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Making an appearance on Time‘s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world is a significant honor, and the publication just unveiled this year’s list. On the 2021 roster is a handful of folks from the music world, who had brief tributes written about them by their pop culture peers: Megan Thee Stallion wrote about Billie Eilish, Kid Cudi wrote about Lil Nas X, J Balvin wrote about Bad Bunny, Miley Cyrus wrote about Dolly Parton, Darius Rucker wrote about Kane Brown, Paris Hilton wrote about Britney Spears, Alicia Keys wrote about Angélique Kidjo, and Brandy wrote about Verzuz creators Swizz Beatz and Timbaland.

Of Eilish, Megan wrote, “Billie Eilish is a unique soul, with a voice, style and attitude all unapologetically her own. I first met Billie at the Grammys this year. She had already achieved worldwide stardom, which might make some people have airs about them, but not Billie. She was so real and laid-back, even though her personality is so big. She is a rare spirit who speaks from her heart with no pretenses. I knew I had found a kindred spirit that night. One who is strong, but still learning and still growing. A woman who stands up for herself and advocates for women everywhere.”

Cudi also said of Lil Nas X, “Lil Nas X is a new twist on some of the themes I was riding on when I first started out: being true to yourself and not giving a f*ck what anyone says. What he’s doing is what we need right now. To have a gay man in hip-hop doing his thing, crushing records — that is huge for us and for Black excellence. The way he’s unafraid to make people uncomfortable is so rock ‘n’ roll. He’s a true rock star. […] I’m going to do whatever I have to do to let him know–you have my support. When we do our song together, however trippy the video is, let’s get sexy with it.

Check out the full list here.

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

In September 2020, Donald Trump promised that if he lost the presidency to Joe Biden, “I’ll never speak to you again. You’ll never see me again.” If only! Instead, the former president is saying yes to every interview opportunity to worm his way back into some kind of spotlight, whether that’s by serving up some color commentary on 9/11 alongside his shouty son at this past weekend’s Evander Holyfield-Vitor Belfort fight or scheduling seemingly daily interviews with various Newsmax anchors to rant about whatever thought happens to enter his seemingly damaged brain at that very moment.

On Wednesday, that meant Trump was ready to share his latest bonkers conspiracy theory with former press secretary/longtime toady Sean Spicer: That Barack Obama, not Joe Biden, is the person behind the wheel of America right now.

Jumping on the idea of Biden’s reputation as “the great unifier,” Trump—chatting with Spicer via phone—claimed that the current president is anything but. “He’s the opposite,” Trump said. “He’s worse than Obama. Of course Obama is probably running the country now anyway, according to many.”

Trump, being Trump, did not expand on that statement. And Spicer, being Spicer, did not push him on it. But the former president continued to rail, and tried to make the point that our country is in a really bad way right now.

As Raw Story reports, Trump told Spicer that “our country has gone really downhill in the last eight months like nobody’s ever seen before.” Which… hmmmm… if our math is correct, that means it all started going to hell in a handbasket the moment #45 high-tailed it out of town.

Trump continued his tirade, and had a pretty dire prediction for what’s in store for our country:

“You go to these elections coming up in ’22 and ’24—we’re not going to have a country left. The election was rigged and we’re not going to have a country left in three years, I’ll tell you that.”

Trumpadamus has spoken.

(Via Raw Story)

Embattled Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is still the Energizer Bunny Who Does Not Care when it comes to Twitter. In the past week alone, she’s earned a horrific nickname, essentially blamed God for her place in Congress, and failed at fashion criticism. That’s after her praise of the Taliban and misguided use of “patriots” for a rude pronoun discussion and a confused Samuel Adams tweet, and her latest Twitter mess is remarkable in its banality.

While speaking of the California Recall election (which swung in Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s favor), Boebert tried to take a swing at President Biden and Democratic interest in a Recall rally. She commented upon a reported (and unverified) attendance number of 1000 attendees for a Biden rally in support of Newsom while appearing to inwardly scoff. There’s no telling exactly why her comeback to this number had to involve mentioning toilets, but yep, she did it.

“That’s the line for one port-a-potty at a Trump rally,” Boebert tweeted.

Say what? The people of Boebert’s Colorado district probably aren’t so proud of their elected official right now. Immediately, people piled onto her for thinking this was somehow a flattering tweet about Trump (because it isn’t). Also, people can’t stop thinking about the Daily Beast’s coverage of Boebert’s restaurant, Shooter’s Grill, allegedly giving people food poisoning at a rodeo. One could say that her joke bit her in the rootin’ tootin’ tush, which happens a lot with Boebert.

Once again, Boebert will dust her guns off and come back swinging.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom kicks off with a (thrilling) song and dance sequence, but West Side Story is director Steven Spielberg’s first full-length musical. The remake of the 1961 Best Picture winner (one of the 50 best) stars Rachel Zegler as Maria and Ansel Elgort as Tony, the Romeo and Juliet of 1950s New York.

The new trailer (which you can watch above) begins with Maria singing “Tonight,” one of the musical’s many iconic numbers. There’s also “Maria,” “America,” “I Feel Pretty,” “Somewhere,” and my personal favorite, “Gee, Officer Krupke.” Even if you haven’t seen West Side Story, either in a theater or on Broadway, you know at least one of those songs. The cast recording had a strong effect on a young Spielberg.

“West Side Story was actually the first piece of popular music our family ever allowed into the home,” he told Vanity Fair. “I absconded with it — this was the cast album from the 1957 Broadway musical — and just fell completely in love with it as a kid. West Side Story has been that one haunting temptation that I have finally given in to.”

Here’s the official plot summary:

Directed by Academy Award winner Steven Spielberg, from a screenplay by Tony Award winner Tony Kushner, West Side Story tells the classic tale of fierce rivalries and young love in 1957 New York City. This reimagining of the beloved musical stars Ansel Elgort (Tony); Rachel Zegler (María); Ariana DeBose (Anita); David Alvarez (Bernardo); Mike Faist (Riff); Josh Andrés Rivera (Chino); Ana Isabelle (Rosalía); Corey Stoll (Lieutenant Schrank); Brian d’Arcy James (Officer Krupke); and Rita Moreno (as Valentina, who owns the corner store in which Tony works).

West Side Story opens on December 10.

Ever since Verzuz became a fixture in the hip-hop community last year, fans have clamored for match-ups featuring some of the all-time greats squaring off. Jermaine Dupri is trying to get something going for himself, as he issued a challenge to Diddy. However, Diddy doesn’t think that’s a worthwhile endeavor for him, as there’s only one artist he’d do a Verzuz against.

Last night, Dupri called out Diddy, tweeting, “Somebody let @Diddy know I’m @thegarden right now ! And he gon need some training for me.”

Diddy didn’t take long to respond with a tweet that both showed respect for Dupri while declaring that he can’t measure up to Diddy. Additionally, he declared the only person he’d do a Verzuz with is Dr. Dre. He tweeted, “Beloved you my n**** but your arms too short to box with God!!! You aiint got enough hits. I’ll smash you with just biggie n Mary . But I do have the upmost respect on you as a musical legend – Dre the only one can get in the ring w me . – LOVE.”

Dre was actually once set to participate in a Verzuz, but Swizz Beatz notes he backed out after hearing the poor sound quality of one broadcast.

Tucker Carlson has got swollen testicles on the brain. No, it’s not a neurological condition; but ever since Nicki Minaj tweeted about her mysterious “cousin’s friend” whose ball sack reportedly did not like whatever was in the COVID vaccine, Carlson can’t stop talking about this poor man’s scrotum.

His testicular fixation began on Monday night when he read aloud a tweet in which Minaj told a story about some poor dude’s junk:

While there didn’t seem to be much more left to say, Carlson found plenty of ways to turn this into a continuing story. On Tuesday night he was back on Swollen Balls patrol, correcting a misunderstanding on his part: “Last night… suggested that Nick Minaj’s cousin is the one with the swollen testicles in Trinidad. And we were wrong and we want to admit it. We henceforth correct the record. Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s testicles are not swollen. As far as we know, he’s fine. It’s Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles who are swollen.”

Glad we cleared that up—as I’m sure Nicki Minaj’s cousin and his balls are.

Carlson brought on Candace Owens, of all people, to whom he admitted that “My total knowledge of Nicki Minaj is right around zero.” (No sh*t.) “So I have no idea what Nicki Minaj thinks of anything else. But I know when someone is not intimidated, and this woman is not intimidated… And it’s just so interesting and heartening to see someone who’s not afraid in America. There are still a few. I guess it’s left to a rapper from Queens, but good for her.”

Sounds a bit racist, but moving on…

Things then took a more serious tone when a much more somber Carlson addressed the cousin’s friend with the swollen testicles directly, and implored him to consider being a guest on the Fox News show.

“We haven’t been able to figure out if this show is broadcast in Trinidad, but if Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend is watching—or his former fiancée is watching—we want to hear your story. We’ll come to Port of Spain to see you. Let us know.”

If all goes well, who knows: Maybe Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s inflamed meat clackers could get a Fox News show of their very own.

On Tuesday, the world was shocked and saddened to learn about the death of iconic comedian Norm Macdonald, who passed away at the age of 61 after a nearly decade-long battle with cancer, which he chose to keep private. While all of the late night hosts honored the late comedian, Seth Meyers had a special connection to Macdonald: In addition to both being former SNL alums, both men had spent some time anchoring the “Weekend Update” desk.

At the beginning of last night’s Late Night, Meyers took several minutes to pay tribute to the man whose path in which he followed and to share some of his most memorable moments with Macdonald. Meyers talked about how in 2015, as part of the SNL 40th Anniversary special, he shared the stage with Macdonald and fellow former “Weekend Update” hosts Colin Quinn and Kevin Nealon:

“It was a night where everyone just got a couple things to say, there were so many people there and it was really limited. The four of us had a little thing to say, I believe, if memory serves, before we introduced Chevy [Chase]. I remember we all said our line—myself and Colin and Kevin—and then Norm just started talking. And none of it was what he was supposed to say… I remember laughing really hard, not at what Norm was saying as much as the idea that any of us thought that Norm would play by anyone else’s rules. On any night.”

In addition to sharing his favorite all-time Norm joke (it’s the “two cakes” line in here), Meyers shared how Macdonald once told him that his favorite thing about SNL is that it’s “the last place on TV where you can [still] bomb.” That if a show was going poorly, “by the time ‘Update’ rolled around, you could literally just go out there and bomb. And that both made that level of difficulty both something that I think he really respected, and also… he just didn’t care if he was bombing. If he thought the jokes were good, he had exactly as much fun telling them to a dead audience than to one who appreciated them.” It was that kind of confidence that made Macdonald a comedian’s comedian, and one who everyone from Seth Rogen to Meyers has admitted to trying to emulate.

When Meyers admitted to Macdonald that one of the toughest parts of doing “Weekend Update” was “not telling every joke the way I thought Norm would tell it. I had to beat Norm’s delivery out of me… and I told him how hard that part was and he said, ‘I’m so glad to hear you say that because my son was watching you on Update and said to me: You talk like Seth Meyers. And he told me that when he said that, he said, ‘Oh no! My son doesn’t know how time works.’”

Meyers concluded by saying that Macdonald “the gold standard and he will continue to be the gold standard.”

You can watch the full segment above (and some of Macdonald’s best “Weekend Update” jokes below).

Violet, Justine Bateman’s feature-length debut as a director (which is playing this week at the Toronto International Film Festival), is a pretty remarkable film. Olivia Munn plays the title character, a film executive who, throughout the film, is haunted by internal voices. Well, first, there’s her external voice, which is usually what she’s saying out loud to appease people, mostly men. Then there’s an internal voice, a man’s voice, always telling her how awful she is. Then there are handwritten notes, Bateman’s own handwriting, that appear on the screen that reflect Violet’s true feelings about any situation. When I say it’s remarkable, it’s would have been pretty easy for a movie like this to go poorly. Or, as Bateman says, turn into “a pile of stuff.” Instead, it works. And really cuts into what a lot of people feel on a daily basis as we are undercut by our own internal monologues.

It does seem like a lot of Bateman’s creativity is rooted in her interpretation of stupid societal norms, and why we still continue to hold up these stupid norms. And she’s obviously been thinking about these things for a while, which is why I wondered why it’s only now we are getting her first feature-length film. She’s a talented filmmaker. Obviously, she had a lot of success as an actor in the ’80s on Family Ties (if you happen to catch any episodes, it’s still a very good show and Bateman’s comedic timing on that show should be talked about more) and then as an author. But it truly is remarkable she pulled off a movie like Violet, which hinges so much on the viewer going along for the ride and getting on the wavelength of the movie. This would be a tough movie for someone who has directed a lot of movies.

Ahead, Bateman takes us inside her thought process — this is someone who has really thought about the themes she’s trying to put out there. It’s a movie she says she wishes she had seen when she was 19. (This makes a lot of sense.)

(Also, as an aside, we figure out why when I hear the name Justine Bateman my first reaction is “a trouble maker.” Yes, this has everything to do with Family Ties.)

Reading past interviews, you’ve been thinking about this idea for a while. Why didn’t you make this 10 years ago?

You’re hilarious.

Why is that?

Ten years ago? What is that, 2011? Ten years ago I wrote it. I was just writing a bunch of scripts and just saving them to my computer. I’m being a little cheeky here, but the truth is, the timing is such an important factor for me. In my life, the timing didn’t feel right. I wanted the timing to feel right earlier, but it just didn’t. In particular, for me to direct, I’d wanted to direct since I was 19, but the timing never felt right. And I knew if I tried to push ahead it would just be a pile of stuff, whatever I made. That’s been my experience with pushing against timing for me. When I graduated from UCLA in 2016, then the timing suddenly felt right. I did the two shorts, and then had to raise the money for Violet. It’s all those factors. It’s all those factors.

You say “pile of stuff.” I see your point how if you’re not ready to make a movie like this, it could turn out poorly if not presented exactly the right way.

Mike, it’s not only timing for me, but it’s like throwing a party. There are all these different elements, all these different variables: who’s going to be coming, what food are you ordering, which caterers are available, which venue you going to have it in? There are all these things that have to coalesce at the same moment.

Right…

I’m using a silly example, but you know what I mean: finding the perfect apartment or house for yourself. A lot of things have to happen in other people’s lives in order for that exact apartment or house to be available for you. Somebody has to get that job offer that takes them to Chicago so that they have to vacate their place at this exact time. There’s a lot of elements that, obviously, I don’t know about, so all I can do is go by when the timing feels right. That’s a lot of it, you want to hit a moment in society.

Well, a moment in society. yeah. It is interesting it’s coming out when I think society’s talking about stuff like this more than they were before.

I couldn’t have planned that out.

Of course.

It’s interesting how, God, if someone could really control things like that, that’d be something else. So much of it’s out of your hands, all I can do is follow that timing feeling, and that’s it. There’s a long answer to your question.

I always have it in the back of my head you’re a trouble maker and I think I’ve figured it out. By the way, this is so stupid…

That is stupid.

I was eight or nine and the first episode I ever saw of Family Ties is the one where Alex is taking speed and Mallory is supplying him the speed, which is very different than every other episode. I thought this was a sitcom about a speed addict and his sister who’s a speed dealer.

That steered the image in your mind of me.

Yes. So to this day, I’m like, “Ah, a troublemaker.”

I’ll take that. I like it.

I’ve been talking to people about this movie and I’ve found that I didn’t realize that there are people who do not have those voices in their head. Are you finding that? Or are most people relating?

Most people are saying, “Are you reading my diary?” I have a theory on the people who don’t hear the critical thoughts. They either have reached nirvana in their personal growth, or they’re not yet aware of it. They’ve grown so accustomed to that being part of what goes through their minds that they don’t see them as critical thoughts. I think a lot of people can take these critical thoughts and just absorb them in a way where they’re like, “It’s just part of my personality.” Or, “I’m just hard on myself, it’s fine.” They may come to that day like Violet does down the line where they’re like, “Everything was working fine before, and now I’m suddenly aware of these thoughts, what’s going on?” I would say that I hope everybody gets a chance to see this film, even if it’s not something that’s applicable to their lives right now.

When you look around, and you look at the ways people behave around us – or people we don’t know that are showcased in the media – to me, it makes things really clear as to how could they have gotten to the point where they’re talking like that. To me, it really comes down to this root cause, which is their own personal fear, and these critical thoughts come, “You’re a piece of shit, you should turn around and make them feel like shit.” It’s this calculus that we do. It goes a long way to explain why people behave the way they do.

The people who at least think they’ve reached nirvana, are you envious of them?

Years ago I was making a lot of fear-based decisions…

I’ve heard you say that. What’s an example?

What’s an example? Most of the time, the result would just be me not being myself. I’d be in a situation, and go along, and I’d be feeling myself. Say, at a party or something, and then I realize I don’t feel myself now. I feel off-balance or something. In the beginning, I couldn’t pinpoint when or where that happened. I remember after the party, I didn’t feel like I was on track. Then I have to go and think about what happened at that party and really, really try to pinpoint the moment. Once I was successful at doing that, then I could say, “Okay, what was going through my head at that moment?” Then I go, “Oh, I get it. It was when that girl walked in.” Okay, what happened when that girl walked in? “I felt less than; I felt competitive.” I’m just making up an example.

Isn’t what you’re saying by going off track, isn’t that “just yourself”? You can’t help that.

I guess when I mean “myself,” I mean, I have a true north for myself, and perhaps everybody does.

Okay.

Where I feel comfortably confident, like how kids do. They’re just being themselves. They’re fine. They’re not thinking about what other people think of them. I think we’re born with that, and then it just gets chipped away by, maybe, the family we grew up with. Or maybe our classmates, or our teachers, or whatever. It gets chipped away at. Then, you have to get back. I think it’s important. It’s very important to me to get back to my true north. Who am I, really?

That’s how I got to a place where I feel my true north almost all the time and I’m very in tune to when I feel like I go off track. Of course, it’s still off, but for me, personally, I don’t feel like I’m really being me. I feel like I’m being a fearful version of myself. Or I’m being an insecure version of myself. Or it’s just not me, and I want it to be. I immediately start writing, either on my phone or in my journal, or something, because I want to get to whatever that irrational fear is that was the button for this moment. I don’t want to change anyone’s behavior around me, I just want to get rid of all of my buttons so that I can just be in any situation, anybody can be saying anything, and I’ll just be like, “Sorry, what did you say?” For it to just not affect me at all. I get closer and closer every day, and I hope by the end of my life I just hope I don’t have any buttons at all.

From this movie and some interviews I’ve read with you, you seem to be exploring all these themes about society and the stupid things we do in society as people and why do we do this stuff. It seems to be where a lot of your creativity is coming from. You seem really in tune with this.

This is really just, for me, creatively, as a filmmaker and an author, I want to go as far as I can creatively. I want to use as many elements as I have at my disposal and that I can discover that I don’t even know about yet to drive certain thesis statements home: In Fame, the first book about the life cycle of fame, and then Face, about women’s faces getting older and why that makes people angry, and then this one. I went through this, I processed this, the life cycle of fame, the rising and then when fame goes away. And then my face being criticized publicly, and got on the other side of that where I just don’t give a shit now. Then this, Violet is more generally about processing all that. If I can leave anything here, if it’s of any use to anybody, I wish somebody had told me how to do this shit. I wish I’d seen this film at 19. I could have become myself faster. I just want to like, “Here, let me just pass it on.” I love directing. I love filmmaking. I am heavily influenced by the European films of the ’60s and ’70s that are so metaphor heavy and everything.

Like what?

Let’s see, Antonioni, Godard. Two or Three Things I Know About Her, Godard’s film. Or Lavventura. Eight 1/2 is my absolute favorite.

This is also a really interesting movie for Olivia Munn, who is in a lot of “celebrity news” stories these days, where a lot of people seem to have opinions. It feels like a good time for her with this movie…

Olivia has a fantastic screen presence. I think this would have been a great film for her at any point in her life. I hope she gets a lot more roles like this where she can show what she does. Sometimes people don’t get the opportunities that fit their skill set until a certain point, maybe this is not for her. I’m really happy for her. Her personal life is none of my business.

Right.

I’m really excited for her that she’s going to be a mom. I’m thrilled for her. She does a great job in this film, and I hope she gets tons of accolades for this film. She deserves it.

I think this is one of her best roles.

Yeah, yeah. It’s cool. Sometimes people don’t get the … if we’re all birds, some people don’t get the opportunity creatively to just jump out of the nest and show you what they can do when they spread their wings. [Laughs] That’s such a bad analogy.

No, it’s not. It was good.

A lot of people don’t get the opportunity to just jump off and show to you. I’m glad that Violet could be that for her, and I hope she can do that many more times in other films.

You said that you wrote a bunch more scripts…

I have a ton of scripts.

I hope you get to make those.

Yeah. I’m talking about getting a couple set up. I can’t wait. I absolutely love directing. I hope I do it till the moment I die.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

It was just seven months ago that D Smoke released the deluxe edition of his debut album, Black Habits. The reissue added four songs and features from Snow Tha Product and E-40 to the already stellar project that showcased appearances from Ari Lennox, Snoop Dogg, Sir, Jill Scott, Davion Farris, Jackie Grouche, and Iguocho. Since then the Inglewood rapper has remained fairly active on the music scene by releasing a string of singles and it turns out that some of these outputs could appear on the rapper’s upcoming sophomore album which he announced on Tuesday.

D Smoke took to his Instagram to officially announce his upcoming album, War & Wonders. The rapper revealed the project would arrive on September 24 and even unveiled its artwork, a painting of D Smoke himself standing tall while a number of people are piled on top of each other around him. D Smoke’s most recent single that we can expect to appear on the project arrived last month with “Shame On You.” The track showed love to the rebels fighting for a righteous cause.

Elsewhere in 2021, D Smoke delivered a tribute track to Sade and remixed “Gasper Yanga” with Snoop Dogg after dropping “Basketball” for Last Chance U.

You can view the post from D Smoke above.

War & Wonders is out 9/24 via Woodworks Records/EMPIRE.

The Houston Rockets have invested heavily in the backcourt, headlined by the selection of Jalen Green with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. Houston also has rising prospects in Kevin Porter Jr. and Josh Christopher, to go along with a returning veteran in Eric Gordon and other intriguing options. With the Rockets reportedly content to allow John Wall to remain sidelined, with or without a trade, there is still a bit of flexibility for Houston on the perimeter, and that could pave the way for the return of Dante Exum.

Though nothing is official at this juncture, Shams Charania of The Athletic reports that Exum and the Rockets are nearing an agreement to bring the former top-five pick back to Houston for the 2021-22 season.

Exum was dealt to the Rockets in January, though he never saw the floor for Houston due to a calf injury. Injury issues have plagued the former Utah Jazz guard, with Exum appearing in only 97 games over the past four seasons combined.

Still, Exum is only 26 years old and, even without seeing him on the floor in a game setting, the Rockets seemingly saw something appealing to give Exum a chance to make a dent. Modest expectations are necessary at this stage of Exum’s career, but Houston is certainly in a period of transition, and he is a buy-low option without much, if any, risk.