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Jay-Z has sold half his Armand de Brignac champagne brand — aka Ace Of Spades — to LVMH’s Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, according to The Wall Street Journal. LVMH bought a 50% stake in the emerging brand to help grow Armand de Brignac with the help of LVMH’s global distribution network but no specific figures were given in the report.

Jay told The Wall Street Journal that his end of the move was motivated by the growth of his brand past the expectations and expertise it already had. “We were working really hard to maintain a brand that was growing faster than the staff we had and bigger than some of the expertise we had,” he said. “We’d been in this 15 years, not a hundred.”

He also noted that while global champagne sales are experiencing a downturn due to the pandemic, the timing is better now that luxury brands have become more comfortable working with artists whose roots are in hip-hop. The story specifically cites Rihanna’s Fenty brands with LVMH, which has plans to expand her Savage X Fenty line despite closing their joint luxury fashion house, and Gucci Mane, who recently worked with his namesake brand. As Jay said, “People have come to accept that these two worlds are a natural fit. In the beginning, it wasn’t a natural fit.”

Jay invested in Armand de Brignac in 2006 after an executive at Cristal’s parent company wondered whether the brand was being harmed by constant name-checking in hip-hop. It didn’t take long for hip-hop to turn on Cristal, and Jay eventually bought out his partners in 2014. Now, LVMH hopes that the association with hip-hop will provide a cool factor that’ll bring new consumers to the market and grow the segment as the market recovers.

You can read the full story here.

Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.

This week saw a Taylor Swift/Haim reunion and Ariana Grande expanding her latest beloved album. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.

Haim — “Gasoline” Feat. Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift and Haim have a healthy professional relationship, which they extended last week with a Swift-featuring version of “Gasoline.” The collaboration was enough for Swift to proclaim herself the fourth Haim sister, so she has apparently snatched the title from Bernie Sanders.

Ariana Grande — Positions (Deluxe)

Deluxe editions of albums took on a new level of prominence in 2020 and Grande is keeping that going in 2021 with an expanded release of her own. Grande’s new deluxe version of Positions adds five new tracks, including her star-studded remix of “34+35” that features Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion.

Wild Pink — A Billion Little Lights

The band’s John Ross recently spoke with Uproxx about his new album, saying of the just-released effort, “I wanted to have something very lush and just bigger than anything that I’d done before. And I got to play with amazing players, that was my favorite part.”

The Hold Steady — Open Door Policy

The veteran indie rockers recently sat down with Uproxx to review all of their albums, and Craig Finn told us of his band’s latest, “I’m super excited about it, but I’ve struggled to tell people what’s different about it. I think there’s been a continuation of figuring out this six-piece line-up and where everything goes and I think that that’s a huge part of the story. It’s allowed us to be more expansive musically than maybe we have in the past. There’s maybe a little bit more of headphone moments. There’s this weird scraping of guitars, some weird little noises that brought something we haven’t done before.”

Another Michael — New Music And Big Pop

Another Michael’s Nick Sebastiano recently told Uproxx of the band’s free-wheeling new album, “I look back upon it as one work that’s like a big pizza: One song was like the cheese, another song was like the bread. And then we only saw it as that for a while.”

Kaytranada — “Caution”

Kaytranada and TikTok linked up to celebrate Black History Month with the groovy new single “Caution.” Elsewhere this month, TikTok is also set to drop a cover of 1971 gospel song “Like A Ship” by Leon Bridges, as well as a live concert featuring Saweetie, Snoop Dogg, and Tyga.

Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats — “So.Incredible (Robert Glasper Version)” Feat. Smino

Curry and Beats highlighted 2020 with their collaborative project Unlocked, and now they’re getting ready to expand upon that effort for 2021. This year will bring a reworked version of the album titled Unlocked 1.5, which they previewed with a new version of “So.Incredible” with Smino and Robert Glasper.

CJ — Loyalty Over Royalty

Staten Island rapper CJ got a major taste of music industry success recently when his single “Whoopty” managed to crack the top ten of the Hot 100 chart. Now he’s dropped his debut project and he builds on his momentum by going at it totally feature-free save for a guest spot from French Montana.

Conan Gray — “Overdrive”

After a breakout 2020, Conan Gray has re-emerged in 2021 with “Overdrive.” Uproxx’s Caitlin White described the track well, calling it “classic, blockbuster pop with huge guitar riffs, soaring vocals, and the kind of chorus that makes you want to roll the windows down and scream it out into the night.”

Coi Leray — “No More Parties” Feat. Lil Durk

Lil Durk’s latest guest spot is on Coi Leray’s “No More Parties,” which mirrors the similarly titled Kanye West track. This is just the latest collaboration for Durk, as he and Kehlani had a song together earlier this month and he may be working on a full album with Lil Baby.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

This morning, the music world was met with the unexpected news of Daft Punk’s break-up. The duo was a monumentally influential force in electronic music and beyond, so there has been a massive outpouring of appreciation for the group from their peers today.

Porter Robinson wrote, “thinking about how every stage of my life would have gone so differently if it weren’t for Daft Punk.” He then added, “thinking about being 11 and exploring limewire, searching ‘daft punk music videos’ and seeing interstella 5555 piece by piece. seeing that fusion of electronic music and anime for the very first time . haahhhhhhghj damn i am crying”

Strand Of Oaks (aka Timothy Showalter) noted of the duo’s influence on him, “For a young kid with an inexplicable love of synths and dance music in rural Indiana Daft Punk changed absolutely everything for me.”

Tokimonsta hopes this is all a joke, tweeting, “[crying emoji] i hope daft punk is playing us all and makes an epic come back.”

Meanwhile, some other folks are dealing with the pain through humor. Journalist Josh Terry wrote, “daft punk not doing their job for eight years and then announcing they quit is aspirational.” Writer Charles Soule also noted, “In a shocking twist, the band that wore masks for thirty years doesn’t make it through the pandemic.” Elsewhere, journalist Josiah Hughes suggested that The Chainsmokers don the Daft Punk helmets and continue the legacy.

Check out some more reactions below.

Last Friday’s episode of WandaVision had a Happy Endings homage, but will the series itself have a happy ending? Chances are not good (I say this as someone with little knowledge of the comics that inspired the show). WandaVision is about grief, and shows about grief rarely wrap up in a neat little package. (It’s actually a show about a magical witch who resurrects her dead android husband after a giant purple guy goes back in time to rip a stone out of his forehead, but you get the idea.) But Marvel Comics legend Chris Claremont, who’s responsible for both “The Dark Phoenix Saga” and “Days of Future Past” storylines (one movie adaptation is better than the other), pitched an ending for Wanda and Vision on his Facebook page, and it’s happier than you might expect.

“I am hooked on WandaVision. I like the stories, the characters, the works. Of course that means I’m (dang it) fully invested in the characters. And being of a ‘certain’ age, I’ve read all the history, not to mention written a part of it myself. Problem is, I really like Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen; heck, I even like Evan Peters, the ‘Pietro’ from another film franchise. I even like the kids! I *know* how the original story ends and I really want Kevin (Fiegy) and his idea crew to find a happier outcome,” he wrote (the “even” before “like Evan Peters” is killing me) before getting to his idea:

Why not let Vision and Wanda be the Marvel omniverse poster-parents, allowing Reed & Sue (of the FF) to chart a more exciting-adventurous-full of surprises course through Marvel Cinema History? Doesn’t mean they won’t be available for cameos; even better, it leaves their kids open to establish film-franchises of their own. C’mon, Hollywood guys-&-gals: I write core source material for your franchises; hell, the argument can be made that without the X-Men, yada-yada-yada! if *I* can figure out a happy ending, why not you?

Claremont added that the “last few years have been too damn screwed-up,” so it’s “time for y’all to come save the collective day. And for WandaVision to have a Happy Ending!” That’s one way of inserting the Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is going to happen eventually. Maybe it will be on WandaVision. And who should get the credit for the MCU debut of Reed Richards and Sue Storm?

(Via ScreenRant and Facebook)

Over the weekend, DaBaby and Jojo Siwa trended on Twitter as music fans were baffled by the rapper’s reference to the teen pop star in his freestyle over SpotEmGottem’s viral hit “Beat Box.” The lyric in question revived the once-popular hashtag punchline style — always a dangerous proposition, considering even Ludacris still hasn’t recovered from that same lyrical faux pas — to diss an imagined rival. However, the wording seemingly left his meaning ambiguous enough that some fans believed he was dissing the colorful young singer, prompting a flurry of dismayed memes and comparisons between the two entertainers.

Eventually, DaBaby himself entered the discussion to clear the air, calling the whole incident a misunderstanding by fans. “I love Twitter bruh,” he joked in a tweet responding to the frenzy. He further elaborated in a tweet directed to Siwa herself, “My 3-year-old princess is your number 1 fan. I bought her every product you have out. She think she you. Don’t let em trick you into thinking id ever have a problem with you. My word play just went over their heads. All love on my end shawty, Keep shining!”

He also leveraged “Siwa” into a homonym for another joke. “I don’t ‘Siwa’ they so mad,” DaBaby cracked. Now, that’s wordplay, even if it is cheesy. It probably won’t stop Twitter from coming after him again — after all, it’s become something of a pastime on the app, with users criticizing him for working with Tory Lanez (pre-Megan Thee Stallion shooting), performing during the pandemic, and even showing off his lunch (from Chick-Fil-A, after it was revealed that the chain’s owners had donated to some questionable organizations). It’s fortunate he seems to know how to take it all in stride.

Despite the fact that Marvel’s Eternals is complete and was supposed to premiere back in November 2020, audiences have seen very little of the mysterious film that will introduce a new brand of superhero to the MCU. Much like Guardians of the Galaxy before it became a blockbuster franchise, Eternals is based on one of Marvel’s more obscure titles that focuses on a group of immortal heroes who were created by omnipotent aliens to protect the Earth. Things will reportedly go awry in the film when the Eternals are forced to contend with Deviants, which are exactly as they sound: beings who were meant to be Eternals, but didn’t come out quite right. In fact, Marvel audiences have already seen a Deviant in the Marvel Universe, and he was a force to be reckoned with. A little guy by the name of Thanos.

However, while the Marvel films have a standard feel to them, Eternals director Chloe Zhao has opened up about the interesting creative choices she was allowed to make while bringing the obscure team to life, and how her inspiration for action scenes was The Revenant starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which is a pretty out of left field choice for a superhero epic. Via The Playlist:

But I think for the action sequences, which I just had such a great time working on with such a great team, I wanted to reference “The Revenant” a lot. “The Revenant” is a film that I love so much. And I think we’ve watched “The Revenant” so many times, every meeting when we come to our action sequences because most of those sequences are shot on location. And I love how immersive and the way how you feel the dash and sequences in “The Revenant.” It’s definitely a film that we aspire to. And Marvel really, really supported that idea and really went for it.

Thanks to the pandemic schedule shift, Eternals is now arriving after WandaVision, which wasn’t the plan. While that show is breaking the Marvel mold with its unusual sitcom approach, Zhao loves the pressure that it puts on Eternals and how it shows Marvel’s dedication to finding the “right style for right story.”

(Via The Playlist)

Back in 1993, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter came together to form Daft Punk. Now, 28 years later, the duo has officially broken up. Daft Punk is no more.

The band shared the news with an 8-minute video titled “Epilogue.” In the video (an excerpt from their 2006 film Electroma), the duo walks in an open field. They stop, at which point one member prompts the other to engage an explosive device on him. After the timer counts down, he blows up. A message on screen then reads, “1993-2021.”

Furthermore, the duo’s longtime publicist Kathryn Frazier confirmed the news to Pitchfork while offering no reason for the breakup.

Daft Punk leaves behind an indelible legacy. The duo, a defining act in electronic music, released their debut album, Homework, in 1997. That was followed by Discovery in 2001, Human After All in 2005, and Random Access Memories in 2013. The latter album was the group’s first No. 1 release in the US. They also released two live albums, Alive 1997 and Alive 2007, and they provided the soundtrack for the 2010 film Tron: Legacy.

The band’s highest-charting single as a lead artist in the US was “Get Lucky,” a Pharrell Williams-featuring Random Access Memories highlight that peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100 chart in 2013. They also featured on The Weeknd’s singles “Starboy,” which topped the charts, and “I Feel It Coming,” which peaked at No. 4.

Watch the “Epilogue” video above.

This post is being updated.

Over the past couple months, it has seemed like Bobby Shmurda’s release from prison is imminent. He was originally scheduled to get out this December, but the prison staff’s Time Allowance Committee decided to potentially bump up his release date to February 23. Rowdy Rebel ramped up more excitement on that front last week by declaring that Shmurda would be free in a matter of days. Sure enough, it now appears that Shmurda will in fact be released from prison tomorrow.

This morning, journalist Jayson Rodriguez shared New York City records that indicate the rapper’s conditional release date is set for tomorrow, February 23. Last night, Shmurda also got fans buzzing by sharing a 5-minute clip from the film King Of New York, in which Christopher Walken’s character is released from prison and then celebrates his freedom. Shmurda captioned his post, “How the fuc y’all forget about me.”

Shmurda has been in prison since 2014. In December of that year, he and multiple others were arrested on gun and drug trafficking charges. Naturally, his musical output his been limited since then, although not non-existent: In 2018, he featured on Tekashi 69’s “Stoopid,” recording his verse over the phone.

It appears music is where the rapper’s focus will be once his is free: His mother, Leslie Pollard, told TMZ that once Shmurda is out, he wants to enjoy an “intimate dinner” with his family. After that, he apparently intends to spend most of his time working on music.

About a month ago, Mike Lindell (a.k.a., “The MyPillow Guy”) flat-out pleaded with Dominion Voting Systems to sue him over spouting his false QAnon conspiracies about the 2020 election. After some lead-up in that department, he finally got what he wanted: a $1.3 billion lawsuit to match those of his MAGA pals, kooky Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

Previously, Lindell appeared on the Victory Channel’s Flashpoint to brag about how little fear he felt while inviting the mega-lawsuit. “Please sue me, Dominion… it’s like the old mafia days when I used to bet football,” Lindell declared. He made the brag after receiving a cease-and-desist letter (as a precursor to a lawsuit over his false and damaging claims to the company), but Lindell doesn’t seem to care. Apparently, Lindell’s nutty “documentary” about the election is what pushed Dominion over the edge to sue the Trump-backing trinity. From Wall Street Journal:

The complaint alleges that Mr. Lindell made false claims about the integrity of Dominion’s voting machines and that he knew no credible evidence supported his claims that the company had stolen the election from Mr. Trump—what Dominion has called the “Big Lie.”

“He is well aware of the independent audits and paper ballot recounts conclusively disproving the Big Lie,” the complaint states. “But Lindell…sells the lie to this day because the lie sells pillows.”

Most people would not be pleased to be sued, but Lindell appears to be, uh, thrilled? Yes. WSJ contacted Lindell with news of the lawsuit, and he declared that he is “very, very happy” with the development. “I have all the evidence on them,” he added. “Now this will get disclosed faster, all the machine fraud and the attack on our country.” Well, dreams do come true? It sure sounds like Lindell’s dream is about to turn into a nightmare, and he can’t even tweet about these developments as they happen. There’s no further word on his lawsuit against Daily Mail over those Jane Krakowski dating rumors either, but for now, Lindell should stay pretty occupied with the Dominion business.

(Via Wall Street Journal)

More details are emerging from Ted Cruz’s trip to Cancun last week.

The senator deserted Texas (and his dog, Snowflake) during a historic winter storm that left millions without electricity in order to be a “good dad” to his daughters, ages 10 and 12. Cruz claimed that he always intended to fly down to Mexico on Wednesday and return the next day, but that obvious lie was exposed by his luggage, as well as an American hero leaking his wife Heidi’s group chats. “Anyone can or want to leave for the week?” she texted to friends. “We may go to Cancún.” It has also been revealed that Cruz invited a college friend on the trip, a totally normal thing for someone to do while escorting his kids to a foreign country during a once-in-a-generation storm.

Axios reports that Cruz “invited David Panton, his longtime friend and former roommate at Princeton and Harvard Law, to join the family getaway. An aide tells Axios the senator extended the invitation only after the Cruz family planned the vacation last Tuesday. Panton accepted, and flew to Mexico.” When Cruz left with his tail between his legs, Panton stayed at the Ritz-Carlton. Panton, whose Twitter bio reads that he’s a “proud graduate of @Princeton @Harvard Law & @UniofOxford that now seeks to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs,” defended Cruz’s character to the New York Times in 2016. “The media has caricatured Ted as this one-dimensional, hard-core guy,” he said. “Ted is principled, but he is actually a good guy and was a great friend to me.”

Get yourself a great friend like Ted Cruz, who risks his political future for a week away with his college best friend. Chernobyl showrunner Craig Mazin was not invited.

(Via Axios)