She made Amala proud.

Check out more of our Scarlet Tour coverage here.

It’s music lovers’ favorite time of the year. I’m not referring to when the unofficial Queen of Christmas, Mariah Carey’s classic holiday tune, glares on the speakers of all public shopping centers around the country. Although that’s equally as exciting, I’m talking about the annual Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony. This year’s class includes heavy hitters Willie Nelson, Missy Elliott, Kate Bush, Rage Against The Machine, Sheryl Crow, the late George Michael, The Spinners, and more.

Today (November 3), the induction ceremony and star-studded performances are set to take place. So, what time is the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony? According to the organization’s official website, show time is 8 p.m. Eastern. For those who weren’t able to secure tickets for the historic celebration going down in person at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, they’re in luck.

The ceremony will be broadcast live on Disney+. Find more information here. If you can’t catch it in real-time, according to Billboard, a three-hour “edited broadcast of highlights will air on ABC” will play on January 1, 2024, beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern. But with Grammy Award-winning recording artist and producer Missy Elliott set to make history as the first woman rapper to be inducted (especially on the heels of the culture’s 50th anniversary), you might want to watch it live.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE – “No one knows”

I have watched the George Washington sketch from last week’s SNL maybe eight times since it aired. I’ve sent it to everyone I know. I sent it to one person twice because they didn’t respond right away and I forgot I sent it and got a little excited. I bet I watch it again this weekend. I bet I watch it when I paste the link below this paragraph, which I am going to do riiiiiiiight now.

Watch it if you haven’t. Watch it again if you have. It’s very good.

See? See how good that is? I promise I won’t over-examine why and how it’s good. I won’t do that to you. I might do it a little, though. It just takes such a simple little premise (the American system of weights and measures is silly and nonsensical) and takes it to deeply absurd levels, which is already a recipe for a good sketch. And it has Kenan Thompson doing Kenan faces, which has never been anything but delightful. It’s just really good.

Esther Zuckerman at The Atlantic wrote a nice thing about it, too. Listen to Esther.

What followed was an extended riff on the U.S.’s choice to abandon the metric system—and, by extension, a parody of the American vision of liberty. “I dream that one day our proud nation will measure weights in pounds, and that 2,000 pounds shall be called a ‘ton,’” Washington said. When a soldier played by Bowen Yang asked, “And what will 1,000 pounds be called, sir?,” Bargatze deadpanned, “Nothing.” As Bargatze’s Washington waxed poetic about various bizarre American measurements, such as “rulers with two sets of numbers: inches on one side, centimeters on the other,” that “won’t line up and never will,” another soldier (Kenan Thompson) chimed in, asking, “And the slaves, sir, what of them?” Washington ignored the question. The beat landed potently, in part because Bargatze played the general as a slightly dim everyman whose priorities would influence the new nation.

This brings me to the other thing: Nate Bargatze is so good as Washington in this sketch. He’s a great standup comic, so it’s not shocking that he understands things like timing and delivery, and yes, this is where I drop the link to his monologue, which I have also watched a number of times this week…

… but there’s also a bigger point to be made here. I understand why SNL sometimes has to chase Cultural Relevance with its hosting selections, why every now and then the show reaches for someone Very Famous who might not have experience with sketch comedy. These are the things that keep the show relevant with casual viewers and mentioned on daytime talk shows and it’s all really fine. I get it. The sausage has to get made.

But there is something to be said for trotting out a lesser-known entity and giving them some truly weird toys to play with and letting a little magic happen. Magic like this sketch. I can’t even remember the last sketch I enjoyed this much. I think I’m going to watch it again. And I might send it to that buddy of mine a third time. You know, just to be safe.

ITEM NUMBER TWO – This is all just really sad

Matthew Perry died last weekend. You already knew that. The news has been everywhere. It’s been kind of strange for a lot of us to process, mostly because, like, I don’t think we really grasp how popular Friends was when it was airing on Thursday nights in the 1990s. Something like 20 million people watched every week. That’s, like, 10 percent of the entire country at the time. Sometimes it was more. The episode that aired after the Super Bowl was watched by double that. You could walk up to a total stranger and be like “Joey is at it again” and people would know what you meant. It was a different time in a lot of ways.

The whole thing just made me… sad. Very sad. Perry had famous struggles with substances in his past and seemed to be fighting hard to get past that, but he was also, more importantly, just super talented. The Chandler Bing of it all became a caricature over time as most wildly popular things do (could we BE any more predictable as a society?), but the fact that it got that popular in the first place says a lot about Matthew Perry’s performance.

My colleague Mike Ryan wrote a really nice thing this week about all of it and how sad it is.

Matthew Perry has been a constant part of our lives for almost 30 years now. Friends debuted in September of 1994 and seemingly never went away. It’s hard to explain, now, what a cultural force it was. I was in college when Friends debuted and Thursday night was the big bar night at Mizzou (I assume this translates to all colleges, especially Big XII — at the time — state schools) and people would not leave their televisions until the entire NBC Thursday lineup was completed, after ER. And the bars closed at 1 am, which didn’t leave a lot of time, so that’s how important these shows were. It’s always weird watching a new show, especially a sitcom, as we are thrust into these people’s lives that we are supposed to care about and like. I will never forget the moment the show hooked me when Chandler asked Ross, “Could you want her more?” Ross answers, “Who?” To which Chandler sarcastically says, “Dee, the sarcastic sister from What’s Happening.” That’s a clever line, just esoteric enough that a lot of people will get the reference at the time (probably not now, but Dee was sooooo sarcastic), but not everyone will. I was hooked and Perry did the hooking.

I don’t know, man. I don’t have too much to add to that. I’m not great at articulating bummers. So, instead of doing that, or trying and flailing, I’ll just post this clip I watched again this week.

Rest in peace, buddy.

ITEM NUMBER THREE – A wild week for Guy Fieri

Good news and bad news on the Guy Fieri beat this week. Bad first, just to get it out of the way.

Remember how Guy Fieri was going to officiate Kristen Stewart’s wedding? How she joked about it and Guy Fieri was like “hell yeah” but serious about it? How all of this happened?

Well, it brings me no pleasure to report that this is no longer happening. Kristen Stewart said so herself, for reasons that are actually pretty understandable.

Fieri’s team “reached out and were like, ‘You know, we are down for this.’ And I was like, ‘Me too, but also I’m bad at planning stuff, so I’ll hit you up soon,’” Stewart told host Andy Cohen. “I think we’ll probably just marry each other and then call Guy and say, ‘You were here in spirit, babe.’”

Okay, fine. It’s her wedding. She can do whatever she wants. I’m sad about it, but still. I can ask Guy Fieri to do my wedding if it’s such a big deal to me. And anyway, it all brings me to the good news, which is cheering me up a lot.

The Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives host created Flavortown Spiked, a line of malt beverages with Two Roads Brewing Co., PEOPLE can exclusively announce. The first flavor to launch the brand is a hard fruit punch, which Fieri describes as “adult Kool-Aid — but not as sweet.”

I must have this at once.

“You can’t say fruit punch and not smile. And you can’t say Flavortown and not smile. And hopefully you can say Guy Fieri and think good times,” the Food Network star tells PEOPLE of deciding on the debut flavor.

The man makes some excellent points here.

PEOPLE got a first taste of the spiked fruit punch and Fieri’s description is spot on. It tastes like the nostalgic drink but more hand-crafted. Rather than overly sweet, it’s refreshing and fruit-forward. You can truly taste the fresh cranberry and citrus notes. The boozy-ness is subtle, even with 6% ABV.

Two notes in conclusion:

• I hope he sends 50 cases of this to Kristen Stewart for her wedding reception
• I don’t know how one goes about getting on the “media members who get to taste test Guy Fieri’s new spiked fruit punch” list, but if you see it lying around anywhere, please scribble my name on there

Thank you.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR – Please close your eyes and try to hear these in Winona Ryder’s voice

Welllllllll Netflix is out here talking about its latest offerings, which means they’re all talking about the next season of Stranger Things, which is still happening even though the kids on the show are now all old enough to sip on a Flavortown Spiked Punch between scenes if they want. I don’t know. It’s weird. But it did give us this quote from executive producer Shawn Levy about approaching Winona Ryder for the role all those years ago.

Series director and executive producer Shawn Levy revealed Ryder’s initial inquiries during a recent interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast.

“She opened by asking, ‘What is Netflix? What is streaming? Is it like TV but different?’” Levy remembered. “That was the starting point… Yeah, Winona took a little onboarding to explain this emerging form of storytelling called Netflix and streaming.”

Three things here, again via bullet point:

• I choose to believe he said these things while doing a perfect impression of Winona Ryder’s very specific voice and delivery, and if any of you have video that disproves any of that, please keep it to your damn self
• As my buddy and coworker Martin Rickman noted when he sent me this story, please close your eyes for two seconds and picture this scene in the office and tell me you can’t see the exact faces Winona Ryder is making while saying these things
• It’s easy to forget now because streaming basically dominates all of television but this was a weird idea at the time and Winona Ryder made some good points here

I’m sorry for swearing at you in that first bullet point. I just get a little passionate about these things.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE – Ariana Grande seems cool

We can be quick here, once again thanks to bullet points:

• This is a video of Ariana Grande and her Victorious co-star Elizabeth Gillies that they made for Halloween
• It is a re-creation of a famously campy scene from the movie Showgirls, with Grande in the Elizabeth Berkley role
• It has long been my position that Ariana Grande seems like a cool and fun person who is probably a lot of fun at a party and nothing I see here does a single thing to disprove any of that

This is cool. More like this, please.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Amanda:

Do you ever find yourself developing little crushes on television characters on shows you watch? It happens to me all the time. My biggest one is still Ben from Parks and Recreation. I have a whole fictional scenario in my head where we are married and have two children (Abby and Connor) and a fluffy dog named Milo who runs around the yard.

[Brian Grubb voice] I’m normal.

Who are your TV crushes?

This is a great email, partially because I like to know I’m not the only person who watches television like a complete weirdo (lol hi Amanda) and partially because I have an answer that is both current and allows me to link to a thing I just wrote.

I have a crush on the Pirate Queen from Our Flag Means Death.

I don’t know exactly what it is about her. It’s not even like a creepy leering thing. She just fascinates me. The performance by Ruibo Quan helps, with the delivery of the lines and the way she carries herself, but it’s more than that. I mean, look at this.

She would extremely murder me very much. I think I would be okay with it.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Tennessee!

Approximately 32,000 cases of Twisted Tea worth an estimated $800,000 were stolen from a Memphis distribution center last month, Memphis Police say.

$800,000

TWISTED TEA

HEIST

The manager told police that on September 1, about 17 or 18 trailer loads hauled the beverages from Blues City Brewery to the distribution center. The beverages were scanned, and it was documented that they made it to the correct destination.

But the manager began receiving phone calls from clients saying they had not received their products. The distribution center is not open to the public and only accessible to employees.

Please stop here and get a clear mental image of some dude — let’s say his name is Trevor — screeching up to a house he shares with four buddies in a stolen tractor-trailer and saying “BROS CHECK THIS OUT” and whipping open the back gate of the truck to reveal almost a million dollars worth of contraband spiked iced tea.

They’ll live like kings.

Twisted Tea is a tea-flavored alcoholic beverage.

This remains an ongoing investigation.

Two notes in conclusion:

• I like to believe the second sentence here is related to the first and this is all just an important part of the journalistic endeavor
• It’s fun to picture them calling in like The Rock’s character from the Fast & Furious movies to handle this investigation

I would absolutely watch this movie. Good for Trevor.

Megan Thee Stallion begins her “Cobra” video by saying, “Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again” — the same message she used to tease the song on socials last week — and proceeding to crawl out from inside of a cobra. Objectively, the best part of an artist dropping new music is the race to subjectively decode what it all means, and in this case, the shedding of the cobra skin could very well symbolize Hot Girl Meg’s recently becoming an independent artist.

In October, Billboard reported that Megan Thee Stallion and her now-former record label, 1501 Certified Entertainment, “mutually reached a confidential settlement to resolve their legal differences,” which had lasted for over three years, and would “amicably part ways.” Days prior to the news publicly breaking, Meg hinted at it during an Instagram Live.

“Hotties — the real Hotties, not the Notties, kinda them, too — this part of my album is definitely very much funded by Megan Thee Stallion,” she said, in part. “Y’all know what’s the tea. But I have no label right now. And we’re doing everything funded straight out of Megan Thee Stallion’s pockets. So, the budget is coming from me. Motherf*cking Hot Girl Productions! The next sh*t y’all about to see about to be all straight from Megan Thee Stallion’s brain and Megan Thee Stallion’s wallet. We in my pockets, Hotties!”

As promised, “Cobra” was released under Hot Girl Productions LLC.

Watch the “Cobra” video above.

Killers of the Flower Moon is filled with Oscar-worthy performances: Leonardo DiCaprio is great, Lily Gladstone is great (give her Best Actress now), Robert de Niro is great, Jesse Plemons wears a big hat, and therefore, he’s great, too.

Some people think Brendan Fraser also gives a great performance; others find it distracting and over the top. Guess which camp Martin Scorsese is in.

“We thought he’d be great for the lawyer and I admired his work over the years,” the Oscar-winning filmmaker said at a recent press conference, according to Variety. “He actually came in for, I think, a couple of weeks on the picture, particularly when it was in our later shoot. We had a really good time working together, particularly with Leo.”

Fraser plays attorney W. S. Hamilton, who represents William King Hale (de Niro) in court. He does a lot of wide-eyed yelling at Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio). Scorsese was particularly proud of The Mummy actor for the scene where he says, “They’re putting a noose around your neck, he’s saving you dumb boy.”

“Really for us, when we heard that… he brought the whole scene down on Leo. It was perfect,” Scorsese added. “And he had that girth. He’s big in the frame at that time. He’s a wonderful actor and he was just great to work with.”

“He had that girth” needs to enter the vernacular. Like:

“Did you see Victor’s PowerPoint presentation to the boss? He had that girth.”

Thank you, Marty, for your movies. And your influence on language.

(Via Variety)