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On Saturday, Florida experienced its largest single-day increase in COVID cases since the pandemic’s start. The Delta variant, far more transmissible than earlier strains, has breathed new life into a catastrophe that seemed to be on the wane, and sure enough, the Sunshine State — whose Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has always downplayed its severity — saw a massive uptick: some 21,683 new cases, as per the CDC. Meanwhile, Matt Gaetz, the state’s most headline-grabbing politician, was making fun of the health crisis that’s running roughshod over his home.

On Saturday, the Republican representative kicked off his “Freedom Tour,” which either referred to some interpretation of the term “liberty” or to the thing he may lose once the federal investigation into his ties to a sex trafficking ring comes to a close. At one stop, while standing in front of a fake backdrop filled with images of Trump 2020 signs, he mocked the very thing that was targeting his mask-hating constituents.

“You’ve had all the experts say look out for the delta variant or the lambda variant, well next it’ll be the Chi Omega variant or the Pi Kappa Psi variant,” he told the crowd. “I got the Florida variant. I got the freedom variant. It affects the brain. It gets you to think for yourself where you don’t just surrender to the truth that they’re trying to create in corrupt big media.”

It sure does affect the brain. A number of prominent Republicans have recently pulled a 180, advising their base — which have been predominantly COVID skeptics who hate wearing protective cotton contraptions on their faces, and therefore more susceptible to the new variant — begging them to get vaccinated so they don’t get sick and/or die.

Gaetz isn’t one of them. Indeed, it seems particularly clueless, even for him, to dub something a “Florida variant” when the disease in question is now especially targeting Floridians whose lawmakers keep giving them bad advice.

(Via The Daily Beast)

The homophobic rant DaBaby delivered during last weekend’s Rolling Loud festival in Miami was met with plenty of backlash. His rant — which also targeted people with HIV/AIDS — earned him criticism from Madonna, Dua Lipa, Elton John, Questlove, and more, while BoohooMan terminated their partnership with him. Now, his actions have impacted one of his bigger gigs.

On Sunday, Lollapalooza announced that DaBaby would no longer perform at the show, just a half-hour before the final day of the festival began. “Lollapalooza was founded on diversity, inclusivity, respect, and love,” read a statement put out by the festival. “With that in mind, DaBaby will no longer be performing at Grant Park tonight.” The festival also announced that Young Thug will take the show’s 9 p.m. slot, while G Herbo will step into the 4 p.m. slot to accommodate the gap in their scheduling.

While the move from Lollapalooza is a credible one, it should be noted that at least one other scheduled performer has made public statements that don’t exactly comply with “diversity, inclusivity, respect, and love.” Last year, Young Thug — who’s still on the line-up — responded to controversial comments Boosie Badazz made about Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union’s trans daughter. But he seemed to be more on Boosie’s side. “All I wanna say to dwade son is ‘GOD DONT MAKE MISTAKES’ but hey live your true self,” he wrote in a tweet. The rapper later deleted the message.

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

The Los Angeles Clippers will retain the services of Serge Ibaka for the 2021-22 season. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic and Andrew Greif of the Los Angeles Times, the Clippers’ big man will pick up the player option in his contract for next season, eschewing free agency and giving L.A. a shot in the arm in its frontcourt.

Ibaka joined the Clippers in free agency last year from the Toronto Raptors and gave the team a consistent option in the frontcourt. Midway through the season, though, Ibaka suffered a back injury that held him out for essentially all of the second half of the year. While he tried to play in the team’s final two regular season games and its first two postseason tilts, Ibaka eventually got shut down, and it was announced that he needed to undergo back surgery.

It is not known if Ibaka will be ready to go when the 2021-22 campaign rolls around, but whenever he is able to play, he’ll give Los Angeles some frontcourt reinforcements that they don’t really have outside of Ivica Zubac — following Ibaka’s injury, the Clippers relied heavily on small ball last postseason, something that will likely be more difficult with Kawhi Leonard out for much (if not all) of next year. On the season, Ibaka averaged 11.1 points and 6.7 rebounds in 23.5 minutes per game.

Billie Eilish’s hotly-anticipated new album Happier Than Ever (and video) came out yesterday, and it’s already well on its way to a successful first week. Making the record was such a good experience for Billie, she’s also already said she wishes she could make it again – and detailed for fans the ideal way to listen to it for the first time.

On Thursday before the album came out, Billie and Spotify hosted a massive release party for the record, and it looked to be one of those unmissable events, with a veritable who’s who in music and entertainment in attendance. One such who’s who was none other than Olivia Rodrigo, whose recent success of her own in the pop world at such a young age makes her a contemporary and peer of Billie. While the internet scoured Billie and other public figure’s Instagram posts for glimpses of the event, today Billie shared a photo dumb that gives fans a much more intimate look at the party.

And yes, one of the photos does show her in a full-on hug with Olivia, so clearly these two are closer than we knew, or immediately clicked. Check out more photos from Billie’s point of view of the party above, which she captioned with the heartfelt: “This is where the real love is.” Olivia quickly commented back, “ur an angel.” Collab coming soon??? No one would be mad at that!

After MF Doom’s family revealed the sad news that the legendary rapper had died in 2020 at the untimely age of 49, an outpouring of grief at the loss and appreciation for his artistry erupted. Now, the community where he grew up has decided to commemorate the rapper’s legacy even further, renaming the street he grew up on in Long Beach, New York in honor of him. KMD – MF DOOM Way is named for the rapper and a group he and his younger brother Subroc created early in his career.

As Stereogum points out, Dr. Patrick Graham, a former schoolmate of MF Doom, spearheaded a petition to make the dedication. With close to 10,000 signatures at the time of publishing, the City Council of Long Beach approved the petition. For those familiar with the city, KMD — MF Doom Way is on East Houston Street, covering the block between Riverside Boulevard and Long Beach Road. The ceremony for renaming the road was Saturday.

Born Daniel Dumile, Graham said that Doom represents the best of the resilience that’s needed to carry into the future. “His hip-hop lyricism represents some of the culture’s best linguistic metaphors, garnering intergenerational and interracial admiration,” he said. “His life and art symbolize the resilience we need in our present context.”

The ceremony for renaming the road was today, check out some posts from the event below.

The Olympics are a quadrennial celebration of the best athletes in the world. These sorts of athletes get those huge platforms annually if they play the right sport — the basketball players have the NBA and WNBA, that sort of thing — but for the lesser-heralded sports, the Olympics double as a chance to get under a spotlight that just isn’t there all that often.

Take, for example, equestrian, which spends three years getting tons of attention from hardcore fans of the sport and not much else in our broader sports consciousness. On Saturday, equestrian got a little more attention than usual thanks to a pair of Peacock analysts who don’t exactly follow the sport year-round.

Peacock has Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg providing some uncensored Olympic commentary, and you should take a sec and listen to the sheer amount of joy Snoop has in seeing a “horse crip walkin.”

Kevin Hart laughed very hard because it is hilarious — he especially enjoyed Snoop saying he needs to get that horse in a video, which again, is hilarious. This was not the only bit of analysis we heard from them, as Snoop probably got an executive somewhere very mad with his analysis of skeet shooting.

We also got Hart telling Randall Cunningham about what happened the last time he wore his Philadelphia Eagles jersey with Cunningham’s name and number on it.

Go Birds.

Pop Smoke’s Faith recently became the second No. 1 album in the late rapper’s catalog, joining Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon, which was released posthumously last summer. The 20-track project came with a vast lineup filled with some of the music industry’s biggest names, including Pusha T, Kanye West, Rick Ross, 21 Savage, Future, Chris Brown, Dua Lipa, Kodak Black, and more. Pop Smoke’s team added four new songs to the album in a deluxe reissue that saw guest appearances from G Herbo, OnPointLikeOP, Killa, Dread Woo, and Travi. However, it looks like they’re not done with Faith.

The late rapper’s team quietly updated the chart-topping album with six additional songs. Five of the tracks and brand new releases include contributions from Tay Floss, Rah Swish (who appears on the original version of the album), Fetty Luciano, Anuel AA, and the late rapper’s brother Obasi Jackson. The last addition to the project is “Dior,” Pop Smoke’s Grammy-nominated single.

The updated version of Faith arrives after the rapper’s team shared a celebratory video for Pop Smoke and Dua Lipa’s “Demeanor.”

Faith (Deluxe) is out now via Victor Victor Worldwide/Republic. Get it here.

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

You might not remember this, but there was a time when Rudy Giuliani was a beloved public figure. His tenure as New York City mayor was far from sparkling, but many believed he did a fine job holding the town together after the 9/11 attacks. He was even dubbed “America’s mayor.” Jump 20 years and there’s a chance he could go to the slammer for former president Donald J. Trump — words that would no doubt sound surreal to the people of 2001.

In a new, unhinged interview with NBC New York, Giuliani — who joined Trump’s legal team in 2018 — railed against the months-long federal investigation into his dealings with Ukraine. He’s accused of being an unregistered lobbyist for the nation’s officials. He maintained his innocence, while dubbing the investigation “lawless.”

“I committed no crime, and if you think I committed a crime, you’re probably really stupid, because you don’t know who I am,” he told NBC. But he is not above taking one for the team. “I am more than willing to go to jail if they want to put me in jail. And if they do, they’re going to suffer the consequences in heaven.” He added, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

When he was asked why he would willingly go to prison if he was innocent, Giuliani replied, “Because they lie, they cheat.”

Giuliani also discussed his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol siege. Before violent Trump supporters stormed the building, endangering the lives of all within, he delivered an impassioned speech encouraging them to stop what he claimed was a stolen election. But unlike many in the GOP, he didn’t try to pretend it was actually fine.

“I believe Jan. 6 was a crime. I believe they committed the crime of trespass, I believe they did some destruction,” he said.

Last month Giuliani was suspended from practicing law in the state where he once presided as mayor. After Trump lost re-election, he became one of the most dogged champions of the lie that the race was rigged. He repeatedly humiliated himself in inventive ways, from staging a press conference at a random landscaping business to enlisting the testimony of a relentlessly mocked “witness” to having goo dribble down his head — all for a guy who calls police officers “pussies.” When asked about his legacy, though, he was not filled with dread.

“I can’t control that, I can’t control my legacy,” Giuliani said. “I believe I will be vindicated.”

(Via NBC New York)

The last week saw a number of instances of homophobia in hip-hop world. The biggest example is DaBaby’s bizarre rant at Miami’s Rolling Loud festival, where he also targeted people with HIV/AIDS. He was torched for his comments, but some, like Boosie Badazz and T.I., chose to defend the rapper. Now, Detroit native 42 Dugg has joined the list of rappers who have recently shared homophobic comments.

On Friday, Dugg posted a video of him and his son. In it, the rapper can be seen licking and kissing the boy’s neck and shoulder area. A number of people on social media felt that Dugg’s actions towards his son were inappropriate. After catching wind of the comments, the rapper took to his Instagram to fire back at his critics.

“Ain’t nobody going for that gay ass h*e ass sh*t y’all on,” he wrote. Y’all [quick] to get on some gay b*tch ass sh*t but when a n**** jump down on one you h*e n****s and call somebody out we homophobic. Don’t nobody give a f*ck about that sh*t. Y’all don’t [know] us. We entertainers that’s it. We not here to coach you on life. If I say I’m not with that gay sh*t that’s where y’all should leave it.”

He added, “Quit tryna shove that sh*t down n****s throats. Ah gay n**** ah be on national tv tonguing down another h*e ass n****, but that’s ok though. Y’all or no motherfucker on earth ain’t finna make me like sh*t ion like and if y’all don’t like me f*ck y’all get wit me. Keep my son out y’all mouth flat out.” He concluded the post by writing, “Suck my d*ck you gay b*otches.”

The Detroit rapper’s bizarre rant comes after he shared a jittery video for “Turnest N**** In The City” and joined Flo Milli, Pooh Shiesty, and Rubi Rose for an XXL Freshman cypher.”

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

Earlier this year Sylvester Stallone did what he never does: He decided not to return as one of his beloved characters. Rocky Balboa will not appear in the third Creed, the spin-off series born out of the franchise that made his name some 45 years back. But don’t think he’s retiring. Indeed, on top of voicing a giant sentient shark in The Suicide Squad, he’s already talking about a fourquel for one of his more recent IPs: The Expendables.

A fourth all-star he-man romp has been in the talks pretty much since the third one, from 2014. At one point Pierce Brosnan was to play the baddie. That never happened, obviously, and it appears its belated follow-up is still in the larval stage. In fact, all Stallone did was show off a new, bulky piece of jewelry.

“Just finished the designing the new ring for EXPENDABLE 4,” Stallone wrote on Instagram, complete with a typo in the title, as well as a picture of said piece of finger-wear. “It’s a little heavy, but it’ll definitely put some muscles on your fingertips.”

The first Expendables was released in 2010, and it boasted a line-up of old dogs, like Stallone and Jet Li, and younger (but not young) action stars, including Jason Statham, Ricky Couture, and Terry Crews. The second added Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, and Sylvester Stallone, plus Jean-Claude Van Damme as the villain, while the third roped in Harrison Ford, Wesley Snipes, Kelsey Grammer, plus Mel Gibson.

There’s no talk about who will return or who will be added. The only thing that exists right now is a ring. But even at 75 Stallone will no doubt get it done — that is, unless he decides to do yet another Rambo.

(Via Deadline)