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At the end of the week, Jack Harlow will share his debut album That’s What They All Say. Its release follows his monster hit “What’s Poppin,” whose remix peaked at No. 2 on the singles chart. That remix will also appear on Harlow’s new album, but there’s one problem: It features, alongside DaBaby and Lil Wayne, Tory Lanez, whose become persona non grata in the music world after shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot. After people took umbrage with Harlow not deleting Lanez from the track, Harlow felt compelled to explain his decision.

“I don’t think I’m God,” he replied. “I don’t have no room to judge anybody. I wasn’t there when this and that happened, I don’t know anything.” He also added that there is “a certain integrity you have to keep as an artist” and that there are “three sides to every story.” He also spoke about “cancel culture,” saying he “hate[s] the pack mentality” that’s behind it and it’s “just a lot of judgment and laziness.” He added, “People aren’t perfect bro. I feel like people should be able to recover from their mistakes.”

Harlow also discussed the criticism he’s faced in his career, saying that most of it comes from white people. “I remember saw somebody talking bad about me online, and you know you see that kind of stuff all the time, but I saw somebody really think piece it up,” he said. “Got really analytical and tried to shred me… and you know, it was just another white guy.”

You can watch Harlow’s full interview on Power 106 above.

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

When the Clippers landed both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George in the summer of 2019, they instantly become one of the top two or three contenders in the NBA. In many people’s estimation — including and especially their own — they were the runaway favorites to win the title last season.

As we are all aware — and as the Lakers are fond of reminding us — the Clippers suffered a spectacular meltdown in the second round, blowing a 3-1 series lead to the Nuggets and sending their organization into something of a tailspin this offseason as they scrambled to figure out what went wrong and get back on track.

It’s hard to isolate one specific cause, but in general, the Clippers never recaptured the chemistry they’d developed the previous season, despite all their declarations that they were the team to beat in the West. LeBron, in particular, seems to believe that all the trash talk eventually caught up with them when it came time to own it.

Here’s what he said on the Road Trippin podcast.

“I couldn’t believe it. To this day, I still can’t believe it,” LeBron says in the video. “Obviously, the better team won. That’s what happened. But still, because all the sh*t-talking that they were doing all year – and exclude Paul and exclude Kawhi. Even exclude Trez. Obviously, we know who the sh*t-talkers was. And put themselves in a position to get what they been talking sh*t about all year, and I just couldn’t fathom the part or come to the realization that that they did not seek that opportunity when it was right there.”

LeBron pretty clearly appears to be alluding to Patrick Beverley, who had a lot to say all season long and throughout the Bubble, right up until things started going South.

Even though we didn’t get to see the L.A. rivalry play itself in Orlando, there’s no doubt that there will be plenty of intrigue between them throughout next season as the Lakers look to defend their crown and the Clippers try to prove that what happened in the playoffs was somehow an aberration.

Six years ago today, J. Cole released his third album 2014 Forest Hill Drive. While the rapper is currently at work on his upcoming sixth album, The Fall Off, he opted to honor the anniversary with a video for his new song “Fire Squad,” The video finds Cole in a deserted area, discussing his rise to fame and claiming he’s one of the best rappers in hip-hop.

The video arrives after people were left disappointed after rumors that Cole’s sixth album would arrive on December 9 proved to be false. Had it arrived as planned, it would have been Cole’s third album to arrive on that day. The rumor about Cole’s sixth album’s December 9 release began after Zane Lowe announced on his Apple Music show that a big artist would release their album on that day. People believed Cole was that mystery act, but they quickly discovered they were wrong.

This is not the first time this year that fans believed they would receive an album from J. Cole. Back in July, EarthGang’s Olu said that he was preparing to release his sixth album in the near future, but the pandemic caused him to delay it. Days later, Dreamville co-founder Ibrahim “Ib” Hamad refuted the claim, saying simply, “There is no Cole album coming out soon.”

You can watch the “Fire Squad” video above.

At this point it seems like the best choice is to fully lean into the absurdity of everything as we claw our way out of the weirdest, if not the worst, year in recent memory. And from that perspective, Lifetime’s new Kentucky Fried Chicken mini-movie—yep, you read that right—totally fits the bill.

I mean, Mario Lopez playing a sexy Colonel Sanders in a murderous love triangle romance thriller plot seems right on schedule, doesn’t it? We did the whole “Tiger King” thing early in the pandemic, so it’s high time for another “What did I just watch?” guilty pleasure.

Lifetime’s “A Recipe for Seduction” is clearly a marketing ploy for KFC, but who cares. The trailer is deliciously wonderful and horrible, leaving me unable to look away long enough to roll my eyes at its ridiculousness. Like, I don’t want to admit that I actually want to watch this because I’m not a fan of humiliation, but at the same, I totally want to watch this.

I mean, come on. Watch this trailer and tell me you know exactly how to feel about it. You can’t. Because psychology or something.

A Recipe for Seduction | Premieres December 13th | Presented by Kentucky Fried Chicken | Lifetime

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So, the first issue is that Colonel Sanders is hot. How is that even a thing? It’s ruining My second issue is that I want to know how this turns out. It’s only a 15-minute mini-movie, so it can’t be that complicated of a plot. And again, how is this even a thing?

The part that really cracked me up though, was the “Premieres December 13th at noon” part. At noon? Really? What kind of production makes a premiere at noon, for gracious sakes?

The “brought to you by Kentucky Fried Chicken” kind, apparently.

I would love to have been a fly on the wall at the marketing meetings where these mini-movie ideas came to fruition. Like, how did those conversations go? Was it just a bunch of goofy creative types talking about how they could make the silliest branded content ever, but not make it overtly silly, but still somehow make it overtly silly? And how did the filming of it go? The production quality is way up there. It probably took hundreds of people to make this “film.” Did they die laughing between takes? Was it just another job for them? Did they weep over what had become of their careers?

I mean, it looks like a soap opera mixed with a feature film mixed with an advertisement mixed with a parody. It’s either totally genius or totally not. I genuinely don’t know what to think or how to feel.

Maybe that’s what this movie/ad/monstrosity/delight is designed to do. Maybe it’s an emotional biproduct of this wonky, absurd year. I don’t know. All I know is that I’m going to pretend that I’m not going to watch it but will totally watch it when it comes out on December 13th. At noon. Brought to me by Kentucky Fried Chicken.

God Bless America.

Few people made more money in 2012 than when George Lucas sold Lucasfilm, which includes Star Wars, to Disney. The legendary filmmaker made over $4 billion in the deal, and he didn’t just use it for himself. He paid it forward, reportedly donating a good chunk of it to charity and using the rest to, among other things, fund numerous film restorations, helping to save film history. But he still forfeited one of his babies. And a new book, he confessed that the sale left him incredibly down.

This comes from /Film, which caught writer Paul Duncan tweeting out an extract from his forthcoming book The Star Wars Archives: Episodes IV-VI, 1977-1983, which is available later this week.

Duncan spoke with Lucas about the sale, as well as the making of the third trilogy. Lucas has long been on the record as not being a terribly huge fan of The Force Awakens, saying, “There’s nothing new.” He’s also lamented that they shot down his ideas for the next three films, saying that they “weren’t that keen to have me involved anyway.”

But here, the man who invented Darth Vadar et al. was even more melancholic about relinquishing the reins of one of cinema’s biggest franchises. For one thing, he was, at the time, ready to make that third trilogy he himself. But when Disney came calling, they caught him at an opportune time, at least for them.

“In 2012 I was 69,” he told Duncan. “So the question was am I going to keep doing this the rest of my life? Do I want to go through this again?” He pointed out that it “takes 10 years to make a trilogy,” and he admitted that he would have moved a little slower than Disney, saying he would “still be working on Episode IX” even now. On top of that he was also about to become a dad. “Finally, I decided I’d rather raise my daughter and enjoy life for a while.”

Lucas did entertain handing the actual writing and directing and all that to others, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep to himself, describing himself as “one of those micromanager guys” who would have been “frustrated” to be watching from the sidelines. So instead, he removed himself from the equation entirely.

The result hasn’t been an unqualified success, but neither has it been a disaster, yielding such high points as The Last Jedi (its loud detractors aside). And the world is almost certainly better with Baby Yoda — and a Star Wars-ified Werner Herzog — in it. Still, selling the franchise wasn’t easy then, and it’s not easy now.

“I’ve spent my life creating Star Wars – 40 years – and giving it up was very, very painful,” Lucas said. “But it was the right thing to do. I thought I was going to have a little bit more to say about the next three because I’d already started them, but they decided they wanted to do something else. Things don’t always work out the way you want it. Life is like that.”

(Via /Film)

Considering she’s been one of Donald Trump‘s closest advisor going all the way back to his 2016 campaign, the news of Kellyanne Conway signing a multi-million dollar deal for her upcoming memoir has members of Trump’s inner circles freaking out. Despite her seemingly unflinching loyalty to the president, there has been speculation for years that Conway and her husband, George (an outspoken critic of Trump), have been laying the groundwork for Kellyanne to cash in on her life after the administration. Publishing a book that lays bares the secrets of the past four years is definitely one way to accomplish that goal. Via Daily Mail:

She’s much less likely to pull her punches when it comes to former colleagues, our source predicts.

‘Of all the White House insiders, Kellyanne is going to write the most unvarnished, eye-popping account of her time working for the president,’ the insider promises. ‘She’s got some of us quaking in our boots.’

Despite recently going against the current White House narrative by admitting that Joe Biden won the presidential election, Conway has remained in Trump’s good graces. On Tuesday, he gifted her with a posh seat on the board of visitors of the U.S. Air Force Academy, according to Politico. However, that relationship could easily sour as more details of Conway’s memoir emerge. While demanding unyielding loyalty from others, Trump has shown time again that he will throw even his biggest supporters under the bus as evidenced by his latest tweets attacking Fox News.

(Via Daily Mail)

While the arrival of multiple COVID-19 vaccines has made people feel hopeful about the future, many are still leery about getting the shot.

A recent poll by Pew Research found that “60% of Americans say they would definitely or probably get a vaccine for the coronavirus if one were available today.” That figure is 9% higher than when the same question was asked in September.

Four in ten people (39%) say “definitely or probably would not get a coronavirus vaccine” although half of them say they may change their mind after the vaccine is widely administered.

If you’re feeling a little iffy about getting vaccinated it doesn’t make you an anti-vaxxer. It’s natural to be a little skeptical of something that was developed so rapidly. So, to ease your mind about getting vaccinated, our partners at Leapsmag spoke with Jennifer Haller, the first person in the U.S. to receive COVID-19 vaccine.

Jennifer is a mother of two from Seattle, Washington who was administered the vaccine back in March and, as you can tell by the video, she’s happy and healthy nine months later.

Jennifer received the Moderna vaccine which requires two shots administered four weeks apart.

After receiving both, Jennifer says she felt just like she has after any other vaccination. “I’ve had a flu shot before, I’ve had other vaccinations before, this is just another one of those,” she said. “Everything’s going to be fine. And it was.”

Jennifer didn’t know she was going to be the first person to receive the vaccine. She put two and two together after reading an AP report the night before her vaccination saying the first vaccine was going to be administered the next morning. Her appointment was at 8 am.

“I’m like, oh gosh, that might actually be me,” she said.

The only side effect she experienced from taking the vaccine was some soreness at the injection site after both doses. “Besides that, everything else felt very normal,” she added. “I’m feeling great. everything feels perfectly normal and my life is just as normal as everyone else’s is right now.”

Jennifer says that after receiving both doses, tests showed the vaccine was effective in creating COVID-19 antibodies. She says the first eight recipients of the Moderna vaccine all developed antibodies at the same level or above someone who has recovered from the virus.

She believes she was the right person to go first because of her attitude.

“To be one of the first, I think it really requires somebody like me who’s really positive, who expects good things to happen, and somebody who trusts science,” she said.

For Jennifer, stepping up to be the first was about more than just protecting her health and that of others.

“I want to stay conscious of the privilege I have in life and I want to use it to help others,” she said. “I’m very thankful that I have the opportunity to do that and I hope that it inspires others to consider the privilege they have in their lives and to look at ways they can use that as well to help.”

Jennifer hopes that people approach this as a health issue, not a political one. “It is not a political statement,” she said of getting vaccinated. “It’s not political, it’s about saving lives.”

For those who have decided against getting the vaccine, Jennifer suggests they reconsider.

“Science is real. It’s a fact. It works,” she said.

Chicago rapper G Herbo pled not guilty to federal charges of identity fraud today, according to the Chicago Tribune. Herbo, a pioneer of the Windy City’s 2010s drill movement is accused of using stolen IDs and credit cards to make charges for luxury services such as private jet trips and “designer puppies.” Appearing in court from his Los Angeles home via video conference, Herbo pled “not guilty” to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was freed after turning himself in earlier this week on an unsecured $75,000 bond.

Herbo will also be allowed to travel outside of California, due to a $25,000 cash bond posted by his manager Joseph “JB” Bowden, in order to visit his fiancee Taina Williams in New Jersey. Williams is four months pregnant with the couple’s child. A former girlfriend with whom Herbo also has a child (and a battery case against him) is listed as a witness in the case, but he was ordered not to speak with her about it.

Herbo faces up to six years in prison if he’s convicted, although his prior criminal history could result in additional enhancements. He was previously convicted of weapons violations in his home Cook County. Among those charged with Herbo are his crew members and fellow Chicagoans Antonio “T-Glo” Strong, Wright’s promoter and manager; rapper Joseph “Jo Rodeo” Williams; and alleged co-conspirators Steven Hayes Jr., Demario Sorrells, and Terrence Bender.

According to the indictment, which was unsealed last week, the group charged over $1 million of luxury goods to credit card numbers they obtained on the dark web. The news comes just as Herbo received renewed attention for his album PTSD, one of Uproxx’s Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2020, and his performance of the title track on The Tonight Show, as well as appearing on Forbes‘ 30 Under 30 list for 2020.

Oof, America. We have really got to get on the same freaking page here.

Protesting public health guidelines and mandates during a global pandemic is pretty ridiculous to begin with. But when public health officials find themselves getting threats and public servants’ children are feeling scared in their own homes, we’ve gone way, way over the line.

Last night, an Idaho health department meeting to discuss and vote on COVID-19 mask mandates came to an abrupt end due to safety concerns over protesters raging in the parking lot of the health department building as well as at the homes of some of the officials in attendance.

According to Boise police, three of the officials at the meeting had protesters gathered outside of their homes during the meeting. One health board member, Ada County Commissioner Diana Lachiondo, interrupted the meeting after a phone call to inform her colleagues that she needed to leave.

“My 12-year-old son is home by himself right now and there are protesters banging outside the door,” Lachiondo said, clearly shaken and in tears. “I’m going to go home and make sure he’s OK.”

The meeting was shut down after the mayor and chief of police requested they adjourn in the interest of public safety.

“I got a call from the mayor, and it sounds like the police, and she is requesting that we stop the meeting at this time because of the intense level of protesters in the parking lot and concern for police safety and staff safety as well as the protesters that are at some of our board members’ homes right now,” Central District Health Director Russ Duke said.

Some of the protesters appeared to be part of People’s Rights, an activist group created by Ammon Bundy who gained national fame in 2016 for leading the occupation of a wildlife refuge in Oregon. Others came from an anti-vaccination group, Health Freedom Idaho, according to CBS News.

Lachiondo shared an update on Twitter this morning.

“During last night’s Board of Health meeting, armed protestors once again assembled outside my home: yelling, banging, firing air horns, amplifying sound clips from Scarface, accusing me of tyranny and cowering inside,” she wrote. “I wasn’t actually inside the house: I was calling in from my office at the Ada County Courthouse. But my two young sons and my mother (who was out taking our dog on a short walk) were. And as many of you saw last night, my son called me in tears at the beginning of the meeting.”

“I am sad. I am tired. I fear that, in my choosing to hold public office, my family has too-often paid the price. Though I was born and raised in Idaho, I increasingly don’t recognize this place,” she wrote. “There is an ugliness and cruelty in our national rhetoric that is reaching a fevered pitch here at home, and that should worry us all.”

“And, above all,” she added, “I am terrified about the virus’s current trajectory.”

And that right there highlights what makes this whole situation so tragic. This is a public servant whose primary concern is the safety and well-being of the public. Even as she’s having to deal with the safety and well-being of her own family, she’s focusing on trying to save the people she serves from the impact of an out-of-control pandemic. Idaho is surging, like much of the rest of the country, and regional hospitals have warned that critical care will soon be compromised. Officials like Lachiondo are trying to keep that from happening and are being demonized for it.

When public health officials are being threatened and harassed for doing their jobs, we’ve entered seriously problematic territory. When children are calling their parents from inside their own home because they don’t feel safe, we’ve lost our way. When measures to help save American lives and well-being—in addition to the economy, since the economy depends on keeping the pandemic under control—are met with armed protests, we’ve crossed into cuckoo bananapants land.

Enough is enough.

In what’s becoming a growing trend for HBO as it looks to quickly find content to fill its burgeoning streaming service, a True Blood reboot is in early development, according to Variety. While little is known about the network’s plans for the vampire series that ended its seven season run in 2014, and turned Alexander Skarsgard into one of Hollywood’s most sought after hunks, the original series creator and showrunner Alan Ball will executive produce the reboot. As of this writing, none of the original cast are attached to the project.

Based on the “The Southern Vampire Mysteries” books by Charlaine Harris, the original True Blood series starred Anna Paquin as mind-reading Louisiana waitress Sookie Stackhouse and followed her as her romance with Vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer) led her to a world of warring vampire clans, shape-shifters, witches, fairies, and a beefy werewolf played by Joe Mangianello.

During a 10-year-anniversary showing of the True Blood pilot at the 2018 Vulture Festival, Ball revealed some of the big name actors who almost starred in the show. Jessica Chastain auditioned for Sookie, and a Jennifer Lawrence almost starred as the shape-shifting “were-panther” Crystal, which would have seen her have a very graphic relationship with Ryan Kwanten’s Jason Stackhouse. Ball decided against casting Lawrence after the cast and writers voiced their concerns. “But all the women in the room, because she was going to be Jason’s girlfriend, and she was 17 at the time, were like, no, that’s gross.”

As for the part of vampire king Eric Northman, Ball had no one else in mind except Skarsgard, which, clearly, was the right call.

(Via Variety)