GoneTrending

If you’re going to make a video for a song called “Down South” featuring Houston hard-hitter Maxo Kream and Dallas star Yella Beezy, it’s only right that you make that video a blowout celebration of all things Texas car culture. That’s exactly what Wale does for his Paul Wall-sampling single from Folarin II, throwing a parking lot party with all the candy paint, hydraulics, and horsepower he could fit into four minutes.

The video is also crammed with legends of Texas hip-hop, including Bun B, Slim Thug, and more. As the trio’s guests gyrate to the no-doubt booming bass from the circled-up, showstopping slabs, the rappers perform their verses and sip from styrofoam cups, completing the image of a good, old-fashioned Texas shindig. Interestingly, “Down South” is the third video from the Folarin II rollout, but it was the first single. Wale also dropped videos for “Poke It Out,” featuring J. Cole, and “Angles” with Chris Brown.

Watch Wale’s ‘Down South’ video featuring Maxo Kream and Yella Beezy above. You can read Uproxx’s autumn digital cover story on Wale here.

Folarin II is due 10/22 via Warner Records and MMG. You can pre-save it here.

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

Bo Burnham’s Inside is one of the year’s most talked-about comedy specials, and similarly, the soundtrack album, Inside (The Songs), is inarguably 2021’s biggest comedy album. It’s currently No. 1 on the Billboard Comedy Albums chart and has been for 18 weeks, the entire time it’s been on the chart. It also became his first top-10 album on the all-genres Billboard 200 chart, achieving a peak at No. 7. Phoebe Bridgers also covered “That Funny Feeling” and her recording was one of the best-selling songs on the week of its release.

While Billboard thinks Inside (The Songs) is a comedy album, The Recording Academy doesn’t feel the same way: Billboard reports that the album was deemed ineligible to compete for the Best Comedy Album award at the 2022 Grammys. It will compete, however, for the Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media title.

Meanwhile, Inside (The Songs) was also submitted for Album Of The Year, while “All Eyes On Me” was submitted for Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Best Pop Solo Performance, and Best Song Written For Visual Media. Inside itself was also submitted for Best Music Film.

It remains to be seen what nominations Burnham will actually earn, as the list of Grammy nominees is set to be released on November 23.

This decision comes shortly after the Academy decided that Kacey Musgraves’ Star-Crossed isn’t eligible for any country Grammys.

While stopping by CNBC to promote the upcoming season premiere of Succession Season 3, Brian Cox weighed in on the current state of the American media landscape, and he is clearly not a fan of Fox News. On the hit HBO series Cox plays Logan Roy, a Rupert Murdoch-esque titan who lords over a media empire with an iron fist. In real life, Cox has no stomach for the tactics employed by Murdoch, but he’s also not exactly thrilled with the competition either.

He’s also not exactly telling Fox News to “f*ck off” (though he’s perfectly willing to say that on occasion), but he does have two choice words for them: “the devil.” Via Mediaite:

He had some light criticisms of CNN, saying the cable news network is “clearly the same story again and again and again” but acknowledging “I love CNN, ’cause I’m fairly left-wing.”

“And then, Fox News,” Cox added, “I don’t even go there, because that’s, like, the devil.”

He held up his fingers like a cross as he said it.

However, as one “media mogul” observing another, Cox said he doesn’t think Murdoch believes in anything that Fox News is pushing, and he’s simply exploiting the market for right wing vitriol in America.

“Back in the U.K., there’s more debate. There’s more nuance in the news,” Cox explained. “It’s not as cut and dry… but also I understand where it comes from because this country desperately needs alignment. And so you can see why these channels have developed the way they have.”

In keeping with the modern trend in hip-hop, Young Thug’s newly released second(!) album, Punk, is a star-studded affair on which the trap experimentalist is accompanied by a plethora of guests from across the genre. However, unlike his previous release, So Much Fun, he expands the range of artists he taps to help him fill time, including newcomers like ASAP Rocky, Doja Cat, and Mac Miller among his frequent collaborators like Drake, Gunna, and Future. He also reunites with J. Cole, Juice WRLD, and Post Malone after working with them on some of their biggest singles.

Thug, who officially kicked off the promotion for his latest album with his first-ever NPR Tiny Desk Concert alongside rock drummer Travis Barker, rolled out the album in a most unusual way, only releasing one single, “Tick Tock,” and playing new songs at places like Givenchy’s Paris Fashion Week show and in the backseats of Lyft drivers’ cars. And speaking of cars, his release party stunt of trashing a brand-new Rolls-Royce with baseball bats alongside Gunna and Metro Boomin drew both attention and criticism. However, judging from the fact that many fans on Twitter freely admitted to staying up later than usual for the release (midnight Pacific, three hours later than most New Music Friday releases), it would seem that these tactics had an overall positive effect on the album’s reception.

You can check out some of the new songs from Punk above and listen to the full album courtesy of Atlantic and YSL here.

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

Twenty years helps to put a lot of things in perspective in life, especially music. This week on Indiecast, Steve and Ian are reflecting on the musical landscape of 2001 and how it has evolved in the two decades since. The discussion revolves around four specific categories: albums they loved in 2001 that they longer care about, albums they didn’t care about in 2001 that are now important to them, the overall most important albums of 2001, and their personal favorite albums of 2001. From Daft Punk’s Discovery and Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory to Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American and Guided By Voices’ Isolation Drills, this episode is an exercise in nostalgia and reevaluation for the music that helped to shape the 2000’s.

In lieu of this week’s Recommendation Corner, we’re taking a moment to congratulate Ian on his wedding and wish him a wonderful honeymoon! We’ll be back with more recommendations next week.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 61 on Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

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

In a memo defending Dave Chappelle’s The Closer, which has been widely criticized for its transphobic jokes, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos mentioned that the streamer is “working hard to ensure marginalized communities aren’t defined by a single story.” He brought up Sex Education, Orange Is the New Black, Control Z, and Hannah Gadsby.

Gadsby wishes he hadn’t.

“Hey Ted Sarandos. Just a quick note to let you know that I would prefer if you didn’t drag my name into your mess. Now I have to deal with even more of the hate and anger that Dave Chappelle’s fans like to unleash on me every time Dave gets 20 million dollars to process his emotionally stunted partial word view,” the comedian, whose Nanette special on Netflix won a Peabody and an Emmy, wrote on Instagram. Gadsby continued:

“You didn’t pay me nearly enough to deal with the real world consequences of the hate speech dog whistling you refuse to acknowledge, Ted. Fuck you and your amoral algorithm cult… I do shits with more back bone than you. That’s just a joke! I definitely didn’t cross a line because there isn’t one.”

Netflix’s transgender employees and co-worker allies are planning a walkout on October 20 in response to the special. “I encourage us all to state clearly that we, as Netflix employees are stunning not simply when we are doing the work that our roles demand of us but also when we challenge the very principles of our company,” the message reads.

You can read Gadsby’s Instagram post below.

Donald Trump is not exactly what most people would consider a rational man. Nor is he comfortable with admitting defeat, as evidenced by the fact that he has still not conceded the 2020 presidential election. Together, those two characteristics can make for a pretty explosive combination, as Jimmy Kimmel explained on Thursday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live:

“The angry orange baby’s throwing another fit over the election he can’t admit he lost. He wrote ‘If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020 (which we have thoroughly and conclusively documented), Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24. It’s the single most important thing for Republicans to do.’ Did Nancy Pelosi write this for him? It seems like he’s telling Republicans not to vote.”

Which, according to the Daily Beast—who recently described Trump as “the biggest loose cannon in the world”—is exactly what he’s threatening. As Daily Beast’s Matt Lewis wrote:

“This should be interpreted as a serious threat because it speaks to the very efficacy of voting. Trump is not saying that he will tell his voters to stay home in 2022 to punish Republicans. He is making a much more furtive and veiled threat: He will tell the voters not to waste their time voting, unless, of course, other Republican politicians (a) buy into the bogus premise that the election was stolen from him, and (b) support whatever election ‘reforms’ he says will prevent that from happening again.”

To Kimmel, this “threat” is both ridiculous—and kind of hilarious—as it “brings up the age-old question, which is: How do you solve a problem you made up?”

You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 3:30 mark.

Lorde has been open about the fact that she’s more introverted than probably most musicians who have as many fans as she does. She’s also discussed her stage fright before, and now she’s done so again, this time with David Byrne in a new Rolling Stone feature.

The publication paired Lorde and Byrne up for a chat and Byrne asked how Lorde deals with stage fright. She responded, “I don’t have a good answer for that. It’s a real problem that I’m trying to get on top of. I try to write something down. I tape little notes to the stage for myself, so I would go over and be able to read something that me from the past is trying to tell me from the future. But it’s a real struggle.”

Byrne, also a natural introvert, spoke about the things he does before shows to get himself into the right zone, saying, “I don’t have much of a ritual, that kind of a thing. I keep myself busy. I make some ginger tea. I peel the ginger, slice it, put it into a thermos, put boiling water in with some lemon or whatever else, and that’ll keep me busy for a good 15, 20 minutes. Keep my mind a little bit away from what I’m about to do.”

Lorde replied, “I like that, that’s nice. I do a lot of puzzles on tour. I’m often applying a piece right when it’s time to go, which maybe doesn’t help the stage fright. That’s too much of a change of mood. I’m still looking for the puzzle at the first song.”

Check out the full interview here.

As the NBA season approaches and training camps get underway, we’ll be taking a look at the player on each team that holds the key to unlocking their full potential.

In Charlotte, there’s a lot to be excited about. Reigning ROY LaMelo Ball looks like a legitimate, franchise cornerstone type star in the making. Terry Rozier and Gordon Hayward have both been terrific since arriving from Boston, and they have plenty of young wings and power forwards like James Bouknight, Kelly Oubre Jr, PJ Washington, and Miles Bridges that provide reason for optimism. However, there is one glaring weakness when you scroll through the Charlotte roster coming into this season and that is at the center position, which could make or break this team with playoff dreams.

Mason Plumlee arrives from Detroit in a salary dump acquisition, but also filling a need for at least someone with NBA experience as a solid center. He doesn’t fit the timeline and doesn’t provide an awful lot of upside, but considering the centers on the roster beyond him are all the opposite, young players Charlotte hope can emerge but don’t know about, they are more reliant on him right now than I think they’d like. Rookie Kai Jones brings the most upside of the youngsters on the roster, but is incredibly raw and might spend more time in Greensboro with their G League affiliate than he does in Charlotte.

The most likely scenario is that PJ Washington will see more time at center after splitting his time between the four and five last year (54/46 percent splits per Basketball-Reference), possibly splitting starts with Plumlee based on matchup. He has plenty of athletic gifts, but isn’t the most imposing figure and the Hornets are going to have to make adjustments nightly based on their opponent as to how they rotate their options at the five.

Charlotte is a team in an interesting situation because they have a young star that would normally dictate a future-facing timeline, but Ball’s quick emergence coupled with the next two stars being in their prime at the moment means the playoffs are a priority now. As such, it’s possible that the answer at the center position isn’t on the roster at the moment, and that they have so much depth and so many intriguing young players stacked up on the wing means it wouldn’t be hard to make a trade happen this season. There were plenty who thought the Hornets could target Myles Turner this offseason and I’d expect them to be paired together fairly often up to the trade deadline, as Turner makes a lot of sense for what the Hornets need.

Whatever the case, that will be the swing position for this team this season. They have talent at other spots and certainly could use to see continued improvement from their young players elsewhere, but figuring out what the center rotation is and getting something approaching consistent production on both ends of the floor from that will determine if they’re able to be more than a play-in hopeful.

The Hatch Act, which has been on the books since 1939, prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they’re on the job. It’s a law that the Trump administration frequently broke: Citizens for Ethics reports that in October 2020, “at least 16 Trump administration officials have violated the Hatch Act a total of more than 60 times, in an unprecedented and escalating assault on the rule of law and the democratic process.” The former-president’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, was also accused of “blurring lines between government and politics and violating longstanding norms, and, in many cases, the Hatch Act, which bans political activity in the federal workplace.” So it’s rich that she accused Joe Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, of doing the same.

“Why does the media not hold @PressSec accountable for potential Hatch Act violations? She has twice advocated for political candidates from the podium. There is no problem in engaging in First Amendment political activity, but it must be done separate and apart from the podium.,” McEnany tweeted, along with a brief video clip of Psaki saying that “we’re going to do everything we can to help” Terry McAuliffe reclaim Virginia’s governorship, “and we believe in the agenda he’s representing.”

Psaki has faced criticisms of potential Hatch Act violations before, but McEnany is the last person who should be crying wolf at conflicts of interest. No wonder it’s being called “the least self-aware tweet in history.”