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This year has been a great one for Pusha-T. He kicked things with his impressive “Diet Coke” record which featured production from Kanye West and 88-Keys. He followed that up with “Neck & Wrist” alongside Pharrell Williams and Jay-Z. Both songs later appeared on his fourth studio album It’s Almost Dry which became Pusha’s first No. 1 album of his career and an early favorite for rap album of the year in 2022. The project was his first since 2018’s Daytona, but as Pusha tells it, it will be far from his last album. That’s because he seeks one major thing in his career going forward: rap immortality.

During a recent profile with NME, Pusha T shared his desire to prove that he is indeed an immortal rap figure. “A lot of our forefathers, the greats, they didn’t stand the test of time,” he said. “As great as they were, I don’t know how much they are [still] appreciated. [I want] to show that rap doesn’t have to age out. When people look at me, they need to understand that I can do this forever.”

It’s a tall task for anyone to accomplish, even those as talented as Pusha, but with his steady improvement over the years, Pusha might achieve his goal.

You can read Pusha’s full profile with NME here.

It’s Almost Dry is out now via GOOD Music and Def Jam. You can stream it here.

Last night’s Western Conference finals Game 2 was mostly memorable for the Warriors coming back from a 19-point deficit to beat the Mavericks and take a commanding 2-0 lead in the series as it heads back to Dallas. But while Kevon Looney was having the game of his life and Steph Curry and company were surgically picking apart the Mavs in the second half, Dallas owner Mark Cuban and Lil Wayne were settling a score themselves courtside.

Ahead of Game 1, a very messy Twitter beef between Cuban and Lil Wayne bubbled over with Weezy telling Cuban, “Mark Cuban don’t make me get u smacked boy U playin w me?? I will piss in ya fkn mouth ho.” Gross, right? This all stemmed from Cuban coming to Luka Doncic’s defense eight days after Weezy tweeted “Luka a ho.” At any rate, it seemed as though things were patched up between the pair last night at Game 2 in San Francisco. Lil Wayne and his son were sitting courtside and Cuban came up to fraternize with the pair, even giving err… lil Lil Wayne a high five.

And according to unofficial Lil Wayne beat reporter Skip Bayless (I know, this doesn’t make sense to anyone), Cuban was the one who invited Tunechi and his boy (whose name is actually Kam) to the game.

So it seems as though this short-lived beef has ended with nobody peeing in anyone else’s mouth. Thank God. But the chances of the pair celebrating a Championship together again took a big hit.

The Dallas Mavericks looked like they had the Golden State Warriors on the ropes during Game 2 of the 2022 Western Conference Finals. Thanks to some scorching hot shooting, Dallas led by as many as 19 points and seemed primed to even up the series before it made it way down to Texas.

And then, the wheels came off altogether. The Mavericks offense completely fell apart in the game’s third quarter, as they scored 13 points and opened the door for Golden State to get back in the game — ultimately, the Warriors picked up a 126-117 win. And after the game, Dallas coach Jason Kidd expressed some gripes about how the team attacked Golden State’s defense in the third quarter.

“When you go 2-for-13 and you rely on the 3, you can die by the 3,” Kidd said, per ESPN’s Tim MacMahon. “And we died in the third quarter by shooting that many 3s and coming up with only two.

“If you make [3s], that’s great, but you just have to understand, if you miss four in a row, you can’t take the fifth,” Kidd continued. “You’ve got to make it. That just puts too much stress on yourself and on your team because, if you’re not getting stops on the other end, it turns into a blowout.”

Dallas shot 3-for-6 on twos in the period, but repeatedly pulled up from deep and were punished by the home team. This happened despite the Mavericks having a generally very good night from behind the arc, as they made 21 of the 45 triples they attempted. The 21 makes were tied for the third-most in a losing effort in postseason history, and despite the loss, Jalen Brunson supported the team’s repeated attempts from deep.

“I mean, we were getting great looks,” Brunson said. “When we’re open, we’re going to shoot. We have a lot of guys capable of making shots, knocking shots down. So I think as long as we’re open and shooting the correct shots, making the extra pass, doing the things that we do, we have confidence in everybody, I have confidence in everybody to knock it down.”

Dallas will hope the ball is a bit more kind in Game 3 on Sunday night.

Earlier this week, the New York Senate passed Senate Bill S7527, better known as the Rap On Trial bill. It was sponsored by Senators Jamaal Bailey and Brad Hoylman and it received support from rappers like Fat Joe, Jay-Z, Killer Mike, and Meek Mill. The bill states that there should be “clear and convincing evidence” that an artist’s song, video, or other “creative expression” is “literal, rather than figurative or fictional.” This now makes it harder for prosecutors to use lyrics, which are exaggerated more times than not and used for the sake of the art, to tie in rappers in cases related to RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) and more.

Shortly after the bill was passed, TMZ caught up with Bobby Shmurda to hear his thoughts about it. Bobby, who was released from prison last year following a seven-year sentence on weapons and murder conspiracy charges, had his lyrics used in court. “I’m grateful for it,” he told TMZ. “I feel like it needs to happen all over the country, especially with what’s going on in Atlanta right now. I feel like rap is targeted the most. Rap is expression you know? If you look at movies, everything is expression, so rap is an expression. I feel sometimes like it shouldn’t be said in court or anything.”

He later added, “I feel like it limits art, it limits what it does. When they say that the rap can be used against you, it limits your art because sometimes people just want to be free.”

Bobby’s comment about Atlanta is in reference to the RICO case that Young Thug, Gunna, and 26 other members of YSL were recently wrapped up in. In that case, the charges against the group include conspiring to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, murder, armed robbery, and participation in criminal street gang activity.

You can listen to Bobby’s comments in the video provided by TMZ here.

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

On Friday, a new season of David Letterman’s Netflix chat show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction dropped, gifting subscribers with another six hour-long tête-à-têtes. Thing is, one of them made a bit of news since their episode is recorded. That person is Will Smith, who sat down with the former late-night television king before he won his Oscar…and before he slapped Chris Rock on live TV. The episode is filled with remarks that seem different now than they would have had the incident never happened.

One of them comes towards the end, when Smith tells Letterman about a vision he had on a druggy trip in which, eerily, he saw his life and career go up in smoke. In a bit teased out by Hello!, Smith — who says he’s never done drugs, not even marijuana — reveals that he got really into ayahuasca, a psychoactive brew that has been taken for over a thousand years and was first discovered amongst tribes in the Amazon basin. Smith says he took 14 “journeys,” one of which was the “most hellish psychological experience of my life.”

“I drank, and it usually takes about 45 minutes to kick in,” Smith told Letterman. “And I’m sitting there and you always feel like, ‘Maybe it won’t kick in this time.’ So I’m drinking and sitting there and then all of a sudden it’s like I start seeing all of my money flying away, and my house is flying away and my career is going away.”

At one point during his vision, he heard his daughter Willow calling out for help. “Then slowly, I stopped caring about my money, I just wanted to get to Willow,” he said. “I stopped caring about my house, I stopped caring about my career.”

Intense as it was, Smith emerged with a new perspective, namely, “that anything that happens in my life, I can handle it.” He said, “I can handle any person I lose, I can handle anything that goes wrong in my life, I can handle anything in my marriage. I can handle anything that this life has to offer me.”

There are other unintentionally strange moments throughout the hour-long chat. At one point Smith talks about his private vs. public self. “There’s a person that you want to be and a person you want to be viewed as,” he said. “And then there’s who you really are.”

At another point, Letterman mentions Smith’s mother, to which Smith gets jokingly irate, telling him, “Don’t say nothing about my mother, Dave,” then pretends to be angry with him. That moment probably seemed cute before the 94th Academy Awards. What’s more, Letterman’s laidback, friendly chat with Smith ages interestingly given the joke he made after the incident.

As for what’s Smith’s up to now, he was last seen in India. He has yet to offer a fulsome apology to Rock personally.

You can watch Smith’s appearance on My Next Guest on Netflix.

(Via Hello!)

Last month, Sharon Van Etten announced that her sixth album We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong would arrive at the beginning of May, and while she released singles (“Porta” and “Used To It”) prior to the announcement, those singles would not appear on the project. It came as Van Etten announced that she would not share singles from the album prior to its release. While that made for a bit more of a grueling wait for the album’s music, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong in its entirety is now here and she celebrates its release with a new performance.

Van Etten brought her talents to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert for a rigid performance of “Mistakes.” She appeared on stage with a complete band and she led the way with passionate vocals that she delivered under red lighting. Prior to the release of We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, Van Etten explained her intention with the project.

“These ten songs are designed to be listened to in order, at once, so that a much larger story of hope, loss, longing, and resilience can be told,” she said in a statement. “I wanted to convey that in an image with me walking away from it all, not necessarily brave, not necessarily sad, not necessarily happy.”

You can watch Van Etten’s performance on The Late Show in the video above.

We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is out now via Jagjaguwar. You can stream it here.

Is Samuel L. Jackson banned from SNL? He seemed to think so. Back in March, the legendary actor and champion swearer claimed, at least semi-jokingly, that he’s not allowed back on the live sketch show due to a guest appearance in 2012, when he dropped both the f-word and a “bulls*it.” But according to show honcho Lorne Michaels, that’s not so. Now Kenan Thompson, the star of the offending sketch, is begging him to return.

The day before SNL’s Season 47 finale, Thompson went on The Tonight Show, where he talked about appearing in a jaw-dropping 1,500-plus sketches, a feat he only recently achieved. (He joined the show in 2003, making him by far the longest-running cast member in the show’s history.) He also addressed the modest elephant in the room: whether Jackson is safe to return to live late-night weekend television. The answer is: yes, probably.

“Hey, Sam? It’s all good, bro,” Thompson said, staring into the camera. “You’re welcome any time, from what I’ve been hearing.”

The offending sketch was an iteration of Thompson’s recurring “What’s Up with That?”, in which he plays a talk show host who gets a little too into singing. Towards the end a mock-flustered Jackson let some cuss words rip. Thompson did his best to rein him in while not cracking up too much. “That costs money,” he quipped.

Jackson jokingly blamed Thompson for the probably fake ban, which Thompson owned up to while speaking to host Jimmy Fallon. “My bad, bro,” he said. “Come on in whenever you want.”

You can watch the sketch that may or may not have gotten Jackson banned, at least temporarily, below. The bad words begin around the six-minute mark.

You can watch Thompson’s Tonight Show appearance in the video above. The Jackson discussion happens around the 3:30 mark. On Friday it was announced that multiple cast members were leaving SNL after this season.

(Via EW)

Last month, Michelle Zauner (of Japanese Breakfast) made an appearance at the 2022 Grammys as she was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album (for Jubilee) and Best New Artist. She unfortunately did not win in either category, but Zauner made sure to enjoy her time at the Grammys. She got a picture with the BTS collective, which she did to send back to her aunt in Korea “so she knows that I have a real job,” and it earned her a lot of love from the group’s extremely supportive fan base. That same night, Zauner also received some attention for a meal she had after the awards.

While many went out to lavish after-parties to conclude the night and/or have a fancy meal, Zauner stopped by none other than Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs to conclude her Grammy night. She spoke about her decision to go for a hot dog during a recent appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “It was such a busy day getting ready and I was so hungry, all I ate was gruel in the morning,” she said. “I didn’t want to take off the outfit and get stuff on it, so I just didn’t really eat anything that day.”

She continued, “It was in the MGM Grand this year and on our way to the show, we passed a Nathan’s hot dog in the food court and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to hit that up later.’ The entire show I was just kind of like, ‘I can’t wait to go there.’” Zauner added that she and her live drummer Craig Hendrix left the Grammys during the last award. As planned, they stopped by the hot dog stand and took advantage of a two-for-one hot dog deal to cap off their night.

As soon as Zauner finished her story, Fallon surprised her with two Nathan’s hot dogs and two proceeded to chow down to conclude their interview.

You can watch Zauner and Fallon’s interview above.

Truth is stranger than fiction, as we’re frequently reminded, but sometimes truth and fiction can be one and the same. That may be the case in the case of Nancy Brophy, a novelist who once wrote a blog post entitled “How to Murder Your Husband” and who is now on trial for possibly murdering her husband.

According to Vice, Nancy Brophy, an Oregon-based novelist who writes romantic crime novels with, as per her website, “rugged men, strong women and a good story,” is alleged to have killed her husband, Daniel Brophy, in 2018. Prosecutors believe that Nancy fired two shots into Daniel’s chest using a ghost gun, or a hand-made firearm constructed so as to be untraceable. In Nancy’s case, she’s accused of creating a hand-made Glock.

To make matters stranger, in 2011 Nancy wrote a blog post entitled “How to Murder Your Husband.” She opened the post by saying that “as a romantic suspense writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about murder and, consequently, about police procedure.” She also laid out which weapons one ought not to use so as to evade the police, as per Vice:

Brophy also categorizes ways to off your husband. Among them are: guns, which she says are “too loud and noisy”; knives, which are too bloody; a garrote, which requires too much upper-body strength; and poison, which she seems to endorse. The prime suspect, ruminates Brophy, is almost certainly going to be the spouse, especially if they stand to collect a large sum of money.

One of the comments on the blog reads, “I’m calling Dan to make sure he’s alright.”

The judge, however, tossed the blog post as evidence, claiming it was too far removed to how Nancy allegedly really did kill her husband. (For one thing, Daniel was not poisoned.)

At the time of his death, Daniel was 63 and the couple had been together since the early ’90s. After his passing, Nancy began receiving portions from his multiple insurance policies, which added up to a whopping $1.4 million. Three months after his death, Nancy was charged with second-degree murder. She faces life in prison.

(Via Vice)

Johnny Cash was born in 1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas and lived there for the first few years of his young life. The small town today has a population of under 1,000 people and their pride and joy is the city’s glorious water tower featuring a silhouette of Cash holding a guitar. Suffice it to say, “The Man In Black” is revered in his hometown, but one clever citizen thought it’d be a funny joke to shoot a bullet through said silhouette right in the family jewels. That’s what 38-year-old local boy Timothy Sled did and Cash has looked like he’s taking a never-ending whiz for days.

But as a TVH11 reports, this prank is an expensive one for the town and, “It walks the line between comedy and vandalism.” Mayor Luke Neal said that “We’re losing about 30,000 gallons of water per day. We kinda run on a tighter budget in small towns… and things like this can really set you back a bit.” He did also admit that “this fella’s a good shot.”

Apparently, this same prank was pulled once before in 1993, but even today, one local says, it’s once again, “the biggest news in Kingsland.” Neal adds that they’ll have to drain much of the water from the tank and alter how the city gets its water in the meantime. The town just spent $300,000 in repairs on the tower a year ago and this presents a setback that will cost the town at least another $5,000.

The Cleveland County Herald reported on Wednesday however, that Seld was arrested and charged with two felonies. that he faces up to 16 years in prison and fines of up to $20,000. If only someone had written a song about the blues that this dude might be feeling when he’s in the slammer…