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There may have been no one happier to be in Cleveland for All-Star weekend than Channing Frye. The current television analyst and retired NBA big man was back in the city where he won a title to, among other things, open a newly-renovated basketball court during the All-Star festivities.

In partnership with Mobil 1 and nonprofit organization Project Backboard, Frye spoke to Dime on the Friday of All-Star weekend at the court’s official opening at Merrick Center. Ahead of the event, Frye discussed giving back to Cleveland with the court, why the city won him over, and why he’s excited by big men dominating the NBA so far this season.

Tell me about what you’re doing with Mobil 1.

It starts with my relationship with Cleveland, and then, I’m always looking for ways to not only do something for this city that I love — especially during a time like All-Star — but to work with companies like Mobil 1. And with Project Backboard, a basketball court can be endless based on whose imagination is using it. This hit home with me with based on how much I was on a basketball court growing up.

You can walk the court. I’ve walked the court talking about things that were important to me with a mentor. I’ve just shot around to relieve stress. It makes everyone equal because it’s based on a game. So to give this to the kids, to refurbish it, especially when it’s so close to downtown, is a huge gift. And it just made sense as a relationship.

You’ve talked a lot about Cleveland, so apologies if this hits some notes you’ve hit before. But what ultimately won you over with the city? Winning probably helps, but what made it somewhere you still have a relationship with?

I think first of all, I’m not a superstar. I’m not an All-Star. I was specialist. I was a role player. And they appreciated that. The people of Cleveland, and everyone in Ohio and Cavs fans, they know sports. And they appreciated each one of us individually obviously through winning championships, through both of my parents dying while I was in Cleveland. And that love and empathy seeped through to me on the court and to my family being there. For me to be able to come back and be welcomed when I said I was going to retire in Cleveland when I had a short career there was wild. I felt like I didn’t deserve it, but I felt like the love was reciprocated both ways. I wouldn’t be who I am as a person without the city of Cleveland. I say that a lot and it’s the truth.

And for me, everything about the city of Cleveland is me. It’s not fancy. It’s just about having a good time and enjoying people’s time and going to work when you need to go to work.

People still talk a lot about the parade being nuts — and I’m sure you always will remember that — but I also remember how nuts it was when Richard [Jefferson] was leaving before [LeBron’s] last season and you guys did the live show at a Homage shop. I remember that being maybe more insane in some ways, because it was impromptu and just a horde of people collecting in tight space.

Whether that’s ZZ Tops down in Westlake with the best wings — that little dive bar — or that place right off the freeway, and I’m so mad I’m blanking on the name, we had local watering holes, right? And it wasn’t like we were celebrities. It was just like, “Hey, Channing, you’re in again for the bacon cheeseburger after the game, right?” And we would just talk about the game. I got to be Channing. I got to turn off No. 9 or No. 8, whichever one you followed, and just got to be Channing.

Winning a championship and being with LeBron and with Kyrie and with Kevin, it felt good that I could be famous when it mattered and then be Channing and still live a regular life, especially with my kids. My kids didn’t even know I played basketball until I retired. They were like, “Oh, this is what you do.” I’m like, “Ya guys, this is what I do.” [Laughs]

What does it mean to get to make this court actually happen?

I think any time you get blessings, you should give back, even if it’s small things. If I get a new pair of shoes, I try to give two away to Goodwill. That’s worked for me. So for everything that Cleveland has given me, for me to be able to give back, that’s endless. And hopefully we can continue to do this more and more, even when All-Star is not there, and build these type of things out so kids can have an opportunity to be special, to build confidence, to learn about team sports, and to learn about themselves.

I learned so much about myself just playing basketball, whether that was perseverance or pushing through. Nobody wants to run lines, but if you do the work, you see the reward. For me, a court can be all of those things. Whatever it is, you belong there. And you have an opportunity to better yourself and better your day and just have fun.

To transition to basketball and to look ahead, what to you has been the biggest surprise, or some of the biggest surprises of the season?

For me, it’s Jokic and Embiid. I don’t know if people know what they are watching, right? As much as we talk about the greats — Hakeem and Tim Duncan and obviously Shaq — and I’m even going to put Giannis in this, but you’re looking at the three most unstoppable players in the NBA all technically being centers and all three are international, which shows the evolution of this game and the transition between the Golden State era where it’s guard oriented to “look at all the big men.” You cannot be an elite team without a versatile big man. I would even put Brooklyn in there because Kevin Durant is 7-foot.

Well, he says he’s not not 7-foot. But he’s seven-foot.

Oh stop it. He’s 7-foot. Look at the Cavs. You start three seven footers. That is exciting, to me, to see this transition to not just seeing these big aircraft carrier centers, but these centers that are like top-10 in scoring, rebounding, blocks. They’re defending. Seeing them doing everything at a high level has been wild.

Looking at Embiid, watching how he just played against Jarrett Allen was incredible, to do what he did against Allen and Mobley and others was nuts. So how do you envision him fitting with Harden?

I think it’s going to be big chemistry thing, and that’s going to grow. For me, when I look at it, Embiid cannot lend himself to Harden. He cannot say, “Oh, well James Harden is here, they don’t need me to be as aggressive.” When Joel Embiid this year is at his best, it’s when he’s an absolute monster, when he has no regard for human life and just tries to dunk on everybody, to get 50 points and do everything in his will to not only be available — which is a skill — but to dominate the game, whether it’s posting up, playing in the screen and roll, or taking big men out and hitting ’em with the whoopty-whoop with the handles. He can’t lend himself to Harden. Harden has to make room, Harden has to make everyone else better — Thybulle, Tobias, Maxey. He has to make everyone else better and it’s going to elevate the team, he has to raise the tide.

Are you surprised at how good the East seems to be? There are 10 teams looking locked into the 1-10 spots, but are you surprised at how good the teams in the playoff and play-in seem to all be?

Do you know what’s a wild thing? And hopefully this is a hot take, but it’s not: Every time LeBron switches conferences, it’s the the other conference that’s so good. I remember we were in the East and they were like, “Oh, the West is so dominant,” and then LeBron goes to the West, wins, and then everybody goes to the East. I’m not saying LeBron does that on purpose, but what I’m saying is that it’s not wild to me. It’s happened every single year he’s been in the league. I remember when I was with the Phoenix Suns, we won 48 games and didn’t make the playoffs in 2014. Every section is avoiding somebody. And even though the Lakers aren’t the best, the East has just developed its players to be different. For the Cavs to have success with three big men is just the beginning of this new generation.

Last thing: As far as the 82 game season goes, since you’re retired, do you view that as too many games? Or did you when you playing? Watching from afar — say, Darius Garland for instance, he looks like he needs a couple extra days off in-between games to get his back right. It seems like such a toll for everyone.

Well, I say this: Why Darius Garland and his team look tired is because they’ve never done this before. This is new for them.

I don’t want this to be easy, right? I don’t know if you’ve ever played pickup basketball or still do, but dudes complain all the time about pickup basketball, just innately, but they keep playing. So for me, if this was easy, the respect of winning a championship, going to the playoffs. If you only had 30 games, somebody can go out to Vegas every single night and play 30 games in their sleep. I want you to make a sacrifice for the season. Make it, take care of yourself.

Why is LeBron so special? Because he takes care of himself all the time. So how does he go to 10 NBA Finals and suddenly no one else can go to five? You can’t go to five NBA Finals? So why he is so different? It’s because he takes care of his body. These kids are getting into the league at 18, 19 years old knowing they have to sacrifice, knowing that the season is long, knowing that there are ups and downs, and to assess talent is hard. The first 25 games, people are getting in shape. The next 25 is that weird trade deadline area. Then the next 25 is the All-Star break — did you make it, did you not. And whatever is after All-Star is, are you going for a pick, are you developing your culture for the next year, or are you ramping up for the playoffs? And that’s it. And you need that time.

Would 72 be reasonable? Or is it more 82, to you as a former player, worth keeping because it puts guys through that meat grinder?

I think 82 is great. I also think once you start messing with guys’ checks, I betcha they play 82. The checks that these guys are getting nowadays, they gonna play 82. And if you’re team is good, you can take a day off. But if you’re losing, you’ve got to go out there and earn that check. That’s just how I think.

After releasing the devastating 2021 album War & Wonders, Inglewood rapper D Smoke begins his 2022 campaign with the video for “Say Go,” the album’s chest-beating second single after after “Shame On You.” Over triumphant horns, D Smoke lays out his philosophy, warning haters that the entire block will slide on his say-so as he marches through the streets of his hometown with seemingly the whole city behind him.

Lending a humorous counterpoint to the stone-faced proceedings, comedian Lil Rel makes an appearance midway through the video to comment on the goings-on, criticizing some of the march’s members for such activities as keeping chicken on leashes. Just watch it, trust me.

In his interview discussing War & Wonders with Uproxx last year, the Rhythm+Flow winner further detailed his defiant philosophy as expressed on the album. “We’re in a different world than we were in when Black Habits came out,” he said. “With the world changing so fast, if we don’t take on an attitude of resistance, or an attitude of strength, or a willingness to fight if things don’t work for us, we will be on the losing end of that… This ain’t a time to shrink. It’s time to grow and get big in the midst of everything we’re experiencing in the world. Because when these things happen, everybody needs an advocate, and you’re your first advocate.”

Watch D Smoke’s “Say Go” video above.

Ever since Rosalía shared the racy album artwork for her upcoming album, Motomami, excitement has been building for the release. She’s previously shared her collaboration with The Weeknd, “La Fama,” and the reggaeton-referencing “Saoko” Since there’s still a few weeks before the album drops, the Spanish pop star has shared yet another preview of what’s to come with today’s “Chicken Teriyaki” video. The Tanu Muino-directed video is her third release from Motomami, which will be Rosalía’s third studio album. In the dance-centric “Chicken Teriyaki” video, she leads her crew in a series of warmups and stretches before the real work begins.

Once the dance party starts, the catchy choruses of “chicken teriyaki” elicit all kinds of hilarious moves from the dancers. Combining shots from the cinematographers with iPhone clips from the other dancers, who offer very interesting perspectives on Rosalía, shooting her from the ground and other unusual angles, the video is a playful celebration of just how physical her music can be. At one point, a delivery guy even busts through the window on a motorcycle to deliver some of the song’s titular food to the hungry crew. Check out the video above and keep an ear out for more music before the album comes out in a few weeks.

One of the standout tracks from Helado Negro’s fantastic latest album Far In, “Hometown Dream” is a gorgeous moment of bliss. Propped up on an electric bass groove with woodwind coos and a sparkling drum beat, Helado Negro’s Roberto Carlos Lange sings, “Who could really know you now? Now that you’ve seen these dreams?” as you sink deeper into the hypnotic track.

Now on the new video for “Hometown Dream,” we see Lange today, spliced in with his younger self in footage from a 1988 VHS tape of his first trip to his family’s homeland of Ecuador. A freeze frame from the visual is very distinctly what was captured for the hazy, colorful album cover of Far In.

“Hometown Dream is about me leaving New York after living there for so long,” Lange, who know lives in North Carolina, said in a statement. “New York showed me my north in life and taught me to celebrate existence. My Mom and my Dad both moved to NYC in the ’60s. I spent my 20’s, 30’s, and turned 40 there.”

Conceptually, the “Hometown Dream” video follows suit with the clip for “Outside The Outside,” which also used scenes from old VHS family tapes that Lange recently digitized. In an interview with Uproxx last year, Lange spoke about his journey of self-discovery through his music, saying that: “Those songs are transmissions from an older me to a younger me traveling in the path and that’s what I’ve always tried to hope that people see with what I’m doing.”

Helado Negro’s worldwide tour begins in April and Lange also just announced that Kacy Hill and Kaina will be supporting him on select dates. Check out his website for tour updates here.

Watch the video for “Hometown Dream” above.

In a partnership with 2K Sports, rapper-turned-rocker Machine Gun Kelly will the ring as a playable wrestler in WWE 2K22. The game, which releases March 11 on PlayStation 4 and 5, PC, and Xbox One and Series X|S, features a stacked line-up of wrestling superstars, including the game’s cover star Rey Mysterio.

The option to play as Machine Gun Kelly comes as part of an expansion pack, the release of which to be announced at a later date. It is also unclear whether or not this expansion will be a free upgrade to the game.

Additionally, Kelly will oversee the game’s soundtrack, which contains a star-studded line-up featuring The Weeknd, Motorhead, and Wu-Tang Clan. The soundtrack will be released in tandem with the game.

Check out the WWE 2K22 soundtrack tracklist below.

1. Machine Gun Kelly — “Concert For Aliens”
2. Machine Gun Kelly — “Body Bag” Feat. Yungblud and Bert McCracken
3. Wu Tang Clan — “Protect Ya Neck”
4. Motorhead — “Iron Fist”
5. Poppy — “Say Cheese (Live NXT Version)”
6. Royal Blood — “Typhoons”
7. Bring Me The Horizon — “Happy Song”
8. The Weeknd – “Heartless”
9. Turnstile — “I Don’t Wanna Be Blind”
10. Asking Alexandria — “The Final Episode (Let’s Change The Channel)”
11. KennyHoopla –“Hollywood Sucks”

Some of the artists mentioned are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

He wasn’t the biggest cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home (that honor belongs to Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire, which no longer counts as a spoiler), but Charlie Cox showing up as Matt Murdock / Daredevil still got a big pop in the opening night screening I went to. That was not the case in the theater he was in, however.

“It’s funny, I got so many text messages and so many calls about that moment in the cinema. My nephew sent me a recording of everyone cheering. So I snuck into a movie theater near where I live and literally stood in the corridor… and, sadly, my experience was it was dead f*cking quiet,” Cox told Radio Times. He continued:

“I was so disappointed. My wife was with me and she was recording me, because it’d be fun to have that moment of everyone cheering, and then… tumbleweed.”

Here’s a dramatic reenactment of Cox thinking the crowd would go wild for him:

Millions of Daredevil fans were happy to see the Man Without Fear, however, and Cox confirmed that he’ll appear again in a future project. “I know something,” he teased. “I don’t know much, but I know there will be something else.” That’s great and all, but I would rather see the footage of Cox expecting a roar and instead hearing crickets. Put it on the No Way Home Blu-ray.

(Via Radio Times)

Despite his character sporting a trademark cigarette holder in the comics — and in 1992’s Batman Returns — Colin Farrell‘s version of The Penguin was banned from smoking in The Batman. In a new interview with Jake’s Takes, Farrell reveals that he put up a fight with Warner Bros. to at least let his character hold a cigar, but the studio wasn’t budging. Cigarette smoking has become a sensitive subject in films and even more so when you’re dealing with a billion-dollar franchise that would very much like to sell toys to young kids.

Via Variety:

“Big studios make big decisions around such things as the presence of cigarettes in films,” Farrell said. “I fought valiantly for a cigar. At one stage I said, ‘I can have it unlit! Just let me have it unlit.’ They were like, ‘No.’ [As if] a bunch of 12-year-olds are going to start smoking Cuban cigars because [the Penguin is smoking cigars in a movie.]”

Of course, Farrell might have a chance to add a little more comic accuracy in his Penguin spinoff series for HBO Max where things tend to skew a little more mature. In the meantime, Farrell seems to have had a blast with the role, which buried him underneath a sizable amount of prosthetics that he was virtually unrecognizable to his co-stars. The actor recently revealed that before he started filming The Batman, he took his new look for a “spin” at a Starbucks in Burbank, where he got a few strange looks.

(Via Variety)

Saweetie fans have been patiently waiting for her debut album, Pretty Bitch Music, for what might seem like forever after she delayed the album multiple times despite having huge hits in “My Type,” “Tap In,” and “Best Friend.” To hold them over, she initially planned to release an EP, Icy Season, in the first quarter of 2022, but now it seems even that plan has changed — but for a good reason. In a new interview with Billboard, the Bay Area rapper explained that she nixed the EP to lock in on finishing the album, which she now says should be out by summer.

She also explains why putting out her debut album has at times seemed such a halting, laborious process. “Sometimes our hit song is bigger than us and we’re just thrown into the game,” she says. “When you get signed, the label wants a hit. They want a return on their investment, which I understand. But it’s important for artists to understand themselves before they start seeking for hits. Because if you don’t know yourself, you don’t know your music.” She also doesn’t want to rush the process, as she feels she did with 2018’s High Maintenance and 2019’s Icy, and doesn’t “want to be safe anymore. Now it’s time to experiment.”

Considering she’s reportedly got a song in Tagalog, as well as Latin collab according to Billboard, it sounds like she’s expanding what the expectations of her album should be. Hopefully, she’s able to meet her own self-imposed deadline and live up to the potential she’s shown over the past few years.

Despite being banned from the platform in 2018, episodes of Alex Jones podcast have reportedly been streaming on Spotify for the better part of a week. Considering the streaming service has been embroiled in enough controversy thanks to Joe Rogan, it appears to have remedied the Jones’ problem with a quickness. The situation escalated on Wednesday when Media Matters reported on episodes of The Alex Jones Show recently being available to stream on Spotify:

Full-length episodes of The Alex Jones Show have been uploaded daily on Spotify since February 20 and remain undetected by the platform moderators. The Alex Jones Show is the first result that appears when searching ‘infowars’ on Spotify. This oversight speaks to a larger problem of Spotify’s shoddy enforcement of its own rules and poor ability to detect extremist content.

By Thursday morning, Spotify “appeared” to have pulled The Alex Jones Show, according to update on Media Matters’ initial report. If someone was trying to stealthily upload episodes to the platform, their plan was no doubt thwarted by the attention Marjorie Taylor Greene brought to the program. During a recent appearance, Greene flat-out called for vigilante justice against trans people in public, and went so far to endorse using physical violence by saying, if her daughter had a trans summer camp counselor, her husband would “beat them into the ground.”

Less than 24 hours after Greene went viral for her abhorrent remarks, Spotify pulled The Alex Jones Show episodes that somehow made it past its moderators.

(Via Media Matters)

Kanye West may very well be hoping to reconcile with Kim Kardashian but his soon-to-be ex-wife’s latest appeal to the court strikes the odds of that happening down from “highly unlikely” to “probably impossible.” Rolling Stone reports that on Wednesday, Kardashian filed a request to have their divorce expedited, citing Kanye’s social media antics over the past few weeks and cutting down his insistence on delaying finalizing the divorce to protect his assets.

“I very much desire to be divorced,” the statement reads. “I have asked Kanye to keep our divorce private, but he has not done so. Kanye has been putting out a lot of misinformation regarding our private family matters and co-parenting on social media which has created emotional distress. I believe that the court terminating our marital status will help Kanye to accept that our marital relationship is over and to move forward on a better path which will assist us in peacefully co-parenting our children.”

She also says that his claims that he needs to protect his assets lack “a scintilla of evidence,” and that their finances are safely separate. Her lawyers added, “No additional conditions are necessary to ‘protect Mr. West’s property interests because there is nothing to protect. There is no community property. There are no jointly titled assets. Ms. Kardashian’s assets, all titled in her name or in the name of her revocable and irrevocable trusts and entities, are her separate property, as agreed by the parties in their prenuptial agreement. The same is true for Mr. West’s assets. Mr. West does not deny any of this in his responsive papers.”

“While I wish our marriage would have succeeded, I have come to the realization that there is no way to repair our marriage,” Kim’s statement concludes. “Kanye does not agree but at least it appears that he has come to the realization that I want to end our marriage, even if he does not. I ask that the court restore me to the status of a single person so that I can begin the healing process and so that our family can begin the healing process and move forward in this new chapter in our lives.”