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Even without a debut album out, Normani has established herself as a star; She has two top-10 singles to her name with the Khalid collaboration “Love Lies” and the Sam Smith link-up “Dancing With A Stranger.” As for that debut album, though, fans are still waiting. Some have even turned on Normani, believing that her success has led to a loss of drive in the singer. Per Normani’s passionate response to recent tweets making those allegations, that just isn’t true.

As Newsweek notes, a tweet from a user who has since set their profile to private read, “No idea where Normani’s motivation (no pun intended) has gone but I just [don’t] see the same passion from her as I used to. Before [y’all] start, [it’s] not depression so [don’t] even go THERE!” Another user wrote in response to the tweet, “What happens when you’ve gotten comfortable and you’re not HUNGRY anymore.”

Normani herself replied to the latter tweet yesterday (August 9), writing, “just shut the f*ck up.”

UK fashion illustrator and designer Hayden Williams responded to Normani’s tweet, “It’s so interesting that people that have no clue what it’s like to be in the music industry & the complexities that can come with that, but will dish out unwanted & rude opinions all the time smh.” Normani shared that and added, “on top of real life sh*t going on in my personal life.”

It was a Yeah Yeah Yeahs-less decade, but Karen O, Nick Zinner, and Brian Chase have returned all up in their feels and we’re absolutely here for it. Where the Perfume Genius-featured “Spitting On The Edge Of The World,” called attention to the harsh reality of living frivolously at the cost of our environment, the newly released “Burning” is about preserving that which we individually love most.

The song has a cinematic string arrangement over a classic soul-inspired thump and affecting keys. It further builds anticipation for the impending release of their new album, Cool It Down, on September 10th.

“If the world is on fire I hope the most beloved stay protected and that we do all we can to protect what we cherish most in this life,” Karen O said in a statement. She also talked about the creation and meaning of “Burning,” and she got deep:

“Back when I was 19 living in the East Village, one night a roommate dragged me out of the apartment for an impromptu drink across the street, I left a votive candle burning on a plastic yaffa block which in my absence set flame to my room. Within an hour and a half of having one drink down the block firefighters had come and gone extinguishing the fire, I came home to find that a natural disaster had occurred (to my room) and most of my stuff, lost in the flames. All electronic goods were melted and demolished like my laptop, cameras etc. but oddly enough the items that held the most sentimental value remained intact like sketchbooks, a favorite sweater with hearts across the chest, and photographs. I had photos of my parents in their youth where the fire burnt around the two of them as if there was some intangible force field protecting them, many photos like that, mysteriously leaving the beloved subjects untouched.

If the world is on fire I hope the most beloved stay protected and that we do all we can to protect what we cherish most in this life. ‘Burning’ is a song about that feeling, smoke signals for the soul. Begging to cool it down, just doing it the best we know how. Nick and I nodded to Frankie Valli’s ‘Begging’, with the line ‘oooh lay your red hand on me baby.’ We’ve cut a rug to many a soulful sixties bangers in our day, it was in our DNA by the time we wrote ‘Burning.’”

Listen to “Burning” above.

Cool It Down is out 9/30 via Secretly Canadian. Pre-order it here.

When Uproxx interviewed 50 Cent about his sprawling Power universe earlier this year, he was charmingly abashed about the level of explicit content in his shows, expressing some concern for younger viewers who might end up accidentally watching “soft pornography.” However, when it comes to his upcoming horror film, Skill House, he’s apparently a bit more liberal.

Despite the fact that a scene from the movie was supposedly so gnarly that a cameraperson fainted on set (I remain skeptical; maybe craft services didn’t have any vegan options or something), it looks like 50 Cent doesn’t mind exposing one younger viewer to the carnage: His son, Sire Jackson, who apparently has been hanging around the set, according to some photos 50 posted on Instagram. In the first, Sire sits with director Josh Stolberg, perhaps listening intently to some stage direction. However, in the second, which proud papa 50 clearly shot sometime later, Sire’s slumped on the couch, seemingly out for the count after a long day of shooting.

It remains to be seen whether Sire has an on-camera role in the film or was just learning the inner workings of the film industry, but I wouldn’t put it past Mr. Cent to be getting his kids in on the ground floor as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Skill House, which also stars TikToker Bryce Hall and UFC veteran Paige VanZant, is set for release in 2023.

Michael Mann recently made his book debut with Heat 2, the sequel to his 1995 classic crime thriller Heat starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Val Kilmer. The movie was obviously a hit, so it only made sense that Mann would want to continue the story where it left off, and turn it into a novel, so he could have some creative control (and not have to re-cast various characters who are, let’s say, a little older now).

While promoting the book, which dropped this week, Mann has been giving various interviews surrounding the iconic ’90s era of crime films, when it was revealed that it was actually Leonardo DiCaprio that inspired him to work on Heat.

Mann was interested in making a biopic about James Dean and even went as far as to screen-test a fresh-faced young actor before settling on making Heat instead. That actor turned out the be DiCaprio, who was deemed too young for the part and made Mann leave the project to work on the crime film instead. Mann explained:

It was a brilliant screenplay. And then it’s who the hell could play James Dean? And I found a chap who could play James Dean, but he was too young. It was Leo. We did a screen test that’s quite amazing. I think he must’ve been 19 at the time. And from one angle, he totally had it with him. I mean, it’s brilliance. He would turn his face in one direction and we see a vision of James Dean, and then he’d turn his face another direction and it’s no, that’s a young kid. I found the absolutely perfect act of the play, in about three years from that.

If you’re thinking to yourself, hey, why didn’t they just wait a few years and cast DiCaprio? Mann added that DiCaprio “respectfully undid the James Dean bio for me.” It ended up being okay for Leo, though, who was then cast in the little-known movie Titanic a little over a year later. He turned out fine!

(Via Deadline)

Every right-wing conservative with a talk show and a measly Twitter following is losing their minds over the recent FBI “raid” at Mar-A-Lago. Most are sticking to the script of, “If a government agency can come after a former president, they can come after anyone,” which, yeah, that’s the whole point of the FBI. But Steve Bannon is taking things a step further.

Bannon hopped on to chat with, who else, Alex Jones during a recent episode of Infowars where he threw out some batsh*t conspiracy theories about the FBI’s search and seizure warrant against Trump. Even though he’s already earned his pardon from his old buddy-in-chief, Bannon went all in on his theory that FBI agents involved in the raid planted evidence against Trump and the government had plans to assassinate him soon.

“I do not think it’s beyond this administrative state and their deep state apparatus to actually try to work on the assassination of President Trump,” Bannon said. “I think – I think everything’s on the table.”

We’re not exactly sure who the “deep state” he’s referring to here is since the current Director of the FBI is Christopher Wray, a man appointed by Trump but we do know that Bannon has got his knickers in a twist over what he calls the “desecration” of one of America’s landmark buildings. (The golf resort. He’s talking about a golf resort.)

“So many important things happened there – to go and desecrate it the way they did, particularly over this administrative issue at the National Archives… clearly they’re, as you know, Alex, on a fishing expedition or on a planting expedition, I wouldn’t put it past [them] to have planted stuff … this is criminal,” Bannon continued. “They did it on purpose. They understand how Mar-a-Lago resonates with not just Maga but to the American people.”

That must be why Trump is already sending out newsletters using his latest brush with the law as a fundraising opportunity — because he knows how the middle class worships his mega-mansion filled with gold-plated toilets. Of course, Bannon paused his proverbial pearl clutching long enough to suggest a strategy for Trump moving forward should he want to avoid jail time. Just run for office again.

“I think security ought to be at the highest it’s ever been. And honestly, I think he ought to and I think he should have flown down in Mar-a-Lago this morning, walked out there at noon today, and said, hey, I’m running for president, United States. Suck on that.”

(Via Independent)

Sports can be isolating. Through their framework, their schedules and storylines, they provide a wholly separate space where the real world doesn’t always get in. Some fans embrace the detachment, treating sports as a willful escape. Where this approach gets troublesome is when it attempts a forced cleaving of real-world issues from the real people whose day jobs happen to be elite athletes.

In the NBA especially, where Black men represent the majority of athletes, a disconnect from the social, economic, and political issues impacting the world is largely impossible. We’ve seen it in recent seasons through social justice movements and player protests, as well as in the honest and raw expressions of grief and frustrations from players when real-world tragedy overlaps the everyday minutia of a basketball season.

It’s why Dis/Mantle — an Afro-futuristic immersive exhibition featuring the work of visual artist Gordon Shadrach that the Toronto Raptors worked with the City of Toronto’s Awakenings program as a community partner to present — makes such a compelling case for overlap. Co-curated by Umbereen Inayet and Shadrach, the exhibition is staged throughout Toronto’s historic Spadina Museum, an estate and sprawling grounds built in 1866 that remains intact in the heart of the city. The show presents an alternate history where Louisa Pipkin, a freedom seeker who fled enslavement in the United States and worked as a laundress for the estate’s former homeowners, instead owned the property herself.

Most of the rooms in the house’s two-floor footprint were converted with installations and live components, like a culinary feature by Toronto chef Roger Mooking that showcased Afro-Caribbean ingredients in the house’s kitchen and served dishes across the grounds. Herbalist Alessandra De Oliveira set up a small apothecary with plants and tinctures traditional to Afro Caribbean culture; ceramic artists Sharon Norwood and Christine Nnawuchi had work featured in table settings and imaged objects that may have been meaningful in Mrs. Pipkin’s life.

The most prominent and striking work on display, however, were the large-scale portraits by Shadrach. Of the 17 oil and acrylic panels, seven featured current Raptors players. Shadrach, who worked in a studio to complete the works, induced nods to decor features — wallpaper patterns, lighting — in every painting so that it looked as if each had been where it was hung for decades.

John Wiggins, the Raptors vice-president of organizational culture and inclusion, admitted he’d walked by a few of the paintings on his initial walkthrough. “I walked right past Dalano’s painting,” Wiggins chuckles, “because he looks like he’s been here since 1866.”

All paintings feature the continuity of a stark red line to represent redlining, the discriminatory practice that withheld services to residents of certain neighborhoods based on their race or ethnicity.

“The idea with the house is it’s meant to be a house where people of note might have come through, and people would have spoken, or maybe their direct descendants of the extended family of the Pipkins, so the idea is that these are characters that would have been in the narrative of what we’re trying to create here,” Shadrach told Dime at Dis/Mantle’s opening. “So whether they’re grandchildren, or nieces and nephews, or whether they would’ve been people that would’ve come to fight with the abolitionists, it’s up to the viewer to decide, but that was the inspiration for the portraits.”

The inclusion of young Raptors players was the hope of the Wiggins, who’d heard about Shadrach’s work and had gone to visit the artist in his studio pre-Covid.

“I loved the way he was talking about Black history and Canadian history through the vision and images of athletes,” Wiggins recalls. “As I sat there, listening to him talk about where he came up with the inspiration and the artwork, it was just a captivating piece not just of understanding someone’s perspective, but also hearing the history that he was showing. And I just thought, everybody needs to hear this, and they need to hear from him.”

The Raptors included in the show — Chris Boucher, Dalano Banton, Justin Champgnie, Gary Trent Jr., Malachi Flynn, and Precious Achuwa — are some of the team’s youngest, and newest (as of the 2021-22 season) players. Shadrach says he had the sense that the team wanted to find and help these athletes immerse themselves in the local community.

“So the focus was on including these players as a stepping stone to building something,” Shadrach says.

Wiggins chuckles when he admits “the Raptors bring people to the party,” but knowing he could leverage the popularity of the franchise, especially its younger fans in the city, with the show meant a tangible means of support the team could lend to an important subject.

“I think this is just going to show how powerful art and culture is in helping talk and teach and explain stories,” Wiggins says, confirming that the partnership with Shadrach has made the Raptors franchise keen to continue exploring the contemporary art space.

“Everyone doesn’t just come to a basketball game, everyone doesn’t just learn by listening, learn by you shouting at them, so we knew that there are other people who are basketball fans that also enjoy art and culture, the same way we know there are different types of fans within the different demographics we have,” Wiggins continues. “Youth learn through art as well. So this was very important for us.”

The ongoing COVID pandemic complicated Shadrach’s typical process for his portraits. Because of the city’s restrictions, Toronto players were unable to sit with the artist in his studio and later, when restrictions eased, schedules didn’t allow for it. Even photoshoots were prohibited. Shadrach came to get to know each of his subjects through their social media presences, or the photos they were sending through to him, where little glimmers of their personalities were able to come out. For all the pivoting and flexibility required, Shadrach says he now can’t imagine the portraits, or the process, being different.

Given the opening of Dis/Mantle coincided with the now-infamous summer runs in L.A. put together by Toronto’s own development coach, Rico Hines, none of the players in the show were able to be there. Wiggins, however, is emphatic that when the time comes, whether prior to Raptors training camp or after, the team will make arrangements “for our entire organization — coaches, staff, front office — to come out and really just take some time to experience it.”

Shadrach lights up at the question of whether he’ll be in attendance, “I hope so!” He echoes the sentiment of Wiggins in what the show, which runs until the end of 2022, can mean for the team’s involvement in contemporary art in Toronto, specifically when it comes to the broader impact on local communities.

“What’s really fascinating is to develop something with a really strong arts lens. It’s not always about the sports,” Shadrach says with a chuckle. “Not that sports is bad. I’m just saying, it’s nice to see a wider scope of entrance and accessibility for different people in the community.”

That sports, and basketball in a city that loves it, can provide a gateway into art — and that art, in turn, can turn history into something viscerally, experientially accessible — shows the power and necessity not just in examining the past, but reimagining the future. Basketball becomes a bridge, art the vehicle. Isolation goes out the window and new communities, and fans, come in.

When Mark Zuckerberg looks back on the many ways he changed the world with Facebook and Meta, and how his social media site personally impacted the lives of millions, he can remember that it was because of Facebook that a pregnant teenager was prosecuted — along with her mother — for an abortion.

Motherboard reports that authorities in Nebraska are prosecuting a 17-year-old and her mother for a variety of felonies and misdemeanors after the two obtained Pregnot, a medication that is used to induce abortion. Much of the case is reportedly relying on the teen’s Facebook DMs, which the authorities obtained directly through Meta — Facebook’s parent company — via a court order.

Pregnot — a kit containing a mix of the mifepristone, a progesterone blocker, and misoprostol, which helps to prevent stomach bleeding and ulcers — has regularly been used to safely end pregnancies during the first trimester. In this case, according to Motherboard, the teen “was 28-weeks pregnant, which is later in pregnancy than mifepristone and misoprostol are recommended for use. It’s also later than Nebraska’s 20-week post-fertilization abortion ban, which makes allowances only if the pregnant person is at risk of death or ‘serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.’ (Nebraska’s abortion laws have not changed since Roe v Wade was overturned).”

After taking the medication, the young woman reportedly gave birth to a stillborn fetus, which they buried with the help of a 22-year-old man, who has been charged with attempting to conceal the death of another person. She discussed the matter via private messages on Facebook, and it’s those messages that will form the basis of much of the case against her and her mom. Both women were arrested and held on $10,000 bail, with jail records indicating that they have since been released.

While the teenager has been charged with one felony and two misdemeanors, her mother is facing three felonies (including one performing/attempting an abortion at greater than 20 weeks when not a licensed doctor) and two misdemeanor offenses.

Motherboard obtained the court documents, which indicate that the activities in question took place before the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v Wade in June. What makes the case a precedent-setting one, however, write Jason Koebler and Anna Merlan, are how the documents “show in shocking detail how abortion could and will be prosecuted in the United States, and how tech companies will be enlisted by law enforcement to help prosecute their cases.”

You can view the full documents on Motherboard.

(Via Motherboard)

Harrison Patrick Smith has great experience under his belt, whether it’s touring with acts like Porches and Strange Ranger or putting out his own material as Turtlenecked. Now, though, he’s at the start of a new chapter with the project The Dare. He recently kicked things off with the new single “Girls,” a two-minute, in-your-face, electro-pop-rock romp cut from the same cloth as LCD Soundsystem and early Calvin Harris.

Smith says of the songs video, “Jake Lazovick (Powered by Wind) shot the video at Home Sweet Home, where I DJ weekly, in order to capture a real downtown NYC party. We invited all of our friends and told them to go crazy while I DJ’d and ran around. A lot of the people in it are fellow musicians or collaborators! And some of them are girls.”

Smith previously said of “Girls,” “Just wanted to make something like ‘F*ck The Pain Away’ by Peaches, ‘Daft Punk Is Playing At My House’, or something off Paul’s Boutique. Whipped it up in like 30 minutes at 3am in my bedroom.”

Smith also said of The Dare more broadly, “The Dare is my foray into the worlds of electroclash, techno, and house. For a long time I kept everything I made under the umbrella of Turtlenecked, but the name didn’t fit the aesthetic of the new material and I feel like a different person from the 18 year old who formed Turtlenecked. As far as separation between indie rock / club music, I love the early 2000s so much because there was so much fluidity — the Maison Kitsune remix EPs, the DFA remixes of Le Tigre or The Rakes, Diplo remixing Bloc Party etc. There’s a feeling of optimism and openness in underground music from that time that I feel faded into genre camps again in the mid 2010s. I wanna bring that feeling back.”

Watch the “Girls” video above.

Last night, fans of The Breakfast Club radio show were nearly sent into a panic after longtime co-host Angela Yee posted a tweet implying that the New York-based show would be coming to an end: “The breakfast club as you know it is officially over,” her tweet read.

Her post left listeners divided, with some sad about the show coming to a potential end, many sharing clips of the show’s most iconic moments, while others celebrated the implied end of the show, calling the collective comprised of Yee, Charlamagne Tha God, and DJ Envy “toxic.”

What happened to The Breakfast Club and what’s next?

Yee clarified this morning on today’s episode that The Breakfast Club is not actually coming to an end, but she will, in fact, be leaving the show. She will later launch her own nationally syndicated daily program for iHeartRadio. She also confirmed that she won’t officially exit The Breakfast Club for at least another month.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show will be called Way Up With Angela Yee, and will broadcast on over 30 iHeartMedia stations across the country. On the show, Yee will interact with celebrities and conduct interviews, while also discussing contemporary topics.

As of now, it is not confirmed whether Yee will be replaced on The Breakfast Club, or if Envy and Charlamagne will host the show by themselves.

In a self-own for the ages, Donald Trump could be facing five years in prison for a bill he signed in an effort to stick it to Hillary Clinton over her email scandal, which turned out to be nothing. According to reports, Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified information is the focus of the recent FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, which prior to 2018, might not have been that big of a deal. However, thanks to Trump imposing harsher punishments through a national security bill that broadened the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, he potentially screwed himself.

Via Business Insider:

It upgraded the seriousness of wrongly moving classified material, turning it from a misdemeanor into a felony — and increasing the maximum punishment from one year to five.

[National Security attorney Bradley P.] Moss noted that it was passed in the wake of Trump’s relentless attacks during the 2016 presidential campaign on Hillary Clinton for allegedly mishandling classified information.

Hilarious. To add insult to self-injury, Newsweek recently reported that the Mar-a-Lago investigationwas sparked after a confidential source informed the FBI that Trump was still holding on to classified documents. Not only that, but the informant reportedly know the exact location of said documents, which prompted the Department of Justice to plan the Mar-a-Lago raid.

Unfortunately, the plan was to also avoid a “media circus” by conducting the search while Trump was away, but that blew up immediately when the former president took it upon himself to announce to the world that Mar-a-Lago has been raided. Like clockwork, Republican politicians and Fox News pundits lined up to defend Trump. Russia even got in on the act, which is exactly what the former president needs right now. Thanks, Putin!

(Via Business Insider)