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Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi are more or less a year removed from the release of their most recent albums, those being Positions and Man On The Moon III: The Chosen. In the months that have followed, both artists have contributed to a collection of songs, and now, Grande and Cudi connect for their first collaboration. The track is titled “Just Look Up” and it appears in the newly-released Netflix film, ironically titled Don’t Look Up. The track is quite the majestic and captivating release that makes for an very satisfying combination from two artists who are quite different.

Don’t Look Up arrives on Netflix complete with an A-list cast that includes Grande, Cudi, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, and more. Lawrence spoke about meeting Grande while shooting the film during a conversation with Vanity Fair. Lawrence said Grande “plays a pop star named Riley Bina And that was, like, one of the coolest days of my life. I took a picture with her—I looked like a radio contest winner. She couldn’t be nicer.”

Elsewhere, Grande also delivered a great cover of Britney Spears’ “Oops I Did It Again.” As for Cudi, he recently honored the late Virgil Abloh with a touching Instagram post. He also teamed up with Willow and Travis Barker for a remix of their “Transparent” collaboration.

You can listen to “Just Look Up” in the video above

For the past year and a half, Swizz Beatz and Timbaland’s Verzuz hits battle series has been more of a celebration of rap’s classic artists and songs than an actual head-to-head competition. However, tonight’s battle between Cleveland’s Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Memphis’ Three 6 Mafia in Los Angeles quickly turned from a metaphorical matchup into a physical brawl that threatened to derail the whole event.

Apparently, some trash talk between the two groups escalated when Bone Thugs member Bizzy Bone took some of the slights personally (you can see a heated Instagram post he dropped earlier today below). He stopped the show to tell Three 6, “You ugly motherf*ckers ain’t finna be mockin’ me while I’m on stage.” When Juicy J told him to “shut the f*ck up,” Bizzy lost his cool, slinging what looked like a water bottle at him and prompting the Memphis crew to rush to Bone’s side of the stage (if you look carefully, even the DJs nearly got involved.

However, it appears cooler heads prevailed and the groups were separated. Eventually, Bizzy returned to the stage and apologized, shaking hands with Juicy J before the show resumed.

The show is currently in full swing, with Three 6 Mafia bringing out strippers and offering attendees lap dances, while it appears that both crews are once again having fun and proving that hip-hop in the ’90s was way more than just New York and LA, with guests including Lil Jon and Lil Wayne popping out to perform some of their more recent hits.

On Dec. 17, 1991, the Cleveland Cavaliers decimated the Miami Heat by a 68-point margin to set a new NBA record for the largest margin of victory. The record stood for nearly three decades but, just 15 days shy of 30 years later, a new baseline has been established. The Memphis Grizzlies walloped the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday evening, setting a new standard with what became a 152-79 victory for the home team at FedEx Forum.

As one may imagine, the Grizzlies dominated the proceedings virtually from the opening tip. Memphis won each quarter by 15 points or more, holding the Thunder to just 5-of-23 shooting in the opening period to take a 31-16 lead. The margin then grew with a 41-20 thrashing in the second quarter, as the Grizzlies shot 77 percent and converted 5-of-6 from beyond the three-point arc. At the halftime break, Memphis was doubling Oklahoma City on the scoreboard at 72-36, and the onslaught didn’t stop.

The third quarter represented Oklahoma City’s best offensive stretch of the game, as the Thunder scored 26 points and made four three-pointers. Unfortunately for Oklahoma City, Memphis was also pouring it on offensively, with the Grizzlies converting seven triples, shooting 61 percent and scoring 41 points. Then, the Grizzlies put together what was actually their most dominant stretch of the entire evening, using a 32-5 run at the start of the fourth quarter to take a 78-point (!) lead with only three minutes remaining in the game.

When the score was 145-67, it seemed as if the Grizzlies might actually score more than double the amount of points that the Thunder produced. Oklahoma City scored 12 points in the final 2:52, the team’s best offensive stretch of the evening, and the visitors avoided that fate, but the final margin of 73 points certainly tells the story of just how lopsided this was for four quarters.

Statistically, the game was also remarkable in many ways. Nine players scored in double figures for Memphis, led by Jaren Jackson with 27 points, and the Grizzlies did it all without Ja Morant. As a team, the Grizzlies shot 62.5 percent from the floor and 19-of-36 (52.8 percent) from three-point range, racking up a whopping 41 assists and also securing 14 offensive rebounds on only 36 missed shots. On the other end, Oklahoma City shot just 32.9 percent from the floor and 28.9 percent from long distance, committing 20 turnovers and generally flailing.

For good measure, there were also wild individual numbers in the +/- column. Thunder guard Luguentz Dort posted a -53 in 25 minutes, and no member of OKC’s roster (which was without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey for the night) finished better than -18 in the game. Grizzlies rookie Santi Aldama finished +52 in less than 29 minutes of action, and five players on the Memphis roster finished at +39 or better in the game.

All told, it is difficult to fully describe the annihilation that took place here, and in truth, the 73-point margin could’ve been worse if not for the late push by OKC. After the final buzzer, the Thunder at least attempted to act as if it was business as usual, releasing a “final score” tweet for the ages.

This record may not stand for nearly 30 years as the previous mark did, but anyone who tuned in to Grizzlies-Thunder on Thursday was presented with a result to remember for a long time.

Alec Baldwin gave his first public interview on Thursday since the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the Western movie Rust. “Someone is responsible for what happened,” he told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “And I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me.”

Baldwin claims that the film’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, handed him an antique Colt .45 revolver and told him, “This is a cold gun,” an industry term for a firearm that does not contain live rounds. “Now, what happened there, and why he made that statement, and what the realities were, I have, again, I have no idea,” the actor said (Halls’ lawyer “would not confirm” if her client was the one who handed Baldwin the gun).

Gun in hand, Baldwin said he and Hutchins began blocking out the scene. She was directing his every move: “Everything is at her direction… This was a marking rehearsal. And [Hutchins] says to me, ‘Hold the gun lower. Go to your right. Okay, right there. All right, do that. Now show it a little bit lower.’ And she’s getting me to position the gun… She’s guiding me through how she wants me to hold the gun for this angle. I’m holding the gun where she told me to hold it, which ended up being aimed right below her armpit.”

Baldwin is adamant that he “didn’t pull the trigger.” Instead, he asserts he “let go of the hammer of the gun, the gun goes off… I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them.” His first thought when he saw Hutchins hit the ground was, “Did she faint?” It took 45 minutes to “dawn” on him that there was a live round in the gun.

Later in the interview, Baldwin was asked about comments made by George Clooney, who told Marc Maron that it would be “insane” for someone to not check a prop gun for live rounds. “There were a lot of people who felt it necessary to contribute some comment to the situation, which really didn’t help the situation at all. If your protocol is you checking the gun every time, well, good for you. Good for you,” he said, adding, “My protocol was to trust the person that had the job. And it worked up until this point.”

Baldwin’s interview with Stephanopoulos will be available on Hulu.

(Via ABC News)

Last summer, Yung Bleu capitalized on his newfound popularity by releasing his debut album, Moon Boy. The 15-track effort was a strong release from the Alabama native and it came attached with features from John Legend, HER, Moneybagg Yo, Big Sean, Drake, Jeezy, Gunna, 2 Chainz, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, and more. Nearly five months after its release, Bleu continues to promote the project by releasing a brand new video for “Beautiful Lies” with Kehlani.

The visual begins with Bleu walking around a military site with his love interest. Things take a turn when Bleu and his partner boarded a UFO of sorts. Shortly after, Bleu is transported into a new dimension where Kehlani awaits him. After spending some time in this new world, Bleu is sent back to reality to reconnect with his companion who is extremely happy to see him again.

“Beautiful Lies” joins “Unforgiving” with Davido, “Ghetto Love Birds” with A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, and “You’re Mines Still” with Drake as videos from the album to receive the visual treatment. Bleu’s new video also comes after he took home the award for Best New Artist at the 2021 Soul Train Awards.

You can watch the video for “Beautiful Lies” with Kehlani above.

Moon Boy is out now via Vandross Music Group/EMPIRE. Get it here.

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

Brian Kelly shocked the college football world earlier this week when he left Notre Dame to become the next head coach at LSU. While the Fighting Irish have a chance to make it to the College Football Playoff this season if a few things go their way on Saturday, Kelly decided to end his 12-year tenure in South Bend to head on down to Baton Rouge.

The manner in which Kelly left — the news leaked one evening, then he called the team in for a 7 a.m. meeting the following day, then he spoke for less than four minutes without taking any questions from a roster of players who are going to make a New Year’s Six bowl at the bare minimum — led to a bad taste in a whole lot of mouths. But now, he’s got one of the most coveted jobs in all of college football and dear god what on earth is happening here?

Kelly showed up at the LSU men’s basketball team’s game against Ohio University on Thursday night. Despite being from Massachusetts and spending his entire coaching career in the Great Lakes region of the country, Kelly has apparently developed something of a janky southern accent that he used to address the fans. Anyone who has ever heard Kelly speak knows that man doesn’t exactly sound like his predecessor, Ed Orgeron, so this is very weird.

Buried in all of the accent talk: Kelly says “I haven’t even won all my games yet.” There is no chance this backfires, Brian.

The Kinks’ guitarist and vocalist Dave Davies had a thought to get off his mind on a particularly interesting choice of topic, to say the least.

Davies delivered an opinion of women’s hygiene, and while the topic wasn’t trending in any sense, he dove right into it and kept things completely honest. “I’m not sure if this is an appropriate tweet but In the sixties some of the models shaved their minges,” he tweeted. “I always thought it was a turn off I always liked women to look ‘au natural.’”

Davies somewhat stuck to his opinion and the randomness of it all after some fans responded to his initial tweet. When one person asked, “Did you regret tweeting about this or not yet ? Haha,” Davies replied, “I don’t know.” He also cleared up a mistake in the original post, writing, “It was a typo I meant to say fringes.”

Davies’ post comes as rumors of a reunion with The Kinks continue to swirl. The band’s current members include Dave himself; his older brother Ray Davies, who is the lead vocalist and main songwriter; and drummer Mick Avory. During a 2018 interview with Uproxx, Dave spoke about a possible Kinks reunion. “We have been talking about doing some stuff,” he said. “We’ve worked together on a few songs and he has some material that he wants to go over and re-record or something.”

Earlier this year, during an interview with the Washington Post, Dave once again discussed the possibility of a reunion. “We’ve been talking about it,” he said. “I mean there’s a lot of material and, you know, it could still happen.”

You can view Davies’ tweet in the post above.

When Tony Romo took the football broadcasting universe by storm as the lead analyst for CBS, a lot of the chatter was about his ability to diagnose plays in real time and entertain viewers with an upbeat personality. For those in the media industry, the discussion soon shifted, with Romo eventually inking the largest contract ever for a game analyst to stay with CBS after ESPN was reportedly trying desperately to lure him to Monday Night Football. In the process, however, Romo’s deal blew all of the other contracts for similar positions out of the water, earning him $18 million annually, and Andrew Marchand of the New York Post recently shed light on how it has shifted the landscape.

In fact, Marchand reports that Troy Aikman, the lead analyst for FOX, could try to position himself for “Tony Romo money” on his next contract. The Post’s report does make sure to note that “Fox will not pay Aikman ‘Romo money’ on its own,” but Marchand outlines a scenario in which Aikman could join also join the Amazon Prime Video team to potentially call Thursday Night Football alongside Al Michaels. Nothing is official at this juncture, but Aikman could leverage FOX into a large pay bump, particularly with his contract set to expire after next year.

Elsewhere in the space is Cris Collinsworth, the No. 1 analyst for NBC, and he is reportedly in talks to stick around for a deal reportedly worth “in the $12.5 million per season range.” That doesn’t approach the money that Romo is receiving, but NBC also has Drew Brees potentially waiting in the wings, which could conceivably lessen Collinsworth’s overall leverage.

By the sound of Marchand’s reporting, it doesn’t seem as if Collinsworth or Aikman are likely to vacate their current chairs, and that means there won’t be a massive impact on viewers, most of which probably aren’t concerned with contracts. With that said, Amazon could be quite intriguing as a potential way for Aikman to fill the coffers, and that deal will also take NFL viewers into a world in which the only way to view a “nationally televised” NFL game is via a streaming service.

For the umpteenth time in her career, Rihanna faced pregnancy rumors earlier this week after many claimed to spot a baby bump on her. It came after her appearance at a ceremony that celebrated her home country of Barbados’ independence from 400 years of British rule. The rumors caused many to congratulate Rihanna and her boyfriend ASAP Rocky on social media while others were left to wallow in sadness at the news. One fan took the opportunity to reach out to Rihanna to see if the news was true or not. The singer replied with nothing but jokes about the rumors while also denying them.

“Can I come to the baby shower!? [skull and heart emojis],” the fan inquired. “True or not your babies are going to be beautiful! sorry everyone’s up in your uterus right now [laughing and skull emojis]. In response, Rihanna wrote, “Haaaaa! Stawwwp! You ain’t come to the first 10 baby showers! Y’all breed me every year dammit lol.”

The last time that Rihanna was hit with pregnancy rumors came at the end of 2019 following an appearance at the Diamond Ball. A Givenchy Haute Couture mermaid gown she wore pushed many to believe that she was sporting a baby bump. In other news, Rihanna recently released an epic catalogue-spanning vinyl collection titled, Rih-Issue.

You can read the Instagram conversation between Rihanna and the fan above.

With digital streaming platforms, we have all of the music in the world at our fingertips, but still can’t seem to figure out exactly what we want to hear. Lucky for all of us, Geoff Rickly is here to help with Making A Mixtape, the new video offering from Uproxx’s Indie Mixtape. As the singer for the post-hardcore band Thursday, Rickly has a unique and experienced perspective on what it takes to craft an impactful mixtape.

After creating mixtapes with the likes of Cloud Nothings, Bartees Strange, Jeff Rosenstock and more, Rickly is joined now by Los Angeles outfit Inner Wave, whose new album Apoptosis dropped earlier this year. Together, they work on compiling the perfect mixtape of old songs that they discovered this year via re-releases or anniversaries.

Check out the ninth episode of Making A Mixtape above and the “New To Us” playlist below.

The Mars Volta – “Eriatarka”
Fountains Of Wayne – “All Kinds Of Time”
Inner Wave – “King’s Cup”
Sharon Van Etten – “Save Yourself”
PJ Harvey – “When Under Ether”
The Knife – “Girls’ Night Out”
Hiroshi Sato – “Say Goodbye”
Cold Cave – “Icons Of Summer”

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