Two of Brazil’s top drag pop stars have joined forces. On Friday (October 21), Pabllo Vittar and Gloria Groove teamed up for their new single “Ameianoite.”
Vittar is breaking down boundaries for drag queen singers. In April, Vittar made history as the first drag queen to perform on the Coachella mainstage. Last year, Lady Gaga enlisted Vittar to remix and feature on a new version of “Fun Tonight.” Earlier this year, Rina Sawayama featured on Vittar’s hit single “Follow Me.”
Groove is following in Vittar’s footsteps as a Brazilian pop drag superstar. On Instagram, Vittar and Groove are the most-followed drag queens. Groove moved into second place earlier this year when she surpassed RuPaul among the most-followed drag queens. Vittar and Groove previously featured on Aretuza Lovi’s 2018 song “Joga Bunda.”
Vittar and Groove have reunited for “Ameianoite.” Backed by frenetic baile funk beats, the two drag queens trade verses about transforming into bewitching baddies at midnight. Vittar and Groove come through with a spellbinding club banger that’s perfect for Halloween season.
Vittar and Groove also sang “Ameianoite” for the first time live together over the weekend. Towards the end of the performance, they shared a kiss that had the crowd going wild. A spooky lyric video for their collaboration was also released.
Bad Bunny’sWorld’s Hottest Tour is now visiting cities throughout Latin America. For his concert in the Dominican Republic on Saturday night (October 22), the Puerto Rican superstar brought out Tokischa as a surprise guest.
Bad Bunny wrapped the US leg of the World’s Hottest Tour on October 1 at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. He had a few weeks off before the restarting the tour in the Dominican Republic on October 21. As Bad Bunny travels through Latin America, it appears that he will be bringing out the top local acts from each country that he visits. During night two in the Dominican Republic, he invited Tokischa to join him.
Bad Bunny brought Tokischa to the stage and she sang “Tití Me Preguntó” with him. She performed a new verse on the track, which means that a remix could possibly be on the way soon. Tokischa also twerked alongside Bad Bunny while singing her own hits like “Perra,” “Estilazo,” and “Delincuente.” Bad Bunny later brought out Dominican singer Toño Rosario as another surprise guest.
Since breaking through last year, Tokischa has helped globalize Dominican dembow music. Spanish pop star Rosalía worked with her on the songs “Linda” and “La Combi Versace” from the Motomami album. Last month, Madonna enlisted Tokischa for a dembow-infused remix of “Hung Up.”
Bad Bunny’s World Hottest Tour visits Chile next on October 28. His blockbuster album Un Verano Sin Ti is currently at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Earlier this year, Kanye West’s rise to fame was documented in the Netflix film Jeen-Yuhs, which was shot by his longtime friends Coodie & Chike. However, because he remains a fascinating subject and demand for more of his story was high even after the insight provided by Jeen-Yuhs, another documentary about the controversial rapper was recently completed by MRC Entertainment. However, according to Billboard, MRC — known for such hits as House Of Cards, Ozark, and Ted, as well as an upcoming documentary about Milli Vanilli — has put the kibosh on the project, eating the loss rather than platforming anymore of West’s recent antisemitic bile.
In a joint statement, CEOs Modi Wiczyk and Asif Satchu and COO Scott Tenley wrote, “This morning, after discussion with our filmmakers and distribution partners, we made the decision not to proceed with any distribution for our recently completed documentary about Kanye West. Kanye is a producer and sampler of music. Last week he sampled and remixed a classic tune that has charted for over 3,000 years — the lie that Jews are evil and conspire to control the world for their own gain… Kanye has now helped mainstream it in the modern era.”
West has been increasingly vocal in sharing antisemitic views over the past few weeks, characterizing Jews as a shadowy cabal secretly controlling industry and entertainment behind-the-scenes and threatening to go “Death Con 3” (a malaprop of DEFCON 3, which refers to the US defensive readiness condition) on adherents to the faith. Highlighting how dangerous and virulent this invective can be, a hate group hung a banner referencing his comments over an LA freeway today.
In response, Kanye has been dropped by his agency, while other agents such as Ari Emmanuel and the UTA leadership have called for a boycott to keep him from spreading his dangerous rhetoric. While the best time was probably in 2018, in the middle of all his “MAGA” shenanigans, the next best time is now.
Scott Mescudi isn’t done with “the Kid Cudi stuff” just yet: Today, Cudi announced that a Man On The Moon trilogy vinyl box set and accompanying merch are available now. It’s all designed by KAWS, made obvious by the artist’s signature Companion character dressed in astronaut gear.
Cudi captured the zeitgeist with his 2009 debut studio album Man On The Moon: The End Of Day, followed by 2010’s Man On The Moon II: The Legend Of Mr. Rager. The third and final installment, Man On The Moon III: The Chosen, didn’t arrive until December 2020. Most recently, Cudi released Entergalactic, the title for his eighth studio album and animated Netflix series. The latter was co-created alongside Kenya Barris and co-stars 070 Shake, Timothée Chalamet, Ty Dolla Sign, and Jessica Williams.
Around the Entergalactic promotion cycle, Cudi revealed he’s working on a memoir and separately foreshadowed his future with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe.
“The Kid Cudi stuff, I think kind of I wanna put it on the back burner, and I think I kind of wanna be done with it,” the 38-year-old said. When Lowe asked whether he meant done for now or done forever, Cudi doubled down: “Done with it. I think, closing the chapter on Kid Cudi. I’ve just made a lot of music, man. I’ve said a lot. I have other desires. I have other things I wanna do. I do not see me never making music. […] But as far as getting in the studio and working on an album and then going and touring it? I just don’t have it in me. I don’t have the desire.”
.@KiDCuDi is closing the chapter on new music, saying ‘Entergalactic’ is the last Kid Cudi album via @zanelowe. #OGM
“I have other desires… I wanna write TV shows. I wanna write movies. But I really wanna spend more time with my daughter.” pic.twitter.com/bLjwrfREid
The Man On The Moon trilogy box set will run you $199.98. Crewnecks are similarly pricey at $150, while graphic tees only cost $50. At this point, Cudi fans probably view any tangible Kid Cudi relics as priceless. See the full collection here.
As the first season of House of the Dragon comes to a close, the stars of the series have been reflecting on the spinoff that has effectively become its own hit show, regardless of the source material. While the show will return for a second season sometime in the next few years, one member of the cast is pretty relieved to get a little time off.
Olivia Cooke portrayed Alicent Hightower, the conniving former childhood best friend of Rhaenyra. While preparing for the role, Cooke says she never could have guessed just how massive (and intense) the fan feedback would be. In a new interview with Deadline, Cooke explained that she is ready for some much-needed time off after the first season frenzy:
“I don’t think anything could have prepared anyone for this. It’s mad. I think I’ve had a bit of willful ignorance about how it would change my life. I think maybe in like three months time, it’ll probably die down. But when I’m on the tube, I definitely feel people’s eyes and … there’s the odd comments. then you do kind of start to feel monitored and I’m like, ‘Oh God, what am I wearing today?’ They take pictures and suddenly, you’re in a cloud of paranoia. I’ll just be happy for it to be over. It has been strange.”
Even though she was not ready for the amount of commentary, Cooke says that she will be more prepared for next time after the break between seasons. The second season is expected to begin filming next summer, and things will hopefully slow down by then. “I think maybe next time it comes out I’ll be a bit more prepared for it. But it’s a prolonged period of anxiety, this 10 weeks of an episode coming out and another episode coming out.”
As for Alicent, Cooke says that she was never really the villain of the show, despite what everyone on the internet seems to think. “I never played her as a villain. I know she makes morally questionable decisions and her reactions can be quite uncouth, to say the least. But I have to believe in what she does in order to play her with absolute honesty and truth,” Cooke added.
Cooke continued, “I think sometimes the internet discourse can be a bit too black and white. I read a tweet that I think summed it up really well: It’s not who’s good and evil, it’s who’s your favorite war criminal.” While that does sum it up really well, it’s probably for the best for Cooke and the rest of the cast to lay off Twitter during the new season. It has a tough track record.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
Taylor Swift’s tenth studio album is a new book from your favorite author. Midnights arrived as new books often do — with a front cover interesting enough to catch a reader’s eye and a description of its contents compelling enough for them to commit to spending time with it. With no singles and a multitude of front and back covers, the latter of which assemble to form a clock, Swift captured her audience’s attention with an underlying wonder: “What keeps you up at night?”
Swift posed the question in a statement shared after the album’s release. “It’s a momentary glimmer of distraction,” she wrote. “The tiniest notion of reminiscent thought that wanders off into wondering, the spark that lights a tinderbox of fixation. And now it is irreversible. The flame has caught. You’re wide awake.” Introspection, by nature, is deeply personal and consequently requires an expansive familiarity with the subject matter and what came before it. You have to spend time thinking deeply about the past to know which parts of it you’re still stuck on. Midnights encourages this in more ways than one. Using musical reference points as a device for reflection, the album builds an eerie, dreamlike sense on first listen that you’ve heard it before. And in a way, you have.
Swift as an artist, particularly in recent years, has increasingly orchestrated how her music is consumed, to ensure that it’s in the way that she wants it to be heard with the references she wants connections drawn to. With Evermore, her ninth album, clear instructions ordered its pairing with Folklore, its sister album released just under five months prior. On Midnights, the directive is slightly more convoluted. Across the 13-track album — which the singer expanded with seven additional songs shared three hours after its release as Midnights (3am Edition) — Swift draws sonic and lyrical allusions to her entire post-Red discography, which contains seven releases including the Taylor’s Version rerecordings of Fearless and Red.
The common thread binding most of the projects together, beyond Swift’s familiar narrative voice, is her collaborative partnership with Jack Antonoff, who built most of the synth-pop worlds on both 1989 and Lover in addition to riding through the odd detour of Reputation and assisting in a masterful revival on Folklore and Evermore. On Midnights, the self-referential call-backs are poignant. “Question…?” interpolates 1989 single “Out Of The Woods” while “Snow On The Beach,” which (barely) features Lana Del Rey, is uncannily similar to Folklore’s “Illicit Affairs.” Meanwhile, “Maroon” picks up melodic influences from Reputation’s “King Of My Heart” and “Lavender Haze,” which opens the album, blends seamlessly into Lover’s “I Think He Knows.” Antonoff, who co-wrote and co-produced the entirety of Midnights barring three of the bonus tracks, is credited on all but one of the aforementioned references.
Swift’s album drops have a tendency to feel like the world’s most public-facing private event — inescapable, but not necessarily easily accessible, like pop music’s own personal MET Gala. Midnights, especially, mirrors the nature of this. Small pieces of information about the album were shared on a rolling basis in the lead up to its arrival in place of unveiling any grand details in any one moment, each crumb becoming its own universe to be prodded and dissected for clues towards the singer’s next musical scheme. For those who managed to keep up, pressing play on the album opened up the universes within her universes — as though cracking the spine on a novel written by an author whose past releases sit on the shelf, tattered and worn down from excessive reading and rereading.
When looking at its connection to Swift’s other capital “P” pop records, Midnights feels like the cleanup after the party — more subdued and aware, like walking out into the night and being shocked back into your body by the cool air, but not completely shaken of its love drunk haze (“Sweet Nothing” and “Maroon”). Then comes the sudden remembrances that question the what-ifs of the past (“Question…?” and “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve”) and the comebacks cooked up long after the argument had come to an end, repackaged as not-so-final sendoffs to her enemies (“Karma” and “Vigilante Shit”). When she looks inward, watching a sizzle reel of the small interactions that added up to self-defining moments, it’s through a critical lens that reveals hard truths (“Anti-Hero” and “You’re On Your Own, Kid”).
There are instances throughout almost the entirety of Midnights in which the songs are authored in a way that makes it difficult to decipher whether they’re autobiographical, or part of Swift’s elaborate fictional world-building. There’s no “based on a true story” page ahead of the preface. The epilogue of additional tracks — which the singer likened to the “From The Vault” songs that appear on her rerecordings — only creates more mystery. Has she really not moved on from these experiences, or is she imagining what it would have been like and who she would have become if she hadn’t? Which were her own to begin with, and which were observed from afar?
There are old and new characters with familiar traits, the most prominent being the hopeless romantic and the young girl turned grown woman still figuring out how to be okay with making mistakes. There are parties and cities that we’ve visited in her musical world before and a canvas blank enough for someone else to fill in the missing details. And it seems as though she prefers it this way, leaving room for wonder and speculation knowing she has no intention of providing straightforward answers. More often than not, at this point in her career, the consumption model of Swift’s music leaves the listener to instead question: “How can I make this about me?”
They look inward, too. Wasn’t that the goal in asking what keeps them up at night? To get them to dig through the crevices of their own past while listening to a version of her own? The creator-consumer relationship, in this instance, relies on both parties maintaining a sense of trust between one another in order to move towards an honest answer. It’s the only way that Swift can write everyone else’s story in tandem with her own, but it requires a bit of studying. These records are not sequels, but they aren’t standalone novels, either.
When Midnights references back to Swift’s past albums, it surfaces the memories of hearing those songs for the first time and establishes a point of comparison to the feeling of hearing them in these newly repackaged forms. Similar, but different. Older, though not necessarily wiser. It’s the same way that five different songs from five different Swift records can be used in fandom edits of the same film and television scenes album cycle after album cycle. The soundtrack is different, but the story remains the same.
Midnights isn’t necessarily a redefining release within Swift’s own discography, or even within the current arena of pop that is crowded with Antonoff’s other collaborators (Del Rey, Lorde, and most recently The 1975) as much as it is with the rising generation of Swifties-turned-singer/songwriters pulling pages from her past books. But it is a more explicitly functional record that is profound for those who need it to be. It’s a poetic choose your own adventure novel colliding with a guide to self-help written with a slick pen and distributed to the masses — though not without an important caveat. “Never take advice from someone who’s falling apart,” Swift insists on “Dear Reader,” the closing track on Midnights (3am Edition), adding: “You should find another guiding light, guiding light / But I shine so bright.”
French Montana was recently awarded for his humanitarian efforts in Uganda after raising nearly $200 million for the African country.
Last week, while attending the annual Pencils Of Promise Gala at the Museum Of The Moving Image in New York City, the “Unforgettable” rapper received the 2022 Innovator Award.
The special affair honored French for his philanthropic efforts in Uganda, which aided healthcare throughout the region, and offered support to Budondo Suubi “Hope” Health Center, the country’s number-one place for new and expectant mothers.
The rapper celebrated the historic moment on Instagram, sharing photos of him holding the award while attending the gala.
“MAKING MORE HISTORY FOR MY PEOPLE!” he wrote. “Thank you @pencilsofpromise for honoring me with the Innovator Award at last night’s gala. Healthcare and education is a fundamental part of our human rights and should be accessible across the globe.”
The rapper also offered some acknowledgment to the non-profit organization, Pencils For Promise for bestowing him with the honor.
“I’m grateful for PoP acknowledging my work in maternal healthcare in Africa,” he continued. “PoP is doing groundbreaking work globally to keep kids in school and make sure they have a safe environment to learn.”
This article was originally published on April 16, 2018.
You know that feeling you get when you walk into a classroom and see someone else’s stuff on your desk?
OK, sure, there are no assigned seats, but you’ve been sitting at the same desk since the first day and everyone knows it.
So why does the guy who sits next to you put his phone, his book, his charger, his lunch, and his laptop in the space that’s rightfully yours? It’s annoying.
All you want to do was walk in, sit down, get out your notebook and (try to) pay attention. But now? Now you’ve got to talk to a stranger about moving their stuff and there goes your day, already bogged down with petty annoyances.
Sound familiar? It should.
We’ve all got so much to do these days that interacting with people we see every day — not our friends, but our classmates, fellow commuters, co-workers, the people in line for coffee with us every day — can feel like a burden.
So, when these people do something we perceive as annoying, like putting their stuff on our desks, we don’t have the time or the energy to assume their intentions or think about the lives they’re leading.
But if we stepped out of ourselves for a second, we might just realize that we’re all much more connected than we think, that our preconceived notions of others are usually just that — preconceived. And, often, inaccurate.
That’s why this Twitter story about a guy who learned an important life lesson from a classmate he was frustrated with is going viral.
It’s the perfect example of that “don’t judge a book by its cover” adage we should have all learned in preschool but sometimes forget. And it starts the exact same way as this post — with a college student groaning on the inside as he sees someone’s stuff on his desk.
Hey guys, I know I usually just post shitty jokes on my Twitter but bear with me because I wanted to share somethin… https://t.co/akgh4o7wNy
If not for this one day running late, McFall may have never realized what his classmate was trying to do. And he may have continued to think of him as annoying, maybe telling others about “the weird guy who was always trying to take up my space”… when all the guy was really trying to do was be kind.
We all misinterpret the actions of others sometimes. It’s easy to do that!
But if there’s one thing this story reminds us, it’s that it’s important to stop and remember that while you’re living your life, other people are living theirs, so assuming best intentions can do us a great favor.
That’s why we should step outside of our bubbles and engage with the world on a regular basis.
You could make a new friend. You might brighten someone’s day.
But most importantly, getting out of your own head, checking your own biases, and giving others the benefit of the doubt will make you a more compassionate person.
You don’t have to engage with everyone you meet, but the next time someone smiles and offers you a high-five?
These days it truly feels like everyone who loves spouting awful takes online has felt the urge to never log off so much they’re actually buying their own social media networks so they can never stop posting. Elon Musk nearly has Twitter, Kanye West wants to buy an alt-right platform called Parler and, of course, Donald Trump has his own shout box called TRUTH Social.
Trump’s network hasn’t exactly had a great go of things financially, though that’s rarely mattered when it comes to his business ventures and the overall perception of his wealth. But those who are propping him up with cash to build a platform no one actually needs are taking a bath on the investment. And that includes another Republican poster who can’t keep herself on Twitter these days: Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
TRUTH Social’s backstory is a bit complicated, but Trump essentially wants to make it a publicly traded company through a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that would have merged Digital World Acquisition Corp with Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns TRUTH. That deal has apparently gone a bit wonky, though, and had some investors back out after things have dragged on far longer than anticipated. But one investor stuck holding the bag is Greene, who (according to Business Insider) has seen the value of her investment crater in recent weeks:
On October 22, 2021, the congresswoman from Georgia invested between $15,001 and $50,000 in Digital World Acquisition Corp., a “blank check” special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.
One year after Greene made her investment, the stock’s value plummeted by more than 82 percent, according to Markets Insider, meaning the congresswoman lost between $12,330 and $41,100 from this one investment.
To be clear: Greene didn’t invest in TRUTH directly, just in the company that was going to acquire TRUTH and make it public. And that investment would, in theory, have paid off big because that company’s value would rise when it acquired the tech and platform that Trump’s privately-held company was building. But none of that has happened yet, and so the stock price has continued to crater.
As BI notes, Greene wasn’t the only elected official to take a bath thanks to Trump: Larry Bucshon, a Republican representative from Indiana, invested between $1,001 and $15,000 according to paperwork legally required to disclose stock purchases. That investment came just three days after Greene bought in, meaning is losses are around 80 percent as well.
It’s a real shame things haven’t gone well for these three in the open market of companies trying to find posting “freedom” online. Perhaps they should keep investing more money, surely things are going to turn around real soon.
For the past few weeks, Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit” has enjoyed a run at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Since its second week on top, though, Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ hit “Unholy” has been on its tail, as it’s been No. 2 for the past two weeks. Now, though, Smith and Petras have ended Lacy’s three-week run: On the new Hot 100 dated October 29, “Unholy” has officially taken over the No. 1 spot for the first time.
This is a major moment in LGBTQ+ music history: Smith is now the first publicly non-binary solo artist with a No. 1 song, while Petras is the first publicly transgender solo artist to top the Hot 100.
.@samsmith and @kimpetras are the first publicly non-binary and transgender artists, respectively, to earn a No. 1 song on the #Hot100, thanks to “Unholy.”
Smith has come close to hitting the top spot before — “Stay With Me” peaked at No. 2 while “Too Good At Goodbyes” reached No. 4 — but this is their first time actually doing it. Meanwhile, “Unholy” is Petras’ first song to appear on the Hot 100.
It’s a massive week for Lil Baby, too, who has three songs in this week’s top 10: “California Breeze” (No. 4), “Forever” featuring Fridayy (No. 8), and “Real Spill” (No. 10).
Elsewhere, “Bad Habit” dips down to No. 2, Harry Styles’ former No. 1 “As It Was” is currently at No. 3, and Post Malone and Doja Cat’s “I Like You (A Happier Song)” rounds out the top 5.
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