The 2020 BET Hip-Hop Awards were last night, and the event yielded plenty of highlights, including a bunch of cyphers. The hip-hop community lost a pair of rising stars over the past year, so Juice WRLD and Pop Smoke also received some tributes during the show.
Cordae, Lil Bibby, and G Herbo took a brief moment to discuss Juice in a pre-taped segment. Cordae said of the late rapper, “That was really my brother. That’s somebody I can have like, real life, genuine conversations with.” Bibby — an executive at Grade A Productions, the label Juice was signed to — noted how transparent Juice was about his flaws, adding, “That’s why he got the love that he did.” Herbo also said, “What he left was enough to stay with us for a lifetime.” At the end of the segment, BET took a moment to recognize some other rappers who passed away recently: 5th Ward Webbie, ASAP Snacks, Fred The Godson, and Malik B.
Elsewhere during the show, Quavo honored Pop Smoke with a performance. He did two of their collaborations, “Shake The Room” from Meet The Woo 2 and “Aim For The Moon” from Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon. One of the cyphers was also a tribute to Smoke, as Flo Milli, Buddy, Deante’ Hitchcock, and Ade rapped over the “Dior” instrumental.
On the evening of Oct. 15, the Los Angeles Dodgers trailed the Atlanta Braves by a 3-1 margin in the NLCS, leaving many to lament the likelihood that baseball’s best team could again fall short of a World Series crown. After three straight wins to upend the Braves and three wins in five chances against the Tampa Bay Rays, Mookie Betts and the Dodgers entered Tuesday’s Game 6 with the chance to win the title for the first time since 1988.
While it wasn’t a dominant, wire-to-wire victory, the Dodgers benefitted from a controversial managerial decision and, with the help of Betts, Julio Urias, and others, Dave Roberts’ team picked up a 3-1 win to bring the championship back to Los Angeles.
The evening actually began in positive fashion for the Rays, with Randy Arozarena hitting his third home run of the World Series and tenth home run of the postseason to give Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead in the first inning.
From there, the Rays were in strong position, with Blake Snell dominating on the mound. That continued until Snell allowed a 1-out single to Austin Barnes in the bottom of the sixth inning, prompting the decision that will be remembered in Tampa Bay for a long time.
Though Snell had thrown only 73 pitches on the way to nine strikeouts and 5.1 scoreless innings, Rays manager Kevin Cash elected to go to the bullpen and inserted Nick Anderson. While Tampa Bay excelled with similar tactics throughout the 2020 season, namely in avoiding starting pitchers facing the opposition for a third time through the order, the decision came back to bite Cash in short order.
Anderson, who has struggled during the playoffs after a fantastic showing in the regular season, promptly allowed a double to Betts, putting a pair of runners in scoring position. Then, he uncorked a wild pitch to allow the Dodgers to tie the game and, seconds later, Betts crossed the plate on a fielder’s choice to give Los Angeles a 2-1 lead.
Finally, Julio Urias capped off the win with 2.1 perfect innings, striking out four batters and mowing down the Rays lineup. As such, Tampa Bay never threatened in terms of a comeback bid, and the Dodgers emerged victorious.
Later, the story turned to a positive COVID-19 test for Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner and many questions about how the situation was handled, with Turner removed from action during the game itself. Still, the celebration continued for the Dodgers and, with a managerial choice that will linger in the minds of neutral observers and star power carrying the day for Los Angeles, the team with the best roster ultimately won the 2020 World Series to cap off a bizarre baseball season.
UPDATE: Jeff Passan of ESPN provided some details of what happened. Apparently, the Dodgers learned that Turner’s test from Monday came back inconclusive during the second inning of Game 6, at which point his test from Tuesday was run. That came back in the eighth inning, and the rest played out as you’d expect.
In the second inning tonight, the lab doing COVID tests informed MLB that Justin Turner’s test from yesterday came back inconclusive. The samples from today had just arrived and were run. It showed up positive. The league immediately called the Dodgers and said to pull Turner.
Passan reports that the Dodgers will undergo a full testing regiment upon returning to their hotel, and it is unclear if they will fly back to Los Angeles or stay in Dallas for the time being.
When the Dodgers return to their hotel tonight, everybody will be given a rapid PCR test. On the field right now, as they celebrate, the Dodgers are wearing masks. Unclear as to whether they’ll stay in Dallas area before traveling back to Los Angeles. Situation fluid right now.
Again, it’s unclear exactly what took so long to run Monday’s tests, why Turner stayed in despite an inconclusive result, and what the next few days will end up looking like for the World Series winners.
EARLIER: The Los Angeles Dodgers won Game 6 of the World Series on Tuesday evening, taking home the seventh title in the franchise’s decorated history. In the immediate aftermath of the game, a 3-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays, a bit of news was announced that served as a sobering reminder of the current situation facing the world amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Dodgers pulled infielder Justin Turner from the game at the top of the eighth inning, replacing him with Kiké Hernandez. The substitution was not explained at the time, and it was presumably for defensive purposes with the team trying to protect a lead. But after the game, Kevin Burkhardt of Fox Sports revealed that Turner tested positive for COVID-19, and as a result, he was pulled.
“After the completion of the game tonight, we were informed by MLB that Justin Turner received a positive COVID test and that’s why he was removed from the game.” pic.twitter.com/EOxcMlNs5R
Obviously the No. 1 concern is that Turner is able to stay safe and healthy, as he’s caught the virus that has recorded nearly nine million confirmed cases in the United States. From there, the priority is making sure that everyone else that is in the Dodgers’ dugout remains safe and virus-free, as most (if not all) of them presumably had some amount of close interaction with Turner in recent days.
The question that exists right now, of course, is how on earth a baseball player was allowed to play seven full innings of a game before the result of their test became official. Hopefully Major League Baseball is able to provide more information on this as soon as possible.
Led by the hilarious hosting talents that are The 85 South Show’s DC Young Fly, Karlous Miller, and Chico Bean, the BET Hip-Hop Awards unveiled a night filled with entertainment from not only from the hosts but the trademark hip-hop cyphers as well. The night began with the Political Cypher from Polo G, Jack Harlow, Rapsody, Chika, and Flawless RI over NWA’s “F*ck Tha Police.” Shortly after Flo Milli, Buddy, Deante Hitchcock, and Ade appeared to lay off some freestyles of their own with their Hot New Crew Cypher. Changing things up just a little bit to close out the show, Teyana Taylor, HER, Erykah Badu, and Brandy took the stage to dropped some R&B bars of their own in the Ladies First Cypher.
The ladies took on Brandy’s 1994 track, “I Wanna Get Down,” and put down some of their smoothest bars to close out the award show. Teyana led the way before HER stepped forward to continue the cypher, Erykah went next, and Brandy came through with a freestyle over her own track to close out the cypher. Their BET Hip-Hop Award appearance comes in the midst of a productive year for the four singers. Teyana shared her third full-length project, The Album, as did Brandy who released her first album in almost eight years with B7. She, along with Erykah, also participated in Verzuz battles this year, facing Monica and Jill Scott respectively in what were tow of the most popular Verzuz of the year. Last but certainly not least, HER has been hard at work on her debut album this year. However, she’s made the wait easy thanks to a string of singles that includes “Damage,” “Hold On,” and “I Can’t Breathe.”
Despite the fact that people have been voting for weeks now, Election Day is just one week away. Ahead of the face off between Republican incumbent Donald Trump, Democratic challenger Joe Biden, and a collection of third party candidates, two of the NBA’s most vocal Trump critics came together to create a video endorsing Biden.
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr and recently-hired Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers teamed up with the Lincoln Project — a group of former Republicans who have come together with a stated goal to beat Trump — to make the case for voting for the former vice president. While the Lincoln Project has attracted a number of detractors for the about-face done by a collection of its members, many of whom were GOP power players over the years, Kerr and Rivers opted to align with them to get their message out.
“What do you stand for?” Rivers asks. “Because the answers should be simple.” After this, Kerr proclaims that “a vote for Donald Trump is a vote against the very ideals upon which our democracy was founded.”
Kerr has been one of the league’s most vocal critics of Trump, oftentimes excoriating the president on social media and in press availabilities. Rivers, meanwhile, has picked his spots, but gave an impassioned answer about race in America in which he criticized the president during the NBA’s Orlando Bubble.
The 2020 BET Hip-Hop Awards returned and if there’s anything you know about the celebrated award show, it’s that the trademark cyphers are back with the hope of impressing viewers with some of today’s best talent in hip-hop. To kick off the show, Polo G, Jack Harlow, Rapsody, Chika, and Flawless RI joined forces for a collection of freestyles over NWA’s “F*ck Tha Police.” For the second cypher of the night, Flo Milli, Buddy, Deante Hitchcock, and Ade came together to honor Pop Smoke with freestyles of their own over the late rapper’s “Dior” instrumental. With their individual freestyles, he “Hot New Crew Cypher” quartet successfully proved why they are some of today’s hottest names in music.
Every member of the “Hot New Crew Cypher” shared a project this year, making their BET award show appearance a great look towards their individual careers. Flo Milli wowed the industry with her debut project, Ho, Why Is You Here?, back in July while Deante Hitchcock showed his growth with his debut album, Better in May. Ade opted for an EP instead of an album this year with his Wyd After? effort which also arrived in May. As for Buddy, while the Compton native is currently prepping his upcoming album, his own 2020 project came in the form of his Janktape, Vol. 1 joint effort with Kent Jamz.
Sure, Disney+ has an exciting slate of Marvel spin-off series coming to the streaming platform in the next few years, but you shouldn’t sleep on the shows available right now. From Jon Favreau’s widely-acclaimed Star Wars spin-off to the entirety of The Simpsons catalog and a few vintage after-school entries, there’s plenty of shows worth binging while we wait for that Loki solo series.
Here are the best TV shows you can stream on Disney+ right now.
Jon Favreau is helming this Star Wars spin-off described as a Space Western that takes place five years after the events of Return of the Jedi. The Empire has fallen, the First Order has yet to be created, so the galaxy is a lawless place perfect for a bounty hunter to wreak havoc and make his own rules, which is exactly what Pedro Pascal’s Mandalorian seems to be doing. This series had been kept tightly under wraps during production, so while most people enjoyed the show immensely, everyone’s favorite takeaway seems to be one thing: Baby Yoda.
We’re still upset that ABC canceled this Marvel spin-off series after just two seasons, but the consolation prize is now, we get to rewatch Hayley Atwell as the kick-ass spy (who Steve Rogers couldn’t help but love) navigating her early years of espionage and political warfare. The show takes us back to 1946 where Peggy has been demoted — because… sexism — and must fight to clear the name of Howard Stark when he’s accused of treason. She teams up with his butler Jarvis (James D’Arcy), and they solve crimes while bickering like an old married couple for 18 episodes. It’s perfect.
Disney Channel’s Hilary Duff starring sitcom hit with many a prepubescent girl back in the day, but the series holds onto a lot of its charm (and original fanbase) if you give it a rewatch. Duff plays the titular pre-teen, a young girl with an interesting method of coping with raging hormones, helicopter parents, annoying little brothers, and mean girls at school, and she gives us internal monologues in the form of a sarcastic animated alter ego. Honestly, we’d like one of those.
One show you won’t have to wait for weekly episodes to air is The Simpsons, which is making its way to Disney’s streaming platform when the service launches on November 12th. Disney bought Fox earlier this year which means they’re the new overlords of Springfield. It also means fans have a new venue to relive all the exploits of Homer, Bart, Lisa, and the rest of the family. For now, the show’s 30 seasons will be available to stream, with newer seasons and episodes still airing on Hulu.
Gordon Ramsay has built a brand around being a snarky, cantankerous British chef, who enjoys making the kitchen hell for unfortunate wannabe cooks. That’s why his relatability and charm as host of this food/travel hybrid series is so shocking. But once you get over it, you’ll enjoy Ramsay’s no-nonsense approach to covering Indigenous culture and food in an interesting new way.
This docuseries pulls back the curtain on how some of Disney’s most beloved classics were made and how the company as a whole became the entertainment juggernaut it is today. Narrated by Angela Bassett, the limited series follows the early days of Disney’s animation engineers, how they established the company’s principles, and gave life to some of the most spectacular films, as well as how Disney itself built a franchise of theme parks, blockbusters, TV programming, and more.
This new series answers the question literally no one has asked: “What would happen if you mixed High School Musical with The Office?” Well, it looks like you’d get a watchable teen drama with a fresh take on a beloved millennial musical series. The show is set in the fictional East High where the original movie was filmed and follows the students putting on the first rendition of a musical based on High School Musical, in mockumentary form. It’s all very meta and surprisingly catchy.
The animated world of Star Wars might not be for everyone, but it’s one of the best ways Disney has been able to extend the lifespan of George Lucas’ franchise and watching it might give you some clues as to the direction this universe will take in the future. Of course, even without the Easter egg hunting, you’ll have a good time. Not only is this series gorgeously animated with some of the most realistic 3-D effects we’ve ever seen, but it also fills in the gaps between the prequel films, meaning we get a closer look at Anakin’s journey to the Dark Side and how the war between the Republic and the Separatists had far-reaching effects.
Neil deGrasse Tyson hosts this illuminating docuseries that breaks down some of the biggest scientific discoveries of our time and asks the life-encompassing philosophical questions none of us have answers to. You’ll learn about everything from the future of A.I. to the history of Sir Isaac Newton here, and Tyson’s ability to filter seemingly incomprehensible data into layman’s terms makes all of it fun and exciting.
Over the past few years, Jeff Goldblum has curated a new persona. He’s become the internet’s zany uncle, a celebrity who can cash in on the nostalgia of past work and turn that currency into more modern roles. Disney knows Goldblum’s appeal, which is why it’s trying to bottle up a bit of the actor’s charisma and likability with this docuseries whose premise is basically, “Let Jeff Goldblum be fascinated by normal sh*t.” It’s an easy, enjoyable watch that feels just quirky enough to become a hit. Or, at the least, an endless well for memes.
This show was canceled by ABC before its first season ended, mainly because it was all kinds of bad. Bad wigs, bad special effects, bad everything. Except, it has a pretty impressive cast and a nasty villain in Game of Thrones star Iwan Rheon. We wouldn’t subscribe for this show alone, but if you’ve already binged all of the Marvel movies on Disney+, why not have fun critiquing this spin-off?
Four words: Reunions. Musicals. Kristen. Bell. That’s all you really need to know about this new reality series hosted by The Good Place star who organizes a reunion of theater geeks and tasks them with recreating their high school musical years after they first performed together. It’s heartwarming, full of great song-and-dance numbers, and sure, there’s some drama.
Look, if the thought of binging all 101 episodes of this classic afternoon cartoon about a globe-trotting treasure-hunting billionaire Scrooge McDuck and his nephews doesn’t fill you with warm, fuzzy nostalgia, then you probably didn’t grow up in the ’90s, and we feel sorry for you. For everyone else, see ya in Duckburg.
Yes, the sequel to this beloved coming-of-age series is also available on Disney +, but nothing beats the original. Boy Meets World followed the exploits of Cory Matthews, his siblings, and his best friends as they navigated school, relationships, and growing up while indulging Cory’s elaborate theories about life. It’s good, wholesome fun that makes us wish we had teachers as cool as George Feeny.
Another terrific animated children’s show is this late ’90s series about a group of primary school friends who are bucking authority and causing general mayhem on the playground. While adults set the rules during teaching hours, the brief respite from lessons brings its own hierarchy. Basically, there are laws to be respected when it comes to recess, and this show proves it.
The 2020 BET Hip-Hop Awards returned Tuesday night with a jam-packed show laced with performances from Lil Baby, Big Sean, City Girls, 2 Chainz, Burna Boy, Gucci Mane, Jhene Aiko, Mulatto, and more. A favorite section of the ceremony, the BET cyphers — a freestyle performed one at a time by a single group — also made its return. The first cypher of the night featured Polo G, Jack Harlow, Rapsody, Chika, and Netlfix’s Rhythym + Flow finalist Flawless RI. For what was billed as the night’s Political Cypher, each contestant rocked all black while laying strong bars that focused on police brutality, social injustice, and more — all important topics as the presidential election is just a week away.
The cypher appeared to be a 2020 XXL Freshman class reunion at first, as Polo G, Chika, and Jack Harlow led the way with their own freestyles. However, that proved to be false as hip-hop vet Rapsody stepped forward with bars before Flawless RI closed the cypher out. Prior to the cypher, Rapsody also landed the first win of the night — and the first of her career — with an award for Lyricist Of The Year.
You can watch the group’s cypher in the video above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Cordae made his presence felt at the 2020 BET Hip-Hop Awards by kicking off the show with a powerful acapella freestyle. The DMV native stepped close to the camera to deliver a strong and focused message to viewers about the daily struggles of Black people in America. He briefly discussed police brutality while highlighting the strength of the Black community to continue fighting day in and day out for the respect and equality they deserve.
The Lost Boy rapper’s freestyle comes after he ramped up his 2020 presence within the last two months, having stayed quiet for most of 2020. Cordae dropped his first single of the year with the soulful track “Gifted,” featuring Roddy Ricch. His next two releases were singles. First, he joined Dinner Party — a group comprised of Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, 9th Wonder, and Kamasi Washington — for their song “Freeze Tag,” featuring Phoelix, off the quartet’s project Dinner Party: Dessert. Soon after, fans found him on Stevie Wonder’s single “Can’t Put It In The Hands Of Fate,” which also featured Rapsody, Chika, and Busta Rhymes.
You can watch Cordae’s freestyle in the video above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Reports began circulating at the end of last week that the NBA had pushed up its potential start date for the 2020-21 season from sometime in January or February to, potentially, Dec. 22. It was a pretty surprising bit of news, and in the aftermath, Danny Green of the Los Angeles Lakers predicted that some of the league’s biggest names, like LeBron James, would perhaps make their offseasons a little longer following the mid-October end to last year.
All of this begs the question: Why, exactly, is the league doing this? There are surely multiple reasons, with Marc Stein of the New York Times walking through a handful in his latest newsletter. Among those reasons was an interesting tidbit about Disney, one of the NBA’s television partners, being awfully eager for the league to keep its annual Christmas Day showcase on the schedule.
Disney, which owns ESPN and has been described by Silver as the league’s biggest partner, badly wants to continue that Christmas tradition and have five games to televise on either ABC or ESPN. Turner, the N.B.A.’s other primary broadcast partner, would get its traditional opening night doubleheader on a Tuesday if the union agrees to the Dec. 22 proposal. The league, for its part, has informed the union that it projects a difference of $500 million in revenue if it can start the season in December rather than mid-January.
That number at the end has been mentioned a few times, but given the revenue crunch that hit the league in the last year, it’s hard to justify losing out on half a billion dollars, especially if it means it can still have its showcase day on Dec. 25. To return to Green’s point, it would be fascinating to see how Christmas Day would go down if James and other big-name players sat out to charge their batteries a little more, but regardless, basketball on Dec. 25 is an institution, and Disney appears to have no interest in going forward without it.
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