Not long after Travis Scott’s big partnership with McDonald’s, it was revealed that the next huge company the rapper would be teaming up with is Sony, on Playstation things. Today, the company unveiled their launch trailer for the PS5 (which comes out on November 12), and sure enough, Scott narrates it.
In the video, which is titled “Play Has No Limits,” There is dramatic footage of space launches, scientific advances, and explorers of sea, sky, mountains, space, deserts, and beyond. Over all that, Scott narrates, “Exploration: It’s in our DNA. There’s something inside each and every one of us that compels us to know the unknown, to push past every frontier. We want to see what’s never been seen, hear what’s never been heard, feel what’s never been felt. There are no limits to where we’ll go, to what we’ll discover, to what we’ll achieve. We are all explorers and there are new worlds to explore.”
Scott previously shared a statement about the partnership, saying, “I’m really looking forward to being able to showcase everything that Cactus Jack has worked on with Sony and the Playstation team. Most importantly I’m excited to see how the Playstation fans and family respond, and I look forward to running some games with everybody very soon!”
Common has been prolific in the past handful of years, putting out a new album in each of the last three years and penning a bestselling memoir. He’s keeping the streak alive in 2020, announcing the imminent release of his 13th (solo) album, A Beautiful Revolution Pt 1 this Friday, October 30.
He also shared the first single from the album, the bouncy and observant “Say Peace.” Over an Afrobeat instrumental (as in Fela Kuti, not Burna Boy), Common and guest rapper Black Thought comment on current and historical oppression of Black Americans while name-checking Nelson Mandela, Marcus Garvey, and the Black Power movement. Meanwhile, singer PJ provides the hook, echoing back the theme of the song: “All they really wanna do is cuff you,” she chants. “They don’t love you.”
Common was also tapped by Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote initiative, contributing another track from the album to the Former First Lady’s current pet project. Its latest voting PSA features “A Place In This World,” another funky track on which Common speaks on the current climate with his usual hopeful outlook. The Chicago rapper is due to perform “Say Peace” tonight on The Tonight Show and will host an album listening live stream on his YouTube channel on October 30.
Election Day is less than a week away, which means that voting awareness is only getting more and more important with each passing day. Following the confirmation of the newest Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett, Planned Parenthood has launched a new We Need Every Voice get-out-the-vote campaign, for which they garnered the support of over 200 musicians, including Billie Eilish, Foo Fighters, and Halsey.
The full-page ad was published on Wednesday in six swing state newspapers — including the Detroit Free Press, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and Austin American Statesman. It reads:
“United, our voices can change the direction of this country. Voting shapes our lives and has lasting effects. After the rushed confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in the midst of a pandemic, we now face a Supreme Court that puts our health and freedoms, including our right to safe and legal abortion, at extreme risk. The damage already inflicted on our country will last for generations. We can’t afford any further assaults on our reproductive freedom — our right to control our bodies. We need your voice.
This election, more than any other, will determine our health, rights and our future. Now, we decide. We need every voice. Vote, because your body is your own.”
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, also said in a statement:
“Everything is on the line with this election. Voters across the country understand that we need leaders who will fight to protect our rights and access to health care in every branch of government — that’s why tens of millions of Americans have already cast their ballots by mail or in-person in states with early voting.
As we face a Supreme Court that now poses an even greater threat to people’s healthcare access and reproductive rights, we know there is power in exercising our right to vote. We are proud to partner with musicians for We Need Every Voice to mobilize more people to use their voices and their votes to help elect leaders that will protect our futures, our health, our rights, and our freedoms.”
Other artists supporting the campaign include Aminé, Andre 3000, Angel Olsen, Beastie Boys, Big Thief, Black Thought, Bon Iver, Bright Eyes, Carly Rae Jepsen, Death Cab For Cutie, Finneas, Fleet Foxes, G-Eazy, Haim, Jeff Rosenstock, Jenny Lewis, Kacey Musgraves, KAty Perry, Lil Dicky, Maggie Rogers, Michael Stipe, My Morning Jacket, Nine Inch Nails, Perfume Genius, Phoebe Bridgers, The Postal Service, Pup, Questlove, The Roots, Saba, Sharon Van Etten, Sleater-Kinney, Soccer Mommy, Spoon, St. Vincent, and Weyes Blood.
Find the full list of artists below.
Adam Horovitz
Adia Victoria
Adult
Alan Palomo (Neon Indian)
Alex Skolnick
Alexandra Savior
Alice Smith
Alynda Segarra (Hurray For The Riff Raff)
Amanda Palrner
Amara La Negra
Aminé
Andra Day
Andre 3000
Angel Olsen
Angelica Garcia
Ani Difranco
Ashanti
Baroness
Beach House
Beastie Boys
Berra Mancari
Beck
Belaro
Best Coast
Big Freedia
Big Thief
Bikini Kill
Billie Eilish
Black Thought
Blood Orange
Bon Iver
Brad Mehldau
Bright Eyes
Broken Social Scene
Bully
Buzzy Lee
Calexico
Carly Rae Jepsen
Caroline Shaw
Cate Le Bon
Cécile Mclorin Salvant
Ceremony
Charlotte Lawrence
Chelsea Collins
Chloe Lilac
Chloe Moriondo
Chris Thile
Claud
Clipping
Courtney Marie Andrews
Craig Wedren
Dana Williams
David Yow
Dean & Bata
Death Cab For Cutie
Deaton Chris Anthony
Devendra Banhart
Dorian Electra
Electric Guest
Eli Janney (Girls Against Boys)
Emmylou Harris
Erin Rae
Evann Mcintosh
Finneas
First Aid Kit
Fleet Foxes
Flock Of Dimes
Foo Fighters
Future Islands
G-Eazy
Gaby Moreno
Gilligan Moss
Grace Potter
Grandson
Grouplove
Haim
Halestorm
Haley Blais
Halsey
Hot Snakes
Jeff Rosenstock
Jenny Lewis
Jehnny Beth
Jimmy Eat World
Josie Dunneye
Joshua Redman
Julien Baker
K.D. Lang
Kacey Musgraves
Karen Elson
Katy Perry
Keith Morris
Kevin Seconds
Kim Gordon
King Tuff
Knocked Loose
L7
Lael Neale
Lætitia Tarnko (Vagabon)
Lake Street Dive
Laurie Anderson
Lil Dicky
Lindsey Buckingham
Loma
Love Mansuy
Lykke Li
Macklemore
Madi Diaz
Madison Beer
Maggie Rogers
Mandy More
Margo Price
Michael Stipe
Michelle
Michelle Branch
Mike D
Milck
Misterwives
Mudhoney
My Morning Jacket
Mykki Blanco
Natalie Merchant
Narrow Head
Neko Case
Nina Ljeti (Of Kills Birds)
Nine Inch Nails
Norah Jones
Olivia O’Brien
Patrick Carney
Pauline Rubio
Peach Tree Rascals
Perfume Genius
Perry Farrell And Etty Lau Farrell
Pete Yorn
Phoebe Bridgers
Pinegrove
Pink
Pissed Jeans
Pom Pom Squad
Portugal. The Man
Princess Nokia
Pun. Brothers
Pup
Queens Of The Stone Age
Questlove
Randy Newman
Real Estate
Resistance Revival Chorus
Rhiannon Giddens
Romero
Royal &The Serpent
Saba
Sad13
Sammy Brue
Sarah Mclachlan
Saygrace
Seth Jabour (Les Savy Fav)
Sharon Van Etten
Shearwater
Sia
Silversun Pickups
Skullcrusher
Sleater-Kinney
Soccer Mommy
Sons Of An Illustrious Father
Speedy Ortiz
Spoon
Squirrel Flower
St. Vincent
Sunflower Bean
Syd Butler (Les Savy Fav)
T Bone Burnett
Tegan And Sara
Tempers
Tenacious D
The 130 Band
The Aces
The B-52s
The Bird And The Bee
The Breeders
The Chicks
The Decemberists
The Distillers
The Head And The Heart
The Kills
The Magnetic Fields
The Madan
The New Pornographers
The Postal Service
The Roots
The Streets
Third Eye Blind
Tune-yards
Turnstile
Uniform
U.S. Girls
Wallows
Weezer
Weyes Blood
White Reaper
Wristmeetrazor
X Ambassadors
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Letitia Wright is, as you might imagine, reticent to discuss how Marvel will handle Black Panther 2 following the death of Chadwick Boseman. But the actress, who played sister Shuri in the Best Picture nominee, is more willing to talk about her campaign to make an all-female Avengers movie. “I don’t think we have to fight for it,” she told Yahoo! Entertainment. “[Marvel Studios executive] Victoria Alonso is very strong about spearheading it, alongside Kevin [Feige]. It’s only a matter of time before they do it.”
In Avengers: Endgame, the clunky but well-meaning female superheroes scene had Shuri, along with Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), Okoye (Danai Gurira), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), teaming up to take down Thanos and his goons. But who would Wright want for her dream movie?
Wright makes it clear she’s thinking big, starting with her Black Panther co-stars, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o, and Angela Basset, a.k.a. “Mama Angela.” Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie is also in the mix, as is the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most powerful player, Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, both of whom were featured in that Endgame scene alongside Shuri.
Wright makes it clear that she “definitely” wants Captain Marvel in her crew, because obviously. Marvel has no current (public) plans to make an all-female Avengers movie, and Black Panthers 2 has been delayed until at least 2022, but you can catch Wright in Death on the Nile and Steve McQueen’s Small Axe miniseries.
Narcos: Mexico has gotten high on its own supply (for two seasons) and has managed to be as intense as Narcos‘ three preceding seasons. Of course, the timeline flipped, and Narcos: Mexico partially takes place beforehand, during the start of the War on Drugs in the 1980s. As we know, that war never ended, but Scoot McNairy‘s Walt Breslin will keep the mustache coming while hammering away at the nonexistent final yard line as El Chapo starts to ascend to power. In the last season finale, we saw Walt’s quiet confrontation with Diego Luna’s drug lord after his imprisonment. The mayhem will continue under new plazas, and Netflix has announced that the next installment is definitely happening, and that includes a little behind-the-camera bonus for fans.
Wagner Moura, who played Pablo Escobar during the first two Narcos seasons, will return to direct two episodes of Narcos: Mexico‘s third season. For old time’s sake, let’s revisit Escobar, shall we?
Netflix
However, Netflix does not list Moura on the returning cast list (Scoot is definitely back, though), so Moura will likely be confined to time behind the camera, or heck, who knows, maybe we’ll see Escobar as a surprise? The timelines between the two series overlap all over the place, so it’s not inconceivable. Here’s a third season synopsis:
Set in the 90s, when the globalization of the drug business ignites, Season 3 examines the war that breaks out after Felix’s empire splinters. As newly independent cartels struggle to survive political upheaval and escalating violence, a new generation of Mexican kingpins emerge. But in this war, truth is the first casualty – and every arrest, murder and take-down only pushes real victory further away.
Meanwhile, five-season showrunner Eric Newman will be handing his showrunning duties to co-creator Carlo Barnard (while Newman continues to executive produce but segues into work on another Netflix series, an opioid-focused drama, Painkiller, Escape From Spiderhead, starring Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, and Daniel Kaluuya).
Narcos: Mexico‘s third season will star Scoot, Jose Maria Yazpik, Alberto Ammann, Alfonso Dosal, Mayra Hermosillo, Matt Letscher, Manuel Masalva, Alejandro Edda and Gorka Lasaosa. Here’s a “teaser” that’s a recap of seasons past with no release date for Season 3 as of yet.
Rhye (aka Michael Milosh) took his time between albums the last go around: Five years passed between his 2013 debut Woman and its follow-up, 2018’s Blood. Now, though, he’s on a roll. His third album, Spirit, dropped last year, and now he’s ready with a fourth: Today, he announced that Home will be released on January 22.
He also shared a video for the lead single, “Black Rain.” The clip is a single shot of a dancer (actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson of Kick-Ass and Avengers: Age of Ultron) moving on a dimly lit stage. As for the strong, its undercurrent is funky disco, and Milosh says of the song, “It has this ’80s version of disco, like the way Quincy Jones was interpreting disco.”
Press materials note of the album, “Home is centered around the idea of home as the core of creativity and community. It’s familiar in its synthesis of propulsive beats, orchestral flourishes, piano ruminations and sultry, gender-nonconforming vocals, but never have they sounded more cohesive or alive.”
Watch the “Black Rain” video above and find the Home art and tracklist below.
Loma Vista Recordings
01. “Intro”
02. “Come In Closer”
03. “Beautiful”
04. “Safeword”
05. “Hold You Down”
06. “I Need A Lover”
07. “Helpless”
08. “Black Rain”
09. “Sweetest Revenge”
10. “My Heart Bleeds”
11. “Fire”
12. “Holy”
13. “Outro”
Home is out 1/22/2021 via Loma Vista Recordings. Pre-order it here.
(SPOILERS for the first episode of The Undoing will be found below.)
HBO’s The Undoing is clearly meant to appeal to Big Little Lies fans. Yes, the newer show is more of a psychological thriller than a drama with a heaping helping of female friendships, but both shows revolve around a sensational death. Both team up Nicole Kidman and writer-producer David E. Kelley, who’s really great at crafting great roles for women. And both shows know that people enjoy the high drama of absurdly wealthy humans who can’t figure out how to, you know, just be happy and appreciate their own privilege and beauty. While I will concede that Big Little Lies is the better show, overall, it sure doesn’t have Hugh Grant stepping outside his “dishy Brit” box like The Undoing does.
Speaking of boxes, this project is directed by Susanne Bier of Bird Box Netflix fame. She knows a thing or two about capturing the Internet’s attention. Bier, along with Kelley and Kidman, has brought us an extremely watchable, albeit imperfect, series that debuted this past Sunday. Expect things to get intense with all the customary, psychological-thriller twists but too many red herrings. I’m going to touch upon what happened during the premiere — mostly because there’s no way to talk around how this show’s central mystery involves a murder. And it plays out like an intentionally clumsy whodunnit, which makes it guilty-fun to discuss, despite the morbid subject matter at hand.
The characters sure don’t do themselves any favors. All feel a little bit “off.” However, there are solid performances across the board. Nicole Kidman and Donald Sutherland (who play daughter and father) could pick up their roles in their sleep. They’re good, but the most engrossing performance comes from Hugh Grant. Dare I say — and this feels incredibly strange given that this is a show revolving around a homicide — that this is his most interesting turn since Paddington 2? Now it sounds like I’m making light of a murder-show, but really: we rarely get to see Grant play a layered character, yet he gets that chance in The Undoing. The show sets him up at the end of Episode 1 to make you question everything about his suave doctor persona. The guy not only vanishes into thin air but, in a manner that can only be purposeful, leaves his cell phone at home.
That’s weird. Extremely weird. No one would do that 2020, and it’s especially unheard of for a pediatric oncologist who’s always on call to do that. Yep, it sure looks strange to be so unreachable when a death rocks your social circle.
HBO
Obviously, the show’s debut sets things up to make us wonder what’s going on with Hugh’s character, Jonathan Fraser. We’re supposed to find his disappearance awfully unsettling right after someone killed a young mother named Elena (Matilda De Angelis). Did someone snag Jonathan, too? Is he, gasp, the murderer? Or perhaps Jonathan’s wife, Grace (Kidman) is going crazy? That would be a nice touch, and of course, the show already dropped in a random-feeling moment where Elena laid a kiss on Grace in an elevator. A few hours later, Elena is no more. (There’s a lot going on here.)
HBO
This scene isn’t as gratuitous as you might imagine, and the show delivers a pretty interesting mystery (though I haven’t seen the finale yet, so there might be some backtracking). Overall, The Undoing serves a fine slice of escapism.
What I’m more interested in, though, is that Hugh Grant’s digging into a role that suggests a dark side. That’s a (strangely) rare thing, after a career trajectory that’s always looked bland-ish compared to his early-IRL-reputation that’s always lingered in the background. On that note, it’s enough to say that he alerted the world to Liz Hurley’s presence and then posed for a mug shot in 1995 after behaving roguishly. That compromising position didn’t affect his endless supply of those dishy-roles. He was King of the British Romcoms, but I always got the feeling that Hugh was keen to stop being so likeable onscreen. He got that chance, sort-of, as Daniel Cleaver in the Bridget Jones movies while treating the title character terribly, muttering about “f*ck me, enormous panties,” and cheating in a well-dressed street fight against Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy. Still, he wasn’t nuanced, merely a dirty dog, so anyone who wanted to see Hugh play a more morally ambiguous character was in for a wait.
Over the past handful of years, Hugh’s finally been shaking things up onscreen. He played a super-sleazy private investigator in The Gentleman, although that film felt like Ritchie retreading old ground. He received an Emmy nod for A Very English Scandal, and yes, he was hamming it up as a tap-dancing villain in the beloved Paddington 2, a truly wonderful movie. His washed-up actor, Phoenix Buchanan, descended into a life of crime and committed the most heinous act in cinematic history (I will stand by this declaration) by helping to frame a marmalade-loving bear into doing hard time. It was scandalous, I say, and sheer fun to witness, but with The Undoing, we get a different kind of shady Hugh Grant: one that you’re not quite sure if you like.
It’s a role that a lot of other actors would have played too stiffly or gloomily, but I like to imagine that this was inspired casting. Intentionally or not (and the show already differs quite a bit from its source material, You Should Have Known, by Jean Hanff Korelitz), The Undoing plays upon Hugh’s professional and (former) personal reputations, and it’s soapy and indulgent as a watch. The show’s also very much a guilty pleasure that’s acted out by a prestige-prone cast, and it’s an easily digestible show when we could stand to focus on characters’ problems other than reality.
Most importantly, we’ve got Hugh Grant playing a character who looks straight-laced and wholesome but might be up to no good. Clearly, he’s not 100% angelic, but I shall not spoil the season. I will say, however, that Hugh’s performance is so clever that I caught myself saying, “Ahhhhh!” later on while remembering mere gestures on his behalf. The dude’s got layers going on here. In hindsight, it makes sense that a top children’s oncologist, who regularly witnesses tragic outcomes but manages to never bring his work home and always maintains a sense of humor, might have some hidden sides. Or he might not! I’ll stop here and leave you with this screencap. All Hugh Grant characters are at least a little bit randy, after all. Enjoy.
HBO
HBO’s ‘The Undoing’ airs on Sunday nights at 9:00pm EST.
One of the few “victims” in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm who doesn’t come across as a gun nut, or airhead, or creep is Jeanise Jones. The 62-year-old is hired by Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat to babysit his daughter Tutar, played by breakout star Maria Bakalova; by the end of their time together, she’s convinced Tutar that women can drive cars; men, including her father, can be “liars”; and that she doesn’t need to have breast enhancement surgery (with or without “potatoes”) unless she wants to. Jones is an all-around decent person, and she feels “betrayed” by Borat and Tutar not being real.
“I’m feeling like [Tutar’s] from the Third World and that kind of stuff does happen where they sell women. I’m thinking this is for real so I felt kind of betrayed by it,” Jones told the New York Post. “They told me it was a documentary for this young lady to understand she has rights and she can do whatever a man can do… I felt pain for her and tried [to see] if there’s any way we can get through to her that she doesn’t need to do all that.” She was selected by her pastor, who thought the Borat Subsequent Moviefilm crew was making a documentary, at an Oklahoma City church to appear in the popular comedy:
Jones said the filmmakers never came clean to her about the true premise after she was recruited through a church in Oklahoma City… Jones’ pastor, Derrick Scobey, said the production approached Ebenezer Baptist Church about needing a “sassy” black grandmother in her 70s to participate in a documentary and landed on Jones after speaking to a few other congregants.
Jones was paid $3,600 for her participation in the movie, but pastor Scobey has also set up a GoFundMe to compensate “one of the most authentic people I’ve ever met. One good thing that has come from this is that Jeanise doesn’t have to worry about ‘Tutar’ anymore. She has WORRIED about this young lady for a year… Please consider saying thank you to Jeanise with a tangible gift. She’s unemployed right now due to Covid. Previously, she worked on a job for 32 years! She’s faithful! Please consider giving a contribution to simply to say thank you to Jeanise for being “A moral compass and a light shining in darkness” in this movie.” Nearly $50,000 has already been raised.
You can buy a really fancy ball and chain for that kind of dough.
The 2020 BET Hip-Hop Awards were last night, and the event yielded plenty of highlights, including a bunch of cyphers. The hip-hop community lost a pair of rising stars over the past year, so Juice WRLD and Pop Smoke also received some tributes during the show.
Cordae, Lil Bibby, and G Herbo took a brief moment to discuss Juice in a pre-taped segment. Cordae said of the late rapper, “That was really my brother. That’s somebody I can have like, real life, genuine conversations with.” Bibby — an executive at Grade A Productions, the label Juice was signed to — noted how transparent Juice was about his flaws, adding, “That’s why he got the love that he did.” Herbo also said, “What he left was enough to stay with us for a lifetime.” At the end of the segment, BET took a moment to recognize some other rappers who passed away recently: 5th Ward Webbie, ASAP Snacks, Fred The Godson, and Malik B.
Elsewhere during the show, Quavo honored Pop Smoke with a performance. He did two of their collaborations, “Shake The Room” from Meet The Woo 2 and “Aim For The Moon” from Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon. One of the cyphers was also a tribute to Smoke, as Flo Milli, Buddy, Deante’ Hitchcock, and Ade rapped over the “Dior” instrumental.
On the evening of Oct. 15, the Los Angeles Dodgers trailed the Atlanta Braves by a 3-1 margin in the NLCS, leaving many to lament the likelihood that baseball’s best team could again fall short of a World Series crown. After three straight wins to upend the Braves and three wins in five chances against the Tampa Bay Rays, Mookie Betts and the Dodgers entered Tuesday’s Game 6 with the chance to win the title for the first time since 1988.
While it wasn’t a dominant, wire-to-wire victory, the Dodgers benefitted from a controversial managerial decision and, with the help of Betts, Julio Urias, and others, Dave Roberts’ team picked up a 3-1 win to bring the championship back to Los Angeles.
The evening actually began in positive fashion for the Rays, with Randy Arozarena hitting his third home run of the World Series and tenth home run of the postseason to give Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead in the first inning.
From there, the Rays were in strong position, with Blake Snell dominating on the mound. That continued until Snell allowed a 1-out single to Austin Barnes in the bottom of the sixth inning, prompting the decision that will be remembered in Tampa Bay for a long time.
Though Snell had thrown only 73 pitches on the way to nine strikeouts and 5.1 scoreless innings, Rays manager Kevin Cash elected to go to the bullpen and inserted Nick Anderson. While Tampa Bay excelled with similar tactics throughout the 2020 season, namely in avoiding starting pitchers facing the opposition for a third time through the order, the decision came back to bite Cash in short order.
Anderson, who has struggled during the playoffs after a fantastic showing in the regular season, promptly allowed a double to Betts, putting a pair of runners in scoring position. Then, he uncorked a wild pitch to allow the Dodgers to tie the game and, seconds later, Betts crossed the plate on a fielder’s choice to give Los Angeles a 2-1 lead.
Finally, Julio Urias capped off the win with 2.1 perfect innings, striking out four batters and mowing down the Rays lineup. As such, Tampa Bay never threatened in terms of a comeback bid, and the Dodgers emerged victorious.
Later, the story turned to a positive COVID-19 test for Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner and many questions about how the situation was handled, with Turner removed from action during the game itself. Still, the celebration continued for the Dodgers and, with a managerial choice that will linger in the minds of neutral observers and star power carrying the day for Los Angeles, the team with the best roster ultimately won the 2020 World Series to cap off a bizarre baseball season.
