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“Which country has the best food in the world?”

Woah. Is there a more loaded question in all of food writing? It’s pretty much impossible to fairly rank one country’s food over another. Even in seemingly small countries like Italy or Greece or Thailand, there’s enough internal variation across regional cuisines to keep you arguing for days. Remember, no country is a monolith. And that’s before you even start trying to compare other nations to each other and crossing meridians and parallels.

Our ethos: enjoy it all, folks. Savor it. Try new things. Make bold declarations, fine, but expect to be proven wrong again and again throughout your lifetime. Never call anything exotic, just bask in how it is new to you.

Though we just spent two paragraphs explaining how this subject isn’t really rankable, we are curious about which cuisines around the world people dig the most. To find an answer to that, we turned to the masses over at Ranker. The question was simple, “Which countries have the best food?” 450,000 votes later and a very clear top ten emerged. It is right? That’s impossible to say. It does give way to an interesting discussion, though — giving us a chance to travel vicariously through a culture’s food during a time when international travel’s future is a big question mark.

10. ARGENTINA

Argentine street food leans very heavily into the nation’s colonial European roots. After an almost total genocide in the late 1800s against the Indigenous nations, Spanish and Italian food cultures pretty much became the only food that formed “Argentine” foodways. Granted, those colonizers adopted a few Indigenous food practices like open-flame pit barbecue (la parrilla or asado in Spanish) alongside the use of a few Indigenous products, but a huge amount of the original culture is gone.

What’s left are Iberian and Italian cuisines that are jacked up on massive doses of beef, cheese, and wine. If you love Spanish cuisines, then Argentina is going to be your jam. We’d also argue that Argentina — Buenos Aires especially — has some of the best Neapolitan pizza outside of Naples thanks to two million Italians landing there around 1900 (the same number as New York).

Iconic Street Food: Empanadas

Spanish empanadas are the backbone of Argentine street food. The classic package of shredded or ground beef, chili, onion, garlic, cumin, oregano, and paprika wrapped in a puff pastry shell and then fried is hard to argue with. If you’ve been out drinking red wine and pretending to Tango all night, this is the perfect after-midnight one-hander snack. From there, there’s pretty much every Ibero/Italiano variation you can imagine.

9. HONG KONG

Hong Kong has one of the most iconic street food scenes in any city in the world. Their soy-marinated squid and octopus sticks are the stuff of foodie’s dreams. The ubiquity of great food for amazingly inexpensive prices pretty much 24/7 is the epitome of what a great street food city should be. Let’s put it this way, Hong Kong is the sort of city where you can spend a month eating every meal on the streets and still only scratch the surface. It rules.

And all of that is just the streets. The city also has one of the widest arrays of international restaurants of any place on the planet.

Iconic Street Food: Curry Fish Balls

Fish balls on a stick are a staple of the HK street food scene. They are seemingly available on every other street corner. The conceit is simple, a fish ball (a smooth fish meatball) is cooked in a satay-like curry sauce with a coconut base. It’s spicy, velvety, fishy, and loaded with umami. Pretty much every spot is going to have its own “secret” curry recipe and the dopest spots will make sure there’s a curried piece of radish nearby to counterpoint all that briny, spice, and umami.

8. BRAZIL

Brazil is another nation where the Indigenous cuisines have been pushed to the edge of existence thanks to continued genocides. The remaining Brazilian food identities vary from the Caribbean beaches to the mountains to the Amazon to the cities with Afro-European foodways blending with Indigenous ingredients that are very similar to the American South’s cuisine.

All of that said, there’s not really a “single” food to call “Brazilian” (besides maybe the African-influenced feijoada — a roasted pork and stewed black bean dish). It really just depends where you are and who’s cooking for you. The throughline in Brazil is that it’ll almost always be a spectacular eating experience.

Iconic Street Food: Mortadella Sandwich

Leaning into Brazil’s Italian colonial background, the stacked mortadella sandwiches you get at local food markets (especially in Sao Paolo) is one of the world’s great sandwich experiences. The sandwich is about a half-pound of plancha fried mortadella often but not always layered with melty cheese, mayo, mustard, and sometimes a chili reduction on a white sourdough roll.

You’ll dream about this sandwich for years after you leave Brazil.

7. PERU

Peru, like most of its American counterparts, has carried out genocide after genocide against its Indigenous population over the centuries. Yet, the Indigenous peoples of Peru are still a crucial part of Peruvian society and its cuisine — albeit sidelined for European and Japanese colonial foods in the mainstream for the most part.

Still, Peru is where the world gets potatoes, quinoa, various beans, chilis, and the tomato. Food runs deep in the culture and has ancient roots still being utilized to this day. Case in point, freeze-drying food was invented by the Incas. Indigenous Peruvians (the Moche) also gave the world ceviche, for which we should all be very thankful.

Iconic Street Food: Anticuchos

Anticuchos is a classic meat-on-a-stick cooked over a fire. It’s in no way unique to Peru in the grand scheme of cooking meat over a fire. What makes Anticuchos unique is the use of llama and the spices used to marinate the meat before it hits the open flame, namely: chili. The dish is now more popularly made with beef heart (which grew ubiquitous when the Spaniards refused African slaves any other meat to cook with). If you can find it with llama, it’s like a time machine to another era, though don’t skip the beef heart versions you find all over the cities.

6. INDIA

India is a massive country with varied and deeply rooted food cultures spread over a billion-plus people. You can bet your ass that what’s being cooked on the streets and in the kitchens of Mumbai and Delhi and Amritsar deserves to be recognized as some of the best food in the world.

Really though, the food cultures in India are crazy varied. The heavy meat stews in the Islamic north are wholly different than the veggie Tamal plates you find in the Hindu southeast. And that’s before you even start digging into the different major cities and their phenomenal street food scenes.

You won’t have a bad meal in India, is what we’re saying.

Iconic Street Food: Pav Bhaji

Mumbai is one of the best cities for street food in the world. The dish you have to try: Pav Bhaji. The dish is everywhere and it’s goddamn delicious. Two sweet rolls are buttered and grilled on a flattop grill while a slightly spicy veg stew is mashed and warmed up. That’s all served together with a little lime, onion, and pickle. It’s divine, filling, and costs less than a dollar.

5. TURKEY

There’s so much great food in Turkey that it’s hard to know where to start. As a crossroads along the spice and food trail for millennia, Turkish cuisine is amazingly varied, always vibrant, and tons of fun. There’s a communal aspect to the barbecue culture with meat and veg on a stick. The seafood leans heavily into Mediterranean themes with a lot of olive oil, bright herbs, and lemon. If you’re in Istanbul, don’t skip a Balık ekmek. That’s a grilled fish sandwich that’ll become your favorite lunch while you’re in the ancient city.

Iconic Street Food: Lahmacun

While we love a good Balık ekmek, it’s really more of a coastal thing. Then there’s the classic kebap that you can get pretty much everywhere in the country. It’d be easy to say, eat a kebab, and be on our way. But we’re going with the brilliant, light, and wholly unique flatbread Lahmacun.

A lahmacun is a thin flatbread topped with minced lamb (or sometimes beef) in a paste of garlic, chili, onion, tomato, paprika, cumin, and cinnamon that’s then baked. You can eat it on its own, but it’s best with a few sprigs of fresh parsley and slices of tomato and onion with a squirt of fresh lemon juice. It’s light, inexpensive, and very addictive.

4. GREECE

Greece has the advantage of being a sea-faring culture at a crossroads (yet again) between Asia and Europe. And, look, cultural crossroads are usually where you find the best foods, so this entry definitely makes sense. It’s a place that offers locals the chance to pick up techniques, spices, and ingredients from far off lands. The best of all worlds, literally.

Greek food is a sharing food culture. That’s kinda awesome if you ask us. Also, call it cliche all you want, but a gyro in the Plaka in Athens is one of the best 10 meals on earth.

Iconic Street Food: Gyro

Soft bread, grilled meat, tangy sauce, crunchy veg topping, and a few thick-cut fries just can’t be beaten. Really though, there’s something uniquely special about the soft gyro bread, fatty grilled lamb, and yogurt and garlic-forward sauce that makes a gyro a must-have every time you set foot in Greece.

3. SPAIN

Spain near the top makes sense if you consider the acorn butteriness of Jamon Iberico alone. Then there’s the food culture that lives on the streets across Spain of Pintxos, Tapas, Cañas, and Copas. Little bites of food from the land and sea to go with little glasses of beer or wine in a perfect pairing of thrift and expediency.

Spain is also where chefs like Ferran Adria are straight-up changing the food game down to its DNA and giving it to the world to toy with and further evolve. So, yeah, the nation makes a strong case for this spot.

Iconic Street Food: Churro with Hot Chocolate

It’s okay if you associate churros with something fast and easy to get as you leave Costco. The Spanish street food found in “Chocolaterías” across the country (but especially in Madrid) is comfort food that’ll make you instantly feel like you’re home. The spears of yeasty dough are fried and then covered in cinnamon and sugar. Then as a final coup de grâce, you’re given a deeply bitter and slightly sweet cup of viscous-y hot chocolate to dip them in and … we’re going to need a minute to collect ourselves.

2. MEXICO

Mexico is another massive country where deserts give way to jungles which become mountains — and it’s all hugged by two impossibly long coastlines on two different oceans. It’s an enormous country where you’ll be hard-pressed to find a bad meal.

Like the South American entries on this list, European foodways have heavily influenced what most people consider to be “Mexican” food these days. Yet, millennia-old Indigenous foodways still run deep in the culture. Corn, avocados, and cacao (to name only a few cornerstone products) were cultivated for thousands and thousands of years after all. That backbone is what the Spanish, French, German, and Lebanese built regional Mexican cuisines on the back of.

Iconic Street Food: Taco

We mean, can this be anything else? From Baja to the streets of Mexico City, the taco reigns supreme. It’s the perfect delivery system. The tortilla can hold an almost endless array of proteins, sauces, and garnishes, making this one of the most versatile foods there is.

1. ITALY

In the end, Italy feels like the right food culture to sit at number one. They care as much about food as Spain, they’re as varied as India, and their food is as exciting as Mexico’s. It’s the best of all worlds where you can eat a two hour, multi-course lunch with a bottle of wine and nice grappa at the end, then stroll to a gelateria for ice cream afterward and never feel bad about a single decision you made.

Who wants to argue that?

Iconic Street Food: Pizza

Yes, pizza and Italy and almost synonymous. Yet, if you’re expecting a plain NY Slice, you’re going to be a little disappointed and, dare we say, challenged. Pizza in Italy can be anything and varies greatly region to region.

Pizza al taglio in Rome are huge squares of pie with everything but the kitchen sink on them and are sold by weight. Pizza in Naples is the classic Neapolitan style that informed the heritage of New York, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, and New Haven pies. Sicilian pizza is often thick-crusted with only a little tomato, cheese, and garlic and sold from bakeries, not pizzerias. Then again, you can 100 percent find pizzas with hot dogs and fries on them in Sicily. So even on that island, pizza is not just one thingh.

We’re only scratching the surface here. The point is, eat pizza when you go to Italy and expand your pizza horizons in each corner of the country.

Cole Bennett‘s Lyrical Lemonade delivers a haunting visual companion to Chicago rapper Polo G‘s “21,” a sober celebration of a making it to adulthood from the 21-year-old rising star’s new album, The GOAT. The video opens with a hooded assailant taking shots at Polo as he wakes up in his room and follows the young rapper as he walks through a labyrinth of video sets being pursued by his unseen enemy. As Polo passes through a trap house, a jail, and the backstage hallways of a movie lot, the attacker periodically pops up to make further attempts on him as paintings come alive and objects levitate around the rapper.

The video concludes with a closeup of Polo’s adversary, who removes his hood and mask to reveal that he’s been his greatest enemy all along. The “evil” Polo then grows devilish horns from beneath his locks, embodying the dark, self-destructive impulses that permeate the young rapper’s emotive discography. The lyrics throw hints to this self-destructive nature as well, as he ponders the recent death of one of his late peers: “Can’t relapse off these drugs, man R.I.P. to Juice / We was tweakin’ off them Percs, I popped my last one with you.” Between street life and drug use, Polo feels grateful to have reached this milestone, but as he’s hinted in the titles of his projects — including his debut, Die A Legend — he’s got a lot more plans to accomplish before he’s ready to accept his fate.

Watch the “21” video above.

The GOAT is out now on Columbia Records. Get it here.

Reports surfaced Sunday that Kanye West has trademarked his Yeezy brand in order to expand his reach to makeup and cosmetics. While the rapper is possibly pivoting towards beauty products, he wouldn’t be the first musician to do so. Selena Gomez and Lady Gaga have both formed their own line of makeup and now Teyana Taylor is getting her chance in cosmetics: The singer is partnering with MAC Cosmetics for an exclusive line of makeup products.

The MAC x Teyana Taylor collection has been in production for over a year. The singer worked closely with MAC to infuse her own style into every aspect of the collaboration, from shades of makeup to the packaging. In a statement, Taylor said she drew inspiration for her collection from Harlem in the ’90s. “I was inspired by the 90s and the heart & soul of Harlem and wanted to show that through the shades and packaging,” Taylor said. The singer continued that she’s been a fan of MAC’s products ever since she began experimenting with makeup at 15 years old:

“I’m very excited to be partnering with a company like MAC who I’ve watched collaborate with strong women of color over the years. I’ve been a fan of MAC ever since I was 15 years old and started experimenting with makeup, it was the first brand that made me like makeup. I’m so grateful and excited to be sharing this beautiful collection I created with the MAC team but also hoping to inspire other young women that anything and everything is possible.”

Announcing her makeup line on social media, Taylor wrote she appreciates that MAC was one of the first makeup brands to be inclusive of women of color as well as the LGBTQ+ community. “That was big for me being a young black girl from Harlem telling myself that one day that would be me plastered in that window,” she wrote.

MAC’s Global Chief Marketing Officer Ukonwa Ojo complimented Teyana Taylor’s bold style: “As a longtime friend of the brand, we’ve grown to know and love Teyana for having a style unlike anyone else. She’s fierce, bold and unapologetically herself, no matter what she’s wearing – all qualities we stand for at MAC, and are so excited to bring to life through this new collaboration.”

MAC has yet to reveal the launch date of Taylor’s makeup line but fans can find more details here.

With election day drawing nearer, a non-profit is looking to increase political engagement for young people across the country. Rock The Vote is kickstarting its Democracy Summer campaign with a two-hour virtual concert. The organization has invited many big-name musicians and celebrities to join the livestream, with Katy Perry and Black Eyed Peas headlining the event.

The livestream will be co-hosted by actors Logan Browning and Rosario Dawson. Along with Perry and a reunion show by Black Eyed Peas, musicians like Saweetie, Ne-Yo, Rich Brian, Big Freedia, Dove Cameron, and Sofia Carson will make appearances during the livestream.

In a statement alongside the concert’s announcement, Perry said she was honored to be a part of the event: “I’m excited to be a part of this kickoff to Democracy Summer 2020 with so many amazing talents, activists and speakers. The young people of America are speaking loud and clear on the streets and online, and come November, it will be more important than ever to fight for justice and equality, and against systemic racism, with our ballots.”

Ne-Yo echoed Perry’s statement, saying that voting in the upcoming election is crucial: “We are seeing the urgency for change in America happening in real time. This is the moment for us to use the most important tool on the planet to fight for that change…our right to vote. Our democracy needs our voices. Voting is the moment to be the voice for injustice and for equality. But most importantly, to be the voice for humanity. We cannot let each other down in the local elections or on Nov. 3.”

Rock The Vote aims to bring 200,000 new voters to the polls this November. The organization has also been active at a number of protests over the last few weeks. Rock The Vote CEO Carolyn DeWitt says the non-profit was able to register a whopping 107,000 new voters in the wake of the demonstrations against George Floyd’s murder. “Young people are looking for things they can do and actions they can take in order to create change,” DeWitt said. “We want to make sure we’re continuing to sustain that fire and passion into November, and make sure young people know the power of their votes and create the change they want to see.”

Rock The Vote’s Democracy Summer livestream kicks off 6/18 at 8 p.m. EDT. Watch it here.

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The ‘Billions’ Stock Watch is a weekly accounting of the action on the Showtime drama. Decisions will be made based on speculation and occasional misinformation and mysterious whims that are never fully explained to the general public. Kind of like the real stock market.

STOCK UP — Episodes about an entire office doing speed of questionable origin

There is a long and storied history of prestige-type dramas doing episodes about an entire office doing some sort of unregulated speed together in the middle of the day. And by that, I mean it has happened twice: once in the legendary “shady doctors injects quote-unquote medicine into everyone’s butt” episode of Mad Men; and now, in an episode of Billions where everyone took an as-yet-unapproved Limitless-style pill called — in the Billions tradition of perfectly named fake products like Ice Juice and SugarVape — Vigilantrix.

What was your favorite part of the Vigilantrix debacle? Was is Axe and company almost galaxy-braining the entire company into a disastrous $3 billion loss in a play for, and I quote, minerals? Was it Mafee and Ben Kim all geeked out and giddy like a couple of puppies who got into the cold brew? Was it a tweaking Axe seeing numbers in the air around him like he was in some combination of The Matrix and A Beautiful Mind?

All fair selections. For my $3 billion, though, it was one of two things

• A sober Taylor showing up like an older sibling who found out their younger siblings threw a house party and trashed everything, taking a deep breath, and calmly trying to undo whatever was undoable about Axe’s brain-surge-induced play to corner the market on anything that lies under the Earth’s surface
• New employee Rian convincing herself she could learn Spanish in one hour and then phoning what must have been a very confused Chilean government figure to deliver what amounted to an unhinged lunch order

I love these kinds of episodes. Every show should do one. Give the Stranger Things kids synthetic speed next season. Let’s get wild.

STOCK DOWN — Todd Krakow

Todd Krakow, noted useless weasel and Secretary of the Treasury, remained only one of those by the end of the episode. He lit himself on fire during an official government meeting, shouting about corruption and whether he will or will not have it and altogether just giving a delightfully performative monologue triggered by Chuck and Sacker’s ruse about a fictional investigation he may or may not have been a focus of. The biggest takeaways here are as follows: one, Axe’s bank charter is now in deep trouble; two, I very much hope this is not the last we see of Todd Krakow.

I’ve covered this before but still, no one on television plays a weasel better than Danny Strong. The faces, the voice, the posture, all of it. Did you see him in the press conference after the meeting where he said he’s going back to “making the ca-ching machine go ca-ching”? It was tremendous. It must be so much fun to write for that character, just putting the most insufferable words you can think of into his mouth and then shouting “action.” He somehow becomes more redeemable the less redeemable he behaves. I have no idea how it works. I love him.

STOCK UP — Mike Prince

I still haven’t figured out Mike Prince, exactly, but I do know at least three things about him:

• He’s often positioned in poses like the one above when the “dramatic music” caption pops up on screen, which always makes me very suspicious of him and his actions, even before he makes a move that could be interpreted as a beneficent gesture or a tactic in a game of diabolical 4-D chess
• He makes references to Wile E. Coyote, which I love
• Every single thing he does infuriates Axe, who has now vowed to ruin him during the comedown from Vigilantrix

I like Mike Prince a lot. He’s more interesting than Axe. There’s a mystery to him. I won’t be entirely surprised if we learn he has an alter ego as a supervillain who is preparing to poison the Manhattan water supply.

STOCK UP — Shady sunglasses-wearing Dr. Louis Litt from Suits

Chuck still needs a kidney for Senior and is testing out increasingly dubious plans to acquire one, ranging from “forcing everyone who works for him to get a blood test under false pretenses” to “shaking down a steroid cheat to get a meeting with the shadiest doctor you’ve ever seen, played by the same actor who played Louis Litt on Suits, except now he’s a huge scumbag who wears sunglasses inside only accepts cash and openly discusses buying kidneys from displaced immigrants while talking to the Attorney General of New York in the Attorney General’s actual office.”

Yes. Yes. I broke into a huge smile when I saw this unfold on my screen. It made me so happy. A Suits–Billions crossover is exactly what I need. Keep this character around for the rest of the series. Have him pop up every now and then to offer people body parts, and not just organs, feet and fingers, too. (“What size shoes do you wear? 12? Tough size to find shoes for. I can get you a pair of 10-sized feet for $9k.”) Give him Vigilantrix and let him deliver the keynote speech at a medical conference. The people deserve it.

STOCK DOWN — Artistic principles

Big shoutout to Nico Tanner, who went from complaining about listening to a potential buyer try to interpret his art at the beginning of the episode (during the awkward dinner I’ll be discussing shortly) to curling up like a purring kitten in the metaphorical lap of a wealthy divorcée as she did exactly the thing he claimed to hate. It was all a plan set in motion by Axe before his speed adventure, for the sole purpose of torturing Wendy for the unforgivable crime of showing affection for another man who claims to have integrity.

It must be exhausting to know Axe. Like, he might just up and ruin your fun relationship through expensive and nefarious tactics that take weeks to unfold and are done only so he can prove his warped view of the world remains true. I would like to see someone smash an entire pineapple on his head, just once.

STOCK UP — Awkward dinners

Moments from the awkward dinner at the beginning of the episode, ranked:

5. Axe fumes when Wendy runs Nico’s extremely muscular shoulder

4. Chef Ryan shows up to serve fancy sushi and then wisely gets the hell out of there after reading the room for under three seconds

3. Me saying “Hang on… is Axe’s date.., former tennis superstar Maria Sharapova… who last appeared in season three… and whose presence at this dinner is not addressed by anyone in the moment or afterward”?

2. Wags casually mentioning to his very young date that he wants to have her help raise the child he wants to put inside her, which caused her to briefly choke, as one does in this kind of situation.

1. I’m still not over the Sharapova thing. I hope they get married. Let’s just go ahead and do it all.

STOCK UP — Telling a long story that meanders toward the point you’re trying to make

One of my favorite things about Billions is how no one ever just says anything. They give a long speech first, about anything. Sometimes it’s wildlife, as with Taylor and the falcon metaphor last season. A lot of the time, it’s a Godfather reference. This week we had two: Chuck telling a very morbid story about a violent Sicilian women using her ex-lover’s head as a flower pot (pictured above), and Sacker telling a story about a maniac preacher who threw his pants into a fire (below).

I’m not being sarcastic or ironic when I say I love this. I want to start talking this way. All the time. Like I’ll be in the drive-thru at Dunkin’ Donuts and the lady will ask me what I want and I’ll say “Let me tell you a little story about Jules Leotard, a one-time law student who abandoned the profession to join the circus and later invented the article of clothing that bears his name.” Forty cars behind me honking like crazy as I spin my yarn. All for a medium iced coffee. Yes, this is how I talk now. Everyone is going to hate me so much.

HBO Max’s original programming lineup is about to get more crowded, with the impending premieres of Adventure Time: Distant Lands, Doom Patrol, and Search Party.

Created by Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charles Rogers, and Michael Showalter, the millennial-satirizing comedy aired for two very funny seasons on TBS before HBO Max (not to be confused with HBO) picked it up for two more seasons. The new episodes can’t get here soon enough, as the last time we checked in with Dory (played by Arrested Development‘s Alia Shawkat), she had just been arrested for murder.

Season three finds Dory, as well as Drew (John Reynolds), Elliott (John Early), and Portia (Meredith Hagner), “swept up in the trial of the century after Dory and Drew are charged for the semi-accidental murder of a private investigator,” according to HBO Max. “As Elliott and Portia grapple with whether or not to testify as witnesses, the friends are pitted against each other and thrust into the national spotlight. Dory’s sanity begins to fracture, and it becomes increasingly clear that the group may not have brunch together again for quite some time.” Guest stars include Louie Anderson and Chelsea Peretti.

Search Party returns on June 25. Brad Pitt will be watching — will you?

As the NFL begins the process of getting their facilities back up and running, with the insistence that the season is going to happen as planned, they have been given the green light to test players for the novel coronavirus ahead of opening the doors for training.

On Monday, the league’s two Texas teams reportedly received test results back that confirmed that “several” players on the Cowboys and Texans had tested positive for COVID-19, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

While the teams do not disclose the names of those player that tested positive, Ezekiel Elliott’s agent confirmed to Rapoport that the star running back was among those to test positive, but offering an update that Elliott was “feeling good” despite the positive test.

Hopefully, as was the case with the known positive cases for players in the NBA, all of the players involved will be able to make full recoveries and not deal with a severe case of the dangerous and deadly disease. That more serious, non-fatal cases can do significant damage to the body’s respiratory system — among other things — is one of the chief concerns athletes have about contracting the virus, as there are still questions about all of the long-term effects of the disease.

That Elliott is feeling good is hopefully an indication that he has a mild or asymptomatic case and will be able to return to the field at full capacity in the near future, but it also shows that the NFL will likely see plenty of positive cases around the league and will need to prepare for plans to change as the season nears and case numbers in the United States continue spiking significantly.

Kevin Durant’s basketball career has been on pause for a full year now as he rehabs an Achilles injury, and while he won’t be making any surprise returns to the NBA’s bubble in Orlando, he’s been plenty busy expanding his off-court business portfolio.

Durant has always had one eye looking to the future and ensuring himself financial stability long-term, launching Thirty-Five Ventures, which has business holdings, a media arm, and more. On Monday, his latest investment became official as Durant has added sports ownership to his portfolio, purchasing a 5 percent stake in the MLS’ Philadelphia Union ownership group, with an option to add an additional 5 percent in the “near future.”

That the announcement video puts his old number 35 on his jersey rather than his new number 7 is a bit funny, and also understandable given he hasn’t played a game in 7 yet so it’s not hard to forget he made that change when he moved to Brooklyn. Durant and the Union’s partnership also includes a pledge from the team to expand their community outreach efforts

“I’m excited to partner with the Philadelphia Union for years to come. My team and I connected instantly with the Union coaching staff and leadership, as well as the team’s story,” said Kevin Durant. “Off the pitch, I’m looking forward to working in the Chester and Philadelphia communities and making an impact in the same way that the KDCF has been able to in my hometown of Prince George’s County.”

…

The Union and Thirty Five Ventures have committed to developing programs in the Chester and Philadelphia areas with three main focuses. First, they will work to empower Chester’s youth to tackle social and racial injustice in their community and beyond via social justice programs and resources. Second, they will address needs related to COVID-19, with support for food banks and local small business recovery efforts. Finally, they will support youth sports programming and development in Chester and surrounding areas.

The MLS will return to action with the MLS Is Back Tournament in Orlando in July at the same site as the NBA’s return at Disney’s Wide World of Sports, so Durant will have an eye on his new team, the Union, while also cheering on his Nets as they fight for playoff position in the East.