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You never know what you might get with each episode of UPROXX Sessions. Maybe a rapper will admit to light larceny, as Idontknowjeffery did during his “Ask About Me” performance. Guapdad 4000 got autobiographical with his flexes during his “Greedy” set to kick off the latest round of sessions. Dana Dentata brought a shovel and a corpse to really hammer home the horror-themed “D In The D.”

The latest guest, Seattle rapper David Shawty, brought his wildest, raunchiest bars and a marker. After traipsing his way through a woozy performance of his new song “GOODMORNING *hickys*,” he whipped out his writing implement to sign the sink in the Sessions bathroom set, leaving his mark on the show in more ways than one. Seriously, if there are any adults or supervisors around, consider plugging in your headphones, because Shawty’s bars may leave you having to make some awkward explanations.

Watch David Shawty’s woozy performance of “GOODMORNING *hickys*” above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s new performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

LeBron James will take the floor in the bubble for a scrimmage against the Mavs on Thursday night as the Lakers get their first live, non-practice action in four months. When he does so, he will debut the new Nike LeBron 18, as his latest signature sneaker is finally nearing its wide release.

Nike offered some details on the LeBron 18 on Thursday leading into James putting it on foot in a game for the first time — he has been wearing it some in practice — and it will look to bridge James’ power and speed in a way that they haven’t ever done before. The sneaker looks similar to his recent models, as they’ve clearly found a silhouette and fit that James really likes, but this edition will combine some of the technology from recent versions of his shoe into one — plus a first in terms of combining an Air Max heel cushion and full length Zoom Air throughout the shoe.

“At this point, LeBron has spent half his life with Nike,” says designer Jason Petrie. “We wanted to make him a shoe that played with this idea of two halves. How could we keep improvising on the Max Air value that LeBron loves, but use the forefoot half to sharpen the low-to-the-ground, micro-shifts that LeBron needs to cut and transition down the floor? We’ve gotten near-surgically detailed on these features so that the sum of the shoe’s parts come together for LeBron, and for every kind of player.”

Paul George’s PG3 was the first to introduce a full length Zoom Air pocket, and the LeBron 18 will add in what looks very similar to the Air Max 270 heel cushion — at least based on the initial sketch. The sneaker looks almost like two shoes pieced together, with a knit upper and lightweight front, but a very sturdy back half. The knit upper also combines the technology from the 15, 16, and 17 into one in an effort to offer the most stability while also providing a lightweight, comfortable fit.

There’s also an updated traction pattern on the outsole to continue that effort of creating more stability, and while there’s not an official release date, we do know the sneaker will hit the market at some point in September — which LeBron the Lakers hope will be in the midst of a championship run. More images and details are sure to come between now and then, including price point and a specific drop date.

Jimmy Butler knows exactly what you think he is, and he’s not afraid to have some fun with that perception. As an NBA player, Butler has never been afraid to vocalize his point of view on something, or have some fun on the court. This week we learned that as a spokesperson, Butler’s not afraid to let his personality come through, either.

Michelob Ultra celebrated the restart of the NBA season with a commercial geared around Butler packing for Orlando, pacing through his house getting his bags ready and prepped for the long haul he and Miami face at the Wide World of Sports complex. Pumping through the speakers is “You Make My Dreams,” by the pop group Hall and Oates.

While he tosses his cowboy boots and t-shirts into his suitcase, Butler sings along like an absolute champion, getting down to what is undeniably a classic American pop jam. The ad, titled “Welcome Back, Basketball,” encapsulates everything we love about Butler.

Throughout his career, we know Butler, a Texas native, has turned off teammates with his love for country music. It’s not exactly the type of thing you typically hear in an NBA locker room, but Butler is not exactly the type of guy to care about that. And while “You Make My Dreams” certainly isn’t country music, it does qualify as something you wouldn’t expect to hear in an NBA locker room.

Travelers have been abusing the excuse “but I have a medical condition” to flout airline face mask policies the same way people use allergies to justify sending food back that they ordered wrong, and American and Southwest Airlines are sick of it. Both airlines announced on Wednesday that they’d be further strengthening their face mask policies — requiring all passengers over the age of 2 to wear a face mask from the moment they arrive at the airport until the moment they depart.

And they mean “everyone,” this time. Even if you have a legitimate medical condition.

The Southwest and American Airlines beefed-up new policies will go into effect on July 27th and July 29th respectively, and both outright state that non-compliant passengers will be denied transportation services. Southwest doesn’t even care if you came with a doctor’s note, the policy states, “If a Customer is unable to wear a face-covering for any reason (even a verifiable medical condition), we regret that we are unable to transport the Customer at this time, due to safety risk of asymptomatic COVID-19 transmission by Customers without face coverings.” Southwest acknowledges that face coverings will need to be removed when eating or drinking, “however, we expect these instances to be very brief.”

Similarly, American Airlines only allows masks to be removed while eating and drinking, with zero-tolerance for those who try to defy the new rule, “Those unwilling to comply with this face-covering requirement at any time during their journey with American may debarred from future travel for the duration of this face-covering requirement.” So if you’re an anti-masker who needs to fly American or Southwest in the near future, you going to have to just swallow your pride on this one, or you know, walk.

According to the CDC, “The spread of COVID-19 can be reduced when cloth face coverings are used along with other preventative measures, including social distancing, frequent hand washing, and cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces.” Our panel of epidemiologists concluded the same. Wear a mask, that’s all there is to say!

2020 is shaping up to be another big year for Ric Wilson. The breakout rapper and Chicago activist teamed up with musician/producer Terrace Martin for the upbeat EP They Call Me Disco. The duo has now joined once again to share the joyful video accompanying their track “Don’t Kill The Vibe,” which recently named one of the 50 Best Songs of Summer 2020 by The Oprah Magazine.

For the feel-good video, Wilson tapped several of his close friends for a living room dance party. Wilson leads the group in a Soul Train line, showing off his best moves between two rows of the party’s attendees. The visual stays true to the positive energy of the track, which Wilson said was made for “dance floors at the block party, the cookout, the weddings, the rallies, the covid19 living room clubbbbbbbbs.”

In recent months, Wilson has spent time organizing for activist groups like We Charge Genocide, Black Youth Project 100, Chicago Freedom School, and many more. In a statement about his music, Wilson says he’s inspired by Black women freedom fighters like Ida B. Wells and Marsha P. Johnson: “I hear people quoting a lot of black men who were freedom fighters, which is valid. But when I think about next level courage to ball your fist up and look bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia right in the eye and fight against it, I feel like blk women like Ida B. Wells and non-binary folks like Marsha P. Johnson are of the bravest of us all and if ima fight any injustice I wanna have the courage of freedom fighters like them. The liberation of black womxn and black trans womxn lead to the liberation of all black people.”

Watch Wilson’s “Don’t Kill The Wave” video above.

They Call Me Disco is out now via Empire. Get it here.

The MLB season will begin tonight with a pair of games, as the Nationals host the Yankees and the Dodgers host the Giants for the start of the shortened season. Unlike the NBA, MLS, WNBA, NHL, and NWSL, baseball is going to try and make a season happen with teams playing in their home ballparks — aside from the Blue Jays as the Canadian government wisely will not bend their quarantine rules for MLB clubs coming into the country.

So far, we’ve seen how the bubble system can work, as the NWSL tournament has gone smoothly in Utah, and after a rocky start, the MLS tournament has been smooth sailing since. The NBA’s bubble appears to be locked in after a week without positive tests, and there’s optimism those leagues will be able to get their seasons done. MLB’s plan has the most holes in it, simply because players aren’t staying in a controlled environment, and on Thursday, we saw how that could derail things.

According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan (and confirmed by Washington Post beat writer Jesse Dougherty), Nationals star outfielder Juan Soto will miss the opener against the Yankees after testing positive for COVID-19.

Soto had already done a two-week quarantine after coming in contact with someone that had tested positive earlier in July, but at some point in recently he apparently contracted the virus. It’s a big blow to the Nationals, but it also is cause for serious concern on a larger scale for how MLB is going to proceed. It is an indicator of how, without players being in a bubble environment, their day-to-day interactions (even if limited) can lead to cases and potential spread. The good news is that, per the Nationals, after contact tracing no other players are being held out despite Soto’s test being from two days prior.

Hopefully Soto’s case will be an isolated incident and he’ll be able to make a full and speedy recovery, but Major League Baseball will now be holding their collective breath that more cases don’t pop up.

Sonos, best known for making smart speakers, recently launched their own radio platform, the aptly named Sonos Radio. Available only on Sonos devices, the platform offers exclusive content from music tastemakers, and now they have added another to their roster: Jack White’s Third Man Records.

The label has launched Third Man Records Public Address system, named after their live broadcast series. As press materials note, the station “brings listeners selections from the genre-spanning label as well as music from around the globe that informs what the label ‘says and does: Inspiration, information, devotionals and desperations…’ Folks can expect a selection of label deep cuts among rarities and favorites that span psych, proto punk, soul, funk, rockabilly, blues and more. Listeners will also hear commentary and historical context behind tracks from Third Man’s co-owner Ben Swank.”

Earlier along in the coronavirus pandemic, the label hosted a daily livestream series, Third Man Public Access. They said of it at the time, “Third Man Records has always believed that great things come out of restrictions. Artists being restricted from their audiences, though? We’re not sure what greatness can come from that. Let us commiserate with you, lift your spirits, and feed your soul with the magic that only ‘live’ music/poetry/puppet shows/some sort of human connection can provide.”

It’s FIFA season, as EA Sports’ annual soccer video game has spent the last few days announcing major news regarding its latest release. On Wednesday, it was announced that Paris Saint-Germain and France star Kylian Mbappe will appear on all three covers of FIFA 21, and one day later, EA Sports dropped both a reveal trailer for the game including some of the biggest young stars in world football and some highly-anticipated news about changes that will come to this year’s version of the game.

The trailer, which is narrated by Manchester United legend Eric Cantona, includes a number of clips from the game and highlights four of the brightest youngsters in the sport: Mbappe, Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold, Atletico Madrid’s Joao Felix, and Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Haaland.

As for what people can expect in this year’s game, EA Sports laid out some changes on FIFA‘s official website. Full explanations of what will occur are coming in August, but there are tweaks coming to gameplay, Ultimate Team, and last year’s new addition, VOLTA Football. The biggest news, however, stems from changes that are coming to the game’s Career Mode, which has long been maligned (including by Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid) as growing stale and not getting enough love by developers.

EA announced that won’t be the case in FIFA 21, as additions like a new interactive match simulator, expanded ways to buy/loan players, and a management system that lets you have more control over a squad’s training during the week. The growth system for players is getting overhauled, too, which the release says will let gamers “turn right backs into right wingers, defensive midfielders into centre backs, and more to fill gaps in your team, and monitor player attribute changes during training to see how your squad is progressing.”

Back in May, news broke that Tom Cruise and Elon Musk were teaming up in hopes to shoot the first action movie in space. While the idea of literally rocketing a major movie star into orbit sounds crazy, it’s actually very on-brand for Cruise, who has routinely pushed himself to find new ways to defy death for the sake of an action scene. Of course, the big question was what studio would be willing to invest millions of dollars into shooting one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood into space. It turns out there’s a taker.

According to Variety, Universal Studios is closing in as the top bidder for Cruise’s space project, which not only comes with the unpredictably of shooting in zero gravity conditions, but also a hefty price tag of $200 million. There are also major hurdles around insuring both Cruise and the production team who would be at very high risk until safely returning to Earth. However, that seems to be a gamble Universal is willing to take:

The inherent marketing value around a global event like this is obvious. Similar to the recent historic launch of SpaceX’s Dragon crew vessel, the entire world will watch as Cruise is rocketed into space, forcing natural curiosity around the results. The stakes are also high from a filmmaking standpoint. As one person familiar with the project put it, “you can’t be sure what you’re going to get up there, and you have one shot to do it.”

Of course, the fact that this project has even advanced this far is a testament to Cruise’s maniacal intensity. The idea of shooting the actor into space was floated only a few weeks ago in May. Since then, he’s secured a deal with the International Space Station, landed director Doug Liman, and is in the final stages of convincing a studio to drop millions of dollars on the chance of him surviving space travel. Cruise hasn’t even blasted off yet, and already, this might be his most impressive stunt.

(Via Variety)

Each year, MTV’s Video Music Awards give us countless indelible moments. From Lady Gaga wearing the iconic dress made out of raw meat, to Kanye West infamously slighting Taylor Swift on stage, the VMAs never fail to give us some of the biggest moments in pop culture. Perhaps most coveted is VMAs’ Best New Artist award, which recognizes some of the most talented emerging artists on the scene. Well, MTV has just unveiled its full list of nominations and they are including 17 artists.

Unlike most other award ceremonies, the VMAs allow fans to vote for winners. This year’s list of nominated artists sees both pop and hip-hop musicians alike. Some big-name contenders on the list include Doja Cat, Brockhampton, Conan Gray, as well as the late rapper Pop Smoke, whose posthumous record Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon was just released.

Find the full MTV VMA’s Best New Artist nominations list below.

AJ Mitchell
Arizona Zervas
Ava Max
BENEE
Brockhampton
Conan Gray
Doja Cat
Finneas
Jack Harlow
Kiana Ledé
Lewis Capaldi
Lil Tecca
Pop Smoke
Roddy Ricch
Summer Walker
Tate McRae
Yungblud

MTV has opened their ballots for Best New Artists and are allowing fans to submit their vote up to ten times a day. Vote for your pick here.

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