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Trina did not come to mess around. The rapper — who recently collaborated with Latto and GloRilla — brought her songs to her NPR Tiny Desk Concert with a whole crew to give a gorgeous performance.

“This first song is dedicated to my mom,” she said, prefacing “Mama.” “Without her, there would be no me. And she’s the reason I’m standing here right now for you guys, so I want you to just enjoy.”

Harmonizing backing vocalists provided an enchanting backdrop for her flow about gratitude: “Mama, I wanna thank you / For sharing your blessings upon me / Taking time to understand the lady I wanna be,” she raps.

It only got better from there: “I wanna introduce you guys to the baddest b*tch,” she said before launching into the salacious “Da Baddest B*tch,” proving her range.

After those songs, she played “Single Again,” introducing it with a thoughtful speech: “Now, I wanna dedicate this song to all my single people, all my single ladies in the building. If you single, you came here today ain’t got no ring on your finger, just out here doing on your own, out here single, living your life to the fullest — I dedicate this song to you.”

“Here We Go” came afterwards, with the finale being “Nann N****.”

Watch her full performance above.

Three years after Pop Smoke’s (real name Bashar Barakah Jackson) tragic murder, the case is nearing a close. Revered as one of the driving forces behind New York’s drill music scene, the late rapper’s vocals continued to be used on tracks as recently as Tyga’s song “Sunshine,” released last summer. Initially, five people were investigated in connection to his death, but only four were formally charged.

Now, according to the Associated Press, one of those men has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. He previously pleaded guilty in Inglewood juvenile court to the charge of home invasion robbery. It is unclear if his four-year and two-month sentencing in a juvenile facility includes the voluntary manslaughter charge. But what is known at this time is that the judge preceding over the case “declined to apply the two years and eight months he has already spent in the juvenile hall toward his sentence.”

At the time of the slain, the defendant was just 17 years old (he’s 20 now), so his name was not released to the public. Neither was the identity of his co-defendant, who was 15 years old. The two other parties charged were Corey Walker (19 years of age at the time) and Keandre Rodgers (18 years old).

In the court testimony retrieved by the Los Angeles Times, a detective shared that Jackson was “in the shower when masked robbers confronted him. During a struggle, one attacker, who was 15, pistol-whipped the rapper and shot him three times in the back.” Before fleeing the scene, they stole the rapper’s diamond-studded Rolex watch, which they later sold for $2,000.

Elijah Wood had no idea what he was signing up for when he said yes to a guest starring role in season two of Showtime’s Yellowjackets. Literally.

Showrunners Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson reached out to the Lord of the Rings star to gauge his interest in playing opposite Christina Ricci’s neurotic, true-crime-loving misfit Misty Quigley once scripts were finished, but they couldn’t let Wood actually see anything in writing. (He wasn’t an official cast member and they’ve got Lindelofian plot secrets to protect.) They could only tease a name: Walter Tattersall. And a vague outline of who his character was before meeting Misty and getting swallowed whole by the central enigma fueling the survivalist drama.

But that was enough for Wood. The show had already checked the boxes needed to claim him as a fan.

“It’s very much my kind of show,” Wood tells Uproxx. “It dabbles in genre. It’s got potential supernatural elements to it. There’s a mystery at its core. The timeline between the past and the present, and how the past informs the present, is just so rad, and unique.”And then, there was the most important hook.

“But also, I love Melanie Lynskey, she’s a friend.”

For most of season two, Wood acts opposite another former co-star in Ricci with the two Citizen Detectives sizing up one another’s sleuthing skills in a quirky, slightly sinister will-they-won’t-they way. (By that, we mean will they kiss or kill each other.)

We chatted with Wood about his own love of true crime, being the comedic relief of season two, and his advice for dealing with genre fandoms.

How did the showrunners convince you to come on board this season?

Basically, it was a leap of faith, but it was an easy leap. They described Walter as this odd citizen detective [who] would team up with Misty, a favorite character of mine from the first season. And getting a chance to work with Christina was really exciting because we’d worked together when we were kids, in the nineties. It was an easy ‘Yes.’ I was really chuffed, genuinely, to even be asked to play in the sandbox, because it’s really a first for me. I’ve never watched a show, and then been asked to participate in a subsequent season of the show.

Did they clue you into any of the mystery driving season two?

I think I’m at liberty to say that the driver for Walter and Misty this season is just locating Natalie, trying to figure out where she’s gone, and ultimately, what has happened to her, which opens a whole Pandora’s box. And then, that there would be a potential coming together of a lot of the characters at the end of the season, which is really an exciting notion. My experience, for the most part, was just working with Christina. We were on our own little journey throughout the course of this season that ultimately comes to a head at the end.

How does the relationship between Misty and Walter evolve over the course of the season?

Misty’s an eccentric that can’t function in the world. She tries to, but it doesn’t quite work. The description to me of Walter initially was that he had similar eccentricities but has figured out how to make it functional. In that way, they’re a really interesting pair. They complement each other. That was really exciting. Then, just the nuts and bolts of who that person is, and where we would be going, that was enough for me to be excited. This season feels darker, maybe more fucked up than the first season.

Walter and Misty are both internet sleuths who take things a little too far, especially this season. What’s behind their obsession with the Citizen Detective message boards?

I think the draw is our collective interest in true crime. Blend that with the internet, and it provides an armchair hobby for people. They can commiserate, can discuss a certain unsolved case, come up with a variety of ideas of what they think may or may not have happened, and collect evidence. Basically, it’s hobbyist, which I completely understand. I’ve been interested in true crime for a long time, and I’ve devoured documentaries over the years, and podcasts and documentary series. I get it, I understand the pull that has.

Again, you put that into the realm of a message board, or an online community, where information is shared, there’s a sense of excitement of following a trail, and figuring out what could have happened. Potentially, you could make a difference, and I think that’s where the appeal comes from. I think that’s certainly where Walter is. I would say Walter might take it a step further.

Right. Like in episode three. Which is all I’ll allude to.

There’s a great deal of researched knowledge, some of which may not have totally been field tested. When you jump into something with a great deal of enthusiasm, you think you have all the answers. I feel like all of us have experienced this on some level in our lives, where we feel like we know what we’re doing, and then we get into a situation, and we’re like, ‘Fuck, we actually don’t know what we’re doing,’ but you play it off. That’s a little bit Walter. He’s in over his head, but he actually knows his shit. I don’t think that he’s really been able to field test it in quite the way that he’s going to with this journey that they’re on.

The last time you worked with Christina was in the 90s on a movie called The Ice Storm where you had to make out at the bottom of a pool while your mom was present. You said that was one of the most awkward experiences of your career. Were things less awkward this time around?

[Laughs] It was less awkward than that, undoubtedly. Christina is incredible. Working with her has been the easiest, and the most fun and rewarding experience. She is a fucking pro, man. She’s a finely tuned instrument as an actress, and it is a joy to work with because she knows her character so well. For me, acting opposite her makes my job so easy because she’s so skilled.

There’s also a lot of humor in their back-and-forth relationship, especially early on in the season.

Which is also one of the fun aspects of being asked to come and play Walter — it’s this sideline comedy section of the show. There’s quite a lot of darkness and the stakes are really fucking high for a lot of the characters throughout the series, both in the past and in the present. What was lovely about what we got to do this particular season is play a lighter duo, a relationship journey that ultimately ends where everyone is headed, but it definitely felt like the comic relief of the show, which was really fun. We didn’t have to deal with a great deal of heaviness, or darkness. It was just relative silliness.

We’ve talked to Melanie Lynskey about giving advice to the younger actors on this show. You’ve defended some of The Rings of Power cast amidst backlash from LOTR fans. What’s your advice to younger actors having to deal with fame in the time of social media?

Social media wasn’t even a thing! There was no Twitter, there was no Facebook. It was pre-Friendster. This idea that you would have an online presence, and have a direct line to both positive and negative responses from fans, and just people in general, that was just not something that we had to face at all. Now we’re dealing with racism and shit online in response to casting choices. It really is ridiculous. They had to deal with that as they were just about to celebrate their experience making something on this scale, having had this really incredible experience working together in New Zealand. Many of them are part of something on this scale for the first time, and before it even comes out, there’s all this negative response.

What’s the advice? I was going to say to not give it much attention, but it’s hard if you’re the folks that are the target of that criticism. I don’t really look at comments. That’s just a personal rule. I don’t really give a shit what anyone has to say. I just think it’s a slippery slope because if you start paying attention to what everyone has to say about you, it gives it weight. It’s almost like conflating schoolyard behavior to a much larger, more hurtful scale, and it’s a bummer. I think taking yourself off social media is a good idea, I think not paying attention to it, and I think focusing on the work.

Indiana Jones may not be an official part of the Star Wars universe, but he might as well be. Both worlds were, after all, created by George Lucas and feature Harrison Ford in universally beloved grumpy hero roles. Which might explain why the latest tease of the newest Indy feature, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, was shared today during London’s Star Wars Celebration.

As The Hollywood Reporter writes, a brand-new trailer for the long-awaited fifth film in the Indiana Jones series made its debut to an eager crowd on Friday at the London event. In addition to the all-new trailer, audiences were treated to six minutes of footage from the movie.

In the trailer, we see Indy’s goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) — who may or may not be a villain — pull the septuagenarian archaeologist out of retirement for one last adventure. Giant rolling boulder included.

Helena is the daughter of Indy frenemy Basil (played by Toby Jones), who we learn once shot our hero. The film is set in 1969, and also features Mads Mikkelsen as Jürgen Voller, a one-time Nazi commander who — like Indy and Helena — is attempting to find the Dial of Destiny, an ancient device he believes could make the world a better place. (Though his definition of “better” is unknown.) “Hitler made mistakes and with this I will correct them all,” says Mikkelsen, as Voller, of the dial.

“Littered in classic Indy moments, the trailer and footage featured tuk-tuk races around dusty Moroccan streets, Jones riding a horse through a New York street parade and jumping out of a burning plane with Waller-Bridge (who describes him in the film as an “aging grave robber”), and a scene with a giant rolling boulder,” writes The Hollywood Reporter.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny arrives in theaters on June 30.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Rae Sremmurd‘s new album Sremm 4 Life is out now. Though it’s not as laden with collaborations as their records usually are, the LP does feature two exciting artists: Future and Young Thug.

Young Thug’s feature is on the petty anthem “Royal Flush.” It immediately starts off with fiery resentment: “Leave me on read, you must be out of yo’ head / Leave me for dead, you must be out of yo’ head,” Swae Lee deadpans.

Last year, the duo teased this new record in interviews. “We’ve got to give them something new, man. As an artist, it’s hard to be yourself, and I feel like with this album, it was like we’re not following a trend,” Slim Jxmmi told GQ. “We want set the tone.”

In January, they kicked off the year by unveiling the song “Sucka Or Sum,” getting fans excited for their comeback. They announced Sremm 4 Life shortly after. They shared the single “Tanisha (Pump That)” just last month, which was produced by Mike Will Made-It as well as Pharrell Williams.

Listen to “Royal Flush” above.

Sremm 4 Life is out now via EarDruma Records and Interscope. Find more information here.

Young Thug is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

At this point, social media spats between celebrities happen as often as the blink of an eye. However, in the wake of several pieces of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation passing across the country, including states like Florida and Tennessee, these feuds have, at times, made platforms like Twitter a cesspool of bigotry, homophobia, and transphobia. While some musicians, including Madonna and Yo La Tengo, have used their shows to protest these laws, not all musicians feel the same. Gun-loving, confederate flag-wearing, and MAGA-representing musician Kid Rock and Travis Tritt are on the opposite side of the aisle.

At one point, Rock and Tritt were trending on social media for blasting beer company Anheuser-Busch. That led users to wonder why are Rock and Tritt mad at Bud Light and its parent company? Well, the musicians didn’t take too kindly to Bud Light featuring trans activist and TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney in their latest advertisement campaign.

Kid Rock took to social media to upload a video of himself shooting cases of beer with a semi-automatic weapon. Travis Tritt declared he would be dropping the brand from his tour hospitality rider. Users are calling out the musicians for the views, but Rock has been receiving the bulk of the blowback because of his use of the semi-automatic weapon.

Jason Isbell chimed in to voice his disgust with Rock. Also, a Parkland shooting parent took to Twitter to call out Rock for ignoring the facts that children trans or cishet alike have unfortunately been victims of mass shootings at the hand of semi-automatic owners.

Watching Showtime’s Yellowjackets is like trying to solve a f*cked up puzzle where half of the pieces are missing and what’s left, when assembled, looks like an Edvard Munch monstrosity that will haunt both your dreams and your waking hours.

All this to say, we love the goose chase wild goose chase this show leads us on each week.

In episode three’s “Digestif,” a central mystery that’s plagued fans ever since the early days of season one rears his ugly, eyeless head once more. The spine-chilling specter aptly named The Man with No Eyes is a blood-curdling apparition that’s tormented Taissa Turner (Jasmin Savoy-Brown / Tawny Cypress) for quite some time now. He popped up in her youth and has made some eerie, unwanted visits at the worst possible times in Tai’s life. But, thanks to the show’s latest episode — and some insight from showrunner Ashley Lyle — we’ve got a better read on who this creep is and what he represents for Tai (and her sleepwalking alter-ego).

Who Is The Man With No Eyes?

The Man with No Eyes has been with us since the beginning of the show. He was lurking in the background during the opening credits before the writers gave him a backstory worthy of his weird, frankly demonic, vibes. In season one, the character was played by Braham Taylor and though he had no lines, the actor did a terrific job of terrifying us with his menacing stare — and terrible taste in menswear. We first met him in the show’s third episode. (A coincidence given his part to play in season two, episode three’s “Digestif”? We think not.) He appeared in the room when Tai went to say goodbye to her ailing grandmother. The two were very close and on her deathbed, Tai’s grandma tries to soothe the little girl’s fears about death, referencing a higher power and the “calling back” of the soul.

Later though, Tai’s grandmother appears to see The Man with No Eyes in the mirror opposite her bed and his presence unsettles her. She becomes anxious, asking “Who are you?” before telling Tai the man wants to take her eyes. Tai also sees him and begins to scream. It’s certainly not the peaceful, idyllic passing her grandmother had promised her.

Where Have We Seen Him Before?

The traumatic event of watching her grandmother die might have been the first time The Man with No Eyes appeared to her, but Tai’s been seeing him more frequently — in the woods and on the campaign trail. The other time Tai sees the eyeless figure in season one is when she’s preparing to pull out of the Senate race. After changing her mind and giving an impassioned speech that makes clear her intentions to keep fighting to win the election, she glimpses The Man With No Eyes amongst the crowd of supporters. There are other moments that allude to the spirit’s presence in Tai’s life like the drawings her Son Sammy made depicting both eyes (of all shapes, colors, and kinds) and eyeless faces, but it isn’t until season two that his connection with the wilderness is explored.

The Man with No Eyes pops up in episode two, just in time to lead a sleepwalking Taissa over a cliff. Luckily, Van is there to stop her, but the incident calls into question the malevolent nature of the spirit and his intentions for Tai. In episode three’s “Digestif,” The Man with No Eyes makes another appearance while Tai is sleepwalking. This time, with Van with her, she reveals he’s leading her somewhere and she goes when (conscious) Tai lets her. Whether that’s to find more symbols or to find another cliff’s edge, we’re still not sure.

What Does He Represent?

Some fans have theorized that The Man with No Eyes is some kind of curse tied to Taissa’s family considering both she and her grandmother, and likely her son as well, have seen him while the rest of the team can’t. Others believe he might be a spirit attached to the wilderness in the same way the dead man in the cabin in season one was. While showrunner Ashley Lyle didn’t confirm or deny any of those possibilities, she did tell fans at PaleyFest that his connection to tie isn’t just a supernatural one, it’s also psychological:

Tai has lived as this person who’s based her life on pragmatism. I personally believe that she would define herself as an atheist, if not, an agnostic. And yet as a young child, she had this incredibly informative, traumatic experience when her grandmother, who she was very close to, was close to death and had this sort of terrifying moment where she was anticipating, you know, the transition to the next life and expecting sort of angels and trumpets and instead had a terrifying vision. I think that for Taissa, who’s very much not in touch with her spiritual self, and very much not in touch with her ability to believe, or, her faith, there’s this sort of symbolic character of, you know, you could look at him as death incarnate. I think what he [the man with no eyes] represents is ‘the unknown’ and the unknown is something that Taissa is very uncomfortable with as a character.

It’s likely we’ll see more of The Man with No Eyes as the season progresses and the situation — for the girls in the woods and the women back home — worsens.

(Via Insider)

“Buckle up!” That was Ron DeSantis’ advice on Thursday morning to a room full of Republicans eating breakfast at a sponsored event in Michigan when asked about his ongoing feud with Disney. Which is about to get a whole lot uglier, according to Politico.

The rift between De Santis and the Mouse House began just over a year ago, when Disney openly expressed its opposition to Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill. DeSantis responded by calling Disney “woke,” which is just about the worst thing a person or entity can be called in Republicanspeak these days. But Disney is a behemoth in Florida where, according to the Tallahassee Democrat, the company has a $75.2 billion annual economic impact on Central Florida, adds approximately 465,000 jobs to the workforce, and puts an estimated $5.8 billion back into the state tax revenue’s coffers each year. So DeSantis might have picked a fight with the wrong mouse.

Still, the pudding-lovin’ politician claims that the company ​​“tried to pull a fast one” on the state while working around the DeSantis-directed near-dismantling of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the organization that some believe has let Disney largely govern itself over the past half-century. During a meeting with shareholders earlier this week, Disney CEO Bob Iger called out DeSantis and the new governance as both “anti-business” and “anti-Florida,” which really set Meatball Ron off. As Gary Fineout writes for Politico:

The rapid escalation between Disney and DeSantis this week comes in the aftermath of a Central Florida governing board that had been controlled by Disney passing a series of agreements that ensured Disney would keep a large degree of power despite a new law passed in February that created a new board controlled by the governor.

The moves stunned the DeSantis administration and the governor’s hand-picked board, which has since hired lawyers to examine whether it should challenge the legality of the agreements.

But DeSantis seems to think that something shady is happening and has charged his chief inspector with doing a “thorough review and investigation” into exactly what happened to allow Disney to “undercut Florida’s legislative process, and defy the will of Floridians.” He has also floated the idea of developing state-owned land directly adjacent to the theme parks, imposing tolls on the roads tourists use to travel to Disney, and doing a deep dive on the company’s hotel taxes. In other words: DeSanctimonious wants to tank Disney’s business in Florida, which seems like it would be bad for the state he was elected to govern, but what do we know?

“They are not superior to the people of Florida,” DeSantis said of Disney during a speech at Michigan’s Hillsdale College on Thursday evening. “So come hell or high water we’re going to make sure that [the] policy of Florida carries the day. And so they can keep trying to do things. But ultimately we’re going to win on every single issue involving Disney I can tell you that.”

Mickey might have a different opinion.

(Via Politico)

While there is no guarantee they’ll need the Play-In Tournament to make the postseason, odds are the New Orleans Pelicans‘ path to a postseason berth will involve needing to win a game to secure the 7 or 8-seed in the Western Conference. If that happens, Shams Charania of The Athletic reports that the team will not have the services of All-Star forward Zion Williamson.

The Pelicans announced on Thursday evening that, after an evaluation, the plan is for Williamson to “continue his rehabilitation and conditioning regimen” following a hamstring injury that has kept him sidelined since the beginning of January. One day later and Charania brought word that, due to their commitment to being cautious with his rehabbing of the injury, Williamson would not participate in the Play-In, although there is no word on whether or not the team would want to bring him back if the Pelicans made it to the playoffs.

Williamson has appeared in 29 games this season, with his last game coming on Jan. 2 against the Philadelphia 76ers. Entering Friday night’s slate of games, the Pelicans have a 41-39 record, which puts them in eighth place in the West with two games left to go. They’re one game behind the Los Angeles Clippers, which hold the fifth seed, and the Golden State Warriors, which are in sixth, and have the same record as the Los Angeles Lakers, which hold the tiebreaker between the two teams.

New Orleans will host the New York Knicks on Friday night before traveling to Minnesota to take on the Timberwolves on Sunday in its final game of the regular season.

Less than six months after famed New York City restaurateur Keith McNally banned (then unbanned, then banned again) late-night host James Corden from his perennial hotspot Balthazar for reportedly being an “abusive” “tiny cretin of a man,” someone else is coming for the Cats star. As The Wrap reports, director Craig Duncan — who worked with Corden a decade ago — just posted a YouTube video in which he called out Corden as “the most difficult and obnoxious presenter I’ve ever worked with.”

In 2013, Duncan was asked to direct an episode of A League of Their Own, a sports-focused panel show that Corden hosted from 2010 to 2019. Before he even agreed to shoot the episode, Duncan says the production company asked how he was working with “difficult presenters.” Having previously worked with The Three Tenors, Duncan says he was pretty used to prickly personalities. “You can’t get much more prima donna than an opera singer.” But Duncan had yet to meet James Corden.

The task was to film a sort of MasterChef-like cooking competition, and he and the rest of the creative team were given very little time to build the set — or shoot it. But Duncan was thrilled with how it all turned out, and made sure to let the team know. “They busted their guts to get this thing ready, and I appreciated it,” Duncan said. Corden, however, was a different story.

While Duncan really enjoyed meeting the show’s other personalities, at one point he started noticing “a creeping sense of anxiety.” Eventually, Corden made his way onto the set while the director commenced shooting the segment. Eventually, the segment got to the part where the winner was going to be revealed. As they only had about six minutes left, Duncan realized their original plan for shooting would take too long, so he huddled with his team to come up with a quick Plan B. “We were working it out, to save time, when old buggaluggs pipes up: ‘What the f**k is going on here? It’s obvious what you do. You put a camera there, you put a camera there, you put a camera there, and you put a camera there… It’s so obvious how you shoot it. You’re stupid.’”

Rather than get annoyed, Duncan played along for appeasement’s sake and shot the rest of the segment the way Corden had suggested, which ended up taking about 40 minutes longer. “So cheers, James,” said Duncan. “You got your way. Well done. Well done for treading all over my toes. I don’t care; I’ll get paid at the end of the day. And I hope I never, ever work with you again.”

Since the media picked up on the story, Duncan posted a postscript statement on his YouTube page:

This video is just intended as a benign anecdote. I have a tiny following, so didn’t think it would be seen TBH. For the media to pick up on James Corden being rude to me 10 years ago is insane. It’s a non-story as far as I’m concerned. Bosses are ‘short’ with staff all the time. James never told me “You’re stupid” in fact, I can’t remember the exact things he said… it was more a rant at me about camera positions with an element of swearing involved. It probably “felt” worse than I portray in the video, but it was certainly as bad as I say it was. In the video I’m mumbling “It’s stupid,” not saying he said I was stupid. I’d have walked if he had.

(Via The Wrap)