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Teyana Taylor shared her highly-anticipated 23-track record The Album a few months ago. The Album boasted a handful of features from artists like Missy Elliot and Erykah Badu, who Taylor says will assist in delivering her next baby. But the record also showcased Taylor’s intimate and affecting solo songwriting, like with the soaring track “Still.” Taylor now returns with a moving video alongside “Still,” calling attention to racial justice and the ongoing demonstrations against police brutality.

The visual opens with a powerful message from one of Malcom X’s infamous speeches: “We are oppressed. We are exploited. We are downtrodden. We are denied not only civil rights, but even human rights. So the only way we’re going to get some of the oppression and exploitation away from us or aside from us is to come together against the common enemy.”

The video then flashes the names of Black Americans who were victims of policy brutality and racism, like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Throughout the remainder of her “Still” video, Taylor intercuts vintage footage of iconic civil rights speakers like Angela Davis and Martin Luther King Jr. with footage of herself dressed as several recent victims of police violence.

Watch Taylor’s “Still” video above.

The Album is out now via G.O.O.D. Music/Def Jam. Get it here.

When he’s not collaborating with his sister Billie Eilish on her beloved music, Finneas has been building a nice solo career for himself. He released his debut EP Blood Harmony last year, which was followed by a deluxe edition last month. Now he’s continuing to churn out new music, as he dropped a fresh single today, “What They’ll Say About Us,” an evocative piano-pop ballad for which he also released a video.

The clip is a close-up of Finneas staring down the barrel of the camera as his background and environment continually shift behind him. Press materials describe the track as “an ode to human strength and connection when faced with life’s tribulations,” and Finneas says of it:

“I wrote this song in June after spending the day at a protest in Downtown LA, filled with hope with the prospect that millions of people were coming together from all over the world to fight against institutionalized racism and inequality. During that time, I’d also been following Amanda Kloots as she documented her husband Nick Cordero’s time in the ICU while in a coma after being admitted for COVID-19. Imagining her sitting by his side, waiting, hopeful for him to wake up, it got me thinking about all the millions of people, all over the world, who also have loved ones, parents, children and extended family members going through the same thing. Fighting this horrific virus. Some will over-come and wake up again, while others, tragically may not. This song is dedicated to all who have had to endure this year. I hope this song can offer some sort of comfort to those who may need it.”

Watch the video for “What They’ll Say About Us” above.

Guarding James Harden seems terrible. There might not be a less pleasant job in basketball than being tasked with checking the Houston Rockets’ MVP candidate. Harden has a better understanding than any other player in basketball of how to get to the free throw line, he’s able to mix skill and power to go at defenders, and, oh by the way, he also has the greenest light to let it fly from deep of any player we’ve seen and he’s capable of trying (and connecting) on stepback threes that opponents just cannot stop. Even on his off nights, drawing the Harden assignment seems, truly, like a miserable experience.

This is what makes the fact that the Oklahoma City Thunder found someone who can at least battle admirably against Harden so fascinating. What makes that endlessly more fascinating, though, is who that someone is: Luguentz Dort, a 21-year-old undrafted Canadian rookie from Arizona State whose singular job in this series has been “guard the most ruthless offensive player in the world.”

Dort did not play in Game 1 against the Rockets, a 111-98 win for Houston in which Billy Donovan threw, primarily, the 1-2 punch of Dennis Schröder and Terrance Ferguson at Harden, per NBA.com’s matchup data. Harden was excellent, scoring 37 points on 12-for-22 shooting from the field and 6-for-13 from three. A number of guys got to spend some time checking him, too, and largely, it didn’t go well.

One guy who did not get the chance to try and slow down Harden was Dort, who hurt his knee in Oklahoma City’s penultimate seeding game and did not return until Game 2 against the Rockets. Since returning, though, he has drawn the Harden assignment, and done as well as anyone could, let alone someone who is still getting used to life in the NBA and played in 29 total games before the league’s COVID-19 hiatus began in March.

Here is the thing that makes Dort such a good defender: Despite the fact that, at 6’3, he is not the tallest player, he is 220 pounds and quite strong for his size. At last year’s NBA Draft Combine, Dort benched 185 pounds 14 times, which tied for the sixth-best mark among all players. An impressive athlete beyond this, NBAAthlete.com listed Dort as the most athletic combo guard in the 2019 class — his bSPARQ score was the best in the draft among guards and wings — and put him in their bSPARQ Hall of Fame. Add in that he is a very willing defender and Dort has everything a coach wants to try and slow down the most prolific guards that basketball has to offer.

Even still, there is guarding those sorts of players and guarding Harden, but Dort has handled that about as well as one can. Per NBA.com, Dort has been the Thunder’s primary defender against Harden in every game where he has played. Here’s how this has gone for Harden:

Game 2: 6:09 minutes with Dort as his primary defender, 9 points, 1-for-7 from the field, 1-for-7 from three
Game 3: 7:34, 9, 2-for-14, 1-for-9
Game 4: 9:23, 18, 5-for-13, 4-for-9
Game 5: 4:34, 16, 5-for-6, 3-for-4
Game 6: 4:10, 6, 2-for-4, 1-for-3
Total: 31:50, 58 points, 15-for-44 (34.1 percent), 10-for-32 (31.3 percent)

Harden’s still getting to the foul line against Dort, as he’s 18-for-20 from the charity stripe across those five games on possessions where his fellow Sun Devil is his primary defender. Still, Dort has been physical with him, and it is evident that Oklahoma City has taken a “do not let James Harden beat us” approach when Dort is able to check him. Some numbers, via NBA.com:

The Rockets, funny enough, have been playing much better with Dort playing, but his presence has given Harden problems as a scorer. Harden is more willing to be a distributor when he’s being checked by Dort, which presents a different can of worms for the Thunder, but it seems evident they would much rather have guys like Eric Gordon, Jeff Green, Danuel House, Ben McLemore, or Austin Rivers beat them than Harden. As a result, Harden’s shooting numbers are down when Dort plays and make a noticeable leap when he does not. But despite that, interestingly enough, that has not made the Rockets better, in large part because taking Dort off the floor makes Oklahoma City’s offense much better.

On that end of the floor, Dort has a major, major weakness. Saying he’s been a non-factor on offense ignores the fact that he has the worst offensive box plus-minus among Thunder players this postseason and he’s shot the second-most threes on his team this series (38) despite connecting on, and this is not a typo, 18.4 percent of them. Threes make up 69.1 percent of his attempts in this series, and while his numbers on twos are not bad (everything he’s attempted has been within 10 feet and he’s connecting on 58.8 percent of those shots), that’s not often what he’s asked to do.

As a result, the team’s offense has been straight up wretched with him on the floor. According to Cleaning the Glass, and I must warn you that the numbers you’re about to see are horrible, the most-used lineup that features Dort (Chris Paul, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Dort, Danilo Gallinari, Steven Adams) has played 130 possessions. It is scoring 80 points per 100 possessions, has an effective field goal percentage of 44 percent, and has a turnover percentage of 21.5 percent. Those are the three worst marks that any lineup has in those metrics this postseason. That also applies for the points per 100 possessions differential that lineup has — it is being outscored by 36.8 points per 100 possessions by Houston.

Now, in much smaller sample sizes (although they do add up to 128 possessions), the next five most-used lineups that use Dort the most are much better. But even in that one very bad lineup, it’s not like Dort’s role changes. Think of him in the same vein you did Andre Iguodala in the Warriors’ famed Death Lineup, only without the playmaking or the sense of calm he brought. His Nos. 1-10 roles are to look at the other team’s best player and make him work extremely hard. Anything else he gives is a gigantic bonus.

He’s getting opportunities to give them something on offense. An insane 67.2 percent of his shots in this series have been “Open” or “Wide Open” threes because the Rockets realize they do not need to defend him — which is part of how they make life difficult on the rest of OKC’s offense by making them play 4-on-5. But Donovan seems to understand this, too, and seems to be fine with it as long as he is hounding Harden on the other end of the floor.

Luguentz Dort is not going to be the absolute deciding factor in what happens in Game 7 on Wednesday night. That distinction probably goes to Harden, who, as Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer laid out on Wednesday, has a whole lot on his shoulders heading into the game. But while guys like Paul, Gilgeous-Alexander, and Schröder will be tasked with winning the game for Oklahoma City, Dort’s job will be making sure Harden can’t win it for Houston. If he can make sure that happens, then the Thunder will very likely get the chance to take on the Los Angeles Lakers in the conference semifinals.

Gunna didn’t release many music videos to promote his May album Wunna ahead of time, but he’s making up for it now. While he’d only released “Skybox” and “Wunna” by the time the album dropped, he quickly followed up with “Rockstar Bikers & Chains,” “Dollaz On My Head,” and “Wunna Flo,” with a double video for “200 For Lunch” and “Dirty Diana” landing most recently. Today, he keeps the hits coming with the video for his Lil Baby collaboration, “Blindfold.”

For the video’s straightforward concept, Gunna and Lil Baby borrow some on-the-nose inspiration from the buzzy Netflix original film Bird Box. The Atlanta duo wanders through a forest and a post-apocalyptic landscape while, yes, blindfolded before finding some surprisingly beat-up luxury cars and driving them — this is dangerous, please don’t try it at home — to a warehouse, where they remove their occular impairments and don their bling for a final performance sequence in the garage’s lounge.

In addition to promoting his own project, Gunna’s been spotted recently on tracks from British grime star Octavian (“Famous“), Texas XXL Freshman dropout Don Toliver (“Lemonade“), and North Carolina troublemaker DaBaby (“TLC“).

Watch Gunna’s “Blindfold” video featuring Lil Baby above.

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

The Verzuz series of livestream battles has become one of the highlights of virtual entertainment during the pandemic, and so far, some great artists have been matched up to compare their discographies. Yesterday, though, a Twitter user sparked perhaps the greatest debate related to the franchise so far. Sharing photos of Barney and Sesame Street icon Elmo, they asked, “Verzuz track for track, who y’all got?” The tweet got a lot of replies, including some from Chance The Rapper.

Answering the original tweet, somebody offered, “What the f*ck is Elmo gone play when Barney drops ‘Clean Up’ or ‘I Love You’??? Barney in 4.” Chance couldn’t help but chime in, responding, “Elmos World, Together Forever. And if he play his [features] its a done deal.”

Journalist Charles Preston then entered the chat, replying to Chance, “Barney got sleepers, champ. He got ‘Bubble bath’ in the tuck with a severely underrated PB&J song. We not even talking about the Baby Bop features.” Chance fired back, “The feature game not gon be kind to Barney. He got some joints wit Bj and Baby Bop. Elmo got sum joint wit the Street. but thats just talkin puppets and mascots. ELMO GOT HITS WITH ALL THE GREATS.” The tweet also featured a video of an En Vogue guest appearance on the show.

Preston had a brilliant retort to that, though: “That’s not fair. That’s like DJ Khaled vs Lauryn Hill. lol. We gotta say no to the features. Sesame Street had the budget!” Chance was left speechless at that comeback, as he just responded with three crying emojis.

Indeed, Elmo has worked with some greats. Just since 2019, he has collaborated with Lil Nas X, Kacey Musgraves, Dave Grohl, and, yes, Chance himself, although instead of a song, they put on an ill-fated theatrical production with Cookie Monster.

Big Sean has released the tracklist to his highly-anticipated album Detroit 2 and to put it bluntly, it’s stacked. Not only will it include the previously teased features from Lil Wayne and Nipsey Hussle, but Sean’s also recruited an all-star cast to join him on his comeback project — which is only right, considering it’s his first since 2017’s I Decided.

Longtime Sean fans will be happy to know that, yes, he does include girlfriend Jhene Aiko on the album. She appears twice on the 21-track project; once on the song “Body Language” with Ty Dolla Sign, and again — credited as Twenty88, the duo she formed with Sean in 2016 — on “Time In.” Then there’s longtime Sean collaborator and close friend Wale, who pops up on “Guard Your Heart” with Anderson .Paak and Earlly Mac, while Dave Chappelle, Diddy(!), Dom Kennedy, Erykah Badu(!!), Key Wane, Travis Scott, Young Thug, and Stevie Wonder(!!!) appear elsewhere on the project.

But it wouldn’t be Detroit 2 if Sean Don didn’t put on for the Motor City, which he does in spades. First, unearths underrated R&B star Dwele on “Everything That’s Missing,” but that’s only the set up for the big Motown blowout on “Friday Night Cypher.” Remember that “Detroit Vs. Everybody” posse cut from 2014? This is fully-developed, Jordan-in-The-Last-Dance version of that, as Sean shares his spotlight with D-Town up-and-comers Tee Grizzley, Kash Doll, 42 Dugg, Boldy James, Sada Baby, and a couple of nobodies by the names of Eminem and Royce Da 5’9. Take a second to catch your breath, Detroit, you deserve it.

Detroit 2 is due 9/4 via Def Jam Recordings. Pre-save it here.

For teaching us that a shoe doesn’t belong on your head, for her transformations into white witches and vampires, and for reminding the world that we NEED to talk about Kevin, Tilda Swinton was awarded a Golden Lion For Lifetime Achievement at the Venice International Film Festival on Wednesday. The Oscar-winning actress, known for playing androgynous and often-eccentric characters, began her acceptance speech by admitting that she’s been wondering two things: “One, how much exactly cinema means to me. Two, how to be able to accept this overwhelming honor with a straight face.”

Swinton called cinema her “happy place, my true motherland. Its fellowship is my heart’s family tree. The names on the list of those awarded this honor, meanwhile, they are the names of my masters. They’re the elders of my tribe. The poets of the language I love above others. I sing their songs in the bath. I’m the punk kid film nut hitching a ride to the station to get to the foothills of the heights of their achievements.” Acknowledging the sincere absurdity of talking about baths and punks and motherlands, she jokingly added, “By the way, I am only just beginning.”

You can read much of her speech here, but I’m going to cut to the end, where Swinton paid tribute to her Marvel Cinematic Universe co-star Chadwick Boseman, who died from colon cancer last week. “The magic carpet is flying still and ever shall be — the best possible personal protective equipment for the soul. Viva Venezia. Cinema cinema cinema. Wakanda Forever,” she said, in reference to the salute from Black Panther.

As seen here:

Congratulations to Tilda Swinton, who will soon appear in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio as The Fairy with Turquoise Hair. Sounds about right.

(Via Variety)

Sade captured hearts with her band’s debut 1984 record Diamond Life, and has since released five more soulful records, which have collectively been certified Platinum 24 times over. To celebrate their success, Sade has announced a complete remastered box set. Titled This Far, Sade’s box set boasts all six albums pressed to vinyl, remastered by Sade herself alongside the rest of the band.

The box set’s This Far title suggests there may be more from the group. Though Sade released their latest record, the slow-burning Soldier Of Love, in 2010 they also debuted the standalone track “The Big Unknown” in 2018 alongside the number “Flower Of The Universe,” which was written for Disney’s A Wrinkle In Time film.

Undertaking the remaster process, Sade and her band worked with acclaimed mastering engineer Miles Showell at the iconic Abbey Road Studios. Pulling each of the songs from the stereo master mixes, Showell was able to remaster the songs with exceptional clarity and pure fidelity, preserving the dynamic ranges and remaining faithful to the original work’s intended sound. Along with remastering Sade’s discography, each of their album’s cover art has been meticulously replicated and printed to high quality paper to be assembled into the complete box set.

Check out the complete This Far box set above.

This Far is out 10/9 via Sony. Pre-order it here.

There have been few scorers quite like Diana Taurasi. The three-time WNBA champion and four-time Olympic gold medalist takes over games to the beat of thrilling revelations — “Oh yeah,” she seems to say, “I can do that, too.” Before the best NBA players blurred the line between three-point specialist and No. 1 scoring option, Taurasi had already done it, first at UConn and then in the pros, winning an MVP in 2009 while taking nearly half her shots from deep. At age 38, Taurasi continues to find new ways to exploit defenses, and even in the strange confines of the WNBA’s Florida Bubble and after a lost 2019 season, the GOAT is putting on a show.

In leading her depleted Phoenix Mercury to a fourth straight win on Tuesday night over the dominant Las Vegas Aces, Taurasi put together her best game in nearly two years. While her career has been a loud proclamation against expectation on many fronts, playing elite basketball as you near 40 defies more than just normal, it defies nature. Taurasi should be getting worse, not better. Of course her athleticism is waning and she’s hardly much of a defender these days, but the shooting performance she’s put on in the back-nine of her career should not be possible.

Every basketball fan knows what it looks like when Taurasi is on a roll, but it was an open question after back and hamstring injuries in 2019 whether we’d ever see it again. The scoring explosion was both a reminder of what Taurasi is capable of and an upending of where we thought she was in her career.

Across basketball, great shooters are increasingly commonplace at every position. From Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu to Kevin Durant and Nikola Jokic, shooting almost has to come from every spot on the court in 2020. And while Taurasi, a pretty long wing player by WNBA standards, was ahead of the curve, she’s also adjusted as time has passed to keep up with the transforming game.

The victory over Las Vegas on Tuesday night was a symbol of an evolving Taurasi, a player who changed the game, caught up to it, and is cutting through space and time to blaze another trail of outrageous offensive efficiency on her last legs. Not only is Taurasi’s release quick as ever, but she can create space even more effectively.

The other trademark part of Taurasi’s game is her driving and finishing ability. So long as she hasn’t pissed the referees off too much, Taurasi can create contact to get to the free-throw line just about any time she wants. Her length and balance allow her to instigate bumps inside and still finish or get a shot up. That same preternatural physical awareness transfers to the outside, too.

In the clip above, Taurasi is able to shove off smaller Aces defenders like Jackie Young and Kayla McBride with her shoulders and midsection to get just a few more inches of space to get her shot off with a quick flick. The process of working on the deep pull-up has been a focus for Taurasi since as far back as 2018.

“It’s just something that gives you more space on the court, and when you’re playing offense, you’re seeking space,” Taurasi said after the Aces game. “It gives me a little bit more time to get set and put pressure on the defense, and at the same time, it gives Skylar (Diggins-Smith) some more room, (the defense) is not helping as much (off of Taurasi).”

The addition of Diggins-Smith, a multi-time All-Star in her own right, has allowed Taurasi to also play off the ball more. Back in 2018, when Taurasi put up 21 points per game on an outrageous 63.8 true shooting percentage, most of her deep threes came off the bounce, typically coming off a screen from the great Brittney Griner.

Now, Diggins-Smith’s ability to initiate offense means Phoenix’s offense doesn’t run through the veteran as much, and Taurasi can help warp the defense from the wing without the ball in her hands while still scoring about as much as always. Take a look here at where the defense is when backup guard Shey Peddy dishes the ball to Taurasi for an open catch-and-shoot triple:

It’s one thing to be guarded out there and force the defense into a closeout because she’s the GOAT, but the ability to knock down those shots also signifies a healthier Taurasi. The hip rotation needed to launch from 25-plus feet wouldn’t be possible unless Taurasi was close to fully recovered from her April 2019 spinal disc surgery, and she’s clearly become stronger in her wrists too, exemplified by her instantaneous shot motion.

There may be some logic in how Taurasi’s game has evolved as she’s aged, but when the logical endpoint is still something that is basically unparalleled in basketball, it should not be taken for granted. After four straight wins, Phoenix is suddenly within shouting distance of a first-round bye in the WNBA playoffs. All four wins have come without Griner, yet Phoenix is third in the WNBA in offensive efficiency. That’s almost entirely because of a 38-year-old Taurasi, reimagining what is possible for herself and what is possible on a WNBA court.

It’s hard to say what will be possible for the depleted Mercury in 2020 or what Taurasi will do the rest of the way. But she’s opened up her game and isn’t the type to rein it back any time soon.

“Shooting threes has always been something that I’ve done, so we’ll just let it fly from here on out,” she said.

The #FreeBritney situation has gotten more attention in recent years, but it looks like Britney Spears may not actually need to be “freed” at all: New legal documents suggest that her conservatorship is voluntary.

Recent reports said that Spears didn’t want her father to be her sole conservator anymore and that she wants her situation to “be changed substantially in order to reflect the major changes in her current lifestyle and her stated wishes.” That doesn’t mean she doesn’t want a conservator at all, though. According to new legal documents filed in the Superior Court of California and obtained by The Blast and others, Spears’ conservatorship is legally recognized as being voluntary. The document reads in part, “This is a voluntary conservatorship. Conservatee wishes to exercise her right to nominate a conservator of the estate.”

Spears has a new conservator in mind, too, as the document notes that she wants “BESSEMER TRUST COMPANY OF CALIFORNIA, N.A. as conservator of the estate be granted the following independent powers […] together with any other currently qualified and acting co-conservator of the estate: The power to operate at the risk of the estate business, farm, or enterprise constituting an asset of the estate.”

The document continues, “Conservatee’s father, JAMES P. SPEARS, is serving alone as conservator of BRITNEY’ s estate. BRITNEY is strongly opposed to her father continuing as the sole conservator of her estate. Rather, without in any way waiving her right to seek termination of this conservatorship in the future, she strongly prefers to have a qualified corporate fiduciary appointed to serve in this role.”

So, it appears that while Spears is seeking the right to end her conservatorship at some point, she is fine with being in it now, just as long as her father isn’t the one in charge.

Find the full document here.