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With all the ominous happenings of 2020, one of the few bright spots was the re-emergence of children’s television mascot Hip-Hop Harry thanks to Tik Tok, which repurposed a segment from a September 2006 episode as the background music for videos featuring people dancing over the clip.

One of them was burgeoning rap superstar Rico Nasty, who was contacted by the show’s creators for an Instagram Live interview back in August.

However, anyone who missed out on the stream was likely completely flabbergasted on Tuesday, when Rico appeared alongside the bright yellow bear for a PSA about voting posted by Rico’s label Atlantic Records on Twitter. Promoting the voter registration organization HeadCount, the video is filmed exactly like an old-school PSA or an episode of Hip-Hop Harry, with the two staging a Q&A conversation about the importance of voting and how to get registered to vote by visiting the HeadCount website. Rico looks like she’s having the time of her life camp-acting alongside Harry, remixing the meme-worthy “Go! Go! Go!” chant to say “Vote! Vote! Vote!”

If there’s anyone capable of tapping into the demographic that grew up on Hip-Hop Harry, it’s Rico, who has her finger on the pulse of her generation’s unique blend of influences and tastes. She recently showed as much in her surreal videos for “Own It” and “iPhone” as she gears up for the release of her major label debut, Nightmare Vacation.

Watch Harry and Rico’s voting PSA above.

Rico Nasty is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Michael C. Hall has always said that there’s a chance he could return as Dexter, and that day is today. Showtime has officially announced that the actor will return in a limited series from original Dexter showrunner Clyde Phillips whose time on the first four seasons resulted in multiple award nominations. The new 10-episode run will pick up after the events of the final season, which saw Dexter faking us his own death and becoming a, uh… lumberjack (?) in one of the more controversial and head-scratching moments in recent TV history. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

“Dexter is such a special series, both for its millions of fans and for Showtime, as this breakthrough show helped put our network on the map many years ago,” said Showtime Entertainment president Gary Levine. “We would only revisit this unique character if we could find a creative take that was truly worthy of the brilliant, original series. Well, I am happy to report that Clyde Phillips and Michael C. Hall have found it, and we can’t wait to shoot it and show it to the world.”

Ever since Dexter wrapped up its run in 2013, Hall has stood by the divisive ending. Although, he is sympathetic to how it didn’t provide the right amount of closure to fans, and he’s never closed the door on returning to the serial killer role. In 2018, Hall told The Daily Beast that “different possibilities” have come up on how to bring Dexter back but “they haven’t felt worth doing.” It looks like he finally found the right story to take another stab (sorry) at the role.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Hip-hop fans are in an uproar on Twitter after a tweet from a high-ranking Trump advisor thanking Ice Cube for helping the Trump administration craft its Black outreach program, The Platinum Plan, went viral. On Tuesday, Katrina Pierson, a Tea Party activist and consultant for the Trump administration, tweeted, “Shoutout to @icecube for his willingness to step up and work with @realDonaldTrump Administration to help develop the #PlatinumPlan. Leaders gonna lead, haters gonna hate. Thank you for leading!”

Thanks to the near-endless deluge of bad news that seems to constantly flood all our timelines, the tweet went unnoticed until suddenly going viral earlier this afternoon. Once it did, Ice Cube’s name trended due to fans expressing their dismay at his perceived betrayal after spending over three decades as a symbol of rebellion against the system due to tracks like “F*ck The Police,” “Good Cop Bad Cop,” “Arrest The President,” and albums such as Amerikkka’s Most Wanted.

In a video posted on Sunday, Cube pre-emptively accepted their shock and disdain for the move, pointing out that he believes that no US president has ever helped Black Americans. He says that he met with representatives from both parties and felt that the Democratic Party didn’t seem to be as accepting of his suggestions as Trump’s administration. “Everybody can be mad at me, pissed off at me, but hey, y’all know what it is,” Cube shrugged. He noted that the Platinum Plan apparently includes a $500 billion commitment toward causes like new jobs for Black communities, higher “policing standards,” and access to better education.

However, that did little to curtail the reactions from fans feeling jilted by the controversial rap icon, who was also chided earlier this year for sharing anti-Semitic memes. Cube previously derided Kanye West for his support of Donald Trump, something many were quick to point out, as well as the seeming about-face he made by seeking to work with the administration himself.

Watch Ice Cube’s video explaining his political position above.

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Blackpink: Light Up the Sky (Netflix documentary film) — Fans of the highest-charting female K-pop group in history can now head behind the scenes with Blackpink ahead of their 2019 Coachella performance. As they reach new heights, the quartet will reflect on the highs and lows of fame while cementing their success that shall not be deterred by borders or barriers in language.

2020 Billboard Music Awards (NBC, 8:00pm EST) — Host Kelly Clarkson will be coming at you from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles with performances from Sia, Alicia Keys, BTS, Demi Lovato, Post Malone, and more.

Devils (CW, 8:00pm EST) — Massimo’s feeling betrayed by Dominic, so a plan gets hatched to create a scandal and publish an exposé, but a discovery about Dominic leads to second thoughts.

Coroner (CW, 9:00pm EST) — A body with no ID lands in the middle of the road and few establishing clues, and Jenny is on the case.

Archer (FXX, 10:00pm EST) — Archer’s date gets a peek at a top-secret dossier while the date shares his deepest desires.

Late Show With Stephen Colbert — John Lithgow, Jonathan Alter.

Jimmy Kimmel Live — John Cusack, Leslie Jones

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon — Jim Parsons, Shepard Smith, BTS

The Late Late Show With James Corden — Joan Jett

And in case you wanted to catch up on what happened last Wednesday:

Hubie Halloween (Netflix film) — This movie might be wonderfully funny escapism for you, or it might be Adam Sandler’s revenge for not receiving an Oscar nomination for Uncut Gems. Perhaps it can be both things? Regardless of intent from the Sandman, settle in for the latest Happy Madison production, which follows Sandler’s Hubie Dubois, a Halloween safety crusader who gets sucked into a murder mystery. Kevin James and Kenan Thompson play cops, and more co-stars include Julie Bowen, Ray Liotta, Noah Schnapp, Steve Buscemi, and Maya Rudolph.

Adam McKay’s asteroid comedy Don’t Look Up already had a considerable amount of star power when Jennifer Lawrence joined the Netflix Original back in February, but now the cast is out of this world. (Hope you like space puns.)

In a new tweet, Netflix rightfully shows off the absolutely stacked cast for the new comedy from Oscar winner McKay, and it is quite the list. Just check out the roster that will be joining Lawrence: Leonardo DiCaprio, Rob Morgan, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Himesh Patel, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, and yes, that’s Friends star Matthew Perry down there along with two dudes named Timothée Chalamet and Jonah Hill. Maybe you’ve heard of them.

You can check the star-studded cast of Don’t Look Up below:

According to Variety, the Netflix comedy “follows two low-level astronomers who embark on media tour to warn mankind of an approaching asteroid that will destroy planet Earth.” But even before his film was fully loaded with top stars, McKay was already ecstatic about getting a chance to work with Lawrence.

“I’m so thrilled to make this movie with Jen Lawrence,” McKay said. “She’s what folks in the 17th century used to call ‘a dynamite talent.’ And the fact that Netflix sees this movie as a worldwide comedy sets the bar high for me and my team in an exciting and motivating way.”

The film was originally set to begin filming back in April, but that obviously didn’t occur as the pandemic scuttled productions left and right. However, IndieWire reports that the coronavirus delay “opened the door” for the impressive ensemble cast, particularly DiCaprio, who was eager to join the project but couldn’t due to a scheduling conflict with Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. I guess you can say, the stars aligned.

(Via Netflix)

The Miami Heat’s run to the NBA Finals, where they ultimately fell to the now-champion Los Angeles Lakers in six games, was fueled by a handful of things. There was, of course, the singular brilliance of Jimmy Butler, who admirably battled every time he was presented with a challenge and put forth two of the best single-game NBA Finals performances we’ve seen before ultimately running out of gas in the team’s deciding defeat. Their role players, like Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson, gave invaluable contributions in major moments. When the team needed something from bench players like Andre Iguodala and Kelly Olynyk, more often than not, helped more than they hurt.

In the Finals, however, two of the major players that helped get Miami to the Finals and elevated them from a really good team to a championship-caliber team were not themselves. Throughout the postseason, Goran Dragic looked like the player who made an All-NBA team earlier in his career, while Bam Adebayo made a leap into stardom, looking like a two-way menace and the kind of player who is capable of being an irreplaceable piece of a championship-winning team somewhere down the line.

Due to injuries, neither player was able to reach that level of excellence against the Lakers. In a statement that I hope you do not find controversial, I would like to declare the following about the inarguable last sentence: that stinks.

Adebayo and Dragic are a pair of guys whose impact on the Heat, when they are at their best, cannot be replaced. Adebayo’s ability to impact games on both ends of the floor is marvelous. He is a relentless interior scorer, a tireless rebounder, and someone whose ability to handle the ball and make plays on the offensive end of the floor doesn’t seem like it should be possible for a 23-year-old big man whose ceiling still seems like it could be a ways away. Then, you get to what he does on the other end of the floor, where he is the lynchpin of Miami’s frenetic defense and the rare center who is capable of getting switched onto guards and holding his own just as easily as he’s able to clean up mistakes made by his perimeter players by erasing or at least impacting shot attempts at the rim.

The game I kept coming back to as I thought about Adebayo’s postseason was his Game 6 performance against the Boston Celtics. Despite the fact that he picked up some kind of knock during Game 5, he was easily the best player on the floor in a game that featured multiple All-Stars on both sides of the action. He scored 32 points on 11-for-15 shooting, made 10 of his 11 attempts from the free throw line, hauled in 14 rebounds, and doled out five assists. Defensively, Adebayo was the primary defender for spells against many of Boston’s best players, and no one scored more than four points against him, according to NBA.com.

He is such a smart, instinctive player, but during Game 1 of the Finals, Adebayo suffered what was eventually diagnosed as a neck strain, missed the next two games, and didn’t quite look like himself when he returned to the floor. While Miami did get a good game out of him in Game 6 — 25 points, 10 boards, five assists, two blocks – much of that came in the second half (specifically his 10 points, three rebounds, and two assists in the fourth quarter) when things were done and dusted.

It’s not hard to look back on this series and wonder how different things are if Adebayo plays. The Lakers got a ton of shots from within 10 feet, and when they didn’t go in, their offensive rebounding numbers were breathtaking. While guys like Olynyk and Meyers Leonard battled admirably at the 5, the drop-off from what they can do on both ends of the floor and what Adebayo can do at his best is stark. His ability to navigate the two-man game was taken off the table, too, both during the games he missed and when he returned and didn’t look like himself. He was also the most logical person to defend Anthony Davis, and without him, the team’s defensive versatility suffered — the Davis-LeBron James two-man game becomes a bit tricker to pull off when it’s the best version of Adebayo and one of Butler/Jae Crowder instead of just those two, or one of them and Leonard/Olynyk.

And of course, there is losing the playmaking Adebayo brings at his best, something that was magnified by Miami’s other huge loss. Before even getting to what he brought on the court, Dragic has long been a good player on teams that could never quite make it to the promised land. Prior to this year, he had made the conference finals once as a member of the Phoenix Suns back in 2010. He’d make the playoffs twice in the decade since then before the Heat got in this year, bowing out in the conference semis in 2016 and the first round a year later. As is the case whenever a veteran who has had a long career makes it to the Finals, there’s something really cool about a guy getting over the hump for the first time.

Fifteen minutes into his first Finals game, Dragic suffered a foot injury which later was revealed to be a plantar fasciitis injury. In the time it takes to throw breakfast together, Dragic’s aspirations of contributing in the NBA Finals were taken for him. While he went through warm-ups before Games 2-5, he ultimately just was not able to play. Dragic eventually returned to the series in Game 6, giving Miami 19 minutes off the bench.

Miami’s balance on offense was thrown off without Dragic on the floor. Butler taking over the lion’s share of ball-handling duties isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but taking Dragic off the floor meant more on-ball responsibilities for, say Kendrick Nunn (who had some moments but generally looked like a rookie in the NBA Finals against an elite defense) or Herro, for whom the same sentiment can apply. Herro was especially hurt by Dragic’s absence, as he went from being a really good supporting piece to someone thrust in the spotlight and suddenly garnered the attention of the Lakers top perimeter defenders. He’ll learn and get better from the experience, but through the lens of these Finals, it did not go well. And when the team opted to go to the steady hand of Iguodala, things went poorly — while a good player, he posted, by far, the team’s worst net rating in the Finals. Herro, unsurprisingly, was third-worst, and sandwiched in-between those two was Adebayo.

This is not to say the Heat would’ve won the series with Adebayo and Dragic not suffering their Game 1 injuries, as the Lakers were heavy favorites going into the Finals for a reason, but poorly-timed injuries are one of the worst things about sports. Things may have ended the same way or maybe it would’ve gone very differently, but after a Bubble that featured some of the highest level basketball we’ve seen in an entire postseason, it was a disappointing end to see two of the brightest stars not able to be on the floor and at their best.

While Lizzo is known for making buoyant, feel-good tunes, she’s also always been outspoken when it comes to matters of social justice. In an upcoming episode of David Letterman’s Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Lizzo recounts her experience witnessing the Black Lives Matter movement over the years.

Speaking to Letterman about watching the country react to acts of police violence had made her numb. However, seeing the immense allyship following the murder of George Floyd this June has made her feel “hopeful” for the first time:

“As a Black citizen of this country, I’ve been heartbroken by the way we’ve been treated and seen my entire life. I remember there was a murder of a young Black person, unarmed, in Minneapolis down the street from my house. His name was Jamar Clark. I wrote this song called ‘My Skin’ and I was very like, ‘We gotta make a change.’ We were camping out in front of the precinct, we were getting shot at by God-knows-who. It was scary, it was dark times. And then, Tamir Rice, who was 12 years old, was just playing at a park and got shot within seconds by a police officer. Within seconds, a young, Black, 12-year-old boy. And people politicized it. How can you politicize the murder of a child? And I was so numb that I lost all hope for any kind of change in this country.

Change is painful and I think you have to sign yourself up for that. This time, I saw something different. I saw the sudden allyship of young white people, which I had never seen. And I also saw people in the news realize that it’s more than just a hashtag and a moment and a movement and that it’s not just us complaining — it’s a real, systemic poison. And that got me for the first time a little hopeful. […] I can’t help but to be optimistic and hopeful.”

Watch a clip of Lizzo’s interview with Letterman above.

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

Cardi B and Offset have had an up-and-down relationship over the past few years, and things seem complicated at the moment. Cardi recently filed for divorce, but the pair also recently celebrated Cardi’s 28th birthday together. Now, Cardi has discussed where things stand with the two at the moment, sharing some insight in an Instagram Live session on Tuesday night.

Explaining why she spent her birthday with Offset, Cardi told her viewers, “I just be starting to miss [him]… It’s hard not to talk to your best friend. And it’s really hard to have no dick.”

She also addressed criticisms about her being with Offset because of his gifts, saying, “I do like material things. What do you want me to do, the n**** gave me a Rolls-Royce and I snub him? And I really wanted some dick for my birthday.”

She summed up the situation, saying, “We’re some really typical two young motherf*ckers [who] got married early, that’s what we are. We’re not no different than y’all f*ckin’ dysfunctional-ass relationships. We’re the same way. We’re just more public. And I’m more r*tarded.”

Watch the video above, and revisit our recent timeline of Cardi and Offset’s relationship here.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Duckwrth released his major-label debut SuperGood in August. Following up the 16-track effort, the singer offers a cinematic visual alongside his Kian collaboration “Quick.”

Directed by Grizz Lee, Duckwrth’s “Quick” video opens with the musician pampering his lover with expensive clothes and jewelry. The two then whip around on the road in his vintage car as Duckwrth continues to make promises of buying her nice houses and vehicles. Suddenly, the car swerves off course and the couple flips over the side of the road. Duckwrth manages to get out unharmed, but something within him shifts. He’s inexplicably drawn to a far-away barn and arrives only to discover a puzzling sight.

Just ahead of his SuperGood release, Duckwrth sat down for an interview with Uproxx to chat about his sound on the record, saying, “I think that for me, it was proving to myself who I am and what sound I like the most for myself, what space I want to be in, and it’s something about soul and more specifically rhythm. Rhythm is my sh*t. When I perform, I don’t stop moving. Unless it’s just one of those moments I have to sit still, but further than that rhythm is my sh*t. So I think SuperGood solidified it for me. Like, ‘N****, this is you, so kick it here for a bit,’ but I’m still going to play with different genres.”

Watch Duckwrth’s “Quick” video with Kian above.

SuperGood is out now via Republic. Get it here.

In the trailer for Jiu Jitsu (posted above), Wylie, played by Nicolas Cage, says, “The comet you see in the sky right now passes over the earth every six years and causes a portal. And when it’s open, we get a visitor from a distant galaxy. The poet warrior in the sci-fi sense. The space man.” I wish theaters were open, so I could give that exposition a standing ovation in public. It’s not the same applauding on my couch, y’know?

Jiu Jitsu has everything you want from a B-movie: Nicolas Cage with long hair; Frank Grillo; Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior legend Tony Jaa; JuJu Chan; “the director of Kickboxer: Retaliation“; Nicolas Cage with long hair saying the following: “that is alien politics” and “you are all chosen Jiu Jitsu fighters” and “he’s crazy… like me” and “there’s no honor in killing crazy” and “I can fly, too.” And did I mention he does a backflip, too?

Here’s more, as if you’re not already sold.

Every six years, an ancient order of expert Jiu Jitsu fighters faces a vicious race of alien invaders in a battle for Earth. For thousands of years, the fighters that protect Earth have won… until now. When celebrated war hero Jake Barnes (Alain Moussi) is defeated by Brax, the indomitable leader of the invaders, the future of humanity hangs in the balance. Injured and suffering from amnesia, Jake is rescued by Wylie (Nicolas Cage), Keung, and his team of fellow Jiu Jitsu fighters. They must help Jake to regain his strength in order to band together and defeat Brax in an epic battle that will once again determine the fate of mankind.

Jiu Jitsu is available on On Demand on November 20.