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Baton Rouge rapper Fredo Bang isn’t quite a household name yet, but with his latest collaboration, he takes a massive step toward the spotlight and the inevitable stardom that awaits him. Linking up with Chicago’s breakout artist Polo G, the street-bred rapper honors his most loyal comrades on the reflective “Bless His Soul.”

The connection between the two rappers and their shared gift for melancholy recollection makes for an easygoing combination on a beat produced by DJ Choze. The video, shot by DrewFilmedIt, sees the two rappers performing their verses in front of a motel occupied by their crew as visual allusions to the traumatic experiences of their lives flash by. They also show off their muscle cars, echoing Polo’s late-verse claim that he’d purchase a “Hellcat just for racin’, f**k around and bought the dealership.”

Fredo’s Rolodex is swiftly filling up with hood superstars he’s called on to collaborate with over the past several months. While his 2020 debut album Most Hated contains appearances from Lil Baby, Moneybagg Yo, and YNW Melly, he recently reconnected with Moneybagg Yo for the video to his song “Doin My Dance.” Meanwhile, Polo G’s star continues to rise as well as he netted his first Billboard 200 No. 1 debut with Hall Of Fame earlier this year.

Watch Fredo Bang’s “Bless His Soul” video with Polo G above.

The climate has been working hard this past week to promote Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.

First, the Gulf of Mexico caught fire. Now, parts of New York are literally underwater after torrential rains from Tropical Storm Elsa battered the East Coast this week. In short, the planet is either burning or sinking, which means that AOC’s climate change proposal is looking really good right now, something she’s been happy to point out on Twitter.

The Congresswoman took to social media to share videos of her fellow New Yorkers battling the effects of the storm. In one, a woman can be seen wading through waist-deep water to get to the subway. In another, cars are stranded on a major highway as riders escape to safety in the back of a utility truck. Both videos show the real-world consequences of ignoring climate science right now, and AOC is using them to put pressure on her fellow lawmakers — you know, the ones who’ve been having weekly phone chats with Exxon lobbyists who are paying them to convince their constituents that the Earth isn’t stuck inside a CO2 microwave that’s nuking our environment to death.

Here she is dragging her conservative colleagues for taking climate change advice from fossil fuel execs instead of actual scientists:

And here she is pointing out how frustrating bipartisanship is when it comes to climate change legislation, especially when the other side of the aisle is happy to filibuster any meaningful change while parts of the U.S. are melting under rising temps.

In summary: we’re killing our planet, and AOC is really good at this whole social media thing.

The Phoenix Suns got a bit of good news on Friday afternoon. According to a report by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, reserve forward Torrey Craig, whose hard-nosed defense and ability to hit perimeter shots off the bench have led to him being a member of the team’s rotation during the playoffs, did not suffer a serious knee injury during Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

Craig, who is slated to get a ring no matter who wins the series due to the fact that he played for the Milwaukee Bucks for the first half of this season, appeared to injury his knee after attempting to draw a charge on Giannis Antetokounmpo. He was helped to the back and did not return.

Fortunately for the Suns, Craig underwent an MRI that showed no structural damage, leading to him being viewed as day-to-day ahead of Sunday’s Game 3.

With Dario Saric suffering a torn ACL in Game 1, Craig would have been an understated but major loss for a thinning Phoenix frontcourt. Instead, Craig being able to take the floor (if his knee is in a good enough place, of course) gives the Suns the ability to throw out small-ball lineups when Deandre Ayton rests instead of relying on backup big Frank Kaminsky, which appeared to by Monty Williams’ preferred hand to play before Craig got hurt.

Matt Damon has appeared in plenty of hit movies, including The Martian ($655 million at the worldwide box office), Interstellar ($651 million), and Saving Private Ryan ($485 million), which unlike the other two, is not set in space. Unless there’s an asteroid battle scene that I forgot about. It’s been awhile. Either way, Damon has a keen eye for blockbusters (and a keen ear pop-punk songs in mid-2000s comedies), but he’s not in the highest-grossing movie of all-time. He could have been, though.

“I was offered a little movie called Avatar, James Cameron offered me 10 percent of it,” he told Deadline at the Cannes Film Festival. “I will go down in history… you will never meet an actor who turned down more money.” Oops.

Avatar is up to $2.8 billion after reclaiming its box office throne from Avengers: Endgame. That means Damon could have made $280 million for playing a blue cat-person, but he passed because he was shooting the Jason Bourne movies and made the “moral” decision to not ditch the franchise. The role instead went to Sam Worthington, who probably did not get a 10 percent cut of that $2.8 billion. But he did make enough scratch that he hasn’t had to work much since Avatar came out 12 years ago. That’s the only reason I can think of for why Worthington didn’t pull a Leonardo DiCaprio and become the king of Hollywood. It certainly has nothing to do with his acting…

Damon doesn’t seem bitter about turning down Avatar, but James Cameron should still cast him in Avatar 5. Give the guy who’s worth a reported $170 million a break.

(Via Deadline)

Glaive has established himself as one of the more fascinating rising teenagers in music over the past year or so, and now he has teamed up with another similarly internet-boosted artist, Eric Doa, for a new single. The song is “F*ck This Town,” and like many of Glaive’s tunes, it packs a lot of energy and hooks into its sub-two-minute runtime.

Glaive says of the track, “‘f*ck this town’ was made the second time I met eric in person. This song was the first one we made… we freaked that.”

Ericdoa added, this song is special to me cause it’s the first hook me and ash ever wrote together #wholesome.”

The pair has a collaborative EP on the way, which doesn’t yet have a confirmed title but is due for release at some point in September.

The song lines up with how Glaive previously described his music-making process, saying, “It was a good way of getting out emotions instead of being friggin’ sad all the time. Most of my songs are pretty sad, but I’m a pretty happy, energetic person. Getting rid of all those negative emotions through music — then I don’t have to talk about it at any other time.”

Watch the “F*ck This Town” video above.

Strand Of Oaks (aka singer-songwriter Timothy Showalter) has unveiled the release date for his forthcoming eighth album, In Heaven, which will be out October 1. Showalter has also released a contemplative new lead single, “Galacticana.” It was recorded with collaborator Kevin Ratterman at Ratterman’s Invisible Creature studios in Los Angeles and is the first LP of Showalter’s since his move to Austin, Texas.

Of the album, which follows up 2019’s Eraserland, Showalter said in a press release, “In Heaven was created with so much love and my greatest hope is that it connects with people and provides a momentary space for reflection, joy, catharsis, and whatever else someone might be looking for in their life. Music is magic and I feel like the luckiest person in the world that I’m allowed to share it.”

Listen to “Galacticana” above and check out the album’s art and tracklist below. Also, have a look at Showalter’s upcoming fall tour dates (venue and ticket information will be announced soon).

1. “Galacticana”
2. “Easter”
3. “Hurry”
4. “Horses At Night”
5. “Somewhere in Chicago”
6. “Jimi & Stan”
7. “Sunbathers”
8. “Carbon”
9. “Sister Saturn”
10. “Slipstream”
11. “Under Heaven”

10/11 — Boston, MA
10/12 — Washington, DC
10/13 — Philadelphia, PA
10/15 — Holyoke, MA
10/16 — Hamden, CT
10/18 — Brooklyn, NY
10/19 — Buffalo, NY
10/20 — Detroit, MI
10/22 — Cleveland, OH
10/23 — Columbus, OH
10/24 — Indianapolis, IN
10/26 — Kansas City, MO
10/27 — Denver, CO
10/29 — Boise, ID
10/31 — Seattle, WA
11/01 — Portland, OR
11/03 — Oakland, CA
11/04 — Los Angeles, CA
11/06 — San Diego, CA
11/08 — Phoenix, AZ
11/10 — Dallas, TX
11/11 — Houston, TX
11/12 — Austin, TX
11/15 — Tampa, FL
11/16 — Atlanta, GA
11/17 — Nashville, TN
11/19 — Carrboro, NC

In Heaven is out 10/1 via Galacticana Records/Thirty Tigers. Pre-order it here.

While the old adage “a series does not start until the road team wins a game” applies so far, the Milwaukee Bucks find themselves in a tough spot in the 2021 NBA Finals. The Phoenix Suns currently boast a 2-0 series lead as things shift to Wisconsin for Games 3 and 4, meaning now’s a great time for a guy like Jrue Holiday to get into a rhythm.

While Holiday has been his usual pestering self on the defensive end of the floor, he’s had some major issues getting the ball to go into the basket. He’s averaging 13.5 points per game in his NBA Finals debut while connecting on 31.4 percent of his field goals and 14.3 percent of his threes, and despite the fact that he’s done other good things — Holiday’s averaging eight assists, six rebounds, one steal, and one block in 39.7 minutes per game in the Finals — his inability to provide a scoring punch is giving some folks flashbacks to his predecessor, Eric Bledsoe, whose struggles in postseason play were well-documented.

The good news, to whatever point there is any, is that Holiday’s MVP teammate is confident in what he’s able to do. Giannis Antetokounmpo spoke to the media after the game and expressed that he’s not worried about Holiday’s play so far.

“Just keep talking to him, keep telling him to be aggressive,” Antetokounmpo said when he was asked how he approaches Holiday’s slump as the team’s leader. “No matter what’s going on, you gotta stay aggressive and you cannot get all in your feelings. It’s hard not to — NBA Finals, 20,000 people booing you and all that, it’s kinda hard, but at the end of the day, it’s not about me, it’s not about him, it’s not about Khris, it’s not about coach, it’s about all of us. And at the end of the day, if there’s a game that you’re 3-for-12 or whatever the case has been, you can rebound the ball, or get a steal, or do something else to help the team win, that’s what it’s all about right now. And I think he understands that, and I don’t worry at all about him, I know he’s gonna be there when we need him the most.”

Antetokounmpo went on to call Holiday “a great basketball player” before referencing how well he’s played all season. While Holiday’s scoring went down a tick during the regular season — his 17.7 points a night was his lowest scoring output in four years — he put forth career-best marks in effective field goal percentage (57 percent) and true shooting percentage (59.2 percent).

The Bucks very much need to continue to have faith in him, and if there’s a reason for optimism, it’s the fact that the friendly confines of Fiserv Forum are on the horizon. If that faith does not come to fruition, though, it’s not hard to imagine the Bucks struggling to get this series back to Phoenix.

It has now been more than five months since Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, but the conspiracy theories about the various ways the election was stolen from Donald Trump keep on comin’. The latest comes courtesy of kooky Colorado congressman Ken Buck, who doesn’t seem to know how elections or algorithms work, which is a pity, given that he’s the House Antitrust Committee’s top Republican. As Mediaite reports, Buck is now pointing the finger at Google as the reason Trump got fewer votes than Biden. Yes, you read that correctly: Google! As he explains it:

“Google, by the way, changed its algorithm in May of 2020 to disadvantage Donald Trump and to advantage Joe Biden. [It] changed its algorithm! And when you ask them about this, and I know people that own newspapers, and I asked them about it, and they say, ‘Oh, well that’s just a technical thing. We don’t know what the result was. We just know that we did, that a technical person did this.’ Nonsense! They chose the winner… The estimates are they moved 15 million votes. Because every time you ask for an article on Donald Trump or every time you Google Donald Trump—and people here obviously Google in a more sophisticated way—but people out there that were hearing about Donald Trump and they’re wondering, you know, ‘Donald Trump, Hunter Biden.’”

If only Google had an algorithm to decipher what the hell Buck is talking about!

When asked to better explain what he was talking about, and how a search engine “flipped” 15 million votes to Joe Biden, Buck briefly stammered before giving his response:

“Well, what I’ve heard from, you know, sort of the academics on this issue is that by, by changing the algorithm, you can flip 15 million votes. You can influence 15 million people to move one direction or another, in that situation… So you talk to people, you know, at conservative publications and what they’ll tell you is the day after that algorithm went into effect, their readership went down. So if you were looking for something on The Washington Examiner or The Washington Times, or the conservative newspapers in this area, you would have to go further down. You’d have to go to page two or three to find the story you were looking for.”

We won’t bore you with the details of how Google algorithm tweaks affect the traffic of pretty much all media outlets (including this one!)—not just the conservative ones—but in July 2020 it was revealed that there was some sort of glitch which caused Google to block search results for conservative sites like Breitbart, and that it was quickly rectified.

Which is all to say that of all the people, places, and things that have been blamed for Trump being less popular than Biden, Google might be the wildest culprit yet.

(Via Mediaite)

With “WitcherCon” fully in swing, Netflix didn’t waste a minute building up hype for the heavily anticipated Season 2 of The Witcher. The epic fantasy series starring Henry Cavill was on track to becoming the streaming service’s best stab at having its own Game of Thrones-type phenomenon, but the pandemic had other plans as it threw off the production, which tried to get off the ground in early 2020.

However, despite an almost two year gap between seasons, The Witcher is roaring back, and to get fans pumped, Netflix’s first order of business was dropping a first look at the fan-favorite character, Jaskier. Played by Joey Batey, the traveling bard delivered the instantly viral song, “Toss A Coin to Your Witcher” in the first season, and now he’s back, belting out another “breakaway pop hit” in the still from the new season.

Can Jaskier’s new tune compete with “Toss A Coin” and its viral catchiness? It’ll be a bit until we find out. After teasing fans with promises of a new Jaskier earworm, Netflix finally confirmed The Witcher Season 2 release date. The good news is fans won’t have to wait until 2022, as reports were suggesting, after production got delayed due to the pandemic and Cavill injured his leg when things finally picked up again. The bad news is they’ll have to wait until the end of 2021 when the new season premieres on December 17.

(Via Netflix Geeked)

Inglewood is going through a bit of a resurgence, not just geographically and economically, but also artistically. While the City Of Champions receives an influx of business and development thanks to a giant new football stadium and the new Clippers arena currently being constructed in the area, its profile in the entertainment world has risen dramatically, thanks to the efforts of locals like rapper D Smoke and multi-hyphenate Issa Rae. They’ve been putting on for their city in a way that hasn’t been seen since the Los Angeles Lakers and their Showtime antics gave Inglewood its nickname in the late ’80s/early ’90s with Issa’s show Insecure, Smoke’s season one win on Netflix’s Rhythm + Flow, and his debut album Black Habits.

The city is now the home of the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers, the future home of the Los Angeles Clippers, and the hometown of rising rap star Nana. Nana, the son of Ghanaian immigrants and a lyricist of powerful artistic intent, recently released the cathartic, authentic debut album Save Yourself. On it, Nana details his battles with demons both internal and external with wit, empathy, and a stark, realistic outlook that conveys all the sensibilities of old-school gangsta rap with a much more cosmopolitan and modern twist. Call it gangsta-adjacent rap. It’s the sort of lyricism that has long been embraced in the Inglewood area by longtime friends like Thurz and in the wider LA area from the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Murs, and Reason, but Nana’s unique approach gives it enough originality to overcome straight-up homage and elevate his street credibility.

I connected with Nana via Zoom to talk about the album, as well as our shared experiences as children of the Los Angeles street culture who stayed out of it by some stroke of fate, faith, or luck (or all of the above), but were still touched by it.

All right. So first off, I would like to say thank you for creating Save Yourself, because that is an incredible album. I discovered it on my last trip to the park to hoop and I swear I shot 87% from three that day.

There we go. Though safe to say that it had a positive effect.

Yes, sir. So let’s start with who is Nana? You are from Crenshaw and I know that, and I know that your parents are Ghanaian. I don’t know much about you, so let’s just start with when did you start rapping? Why did you start rapping? What was the impetus behind who you are now?

Word. Well, I’m Nana, a young man from the Crenshaw district and born and raised here. Didn’t move here. I was born and bred here. My parents came here, I want to say 1983. 1983. And then I’m one of five siblings. So I’m of and from the area and I’m somebody that I felt like it’s my God-given destiny to not only give my story, and my story, it’s a very interesting story given where my parents are from and me being first-generation Ghanaian. But to really tell the story of young Black and brown kids that come from where I come from and who don’t have the voice that I have. So that’s just the tip of the iceberg of who I am.

You changed your stage name from Blaison Maven. Can you explain what that name meant, why you changed your name and why it was so important to you to go by your government?

Man, I chose that name because I wanted to be like Lupe [Fiasco]. I felt like “Blaison” looked good on paper. I remember Lupe telling his story and how he said he chose the name Lupe because it looked good on paper.

And in hindsight, it was a ridiculous name that I chose. But I decided to change my name because I was always insecure about my name, the name Nana. I was always insecure about it. I didn’t want to go by my real name initially, which is why I went by what I was going by, but I think with my newfound honesty and me really giving people my truth. I’m like, I can’t really tell people the truth until I’m truthful with myself, right?

So I’m like, I have to embrace my insecurities. There are other people that are out there that have insecurities and I got to be the one to kind of let them know that it’s okay to embrace who you are. You don’t have to run away from it, especially the power that is behind the meaning of my name. My name means “King” in Ghana.

So once I grew up and really embraced it and really took on the meaning of my name, I felt like I defeated that demon of insecurity. If I’m giving people the real, I got to be real with myself.

Absolutely. Now I don’t know if you know this, you’re actually one of two rappers named Nana. When I was doing my research, I found out that there is a German rapper named Nana, who is also Ghanaian, which is pretty wild.

Somewhere down the line, I’m sure we probably even related, but no. I had no idea. It’s a common name in Ghana, especially. I think coming from where my parents are from, it’s kind of like every name has a meaning. If you are born on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday… I have a friend named Thurz. His name is Kofi, though.

I know exactly who you’re talking about. So with that being said, you’ve spoken extensively, I think, about your faith and how faith gave you a way out, but you named the project Save Yourself. And I find that dichotomy to be fascinating because there are two different things at play there: fate and predestination, and also free will and saving yourself. How do you reconcile those two ideas, both in your music and in your personal philosophy?

Well, I think before anybody else can help you, even on a spiritual level, you got to be like, “Yo, I’m going to make this conscious effort to do better.” Once you decide you’re going to make this conscious effort to go in this direction, then you open yourself to all of the positive possibilities within that. I know there’s people out there that are probably alcoholics. If you want to stop, you got to be like, “Yo, I’m going to stop.” Before anybody else could come in and help you, you have to be the one. You are the author of your destiny and you make your own decisions.

Switching gears a little bit. On the album, you don’t really have too many guest stars but you have my boy Reason from Carson on “LA Times.” How did that connection get made, and what was the inspiration of that song that you guys did together?

Yeah, me and Reason, we have the same mixing engineer, my boy Kytel. I met Reason two years ago after Kytel played my music for Reason. Reason took a liking to it, and he’s one of the most genuine guys in this industry. You know how you just meet good people, and you’re like, “Yo, I actually f*ck with him.” Outside of music, outside of everything, he’s genuine, and he’s a good person. So, me and him, we just been cool ever since.

So when we did that song, I was like, “I think it would be cool if I gave my perspective of growing up in South Central.” He was like, “Yeah, I should give my take on being a victim of circumstance growing up in Los Angeles and how we’re ultimately both victims, but giving it in a way where it’s like reality,” because there have been times where… you just trying to go to the mall and you get jammed up and you end up in a situation, and you don’t know whether or not you’re going to make it home or not.

And those were like real turning points in a lot of people’s lives. A lot of people didn’t walk away from those situations. I ended up in those situations a lot. Thankfully, I was able to walk away. So, it was just giving the reality of that because Reason is from Carson and the same thing that’s happening in Carson, is happening in the Crenshaw District.

That part, it’s Southern California culture. So, it was dope how it just transpired and it just felt so organic because of the right relationship that I had with him, I was so hype on how it came out. When I got his verse back, I was like, “This is perfect.”

Now, talking about dualities and dichotomies, you also address that on the album, on the record “Heaven & Hennessy.”

I think Hennessy is fit perfect because, I feel like it represents… this might sound a little dark, but to an extent, a demon in a sense. Where it’s just being caught in the middle of your angels and your demons. We all sin, it’s a representation of sin. A lot of times, when we get turned up, when we get drunk, we’re not really ourselves.

We all struggle and we all are still trying to make the conscious effort to save ourselves by trying to be the best versions of ourselves that we can be. I know I fall short and my intention was to let people know, I’m just like you. I go through the same sh*t that you go through.

So, a year from now, what’s your ideal outcome? What do you want the world to know about Nana? Where do you want to be in 2022?

Man in 2022, I’ll probably have another album out. Within another year, man, hopefully, by God’s grace again, I’m able to really see people and touch people physically. I think for me that was like the most like, (frustrated noise). The fact that I put out a project… and I think it was very dope that I was able to put out a project when I put it out because I know a lot of people needed it, but not being able to see the people and be amongst the people during that.

…Tour with it, yeah.

Yeah, I was like, “Damn,” I want to just be able to travel the world. For me, it’s not really about just traveling the world, but really traveling the world and taking Los Angeles with me and taking these stories with me because I know people from other places can also relate to these stories and just really spreading and getting the movement, these words, and the gift that I was given out there.

Save Yourself is out now. You can get it here.