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John Legend and Muni Long make worlds collide on their new track “Honey.” Much like the title of the song, it is a sweet, mid-tempo offering. The “Ordinary People” artist handles the first verse and hook, while Long takes on verse two. While both excel at getting people in their moody vibes, this track picks the pace up just a bit behind a thumping drum pattern and a myriad of instruments.

“Honey” follows a somewhat active 2022 for John Legend, who released “Dope,” “Free,” and his collaboration with Sebastian Yatra on “Tacones Rojos.” Muni Long has been riding high off of the momentum of “Hrs & Hrs” which came from 2021’s Public Displays Of Affection. In 2022, she’s released “Pain,” “Another,” and appeared on “Chainzzz” with Kali plus “Baby Boo” with Saweetie. It’s a treat to see two generations of R&B come together in this manner, and hopefully, it’s not the last time the two will collaborate. It is unclear whether either will release an LP coming in 2022, but for now, this will be enough to hold the listeners over.

Check out John Legend and Muni Long’s new track “Honey” above.

Saweetie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Months after the release of Chloe X Halle’s excellent Ungodly Hour project, Chloe Bailey sought to uproot her solo career, while reassuring fans that Chloe X Halle would return in the future. For Chloe, things began with solo covers of records by Silk Sonic, Rihanna, Nina Simone, Drake, and more. Months later, she released her debut single “Have Mercy” which she performed on the AMAs, The Tonight Show, and the MTV VMAs. She followed that record up with the provocative “Treat Me,” which made Uproxx’s Best Songs Of 2022 So Far list, and now she’s back with her third solo record.

Chloe returns with “Surprise,” a song that features a slower tempo compared to her previous releases while keeping the sultry qualities that have appeared throughout her solo releases. The record sees Chloe tease her partner with the gift of a lifetime, so long as they treat her well and do all that’s needed to further their relationship. The track arrives with a video that shows intimate moments between Chloe and a man, all for it to be a product of the man’s imagination.

Prior to the song’s release, Chloe reached out to fans for help in picking her next single as she asked them to choose between “For The Night,” “Surprise,” and “Cheat Back.” Despite this request, it would be Beyonce that would help her select “Surprise” as the next single, which Chloe revealed in a video she posted on Instagram. “When the Queen speaks, the Queen speaks, and that’s all I’m gonna say and that’s all that matters to me,” she said.

You can listen to “Surprise” in the video above.

Flo Milli’s confidence goes without saying, and she puts it on full display on her new track “Conceited.” In alignment with the energy of women rappers of past and present, she raps with ferocity about how much faith she has in herself. She makes nods to her hometown Mobile, Alabama, how she has been that b**** since the fetus, and that she doesn’t need a man’s money. “Milli got money cause Milli got hits,” she firmly exclaims. It is a short offering at almost two and a half minutes, but more than enough to convey the intended message. Flo Milli is here to stay and will only go up higher at her will.

“Conceited” follows the April release of Flo Milli’s addition to Monaleo’s “We Not Humping” remix as well as the “Toot It Up” collaboration with Sally Sossa. Individually, the 22-year-old released “PBC” in late February and it’s very possible a project may be coming as it has been two years since her debut project Ho, Why Is You Here? Whether that is the plan or not, Milli is moving at a steady pace and offering quality each time she shows up.

Check out Flo Milli’s song “Conceited” above.

Steph Curry’s jam-packed trophy case finally includes the one honor that evaded him throughout the course of his NBA career. Following the Golden State Warriors’ 103-90 win over the Boston Celtics in Game 6 on Thursday night to secure the fourth championship of the Steve Kerr era, Curry earned the distinction of being named the NBA Finals MVP.

The NBA announced that Curry won the award unanimously.

“It means we won, it means we took advantage of the opportunity to get back here,” Curry, who was showered with MVP chants by his teammates, told Lisa Salters of ESPN what it meant to finally get named Finals MVP. For the series, Curry averaged 31.2 points, six rebounds, five assists, and two assists per game. But beyond the box score, the gravity that Curry brought to every game could not fully be quantified — Boston’s vaunted defense struggled to deal with the way that he moved off the ball, and even when he was not afforded an inch of space, Curry always seemed to find a way to make something happen, either for himself or for someone else.

Curry’s quest for a Finals MVP award was a major storyline entering the Finals. Andre Iguodala famously won the award over Curry in 2015, while Kevin Durant earned the award when the Warriors became champions in 2017 and 2018. Now, it’s Curry’s time to lift the Bill Russell trophy.

For the fourth time in eight seasons, the Golden State Warriors are NBA champions, prevailing by a 103-90 margin on the road in a hostile environment on Thursday evening. After Andrew Wiggins keyed a memorable Game 5 win in San Francisco, the Warriors withstood an early haymaker from the Boston Celtics in Game 6, relying on a defense that was stingy throughout the series and banking on the excellent offensive work of Stephen Curry in appropriate fashion.

The early moments of Game 6 belonged to Boston in dominant fashion. The Celtics started the game with a 14-2 run, making five of their first seven shots and holding Golden State to only two points in more than four minutes of action.

The Warriors would awaken from an early slumber and respond in kind. After 12 consecutive missed three-pointers to begin the series, Draymond Green finally converted a triple as part of a Golden State run late in the first quarter. With the help of that long-range connection and three-pointers from Stephen Curry and Jordan Poole, the Warriors used a 17-4 run to take their first lead of the game.

That barrage included 11 consecutive points to end the opening quarter, and the Warriors almost inexplicably led by a 27-22 margin after 12 minutes.

Golden State wasn’t done either, with Poole making an immediate impact. After banking in a three-pointer to close the first quarter, Poole hit another three-pointer to start the second quarter and kept it rolling. He scored 11 points, including a trio of three-pointers, in his first seven minutes of action, spearheading a 21-0 overall run by the Warriors that gave Golden State a 15-point advantage.

Not only did the Warriors find their footing on offense, the Celtics fell apart on offense. Boston failed to score on eight consecutive possessions, going more than five full minutes without a point. The result was a history-making run by Golden State, setting a new NBA Finals standard for the most explosive in-game spurt.

Boston did have a response, and it came immediately. The Celtics scored seven straight points, prompting a Golden State timeout, and that cut the margin back to single digits while bringing the TD Garden crowd back into the proceedings.

That push was valuable for Boston, but Golden State had a counter. With the Celtics prompted to remove both Jayson Tatum and Marcus Smart for stretches with foul trouble, the home team was out of sync, and the Warriors strung together a 17-4 spurt to take a 21-point lead. Curry scored seven points in a row on his own, taking even more attention from the opposing defense and creating avenues for others.

Making things more interesting, the Celtics did score the final six points of the first half, clawing back within a 15-point margin. Boston’s offense continued to struggle, as it has the entire series, when the three-pointers weren’t falling, and the Celtics shot just 3-of-14 from long distance while turning the ball over on more than 25 percent of possessions. With the Warriors burying 10 three-pointers in the half and winning the turnover battle by a 13-7 margin, Golden State’s math advantage was evident and it was easy to forget the Warriors once trailed by double figures in the opening minutes.

Coming out of the locker room, Boston was able to score with more efficiency, benefitting from nine quick points from Al Horford and threatening to make a move on the scoreboard. However, Golden State countered each and every time and, midway through the third quarter, Curry and Otto Porter Jr. combined to connect on a three-pointer on four consecutive possessions. That gave the Warriors a 72-50 cushion with 18 minutes to go and more than neutralized any uptick from the Celtics’ offense.

Though the Warriors were clearly in control, the Celtics did not roll over. Keyed by seven points from Jaylen Brown and inspired play from Horford on both ends, the Celtics zoomed to a 15-2 run, slashing the deficit by more than half and staying in relative touch with only a nine-point deficit.

The Warriors took only a ten-point advantage to the fourth quarter, likely kicking themselves over a period of nearly six minutes in which they scored only two points. Boston’s offense also stalled to begin the closing period, though, as the Celtics managed only two points in more than three minutes. That allowed Golden State to stabilize matters, even with Curry on the bench for a scheduled rest, and the Warriors held onto a double-digit lead despite missing ten consecutive three-point attempts heading into the mid-quarter timeout.

Shortly after a timeout, a three-point play by Grant Williams and a corner three-pointer from Brown brought the Celtics to within eight, the closest gap in the second half to that point. In on-brand fashion, however, Andrew Wiggins buried a corner triple on the next possession and, after Boston’s 21st turnover of the game, the Warriors scored again to extend the margin back to 13 points with fewer than five minutes remaining.

For the most part, that response secured things for Golden State, and a dagger arrived with 3:17 to go. Fittingly, it came off the hand of Curry, who calmly connected on a three-pointer to give the Warriors a 15-point advantage that would never be threatened.

As the seconds ticked down, the Warriors started to let the emotions flow, with Curry particularly overcome by the moment as he took a seat in the lane to reflect by himself.

Curry was the clear individual story of the evening, finishing with 34 points on 12-of-21 shooting and 6-of-11 from three-point range. Curry’s gravity was plainly evident for the entirety of the six-game series, and he also added seven rebounds and seven assists on the way to MVP honors. From a team standpoint, the Warriors connected on 19 three-pointers and generated 27 assists, with Golden State’s elite-level defense playing a significant part in Boston’s offensive struggles.

For the Celtics, it was a familiar refrain in that they simply could not sustain efficient offense. Boston’s ball security issues were a plague throughout the night with 23 turnovers, and Tatum managed only 13 points on 18 shots. Brown (34 points) and Horford (19 points, 14 rebounds) performed at a high level alongside the clear defensive impact of Robert Williams, but it simply wasn’t enough in four of six games.

There will be time to reflect on a dynastic run for the Warriors, as four championships in an eight-season span is beyond impressive. This time around, it wasn’t as easy or as predictable as the two most recent titles headlined by Kevin Durant, but a generational superstar and a dogged defense combined to send another Larry O’Brien Trophy to the Bay.

If there’s one person the January 6th committee would like to talk to about the deadly attacks on the Capitol, it’s former president/key instigator Donald Trump. But Trump, being Trump, would never put himself in such a vulnerable position. Instead, he’s yelling like a toddler and demanding to no one in particular that he be given the same amount of airtime.

Shortly before Thursday’s hearings began, as Raw Story reports, Trump took to TRUTH Social to “truth” about the loads of evidence he has about “massive Voter Fraud & Dem Security Breach!” But if you thought he was going to share it right then and there (or believed for one second that it existed at all), you clearly don’t know Trump. No, what the former president really wants is for all of the major news networks to turn their attention to him and broadcast this damning evidence he’s promising. Or, as he put it: “I DEMAND EQUAL TIME!!!”

While who he is demanding this “EQUAL TIME!!!” from remains unclear, Trump was obviously in a mood. As he shared:

The Fake News Networks are perpetuating lies, falsehoods, and Russia, Russia, Russia type disinformation (same sick people, here we go again!) by allowing the low rated but nevertheless one sided and slanderous Unselect Committee hearings to go endlessly and aimlessly on (and on and on!). It is a one sided, highly partisan Witch Hunt, the likes of which has never been seen in Congress before. Therefore, I am hereby demanding EQUAL TIME to spell out the massive Voter Fraud & Dem Security Breach!

Perhaps someone should remind the former president that the committee would love nothing more than to have him come in and testify.

(Via Raw Story)

The wait for Drake’s sixth album Certified Lover Boy was one that lasted a bit longer than fans — and even Drake himself — expected. He originally planned for it to be released in January 2021, but rehab following knee surgery for an injury he sustained set him back a bit. Eight months later, the album finally dropped, arriving a cool three years after his fifth effort Scorpion. Despite the wait, fans rushed to press play on it. Certified Lover Boy put forth the biggest week of 2021, a record that Adele’s 30 beat two months later, and it also spent five weeks at No. 1 on the albums chart.

As you probably know by now, the wait for Drake’s seventh album won’t last nearly as long as it did for Certified Lover Boy. That’s because Drake announced that the project, titled Honestly, Nevermind would arrive tonight for the world to enjoy. Announced just hours before its release, Drake also took a moment to unveil the tracklist for the project as it features 14 songs in total. It’s unknown if the project contains features as it was not revealed in the post. Honestly, Nevermind also features executive production from house producer Black Coffee. Drake and Black Coffee last worked together on “Get It Together” from More Life which also featured Jorja Smith.

It marks the shorter time period, that being nine months, between the release of solo full-length projects from Drake. Overall, it’s the second shortest as What A Time To Be Alive arrived sevens months after Drake released If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late.

You can view the official tracklist for Honestly, Nevermind below.

1. “Intro”
2. “Falling Back”
3. “Texts Go Green”
4. “Currents”
5. “A Keeper”
6. “Calling My Name”
7. “Sticky”
8. “Massive”
9. “Flight’s Booked”
10. “Overdrive”
11. “Down Hill”
12. “Tie That Binds”
13. “Liability”
14. “Jimmy Cooks”

Honestly, Nevermind is out 6/17 via OVO Sound/Republic.

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

This is the classic origin story for all actors, isn’t it? They had to come from somewhere, and most of them had to have first jobs. Margot Robbie worked at Subway as a sandwich artist, Brad Pitt wore the chicken costume to advertise El Pollo Loco, and Chris Hemsworth, apparently, cleaned breast pump machines. Luckily for him. And for us. Because blissing out while scouring those devices gave him the space to think about his future (one presumably in which he’d no longer be cleaning breast pump machines).

He told the tale as part of WIRED‘s Web’s Most Searched Questions interview.

“I used to fix and repair and clean breast pumps and milk extractors,” the man who plays Thor said. “Yup, you didn’t mishear that. That was my job. And this company used to rent them out to various pharmacies and chemists, and they would come back, and they wouldn’t work sometimes. They needed to be cleaned. I’d clean them and repair them. I just remember being really bored. I remember sitting in a factory after work, and thinking ‘I’m gonna earn my ten bucks here’ or whatever. I’d make playlists to try to get me through it. Music that would sort of keep me in a calm state and not want to launch that machine against the wall. Van Morrison. The Beatles. Pink Floyd. A lot of music my parents listened to. And I used to kind of think about what I wanted to do, which was act, and all the other exciting things I wanted to journey into. So it was good. Boredom is kind of a good space to do some solid thinking, and I did plenty of that.”

So maybe it wasn’t the act itself that made him catch the acting bug, but it certainly gave him the space to contemplate and the introspection required to be great. That maturity didn’t come quite fast enough, though, because he also revealed in the interview that he originally failed his Thor audition, and it wasn’t until his younger brother Liam almost got the part but was “too young,” that a more-confident Hemsworth was able to secure the role that made him a massive star. Those breast pump machine daydreams definitely paid off.

Bill Cosby may have been released from prison after his sexual assault conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, but his legal woes are far from over. For the past two weeks, the disgraced comedian’s bad behavior has been the talk of the Santa Monica Supreme Court in California. That’s where, according to Variety, 12 jurors are currently working to reach a verdict in a civil case brought against Cosby by Judy Huth, a 64-year-old woman who claims that Cosby molested her in 1975, when she was just 16 years old.

Closing arguments in the case were made on Wednesday, and the jury is currently deliberating; nine of the 12 jurors will need to be in agreement in order for a verdict to be reached. On Thursday, jurors asked a handful of questions that have led to some speculation about where in the deliberation process they may be, and which issues they may be stuck on. As Gene Maddaus wrote for Variety:

The jurors’ questions suggested they had considered many of the issues they were asked to decide. In one question, the jury asked how many had to agree on a damages award—suggesting that they could be inclined to award Huth some amount of damages…

The jurors also asked for definitions of a few terms on the verdict forms. In one instance, they asked what it meant to decide that Cosby had an “unnatural or abnormal sexual interest” in a child—one of the elements Huth’s lawyers must prove in order to prevail. Judge Craig Karlan responded that state law holds that any sexual interest in a child is unnatural.

Jennifer Bonjean, Cosby’s lawyer, objected to Karlan’s answer, and warned that it could become a point of contention should Cosby—who is not in attendance—lose the case and decide to appeal.

(Via Variety)

While Elon Musk has been busy plotting his purchase of Twitter just so he can turn it into TikTok, one crypto investor has slapped Musk, Tesla, and SpaceX with a whopping $258 billion lawsuit, claiming that the self-described “Techno King” is part of a crypto pyramid scheme.

As Bloomberg reports, a man by the name of Keith Johnson, who is described in the lawsuit as “an American citizen who was defrauded out of money by defendants’ Dogecoin Crypto Pyramid Scheme,” is tired of Musk regularly touting the benefits of Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that was originally created as a joke, when he knows full well (at least according to Johnson) that it’s worthless. As Bob Van Voris wrote for Bloomberg:

Johnson is seeking to represent a class of people who have lost money trading in Dogecoin since April 2019. He is asking for $86 billion in damages, plus triple damages of $172 billion, as well as an order blocking Musk and the companies from promoting Dogecoin, and declaring that Dogecoin trading constitutes gambling under US and New York law.

According to Johnson’s complaint, the grift began on May 8, 2021, when Musk hosted SNL. During the show’s “Weekend Update” segment, Musk appeared as Lloyd Ostertag, a fictional financial expert, who sung the praises of crypto and Dogecoin in particular. (In reality, Musk’s flirtation with Dogecoin began a bit earlier; he first tweeted about it in December 2020.)

Musk’s regular teases about Dogecoin have typically been followed by enormous surges in interest in the coin. After one tweet from The Boring Company founder on April 15, 2021—just a couple weeks ahead of his SNL appearance—Dogecoin saw a 100 percent rise in price:

​​https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1382552587099062272

In December 2021, Musk announced that Tesla would begin accepting Dogecoin as a form of payment. In Johnson’s mind, this is all evidence of Musk’s complicity in promoting a worthless meme coin for his own personal enjoyment.

“Musk used his pedestal as World’s Richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure, and amusement,” Johnson’s complaint reads.

Representatives for Musk, Tesla and SpaceX did not return requests for comment.

(Via Bloomberg)