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Before dropping her 2020 debut album Heaven & Hell, Ava Max had been hard at work on her music career. Already boasting over a billion streams on Spotify, her singles “Sweet But Psycho” and “Salt” went No. 1 in several countries upon their release. But her music’s success didn’t happen over night. Speaking with Uproxx for the How I Blew Up series, Max describes being fired from a few jobs before her music career took off.

In the How I Blew Up episode, Max said she knew she had always wanted to be a singer. But she was briefly swayed by outside voices, who convinced her that becoming a pop star was a “one-in-a-billion” chance. “So I started getting a bunch of 9-5 jobs. I started getting fired — I wasn’t very good at any of them,” Max says.

The singer tried a brief stint as a nail salon receptionist, but she was let go after struggling with the math aspect of the job. “It was not my cup of tea,” she notes. Eventually, Max began selling hair straighteners at a mall kiosk. The singer describes the gig as “fun,” but said she quit after being reprimanded for showing up late with a cappuccino in hand every morning.

Eventually, Max’s song “Anyone But You” blew up on SoundCloud and led to a record deal with Atlantic. Thanks to the success of Heaven & Hell, it’s not likely that Max will have to go back to a 9-5 job any time soon.

Watch the latest episode of How I Blew Up with Ava Max above.

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

Biz Markie’s iconic hit “Just A Friend” is a prime example that technical skill isn’t everything when it comes to music. While the late rapper wouldn’t be considered by many to be a skilled singer in a traditional sense, his passionately sung hook on the song remains one of the most memorable in the history of recorded music. Markie’s producer/cousin DJ Cool V recently spoke about the moment he and Markie recorded that hook, and he paints picture of a heartwarming scene.

He told HipHopDX:

“People called me crazy for letting him do that record. I’m in the studio, he wanted to do it so bad, but I got to get the whole album done before the deadline. I was almost done except for maybe three or four records, because Biz didn’t like to stay in the studio. So, I made him fight and fight and do records and do records. He was coming along so good with the other records. I said, ‘OK, OK, you finally can do it.’

I got him in the booth and he was singing, and even though it might not be perfectly correct to anybody else, the feeling of it was good. He had his fist balled up and he was really trying. He was really, really crooning, and I said, ‘That’s it.’ And he had one take. Then he had another take that was not as good as the first one. So I took the first one and put it with the next one. So it’s the same one, twice. He did both of them and he did them very well and maximized it too. He did it as best he could do it — and it was good enough for me.

Everybody called us crazy, like, ‘Yo, you going to really let him do that?’ I said, ‘Man, he feeling it. I got a good feeling about this record.’ And we did it. It just took off. It morphed into something that we could never imagine.”

Cool V went on to note, however, that neither he nor Markie ever made any money from the song. Citing Markie signing “an incredibly bad contract” and other factors as the reason for that, he said, “The sweetness comes in that we were able to perform it for almost 31 years. And now comes the other side of it — we never made money off the record. I still haven’t got paid for that record. It trickled down. So, we never made money off the record. But, we made the money off the shows and we had a great performing career. But now it gets back to the bittersweet because every time I hear it, it’s going to remind me of Biz, but it’s also going to remind me of how I can’t make more money off of it. Everybody’s feeding their family off our work and we’ve never made money off that record.”

Revisit “Just A Friend” below.

In early July, Hugh Jackman either intentionally or unintentionally triggered a massive rumor mill after he shared an Instagram Story that included a photo with Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige. Granted, the two go way back thanks to Feige’s time as a producer on the X-Men films that rocketed Jackman to superstardom, but that didn’t stop fans from going wild with theories that he’s returning as Wolverine. The rumors ranged from Jackman just straight-up continuing to be Wolverine in the MCU to the actor making a cameo in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and/or Spider-Man: No Way Home.

But after a month of letting the Wolverine rumors run rampant, Jackman finally addressed the situation in a new interview with Jake Hamilton. According to Jackman, nothing has changed, and he meant it when he said that Logan was his last outing as the clawed Canadian mutant. Via Comic Book:

“I’m hearing about this from you [Hamilton], and there’s nothing in my inbox from Kevin Feige means it’s probably, no matter what idea I came up with, not on the table,” he explained. “Let’s just be clear that, but now, I realized, before we shot Logan, I was like, we got the idea. We knew what it was going to be-ish, right? And I thought this is it. And that really helped me, it really helped knowing I was going into my last season, that it was my last season that I made the most of it. And it’s still a character I hold close to my heart. But I know it’s done.”

While that response feels pretty definitive, it should be noted that “I haven’t heard anything” has become the go-to answer for actors rumored to be making an MCU cameo thanks to the multiverse shenanigans that are now officially on the table following the Loki season finale. The Amazing Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield gave a similar response back in May when he finally responded to rumors that he’ll be making an appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

However, in Jackman’s case, Logan was the perfect ending to his portrayal of Wolverine, so it would make sense for the actor to err towards leaving the character on a high note. Then again, there’s always the allure of blowing fans’ minds with one last surprise, so who knows?

(Via Jake’s Takes)

At long last, Mike Lindell’s “cyber symposium” is here.

The goal of the three-day conference in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that the 2020 election was stolen from former-president Donald Trump. (It wasn’t.) By August 13, the day Lindell originally said that Trump would be reinstated, (he now claims “nobody said that”), “everybody’s going to know what I know.” What does the MyPillow founder know? It’s unclear, but it involves Joe Biden and Kamala Harris resigning. But before all that, he had to work out some technical issues.

MyPillow CEO and Trump supporter Mike Lindell claimed on Tuesday that he was the victim of a cyber attack, resulting in a delay of the start of his “cyber symposium.”

“The whole technology was attacked,” he told the unmasked attendees of the conference. “We need to get the word out, because they blocked the thing. But this is part of what I’m going to talk about today. This is the cover-up. This is the absolute cover-up of the worst in history.” Lindell never specified who “they” is.

The “cyber symposium” spiraled from there, including some ol’ fashioned ranting:

He also yelled at a panelist who suggested taking a break for lunch. “No!” Lindell exclaimed. “We’re not going on a break. Put up that movie again. Run the movie. There’s no breaks. We’re streaming 72 hours! Live streaming! Around the world! This never stops!” He told the crowd that they can grab a bite for lunch, but “I ain’t eating. I’m staying up here for 72 hours before they ruin our signal.” According to ABC News reporter Will Steakin, Lindell “left the stage only minutes later.”

Remember: this is only day one.

(Via Newsweek)

Nearly four years after a Super Mario Bros. animated movie was announced to be in the works by the same studio behind Minions, we finally have the first details — er, detail — about it. During an interview on comedian Bert Kreischer’s podcast The Bertcast, fellow comedian Sebastian Maniscalco revealed he is currently working on the upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie as the voice of Spike, Mario and Luigi’s boss. Maniscalo revealed the news when asked Kreischer asked him what he had on his to-do list for the rest of the day, to which Maniscalo replied he was off to do some work on the movie. That being said, it seems we can pretty safely assume the rest of the film has been cast and production is officially underway.

Now, if the name Spike isn’t ringing any bells for you, rest assured it’s a pretty deep cut from Nintendo. Spike, aka Foreman Spike, is actually a character from the Famicom/NES game Wrecking Crew. In Wrecking Crew, Spike is in change of overseeing Mario and Luigi as they demolish a building site, meaning we might see the film pivot away from the duo’s reputation as plumbers in the new film. While it’s not much to go on, at least we’re working with a bit more than the nothing we had.

Announced back in 2017, the new Super Mario Bros. movie is reportedly a joint project between Universal’s Illumination Entertainment (Minions, The Secret Life of Pets, Despicable Me, Sing) and Nintendo. Considering the only previous Mario movie of note is the 1993 Bob Hoskins title the actor went on to call “the worst job he’s ever done,” the competition isn’t all that stiff and there’s really nowhere to go but “1-UP” for the shell-stomping duo. If the previously announced timeline is still accurate, the film should be hitting theaters next year, making us due for a trailer any day now.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

There’s a special feeling you get when you see an artist perform and you know, deep down in your gut, that they’ll never play a venue this small ever again. It’s a tangible representation of the ephemeral, like catching a glimpse of a shooting star, or being able to take full advantage of MoviePass.

Mood Ring, the sophomore album from Kississippi first came across my desk (note: not a desk, but a folding table with a fake plastic plant that I set up as a desk during the height of the pandemic lockdown) as an untitled rough mix, edits bounced in the midst of production. Even in their incomplete stage, I was floored with the scope of the songwriting — after years grinding and growing in the DIY basement punk scene, Zoe Reynolds had pivoted to arena-sized pop songs. And she wasn’t turning back.

“I think this is exactly what my vision was, but I didn’t know that I was capable of doing it yet,” Reynolds recently told me over Zoom. “Having the right resources and stuff like that, it makes such a difference. I mean, as much as it was my vision, I was like, “Oh, I’m trying to make a big-scale pop record. I don’t know if I’m actually able to do that.’”

Across its ten tracks, Mood Ring boasts some of the most exciting and emotionally vulnerable songwriting to come out of the emo world in recent memory, proving once and for all that it is possible to widen your scope up the steps and out of the basement, and aim it towards arenas. Tracks like “Twin Flame” feel reminiscent of emo torchbearers (specifically, see Jimmy Eat World’s “Hear You Me” for a familiar chord progression), while the absolutely massive “Around Your Room” and “We’re So In Tune” could be played on pop radio alongside Lorde and Taylor Swift. But underneath the pop flashes and technicolor visuals are lyrics that are raw and direct, unafraid to dig into the difficult situations and pull out a serene wisdom.

“I really just want this to be a record that people can cry and dance to,” she says. “When I wrote it, I really wanted to write this super happy pop record, but I have depression and anxiety. So those songs are going to come forward that way. I just really want it to be a cathartic record for people, something that people can see as a conversation with a friend. I want people to be able to dance out their feelings with it, because that’s kind of what I’ve been doing.”

Reynolds first realized the songs she was writing were becoming an album during the winter of 2019 and spent the better part of two years perfecting the craft of her songwriting and working toward capturing on tape the sounds in her head. One pivotal force in this endeavor was producer Andy Park, whose past credits include work with Noah Gunderson, Death Cab for Cutie, Princess Nokia, Now, Now, and more, who helped to push the songs to whole new levels with overdubs, vocal harmonies, and alternate arrangements. “I was really, really lucky to come across Andy, who was willing to do so much to make this happen for me as a small artist,” she says. Another driving force for the evolution of Mood Ring was a bevy of external collaborators that helped to push Reynolds into new directions.

“With my previous records, I really would go isolation mode when I was writing,” she says. “I didn’t want anyone to see into it, straight up. But my songs are emotionally vulnerable, so I feel like, [with] this record, being able to collaborate with people kind of made it feel more like a conversation with a friend than like a journal entry. It was a really important thing for me to do. I think I will always want to do those kinds of co-writing sessions and collaborations in the future.”

While Mood Ring takes Kississippi into uncharted territory for a band born and raised in the DIY punk/emo scene, the final version of the record still stays true to Reynolds’ scene roots, featuring contributions from a wide array of sonically diverse artists within the genre, including Sarah Tudzin (Illuminati Hotties), Bartees Strange, Al Menne (Great Grandpa), Conor Murphy (Foxing), Phoebe Bridgers’ frequent sideman Marshall Vore, and many more. “As much as I really wanted to kind of break out with this new record, I know that at heart, my music is emo music and that it will still connect with some of the people that it connected with before,” Reynolds explains.

The strength of songs is there, and with a little luck, Mood Ring can follow a trajectory similar to Taylor Swift’s Red or 1989, both of which remain revered by the musical purist DIY-heads, despite the artist’s massive stature. “I love my emo community, but, hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little growth,” Reynolds says with a laugh.

Mood Ring is out now via Triple Crown Records. Listen here and catch Kississippi on tour this summer.

Concentrates and extracts — popularly known as “dabs” — were once solely the domain of heavy cannabis users. These days, they are heating up the marketplace (no pun intended), but have yet to fully cross into mainstream use.

Simply defined, dabs, or hash, or any other nickname is an umbrella term for any cannabis product produced through an extraction process, which often involves butane, other solvents, or simply water, heat, or pressure. Technically, the term “concentrate” is reserved for solventless substances, while “extracts” refers to the use of solvents in their creation. Either way, it all refers to the yellow-hued goopy and waxy substance that is formed from the sticky stuff on weed flowers, regardless of the process involved in separating it from the plant.

The result is a smaller amount of product that looks nothing like a plant and packs a much higher punch with the resulting level of THC, CBD, or any other cannabinoid concentrated. Finally, high heat — whether via a blow torch or an electronic method — is used to vaporize it. It’s exactly that ingestion method that has kept dabs somewhat of a niche segment in weed.

Up until the last few years, when e-rigs like the Puffco Peak came into existence and became popular, using a blow torch was the move for many dabs. Basically, it’s freebasing weed. Understandably, using a blow torch is intimidating for a lot of people, not to mention it is also high-maintenance. Combined with a much higher THC concentration than people are used to, many people are either turned off by dabbing from the outset or have a bad first experience where they get too high, then swear it off altogether. Add to that a dictionary’s worth of nicknames and technical terms, including an alphabet soup of different product terms named for different extraction methods, and dabbing can seem very daunting to newcomers.

“I feel like people can be so deterred from dabbing because people always give others globs on a hot ass nail that just fucks them up completely,” says Dean Rochford, the head lab technician for San Diego-based live rosin brand Clsics. Rochford is right. When using any kind of drug, however legal or safe to do so, a comfortable first exposure is crucial to building a fun and healthy relationship with the substance going forward.

Though I like dabbing, I save it for special occasions because I am concerned that routinely ingesting high-percentage THC products will up my tolerance too quickly. I am also a flower romanticist, and the thought of smoking a nearly unadulterated plant bud is just too much for me to shrug off. Still, many think that cannabis extracts and concentrates are the purest distillation of the plant experience, owing to its strong intoxicating effects, tastes, and smells, and they are not incorrect on that point.

But many look the other way from dabbing mostly because they don’t know much about it. It’s precisely that lack of knowledge and know-how that creates a gatekeeping culture in dabbing among the hardcore, consistent stoners and those who imbibe from time to time. It doesn’t have to be that way. So, in the spirit of democratization when it comes to cannabis intake methods, I asked industry experts to help create a helpful list of suggestions for the dab-curious, whether it’s their first time indulging in concentrates and extracts or not.

Try A Small Amount First

Almost everyone said the same thing regarding the first tip: “Start small. You can always add more, but you can’t take away,” says Rob Gale of Humboldt Terp Council.

“Start with small dabs. There’s no point taking a massive dab and not being able to hold it in,” says Rochford of Clsics, who also mentioned he knows people who feel pressured into taking large dabs to start because it’s become somewhat romanticized.

Start Low And Go Slow

“Use lower temperatures to start,” says Gale. Rochford agrees, saying to do so because it’s “way more tasty and enjoyable when it’s a low temperature.” This is due to the fact that terpenes — which are the compounds that give cannabis specific tastes and flavors — burn off as the temperature climbs.

Gale suggests using a Dab Rite or other gauge to hit the right temperature. He says 440-480F is good for solventless concentrates, like live rosin, whereas 440-500F is good for those extracts using BHO, or butane.

A Blow Torch Is Not Necessary

“Puffco is your friend,” Gale says. He adds, “It’s the iPod click wheel of vape devices.” By that, he means the Puffco suite of electronic dabbing products is a well-designed and simple alternative to firing up a blow torch, both when considering aesthetics and use. E-rigs are definitely what got me hooked into regularly dabbing. Over traditional rigs, they are easier to clean, much easier to turn on, and more intuitive to use. Flipping a switch over firing up a torch is probably the single technological advancement responsible for bringing more dabbing to the masses.

In addition to e-rigs like the Puffco Peak and the G Pen Roam (which is basically a portable e-rig), there are also smaller portable dab pens, like the Puffco Plus and G Pen Gio, as well as concentrates “add-ons” to portable vaporizers like those made by Pax.

You Get What You Pay For

“Good hash isn’t cheap. Cheap hash isn’t good,” Gale says. That pretty much says it all.

Research Is Your Friend

Certain makers in the industry, like the folks at Clsics, believe that only solventless dabs are worth customers’ time and claim they are “purer” products because they don’t include so-called harsh chemical processes like those that involve butane extractions.

“Always look for live rosin over any other dabs such as live ‘resin,’ crumble, or diamonds, which are all products extracted through gas solvent processes,” Rochford says.

Of course, a company making solventless products will say this, but there is some truth in the fact that a concentrate made without added chemicals or gasses is a beautiful thing to behold, romantically speaking, as well as from a quality standpoint.

But high quality and safe products using solvents do exist — just as low-quality solventless products do. Per point number four, price is usually a good indicator of whether or not what you’re getting is legit, which is especially true if you are blindly choosing what to vaporize from, say, an unfamiliar selection at a dispensary. It’s not a hard and fast rule, though, and different extraction methods require different upfront costs, which end up on the final price tag.

“Good solventless extraction is extremely expensive. Great BHO is very affordable,” says Gale, referring to the initialism for a solvent-based extraction referred to as butane honey oil. “The average working person can’t really afford top-shelf solventless. They can afford our live resin, though. The state sets strict limits on residual solvents. Our products are well below those limits,” he adds, referring to the safety and purity of the resulting products found in quality producers like Humboldt Terp Council.

At the end of the day, it really comes down to preference. To decide figure that our, personal sampling and researching is necessary.

When the going gets tough, Ted Cruz gets going. Sometimes to Cancun. But if United isn’t running a super-saver deal, he’ll often just stay in Texas and flap his trap about any damn thought that enters his mind. And right now, in the midst of a surge that Austin-Travis County health authority Dr. Desmar Walkes called “critical,” Cruz appeared on Fox News to share his dangerous opinion that “there should be no mandates—zero—concerning COVID.” Unfortunately, he didn’t end there:

“That means no mask mandates, regardless of your vaccination status. That means no vaccine mandates. That means no vaccine passports. And I’ve introduced legislation — a bill to ban vaccine passports. This week I’m introducing a bill to ban vaccine mandates. And this week I’m introducing a bill to end mask mandates.”

Cruz did, however, want to make it clear that he’s got nothing against vaccines. He thinks they’re great. So great, in fact, that he and his family have gotten them. “But I believe in individual choice, individual responsibility. You can make the choice for your family.”

It’s worth noting that, according to Texas Tribune, “around 87.1 percent of all hospital beds in Texas are in use — the highest level since the start of the pandemic — with 14.1 percent of those beds occupied by COVID-19 patients.” Yet on Monday, Insider reports that Cruz and fellow senator Kevin Cramer (R—ND) introduced that previously mentioned No Mask Mandates Act, and Cruz issued a statement that serves as pretty clear proof that he’s not living in reality:

“Thanks to vaccinations and the natural immunity of Americans who have recovered from COVID-19, America is reopening. America is recovering, our kids are going back to school, and small businesses are returning as our nation’s economic heartbeat. At the same time, President Biden is imposing unscientific and burdensome mandates to control Americans’ lives.”

The messages that we’re all recovering and life is just dandy must not have made its way to Texas governor Greg Abbott who, according to the AP, “has directed the Texas Department of State Health Services to use staffing agencies to find additional medical staff from beyond the state’s borders as the delta wave began to overwhelm its present staffing resources. He also has sent a letter to the Texas Hospital Association to request that hospitals postpone all elective medical procedures voluntarily.” Yet he still hasn’t rescinded his ban on mask mandates.

Welcome to Texas, y’all!

The Weeknd’s 2020 disco-twinged album After Hours was an all-around success. Though it was notably snubbed by the Grammys, the LP earned several other awards and achieved chart success, hovering at No. 1 for several weeks. But The Weeknd is already looking towards his new era of music, which he officially announced last week with the dance-ready track “Take My Breath.”

Now taking his music to new heights, The Weeknd has returned with an extended version of “Take My Breath.” The original single clocked in at just over three-and-a-half minutes, but the latest version of the track tacks on an extra two minutes of trance-like synths. The extended version of “Take My Breath” is fit for the dancefloor, drawing out the song’s pulsating intro and euphoric bridge.

Though The Weeknd has yet to announce his upcoming fifth studio album’s title, the singer did describe the upcoming LP’s sound in an interview with Rolling Stone from last September. “I’m guilty of wanting to outdo my last album, but it’s never like, ‘I’ve got to do the same type of song.’ I’m so happy I’m not like that,” he said. “My palette is so wide. […] I’m trying to find a perfect balance with the film and the music, and so far it’s going really well. I think I might have cracked the code.”

Listen to The Weeknd’s “Take My Breath (Extended Version)” above.

Olivia Rodrigo has been not only music’s biggest surprise of 2021, but just flat-one one of the year’s most successful artists overall. Sour topped the charts, and so too did the singles “Drivers License” and “Good For You,” while “Deja Vu” topped out at No. 3. Now Rodrigo has added another impressive feat to her resume: “Drivers License” has become her first some to reach a billion streams on Spotify. As Pop Crave notes, this is the least amount of time it has ever taken for a song to eclipse a billion Spotify plays: The single was released a bit over 7 months ago, on January 8.

Rodrigo has become a major celebrity this year, and she had a noteworthy brush with fame and the fans that come with it. She told GQ recently, “Someone came up to me the other day and was like, ‘Sorry if this is weird, but I had sex to the entirety of your album.’ And I was like, ‘What the f*ck? That’s crazy.’ That was the weirdest experience I’ve ever had. I was flattered, of course. […] I appreciate that she was bold enough to come up to me and tell me that, too. I was like, ‘You want to have sex to the breakup songs?’”