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Republicans have been railing against Eminem for over 20 years now, but that apparently won’t stop them from also trying to use his music to appeal to voters. Last year, they were recoiling from his Super Bowl Halftime Show and as recently as last week, Eminem’s anti-Trump stances were being derided on Elon Musk’s zombie Twitter six years after those fans stuck between the two controversial figures weighed with their nostalgia for “The Real Slim Shady” against their racist views.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican Presidential candidate who’s beginning his campaign ahead of next year’s elections, personified that struggle during a rally in Iowa on Saturday, rapping the iconic intro from Em’s most popular song, “Lose Yourself.” It’s… pretty painful to watch, actually. Steel yourself and hit “play” below — but stretch first, because you’re likely to pull a muscle from cringing so hard afterward.

I’m not sure which part is worse: His atrocious mic presence or the utter lack of interest from the crowd. Maybe it’s when he tries to get the lady onstage behind him involved and she snaps back to reality after clearly dissociating through his performance to avoid the secondhand embarrassment. Yike. The question this begs, though, is who is this for? Gen Z doesn’t have much fondness for Em and the fans who grew up with him have loudly moved on in recent years. Boomers hated him from jump, so which voting base does Ramaswamy hope to appeal to?

Meanwhile, the real Slim Shady actually performed the song himself for boxer Terence Crawford’s ring entrance late last month when he fought Errol Spence, Jr. Maybe Ramaswamy is hoping for some of that “Lose Yourself” luck, as Crawford dominated Spence on his way to a technical knockout victory and welterweight championship.

Over the weekend, Lorde had the internet buzzing after two new songs were included during her set at Boardmasters Festival. Rumored to be titled “Silver Moon” and “Invisible Ink” according to a setlist, the videos from her performance immediately started circulating.

She also started playing an alternate version of her Solar Power track, “Secrets From A Girl (Who’s Seen It All.)” This, coupled with the fact that the musician had been teasing a new record days earlier, had fan speculation running wild.

“After the show we went swimming.. these times are beautiful and they freak me out and there’s so much to tell you,” she captioned a recent Instagram post. “No this is not the start of anything out there, just want u to know there’s a light on inside me .. show it to you soon.”

However, Lorde has since shut down the possibility of the tracks being on her next album after she commented back to a fan on Instagram.

“Haha I’m serious literally just decided to set these free from my laptop,” Lorde responded. “But they’re not bad eh… Beautiful and fun for fests I thought.”

While it now seems less likely that Lorde will be giving “Silver Moon” and “Invisible Ink” an official release, fans still can watch her performing the songs in some crowd-shot videos below.

Before the premiere of the final season of HBO‘s How To with John Wilson, one of the best shows on TV, host John Wilson told us about how he processes surprising confessions from his interview subjects. “That’s the high that I’m chasing throughout all the work; getting to these real moments with people that we don’t usually have access to in our personal lives or in other media that we watch,” he said. In the latest episode, he had one of his realest — and most shocking — moments yet.

In “How to Work Out,” Wilson, who travels everywhere with a camera and films everything he sees, tries to improve his fitness. “The more you look around New York, the more you notice all the hard work people are doing to maintain their physiques. They make it look effortless, and you’ve never really understood how to do it right,” he said in the opening narration. “So instead of just letting gravity suck you down, stick with me, and I’ll show you how to finally get off your butt and start to work out.”

Wilson, naturally, starts his journey at a gym, which leads him to a meme-making chronic masturbator… and a literal dumpster fire… and a cat show, where he asks a photographer to take semi-nude photos of him… which are later stolen. Somehow, when watching the episode, this all makes sense.

Later on, Wilson attends a September 11th-themed bodybuilding competition where he’s handed a memoir written by a personal trainer who “discovered that a former client of his became one of the 9/11 hijackers.” Wilson meets with the trainer and asks him for his reaction when he found out what happened. “Made me feel proud,” he answered. This was the moment my jaw dropped. “Made me feel good that I’d trained somebody for something committed that they were able to pull it off. We may not agree with them, but they were committed. That’s what I liked about it.” Wilson’s only response:

Awkward kings stay winning.

How To with John Wilson is available on Max.

(WARNING: Spoilers for Swagger season two will be found below.)

Season two of Swagger came to a close last weekend with its eighth and final episode. For those who are new to the Swagger experience, the series is loosely based on the life of NBA player Kevin Durant as it follows a teenager named Jace Carson who has very realistic dreams of making it to the NBA. The show isn’t only about basketball though. It also incorporates the real experience of young Black men in this country with themes that include pressures from the youth basketball world, friends, families, and competitors, as well as dealings with racism, broken families, abuse, incarceration, and more. All these ingredients combined have made Swagger an authentic show to love, which makes it unsurprising that fans of the show are asking about season three.

Will There Be A ‘Swagger’ Season 3?

As of now, Swagger has not been renewed for season three, but this does not mean that the show will not be given a new round of episodes. In fact, following its inaugural season, Swagger was not renewed for season two until six months after the season one finale. Case in point, we might have to wait a bit for news on Swagger season three, but hopefully, it arrives sooner than later.

Seasons one and two of ‘Swagger’ are available to stream now on Apple TV+.

Doja Cat has a message for the social media followers who leave nasty comments on her posts. Doja, who has seemingly been on a mission to alienate all but her most loyal fans lately (which, honestly, might not be such a bad strategy), followed up a series of bizarre grid photos with the post on her Instagram, deriding the users leaving “mean comments” and noting, “You still follow me.”

“To all the people in my comments section who are leaving mean comments: I checked your page and you still follow me,” she wrote. “I have a setting on that only allows followers to comment. Also, I’m better than you and you’re so jealous that I’m fly and hot and pretty and you’re nothing like that, you’re nothing of the sort.”

Doja Cat has long been known for trolling her fans and haters alike, starting with her breakout song, “Mooo!” and continuing right up to last month, when she told users with stan accounts to “get off your phone and get a job and help your parents with the house.” She allegedly lost a quarter of a million followers after that, but her actions certainly track with her statement that she’s no longer doing “palatable, marketable, and sellable” stuff anymore.

Clearly, that includes dropping pop star kayfabe — y’know, the syrupy “I love my fans” act most of them commit to in order to feed the parasocial dynamic that often leads to stalkers showing up at their homes and fans pelting things at them at concerts. More power to her, I say, especially if it means that the music will be stuff that she wants to make instead of just what some label bean counter thinks will sell. Of course, it could all be an inside joke from a known trickster, but either way, thank you, Doja, for making music weird again.

Justified‘s Raylan Givens is the role that Timothy Olyphant was born to portray. Granted, Deadwood (as seen above) was a hat-bound precursor to the even more infamous Wild West lawman character that Olyphant has now revived for City Primeval. Many more roles came before, some with hats and some without. Yet one role in particular seems to have intimidated the heck out of the generally laid-back Olyphant, and that would be picking up one of the two “killer” roles (Mickey) for 1997’s Scream 2.

Via ComicBook, this was one of several topics discussed by Olyphant with Josh Horowitz of the Happy Sad Confused podcast:

“That whole movie was overwhelming and exciting, and that’s early. That’s me just trying to keep my head above water and pretend like I’m not freaking out inside. That was quite a job. I was still maybe lying on my resume when I got that gig; I hadn’t done a lot…. Huge opportunity, and I showed up and everybody on that set was people I’d been watching on television and film.”

A few years later, Olyphant picked up the role of a Santa-hat wearing, scuzzed-out drug dealer in Go by pretending that he didn’t care about the role. Many years later, he found his hat camouflage roles, and now, he always appears to be one easygoing dude. The hat helps, no doubt.

Watch him talk about Scream shortly after the 33:00 minute mark.

(Via Comic Book)

The Big Bang Theory ran for 12 seasons. It was one of the 15 biggest shows on television for 10 of them. The CBS sitcom benefitted from nerd culture taking over Hollywood (Iron Man came out during season one), but the real secret to the show’s ratings-dominating success is Kaley Cuoco.

In a new interview with Emmy Magazine (via Screenrant), former CBS executive Nina Tassler discussed how Cuoco saved The Big Bang Theory. “There was so much about the pilot that did work. But there were parts of the script that didn’t work, and we had to recast an actress. [Creator Chuck Lorre] is such an extraordinary talent. He had a great concept and wonderful chemistry between the two leads, so I asked him if he would try again,” she said. Lorre agreed with Tassler. “You’re right, I know I can do better. Thank you for this opportunity, and we’ll figure it out,” he said.

The role of Penny was re-cast with an actress from 8 Simple Rules. “Kaley Cuoco joined the cast, and she was the secret sauce. Chuck and [co-creator] Bill Prady delivered a pilot script, and the rest is history,” Tassler said.

The catchphrase shirts and slot machine industries thank you most of all, Kaley Cuoco.

(Via Screenrant)

Sufjan Stevens returned today to announce his new album, Javelin, will be arriving this fall. To hold fans over until then, he shared the lead single, “So You Are Tired,” a peaceful track that opens with a piano instrumental.

“So you are tired of us / So rest your head,” Stevens sings to the listeners, crafting his own sort of lullaby.

Throughout the rest of the record, Stevens enlisted a powerful team of collaborators who provided harmonies, instrumentation, and songwriting. This includes Bryce Dessner (guitar on “Sh*t Talk”), Neil Young (wrote “There’s A World”), Adrienne Maree Brown, Hannah Cohen, Pauline Delassus, Megan Lui, and Nedelle Torrisi, according to a press release.

Additionally, Javelin‘s release will come complete with a 48-page book by Stevens, featuring art (“meticulous collages” and “puff paint word clouds”) and ten short essays, some of which served as the inspirations behind the songs.

Listen to “So You Are Tired.” Check out the Javelin cover art and tracklist below.

1. “Goodbye Evergreen”
2. “A Running Start”
3. “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?”
4. “Everything That Rises”
5. “Genuflecting Ghost”
6. “My Red Little Fox”
7. “So You Are Tired”
8. “Javelin (To Have And To Hold)”
9. “Sh*t Talk”
10. “There’s A World”

Javelin is out 10/6 via Asthmatic Kitty. Find more information here.

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

Hawaii native Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wants the people of Maui to know he has their back. As wildfires ravish the island, the powerhouse actor couldn’t hide his feelings at seeing so much “destruction.” In a new video posted to his Instagram on Sunday, The Rock offered his heartfelt love and support to the people of Maui.

“I know that by now all of you around the world have seen the complete destruction and devastation that has hit our Hawaiian islands, our island of Maui, and I’m completely heartbroken over this,” The Rock said. “Everything that I’ve seen transpire over these past couple of days, everything that continues to transpire hour by hour, minute by minute, it’s all heartbreaking.”

Like fellow Hawaiian Jason Momoa, The Rock is doing everything in his power to get help to the island residents affected by the wildfires. He told his millions of Instagram followers that he’s in constant contact with several organizations to get aid on the ground as best as possible.

The Rock also wrote an inspirational message in the caption, praising first responders and urging the people of Maui to “stay strong.”

“First responders, health care teams, hotels, locals businesses, boots on the ground organizations and all our local heroes, stay strong – we love you and appreciate you,” The Rock wrote. “All our local families, our ohana, our aiga, stay strong thru this devastating time. Resilience resolve is our DNA. Our ancestors are in our blood. This is who we are. This is what we do. I love you.”

(Via The Rock on Instagram)

Billie Eilish’s songs are often about sad or serious topics, but when she’s not in the studio, Eilish has shown time and time again that she loves to have fun and has a terrific sense of humor. Exhibit A: The new fart video brother Finneas just shared on his Instagram Story today (August 14).

The video starts with Finneas in a plane, pointing the camera on himself and saying, “We’re in Amsterdam for a layover, Billie just told me something.” Billie interrupted, “Who?” Finneas replied, “Dog, I’m just filming this, I’m not sending it to anyone.” Billie then turned her butt toward him and let out a fart. You can hear what sounds like the start of a laugh before the video abruptly ends.

While Finneas was on the receiving end of the gas attack here, it seems he found it at least a little bit funny since he went ahead and posted the video (and, like his sister, he’s also been known to have a good sense of humor).

In July, Eilish shared another funny video of herself and Finneas. The clip, which she shared for Finneas’ birthday, sees the pair laughing about Finneas mishearing a Lana Del Rey lyric, mistaking “Chateau Marmont” for “Trapdoor mama.”