The best new hip-hop this week includes albums, videos, and songs from Doja Cat, Drake, Lola Brooke, and more.

For all the fanfare surrounding two of the above-mentioned releases, the last week saw possibly the slimmest pickings in hip-hop of 2023 to date. That said, there were still a few worthwhile standouts. Doechii dropped “Pacer,” another genre-bending fave in a seemingly never-ending stream of them leading to her debut album, and two acts, Snoop Dogg and Flyana Boss, flexed a little brand synergy to remind everyone that hip-hop is still big business despite not setting the charts on fire lately. Then, of course, there’s the music below.

Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending September 22, 2023.

Albums/EPs/Mixtapes

Doja Cat — Scarlet

Doja returned to her roots on her latest release, delving back into the classic hip-hop sounds that first informed her style. It works, unless you expected more “Say So” or “Kiss Me More” style pop-rap anthems. This is a grittier, more combative Doja Cat and she isn’t making any apologies for it here.

Earthgang — RIP Human Art

While the Atlanta duo continues to promise their third LP Earthgang Vs. The Algorithm, they release this five-song warm-up EP to give fans an idea of what to expect. Fortunately, while these projects’ titles suggest high-concept shenanigans, Earthgang remains every bit as grounded — such as they are — in the cosmic funk they’ve always produced.

Lil Tecca — Tec

At 21 years old, Lil Tecca is no longer the teen sensation he once was — that position has been filled by Luh Tyler — and now, his mission is to prove his staying power. I don’t know if anything on this, his third studio album, is quite as sticky as his breakout hit “Ransom,” but I really respect that he seems to be putting his head down and going for it on his own, refusing to rely on big-name features to lend him attention.

Marco Plus — Joints

I can’t lie, Marco Plus is a new name to me, but that gave me all the more reason to check him out when he appeared on Tidal’s Suggested New Albums tab. Right off the bat, he presents a laid-back, easygoing vibe reminiscent of Curren$y, Wiz Khalifa, et al. Smoke DZA puts in an appearance so that should give you an idea of the stoner-ific, punchline-heavy flow Marco brings to the table. Lade the above names with a T.I.-esque Atlanta drawl (what’s a consonant?), and it’s a project I can see myself returning to.

Nick Grant — Sunday Dinner

After taking a funkadelic detour into last year’s Welcome To Loveland, the South Carolina rapper returns to his boom-bap-influenced lane. He still sounds cozy as hell on the bluesy, soulful samples, rapping about life’s rough edges. I’m sure he hates it when folks make this comparison, but if you’ve been going crazy with anticipation waiting for J. Cole’s The Fall-Off, Sunday Dinner will surely hold you over.

Singles/Videos

Chika — “Demigod”

One of the albums I didn’t get a chance to write about more fully this year was Chika’s long-awaited Warner debut, Sampson. A heady, high-concept album, it proved worthy of Chika’s Grammy-nominee talents despite being a little overlong. A standout was “Demigod,” which receives a pensive video this week paying homage to the Alabama rapper’s Nigerian roots.

Dame D.O.L.L.A. — “Paid In Full” Feat. Tobe Nwigwe

Speaking of Nigerians, Tobe Nwigwe is building quite the resume… rapping alongside two of the NBA’s best point guards in a two-month span has to be some kind of record. This video, which features Cam’ron, the unequivocal core of the hood classic Paid In Full, comes from Dame’s new album, Don D.O.L.L.A.

iCandy — “Big Mad” Feat. Flo Milli

Say what you want about the Zoomers sampling the ever-loving hell out of millennial faves… it’s about time someone got around to “Lip Gloss.” Lil Mama deserved so much better than she got for the past decade or so, and I can’t think of anyone more fitting to help spark a Renaissance for her career than Flo Milli, one of her most direct stylistic descendants.

Little Brother — “Wish Me Well”

This one’s for the 35-and-up crowd. LB’s reunion a couple of years ago was ambrosia for elder millennials, so to so it continue is truly manna from heaven. Some nice bars in here for fans of that “real hip-hop” — which is really all hip-hop, but you know what I mean.

Lola Brooke — “You” Feat. Bryson Tiller

Here’s another sample; this one’s from Eugene Wilde’s 1984 single “Gotta Get You Home Tonight, which most folks over 30 might remember as the basis for Foxy Brown’s “Get Me Home” featuring Blackstreet. It’s a good choice for a stylistic successor who is doing her best to capitalize on the viral success of “Don’t Play With It.”

Moneybagg Yo — “Big Dawg” Feat. Sexyy Red

Moneybagg Yo promised more new music to go along with his Hard To Love mixtape (check out his Uproxx cover story here). After making sure to tap in with GloRilla, he now offers his blessing to Sexyy Red. Honestly, if this becomes his new lane, I won’t be mad.

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

Fox News and Donald Trump used to get along. Not so much anymore. Earlier this year, after the former president suffered one blunder after another, the conservative news network tried to switch allegiances to Ron DeSantis. Welp, that’s not working out. Now Trump thinks he doesn’t need Fox News anymore. That means he’s free to trash them in his speeches, sometimes, awkwardly, while they’re covering him.

As per Mediaite, Trump spoke at a rally in South Carolina. It featured the supposedly more mentally acute presidential candidate blaming Jeb Bush for getting America into the Iraq War. He also went on a tirade against Fox News. They eventually cut away, but not fast enough.

“We’re going up and we’re the only ones going up. They’re going down and they’re going down, down, down,” Trump said of his fellow candidates. He then brought up Fox News’ Trump-less GOP debates. “They ought to stop wasting their time. You know, they’re wasting a lot of time with these ridiculous debates that nobody’s watching.”

He wasn’t done. “Their last debate was the lowest-rated debate in history. That’s a good compliment,” he jeered. “Now, what was I doing — I was someplace else, wasn’t I? I was doing another interview. We had 271 million people listening to the Tucker Carlson interview. That’s an all-time record.”

As Trump boasted about his (dodgy) Tucker metrics, Fox News’ Martha MacCallum finally chimed in.

“So here we are, back in the thick of campaign season,” MacCallum told viewers, as casually as she could muster. “We are now just four months away from the Iowa primaries. And you see former President Trump in a place where you would expect to see him today and in the days to come, South Carolina.”

For the record, just because 271 million people started incredibly long and extraordinarily boring Tucker sit-down, in which he ranted about Joe Biden’s beach pics, doesn’t mean anyone finished it, or made it more than a minute or two into it. But we digress.

Oh, and one more thing: The Fox News GOP debate brought in some 12.8 million viewers, meaning it did better than 70% of all presidential debates in the previous two cycles. But Trump knows he can say anything and his fans will buy it.

(Via Mediaite)

It might seem like we have been hearing about Dan Harmon’s newest series Krapoplis for years, and that’s because we sure have been hearing about it for years. But now it’s actually time for the series to hit the air, and the anticipation seemed to work out in its favor.

An average of 3.6 million viewers tuned in to see the first episode of Harmon’s latest series on Sunday night, which is impressive, but not too shocking considering it aired directly after Taylor Swift appeared at the Chiefs game, and you know what happens when you combine football fans and swifties: ratings gold! Episode two aired directly after the first and drew in an average of 1.8 million viewers. Still, a lot of people, even if they just had Fox on in the background while investigating Swift/Travis Kelce’s dating timeline. Despite the neutral reviews, it seems like the people are looking to tune in for just about anything right now, so hey, whatever works.

The series, which was already renewed for a second season 12 months before airing, stars Hannah Waddingham, Richard Ayoade, Matt Berry, Pam Murphy, and Duncan Trussel as “humans, gods, and monsters that try their hand at running the world’s first cities — without trying to kill each other.” Again, this sounds like football fans and swifties.

Krapopolis is now streaming on Hulu.

(Via Variety)

It appears as though cooler heads have prevailed in Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner’s ongoing divorce. After Turner sued Jonas for custody of their children last week, Jonas called Turner’s filing “a harsh legal position” to take despite Turner previously agreeing to a co-parenting setup that would see the kids — three-year-old Willa and their one-year-old, whose name has not yet been publicly shared — being raised in both parents’ countries of origin.

Today, People magazine reported that an interim consent order was filed in New York, where both currently reside, ordering them to keep both children in the Southern and Eastern districts of New York, including New York City, Long Island, and Hudson Valley. According to People, which obtained copies of the filings, the documents read, “The parties have agreed to the entry of the attached proposed Interim Consent Order, without prejudice to either party’s claims and defenses, prohibiting the removal of the parties’ children from the jurisdictions of the United States District Courts for the Southern & Eastern Districts of New York pending further order of this Court.”

If the court order is violated, the court has the right to remove the children from either or both parents’ care as the divorce proceedings continue.

The cable news realm is no longer graced with Tucker Carlson’s wallpaper face every weeknight while he disseminates dangerous disinformation. Jesse Watters took over that time slot, but additionally, Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade is doing his part to fill the far-right conspiracy-theory space. And like Carlson, Kilmeade’s reaction faces tend to be more informative than his subject matter, especially whenever Steve Doocy acts at the voice of reason during any spirited debate.

Kilmeade’s reaction faces certainly have taken a turn lately. You could practically see his spirit deflate when Doocy schooled him on the seriousness of Trump’s legal problems. That subject came up again, and Kilmeade looked like someone flushed his goldfish. However, Kilmeade was in charge — or so he thought — while solo-interviewing ex-Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko. This didn’t turn out as planned.

Kilmeade may have thought he had a scoop while citing former Ukraine Prosecutor General Victor Shokin, who claimed that he had been fired on then-VP Biden’s orders. However, Poroshenko contradicted Kilmeade and called out Shokin as a “completely crazy person” who has “something wrong with him.” That led to the above reaction face, as you can see in motion below.

A lesson for humanity: Never go full Tucker.

The month of September brings a few things to us. It signals that summer is coming to an end, that a new NFL season on the horizon, and that a new line of iPhones is on its way to the world. After holding its annual conference to announce the new line of phones on September 12, Apple opened pre-orders for its iPhone 15 models that same day. Ten days later, the phones began landing in customers’ hands either through prior pre-orders or for those who were lucky enough to score a phone by walking into their local Apple Store. In the few days since people received their iPhone 15 models, there’s been a big issue with the phones that users have noted.

Many people have complained that their iPhones are overheating while charging, with one person saying they’re “almost too hot to touch” according to Dexerto. In some instances, the phone becomes too hot to hold without it being connected to a charger. One person shared a video that showed the iPhone 15 Pro in natural titanium at a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and said that the phone became this hot after “a 2-minute FaceTime call or when scrolling through reels for 8-10 minutes.”

Another user shared a similar video with their iPhone 15 Pro Max hitting 100 degrees Fahrenheit as they left it to charge at their desk without using it. Not all users are experiencing this issue however as one complimented the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s battery life and noted that there was “no overheating so far either.” Over at Digital Trends, contributors Andy Boxall, Joe Maring, and Bryan M. Wolfe all noted that their new iPhone 15 models did heat up during the initial setup, but no further issues were experienced once it was complete.

Wolfe, who noted that he’s owned “every iPhone series except for the iPhone 3GS,” also suggested that overheating is often a slight issue in the early days of a new iPhone. This means that users will just have to wait it out a bit and keep a lookout for software updates that Apple may release to possibly cure the issue.

On the bright side, the iPhone 15 models aren’t exploding like the Samsung Note 7 models were back in 2016.

It has been nearly a year since Brockhampton’s epic farewell show and true to his promise, Kevin Abstract has returned with new solo music due by the end of the year. Today, he shared a teaser of his new single “Blanket,” announcing an intimate show later this week at The Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever.

The teaser for “Blanket,” a short film called “Sleepover,” features a young boy playing video games with his imaginary friends when something goes bump in the night. Over on his website, you can check out the teaser, get tickets to the show, and even play a browser game, guiding a little race car through a maze. Those of us old enough to remember the halcyon days of early meme internet already know bettter than to even try it.

Abstract returned to Twitter to announce all this after deactivating his account late last year (he sure picked a helluva time for it). While the final Brockhampton albums were released just before this, one, The Family, mostly consisted of Kevin Abstract material, prompting him to explain that the group had “a lot to say outside of group projects.”

So far, Abstract isn’t the only member to announce solo work; Jabari Manwa released a new single as Saga Bouy earlier this year.

With training camp rapidly approaching, the Damian Lillard trade talks and rumors have heated up over the last week, as Portland and other teams now have a soft deadline of sorts approaching in the form of media day to serve as the catalyst for some action.

The Miami Heat still want Lillard, but their offer can’t change much and there are reports the Blazers have been icing them out of conversations as they canvas the league in an effort to find the best possible package for Lillard. There are rumblings that a Lillard trade could expand to include a team like the Phoenix Suns as a third team, as the Blazers could look to add Deandre Ayton with the Suns apparently high on Jusuf Nurkic. After two months of mostly silence, the noise now is a bit hard to parse and figure out what’s real and what’s not, but given the number of newsbreakers that have reported interest in Lillard from teams like the Bulls and Raptors, it certainly seems there’s at least a chance Miami won’t end up Lillard’s destination as he desires.

On Monday, Marc Spears went on NBA Today and said that not only are the Raptors in the mix, but a pair of high ranking executives in the NBA told him they view Toronto as the frontrunners for Lillard, despite the concerns he would not want to be there.

As Spears notes, Masai Ujiri has made a deal like this in the past with Kawhi Leonard, who rather famously made it clear he didn’t want to be in Toronto before reporting and winning a championship in his lone year with the Raptors. Lillard, of course, is a very different case given he’s not an expiring but has at least three more years on his deal, so it’d take more to talk him into buying in on Toronto for the next stage of his career.

That said, the Raptors could offer a much more enticing package than the Heat in terms of prospects, with Scottie Barnes as a potential centerpiece. Barnes would be a much more snug fit with Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe (and Anfernee Simons) compared to Tyler Herro, and if you’re Portland you probably would value Toronto’s picks a bit more than Miami’s because you would believe there’s a chance Lillard pushes out of Toronto in the near future as opposed to with the Heat. As Spears is sure to note in his report, there is nothing imminent with Lillard, but there is an awful lot of noise out there about Toronto right now and at least some around the league are buying it as being very real.

David C. Smalley, a comedian and podcaster, regularly gives us some generational humor by exposing his 19-year-old daughter Talissa to relics of the past. You know, things like CDs, phonebooks, remote controllers…feeling old yet?

Recently, Smalley challenged Talissa with navigating a standard U-Haul storage truck. She had to 1) unlock the door 2) roll down a window and 3) start the engine.

For those of us who grew up before the 90s, this might sound like the easiest challenge ever. But apparently, for Gen Z, it’s like being asked to maneuver a horse and buggy.

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Despite growing up in a key fob generation, where simply pressing a button on a tiny remote controller could magically open doors, Talissa aced unlocking the door with a key.

Next, she was understandably baffled over the amount of physical labor required to simply roll down a window.

“Are you serious? They haven’t updated that?!” she exclaimed while doing the tedious hand-cranking move we all know so well. “Are you kidding me?! I would not do this every time.”

She definitely had a point on this one. Electronic windows have been the standard for decades. Is U-Haul just sentimental or what?

Having checked off two of the three tasks, Talissa then had to start the car—which proved to be the biggest challenge of all.

Looking on the center console, where she’s used to seeing the ignition button, Talissa found the airbag and radio (two foreign objects in their own right) but no way to start the car.

Finally…success! Talissa found the ignition hiding behind the steering wheel.

“I’m not going to make it explode, am I?” she joked as she turned the key and celebrated her victory.

Watch below. Hearing Talissa ask if the radio is a “fidget game” is entertainment in itself.

@davidcsmalley #daughterissues #daughterpod ♬ original sound – David C. Smalley

It’s always fun to see the ways in which different generations navigate the world through fashion, slang, entertainment, dating, food, the list goes on. But technology, which continues to evolve at a rapid rate, always feels like the biggest culture shock.

And unlike bell bottoms, outdated tech rarely makes a comeback. So once the more energy efficient, more convenient appliance becomes mainstream, its predecessor is forever obsolete. Unless of course you count the cool, hipster folks hanging onto vinyl for the superior sound quality.

Speaking of vinyl, Talissa was also previously challenged by Smalley to work a record player, to equal hilarity:

@davidcsmalley #daughterissues #daughterpod #genz #genx #recordplayers #vinyl #talissa ♬ original sound – David C. Smalley

Somehow, seeing how far we’ve come through the look of bafflement from the young ones is the only thing that never gets old.

Enjoy more fun interactions from Smalley and Talissa on TikTok.

If we’re being honest, we all make assumptions about other people, right?

We look at their skin, their clothes, and their car, and we make guesses about them that we don’t even realize we’re making. Everyone does it.

You ask a pregnant female coworker if she’ll keep working after the baby is born — but you wouldn’t think to ask that question of a guy who was about to become a dad.

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You ask that nice girl behind the counter at the bagel shop whether she’ll ever go to college so she can get a better job — only to learn that she’s an underemployed Ph.D.

You ask a hipster-looking guy on the subway whether he’s into artisanal pickles — but he just happens to be a bad dresser who has no idea what you’re talking about.

The fact is, though, that people of color deal with other people’s assumptions constantly.

Research shows that other people’s expectations can have a profound effect on us. They can determine our success or failure. And black women deal with this nonsense more than others. In a recent study, nearly half of the female black and Latina scientists polled reported being mistaken for janitors or administrative staff.

Let’s agree to fix this.

This story originally appeared on December 15, 2015