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Over the past few months, there have been rumors about potential new Kendrick Lamar music coming soon. Now, fans are picking up on yet another clue and getting excited about possible fresh material from the rapper: Lamar stans noticed that the rapper’s profile picture on Spotify just changed for the first time since 2017. Some also noted that tomorrow (October 22) marks the ninth anniversary of Lamar’s 2012 album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.

Online updates don’t always mean new material is coming, though. Fans got a taste of that disappointment this summer, when the imagery on Destiny’s Child social media pages was updated and had followers thinking the group was reuniting. However, Matthew Knowles, Beyonce’s father and the group’s manager, insisted the changes were just some routine maintenance done by the group’s record label and that no new music was imminent. So, it’s possible something like this is the case with Lamar, too.

In August, Lamar shared an update about his next album, saying it’s his last with Top Dawg Entertainment and noting, “As I produce my final TDE album, I feel joy to have been a part of such a cultural imprint after 17 years. The Struggles. The Success. And most importantly, the Brotherhood. May the Most High continue to use Top Dawg as a vessel for candid creators. As I continue to pursue my life’s calling. There’s beauty in completion. And always faith in the unknown. Thank you for keeping me in your thoughts. I’ve prayed for you all. See you soon enough.”

Lil Nas X has had quite the year so far in 2021. Between his music, performances, awards, moments on social media, and more, the singer has remained one of music’s most popular names. One of biggest moment came last month when he finally released his long-awaited debut album, Montero. The fifteen-track release was highlighted by No. 1 singles “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” and “Industry Baby” as well as appearances from Miley Cyrus, Megan Thee Stallion, Jack Harlow, Elton John, and Doja Cat. A month after sharing the album, Lil Nas X returned home to Atlanta where he was greeted by a ceremony to celebrate the album.

According to a press release about the ceremony, the event was hosted by legendary producer Dallas Austin and Gilead Compass Initiative, an organization that strives to help reduce HIV/AIDS-related disparities in the Southern United States. Guest appearances were made by Chloe Bailey, Kandi Burruss, Shanti Das, Miss Lawerence, BMI’s Vice President of Creative Catherine Brewton, and Native Son’s founder Emil Wilbekin. It was here that Lil Nas X was presented with a proclamation from Atlanta Councilman Antonio Brown that declared October 20th as Lil Nas X Day.

Elsewhere, Mardequs Harris of The Southern AIDS Coalition, a non-partisan coalition that brings together government, community advocates, business leaders, and people living with HIV to end the HIV epidemic in the Southern United States, put together a choir to sing select songs from Montero. The entire choir was made up of members of the LGBTQ community, allies, and faith leaders, with each member wearing purple in honor of GLAAD’s #SpiritDay on October 21.

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

Nearly fives years after she made her debut with her first EP, H.E.R. Volume 1, HER finally released her first full-length album, Back Of My Mind, back in June, with features from Lil Baby, Chris Brown, Yung Bleu, Cordae, YG, Ty Dolla Sign, DJ Khaled, and Bryson Tiller. Now four months later, she’s dropped the video for one of its stand-out tracks, “For Anyone.” It’s a simple one, finding the singer getting comfortable in her studio while she gets lost in the soothing and warm sounds of the record.

The video arrives as HER is currently in the middle of her Back Of My Mind Tour. The shows feature Tone Stith as her opening act for a string of performances that lasts just under three weeks. So far she’s held performances in Tennessee, Texas, and Massachusetts, with stops in Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Illinois, and Michigan remaining. Next year, HER will join Coldplay on their Music Of The Spheres World Tour, which runs from March to September 2022

Elsewhere, HER recently joined Kane Brown for their collaboration “Blessed & Fire” and recruited Lil Durk to remix her “Find A Way” track with Lil Baby.

You can watch the video above.

Back Of My Mind is out now via RCA Records. Get it here.

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

The Knicks and Celtics opened the season in New York in a game that sets the bar incredibly high for game of the season candidates to come. Ultimately, New York pulled out a 138-134 win in double overtime after some wild twists and turns that saw both teams look like they were taking control only to see the other team rally back.

Early on, Boston was the team in control, leading by as many as 12 in the second quarter thanks to some sensational play from Jaylen Brown, who erupted for 20 first quarter points to push the Celtics ahead.

However, the Knicks had the answer, courtesy of Julius Randle, who had 20 first half points of his own to lead New York back into the game.

New York’s run continued in the third as the young Knicks got involved, with RJ Barrett and Obi Toppin going on a tear in the third as the Knicks opened things up to take an 11-point fourth quarter lead.

This time it was Boston’s turn to respond, and they turned to a rather unlikely source in Grant Williams, who had three clutch buckets to help the Celtics rally their way back into the game.

Still, Boston was down four with 10 seconds to play and the prospects of getting a win looked bleak, until Jaylen Brown once again popped up to hit a massive three to cut the deficit to one.

After the Knicks made their free throws to push the lead back to three, they had a meltdown defensively, as Evan Fournier bizarrely soft doubled Jayson Tatum, allowing Boston to get the ball to a wide open Marcus Smart, who drilled a game-tying three to force OT.

In overtime, Fournier sought redemption in the form of a barrage of threes, as he and Brown traded huge shots to open the period as neither team could seemingly miss for the first three minutes of OT. From there, everyone’s legs went away and neither team was capable of getting separation, with the Celtics getting the last look of the period at a game-winner, but Tatum wasn’t able to even draw iron, sending the game to double OT.

In the second overtime, things were ragged once again as two tired teams tried valiantly to make a push for the win, trading leads with and-1 buckets from Randle and Tatum.

Ultimately, it was the Knicks that had just enough juice to take care of business thanks to another big three from Fournier, who finished with 32 points, the most ever for a player in his Knick debut.

For Boston, it was a whole lot of effort just to come out with a loss on the other side, particularly from Brown who posted a career-high with 46 points in the loss, doing everything in his power to will the Celtics to a win. The Knicks, led by Fournier and Randle (35 points, 9 assists, 8 rebounds), had just a bit more to give in the opener and delivered an instant classic to start the season in the Garden.

For the first time in ten years, Red Bull is returning to the US with their highly unusual, unpredictable and downright intriguing SoundClash concert battle. Think of it as Verzuz, meets a good old fashioned battle of the bands, meets the unforgettable Drake vs Lil Wayne tour of 2014. The 2021 event is taking place in Atlanta, Houston, Nashville and Chicago, and before we go any further, it’s important to understand the fairly insane rules of this function according to the SoundClash site:

The rules of the game are simple: to clash in the name of creating a one-of-a-kind party and score ultimate bragging rights. Over the course of four rounds, each band or artist will play covers, reimagine one of their competitor’s tracks, perform three of their own songs in a comfort-zone stretching new style (Folk? A capella? Electro pop? Why not?), and then finally pull out all the stops in a wildcard finale. (Improvisation? Special guests? On-stage antics? Almost anything is fair game.) At the end of the night, the audience will vote will determine a winner—but not one goes home without having a good time.

Make sense? Two artists on two stages and one winner in each of four cities as determined by the crowd. Here’s the breakdown of who battles who and where:

SoundClash Atlanta goes down on November 30th at The Eastern between Love Renaissance signees Shelley (fka DRAM) and Westside Boogie.

SoundClash Nashville pits “Queens of Gulf Coast Soul” at the Bayou Music Center on December 2nd, with a battle between Tank and the Bangas versus The Suffers.

SoundClash Houston is at Marathon Music Works on December 9th with a showdown between Bren Joy and a TBD opponent.

SoundClash Chicago might be the wildest of the all, with DC’s Rico Nasty facing off against Detroit lifer Danny Brown on December 16th at Radius.

Tickets and more info on each city’s event are available here.

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

It’s been over 10 months since former president Donald J. Trump was booted from much of social media, including his favorite platform, Twitter. His attempts to fill that gaping hole have not gone well. Remember when he had a LiveJournal-esque blog? But he’s long threatened to start his own social media network. And finally, after many moons, he has one. And it has a predictably bombastic (and, fittingly, definitely misleading) name.

As per The Hill, Trump announced the forthcoming launch of the latest rightwing social media service, entitled “TRUTH Social.” (Yes, it appears to be all-caps.) The platform will be run by yet another Trump company, called Trump Media & Technology Group, which surely won’t come under investigation like all his other ones. Accompanying the news was an also predictably over-the-top press statement.

“I created TRUTH Social and TMTG to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech. We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced. This is unacceptable,” the statement, written by the big guy himself, read. There was more:

“I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon. TMTG was founded with a mission to give a voice to all. I’m excited to soon begin sharing my thoughts on TRUTH Social and to fight back against Big Tech. Everyone asks me why doesn’t someone stand up to Big Tech? Well, we will be soon!”

A bet launch for TRUTH is expected to go into effect at some point in November, with a launch planned for the first quarter of 2022 — in other words, about a year after his social media de-platforming, and a year after helping foment a failed but deadly insurrection in the Capitol building. When that happens, it will have to compete with all the other far right social media platforms, which have had their own shares of headaches, including hacks of users’ personal data. But the president-turned-failed blogger is super rich, right?

(Via The Hill)

At the end of last month, R. Kelly was found guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering after a nearly two-month trial. The charges against a single count of racketeering and eight violations of the Mann Act, which prohibits transporting people across states lines for the purpose of prostitution. Less than a month after the verdict was revealed, the singer was placed under suicide watch, according to the Chicago Tribune.

During a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, Kelly’s attorney Steve Greenberg told U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber “after he was found guilty, [Kelly] was placed under suicide watch.” However, it was noted that the watch has been lifted. The reveal comes after the trial date for his Chicago child pornography case was set for August 2022. In that case, he also faces charges for obstruction of justice in relation to alleged witness tampering and witness intimidation.

As for Kelly’s sex trafficking and racketeering conviction in New York, he faces life in prison as a result of the guilty verdict. The sentencing portion of the trial is set to begin on May 4, 2022. Greenberg revealed that he would be “revamping” his legal team for him in order to appeal the conviction once sentencing was finished. This comes after reports suggested that Kelly’s legal team for the New York trial was disorganized and unprepared.

Zach Condon of Beirut is the greatest enactor of Balkan brass-inflected indie music of them all. Thile acts like Beirut are few and far between, that’s precisely what has made the outfit such a standout across five albums and five equally notable EPs. This more than 15-year career arc is significant today as Condon has announced Artifacts, a double LP of loose ends and unreleased tracks from every stage of his career, even dating as far back as to when he was 14. It’s out on January 28th, 2022 via his own Pompeii Records.

Condon shared a statement saying that the project began as a simple package of unreleased recordings, but it quickly grew into a very comprehensive anthology, including tracks inspired by visits to Sicily, Morocco and more:

“When the decision came to re-release this collection, I found myself digging through hard drives looking for something extra to add to the compilation. What started as a few extra unreleased tracks from my formative recording years quickly grew into an entire extra records-worth of music from my past, and a larger project of remixing and remastering everything I found for good measure.”

Along with today’s announcement comes the track “Fisher Island Sound,” named after the body of water off the Connecticut coast, where Condon wrote it. Worldly strings are joined by a button accordion, rapturous drums and Condon’s always wonderful vocals. He explains that reticence with those very vocals as well as general self-doubt, is what prevented him from releasing this music in the first place. He says that he’s “come to rediscover some of these old songs in a different light since then, but they do remain a heavy reminder of unsteady times.”

Listen to “Fisher Island Sound” above, and below, find the Artifacts art and tracklist.

SIDE A – Lon Gisland, Transatlantique, O Leãozinho
1. “Elephant Gun”
2. “My Family’s Role In The World Revolution”
3. “Scenic World”
4. “The Long Island Sound”
5. “Carousels”
6. “Transatantique”
7. “O Leãozinho”

SIDE B – The Misfits
8. “Autumn Tall Tales”
9. “Fyodor Dormant”
10. “Poisoning Claude”
11. “Bercy”
12. “Your Sails”
13. “Irrlichter”

SIDE C – New Directions and Early Works
14. “Sicily”
15. “Now I’m Gone”
16. “Napoleon On The Bellerophon”
17. “Interior of a Dutch House”
18. “Fountains and Tramways”
19. “Hot Air Balloon”

SIDE D – The B-Sides
20. “Fisher Island Sound”
21. “So Slowly”
22. “Die Treue zum Ursprung”
23. “The Crossing”
24. “Zagora”
25. “Le Phare Du Cap Bon”
26. “Babylon”

It only took Big Sean five albums to find his way onto LA Leakers, the famed show on LA’s Power 106 platform that welcomes rappers to lay their hottest bars. The Detroit rapper took the mic for the show’s 122nd episode and he did not disappoint, freestyling for nearly nine minutes in an episode released on Wednesday. During his appearance, Sean rapped over Kanye West’s “Hurricane,” on which he originally had a verse, Drake and Jay-Z’s “Love All,” Jay-Z and Memphis Bleek’s “Dear Summer,” and Nardo Wick’s “Who Want Smoke??”

During his appearance, Sean touched on a number of topics. He spoke about Kanye West signing his advance check to him before officially bringing him onto the GOOD Music roster, being with Kobe Bryant on New Year’s Day in 2020 just weeks before the Lakers legend passed away, and NBA players shooting their shot in his girlfriend’s DMs. He also addressed artists he wrote hit songs for that failed to pay him for his work. “A lot of songs I wrote for icons that I still ain’t even get publishing on / And some of them up more than me,” he raps. “I don’t know how they sleep at night knowing they wrong.”

Sean celebrated his freestyle in a pair of posts on Twitter, writing, “Y’all really playing wit me man! Okay!” and “Donda signed my advance check on God, that’s how long we been at this…”

Snoop Dogg turned 50 years old today and despite living a half-century life, the longstanding hip-hop act has no plans to reduce his role as an entertainer. On Wednesday that he will team up with the Harlem Globetrotters in their upcoming NFT sitcom Da Dogg Gone Gym. According to Hypebeast, the sitcom is part of the Globetrotters New Tech, New Trainer, New Tour campaign, which will feature limited-edition releases from Snoop and the Globetrotters. This includes the rapper’s new theme song for the team, which will be exclusively available on the cryptocurrency promotion site, VAST.

The sitcom will take place during the 1970s and feature Snoop as a Globetrotter trainer working with the viral Bay Area dancer Junebug. A release date for has not yet been shared, but it marks his latest step into the NFT world. Earlier this year he released a song inspired by blockchains titled “NFT,” as well as his very own Snoop Dogg Coins. Last month, according to Hypebeast, he also revealed himself to be the real-life buyer behind the NFT moniker Cozomo de’ Medici.

In addition to the NFT sitcom announcement, Snoop Dogg joined E-40, Too Shoot, and Ice Cube in their video for “Big Subwoofer.” Together, the quartet comprises the rap supergroup Mount Westmore, and they premiered the song itself in a performance prior to a boxing matchup between Jake Paul and Ben Askren back in April.