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Remember “Thot Box?” You know, Hitmaka’s 2019 posse cut featuring 2 Chainz, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Meek Mill, Tyga, and YBN Nahmir? No? Well, you almost certainly remember that the remix — which did ridiculously better than the original — featured a who’s-who of up-and-coming female rappers including Chinese Kitty, DreamDoll, Dreezy, Latto (pre-name change), and Young MA. There it is up top.

Well, the guy responsible for it, Hitmaka (formerly known as Young Berg, the walking lick), had some thoughts about female rappers and their X-rated subject matter, and unfortunately for him, he decided to share those thoughts on Twitter. Apparently, he missed how it went for the last handful of guys to offer their two cents on this topic, including Jermaine Dupri.

“Can’t wait to work with a pretty female rapper that’s strictly about bars to even the playing field,” he wrote. “Pussy rap was cool when it had shock value & was rare. Now it’s like every girl taking it there. It’s sum who aren’t but they need a hit producer 4 impact.”

It didn’t take long for him to come under fire from fans who pointed out the sexism inherent in this sentiment. Also, it’s like… Wrong. Plainly. Clearly. Obviously. Women have addressed this repeatedly in the last few years. Cardi B called it out. Megan Thee Stallion called it out. City Girls called it out. Latto called it out THIS WEEK. Plus, as Noname rightfully pointed out last year, women are better at rapping about sex than men, anyway. Case in point: “Thot Box” and its much more successful remix.

Women also rightfully brought up Berg’s past controversial colorist comments and accusations against him for sexual assault.

Moral of the story: Stay out of women’s business, gentlemen. It will not go well for you.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

There are a lot of hidden jokes and references in children’s shows that are intended to go over the heads of the audience, mostly because the audience consists of children, presumably. It happens with popular shows all the time, like when The Fairly Odd Parents did a Seinfeld spoof or that time that Scooby-Doo got stuck in the Black Lodge. Sure, kids don’t understand those types of references, but it still gives their babysitters and/or parents a good chuckle.

Now that it’s easy to go back and watch all of your favorite childhood shows thanks to streaming, maybe you got the bright idea to curl up with some hot cocoa and watch the classic Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly, and now that you’re an adult, you realized that a lot of the bits you thought were weird as a kid were actually just references to other famous shows and movies. And you’re not alone in that!

Recently, a clip of iCarly went viral as a shot-for-shot remake of an iconic (and heartbreaking) scene from The Wire. The show spoofs the scene where Michael kills Snoop in season five of the HBO drama. Of course, as it is a children’s show, the teens are playing assassins with mini paintball guns, which is how the “killing” happens.

This specific episode of iCarly aired in January of 2010, a little over a year after that particular moment from The Wire, which is definitely not for children. But it’s likely that the writers of iCarly wanted to pay homage to their favorite show because The Wire is everybody’s favorite show at one point in their lifetime. The episode also makes various references to other scenes, like the “here’s Johnny” moment from The Shining that has been replicated oh so many times.

Now that all of the original viewers of iCarly are mostly grown up and watching The Wire for the first time, they are in for a real treat! Of course, iCarly is also in the second season of its revival on Paramount Plus, so at this point, they should be doing some Better Call Saul jokes.

Given that it’s the end of the year — traditionally, a time for looking back on the year in review and looking forward to the possibilities of the blank calendar ahead — it’s kind of fitting that Top Dawg Entertainment released Ab-Soul’s reflective Herbert now rather than somewhere in the furor of attention swirling around Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s comeback albums. This is because of the content of Herbert, yes, but it’s also because of Soul’s seeming place in the unofficial hierarchy of TDE’s fluctuating roster of artists.

With Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers concluding K. Dot’s commitment to the label and SOS potentially constituting SZA’s swan song (although the jury remains out in that regard; she seems to change her mind every other week and could be announcing five more EPs by the time you read this), TDE finds itself in an interesting place. For all purposes, it looks very much like the most commercially successful acts on the label are pretty much done. Schoolboy Q, who’s always kind of hovered in their periphery, last released an album, Crash Talk, in 2019, which could potentially have also completed his own obligation to Top Dawg, if Kendrick’s five-album deal structure is any guideline.

Jay Rock, who may as well be the label’s vanguard artist, hasn’t been heard from since 2018, although he typically takes long breaks between albums too. That means that for the first time, TDE is probably facing a new year with the prospect of no releases from its first and second-wave rappers and singers. It also means that 2023 might be totally clear for Top Dawg to truly move into its next wave of artists, many of whom seem poised to bridge the gap between the backpack rap-influenced releases of the label’s past and the more sonically malleable styles of contemporary hip-hop — which makes Herbert the perfect project to close that chapter of Top Dawg’s history.

Of all the first-wave TDE artists, Soul has probably been the hardest sell to the mainstream hip-hop fan. Influenced as much by underground mainstays like Canibus and Ras Kass as he was by Tupac, his bars have always been the densest, the most metaphorical, and the most abstract of the Black Hippy collective. While Jay Rock and Q reeled off morbid street stories and Kendrick offered intellectual observations on LA gang culture from the perspective of the hood-adjacent everyman, Ab-Soul was that stoner roommate everyone remembers from university who was really into metaphysical philosophy.

He was also — and I say this lovingly, as a fellow former denizen of the rap battle forums he frequented in the early days of the internet — a rap nerd beyond the like of his Black Hippy brethren. He was the one who deeply cared about the mechanical intricacies of rhyme work, the sort of blog commenter who probably threw the term “multi” into at least a few of his online missives. It showed in not just the music he made, but in the reception to it, as well. On his first two projects, Longterm Mentality and Control System, these tendencies made him seem quirky and idiosyncratic on These Days… and Do What Thou Wilt., though, he sounded out-of-touch and borderline delusional.

So it’s a relief to hear him shake loose some of the muck that bogged down those projects, endeavoring to discuss more earthbound subjects on Herbert — even when those topics get dark. On the title track, he addresses addiction, depression, losing his father, and even his ongoing ordeal with Steven-Johnson Syndrome, which affects his vision. On the motivational “Do Better,” he wrestles with survivor’s remorse while detailing his own efforts to follow the title’s advice. And in the lead-up to the album’s release, he was forthcoming about his recent suicide attempt, in which he jumped from a freeway overpass seeking a permanent solution to dark thoughts tormenting him through the recent pandemic.

Likewise, it’s satisfying, if not always delightful, to see that those rap nerd tendencies haven’t left him. Depending on your tolerance for rap dad jokes, some of the bars on the album can read like the most tortured puns to propagate their poet’s punchline prowess, or they can wow you with their wordplay wizardry. Here’s a test to find out which side you’ll land on. If that last alliteration-laden sentence made you groan a little (okay, I’ll stop now), approach with caution, and be ready to skip “The Wild Side” and “Art Of Seduction.” But even so, don’t miss the DJ Premier-produced album closer “Gotta Rap,” a defiant, triumphant celebration of Soul’s survivorship and pride in his pen.

Now, Top Dawg Entertainment must look to the future. Although 2018 signee Reason and 2020 recruit Ray Vaughn are both equally adept at twisting a double entendre to suit their purposes, they’re both grounded in the same sort of murky narratives as Jay Rock and Schoolboy Q. Meanwhile, Doechii has distinguished herself as the possible breakout star for phase two of the TDE experiment, garnering rave reviews for her viral singles “Crazy” and “Persuasive.” But whereas the first-generation TDE stars relied on their gritty stance and muddy, boom-bap-inspired production, it’s fitting that Herbert closes with a beat by the preeminent pioneer of backpack rap’s musical backbones.

Top Dawg, like hip-hop as a whole, has to evolve. The past year or so has shown us that the genre moves too fast and has become too omnivorous to cling to its origins, however important it is to acknowledge and remember them. So it’s good that we’ve learned as much as we possibly could about TDE’s flagship artists through their revelatory return projects (even going back to Isaiah Rashad’s 2021 album, The House Is Burning). The time has come to get to know the next generation, with their glittering dance beats, triumphant trap anthems, and a slew of new stories to tell.

Herbert is out now via Top Dawg Entertainment. Listen to it here.

Prior to the start of the season, the NBA released its findings of a year-long investigation into Phoenix Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver over allegations of fostering a hostile workplace, including examples of racism and sexism in the workplace, and handed down a $10 million fine and a year-long suspension of Sarver.

That punishment did not satisfy many, including Suns star Chris Paul, LeBron James, and even one of the Suns’ minority owners, as public pressure mounted for the league to do more. Ultimately, Sarver announced he would look to sell the Suns and Mercury, and it seems three months into the sale process that a new owner has been found. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, billionaire Mat Ishbia will purchase the teams from Sarver, with a deal expected to be completed “in the near future” for around $4 billion.

Ishbia is the chairman and CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage, and was a member of Michigan State’s basketball team from 1998-2002 before joining and eventually taking over his father’s mortgage company. His shares are reportedly worth $11 billion, so it’s not hard to see how he comes up with the money to purchase the Suns and Mercury. One has to wonder whether his basketball background will be a positive or negative for the Suns, as it could be a good thing that he’ll be so invested in a sport he loves, while also bringing the possibility of him being a bit too meddling in basketball operations by thinking he is an expert in building a basketball team.

That is all to be determined, but after years under Sarver, a change at the top will be a welcome sight for Suns fans and, hopefully, a better situation for team employees.

Lil Wayne is serving the holiday spirit, as the rapper brought his “A Very Weezy Christmas” to some lucky New Orleans children. In a partnership with Young Money Entertainment president Mack Maine and sporting goods company Wilson, Wayne invited 150 kids to the local Dave & Busters to meet Santa.

He posted a series of photos from the event on Instagram. As expected, they went all out on the decorations, transforming the D&B’s into a Christmas wonderland. Or, as the giant sign read, Weezy’s Christmas. Parents smiled in front of the backdrop with their children. “Santa” even posed with a custom Lil Wayne football.

“This Christmas @mackmaine4president & I wanted to give some future hall of famers the gift of game w/ the help of @Wilson,” Wayne wrote. “Making sure they received the necessary resources so they could enjoy all the benefits of being a top tier athlete was very important to us! #HappyHolidays #WeezyChristmas.”

“Whether it’s learning about sportsmanship, teamwork, or just using the field as a way to escape everyday stresses, we wanted to make sure these kids get to experience impactful moments,” he added in a press release, via Billboard.

Lil Wayne has been a documented fan of the holiday, too. Ten years ago, he wished a “Merry Christmas to all” to his Twitter fans.

A Republican having a problem with the truth is nothing new, really. (See: Donald Trump, Donald Trump, and Donald Trump.) But even by GOP standards, congressman elect George Santos’ alleged fabrications about his past and qualifications to represent New York’s 3rd District could be considered a real whopper.

On Monday, The New York Times ran a story titled “Who Is Rep.-Elect George Santos? His Resume May Be Largely Fiction.” Which basically tells you everything you need to know about the 34-year old, who broke some new ground by becoming the first openly gay non-incumbent elected to Congress, as well as the first Brazilian-American to hold a seat in the House. But it turns out that much of the information Santos has released about himself and his background may not be true.

Specifically, as CNN reports, Santos has claimed that he received degrees from both Baruch College and New York University, though neither school has any record of him attending—let alone graduating. Santos’ bio on the National Republican Congressional Committee website states that “He has worked for companies such as Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Linkbridge Investors, and Met Global,” though both Citigroup and Goldman Sachs told CNN they had no record of his employment.

Santos also claimed that he founded an animal rescue organization, Friends of Pets United, and gave a very specific number of animals he helped to save — yet no such organization seems to exist either with the IRS or in a database of registered charities in either New York or Florida, where Santos has also done business. But the weirdest part of the story is that that’s not even the weirdest part: While Santos himself has been dodging questions about what seems to be a largely fictionalized backstory, his lawyer attempted to defend him by offering up a quote from Winston Churchill… that was ALSO fake.

As Politico reports, “An attorney for Republican Rep.-elect George Santos (R) responded to allegations in The New York Times that the politician made up core portions of his resume with a quote from Winston Churchill that PolitiFact says the British politician never uttered.”

That’s right, an elected official who is being accused of lying about his educational and professional background responded to the story via a prepared statement from his lawyer, which he shared on Twitter, and that, too, came with a side of horsesh*t.

The statement, which was attributed to alleged attorney Joseph Murray, ended with these words: “As Winston Churchill famously said, ‘You have enemies? Good. It means that you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” But PolitiFact claims that the legendary British Prime Minister never said those words — famously or otherwise.

Perhaps more tellingly, according to Politico: “The statement did not refute any of the allegations that Santos made up or exaggerated key portions of his resume.”

As Winston Churchill famously said, “You’re f***ed, Santos.”

(Via Politico)

R&B crooner Trey Songz’s legal issues are far from over. After avoiding charges stemming from a physical altercation with law enforcement at a Kansas City Chiefs game in January 2021, allegations of hitting a woman with his car, and a series of sexual assault allegations (one he was cleared of in April while another was dismissed due to the statute of limitation expiring), the “Bottoms Up” singer has been entangled in the court system for a few years now.

Spilling over from last month, the singer’s alleged assault on two people (a woman and a man) in a New York City bowling alley has landed Songz in jail. According to TMZ, despite proclaiming his innocence, the musician has voluntarily turned himself into authorities.

This isn’t the first time Songz has been accused of physically assaulting someone. Back in May of 2021, the “Slow Motion” singer made headlines for allegedly punching a bartender.

However, Songz’s attorney, Mitch Schuster, ensures these charges will not stick, telling TMZ, “We have been proactively communicating with New York law enforcement, the District Attorney, and all those involved. While we will respectfully and proactively work through all the appropriate channels, we are confident that Trey will be fully cleared of any wrongdoing,” later adding, “This is another instance where those involved try to blame the celebrity with hopes of getting fame or riches.”

The alleged woman victim did seek medical attention. However, the man victim did not seek medical treatment for allegedly being punched in the eye.

Edie Falco is one of those actresses who can basically do whatever she wants simply because she has starred in your favorite show, The Sopranos, your mom’s favorite show, Nurse Jackie, and your dad’s favorite show, Oz. So she gets to sprinkle in a James Cameron movie every once in a while!

But because she stays busy, Falco might not be the best at keeping track of all of her high-profile projects. And who can blame her? She is currently preparing to star as Pete Davidson’s mom in Bupkis, so she clearly has other things on her brain besides a silly little movie.

Falco was chatting with the ladies of The View this week when she admitted that she had been so busy, she kind of thought the movie already came and went (she probably doesn’t use Twitter) and he had never heard about it. “The second Avatar, the one that’s coming out, I think I shot four years ago,” Flaco explained. “And then I’ve been busy, and doing stuff, and somebody mentioned Avatar, and I thought, ‘Oh, I guess it came out and didn’t do very well,’ because I didn’t hear anything.” To be fair, it took a very long time for this movie to come out.

Falco added that somebody mentioned the film to her recently, to which she responded, “Oh, it hasn’t come out yet?” Hopefully that somebody she was speaking to wasn’t James Cameron.

Despite the memory lapse (hey, it’s been a stressful few years) Falco is ecstatic to be in the movie, mostly because she wanted to be blue. She didn’t get to be blue. “Well, I wanted to be blue. I was excited — I was going to be blue and very tall…I didn’t get either of those things,” Falco admitted. She portrays General Frances Ardmore, a major antagonist in the sequel. “But I did get that exoskeleton, and that was pretty darn cool. All of this is so out of the realm of anything I’ve ever done!”

Now that the movie finally came out, Falco will be delighted to know that it did not flop. But she still hasn’t seen it! Though she’ll be happy to know that James Cameron thinks it’s just like The Sopranos.

(Via indieWire)

It has been a long time since a game like Elden Ring came out that captured people’s hearts and minds in a way where even now 10 months after its release it is still resonating with people. It is really difficult to understate just how much this game meant to people, and how it clearly stood above all games in 2023 when it comes to impact.

Elden Ring for many is not the best game that came out this year, including this lone writer’s opinion, but it’s impossible to dispute that for months on end it was the only game that anyone could talk about. From memes to speedruns, to debating its approachability there was no game that sparked more conversation than From Software’s successor to the Souls franchise. How did it do it though? How did a game developed by a team notorious for making extremely challenging and niche games break into the mainstream and become easily the most impactful game of 2022?

Without a doubt, the biggest appeal has to be the world that Elden Ring created, the desire everyone had to explore it, and the freedom we had in that exploration. A lot of times when a game comes out there is a silence across the usual discussion forums like Discord or Twitter because there is a respect everyone has for each other to let those experiences be raw and unspoiled. Elden Ring meanwhile was a game where people flooded message boards so they could share what they saw, tell their own personal adventures, and share information with each other. It created this sudden community discussing how if you go to this one location and open up this chest you’ll find an awesome sword, or if you go an entirely different direction you’ll find a miniboss to take on. Along the path to those locations though, everyone has a different experience based on how they approached battles, the enemies they may have faced, or the invasions they suffered at the hands of bloodthirsty players. Soon, sharing your adventure with friends was just as fun as overcoming challenges.

The challenges we had to overcome in Elden Ring though were of course a part of the game. The creator of these games, Hidetaka Miyazaki, once apologized for always making games so difficult, but for him, these challenges weren’t there to crush the player and make them feel lesser, but so they can eventually feel the exuberance of finally overcoming a boss or clearing an area. When Elden Ring first came out, there was a slight concern among fans of the series that its popularity would draw people in only for them to bounce off crushed by its difficulty. Instead, the opposite happened, and new fans were born as they pushed forward until they eventually achieved the thrill of overcoming a great challenge. While not an exact science, one of the first major challenges of the game is Margit, the Fell Omen a boss that you must defeat to move the plot of the game along. According to PSNprofiles.com, 84.30% of players passed Margit and another 79% would go on to defeat Godrick. Elden Ring was not only popular, but everyone playing it was pushing through. They embraced the challenge and found enjoyment in that.

We already mentioned the exploration aspects from earlier, where players are able to go off and explore to their hearts’ content until their numbers are big enough to overcome even some of the game’s most challenging enemies, but this is just one example of the many ways Elden Ring guided the player more than the previous Souls games possibly didn’t. For starters, summons are available to the player very early and they can completely break certain boss fights. So much so that for a while it became a fun meme to post a video clip of you beating a boss without even trying cause the summon did all the work for you.

If spirits aren’t your jam then you can always just call in a friend! Elden Ring can be almost entirely a co-op experience by summoning your friends into boss fights and taking them down together. It’s another layer of fun on the game and does take away a little bit of the challenge. Of course, if you don’t want to do this then you do not have to, but the option is there for those of us who might not be as good at the game but want to see what the next explorative area has to offer.

With all of this behind it, you can see how Elden Ring has spent the entirety of 2022 at the forefront of people’s minds. However, there is one thing that helped it be the most impactful game of the year and it has nothing to do with communities, gameplay mechanics, or difficulty in games. It’s that it is a fun game. At the end of the day if you make a fun video game people are going to play it and nothing will ever change that. Elden Ring is fun and if you haven’t yet you should see if you can give it a try. Just be ready to die. A lot.

Rootin’ tootin’ Lauren Boebert barely won her reelection bid, but she must be feeling secure enough these days in the GOP because she tossed a barb in the direction of (former?) congressional ally Marjorie Taylor Greene. You may have already caught wind of the pre-Christmas scuffle, in which the pair — who seemed to be pretty tight at one time, even coming together to heckle President Biden during a SOTU address — appeared to be at odds over House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

More specifically, Greene seemed really steamed about Boebert’s behavior, in which she “childishly threw me under the bus for a cheap sound bite.” What was the sound bite? While standing alongside Matt Gaetz, Boebert revealed her displeasure at Greene stumping for McCarthy as House Speaker. When prompted by Charlie Kirk on the subject, Boebert took a swing where it hurts most: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 2018 conspiracy theory about Jewish space lasers. Greene tends to grow angry and upset when the subject arises, and Boebert went there in this video clip regarding McCarthy: “I don’t believe in this just like I don’t believe in Jewish space lasers.”

Boebert prefaced her remarks with this: “I’ve been aligned with Marjorie and accused of believing a lot of the things that she believes in.” The space laser thing, though, is a blow to Greene, who responded with a dig at how Boebert nearly lost her seat during the midterm elections.

Yet perhaps Boebert wants to put some real distance between herself and far-right politicians including Greene. Whatever the case, Boebert’s going in hard with public appearances. Here she is discussing how “I’ve grown, I’ve been refined, and I’m ready to lead with strength and grace.”