In just a few hours, Yo Gotti’s eleventh album CM10: Free Game will be available for fans to press play on. The rapper revealed that the project will be a double-disc effort with the first side titled “Free” and the second “Game.” He’s yet to reveal the tracklist for CM10: Free Game, but we know 42 Dugg and EST Gee will appear on the list of guest features thanks to Gotti’s latest single. The trio unites for “Cold Gangsta” and with it comes a new music video.
In the visual, Yo Gotti, 42 Dugg, and EST Gee have just moved into a new neighborhood and they’ve made sure to make their presence felt with their neighbors. Yo Gotti lets his music blare and flaunts his collection of luxury cars while 42 Dugg throws some money for a cast of women at a party. Lastly, EST Gee surrounds himself with a crew of masked men to lay menacing raps outside of a mansion. The song also features each artist rapping over a different beat.
“I’m gone Finish This SH!T just how I started!!!” Gotti wrote in an announcement for CM10: Free Game last month. “Wit No Regrets, Standing on Business & Principles. Motivating All Hustlers, knowing we took da Highest Risk for a Better Outcome. To the Streets, Plugs, Fans & Consumers. I’m FOREVER GRATEFUL.”
You can press play on the video for “Cold Gangsta” above.
CM10: Free Game is out 2/4 via CMG/Inevitable II Records.
42 Dugg is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The 2022 NBA All-Star roster is now fully set (pending injury replacements) after the reserves were announced on Thursday night’s Inside the NBA pregame show.
A week ago we learned the starters selected from each conference, headlined by captains LeBron James and Kevin Durant who will draft teams next Thursday, February 10. The biggest surprise among the All-Star starters was Andrew Wiggins making it in the third frontcourt spot in the West, but there figured to be far more dissension regarding the reserves and who would and would not make it into the final seven spots for each conference in the coaches vote.
There were a number of worthy candidates from each position group, including a very crowded race at the East guard spot where there were guaranteed to be some snubs that would upset various fanbases. There figure to be a couple of additions to the roster before the February 20 event, as East captain Kevin Durant is currently out with a sprained MCL and Draymond Green announced on the TNT broadcast that he wouldn’t be playing in the game after he was announced as a reserve.
For now, though, here are the 14 players who will join the starters in Cleveland.
WEST RESERVES
Devin Booker
Luka Doncic
Rudy Gobert
Draymond Green
Donovan Mitchell
Chris Paul
Karl-Anthony Towns
EAST RESERVES
Jimmy Butler
Darius Garland
James Harden
Zach LaVine
Khris Middleton
Jayson Tatum
Fred VanVleet
Those 14 players will be drafted next week after the starters (listed below) are selected by James and Durant, likewise on Inside the NBA.
Kevin Durant (captain)
LeBron James (captain)
Nikola Jokic
Andrew Wiggins
Stephen Curry
Ja Morant
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Joel Embiid
DeMar DeRozan
Trae Young
Few people have as profound an effect on a child’s life as a teacher does. Most of us have educators who stand out in our memories for the way they taught us, encouraged us, challenged us or nurtured us. The powerful impact of a good teacher is priceless, which is why a surprise reunion between “Abbott Elementary” creator Quinta Brunson and her sixth-grade teacher, Ms. Abbott, is giving people all the warm-hearted feelings.
“Abbott Elementary” is an ABC mockumentary sitcom that debuted in December and has been getting rave reviews. It follows the daily life of teachers, administrators and students in a Philadelphia public school. People are loving it—especially teachers.
Jimmy Kimmel brought the show’s creator Quinta Brunson onto his late-night show for an interview, and as they got chatting he pointed out that “Abbott Elementary” was named after a former teacher of Brunson’s—Ms. Abbott from sixth grade. And when she showed up on a huge screen behind them, Brunson almost immediately started crying.
The joyful exchange they had was sweet, but it also illustrated how incredible teachers can be. Educators who have been in the classroom for a whole career have taught hundreds, if not thousands, of kids, and yet they can so often remember details about individual students who came through their classroom.
Watch:
Jimmy surprises @QuintaBrunson with the 6th grade teacher she named #AbbottElementary after! pic.twitter.com/Z7vZXanZqL
— Jimmy Kimmel Live (@Jimmy Kimmel Live) 1643780760
The first thing Ms. Abbott said was, “I’m so proud of you!” Of course. Not only did Ms. Abbott remember Quinta Brunson, but she gave details about what kind of student she was.
“When she came into my class, she was really shy, timid,” Abbott said. But she challenged her students and built up their confidence, and Brunson blossomed and “came out of her shell” during that school year.
Ms. Abbott told Kimmel that she was preparing to retire after teaching for nearly 30 years, and Kimmel surprised her with a special gift—an all-expenses paid, first-class, 5-day trip for two.
“You don’t have to take Quinta with you, but she kind of did name the show after you,” Kimmel joked.
As a teacher, seeing your students grow up to succeed in whatever they put their mind and heart into is rewarding enough. But every teacher who dedicates themselves to their students deserves this kind of extra gift as a thank-you for the work and the care they put into helping students grow and learn. And having an entire TV show named after you? That’s just icing on the cake.
Congratulations to Quinta Brunson on the success of “Abbott Elementary” and to Ms. Abbott for the deserved recognition she’s received from it. Teachers are heroes who should be highlighted like this more often, so seeing this joyful reunion and celebration is lovely to see.
The thought of having children can be overwhelming for a lot of people. People who have kids often warn those without them that their kid is going to take over their entire life. They complain that children are extremely expensive and that you’ll never get a good night’s sleep until the child has turned 4.
Now, I have a 5-year-old and the only thing that’s really true is that children cost a lot of money. A big chunk of the cash you spend on a kid is for food. Mine never stops eating. He eats as much as I do and I’m a 45-year-old man.
I hear him say, “Dad, I’m hungry. Can I have some food?” at least six times a day.
I also don’t think that children take over your entire life unless you let them. It’s a sliding scale. When they’re a newborn, they own 90% of your life and you only have the remaining 10%. But, by the time they’re 5, you get about half your life back. While that still seems pretty sad, it’s not a huge problem. Having kids teaches you to be a lot better at time management and to take advantage of free time when it’s available.
When it comes to sleep, smart parents sleep train their kids at a young age so that everyone in the family can get a good night’s rest. It’s not easy, but it pays huge dividends.
Rose Stokes, an award-winning freelance columnist in London, recently learned that she is pregnant and was very anxious about having a kid because of all the things she’s heard from people with kids. So she took to Twitter to ask parents to tell her what they “love about having children” to give her a more positive perspective.
Without wanting to undermine the struggles of parenthood, which I know are huge, I’m getting a bit anxious with lots of people telling me how hard and difficult being a mother will be. As an antidote: parents of Twitter, what big or small things do you love about having children?
Stokes received a ton of incredibly positive responses from people who truly love having children. They eased her mind by telling her that she would experience the greatest love of her life after having children. They told her that being a parent is one of the funniest experiences she’ll ever have.
The parents of Twitter also made an important point: Children make you a better person. I always think about parenting as a stress test on your personality. If you want to know what’s wrong with you, have a kid. You’ll quickly figure out all of your weaknesses. The good thing is that once we know our weaknesses we can fix them.
Here are some of the best responses to Stoke’s question: “Parents of Twitter, what big or small things do you love about having children?”
It’s hard to describe what it’s like to have a child.
I think the reason it seems like parenthood is all bad is it’s easy to describe the bad parts and impossible to describe the good parts because they are so good they are other-worldly.
Mother love. The moment you hold your baby and this new emotion sweeps over you, you are changed forever. You won’t believe it until it happens. Your kids make you feel pure joy, happiness, rage and sadness. And they will make you laugh.
So many things. Waking up with their arms wrapped around me, constant cuddles. Saying “I love you” every time we leave a room. Hearing their worries and mad, made-up stories about imaginary fox families; silly kitchen discos every weekend, eating dinner together with “fake wine”
To me… being a mother is a lot more like being crazy, head-over-heels in love than anything else. It’s visceral, too – I crave their skin, physical touch; can’t get enough of their hair and breath and laughter. When you love someone so much you could peel them and eat them? That
My daughter is two, and her favourite film is my favourite film – Singin’ In The Rain. Watching her watch it has given me a whole new appreciation for it, and she’s shown me new jokes I hadn’t noticed which are obvious to her
It maybe the hardest job in the world but it’s also the best and most meaningful. What I can promise you is that it gets better and better. Mine are now 9,10 and 14 and I wish I could stop the clock right here. Not pure joy. But many moments of it.
My ride to here hasn’t been at all easy. But we’ve found our groove now & have done for quite a while. Chaz will be six in April & has become very funny. He’s also very sensitive & I love that he’s a sponge for knowledge which in my case is biased towards flowers!You’ll rock it x pic.twitter.com/Snt3Wj2liy
— Sophie Rumble #JohnsonOut (@sophiearumble) January 7, 2022
It’s not as hard as people say.
I found that none of this was the case. The 19 months Iu2019ve had with my son have not been easy of course but they have contained so much joy and adventure and laughter. Seeing the world anew with him, having cuddles and watching him learn are such beautiful things.
People don’t tell you that you will find your kids hilarious. That they will add structure and balance to your life. They will improve your time management and make you a more empathetic and forgiving human.
For every stomach churning, eye-bag making, heart-aching hardship of the first few years, there’s moments of pure wide-eyed magic from the most basic and hackneyed places, and you get to feel it too. They’re also comedy gold without any intention or effort. pic.twitter.com/JmaQOleVm9
They are so funny – Finn makes me laugh every single day. Also watching how they grow and develop is fascinating. The way they think and the connections they make – plus how they absorb everything around them. Yes parenthood is tough, but it is brilliant. Xx
The great thing about asking a wide swath of humanity about a common experience is that you get so many great perspectives on the matter. Some parents shared the emotional experiences that come with having children. While others focused on how kids can fundamentally change your life. After reading through most of the responses, I think that Stokes probably got a clear idea about what having a child is like.
Wikimedia CommonsComedian Chris Rock once famously joked that Black History Month is in February because it’s the “shortest month of the year, and the coldest—just in case we want to have a parade.” Given the lessons that come with studying Black history, it’s not too far-fetched to believe Rock’s explanation.
However, there are in fact two very important reasons why the month was chosen and they have nothing to do with the weather or parades, and everything to do with the abolition of slavery.
Long before Black History Month was established, Black people would often celebrate the emancipation of the slaves in February because it was the month that abolitionist Frederick Douglass and President Abraham Lincoln were born.
Lincoln was born on the 12th and Douglass’ actual birthday was never recorded, but he celebrated it on the 14th.
Douglass was an escaped slave who became a prominent activist, author, public speaker and leader in the abolitionist movement. President Lincoln paved the way for the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery.
The push for what would become Black History Month started in 1915 when Harvard-educated historian Carter G. Woodson attended a 50th-anniversary celebration of the 13th Amendment. The three-week-long event featured various exhibits about the history of Black culture in America. The event inspired Woodson to form the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History (ASALH) and write a book “The Journal of Negro History.”
In 1924, Woodson’s fraternity created Negro Achievement Week. Over the next few decades communities across the country began to celebrate what evolved into Negro History Week and the ASALH expanded the idea to become Black History Month.
In 1976, President Ford made it official declaring February Black History Month, and asked Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
The 2022 Black History Month theme is Black Health and Wellness. This focus celebrates the contributions and breakthroughs of Black professionals as well as to “nontraditional” health and wellness practitioners.
This year for #BlackHistoryMonth, join us as we embrace the official theme announced by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (@ASALH), Black Health & Wellness, starting with a look at midwives: http://nmaahc.si.edu/blackhistorymonthu00a0u2026 #SmithsonianBHMpic.twitter.com/iaLZS6pwTM
President Barack Obama made a speech in 2016 about why we celebrate Black History Month and he did a great job at encapsulating why and how it should be celebrated. Obama’s speech at the White House—a building built by slaves—is a testament to one of the central messages behind the month. We celebrate Black History Month to learn from our past to build a better future.
“Black History Month shouldn’t be treated as though it is somehow separate from our collective American history, or somehow just boiled down to a compilation of greatest hits from the March on Washington, or from some of our sports heroes,” President Obama said.
“It’s about the lived, shared experience of all African Americans, high and low, famous and obscure, and how those experiences have shaped and challenged and ultimately strengthened America. It’s about taking an unvarnished look at the past so we can create a better future. It’s a reminder of where we as a country have been so that we know where we need to go.”
WNBA free agency officially began on Tuesday, the third under the new CBA that significantly increased the guaranteed money allocated to player salaries, but there is still a long way to go to get WNBA players paid and treated like the top-level professional athletes they are.
A couple examples from this offseason have highlighted how the league falls short when it comes to player compensation. One was the report from ESPN’s Holly Rowe that Courtney Vandersloot felt “disrespected” by the offer made to her by the Chicago Sky and that her EuroLeague team, UMMC Ekaterinburg, was looking into paying her to sit out the WNBA season.
Holly Rowe reporting that Chicago gave Courtney Vandersloot a “disrespectful offer” and that EKat wants to pay her to sit out the WNBA season.
It seems as though that most extreme option won’t happen and Vandersloot is expected return to the Sky to defend their WNBA title this year, but that it was even a possibility for a EuroLeague team to pay a player to sit out the season because that kind of money can be thrown around by them offered a stark picture of the difference in financial investment in players stateside.
There was also Mark Davis confirming that new Aces coach Becky Hammon was making north of $1 million per year to lead Las Vegas’ squad, which is more than four-times as much as the max salary for players in the league. Aces star center Liz Cambage pointed out the issues with that on Twitter, noting that she has to upgrade seats on commercial flights on her own dime if she wants to fly anything other than coach.
ahhh yes the @WNBA, where a head coach can get paid 4X the highest paid players super max contract. lmao and y’all think imma spend another season upgrading my seat on a flight to get to games out of my own pocket.
On Thursday, Davis was asked about Cambage’s comments and said he agrees 100 percent and wants players to be paid more and for teams to provide them with chartered flights and meet what are basic travel necessities for every male pro sport.
He also said that while the player salaries and flight situation is part of the CBA, coaches salaries aren’t and he wanted to use Hammon’s deal as a way to make clear the level of investment that is deserved in the WNBA.
“On the coaching side, there is no salary cap. Becky Hammon didn’t want to be a million-dollar coach, but I wanted her to be a million-dollar coach… Giving Becky Hammon the million-dollar contract says ‘there’s value here.'” — Mark Davis on #WNBA compensation
Davis buying the Aces immediately became the wealthiest owner in the WNBA, and it’s clear that he wants to push the rest of his fellow owners into investing more in their teams. It is apparently in the league’s rules that teams cannot charter flights, as that would create a competitive disadvantage, which seems rather preposterous. If a team owner can’t or won’t invest enough in their team to make sure they’re on a comfortable, direct flight from game to game then maybe that person or group of people shouldn’t own a professional sports team.
Davis comes from the NFL where you spend money to make money, and it’ll be very interesting to see how much of a push he can make for some changes to the WNBA’s business model. Owners almost always are pushing for lower costs and lower salaries, but the WNBA operates at such a bare bones level on things like travel that even Davis sees that more investment is needed in order to get the best from players (and also put the best product out there to increase fan interest and revenue).
In the case of the other major lawsuit against concert promoter Live Nation, Pitchfork reports that the $20 million lawsuit planned by Drakeo The Ruler’s family in response to his death during the Once Upon A Time In LA festival in December has not only been filed but raised to $60 million on behalf of his young son, Caiden Caldwell, by his mother, Tianna Purtue.
The lawsuit, which also names promoter partners Bobby Dee Presents and C3 Presents, as well as Banc of California Stadium owners Los Angeles Football Club, cites the disaster at Astroworld just a week before and accuses the promoters of negligence. The lawsuit says that they did not place “the safety and wellbeing of its guests and its invited artists ahead of profits,” leading to the lax security conditions that allowed Drakeo’s assailant to fatally stab him in the neck during a backstage brawl.
The suit expresses the family’s belief that the promoters were “completely knowledgeable of the potential dangers posed to both their guests and the performers they hired based on numerous past incidents of violence and death at their hip hop events.” This included not only diminishing Drakeo’s own physical security but allowing access to the backstage area by multiple people who seemed affiliated with LA’s numerous street gangs. What started as a skirmish between two small groups apparently escalated into a larger conflict as more members got involved on the basis of affiliation, with many of the attackers “dressed in all red and wearing ski masks.”
Meanwhile, the lawsuit defends Drakeo from assumptions that he himself was gang-affiliated, although it notes that members of a Bloods set wanted revenge on Drakeo for allegedly killing one of their own in a dispute — an incident for which he served nearly two years in county jail merely awaiting re-trial on new charges even after being acquitted.
Among the failures of security listed in the suit is a lack of police presence, the omission of searches for artists and their entourages, and allowing unauthorized individuals to access the backstage areas. In all, Caiden, via Purtue, is seeking $25 million for Drakeo’s death, $25 million for loss of earnings and financial support, and $10 million for Drakeo the Ruler’s suffering prior to his death.
Anyone who has raised kids knows the truth of the saying, “the days are long, but the years are short.” Parenting when you’re in the thick of it can feel neverending, but in hindsight, the time goes by too fast. Kids grow and change so constantly, it’s hard to keep up. You blink and suddenly your baby becomes a toddler, your toddler becomes a kid, your kid becomes a teen and your teen becomes a full-fledged adult.
As time goes by, you try desperately to document it while also staying in the present. It gets harder with each kid, as life gets busier. (A commonly joked-about reality is how the first baby gets an elaborate baby book and the last baby gets a few photos on a hard drive somewhere.) But one dad purposefully set out from the start to create a record of his daughter’s growth and change, and the result is nothing short of extraordinary.
Dutch filmmaker Frans Hofmeester started filming his daughter Lotte for just a handful of seconds a week starting as a newborn. It’s the kind of thing a lot of parents might plan to do or start doing but not stick with. Hofmeester kept it up, though, always filming Lotte in front of a plain cloth background. Putting the videos together as he went, he created a time-lapse of her growing up, which has received viral attention multiple times as he’s released updated compilations every few years.
In 2019, Hofmeester shared the “Portrait of Lotte 0 to 20 years” video, in which we can see Lotte grow from an infant to an adult in just five minutes.
People found the video surprisingly emotional, even though they don’t know Hofmeester or Lotte personally. Indeed, seeing someone’s entire childhood zoom through time like this is moving, even if we don’t have kids of our own. We’ve all been through the growing-up process ourselves, we all have a flood of memories from our formative years and we all know how quickly it all goes.
Those of us with kids see our own children in this video, which is even more striking than seeing ourselves.
“I wanted to document the growing up process and create an artistic project we could all enjoy forever,” Hofmeester shared in another video. He has also created the same kind of video for his son, Vince. In an article in The Guardian, Hofmeester explained why he decided to dedicate himself to the project:
“When Lotte was born, she was changing at such a rapid pace, and I was desperate to keep the memories intact. As any parent knows, the difference between a child at two days old and two months old is startling. When Vince was born, I started filming him too. Other people might make a photo book, but I decided to film. This is the most photographed and filmed generation ever, but what are we actually doing with these pictures? They just sit in a file on the computer. I wanted to try and convey the essence of my children, of how they look to me. We don’t often look at the photographs we take, not in the same way that an artist would look at his paintings.”
Lotte is now 22, and Hofmeester shared a yearly version of her growing-up compilation just a few months ago. In this one, we get to see her on each birthday, saying a few words (in Dutch, of course). It’s amazing to see the differences from year to year.
“One of the reasons that the project has had such an impact, I think, is because it’s very moving,” Hofmeester wrote. “People are touched by it because it conveys a feeling of the soul. They’ve written to me about their own children. The film makes you realise what life is about, in a direct way.”
Imagine being able to see your whole childhood documented this way, or to have a record of your kids’ growing-up years that was so succinct. What a lovely gift this father and filmmaker has created for his children—and for the rest of us as well.
Sometimes the internet is like a great big community. One that supports its members who are in need of help.
Aaliyah (@oc.liyahh) revealed her struggles of working full-time, without a home of her own, in a heartfelt TikTok video. Little did she know that sharing her story would lead to not only sincere support from total strangers online, but some actual solutions for her problem.
As a full-time employee at Home Depot, Aaliyah worked eight-hour shifts, five days a week. But once she clocked out, it didn’t get much easier.
Having only her car for shelter, Aaliyah would have to use facilities like Planet Fitness to take a shower, only occasionally being able to afford a night in a hotel. With those kinds of challenges, it’s perfectly understandable she admitted to always being tired and “barely ever smiling.”
Aaliyah’s clip soon went viral with more than 5 million views, and though there were some accusations of Aaliyah “faking it,” the overall response was incredibly supportive. Some even came out to share similar experiences.
“I used to sleep in my car and take showers at the gym also and worked two jobs and barely slept,” one person wrote, encouraging her with, “now I own a small business, my house and two vehicles.”
Another added, “keep at it. I was homeless…I would shower at friends’ houses and ride a bike to work. Now I got my own place and car.”
It does help to hear how others have overcome obstacles you’re currently facing, but Aaliyah received even more reason to remain hopeful.
Unbeknown to her, Aaliyah’s very workplace could provide assistance. Many TikTok users informed her of the Homer Fund, a grant program that provides financial assistance to employees facing hardship. According to the company website, more than 150,000 associates have already been helped.
In a series of follow up videos, we find out that Aaliyah did reach out to the Homer Fund, and received not only emergency funding to get a hotel, but permanent housing as well.
This young woman went from “barely being able to smile” to dancing and feeling “beyond grateful.”
There are some things that are just naturally associated with the Super Bowl: commercials, random surprise celebrity cameos, and chips and dip. Also sports, supposedly, but are people really watching for that? Andy Richter has perfectly encapsulated all three of those elements, as he stars in a new Super Bowl ad for Avocados From Mexico.
The comedian is dressed as none other than Julius Caesar in a new teaser before the big game. Armed with a heavy serving of guacamole (a game day essential), the Conan alum questions whether he can really take on his new role. After all, he’s not even Italian. But, as he states in the ad, it is a “role of a lifetime” for the actor, who famously starred in the classic film Madagascar, which could also be considered a role of a lifetime.
We’ll have to wait until game day, next Sunday, Feb. 13th, in order to see how Richter does in his role of the former Roman dictator, but if the teaser is any indication of his ability to play a Roman general…it’s not looking like he has a ton of confidence in himself. We believe in you, Andy. And so does your therapist!
Check out the teaser video above.
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