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NFTs have firmly found their way into the music world, with Snoop Dogg and Sia embracing them. Now they’re establishing a presence in festival season, too, as Coachella and 88Rising are teaming up for a new collection that will offer real-world perks at this month’s Coachella festival.

All in all, aside from “digital ownership of 88rising’s historic Head In The Clouds Forever Coachella performances captured by Curry Tian,” the collection includes “physical experiences at the festival, including perks and utilities from 88rising and Coachella, such as dedicated entry lines at Coachella and on-site festival meetups,” along with “early access to music, tickets to Head In The Clouds Festivals, VIP experiences exclusive to holders, early access to merch, future NFT drops, and more.”

There will also be “a one-of-one NFT that grants on-stage access to 88rising’s Coachella showcase and an exclusive party experience at the 88rising Cloud Mansion.”

The NFT sale and auction kicks off on Tuesday, April 12 at 9 a.m. PT on nft.coachella.com/88rising and will run for 24 hours.

Sean Miyashiro, CEO of 88Rising, says, “We wanted to collaborate with Coachella to provide insane experiences at the most iconic festival in the world – and extend them into the future for all of our Head In The Clouds festivals ahead. We want our contribution in this space to be meaningful to the fans and also provide value in real world experiences as well as an ongoing path to deliver amazing art.”

Sam Schoonover, Innovation Lead for Coachella, also notes, “The magic of a concert comes from a personal connection established between viewer and performer. NFTs allow us to build on that connection by commemorating the experience, rewarding the loyalty of those who attended, and enabling a stronger community amongst fans. The 88Rising collections embody the mission of this festival: producing fan-first experiences that support creatives.”

Singer-songwriter Alex G — formerly (Sandy) Alex G — has always made eccentric, cinematic tunes that evoke intense emotions. That’s why it’s very fitting that he recently announced that he’s releasing a film score for the forthcoming movie We’re All Going To The World’s Fair. He was tapped by the director Jane Scoenbrun, and he unveiled the first single “End Song” in March. Now, he’s unleashing the poignant “Main Theme,” the week before the soundtrack’s arrival.

The song is an eerie acoustic ballad that’s imbued with celestial energy by an incessant, high-pitched droning and vocals that are used as instruments, repeating unintelligible words that just become floating sounds. Despite the fact that this project is for a film, it’s obvious that he didn’t have to compromise his signature style for it. “I love horror films, but it was also important to me that my film feel more than just scary. I wanted it to feel gentle, sad, personal, and homemade: the kind of ‘horror’ movie that might make you cry,” Scoenbrun said of the track in a statement. “When Alex’s gorgeous, emotive ‘Main Theme’ enters during our opening credits (and then recurs in mutated forms throughout the movie), it’s meant as a signal to the audience of exactly this ambition.”

Listen to “Main Theme” above.

Remember that craze when it seemed like a horde of new female rappers with “Doll” in their names popped up at the same time? I wondered at the time whether Nicki Minaj, who has peppered her aesthetic and music with references to the popular doll Barbie since her ascent, had something to do with it. I say that because I’m wondering again about whether her obsession with Barbie has bled over to yet another wave of new female rap talents thanks to Doechii’s surreal, borderline NSFW new video for “Crazy.”

Doechii and her backup dancers certainly very much resemble Barbie dolls in the video. While they dance mostly nude throughout (save for black thigh-high boots and a few other accessories for the DRAMA), the removal of anything resembling sexual organs makes them look a lot like the oddly sexless Barbie, with blank, nippleless boobs. It’s kind of eerie, which, with Doechii, seems to be par for the course. TDE’s first female rapper loves to subvert expectations and tropes, blending rap with house on her first single “Persuasive” and now messing with perceptions of female rappers as primarily selling sex in her new video.

It’s a lot to process, but that’s what’s making Doechii’s rollout so darn fun. There’s supposedly also an — ahem — “uncensored” video out there, as well. You can find the link on the YouTube above. We aren’t sure whether Doechii is dropping an album in the near future or not, but one thing is for sure: she’s made one heck of an entrance to the rap game.

The ladies of The View came out swinging on Friday morning when it came time to tackle Marjorie Taylor Greene for reporting their ABC colleague, Jimmy Kimmel, to the Capitol Police for cracking a joke about the congresswoman. Earlier in the week, Kimmel roasted Greene for calling members of her own party “pro-pedophile” because they voted to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Kimmel quipped, “Where is Will Smith when you really need him?” and that was enough for Greene to announce she’d reported the late night comedian to the Capitol Police.

Joy Behar kicked off The View panel by calling Greene “touchy, touchy, touchy” before going right for the jugular. “It’s interesting, she is a joke, and yet she can’t take a joke,” Behar said. But it was Ana Navarro who went all-in on the QAnon congresswoman. After dragging Greene for going to the same Capitol Police she supports MAGA rioters attacking on January 6, Navarro used a favorite conservative insult to describe Greene’s latest meltdown.

Via The Wrap:

“Let’s also remember that this is the same Marjorie Taylor Greene who basically harassed a teenager who had just survived a mass shooting,” Navarro continued. “This is the same Marjorie Taylor Greene who accosted and harassed Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. So really sweetheart, you can dish it out but you can’t take it? I think in the right-wing culture, they call people like you snowflakes.“

We’d joke that someone should call 911 because there’s just been a murder, but Marjorie Taylor Greene might take it seriously and call the cops, so we’ll just quietly chalk this one up as a win for Navarro.

(Via The Wrap)

As the 2021-22 NBA regular season winds to a close, award races and discussions are in full swing. Among the most hotly contested races is Defensive Player of the Year, where it feels like close to 10 players could have a credible case to take home the honor.

Recently, Gary Payton provided his reasoning as to why he deems Marcus Smart the best Defensive Player of the Year choice this season. Payton is the last guard to win the award, which he took home at the end of the 1995-96 season. He said Smart does similar things defensively to him, which includes pressuring a ball-handler full-court, slowing the collective offensive process, and eventually forcing the ball out of the top offensive player’s hands.

“He makes other people handle the basketball, who ain’t supposed to handle the basketball and get into their offense,” Payton said. “He’s done that all year. He has taken the point guard every time he plays ever. … If you change your offense because of one guy, that’s what your supposed to do (as a defender).”

Payton also praised Smart for playing hard and said “he plays with a lot of dog in him.”

“He has changed a lot of things in a lot of the games.”

Smart is the leading defender on the league’s top defense. His ability to excel with an array of responsibilities certainly makes him a legitimate candidate for this season’s Defensive Player of the Year.

In February of last year, the news broke that thieves shot Lady Gaga‘s dog walker Ryan Fischer and stole two of her dogs, Koji and Gustav. He was out with the dogs just before 10 p.m. in Los Angeles when a gunman shot him and made off with two of the three dogs that were being walked together.

The accused suspect is 19-year-old James Howard Jackson, and he was released Wednesday “due to a clerical error.” The police are now searching for him. “The investigation is continuing and the LASD Major Crimes Bureau is actively working to get Mr. Jackson back in custody,” the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

Shortly after the shooting last year, Gaga offered a $500,000 reward for the return of her dogs “no questions asked.” At the same time, Fischers’ family issued a statement that Fischer was recovering. It also included an appreciation for Gaga’s support: “Of course, we also want to thank Lady Gaga who has shown nothing but non-stop love and concern for Ryan and our family right from the outset,” they said. “Ryan loves Gustavo and Koji as much as Lady Gaga does; so we join in her plea for their safe return.”

We’ve all been rooting for former child stars to make their triumphant return into the spotlight, and it seems that Lindsay Lohan is on the right track. She’s reached the point in her career where she can look back on her questionable fashion choices and laugh, which is a huge step!

For Vogue’s Life In Looks segment, Lohan was able to look back at her famous outfits and give context to them. She showed off her Parent Trap premiere dress from 1998, which she still has, and a Juicy Couture sweatsuit from her Freaky Friday era, which she wore with flip flops, of course, since that was the style in 2002.

She even gave us some behind-the-scenes stories from the infamous 2003 Vanity Fair Young Hollywood shoot, “If you think about getting all of these actresses in a room today, just hanging out, it would be so different,” Lohan laughed.

When Lohan got to the Mean Girls era of her looks, she opened up about how she really wanted to be the Queen Bee Regina George instead of the homeschooled Cady. “The story behind me playing Cady in Mean Girls is really unknown by a lot of people. I wanted to play Regina,” Lohan said. “Because I had just come off of Freaky Friday, and I really wanted to play like a pretty, normal girl now and I wanted to have a different kind of role than just the damaged teenager again.” Perhaps she hadn’t finished reading the script by then, as Regina was far from “normal.” The role went to Rachel McAdams instead.

The actress added that it was Tina Fey and director Mark Waters who insisted she should play the quiet transfer student Cady instead. “They were like, ‘No, no, no you’re the lovable one, you have to play Cady.’ So I was so eager to get into the transitional part of, ‘OK, let’s get to the pretty part of Cady.’” The rest is history.

Lohan has been quietly making her way back into the spotlight over the last few years and is gearing up to release not one but three new Netflix movies this year. If anyone can make Juicy Couture sweatsuits have a comeback, it’s her. You can watch the full video above.

LeBron James will not play basketball again this season. The Los Angeles Lakers star suffered an ankle sprain last month, and while he has tried to play in the games since, the team announced on Friday afternoon that James will be shut down for the final two games of the 2021-22 campaign.

“LeBron James’ left ankle was recently reevaluated by Lakers medical staff, and it was determined that due to the ankle sprain James suffered in a game on March 27th, he will miss the remainder of the 2021–22 NBA season to allow for continued healing and an expected full recovery,” the team said in a statement.

With the Lakers eliminated from any sort of postseason contention, all the drama surrounding a potential James returned was tied to whether or not he would play in two more games and become eligible for the league’s scoring title. James is averaging 30.3 points per game for Los Angeles, but has only appeared in 56 games on the year — James would need to play in 58, or 70 percent of the Lakers’ games, to be eligible for the award.

The team does have two more games this year, as they play host to the Thunder on Friday night before traveling to Denver on Sunday. James previously ruled himself out for the rest of the year in an April Fools’ Day tweet, only to play that evening. That will end up being the final game in which he appeared during the Lakers’ disappointing season.

If you ask fans of Rick Ross to list their favorite verses from the Maybach Music Group leader, most of them will mention his guest appearance on Kanye West’s “Devil In A New Dress.” The track, which appears on West’s 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, was a standout on the album and it’s one that arrived months after Ross dropped one of his best albums, Teflon Don. During a recent appearance on LeBron James and Uninterrupted’s The Shop, which also featured Gunna, Las Vegas Aces player A’ja Wilson, and United Master CEO Steve Stoute, Ross was asked about that verse and how it came together, and his answer is one you might not expect.

“Soon as I heard to beat, I wrote a verse right there,” Ross said. “The verse you heard ain’t what it was [in the end]. I wrote two to three verses right then just to let Kanye hear the vibe and I was like ‘This my verse right here. This the verse I want.’ He listened to it, walked off, came back an hour later like, ‘Rozay I know you…’”

Ross continued, “This the first time somebody ever said Rozay, ‘I know you, you could go harder.’ Woah… Rozay ain’t used to that. This feeling like confusion.” Ross added that it was a shock to essentially hear that his verse wasn’t good enough for the song. “He comes back like, ‘Rozay, you know I know you. This verse right here you could –‘ and I looked at him [like] what? I could what?” The comment seemed to light a fire under Ross. “Don’t even finish that,” he says he told Kanye. “Just chill, come back and holla at me. He closed the room, I said this n**** crazy, and I went back in immediately.”

Ross says the moment is proof that Kanye is a great producer. “Without a doubt, he’s most definitely gonna challenge you,” he said. “To me, to be great and make sure that everybody that’s in the room with you [is] great, you have to make sure that you challenge and not just accept.”

You can watch the full episode of The Shop in the video above.

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

It only took Gunna a week to take over 2022 at the top of the year. The Atlanta native released his third album DS4EVER and it arguably became his biggest release to date. DS4EVER debuted at No. 1 on the albums chart, beating out The Weeknd’s Dawn FM, and while the project was statistically impactful, but was equally so on a cultural level. The project produced the term “Pushin P,” thanks to Gunna’s song with Young Thug and Future, and it took the world by storm. Fellow rappers and celebrities started using it and big-time corporations joined in on the fun. Through it all, Gunna’s definition of the term wasn’t the clearest, but at long last, we’ve received a more straightforward explanation.

During a recent episode of LeBron James and Uninterrupted’s The Shop — which also featured Rick Ross, Las Vegas Aces player A’ja Wilson, and United Master CEO Steve Stoute — Gunna took his time to explain the phrase.

“Pushin P really started at first as me just pulling up on some player, might got me a vibe with me,” he said. “My homies are like ‘Okay!’ You might come back around [later] and I’m doing the same one with a different type of vibe [and it’s like], ‘You’re still going? You Pushin P, now you pushing it! You pushin this player sh*t.’ Now I’m tryna make sure that I’m capitalizing on the P like, y’all Pushin P or what?”

Gunna then explained what inspired his player mentality. “Really all the dope boys,” he said. “Like our OG dope boys, man they was P, they was pulling up. When Boosie and them was riding DUBs, floaters, and Chargers, we had some OGs in our hood riding them too, telling us like, ‘This how you pull up.’ I looked up to them, got my game, and ran with it. Kept it P.”

Stoute chimed in with his point of view on “Pushin P,” and recalled that many people from Oakland accused Gunna of stealing their lingo. “Come to find out,” Gunna said in response, “they just come from player sh*t, too. That’s all that means. That’s what I took from it like bro, everybody been player. Your uncles, your aunties? They was player.”

You can watch the full episode of The Shop in the video above.

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