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The NBA is going all-out for the newest addition to its calendar. For years, it’s been reported that Adam Silver wanted the league to adopt some sort of additional competition that took place during the regular season, and earlier this year, the announcement came that the NBA would institute the inaugural In-Season Tournament during the 2023-24 campaign.

We’ve seen some of the ways that the league wants to hype up the event already. There will be dedicated nights of the week over the next month — Tuesdays (minus Election Day) and Fridays — that will serve as tournament nights. There will be special courts and jerseys for those games, and there’s a terrific ad for the whole thing that seems ripped from the Oceans series. Once the four semifinalists are determined, those teams will head to Las Vegas for the semifinals and final.

And on Friday morning, the league unveiled the latest way it’s looking to add a little bit of excitement to the festivities. LL Cool J and The Roots teamed up to combine the song “Mama Said Knock You Out” with the melody of “Here I Come” to create the official anthem for the event.

“I’ve been a fan of the NBA ever since I can remember, and it’s a real honor to have my record serving as the anthem for this monumental moment,” LL Cool J said in a statement. “I’m excited to see the energy of the song translate to the play on the court during the NBA In-Season Tournament.”

The first slate of In-Season Tournament games begins on Friday, Nov. 3.

It’s not every day that a new song by the popular indie-rock band The Beatles drops. But that’s what happened right as Steven and Ian were scheduled to record this week’s episode. So they started late, and listened to “Now And Then,” and then decided… that it sounds like a ’90s power pop band attempting to sound like The Beatles. Not necessarily a bad thing? But is it really necessary to take an old John Lennon demo, have Macca and Ringo lay on a new rhythm track, and label it the “last” Beatles tune?

After that discussion, the guys discuss “Soul Net,” a new single by the great shoegaze outfit Diiv. Back in the 2010s, it seemed like these guys were either accused of being overhyped or totally ignored. But their music from that era really holds up, and Steven and Ian are excited about the potential for a new album. They are also really into a new shoegaze band, Hotline TNT, who dropped a great new album called Cartwheel today.

Since the guys are so positive in this ep, it seemed OK to talk about a band they both hate, but also feel like isn’t popular enough to publicly hate. What are the ethics of “punching down” for critics talking about artistically suspect acts that haven’t reached the masses? Steven and Ian try to talk it out. Then, in the mailbag, they give the “yay or nay” treatment to They Might Be Giants.

In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks up the latest effort from Empty Country while Steven recommends Philadelphia band Golden Apples.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 162 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

It’s not every day that a new song by the popular indie-rock band The Beatles drops. But that’s what happened right as Steven and Ian were scheduled to record this week’s episode. So they started late, and listened to “Now And Then,” and then decided… that it sounds like a ’90s power pop band attempting to sound like The Beatles. Not necessarily a bad thing? But is it really necessary to take an old John Lennon demo, have Macca and Ringo lay on a new rhythm track, and label it the “last” Beatles tune?

After that discussion, the guys discuss “Soul Net,” a new single by the great shoegaze outfit Diiv. Back in the 2010s, it seemed like these guys were either accused of being overhyped or totally ignored. But their music from that era really holds up, and Steven and Ian are excited about the potential for a new album. They are also really into a new shoegaze band, Hotline TNT, who dropped a great new album called Cartwheel today.

Since the guys are so positive in this ep, it seemed OK to talk about a band they both hate, but also feel like isn’t popular enough to publicly hate. What are the ethics of “punching down” for critics talking about artistically suspect acts that haven’t reached the masses? Steven and Ian try to talk it out. Then, in the mailbag, they give the “yay or nay” treatment to They Might Be Giants.

In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks up the latest effort from Empty Country while Steven recommends Philadelphia band Golden Apples.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 162 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Stephen Colbert kicked off his The Late Show monologue on Thursday with the most important news story of the week, dare I say month, possibly year: “Ontario man’s 8-foot zucchini might be the longest in world.” He then moved on to less pressing issues, like the former president of the United States and his kids being on trial in a civil fraud case.

“Moving from Canada’s national pastime to America’s, hoping Donald Trump goes to jail, he is presently running for president and from the law,” Colbert said. “In Trump’s New York financial fraud trial, which is going on presently, the court is hearing testimony from Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric. Or as Trump calls them, the pretty one, the smart one, my favorite, Don Jr., and Eric.”

Speaking of Don Jr., the sniffly conspiracy theorist asked the courtroom artist working the trial to “make me look sexy,” according to Reuters. “It takes a lot of balls to hit on a sketch artist during your own trial,” Colbert said before guessing how things went down between Trump Jr. and the artist: “Hey, what are you doing later? I’m free after 5… maybe 4 with good behavior.”

You can watch Colbert’s The Late Show monologue above.

Stephen Colbert kicked off his The Late Show monologue on Thursday with the most important news story of the week, dare I say month, possibly year: “Ontario man’s 8-foot zucchini might be the longest in world.” He then moved on to less pressing issues, like the former president of the United States and his kids being on trial in a civil fraud case.

“Moving from Canada’s national pastime to America’s, hoping Donald Trump goes to jail, he is presently running for president and from the law,” Colbert said. “In Trump’s New York financial fraud trial, which is going on presently, the court is hearing testimony from Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric. Or as Trump calls them, the pretty one, the smart one, my favorite, Don Jr., and Eric.”

Speaking of Don Jr., the sniffly conspiracy theorist asked the courtroom artist working the trial to “make me look sexy,” according to Reuters. “It takes a lot of balls to hit on a sketch artist during your own trial,” Colbert said before guessing how things went down between Trump Jr. and the artist: “Hey, what are you doing later? I’m free after 5… maybe 4 with good behavior.”

You can watch Colbert’s The Late Show monologue above.

Jessica Simpson celebrated six years of sobriety by sharing “unrecognizable” photos of herself on Instagram.

“This person in the early morning of Nov 1, 2017 is an unrecognizable version of myself. I had so much self discovery to unlock and explore,” Simpson wrote in a caption from 2021, which she re-posted this week. “I knew in this very moment I would allow myself to take back my light, show victory over my internal battle of self respect, and brave this world with piercing clarity.”

To do so, she decided to “stop drinking alcohol because it kept my mind and heart circling in the same direction and quite honestly I was exhausted. I wanted to feel the pain so I could carry it like a badge of honor.” Simpson “wanted to live as a leader does and break cycles to advance forward- never looking back with regret and remorse over any choice I have made and would make for the rest of my time here within this beautiful world.”

The “I Wanna Love You Forever” singer (still a good song) — who Jennifer Lawrence would be starstruck to meet — noted that there’s “so much stigma around the word alcoholism or the label of an alcoholic. The real work that needed to be done in my life was to actually accept failure, pain, brokenness, and self sabotage.” The booze wasn’t issue, she wrote, “I was.”

Simpson, who lost over 100 pounds after she stopped drinking, didn’t love herself at the time but “today I do. I have made nice with the fears and I have accepted the parts of my life that are just sad. I own my personal power with soulful courage. I am wildly honest and comfortably open. I am free.”

You can see the photos below.

Jessica Simpson celebrated six years of sobriety by sharing “unrecognizable” photos of herself on Instagram.

“This person in the early morning of Nov 1, 2017 is an unrecognizable version of myself. I had so much self discovery to unlock and explore,” Simpson wrote in a caption from 2021, which she re-posted this week. “I knew in this very moment I would allow myself to take back my light, show victory over my internal battle of self respect, and brave this world with piercing clarity.”

To do so, she decided to “stop drinking alcohol because it kept my mind and heart circling in the same direction and quite honestly I was exhausted. I wanted to feel the pain so I could carry it like a badge of honor.” Simpson “wanted to live as a leader does and break cycles to advance forward- never looking back with regret and remorse over any choice I have made and would make for the rest of my time here within this beautiful world.”

The “I Wanna Love You Forever” singer (still a good song) — who Jennifer Lawrence would be starstruck to meet — noted that there’s “so much stigma around the word alcoholism or the label of an alcoholic. The real work that needed to be done in my life was to actually accept failure, pain, brokenness, and self sabotage.” The booze wasn’t issue, she wrote, “I was.”

Simpson, who lost over 100 pounds after she stopped drinking, didn’t love herself at the time but “today I do. I have made nice with the fears and I have accepted the parts of my life that are just sad. I own my personal power with soulful courage. I am wildly honest and comfortably open. I am free.”

You can see the photos below.

We’re at the start of a new era: At midnight last night, Megan Thee Stallion dropped her new single, “Cobra,” which is her first since since the end of the 1501 Certified Entertainment lawsuit. More than that, though, one thing fans are paying attention to in the wake of the new song is a line that appears to throw out an accusation of infidelity.

Megan starts the song’s second verse, “Ayy, damn, I got problems / Never thought a b*tch like me would ever hit rock bottom / Man, I miss my parents, way too anxious, always cancel my plans / Pulled up, caught him cheatin’, gettin’ his d*ck sucked in the same spot I’m sleepin’.” So, the implication there is that Megan caught somebody being unfaithful to her and doing it in the bed that they shared.

After the song was released, fans took to X (formerly Twitter) to share their thoughts on the song, with many believing that the line is Meg accusing Pardison Fontaine of cheating on her.

It is believed that Megan and Fontaine broke up at some point in the first half of 2023. Meanwhile, starting in May, there were rumors that Megan was seeing soccer star Romelo Lukaku.

Today is November 3, and while Christmas is just under two months away now, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is already making its annual return to the music landscape: It’s up to No. 28 on Spotify’s latest top daily songs chart for the US. If you ask Carey, though, she’ll insist that her hit coming back so early isn’t her fault.

Carey was a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! yesterday, and during the interview, Kimmel wondered if it truly is “time” already, as Carey declared in her November 1 video saying bye to Halloween and hello to Christmas. After a bit of back and forth, Carey said:

“I don’t disagree with you, by the way. I had to just go with the flow, because everybody was rushing the holiday season and they starting playing my song. So I kept being like, ‘Not yet, don’t play it yet. It’s not time yet, why are we playing Christmas songs?’ But they were doing it, so then I just was like, ‘OK.’ It became… it was a joke, it was just for laughs.”

What’s less of a laughing matter, though, is the lawsuit Carey is currently facing over the song.

Check out the full interview above.

(WARNING: Spoilers for the most recent Power Book IV: Force episode will be found below.)

Power Book IV: Force has been relentless when it comes to the death of its characters in season two. Before episode nine, titled “No Loose Ends,” Walter Flynn, Brandon Doyle, Paulie, Leon, and more were among the names that had been killed this season. In episode nine, two more names were added to that list: Miguel’s mother and his longtime associate Nunez. Their deaths were both connected to Mirkovic in different ways. Mirkovic used Nunez to set up Miguel to be killed, but instead, Nunez decided to have Miguel’s mother killed in a move that he thought was more efficient. Unfortunately, it came back to bite him when Tommy (with help from Mireya) figured out that Nunez was the one working with Mirkovic to have Miguel’s mother killed. Tommy kidnaps Nunez and tortures him before bringing him to Miguel to deliver the news. Miguel, disappointed in his longtime friend, wastes no time shooting and killing him for the death of his mother.

This move from Tommy was the latest in his attempt to gain an upper hand on Miguel in the Chicago drug game. After thinking nothing of his moves initially, Miguel sees clearere than ever that Tommy is coming for his spot. Miguel then tells Mireya of his plans to counter Tommy’s moves and eventually kill him once and for all, something that Mireya made sure to tell Tommy the next time she saw him. It here that Mireya did what she knew she’d have to for quite some time: pick between Tommy and her brother. She sides with Tommy by telling him how appreciative of him she is of his love and support toward her. She takes it a step further by helping Tommy figure out that Nunez is the one who betrayed Miguel.

Then we have Diamond, who is still reeling from the death of Leon, a young boy from the neighborhood who was becoming more and more like a son to him. Leon was shot and killed at the end of episode seven, and this week, Diamond sets out to find his killer. He’s successful, but unfortunately, he cannot do anything about it as the killer in question is the nephew of a key member in the drug coalition that he and Tommy have been building in Chicago for quite some time now.

Diamond later shifts his attention to Leon’s father Jamal who was verbally abusive to Leon until Diamond stepped in and told him to stay away from the family. Now Jamal is back to get revenge against Diamond and it started by letting Diamond’s parole officer know that he’s back in the drug game. Diamond learned that Jamal was the one who told his parole officer about his involvement in CBI and he decided to take matters into his own hands and kill Jamal once and for it. The fit of rage from Diamond that led to him killing Jamal was a combination of Jamal’s failure to nurture and correctly raise Leon as well as his choice to snitch on Diamond to his parole officer. Altogether, it’s the latest in Diamond’s progression after Leon’s death which can either be looked at as a decline from his better days or his attempt to right some wrongs.

Elsewhere, we see Claudia and Shanti continue to make moves in the Chicago drug game in their attempt to make some noise for themselves after being cut out by the Flynn family and CBI. One of them involves teaming up with Detroit’s Marquez Cartel, something that impresses Tommy when he gets word of it. What Claudia doesn’t know is that Shanti and Tommy are working together, and it appears that sooner or later, Claudia will find herself in a hole.

How’s that for a recap? Now, let’s see who made the top five Power Players of the Week list based on the events that went down in the “No Loose Ends.”

5. Mirkovic

Though Mirkovic was initially skeptical about a partnership with the Flynn family and specifically Claudia, it seems like his decision to go through with it has paid off. After five episodes of work, he and Claudia inked a deal with the Marquez Cartel from Detroit which puts them back in competition with the drug game in Chicago as the Marquez Cartel is also looking to establish territory in the city. It’s a low-lift opportunity for Marquez as he’s tasked Claudia with supplying the money for the Marquez Cartel deal. Mirkovic lands another win in this episode by taking out Miguel’s grandmother and escaping from an attack when Miguel’s crew attempts to retaliate against them. Not too shabby this week Mr. Mirkovic.

4. Claudia

If there’s anyone who’s had to fight and claw for respect this season it’s Claudia. From being left out of the Flynn family operation to Vic severing ties with her, Claudia has had to fend for her own, but so far this season she’s done a good job of it. Most recently, she played a major role in Mirkovic and the Serbs’ ability to land a deal with Detroit’s Marquez Cartel and she’s also working with Shanti and her love interest Elise on infiltrating Chicago’s Viagra Triangle. Claudia continues to make the necessary moves to stand on her own and increase her position in Chicago, and though her time on the rise may be limited, she’s doing what she needs to at the moment.

3. Mireya

The character arc for Mireya this season has been getting herself out from under her brother Miguel’s thumb. In previous episodes, especially concerning her growing romance with Tommy, she’s been afraid to set out on her own and do what she really wants. Finally, we see a shift in “No Loose Ends.” Following the death of her mother and word from Miguel himself of his plans to kill Tommy, Mireya makes the step to stand up for what she wants and that’s a future with Tommy. She shows her commitment by staying at his place and helping Tommy figure out that it was Nunez who helped Mirkovic kill Miguel’s mother. Mireya is finally breaking free from the grasp of her family, and that’s a big win for her.

2. Diamond

Diamond is still reeling from Leon’s death in “No Loose Ends.” With Leon’s death came his spiral and additional left turns in his life. He killed his parole officer after he walked in on him in possession of a duffel bag of drugs and Gianna is no longer interested in something romantic with him. Despite this, Diamond is aware that there’s a business to handle with CBI and he’s able to take care of the necessary tasks. He also figures out who is responsible for killing Leon, but has to pause his plans to retaliate when he learns that the person responsible is the nephew of someone in the new drug coalition that he and Tommy built. Diamond did not give the same grace to Jamal, especially after he figured out that Jamal was the one who told his parole officer that he was back in the drug game. The anger behind that and Jamal’s failure to be a good father to Leon, who Diamond deemed a good kid with a very promising future, pushed Diamond to and over the edge as he eventually killed Jamal in retaliation. Diamond also received an early release from his parole. All in all, he’s fighting back and no longer being his cool calm and collected. There’s some good and bad to that, but this week was more of the former.

1. Tommy

Tommy’s back on top this week and it comes as a result of his progress in taking over Miguel’s position in the drug game within Chicago. When Miguel’s mother is killed, Tommy quickly figures out that Mirkovic is behind it and sets out to retaliate in order to appeal to Miguel’s boss. He doesn’t get the green light to do so, but he solves another problem for them by discovering that Nunez is the one who set up Miguel’s mother to be killed. Tommy eventually brings Nunez to Miguel and his boss to share his discovery and then earns the respect from Miguel’s boss that he was looking for. Secondly, thanks to Mireya, Tommy learns that Miguel plans to kill him once he can undermine Tommy’s growing status in the Chicago drug world. It’s because of this that Tommy tries to appeal to Miguel’s boss with the hope of gaining some sort of protection, a move that could prove to be beneficial to him. Lastly, Tommy discovers the snitch in the organization, and as viewers have known for weeks now, it’s none other than Vic Flynn. If you know Tommy, you know it’s about to be trouble for Vic, but we’ll have to wait until the season two finale to see what goes down.

New episodes of ‘Power Book IV: Force’ are available on the STARZ app on Fridays at 12:00am ET/PT and on the STARZ TV channel at 8:00 pm ET/PT.