Paul Pierce is no stranger to live television, as he spent years as an analyst for ESPN. He’s also no stranger to livestreams getting him in trouble, as he got fired from ESPN after going on Instagram Live from a party.
That is the background for what transpired on Wednesday night, when Kevin Garnett invited him to be part of his KG Certified livestream for Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Showtime. Pierce rolled up clearly having already enjoyed some beverages, and brought with him his “girlfriend for the day,” whom he proudly proclaimed to KG and the entire livestream audience he had gotten from a website. I promise you that I did not make up a single thing in that sentence.
Pierce apparently did not believe KG about the whole livestream part, leading to an absolutely bonkers performance from Pierce before someone texted him saying that, yes, you are in fact live right now. This has gone viral, with a very funny TikTok breaking down some of the wildest moments from the Truth.
Over on Reddit, a r/NBA user uploaded an even longer clip of Pierce just going off the rails while KG tried desperately not to lose his Showtime deal.
Having been on both sides of this scenario as both the drunk friend embarrassing sober friends and the sober friend trying and failing to keep drunk friends from acting the fool, this is a truly delightful watch. Pierce’s moment of realization is so incredibly funny and gives Garnett so much life, because after like an hour-plus of telling him “we’re live,” that message finally gets through thanks to someone watching at home. Kudos to KG for keeping things on the tracks as much as he did, but if they do this again, he might need to put in big bold letters on the invite that this is for work and not just hanging out in the casino watching the game as friends.
For the past few years, K-pop has increasingly grown in popularity in the US. This week, one of the genre’s fastest-rising girl groups got the chance to demonstrate K-pop’s stateside growth by participating in America’s pastime. On Thursday night (June 8), Uproxx cover band aespa‘s WINTER threw out the first pitch at game two of a doubleheader between the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox at Yankee Stadium while flanked by her bandmates GISELLE and KARINA (the band’s fourth member doesn’t appear in the video provided by the MLB).
Although she had to take a few steps off the mound to get her pitch over the plate, WINTER’s throw is pretty serviceable in the video and she certainly seems delighted by the result. Meanwhile, another angle that fans pulled from the group’s official Instagram shows that it was a bit high and wide, with the Yankees’ catcher having to take a step to his left to collect the errant baseball. Still, we’ve seen worse — way worse.
Plenty of music stars have been throwing out pitches lately; Japanese Breakfast, Megan Thee Stallion, Pharrell, and Saweetie have all had the opportunity recently and WINTER’s pitch is on the higher end of that spectrum — figuratively and literally. Still, the fact that aespa was selected for the honor bodes well for their future in the North American market, where they are due to begin touring this summer, in addition to playing Governor’s Ball in New York this weekend.
Sometimes inclusivity means welcoming everyone into a space and sometimes it means creating spaces where everyone can feel welcome. Find out more about sensory-friendly film showings from major theater chains here.
3. Story of a troubled kid transformed by kindness and art holds important lessons for us all
Swipe through to read the whole story. A good reminder that hurt people hurt people, and that sometimes “bad” kids need people to see the good in them and to help them see it themselves.
4. Man reunites with firefighter who saved his life when he was 2 years old and introduces him to his own 2-year-old son
Thank you for coming #graudation #graduationdresses #formaldresses
Jessica Buwick’s initial video was a comical showing of outfits that didn’t work either because they were too short or tight or the style was too confusing to wear, and some people decided to be critical of her choices…of the things she didn’t wear. Both videos are hilarious. See the full story here.
9. Mom shares a beautiful example of ‘connection then correction’ with her 4-year-old who was acting out
I don’t know about you, but I would pay good money to see this concert.
That’s it for this week! If you don’t want to go searching for these posts each week and would like them delivered right to you instead, sign up for our free newsletter, The Upworthiest, here.
BTS is back. Last month, they announced their “Take Two” single. “To celebrate their 10th anniversary, BTS will release the digital single ‘Take Two’ this coming June,” Big Hit Music wrote on Twitter. “All seven members participated in ‘Take Two.’ The song conveys their appreciation toward ARMY for all the love you shower them with and their desire to always be together with you.”
The song is finally out today, ahead of their 10-year anniversary festival in Seoul. All seven members have their own chance to sing, which is exciting for fans after they heard that a BTS comeback was not confirmed for 2025. “We said we ‘hope’ the members can resume in 2025, not ‘will’,” Bang Si-Hyuk’s (CEO of the band’s agency HYBE) said. “BTS and the firm will both work for it, but it doesn’t mean we can target [the date of 2025].”
However, a BTS memoir is coming next month, titled Beyond The Story: 10-Year Record Of BTS. It’s written by journalist Myeongseok Kang and members of the group, and it’ll be 544 pages long. Because it was first announced as a mystery book, pop fans assumed it was Taylor Swift, since 5+4+4 equals 13 and the audiobook is 13 hours long. Poor Swifties, but great news for fans of the K-pop group.
There may not be a team that is more fascinating to watch this summer than the Golden State Warriors. While Steph Curry is under contract through 2026, top executive Bob Myers already announced he will step down from his role as president and general manager, Draymond Green is all but guaranteed to become an unrestricted free agent, and both Klay Thompson and Steve Kerr are going into the final year of their contracts.
All of this is happening on the heels of a rather disappointing season, as the two timelines strategy did not work and the team was eliminated from the postseason in the Western Conference Semifinals. Now, the Warriors have to figure out how they’re going to navigate all of this without Myers leading the way, and apparently, the strongest voice in the organization prefers for them to run it back with the core that has led them to four championships in the last decade.
“I think the most likely scenario is that the Warriors keep most of this together for at least one more season,” Tim Kawakami of The Athletic wrote in a mailbag this week. “That’s what Curry wants. His opinion sort of matters.”
There have been hints dropped that the preference among the team’s most prominent individuals is to run things back, with Green saying he wants to remain a Warrior for the rest of his life and Kerr stressing that the team isn’t going to be a championship contender if Green doesn’t come back. The difficult part for the Warriors’ front office is balancing that with the reality of how much money this would cost, especially if there are questions about whether this core is capable of winning a championship. But of course, if Curry wants something, the easiest option is to just do that.
Drake’s certified lover boy tendencies are rearing their adorable face yet again. According to the rumor mill, the “Search & Rescue” rapper has found his summertime love. The OVO Records boss is reportedly dating singer Lilah Pi. To celebrate Pi’s birthday yesterday (June 8), Drake took to his Instagram Story to share a sweet message. But who is Lilah Pi?
Before the blast of her image to his millions of online followers, Lilah Pi graced the cover of Drake’s artwork for “Search & Rescue.” Due to the nature of the song, many fans thought the musician was being petty by featuring a “Kim Kardashian impersonator” to push further the feud between him and the star’s ex-husband Kanye West. However, if the rumors are true, the Toronto native was soft launching his relationship.
Real name Delilah, the singer grow up in East London, where she discovered her love for music via her parents, telling Clash Magazine, “My dad was more indie pop like Beatles, Bowie, and that was always his vibe. My mum was always a Kanye person.”
Lilah Pi’s debut EP Atlantis was released in November 2021 via The Flight Club Records. Since then, she hasn’t released any more music.
Outside of music, Lilah does enjoy expanding her visual portfolio. Across her Instagram feed, she shares her love of painting, often uploading photographs of her completed pieces.
Similarly to Drake, Lilah Pi is also a die-hard romantic. She often posts about how her parent’s love for each and their marriage inspires her.
For much of hip-hop’s 50-year history, lots of attention has (rightly or wrongly) been lavished on three main regions: “The East Coast” (mostly consisting of New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia), “The West Coast” (really, just LA, although the Bay Area has had moments of mainstream notoriety), and “The South” (everything from Texas to Florida, encompassing a dozen different sounds and styles). Meanwhile, since the mid-1990s, there has been an underground scene sizzling in Minnesota, just outside the national focus.
At the forefront of this culture-bending, often future-facing movement has been the Minneapolis/St. Paul-based label Rhymesayers. While multiple sources say it was founded in 1995, there’s some confusion among its own founders about when it came to be. But whenever Sean Daley, aka Slug, Anthony Davis, aka Ant (both collectively known as Atmosphere), Musab Saad (Sab The Artist), and Brent Sayers (Siddiq) officially formed Rhymesayers, they opened the door for a new paradigm in hip-hop, pioneered a novel approach to the creation and distribution of rap music, and became one of hip-hop’s longest-lasting emblems of the power of the independent label.
The impact that Rhymesayers has had on the landscape of hip-hop music and culture as a whole is often underappreciated but cannot be understated. While Siddiq and Slug, who graciously granted an interview to Uproxx to discuss their role in the past 50 years of hip-hop history, are both reluctant to posit any opinions about their importance to hip-hop, any Hip-Hop 50 celebration would be remiss to overlook their contributions. The label has been home to pillars of the indie rap scene, from Aesop Rock to MF DOOM, while producing and distributing projects from artists that pushed the boundaries of what hip-hop could be, in addition to producing the hip-hop-centric Soundset Festival, the first and longest-running of its kind.
And while Rhymesayers artists don’t often receive the same level of recognition as Golden Age pioneers like Gang Starr, NWA, Public Enemy, or Rakim & Eric B., you’d be hard-pressed to find a hardcore hip-hop head who doesn’t count at least one of the label’s artists as an influence. In this interview, Slug and Siddiq detail Rhymesayers’ rise to underground legend status, reminisce on their favorite moments in hip-hop history, and reflect on just what constitutes the forgotten sound of hip-hop’s fourth region: The Mighty Midwest.
We’re doing this on the 50-year anniversary of the official birth of hip-hop and Rhymesayers Entertainment has been a huge part of that. So Siddiq, Slug, if you could encapsulate what was Rhymesayers impact on the first 50 years of hip-hop evolution in a sentence, what would that be?
Slug: That is not fair. I’m not allowed to answer that question. Anybody that’s ever talked to me knows how I’m going to respond to a question like that. I’m going to downplay.
I’m here to be empathic. I’m here to relate in a sense of being able to observe, take it and understand it, but I know better than to give myself the agency to really speak on it. My reality is mine, and so I don’t know what our impact is on this culture that we are celebrating. I know what maybe my impact is on a specific branch of the tree if we want to talk about an impact I’ve had on a segment of MCs, or a segment of people who are attempting to do what I do.
I would say the impact I’ve had on a small portion of other advocates who have attempted to do what I do would be just I’m another one of those faces that tried to prove that you could do this yourself. That you could do it too.
Siddiq: I totally feel the same way. I mean, I think that has always kind of been part of our MO. I’ve always seen us as kind of like the working man’s addition to hip-hop in the sense of we’ve never felt entitled. I would never try to define any role I may or may not have had an impact on hip-hop because it’s had such an impact on me. I’m such a student and steward of what raised me that I can’t even wrap my head around that.
So if other people see that, if other people can glean that out of anything we’ve done, I think that’s amazing, but I don’t think I ever could. As much as I love the “you could do this too” as a sentence, it’s like I want to add all the caveats to that that I came upon because when we came up you couldn’t just do it and you had to go through some shit to be able to do it.
So yeah, it’s hard for me to wrap my head around me defining any impact we have or we have had. But I hope that we do. I hope that we have, but it’s hard for me to define that.
I would like to get your guys’ impressions of what’s changed for the better in hip-hop in the time you guys have been doing it. What’s changed for the worse? What you would like to see continue to change or evolve in the next 50 years of hip-hop?
Slug: I’m going to be one of those old heads that goes out on a limb and says, that it’s better now. When I say that, I’m not saying the quality. I remember beyond the sound, what was it about this music specifically, but also the personality and the culture of this. What was it that pulled me in and made me a true believer? And that was because, to make it humorous, it scared old white people.
It challenged the status quo. It challenged what was going on on a bunch of different levels.
And as far as I can tell, it still does that. And that’s its job. And so I don’t want to say that’s its job because I’m not here to call out anything, but I’m saying, to me, that’s a big part of what I want to see the youth have access to.
Siddiq: Yeah, I would agree. I mean, thankfully, I’ve never felt like I’ve fallen into the old-head category of just being angry at the kids. I’m very in tune with what’s going on, but I also am very connected to the Golden Era. That it was all imagination. It was all creation. There was nothing, there was no blueprint to it so everything was inventive and that was the beauty about its birth. I look at it today and I go, “Man, I don’t know that there’s ever been a more free time as someone doing this form of art in the sense of its creative energy.”
For a while, there was a box. It’s like if you wanted to be a part of hip-hop it’s like you kind of had to exist in this box. If you were outside of that box you were seen as something outside of that box. The boxes are gone. People may still want to try and debate it, but the reality is the boxes are gone. It’s a beautiful thing because, to me, it brings us back to that beginning point in some ways where you’re still here 50 years later being able to be completely innovative, and creative, and birthing new things.
How important is it to you guys to be kind of the beacon of not just independent, do-it-yourself rap, but also of those places in hip-hop that aren’t necessarily close to media centers? (This is my polite way of saying “what up with Midwestern hip-hop?”
Siddiq: In some ways our success and our existence really couldn’t have been fathomed. I mean… in some ways maybe it could because that was the spread and the impact of hip-hop. It was everywhere. There wasn’t a corner that shit didn’t seep into when we were kids, whether that was through what Breakin’ was doing, whether it was through the art form of rap, or graffiti, or whatever. These things spread across every facet of the country, the world really.
I look at the success we’ve had and I think there’s something indicative to being from a place like Minnesota, being from the Midwest, where you don’t have anything, especially not within hip-hop going on and coming out of here. You don’t have the industry per se, even though we obviously have huge musical history out of our state, whether we’re talking Flyte Tyme, or Prince, or Bob Dylan.
I think I’ve always seen it as something that allowed us to do it from a place that was authentic because we didn’t have to follow something, for one. And then two, I think also allowed us to uniquely stand out. I think being able to show that to the world and spread that across the country, I think that does then kind of relate back to that statement that Sean made earlier, “You could do this too.”
Slug: I was listening to Siddiq talk. I got to thinking about how there was a time when everybody, including myself, we all rapped like we were from New York, we had East Coast accents. Then some of us started to rap like we were from L.A. We started to kind of parrot what Freestyle Fellowship was doing, then or whatever Dre was doing.
And then down South happened. Atlanta had a sound, New Orleans got a sound, France, Paris, they were rapping in French. In Australia, they started rapping in their own accents. And as time goes on, every pocket, every scene, did finally break free from those chains of New York and Los Angeles and they started to find their own space.
This city’s no different. It did as well. I would say the main difference is that when it started to find its sound we were in the middle of that at the time. There were still plenty of groups here that sounded like they were from the South, and there were still plenty of people rapping here that sounded like they, I mean they had a New York “R.”
But you started to see a scene, a sound develop here because a couple of groups became more popular, other groups started listening, and it just does that natural thing. But I think the difference is none of the groups here ever fully, the sound never fully broke. You do see elements of the Minneapolis sound in some artists that got really big from around the country.
Over the past 50 years, we’ve all got favorite memories of what hip-hop has done for us on a professional and personal level. If you guys don’t mind sharing a couple of those, I would really love it. I would really appreciate it.
Slug: Me, it gave me identity. And that’s not to say I wouldn’t have had identity. Living in South Minneapolis and having access to this music, getting into graffiti, and socializing with other people into that stuff, gave me, I think, perspective and access to parts of my own imagination and parts of my own creativity. And I was into the Fat Boys as much as I was into Peter Gabriel “Sledgehammer.” It was all fun music when you’re nine. But as I got older, it gave me this space to go to escape from all the bullshit and get together with other people who were also escaping from all the bullshit to find ways to be creative.
Siddiq: I think the first was when I first heard “The Message,” walked down to the corner record store, bought the 12-inch, put it on, and I was like, “What the fuck is this?” I felt like I was visualizing New York in the early 1980s, and I saw everything Melle Mel was talking about. I wasn’t hearing it, I was seeing it. And I was just like… It blew my mind.
And then the other one is just completely random, but I just will never be able to get it out of my mind. I think it was Rock Steady anniversary. I don’t remember the exact year. We had went out to New York and we were just handing out CDs and stuff and MOP was playing the after-party. Okay, I… And I’m trying to remember the damn venue. It was like a second-story venue. You had to go upstairs in New York.
Just think MOP at the height of “Ante Up” in New York. It felt like we were going to fall through the floor. And like I said, it was the second floor of the venue, and you just felt the floor doing this [wobbles his hand], and I’m just… “This just don’t feel safe.” But I’ve never… Just the energy? I’d never be able to explain the energy I witnessed in that moment, in that room, to its justice. I’ll never be able to explain it and make somebody feel what I felt.
Just as the Roy siblings are on the verge of maintaining control of their late father’s media empire in the Succession finale, the situation takes a volatile turn as Shiv (Sarah Snook) refuses to vote to elevate Kendall (Jeremy Strong) as CEO. That decision not only robs Kendall of achieving his lifelong dream of finally taking over his dad’s company, but it takes their entire birthright off the table as tech bro Lukas Mattson (Alexander Skarsgård) becomes the new owner in a billion dollar purchase.
In those final moments, Kendall attempts to talk Shiv out of voting against him as Roman (Kieran Culkin) watches the scene unfold and ultimately descend into a brutal meltdown visible to everyone. The situation turns violent as Roman makes some choice comments about Kendall’s children, which causes him to violently grab Roman and squeeze his already damaged head. Kendall also lashes out at Shiv during the violent scene before being shoved away by Roman as he defends his pregnant sister.
It was a viscerally unsettling scene for the HBO series, and according to Culkin, the boardroom meltdown almost got way more violent. The actor recently revealed that he and Strong filmed several alternate versions that occasionally involved taking a few punches to the head. In fact, Culkin hadn’t watched the finale at the time of the interview and was curious as to which takes made the cut.
Does it ever come to, like, slaps? Or do we ever go to the floor, or anything like that?
You wrestle, but you’re not fully on the floor, no.
Oh, well, cool! There were some where I was on top, and I was smacking his head. There were times when he got on top of me and just punched the shit out of me. And it was very alive, because we weren’t sure what the next one was going to be, and how it was going to manifest.
Culkin also revealed that Shiv was going to be more physically involved in the violent altercation, but there was a “safety thing” over Snook’s real-life pregnancy. That factor led to Strong and Culkin setting aside their aversion to rehearsing scenes.
“Jeremy and I are of the same opinion: We don’t really love rehearsing. We know what’s happening in the scene, let’s just do it,” Culkin said. “But we also have to be safe, because there was a safety risk.”
The run began in Tel Aviv, Israel on June 5. It will continue through October, ending in Vancouver. The setlist, so far, is full of hits from their 1987 classic Appetite For Destruction like “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” as well as from their 1991 album Use Your Illusion II, such as “Civil War” and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.”
Find the full setlist below from the first concert of their tour, as per setlist.fm.
1. “It’s So Easy”
2. “Bad Obsession”
3. “Chinese Democracy”
4. “Slither” (Velvet Revolver cover)
5. “Pretty Tied Up”
6. “Welcome To The Jungle” (Link Wray’s “Rumble” intro)
7. “Mr. Brownstone”
8. “Estranged”
9. “Double Talkin’ Jive”
10. “Live And Let Die” (Wings cover)
11. “Absurd”
12. “Hard Skool”
13. “Down On The Farm” (UK Subs cover)
14. “Rocket Queen”
15. “Anything Goes”
16. “You Could Be Mine”
17. “T.V. Eye” (The Stooges cover) (Duff on Vocals)
18. “This I Love”
19. “Civil War” (Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child”… more )
20. “Slash Guitar Solo”
21. “Sweet Child O’ Mine”
22. “November Rain”
23. “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” (Bob Dylan cover)
24. “Wichita Lineman” (Jimmy Webb cover)
25. “Nightrain”
26. “Patience” (The Impressions’ “People Get Ready” intro)
27. “Paradise City”
Uproxx cover star Moneybagg Yo has announced the dates for his 2023 Larger Than Life Tour, which embarks on August 3 and runs through September 30. He’ll be joined on tour by rising stars Finesse2Tymes, Sexxy Red, Luh Tyler, Big Boogie, and YTB Fatt. He announced the tour just a week after the release of his new mixtape Hard To Love, the first of two projects he plans to release in 2023.
The Memphis native said of the mixtape, “I’m more vulnerable on this project than I ever been because of what I went through in the last two years. I experienced a lot and endured a lot. I went through a lot. So, this album is really personal, but I know the world is going to relate to it because of the stuff I’m saying, the subject matter, I know people going through what I went through across the globe.”
Tickets for Bagg’s Larger Than Life tour go on sale Tuesday, June 13 at 10 am. You can get more info here. See below for the full run of tour dates.
08/03 — Orlando, FL @ Amway Center
08/04 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
08/06 — Charlotte, NC @ Spectrum Center
08/08 — New York, NY @ Terminal 5 ***
08/10 — Philadelphia, PA @ Liacouras Center
08/11 — Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena
08/13 — Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
08/17 — Indianapolis, IN @ Gainbridge Fieldhouse
08/18 — Cincinnati, OH @ Heritage Bank Center
08/19 — Chicago, IL @ Wintrust Arena
08/25 — St. Louis, MO @ Chaifetz Arena
08/27 — Milwaukee, WI @ Fiserv Forum
08/29 — Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom
09/01 — Los Angeles, CA @ Novo ***
09/02 — Las Vegas, NV @ Drais
09/07 — Birmingham, AL @ Legacy Arena
09/09 — Ft. Worth, TX @ Dickies Arena
09/10 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
09/12 — Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo ***
09/14 — Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater ***
09/16 — Richmond, VA @ VSU Multipurpose Center
09/30 — Memphis, TN @ FedEx Forum
***Support Lineup Will Change
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