GoneTrending

The future of tech is dark, as AI continues to shake up the landscape. Many artists have voiced their disdain for artificial intelligence, including Drake and Tyler The Creator. However, one Canadian artist seems to approve of the technology and is even encouraging fans to replicate her sound.

This past weekend, during the International Music Summit in Ibiza, Grimes launched Elf.Tech: GrimesAI-1 Voiceprint, which allows fans to upload acapella vocals, and recreate them in her voice using AI technology.

“I feel strongly that there’s way too much gatekeeping in music,” said Grimes at the keynote (per Mixmag). “Copyright sucks. Art is a conversation with everyone that’s come before us. Intertwining it with the ego is a modern concept. The music industry has been defined by lawyers, and that strangles creativity.

Fans who upload recordings will be able to split the royalties with Grimes 50/50, provided that the recordings prove successful. GrimesAI-1 will also not claim ownership of the recordings unless the vocalist records a cover of a song originally performed by Grimes.

Also during her keynote speech, she also revealed that she wouldn’t mind if people continued to replicate her vocal stylings after she died, and put the recordings out as posthumous releases.

“If I was dead I’d really like people to do it,” she said. “But I’m not sure everyone would agree. I feel like maybe Prince would’ve been up for it. If it was one of his friends doing it maybe. It’s a tricky one.”

Kentucky native Jack Harlow shows off his Louisville stomping grounds in the appreciative video for “They Don’t Love It” from his new album, Jackman. As Jack raps about balancing his ambitions and staying down-to-earth, he revisits some of the personal landmarks from his life, some of which are included in the song.

From his old high school to a local bookshop, everywhere Jack goes in the documentary-style video, he’s greeted with the enthusiasm and warmth fitting of a hometown hero’s triumphant return. Meanwhile, Jack and his friends engage in some typical Midwestern mischief, setting off fireworks in a field and playing indoor soccer — which he seems to be pretty good at, scoring a goal as he mugs the camera.

Jackman dropped on Friday after a short wind-up that included the announcement and the release all in the same week. While fans had a few days to appreciate and debate the album’s cover, Jack kept the 10-track project under wraps until its release, which surprised fans with its return to Jack’s more introspective sensibilities after the more party-centric Come Home The Kids Miss You. It remains to be seen whether he’ll announce a tour for the album, but we’ll be seeing more of him this month when White Men Can’t Jump comes to Hulu.

Watch Jack Harlow’s ‘They Don’t Love It’ video above.

Jackman is out now via Generation Now/Atlantic. Get it here.

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.

Maybe it was the lukewarm reception to his last album, Come Home The Kids Miss You, or maybe it was the backlash to his casting in a remake of White Men Can’t Jump, but Jack Harlow seems fed up. On his newest album, Jackman, he goes back to the old Jack, only this time, with a chip on his shoulder and more to say than ever. Oddly enough, this more combative stance suits him, positioning him perfectly to address some of his recent controversies and distance himself from one of the most common complaints about him.

In a recent trailer for the FX show Dave, the show’s protagonist Lil Dicky engages in a tense (but comedic) confrontation with fellow white rapper Jack Harlow. While the episode itself hasn’t aired yet, it’s the origin of their on-screen beef is, like most things in the show, inspired by real life. The two men, both white rappers with oodles of curly hair and off-kilter senses of humor, are often compared, and Harlow especially seems to bristle at such connections.

That’s probably because, unlike Dicky, Jack has taken rap seriously from the beginning. At least, at the outset of Dicky’s career, it seemed that the elder rapper treated hip-hop — and his presence in it — as something of a joke. And while Dicky captured the public’s hearts with his obviously dedicated flow and sharp wit, Harlow never approached hip-hop as though he were an outsider. But the two entertainers have ended up at a similar place, albeit from disparate paths.

Rap fans seem to regard both with an equal measure of curiosity and skepticism. Although he’d been independently releasing mixtapes for several years before “What’s Poppin” took over the charts in 2020, most fans were introduced to him by that song. And, as so often happens in the post-blog rap era, many of those fans apparently regard him as an interloping, overnight success. In short, they sort of see him as Lil Dicky 2.0, just using rap to get over until he can move on to bigger, “better” things.

Jack’s resentment of this assessment is no clearer than in “It Can’t Be,” which tackles those accusations head-on. “It can’t be that I simply make ear candy,” he muses. “Especially when the industry could just plant me / Especially when I didn’t grow up on Brandy” — a nod to the non-controversy last year in which it was revealed he didn’t know R&B singers Brandy and Ray J were siblings, another mark against him in the eyes of fans who view him more as a cultural tourist than a hip-hop purist.

Likewise, Jack employs his observational gifts to highlight and subtly satirize the sizable and growing portion of the fan base that actually is engaging in the tourism, appropriation, and exploitation of hip-hop in the album’s intro, “Common Ground.” While the song stops short of outright judgment, it is lightly antagonistic, the way a good journalist should be when interrogating a subject (Jack has plenty to say on that count here). While this isn’t his first time addressing this disconnect, it’s done more bluntly — and more deftly — here.

Unlike Dicky, these were always tools that Harlow had in his bag. But, to tease — or torture — the metaphor a little, there was one other element that Jack needed to put these tools to good use. Any carpenter who wants to acquire their license must first complete an apprenticeship and put in their hours as a journeyman. In short, what Jack Harlow needed was experience and time to make full use of his technical skills, to hone them to the point that a Jackman would be possible.

“Gang Gang Gang” highlights this. A concept track which the rapper poses as a series of conversations catching up with friends back home, he’s horrified to learn that some of his closest friends have turned out to be bad eggs. It’s effective because he doesn’t pull back to make any larger political points, he keeps the focus on the discomfort and disbelief he feels and his internal struggle to reconcile the kids he knew with the monsters they grew up to be — and how to let them go. It’s a conversation more of us should be having with ourselves if we’re honest.

The glitzy, Neptunes-inspired production of Come Home — which was timely in its own right, but rubbed day-one fans and newbies the wrong way — is gone, replaced by the earthy, soul-looped backpack rap of Harlow’s youth. (An interesting catch-22 is that, had this been his second album after the success of That’s What They All Say, he’d have been undoubtedly written off as a self-serious, one-note backpacker. He had to release the glossy, celebratory Come Home in order to be taken seriously). Instead of R&B hooks and flashy features, Jackman is just 10 two-minute songs, each digging deeper into subjects he’s always touched on but with more maturity and insight than we’ve previously seen.

The funny thing is, he’s always had this in him. Jackman is, after all, his full first name. Little has changed but the circumstances. Harlow is now just a little more weathered. He’s grown into himself more as a man (it’s easy to forget, he’s just 25 years old; his brain is literally still not finished cooking from a biological standpoint). Jackman, the album, is Jackman, the person, completing his journeymanship. He knows what he’s doing now and maybe now, we’ll trust that. He may not ever shake the Lil Dicky comparisons, but now even those listeners who only scratch the surface will know he’s no joke.

Jackman is out now on Generation Now/Atlantic. Get it here.

Even though we literally just said goodbye to Pete Davidson less than a year ago, it’s never too soon to head back to NBC. It’s sort of like when you graduate high school but go visit your favorite teachers during Thanksgiving break to show everyone you are still a functioning human being. Only in this case, high school is Saturday Night Live, and your favorite teacher is Kenan Thompson.

Davidson will return to the late-night show as host this weekend, though it seems like it is more of a family reunion than a typical episode.

“It’s like a week off for us because they know how to do the show,” Thompson told People of return hosts and former castmembers. “We don’t have to hand-walk them through every single part of it. Usually, they come with ideas too, so a quarter of the show is already done. It’s just a fun, easy week for us.”

Despite Davidson’s various headline-grabbing celebrity shenanigans, the cast is happy to see him back on stage. Thompson added, “He’s a good kid. He’s done a lot of work in a short amount of time at a very high level, so we’re just all proud of him and want to support him.”

The Bupkis star has his fair share of classic characters, which Thompson is the most excited about. “I’m a classics fan. I’d fill the show up with all of his old characters or whatever, but it’s also fun to explore the new.” Does this mean we will finally see the return of Chad, the strangely irresistible dude? Probably! But we likely won’t see the return of Davidson as Aladdin. And that’s okay.

(Via People)

Budding country superstar Zach Bryan is one of this year’s most promising acts. From dropping the buzzy single “Something In The Orange,” to openly chastising Ticketmaster and their grifting ways, to advocating for trans rights, Bryan stands out in his genre.

Today (May 1), Bryan has released the music video for “Oklahoma Smokeshow,” a standout from his 34-track album, American Heartbreak. The song tells the story of a beautiful young woman, who has dreams to leave, but alas, is stuck in her small hometown. Despite the fact that several guys are vying for her attention, she finds many of them uninteresting and unfulfilling.

“She’s an Oklahoma smokeshow / He’s an asshole from back home / She’ll never make it out alive / That small-town bar scene / Where small vices kill your big dreams / He’d take you home but he’s too drunk to drive,” sings Bryan on the song’s chorus.

In the song’s video, a young woman is seen moving about her hometown, and while she seems to have no trouble finding any guy, at the end of the day, she wants nothing more than to leave that town.

You can watch the “Oklahoma Smokeshow” video above.

Zach Bryan is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Spoilers for this week’s Succession will be found below.

Succession began this week’s episode, “Living+,” with a Logan Roy green-screen “jumpscare,” and from there, one would hope that the vibe would grow less uncomfortable, but nope. The male Roy siblings proved to be the worst at running a company (a tough feat since they have only just begun) while Shiv, who has been pushed to the side, got “bitey” with the estranged husband that she apparently loathes and sort-of rebuffed an offer to be Lukas Mattson‘s “girl on the inside.” Then came the awkward-as-hell moment when Kendall Roy began his Living+ presentation and sounded like a broken record about the “big, big shoes” he needed to fill.

That wasn’t even the most cringey part of the episode. Kendall referred to himself and Roman as “young Turks” who are ready to shake things up and turn the company around, and thankfully for them, that was a private moment between the brothers. What was not so private was their apparent firing spree, which included Roman doing the unthinkable and apparently firing Gerri (the intended recipient of those d*ck pics) again.

I think we can guess how well that will turn out for Roman.

Overall, however, the audience sees this brotherly as a train wreck. Sure, Matsson did delete a derogatory tweet that nabbed a live reaction from Kendall, but the brothers are still bungling their first days as co-CEOs. They’re like a pair of trash cans floating down the road, if you will.

This line didn’t receive nearly enough attention on social media, but here’s one take that says it all:

The trainwreck will undoubtedly continue, and we’ll be watching.

HBO’s ‘Succession’ airs at 9:00pm EST.

50 Cent has mostly stayed out of politics for the last couple of years — and thank goodness, considering some of the stuff he’s said in the past, joking or not. But that didn’t stop him from getting a kick out of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner — specifically, Roy Wood Jr.’s speech shouting out 50’s shows BMF and Power as he joked about Tucker Carlson’s abrupt departure from the spotlight for embarrassing Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch (who should be embarrassed about Fox News in general, but I digress).

In the clip, which 50 posted to Instagram, Wood jokes:

“The untouchable Tucker Carlson is out of the job. Well, some people celebratin’. But to Tucker’s staff, I want you to know that I know what you’re feeling. I work at The Daily Show, so I too know what it’s like to be blindsided by the sudden departure of the host of the fake news program. Tucker got caught up! He got caught up like that dude from Vanderpump Rules. Text message stuff. I don’t know what Vanderpump Rules is about, only watched it a couple times. My friends tell me it’s like BMF but for white people. Or is that Succession? No, Succession is Power but for white people. No! Tucker Carlson is power for white people. No, that’s white power, ya know never mind, don’t worry about that one.

I’m not sure that those are the comparisons that I would make for those shows (BMF and Power have more in common with The Sopranos and Peaky Blinders than a reality show about a rich white lady’s various businesses) but 50 — and President Joe Biden — seem pretty amused. Check out the clip above.

WARNING: Spoilers for Succession Season 4 Episode 6 below.

As Succession barrels towards its series finale, the latest episode saw Kendall and Roman try to their first “big swing” as co-CEOs while Shiv may or may not be undermining them at the behest of Alexander Skarsgård’s Lukas Mattson. While the Waystar Royco board is dead set on selling the company thanks to a ridiculously high offer from Mattson, the boys are secretly hoping that Living+, Logan’s last project before his death, can be enough of an earnings boost to stave off the sale.

However, like all things with the Roy children, things get real messy real quick. Roman’s firing people left and right (including Geri) while Kendall has that “gleam in his eye” as he micromanages the Living+ launch and starts making outrageous demands like having a full house built on a stage in less than 24 hours.

At one point, Shiv and Roman come to an increasingly rare agreement that the Living+ launch needs to be tanked, but when Roman tries to pull the plug, he backs down at the last minute and leaves Kendall to do the presentation solo. Despite a wobbly start, and a very Elon Musk-esque tweet from Mattson, Kendall surprisingly nails the presentation even though the earning potential for Living+ is severely optimistic.

With a win seemingly secured, Kendall goes for a walk on the beach where he can’t resist getting into the water. As Succession fans know, Kendall’s relationship with water is fraught with meaning, from the watery crash in Season 1 to his ambiguous suicide attempt in Season 3. Seeing Kendall in the ocean brought back all kinds of memories for Succession fans, who mostly saw nothing but positive vibes from his latest dip.

You can see some of the reactions below:

While the vast majority of the tweets saw Kendall’s return to the water as a good thing, one user floated a theory that the symbolism might not be as rejuvenating and positive as it looks.

“He may look blissed out and facing the right way this time but that head is barely above water,” Laura Shepard tweeted. “Thinking a big fall is coming or he fails his way into becoming his father.”

New episodes of Succession Season 4 air Sunday on HBO.

Anthony Carrigan‘s Noho Hank has been one of Barry‘s most reliable sources of laughter throughout the show’s run, but last night’s episode (stop now if you aren’t caught up) saw a sharp turn toward the dark for the character. Brought to this moment, practically, by threats from his Chechen crime family, but also years of feeling like a doormat, realizing he was being used by Barry, and the trauma from last year’s violent rescue of his lover and business partner, Cristobal (Michael Irby), Hank is something new now. Something detestable to Cristobal who, in a heartbreaking moment, leaves Hank despite warnings that he (and the Chechens) won’t let him go.

As you’ll surely agree, the final scene between Hank and Cristobal is emotionally gutting with Hank going through a range of emotions after they part — from anger to terror, devastation, and shell-shocked acceptance. After watching that unfold, we wanted to talk with Carrigan about all of it, from filming that goodbye scene with Irby to his feelings on the decision to end the show’s only comparatively healthy relationship and an arc that seemed like it might be on track to be the show’s only happy ending. Below, we also discuss all that, the exciting challenge of playing Hank’s evolution from comic relief character, Hank’s other breakup (with Barry), Bill Hader’s inventive murder mind, and Dave & Busters.

How did Hank find time to shop in Santa Fe for that amazing outfit in the first episode?

I mean, I think he was on a mission. He was on a mission to fit in, to be in disguise.

Mission accomplished.

Right? Did he succeed? I’m not necessarily sure, but did he look great? I think so.

Always. I am curious about your own personal opinion on Dave & Buster’s. Are you a fan?

I mean, look, I’ve definitely spent my time at Dave & Buster’s. Let’s be real. Love me some air hockey, love shooting those hoops. Will watch a game there every once in a while for sure. But yeah, it was, I mean, God that was so much fun. That was so much fun just to be able to shoot there and do that whole choreographed sequence.

Is it hard as the actor playing it to accept, okay, we’re going to go in a different direction that’s going to be a bit heavier and break apart this beautiful relationship (with Cristobal)?

No, I mean, I kind of love it. I think it’s the more interesting route, and I think that’s what makes Barry a very unique show; that it’s not afraid to take it really, really deep and really dark and unapologetically (so). But I think it also tracks. It’s not getting dark just for the sake of getting dark or because getting dark is cool or something. I think it actually all tracks in a certain way that when traumatic events happen and you don’t deal with them, and you don’t deal with them in a healthy way, they will come out in other unhealthy ways and they will inform your decisions in toxic ways as well.

Hank was a character that felt like he might eek out of this, he might be a happy guy. And maybe he will, but up to this point, it seems like no, he’s been pulled back down into the muck with everybody else.

For sure. I mean, in a certain way, I think he was put in a very compromised position. There is the idea of what they (Hank and Cristobal) wanted their life to be and this kind of crime utopia where everyone got along, but then there’s the harsh reality represented by the Chechens who were going to come in and essentially take them all out. So Hank was put in a tough spot, and I think he tried to choose safety, but what that safety was, actually, was brutality and it ended up costing him dearly, I think.

Throughout the course of the show, Hank has been a reliably funny character. This season, there’s that heaviness, obviously. Does it feel different for you to not necessarily find those funny moments as much?

I think that you really just kind of have to focus on the north star of it, which is, “What’s this character going through?” And sometimes it is that kind of hilarious comedic stuff. But I think the darker that it’s gotten and the more that things had been stripped away, I think it takes on other tones, right? Sadder tones, more kind of depressed or anxious tones. And I think that is a bit of a challenge, to find that in this character. But I loved that challenge. I loved every second of it to be like, what does this character look like in this new light of having gone through this gauntlet? What is that now? And as an actor, you do not get that stuff very often, where that challenge is presented to you.

The big scene from this most recent episode is the one where Cristobal is executed and your reaction throughout that sequence. Can you take me through that? Because so much of it is done wordlessly. I’m just curious about any kind of direction or notes going into that and what you were prepared to bring to that moment.

Well, I think what was really fascinating about that process was this journey from the idea of the scene and the idea of all these kinds of marks that we needed to hit and what this represented to, how do we get there? How does this interaction happen in a way that is truthful and believable and messy and ultimately like any kind of breakup? And I think that process was a really interesting one to go in and say, “Well, what would I really do? What would I really do here?” And that led us to really interesting places as opposed to a really quaffed scene where it’s like, “I do this and then you do that.” It was actually way more organic and thank God I was with someone like Michael Irby, who was just so game and so willing and so gracious that we really found this beautiful kind of tenderness and heartbreak between the two of them. And it led to some really, really special moments.

To backtrack slightly, the visuals with the sand trap (that Hank used to take out his and Cristobal’s partners — and almost Cristobal himself), it’s so innovative and visually unique. What’s it like when you read that on the page and see that executed?

I was blown away when I heard about it. I was like, oh my God, this is so cool.

You get the sense that you, Bill Hader would bring a lot of creativity to the mix if he wanted to actually kill someone.

I’m staying on that guy’s good side forever, I promise you. But no, truly, I was really fascinated by what he had talked about and how it was going to be done. And also that they had done their research. That sand is actually a really amazing building material and this was an actual real thing that was poured over and thought about.

So it’s a business you’re going to get involved in now? It’s a side hustle for you, is what you’re saying?

I mean, look, I don’t know who to invest with or where to invest, but it seems like it’s a smart investment. I’m probably not going to go to those measures to actually do it, but yeah, we’ll see.

The final season of ‘Barry’ continues Sunday nights on HBO at 10PM ET.

[This post contains spoilers for Barry]

Succession was great last night, obviously, but let’s not overlook the other HBO series having an incredible final season.

Speaking of incredible final things, let’s talk about the final scene in Sunday’s Barry, “it takes a psycho.” After escaping a Guillermo del Toro-assisted prison shoot out, Barry (played by Bill Hader) goes to the apartment of his ex-girlfriend Sally (Sarah Goldberg). “I know this is crazy,” he tells her, looking deranged, “but if I could just stay here…” Sally interrupts him. “Let’s go.”

Cut to the middle of nowhere. A father tells a young boy named John (he’s never even heard of Call of Duty!) to go home. “That is one pissed-off boy,” the dad says to his son. John trudges back to his nondescript home; a fridge containing Budweiser, wine, and a single donut; and his parents, an older-looking Barry and Sally. “I’ll go talk to him,” a concerned Barry says, while Sally rubs her forehead. Is this a Lost-style flash-forward, or a glimpse inside Barry’s brain while he’s having a full-on mental breakdown? It could be both, but it sounds like the former, based on comments made by Goldberg.

“Without giving away episode five, we’ve got Barry and Sally living in a place we haven’t seen. The landscape has changed wildly. They do have a son, and the brief interaction that you see with the three of them, I would say that it’s not a portrait of a happy family,” she told the Hollywood Reporter. “Even what’s in the fridge — wine, beer and half a donut — give you some clues and ideas of where this not-so-love-story love story is heading.”

At least they’re doing better than Hank and Cristobal?

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)