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In June, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre revealed they were postponing their Hollywood Bowl concerts in solidarity with the WGA Strike. They had previously been scheduled for June 27 and June 28. Now the shows have been canceled altogether.

“We regret to inform you that due to the ongoing strike and the uncertainty of when this will be over, we need to cancel the Hollywood Bowl show,” Snoop’s Instagram post from Tuesday, July 25, reads. “We continue to stand in solidarity with all of our brothers and sisters in the WGA and SAG/AFTRA during this difficult time and remain hopeful that the AMPTP will come back to the negotiating table with a REAL proposal and we can all get back to work.”

At a Variety conference in May, Snoop said artists “need to figure it out the same way the writers are figuring it out. The writers are striking because [of] streaming; they can’t get paid. Because when it’s on the platform, it’s not like in the box office.

“I don’t understand how the f*ck you get paid off of that sh*t,” he continued. “Somebody explain to me how you can get a billion streams and not get a million dollars? … That’s the main gripe with a lot of us artists is that we do major numbers, … but it don’t add up to the money. Like, where the f*ck is the money?”

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

The most fascinating thing about J Hus’ third album Beautiful And Brutal Yard is that the rapper rarely faces a loss. Sure, the British rapper has had to put his career on pause at times, most notably to serve a five-month sentence after the release of his 2018 debut album Common Sense for carrying a knife in public. For the most part, he’s a villain with no chinks in his armor, but one that has inflicted damage to varying levels against his enemies. He has neverending stories about finding himself in the middle of crossfire, self-induced or not, but through it all, he’s in control of the beautiful and brutal yard he lives in. The beauty is clear as J Hus charms as a slick-talking and charismatic man with all the talents and lines to whisk away the woman of his choice. On the flip side, the brutal moments come from the rapper’s villainous reign as an authority too fearless, too relentless, and too equipped to be removed from his throne.

The qualities mentioned above aren’t exclusive to the beauty or brute of J Hus and his world and that’s what adds to the fascination of Beautiful And Brutal Yard. They play equal roles to both sides of the coin. J Hus strives for a new level of fearlessness as he raps about his brute upbringing on “Come Look” over haunting production that sprays a dark overcast over him. In this same sense, the rapper’s daring approach to a woman he desires on “Safa Kara” is the epitome of fearless. Take your pick at lines like “Call me daddy, that’s an ego booster / Call me papa, come have me for supper,” as proof of it.

For the beauty of it all, he stares in deep admiration at an out-of-this-world woman on “Alien Girl” and aims to charm another one with risque solar system metaphors like “Take you somewhere no one can see / We go to Uranus” and “Put on a sex tune while I sex you in Neptune / This comes around only once in a blue moon.” The same charm is applied to “It’s Crazy” where he raps in sarcastic disbelief at his ability to effortlessly take down his perpetrators.

This duality is what makes Beautiful And Brutal Yard so enjoyable. With an album that fires off 19 songs across 63 minutes, enough has to be done to keep listeners interested and locked in, and J Hus accomplishes this pretty effortlessly. The early parts of the album supply infectious production and catchy hooks for records (“Who Told You” and “Militerian”) that will find as much trouble excelling in summer as day parties and tequila do. It’s within the same album that J Hus also taps in drill rap (“Cream”), introspective rap (“Playing Chess & “Come Look”), Rap&B (“My Baby”), and melodic rap (“Alien Girl”). In most cases, this would make for a disjointed album, but not for J Hus. He achieves cohesivity thanks to maintaining an authoritative tone that maintains his sinister even on its brightest days.

J Hus not only accepts the villain role on Beautiful And Brutal Yard, he fully embraces it in an attempt to take it to a newer and dark level. With that, the album leaves us with a clear image of the rapper: seated on his throne with a grimacing smile as he readjusts his crown and twirls his staff, daring anyone to take him down successfully. The album’s opening record “Intro (The Goat)” is a perfect example of this. Though it’s a short verse that launches the album, it’s one that succinctly captures J Hus’ villainous ways. “If I got my nose in your business, you know it’s a snub,” he fires off before concluding with, “My bredrin’s carryin’ ’cause I can’t afford to have it / But when it’s time for action, feel like I’m born to bang it.”

Stepping back from J Hus’ discography for a second, Beautiful And Brutal Yard is the latest offering from the British rap world that proves the genre is excelling across the pond without conforming to standards in the States. J Hus joins names like Dave, Stormzy, Central Cee, Headie One, and more who’ve made waves while staying true to themselves. It’s an observation worth noting as hip-hop, a genre that’s expanded in numerous ways since its start, crosses its 50th-anniversary mark this year. Even in this crowd, J Hus’ Beautiful And Brutal Yard stands out as a body of work that uses various sounds from the rapper’s cultural background, like afrobeats and afro-swing, as an ingredient to spice up and amplify his projects.

From a closer point of view, J Hus uses his third album to provide a vivid and detailed account of his roots and upbringing, giving equal attention to all that’s beautiful and brutal. This duality contributes to everything on the album: its sonic appeal, the thrill of J Hus’ narratives, and the rapper’s overall artistic vision. Furthermore, J Hus excels thanks to a bigger chip on his shoulder and the goal to go to all necessary lengths to prove himself, just as a villain would in their attempt to reign supreme in their beautiful and brutal yard.

Beautiful And Brutal Yard is out now via Black Butter Ltd. and Epic Records. Find out more information here.

Rudy Giuliani sure knows how to screw up. Once (a long time ago) known as “America’s Mayor,” he’s now regarded as someone who torched his reputation, his legal license, and, potentially, a gigantic sum of money for a guy who wouldn’t even bail him out as his legal woes mounted. Nowadays he doesn’t make news unless he’s doing or saying something dumb, as witness his attempt to slam Joe Biden as a criminal — at a time when his old pal Donald Trump is staring down a possible third indictment.

As per Mediaite, Giuliani went on Steve Bannon’s podcast War Room, where they discussed the mountains of dodgy evidence that the sitting president is a serial law-breaker — unlike the man who preceded him, of course.

“It’s an embarrassment!” Giuliani thundered. “The whole world knows that our president is a criminal, and it is making, not just the Biden administration look corrupt. It’s making America look corrupt. It’s way beyond time for an impeachment.”

Giuliani then made a bold declaration, averring that “ a criminal should not be in the White House, and he is now.” He added, “ I’ve never seen more evidence, Steve. I’ve never seen more evidence that a man committed a crime than this.”

It’s not hard find fault here. Certainly if one swapped in Trump’s name for Biden, his statements make a lot more sense. Again, it’s the guy who left Giuliani in the lurch after their failed attempts to overturn democracy who’s already been indicted twice, who could wind up running for president from the clink. Meanwhile, extremist GOP lawmakers keep swearing they’ve got dirt on Biden, but nothing much materializes.

But what do you expect from someone who, in a desperate attempt to claw himself out of a financial hole, got whatever scratch he could by appearing on The Masked Singer?

(Via Mediaite)

Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign is only six weeks old, and look how well it’s doing. He’s polling a distant second behind his state’s most famous resident. His team has dropped straight-up homophobic (and, of course, homoerotic) ads. And he’s added pizza to the list of foodstuffs with which he’s now unflatteringly associated. To top it all off, he’s now had to further gut his campaign team because he spent too much money too quickly and with little to show of it.

As per Politico, since the campaign’s launch on May 24, the DeSantis team has slimmed down by a whopping 40%, or 38 staffers total of what was once a 90-plus person operation. Last week he let go of about a dozen people. On Tuesday he added/subtracted another 26. Those number include 10 event planning positions, as well as the departures of two senior advisors.

In a statement, campaign manager Generra Peck tried to spin the news as a win. “Following a top-to-bottom review of our organization, we have taken additional, aggressive steps to streamline operations and put Ron DeSantis in the strongest position to win this primary and defeat Joe Biden,” Peck said. “Gov. DeSantis is going to lead the Great American Comeback and we’re ready to hit the ground running as we head into an important month of the campaign.”

Won’t having what let’s charitably call a more exclusive campaign staff get in the way of DeSantis’ main gig, i.e., being the governor of Florida? Possibly, although these days he mostly seems to go to war with companies he doesn’t like, even if it empties his own constituents’ pockets. Sometimes he even meddles in the affairs of other states.

Then again, DeSantis is attempting to “reset” his campaign, after a mere six weeks on the trail. But given his financial and staff issues, this is more like a struggling TV show firing most of its original cast and moving to a network no one watches.

(Via Politico)

The former (and now exiled) leader of Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has always come across as more than a bit strange. As the leader of Vladimir Putin’s mercenary army, he publicly trashed the Russian president for months and eventually led a failed mutiny. Mind you, that coup didn’t fail because Putin did much about it (on the contrary), but that’s also beside the point because Prigozhin, who is now exiled, is the subject of a sordid report from Russian independent publication The Insider.

According to The Insider, Prigozhin is reportedly into some upsetting stuff, including an “obsession with exchanging bodily fluids with virgins,” which he apparently believes “prolongs his youth.” This allegation comes from an anonymous Russian sex worker who claims to have “sold her virginity to Prigozhin when she was eighteen.” She now harbors regrets, but she goes on to allege that Prigozhin has a “harem” of very young adult women that he keeps on hand for his whims. Not only that, but the sex worker describes how he has an odd penile implant, which he believes improves his “prowess”:

Before his downfall and exile to Belarus, Prigozhin used to keep a rotating harem of very young (“a little over 18”) girls in rented rooms at the Solo Sokos Hotel in St. Petersburg. “He had sex without a condom,” the sex workers’ union representative told The Insider, because “he believed that this is how he exchanges energy, fluids. It’s as if he receives a charge of vitality from them.”

Prigozhin also has metallic spheres implanted in the foreskin of his “very small” organ, devices he apparently believes enhance his own sexual prowess and pleasure for his partners. In fact, the sex union source said, women found the balls to be painful during intercourse.

It gets worse. If this is true, then I guess the Wagner Group income must pay exceedingly well:

“Everything was very fast. He has a very small penis, in which there were some kind of balls embedded under the skin. He just left the money in a pile on a chair. It was 100,000 [rubles] . I had to take 40,000 for myself, 60,000 was for the pimp.”

As if that wasn’t revolting enough, Prigozhin reportedly had women visit doctors to ensure their virginity was still intact. The Insider closes their story by revealing that he reportedly refers to these women as “shampoo” because “[y]ou open them and then toss them away.”

There’s so much yikes in that final sentence.

(Via The Insider)

At the end of May, STARZ arrived with news that fans of Power Book IV: Force spent months waiting for: an official date for season two. The platform confirmed that Power Book IV: Force would return on September 1. It’s been over a year since the show concluded its epic first season led by Joseph Sikora as Tommy Egan. Power Book IV: Force is the third spin-off in the Power Universe following Power Book II: Ghost and Power Book III: Raising Kanan which have both completed at least two seasons. Though September 1 isn’t as close as we’d like, Power Book IV: Force is back with a nice gift for fans.

Ahead of the show’s season two premiere in a couple of months, Power Book IV: Force shared new images with fans as a first look into what’s to come in the new season. The release comes as Tommy Egan is known for canceling Christmas if someone does wrong by him.

Altogether, the pictures capture scenes with Tommy Egan as well as Isaac Keys as Diamond Sampson, Kris D. Lofton as Jenard Sampson, Manuel Eduardo Ramirez as Miguel Garcia, Adrienne Walker Shanti “Showstopper” Page, and Tommy Flanagan as Walter Flynn.

You can take a look at the images from the upcoming season below.

‘Power Book IV: Force’ season 1 is available to stream on STARZ. ‘Power Book IV: Force’ season 2 arrives on September 1.

Despite being aligned on virtually every single culture war issue, the evangelical support for Donald Trump never really made sense. On top of his well-known penchant for slathering his penthouse in gold, the former president is a known philanderer to the point where he’s been legally found guilty of sexual abuse. Not exactly the kind of things that Jesus was big on, and yet, Trump has remained the candidate of choice for most evangelicals.

However, that support may be waning. According to former Southern Baptist Convention president Russell Moore, there are cracks forming in Trump’s evangelical base. While promoting his new book, Moore told Semafor that he is regularly hearing from evangelicals who have grown increasingly concerned with how Trump is tarnishing their faith:

I wrote the book because I’m hearing every day from evangelical Christians who are exhausted and almost in despair over the state of American Christianity. They know something has gone terribly wrong but they are losing hope that anything could be different. At the same time, I get asked by non-Christians, as a man said to me as recently as yesterday- “What the hell is wrong with you people.” An evangelical America in crisis isn’t good for anybody.

While refusing to endorse or denounce the Republican candidates challenging Trump, Moore called the former president a “unique threat, both to American institutions and to the church’s witness.”

While Moore didn’t go deeper into his concern over Trump, his new book, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America, will reportedly grapple with Trump’s impact on the evangelical world.

“While the witness of the church before a watching world is diminished beyond recognition, congregations are torn apart over Donald Trump, Christian nationalism, racial injustice, sexual predation, disgraced leaders, and covered-up scandals,” the description for Moore’s book reads. “Left behind are millions of believers who counted on the church to be a place of belonging and hope.”

(Via Semafor, Raw Story)

This year is the 50th anniversary of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, one of the handful of films that could be considered the scariest movie of all-time. The occasion will be marked with pea soup cocktails (pink is out; green is in), as well as the release of The Exorcist: Believer.

Like 2018’s Halloween, it’s a direct sequel to the first film in the franchise starring an original cast member (Ellen Burstyn, reprising her role as Chris MacNeil) that’s directed by David Gordon Green. This time, instead of one demon girl, there’s two demon girls. Will any podcasters get possessed by Pazuzu? Here’s hoping! You can watch the trailer above.

Here’s more:

Since the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake 12 years ago, Victor Fielding has raised their daughter, Angela on his own. But when Angela and her friend Katherine, disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, seek out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before: Chris MacNeil.

The Exorcist: Believer, which also stars Leslie Odom Jr., Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Lidya Jewett, and Olivia Marcum, opens in theaters on October 13th.

No one seems to be sure what Elon Musk is doing over at Twitter. Rather than improve his latest toy/social media platform amid its many ongoing hiccups, he decided to proceed with a seemingly overnight rebranding. Twitter is apparently now “X,” a decision that doesn’t appear to have been planned out too well in spite of his ongoing obsession with the letters, and when Piers Morgan is cheering for something, you know that it’s worth reexamining. That’s especially the case since future cage-fighting rival Mark Zuckerberg is one of many who already claim some form of copyright registration for “X.”

Among the many ongoing jokes of this debacle, now Sesame Street has gotten involved with shading the Twitter/X CEO: “The letter X will be holding a press conference later today.”

And when Big Bird mocks you, that’s never a good sign: “Luckily I’m a bird so I can still tweet tweet!”

Oscar the Grouch does not appear to be impressed by this hot mess at all: “If you are thinking of doing this next to my trash can you can X-out that idea!”

Oscar knows of what he speaks. There’s no telling whether Elon will (again) try to pry “Twitter” off the side of the building after a permit screw up, but yeah, he probably will go there.

As difficult as it may be to believe, Post Malone is four albums deep into his artistry, with another one on the way. The rapper’s forthcoming project, Austin, will hit streaming platforms at the end of the week. Through a series of social media posts, Malone promised that this release is not going to be like anything fans have heard thus far from him, as he’s a completely different person than when he entered the industry.

In a note uploaded to Instagram, the musician shared a note to fans about the project. “This whole deal has been one of the most challenging, rewarding, and exciting records I’ve worked on. I feel it captures who I am as a man and as an artist in this moment. thank y’all so much for your patience, and thank you for being there with me in my hardest times. I love y’all so much,” penned Malone.

Here’s everything we know so far.

Release Date

Austin is out 7/28 via Mercury Records/Republic Records. Find more information here.

Tracklist

1. “Don’t Understand”
2. “Something Real”
3. “Chemical”
4. “Novacandy”
5. “Mourning”
6. “Too Cool To Die”
7. “Sign Me Up”
8. “Socialite”
9. “Overdrive”
10. “Speedometer”
11. “Hold My Breath”
12. “Enough Is Enough”
13. “Texas Tea”
14. “Buyer Beware”
15. “Landmine”
16. “Green Thumb”
17. “Laugh It Off”

Singles

Prior to the project’s release, Malone has shared a total of three singles, “Mourning,” “Overdrive,” and “Chemical.” With Austin slated to drop this Friday (July 28), it is assumed that Post Malone will not share any more singles until after its release. With each of the records, Malone played a big part in terms of production, with additional support from Andrew Watt, Louis Bell, Max Martin, and Rami Yacoub.

Artwork

A major theme of Post Malone’s album, Austin, is finding pockets of peace in his, at times, chaotic professional life. The project’s official artwork is a reflection of that as the entertainer enjoys a tranquil poolside moment.

Tour

Post Malone didn’t wait for the album’s release to hit the road. Malone’s If Y’all Weren’t Here I’d Be Crying Tour kicked off earlier this month. View the remaining tour dates below. It is not clear whether Post Malone will extend the tour any further.

07/26 — Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live
07/29 — Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion
07/31 — West Palm Beach, FL @ iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre
08/01 — Tampa, FL @ MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
08/03 — Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood Amphitheatre
08/05 — Dallas, TX @ Dos Equis Pavilion
08/08 — Houston, TX @ The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
08/10 — Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater
08/12 — Phoenix, AZ @ Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre
08/13 — San Diego, CA @ North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre
08/15 — Wheatland, CA @ Toyota Amphitheatre
08/16 — Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
08/19 — San Bernardino, CA @ Glen Helen Amphitheater