The Kardashians have a long history in the beauty industry. Nearly all of the sisters have launched some form of beauty product line and Kylie Jenner’s cosmetic brand nearly earned her billionaire status after her net worth was recently disputed by Forbes. Now, Kanye West is reportedly taking notes on the lucrative nature of his in-laws’ beauty business practices and staking his own claim in the industry. The rapper is allegedly expanding his Yeezy clothing line into makeup and cosmetics.

According to a report from TMZ, Kanye recently sought trademark status for his Yeezy brand in the world of cosmetics. The rapper filed to get “Yeezy” trademarked to cover a number of beauty products. According to the report, Kanye pursued trademark status for makeup, false eyelashes, face masks, nail polish, lotions, bath products, body oils, shaving cream, hair care products, perfumes, and hygiene products like toothpaste and deodorant. The rapper even covered peculiar items like scented pine cones and aromatherapy pillows.

This wouldn’t be the first time Kanye attempted to expand his brand to the world of cosmetics, according to the same report. Just three years ago, the rapper sought the legal rights to launch a brand of cosmetics under DONDA, the creative content company named after his mother, though the plan never came to fruition. Similarly, Kanye released the fragrance Whatever It Takes in 2013, but the scent never gained traction.

Balancing doing what you love in the face of something dangerous requires courage. Even more courage, one can argue, is required to stand up to your employers and peers when it comes to voicing your concerns in an attempt to make that aforementioned dangerous scenario a little more safe.

Brooklyn Nets standout and NBPA vice president Kyrie Irving reportedly hosted approximately 200 of his peers on a Zoom call Friday night to express his opinions about the league taking over some property at Disney for a bubble league to wrap out its season. While he was among the most prominent voices against this arrangement, Irving was ruled out for the rest of the season in March following shoulder surgery, and he will not take the floor in Orlando.

Among a number of lines Irving apparently said on the call, the quote that flew around NBA Twitter was Irving’s declaration that he “wasn’t with the systemic racism and the bullsh*t.” Irving is of the belief that playing NBA games would drown out the voices in American streets crying for social reforms.

While he’s been the person making headlines given his superstar stature, Irving’s quotes aren’t the only ones we should pay attention to.

It helps to establish that Friday’s Zoom call was a union meeting where members could do the thing they pay into the union to do: weigh in on matters that affect them. If there was any appropriate forum for Kyrie to voice his issues, it was then. If one of the VPs of the union either didn’t voice his concerns nor those who voted him there, he’d be failing the rest of the players.

What also matters is that Kyrie doesn’t appear to be alone when it comes to the idea that the NBA shouldn’t come back and that games are a distraction to the Black Lives Matter movement is a real one amongst players, and it should not only be listened to, but also be addressed. Lakers guard Avery Bradley reportedly called on his fellow players to “play chess, not checkers” in approaching all of this. Lou Williams tweeted that he believes basketball is a distraction right now, even if he would play if there was a game scheduled for tomorrow. Dwight Howard, who knows first-hand about the horrors of COVID-19, reportedly said on the call that he thinks players should use this moment to, according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, “take a stand and to use their collective power to implement change in the justice system and how police treat people of color instead of playing.”

Beyond the very valid questions of how restarting the league would impact the effectiveness of player activism are the legitimate concerns over how safe the bubble would be. A high-ranking NBA executive admitted to NBC Sports’ Tom Habestroh that Orlando “isn’t a bubble, it’s a mesh hat.” J.J. Redick, along with a few other players in his replies, voiced concerns over this. If the NBA and Disney haven’t functionally figured out a way to keep staff safe, why would any player put their career in the hands of rushed plans to save what little basketball revenue they can?

An added wrinkle to the location issue is that Florida is setting record numbers in terms of positive tests for COVID. More than 3,000 people tested positive over the weekend in the same state that will host these playoffs. Even if Disney happens to be the insulated place in Florida, all it takes is one positive test to derail the best of plans.

Even with rosters expanding to 17 to work around a positive COVID test, that margin of error might not be enough to avoid potentially sidelining an entire team. If that happens, what’s the contingency? Would teams be forced to forfeit depending on how many tested positive? Would players hide COVID signs in order to potentially win a championship?

If younger players are reaching out to NBPA officials about insurance just in case something bad happens during a pandemic — which, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, is happening — there’s a problem with the plan. These younger guys should be focused far more on getting better in the gym, not having those worst-case scenarios possibly floating in their heads. This does not even consider the fact that there is still no data about the long-term effects of catching COVID-19. Catching COVID could be a death sentence to the career of an NBA player, because even if they survive, it is unclear what this does to a person’s body, which shouldn’t be lost on anyone.

Donovan Mitchell has even reportedly voiced his concerns about soft tissue injuries after such a long layoff from actual basketball activities. Mitchell’s point makes a ton of sense considering that we’ve seen such injuries in the Bundesliga with younger guys like Borussia Dortmund’s Gio Reyna, who hurt himself warming up for his first match back. Mitchell can earn a max-extension in the offseason, would it be worth it to him to go down to Orlando and play in a sequestered tournament that he’s likely not able to win?

Disagreeing with Irving is fine, and those arguments and discussions are playing out within the confines of the players union as well. LeBron James believes they can continue having an impact on the world while playing basketball and using that platform to amplify the message as well. There are also significant short and long-term financial implications for players keeping the NBA from returning and impacting revenue from this season and beyond, as revenue tied to the restart is critical for the league moving forward without the salary cap cratering. As Austin Rivers said in response to Irving. he believes playing and receiving those paychecks to financially support the Black Lives Matter movement is an important part of how NBA players create change. There are quite literally millions of reasons for players to play, but also some very legitimate cases to be made for them not to and you can find those directly facing those questions on both sides of the coin.

As such, all of this requires a nuanced discussion many in the sports field aren’t equipped to handle, and as such the discourse around it all has been nauseating at best. Add in that it’s Irving, who leads the NBA in galaxy brain jokes at his expense thanks to previous flat earth commentary, leading the charge, and people are so much quicker to shout him down. However, dismissing Irving and others outright for voicing their concerns would be wrong, as there are legitimate reasons to worry about a restart, both from how it impacts the effectiveness of player activism to the very real health concerns that are yet to be fully sorted.

Jon Stewart stepped down as The Daily Show host in 2015, and in the five years since, he’s made his directorial debut, testified before the House Judiciary Committee to secure funds for 9/11 first responders, and, very importantly, rescued two goats that were wandering on the subway tracks. He’s now getting ready for the release of his second feature, which finds him returning to a genre he knows as well as anyone: political-comedy. To promote Irresistible, which stars Steve Carell, Chris Cooper, Mackenzie Davis, and Rose Byrne, Stewart spoke to the New York Times interviewer extraordinaire David Marchese about, among other topics, the “worst legacy” of The Daily Show.

When asked how feels about Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson replacing frequent sparring partner Bill O’Reilly as the worst that Fox News has to offer, Stewart replied, “I think they’re just the next level. As things progress, to get the same dopamine hit, you have to push it further. Although O’Reilly pushed it pretty far. The question was always, ‘Why would you talk to him? Why do you have him on the show if you can’t destroy him?’ If you want to talk about the worst legacy of The Daily Show, it was probably that”:

“That’s the part of it that I probably most regret. Those moments when you had a tendency, even subconsciously, to feel like, ‘We have to live up to the evisceration expectation.’ We tried not to give something more spice than it deserved, but you were aware of, say, what went viral. Resisting that gravitational force is hard.”

Marchese brought up Stewart’s evisceration (in internet speak) of Jim Cramer, a takedown so epic (and again) that it has its own Wikipedia page. But while Stewart might have regrets about The Daily Show dipping into takedown culture, there’s one evil, irredeemable target that we can all agree deserved to get owned: deep-dish pizza.

“This is an aboveground marinara swimming pool for rats.” Harsh, but fair.

(Via New York Times)

Lil Baby joins an anti-police brutality protest in the video for his defiant new anthem, “Bigger Picture.” The Atlanta rapper’s new video takes a close-up look at the people leading the protests, as he pleads “we gotta start somewhere” if changes are to be made. The lyrics speak to not only the current backlash against police brutality sweeping the nation’s streets, social channels, and news broadcasts but also to the state that caused things to get to such a point:

I gave ’em chance and chance and chance again, I even done told them please
I find it crazy the police’ll shoot you and know that you dead, but still tell you to freeze
F*cked up, I seen what I seen
I guess that mean hold him down if he say he can’t breathe

The video documents Lil Baby as he marches with people wearing “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts, flashing scenes of the peaceful protests which have dominated the on-the-ground experience with news broadcasts which instead focus on fires, looting, and destruction of property.

Lil Baby is the latest rapper to create a video about the protests, which have also been centered in the videos for YG’s “FTP” and “Pig Feet” by Denzel Curry, Daylyt, G Perico, Terrace Martin, and Kamasi Washington.

Watch Lil Baby’s “Bigger Picture” video above.

Almost everything music-related has been canceled or postponed in recent months, but the BET Awards are still on the way: The ceremony is set to air on June 28 (for the first time, on CBS). Ahead of then, the full list of award nominees has been released.

Drake leads the pack with his six nominations, for Best Male Hip-Hop Artist, Video Of The Year, and two nominations each for Best Collaboration and Viewer’s Choice, for his collaborations with Future (“Life Is Good”) and Chris Brown (“No Guidance”). Right behind him are Megan Thee Stallion and Roddy Ricch, who each earned five nominations. Also earning four nominations each are Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, Lizzo, DaBaby, and Brown.

Check out the full list of nominations below.

Best Female R&B/Pop Artist
Beyonce
HER
Jhene Aiko
Kehlani
Lizzo
Summer Walker

Best Male R&B/Pop Artist
Anderson .Paak
Chris Brown
Jacquees
Khalid
The Weeknd
Usher

Best Group
Chloe X Halle
City Girls
Earthgang
Griselda
Jackboys
Migos

Best Collaboration
Chris Brown Feat. Drake — “No Guidance”
DJ Khaled Feat. Nipsey Hussle & John Legend — “Higher”
Future Feat. Drake — “Life Is Good”
HER Feat. YG — “Slide”
Megan Thee Stallion Feat. Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla SIgn — “Hot Girl Summer”
Wale Feat. Jeremih — “On Chill”

Best Male Hip Hop Artist
DaBaby
Drake
Future
Lil Baby
Roddy Ricch
Travis Scott

Best Female Hip Hop Artist
Cardi B
Doja Cat
Lizzo
Megan Thee Stallion
Nicki Minaj
Saweetie

Video Of The Year
Chris Brown Feat. Drake — “No Guidance”
DaBaby — “Bop”
DJ Khaled Feat. Nipsey Hussle and John Legend — “Higher”
Doja Cat — “Say So”
Megan Thee Stallion Feat. Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $Ign — “Hot Girl Summer”
Roddy Ricch — “The Box”

Video Director Of The Year
Benny Boom
Cole Bennett
Dave Meyers
Director X
Eif Rivera
Teyana “Spike Tee” Taylor

Best New Artist
Danileigh
Lil Nas X
Pop Smoke
Roddy Ricch
Summer Walker
YBN Cordae

Album Of The Year
Cuz I Love You — Lizzo
Fever — Megan Thee Stallion
Homecoming: The Live Album — Beyonce
I Used To Know Her — HER
Kirk — DaBaby
Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial — Roddy Ricch

Dr. Bobby Jones Best Gospel/Inspirational Award
Fred Hammond — “Alright”
John P. Kee Feat. Zacardi Cortez — “I Made It Out”
Kanye West — “Follow God”
Kirk Franklin — “Just For Me”
Pj Morton Feat. Le’andria Johnson and Mary Mary — “All In His Plan”
The Clark Sisters — “Victory”

Best Actress
Angela Bassett
Cynthia Erivo
Issa Rae
Regina King
Tracee Ellis Ross
Zendaya

Best Actor
Billy Porter
Eddie Murphy
Forest Whitaker
Jamie Foxx
Michael B. Jordan
Omari Hardwick

Youngstars Award
Alex Hibbert
Asante Blackk
Jahi Di’allo Winston
Marsai Martin
Miles Brown
Storm Reid

Best Movie
Bad Boys For Life
Dolemite Is My Name
Harriet
Homecoming: A Film By Beyonce
Just Mercy
Queen & Slim

Sportswoman Of The Year
Ajeé Wilson
Claressa Shields
Coco Gauff
Naomi Osaka
Serena Williams
Simone Biles

Sportsman Of The Year
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Kawhi Leonard
Lebron James
Odell Beckham Jr.
Patrick Mahomes II
Stephen Curry

BET Her Award
Alicia Keys — “Underdog”
Beyonce Feat. Blue Ivy Carter, Wizkid, and Saint Jhn — “Brown Skin Girl”
Ciara Feat. Lupita Nyong’o, Ester Dean, City Girls & La La — “Melanin”
Layton Greene — “I Choose”
Lizzo Feat. Missy Elliott — “Tempo”
Rapsody Feat. PJ Morton — “Afeni”

Viewer’s Choice Award
Chris Brown Feat. Drake — “No Guidance”
DaBaby — “Bop”
Future Feat. Drake — “Life Is Good”
Megan Thee Stallion Feat. Nicki Minaj — “Hot Girl Summer”
Roddy Ricch — “The Box”
The Weeknd — “Heartless”

Best International Act
Burna Boy (Nigeria)
Innoss’b (Drc)
Sho Madjozi (South Africa)
Dave (UK)
Stormzy (UK)
Ninho (France)
S.Pri Noir (France)

Viewer’s Choice: Best New International Act
Rema (Nigeria)
Sha Sha (Zimbabwe)
Celeste (UK)
Young T & Bugsey (UK)
Hatik (France)
Stacy (France)

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

Bradley Whitford has had an interesting career since his break-out role in The West Wing, which ran from 1999 to 2006. Everyone knows him as Josh Lyman from that series, and while he has worked steadily since the White House drama left the air (including Aaron Sorkin’s failed follow-up, Studio on the Sunset Strip), it took several years for Whitford to land another role as visible as The West Wing. He struck out with Good Guys, Happyish, and Trophy Wife — all cancelled after one season — and bounced around in guest TV roles for years, in addition to a starring role on the small cult hit, Cabin in the Woods.

In recent years, however, two roles have resurrected Whitford’s career in a big way: Appearing in the most recent two seasons of Hulu’s Handmaid’s Tale, and his role in Jordan Peele’s brilliant social-commentary disguised as a horror film, Get Out. How, exactly, did Whitford find himself in Peele’s seminal horror film?

“I just thought it would be funny to see Josh Lyman take the top part of someone’s head off,” Jordan Peele joked with Whitford, according to the latter on this week’s Armchair Expert podcast hosted by Dax Shepard. More seriously, however, Whitford’s The West Wing persona did come into play. Peele “was clearly playing on the ‘good’ liberal white dude” trope, Whitford said. “Beware of the good white liberal!” Shepard added.

Told how perfectly Whitford played the role in Get Out, Whitford confessed to Shepard that he was better suited to the role than perhaps he should have been. “Listen. I did not think that ‘I would vote for Obama for a third term’ was a laugh line.” He originally thought the line was serious. In fact, it’s not clear that the line didn’t originate with Whitford himself, as the actor told GQ last year. “Yeah, what’s really funny to me is — I worked on his campaigns. I love Obama. I didn’t even know that was a joke. I don’t know, but I probably said it to Jordan [Peele], without realizing that it’s the whitest thing a person could say.”

Likewise, even as Peele warned him otherwise, Whitford had no idea that Get Out would become the cultural juggernaut that it did. “The script was incredible,” Whitford told Shepard. “But I didn’t know if it was going to work. We were shooting in Alabama, when we were supposed to shoot in L.A. The highest expectation for this thing was that it would be a little smart, arthouse-weirdo horror thing.” Peele, however, kept telling Whitford that it was “really f**king good.” Whitford thought that Peele was saying that because he had to until he saw the first screening of the film at Sundance.

“Man, I had never seen a soufflé rise like that.”

That “soufflé” would go on to earn $255 million on a $4.5 million budget and change the landscape of horror films forever.

Source: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Over the weekend, Eminem updated his list of greatest rappers ever for fans on Twitter, including more recent additions such as Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and Joyner Lucas. The latter — with whom Eminem previously collaborated on the Kamikaze track “Lucky Me” and the aborted, admittedly ill-advised “What If I Was Gay?” — reacted to his addition on Instagram, sharing a post with Eminem’s original tweets and an analogy that compared Eminem to Michael Jordan.

Joyner compared the feeling to being a basketball player given Jordan’s (rare) blessing, writing, “If you played ball and studied Michael Jordan as the greatest and then Michael Jordan name drops you as one of the greatest ball players of all time, that’s how this feels to me.” Lucas, who recently released his debut studio album ADHD in March, is no stranger to receiving high praise from his rap idols, though. His standout single “Will” received the ultimate compliment when its subject, Will Smith, applauded its creative video then appeared on the song’s remix a few weeks later.

Eminem’s updated greatest of all time list received plenty of attention, which could lead to a lot more exposure for Lucas on his next big release, whenever that comes along. The veteran rapper’s co-sign featured heavily into the careers of titans like 50 Cent and Royce Da 5’9, so there’s no telling what effect it could have on Joyner’s future, but one thing is for sure: He’ll have to perform at a high level pretty consistently to live up to the lofty expectations such a co-sign could bring.

Check out Joyner’s reaction to Eminem’s co-sign above.

Back in February — when the world was only focused on a global pandemic and not a global pandemic and nationwide protests — Alicia Keys swung by the NPR offices for a Tiny Desk performance. Not that an Alicia Keys show needs anything extra to make it special, but she spiced up her set by performing a new song for the first time, “Gramercy Park.”

The song, which is set to appear on Keys’ upcoming album Alicia, is about changing to meet people’s expectations and losing yourself along the way. Keys sings on the hook, “I’ve been trying to fulfill you with your every need / Now you’re falling for a person that’s not even me.” She said while introducing the track:

“I love this song so much. It’s called ‘Gramercy Park.’ It’s on the Alicia album, and I love what this songs means. […] A lot of what I’ve been thinking about on my own personal journey is how much we contort and conform and adjust ourselves all the time… with the best of intentions, by the way! It’s from the most beautiful place. We want people to feel us and we want people to know how much we care about them. Somewhere along the line, we kind of lose ourselves in that and maybe can’t find our way back to ourselves, because we’re so concerned about how everybody else feels and we’re so concerned with making other people happy. It’s been definitely something that I’ve personally experienced, and I have a feeling a lot of you might have felt the same way. So this song, ‘Gramercy Park,’ really talks about how that happens.”

Elsewhere in her set, Keys performed “Show Me Love,” “Underdog,” and “Fallin’,” so watch Keys’ full Tiny Desk performance above.

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Our Longest Summer series will look at the eight teams whose seasons are now officially over, and will have to wait until mid-October to make decisions on what’s next and how to proceed after falling short of the cut-off for a continued 2019-20 campaign.

On the heels of a thoroughly puzzling 2019 offseason, the Knicks entered the 2019-20 campaign with mixed expectations. Some believed that New York’s patchwork additions might facilitate substantial improvement, while others feared the worst. When the campaign ended, the results were more to the negative side, with the Knicks posting a 21-45 record and “earning” an omission from the NBA’s planned 22-team restart in Orlando.

Once again, the Knicks enter the 2020 offseason with numerous questions to answer, and with a change in the front office and a new head coach coming in — with the expectation that it’ll be Tom Thibodeau — New York is as difficult to evaluate as any lottery-bound squad. Alas, there are methods to evaluate the madness, and the Knicks do have tangible decisions to make in the coming months.

2020 Free Agents

Bobby Portis (team option), Mo Harkless (UFA), Allonzo Trier (RFA), Damyean Dotson (RFA), Taj Gibson (non-guaranteed), Wayne Ellington (non-guaranteed), Elfrid Payton (non-guaranteed), Reggie Bullock (non-guaranteed)

2020 Projected salary cap space (assuming $115 million salary cap)

$36.1 million, per Early Bird Rights

Areas of Strength

It is, quite frankly, tough to find areas of genuine strength with the Knicks. New York did an excellent job on the offensive glass all season long, and with their wild investment in traditional big men and power forwards, the Knicks did have bulk on their side. Long-term, Mitchell Robinson looks the part of an intriguing starting center and while R.J. Barrett struggled at times during his rookie season, there is reason for optimism. All told, Julius Randle is also an interesting and productive player, even if one miscast as a legitimate No. 1 option.

Areas of Need

The Knicks were a genuine mess on both ends of the floor this season, and especially so on offense. New York landed near the bottom of the league in perimeter shooting (both frequency and accuracy) and the franchise continues to have no answer in terms of an offensive engine on the perimeter. Defensively, it wasn’t quite as porous, but it wasn’t as if the Knicks were anything special, or even average, on that end of the floor, with genuine interest on how the front office plans to fix what is a mismatched roster.

Biggest Decisions

In simple terms, the Knicks have a ton of roster decisions to make, even before considering free agency and the draft. Bobby Portis has a lucrative team option that the team should certainly consider declining. Then, New York has non-guaranteed deals for productive, yet overpaid, veterans in Taj Gibson, Elfrid Payton and Wayne Ellington. Then, you get into young players on fringes (Trier, Dotson) and realize that the Knicks could be yearning to keep the decks clear for 2021. Could they generate big-time cap space this summer? Absolutely. Would it be better to go hunting for stars in 2021? Probably, but the Knicks have been down that road (unsuccessfully) many times before. It would help with clarity if the Knicks got lucky in the lottery with a path toward LaMelo Ball but, if not, this could go any number of directions.

Overall Offseason Focus

One year ago, the Knicks bundled together an allotment of competent, yet ill-fitting veterans in an attempt to make the team better in the short term. On the bright side, New York didn’t thoroughly damage long-term flexibility in the process, but the team didn’t make things easy on Barrett or Robinson from an evaluation standpoint. This time around, the Knicks do have the ability to follow different avenues, but, at the moment, New York has only a few concretely positive assets on the roster and a shortage of cohesion that is striking. It’s time to fix that, albeit with a measured approach.