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Megan Thee Stallion is having a good year. The Texas rapper just made her Billboard Music Awards debut, performing “Plan B” and “Sweetest Pie,” and she was given the key to her hometown of Houston at the start of this month. Yesterday, though, she went to the Webby Awards and revealed on the red carpet that her new album is almost done.

“Anything I want to give away? Actually, I’m probably like 95% done with my new album,” she told the interviewer. “I want to tease that for the hotties. I haven’t even told them nothing about my album.” The record will be a follow-up to October’s Something For Thee Hotties, as well as to the aforementioned songs “Plan B” and “Sweetest Pie” plus “Flamin’ Hottie.”

Something For Thee Hotties ended up being the subject of lawsuits when her label, Carl Crawford’s 1501 Certified Entertainment, said that it wasn’t technically an album. After Megan sued them, they sued her back, with the attorney stating: “MTS knows that each ‘album’ must include at least twelve new master recordings of her studio performances of previously-unreleased musical compositions.”

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Mark Ruffalo still hasn’t gotten his own solo Hulk movie, but he seems fine with that. In fact, he seems fine popping up in other characters’ spin-off shows, even if they also focus on another lumbering green beserker. Witness the trailer for She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, a comedic take on the character Stan Lee introduced in 1980, as the more mild-mannered, non-superheroic cousin of always beleaguered Bruce Banner.

The preview for the show, due in August, finds Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters, a lowly lawyer who finds herself turning green after receiving an infusion from her superhero relation. When she learns that she can turn into a rage machine at the drop of a hat, she is decidedly non-plussed.

“Your transformations are triggered by anger and fear,” Bruce tells his cousin.

“Those are like the baseline of any woman just existing,” she replies.

But the connections run deeper: One of Walters’ clients just happens to be Emil Blonsky, aka Abomination, who was played by Tim Roth all the way back in the Edward Norton-fronted The Incredible Hulk from 2008, meaning the beloved actor will be back in the MCU for the first time since the George W. Bush era.

Though there are plenty of MCU shows that have either already aired or are en route, She-Hulk share a bit more DNA with one of them in particular: WandaVision. Indeed, it’ll be a little closer to an Ally McBeal-like legal comedy, focusing more on her job than on her battling baddies, which she doesn’t seem wont to do anyway. What’s more, each episode will run a mere 30 sitcom-y minutes.

You can watch the trailer for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law in the video above. It debuts on Disney+ on August 17.

A few months ago, Travis Scott was still living under the radar following the tragedy that took place at his 2021 Astroworld Festival. That incident resulted in ten deaths and nearly 5,000 injuries as well as nearly $3 billion in lawsuits. While many have placed a majority of the blame on Travis for the tragedy, others like the rapper himself feel otherwise. It’s probably why Travis began a slow return to the spotlight, one he completed with his recent performance at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards. Travis has also used the last few months to give back to the community, something he recently did with a donation to college students.

According to TMZ, Travis donated $1 million in scholarships to 100 students enrolled at HBCUs across the country. The students all are set to graduate with the Class of 2022, so his contribution ensures that students are able to do so without running into financial troubles in the near future or further down the line. The upcoming graduates, who finished their final semester with a GPA of 3.5 or higher, will each receive a $10,000 scholarship from Travis’ Waymon Webster Scholarship Fund.

In total, the scholarships were handed out to seniors at 38 schools which include Alabama A&M University, Central State University, Jackson State University, Morehouse College, Texas Southern University, Grambling State University, and more. The $1 million in scholarships are also a part of Travis’ Project HEAL initiative which he launched in March with a $5 million donation to community-based programs.

A lot of touring artists are testing positive for COVID, from noted anti-vaxxer Eric Clapton to the Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron. For the latter, the band reached out to former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, Richard Stuverud, and original Pearl Jam drummer Dave Krusen who left the group after the first album.

Krusen is the most recent talent to serve as the replacement at the band’s show in Fresno, California last night. On stage, he stated that he didn’t get to play many shows with Pearl Jam when he was actually in the band. “It looks like this week we’re going to get to make up for it,” he said. After exiting Pearl Jam in 1991 because of issues with alcoholism, he went on to play in bands like Candlebox, Hovercraft, Unified Theory, and Sons Of Silver.

This also follows Pearl Jam recruiting a high school student named Kai Neukermans to fill in for Cameron. Eddie Vedder introduced him by saying, “He hasn’t graduated high school yet. This is the year, right? Everybody, this is Kai. Kai, this is everybody!” Neukermans later said of the experience: “It was surreal, the amount of people that were there. The arena lit up and everyone was screaming.”

Watch Pearl Jam with Krusen on the drums perform the song “Once” above.

On Tuesday, Vanity Fair published a sprawling, eye-opening piece about the state of the Star Wars franchise. The good news: They have plenty of TV spin-offs en route. The less good news: It’s not clear when, if ever, there will be another Star Wars movie. (And when/if there is, they won’t star new actors playing already established characters.) The films, mind you, have been divisive at least since the still hotly debated Return of the Jedi. And while some now stick up for the once derided prequels, even one of those fans, co-star Ewan McGregor, admits (in a bit teased out by IndieWire) that the reviews did initially get to him.

The actor, who reprises his role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the forthcoming Disney+ show of the same name, recently gushed about those three films, which have long been sources of scorn but were also beloved by many kids at the time, who are now adults. But after The Phantom Menace, which made a mint but received so-so reviews (to put it mildly), he wasn’t sure.

“It was hard because it was such a huge decision to do them, such a big event,” he said about the initial reviews. “It was quite difficult for all of us to deal with that, also knowing you’ve got a couple more to do.”

Reviews actually weren’t that bad. Right now, its score on Rotten Tomatoes is a so-so 51%, but that’s a mix of contemporaneous reviews and more recent ones. But many gave it a pass; Roger Ebert was genuinely enthusiastic awarding it 3 ½ stars. It actually took at least till the much more poorly reviewed Attack of the Clones for its reputation to start sagging. By the time he’d finished Revenge of the Sith (whose reviews were the best of the bunch but still well below those of the original trilogy), McGregor says he was happy to put the franchise behind him.

But return he did, some 15 years later (in what was initially to be a movie), although only because he was interested in seeing an older, sadder Obi-Wan. “I just said, ‘I think that it should be a story about a broken man, a man who’s lost his faith,’ ” he told VF. “He always has a funny line to say or always seems to be calm and is a good warrior or soldier or whatever, but to see that man come apart, and see what gets him back together again — that’s where we started.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi starts streaming on Disney+ on May 27.

(Via Vanity Fair and IndieWire)

The Boston Celtics and Miami Heat will begin the Eastern Conference Finals on Tuesday night, but both teams will be without some very important players.

For the Heat, Kyle Lowry remains out with a hamstring injury he suffered in the first round against the Hawks and aggravated against the Sixers. For Boston, both Marcus Smart and Al Horford will be out for Game 1 after Smart suffered a sprained foot in their Game 7 win over Milwaukee, while Horford has entered health and safety protocols.

Losing the Defensive Player of the Year is obviously a major blow to Boston on that end of the floor, but Smart has also become one of their more reliable spot-up shooters and is their best offensive initiator outside of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. One would expect Derrick White, who was terrific in the conference semis against the Bucks, to step into the starting role and play major minutes in Smart’s absence.

Horford has likewise been huge for the Celtics, effectively winning them Game 4 in Milwaukee and playing some of the best defense of his career this postseason. Horford allows Boston to go 5-out on offense and switch everything defensively, and without him they will have to rely on Robert Williams (now fully back from his knee injury) and Daniel Theis in their center rotation, with Grant Williams likely getting some small-ball center minutes when they want to be more switchable. The Horford-Grant Williams pairing had been their most successful defensive frontcourt against Giannis Antetkounmpo and the Bucks, and losing that option for the opener, if not longer, is a big blow.

Last year’s Show Me How You Disappear, was yet another arresting album by Ian Sweet filled with sparkling guitars and emotionally-charged lyricism. The project of LA’s Jillian Medford, Ian Sweet, has now released her second track since the excellent album, in the beaming song, “Fight.” The band has also announced a slew of upcoming North America and Europe tour dates

Medford says “Fight” is about a pandemic relationship that didn’t quite pan out in the end; a reminder that, hey, a lot of people went through that super recently. In a statement, Medford said the track harkens back to the feelings of, “Spending every day with someone, doing everything together, not knowing if the world was going to end. Leaning on someone with such heaviness, putting our entire weight and being onto each other, because it’s all we had. The song plays into both the monotony of the relationship and the catastrophe that I went through after it ended. I felt so content in the relationship but then my entire world fell apart when it ended and I didn’t know how to pick myself back up and move forward.”

The feverish outpouring is captured in the karaoke dive bar-set video by director Lucy Sandler. Medford and friends, take to the stage of Santa Monica Blvd’s Prime Time Pub, to sing “Fight” and each person on the mic feels the song’s purpose in their own way. Meanwhile, Medford’s “I Love Pain” t-shirt, is an omnipresent reminder of the constant flux of relationships, especially in less than ideal times.

Watch Ian Sweet’s video for “Fight” above and check out the full list of tour dates below.

05/18 — Tilburg, NL @ Skatecafe
05/19 — Groningen, NL @ Vera
05/20 — Amsterdam, NL @ London Calling
05/22 — Manchester, UK @ YES
05/23 — Glasgow, UK @ The Hug and Pint
05/25 — Liverpool, UK @ Zanzibar Club
05/26 — London, UK @ The Grace
05/28 — Bristol, UK @ Dot to Dot Festival
05/29 — Nottingham, UK @ Dot To Dot Festival
05/31 — Birmingham, UK @ Hare & Hounds
06/22 — 06/24 — Seattle, WA @ Capitol Hill Block Party
07/27 — New York, NY @ Baby’s All Right #
07/28 — Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s #
07/29 — Washington, DC @ Songbyrd #
07/31 — Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall #
08/01 — Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz #
08/02 — Toronto, ON @ Baby G #
08/04 — Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village #
08/05 — Milwaukee, WI @ Colectivo #
08/06 — Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St Entry #
08/08 — Omaha, NE @ Reverb Lounge #
08/09 — Kansas City, MO @ Record Bar #
08/11 — Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge #
08/12 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court #
08/14 — Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar#

#= with Bnny

The best comedy trio of the year (not them) is finally back to their various shenanigans and may or may not be murderers. The trailer for the second season of the hit Hulu series Only Murders In The Building has dropped, featuring your favorite two old guys and a millennial solving crime in a swanky Manhattan apartment building.

Starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez, the second season of the acclaimed show will dive deeper into what’s really going on at The Arconia. As per the official description: “Following the shocking death of Arconia Board President Bunny Folger, Charles, Oliver & Mabel race to unmask her killer.” The second season brings in some new cast members, including Cara Delevingne, Michael Rapaport, and Amy Schumer.

In season one, the main characters first bonded over a fictitious true-crime podcast, All Is Not OK In Oklahoma, before joining up to start a podcast of their own, and eventually becoming suspects in a murder investigation.

Gomez hosted Saturday Night Live last weekend and even starred in a short alongside Martin, who has hosted SNL fifteen times. Martin Short was also a cast member in the 80s before Gomez was born. A dream team!

The second season of Only Murders In The Building airs on June 28th on Hulu. Check out the trailer above.

Digital content hasn’t been doing so hot. Last week, numerous forms of cryptocurrency crashed big-time, so much so that Matt Damon’s Super Bowl crypto ad got dragged online all over again. The week before, the NFT market seemed to collapse, thanks in part to — you guessed it — Elon Musk. Now some phishers have come for Seth Green’s collection of non-fungible tokens.

The Buffy and Austin Powers alum announced on Tuesday that scammers had swiped two high-profile NFTs from his crypto wallet. Three, of course, were apes — one Bored, two Mutant. The other was from the Doodles collection. He advised people away from buying or trading them. He also reached out to someone who bought one of his stolen apes to set things right.

“Well frens it happened to me,” Green tweeted. “Got phished and had 4NFT stolen. @BoredApeYC @opensea @doodles @yugalabs please don’t buy or trade these while I work to resolve: @DarkWing84 looks like you bought my stolen ape- hit me up so we can fix it.”

Green is one of many celebrities who’s gotten into the NFT game, even launching his own collection, called Pizzabots, with the magazine Heavy Metal. He’s even planning an NFT-linked animated series with crypto promoter Steve Aoki.

Of the NFTs stolen from Green, hackers have already sold two of the NFTs: the Bored Ape for over $200,000 and one of the Mutant ones for $42,200. The remaining two are worth a combined $70,000, though they, like Green’s account, have since been flagged as suspicious by the NFT marketplace OpenSea.

In the meantime, Madonna is releasing her own NFT, featuring, of course, her vagina giving birth to various forms of nature.

(Via Vice)

Patrick Beverley has spent the last few days rifling through takes about NBA things on ESPN. Most notably, Beverley has had a whole heck of a lot to say about the Phoenix Suns no-showing in Game 7 against the Dallas Mavericks, with a whole lot of hating on Chris Paul mixed into what he’s had to say.

Plenty of folks around the game, like Damian Lillard and Matt Barnes, weren’t a fan of how Beverley used the time to go after Paul on Tuesday. But ESPN brought Beverley back for a few more appearances on Tuesday, and during a cameo on Stephen A’s World, Pat Bev had some things to say about the Los Angeles Lakers.

“If I was a free agent and I played for the Lakers, [we’re] going to the playoffs, goin to the Western Conference Finals,” Beverley said.

Smith got Beverley to say that he could have helped the Lakers get there if they were the exact same team, and expressed that he believed he’d bring one specific thing the team lacked.

“And no discredit to LeBron James, but he’s doing so much, who’s the leader?” Beverley asked. “They had success cause there was a leader there. [Rajon] Rondo was there [for the 2020 championship], at the time he was the leader. Who’s the leader?”

Beverley believes the team lacked someone who would tell James where he had to be and what he had to do “on a consistent basis,” and that he’s willing to say those sorts of things to anyone.

“It’s not about me scoring 20, it’s not about me having 15 dimes, I wanna win,” Beverley said.

The Lakers ended this season 33-49, good for 11th place in the Western Conference.