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Bad news, Verzuz fans. After previously postponing the upcoming Ashanti Vs. Keyshia Cole battle, the show announced it again pushed back their upcoming appearance out of COVID-19 safety concerns. In a statement posted to the Verzuz social channels, the organizers also revealed the show would be returning to its original format, with each artist calling into the live stream from a separate location after the most recent handful of shows saw the battles being staged at places like Atlanta’s Magic City and various studios.

For some fans in the comments, that’s good news. After all, Verzuz was initially sparked by the search for communal entertainment during the socially isolated shutdowns, with the artists taking turns playing their favorite hits for an appreciative digital audience. However, corporate sponsorships eventually led to more elaborate presentations beginning with the May Bounty Killer Vs. Beenie Man show. Since then, DMX and Snoop Dogg, 2 Chainz and Rick Ross, Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle, Brandy and Monica, and E-40 and Too Short have all appeared in the same room. The crowning achievement of the new format was the battle between Gucci Mane and Jeezy, which saw the two rivals come together for the first time in a decade to perform their hit song “So Icy.”

However, such events drew criticism from longtime fans who pointed out the increased risk of infection of stars. That point was hammered home in December when Ashanti’s COVID diagnosis caused her showdown with Keyshia Cole to be postponed the first time. It appears that after COVID cases rose precipitously, shutting down new hospital admissions in cities like Los Angeles, the Verzuz organizers aren’t taking any more chances with the lives of our musical legends.

We have known for over two months now that Hilarie Burton — the real-life wife of Jeffrey Dean Morgan — would be playing the fictional wife, Lucille, of Morgan’s fictional character, Negan, on The Walking Dead. Burton, who met Morgan through his Supernatural co-star Jensen Ackles, will be featured in an episode adapted from “Here’s Negan,” based on a stand-alone issue of Robert Kirkman’s comic tracking the character’s origin story.

Before the apocalypse, Negan was a middle-school gym teacher who cheated on his wife. However, after his wife, Lucille, was diagnosed with cancer, Negan redoubled his efforts to be the best husband he could. Unfortunately, Lucille’s death from cancer coincided with the rise of the zombies in a particularly tragic way, which may partially explain Negan’s behavior on The Walking Dead. He did, after all, name his deadly baseball bat after his late wife.

In the video above, we see Burton and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (among other cast members) conducting a virtual table read for the episode, “Here’s Negan.” In that episode, a newly reformed Negan reflects on his past. The episode will take us back 12 years to Negan’s basement, where he and his dying wife try to decide on a James Bond DVD and figure out whether to kill a walker drawn to their generator.

“It’s not like killing a person, babe,” Lucille tells him. “It’s not even like killing an animal. You have to stop letting it bother you.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Negan says. “It doesn’t bother me, but I’m worried that I’ll get used to it.”

As we know, of course, Negan gets more than used to killing not only walkers, but humans, too.

The episode will air as part of the 6-episode extension of the series’ 10th season, which will kick off on AMC on February 28th.

Run The Jewels worked with a number of artists on RTJ4, on both the album itself and on remixes they’ve released after the fact. Last month, for example, they teamed up with Royal Blood on an aggressive rework of “The Ground Below,” and now they’ve brought another collaborator into the fold. This time, it’s Australian producer What So Not (real name Christopher Emerson), who delivered a new take on the Pharrell and Zack De La Rocha collaboration “Ju$t.”

Interestingly, it appears this version of the song didn’t begin its life as an officially sanctioned production. In a statement about the track, Emerson said, “Starting as a bootleg, I was honoured to get the nod to put this record out, not only with RTJ, but also my childhood heroes Zack and Pharrell.” It would seem, then, that Emerson made the remix on his own volition, then El-P and Killer Mike caught wind of it and liked it enough to make it an official release.

El-P shared the remix this morning, writing on Twitter, “i dont know how i missed that this dropped already but here is the very [fire] official remix of JU$T by @WhatSoNot. guess when you’re busing watching the death of a republic one can forget to self promote [shrugging emoji].”

Listen to What So Not’s remix of “Ju$t” above.

As Tracy Chapman’s copyright infringement lawsuit against Nicki Minaj came to a close, the two sides apparently came to a settlement without going to court. Nicki agreed to pay Chapman $450,000 for her unlicensed sample of “Baby Can I Hold You” in the leaked song “Sorry,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. In September, U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips determined that Nicki had a fair use right to use “Baby Can I Hold You” to create “Sorry,” but not to distribute it, setting up a separate trial to determine responsibility for the leak.

On Thursday, California court documents became public revealing the results of the judgment, which nixes the second trial. Chapman agreed to accept the settlement amount, avoiding trial costs should the trial have fallen in Nicki’s favor. Chapman initially sued the rapper in 2018, after blocking her clearance request for “Sorry” ahead of the release of Nicki’s fourth studio album Queen. Incidentally, Nicki’s revelation that Chapman had denied her request led to a days-long campaign of social media harassment from her Barbz, which probably didn’t help her case much.

Although the song was ultimately removed from the Queen tracklist, someone leaked it online and Funkmaster Flex played the leak on the radio, prompting Chapman’s lawsuit to block it from official release or public performances. Now that this case is in her rearview, though, Nicki still faces other legal issues. Earlier this week, TMZ reported Nicki had been sued for $200 million by another Queens rapper claiming that he’d written the entirety of her song “Rich Sex.”

After the now-infamous picture of Senator Josh Hawley fist-pumping the throng of Donald Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol building, and his continued dedication to their cause by attempting to overturn the 2020 election results even after violent assault, Simon and Schuster canceled Hawley’s book The Tyranny of Big Tech that was due out in June. “We take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom,” the publisher wrote in a statement.

Less than an hour after the news hit, Hawley fired back at Simon and Schuster by calling them part of the “woke mob” and labeling their decision as “Orwellian” in a statement on Twitter. “Let me just be clear, this is not just a contract dispute. This is a direct assault on the first amendment.” While numerous voices on social media noted that Hawley has a law degree from Yale and should be well aware that book deals are not covered by the first amendment, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went right to the point and blasted Hawley for being more concerned with a book deal than inciting a norm-shattering assault on democracy that left five people dead. AOC also echoed calls for Hawley’s expulsion from the Senate.

“You fist-pumped insurrectionists and baselessly attacked our elections,” AOC tweeted. “Your actions fueled a riot and you fundraised in the chaos. Five people are dead. Even your GOP colleagues have distanced from your acts. Yet here you are crying over a book deal. You should be expelled.”

You can see AOC’s tweet below:

In related news, former U.S. Sen. John C. Danforth is now regretting his past act of helping to get Josh Hawley elected. In an interview with the St. Louis Dispatch, Danforth said, “Supporting Josh and trying so hard to get him elected to the Senate was the worst mistake I ever made in my life.”

(Via Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter)

Florida’s Marco Rubio might be the most talented senator out there when it comes to self-owning on Twitter. He’s been dragged on many occasions, including his complaint that the gun control debate has “infected” the younger generation, for “honoring” the late John Lewis with a photo of Elijah Cummings, and for pearl-clutching over an incoming Biden staffer calling the GOP “f*ckers.” Well, people realized that Rubio is, in fact, upset about negative replies when he shut them off earlier this week. He was blasted as “spineless” for doing it, so he reactivated his replies on Friday and was immediately dragged over what he posted about the MAGA coup.

One can hardly be surprised at a few things here: (1) An elected official limiting the ways that people (including his own constituents) can talk to him is not a great look, so people were prone to pounce on him once they could reply; (2) The content of the video Rubio posted is antagonistic, even though Rubio maintains a calm demeanor during his 4-minute speech. He denounced the riot at the Capitol but didn’t call out Trump or colleagues Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. Instead, Rubio decried a “double standard” in how the left is allowed to protest, so he’s refusing to see the difference between protests and a riot that left five people, including a police officer, dead. He also blamed the media, along with “political correctness and social media censorship and identity politics and this cult of wokeness.” And he called for reflection while noting that the GOP’s in a deflated state in 2021:

“For those of us on the center right of American politics, now is the time that calls for honest reflection. It wasn’t long ago that we controlled the House, the Senate, and and four years later, we’ve lost all three. We need to reflect on why this is happening. Because this country needs a viable and attractive alternative to the agenda of the radical left.”

The video did not go over well. After only one hour, Rubio got ratio’ed, meaning that people had piled on with a greater number of replies than likes or retweets.

Rubio’s “meditation” on the state of the GOP clearly missed its mark. Actually, it’s not clear where he was aiming, since people are extremely upset with his inability to recognize that BLM protests go quite differently than MAGA coup attempts. And some are calling for Rubio to resign after enabling Trump for four years.

Rubio will be up for U.S. Senate reelection in 2022.

A few weeks ago, a Miley Cyrus song called “Mary Jane” leaked, and now she has shared the whole thing. It turns out the tune, an emotional ballad that features production from Mike Will Made-It, is called “Mary Jane 5EVR” and is about the death of Cyrus’ dog, the titular Mary Jane.

Cyrus posted the track on Instagram and set it to a gallery of photos of Mary Jane. She captioned her post, “I wrote this song in Malibu years ago on a piano in a house that no longer exists. About my dog Mary Jane who is also gone now. A lot has changed over time. Mostly me. Music is my medicine. This song revolves around loss & heartache. Which I am currently experiencing after Mary Jane’s passing. MJ was a true queen. She wore her grace, dignity & kindness like a crown. She will never be forgotten and will forever be missed. To know her is to love her. It has been my honor being her mom and best friend.”

This actually isn’t the first song Cyrus has written about a deceased pet. On “Pablow The Blowfish,” from her 2015 album Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, she sings of the titular water-dweller, “How can I love someone I never touched? / You lived under the water, but I love you so much / You never been on land, and you never seen the sky / You don’t know what a cloud is / Why does everything I love have to die?”

Listen to “Mary Jane 5EVR” above.

After a long year, 2021 is finally here, bringing with it new episodes of Indiecast. To kick off the first episode of the new year, Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen are discussing musical trends that took hold in the 2010’s that might begin to fade out as we settle into the 2020’s. It’s impossible to predict what the next decade is going to look like, musically, but we can only hope that it will be something genuinely new and exciting.

Before Hyden and Cohen dig in for a typical episode of news, reviews, and more, the duo want to take some time to declare their New Year’s Resolutions. In this week’s episode, Hyden and Cohen are digging through the things they want to see more of (and less of) in 2021, upcoming new albums from The War On Drugs, Father John Misty, Foxing, The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, and more.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Hyden has been enjoying At The Moonbase, the surprise new album from Slaughter Beach, Dog. Cohen, on the other hand, can’t get enough of the band Curve.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 21 on Apple Podcasts and Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. Stay up to date and follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

If asked which ’90s syndicated series I would rather watch, Xena: Warrior Princess or Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, I will always pick Xena, especially now that Hercules star Kevin Sorbo has revealed himself to be a far-right conspiracy nut and Xena‘s Lucy Lawless is, well, she’s Lucy Lawless. She rules! The two actors virtually reunited, sort of (what is this, a crossover episode?), this week when Lawless corrected Sorbo after he tweeted nonsense about how it was antifa who broke into the Capitol, not MAGA rioters.

About that:

The conspiracy theory comes from the conservative Washington Times, which published an article on Wednesday claiming a facial recognition software company identified left-wing agitators in the frenzied terrorist mob. The only problem? The company referenced in the story says the Washington Times made it up and issued a cease-and-desist order against the publication. The Washington Times then unpublished the article.

But that didn’t stop Sorbo from sharing the theory that the Trump-loving goons in this photo are actually “Leftist agitators disguised as Trump supporters,” adding, “They don’t look like patriots to me…” That’s because they’re not, Lawless responded. “They are not Patriots, They are your flying monkeys, homegrown terrorists, QAnon actors,” she wrote. “They are the douchebags that go out and do the evil bidding of people like you who like to wind them up like toys and let them do their worst.” Lawless, who referred to Sorbo as “Peanut,” added the hashtags #keepingYourFilthyHandsclean and #enabler.

This GIF feels appropriate:

While The Weeknd was understandably peeved about not securing any Grammy nominations for this year, he’s getting ready to do something that no other Grammy nominee will do in 2021: headline the Super Bowl halftime show. The big game is set to go down on February 7, and ahead of then, The Weeknd has teamed with Pepsi (the sponsor of the halftime show) for a new ad to get fans hyped about the performance.

The 60-second spot shows people at home and in various other everyday environments singing along to “Blinding Lights.” It ends with The Weeknd himself pulling up to a toll gate, much to the surprise of the employee in the booth. Variety notes this is “the first time the musician at the center of the [halftime show] has taken part in a Pepsi ad campaign in advance of the effort.”

Meanwhile, Pepsi also revealed that they have decided to not air any ads for their flagship drink during the big game this year (that’s not to say that other PepsiCo brands like Gatorade and Doritos won’t have a commercial presence).

Todd Kaplan, Pepsi’s vice president of marketing, told Variety, “We are going to double down on our existing 12 minutes in the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show in the middle of the Super Bowl, and we are going to build it out like we have never built it out before.” He said that while Super Bowl advertisers “are talking and fighting for 30 seconds” of attention, Pepsi wants “to focus our efforts on making [the halftime show] a critical moment for the brand.” Kaplan also said of the game and halftime show, “There is a desire for a bit of escapism and surface-level entertainment, not being constantly reminded [of the pandemic]. We think that’s the role that sports and music play for us, providing that sense of normalcy.”

Check out the new ad above.