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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.

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.