GoneTrending

Bonnaroo ran into a lot of trouble setting up the follow-up to their 2019 festival. The pandemic prevented organizers from hosting the showcase on the originally planned weekend of June 11-14, 2020. At first they delayed to September of that year, but they were soon forced to postpone until June 2021…before pushing it back for a third time, to September 2-5, 2021. Thankfully, the showcase will go as planned this year, but attendees will not be able to enter the venue without adhering to a new rule.

On Tuesday, the Tennessee-based festival announced new requirements for the showcase. “The safety of our patrons and staff is our number one priority,” organizers wrote in a statement. “As such a full COVID-19 vaccination or negative COVID-19 test will be required to attend Bonnaroo 2021.” This is the same rule that Chicago’s Lollapalooza implemented last month for their 2021 festival. “Bonnaroo strongly encourages vaccination,” the festival added. “The last day to receive the second shot of Moderna or Pfizer, or a single dose of Johnson and Johnson is Thursday, August 19th.”

For those who follow Bonnaroo’s new policy, they’ll be able to enjoy an impressive lineup that includes Tyler, the Creator, Young Thug, Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Baby, Run the Jewels, Kevin Gates, Tame Impala, J.I.D, and more.

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

Las Vegas Summer League provides an avenue for basketball die-hards to indulge in wall-to-wall action from midday into the late evening for more than a week. For others, it’s an opportunity to catch a glimpse of some of the NBA’s potential stars of the future. And on a few occasions during the week, single games can bring both, which was the case on Tuesday night during a matchup featuring No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons against No. 2 overall pick Jalen Green and the Houston Rockets. The Rockets ultimately picked up a 111-91 victory but, as always, the final score took a backseat to the work of exciting prospects.

Cunningham got the better of the matchup in the early going, as the Pistons were more intentional about getting him on the ball and Cunningham’s intensity and competitiveness rose to the surface. First, he flashed his three-point shooting with an early pull-up.

Then, Cunningham attacked the rim for an intriguing finish, only to follow that up (after creating a steal with his defensive range near mid-court) with a dish in transition.

Not to be outdone, Green settled in with his usual and varied shotmaking arsenal. That included a tough three-pointer to get things going.

Cunningham was able to create more effective opportunities, both as a jump shooter and as a penetrating option, and that was on display with a third quarter rim attack.

Green kept it coming with perimeter shooting and, not to be understated, the ability to draw fouls and convert 10 of his 11 attempts at the free throw line.

Perhaps the highlight of the night went to Cunningham, though, as he went one-on-one with Green and created a three-pointer with some flair.

Of course, Cunningham and Green weren’t the only intriguing prospects involved in this particular contest, and there were several reminders of that. 2021 first round pick Alperen Sengun impressed for the Rockets as an offensive focal point, using his craft to finish near the rim in multiple ways.

Sengun also stepped way beyond the arc for a deep three-pointer that turned some heads, and he finished the night with 21 points, eight rebounds and four blocks.

Detroit received notable contributions from Saddiq Bey (12 points, seven rebounds, four assists), Saben Lee (13 points, two steals) and former college superstar Luka Garza (15 points in 16 minutes), but the other attention-grabbing effort came from Rockets guard Josh Christopher. He finished with 15 points and seven assists in 27 minutes, living up to his pre-college hype as a scorer and quickly becoming a crowd favorite with his attacking style on both ends.

All told, this was a matchup that lived up to the hype, both with the top two picks and their supporting counterparts. Cunningham wasn’t incredibly efficient, scoring 20 points on 8-for-18 shooting, but his two assists understate the effectiveness of his distribution — his teammates went 3-for-26 on threes for the evening — and he is already a very strong defender with three steals and quality activity. Green picked up where he left off after a fantastic opener with 25 points, five rebounds, and three assists, overcoming a considerable amount of defensive attention from Detroit and making sure his presence was felt.

This was still only a Summer League game in the end. Still, it answered the bell from an entertainment standpoint and several rising prospects were able to effectively showcase their appeal and future upside.

Technically speaking, Rand Paul is a doctor: He’s an ophthalmologist. But that doesn’t exactly make him qualified to talk about, let’s say, highly transmissible diseases that have caused a once-in-a-century global health crisis. And yet, time and time again, he’s squared off against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top immunologist, who safe to say knows much more than he does. And every time Paul comes for Dr. Fauci, he only gets schooled, because at best he’s an eye doctor. But now Paul’s medical bona fides, or lack thereof, have gotten him temporarily suspended from YouTube.

According to Yahoo!, the physician and current senator was yanked from the video sharing service after dropping an instantly controversial video in which he didn’t just come out against mask mandates, but claimed they’re dangerous. (They’re not.)

“Saying cloth masks work, when they don’t, actually risks lives, as someone may choose to care for a loved one with COVID while only wearing a cloth mask,” Paul says in the video. “This is not only bad advice but also potentially deadly misinformation.”

He also railed against “vaccine passports” and the nation’s top doctors, whose attempts to stop a currently worsening pandemic he described as a “drunk-with-power reign over the Capitol.”

Paul’s video was over-the-top even for COVID skeptics. Most simply complain about them being symbols of oppression, or at least slightly uncomfortable. Doctors by and large agree that they offer at least some protection, for one’s self and for others. But Rand went all in, asserting that they don’t work, when data comparing places with widespread mask use to those without it strongly suggest otherwise.

It was unhinged enough to not only get Paul suspended for a week, starting Monday, but to be the second YouTube video yanked from the service in a week. Last week, they removed one showing his appearance on Newsmax, wherein he argued much the same thing, on top of complaining about his beef with Dr. Fauci, of course.

Paul did not take the suspension lightly. “They are now banning all my speech, including speech that is given on the Senate floor, which is protected constitutional,” he told reporters. “YouTube now thinks they are smart enough and godly enough that they can oversee speech, even constitutionally protected speech.”

Paul isn’t the only Republican suspended from a social media site for spreading COVID misinformation. Marjorie Taylor Greene was suspended from Twitter for a fourth time after claiming that “vaccines are failing” and “do not reduce the spread.” (Ditto masks, she also claimed.) According to Twitter’s rules for COVID misinformation, if she’s suspended a fifth time, it will be permanent.

Anyway, please wear masks, even if you’re fully vaccinated. They’re just masks. You’ll live.

(Via Yahoo!)

A number of rappers have stepped into the marijuana industry, among them Jay-Z, G-Eazy, Ice Cube, and Russ, at a time when recreational weed use has become increasingly legal across the nation. It’s not just about making it easier for people to get high. There’s been a push to alter past penalties given to those were placed in prison when it was still widely illegal. And ot raise awareness for this idea, some in Michigan have decided to start a new music festival.

Former NBA player Al Harrington’s Village, who is responsible the largest conglomerate of black-owned cannabis brands in the United States, is starting Nobody’s Home, a hip-hop festival on September 4 to bring awareness to marijuana laws. Rick Ross and G Herbo will headline, with Freddie Gibbs, Jay Electronica, Chase B, Babyface Ray, G.T., and more set to appear. The festival will take place in Benton Harbor, Michigan with performances running from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Dwight Mitchell City Center Park.

According to HipHopDX, Kanye West’s longtime manager John Monopoly is responsible for curating the festival while another former NBA player, Wilson Chandler, leads the cannabis brand, Nobody’s Home, that flagships the event.

The Nobody’s Home festival is free to attend for anyone over the age of 21 years old. RSVPs for the event can be made on their website here.

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

In 2002, Halle Berry made history: She became the first Black person to win the Best Actress Oscar, for the drama Monster’s Ball. But in a new interview, she says it didn’t lead to the avalanche of great roles like she’d assumed. Instead, she had to fight for good parts, even accept ones she found dubious. Which is one reason, she admits, that she did the derided comic book spin-off movie Catwoman. Still, she doesn’t exactly regret doing that one.

While talking to Entertainment Weekly ahead of her forthcoming action movie Bruised (as caught by IndieWire), Berry looked back on how her nabbing an Academy Award didn’t lead to tons of juicy roles with prestige directors.

“It was surprising,” she said. “Because I thought they were going to just back up the truck and drop them off at my house, right? When you have a historic win like that, you think, ‘Oh, this is going to fundamentally change.’ It did fundamentally change me, but it didn’t change my place in the business overnight. I still had to go back to work. I still had to try to fight to make a way out of no way.”

And so the newly Oscar-winning Halle Berry had to lower her expectations and do some dicey movies — like Catwoman, which gave the Batman for her very own heroic movie, with a villain played by no less than Sharon Stone.

“It’s like, okay, that’s a film I can’t say I’m totally in love with, but this isn’t a hobby. It’s how I take care of my children,” Berry said. “But I try to keep that sense of wonder and stay curious. Because being a Black woman, I haven’t always had parts that I absolutely love.”

That said, Berry’s first post-Oscar role was another game-changer: With Die Another Day, she became the first Black actress to play a heroic Bond girl. (Previous Black Bond girls, such as Gloria Hendry in Live and Let Die or Grace Jones in A View to a Kill, had been in cahoots with the Bond villain.) But a spin-off featuring her character, Giacinta “Jinx” Johnson, was axed because MGM refused to hand $80 million to a movie starring Berry.

When Catwoman came crawling, she found it hard to say no. And though it was a critical and commercial bomb, it had its perks. “It was one of the biggest paydays of my whole life, which, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Berry said. “I don’t want to feel like ‘Oh, I can only do award-worthy stuff.’ What is an award-worthy performance?”

Bruised hits theaters on Sept. 12. Meanwhile, one can watch Catwoman on HBO Max.

(Via EW and IndieWire)

This year was primed to be a return to live shows after a year that saw almost none of them. But those who were hoping to see Fleetwood Mac’s lead vocalist Stevie Nicks perform live will have to wait until at least 2022. The singer took to Twitter on Tuesday to announce that she is canceling her planned performances for 2021 due to rising COVID-19 cases across the country.

“These are challenging times with challenging decisions that have to be made,” she wrote in her message. “I want everyone to be safe and healthy and the rising Covid cases should be of concern to all of us. While I’m vaccinated, at my age, I am still being extremely cautious and for that reason have decided to skip the 5 performances I had planned for 2021.” She added, “Because singing and performing have been my whole life, my primary goal is to keep healthy so I can continue singing for the next decade or longer. I’m devastated and I know the fans are disappointed, but we will look towards a brighter 2022.”

Nicks was set to perform at the Jazz Aspen Festival in Colorado and BottleRock Napa Valley in California during Labor Day weekend. Her next scheduled performance was Austin City Limits, where she would sing both weekends of the festival, namely October 1-3 and October 8-10. Nicks was also slated to appear at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in October, but festival organizers announced over the week that the showcase would be postponed until next spring.

Chris Stapleton will replace Nicks at Bottleneck while subs for her stints at the Jazz Aspen and Austin City Limits festivals will be announced soon.

On Tuesday, New Yorkers were greeted with a genuine surprise: Andrew Cuomo actually resigned, a week after a report concluded that he had sexually harassed 11 women. Many expected that the soon-to-be-former governor, known for never backing down, would drag things out over months. But he didn’t, to widespread surprise. But the move left some verklempt. One of them was another famous New Yorker, Alec Baldwin.

“Regardless of what you think of Cuomo, this is a tragic day,” the eldest Baldwin brother tweeted. “Party politics in this country draw ambitious but ultimately isolated, even socially maladjusted men and women who, given the current cancel culture, will likely have their shortcomings exposed and magnified.”

It was certainly a unique response to a politician resigning over sexual misconduct allegations. Apparently he found sympathy for an “isolated, even socially maladjusted” person alleged to have misused his considerable power. He also repeated one of Cuomo’s defenses: that this was, he argued, a simple case of “cancel culture” unfairly coming for him.

It’s not the first time the 30 Rock alum has railed against “cancel culture.” Back in March, he posted a video to Instagram in which he drew a strange analogy between being driven from polite society over misdeeds and…well, just read it:

“It’s like a giant, mile-long net and you’re catching a lot of people, more than a few who deserve it, and more than a few who don’t. Or they don’t deserve to have their careers and their lives destroyed.”

Baldwin’s tone deaf response earned a lot of reactions on social media.

Reminder: One never has to tweet.

Sharife Cooper falling to the second round was one of the big surprises on the night of the 2021 NBA Draft. But despite his slide, the Atlanta Hawks’ rookie already is making his presence felt at Summer League.

Cooper hit a buzzer beater on Tuesday afternoon at Cox Pavilion to help the Hawks beat the Pacers. The play came in a scramble, as Skylar Mays missed his own attempt and Max Heidegger collected the rebound after Pacers forward Cassius Stanley tried to throw the ball off of Jalen Johnson’s foot. Heidegger found Cooper in the corner and he cooly pulled up for three at the buzzer, giving Atlanta a 84-83 win.

Cooper finished with a team-high 21 points for the Hawks and was 5-for-8 on three-point attempts. Along with Johnson (who had 18 points and 10 rebounds) Atlanta is getting some strong play from from its two rookies. Cooper, who signed a two-way deal after slipping to the second round, arguably has been the best player Atlanta roster so far and came up big when an opportunity fell into his lap.

For the Pacers, first round pick Chris Duare finished with 21 points while shooting 8-for-19 from the field and 5-for-10 from three. Cassius Stanley, Indiana’s second round pick last year, added 14 points on 5-for-7 shooting.

It’s been almost two years since Earthgang shared their debut album, Mirrorland. Sine then, the Atlanta rap duo, comprised of Wowgr8 and Olu, hasn’t exactly been quiet. They made multiple contributions to Dreamville’s Revenge Of The Dreamers III and Spillage Village’s Spilligion, on top of sharing several loose singles and doing other guest appearances. Their latest release comes as a tribute to the legendary neo-soul singer Erykah Badu. The track, which is simply titled “Erykah,” is carried by a soulful sample of what appears to be her 2010 track “Window Seat.” Along with the new song, the rappers dropped a calming video that shows a relaxing day at the beach.

The new song is the latest in what’s been an active year for the duo. They recently called on Coi Leray for a remix of “Options” with Wale, as well as “Aretha,” a soulful account of their highs and lows over the last year. There’s also been a remix of Drake’s “Lemon Pepper Freestyle.” In it, they explain why the duo’s sophomore album Ghetto Gods was delayed.

“Release date is what I’m waiting on / Interscope gotta crunch the numbers,” Olu raps. “This industry is flooded with mindless muddles cause lies sell / The ugly truth might not bring in the money / Don’t they know it’s real sh*t the people want? / A pause from the pill-pop subscription joint.”

You can watch the video for “Erykah” above.

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

Click to download here.

Tony B. Throwing It All Away

On the newest edition of PYAG, Anna Hossnieh from the Ethnically Ambiguous podcast and Deckheads on Twitch joins Matt & Vince to talk about The Sopranos season five, episode six “Sentimental Education.”

The episode, penned by Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, feels personal. Everyone thinks AJ’s teacher, Mr. Wegler, is gay because he reads stuff like Madam Bovary, so Weiner is like, oh yeah? Well this guy everyone thinks is gay just because he likes literature? Guess what, he’s shtupping your wife, Tony.

Also Tony B. throws his fresh start away for twelve thousand dollars and Anna points out that Carmela’s view of AJ’s intelligence is so low that she’s worried he won’t get into Arizona State. Take that, Sun Devils, you’re AJ-level dumb.

Tell us what you think of Matt’s favorite film, The Aviator, in a five-star review on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe to Pod Yourself A Gun on Apple Podcasts

Email us at [email protected]; leave us a voicemail at 415-275-0030

Support the Pod: become a patron at patreon.com/Frotcast and get more bonus content than you could ever want, AND if you sign up for the Pod Yourself a Shoutout tier, you can bask in the glory of hearing your name on the podcast like this week’s newest members: The Recliner, The Cosby Show, and Farrakhan.

-Description by Brent Flyberg.