The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

“God, do I owe you money?”

In the flurry that is album release week, Jaime Wyatt forgot the exact timing of our phone interview — so when I called she wasn’t sure who was on the line. In her typical off-the-cuff style she joked about worrying the call was from a debt collector, and not a journalist eager to discuss Neon Cross, her spectacular full-length debut, released late last month via the Nashville-based label New West Records. Warm and charming, Wyatt is about as blunt as they come when she talks about the stories behind her new songs, the landmarks in LA that inspired some of them, and the personal transformation that spurred her to a whole new level as an artist and a person.

In some ways, Neon Cross feels like Wyatt’s true debut, though it follows up an initial EP, Felony Blues, a seven-track project released in 2017 that more formally introduced her to the indie country scene. Though Felony Blues was instantly beloved by those who heard it, few did. Wyatt didn’t achieve mainstream acclaim for the release — and she also hadn’t been fully honest with herself. As a recovering addict, and at that time, a closeted queer woman, Wyatt relapsed shortly before the release, partially because she was continuing to struggle with and hide her true identity.

“My journey has included relapse, right around the release of Felony Blues,” Wyatt told me over the phone, as we began to dig into her backstory. “My downfall was with drugs, so I thought I didn’t have a problem with alcohol… but for me, it’s all the same. After that, it was more about getting to the root of why I drank and used — and that, for me, was just really, really discovering myself and my sexual identity. The shame and fear around coming out were directly linked to my relapse. That’s what I discovered, and I also discovered it was part of the reason why I felt so different and sad growing up — not knowing enough about myself and not feeling safe in being myself.”

Though she was born in LA, Wyatt grew up in the tiny enclave of Fox Island, Washington — near the larger cities of Gig Harbor and Tacoma — to musician parents with a taste for artists like Neil Young, The Grateful Dead (Bob Weir was a friend of her father), and alt-country icons like Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams. Her family had horses and an affinity for “Americana culture,” and she remembers seeing Bonnie Raitt perform live at just five-years-old, the whole experience cementing her own determination to be a musician. Wyatt’s parents bought her a guitar shortly after and she began experimenting with writing songs even as a kid.

Gigging at bars in her early teens, Wyatt eventually gained attention for her striking, scratchy alto and advanced songwriting, and scored a hit of sorts when her song “Light Switch” appeared on the soundtrack for the 2004 film Wicker Park when she was just 17. Signed to an early record deal with Lakeshore Records through that sync, Wyatt moved from Seattle to live with her sister in San Francisco, where she could better manage the drive down to the label in Los Angeles. But when she finally transitioned fully to Los Angeles, things took a turn for the worse.

Falling into a cycle of drug use and addiction, Wyatt was eventually arrested for robbing her heroin dealer — a felony — and served eight months in LA County jail for the crime, before being released, and fighting the cycle of addiction, rehab, and relapse all over again. Though she managed to release her first EP in the meantime, and reclaim the title of felon, Wyatt didn’t really get free from her addiction until after that project came out. Dealing with the death of her estranged father and a close friend in tandem, Wyatt recommitted to getting clean. And she finally stopped repressing her queerness, coming out first to her family, and then realizing she wanted to be open about her identity in her career, too.

Particularly in a historically conservative genre like country, Wyatt knew being open about her status as a gay woman might actually lose her some fans. But she was determined to do it anyway. “I’ve gotten a lot of support coming out, but I’ve also gotten those negative comments on the internet,” she said. “Which hurt my feelings, of course, but it’s all the more important to me that I do continue to talk about my journey, and coming out, because saying that people are still homophobic and offended by that, it therefore highlights the need to talk about it.”

Linking up with Shooter Jennings, and eventually forming a deep friendship with him and his wife, Misty Swain, Wyatt began piecing together the songs for Neon Cross, which were heavily influenced by her time spent in LA right before she finally committed to sobriety.

“There’s a neon cross on a big hill off the 101 freeway in Los Angeles,” she remembered. “I could see that driving back to the valley where I was staying, after partying and drinking in the bars in Hollywood and Echo Park, and it was like, reminding me that my life was in shambles. On this record, I wanted to reclaim the symbol of the cross for myself.”

Wyatt isn’t religious, but getting deeper into sobriety, she’s had the kind of spiritual experiences that give the cross personal meaning as a symbol for her own recovery. However, her relationship to it isn’t necessarily what you’d expect — the title track is no sweet and sad hymnal. Instead, an insistent, driving backbeat carries the song’s triumphant kiss-off: “You don’t love me / Why don’t you nail me to a neon cross?”

“In a lot of ways, country music and music saved my life,” she said. “Like, giving me the will to live — even without drugs and alcohol — and the will to surrender and be able to stop using. The process of getting clean and sober, and coming out, and getting to the heart of my own truth felt very much like a rebirth that the cross is very symbolic of.”

That honky-tonk defiance sets the tone for Neon Cross much more than the slower-paced songs, though the album’s two features — Shooter himself, and his mother, Jessi Colter, (wife of the late Waylon Jennings, for those who don’t know) — both come in on more downtempo tracks. On “Hurt So Bad,” Jennings sings harmony on Wyatt’s epic ode to life’s tragedies, and since decrying terrible circumstances is a classic muse in the country tradition, this song could slot right next to any of the old ‘60s and ‘70s country tunes that are deified now.

And though there are plenty of moments on this album that fix Wyatt firmly in the outlaw country tradition — one she has literal claim to on account of her own record — her duet with Colter, (wife of the late Waylon Jennings, for those who don’t know) evokes the genre’s female country stars like Tammy Wynette. Over a twanging, blissed-out guitar line, Wyatt advocates for her place in the world, despite being “just a woman,” while Colter backs her up on harmonies. The song is both a testament to how little the world has changed for women in country music, and a sendup of the mainstream’s bro-centric ideals wrapped up as an old school ballad.

“I think being a woman has directly impacted my success and support in country,” Wyatt said. “Because it’s a male-dominant dominated industry and, and then country music and pop country is very much controlled by the good old boys. They want a woman who wants to be… the way they want a woman to be. I’m not that.” Which is more clear than ever on another standout, “L I V I N,” where Wyatt imagines heaven as a place where she’s hellbent on not breaking anything, or there’s the opener, “Sweet Mess,” a piano-driven, sweetly despairing reflection on a relationship that’s doomed to end in loneliness. There’s no pronouns used in the song, but the implicit queerness of it remains.

Truthfully, every song on Neon Cross sounds like it would be the crowning track for a lesser artist, and it’s the kind of album that plays through like a miracle, seamlessly, with no skips. No matter what Wyatt turns her attention to, her insights are funny, poignant, and poetic, and age-old subjects like mercy and demons feel new when she sings about them; the record’s ghostly closer, “Demon Tied To A Chair In My Brain,” is the best approximation of addiction I’ve heard in years, with brimstone fiddle and a bluesy smolder that lingers long after the song ends.

And though Wyatt recently relocated to Nashville, the influence of Los Angeles on the album is another important piece for Neon Cross. “This is my LA country record, and to me it really embodies the grittiness of Los Angeles,” she explained toward the end of our call. “I lived in LA for twelve years, I love LA and I love the people in LA and the ideas and the food and the progressiveness of that. But Nashville is growing in that way as well, and it’s become a really lovely artists community.”

In speaking about community, and the story of the record, it would be remiss not to mention Neal Casal, who contributed guitar, harmonica, and wurlitzer throughout. Casal passed away in August of last year, taking his own life, and Neon Cross is dedicated to him. At its core, this record is designed for the misfits and the outcasts. It’s a record by a recovering addict who is a queer woman and a felon. But even with that context, the most striking feature about Wyatt is that she’s a damn good songwriter.

Neon Cross doesn’t fit squarely with much of the country music being released today, but it never feels retroactive or vintage, it’s never try-hard or cookie cutter. It’s just Jaime’s feelings, and the story of her life. And that makes it inherently valuable. For the mainstream audiences and listeners in America who tend to only accept one or two country records into their hearts per year, Neon Cross absolutely deserves to be in that rarefied company for 2020.

Neon Cross is out now via New West Records. Get it here.

MTV animation fans still hoping for a Daria reboot will have to settle for the next best thing: a reboot featuring one of the show’s iconic characters. Thursday brought word that Comedy Central had reportedly picked up Jodie, a spinoff of the late 90s MTV hit cartoon Daria.

According to Deadline the show will reportedly follow Jodie Landon, with Tracee Ellis Ross voicing the character and serving as an executive producer on the series.

Comedy Central has nabbed animated series Jodie, a spinoff of MTV’s iconic Daria, with Tracee Ellis Ross voicing the main character and executive producing. The series, from creator and head writer Grace Edwards and MTV Studios, will be paired with Comedy Central’s flagship series, South Park.

The original Daria ran from 1997 to 2001 on MTV and is revered by those who grew up in the era where MTV aired animated television shows. Rumors of a reboot have swirled for years, including word in 2018 that both Daria and The Real World were primed for reboots. But what Comedy Central picked up will be a show focused on a post-college Jodie, not the one we saw in high school.

The new series is based on Jodie Landon, Daria’s friend at the fictional Lawndale High. Jodie picks up with her character graduating from college and entering a complicated world.

What Daria did for showing how inane high school was for Gen X, Jodie will do for exploring the trials and tribulations of a first job for a new generation. The series will satirize workplace culture, Gen Z struggles, the artifice of social media and more. With themes of empowerment along gender and racial lines, explorations of privilege, and a wicked sense of humor, Jodie will shine a light on the personal and professional issues young Black women face today.

Daria itself, mind you, was a spin-off of Beavis and Butthead, so there’s certainly some fertile ground in the extended universe for more shows. Jodie will reportedly be packaged with South Park on the comedy network.

[via Deadline]

BTS truly is a global group, and they’re making sure they have their bases covered all over the world. They recently announced they will be releasing Map Of The Soul: Journey, which mostly features Japanese versions of songs from their recent album, Map Of The Soul: 7. The whole record isn’t just a re-hash, though, as there are a pair of new original songs included as well: “Your Eyes Tell” and “Stay Gold.” Now, the group has shared the golden latter track.

The new song comes as BTS made chart history in Japan. Forbes notes that today, Japanese music chart Oricon shared mid-year sales stats, and Map Of The Soul: 7 is the best-selling album in Japan in 2020 so far, thanks to its 429,000 sales. That might sound like a relatively ordinary feat, but it’s actually quite rare: This is the first time in 36 years, since Michael Jackson’s 1984 album Thriller, that a non-Japanese artist has topped the charts for the first half of a year.

Meanwhile, BTS — and their fans — have really shown up in recent days: They donated a million dollars to Black Lives Matter, and the BTS Army quickly matched, and surpassed, that donation.

Listen to “Stay Gold” above.

Map Of The Soul: Journey is out 7/14 via Big Hit Entertainment. Pre-order it here.

I’ve always been labeled as different. Growing up in Texas, I was the Black girl interested in skateboarding and emo rock, while simultaneously embracing what I was culturally “supposed” to be into, like hip-hop and basketball. As I grew older, this trait went on to translate into my choice of spirits. I was the 20-something woman drinking bourbon neat. No appletinis for me. This is just to say: Being unique has never fazed me, but I have noticed that my comfort in my own skin has caused others to have reactions.

I remember the first response when I started ordering bourbon at bars and restaurants in my late 20s. There was this look of shock and awe from a Scandinavian dude who was genuinely perplexed that not only a woman but a woman of color was drinking a beverage mostly associated with bearded old white guys. Though that is often how the world markets whiskey, it’s much different from my reality. I grew up with Black men, namely my dad and grandfather, enjoying a glass of bourbon neat. So when I think of whiskey, I associate it with good times at family reunions and get-togethers that called for a celebratory dram.

Once I started writing, I was always keen to expand from fashion and music journalism into spirits, but never thought I’d fit in because I didn’t mesh with the white male motif I saw dominating the booze industry — from whiskey to bespoke cocktails to beer. That is until two years ago, when I digitally met Emily Saladino, then an editor at VinePair. Taking a shot on me, Saladino offered a platform to write my first spirits piece, a profile of the Texas whiskey boom. To cover the story, I attended a tasting in Houston featuring an array of top whiskey producers. While there, I noticed not only was I one of few women present, but also one of only a handful of Black people in attendance.

Little did I know this would be the start of a lonely journey. A sojourn that’s left me asking: Where are all the Black people, particularly women of color, in the whiskey industry? Has it always been this way? Can it change? (Hopefully, soon?)

In 1964, the US Congress declared bourbon “America’s Native Spirit.” Still, current marketing trends and history have largely ignored or erased the presence of Black producers and consumers from the story of whiskey. Sometime during the 1850s, Nathan “Nearest” Green, born into slavery but emancipated after the Civil War, was one of these voices. He was a master distiller without the title, the man who first taught a young Jack Daniel the whiskey distilling craft.

Post-Civil War, other Black people played crucial roles in the larger whiskey story. Louisville-born bartender Tom Bullock was the first Black person to write a cocktail book. Released in 1917, Bullock’s book, The Ideal Bartender, featured a recipe for the bourbon-based cocktail, “Old Fashion,” which he’s credited with inventing.

Sadly, the role of slaves in the whiskey trade was never written down. It’s lost to history.

Generations later, I think it’s fair to say there’s an inclusion and representation problem with regards to Black people in the industry. I’ve seen it. I’ve been on so many spirits-focused press trips and whiskey tastings in which I’m the only person of color. And while I’m glad to say that I’ve never been singled out as “the Black woman” on such trips and tastings in a negative way, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t appreciate more diversity — both in front of and behind the bar.

Rather than viewing being a minority in this industry as an obstacle, however, I see it as an opportunity for me to help pave the way and open the landscape for more people of color to express themselves in industries, particularly in the spirits category, that are largely white. Fawn Weaver, CEO and co-founder of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey (yes, as in Nathan “Nearest” Green mentioned at the outset) takes a similar approach.

“I don’t look at challenges as challenges,” she says. “I look at challenges as simply stepping stools. I just put every challenge on top of each other to create a ladder that I need. The greatest opportunity I have seen was that there has never been a successful African American-owned spirits brand. I’m the first to be successful at this.”

This accomplishment speaks volumes for the whiskey industry in general and Weaver in specific. She’s shown that women of color can have positions of power in the industry and be successful in it. In doing so, she’s bringing her lived experience as a Black woman to bear on the creative direction of the brand. The whiskey industry is largely open to technical innovation, I hope to see people embrace fresh perspectives like Weaver’s just as eagerly.

Samara Rivers, the founder of the Black Bourbon Society, is another woman of color in the industry who I admire. She’s on a mission to promote diversity and inclusivity in the whiskey field and her success is undeniable. The Black Bourbon Society has over 10,000 members across the country — a stat that whiskey marketers have surely noticed.

Whiskey companies, hear this: Your demographic includes Black women, such as me. And Fawn. And Samara. There’s an army of us okay with being considered different (even if that shakes the boring status quo). If your company isn’t having the necessary conversations about diversity in whiskey, expect us to call you out. It’s time to add Black voices into a story that we’ve long been expunged or excluded from.

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A year after ending the long-running The Walking Dead comic series after 193 issues, Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard — the creative partners behind the comics — have resurrected the comics franchise for a limited time only. Negan Lives #1 is a 36-page one-shot centering on the comics’ all-time greatest villain (and later, antihero), played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the AMC series.

The issue will be available on July 1st in comic-book shops only and at no cost to the retailers. It’s all part of an effort by Robert Kirkman to kick comic-book stores back to life after so many of them were shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic:

“I’ve been inspired by Steve Geppi and Diamond’s efforts to shine a light on how essential the Direct Market is to our beloved industry with their #backthecomeback campaign,” Kirkman said. “While Charlie Adlard and I had laid the series to rest, this felt like something special we could do for the store owners who made our series a success to begin with. To that end, I’m happy to report that 100% of the revenue generated from this book will go to the stores selling it. The retailer community does backbreaking work to get comics into the hands of our loving fans, we should all be doing more in these trying times to show them how appreciated they are.”

It is a very generous effort, and one that other comic-books may also benefit from, including Robert Kirkman and Chris Samnee’s new comic book, Fire Power, Vol. 1: Prelude, which arrives in comic-book stores on the same day.

In the comic series, Negan exits the main action after The Whisperer War, which will also be ending in the pending tenth season finale of the AMC series (Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan is expected to continue to be heavily featured on the show in the 11th season and beyond). Negan is not seen in the final issues of Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic, but we are left to understand that he is still alive, living in a small house with a tombstone for his wife, Lucille, and that Carl visits periodically and brings him things.

Presumably, Negan Lives #1 will follow Negan after the events of The Walking Dead, and though Kirkman says that it’s a one-off, who knows what its success may bring? With Negan now the nominal lead in the comic series (along with Daryl and Carol), I’m sure that showrunner Angela Kang would appreciate some more ideas for future episodes, whenever the series moves back into production.

Check out the cover.

(Via THR)

There seemed to be a bit of infighting with Public Enemy earlier this year, as there were questions about whether or not Flavor Flav had been booted from the group. Whatever the case was there, he is back now, as he appears on the group’s latest track, “State Of The Union (STFU).”

The song is an aggressive take-down of Donald Trump and how things have gone in the US during his presidency. Although the POTUS’ name isn’t mentioned directly, it’s clear who the subject of the song is. Lyrics include, “Orange hair, fear the comb-over,” “White House killer / Dead in lifelines / Vote this joke out / Or die tryin’,” and the hook, “State of the Union / Shut the f*ck up / Sorry-ass motherf*cker / Stay away from me.” Trump is also clearly depicted on the single art, alongside a Nazi soldier with his knee on a person’s neck.

Chuck D said of the track, “Our collective voices keep getting louder. The rest of the planet is on our side. But it’s not enough to talk about change. You have to show up and demand change. Folks gotta vote like their lives depend on it, ’cause it does.” Flavor Flav added, “Public Enemy tells it like it is. It’s time for him to GO.”

Public Enemy, of course, are known for their iconic protest song, “Fight The Power.”

Listen to “State Of The Union (STFU)” above.

When it was announced that Search Party would be moving from TBS over to HBO Max (premiering on June 25th), I felt an inkling of hope that HBO Max might one day resurrect another phenomenal TBS series that was recently canceled after four seasons called Detour.

Detour is one of the funniest, most underappreciated comedies of the Peak TV era, and it manages to be exactly that without relying on a high-concept premise or an overly clever conceit. Detour is a meat-and-potatoes comedy, a supercharged, half-hour version of National Lampoon’s Vacation crossed with Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Created and written by husband and wife team, and former Daily Show correspondents Jason Jones and Samantha Bee, Detour is a road-trip comedy that delivers jokes, physical comedy, and gross-out gags at breakneck speed. But it’s also a family comedy with an occasional dose of real heart.

Jason Jones and Natalie Zea (Justified) play Nate and Robin Parker, and in the opening season, Nate surprises his wife and children with a vacation road trip from Syracuse to Florida, after he refunded their plane tickets because he needed the money (due to being fired from his job for attempting to blow the whistle on a defective product). The story of his termination — and subsequent arrest — plays out in the non-linear storyline over the course of the first season.

Zea, meanwhile, is much funnier than I anticipated that she’d be based on her work on Justified, in part because she has an unexpected gift for physical comedy and in part because I like to think she’s playing a version of Samantha Bee. During podcasts, Bee has mentioned that, in her younger years, she was criminally wild, and I get the sense that Robin is what might have happened to Bee if she’d followed along on that same path and had never had kids, only here: Zea plays that role and has kids. They are Griswold-like children: Clueless but curious about sex and drugs, but also wiser than their parents when it comes to most parenting decisions.

You’re the Worst debuted several years ago as the sort of anti-romcom romantic comedy. Similarly, The Detour is sort of an anti-family family comedy: Robin and Nate are very bad at parenting (in fact, they lost their daughter for nearly an entire season), but there is something often endearing and sweet about how bad they are as parents. Even four years after its debut, the writing and the perspective felt fresh, and while it did trade in dick and vomit jokes, it’s a lot smarter than it lets on.

‘The Detour,’ which ran for four seasons from 2016 to 2019, is currently available to stream on Hulu.

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When you first talk to Jacob “Jake” Lyon, you are almost surprised at how calm he is. The energetic and excitable former Overwatch League player turned caster is well known for his energetic outbursts. When you tune into an Overwatch League match and see him on the broadcast, it’s shocking to hear the absurd amount of information he can fit into short periods of time. In a single team fight, he will have broken down both team’s entire strategy of that fight, what is happening on the screen at that moment, and what might happen because of that result of that fight.

You would figure someone like this has to be the kind of person that can’t go through any aspect of life without excitement, except he’s really the opposite. Lyon is very calm and gives off a relaxed energy. Maybe that personality is part of what made him one of the top DPS players in the world, good enough to spend two years in the Overwatch League playing for the Houston Outlaws and facing high-pressure situations without fear.

“As soon as you start thinking to yourself, ‘this is a pressure moment, this is so important,’ then you’re going to fail,” Lyon said. “So you have to just discard the pressure and I think over time it was like I didn’t really worry about that stuff so much, having the experience of it and knowing that the best way to succeed in those moments is to disregard the pressure. As soon as you acknowledge that it’s a high-pressure moment and you start thinking about it then that’s the moment that you’re going to like slip up and fail.”

However, when you start really getting into a conversation about Overwatch with Lyon, that same energetic person you hear on broadcasts start to come out. You can hear the enthusiasm and the love he has for this game that has completely changed his life.

“I’m super happy to see the game be this way and it is the reason I’m still continuing to play [in my free time],” Lyon said. “I don’t have to play anymore if I don’t want to but I really do like playing the game. I’ve tried other FPS games, I play other stuff now, I’m not so hardcore on only Overwatch, but I still play Overwatch far and away more than anything else because it’s my favorite game”

It’s clear that Lyon’s connection to Overwatch comes from a very real adoration for the game. It also doesn’t hurt that he was really, really good. By age 21, he had played for Team USA’s World Cup team, joined the Outlaws, and established himself as one of the top players in the world. A frequent name at the top of Overwatch‘s competitive leaderboards, it did not take long for Lyon to become known in the Overwatch community as a top player. When you’ve been close to the top for that long, and you are part of the Overwatch League’s inaugural season, you know you’ve made it. What pressure is there to feel when you have already taken the steps to reach this point?

The biggest surprise with Lyon was how quickly his time as one of the top DPS players in the Overwatch League ended — he decided to retire after only two seasons in the league.

Of course, it didn’t take long to see him back in the Overwatch League, this time in the booth. Going from player to eSports caster can be a difficult transition, as casting and doing commentary is a different world from playing. You need to be energetic, bounce off fellow commentators, and be able to articulate your thoughts in a concise manner while the game is happening. That said, some of the skills as a player certainly translate and are part of what make Lyon as good as he is, as reacting to what’s happening in the moment and being ready to adjust to changes at moment’s notice are just as integral to casting as playing.

“Casting doesn’t really feel high pressure to me actually, compared to playing,” Lyon said. “I feel like it’s a lot more creative and there’s no real pressure on me, right? The pressure is on the players’ and the only thing that I have to do is explain the intensity that the players are feeling, but for me, that’s really natural because I just put myself right back in their shoes and it feels really easy for me to express that viewpoint.”

It’s extremely interesting how simple casting is for someone like Lyon. The idea of it even being a challenge for him seems like a foreign idea. After all it’s just talking about Overwatch, which he’s passionate and exceptionally knowledgeable about. He fit into the mold of the weekend broadcast seamlessly and has already found someone he has a great rapport with fellow caster Andrew “ZP” Rush. The two bounce off each other perfectly with ZP bringing the high intensity moments and Lyon providing an eye for the details that only a former player will notice.

That’s a lot of what makes Lyon as a caster so entertaining to listen to. Being a former player, so recently removed from the game, he knows the game on an extremely technical level. When a team is setting up for a play he is able to recognize the plan of attack and then quickly provide insight into why the play went down the way it did. A large part of this is that, unlike when he was a player, he now has all of the information available to him. He knows both teams ultimate economy situation. He can see a Tracer setting up to flank so they can isolate a Zenyatta alone. He’s isolating stories so he can share them with the audience and he’s using his experience as a player to isolate those moments.

“What you do as a player is figure out how do we win? Do we have the right ultimates? Do we just (use ultimates) at the right time? That’s good, or do we need to make a big play? Do we need to go aggressive? That’s literally your job as a player is to be correct about those things,” Lyon noted. “So as a caster it’s just easy mode of like you just have all the information. There’s no fog of war as it were.

“When somebody goes above and beyond I think that that’s the most important thing to communicate to the fans. The way I look at it as is basically how different was your performance from the expected performance whether that’s positive or negative. If you’re in a really advantage position and you lose it, usually that’s like a combination of your team not playing perfectly but the other team also makes big plays and seizes the moment and doesn’t play defensively when they’re at a big disadvantage and they just go for something crazy and that small percent of the time that it pays off. It’s worth highlighting and showing that this is important.”

Given that Lyon likes to highlight the extraordinary, then its worth mentioning what is maybe his most spectacular moment as a caster so far. During a recent match, his co-commentator in ZB was facing technical difficulties, which resulted in Jake having to cast a large section of the match by himself. The results were pretty good.

“I think it was lucky that it didn’t happen until the end because that sort of cast is really not sustainable. Afterward, my throat was definitely pretty sore,” Lyon recalled. “I didn’t really think about it too much. I just sort of went off because I knew I had not too far to go. So it was fun to just go a little bit crazy, but definitely not something I want to do consistently.”

It’s a moment that can fluster even seasoned pros, but he faced it head on and came out the other side with an incredible highlight casting moment. He may choose to downplay it himself, but no matter the sport esport or traditional sport, doing commentary for both spots at the same time is incredibly difficult, particularly when it’s not something you’ve prepared for.

Lyon sees it as his responsibility to tell the story of each match from the perspective of the players and highlight the things the competitors would want seen and heard.

“Everything for me stems from that idea of putting myself in the shoes of the player and telling their story the way they would want it told,” Lyon said. “It’s like the way I would have wanted it told as a player. I can now do that and be part of sharing that narrative with the fans.”

Lyon truly loves Overwatch. He loves playing it. He loves being a part of the game’s biggest stage, and can talk about it endlessly in detail, creating this overwhelming desire to share everything he can about the game. That kind of appreciation and passion can’t be faked or manufactured, and it’s why Lyon has become a fan-favorite in the booth so soon after his playing days.