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At last, Jung Kook’s debut album, Golden is finally here. With his debut album, the BTS member is setting the stage for a promising career in pop stardom, both sonically and visually. In celebration of releasing his hotly-anticipated solo record, Jung Kook has shared a new single, “Standing Next To You.”

Continuing the exciting loving feeling established in his Latto collab, “Seven,” while touching on the rhythmic elements of his Jack Harlow collab, “3D,” Jung Kook’s new song, “Standing Next To You,” features the singer making a profession of love over a groovy, ’80s-inspired pop track.

“Standing next to you / Standing in the fire next to you, oh / You know it’s deeper than the rain / It’s deeper than the pain / When it’s deep like DNA / Somethin’ they can’t take away,” sings Jung Kook on the song’s chorus.

In the song’s accompanying video, directed by Tanu Muino, Jung Kook shows off his dance moves in various apocalyptic settings. As the world falls apart around him and his crew, he will stop at nothing to be united with the woman he loves.

You can see the video for “Standing Next To You” above.

Golden is out now via BIGHIT. Find more information here.

Victor Wembanyama has impressed in his first two weeks as an NBA player, but a lot of the No. 1 overall pick’s highlights have come in flashes this season. On Thursday night in Phoenix, the Spurs second straight game against the Suns, the rookie sensation put together his best complete game performance, setting a new career-high with 38 points including a dominant stretch to close the game out in the fourth quarter.

After completing a massive comeback earlier this week to stun Phoenix, the Spurs were the ones that jumped out to a big lead early, thanks to a great first half from Devin Vassell and Wembanyama. The French star had 20 points in the first 24 minutes, as he put the full arsenal on display as the Suns were unable to figure out answers for the 7’4 big man.

Wembanyama’s abilities in transition and semi-transition particularly stuck out in this one, as he did a great job running the floor and creating mismatches the Spurs could leverage for easy buckets — or just flat out beating his man down the floor for hilariously easy dunks.

It was also enjoyable to watch the Spurs recognize in real time that a viable offense was just “throw it really high near the rim for Wemby,” as they just kinda threw it near the basket on a number of occasions in the first half and let him grab the ball and finish it over whoever Phoenix put on him.

However, Wembanyama also flashed his many skills beyond just being really tall and able to dunk/finish over people, going to work in the face-up game as well.

The Suns made a fourth quarter charge to erase the 20-plus point lead and tie things at 116-116, but from there the Spurs turned to their rookie star as Wembanyama completely took over. After drawing two fouls and making 3-of-4 free throws on back-to-back possessions, he posterized Drew Eubanks on what is becoming his patented move of “reaching from an impossible distance and throwing the ball in the basket.”

After that he got the ball 30 feet from the basket and drilled a pullup three off the dribble from the top of the key.

Then he caught the ball at the free throw line and immediately rose up for the dagger.

There were no answers for Wembanyama from Phoenix, which tried just about every tall, mobile player on the roster to slow him down in the fourth with little success. Kevin Durant, Eubanks, and Keita Bates-Diop all took their turn in the fourth quarter, but just nothing matters when he gets it going.

Wembanyama finished with 38 points on 15-of-26 shooting with 10 rebounds, two assists, and two blocks, including 10 points in the final five minutes of the game to put a good Suns team that had both Durant and Devin Booker away. After five games of flashes from the top pick, Thursday night saw him put it all together and show the league what terror awaits if it all clicks.

A new era of Megan Thee Stallion is upon us. Just days after wowing the internet with her uncanny Halloween costumes, Meg has dropped a new single called “Cobra.” Tonight (November 2), she begins a new chapter as an independent artist, shedding away the troubles of the past and ready to start fresh.

On “Cobra,” Meg calls out her opps — the ones who left her at her lowest, and kicked her while she was down. Sonically, “Cobra” is indicative of fresh new sounds in the Megan Thee Stallion hottieverse, as the song is jampacked with rock-influence, particularly an intoxicating guitar riff near the end of the song. As a newly independent artist, Meg is confident as she is fully in control of her sound, and it is worth nothing that she is a co-producer on this new single.

“How I still kinda feel like you plottin’, watchin’? / Why is you speakin’ on me at my lowest, when you acted like you ain’t noticed / Hoe shit then, go crazy, and made lowkey hatin’, so they ain’t gon’ say sh*t,” raps Meg on one of the song’s verses.

In the song’s accompanying video, Megan emerges from the mouth of a snake, while making a treacherous journey through the forest, dancing her way through the pain.

You can see the video for “Cobra” above.

Just months after releasing her sophomore album, Guts, Olivia Rodrigo has new music — this time, for one of the year’s most anticipated movies. Ahead of the premiere of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Rodrigo has shared “Can’t Catch Me Now” — a song she wrote for the movie’s upcoming soundtrack.

“Can’t Catch Me Now” has a sense of triumph, and features Rodrigo emerging strong amid adversity.

“I’m in the trees, I’m in the breeze / My footsteps on the ground / You see my face in every place / But you can’t catch me now,” sings Rodrigo on the song’s chorus.

The movie’s soundtrack is expected to arrive in tandem with the movie later this month, and will feature songs performed by the film’s lead actress, Rachel Zegler — along with Flatland Calvary, Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings, and more.

The film itself is a prequel taking place 64 years before the events of the original Hunger Games movies and books, and will tell the story of a young Coriolanus (Tom Blyth), the last to walk of a failing lineage, the once triumphant Snow family who has fallen from grace following a war. In the movie, Coriolanus is assigned to a mentor named Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler), a tribute from the impoverished District 12, and together, they will work to shift their fates.

You can listen to “Can’t Catch Me Now” above.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes arrives in theaters 11/17.

Just over a year after releasing her fifth album, COPINGMECHANISM, Willow is back with new music. Tonight (November 2), she has dropped a new single called “Alone,” which features the 23-year-old artist at her most introspective.

On “Alone,” Willow is forced to confront her innermost thoughts on her own. But she later finds solace in her solitude.

“Nothing is what it seems / When you wake, when you dream / When you talk, is it not medicine for us all? / Show me something I cannot define,” she sings on one of the song’s verses.

Over the past few years, Willow has took on more of a rock sound, but “Alone” has noticeable neo-soul influences.

Willow has been making music since she was 10 years old. Not to mention, she’s the child of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith — one of the buzziest celebrity couples in the world. Shortly after news broke that Will and Jada had been separated for six years, Willow shared a cryptic post on Instagram, reading “I think solitude can be scary for humans sometimes. There is so much space to remember and reflect on things that may be really painful for us.”

While some thought that Willow may have been alluding to her parents’ shocking revelations as noted in Jada’s memoir, it seems that the most is more in conjunction with her music.

And through her music, it seems Willow is at peace.

You can listen to “Alone” above.

We are just a week out from The Kid Laroi’s hotly-anticipated debut album, The First Time. Ahead of the album, the Australian hitmaker has given us a new taste of the album. Tonight (November 2), Laroi has shared “Bleed,” a guitar-driven ballad, on which, Laroi displays pure emotion through his raw vocals.

On “Bleed,” Laroi has a tough time letting go following the dissolution of a relationship. Meanwhile, his past love already seems to have moved on.

“How did your heart mend so easy? / Mine still bleeds Hard to believe you don’t need me / All those memories we made are burnin’ in my brain,” he sings on the song’s chorus.

Continuing the run of cinematic visuals Laroi has delivered during this era, “Bleed” is accompanied by a haunting video directed by Ramez Silyan. In the video, Laroi is seen dreaming that he is drowning, to be revived by his past lover, a woman played by Ryley Ladd. This is juxtaposed with Laroi flying off the road on his bike, then later waking, presumably to deal with the emotional — and literal — wreckage.

You can see the video for “Bleed” above.

The First Time is out 11/10 via Columbia Records. Find more information here.

On Thursday morning, the NBA and Nike officially unveiled the 30 City Edition uniforms that each team will wear during the 2023-24 season, marking the eighth season of the locally inspired alternate uni set.

The official unveiling came a week-plus after the full set leaked online, and the fan response was not particularly good. As is always the case, when you see them on players and in professional photos, rather than low resolution leaks, they all look a bit better, but plenty of them still miss the mark. What began as a fun idea to be creative with a unique, local spin on a team’s image has become an almost dreaded part of the early season, as eight years in, the well of great uniform ideas has run a bit dry.

That’s unfortunate because there is a story and a lot of thought behind each one, with various details tucked inside each design that have a deeper meaning to the team or the city, whether it be fonts, trim, or other little detail points. However, at this point it feels like Nike and the NBA have gotten lost in those little details and hiding Easter eggs on the uniforms and forgotten what is most important in creating a beloved uniform.

Small details can enhance a uniform, but what matters is how it looks from afar. That’s how we consume them for the most part, by watching teams run up and down the court from a distance, whether you’re in the arena or watching on TV. As such, what matter most is how they pop in a macro sense, with the colors, logos, and graphics you can see from afar.

This year’s City Edition set is particularly drab, as more than half feature a mostly black, charcoal, or navy base, with limited pops of color. Individually, many of them are fine, but when shown as a set, they seem particularly uninspiring.

Beyond that, City Edition unis can get cluttered by swapping out city and team names for longer slogans or choosing fonts and numbers with weird kerning that are hard to recognize from a distance. Basketball uniforms aren’t meant to be viewed in a static sense, and a lot of this year’s City Edition unis miss the mark on the big picture.

That’s not always been the case, as there have been some truly beloved uniforms that have come from the City Edition line over the years. Miami’s “Vice” uniforms are the gold standard, and I still think they should have just become their permanent set. Phoenix’s “The Valley” and Utah’s gradient uniforms were so good they petitioned the league successfully to keep them around for multiple years — with the Suns running back the Valley theme again this year with a twist, and, unsurprisingly, they’re among the best.

What all of those have in common is that they managed to strike the balance between understanding what makes a jersey pop when zoomed out while also connecting to the local flavor of the city with a great story. As a group, almost all of this year’s uniforms hit on the latter point (although, I’d understand if you think the Heat uniform might just be mailing it in) but very few seem to remember the former.

The result has been a tepid response, at best, from most fan bases, and if the league and Nike are going to continue this, they’d do well to get back to basics a bit more going forward.

At long last, we finally have an answer about the mysterious collab album by J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar. Cole made an appearance on Lil Yachty’s A Safe Place podcast, where he explained the origins of the album.

Rumors of the collab album have circulated for over a decade, and Cole confirmed that the two did, in fact, meet around the time Lamar was working on his 2011 independent album, Section.80.

“Closer to the album, I get into all of this,” said Cole of his earliest meetings with Lamar, “so in-depth it’s crazy.”

Cole remembered meeting Lamar at No ID’s home studio. Cole had a collection of beats at the time, including the track for “HiiiPower,” which ended up as a solo Lamar song on Section.80.

“In that moment, we talked about ‘Yo bro, we should do a project,” said Cole. “At that time, he not on like that, but I’m f*cking with him…Him being so excited — because that’s a look for him at that point — so I think he went to Twitter, like ‘Me and J. Cole got something crazy coming’ and he put up a picture of us together.”

The two did end up recording material together, however, as both of their stars were on the rise, and they never found time to complete the project.

“At one point it was a real thing… but time and life, we ain’t never got a chance to like really go in,” Cole said.

While the two still have love and admiration for each other, it doesn’t seem like the album will see the light of day anytime soon.

“We put it to bed years ago,” said Cole, “but at one point in time, it was a conversation for sure.”

You can see the full episode of A Safe Place above.

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You know how a picture is worth a thousand words? I’ll just let these images sum up the daddy-daughter bond.

A 37-year-old Ukrainian artist affectionately known as Soosh, recently created some ridiculously heartwarming illustrations of the bond between a dad and his daughter, and put them on her Instagram feed. Sadly, her father wasn’t involved in her life when she was a kid. But she wants to be sure her 9-year-old son doesn’t follow in those footsteps.

“Part of the education for my kiddo who I want to grow up to be a good man is to understand what it’s like to be one,” Soosh told Upworthy.

There are so many different ways that fathers demonstrate their love for their little girls, and Soosh pretty much nails all of them.

Get ready to run the full gamut of the feels.

1. Dads can do it all. Including hair.

2. They also make pretty great game opponents.

3. And the Hula-Hoop skills? Legendary.

4. Dads know there’s always time for a tea party regardless of the mountain of work in front of them.

5. And their puppeteer skills totally belong on Broadway.

6. Dads help us see the world from different views.

7. So much so that we never want them to leave.

8. They can make us feel protected, valued, and loved.

9. Especially when there are monsters hiding in places they shouldn’t.

Seeing the daddy-daughter bond as art perfectly shows how beautiful fatherhood can be.

This article originally appeared on 04.09.16

It’s been two years since J. Cole dropped his last album, The Off-Season. Since then, he’s been hard at work on his upcoming album, The Fall Off. But he’s been keeping fans fed with incredible feature verses through collaborations with artists like Young Thug, Summer Walker, Lil Durk, and Drake — the lattermost helping him earn his first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1.

As Cole has shown to be the one to call to add a little spark to your track, listeners are wondering how much he charges for a guest verse.

Does J. Cole charge for rap features?

In 2019, Young Thug released “The London,” a song featuring Travis Scott and J. Cole. On Cole’s verse, he seemingly implies that his guest spots come with a hefty price tag.

“I left a flock of rappers dead and buried / A verse from me is like eleven birds / Just did the math, that’s like two thousand dollars every word,” he raps on his verse.

On an episode of Lil Yachty’s A Safe Place podcast, Cole clarified that despite this particular line, he actually does not charge artists for features.

“It’s just a bar, bro,” said Cole. “A lot of my bars be really on point, but man that’s just a flex. I’m not gonna charge [artists] $2000 a word. I don’t even charge [artists] for the verse. I’m doing this sh*t because I’m inspired to do it.”

You can see the full episode of A Safe Place above.