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Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) must have slept through the entirety of the failed MAGA insurrection on January 6, or he’s simply making things up in an attempt to rewrite recent history. The latter possibility is probably the correct one, since it’s unlikely that Johnson could doze through the mayhem at the U.S. Capitol, but he’s acting like everyone’s making a big deal about nothing. It’s, uh, not good, but Fox News’ Laura Ingraham was here for it. Here’s Johnson telling her that there was no insurrection to speak of, and “by and large it was a peaceful protest.”

Yep, he’s really going there, although Johnson did prefaced his conclusion by saying, “You know, I condemned the breach. I condemned the violence, but to say there were thousands of armed insurrectionists breaching the Capitol intent on overthrowing the government is just simply false narrative.” He conceded that “there were a number of people, basically agitators that whipped the crowd and breached the Capitol.” And he doesn’t seem to understand that no one has claimed that “thousands” of insurrectionists were armed, but some were, and many of the rest contributed to the dangerous physical momentum that crushed a police officer in a doorway.

In the end, five people died as a result of the January 6 violence, and Johnson’s silly “by and large” description got dragged, hard, with jokes that would have been too soon, had they not referenced events that are several decades old, like the John F. Kennedy assassination and the “cruise” known as the Titanic disaster. Oh, but the Fyre Festival got some airplay, too. That one might be too soon?

Some of the other replies did arguably get out of hand, but the point stands: Ron Johnson’s probably fooling someone, but he’s not fooling everyone.

Although J. Cole’s new album The Off-Season has now officially been out for over a week, the unusual rollout for the long-awaited album continues — and keeps to the established theme of “rap as basketball.” With a cover featuring a burning basketball hoop, a documentary detailing his “training” for the new album, a cover story in Slam magazine, and a professional basketball career in Rwanda, Cole’s been using The Off-Season to reinforce the long-held parallels between basketball and hip-hop.

Today, he and his Dreamville crew revealed the latest version of his Puma basketball sneaker, the RS-Dreamer 2, in a new colorway, fittingly titled the “Off-Season Reds.” The shoes are modeled in the campaign shots by the NBA’s Kyle Kuzma of the Los Angeles Lakers and the WNBA’s Skylar Diggins-Smith of the Phoenix Mercury.

In his debut game for the Rwanda Patriots of the Basketball Africa League against the Nigeria Rivers Hoopers, J. Cole put up a respectable rookie box score (3 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists) and played admirable defense, earning plenty of accolades from other pro hoopers who were simply impressed to see the 36-year-old pursue his hoop dreams and keep up with the best players the continent has to offer.

You can pick up the “Off-Season” red RS-Dreamer 2 here.

Ahead of the release of Olivia Rodrigo’s new album Sour, one of the biggest stories about it was Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff receiving a writing credit on “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back.” While it may seem like Rodrigo sampled Swift’s “New Year’s Day” on the track, that has turned out to not be the case, and some fans think Rodrigo had a specific reason for not sampling Swift.

Uproxx previously confirmed that Rodrigo does not sample Swift’s studio recording of “New Year’s Day” on the song. Rather, she interpolated it, meaning she (or a collaborator) freshly recorded the notes that Swift and Jack Antonoff wrote. If Rodrigo had sampled the song, the owners of the master recording (Scooter Braun and Big Machine Records) would have profited via royalty payments. Since Swift is famously not on good terms with Braun and her former label, some fans see this move as Rodrigo supporting Swift and intentionally making sure those parties do not make any money off her work.

One fan summed up the situation well: “a sample is a song that has been copied and pasted into a new song. an interpolation means you recreate the song with your own musicians. so Olivia interpolating the song means Taylor and jack gave her permission to reproduce the notes that they wrote. this means [scooter] GETS NO MONEY. in other words: hiring someone to record the piano line from new year’s day: some number of dollars idk how much session musicians make. cutting [scooter] and whoever else out of the loop: PRICELESS. (if it were a sample they would have to pay whoever owned the masters).”

Fans of both Rodrigo and Swift (a Venn diagram that seems to be essentially just a circle) were excited to make this discovery, so check out some reactions below.

Sour is out now via Geffen Records. Get it here.

Over the past year, Benny The Butcher and Freddie Gibbs have developed an indelible sort of chemistry, appearing on each other’s projects and demonstrating the smooth interplay between their unique lyrical styles, bonded together by the throughline of surviving the drug game and taking nearly ten years to blow up in rap. They lend this alchemic balance to newcomer Bobby Sessions on his new single, “Gold Rolex.”

Featuring a glittering, soulful beat with plenty of the throwback energy that flows through both the Butcher and Gibbs’ own music, “Gold Rolex” finds Sessions taking a step away from his Dallas-bred style to adopt a more traditionalist flow that fits better alongside the Buffalo, New York native Benny and Freddie’s midwestern twang. While longtime fans of Sessions’ more bookish style might be surprised to hear him fitting in alongside the more street-centric, elder rappers, they shouldn’t; Bobby’s always been quite versatile as he illustrates with each new track.

From his work on RVTLN 3: The Price Of Freedom to helping craft “I’m A King,” the theme song from Coming 2 America, with Megan Thee Stallion, Bobby’s always been able to transform to suit the needs of his tracks above all.

Listen to “Gold Rolex” above.

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

If you’re ever having trouble locating Tucker Carlson, just check the wrong side of any argument and there he’ll be—pontificating in that puffed-up, I-know-I’m-right-and-that’s-all-that-matters way that (thankfully) only he can. The Fox News host’s latest bad take? That the Capitol Police have no business sending a letter to the United States Congress expressing their desire to see an official investigation into the deadly insurrection of January 6th, in which one of their own officers was among the six people killed. Carlson kicked off his Thursday night program talking about this letter, which he for some reason deemed “mysterious,” then compared to a ransom note:

A mysterious letter appeared on Capitol Hill this week. It was addressed to every member of the United States Congress. The letter arrived on the official letterhead of the U.S. Capitol Police. But it wasn’t from the chief, or from any individual officer.

Instead, the letter was signed: ‘Proud Members of the United States Capitol Police.’ So, it was anonymous. That was the first tip this wasn’t your average security bulletin. And in fact it wasn’t. It was instead a political demand. The letter instructed members of Congress to vote ‘yes’ to establish a ‘January 6th insurrection commission.’ Police officers anonymously demanding that the people they protect vote a certain way on a specific piece of legislation? Haven’t seen that before.

Most people assumed the Capitol Hill police department was a law enforcement agency. Members of Congress certainly believe that. They trust their lives to Capitol Hill police. That’s why Capitol Hill police officers don’t lobby congress. That would be a dangerous conflict of interest, backed by an implied threat: do what we say, or watch your back. In this case, that’s exactly what they were saying to Republicans.

First off, there’s nothing “mysterious” about this letter. Members of a law enforcement agency that recently witnessed a violent attack on its officers that left one dead would like to get to the truth of exactly what happened and determine how such an egregious breach of safety can be avoided in the future. As would the American people.

Tucker Carlson on the letter from US Capitol Police members criticizing Republicans: That’s a ransom note. Imagine getting it from one of your own bodyguards… The Capitol Hill police are now effectively an armed political action committee.” pic.twitter.com/3cnyool22o

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 21, 2021

Second: To cite a letter as a “political demand”—one with an implied threat—is ridiculous. As Carlson said, the letter was “addressed to every member of the United States Congress.” In the same way that any American citizen can call or write a lawmaker to express an opinion on a certain matter, so too can members of the Capitol Police. Of course, Tuck didn’t see it that way. He went on to quote the letter:

“We members of the United States Capitol Police write this letter to express our profound disappointment with the recent comments from both chambers’ minority leaders [Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell] expressing no need for a January 6 commission.”

“We are expected to remain neutral and do our jobs with honor and integrity,” the letter continued. “It’s unfortunate that our ‘bosses’ [Congress] are not held to the same standard that we, the USCP are.” Well, that’s a ransom note. Imagine getting it from one of your own bodyguards. It might be enough to make you rethink your position, which was, of course, the point of it.

As if the ransom note comment wasn’t bad enough, Carlson then took his rhetoric about five steps further—and somehow found a way to make these same police officers responsible for “taxpayer-funded abortions.” No, seriously…

The Capitol Hill police are now effectively an armed political action committee, so you have to ask, what other partisan demands will they make in the future? Do Capitol Hill cops have strong views on voter ID laws? How about taxpayer-funded abortions, or our next trade deal with China? If so, they’ve got the muscle to make their voices heard. You can see why this is setting a very bad precedent. But it didn’t bother Democrats. It helped them in the short term. So they immediately put that letter to use.

The end of the story, of course, is that despite most Republicans not wanting to uncover the details behind a murderous riot on their own doorstep, they were ultimately outnumbered. The House voted to establish an investigatory commission, though how it will fare in the Senate remains to be seen. Whatever the case, we’re sure it’s not the last word Carlson will have on the topic.

(Via The Daily Beast)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has often been accused of having a villain problem. Those watered-down bad boys weren’t compelling (Ultron), or they ended up being under mind control, as Marvel actually revealed about Loki following his Chitauri-aided attack on NYC, which wasn’t really up to him but, rather, his scepter. The same goes antagonists like Winter Soldier, who was programmed by HYDRA, and Crossbones, who bit the dust too soon, and so on. MCU villains started to improve in Phase 3 with Erik Killmonger, and Thanos could have been the ultimate villain but still failed to totally hit the sweet spot. And although WandaVision‘s Agatha did rock, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier‘s Flag Smashers confused everyone going into Phase 4. [Big sigh.] Marvel’s villainy is one area where it trails D.C./Warner Bros., but there’s hope on the horizon.

What I’m saying, quite wildly, is this: Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. brings us a supervillain who’s not technically part of the MCU, but he really should be (even if he’d be hard to render, live-action). He’s actually my favorite Marvel onscreen villain now, too.

Funny how that works, because M.O.D.O.K. is essentially a giant freaking head. Well, Patton Oswalt, who co-wrote this series’ first season on Hulu alongside Jordan Blum, has been relishing voice work lately. He recently managed to shock The Boys audience (that’s what happens when you “cameo” as a set of gills for the lead pervert character), and now, he’s the leading man in a very adult-oriented animated series. What is fantastic about that final detail is that M.O.D.O.K. is very adult-oriented, but it doesn’t bury itself in d*ck jokes and gore simply because it can make the whole show about d*ck jokes and gore. As sad as it is to say, that’s something that still happens, as evidenced by another Hulu series, but with M.O.D.O.K., the crude jokes are mere icing.

What’s marvelous about M.O.D.O.K., as well, is that the show moves further than the source material for the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing. He’s not only a megalomaniacal genius (with a massive, unwieldy noggin), but he’s struggling to balance his day job (as a bad dude) with family life. That conflict is where the show shines the most, even if it sure is fun to see him smart-off while going up against a certain billionaire playboy philanthropist named Tony Stark, who’s voiced by Jon Hamm. Nathan Fillion also plays another hero-enemy, and all of those interactions are fine. What’s more real, though, as well as different for current audiences, is to see a Marvel supervillain whose entire arc isn’t confined to taking down the world powers that be.

That is to say, M.O.D.O.K. would absolutely love to exercise world dominion and defeat every superhero out there, but situations like this…

… end up taking a backseat to dilemmas like this.

Oh, and this is surprisingly funny stuff and not at all where M.O.D.O.K. finds himself within the comics. I like what Oswalt and Blum decided to do here while branching off, rather than defer to all-too-familiar ground by, say, writing about a son fretting over how best to be like dad. Instead, this is a series that happens to be about a supervillain but really beats the stuffing out of him and family-sitcoms, too. He’s is basically the Kevin James-type husband here, and his wife, Jodie (Amy Gardia), has had enough. She’s divorcing his narcissistic, work-obsessed butt, and M.O.D.O.K. can’t cope. His daughter and son are caught in the middle, and that includes the voices of Melissa Fumero and Ben Schwartz (he threatens to walk away with his scenes). M.O.D.O.K. is scrambling to keep all the pieces of his life together, and it’s simply not flying.

M.O.D.O.K. is an altogether different breed of show than people are expecting, even if there are hefty shades of Robot Chicken happening. One would expect rude humor and a lot of Marvel easter eggs here, and they exist in abundance, but that’s not the hook. Rather, M.O.D.O.K.‘s got layers and doesn’t underestimate its audience. Patton and Blum both recognize that anyone who’s watching this show already knows all the ins and outs of the MCU, and all the easter eggs involved with time travel, an arguably obscure female wrestler-character called Poundcakes (Whoopi Goldberg), Tony Stark being mildly insufferable at times, and so on. Such jokes mostly land in the right place, but the focus in this series is telling a proper original story.

That’s a rarity on TV and in film these days and especially when it comes to comic book adaptations. Everything’s all franchised up, for better or worse, and we could use a re-upped approach, which we receive in ten breezy, half-hour episodes. Further, this version of M.O.D.O.K. is surprisingly affecting with the villain careening to a very bad personal place, not only at home but at work (his company, A.I.M., is going belly up because it’s awfully expensive to launch assaults on The Avengers), and everyone on this show seems to want to push a bad man down. He doesn’t exactly strive for redemption (that would be insincere), but Oswalt’s character does strive toward re-earning some reverence. What results is a show that genuinely funny and heartfelt and complex and filled with sharp writing.

Respect the giant head.

‘Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K.’ streams on Hulu on May 21.f

Steven Cannon, a Lil Xan-affiliated rapper from Cincinnati, Ohio, is this week’s guest on UPROXX Sessions, delivering a breezy, breathless performance of his high-velocity single, “Mach 10.” Cannon, who’s a fixture of the SoundCloud rap scene, has been active for the past few years as the co-founder of Lil Xan’s “Xanarchy” movement after moving to Los Angeles at 18 and featuring on tracks like “The Man” and “Pills.” Xan (aka “Diego“) counts him as his number one influence after Cannon coached him on rapping after hiring him as a cameraman.

Cannon’s performance here displays all the hallmarks of the style that endeared him to followers and fans on SoundCloud and social media. He’s laid-back, confident, and fills the space around him with his outsized swagger. His flow glides along over the booming bass drum that dominates the “Mach 10” beat, filling his verses with quirky boasts about his money, status, and sex appeal.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

This has been an unfortunate year for the Boston Celtics. Jayson Tatum, after having COVID-19, took some time to get back to himself and was using an inhaler before games. Just before the end of the season, Jaylen Brown had wrist surgery and was lost for the year. Kemba Walker hasn’t been quite right for chunks of the year, and a year after coming up a game short of the NBA Finals, Boston found itself in the play-in tournament. The good news is that in that play-in game, Tatum dropped 50 points in Boston’s win to earn a first round series against the Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving-led Brooklyn Nets.

For Brooklyn, this is expected to be the warmup to what could be a run to the NBA Finals. From here, it goes to the winner of Milwaukee-Miami and then (barring an upset along the way) Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference Finals. If all goes to plan, this is the series they get their feet wet as a team and move onto bigger challenges. Whether the Celtics can take this warmup and make it something much more nervy is the biggest question facing this series, and that will come down to a few different variables.

Matchup To Watch

How Boston deploys Marcus Smart will be telling. As Boston’s best healthy defender, it would seem likely he ends up on one of two players: Harden or Irving.

There’s a case for him to defend either. When Harden has played, he’s been more of a table settler than Rockets-era Harden who dominated the ball in isolation. Put Smart — who has the strength and motor to battle Harden all over the floor, even if he won’t always be successful — and you’re going to bet making Harden work impacts the rest of the Nets’ offense. It also would seemingly make more sense than trying to put someone like Evan Fournier, who isn’t as bulky, on him.

Irving, meanwhile, would be the choice if Celtics coach Brad Stevens wants to try and limit Irving’s scoring ability and secondary creation that can grow in potency working off of Durant and Harden. It would also seem possible that Smart spends time on Durant if only to throw a different look that way in certain lineups. A speculative guess: Smart starts on Harden, Walker on Irving, Fournier on Durant with Tatum on Blake Griffin. If the Nets go with a shooter or Bruce Brown instead of Griffin in the starting five, that could alter the matchups.

There are no good options here. With no Brown, Boston’s defense just isn’t isn’t as equipped to handle a team like Brooklyn with multiple high, high level creators. Smart remains and he’s awesome, so how he’s utilized probably shapes what the Celtics’ strategy is.

Series X-Factor

If Boston has any hope of making this a series — much less pull an upset — it needs the absolute best version of Kemba Walker. With no Brown, there’s no one else on the Celtics’ roster who can create shots the way Tatum and Walker can. Tatum is bonafide. He’s going to get his and just showed up when his team needed him most in the play-in tournament.

Walker was also good in that game. He moved well and had 29 points on 10-24 shooting to go along with 2 assists and 7 rebounds. Notably, he was 6-14 on three-pointers and may need to keep that volume up if the games turn into shootouts.

Walker’s ability to drive into the lane and dish and make the defense react to him is going to be key. If he can do that with regularity and generate good looks for others — be it Robert Williams and Tristan Thompson at the rim or Marcus Smart and Evan Fournier from three — it would help the Celtics’ chances immensely. Any pressure he can take off of Tatum matters.

For the Nets: Let’s just see what Harden looks like. There’s no reason to think he’s going not be himself, but he’s coming off of injury right into the playoffs. Brooklyn’s margin of error is large because it has three stars, but Harden not at his best cuts into that margin. It should also be interesting to see how Steve Nash does in his first playoff series and how in handles in-game and in-series adjustments when adversity hits, but we may not learn about that in this series.

One Stat To Know

414. That’s the number of possessions that Durant, Harden and Irving have played together this year, per Cleaning The Glass. There are teams in recent history — think the second-era LeBron James Cavaliers — that have not fully meshed until the playoffs and then made a real run to the title. This, though, is the absolute extreme of that and, unfortunately, it’s because of injuries.

Ultimately, does this really matter? Maybe not in round one against a Celtics team that is down its second-best player (Brown) and almost certainly cannot match the offense Brooklyn possesses. (In those 414 possessions where Durant, Harden and Irving were all on the floor, Brooklyn scored an absurd 123.2 points per 100 possessions.) But as the time fully finds itself and racks up court time together, maybe the lack of true cohesion entering the playoffs is a crack Boston can exploit enough to steal a game. Or maybe Brooklyn just goes full supernova and sweeps the series. Both feel possible.

What is most important for the Nets is that, however long this series goes, every minute those players get to play together is a much needed brick added to the foundation of what they hope is a championship run.

Watching In the Heights can only really be described as “visceral.” Here is a movie (based on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s popular Broadway production) about nice people, singing and dancing through the streets of New York City. Well, more accurately, Washington Heights, located in the northwestern part of Manhattan. It’s a movie that’s just so alive. And it’s impossible to watch this movie and not think about what this city has gone through over the last year. I kept thinking about a year ago when the streets were empty and there was a collective fear that hung over the city like smog. I know there were days where the sun was shining, but when I think back in my memories, it’s always cloudy. If In the Heights had still come out last year, it would have felt like science fiction.

So it’s fitting Jon M. Chu’s In the Heights became the first movie I saw in a theater after roughly 14 months. (Well, technically, a small screening room, but close enough.) Because it really does feel like a movie that arrives saying, “Welcome back, New York City. In a few weeks, life can be like this again.” Of course, it’s more than that, it’s a movie welcoming everyone back that doesn’t feel forced and phony like, say, those psychotic, “Welcome back, America,” Applebee’s commercials from last July. Or even what Tenet was trying to do, forcing itself into theaters long before there was an available vaccine just because. Every huckster with something to sell would tell you the pandemic was “over” as thousands of people died every day. But this one feels real. Rates are dropping. Millions of Americans have the vaccine. People are very much on the streets again. Though no one has broken out in a highly choreographed song and dance yet, at least that I’ve witnessed. But, at this point, I won’t be surprised when it happens. Every day that has passed since I saw this movie a couple of weeks ago, it really feels like we are inching that much closer to a full street party. New York City feels “back” and In the Heights has arrived to announce this fact with authority.

I digress. Look, In the Heights is a slice of life movie that certainly didn’t ask to have the weight of “bringing the world back” on its shoulders. It’s funny, I remember when I saw In the Heights in a theater, when it was just starting its Broadway run, and the big question was how would such a small off-Broadway production make the leap to Broadway? And now, 13 years later, it’s a major motion picture and will forever be remembered as the first big feel-good movie back in theaters.

Usnavi (Anthony Ramos, playing the role Lin-Manuel Miranda originated) wants out of his neighborhood. He dreams of the beaches of the Dominican Republic where he lived as a little kid. If you don’t know the plot or aren’t familiar with the Broadway show, it’s not the easiest thing to describe “the plot” because the magic of this story is the intersecting and weaving of all the characters as they leave and return to the neighborhood. And Usnavi slowly realizing and questioning why he even wants to leave so badly in the first place – and then everything culminating during a citywide blackout. It’s a story about love and community and sticking together during the hard times and celebrating the good times. It’s a movie that was filmed before the pandemic ever happened, but a lot of the lessons ring true: when things go south, all we really have is each other.

I haven’t written these words in a long time, but if you’re vaccinated: see In the Heights in a theater. See it with a crowd that will applaud every song and showstopping dance number. And there are a lot of them. This is a movie that’s just, again, alive. It’s a movie that really does feel like a preview of this summer as more and more people become vaccinated. It’s a movie that feels like hope as actual hope stares us smack in the face. We are almost there. In the Heights didn’t ask for this responsibility, but it will forever be remembered as the right movie for the right time. It’s the kind of movie that will make you want to dance in the streets. And after this year we’ve all had, we all deserve to have our moment dancing in the street.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

As the Dexter revival prepares for its fall premiere, more and more details are bleeding out about the highly anticipated return of Michael C. Hall as the serial killer with a moral code. When the limited series finally hits Showtime, it will feature an all-new cast as most of (if not all of) the characters from Dexter’s time in Miami have either been killed or think he’s dead. In fact, James Remar, who played Dexter’s father, went so far as to say that absolutely none of the original cast will return, apparently including Jennifer Carpenter, who fans believe will be back in the revival.

One of the new additions to cast is Jamie Chung, who will play Molly, a true crime podcaster from L.A. During a recent interview, she dropped a few hints about the feel of Dexter revival and how it will vary from the first series. Via PEOPLE:

“The original series happened over 10 years ago. So there’s certainly a different vibe of the way the actual show is shot in terms of the aesthetic,” Chung tells PEOPLE. “I do think it’s a little darker.”

Despite offering a few tidbits about the Dexter revival’s new look, Chung said that secrecy has been a huge issue even while filming in the tucked away town of Shelburne Falls, Massachussets.

“It’s crazy because you have all the people who are stalking the sets and whatnot,” Chung told PEOPLE. “But yeah, the production is being very diligent about hiding and whatnot.”

(Via PEOPLE)