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Latif Nasser is well aware that a global pandemic makes a weird time to drop his new Netflix series Connected — a show in which he takes several connecting flights per episode and attempts to illustrate how we’re all inextricably linked to one another. But while Connected feels tonally discordant with the panic and angst of COVID, there’s a strange comfort in being reminded that even though the call to socially distance has changed our way of life, our connections to one another and our planet endure.

Over the course of six episodes, Nasser — the acclaimed Radiolab researcher, podcaster, and science historian — guides us through single-topic episodes that cover everything from nukes to poop. Using humor and wit to tease out larger topics, the true draw of Connected is how it opens up rabbit holes and then invites viewers to dive ever deeper. Something changes in you when you learn how the secrets to a healthy future lay in the poop of the past, or just how much good has come out of the invention of the nuclear bomb. Each episode is informative, funny, and makes a worthy watch for anyone who wants to get absolutely tripped out on science.

We spoke with Nasser over the phone the day after Connected‘s Netflix premiere.

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Radiolab sits pretty comfortably in the audio medium, what advantages do you have entering a visual medium for Connected and what are you having the most fun with personally?

It’s a totally bizarre jump from radio to TV, there are so many parts of the documentary making toolkit that I know and I use all the time, and there are so many other parts for the visuals that I was just so dumb about. It’s been this great learning experience.

Hopefully, there are some tricks and narrative moves we use all the time on Radiolab that I’ve been able to sort of smuggle into tv.

It was the most fun to be able to play with the graphics team that I worked with. They are just so inspired, people who are touched with a gift. To commission them like “Okay, what I need is a graphic that is like the Beijing National Stadium and the Hoover Dam but smooshed together, because that’s the amount of dust that goes into the Amazon —“ or “I need a spherical theater that represents weather forecasting that’s going on in a supercomputer but its actually an orchestra” I would have these very very specific requests for them and they would come back with these dazzling beautiful gems, just cranking them out. I was so lucky to have them.

It’s one thing to explain something complicated on the radio where you don’t have a visual component, but to be able to use visuals and have a team of people that are excited and inspired and churning out these gorgeous graphics, makes the show worth watching for their graphics alone!

In addition to being a historian of science, I’ve read that you’re also a theater kid. How does that interest in theater influence the way in which you tell stories?

That’s what I studied as an undergrad and I still think that so many of those techniques and tools from playwriting have taught me that everything has to have a beginning, middle, and end. There has to be an inciting incident, there need to be obstacles, and tension, we need to have a main character, that character needs to go on a journey. I still do all of that stuff, obviously, I’m not playwriting science — in that I fact check everything — but the techniques, the dramatic structure, and dramaturgy of it.

I approach it like this: whether you’re telling true stories or whether you’re telling fictional stories, people take them the same way, they want the same things, they crave that plot and character development. Using those dramatic techniques is sort of a natural fit in the documentary world, I feel.

How do you decide which topics to explore from episode to episode? With names like “Surveillance,” “Dust,” “Poop,” it feels like an episode can be about anything and everything, but you still managed to filter it down into a tight six.

I think that’s part of the fun of TV, there are an infinite amount of options here, which is alluring and paralyzing. A few of the things I thought about when trying to get it down to the tight six, is that I wanted a nice spread. “Poop” was sort of a natural thing, that’s just a thing that I’m always interested in and will always seek out stories about. Benford’s Law was a thing that kept coming up while I was researching other stuff then it almost became like a dare, “Could you really make a 45-minute episode about a mathematical observation, it feels like there is no way to do that.” Okay yeah, we’re going to do that!

I wanted a climate change-y episode to think about, so “Clouds” kind of covers that and felt like a satisfying way to touch on that. Overall, I wanted a really nice spread to feel like we were touching all kinds of different science, sort of just to try out. It feels like a new car, you want to test out the premise of the show, you want to road test it, does it work with this kind of thing? Can I use it to talk about surveillance which is a different thing than dust?

It’s a really fun premise, such a liberating premise, almost too liberating. But it’s guided by my own excitement and curiosity and I think it led me to very different and very strange places.

That’s kind of the charm of the show, each topic is a rabbit hole that pulls you in. Let’s take “Poop” for example, I was hesitant to watch that episode, but once you learn one thing it kind of compounds into another in a fascinating way. What things have you discovered that completely blew your mind in a way you didn’t expect?

The dust story, to get a little bit personal. It was supposed to be about dust but what it ended up being was an episode about life and death and it became weirdly personal. While this was shooting I lost a friend of mine, and what was supposed to be about dust, then ended up being this meditation on life and death that was truly shocking. It’s supposed to be over here and dead and just sitting here, but its not. It moves and it fertilizes and it pollinates and it does some bad and scary stuff too.

But just the idea that things that are dead have these afterlives that are going on all around us. It was emotionally shocking for me to tell this story at a time when I had lost my friend and I was very sad about it. Revisiting this story over and over, to have to shoot it and talk to people about it and edit it, it was sort of a weird but cathartic experience.

Do you think technology and advancement will always be a double-edged sword? I think about the episode on surveillance. The way Tinder had 800 pages on Judith was chilling, but that same technology can also lead to a world where pigs and other animals are more ethically farmed, which is an important change. It’s always this give and take.

You know, that’s the story of the history of science. You can’t predict and things end up being way better or way worse than you could’ve ever imagined. That’s everything, that’s all around us. Tupperware was made from gas mask technology in World War 2, everything around us is products of this double-edged sword. We have to marvel at that. What a world we live in where all this is possible, so much is possible for the big and the bad.

First, it opens your eyes, but then it makes you realize you’re so much more responsible for the world around us and the way we use all of these things.

Given the title of the show and this new era of social distancing, how do continue to stay connected while living through this unprecedented time where we have to be disconnected from one another for our own safety?

Yeah, it’s a funny moment right? It feels like an especially strange moment to release a show out in the world that is about those connections, dwelling on those connections. It’s me taking these connected flights all over the world to report these stories, and it’s coming out to this world that’s kind of shut down. My family is in Canada, we’re shut down. We’re all shutdown in our homes, there is this profound irony, but it makes me think, “we think these things are shut down, but we’re kidding ourselves.”

There are these connections, they exist. No matter what we do the world is going to be this connected place, it’s going to surprise us the ways in which it is. For COVID that’s a scary thing because there is a danger there, but I do think that hopefully, the idea of this show is to say “Look, the world isn’t just connected in the way you think it is, it’s connected in all these other ways too”

“Connected” Is Available To Stream Now On Netflix.

Apparently, I’m being paid off by pedophiles.

This payoff is news to me, but it’s what Some Random People on the Internet are saying, so it must be true, right? That’s how this works? What other reason would I have for sharing factual information about the very real issue of child sex trafficking and calling out false stories of Satanic pedophile rings in which famous evil overlords like Tom Hanks, Oprah, and Hillary Clinton torture and sacrifice children to increase their own power? I simply must be “in on it” somehow.

That seems to be more plausible in some people’s minds than the idea that the wild “Pizzagate” child sex ring theory, which has already been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked, could be fabricated by online trolls and perpetuated by politically-motivated players. People believe Pizzagate is real because they’ve been convinced that the entire media industry is in cahoots and because fringe “sources” with no oversight and no accountability—who insist they’re the only ones telling the truth—said so.

Here’s the thing about such conspiracy theories. (Yes, I know. Some of you think the term “conspiracy theory” was coined by the CIA—read this and stay out of my inbox, please.) Some conspiracy theories are goofy, but harmless. The “flat earth” thing, for example, or the idea that we faked the moon landing. Those beliefs are easily disproven and obviously ridiculous, but no one is being hurt by them. We can all laugh, shake our heads, and move on.

But these outrageous child sex trafficking conspiracy theories like those pushed by QAnon are harmful. Child sex trafficking is a very real, very serious, and very lucrative industry that organizations and governments have been battling for a long time. But QAnon isn’t just saying “child sex trafficking is real and important and we need to shed a light on it.” They’re saying “There is a secret, global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who control everything—including politicians, the media, and Hollywood—and who engage in child sex trafficking and ritual sacrifice to harvest adenochrome from children, and Trump is here to save us all from their evil and it’s only a matter of time before they all go down.”

Those are two very different things—the issue of child sex trafficking (which is real) and the idea that Hillary Clinton literally sucking the lifeblood out of children in a pizza parlor basement (which doesn’t even exist). The fact that we’re nearly four years into Trump’s presidency and none of these supposed Satanic pedophiles have actually been arrested—despite Trump supposedly knowing all about their dastardly deeds, according to Q—is more than a little weird. But that isn’t stopping people from believing this stuff.

It’s also not stopping people from hijacking perfectly good hashtags associated with perfectly good organizations and using them to “raise awareness” about this evil. This is why the #SaveTheChildren hashtag is suddenly showing up everywhere. As Kevin Roose wrote in the New York Times:

“The idea, in a nutshell, is to create a groundswell of concern by flooding social media with posts about human trafficking, joining parenting Facebook groups and glomming on to hashtag campaigns like #SaveTheChildren, which began as a legitimate fund-raising campaign for the Save the Children charity. Then followers can shift the conversation to baseless theories about who they believe is doing the trafficking: a cabal of nefarious elites that includes Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey and Pope Francis.”

Some unsuspecting people are using this hashtag to talk about child sex trafficking in general, but many posts refer to the evil Hollywood elite and include various QAnon hashtags along with it. And by evil Hollywood elite, they don’t mean the legitimate issue of Jeffrey Epstein and investigations into his sleazy, slimy, sick habits. They mean “The Cabal.”

Some #SaveTheChildren posters are surely unaware that they’ve been sucked into a conspiracy theory web of disinformation, but those of us who have been following the QAnon phenomenon recognize the virtual fingerprints of a QAnon push. Some of it is obvious, like seeing the #WWG1WGA (a QAnon acronym—”Where we go one, we go all”) accompanying many of these posts. But it’s also the fact that #SaveTheChildren was soon changed to #SaveOurChildren. Why? Because QAnon followers got wind that Bill and Melinda Gates financially support the actual Save the Children organization that the hashtag originally was used for. And Bill Gates, of course, is one of those “evil global elites” who, according to QAnon, created the coronavirus on purpose in order to push his vaccine agenda and depopulate the planet.

So yeah. The #SaveTheChildren thing is a big effing mess.

What’s the big deal, though? Isn’t it just important that we raise awareness about child sex trafficking in general? Of course it is. But unfounded conspiracy theories are not only unhelpful to that cause, but actively harmful.

The Polaris Project is an organization that provides social services to victims of sex trafficking, works with law enforcement to perform crisis interventions for possible victims of trafficking, and runs the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline. In a blog post, the organization explained how these unfounded conspiracy theories actually do harm to the child sex trafficking cause.

“A barrage of conspiracy-related reports from people with no direct knowledge of trafficking situations can overwhelm services meant for victims,” the site states, pointing out that the recent Wayfair child sex trafficking conspiracy theory flooded their hotline with more calls than they could handle, with zero real leads to real victims, clogging the line so that real victims couldn’t get through. They also point out that such theories can lead to loss of privacy or safety for victims or innocent bystanders. (Check out the threats and violence the owner of Comet Ping Pong pizza parlor in Washington D.C. has had to deal with over “Pizzagate.”)

In addition, and perhaps most importantly, “Conspiracies distract from the more disturbing but simple realities of how sex trafficking actually works, and how we can prevent it.” In other words, all this Pizzagate and Wayfair and adenochrome-sucking nonsense actually pulls people away from the reality of child sex trafficking and interferes with the work people could actually be doing to help prevent it. Most children aren’t kidnapped out of the blue to be sold and abused, but are trafficked or abused by people they know. (See this article written by a woman who was trafficked by her father throughout her childhood.) Polaris encourages people to learn more about what trafficking actual is, what it looks like, and how it generally happens, rather than circulating misinformation.

The bottom line: While #SaveTheChildren might seem like a righteous thing to share, we have to recognize that there’s a boatload of misinformation that is being shared along with it, and such misinformation can do more harm than good.

What should we do then to actually fight for children who are wrapped up in sex trafficking? Follow legitimate organizations that have been doing this work for years. Pay attention to what they say, as well as what they don’t. (You won’t find any of them endorsing QAnon conspiracies. If there were truth to them, these are the folks who would be first in line to shed light on it and do something about it.) Here are some to check out:

Polaris Project

Love146

The Exodus Road

ECPAT-USA

Thorn

Operation Underground Railroad

International Justice Mission

You can also learn more about chlid sex trafficking on the United States Department of Justice website.

Child sex trafficking is worthy cause to get behind. Just makes sure you’re getting behind the real issue, supporting real organizations with the expertise to help, and avoiding conspiracy theories that only serve to distract from the real work being done to actuallly #SaveTheChidlren.

BeatKing is a Texas staple. Every college student in Texas since 2009 has twerked and/or has been twerked on to a song by BeatKing. His legacy has mainly stayed true to the South until this year when his song “Then Leave” featuring Queendom Come went viral on TikTok. Now, everyone is hip to the greatness BeatKing Kong delivered all those years to college kids in the South.

In June, I came across a TikTok of a friend, not from the South, dancing to the familiar room-shaking voice of BeatKing. His aggressive tone of delivery was easily noticeable since his raunchy club hits were essentially the soundtrack of my college experience while attending the University of Houston.

“I ain’t trickin’, I’m just dickin’ bitches down / Head down, pop that, pop that, pop that pussy to the ground,” he raps.

It’s Queen’s “Then leave, bitch, then leave / Get that bread, get that head, then leave, peace out,” opening on the song, however, that sets the tone for the would-be club hit.

It was at that moment that I knew something special was happening.

There were thousands of people doing the coordinated dance created by two Texas girls named Tay and Miyah. All that was left to do was to sit back and wait for two of the biggest TikTokers in the world, Charlie D’amelio and Addison Rae, to make a TikTok doing the dance — which didn’t take long.

The trend snowballed from there. By July, so many people were making TikToks to “Then Leave,” including Cardi B and Lizzo, record labels were calling offering him deals. All of this happened in a matter of 90 days. The song was released in April and by June it had millions of videos made to it and he had signed an artist deal with Columbia Records.

Speaking with the Club God himself, BeatKing shared how it all went down and during a pandemic at that. I also caught up with Queen who recalled making the song with BeatKing at his house and making brownies as they went through the process of creating “Then Leave.”

One day I was randomly scrolling through TikTok and I was like, “Whoa, is that BeatKing? What’s going on?” Going into the University of Houston and then leaving Houston to be in LA, I never heard BeatKing. Nobody knows the name but they know the songs, so my eyes lit up.

No, that’d be real frustrating for my fans, man. A lot of fans, they grow up out here and they leave out of town to go to college or go visit other cities and just be like, “Man, play that BeatKing.” They’ll be like, “Who?”

That’s been a big problem my whole career, people knowing my music, but not knowing BeatKing. It don’t happen now. I think the cucumber thing that helped me out a little bit. Once I started doing that, people really start realizing what I look like.

That’s how I knew a special moment was happening and I know the biggest star on TikTok is Charli D’Amelio. Once she does one, you know it’s a wrap.

That’s all my daughter’s waiting on, was her. Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae. When that happened, they just start screaming. I woke up to them screaming.

Addison made more than one, right?

She just put me on her playlist on Spotify of music she’s listening to. It’s going crazy. Lizzo has repeatedly made videos.

What was your daughter’s reaction when they saw Charli and Addison?

My daughters’ reaction to Charli D’Amelio; they found out she did it before I did, and it was just screaming. They couldn’t believe it. Addison Rae; I saw that before they did. I put them on that and they would say, “Oh my god, daddy, you’re really famous.” They always knew I was BeatKing, but I’ve never had a song that’s entered their world like this TikTok shit. All their friends just want to talk to me on FaceTime. They just can’t believe they daddy is a rapper, rapper.

What was your reaction when you saw Lizzo?

It didn’t really hit me when Lizzo did it. It hit me hard when Cardi B did it.

And her video went viral.

The video went viral. There are like 15 million views. That’s more views than most of the videos on her page right now. That meant a lot to me because I’m a Cardi B fan. I’m a big Offset fan. They wasn’t just bobbing their heads, they were saying the lyrics. That mean they bumped this shit.

Where were you when you first saw Cardi B’s video?

I was driving to my DJ’s house. He stay like 15 minutes away from me, so I’m always just chilling at his house and I was listening to him do this mix, and all of a sudden my phone just blew up. It wasn’t nothing but eight minutes into her posting it that my phone blew up. It just let me know how popular she is. She got more followers than Drake. But those are the two major moments for that song to me. Cardi B posting it, Drake posting it.

Drake posted it?

No Drake didn’t post it, Drake DM’d me about it.

What did Drake tell you?

He DM’d me back in April, because that’s when I had dropped it and that’s when the video came out. He DM’d me saying “I just can’t sit here and watch this shit.” He’s like, “My n****, you killed this verse.” I was like, “N****, you Drake. N****, you kill verses. What the fuck?” Drake started following me in October of last year and we’ve met since then. He said I killed my verse, so that let me know that it was going to be a hit.

Damn.

I didn’t think it would lead to going viral and the whole record deal and the whole industry just watching this shit.

I was interested in seeing how far it would go. Like I said, I’m in LA now, so they don’t really “know” BeatKing.

But you know what’s crazy, though, up in LA? The masses don’t know me out there, but the strip clubs do. The strip club culture? They play a lot of BeatKing at Crazy Girls.

I feel like it’s not a strip club if BeatKing’s not playing at some point.

You got to have BeatKing in the strip club, or you don’t have a fucking strip club.

But Cardi B. Like you said, she has more followers than Drake. I thought it was interesting how she commented and told you that whoever it was needs to get their shit together. She let you know how much trouble she went through to make the video.

That meant a lot to me. She really wanted to make that video. She had to play it on a whole other phone. She went through a lot just to make that video. You know what I’m saying? I think that comment put fire under TikTok’s ass, because what happened was the song accidentally got taken down off TikTok for a week and a half.

Whoa.

It was just a technicality. Shit happens. It was gone for a week and a half, and I thought that was going to stop the whole momentum but it didn’t. The song is so popping that people were uploading it to TikTok themselves and making videos to it. Cardi B went out of her way to play the song from another phone. That song not going nowhere. I know at least for the fucking summer into the fall. The remix ain’t even been done yet.

Who’s on the remix?

I don’t know yet. We out there sending out pitches.

Who would be the dream for the remix?

The dream remix would be Megan Thee Stallion and Drake. I could just easily DM Drake, but I don’t want to come off like people who begging him for verses every fucking day because I know people beg Drake for verses. People beg me for versus every day and I’m BeatKing. If you Drake, you got motherfuckers begging you for verses.

I’m begging Drake for an interview, so I feel you.

I just don’t want to be somebody else doing that. Me and him just got cool. I don’t want to be like, “Hey man, and by the way, you want to hop on…?” I figure like, it’ll happen when it happen.

I don’t know how it works behind the scenes, if people know before an artist hops on a remix or if they do it on their own. Like how Justin Bieber hopped on “What’s Poppin.” Did Jack Harlow’s team know that was going to happen or did just Justin Bieber just do it?

It go both ways, man. Sometimes a label gets the remix done for you, and if that’s the case, then you have no idea what’s going on. The way I like to operate is a relationship with the artist. Once you’re cool with the artist then they’re not going to charge you. It’s more of a beneficial, mutual thing, if everybody’s cool with each other and doing it off the strength of that. For this remix, I’m going to real hands-on.

You make your own beats, so did you make this one?

Yes, I did. The main part of it, the turn-up when that verse come on in club, go up, “boom boom boom.” I know how to control the energy and bodies. I knew if I switch the beat up here, it’s going to make the song go up in orbit when that verse start and it worked. That’s the main part on TikTok. I know how to evoke emotion through 808s. If you switch up a beat at a certain spot, people don’t understand why they like the song that much right there.

That’s very interesting. I talk to a lot of producers, but no one’s ever described production in that way.

Beats are the most important part of the song. I’ve never seen somebody get turned up to acapella. It’s the beat that would make you drive your car faster. If the beat is hard off the top, your work already cut in half. I was like, “Well let me just make Queen say some ratchet ass, gold-digging ass shit,” and you put that with a fucking strip club ass beat, and there they go. The formula.

We’re in the middle of a pandemic and there’s a lot of artists that are struggling a little bit right now, but you are flourishing!

That’s just God man. I had the right song at the right time. It’s like the worst time for the human race right now with COVID and Black Lives Matter and George Floyd. It’s just the worst year, I feel, for mankind. But, it’s been the best year of my life. Normally when I drop new songs, I work them in the clubs, and I do the footwork but the clubs were closed this time so I had to do something that I hate to do. I had to make a challenge. I hate challenges, because everybody’s doing them. When I did that sh*t with The Dancer Locker Room — that’s another ratchet ass Instagram page.

Oh, I follow them.

With The Dancer Locker Room, we did a challenge together and found out every stripper in the country follow them. When they did the #ThenLeaveChallenge, every stripper around the country was on there doing it. That was April through May and every stripper had it. It was already embedded in they brain. They already riding around listening to it, doing private hotel party type of shit.

I’d say around June when everybody just started to go back outside that they start clubbing a little bit again. That’s when the TikTok challenges started. I remember right when they hit 662 videos. That’s when my daughters came in my room, was like, “Daddy, your song is getting popular on TikTok. Every time I open my phone, your song is playing.” The next day we hit a thousand videos. I was like, “Damn, so 400 people made videos to this in a day?” The next week it was 5,000. The next day it was 10,000.

Right when it hit 20,000, it started trending on Apple Music for almost three weeks straight. That’s when all the labels start calling.

Me and my manager was having a conference calls with every major label in the industry and they all just kept talking to me about the song. “It’s a dope song. We want to buy the song.” Columbia was the only one talking to me about a career.

What is your label situation?

I am signed to Columbia Records as a artist. That’s where Polo G is. Beyonce. Lil Nas X and a plethora of other successful ass people. I belong there.

Tell me about Queendom Come, she has the main part of the song on TikTok!

That’s my dog. Me and her, we had a hit song in 2012 called “You Ain’t Bout Dat Life.” A lot of people are just now realizing that’s the same girl. She been doing hooks for me. She’s actually a dope rapper and a real lyricist. I first met her like 2010 when I heard her rap and I wanted her to do a song with me and when she did that, it was “You Ain’t Bout Dat Life.” I was like, “Man, yo, this song going to be big. We going to be on the Billboard charts.” She was like, “Man, shut the fuck up. I don’t even know what that is.” We ended up peaking on the urban charts with no deal.

I saw that post of you going to her house and giving her a check.

That was just me paying her back, man. Every time I get a royalty check or anything I’m always going to look out. Columbia signed me, they didn’t sign her.

There wouldn’t be no signing for me if she didn’t hum those parts and if she didn’t say that hook the way I needed her to say it. People are asking her for hooks and she won’t do them. It’s like, “I’m not doing hooks for nobody but BeatKing. I’m not letting out this sound. I’m not finna slut out this brand we got.” It was just me being a real one.

I also want to talk about “right cheek, left cheek,” because I always say the first time I ever heard that saying was in the “Crush” remix with Just Brittany. I feel like that was maybe every girl’s favorite part of the song, now I hear that saying everywhere and more recently with Beyonce’s verse on the “Savage” remix. Have you noticed that?

Me and my manager, we talk about this a lot, making sure that I don’t come off that way. But a lot of stuff that’s going on today, that’s working today, I did do it first. I don’t go around just talking like that. Nobody give a fuck. The stuff I was doing 10 years ago, you can see it in somebody like Megan today. She’s 25, so that means she was listening to me when she was 15. You can see it.

You are embedded in Texas culture.

You’re going to hear me like nine times a night in Middle America and the South; I’ve been on. That’s why this ain’t really too much different, it’s just everybody else is finding out. I’ve been doing shows every weekend since 2010. They think I’m a new artist.

Did you see the TikTok of the girl where she goes through your songs since 2010?

Yep. That shit was dope. I wish I could find her Instagram. Her TikTok meant the most to me. That was dope. She had all the hits on there. Like, that was a real supporter.

I love that. The original girls who made the dance, was that random?

That was hella random. That was hella a random. Those two girls, two little 16-year-olds from Dallas, and they just showed me the power that TikTok has. I think it’s very popular because you can’t manipulate it.

Yeah, exactly.

It’s very organic. They was just some fans who liked the song. I remember they tagged me in that video on Instagram and I didn’t think nothing of it. I just liked their video to just be nice.

When my daughter started showing me the videos increasing on TikTok, and I saw it was their video that kicked it off, I was like, wait, they just put that on Instagram. On Instagram it ain’t got no clout but on TikTok, they turned up like a motherfucker. Those two girls started everything. Now they got like 60,000 followers, just off that dance. You can’t tell a TikToker to TikTok.

You cannot.

They have to see it from their friends. They’re not going to the person with a million followers to copy them. They’re doing stuff in their community unless it’s Charli D’Amelio or Addison Rae. These kids just making dances around they friends and it just picked up from there. The videos is just tripling and tripling and tripling every hour.

At least two million.

It’s at two million right now. It probably would have fucking been at three million if the song ain’t got taken down before we could have. It just got back up there so now we back up and running.

I’m happy to hear that.

I’m happy as fuck to hear that too. Like, if Cardi B wouldn’t have done a video to my song, what would’ve been done? She held it down while it was down.

Shout out to Cardi B, she’s a real one.

Shout out to Cardi.

That’s why I had to mention it because that’s some real shit. You don’t see people doing that kind of stuff in the music industry.

I know a lot of females that have danced with Cardi back in the day and they all tell me she a real ass bitch. They all say “Man, she real as hell. She’s one of the realest ones.” Her hopping in my comments, it didn’t catch me off guard.

Tell me about your artist Jade, too! I know she has a song with Jucee Froot that’s fire.

Jade from Beaumont. I really need y’all on her. Her project is probably going to be coming out in the next two months. We just shot a lot of videos and she has a real hard song with Erica Banks that’s going to drop.

From the suburbs of Chicago to the University of Tennessee to the Los Angeles Sparks, WNBA legend Candace Parker has broken down preconceived notions about female athletes and Black women. In a new ad spot for adidas, Parker looks back on her life so far, her struggles, and her legacy.

Parker discusses growing up and being underestimated as an athlete as one of the only Black girls who would venture to the hardwood in her hometown of Naperville, Illinois. She explains how eye-opening it was to play in China and Russia as a pro hooper, and seeing the way people all across the world treat Black women. And she details why she hopes that her career — though hardly finished — can serve as inspiration for young Black girls like her daughter Lailaa.

“I believe the meaning of life is legacy,” Parker says. “So for me, it’s definitely my kid. It’s definitely just an energy. You either leave something, or you take something, and I’d rather take something.

“I hope there are certain things that come to mind when people think of me when I’m no longer here or no longer a part of the game of basketball or no longer on Earth. … If you don’t have a legacy, what are you doing?”

One of the most exciting series of the first round of the NBA playoffs will be without a key character to start, as Rockets guard Russell Westbrook will reportedly miss at least the first couple games team’s series against his former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, according to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle.

Westbrook has already been ruled out of Houston’s closing seeding-round game on Friday with a strained quad.

Now, Feigen reports, “Though the Rockets could only put a timetable on when they will next evaluate Russell Westbrook’s strained quadriceps muscle, the expectation is that he will be out for the first few games of next week’s playoff series and possibly longer, a person with knowledge of the team’s thinking said on Thursday.”

An MRI revealed that Westbrook’s injury was more serious than anticipated, after Westbrook himself said he would be ready to play Friday and practice over the weekend in anticipation of the first game of the series next week. The Rockets are set to play a surprising Thunder team in the first round after locking in the fourth seed.

That series is full of subplots, not the least of which is Westbrook facing the team for which he played during the first 12 years of his career. Not only will that story be absent if Westbrook is forced to miss extended time, but a series that was already likely to be quite competitive takes on even more of a focus in the Western Conference if the Rockets are without their No. 2 option.

With folks more desperate for streaming content than ever, Amazon just scored a huge get when it comes to October horror. The eight-film anthology “Welcome to the Blumhouse” will launch on Prime Video with four new movies hitting the platform in the lead-up to Halloween, and the rest coming down the line in 2021.

The four films include The Lie, Black Box, Evil Eye, and Nocturne, which will release as double features throughout the month of October. According to Amazon, “each film presents a distinctive vision and unique perspective on common themes centered around family and love as redemptive or destructive forces.” Via Deadline:

“We’re beyond excited that the visions of these talented filmmakers will finally be seen by genre fans around the world, especially during this time when people are seeking to escape and be entertained. And we love the innovative idea of programming like the classic drive-in or repertory theater experience,” said Marci Wiseman and Jeremy Gold, co-presidents Blumhouse Television. “Amazon have been incredible partners, linking arms and supporting the creative visions throughout the process of making these films.”

Here are the summaries for the upcoming horror slate along with each film’s Amazon Prime release date.

The Lie (10/6)

“When their teenaged daughter confesses to impulsively killing her best friend, two desperate parents attempt to cover up the horrific crime, leading them into a complicated web of lies and deception.”

Black Box (10/6)

“After losing his wife and his memory in a car accident, a single father undergoes an agonizing experimental treatment that causes him to question who he really is.”

Evil Eye (10/13)

“A seemingly perfect romance turns into a nightmare when a mother becomes convinced her daughter’s new boyfriend has a dark connection to her own past.”

Nocturne (10/13)

“Inside the halls of an elite arts academy, a timid music student begins to outshine her more accomplished and outgoing twin sister when she discovers a mysterious notebook belonging to a recently deceased classmate.”

You can see the official “Welcome to the Blumhouse” poster below:

(Via Deadline)

With all the talk of the 2020 XXL Freshman Class circulating, a member of 2019’s class has returned to drop off a new video from her delayed debut album. “iPhone,” the latest single from Rico Nasty arrives with a video produced by her “Ringtone” collaborators 100 Gecs. The video uses surreal imagery to comment on the way technology has consumed our lives as Rico spits boastful lyrics about a crush who gets her to change her ways.

“iPhone” joins “Lightning” and “Popstar” as the latest teaser to the delayed Nightmare Vacation, which was originally set to be released in summer 2020 but was delayed by the onset of a global pandemic. The delay turned out to be a mixed blessing, as it allowed Rico more time to polish the project and ensure it lives up to the potential posited by prominent co-signers like Cardi B, who told Rico she was “up next” to become one of rap’s biggest stars.

However, her delayed album isn’t the only thing keeping her name buzzing during lockdown. She recently collaborated with IDK on his PG County posse cut “495,” contributed to the Scooby-Doo reboot film’s “My Little Alien,” and linked up with Kali Uchis for the bilingual hit, “Aquí Yo Mando.”

Watch Rico Nasty’s ‘iPhone’ video above

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

In the past five years, Robert De Niro, one of the greatest film actors ever, has starred in two Best Picture nominees (Joker and The Irishman) and two movies with “grandpa” in the title. Now that’s what I call range. The War with Grandpa — which is not a gritty sequel to Dirty Grandpa — is a family-friendly comedy about a technologically-averse old man moving into his grandson’s room. The grandson, as you might imagine, is not thrilled with this development, so he basically tries to murder his elderly gramps. You thought the talk show scene in Joker was dark? Wait until you see The War with Grandpa.

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

Sixth-grader Peter (Oakes Fegley) is pretty much your average kid—he likes gaming, hanging with his friends and his beloved pair of Air Jordans. But when his recently widowed grandfather Ed (Robert De Niro) moves in with Peter’s family, the boy is forced to give up his most prized possession of all, his bedroom. Unwilling to let such an injustice stand, Peter devises a series of increasingly elaborate pranks to drive out the interloper, but Grandpa Ed won’t go without a fight. Soon, the friendly combatants are engaged in an all-out war with side-splitting consequences.

The War with Grandpa, which also stars Christopher Walken, Uma Thurman, Rob Riggle, Cheech Marin, and Jane Seymour, comes out on October 9.

Mark Kozelek, vocalist of early ’00s folk-rock outfit Sun Kil Moon, has been accused of sexual misconduct by several women. In a recent exposé published by Pitchfork, three women have come forward and shared eerily similar stories of harassment and assault by Kozelek spanning from 2014 to 2017.

Sarah Catherine Golden first came forward about her experiences with Kozelek after reading the lyrics to the singer’s 2018 track “Soap For Joyful Hands,” in which he essentially describes an encounter with her in Portugal in 2017. Golden found the lyrics weren’t quite faithful to her experience with him, as it left out the part where they’d gone back to his hotel room after the show. Golden was under the impression his bandmates would join them, but they ended up alone. Kozelek removed his pants and Golden asked him to call a cab. After doing so, Kozelek grabbed her body, tried to kiss her, and forcibly moved her hand to touch him. “He totally just pulled a Louis C.K. on me,” she later recalled to a friend, referring to the comedian’s admitted pattern of harassment and assault.

Golden’s story lines up with another allegation against Kozelek by a musician who chose not to be named in the report. The musician said Kozelek had invited her and another woman back to his hotel room in 2014 where he inappropriately acted in very similar ways.

Another account of assault is by a woman who has opted to go by Andrea. In 2014, Andrea attended Hopscotch Festival Raleigh, North Carolina when she was fresh out of high school. Andrea was an aspiring film major and a fan of Kozelek’s music so when they met at the event and the singer asked for her number, Andrea was excited about the prospect of a high-profile professional connection. “She was on the verge of going to college and majoring in film and television, and he had some film background too,” Andrea’s mom told Pitchfork. “So, I think she viewed it as, this was exciting. This was somebody she admired. And she was going into this field where having contacts and those kinds of things was going to be helpful. That she could gain knowledge, things like that.”

After the festival, Kozelek invited Andrea to his hotel room. Andrea, who was just 19 at the time, obliged because she assumed it was an after-party of sorts. But upon arrival, Kozelek was alone in his room and Andrea said he “pretty much just pounced on me,” and began to rape her. “I was just really afraid to say no,” Andrea had said to a friend the next day. “He focused on my age a lot…He kept asking me to say how old i was (literally one of the worst things i’ve had to go through) and he called himself ‘daddy.’ I’m kind of afraid of him i mean we’re in the same hotel and stuff.” Andrea felt pressured into having intercourse with Kozelek several times following the first incident and while some of the encounters were consensual, she said there were other instances where “the lines [were] really blurred.”

Read Pitchfork’s full story here.

Rum is one of the fasted growing sectors of the spirits business. Like whiskey, it’s constantly expanding, changing, and deepening. At its highest levels, it marries quality sourcing, craft distilling techniques, new-wave barrelling experimentation, and expert blending. It teases sweetness without being cloying and conjures spice without needing added flavors.

It’s a fun time to drink really good rum, is what we’re saying.

Dark rums — like your favorite whiskeys or bourbons — draw deep colors, rich textures, and beautiful tasting notes from months and years spent in barrels. It’s also a global spirit, meaning you have a lot of variations to try with wildly different flavor profiles. Want something funkier? Drink a Jamaican rum. Looking for something a little more spicy and fruity? Barbados is the play. Looking for something on the cusp? Look out for Mauritian rums. You get the gist.

The ten bottles below are bottles I personally vouch for. I drink a lot of rum throughout the year in a professional capacity. But when I’m paying retail I still find myself coming back to these expressions more often than not.

Mount Gay Black Barrel

ABV: 43%
Distillery: Mount Gay Distilleries, Barbados (Rémy Cointreau)
Average Price: $50

The Rum:

You can’t really talk about rum and not talk about Barbados and Mount Gay. The distillery is the oldest rum distillery in the world and Barbados is known as the “birthplace” of the spirit. This expression is first aged in ex-bourbon barrels before being blended and finished in heavily-charred oak, giving the sip an incredible sense of depth.

Tasting Notes:

This is an even-handed rum. Notes of lemon-lime pop next to roasted nuts and plenty of sharp, dark spice. The palate delivers a hint of bourbon vanilla then carries on through notes of sweet tropical fruits, more citrus, thick molasses, plenty of Christmas spice, and a clear sense of bitter charred oak.

The fattiness from the nuts marries that aforementioned bitterness as the warmth from the spice close out the sip.

Bottom Line:

If you bump into me next to a pool, I’ll have a Black Barrel on the rocks in my hand.

Bacardí Gran Reserva Diez

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Bacardi Distillery, Puerto Rico
Average Price: $50

The Rum:

Bacardi has been changing its party image to one of high refinement recently with the Ocho and Diez releases. The Diez — a real stunner — is aged for ten long years and then charcoal filtered (not unlike Tennessee whiskey) before bottling.

Tasting Notes:

The refinement and age come through on the fruity nose of with highlights of banana (Tennessee whiskey anyone?), peach, and vanilla. The oak is present but serves as a reminder of the barrel as rich caramel, more vanilla, apple orchards, and a continuous stone fruit essence dance on the palate. The sip fades away evenly with a hint of spice and a distant wisp of tobacco smoke at the very end.

Bottom Line:

This is a solid sipper to have on hand but I like to use it as a base for a cracking rum Manhattan.

Flor de Caña 18

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Compañía Licorera de Nicaragua
Average Price: $55

The Rum:

This Nicaraguan rum is made on the slopes of the San Cristóbal Volcano. The molasses is made from estate-grown sugar cane from that volcanic soil. The rums are then aged in ex-bourbon barrels for varying amounts of time before blending. It’s important to note that “18” is the average age of the barrels involved and not the age of the expression.

Tasting Notes:

Bold and dark spices mingle with potpourri and a sense of sweet red fruit. The subtle molasses arrives and carries the fruit and florals towards a woody flourish. There’s a mineral edge that leans towards smoky, fruit-flavored pipe tobacco on the warming end.

Bottom Line:

Works as a solid rum on the rocks, highball, or cocktail base.

Equiano

ABV: 43%
Distillery: Gray’s distillery, Mauritius & Foursquare, Barbados
Average Price: $60

The Rum:

Global Rum Ambassador Ian Burrell masterminded this expression — combining African and Caribbean rum traditions. The bottle is created under the watchful eye of rum master Richard Seale who blends rums from Mauritius and Barbados into a one-of-its-kind final product that feels like the future of rum in a bottle.

Tasting Notes:

The Cognac cask finishing comes through even on the nose as fruit, nuts, and spice mingle. The sip naturally has a baseline molasses sweetness that’s supported by fruit, more spice, and a vinous sense alongside the wood. There’s a very mild note of bitterness that leads towards a long, satisfying end with a comforting warmth.

Bottom Line:

This is built as a “drinking rum” according to Burrell. That means you can sip it, shoot it, or mix it. I suggest trying it in a highball or cocktail, but that’s just me.

Ron Zacapa 23 Sistema Solera

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala (Diageo)
Average Price: $67

The Rum:

This Guatemalan rum is a serious bottle. The sugar cane honey is derived from single estate cane grown in the highlands. The first-press sugar cane juice is fermented with pineapple yeast before distillation. The juice is then aged in a combination of ex-bourbon, Oloroso sherry, and Pedro Ximenez sherry casks for six to 23 years (again, the “23” is just the oldest barrel in the blend and not the age statement).

Tasting Notes:

Subtlety is the biggest note. There’s a dark chocolate bitterness touched by cinnamon spice, a hint of citrus, a waft of vanilla, and a dose of funk. The sip has a deep woodiness that carries hints of fresh tobacco, fatty nuts, thin molasses, and fresh, almost juicy, spices through a lingering finish.

Bottom Line:

Sip it with a single rock to help open up all those tasting notes.

Pusser’s Aged 15 Years

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Pusser’s Rum Ltd., West Indies
Average Price: $90

The Rum:

Pusser’s blends various rums from the Caribbean to create an expression that is reminiscent of the British Royal Navy rums of yesteryear. There’s a really old school sense to these rums (and the bottle) — all the taste with no flash. They’re a bit of a time machine to days of seafaring past, if you will.

This particular expression is a blend of Guyanan rums that have aged for at least 15 years.

Tasting Notes:

This sip is all about the wood and funk up top. There are notes of nuts, spices, and fruit, but the real point is that wood, minerality, and funkiness. There’s a mild sense of sweetness and warmth on the very short end that sticks with you.

Bottom Line:

This is a weird one and worth a shot if you’re looking for something truly different in the category. It also really works with tonic.

El Dorado 21 Year Old Special Reserve

ABV: 43%
Distillery: Demerara Distillers, Guyana
Average Price: $110

The Rum:

A lot of people complain that El Dorado rums are too sweet. And … I tend to agree if we’re talking about the expressions 15 years old and younger. However, the juice completely changes once you get above 20 years and becomes much closer to an earthy whisky.

This expression is a blend of three actual one-of-a-kind rums. One is distilled in the world’s only still-in-operation 19th-century wooden column still. One is distilled in the world’s only still-in-operation 18th-century single wooden pot still. And one is distilled in an 18th century French Savalle column still. That history alone is worth the money. Each is then aged for 21 years in oak before blending.

Tasting Notes:

Christmas cake dripping with melted butter sits next to flourishes of fresh tobacco leaves, dark cacao nibs, incense, and a hint of banana. The sip changes up everything but the cacao, as fatty nuts mingle with dried stone fruits and mild spices. The banana returns with a buttery, brown sugar flicker as the dried fruit deepens and the spice kicks up a notch towards sharp cinnamon before the sip very slowly fades away.

Bottom Line:

Sip this with a drop of water (or a rock) to appreciate the myriad flavors. I also dig it in a brandy snifter after a huge holiday meal.

Diplomático Single Vintage

ABV: 43%
Distillery: Destilerias Unidas S.A., Venezuela
Average Price: $115

The Rum:

This is an expertly-crafted expression. The rums are aged in a combination of ex-bourbon and ex-single malt casks for up to 12 years and then hand-blended by the Maestro himself. The blend then spends a year in Spanish sherry casks to finish it off and really amp up the final product.

Tasting Notes:

Candied ginger dances next to notes of funky wood, orange oils, and a light dusting of Christmas spices. The sip leans into a sherry plummy sweetness as the spice carries on to plenty of wood, bitterness, and a bit more of that orange oil. The sip lingers for just the right amount of time as it retraces each note.

Bottom Line:

This is a light sipper that works wonders with a single rock in the glass.

Appleton Estate Aged 21 Years

ABV: 43%
Distillery: The Appleton Estate, Jamaica (J. Wray & Nephew)
Average Price: $140

The Rum:

Joy Spence is making magic happen with her expression at the Appleton Estate. Each of the barrels used in this blend was aged for a minimum of 21 years, giving this a real sense of place and time with a serious depth of flavor.

Tasting Notes:

I get a bit of marzipan next to notes of wood, Jamaican funk, vanilla, wet brown sugar, black pepper, and a flutter of bitter orange marmalade — and that’s just the nose. The sip embraces all those years in oak, mild spice, more almond nuttiness, a dark chocolate bitter edge, and what I’d call a white sugar cube sweetness (in the best possible way).

Bottom Line:

I drink too much of this (usually with one solitary rock).

Editor’s Pick: Montanya Valentia

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Montanya Distillery, Crested Butte, CO
Average Price: $55

The Rum:

A very cool story on this one — Karen Hoskin was a classic Rocky Mountain backpacker type who fell in love with rum in Goa, and landed on the idea of starting a rum brand while in Belize. Once she decided to follow this path, she did things her way. Her brand, Montanya, is female-owned, distilled, and bottled — and supports women in spirits with various initiatives and community projects.

This expression is single barrel and double maturation — aging for four years in whiskey barrels and finished in rye barrels. It’s made with no extra honey or sugar of any kind, which is definitely noticeable in the taste (we’ll get to that).

Tasting Notes:

On the nose, you get some nice honey-sweet notes with a very solid dose of bright fruits (citrusy). Then the spice appears — not so much baking spices as peppery rye-type spice, with maybe some distant nutmeg. I found the palate to be very mineral-y, which I generally like and also conjures the rugged Rockies. The rye pepper draws out the vegetal, alive nature of the fruits, which I’d describe as “papayo-mango salad with grapefruit squeezed on top.” This is the part of the sip where you say to yourself, “There’s definitely no sugar added.”

On the finish, you get more typical rum cake-vanilla-cinnamon notes but they’re light and breezy (I really love super-rich rums, too, but this isn’t that). Nothing is heavy-handed here.

Bottom Line:

If you can afford this for a hand-shaken lime daiquiri on chipped ice, you’ll look like a cocktail genius. Otherwise, it does nicely as a sipper with an ice cube.