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Mass Appeal’s Hip-Hop 50 celebration continues with a new EP, this one produced and curated by Swizz Beatz. The Hip Hop 50: The Soundtrack series kicked off last year with DJ Premier‘s Hip-Hop 50 Vol. 1 featuring the “Beat Breaks” with Nas and “Remy Rap” with Remy Ma and Rapsody. Now, Swizz Beatz presents six new tracks showing off the span of talent hip-hop offers, from old-schoolers like Jadakiss to current stars like Benny The Butcher, Fivio Foreign, and Jay Electronica, as well as future ones like Bandmanrill and Scar Lip.

Swizz has been working hard to celebrate hip-hop history even before teaming up with Mass Appeal for Hip-Hop 50. His and Timbaland’s Verzuz hits battles were a way to highlight the legends of yesteryear and bring their contributions to the hip-hop canon to the fore for younger generations who might not remember the era. However, their efforts were nearly derailed after partnering with Triller, prompting them to sue the streaming platform’s parent company for $28 million. A settlement was reached last September in which Swizz and Tim will receive a greater ownership stake, giving it to the artists who appear on the platform. However, there haven’t been any Verzuz events announced since then.

Meanwhile, the Hip-Hop 50 celebrations continue, with the Grammys producing a massive tribute performance and outlets like BET joining the fun with the help of rappers like Black Thought. Uproxx’s own coverage so far includes interviews with DJ Premier and Just Blaze.

Hip-Hop 50: Vol. 2 is out now via Mass Appeal. Check it out below.

After the tragic shooting on the set of Rust that left cinematographer Halyna Hutchins dead, Guy Ritchie made a decision that he immediately put into effect: No more real guns on his movie sets. Considering the next film on his plate was the action-heavy The Covenant, starring Jake Gyllenhaal in warzone conditions, Ritchie had his work cut out for him. However, the director is actually glad he finally made the call.

“It’s a tremendous relief for all of us,” Ritchie told Newsweek while he and Gyllenhaal touted the benefits of using Airsoft weaponry for the military action scenes:

“They’re as good as, they look as good as real weapons, they do all the functions as a real weapon. You get a gas discharge. It all seems as authentic as it can be, but as Jake said, it’s Airsoft though. No one can get into any trouble.”

Ritchie also revealed that he’s “never liked” using real guns while filming, and he’s glad the industry is finally waking up to the fact that there are safer methods.

“I had no idea why we carried on in the industry with real firearms,” Ritchie said. “It was just one of those things that everyone did, and it’s a tremendous relief, as I’m sure it is for Jake, as much as it is for me, that you don’t have that sword hanging over us any longer.”

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant is now playing theaters.

(Via Newsweek)

YoungBoy Never Broke Again has been making the most of his house arrest in Utah (as documented by Billboard in February). He dropped I Rest My Case in January, and it’s followed by Don’t Try This At Home today, April 21. We already knew the newer album housed “WTF” featuring Nicki Minaj, as the single was released earlier this month, but the roster of featured artists doesn’t end there.

The video for “What You Say” featuring Post Malone and The Kid Laroi also dropped today.

The Isaac Garcia-directed video begins with a comic-book-like animation before we find YoungBoy Never Broke Again cooling by the fire at night in the snowy Utah mountains. (Posty also resides in Utah.) YoungBoy boasts in the chorus, “F*ck what they say / I done made it out the storm / Check my bank, I made new commas / I can’t take no break, I’m way too young.”

About 90 seconds in, The Kid Laroi emerges from the woods and joins in on the hard-earned bragging, “All this drama, baby, I’m too rich for that / All these commas like I’m an aristocrat.” Post Malone brings it home, sitting on a snow mobile and singing about giving people “somethin’ they can copy off” and refusing to “have my baby rockin’ knockoffs.” (Post became a first-time father last year.)

On the same day, The Kid Laroi is showing his softer side with the solo single “Where Does Your Spirit Go?” Post Malone is also fresh off the release of the similarly introspective track “Chemical.”

Watch the “What You Say” video above.

This week, Elon Musk made good on his repeated threats/promises to unverify all legacy verified Twitter users unless they paid for the $8+ Twitter Blue service. Millions of users saw their checkmarks disappear, other than a select few. Those included Stephen King, Ice-T, and LeBron James, for whom Elon claimed to have picked up the tab, possibly to troll the trio.

It’s a bit of a Homelander move, yes, which isn’t a compliment, but given Musk’s popularity with the right wing, this jibes with the far-right fanboy meltdown after certain segments of The Boys audience were shocked to realize that Antony Starr‘s character is a bad dude. And Amazon Prime Video’s social media team decided to make like Billy Butcher and take the p*ss by doing some trolling of their own. In memed fashion, the U.K.-based account compared Elon to Homelander throwing his son, Ryan, off a rooftop in an attempt to make him fly.

“Well… he can do what he wants” was coupled with a “shrug” emoji in a tweet.

This quote also happens to be a reference to a much more R-rated moment from The Boys, which involved Homelander putting on a solo performance from another rooftop while raining down “little Homelanders” upon unsuspecting civilians. The quote is quote a comparison, too, given that Homelander didn’t fare too well emotionally in Season 3 after his “I can do what I want” declaration and Maeve putting him in his place.

Then again, we don’t know exactly how Elon is truly reacting behind the scenes while the formerly verified masses reject signing up for Twitter Blue. He put on a positive face for his exploding rocket, so perhaps the “shrug” emoji is the most accurate way to describe the entire situation.

Also and for the record, Antony Starr bid farewell to his checkmark, too.

There are some places, that despite not existing, are still very real to many. For instance, Hawkins, Indiana is not a real place, but it does mimic rural suburban towns. We all know that Westeros isn’t as west as it seems, because it isn’t real. And no matter how hard Ben Affleck tries to convince you that Boston is a place, it’s clear that it’s not a real city with real people. We all know this, right? Boston isn’t real. Even though it’s technically on the map and legally recognized as a city.

But if you’re not from America, it can be hard to understand all of the various towns that people throw out there on shows. Rye, New York, where Don Draper lived on Mad Men might sound like a fake place, but it is in fact a real town with a very real haunted amusement park. So when the characters on The Office mention living in Scranton, it’s hard to tell if that is a real place, or just an off-brand cleaning product. For most of the UK, they tend to believe it’s not real.

According to a new report from TonerGiant, every month, an average of 400 people in the United Kingdom Google the question “Is Scranton a real place?” That question becomes asked about 5k times a year, meaning that maybe geography should be taught more extensively over there.

While Scranton is a real place (and the birthplace of President Joe Biden) there isn’t a lot to do there, and there definitely isn’t a paper company. There is a Steamtown mall, though, and they like to lean into the whole Office thing.

The study also shows that, unsurprisingly, the UK version of the series is more popular across the pond, despite only having two seasons. The humor is a lot different, with David Brent (played by Ricky Gervais) being a less lovable and more tone-deaf boss than Michael Scott.

On the other hand, how do we know that people in America aren’t googling “is Berkshire, England a real place and not just a western Massachusetts village?” Who’s to say?

(Via The Philadelphia Inquirer)

After starring in a string of “breezy” romantic-comedies in the late 2000s, Matthew McConaughey faced a $10.5 million decision: continue taking his shirt off in creatively unfulfilling movies, or try something more challenging.

He chose the latter (although, to be fair, no one has ever been more shirtless than Dallas from Magic Mike).

McConaughey began taking roles in auteur-driven fare like Killer Joe, Bernie, and Mud, leading to the “McConaissance.” In a new interview, the Texas icon claims he came up with the “self-marketing” term himself.

McConaughey recalled on Chelsea Handler’s Dear Chelsea podcast that while he was promoting Mud at a film festival, a reporter told him, “You’re on a roll right now, man. It needs a name of something.” He replied, “Yeah, I was talking to this guy a minute ago and he actually called it the McConaissance.” McConaughey was telling a little lie, but “I threw it out there and he goes, ‘The McConaissance, I love that! You like that?’ And I go, ‘Yeah, sounds good, man.’ So I snuck it in there and the sonofabitch, it stuck. So I made that up.”

We could all learn a thing or two about marketing from McConaughey — and we probably will at his The Art of Livin’ event.

You can listen to the podcast below.

(Via Insider)

It looks like Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn really are never ever ever getting back together.

After news of the split between the pop star and actor broke earlier this month, eagle-eyed fans are now keeping a running tally of which T. Swift besties have unfollowed her ex on social media. Swift and Alwyn were together for six years before calling it quits with sources claiming “differences in their personalities” and the singer’s level of fame were problems they just ultimately couldn’t overcome. Some speculated the pair might reconcile after some time apart, with one insider telling People, “They’ve had rough patches before and always worked things out, so friends thought they would take some time apart but eventually come back together.” But now, some eyebrow-raising unfollows on social media seem to suggest their love story is well and truly over.

Fans have noticed that some of Swift’s closest friends and family members have unfriended Alwyn on Instagram. That list included her brother, Austin, all three Haim sisters — Danielle, Este, and Alana — Lily Aldridge, and Ryan Reynolds.

Reynolds seems the most surprising of the group considering he wrote a glowing profile of Alwyn for TIME last year. Reynolds, along with wife and Swift bestie Blake Lively, was spotted having dinner with the singer earlier this week, which might explain the recent unfollow. Though Swift has graciously stayed silent on the break-up, choosing to focus on her current tour, the moves her friends are making online speak volumes.

(Via People)

I’m always wary of movies with the word “rise” or ”rises” in them. In the ’90s and early 2000s, almost every movie message board would have one person who claimed to have insider information on an upcoming anticipated release. And almost every time the name of whatever sequel would have “rise” in the title. You know, like, “Oh Star Wars Episode II is going to be called The Rise of the Empire. You just wait and see.” (It wasn’t). That’s why I was pretty shocked when a Star Wars movie actually did resort to using “rise” and, well, that movie is terrible. There are more examples: The Rise of the Machines, Rise of the Silver Surfer, even The Dark Night Rises. It all kind of signals, “We are out of ideas here.”

Now comes Evil Dead Rise, which would be a serviceable enough horror movie if it wasn’t shoehorned with the Evil Dead moniker. If this were called, I don’t know … The Demon Apartment, yeah, sure, okay. But since this is an Evil Dead movie, I expected something more fun and wacky. This is just a dimly lit, pretty generic horror movie that has kind of a fun ending, but that’s about it.

For people who haven’t seen the original three Evil Dead movies, they are kind of hard to explain. They aren’t really scary. The first one comes the closest to being at all frightening. The third film, Army of Darkness, which I love, might as well be a cartoon. They are all playful and, again, wacky and a lot of that comes from both director Sam Raimi and the central character in those stories, Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell).

Unfortunately, in Evil Dead Rise, there’s no one even remotely close to capturing the, let’s say, emoting style of Bruce Campbell. And director Lee Cronin does a serviceable job of mimicking the frantic style and shots that Raimi made famous in the first three, but it seems inconsistent. When it does happen, it feels too much like an homage than an integrated part of the story. (Also, for no good reason, there’s a shot of elevator doors opening with a pool of blood rushing and splashing into the hallway. I guess I at least have to respect the chutzpah of trying your own version of a shot from The Shining.)

Beth (Lily Sullivan) is visiting her sister, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) and her three kids. An earthquake hits the apartment complex opening a hole in the parking garage, which contains the Necronomicon, which we know is bad news and anyone looking at it should know it’s bad news. Anyway, it’s opened and the evil spirits start attacking. (Just once it would be nice to run into a Nice Dead.) There are a couple of good kills (one, in particular, involves a severed eyeball landing in someone’s mouth), and some of the imagery, on paper, sure does look like an Evil Dead movie. I mean, hey, there’s a chainsaw. It’s not used in a goofy way as someone’s literal hand, but it’s there.

It’s like someone was given all the ingredients to the recipe to make an Evil Dead movie, but didn’t know what temperature to cook it at. And Evil Dead Rise is a few hundred degrees short of where an Evil Dead movie should be. But a film like Barbarian comes closer to the spirit of the Evil Dead movies than this does. The pace should be manic, wacky and hilarious. Instead, it’s just kind of grim. Like I said, if this were just a new story, it would be serviceable enough. But, instead, it’s being sold as a modern take on the Evil Dead franchise. Which, I guess, just means it’s dimly lit and is not near as good.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Franklin Saint, played by Damson Idris, began the sixth and final season of Snowfall on a search for Teddy (played by Carter Hudson) in order to retrieve that $73 million he stole from his account. It may have taken several episodes, but Franklin got to Teddy in the ninth episode of the recently completed season. After intensely torturing Teddy, the two agreed to split the money and go their separate ways. Franklin was seconds away from receiving that money, but his mother Cissy shot and killed Teddy which erased any and all chances that Franklin could get back his earnings.

In the series finale of Snowfall, viewers watched Franklin spiral to a new low and it truly left many fans absolutely gutted. Franklin’s demise was one of three we saw take place in the final season, as it joins the deaths of Jerome (played by Amin Joseph) and Teddy. Days after the finale aired, Amin Joseph took to Twitter to share a fundraiser for Franklin that he discovered on GoFundMe. The fundraiser is titled “Reup on Product” with $73 million as the goal, which is in line with the money that was taken from Franklin’s account. It also lists “Franklin Saint” as the fundraiser’s organizer. In the Twitter post, Joseph wrote, “Unc rolling over in his grave #SnowfallFX,” which, if you’re familiar with Jerome, is probably what would happen.

You can view Joseph’s post above and check out the GoFundMe page here.

Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins suddenly died in late March 2022 while touring South America, plummeting his bandmates and the music world at large into grief. There were tribute concerts held in Hawkins’ memory, and his memory is still very much alive a year-plus after his tragic passing.

There are also tangible traces of Hawkins on Ian Hunter’s album Defiance Part 1, out today (April 21) via Sun Records. Hawkins is posthumously featured on three tracks — “Angel,” “Kiss N’ Make Up,” and “This Is What I’m Here For” — as relayed by Rock Cellar Magazine.

Hunter, formerly of Mott The Hoople, shared with the outlet how Hawkins’ contributions came to be.

“COVID was keeping people in their houses,” he said. “The Rant Band didn’t have any studios in their houses, but there were a lot of people who did have studios in their houses. Jeff Beck had his own place, Taylor’s got his studio and he’s also got the Foo’s studio. I was writing songs and they were doing nothing.”

Hunter continued, “Slash was the first one, Billy Gibbons was the second one. There’s a photographer, Ross Halfin, and he takes photographs of a lot of these guys. And he was putting the word out, too. Johnny Depp got involved. With Johnny came Jeff Beck. It just kind of developed and as it developed, I got excited so I kept writing. We wound up with 20-odd songs. But basically, it was because of COVID. No one would have been around [otherwise]. All these people would have been out touring.”

Meanwhile, Foo Fighters are embarking on their first album rollout since Hawkins’ death. The band signaled the next iteration by dropping “Rescued” earlier this week and announcing their But Here We Are album due out on June 2.

It’s still unknown whether Hawkins will feature posthumously on But Here We Are or who handled the drums for the project, but it’s hard to believe that the Foos won’t pay homage to Hawkins somehow.

Defiance Part 1 is out now via Sun Records. Find more information here.