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Lil Nas X’s album Montero is on the way, and if there’s anybody in music who knows how to hilarious drum up attention online, it’s Nas. His latest stunt is particularly good: To promote the album, he has shared a “maternity” photoshoot for the album with which he is currently “pregnant.”

Despite how it may seem, this isn’t a reaction to Drake’s maternal Certified Lover Boy cover art, but just a fortuitous coincidence. Nas told People that when he saw Drake’s cover, he thought, “There’s no way the universe is lining up this perfect for this to happen,” Nas thought.

Nas actually came up with the maternity shoot idea after hearing Megan Thee Stallion’s verse on his song “Dolla Sign Slime” for the first time, saying, “I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing,’ so I immediately called my stylist. She was like, ‘Wow, this all comes together. Your album. Your baby.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, this is my baby, huh?’ As a joke, she was like, ‘Yeah, you should do a pregnancy shoot.’ I was like, ‘You know what? That’s actually brilliant.’ So now we have this entire thing coming out, and it’s going to be amazing.”

Along with the maternity photos, Nas even had an ultrasound mocked up:

Elsewhere during the piece, he spoke about what fans can expect from the album: “You’re getting a lot of stories about me. You’re getting a lot of stories about my past and where I want to be in my love life. But they’re also a bop. I feel like I finally found a great balance between being as real as possible within my music and making a hit song.”

Check out the People feature here.

Montero is out 9/17 via Columbia Records. Pre-save it here.

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

Okay, what do we have here? A lot, for one, and most of it good. We’ve got Steve Martin and Martin Short teaming up again, for what feels like the 30th time, in a project that lets them play directly to their strengths. That’s never bad. We’ve got Selena Gomez in the crew, working with and alongside the two comedy icons, serving the dual purpose of creating a generational divide that can be mined for laughs and making me ask myself if Three Amigos would have been a better movie if Selena Gomez had a time machine and replaced Chevy Chase. I haven’t solved that last one yet, mostly because now my brain is cranking away on how funny it would be if Selena Gomez had a time machine that she used exclusively to steal Chevy Chase’s career out from under him. Selena Gomez in Caddyshack. Selena Gomez in Fletch. It’s all a fun little brain exercise that we do not have time for right now (STOP THINKING ABOUT SELENA GOMEZ IN CHRISTMAS VACATION), because right now we need to talk about the new Hulu series Only Murders in the Building, which, through its first chunk of episodes, is shaping up to be an absolute blast.

Some plot-related business, without giving too much away. All three of them live in the same aging fancy apartment building in Manhattan, and all three of them are obsessive fans of true-crime podcasts, especially one specific fictional program that is dropping weekly episodes as this show begins. The fire alarm goes off in their building one night, and when they all return, blammo, there’s a dead body in the building, an alleged suicide that the three of them refuse to accept as such for a handful of reasons, the primary one at first being “because podcasts.” Guess if they decide to start their own investigation. Guess if they decide to podcast about it themselves. I suspect you’ve landed on the correct answers here.

And buddy, it is a hoot, this haphazard homicide investigation these three goofs engage in. Remember how I said way back in the first paragraph that everyone is playing to their strengths? Well, check this out. Martin Short plays a theatrical director named Oliver and, yes, this description cuts both ways as he is a director of theatrical productions and a director with a wildly theatrical personality. There are so many scarves involved here. Martin Short rarely gives you anything less than the Full Martin Short, but he is somehow exceeding even that so far. Look at a king work.

Steve Martin, too. Steve Martin has been around for so long doing so many things — stand-up, movies, banjo-playing — that it can be a little too easy to take him for granted at this point. Please do not do that. Please do not ever do that. Steve Martin has been doing all that for as long as he has because he’s insanely good at all of it, and he dials up another winner here. He plays an actor named Charles who starred in a long-running television cop show called Brazzos as, you guessed it, a cop named Brazzos. This allows him to dig deep into the old Steve Martin back of tricks. He plays the character as pretentious and frustrated and sad, but almost always for laughs. He is very good, especially when we start getting to the podcast business. Look at this king work, too.

Which brings us to Selena Gomez. Selena Gomez is so good in Only Murders in the Building. This should not be a huge surprise, probably, because Selena Gomez has been doing this quite literally for almost her entire life. But still. Watching her out there going toe-to-toe with living legends like Short and Martin who have a decades-long history of working together… it’s really something. Her character is named Mabel and has secrets. She has a lot of secrets, ones that are being left out morsel-by-morsel as the show leads us down its increasingly twisty path. It’s good. She’s good. And she swears a lot, which is enjoyable for me for reasons I have not fully put my finger on yet.

What it all leads to is a fun little satire of the entire true-crime industrial complex, told within a true-crime story. There are nods galore to the genre, quite literally starting with the theme song and score, which open with these bouncy little tinkling keyboards that sound kind of a lot like the music from the first go-round of Serial. There are celebrity cameos — so many celebrity cameos — littered throughout, with everyone from Tina Fey to freaking Sting popping up in the first three episodes. Where do you even go from a Sting cameo in your first three episodes? I’m legitimately asking. Beyoncé? Obama? The ghost of Prince?

It’s a fair question, and one I look forward to investigating as the season goes on. Or at least once I stop thinking about the thing where Prince once appeared as himself in an episode of New Girl, which I suspect will happen just in time for this show to drop its fourth episode next Tuesday. That’s another cool thing that’s happening here. After dropping the first three episodes this week, the show is switching to a weekly format the rest of the way through. I like that more shows are doing that again, in part because it leads to more discussion and buzz between episodes and in part because it allows me to do things like yell at you to get caught up in time for us to all talk about the next episode. Watch this show. Come hang out. We’ll have fun.

I don’t know where any of this is headed, exactly. Shows like this that introduce a twisty plot early on can ride it through to success or fizzle out halfway through by tying themselves into knots. What I do know, though, is that this sucker is off to a blast of a start. It toes that line between parody and self-seriousness as well as any show I’ve seen this year. It’s playful and heartfelt and dark and light and a few dozen other things all at once. There are a slew of suspects and incompetent amateur investigators and cats and flashbacks. There is also, to my great pleasure, a tough-talking detective who shows up early on and grumbles lines like this one.

It’s a good show. And a manageable one to keep up with, what with the aforementioned weekly release. And it makes for a good family viewing, as long as you have the kind of family where Selena Gomez saying the eff word a lot is kosher. It’s fun to watch and fun to discuss and really just a bunch of fun, in general. You could do a heck of a lot worse with 30 minutes or so a week. And you might never look at Sting the same way after seeing him as a dog-hating version of himself. I did not expect to type that last sentence in a television review, ever, but here we all are. The world is full of surprises.

Representative Lauren Boebert has entered the chat to share her thoughts on how President Joe Biden has handled the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and we’ve all learned a very important fact about the conservative gun fanatic: she has a terrible memory.

Boebert took to social media, firing off a series of tweets calling for Biden’s impeachment over phone calls with Afghanistan government leaders and dragging the administration to effectively “negotiating with terrorists.” And look, we get it, EVERYONE has opinions on what our country could’ve done better when it comes to our presence in the Middle East, but if you’re going to unleash some faux outrage for political clout, at least read your own receipts first.

Boebert tweeted some apparent praise for how the Taliban was handling “building back” the country literally a month ago.

Now, after Biden’s strategy to pull forces from Afghanistan has left a power vacuum that looks to be filling up with Taliban leadership, she’s suddenly not so keen on the idea of organization.

Naturally, folks were more than happy to remind her of her own strongly-held views on the subject — which seemed to have drastically changed within the span of just a couple of weeks — and of the actions of her political idol, Donald Trump. It was Trump who famously (or infamously, we guess?) entertained the idea of inviting Taliban leaders to Camp David and who agreed to the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners, many high-ranking individuals within the organization who have gone on to lead the current takeover in Afghanistan.

Ahhh, the internet, where every dumb, revealing tirade you tweet eventually comes back to bite you in the butt. Gotta love it.

Charli XCX‘s last album How I’m Feeling Now was marked by hyperpop instrumentals and Y2K-inspired outfits. Now kicking off her new era of music with her “Good Ones” single, Charli is pivoting to a more goth-inspired look.

The driving pop tune “Good Ones” debuted with a video directed by Hannah Lux. The visual sees the singer leading a goth funeral procession, which she calls “twisted, dramatic and quite frankly electrifying.” With a group of backup dancers, Charli shimmies and sulks her way around a coffin, coping with the passing of a good friend. “The first single of my new chapter embraces all that my life has to offer in today’s world — fame, glamour, inner demons, and global hits,” she said about the song.

Alongside the new video, Charli lays out her new era, saying she’s continuing to innovate the world of pop music:

“As you already know, I am an iconic figure in the arts, and have helped expand the landscape of popular music over the last decade by seamlessly traversing the underground and the mainstream with my output. My innovative approach has opened up new possibilities within the pop sphere for both myself and others. You’re welcome.”

Watch the “Good Ones” video above.

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

Generally, album release cycles include a lot of promotion via interviews with and profiles in journalistic publications. That was firmly not the case with Kanye West’s Donda, as the only dispatches on it from West came via occasional social media posts. Now, though, he has given his first post-Donda interview.

West is in Berlin at the moment, and while there, he spoke with German tabloid Bild for a filmed on-the-street interview. In the clip, West’s voice is inaudible as it was dubbed over in German. According to a translation, though, West noted that he’s in Germany to meet with architects and artists. He also noted that he won’t be in the country for long, and he intends to get back to making music soon. There’s also a video clip of him playing a new piece of music featuring vocals from Andre 3000.

If the audio snippet is in fact from a West/Andre collaboration, it wouldn’t be their first time working together. Aside from Andre’s contributions to West’s “30 Hours,” the two also appeared together on songs like Chris Brown’s “Deuces (Remix)” and Fonzworth Bentley’s “Everybody.”

In completely opposite news, it looks like West may be keeping his feud with Drake alive by buying up Toronto billboards to promote Donda.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers got demolished in their preseason game against the Tennessee Titans last month. Tennessee came out on top, 34-3, in a game that featured a whole lot of backups and third-string dudes competing for two teams that have legitimate aspirations of competing for the Lombardi Trophy a little later this season.

In a fun little side note, this game gave us the latest reminder of Bucs QB Tom Brady’s longevity. Brady, who did not play, used to be teammates with Titans coach Mike Vrabel. The pair won a trio of Super Bowls together with the New England Patriots, and after the 2010 season, Vrabel opted to retire and go into coaching. Brady, of course, kept on playing despite being almost two years to the day younger than Vrabel.

A clip that the Bucs posted to their official YouTube account showed Brady having some fun with this, as he decided to roast Vrabel — “Mike’s kind of an asshole if you get to know him,” Brady said. He then mentioned the face that Vrabel went to Ohio State and discussed the “healthy competition” they have, even though Vrabel is no longer in peak physical condition.

“Physically, he’s really declined to a pretty sad state,” Brady said.

Unfortunately, the two teams do not play during the regular season, so we won’t get these kind of back-and-forths unless they meet up in the Super Bowl. Then again, Brady seems like he really likes prodding Vrabel, so we have to think he’d save something special if they met up on football’s biggest stage.

Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album Sour was released in May and is already one of the most-streamed albums of the year. Though most of the album’s response was generally positive, many Taylor Swift and Paramore fans pointed out some similarities in Rodrigo’s music. Indeed, those artists have made an eye-catching amount of money from being retroactively credited on certain tracks.

According to a report from Billboard, the songwriting credits have led to nearly $2 million being awarded to Swift and Paramore’s teams. The bulk of the royalty money comes from Rodrigo’s track “Good 4 U,” which was influenced by Paramore’s “Misery Business.” To date, the single has raked in at least $2.4 billion from streaming, sales, licensing, and airplay worldwide. After being awarded songwriting credits, Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Josh Farro now hold a collective 50 percent ownership of the composition, meaning they’re making the same amount of money from the song as are Rodrigo and her producer Dan Nigro.

Rodrigo’s other hit song “Deja Vu” gave songwriting credits to Taylor Swift, which has earned at least $1.3 million to date. Swift’s team also holds 50 percent of the song, meaning Swift herself has 25 percent and her producer Jack Antonoff has 20. That means Swift herself has earned at least $325,000 from influencing Rodrigo on the song, while Rodrigo and Nigro have both pocketed at least $500,000 from publishing revenues.

Read Billboard‘s full report on Sour royalties here.

Sour is out now via Geffen/Interscope. Get it here.

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

Adam Sandler likes basketball a whole heck of a lot. We have evidence of this in a few of his movies — Uncut Gems, for instance, revolves around Sandler’s character betting on basketball because of a black opal he gives to Kevin Garnett — but we have exponentially more evidence from Sandler’s seemingly daily games of pickup basketball. Clips of Sandler randomly rolling up to pickup games, oftentimes dressed like someone who didn’t expect to be playing pickup basketball when they left the house, pop up all the time, and as it turns out, the man famous for playing Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore in Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, respectively, can hoop.

The latest example of this involves a bunch of dudes who are far better than the average pickup hooper. A video made its way around the Twitterverse of Sandler playing with a number of NBA players, including Trae Young, Tobias Harris, and Boban Marjanovic. He looked very happy and, at one point, canned a jumper off of an assist from Young.

I have no idea who the MVP of this game was but I demand that whomever got that honor is gifted that Adam Sandler pickup basketball god t-shirt that James Caan’s assistant wore last month.

Despite a fairly standard comedy premise—two very different couples meet on vacation, have a wild time together, then meet up again in their real, non-vacation mode lives—Hulu’s new movie Vacation Friends has been getting some pretty solid reviews.

Even our Vince Mancini, who admitted to being one of the film’s biggest skeptics, ultimately concluded that it was “against all odds, pretty damn fun.” Currently, the film holds a respectable 60 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes—whereas Step Brothers’ approval rating is only 55 percent (proving, yet again, that people are stupid). Viewers, meanwhile, have been pressing play in record numbers, leading Hulu to already greenlight a sequel.

As Deadline reports, Vacation Friends has become Hulu’s “most-watched original film in its opening weekend”—a feat that led the streaming giant to bring writer-director Clay Tarver and the film’s four main stars (Lil Rey Howery, Yvonne Orji, John Cena, and Meredith Hagner) back for another go-around, currently titled Honeymoon Friends.

With the movie theater industry still in a state of flux due to COVID-19, Deadline, for one, thinks that the quick greenlight of Honeymoon Friends is a good sign for the film industry as a whole:

This is an encouraging sign as the team at 20th Century Studios ramps up its slate of films for the company’s streaming services. The Disney-owned studio led by Steve Asbell has a number of features in the works that will stream as Hulu Originals in the U.S. and as Star Originals on Disney+ internationally including the suspense thriller No Exit, The Princess starring Joey King, and the Shakespeare-inspired romantic comedy Rosaline starring Kaitlyn Dever.

Can we already predict where Honeymoon Friends will go, narratively? Yes. Does it really matter? Not really—it’s happening with or without your “I do.”

(Via Deadline)

There’s a lot of conspiracy theories out there these days, but only one that’s worth a damn: Roy Kent, Ted Lasso‘s grouch with a heart of gold, is CGI.

It began on Reddit, as theories are wont to do, with a post that reads, “I just started watching the pilot, and i’m up to the scene where roy is called into teds office. Am i crazy or does he look like a complete cgi character?” Laugh if you want, but I don’t hear this “Brett Goldstein” guy dismissing the deafening rumors.

Oh. He did? Well, in the immortal words of Roy Kent, f*ck.

“My final statement on the matter,” Goldstein tweeted, along with an official statement video. “There’s a f*cking load of mad sh*t happening on the internet today, as usual,” he said (the filter is a nice touch). “I just want to clear up something once for all: I am a completely real normal human man who just happens to live in a VFX house and does normal human basic things like rendering and buffering and transferring data.” He says something else, but I can’t make it out because his accent is very thick — and he’s CGI.

Whether you subscribe to the conspiracy or not, there’s one thing we can all agree on: this is the only good Ted Lasso discourse.