GoneTrending

Chicago indie-rap super crew Pivot Gang has been through some tough times, but they’ve also shown their resilience through the annual John Walt Day concert. Dedicated to one of their fallen members, who was killed in 2017, John Walt Day is not just their way of remembering their friend but also of celebrating the scene that has grown up around them. Previous iterations have highlighted Windy City rising stars like Femdot and Jean Deaux, while also giving the group a chance to showcase their individual and collective growth as well.

In the years since John Walt’s passing, Pivot Gang released a group album, You Can’t Sit With Us, while members like Saba and MFnMelo have released critically acclaimed solo projects. Care For Me, Saba’s album processing the grief of losing John, his blood cousin, is now considered an indie-rap classic and its follow-up from earlier this year, Few Good Things, has been tabbed as one of the albums of the year.

Unfortunately, Pivot Gang also suffered another loss in 2021, when producer/DJ Squeak was shot last summer, prompting an outpouring of grief from fellow Chicagoan artists like Chance The Rapper. Before he passed, though, he and Melo completed an album, En Route, along with a deluxe version featuring the single “Mood Swing.”

John Walt Day 2022 will take place on November 26 at Metro in Chicago. Further details will be announced.

Before his death in 1991, Freddie Mercury wrapped up his Queen career with two final albums: 1989’s The Miracle and 1991’s Innuendo. Now, Queen is preparing a reissue of The Miracle, and the expanded album will include “Face It Alone,” a song featuring previously unreleased Mercury vocals that were recorded 34 years ago, during the album’s 1988 sessions.

The track is a tender and powerful rock ballad, the chorus of which features Mercury’s iconic, unmistakable voice singing, “Your life is your own / You’re in charge of yourself / Master of your home / In the end, in the end / You have to face it all alone.”

In a BBC Radio 2 interview from June (as Billboard notes), Roger Taylor said of the track, “We did find a little gem from Freddie that we’d kind of forgotten about. And it’s wonderful. Actually, it was a real discovery.” May added, “It was kind of hiding in plain sigh. We looked at it many times and thought, ‘Oh no, we can’t really rescue that.’” He also noted they managed to give the song new life with help from studio professionals and dubbed the track a “very passionate piece.”

Listen to “Face It Alone” above and learn more about the reissue of The Miracle here.

It seems like the pre-award season is in session and award shows are finally waking up and recognizing K-Pop’s significance.

This morning, the year’s American Music Awards nominations introduced a new category. And, of course, it’s Favorite K-Pop Artist.

Quite similar to MTV EMAs’ Best K-pop nominees this year, the AMAs have K-pop power players like BLACKPINK, BTS, SEVENTEEN, TXT, and TWICE go up against each other for the award.

Polls are now open to vote for your favorite K-pop artists. You can vote via Twitter or on VoteAMAs.com. The 2022 American Music Awards will broadcast live on ABC on Sunday, November 20 at 8 p.m. EST.

Yesterday, the 2022 MTV Europe Music Awards announced their list of nominees for Best K-Pop, Best Metaverse Performance, Best Fans, Best Push, and Best Asia Act — all of which consist of at least one Korean musical act. Blackpink, Blackpink’s Lisa, BTS, ITZY, SEVENTEEN and TWICE are nominated for Best K-Pop. While Best Metaverse Performance lists Blackpink and BTS, Best New and Best Push mentions Seventeen, and Best Asia Act names TXT as the sole Korean representative in the category.

Voting is also now open for the 2022 MTV EMAs until November 9 at 11:59 p.m. CET. The awards show will take place in Germany and will broadcast live on November 13.

The fallout from Kanye West’s antisemitic social media comments continues to affect him. After having his Instagram and Twitter accounts suspended for spreading conspiracy theories about Jewish people and threatening to go “Death Con 3” on them (which is still bewildering, not just because of malaprop for “Defcon,” aka defensive readiness condition, but also because how could anyone think that this would be an okay thing to type in the first place?). Now, though, he’s apparently lost a much more vital account, in the grand scheme of things: His bank account.

According to a tweet from Kanye’s apparent new confidant/press secretary Candace Owens, Kanye was sent a letter from JP Morgan advising him to transfer to another financial institution, as the bank will be closing his accounts and mailing him a check for the balance. He’s supposedly got until the end of November to clean house, and according to Owens, no reason was given for the account closure — but I think we all know why. Of course, it’s Candace Owens telling us all this, so take the news with a hefty grain of salt — she’s not exactly known for her honesty and forthrightness, y’know?

For example, she just released a — let’s very loosely call this thing a “documentary” with a heavy side of eye-roll — called The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd And The Rise Of BLM (oy, that title). Kanye attended the premiere, where he reunited with Ray J, of all people. To be a fly on that wall…

The first reactions to Black Adam are rolling in, and the critics sure seem to be smelling what The Rock is cooking. The film introduces the world to the DC Comics character who’s been a long-running foil to Shazam and has the strength to go toe-to-toe with Superman. In fact, Black Adam was originally supposed to be introduced in a film that would provide the origin stories for both hero and villain, but The Rock personally called up Warner Bros. studios and said nope, Black Adam deserves his own film. That decision looks to have paid off as the reactions are overwhelmingly positive for the antihero tale that apparently lets The Rock really cut loose.

Here’s what critics are saying after experiencing Black Adam for the first time:

“@TheRock is fantastic as Black Adam,” Steven Weintraub tweeted. “He spent 10 years getting ready for this role and he literally kills anyone and everyone in his way and I loved that he didn’t pull back on who Black Adam is. Left the theater wanting to see the sequel immediately.”

“@TheRock is terrific in #BlackAdam, which includes a hearty amount of real world touchstones (most affecting is it reinforces the need for heroes in bleak times),” Courtney Howard wrote. “Director Juame Collet-Serra lays out building blocks for a larger, grand universe. Action is lively & BIG in scale.”

“DC’s #BlackAdam ROCKS! Tons of action, characters you’re instantly invested in & terrific pacing,” Erik Davis tweeted. “Dwayne Johnson finds a great balance in being menacing & badass, but also empathetic. Especially loved Aldis Hodge’s Hawkman & Pierce Brosnan’s Doctor Fate. More JSA movies please!”

“#BlackAdam is a worthy new piece of the DC puzzle, but not the savior it promised,” Germain Lussier wrote. “A surprising compressed timeline keeps the action exciting & pace propulsive, but also turns its many (many) themes, plots, & characters into fancy window dressing. It’s messy in a watchable way.”

You can see more Black Adam reactions below:

Black Adam arrives in theaters on October 21.

So much has happened through eight episodes of House of the Dragon that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to remember how congenial Rhaenyra and Alicent were before the whole “marrying your dad” thing permanently altered their friendship. Milly Alcock and Emily Carey, who played the younger versions of the characters, have discussed the “closeness between [the] two young women” that resides somewhere between platonic love and romantic lust, but is it still there while they’re adults?

Emma D’Arcy (adult Rhaenyra) and Olivia Cooke (adult Alicent) were asked this question in a recent interview with the New York Times. “I don’t know if Alicent knows what it feels like to feel those things now,” Cooke answered. “There’s layers and layers of repression; sexuality and lust are probably a prehistoric, sedimentary layer by now. From Alicent’s point of view, I don’t think she’s that self-aware, in terms of what she’s feeling, to know what’s propelling her to reach out to Rhaenyra again.”

D’Arcy added that there’s an “erotic energy” to their early interactions, but with everything that’s happened since, “the hurt and pain is so dominant that I don’t know if there’s a space, at this point, for a conscious interaction with sexual lust, but she definitely yearns for the old physical intimacy that they shared. It’s different from what she shares with her current husband and her children. A different form of contact.”

Rhaenyra pines for a more innocent time, when she could have sex with her uncle in a brothel (how could she resist that haircut?). You can read the rest of D’Arcy and Cooke’s interview here.

(Via the New York Times)

The 65th Annual Grammy Awards are set to go down in 2023, but the eligibility window is from October 1, 2021 through September 30, 2022. So, works released during that span are eligible for award consideration. An Evening With Silk Sonic, Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak’s debut album as a duo, dropped on November 12, 2021, so it’s able to take home some awards. It actually won’t be nominated, though, as the duo has elected to not submit it for consideration.

In a statement shared with Rolling Stone, Mars said, “We truly put our all on this record, but Silk Sonic would like to gracefully, humbly and most importantly, sexually, bow out of submitting our album this year. We hope we can celebrate with everyone on a great year of music and partake in the party. Thank you for letting Silk Sonic thrive.”

He added, “We’d be crazy to ask for anything more. Andy and I, and everyone that worked on this project, won the moment the world responded to ‘Leave The Door Open.’ Everything else was just icing on the cake. We thank the Grammys for allowing us to perform on their platform — not once but twice — and awarding us at last year’s ceremony. Thank you to everyone that supported this project and championed it.”

Indeed, the album was well-represented at the Grammys earlier this year: “Leave The Door Open” was nominated for four awards — Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Best R&B Performance, and Best R&B Song — and won them all.

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

WARNING: Spoilers for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law below.

Going into the season finale of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Marvel fans were already concocting theories about what to expect: Tim Blake Nelson’s Leader, a Deadpool cameo, or heck, maybe even Wolverine‘s MCU debut to pay off all those Easter eggs. Turns out the show had much, much bigger fish to fry.

In the mother of all fourth wall breaks, She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) stopped her own finale as it devolved into a nonsensical slugfest, and instead, went after the biggest “villain” of them all: The Marvel Formula. That’s right. She-Hulk went after Kevin Feige. After smashing out of her own show, She-Hulk tracked down the writers to ask them what the heck is going with her finale. A meaningless CGI battle? There has to be more than this. The writers point her in the direction of “Kevin” who calls all of the shots.

After making it seem like She-Hulk is about to meet the real Kevin Feige, she actually encounters an AI machine named “K.E.V.I.N.” (Knowledge Enhanced Visual Interconnectivity Nexus) who’s responsible for crafting the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. What follows next is a wildly meta takedown of almost every single MCU contrivance from daddy issues, VFX problems, shoehorned cameos, and the inability to recognize that character stakes are just as important as “save the world” stakes. Oh, and She-Hulk would like Daredevil to come back for, um, obvious reasons. A wish that is granted and in broad daylight by request.

As for how Marvel fans are reacting to a finale that takes on the entire Marvel machine? They’re loving it as you can see below:

Despite the fact that the She-Hulk series has consistently broken the fourth wall for nine weeks now, Marvel fans still had to point out that the massive break in the finale has been She-Hulk’s entire bag going all the way back to the ’80s. This is what she does.

And, of course, there was Matt Murdock love for these days. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Marvel’s newest power couple.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Season 1 is available for streaming on Disney+.

Westerns appear to be all the rage these days, given the success of Yellowstone and its various spinoffs and offshoots from creator Taylor Sheridan. None of those shows, however, has Emily Blunt, who brings a special brand of whoopass to her multitude of projects. In The English, Blunt picks up a shotgun again (as she did in the A Quiet Place franchise), and this time, she’s out for vengeance.

Blunt portrays a mother (Lady Cornelia Locke) who’s seeking to punish those who she believes are responsible for the death of her child. She picks up (in the 1890s) with Chaske Spencer’s Pawnee Nation scout (Eli Whipp), and together, they tear across the sweepingly American landscape while chasing destiny and remaining completely unaware that they have much in common including an element of their mutual past. According to Amazon, the story is “a uniquely compelling parable on race, power, and love,” and here’s more from the series synopsis:

They must face increasingly terrifying obstacles that will test them to their limits, physically and psychologically. But as each obstacle is overcome, it draws them closer to their ultimate destination — the new town of Hoxem, Wyoming. It is here, after an investigation by the local sheriff Robert Marshall and young widow Martha Myers into a series of bizarre and macabre unsolved murders, that the full extent of their intertwined history will be truly understood, and they will come face-to-face with the future they must live.

Look for the cast to include Rafe Spall, Tom Hughes, Toby Jones, and Ciarán Hinds. Also expect Blunt to stay whip smart (as she tends to do) underneath all of those aristocratic dresses and hats.

The English debuts on November 11.

In recent times, Kanye West has been losing more and more public favor by the day. The most recent bout started with anti-Semitic remarks made on social media, which got him suspended from both Instagram and Twitter. More revelations emerged from there, like his episode of The Shop getting shelved and cut clips from his Fox News interview.

Speaking of conservative-leaning media: Last night (October 13), Ye showed up at the premiere of Candace Owens’ movie The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd And The Rise Of BLM alongside Ray J and Kid Rock.

TMZ notes that red carpet arrivals began at 6:30 p.m. local time at Nashville’s Woolworth Theater, but West, Ray J, and Rock showed up a couple hours after that and posed for photos. TMZ also reports that according to sources, Owens (who wore a matching “White Lives Matter” shirt with West at Paris Fashion Week) invited both Ye and Ray J to the event “in an attempt to scorn Kim Kardashian.”

As for The Greatest Lie Ever Sold, The Daily Wire says of the film, “In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, the media concocted a narrative that justified a summer of worldwide riots and helped contribute to the rise of Black Lives Matter, who used the chaos to raise 90 million dollars. In this new documentary, exclusively on DailyWire+, Candace Owens follows the money and discovers exactly how the money was spent and where it did — and didn’t go.”