These are weird times, so weird that an ex-footballer prone to surreal gaffes and disturbing allegations may wind up in the Senate. The latest polls have Herschel Walker neck-and-neck with his opponent, incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock. Warnock is a pastor; Walker is a former pro football player who has been accused by multiple women of pressuring them to get abortions (in addition to a host of other things). Incredibly, the latter is running on the Republican ticket. But that’s only inspired another pastor to sound the alarm.
Polls are showing in Georgia Herschel Walker has a slight lead over Raphael Warnock. The reaction from some in the Black community in Georgia and across the country is notable. @jamalhbryant is just one of the notable reactions. pic.twitter.com/DoETokbxlH
This past Sunday, Jamal Bryant, pastor at the Atlanta-area Newbirth Missionary Baptist, used part of his sermon to go off on Walker, who he accused of being manipulated by the GOP, effectively accusing him of being used him as a puppet.
“Ladies and gentlemen, when the Republican Party of Georgia moved Herschel Walker from Texas to Georgia so that he could run for Senate, it’s because change was taken too fast in the post-Antebellum South,” Bryant charged. He was just getting started:
“They thought we was so slow, that we was so stupid, that we would elect the lowest caricature of a stereotypical, broken Black man…. Since Herschel Walker was 16 years old, white men been telling him what to do, telling him what school to go to, where to live… where to pay for abortions, where to buy a gun, and you think they not gon’ tell him how to vote? In 2022, we don’t need a Walker, we need a runner. We need somebody to run and tell the truth about Jan. 6…. Georgia, I need you to know, the slave Negro y’all are used to don’t live here no more. We can think for ourselves, function for ourselves, and vote for ourselves!”
Video of Bryant’s fiery sermon went viral.
Walker has run one of the most chaotic congressional campaigns of the year, arguably wilder than the ones between Dr. Oz and John Fetterman, J.D. Vance and Tim Ryan, and Kari Lake and her inability to do a Zoom interview that’s not in “Portrait” mode. Walker brandishing a souvenir police badge mid-debate isn’t even in the Top 10 weirdest things during his run. The midterm elections are still a week-and-change away, which means not only more potential bombshells about Walker but also several more avalanches of frantic fundraising emails clogging your inbox.
The video for Quavo and Takeoff’s Only Built For Infinity Links standout “Messy” turns out to be just that. In the midst of an otherwise unrelated concept about a Halloween haunted house, Quavo decides to stoke the furor surrounding the single by apparently referencing his elevator fight with Saweetie. While most of the video features the camera panning through a house decorated for spooky season and rests on various characters having arguments, part of Quavo’s verse is shot in the mode of an elevator security camera — which you may remember was how we learned about that fight in the first place.
And just in case, it’s not completely clear, Quavo pulls out his bright orange, Call Of Duty-themed game console case, which seemed to be the catalyst for Quavo and Saweetie’s domestic dispute last March. While neither faced charges after an LAPD investigation of the incident, it did constitute a black mark on both of public images. It looks like Quavo’s belatedly confronting the controversy head-on — but what he’s trying to say remains frustratingly unclear.
“Messy” has been at the center of a maelstrom of speculation, as fans almost immediately linked part of Quavo’s verse to Saweetie and wondered whether he might be also referencing former fellow Migo Offset or labelmate Lil Baby. It seems, though, that we still have no concrete information, just more vague (questionably tasteful) posturing from Quavo.
Watch the “Messy” video above.
Saweetie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Memphis’ Beale Street, Tennessee whiskey, and Bristol, England, aren’t often discussed in the same breath. But that’s what happened when I sat down with British Soul artist Yola to sip on a Tennessee whiskey sour and talk about the blues, Elvis, and women blazing their own paths in whiskey and music.
When I got the call to talk to Yola, I was pretty excited. I’ve been a fan for a couple of years thanks to her great Tiny Desk concert. I also have a British wife and children and travel there for work often, so I try and keep up with the culture in the U.K.
Anyway, the opportunity didn’t come across my inbox because of the music. Yola has teamed up with someone I’m a pretty big fan of in the whiskey sphere, Nicole Austin. Around the time we met, Yola was performing at this year’s Bourbon & Beyond Festival and hanging out with Austin, the General Manager and Distiller of Cascade Hollow Distilling Co. a.k.a. George Dickel. After watching the artist kill it — if only for a few moments — in Elvis playing Sister Rosetta Tharpe and on stage at B&B, I had a million questions for her about Memphis, Bristol, and Tennessee whiskey.
Our chat touched on representation and erasure, finding your place in the world, and working with people who don’t follow a standard path in music or whiskey. Let’s dive in!
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months
Before we get to the whiskey, can you talk a little bit about how the music of Bristol connected you to becoming a musical artist?
Well, I think I was growing up with a lot of record collectors. And there’s like “a music” in Bristol. It’s known for trip-hop. Its roots in music are extremely varied though. Everyone had extremely wildly eclectic tastes in music. If anything, the mark of you being Bristonian was that you were super passionate about six or seven completely polar genres. When I was growing up in the 90s the radio didn’t care about genre. It was like you might have Ginuwine next to Bjork. There’s no way that they’re going to undo this seesaw of what’s popular. That was the environment that I grew up in. You just got this really detailed smorgasbord of what’s happening in the world of music.
Let’s talk a little about your portrayal of Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Elvis. Where did you find the connective tissue between Bristol and Memphis?
Because of this whole environment of music, I was exposed to her in my mid-teens. I was drawn to her because I was listening to a song called That’s All. It came out in 1938, and she referenced the phrase “rock and roll.” And I was like, “wait a minute, everyone says rock and roll was invented in the ’50s?: But she coined the term and she invented it. I’m like, “wait a minute!”
So she grows up in the church and then combines this church tempo with blues playing. Because you all know that blues playing is all slow and mournful, but no, she rocks it. We’ve got the beat, we’ve got the style of guitar playing. What’s left? Then we’ve got her wailing and then we’ve got heavy distortion. There were other people using distortion, not as heavy as she was. And I’m like, that’s it, there isn’t anything left in the invention of the genre. That’s literally it.
And then she coins the term a decade and a bit before anyone else even knows to refer to it in any way. And so when I was getting on point, the fact that she was not just an inventor and an innovator, but a genius to just come up with it all. I was like, how can I not be drawn to this woman? How can I not play this woman? And how can I not do justice to this grossly untold narrative? We hear narratives from all sorts of other people every single time, but because she was … that dark skin and plus-size as a woman … That’s how her narrative regarding her genius is constantly subverted and ignored.
Warner Bros.
There should be 20 biopics. There should be five documentaries. There should be all the box sets with remasters. I feel you.
You understand the concept of erasure. And you’re like, ‘yeah, erasure happens.’ And so it was massively important to me to do this role right and to make sure — that even though I grew up with her — to make sure that I had as much information as possible. You know the shouts, there’s a shout book, just endless online references. Luckily Baz [Luhrmann] is obsessed with research.
Sometimes he’ll do the research just because he’s so excited about the research and he doesn’t even then make the movie.
He’s a guy who loves homework.
He really, really does. And so I get exposed to that as well which is a blessing.
Did you feel a deeper connection between Bristol and Beale Street when you went there?
Well, weirdly enough, yes. But the funny thing is not necessarily. It feels like Beale Street has this history that is still something that feels like a slightly ambiguous story and overshadowed maybe just by the narrative of Elvis — even though we know we have movies about Beale Street to a degree.
And similarly, Bristol’s narrative has been reductive as well as though trip-hop happened 20-something years ago, and then it fell off the face of the map and nothing ever happened again. I think sometimes when there are narratives that are really actually profoundly interesting, rich, and varied but people don’t always want the interesting and varied story. They want the easy and dumb tales. And so they’ll look for just the nearest white guy and go, “You Buddy!” And that’s pretty much it. Or they’ll look for at least the biggest success story. And then they’ll just focus on that and then try and replicate that over and over and over again and only celebrate and speak on people that extol the virtues of exactly that paradigm.
And so people won’t hear stories like about Sister Rosetta Tharpe discovering Little Richard when he was 14 in Macon, Georgia, you know? At soundcheck, he’s just singing. She’s like, who’s this kid? And he’s a young black kid struggling with his sexuality. It’s the 1950s and you’re a gay black person and you need a place to be safe, to become the full Little Richard that we all know and love. Who provides that environment? A queer black woman or some buttoned-up suit?
So Sister Rosetta Tharpe has all of these performances on Beale Street at Club Handy and that’s where she showcased these people, her people. It all relates back to Memphis and just the narrative, the rich history there. That’s kind of what I’m passionate about.
Steve Trasher
Let’s talk about whiskey for a moment since you’ve partnered with a female-led brand, George Dickel. Nicole Austin is someone who is actually changing the industry massively. She’s releasing whiskeys that push the boundaries of what the product can be. She’s brash and bold at every turn in a very white and “buttoned-up shirt” world. Did you feel a connection to Dickel and Nicole because of that brashness?
Almost exactly. But philosophically, I’m like, I’ve been always trying to drive my own path and I’m always trying to find the connective tissue between genres. I’m experimental and, similarly, Nicole Austin is experimental at George Dickel, trying to find connective tissue between types of whiskeys.
It’s trying to find synergy between a lot of different palates. I’m not all the way down with the dusty and smoky end of Islay whisky. I like very much existing in the middle of a number of genres, like the blues and soul and whatever else is exciting me. I like things being eminently mixable. I love that philosophy. I love that whole, “oh, you can’t do it” as a driving force too and the whole “Oh, I’ll show you!” mentality of Nicole. I love that woman is listening to her gut and doing her thing and then being here being such a fabulous partner and putting on this awesome show.
That’s the kind of stuff I like to stand for. It’s pretty much my album Stand Up for Myself.
Going a little bit deeper, flavor, even in whiskey, leads you to nostalgia at the end of the day.
It does.
What sort of flavor profiles do you find that transport you when you’re sampling a whiskey? Or what do you search for?
Do you know what? I fricking love a sour. I love whiskey sours. I absolutely love them. I love bourbon whiskey sours. Especially when something’s got a different kind of … that kind of almondy little angle that you can put on a sour. Plus, I love any cocktail with egg whites. I love it. And so that’s a big one for me.
A lot of my friends in Bristol were cocktail bartenders. And so my exposure to the kind of broad pantheon of food and drink is maybe a little more than most.
Like most people, Tara Reid got excited about her Halloween costume and couldn’t wait to show it off on social media. The Sharknado actress also hoped this year’s outfit might lead to more opportunities in the vast comic book movie arena, so it’s important she get this right. Manifesting dreams is important and powerful stuff.
“Queen of hearts I feel like a superhero in this outfit,” Reid tweeted on Sunday night. “I’m looking forward to playing new roles in future films channeling this energy.”
There’s just one small problem. Outside of a tiny necklace, the cards on Reid’s costume were not hearts. Literally every single one is the suit of diamonds, and well, Twitter definitely noticed.
After getting roasted for the faux-pas, Reid fired back at the haters on Monday. “This is for the shape police of Twitter,” she tweeted along with a screencap of her Instagram post showing the same exact costume. Only this time, there was a large diamond heart on her shoulder. The American Pie actress was not going down without a fight.
As for whether sticking a heart onto a costume made entirely of diamond cards stopped Twitter from dunking on Reid, well… have you been on that site before? It’s not a place known for subtlety and chill vibes. Folks kept right on going with the diamond gags, including this… gem.
Last week was a roller coaster for rap fans as within days of learning that Drake and 21 Savage had teamed up to produce a joint album continuing their “Jimmy Cooks” chemistry, the duo delivered a blow by delaying its release due to Drake’s longtime engineer Noah “40” Shebib getting COVID. Upon learning the new date, though, one of their musical peers decided it’d be best to take the day off, delaying his own album.
A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie might be a huge star in his own right, but he might also have a point. Drake is still the biggest name in hip-hop and the potential of reviving his oft-dormant battle rap persona for a full project — even if only half of it — will be a huge draw for rap-loving audiences. Meanwhile, A Boogie’s album, Me Vs. Myself, could easily go to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 considering the performance of his prior efforts but having to compete with both Drake and 21 Savage to get there seems to be something he has no interest in.
In a post on his Instagram Story, the Bronx native wrote, “Sorry but album dropping in December now, Drake was dropping the same day and I’m not with that.”
There have been quite a few Really Good New Shows this year and even though most of them have either dragons or medieval blondes or both dragons AND blondes, only one of them has Adam Scott, and that’s Severance (or that one miniseries with Maya Rudolph but that one doesn’t really count).
Apple TV+’s thriller premiered in February and quickly became a hit, racking up an impressive 14 Emmy nominations, and even though they didn’t win, they will surely have another shot when season two premieres (eventually). The second season just began filming, and AppleTV shared a first-look image featuring Adam Scott looking appropriately stressed out.
The series follows Mark, an employee at Lumon Industries, who becomes a part of the “severance” program after the death of his wife. This allows him to separate his “work” memories from his “life” memories, but slowly he realizes that things at a sketchy company that steals memories and exploits employees are not how they seem!
There are a lot of questions that we need to have answered in season two, though it will be some time before it graces our screens. It seems like that will be the case for a lot of good shows right now. But that doesn’t stop the internet from celebrating via Waffle Party gifs. Season two will feature the addition of Alia Shawkat, Gwendoline Christie, Merritt Wever, and Bob Balaban, so there is a lot to celebrate, after all!
Daryl Morey spent the offseason getting the band back together from his days in Houston, signing PJ Tucker and Danuel House to add depth to the Sixers in free agency — thanks in large part to James Harden taking a pay cut to open up some space.
The only problem was, the timing of the signings felt a bit too convenient, leading to a tampering investigation by the league into the Sixers offseason. On Monday, we learned the results of that investigation, with the NBA taking away the Sixers second round picks in the 2023 and 2024 drafts for having conversations with Tucker and House prior to the moratorium period opening on June 30 at 6 p.m. ET.
The Sixers released a statement accepting the decision and saying they will be moving forward as an organization, and if you were to tell Morey prior to the summer that he could make those moves for the cost of two second round picks, he’d almost assuredly say yes. As always, the NBA doesn’t really have a great way to deter teams from tampering without giving out huge punishments. The loss of second round picks isn’t nothing, as those are ways to fill out the roster for a capped out team like Philly and/or serving as assets to send out in trades, but this won’t deter the next team from having early conversations, they just might want to be a touch more discreet.
Everybody’s getting into the spooky holiday spirit this year, and many stars are pulling out all the stops. That number now includes Cardi B, who gave the popular TV character Marge Simpson a sexy twist with her high-fashion costume. In a pair of Instagram posts, Cardi sports the signature Lego-yellow skin tone and ceiling-scraping blue ‘do, but instead of Marge’s traditional green shift dress and flats, she throws some va-va-voom on Mrs. Simpson’s familiar look with a green corset and sky-high pumps. Then, in a second shot, she reproduces a classic Mugler look, baring the top half of her booty in a black-and-white gown.
“It doesn’t matter if you’ve won 40 games or four. In the Tournament of Champions, everybody’s stats reset to zero,” announcer Johnny Gilbert says in the hype video above. “Here, everyone’s a champion and anyone can win the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions.” Here’s the schedule for the first round of the two-week event:
Monday: Ryan Long (16 games won), Megan Wachspress (6), Maureen O’Neil (4)
Tuesday: Jonathan Fisher (11), Andrew He (5), Christine Whelchel (4)
Wednesday: Brian Chang (7), Tyler Rhode (5), Margaret Shelton (4)
Thursday: Courtney Shah (7), Rowan Ward (Second Chance winner), John Focht (4)
Friday: Eric Ahasic (6), Jaskaran Singh (National College Championship) winner, Jackie Kelly (4)
November 7: Zach Newkirk (6), Jessica Stephens (Second Chance winner), Sam Buttrey (Professors Tournament winner)
The winners will have the, uh, privilege of facting Jeopardy! legends Amy Schneider (40); Matt Amodio (38 games), and Mattea Roach (23) in the semi-finals beginning November 9. There’s no official game on November 8, Election Day; instead, Schneider, Amodio, and Roach will face each other in a “friendly warmup game” that Jeopardy! producer Michael Davies teased will “break the internet.”
Unless it gets pre-empted by [world’s longest groan] politics.
John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz should face each other on Jeopardy! to decide the winner. If every category is about Pennsylvania, Fetterman will win in a landslide.
The Chicago Bears slipped to 3-5 on Sunday with a blowout loss to the Cowboys in Dallas, falling 3.5 games behind the Vikings in the NFC North.
It has been a reminder that the Bears are still building, and as building teams do, they are starting to shift focus to the future with their moves ahead of the NFL trade deadline. Last week they sent veteran defensive end Robert Quinn to the Eagles for a fourth-round pick, and on Monday they made an even bigger trade sending out another defensive star in linebacker Roquan Smith, dealing the All-Pro to the Ravens for a second and fifth-round pick.
Smith has become one of the NFL’s best middle linebackers in his young career, but he and the Bears could not reach a contract extension prior to the season, leading to the star to issue a trade request in August. Smith has played through that request, piling up 83 tackles (the most in the NFL), including 2.5 sacks, along with two interceptions, continuing to be a force in the middle of the Bears defense. He joins a Ravens team that has not been strong against the run this season and should immediately bring a sideline-to-sideline presence as Baltimore looks to secure their spot as an AFC playoff team at 5-3, currently sitting in first in the AFC North. One would also expect the Ravens to try and work out a deal to keep him long-term, considering the draft capital they’re giving up to get him.
The Bears get some solid draft capital in return, but one has to wonder if it’s worth giving up an All-Pro linebacker still entering his prime. Although that decision was made this offseason, and now they’re just reaping as much in return as they can get.
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