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Whether you hate him, love him, hate to love him, or love to hate him, Drake has been the center of the pop culture universe for a long time, and with his sixth studio album coming soon – titled Certified Lover Boy – it appears that’s exactly what he’ll remain for the foreseeable future.

Ted Cruz is currently in the “people that elected me are destroying my likeness in piñata form” phase of his political career, and Daisy Ridley has little sympathy for him after he went after Rey for no reason. Back before Cruz fled a freezing Texas during an environmental disaster, he was posting in defense of Gina Carano. And a backhanded mention of Ridley’s Rey had apparently escaped her notice until it was brought up by a reporter interviewing her while promoting new work.

In an interview with Yahoo’s Kevin Polowy, Ridley was asked about Cruz’s attempt to defend Gina Carano after the now-former The Mandalorian star posted her way out of a job because of social media messages that were described by Lucasfilm as “abhorrent.” Cruz implied at the time that Disney didn’t want strong female characters like Carano’s Cara Dune, and was critical of Ridley’s Rey in the process.

That didn’t sit well with Ridley, nor did Cruz’s failed leadership in Texas in recent weeks. Apparently she didn’t know that Cruz described Rey as an “emotionally tortured Jedi.” But once she was caught up on the tweet, she had no problem firing back at Cruz.

“I am very happy to be an emotionally tortured Jedi,” Ridley said. “Who doesn’t leave their state when it’s having a terrible time.”

Though Ridley apparently missed the snipe at her, she certainly seemed to have seen the news about Cruz, who abandoned Texas for a Cancun vacation and then sheepishly returned to the state much earlier than planned once word got out that he had left in a time of crisis, rather than do his job. And though Ridley was there to promote Chaos Walking, she was more than willing to defend her work in Star Wars. Especially against someone like Cruz.

Anthem‘s potential rebirth is apparently not happening after all. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported on Wednesday that EA has decided to cancel its Anthem Next project, which was a months-long effort to see whether the original title released in early 2019 could be reworked into essentially a new game based in the same world.

For more than a year, Bioware had been working on a roadmap for Anthem with a small team hoping to revive the online title that had some very intriguing ideas at its core. Many fans hoped that the major retooling could give the game second life after its debut was plagued with bad reviews and frustrated players. Other titles have made that pivot successfully, but after consideration from EA it seems the company has decided to shutter any plans to revamp Anthem moving forward.

As Schreier detailed earlier in the month, a team of about 30 people were working on a new version of Anthem, one that would need considerably more resources in order to make that game a reality for players, many of whom have held out hopes that the title that arrived with huge hype could turn into something closer to the online, mission-based shooter that was originally promised.

Wednesday’s news, however, made it clear a rebirth is not on the way. According to Schreier, those who were working on Anthem Next will be moved to work on Dragon Age 4. In a blog post on Wednesday, Bioware blamed the pandemic in part for Anthem‘s cancelation.

I know this will be disappointing to the community of Anthem players who have been excited to see the improvements we’ve been working on. It’s also disappointing for the team who were doing brilliant work. And for me personally, Anthem is what brought me to BioWare, and the last two years have been some of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my career.

Game development is hard. Decisions like these are not easy. Moving forward, we need to laser focus our efforts as a studio and strengthen the next Dragon Age, and Mass Effect titles while continuing to provide quality updates to Star Wars: The Old Republic.

It’s unclear right now what the team had planned for Anthem, but now we know whatever it is will never reach players.

Real Estate are about a year removed from the release of their latest album, The Main Thing. Between then and now, the pandemic started to really impact the US, but the band still had some music they wanted to finish up, so they did so remotely. That has led to an EP of new material, Half A Human, which is set for release on March 26. Real Estate has previewed the six-track effort with the title track, a six-minute tune that slots nicely into the band’s distinct brand of dreamy indie rock.

Martin Courtney says of the project:

“Life keeps changing and additional responsibilities and stresses keep being added, but this band is still here. When I was writing a lot of these songs, I was feeling a little weird about being in a band. Like, ‘How is this still a thing?’ I was feeling silly about it and then coming around to it at the same time. This is what we’re good at and it’s what we love to do and want to keep doing. I don’t want to do anything else.”

Courtney touched on a similar point in an interview with Uproxx from around this time last year, saying, “I’ve got three kids now. My wife was pregnant through a lot of the process of writing [The Main Thing]. So, just on the level of, is this a responsible thing to do, to be a guy in an indie-rock band? I was really struggling with that, and also feeling like, the world is kind of in a bad state. […] Is there something more useful I could be doing with my life? I feel a little bit useless writing these songs. So, that was kind of what went into writing this record, those types of doubts. […] I think for me it was just like, ‘Obviously I’m going to do this because this is where I’m at in my life. I can’t just not do it. And I want to make a record. I love making music.’ It was never a question of whether or not I wanted to do it. So yeah, I think it just came down to, we need to work that much harder and just make it feel worthwhile, basically.”

Listen to “Half A Human” above and check out the Half A Human art and tracklist below.

1. “Desire Path”
2. “Half A Human”
3. “Soon”
4. “D+”
5. “In The Garden”
6. “Ribbon”

Half A Human is out 3/26 via Domino. Pre-order it here.

It’s amazing to consider just how quickly the world has changed over the past 11 months. If you were to have told someone in February 2020 that the entire country would be on some form of lockdown, nearly everyone would be wearing a mask, and half a million people were going to die due to a virus, no one would have believed you.

Yet, here we are.

PPE masks were the last thing on Leah Holland of Georgetown, Kentucky’s mind on March 4, 2020, when she got a tattoo inspired by the words of a close friend.

“We were just talking about things we admire about each other and he said, ‘You courageously and radically refuse to wear a mask,’ like meaning that I’m undeniably myself. I thought that was a really poetic way of saying that,” Holland told Fox 13.

So, she had “courageously & radically refuse to wear a mask” tattooed on her left forearm. It’s a beautiful sentiment about Leah’s dedication to being her true self. It’s also a reminder for Leah to remain true to herself throughout her life.

However, the tattoo would come to have a very different meaning just two days later when the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Kentucky.

“It basically looked like I’m totally, you know, anti-mask or whatever, which is not the case,” said Holland.

Now, she was embarrassed to be seen with the tattoo for fear she’d be associated with the anti-maskers who either deny the existence of the virus or refuse to wear a mask to protect others. Either way, it’s a bad look.

So Leah started wearing long-sleeve shirts and cardigan sweaters whenever in public to cover up the tattoo.

On Monday, TikTok users asked each other to share their “dumbest tattoo” and she was pretty sure she had the winner.

In her video, she talks about how her tattoo was about “not pretending to be something you’re not,” but then revealed it to show how — after a historical twist — it made her out to be someone she isn’t.

“I just kind of wanted people to laugh with me because I think it’s funny now, too,” said Holland.

Plenty of people on TikTok laughed along with her with one user suggesting she update the tattoo with the phrase: “Hindsight is 2020.”

“I was dying laughing. I’m like, I’m glad there are people that find this as funny as I think it is,” said Holland.

“It will be a funny story to tell years from now,” she said. “I don’t think it will ever not be a funny story.”

Unfortunately, even when the pandemic is over, Leah will still probably have to explain her tattoo. Because most won’t soon forget the COVID-19 era in America and there’s no doubt many will still feel passionate about those who refused to wear a mask.

Most around the NBA were taken aback when the Timberwolves this week hired a new head coach from an opposing team to a multi-year contract in the immediate aftermath of firing incumbent Ryan Saunders, but it was more than just surprising, according to the National Basketball Coaches Association.

“We would be remiss not to acknowledge a deeper concern and level of disappointment with the Minnesota head coaching process,” union president Rick Carlisle and executive director David Fogel said in a joint statement. “We must establish a level playing field and equal access to opportunity for all coaching candidates.”

Not only did Finch, a white assistant for the Raptors who worked with Minnesota general manager Gersson Rosas in Houston many years ago, get hired after a behind-the-scenes search, but he seemingly jumped ahead of David Vanterpool, the Wolves’ Black associate head coach who joined the franchise in 2019, to get the job.

And while Finch did interview with Minnesota back in 2019 and can point to his relationship with Rosas as the starting point for his hire, the fact that Rosas and the Timberwolves’ braintrust conducted this “search” stealthily while the season was ongoing means they were not subject to the same type of scrutiny and deliberation that typically occur in the offseason.

Fans were overjoyed when Taylor Swift released Evermore, her second surprise album of 2020. But the same cannot be said about Evermore Park, an amusement park in Utah who filed a trademark lawsuit against the singer following the album’s release. After dismissing the initial lawsuit as “baseless,” Swift’s team is now responding with a lawsuit of their own.

According to a report from Rolling Stone, TAS Rights Management, the company that manages the rights to Swift’s music and other trademarks, filed an opposing lawsuit against Evermore Park. Swift’s team is basing their lawsuit on the claim that Evermore Park has used three of the pop singer’s songs without authorization. Legal documents from Swift’s team allege that the theme park “blatantly ignored the numerous notices from BMI and opted instead to continue to benefit from the free and unauthorized public performance of [the songs], despite actual knowledge of the liability and substantial penalties imposed by the Copyright Act to protect artists.” The lawsuit goes on to claim that Evermore’s CEO Ken Bretschneider reached out to BMI “seeking a retroactive license that would cover all performances” from 2018-2021 only after he learned that Swift’s countersuit was in the works.

The TAS Rights Management lawsuit arrives less than a month after Evermore’s original copyright infringement lawsuit, which claimed that some of their guests have asked if “the Evermore album was the result of a collaboration between Evermore and Taylor Swift or some other type of relationship.” Evemore is seeking millions in damages, as well as money to cover all legal fees.

After Texas’ recent catastrophic storm that left millions of people literally freezing without power, it’s not clear that Texan politicians, you know, get it. Senator Ted Cruz — he of the ridiculously out-of-touch, unwise Cancun vacation — is busy fuming over leaked texts that got he and his wife, Heidi, busted on a more telling level. And Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, who is already not terribly popular for his most notorious COVID-19-based declaration last year (that elderly people are willing to sacrifice their lives to save the U.S. economy) is stepping in it, too.

Patrick appeared on Fox News to discuss Texas’ deregulated power grid on a general note, and the conversation inevitably turned toward reports of astronomical power bills received by Texas residents. In some cases, these have been savings-draining bills (and worse) that have been up to $17,000, according to the Washington Post. Patrick wanted everyone to know that he’s seen these reports, and this happens because, in Texas, “you can choose your energy plan and most people have a fixed rate. If they had a fixed rate per kilowatt hour, their rates aren’t going up.” Patrick stresses that he’s going to try (in the case of people receiving ridiculously large bills) to “figure that out,” but in the meantime, people need to “read the fine print.” Via Raw Story:

“But the people who are getting those big bills are people who gambled on a very, very low rate. But I’ve told those folks, do not panic. We are going to figure that out.”

“But going forward, people need to read the fine print in those kinds of bills and we may even end that type of variable plan because people were surprised.”

“Read the fine print” probably isn’t helping anyone who had their utility bills set on auto-draft, and it’s not reasonable to expect people to understand the “gamble” made when utility bills have never been, you know, $17,000 for a single-family home before last week. There’s gonna be some backlash to Patrick’s comments, but hopefully, he’ll actually made good on being able to “figure that out” for residents.

(Via Raw Story)

Bay Area rapper Caleborate is gearing up for the release of his new album Light Hit My Skin next month, and shares the first single, “Contact,” featuring Brooklyn rapper Kota The Friend. The cross-coastal collaboration shows the two indie rappers are on the same wavelength despite their distance, as they address their grind from the basement to their current success. While Kota rhymes about the way his girl and his son lifted his spirits through the rough years, Caleb praises his aunt for having his back and sharing her weed with him as he worked his way through his early career.

Although he’s not a household name yet, Berkeley native Caleborate made some noise in 2016 with the release of his album 1993, which led to increased attention on its follow-ups. In 2017, he dropped Real Person, while in 2019, his Hear Me Out EP reassured fans that he was still cooking up. Meanwhile, Kota broke out in 2018 with Anything., received major acclaim in 2019 with Foto, and kept up the momentum in 2020 with Lyrics To Go, Vol. 1 and Everything. He opened this year with Lyrics To Go, Vol. 2, setting himself up for a big 2021.

“Contact” marks the two MCs’ first collaboration, despite their parallel tracks, but it shows they already have remarkable chemistry thanks to their complementary mindsets and independent hustle. Caleborate’s album Light Hit My Skin is due March 26 and also features Duckwrth, Deante’ Hitchcock, Cantrell, Tone Sinatra, and more.

Listen to “Contact” above.

(Spoilers from Marvel Studios and Disney+’s WandaVision will be found below.)

On the latest episode of WandaVision, “Breaking the Fourth Wall,” Kathryn Hahn’s Agnes finally revealed herself as the classic Marvel Comics character Agatha Harkness, a centuries old witch who’s been around since the Salem days. While fans had already guessed Agnes’ true identity before WandaVision even aired — it was right there in her name — even the most knowledgeable viewers were in the dark on how that reveal would play out. As we learned in the catchy theme song, “Agatha All Along,” Hahn’s witchy character dropped into Westview after Wanda (or someone else) had already transformed the New Jersey town into a sitcom world. Once inside, Agatha seemed intent on stirring up mischief and causing strife between Wanda and Vision.

The big reveal also included a trip down into Agatha’s basement where Wanda discovered a dungeon-like room full of mystical artifacts. Not only that, the show went through a noticeable aspect ratio change, which director Mat Shakman recently revealed was very intentional and that Marvel studio head Kevin Feige showed a personal interest in making sure this scene hit just the right tone. Via Cinema Blend:

You go down into a basement, you’re headed for darkness. So I just really was playing with that very simple iconography. And finally, I could kind of get into my full MCU dramatic-film-lighting, which I’ve been looking forward to for a while. So just embracing all the kind of LED technology that we have our disposal now, and a great set design by Mark Worthington, and embracing the darkness. You know, that was Kevin Feige’s note was, ‘This needs to be dark and scary.’

As for why Feige would want the tone of this scene to be exactly right, WandaVision is now in its home stretch, and in the process, it will start setting up the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which will reportedly feature Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda working with Benedict Cumberatch’s Doctor Strange. Or maybe against him…

(Via CinemaBlend)