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Dave Chappelle Takes On The Backlash To DaBaby’s Homophobic Comments In His New Netflix Special

The fallout from DaBaby’s disastrous Rolling Loud Miami set continues to settle, as more voices enter the chat to debate his demerits. While the majority of the reactions to DaBaby’s comments have deplored his ill-chosen words, Dave Chappelle has a different question on his mind. In his new Netflix special The Closer, which debuted today, Chappelle juxtaposes the backlash to DaBaby’s homophobic comments with the rapper’s violent lyrics — which aren’t all stereotypical rapper bluster.

Chappelle leads into the observation by cheekily addressing the backlash to his own recent sets, on which he seems to have specifically targeted queer people in order to point out what he sees as discrepancies in the way they are treated in comparison to Black people (setting aside the fact that people can be … both). “All the questions you might have had about all these jokes I’ve said in the last few years, I hope to answer tonight,” he says. “And I’d like to start by addressing the [LGBTQ] community directly. I want every member of that community to know that I come here tonight in peace and I hope to negotiate the release of DaBaby.”

After some additional preamble, he reminds the audience that before DaBaby’s rise to fame (in fact, almost immediately before it) the rapper was involved in a fatal shooting, in which he claimed self-defense. Then, Dave poses his observation: “In our country, you can shoot and kill a n***a but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings.” It’s doubtful that anything’s as simple as that — queer people are often the targets of just as brutal crimes for little other reason than being queer — but to his credit, Chappelle promises to address the nuance in the special. We’ll see if he does.

DaBaby, meanwhile, has continued to address the fallout himself, meeting with organizations dedicated to HIV/AIDS awareness and sneering at some of his critics in his return to the stage at Summer Jam.

Watch the trailer for Dave Chappelle’s The Closer, which is now streaming on Netflix, above.

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Report: ESPN’s New ‘NBA Countdown’ Crew Includes Mike Greenberg And Stephen A. Smith

With the start of the NBA season right around the corner, ESPN is reportedly getting its plans in place for its pregame show, NBA Countdown. Following a summer of turnover, Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reports that the Worldwide Leader will turn to two of its steadiest hands as it moves forward.

Mike Greenberg is slated to become the next host of the show, while Stephen A. Smith will get his apparent wish and appear on the show alongside Magic Johnson (who “will be on pretty frequently, though less than the other top ESPN analysts”) and Michael Wilbon. The only holdovers from the previous edition of the show are Jalen Rose and Adrian Wojnarowski — while the former will continue to appear on the show as a panelist, Marchand reports that Wojnarowski “will remain on nearly every big show, however he will provide breaking news and information as opposed to opinions.”

While that group will largely take over for marquee games broadcast by the network, Marchand says that the midweek edition of the program is going to look a bit different.

ESPN’s Wednesday Countdown shows will also have a new look with “SportsCenter’s” Michael Eaves handling the hosting duties, joined by Richard Jefferson, Kendrick Perkins and Chiney Ogwumike.

Besides Wojnarowski, Malika Andrews and Marc Spears will be featured reporters on Countdown.

At the conclusion of the 2021 NBA Finals, Countdown host Maria Taylor left the network to join NBC Sports. Her departure came on the heels of a leaked audio clip from the NBA’s Orlando Bubble in which Rachel Nichols expressed her belief that Taylor got the Countdown hosting gig over her because of ESPN’s “crappy longtime record on diversity.” Nichols is still with the network, although it has been previously reported that she will leave at the conclusion of her contract.

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Cordae Tells Fans They Are ‘Not Ready’ For His New Album In A Freestyle Over Drake’s ‘Way 2 Sexy’

Cordae released his debut album The Lost Boy a little over two years ago, and fans haven’t stopped clamoring for a follow-up since. Among those fans are starstruck veterans of the game like Lil Wayne, who offered to feature on the younger rapper’s next album, and Jadakiss, who recently praised Cordae in the most recent episode of The Shop, where he appeared alongside Cordae’s girlfriend, tennis champion Naomi Osaka.

Cordae teased the upcoming follow-up to The Lost Boy during a recent livestream on Twitch with gamer Adin Ross, freestyling over the beat to Drake’s recently released, tongue-in-cheek hit single, “Way 2 Sexy.” “Every year, I look more richer and sexy / Stackin’ my Millie, that Richard is heavy / My album is coming, you n****s ain’t ready,” he raps. Ross seems suitably impressed, exclaiming “Oh my god!” as Cordae drops punchline after punchline without missing a beat. You can watch the video courtesy of Cordae’s Hi-Level Records Twitter.

Meanwhile, fans who’ve been impatiently waiting for that follow-up album have still gotten plenty of new material this year, including his Just Until EP, his feature on Eminem’s “Killer” remix, Nas’ Spotify single “Life Is Like A Dice Game,” and Cordae’s single, “Taxes.”

Watch Cordae freestyle over the “Way 2 Sexy” beat above.

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

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HBO’s New ‘Succession’ Season 3 Clip Shows Kendall Taking ‘The Righteous Vehicle’ After His Betrayal

WarnerMedia’s European HBO Max launch event yielded plenty of goodies stateside as well. We got to see the first House of the Dragon teaser trailer with many Targaryen wigs and John Cena’s Peacemaker character catching hell, just as he deserves. And now, we’re seeing what went down following the Succession Season 2 finale, which ended with Jeremy Strong’s Kendall betraying Brian Cox’s Logan, and Logan actually letting loose with a smile. Was it a smile of pride or a smile or respect or… something else?

We’ll have to wait for Season 3’s October 17 debut to find out more hints about that question. In the meantime, this clip shows Kendall in the aftermath of his press conference with Cousin Greg (who is saying a lot with all of his “no comment!” comments) in tow as they burrow through a media firestorm. As the trailer indicated, Logan will go “full f*cking beast” at some point, and the poetic language of this show can’t be beat, so we get to hear Kendall label his flee-mobile as “the righteous vehicle.” We don’t get any Roman (boo, but we saw a very telling character portrait), and Shiv is obviously elsewhere, too, but this clip does sate some thirst. From the synopsis:

Ambushed by his rebellious son Kendall at the end of season two, Logan Roy begins season three in a perilous position, scrambling to secure familial, political, and financial alliances. Tensions rise as a bitter corporate battle threatens to turn into a family civil war.

Succession returns to HBO on Sunday, October 17.

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Justin Bieber’s New Line Of ‘Peaches’ Cannabis Is Inspired By His Hit Single

Justin Bieber may get his weed from California, according to a verse in his No. 1 track “Peaches,” but he wants his fans to get their weed from him. The singer has now partnered with an LA-based cannabis company to collaborate on a strain of flower inspired by his sunny Justice track.

The pop star’s new endeavor is his way of breaking into the lucrative cannabis business. He teamed up with the cannabis company Palms to deliver a “high-end line” of limited edition pre-rolled joints inspired by his recent hit single. Each of his Peaches pre-rolls comes in a pack of seven and is accompanied by a custom designed lighter. Per a report from Billboard on Bieber’s business venture, both he and Palms will be donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of their Peaches pre-rolls to two charities, the Last Prisoner Project and Veterans Walk and Talk.

In a statement given to Bloomberg, Bieber explained his initial interest in the cannabis collaboration. “I’m a fan of Palms and what they are doing by making cannabis approachable and helping to destigmatize it — especially for the many people who find it helpful for their mental health,” he said.

Check out a sneak peak of Bieber’s Peaches pre-rolled joints above.

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A ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Orc Was Designed To Look Like Harvey Weinstein As A ‘F*ck You’ From Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy is rightly considered a masterpiece of blockbuster filmmaking and one of the great movie trilogies ever. But a lot of things had to happen to get there — or not happen, in the case of Harvey Weinstein’s involvement.

The Hollywood mega-producer and convicted sex offender agreed to work with Jackson and make his The Lord of the Rings movies under the Miramax banner, but only if he condensed J.R.R. Tolkien’s source material into two films with a $75 million budget… total. “Eventually, the Weinsteins started asking for changes that Jackson and [writer and producer Fran] Walsh couldn’t make. The primary breaking point came when they asked Jackson to consolidate everything into one four-hour film,” according to Polygon. Jackson refused, so he “was free to take the film anywhere else as long as the next studio was willing to pay Miramax everything they’d already spent, as well as enough to make Harvey feel good about the time they wasted.” The Lord of the Rings ended up at New Line Cinema, where it became a Best Picture winner that made nearly $3 billion at the box office. And included a hearty “f*ck you” to Weinstein.

While appearing on the Armchair Expert podcast with Dax Shepard, star Elijah Wood revealed that one of the movie’s hideous orcs was made to look like Harvey. “This was recently spoken about because Dom [Monaghan] and Bill [Boyd, who played Hobbits Merry and Pippin in the trilogy] have a podcast, The Friendship Onion. They were talking to Sean Astin [who played Samwise] about his first memory of getting to New Zealand,” he said. “He had seen these orc masks. And one of the orc masks — and I remember this vividly — was designed to look like Harvey Weinstein as a sort of a f*ck you.”

Wood added, “I think that is OK to talk about now, the guy is f*cking incarcerated. F*ck him.” You can listen to the actor’s Armchair Expert episode below.

(Via Indiewire)

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Summer Walker Announces The Release Date Of Her Album, ‘Still Over It,’ With A Trailer Featuring City Girls’ JT

Summer Walker teased a release window for the follow-up to her 2019 debut Over It this past weekend after foregoing the BET Hip-Hop Awards and now, she’s revealed both its actual release date. Fittingly, it’s called Still Over It and it’s due on November 5 through LVRN and Interscope. Summer announced the project’s impending release with a colorful trailer featuring City Girls’ JT, reenacting a phone conversation between the two from this date, two years ago.

In the clip, Summer is wearing her all-pink outfit from the cover of Over It — a light pink bikini and du-rag — while sitting in the same room on the same phone. This time, though, we get to see who’s on the other line: JT, who at the time, was locked up for credit card fraud. Sure enough, JT appears in the trailer in her neutral, state-issued coveralls — although I doubt her face was beat to the gawds when she was actually in prison — as they make plans for a post-release hang.

JT was released in March last year, but then the world shut down due to a pandemic. Fortunately for Summer and JT, things are reopening and they can get back to those plans.

Watch the trailer for Summer Walker’s new album Still Over It above.

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Stephen Colbert Had A Ball After The Facebook Outage That Forced The Social Media Giant To Communicate Through Twitter

On Monday, Facebook experienced the longest and most crippling outage in the social media company’s history as both its main site and sister platforms, Instagram and WhatsApp, were completely unusable for hours around the globe. Naturally, the jokes started flying on social media sites that were working, and Stephen Colbert had plenty to say on the topic when Monday’s The Late Show episode aired. While setting up the events surrounding Facebook’s worldwide outage, Colbert couldn’t help but get in a solid dig at the platform’s penchant for spreading wild conspiracy theories.

“For hours, users were left in suspense about whether their second cousin thinks the vaccine gives your pancreas WiFi,” Colbert quipped before reveling in how awkward it must have been for Facebook to communicate its outage to users through a competitor.

“It was so bad that the only way Facebook could let the world know what was going on ― and this is true ― was by posting a message on Twitter. Ow! That must hurt,” Colbert said. “Facebook communicating problems on Twitter? That’s like Burger King running out of fries and having to announce it on a Big Mac.”

“As the panic grew, Facebook did not say what might be causing the outage,” the Late Show host continued. “Now, I’m no computer expert, but my theory is: a just God?”

However, Colbert didn’t keep his jokes contained to the outage. He also made it a point to highlight that the outage occurred shortly after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen appeared on 60 Minutes and claimed that the social media site has been purposefully allowing misinformation to fester on the site because anger leads to more profitable levels of engagement.

“Well, if the Facebook algorithm likes things that make you angry, it’s gonna love the news about the Facebook algorithm,” Colbert said to close out the segment.

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Mitski Dances Her Heart Out In The New ‘Working For The Knife’ Video

Yesterday, Mitski revealed she had a new song coming today, although she didn’t share that much info about it. Now, we know a lot more: The track is called “Working For The Knife,” and it premiered this morning alongside a new video.

The video — directed by Zia Anger and filmed at at The Egg in Albany, New York — starts with a cowboy hat-wearing Mitski walking through a dark and ominous outdoor space. She eventually finds her way inside, where she sings, licks a handrail or two, and makes her way to a stage, where she dances her heart out.

Mitski says of the song, “It’s about going from being a kid with a dream, to a grown up with a job, and feeling that somewhere along the way you got left behind. It’s being confronted with a world that doesn’t seem to recognize your humanity, and seeing no way out of it.”

Watch the “Working For The Knife” video above. Mitski also announced a long run of tour dates for 2022, so find those below.

02/17/2022 — Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel
02/18/2022 — Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz
02/19/2022 — Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern
02/21/2022 — Birmingham, AL @ Iron City
02/22/2022 — New Orleans, LA @ Civic Theatre
02/24/2022 — Houston, TX @ The Lawn at White Oak Music Hall
02/25/2022 — Dallas, TX @ The Factory in Deep Ellum
02/26/2022 — Austin, TX @ ACL Live at Moody Theater
02/28/2022 — Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren
03/03/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Shrine Exposition Hall
03/04/2022 — Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater
03/07/2022 — Portland, OR @ Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
03/09/2022 — Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre
03/12/2022 — Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
03/14/2022 — St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre
03/15/2022 — Milwaukee, WI @ The Riverside Theater
03/17/2022 — Detroit, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre
03/18/2022 — Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
03/19/2022 — Montreal, QC @ St-Jean-Baptiste Church
03/21/2022 — Boston, MA @ TBD
03/24/2022 — New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall
03/25/2022 — Philadelphia, PA @ Franklin Music Hall
03/26/2022 — Washington, DC @ The Anthem
03/29/2022 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE
03/30/2022 — Louisville, KY @ Old Forester’s Paristown Hall
03/31/2022 — Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
04/21/2022 — Bristol, UK @ Marble Factory
04/22/2022 — Leeds, UK @ University Stylus
04/23/2022 — Glasgow, UK @ Queen Margaret Union
04/25/2022 — Dublin, IE @ Vicar Street
04/26/2022 — Manchester, UK @ O2 Ritz
04/28/2022 — London, UK @ The Roundhouse
04/30/2022 — Brussels, BE @ Botanique
05/02/2022 — Tourcoing, FR @ Le Grand Mix
05/03/2022 — Paris, FR @ Le Cabaret Sauvage
05/04/2022 — Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
05/06/2022 — Zurich, CH @ Les Docks
05/07/2022 — Lausanne, CH @ Les Docks
05/09/2022 — Berlin, DE @ Metropol
05/10/2022 — Copenhagen, DK @ Vega
05/11/2022 — Stockholm, SE @ Nalen
05/12/2022 — Oslo, NO @ Rockefeller Music Hall
05/14/2022 — Hamburg, DE @ Fabrik
05/15/2022 — Cologne, DE @ Stollwerck
05/17/2022 — Vienna, AU @ WUK
05/18/2022 — Prague, CZ @ Rock Cafe
05/19/2022 — Munich, DE @ Strom

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Adele Is Finally Returning With A New Song, ‘Easy On Me,’ Very Soon

In recent days, rumors about Adele’s return to music have been picking up steam. Rumors in September suggested that new music was coming soon. Then, over the past few days, billboards and updates to Adele’s website and social media pages indicated that Adele is preparing to release an album titled 30. There’s no further news about 30 yet, but now it has been confirmed that Adele is finally releasing new music, and it’s coming soon.

Today, Adele shared a teaser for a song called “Easy On Me,” which is currently set for release next week, on October 15. The video clip is scored by a few seconds of new music, which sounds like a snippet from a piano ballad. As for the video itself, there’s black-and-white footage of Adele driving an older car. Beyond that, there doesn’t appear to be any more available information about the song as of now. “Easy On Me” will be Adele’s first single since 2016’s “Water Under The Bridge.”

What can be gathered from this, though, is that Adele’s next batch of music probably isn’t drum and bass, as she previously joked it would be. On her 31st birthday in 2019, she wrote on Instagram, “30 tried me so hard but I’m owning it and trying my hardest to lean in to it all. No matter how long we’re here for life is constant and complicated at times. I’ve changed drastically in the last couple years and I’m still changing and that’s okay. […] Bunch of f*cking savages, 30 will be a drum n bass record to spite you.”