GoneTrending

After a pair of delays, Keyshia Cole and Ashanti finally duked it out in their Verzuz battle on Thursday night. The matchup was a fairly light-hearted one that saw both songstresses dive into their catalogs and pull out 20 of their best songs. Just like most of us who watched from home, 21 Savage sang along to the tracks that were played, but did so on Instagram Live as his fans watched along.

From tracks like Keyshia’s “Love” and “I Remember,” the Atlanta rapper held nothing back as he let the vocals fly to the amusement of his livestream viewers. His singing abilities caught the attention of Missy Elliott who showed some love to 21.

Responding to a clip from 21 Savage’s livestream that was posted by HipHopDX, Missy said, “Love @21savage heavy” with a purple heart and two raised hand emojis. Shortly after a fan replied to her and said, “Collab!” Missy seemed to be all for working with the rapper as she said, “Most def.”

The interaction between Missy and 21 is just the latest example of the hip-hop and R&B worlds coming together thanks to Verzuz. During Thursday’s battle, Keyshia Cole invited O.T. Genasis to sing “Love” with her, signaling that tensions between the two had subsided. Back in 2019, O.T. released a remix of “Love” to the distaste of Keyshia, but thankfully the duo was able to put their differences aside for the warm moment on Verzuz.

You can view Missy’s tweets above.

Missy Elliot is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Legendary TV host and writer Larry King died on Saturday at age 87, sparking a new wave of appreciation for his work and life from many in entertainment and around the world. But as the tributes poured in and his life’s work was examined in full, one clip from his show almost immediately went viral.

Shortly after news of King’s death spread on Saturday, several people posted an old interview between the legendary host and Jerry Seinfeld where things appeared to be a bit… tense.

In the clip, Seinfeld is asked if he was “canceled,” or if the show named after him ended because the network decided that was the case. Quite famously, Seinfeld and those working on the show decided it was time to wrap it up, and it was one of the few shows in television history to lead the Nielson ratings as it went off the air.

As buzz about the interview grew online, Seinfeld posted a farewell to King on Twitter and cleared the air about that interview, making it clear that the “canceled bit” was just him having some fun with King.

“Always loved Larry King and will miss him,” Seinfeld wrote. “The ‘canceled’ bit was just me having fun with his little mistake. Nothing more. Or less.”

It’s nice that Seinfeld cleared up what could be perceived as an awkward interview, and these things tend to take on new meaning when context and perspective is added to the equation. But even after his own name started trending on Twitter on Saturday because of the video, the comedian wanted to make it clear that he was just joking.

After 12 season, the Matthew Stafford era in Detroit will come to an end. According to a report by Tom Pelissero of NFL Network, Stafford and the Lions met over the weekend to discuss his future, and during that meeting, both sides agreed that it is best for the franchise and the former No. 1 overall pick to part ways.

“The sides have had open and healthy discussions since the season ended,” Pelissero reports. “But with the Lions starting over again, hiring Dan Campbell as head coach and Brad Holmes as general manager, Stafford told the team he feels it’s the right time to move on and team officials agreed, per sources.”

The news was confirmed by Adam Schefter of ESPN.

The Lions took Stafford as the No. 1 pick in the 2009 NFL Draft out of the University of Georgia. The team made the playoffs three times with Stafford under center, and while there hadn’t been gobs of success during his tenure in the Motor City, he always managed to put up big numbers when he was healthy, throwing for more than 45,000 yards and 282 touchdowns in his tenure. Last season, the soon-to-be 33-year-old completed 64.2 percent of his passes for 4,084 yards with 26 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

As for which teams can use him, Stafford presents an interesting backup plan in the event squads want to make a move for a quarterback this offseason but do not want to fork over everything that the Houston Texans would theoretically want for Deshaun Watson. He’s also someone who can step in and act as a bridge for a few years for a franchise that has an eye on a long-term option under center. On the other side of things, the Lions possess the No. 7 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, and while they will not be able to acquire Trevor Lawrence, they could hold out hope that at least one of the players in the next class of signal callers — Ohio State’s Justin Fields, North Dakota State’s Trey Lance, BYU’s Zach Wilson — will be there for the taking, should they opt to go in that direction.

Live concerts, for the most part, have been put on pause due to the coronavirus pandemic. Outside of drive-in concerts, which some acts like Lil Baby, DaBaby, and Kehlani have held, music lovers have not been able to watch their favorite artists at a live show safely for months now.

Luckily for some fans of The Flaming Lips, they were able to see the band perform at a recent concert in their hometown of Oklahoma City thanks to a slight twist. Both the band and audience members enjoyed the live show from space bubbles that could fit up to three people when inflated.

The band held the first of two concerts on Friday night with the second set to occur on Saturday. An aerial view of the concert was shared through an Instagram post from Iead vocalist Wayne Coyne. Prior to the show, Coyne spoke to UPROXX about the live bubble show, one he announced at the end of last year.

“There have been a lot of details to figure out, and what if this thing ends in a couple of weeks?” he said. “But if it keeps going, we keep going.”

The Oklahoma City show comes after the band tested the live bubble concert idea in their hometown last October. In a brief show held at The Criterion, the band only performed two songs and played them both twice: “Brother Eye” and “Assassins Of Youth” from their American Head album.

You can view some posts from the first concert above.

The Flaming Lips are a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Justin Bieber has been going through changes — and not just because his 2020 album was called that. Changes was the culmination of Bieber attempting to rehab his image and grow up, settling down as a married man with his now-wife Hailey (Baldwin) Bieber, and overcoming the way intense fame impacted him as a child.

But as much as Changes argued for a new Bieber, it’s really the new music he’s released since that indicates he’s on a new path. “Lonely” delves into his relationship with fame, while “Holy” celebrates the spiritual union he feels with Hailey. Those two new tracks are excellent, and actually show growth in his songwriting, while a searing collaboration with Shawn Mendes, “Monster,” continues to address his often negative relationship with fame, and the soaring ballad”Anyone” doubles down on a new love changing his life and shaping who he wants to become.

Though he’s been stable and happy for a while now, one of the lowest moments of Bieber’s rebellious years was when he was arrested for drag racing and a DUI in Florida in 2014. Today actually marks the seventh anniversary of his arrest to the day, and he shared a photo of the moment on Instagram, reflecting on who he has become since.

“7 years ago today I was arrested, not my finest hour. Not proud of where I was at in my life. I was hurting, unhappy, confused, angry, mislead, misunderstood and angry at god.. I also wore too much leather for someone in Miami. All this to say God has brought me a long way. From then til now I do realize something.. God was as close to me then as he is right now. My encouragement to you is to ‘let your past be a reminder of how far god has brought you. Don’t allow shame to ruin your “today” let the forgiveness of Jesus take over and watch your life blossom into all that God has designed you to be. LOVE YOU GUYS WITH MY WHOLE HEART.”

No matter how you feel about Bieber’s music, or even his past behavior, this kind of self-reflection and growth can only be applauded. Now, let’s get that new album finished and really bring it home in 2021.

Ken Jennings currently has the guest hosting duties on Jeopardy! and thankfully he’s uniquely qualified to get geeked out about what happened on Friday’s episode. Final Jeopardy wasn’t enough to decide a very competitive game that actually ended with two contestants with identical big paydays, which meant the game came down to a tiebreaker question for just the third time in the show’s history.

The Jeopardy! GOAT has experienced a lot of things as a contestant on the show’s stage over the years, but a tiebreaker is not on the list for him as a contestant. Hosting a show with a tiebreaker, though, seemed to be just as exciting as he got to be part of a rare bit of history for the syndicated trivia game show.

Jack and returning champion Brian went into what’s usually the night’s final question tied with $18,800. The category was Statues, and the question was this: “Statues honoring this man who was killed in 1779 can be found in Waimea, Kauai & in Whitby, England.” Our third contestant, Maggie, was wrong. But both Jack and Brian were correct, and though Jennings called it a “very tricky wagering scenario” with their identical scores they both made the right choice: betting it all to double their totals to $37,600.

If you’re not sure the rules of a Jeopardy! tiebreaker, well, they rarely happen so that’s understandable. But it’s as sudden death as it gets: There’s one question, in one category, and the first person to ring in and get it right wins and gets to come back. Here’s what it looked like.

Brian, the returning champion, rang in and answered “Lenin” to win the match. Jennings sounded more exited than the contestants, which is understandable for Jack, who went from a potential $37,600 payday to the second place prize of $2,000.

“That was some finish,” Jennings said after the game. “I’ve never seen one of those and I’ve been here like 100 times.”

The post-match talk included in the video is fascinating, as Jennings geeked out about the tie but also revealed some information about what the host can see from contestants when they answer Final Jeopardy! questions. Apparently hosts can see what contestants write down in real time, giving them a bit of insight to allow them to prepare for how the game will turn out. It’s a bit of a spoiler, as we now know that Jennings (and Alex Trebek in the past) isn’t finding out the result with the audience, but it’s a nice Easter Egg to get confirmed here.

Still, it was nice to see that Jennings appreciated the moment as much as many longtime fans who had seen just two tiebreakers in show history until Friday. It was really cool to see a host truly eager to be part of a bit of Jeopardy! history, and it certainly further endeared Jennings to longtime Jeopardy! fans who are very eager to see who the show picks as its next full-time host.

After a pair of quiet years, fans of Top Dawg Entertainment and their artists are hoping that the label’s activity will much higher in 2021. While a number of their artists, such as Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, SZA, and Isaiah Rashad, are rumored to have an album dropping at some point this year, TDE’s Punch confirmed one thing his artists most likely won’t participate in.

After rumors of a possible Verzuz battle with Schoolboy Q began to surface, with fans naming Vince Staples, A$AP Rocky, and others as potential opponents, Punch denied the battle would happen during an interaction with marketing strategist Karen Civil. She mentioned Punch on Twitter and said, “Chile… they out here saying ScHoolboy about to do a Verzuz… We know ya’ll don’t allow phones in the studio… lol,” referencing TDE’s famous studio rules. Punch denied the rumors saying, “Nah. Nope. We not doing this @KarenCivil.”

Further into their conversation, Punch inquired about Civil’s new Girl I Guess podcast with model and close friend Ming Lee Simmons and why he had not been invited yet. It was here that the duo began to tease new music from Kendrick Lamar. “Now you know your always invited! Can we play that new Kendrick you played me?!” Civil asked, to which Punch responded, “YES! Soon.”

The interaction between Civil and Punch came after Ab-Soul confirmed that both his and Lamar’s albums were “on the way.”

Friday’s gaming news was tough for Xbox owners who have little interest in Xbox Game Pass, as word spread that the price of Xbox Live Gold membership for many people would drastically increase in the coming months. Some Xbox Live Gold subscribers got notice that the monthly price would drastically increase, costing up to $120 a year.

That’s twice as much as it costs for a year of the PlayStation equivalent, and many saw the move as one that would push people to buy Xbox Game Pass instead, as it comes with an Xbox Live subscription as well as lots of other content that Microsoft has invested in heavily in recent months. News of the move made a lot of noise online, though, and not all of it was positive. Which perhaps is why Microsoft announced it will abruptly pull back from new pricing plans in a blog post the company made public on Friday night.

Explaining why the Xbox team decided not to change Xbox Live Gold pricing, the company admitted “we messed up today” and acknowledged that it changed its mind because of the negative feedback it received on social media.

We’re turning this moment into an opportunity to bring Xbox Live more in line with how we see the player at the center of their experience. For free-to-play games, you will no longer need an Xbox Live Gold membership to play those games on Xbox. We are working hard to deliver this change as soon as possible in the coming months.

If you are an Xbox Live Gold member already, you stay at your current price for renewal. New and existing members can continue to enjoy Xbox Live Gold for the same prices they pay today. In the US, $9.99 for 1-month, $24.99 for 3-months, $39.99 for 6-months and $59.99 for retail 12-months.

It’s good news for those who would have been impacted by the changes, for sure. Though Xbox Game Pass is a good deal for those that want access to a growing list of titles, more casual gamers were certainly upset that they’d see a huge price increase to get access to the internet for the few games they’d like to play. While growth is always in mind for companies when they make these decisions, sometimes chasing that growth for one product like Game Pass can come at the risk of upsetting people you already count as customers. We’ll see how long things stay the same for pricing of Xbox Live Gold, but for now it seems things will be staying put.

Everyone knows about the first big pop hit of the year — Olivia Rodrigo getting her “Drivers License.” And it’s impossible to underplay the importance that streaming had on that song’s success; Spotify commented on how how unexpected her numbers were on their platform, and there’s no doubt that Olivia’s platform on TikTok — currently just above 4 million – has been helping bolster the song’s success. Oh, and then there’s the whole Disney+ star and love triangle-related drama.

Though she doesn’t have the Disney machine behind her, a similar streaming framework seems to be working for another young new singer, Jessia, an artist based in Vancouver, Canada. Although it’s not her debut song, Jessia released her first 2021 single, “I’m Not Pretty,” on the same day as “Drivers License,” on January 8. It might not be the No. 1 song in the country yet, but “I’m Not Pretty” has a groundswell of streaming support behind it, too, queuing it up to become the second big pop hit of the year.

With a little support from Spotify — who made her the face of their Pop Rising playlist and added her to the largest playlist Today’s Top Hits — and the force of over 500,000 TikTok followers, Jessia’s body positive anthem is well on its way to hit status. The song began on TikTok as a snippet, and then into a full song, a process that will surely become more common in the coming weeks and months as the social media platform is becoming a new incubator for musical talent.

Check out her excited TikTok celebrating the Spotify inclusion, and stream the song itself above.

Whether or not this comes to fruition remains to be seen, but it sure seems like Deshaun Watson’s time as a member of the Houston Texans could come to an end sometime soon. Watson’s reported displeasure with the franchise for a number of reasons has led to plenty of speculation about a potential breakup, with one report indicating that teammates would support him no matter what his next move ends up being.

There might be four or five teams in the league that would not benefit from acquiring Watson, so should he become available, it’s hard to imagine that there wouldn’t be a gigantic market for his services. As for where he would go, a report by Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald indicates that his eyes are on the AFC East, with the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins being his preferred landing spots.

Watson this week told people the Jets are his top preference among the teams he’d like to be traded to because they hired Robert Saleh to be their coach and Watson values Saleh so much he wanted the Texans to interview him for their vacant head coach job.

Watson confirmed reports, circulated for several weeks in national media, he’d also welcome playing for the Dolphins but said that is his second choice at this time.

Both of these franchises have been mentioned pretty frequently whenever Watson’s potential availability has come up — the Jets could use a quarterback if they decide that Sam Darnold is not the future, and they could theoretically put together a number of picks to bring Watson to New York while keeping their copious amounts of cap space free to add talent around him. The Dolphins, meanwhile, were nearly a playoff team in 2020 and can offer up a package that revolves around last year’s first round pick Tua Tagovailoa and the No. 3 pick in this year’s Draft, which originally belonged to the Texans.

It’s important to mention that there’s no guarantee that Watson would head to either of these places, just like there’s no guarantee that the Texans opt to move on from him. If he they do, though, and Watson has his way, the Buffalo Bills, New England Patriots, and one of the Dolphins or Jets might end up having one heck of a problem on their hands twice a year.