People who were at the infamous Capitol riot earlier this year have been getting exposed, and now a rapper has found himself in trouble after showing up to the Capitol, taking photos, and using one of them on an album cover.
Newsweek reports that Virginia-based rapper Bugzie The Don (real name Antionne DeShaun Brodnax) was pictured sitting on top of a SWAT truck as rioters stormed the Capitol building behind him. The image was used as the cover art for his album The Capitol, which was released in March.
— BUGZIE THE DON x THE CAPITAL ON ALL PLATFORMS!! (@BUGZIETHEDON) February 8, 2021
Bugzie told the FBI that he was in DC on the day of the riot to shoot a music video. He also said he followed protestors and entered the building, but did so peacefully. He walked around, took photos and videos inside, and said he did not enter any office or chambers, nor did he engage in any violence or theft. He also noted that while inside, he received messages from friends informing him that video of him walking around was broadcast live on CNN.
In March, the rapper was charged with entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a capitol building; and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building.
Nav Bhatia’s name was immortalized over the weekend when he joined the ranks of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Wilt Chamberlain in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. While some make it to the HOF for their jump shot or coaching skills, Bhatia is the first to be enshrined for being a fan.
“In the greatest building basketball has, the name Superfan Nav Bhatia will be immortalized,” Bhatia said in a tweet. “There is now a turban and the first fan honoured within Naismith Basketball Hall Of Fame. I am overcome with emotions today.”
Thank you to the @Hoophall @NBA.
@Raptors. Thank you Jimmy Goldstein for the honour.Thank you to my manager Rinku f… https://t.co/4PHhnh0Cpp
— Nav Bhatia Superfan (@superfan_nav) 1621212124.0
Bhatia bought a pair of tickets to the Toronto Raptors’ first game during their inaugural season in 1995 on a whim and has attended every home game since. He’s known for sitting courtside, just below one of the nets.
Rival Milwaukee Bucks power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo once called Bhatia the Raptors “most annoying fan.”
But to Raptors fans, he’s quite the opposite. In fact, he was awarded a championship ring after the team won the NBA Finals in 2019.
I have absolutely no issues in making this a regular occurrence lol.
Honoured and humbled to receive this ring fro… https://t.co/FEncyyPIt6
— Nav Bhatia Superfan (@superfan_nav) 1621252010.0
But Bhatia’s fandom is about a lot more than just aggressively cheering for his team. According to his website, his goal is to “unite people of all ages and backgrounds through the game of basketball so they don’t have to face the discrimination [he’s] faced as a visible minority.”
He came to Canada from India in 1984 to escape religious persecution. When he arrived, he had a hard time getting in a job with his mechanical engineering background because of the way he looked.
Bhatia was able to land a job as a car salesman where he excelled, eventually making his way through the ranks. Now, he now owns two of the most successful Hyundai dealerships in Canada.
In 2018, he received a Royal Bank of Canada Top 25 Canadian Immigrants Award, an honor given to those who contribute to the Canadian economy, to Canadian society, and to Canada overall.
His experiences as an immigrant led him to create the Nav Bhatia Superfan Foundation dedicated to raising money to build basketball courts and camps for kids in Canada and across the globe.
The superfan’s belief in charity mirrors those of his Sikh faith, which put an emphasis on charitable giving. “A wise man said — the true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how much he amasses,” Bhatia writes on his site. “No, the true measure of a man is how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself he can give.”
As a World Vision ambassador, Bhatia helped raise $200,000 to build restrooms for female students in northern India.
Changing perceptions — from Sikh to superfan | Nav Bhatia | TEDxToronto
Bhatia’s fandom is also about changing perceptions of Sikhs in Canada and abroad. “As I stand before you today, what do you see?” he asked the audience at his 2014 Ted Talk. “Someone who makes you uncomfortable on your flight? Your convenience store worker? Your gas station attendant? You see my turban and my beard.”
After a man mistook him for a cab driver, he realized that he needed to do something to change the narrow perceptions of Sikhs. So he decided to do so through his love of basketball.
“I went to every game. I cheered the most. Everybody noticed this turban guy cheering on the team the loudest. Even the opposing team noticed that,” he added. “All of the sudden, this turban guy became the face of the Toronto Raptors.”
Bhatia’s story is a wonderful example of the power that sports fandom has to bring people together across ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic divides.
“This is what basketball does—it gives us the opportunity to bring the world together,” he said.
Memphis native Pooh Shiesty is in the midst of a massive career breakout thanks to the viral success of his hit single “Back In Blood,” a star-making co-sign from trap rap godfather Gucci Mane, and his recently released debut mixtape Shiesty Season, which features appearances from big-name co-stars like 21 Savage, Lil Durk, and Memphis’s own Tay Keith.
Uproxx’s newest show, How I Blew Up narrated by Cherise Johnson, gives the Southern star the chance to tell the story of his rise to fame in his own words, from his upbringing in the Cane Creek Apartments to the moment he knew “Back In Blood” was smashing success. His breakout began with an attention-getting turn on “Breaking News,” which led to Gucci Mane reaching out to him in the dead of night. “Back In Blood,” though, was the catalyst for Pooh reaching his current level of renown after a snippet of Pooh and Lil Durk shooting the video circulated online. He just received his gold plaque for Shiesty Season, and details his plans for the future, which include his own label, Choppa Gang, supporting childhood friend and fellow rapper Big30.
Watch Pooh Shiesty break down how he blew up above.
Pooh Shiesty is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The Boston Celtics have had a disappointing 2020-21 campaign. This is not necessarily anyone’s fault — the team has been demolished by injuries and absences due to COVID-19 — but for a franchise that enters every season with championship expectations, going 36-36 and needing to go through the play-in tournament to earn a playoff berth is inherently going to lead to questions.
Apparently, one person who does not have to worry about these sorts of questions is head coach Brad Stevens. While the coach is usually the easiest thing to change with a team after a bad year, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN appeared on Get Up! and revealed that Stevens can rest easy knowing his job is not in jeopardy.
“Brad Stevens … is going to be back. The idea that his job might be in jeopardy is just not accurate.”
“This is still a Boston organization with two star players in [Jaylen] Brown and [Jayson] Tatum, with a coach, Brad Stevens, who is going to be back,” Wojnarowski said. “The idea that his job might be in jeopardy is just not accurate. This is a coach who’s been in the conference finals three out of four years, they’re going to certainly continue with Brad Stevens.”
Stevens did, apparently, turn down the Indiana University job earlier this year, so the Celtics would raise some eyebrows if it canned him despite that and all the additional context laid out in the segment. The Celtics have gone 354-282 in the eight years Stevens has been at the helm, and while we’ll have to wait and see how their fortunes play out in the play-in tournament, the team has only missed the postseason once under his tutelage.
St. Vincent may have just released her ’70s-inspired album Daddy’s Home, but that’s not the only release she’s been working on lately. She and Carrie Brownstein star in the upcoming mockumentary film The Nowhere Inn, and they’ve just released a teaser trailer featuring trippy visuals, cowboys, and an erotic Dakota Johnson cameo.
Directed by Bill Benz, St. Vincent described The Nowhere Inn on Twitter as a “bananas art film.” The story follows St. Vincent as she calls on Brownstein to film a documentary about the difference between her real-life and on-stage personas. It was originally released at Sundance Film Festival in 2020, but has been pushed back for an theatrical premiere on September 17, 2021.
The new film teaser features a snippet of St. Vincent’s talking head interview from the film. She begins by saying she planned on making a run-of-the-mill music documentary before things went “terribly wrong” during the filming process:
“It was supposed to be a music documentary; concert footage, interviews. I wanted people to know who I really am. One of the reasons why I wanted to make a documentary in the first place was because I would finally be in control of my narrative. A small part of me was starting to second guess myself. All I can say is that somewhere along the way, thing went terribly wrong.”
Watch The Nowhere Inn trailer above and see it premiere in theaters September 17.
As one of the most prominent faces of The Fast and The Furious films (and one half of “potentially the biggest love story” in all cinema, if you ask Vin Diesel), Michelle Rodriguez is the perfect choice for hosting a reality series where drivers from all different backgrounds show off their skills. So that’s exactly what Discovery did by tapping Rodriguez to star alongside rally car champion Wyatt Knox in Getaway Driver, a unique competition series that sounds pretty badass.
This 8-episode competition series features 24 elite drivers from drift champions to street racers to hotshot YouTubers who compete to prove they have the skill behind the wheel and the mental toughness to outrun and out-drive the competition in a massive nearly 60-acre compound filled with obstacles. Part Baby Driver, part Grand Theft Auto, the Getaway Drivers will put it all on the line — sacrificing their own cars for the opportunity to be the wheelman in a real-life car chase. The rules are simple… evade the pursuers and escape the compound to score some cold hard cash. These drivers already have the loot — but can they get away to keep it?
While Rodriguez is stoked to star in the new series, which she promises will “take it to the edge,” the actress will be breaking new ground in F9 after pushing for a meaningful scene with co-star Jordana Brewster after nine movies.
“Michelle was like, ‘Dude, we’ve never had a scene together. We’re always secondary with the guys. We don’t interact. We have a sisterhood. We need to explore this,’” Brewster told Insider. “Michelle’s always been very outspoken about not doing anything that isn’t true to character, and that means not placating the guys, that means not playing second fiddle to the guys.”
We’re always looking for celebrities who turn heads without too much help from a stylist. We’re talking real, self-aware, un-faked steez — think more Andre 3000 and less Denim Timberlake. And there are few people who exude more “just being herself”-type style than Lena Waithe. Whether she’s rocking a suit, keeping it casual in some basic sweats, or wearing that latest pair of sneakers you weren’t able to cop in time, Waithe’s Instagram feed is dripping with fits so dope that following her is constant style inspiration.
And envy. Seriously, Waithe’s sneaker collection has so many gems it brings tears to the eyes of sneakerheads everywhere. As we slowly reenter public life and plan our first public outings in over a year, we’re going to need some direction from someone who it seems kept her signature style intact through the pandemic. So we hit up Waithe to get her style philosophy.
“Honestly, I would just say comfort first,” she tells us. “And I know people may be surprised by that because I think people think, ‘Oh, you tend to think about style first.’ No. Everything I think about when it comes to clothes is comfortability. I feel like I’m always looking for something that I can wear around the house, but that I also can wear to bed. That’s my thing. I feel like the clothes that I’m wearing, I can always go to a meeting in, but I can also sleep in, and that’s my philosophy.”
But how exactly does she manage to rock a pair of sweats without looking like someone who is… you know… just wearing sweats? Turns out that all comes down to attitude.
“If you’re a person that wears them a certain way then you can even wear sweats into a board meeting — if you play it correctly,” she notes. “Sometimes you just got to wear what you want and wear it with pride.”
In the event you can’t figure out what you want, Waithe’s fits are always tagged on her Instagram — which we appreciate.
Prince has long been known as an eclectic figure, but Sinead O’Connor — whose famed single “Nothing Compares 2 U” was written by Prince — does not have fond memories of the late artist’s eccentric ways. In fact, in her upcoming memoir Rememberings, she claims Prince “terrorized” her.
A new New York Times profile reveals that in her book (which is set for release in June), O’Connor paints Prince in a negative light and said following the success of “Nothing Compares 2 U,” he, among other things, chased her around a highway and hit her with a pillow containing a hard object:
“She writes that Prince summoned her to his macabre Hollywood mansion, chastised her for swearing in interviews, harangued his butler to serve her soup though she repeatedly refused it, and sweetly suggested a pillow fight, only to thump her with something hard he’d slipped into his pillowcase. When she escaped on foot in the middle of the night, she writes, he stalked her with his car, leapt out and chased her around the highway.”
She also said of him, “You’ve got to be crazy to be a musician, but there’s a difference between being crazy and being a violent abuser of women.” She went on to note that she feels a sense of ownership over “Nothing Compares 2 U,” saying, “As far as I’m concerned, it’s my song.”
No one would want to be Jacob Chansley, a.k.a., the “QAnon Shaman,” these days. Of course, no one also made the guy dress up (for the January 6 insurrection) in the “Chewbacca Bikini” outfit and storm the Senate in session. Now, he’s still languishing in jail while his attorney keeps trying to dream up defenses that might possibly work. First, Albert Watkins attempted to gain leniency for his client by claiming that Trump “groomed” his followers to be rabid conspiracy theorists, and that must not have worked out well (spoiler alert: it did not, nor did it help that Chansley claimed that he saved the muffins) because Watkins’ latest defense is… hoo boy.
Watkins is attempting to persuade U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth to release the Shaman ahead of his trial, but the so-called “Trump defense” that Watkins aims to use is actually getting in the way. Still (and according to Talking Points Memo), Watkins is pushing forth while claiming that his client’s Asperger’s syndrome was exacerbated by Trump’s wielding of “propaganda,” and that allegedly spurred Chansley into Shaman mode. While speaking to TPM, Watkins threw out a a pretty brutal description for both Chansley and the rest of the mob. It’s not good, Bob:
“A lot of these defendants — and I’m going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully — but they’re all f*cking short-bus people,” Watkins told TPM. “These are people with brain damage, they’re fucking retarded, they’re on the goddamn spectrum.
“But they’re our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, our coworkers — they’re part of our country. These aren’t bad people, they don’t have prior criminal history. F*ck, they were subjected to four-plus years of goddamn propaganda the likes of which the world has not seen since f*cking Hitler.”
Again, not great! This approach, thus far, hasn’t worked for Watkins’ defense of the Shaman, given that Judge Lamberth reasoned that “even taking defendant’s claim at face value, it does not persuade the Court that defendant would not pose a danger to others if released.” Lamberth followed up by describing how Watkins’ argument actually goes a long way to prove that the Shaman cannot (or refuses to) think independently use reasonable judgment so as to avoid breaking the law again.
Still, one cannot deny that it’s at least “unprecedented” to see “Trump defense” in open court, so there’s that. Further, TPM’s description of “a novel disease” called “Foxitis” is a nod toward another defendant’s approach to a leniency attempt. In the case of that defendant, Anthony Antonio, his lawyer, Joe Hurley, claimed that his lockdown-afflicted client did nothing but watch Fox News for hours on end. Hurley was also quick to point out that “Foxitis” isn’t technically a defense but did provide context on why Antonio fell under the Trump spell. Will it work? That seems unlikely, but in the meantime, maybe the QAnon Shaman “needs a new lawyer.”
Before forming the Philadelphia outfit 2nd Grade with members of Remember Sports, Free Cake For Every Creature, and Friendship, Peter Gill was writing his own music at a feverish pace. While working a casual summer gig, the musician self-recorded a series a demos under the mixtape Wish You Were Here Tour. Now following the success of 2nd Grade’s Hit To Hit debut album, the band is re-recording their demos.
2nd Grade has announced their Wish You Were Here Tour (Revisited) project with an updated recording of the wistful track “Favorite Song.” Clocking in at just under two minutes, the “Favorite Song” rerecording ups the production quality and boasts skittering guitars and crashing symbols. In a statement about the reissue project, Gill said:
“It amazes me on just how many levels ‘Favorite Song’ works, for a sub-2 minute song that practically wrote itself. It’s a total celebration of listening to music, my absolute favorite thing to do in this world. It’s an attempt to tell both sides of a sad misunderstanding. It’s proof of the John Ashbery quote about how proper nouns are the most descriptive words in the English language. Not least of all, it’s a carefully crafted piece in the tradition of ‘April Come She Will’ that nonetheless rejects such a tidy narrative. The stories we tell ourselves through pop music often fail to square up with the facts of our predicaments, but sometimes they can make us feel a whole lot better.”
Listen to “Favorite Song” above.
Wish You Were Here Tour (Revisited) is out 6/25 via Double Double Whammy. Pre-order it here.
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