Megan Thee Stallion has been at odds with her label 1501 Certified Entertainment, led by former MLB outfielder Carl Crawford, since early 2020. The two have been engaged in an ongoing back-and-forth over contract issues, with the Traumazine artist claiming her music was being withheld from release and that she wasn’t being paid. Crawford, meanwhile, alleged that she was given a generous contract and he has been funding her shows. The situation heated up even more back in March 2022, when the legal discourse became personal and claims of alcoholism and drug use came into play.
In a March 21 Instagram post, Carl Crawford accused the Houston artist of lying and hiding behind her management, Roc Nation. The “Plan B” artist responded, writing, “Carl I don’t wanna be signed to yo pill popping ass! You talking abt I ain’t paid for a show and you sound slow. Im the artist I don’t pay you directly maybe fight with THE MAN YOU SIGNED TO AND YOU MIGHT SEE SOME MONEY YOU F*CKING POWDER HEAD! You hiding behind JPRINCE”
As the situation continued, Crawford followed up with a denial of Megan’s claims before escalating the situation even further. “This all Coming from a Bonafide Alcoholic who f*cked the whole industry including her best friend n****.” With Traumazine out now and the contract issues rearing their head once again, Megan Thee Stallion has been very vocal on Twitter. J Prince has also thrown his opinion into the mix with a lengthy Instagram post about Megan breaching her contract.
In short, it’s all very messy and it’s unclear who is in the right.
Check out the March back and forth above.
Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Cafuné have been on a roll lately. The NYC-based duo of singer/songwriter Sedona Schat and writer/producer Noah Yoo have been making music together since their NYU days in the mid-2010s. But it wasn’t until they released their 2021 debut album Running that Cafuné found major success. Their moody and swooning track “Tek It” went viral on TikTok and has been used in over 200,000 videos and counting on the app. But that’s not Cafuné’s only recent win. They secured a record deal with acclaimed label Elektra and shortly thereafter kicked off a tour opening for CHVRCHES, growing their already sizeable following day-by-day.
While Running‘s “Tek It” is their most popular song by far, the album as a whole is overflowing with dreamy, mesmerizing bedroom pop. Songs like the vibey “High” and house-leaning “Empty Tracks” exude alt-pop dynamism that displays the duo’s tight-knit friendship and music-producing chops. To celebrate their success and take a break from their busy tour schedule, Schat sat down with Uproxx to talk legacy, Korean BBQ, and expertly pouring wine in our latest Q&A.
What are four words you would use to describe your music?
Tender, sincere, blue, imperfect.
It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?
Noah may have a different take on this, but I personally am not somebody who focuses much on legacy or how things will be remembered, because I don’t feel like I really have much understanding of how people perceive our music, even in the present. The fact that people are genuinely connecting to the earnestness and emotional nature of the songs is what touches me and I hope that continues into the future.
What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?
So many cities we have yet to play! Our two most recent hometown shows were really wonderful, but we had some amazing shows in the South as well! We can’t wait to go to Brazil and South Korea.
Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?
Maybe jointly it’s somebody like Thom Yorke. I’m really inspired by him vocally and we both just really respect the songwriting and musical exploration that he’s done, as well as the longevity of his creative career. I think Ryuichi Sakamoto is a huge influence on Noah in particular as well.
Where did you eat the best meal of your life?
I’m sort of obsessed with food but we had a Korean BBQ feast with the band the night we got back from tour that was absolutely glorious.
What album do you know every word to?
Currents by Tame Impala, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix, or the Killers’ first album Hot Fuss.
What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?
I saw Paul McCartney at Outside Lands a couple years ago and was blown away that he still had so much energy. That or the Skepta show at Palisades in 2015 (RIP to that venue) or the King Krule gig at China Chalet (RIP to that place too).
What is the best outfit for performing and why?
Something that is comfortable and moveable but also makes me feel cute and sexy. I just got these matching shirt and pants from Hyein Seo that are perfect for that.
Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?
What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?
We went through a LOT of different music in the van, but when we were getting ready to play we had “More Than a Woman” by the Bee Gee’s and “Right Here Right Now” by Fatboy Slim in the rotation.
What’s the last thing you Googled?
Calendula Flowers.
What album makes for the perfect gift?
What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye — I feel like you’re not gonna find anyone that wouldn’t be happy to receive that album.
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?
We just went on our first tour and are honestly quite lucky to have been able to stay in pretty decent/nice hotels. However, we did stay in this hotel for a radio show in Annapolis where the dude at the front desk pretty explicitly was like, “Yeah this place is haunted, anyways have a nice night!” That was fun.
What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?
My favorite tattoo is a pomegranate on my right leg. I’ve always just loved pomegranates — their connection to the Persephone story, the fact that they’re in season in the winter, associated with death. The process of eating and taking them apart is downright gory. They’re almost alien in their construction in this way that makes me feel connected to divine design. I’m just… really into them!
What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?
Red Hot Chili Peppers.
What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?
Noah did the Heimlich maneuver on me once when I was choking and saved my life, that was nice I guess.
What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?
Don’t let that editor voice in your head prevent you from being open and creative! It’s okay if it isn’t good right away and not every song you write will be good.
What’s the last show you went to?
We got to see CHVRCHES’ set many times throughout our most recent tour.
What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?
Mean Girls.
What’s one of your hidden talents?
I’m pretty good at pouring liquid generally…. The direct result of pouring wine for a living for years.
Running is out now via Elektra/Aurelians Club. Get it here.
Cafuné is a Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Disney still has a ways to go until they’ve made live-action redos of all their animated films, but on the docket is Hercules, their 1997 take on the Greek/Roman myth he-man. Guy Ritchie, who semi-improbably handled the Aladdin one, is back, and it’s unknown who will play who, but they’ll have a hard time topping Danny DeVito, who voiced the satyr Philoctetes, usually just called “Phil.” But DeVito has an idea: Why not cast him again?
In a new chat with Wired, in which he has to answer “the web’s most searched questions,” DeVito was asked about the new Hercules. And he had (profane) thoughts.
“If they don’t put me in that, they don’t have a hair on their ass,” DeVito responded. Or maybe he meant playing the lead, not Phil. “I am the live-action Hercules!”
Why not! After all, DeVito has long been a diminutive badass. It was he who had one of the most explosive (and succinct) responses to the out-of-control, Trump-appointed Supreme Court going Medieval on the country early in the summer. And it was he who managed to get another onscreen Hercules — that would be Hercules Goes Bananas star Arnold Schwarzenegger — high as a prank. The live-action Disney remakes are more often slavish remakes. Why not think outside the box and cast the erstwhile Louie De Palma as the strongman who captured Cerberus.
You can watch DeVito’s Wired chat in the video below.
Are you ready to return to Gilead? And for the next season of The Handmaid’s Tale?
That’s a little gallows humor as we head into the fifth season of the Hulu show, and its first in a post-Roe world. It’s inevitable that this season will hit different.
[Spoilers ahead, but you knew that because you’re watching the trailer for the fifth season of a show.]
At the end of the fourth season, Fred (Joseph Fiennes) went from “I’m a man! I have rights!” to having no skull to keep his brains inside. It shifted the entire premise of the show from one where June (Elisabeth Moss) wanted to escape to safety and family reunions in Canada. Now, she’s chosen to dig two graves, and the trailer for the fifth season promises that Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) won’t let the husband she apathetically deigns to Zoom with die in vain. June is an insult to her way of life — looking perfect as a family unit on the outside while rotting from within. June is also an existential threat to Gilead itself because she’s fighting back, and if there’s one thing the bullying, fascist bastards dislike, it’s people who fight back.
Even in this brief glimpse, the acting work from Moss and Strahovski looks outstanding. It fell off the Emmy watchlist last year, but it might be undeniable this time around.
The fifth season of The Handmaid’s Tale hits Hulu September 14th, topical as ever.
Trader Joe’s is well-known for branding its own products — frozen pizzas, wine, beer, and, yes, whiskey are all in play. They’re pretty damn good at it too, while also being famous for keeping prices fairly low. Since the prices on the various Trader Joe’s whiskeys also fall into that “affordable” category, one we love so much (sososomuch), I knew it was time to taste a few to see how they measure up in the grand pantheon of cheap/affordable brown juice.
I headed out to my local Trader Joe’s and found a liquor aisle with a surprisingly good selection of bourbon at decent prices. There was also a fair amount of Scotch whisky on the shelf with a few other regions represented. It wasn’t as vast as a good liquor store, but it was a very solid selection of booze. I decided to grab three bottles from three regions: Kentucky, Tennessee, and Scotland. I figured this was a good entry-point to the world of Trader Joe’s branded whiskey.
Bottles in play for this tasting are:
Trader Joe’s Kentucky Bourbon Straight Whiskey
Trader Joe’s Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky Aged 8 Years
Tennessee Sour Mash Bourbon Whiskey
Trader Joe’s whiskeys — like most in-store branded hooch — are contract bottled and labeled by an independent bottler. Generally speaking, the bottler sources barrels or ready-to-bottle whisk(e)y from each region. They then finish the whiskey, if needed, in-house, bottle it, label it, and ship it out to Trader Joe’s warehouses. Point being: Trader Joe’s is not making this whiskey.
As for the ranking/tasting, this is based on taste alone. I tasted knowing what the bottles are. There’s no point in blindly tasting three whiskeys from three regions that are extremely obvious from the nose. That said, these three bottles were massively divergent. So the ranking was super obvious once I dug in. Let’s dive right in and see which bottle of TJ’s whiskey is worth your time (and money).
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months
This whiskey is made in Tennessee (from an unnamed distiller) with the famed “Lincoln County Process” where the hot juice off the still is filtered through sugar maple charcoal before going into the barrel. The juice is then aged for … *grimace* … six months.
For context, the cheapest whiskey is usually aged at least two years with four to six years being closer to the norm. Those sourced barrels are then sent to a bottler in Texas where it’s proofed all the way down (likely to hide that minimal aging and the taste) before bottling for Trader Joe’s.
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
The nose is lawn grass and white chalk with a good dose of ethanol (basically vodka) and diacetyl (fake popcorn butter) — it’s kind of like a cheap hand sanitizer. The palate is very watery with a vanilla chalk edge and more of that cheap hand sanitizer with maybe a hint of caramel and cherry lurking somewhere under all that water and ethanol.
This is offensive.
Bottom Line:
This is the first whiskey I’ve ever tasted that kind of made me mad. If I were from Tennessee, I’d be pretty pissed off. This isn’t just “bad but you can shoot it.” It’s “pour this shit down the drain because it’s besmirching the good name of Tennessee whiskey.” Seriously, this is the sort of whiskey people try and then think they “don’t like whiskey” for the rest of their lives.
If you don’t believe me, my wife’s two-sentence review was, “Hideous. This is why people hate whiskey.”
2. Trader Joe’s Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky Aged 8 Years — Taste 2
This Speyside whisky is sourced for Trader Joe’s and bottled before being shipped over to the U.S. The juice in the bottle is a standard single malt aged for eight years before blending, filtering, and proofing.
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
This is a butterscotch boom on the nose with a hint of malted vanilla and bran muffins. The palate is lightly malted with a very watery opening next to orchard fruits and a light sense of “wood” that’s just touched with winter spices. A hint of honey and maybe some apple sneak in a late with a slightly woody but mostly watery finish.
Bottom Line:
This was fine. There was nothing really offensive about it but there wasn’t much there in the first place. It’d work perfectly fine with Coke and ginger ale but that’s about it.
This sourced whiskey is from an unknown Kentucky distillery (some say it comes from Barton 1792, like Costco’s whiskey but there’s no real proof backing that up). The juice is aged for five years before it’s blended, filtered, and proofed down for bottling.
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
The nose opens with a light sense of sour cherry, dried red chili, Red Hots, and a bit of cellar must. The palate is sweet with plenty of caramel, vanilla pudding, and a bit of heat that builds towards a sense of “wood” and leather. The end peters out a bit as the warmth overtakes the wood and fades away, leaving a sweet cherry/vanilla note.
Bottom Line:
This was… perfectly fine. It was cheap bourbon for $15. I wouldn’t make an extra trip to Trader Joe’s to buy this but I would pick up a bottle if it was on sale to use for whiskey and Cokes or… more likely cooking, tbh.
Part 2: Final Thoughts
Zach Johnston
Ugh. I taste a lot of whiskeys and these all fell to the bottom. The Scotch whisky was fine for what it is — a $20 bottle of young whisky. There was nothing offensive about it (though the nose was a little too butterscotch). Otherwise, it was a perfectly fine mixer for highballs with a lot of bold flavors in the mix.
The bourbon was also fine. I don’t really see the point of going out of your way to get this bottle when you can get a cheaper and better Jim Beam or Evan Williams pretty much everywhere. That said, there was nothing offensive about this bourbon. It was drinkable and easy-going.
Then there was the Tennessee whiskey. It’s an abomination. Avoid at all costs. I’m still kind of mad about it. Seriously.
Nick Cannon wastes no time. Surely we could’ve expected this from the man who very recently said he was “f*cking like crazy” and that he practices “consensual non-monogamy.” But while Cannon is currently expecting baby #9 with model Abby De La Rosa, he is also now officially expecting baby #10 with model Brittany Bell. De La Rosa is due on October 25th and a new video of Cannon posing with Bell shows that she’s pretty far along herself.
“Time Stopped and This Happened…,” Cannon wrote on Instagram. In the video, Cannon poses with Bell for maternity photos and her belly looks large enough to perhaps beat De La Rosa to the delivery room. Pretty impressive of Cannon & co. to keep this one under wraps. A quick look at Bell’s Instagram page, shows that she hasn’t posted any photos that could show a pregnant belly for months. Very sly!
This will mark Cannon’s 10th time being a father. Including his upcoming baby with De La Rosa, there are twins Monroe Cannon and Moroccan Scott Cannon (with Mariah Carey), Golden Cannon, Legendary Love Cannon, Zen S. Cannon, — who tragically passed away last December at five months old — Zion Mixolydian Cannon, Zillion Heir Cannon, and Powerful Queen Cannon.
And with now two more kids on the way, the internet — of course — has jokes.
Joe Biden didn’t have the best first year-and-a-half in office. He got a lot done, but he was also hampered by forces outside his control: quisling Democrats; an out-of-control Supreme Court; fellow party leadership that seemed under-motivated. By mid-summer, he’d suddenly found his mojo, and it’s been one bold move after another — all while his predecessor finally, belatedly seemed to (maybe) get his comeuppance.
On Wednesday, he added another success story: He offered (modest) student loan forgiveness to millions and millions of Americans. It could have been better; it wasn’t a total erasure, as some had hoped. But it was enough to aggravate all the right people, namely those on the right, some of whom themselves had even larger PPP debts forgiven. But when pressed on his not-that-controversial decision, Biden wasn’t backing down
REPORTER: Is this unfair to people who paid their student loans or chose not to take out loans?
BIDEN: Is it fair to people who, in fact, do not own multi-billion-dollar businesses if they see one of these guys getting all the tax breaks? Is that fair? What do you think? pic.twitter.com/HA9LzLBMSC
After addressing the forgiveness plan, which won’t take effect until later this year, Biden was heading for the door when ABC News correspondent Karen Travers asked if it was “unfair to people who paid their student loans or chose not to take out loans.”
But Biden was ready. “Is it fair to people who, in fact, do not own multi-billion-dollar businesses if they see one of these guys getting all the tax breaks? Is that fair?” he asked rhetorically. “What do you think?”
Biden’s quick response had people, some of whom had been underwhelmed by his presidency thus far, calling it straight-up badass.
I’m not the biggest fan of rap beef. Really, most confrontations outside the realm of sports make me a little nervous since I’ve seen how far these things can go, but it’s also part of my job to keep readers abreast of trends in music. Well, one of the long-running trends this year has been the ongoing friction between collaborators turned combatants Benny The Butcher and Freddie Gibbs, so here we are.
Here’s the short of it; this spring, after Freddie made what appeared to be disparaging comments about Benny on Twitter, Benny responded by insinuating that his time to collaborate with Freddie had come and gone and that he’d rejected Freddie’s pleas to work on a joint album together. Then, two months later, Gibbs made an appearance in Buffalo, Benny’s hometown, sporting what appeared to be a fresh shiner on around his eye onstage. After some speculation by fans, a video emerged online the next day, apparently depicting the two rappers’ crews brawling at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que restaurant in Buffalo ahead of Gibbs’ show there.
It was later reported that Gibbs’ chain had gone missing during the altercation and now, it seems we know where it ended up: in Benny’s possession. According to XXL, Benny posted a video on his Instagram Story showing off a jewelry collection that apparently now includes Freddie’s ESGN pendant. Freddie responded on his own Instagram Story, writing, “Benny gay ass need to stop flexing because he was there and didn’t throw a punch. Hoe ass n****s did all that brought a camera man and all for promo. Still can’t pack a room. Go head start rapping about me so I can start talking about these sealed plea agreements and shit … Head up fade solve everything. But n**** aint built like that.”
Now, Benny has escalated their static, posting another video to his Story this time wearing the ESGN chain while calling Freddie “MC Dinosaur Bar-B-Que” and mocking him for getting beat up. Freddy followed up with his own text post, against disparaging Benny for being unable to draw a crowd (legit, by the way — the Griselda show at the Novo in 2020 was sort of dead and this was pre-pandemic) and invited him once again to a one-on-one fight.
My take: Both of these guys are too old to be squabbling over social media like a couple of middle schoolers. Freddie’s 40 and Benny’s 36 and both should know better. Threatening shootouts and running five-on-one fades is corny, especially over rap. Either call Ultimate Rap League or get a boxing match sanctioned so you can have it out and have it over with, because this? This ain’t it.
It has been almost two and a half years since Moses Sumney released his latest studio album, Grae, and it looks like it’s going to be quite a while until he releases any other new material. Today, Sumney announced both the October 31st release of his new concert film, A Performance In V Acts, as well as a prolonged break from making music.
“A Performance in V Acts marks the official end of the græ album cycle,” Sumney said in a statement. “It’s a capsule of our headline show since we will not be touring the album after all. This film also ushers in a new period of creativity for me – one in which I take a continued break from making albums and touring music to focus on other disciplines.”
Sumney has already been dabbling in multidisciplinary work as of late. Last December, he released the performance film entitled Blackalachia and just this week, he was announced as a cast member on HBO’s The Idol, which was created by The Weeknd and Euphoria directer Sam Levinson.
With today’s news, Sumney has also shared a video with two songs from the upcoming concert film. First, a cover of Björk’s “Come To Me” (from her first album, Debut) as well as “Doomed” off of his 2017 album Aromanticism.
Watch Moses Sumney’s performances of “Come To Me” and “Doomed” above and A Performance In V Acts is out on 10/31. Watch a trailer for it below.
Fans of the Law & Order franchise got a real treat today while seeing a peek at the upcoming three-show crossover (arriving on Sept. 22). Yep, that’s right, we’re not only gonna see content that resembles the existing SVU and Organized Crime spinoff crossovers, but those characters will also bump into detectives from the revived series proper. So, there will be Detective Benson and Detective Stable and their Unresolved Sexual Tension together, along with Detectives Shaw and Benson, too. And hopefully some Fin Tutuola.
More Law & Order news arrived very quickly. Peacock announced that they’re taking over next-day streaming rights (on NBC shows) from Hulu, and then we heard that a longtime SVU star would run for the hills after Season 24. That news applied to Kelli Giddish, who portrays Detective Rollins, but I guess that Ice-T got wind of people who initially feared (as I did) that Fin (and Ice) would leave the building.
Never fear. Ice-T is not leaving SVU. He does have a lot on his plate, yes, but he can do it all. “FYI. People think I’m leaving SVU every time I do something else. Do they not understand I’ve got 20 Jobs! Simultaneously,” the Body Count frontman tweeted.
FYI. People think I’m leaving SVU every time I do something else. Do they not understand I’ve got 20 Jobs! Simultaneously
So there you have it. He’s got over 20 seasons under his belt and no apparent plans to quit. And yes, Ice-T manages to balance a lot, including wild commericals, and keep on hustling. Someone needs to ask him if the Organized Crime octopus will be joining the triple-event crossover. I have a feeling that he’d like that subject as much as he enjoyed talking about “shipping.”
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
(@christoq) 
