There is a lot of family drama and even a little bit of hoopla in the final season of Succession, though the off-screen method acting debate rages on! If you need a quick recap: Brian Cox has been vocally critical of Jeremy Strong’s acting approach over the last few years (he “doesn’t put up with that American sh*t” as he calls it). Strong doesn’t really mind Cox’s critiques (they’re family, after all), and now Kieran Culkin has gotten in on the dramatics, as all the younger siblings tend to do when they aren’t getting enough attention.
When asked if Strong’s approach affected their working relationship, Culkin shrugged it off. “We’re professionals,” he told Esquire. “We like to go to work and do the thing. I don’t think it affected the way he did his work at all. Wouldn’t have affected mine. I think it was fine.” Strong definitely has enough award nominations to prove that it worked out in his favor. The actor insists the whole thing is blown out of proportion, and he doesn’t really walk around as Kendall in his off time (yet!).
Earlier this year, Strong said that his acting approach is just a personal preference and anyone can think however they want about it, including his on-screen siblings. “I also think Brian Cox, for example, he’s earned the right to say whatever the f**k he wants. There was no need to address that or do damage control… I feel a lot of love for my siblings and my father on the show,” he told GQ last month.
We will see how long that sibling love lasts throughout the final season of Succession, which airs Sundays at 9 pm.
For a time, it appeared that we’d gotten all the Mac Miller music we were ever going to after the rapper died in 2018. However, there was one project left that many fans still held out hope for: Maclib, a collaborative album with legendary Los Angeles producer Madlib, who has previously released well-received joint albums with the likes of J Dilla, Freddie Gibbs, and Talib Kweli.
Unfortunately, the likelihood of Maclib‘s release has been in doubt ever since shortly after producer Thelonious Martin revealed its existence. Although Madlib has occasionally played bits and pieces of the project in his live sets, he also noted that only about an EP’s worth of material was recorded and it wasn’t likely to see release.
However, Madlib restored hope this week when he and Kweli appeared on Sway In The Morning to talk about their latest album Liberation 2. In an aside during the interview, Madlib began listing some of the projects he has in the works including albums with Planet Asia and Erykah Badu. But it was the mention of Mac Miller that perked up Sway’s ears.
“Is that the same project that was mentioned years ago after he passed that was never released?” he asked. “Yessir,” Madlib confirmed. Sway, like the rest of us, couldn’t contain his excitement: “We ’bout to some new Mac Miller!” he exclaimed. Let’s all hope it’s sooner rather than later.
You can watch Madlib’s full interview with Talib Kweli and Sway above.
Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.
While we’re at it, sign up for our newsletter to get the best new indie music delivered directly to your inbox, every Monday.
Fall Out Boy — So Much (For) Stardust
Fall Out Boy always come back with a bang. So Much (For) Stardust, which was first previewed with the singles “Love From The Other Side” and “Heartbreak Feels So Good,” bursts with that triumphant, cinematic energy that makes those two songs so infectious. Every song is a rollercoaster — from the disco-inspired “What A Time To Be Alive” to the Weezer-esque “So Good Right Now.”
Caroline Rose — The Art Of Forgetting
The Art Of Forgetting by Caroline Rose is not a casual listen. “Rebirth” is a bone-chilling exorcism; “Better Than Gold” is a heartwarming voicemail; “Love Song For Myself” is a bubbling ballad: “If I am a punching bag / Then I am here to get you fit / You are a heavyweight fighter / I am genuine cow leather,” she breathes.
The National — “Eucalyptus”
The singles for The National’s new album have been vulnerable and a bit heart-wrenching. This new track “Eucalyptus” is not different, with Matt Berninger narrating the split of two people, his voice full of aching and desperation as he sings: “It wouldn’t be fair, it’d be so alone / Without you there, it wouldn’t be fair.”
Sharon Van Etten — “This Is Too Right”
The opening chords to Sharon Van Etten’s “This Is Too Right” are instantly gripping, imbuing the song with a beautifully haunted energy. Her emotional, strong vocals only make the music more powerful. Over and over, she repeats the line “It’s too right,” making it sound like an incantation, the meaning seeming to change each time.
The Japanese House — “Boyhood”
The Japanese House’s “Boyhood” is a poignant new song. Against buzzing synthesizers, Amber Mary Bain gets introspective with painful, incisive lyrics: “I could have been somebody who / You wanted to have around to hold / I should have jumped when you told me to / I wanna change but it’s nothing new.”
Draag — “Demonbird”
“‘Demonbird’ was a major breakthrough in my personal journey unpacking spiritual abuse in my past,” said Jessica Huang about the new enthralling Draag single. It’s a sweeping spurt of shoegaze, reminiscent of Spirit Of The Beehive with its disorientating, cinematic texture. At almost three and a half minutes, the song builds with blazing, fuzzy guitars that lead into a staticky, jarring tape sample that feels like slowly waking up from a fever dream.
Hippo Campus — “Yippie Ki Yay”
“Yippie Ki Yay” by Hippo Campus is an inexplicably moving listen. With a jaunty rhythm contrasting eerie guitar riffs, the song has an unpredictable, compelling texture made even better by the intense lyrics: “Bullseye on the back of my head / Back home they’re thinking I’m dead / I’m wishing that I was instead, well, still not as bad as it gets.”
Black Country, New Road — Live At Bush Hall
Black Country, New Road are like a secret club. If you know, you know. And if you do know, then you’d know that they’re known for their idiosyncratic theatrics. So it only makes sense that the group put out a live album, and it’s as impactful as you’d expect. The songs take on a new life in this setting, making the listener feel immersed in the music.
Chat Pile — “Cut”
Chat Pile’s raucous instrumentation and deadpan vocals never lose their impact. This new song “Cut” from their new split with Nerver explodes with seething metallic riffs, though the band said in a statement that they wanted to “switch gears and fully lean into our more indie and alt-rock tendencies.”
Superbloom — “Head First”
From Soul Blind and Modern Color to Narrow Head and Fleshwater, there’s a lot of great grunge bands right now. Superbloom have joined the chat. This new track “Head First” rages with playful, caustic riffs and an infectious rhythm. The last line hits hard: “I can still crash my car.”
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
In a surreal fusion of science-fiction and the stark realities of war, Mark Hamill is now the voice of an app that alerts Ukrainians to incoming air raids. The Star Wars actor has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine as it continues to ward off Putin’s disastrous Russian invasion, and he’s happy to do anything he can to help the situation.
“A fairy tale about good versus evil is resonant with what’s going on in Ukraine,” Hamill told the Associated Press. “The Ukrainian people rallying to the cause and responding so heroically … It’s impossible not to be inspired by how they’ve weathered this storm.”
With his distinctive voice giving off the “gravitas” of a Jedi Knight, Hamill’s voice warns users when a raid is approaching and to seek shelter. He also lets them know when the alert is over and sends them on their way with the iconic Star Wars phrase, “The Force is with you.”
The app is already a hit with Ukrainian citizens who appreciate the actor giving them a morale boost with the iconic line.
“It’s a very cool phrase for this situation,” Olena Yeremina told the AP. “I wouldn’t say that I feel like a Ukrainian Jedi, but sometimes this phrase reminds me to straighten my shoulders and keep working.”
In addition to the air alert app, Hamill has also been raising funds for reconnaissance drones to help out Ukrainian forces on the front lines.
Today I’ll be meeting with members of the Ukrainian Army of drone operators via zoom to thank them for their service, offer my encouragement & get the latest update on their progress. I also want to thank YOU for your much needed donations!https://t.co/dfBz9iFeVX
“Here I sit in the comfort of my own home when in Ukraine there are power outages and food shortages and people are really suffering,” Hamill said. “It motivates me to do as much as I can.”
I don’t get diet sodas. Don’t get me wrong, wanting to avoid the high sugar and high-calorie content of regular soda in favor of something that’s healthier — I get that. But diet sodas taste, well, how can I put this nicely? F*cking weird. There are plenty of sugar-free non sweetened beverages out there that taste delicious, and yet people choose to drink something that tastes like a cheap substitute just so they can drink more of it? That’s odd, right? An example of half-assed maximalism.
You want half the calories of Coke? Drink half a coke. That’s sure to be a far more satisfying experience.
Or… it would have been. But over the years, some people (a lot, in fact) have convinced themselves to like these flavors better. Aspartame is now preferable to these weirdos over real sugar. A few oddballs have even written articles about it, and clearly, the industry is healthy (as in sales, not actually healthy) because diet soda is everywhere — from fast food fountains to convenience store shelves. People do like this stuff, that’s undeniable… even if I don’t get it.
Which got me thinking — what if I didn’t know I was drinking the sugar-free version of my favorite soda? Is there a diet soda out there that tastes good enough to fool me? I set out to find out by blind test-testing all the diet sodas I could in search of the most delicious (and the one that could best match its own full sugar version).
Methodology:
In the past, we’ve blind taste-tested colas, cherry colas, fruit sodas, and root beer, and despite there being a lot of variety out there it doesn’t quite match the insane amount of sugar-free sodas out there. So in order to narrow our scope a bit, we decided to eliminate drinks that are solely designed to be sugar-free — La Croix, Zevia, and similar fruit-flavored “sparkling waters.” To make it on this list, the soda has to be a sugar-free version of a full-sugar soda.
Coca-Cola Move Zero Sugar (limited time Rosalía flavor)
Coca-Cola Zero
Diet Coke
Diet Dr. Pepper
Diet Pepsi
Mountain Dew Diet
Pepsi Zero Sugar
Sprite Zero Sugar
Virgil’s Zero Sugar Cola
I had each bottle/can of diet soda poured for me out of sight and brought to me at random. Because diet soda leaves a weird chemical stain on the palate, I drank lemon water between each new serving. My bladder has never been so full. Seriously.
Part 1: The Tasting
Taste 1
Ashley Garcia
Wow, this is great. It’s fizzy and hits the tongue with a pronounced sizzle and has a deep rich flavor. It has an interesting cinnamon-like spice to it, but it’s different than a cola — the flavors constantly shift between dark and earthy and slightly fruity. It’s a bit hard to pin down. It’s very satisfying, and while the aftertaste lingers a bit too long, I don’t think I’d know this is diet soda if this wasn’t a diet soda blind taste test.
Was I wrong about diet soda?
I’d drink this over a real sugar version in a heartbeat.
Taste 2
Ashley Garcia
Nope, I wasn’t wrong about diet soda. This is awful. It’s highly sweet on the tongue with a woody taste and a very syrupy body. It lays flat on the tongue and almost stains the palate. No fizz here.
Taste 3
Ashley Garcia
This taste test is messing with my brain! This soda is amazing to me, I’m getting pronounced juicy fruit flavors with a perfect balance of lemon and lime. I wouldn’t know this was a diet soda at all, it’s been a few weeks since we did our fruit soda blind taste test, and this tastes just as good as anything in the top five of that list.
Taste 4
Ashley Garcia
Unlike any soda I’ve ever tasted. A mix of kola nut and cinnamon with some sweet cotton candy and marshmallow notes and the faintest hint of coconut.
From my notes: “Good, but not great.”
Taste 5
Ashley Garcia
Weird chemical sweet water. It tastes like someone mixed up Sweet in Low in water. There is a syrupy thickness to this drink, mouthfeel, and flavor-wise, it’s straight-up horrid. It’s flat, with absolutely no fizz.
Taste 6
Ashley Garcia
Wow, this tastes exactly like Cherry Coke to me. There is a lingering artificial cherry sweetness to it, with a balance of chocolate and cinnamon notes. Delicious!
Taste 7
Ashley Garcia
Ew. It’s like fizzy Kool-Aid. This one hits the palate in a very weird way. At the start, it’s completely flavorless, and then it hits your tastebuds with the worst combination of lemon and lime flavors I’ve ever tasted. This might be the worst diet soda in existence.
From my notes: “It tastes like lemon-lime if a big rig’s tire squeezed out the juice and then served it in an empty bottle of lemonade from a landfill that has been sitting in the sun for too long.”
Taste 8
Ashley Garcia
Another take on cola, there is a strong chocolate and cinnamon flavor to this one. It doesn’t have the fizz that I want it to have, but the flavor is great. I wouldn’t think this was a diet soda, tastes like some kind of variation on Coca-Cola.
Taste 9
Ashley Garcia
Very sweet, sweeter than most non-diet sodas I’ve ever tasted. There is a pleasing hint of caramel with cinnamon and chocolate, but it’s ruined by a stale chemically sweet flavor that lingers on the backend.
Taste 10
Ashley Garcia
Very crisp with a juicy lemon and lime flavor and a nice strong bite at the end. Another diet lemon-lime soda that tastes interchangeable with the real stuff.
Taste 11
Ashley Garcia
Sweet with a sizzling fizzy body. There is a very faint cola flavor here, but it tastes noticeably brighter than any cola I’ve ever tasted.
There is something very funny to me about the fact that Mountain Dew made a diet soda and somehow wasn’t able to make it zero calories. This is the only diet soda on the market that still has calories, and it’s absolutely not worth it! What are those 10 calories doing? Because this shit tastes horrible!
Mountain Dew has a reputation for being one of the most sugar-heavy sodas on the market, and even when it comes to diet, they still managed to squeeze more sugar in there than the competition. That’s dedication! There is a Mountain Dew Zero Sugar on the market and it’s calorie-free, but I couldn’t find it at any of the convenience stores I visited. So apparently those 10 calories matter to someone.
The Bottom Line:
Mountain Dew failed to make a zero-calorie diet soda, and those 10 calories don’t make it any more palatable.
Coming in just a hair higher than Mountain Dew Diet is Pepsi Zero Sugar, Pepsi Brand’s answer to Coca-Cola Zero. It’s awful. Pepsi apparently took out all the fizz along with the sugar, as this soda was completely flat.
My taste buds are geared toward Coca-Cola, I’ve always thought of Pepsi as the lesser soda, but even regular straight Pepsi tastes significantly better than this stuff.
I’d really like to know what’s keeping Virgil’s in business. From what I’ve tasted from the brand, they make some mid-tier root beer and straight-up horrible cola. The weirdest thing is, Virgil’s Cola has been discontinued and all that exists is this zero-sugar version. That means people like this more than the OG flavor!
And yet, it’s bad. It tastes like wood, when I’m trying to drink a soda, I’m not looking for a wood flavor. This leads me to believe that diet soda drinkers have painfully low expectations.
We’re officially in the tasty territory, as this new flavor of Coca-Cola, made in collaboration with the Grammy award-winning artist Rosalía, is delicious. What’s interesting about this flavor is that it’s brand new, and since I haven’t had the non-sugar-free version of it, I have nothing to compare it to, which makes it truly novel.
I’m a huge Rosalía fan (you could call me a Moto Papi) and a big Coke head so I’ve been watching this soda with great interest, it combines two of my favorite things. There is no advertised flavor for Move — its main inspiration is transformation, and as ridiculous as it sounds, that is exactly what the flavor does. It’s constantly shifting between marshmallows, cotton candy, and coconut. It tastes unlike anything I’ve ever had in the soda space.
Take that as you will!
The Bottom Line:
Rosalía’s Coca-Cola collaboration is interesting and worth seeking out. If anything it’s made me curious to try the regular version and compare them. I’ll get to that next!
Diet Coke was always going to be a tough one to appreciate for me. Considering Coca-Cola is my all-time favorite soda, my taste buds have a natural aversion to this flavor profile. I’ve been given Diet Coke at a fast food drive-thru by mistake before, and it’s enough to make me park my car and go back in to dump it out in place of Coca-Cola.
You can really taste the aspartame in this one, and the cola notes, which are expected to be dark and rich, are too bright here. I’ll give Diet Coke this: from a design standpoint, it is visually the best diet soda on the market. It’s as distinct as actual Coca-Cola. That’s not enough to get it ranked better than this, but I feel like it was worth mentioning for the design nerds out there.
The Bottom Line:
If you like Coca-Cola, you’re never going to be able to adjust to Diet Coke. It just tastes wrong.
As I said earlier, I’m not on team Pepsi, I’m a Coca-Cola guy, but Diet Pepsi is just as good to my tastebuds as the real thing. Pepsi OG is made with real sugar, and you can feel that on your teeth as it sticks to and strips away your enamel. This doesn’t have that problem, it’s much softer and for the most part, tastes almost exactly the same to me.
The Bottom Line:
If you’re a Pepsi fan, consider switching to Diet Pepsi, it tastes incredibly similar to the real thing and doesn’t eat away at your teeth.
6. Coca-Cola Cherry Coke Zero (Taste 6)
Dane Rivera
Price:
This one is very very interesting to me. I love cherry cola, but I’ve always preferred the combination of Coca-Cola and grenadine (pro tip, you can easily make your own cherry coke at home and it’ll taste better than every pre-bottled variety) to the actual Coca-Cola brand version of the drink. The brand just goes way too heavy on the cherry flavor that it comes across as sickeningly sweet. But Cherry Coke Zero, on the other hand, is a bit more subtle and because of that, I think it’s even better than the original.
The artificial cherry flavor isn’t as overpowering here, and it has a mix of dark chocolate, cinnamon, and vanilla flavors. Altogether those notes combine for something that is delicious while still managing to be calorie-free.
The Bottom Line:
If you love Cherry Coke, switch over to Diet Cherry Coke Zero immediately. It’s even better than the real thing.
There are two common things people say about Coke Zero: 1). Coke Zero is just Diet Coke marketed to men who are too embarrassed to drink Diet Coke and 2.) Coke Zero taste just like Coca-Cola. Both are bullshit.
It doesn’t taste at all like Diet Coke, it has a darker flavor with more pronounced cinnamon notes and a hint of rich chocolate tones. Diet Coke has none of that. If you can’t taste the difference, your taste buds are broken. Having said that, this stuff doesn’t taste at all like actual Coca-Cola. It’s a completely different formulation of cola nut flavors. It doesn’t taste noticeably like a sugar-free soda, more like the differences between something like RC Cola and Coca-Cola.
The Bottom Line:
A good alternative to Coca-Cola, but don’t listen to the people that say it tastes the same. It doesn’t. Not even a little bit.
By far the biggest surprise of this diet soda taste test was the lemon-lime flavors. They taste almost identical to their sugared counterparts, so much so that I’m not sure why anyone drinks the non-diet versions. Do they know how similar 7-Up Zero Sugar tastes to regular 7-Up? Well, I’m here to tell you, it’s just as good as the real thing.
The Bottom Line:
7-Up Zero Sugar is an easy replacement for 7-Up Classic. Without actively tasting them side by side, the flavors are identical, and that’s coming from someone who just did a fruit soda blind taste test and 7-Up a top spot.
In my blind fruit soda taste test, I ranked 7-Up higher than Sprite so how do I explain ranking Sprite Zero Sugar above 7-Up Zero Sugar even though I said the sugar-free versions taste essentially identical to the sugar versions? Because for whatever reason, the 7-Up Zero Sugar tasted slightly salty to me on the aftertaste, and this Sprite Zero is giving me none of that.
Sprite Zero Sugar is crispy, juicy, and delicious
The Bottom Line:
Another Lemon-Lime soda that tastes as good as the real thing. The only major difference between Sprite and Sprite Zero is that the bite isn’t quite as strong. It doesn’t burn your throat in the way that OG Sprite does. For some people, that’ll be a deal breaker, but if you’re more about the flavor than the bite, try Sprite Zero.
Far and above the best diet soda we tasted was Diet Dr. Pepper. A common assessment of this drink is that it tastes like regular Dr. Pepper and that tracks, this tastes almost exactly like the real thing. I will say that it’s less intense than OG Dr. P, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing as the OG can sometimes taste too syrupy.
This is easily the most satisfying diet soda I’ve ever tasted, while 7-Up Zero and Sprite Zero taste as good as their sugary counterparts, there is something about the darker richer sodas that beat out the fruit-flavored stuff for me. The other diet sodas on this list failed to capture that though, as good as they are, I almost always rather have the sugar-packed versions over the diet stuff.
Diet Dr. Pepper is different. I actually think this is better than OG Dr. Pepper. It tastes nearly identical, and it doesn’t have sugar or calories, so why wouldn’t I opt for this instead? Getting actual Dr. Pepper over this offers no benefit; for that reason alone, this one is our winner.
The Bottom Line:
Believe the hype, Diet Dr. Pepper is the best diet soda on the market, hands down.
(Spoilers from The Walking Dead will be found below.)
AMC recently delivered a bundle of news for The Walking Dead universe, and the immediate headliner there was that the Dead City spinoff will include walkers falling from the sky to make Maggie and Negan’s lives a little more interesting. However, the franchise also released the trailer for Fear The Walking Dead‘s eighth and final season, in which survivors are still dealing with hell on earth, even on an island. That’s the case not only because of the rule of PADRE but also because there’s no escape from walkers (everyone is infected, and everyone will eventually reanimate without blunt force to the head) anywhere on the planet.
The trailer is most notable, however, for Morgan making a clear reference to Rick Grimes, with whom he shared some time early in the series near the dawn of the outbreak. “I want to tell you something that a friend once told me,” Lennie James’ character declares in the trailer. “He said you can hide, but you can’t run…. he wanted me to know that hurt will follow you. It follows you wherever you go. He was right… don’t do what I did. Don’t run.”
This, naturally, feels timely, and the two were always fated to meet once again (this has happened before) for the long haul. James even previously fielded questions about whether he’d be onboard one of those Rick Grimes movies that never surfaced for various, partially pandemic-related reasons. Now that Rick is about to get bloody again for his spinoff with Michonne, the timing could also be right for him to cross paths with Morgan again.
In the trailer, Morgan does apparently go back to Georgia and thinks about Rick some more for good measure.
What next? No one would be upset about seeing Morgan surface on the Rick and Michonne show, or if Fear The Walking Dead wraps up with more clues if not an outright meeting between old friends. Whatever the case, the franchise is having a good time while teasing everyone, and for solid reason. Fear The Walking Dead has previously dropped hints about Rick’s whereabouts, and we also don’t know how Rick (presumably) ends up escaping from the helicopter people for his spinoff, given that we saw them recapture him at the end of The Walking Dead. However, we can guess that Michonne pieces together enough clues to find him, and hopefully, he never rides a horse again.
We should find out more soon, though. Fear The Walking Dead returns on May 14, and the Rick and Michonne party will debut in 2024.
As sports betting becomes increasingly prevalent and more states introduce legal mobile wagering, fans at games now have the opportunity to sweat out their bets in person.
For most, that increases the enjoyment, as there really isn’t anything quite like sweating out a bet live and in the building rather than on TV, but unsurprisingly, some fans get too invested and take things too far. That is what happened after a Wizards-Magic game, when a group of fans heckled Bradley Beal after a 122-112 Wizards loss, with one fan going at Beal for ending up on the losing end of a parlay. Beal, like so many other players, is very tired of complaints from sports bettors who have become very vocal in yelling at players online, and took the opportunity to send a message back in person, per TMZ Sports.
One of the guys in a group yelled at Beal, “You f***ed me [out of] $1,300, you f***!”
Beal then turned, walked toward the fans, and appeared to knock the hat off one of the guys’ heads in response to the heckle. Beal and the fans then jawed back and forth, with Beal calling the comment “disrespectful.”
“Keep it a buck,” Beal said. “I don’t give a f*** about none of your bets or your parlays, bro. That ain’t why I play the game.”
The fan then apparently filed a police report, claiming Beal hit him in the head when he smacked the hat off his head, and Orlando police told TMZ they’ll likely charge Beal with “simple battery.”
This is, of course, incredibly weak for a number of reasons, first being if you’re cussing a player out over a lost parlay, you absolutely deserve to get smacked upside the head. On top of that, instigating an altercation and then running to the police after slight physical contact is also fairly pathetic, but falls in line with the behavior of someone that would cry to a player about their lost parlay. It’s fine and normal to be mad and grumble about a lost bet, we all do it, but don’t do it to the players — either online or in person.
Over the past few years, Black Thought has been branching. Primarily known as the rapper and de facto frontman of The Roots, a growing number of recent releases, the Philadelphia MC has been collaborating with an expanding roster of producers, including Danger Mouse, El Michels Affair, 9th Wonder, Salaam Remi, and Sean C. While his new project, Glorious Game with El Michels Affair, is due April 14, frequent collaborator and DJ J. Period put together yet another compilation of Black Thought tracks to hold fans over ’til then.
On J. Period Presents The Live Mixtape [JB Edition], the DJ utilizes Thought’s status as one of rap’s preeminent technicians of the craft, pairing live freestyles taken from Thought’s most recent Roots Picnic Live Mixtape performance. over instrumentals from the late, great funk and soul icon James Brown, as well as hip-hop beats that sampled his works. These include Nas’ “Get Down,” “Big Payback,” “Hot Pants Road,” and Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power.”
While Black Thought labored for much of his career with The Roots in relative obscurity, thanks to social media and a string of strategically placed freestyles, he’s finally received recognition from rap fans as a peerless rapper, and here, he puts that reputation to the test, freestyling for 35 minutes over some of the funkiest production known to man. Check it out on J. Period’s Bandcamp.
Donald Trump took a break from threatening “death and destruction” on the world on Monday night to sit down with Sean Hannity and deny that he was threatening death and destruction on the world. The former president also made time to partake in what might be his second favorite activity: Talking sh*t about Ron DeSantis.
Just hours after it was reported that Donald has banned anyone who has worked with the pudding-loving Florida governor for becoming a part of Team Trump, the 2024 presidential candidate — who is currently on Indictment Watch — told Hannity that DeSantis would be nothing without him. As Mediaite reports, the Fox News host prompted his guest to commence the trash-talk by telling Trump, “The question I get asked the most about you is, ‘Ron DeSantis – what happened? I thought they were friends.’” That was all it took for Trump to start spilling:
He was desperate. I gave him a nice endorsement. I said, ‘You write out what you’d like and let me see it.’ He wrote it out and I thought it was terrible so I changed it, made it great. I gave him a great endorsement. From the moment I pressed that button he blew that guy away. The race was over. They never even got to spend their money…
I got him the nomination. By the way, he could never have gotten the nomination. He would be working either in a pizza parlor place or a law office right now, and he wouldn’t be very happy.
As Mediaite wryly notes, “DeSantis has degrees from Yale University and Harvard Law School.”
Trump has pulled out all the stops in his attempts to smear DeSantis, including by attempting to come up with a sick burn of a nickname; “Ron Dukakis” is Trump’s latest offering.
Matt Damon and Jimmy Kimmel have been fake feuding for so long, Ryan Reynolds was still years away from playing Deadpool in Hugh Jackman’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Since the mid-aughts, the pair have consistently trolled each other (we’ve got the full history here), although things have been quiet in recent years.
Or at least they were until the 2023 Oscars. “Was it difficult filming your movie The Martian because your co-star Matt Damon can’t read and smells like dog medicine?” Kimmel, who hosted the ceremony, asked Jessica Chastain.
Damon recently got his revenge at the premiere of Air, his basketball movie with Ben Affleck (but not Michael Jordan). When asked by Entertainment Tonight whether he’ll ever make up with Kimmel, the actor replied, “No, no, he’s an asshole. Why would I ever do that?” Damon called the late-night host “a terrible human being” and “a demonstrably bad man.” He then looked at Kimmel, who was also walking the red carpet, and yelled, “Hey! I’d love to take a picture with you but we ran out of time.”
When asked if they might ever reconcile on his show — or even have an episode devoted to Damon — Kimmel shot the idea down, sharing, “I just can’t imagine it happening. I really can’t. I think we have Ben [Affleck] on tomorrow, so we’ll have that, but that will be as close as we get.”
If Damon and Kimmel appear alongside Reynolds and Jackman in Deadpool 3, we’ll really be through the meta celebrity feud looking glass.
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