Just in case the message of PartyNextDoor’s PartyMobile standout “Savage Anthem” wasn’t entirely clear, the Toronto crooner has released his animated video for the song to clarify a few points — mainly, that you really, really should not, under any circumstances, fall in love with him. The PIX3LFACE-directed video tracks Party through his nights of debauchery, occasionally juxtaposing his hedonism with scenes of a would-be paramour crying her eyes out after failing to heed his warning, “don’t wait on my love.”

Party’s other videos for PartyMobile have used similar innovative techniques to avoid going the traditional route. His video for “Loyal” with Drake utilized Claymation and premiered on Adult Swim. Other singles from the album include the Rihanna-featuring “Believe It,” “Split Decision,” and a remix of “Loyal” that included international superstar Bad Bunny.

Since then, Party has popped up as a featured artist on a number of releases from others. He appears on the new DVSN album, A Muse In Her Feelings, as well as on Trippie Redd’s new single, “Excitement.” Clearly, he’s staying busy despite coronavirus lockdown — just don’t think that’ll make him finally slow down for love.

Watch PartyNextDoor’s “Savage Anthem” video above.

PartyNextDoor is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The MLS announced its plan for what it’s calling the MLS is Back Tournament — a very matter of fact name — that will take place in July and August in Orlando at Disney’s Wide World of Sports complex.

All 26 teams will participate in the tournament that features six groups, one of six teams and the rest made up of four, and each team will play three games in pool play before the top two teams from each group, plus the four best third-place teams, move on to a knockout round. Games will be played from July 8 through August 11, with the top seeds in the six groups being host Orlando City SC, Atlanta United, LAFC, Seattle Sounders FC, Toronto FC, and Real Salt Lake. Teams must arrive in Orlando seven days before their first game, but can go as early as June 24.

For the purposes of making the groups work, Nashville SC will operate as an Eastern Conference team for the rest of the season. The group stage games will count towards each team’s regular season record, and the winner of the tournament will get a spot in the CONCACAF Champions League. The tournament will span 54 games in total, with players eligible to earn bonuses from a $1.1 million prize pool, and games will be played at 9 a.m., 8 p.m., and 10:30 p.m. ET during group stage play.

There will be 1,200 people in total entering the Orlando bubble, including 750 players, and the MLS has worked with Dr. Anthony Fauci to craft a testing and antibody testing plan for all of its members — they will also contribute antibody testing to the central Florida community in a gesture of goodwill as well.

Once the tournament ends, the plan is for the MLS to return to an adapted regular season schedule with teams playing in their home markets, with the full schedule still to be announced.

One of the bigger Hollywood-focused questions during the pandemic is whether Christopher Nolan’s Tenet (starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, and an actual plane crash) will actually make its summer release date of July 17. Even as other tentpoles have pushed back titles for as much as a year, Nolan and Warner Bros. have stood firm in hoping to make theatergoing a national pastime again, sooner rather than later. California has officially given the greenlight for theaters to reopen on June 12 with restrictions, and now, the another studio release (from TriStar) has stepped ahead in line for a July 10 opening.

Granted, there’s also a Russell Crowe indie movie (a road rage story called Unhinged) from Solstace Studios that’s appeared on the schedule for July 1, but TriStar Pictures/Sony is throwing its hat in the game with The Broken Hearts Gallery, which is executive produced by Selena Gomez. Gomez made the following statement about the Natalie Krisnsky-directed film and why it’s being released so quickly. Via Deadline:

“Hearing from more female writers and directors is very much needed. Natalie is a wonderful talent, and I am happy to be a part of her debut film. I understand people’s concerns regarding returning to activities we all loved prior to COVID-19. I hope everyone will listen to scientists’ recommendations and consider others’ health and safety while enjoying the movie theater experience.”

The romcom, which sounds typically romcom-my, will star Geraldine Viswanathan (Bad Education) as and Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things) in a story about making fresh starts in life after breakups. It’s an unusual choice these days for a romcom to land in theaters at all, especially in a time generally reserved for blockbusters. Still, Sony Josh Motion Picture Group President Greenstein declared the studio’s belief that there will be a theatrical rebound, “and we look forward to being there right out of the gate with our exhibition partners’ anticipated reemergence.” Perhaps after considering safety measures, a feel-good movie could really help Hollywood get back into multiplexes? If not, there’s always the drive-in route.

(Via Deadline & Hollywood Reporter)

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In the spring, when the coronavirus pandemic was just starting to change the way life works worldwide, music festival organizers began postponing their 2020 events, thinking a delay of a few months would be a sufficient enough wait. It appears the music world may have to hold out a bit longer, though, and festivals are starting to realize that; The 2020 edition of Lollapalooza was just canceled outright, for example. It was reported a few weeks ago that Coachella was getting ready to pull the plug on this year’s fest, and if new reports are to believe, it looks like they already have.

Although Coachella organizers Goldenvoice have yet to offer an official announcement, Billboard reports that Coachella 2020 has been called off. Additionally, Goldenvoice parent company AEG apparently isn’t sure what their plans are for 2020: The two major options seem to be hosting a 60-percent capacity festival in the spring of 2021, or waiting until the fall of that year. Ultimately, these decisions won’t be made until AEG has a better understanding of the pandemic’s continued impact.

Even if Coachella were to be held in 2020, a lot of folks may not have attended for cautionary reasons: In a recent survey of epidemiologists, a majority of them said they would be waiting at least another year before going to a concert or similar events.

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.

Phoebe Bridgers used to conduct phone calls while walking outside her home in the trendy Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. But things, obviously, have changed. “I’m getting on the treadmill right now, so you’re going to hear some weird sounds,” she warns.

I caught up with the 25-year-old Bridgers one month ago, in early May, back when things were bad but somehow better than they are now. She was already in the midst of promoting her stunning second album while sequestered in quarantine, the quietly seething Punisher, which finally drops June 19. Bridgers had planned to be on the road at that time, playing her first arena shows as an opener for The 1975. “I was terrified and excited,” she says of the nixed tour. “There’s the chance that you’re basically playing when it’s still light outside and people are getting out their charcuterie boards. So, it was scary to me, but I also f*cking love those guys. Jesus, that tour was going to be fun.”

In conversation, Bridgers speaks in a deadpan SoCal accent and punctuates her blunt and hilarious observations with generous amounts of curse words. She sounds, in other words, utterly unlike her music, which tends to be quiet, contemplative, and gorgeous. Because of her gently murmuring vocal style — ” I don’t sing with a lot of emotion, it’s almost an apathetic singing voice,” she confesses — Bridgers tends to be cast as yet another sad-sack singer-songwriter out to jerk every last one of your tears. It’s precisely that image that made her 2017 debut Stranger In The Alps a slow-burn sensation, setting in motion a promising career that was further bolstered by her participation in two indie supergroups: Boygenius (with Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker) and Better Oblivion Community Center (with Conor Oberst).

Bridgers has the ability to sing a perfectly heartbreaking lyric in such a way that it makes you feel like she’s directly addressing you and your worst personal tragedies. That talent has made her a budding superstar, but it’s also attracted the sort of fan who has extreme emotional needs. “You’re, like, having just a normal Tuesday night, and then you’re holding someone crying, talking about their dead husband,” she says. “And it’s not bad, it’s just super intense that that’s your job, and that that’s the way that you affect people.”

Over time, that sort of ritualistic catharsis can take its toll. The title track from Punisher refers to the sort of fan who winds up inflicting pain on their idols. (For Bridgers, it refers specifically to her obsessive love of Elliott Smith.) Many of the songs on the album refer to Bridgers’ conflicted feelings about her own burgeoning indie fame, like the depressive travelogue “Kyoto” or the referential “Graceland Too,” which includes nods to Paul Simon and The Replacements while reflecting on the strange legacy of Elvis Presley’s Memphis home/celebrity shrine. There is a lot of humor, too, though Bridgers’ voice and the album’s muted, sneaky-sophisticated production tends to mask it. (One of my favorite lines, from the otherwise doleful “Moon Song,” takes a shot at Eric Clapton: “We hate ‘Tears In Heaven’ / but it’s sad that his baby died.”

As Bridgers settled into a steady power-walk — her “sh*tty knees” prevent her from running on the treadmill — she thoughtfully answered my questions about her life under quarantine, the making of Punisher, Eric Clapton, Elliott Smith, crazy fans, and why her “world revolves 100 percent around me.”

In the midst of all this weirdness, do you have a routine to keep yourself sane?

I’m definitely a f*cking Silver Lake bitch. I’ve been writing three things I’m grateful for every day to keep myself sane, and it does f*cking work. You don’t have to show it to anybody, you just f*cking do it. It really makes a difference. When I don’t have anything to write about, I’m like, “I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast.” Which is true, that’s exactly what I had for breakfast. I’m regressing into my high school self, as far as my eating habits, but I’m staying relatively sane.

I wanted to ask you about the last song on the record, “I Know The End,” first. It’s totally fitting for this moment, though you obviously wrote it well before 2020. What inspired it?

It’s my first end of the world song. Conor Oberst and I were joking about how he’s been writing apocalyptic songs since the beginning of time. And now his material’s going to feel like old news. I was imagining a giant tornado, or California separating from the rest of the United States. It definitely feels relevant, but in my brain it was just an invention. I am rereading Oryx And Crake, the Margaret Atwood story where she predicted the pandemic. She calls it a “waterless flood.” God, that book is insane.

But was there anything in particular that made you want to write a song like that?

I was talking to a friend the other day about what separates the millennial generation from other generations, and for the most part, we’re the first generation to not really be living for the next generation. So many people fought for a better world before us, like our parents. And now we’re just fighting to even stay alive. People have stopped romanticizing the future. I just feel like I could never imagine a time beyond now. I used to know what my life would look like in eight months, now I certainly don’t.

Do you feel like that’s a scary thing? Or is the pessimism so ingrained now that it only inspires apathy?

I feel like I have learned these skills through trauma, and f*cked up sh*t in my life. But I tend to completely not live in myself and dissociate when sad or good things happen to me. So, right now it’s coming in handy. I’m like, “I’ll have this feeling later.” I’m trying not to be scared. Trying to listen to the news every morning and then shut it off so that I find the line between staying informed and torturing myself.

You’ve talked about how during the making of Stranger In The Alps you were going through a depression. How was the experience of making Punisher?

So fun. I’ve been getting a pretty regular question of, were you afraid to put out your second record because there’s more pressure? I’m like, “F*ck no.” I made the whole record knowing that people were going to hear it. And I made the first record being like, “I wonder if I’m going to have to get a day job after this.” Mostly I just wanted it to be better than the first record, which I think it is.

How so?

Lyrically better. I didn’t really want to be as dirge-y anymore. There are some dark songs, for sure, but I tried to get creative a little bit with the production. I just had more fun. I wanted to sound like an adult wrote it. I wrote a lot of Stranger In The Alps when I was still in my teens.

How do you think you’ve improved as a writer since then?

I’m learning how to tell the truth. There’s some language on my first record that I don’t use in real life. Like that “Chelsea” song is almost in old English or something. I just try not to put anything in songs that I wouldn’t actually say.

What’s a line from Punisher that you wouldn’t have written before?

“I’m going to kill you” [from “Kyoto”]. On the first record I’d be like, “Oh, I can’t say that.” And then as I started writing better songs, I just got more comfortable with it.

You’ve said that “Kyoto” is about being on tour in Japan and not being able to enjoy it.

Yeah. I think you’re stealing from yourself if you don’t go to therapy, basically. I thought for a lot of my life I could just kind of bulldoze through my own mental health issues and just live my life anyway. And it works sometimes, but then in quiet moments by a f*cking river in Japan when you’re thinking about your f*cking … or you’re not thinking about anything and your thoughts become weird, gray matter. You’re like, “Damn, maybe I should examine why my brain does that.” That’s mostly what it’s about.

When that was happening, did you know in the moment you were going to write about it?

Not at all. But I do think it’s a recurring theme on the album. It has to be something I think about in my subconscious. Missing home when you’re away and missing tour when you’re home.

How much do you miss touring right now?

Oh my god. So much. I’ve actually been DMing with Clairo about this. We’re like, basically, sexting about playing a show. I was like, “I would literally kill to f*cking play the sh*ttiest show.” And she was like, “Yeah, PA doesn’t work in a basement.” And I was like, “Smells bad. It’s an early show because there’s a DJ after you.” Yeah, I would love to be on the sh*ttiest tour in the world right now. In a hot van.

The one thing that writers always note about you is that you are much funnier in conversation than you are in your songs. Have you ever considered being more funny in your songs? Or are your songs already funnier than most people give them credit for?

The latter, for sure. I think there are jokes in my songs that totally get missed. Like if I were to say them in my “I work at the Circle K” speaking voice, I think people would think they’re funny. But because I sing them in my singing voice, that’s generally pretty, I don’t know … I feel like I don’t sing with a lot of emotion, it’s almost an apathetic singing voice. So, I don’t think people get my jokes when I sing them.

Which songs of yours do you think are funny that people don’t see as funny?

There’s definitely going to be those on this album, but “Scott Street” I feel like is pretty funny. Drinking a beer in the shower.

The lyric that made me laugh from Punisher is in “Moon Song,” when you reference your hatred of the Eric Clapton song “Tears In Heaven.” But then in the next lyric, you acknowledge that it was “sad that his baby died,” which is a bit of a gut-punch.

The initial lyric was, “I hate Eric Clapton.” And Tony [Berg, the album’s co-producer] yelled at me. He was like “Poor Eric Clapton, don’t rip on Eric Clapton.” And I was like, “I’m going to rip on racist Eric Clapton, whose music I hate.” But I’ll f*cking change the lyrics. It’s actually more brutal now. It’s a song about his dead kid. It was less brutal when it was like, “I hate your music, but it’s sad that your baby died.” Now it’s, “I hate your song about your dead baby, but it’s sad.” I don’t actually mind that song, I mind the rest of his catalogue more. In an attempt to kind of save it, I think I maybe made it a little bit worse.

What do you hate about Eric Clapton’s catalogue?

It’s just so f*cking white. And he famously said that the UK is a white place, and black people should disappear from it. I think his music is just boring. But knowing that he’s a bad dude makes it worse.

I wanted to ask you about the title track. You’ve talked about how you live in the same neighborhood where one of your heroes, Elliott Smith, once lived, and how if he were alive you would have probably run into him by now. Is that what that song is about?

It’s basically Elliott fan-fiction. If we were alive at the same time I think I might have been a little bit of a brutalizer to him, which punisher is a short term for. Just someone who doesn’t know when to stop talking, and might follow you home.

Now that you’re a popular singer-songwriter yourself, has your perspective changed on Elliott Smith and the kind of fan attention he attracted?

Totally. I think it’s easy for people on the outside to be like, “How could you hate playing The Oscars?” Now it’s like, “Obviously you f*cking hate it because you’re in a room full of people who didn’t give a sh*t.” And then every time you go to your bar, that you just want to be alone at, there’s someone like, “Hey, can I buy you a drink man?” There’s a term I love, “fansplaining,” which I feel like we’ve all seen or done.

Elliott Smith had to deal with being called a “sell-out,” which doesn’t really happen anymore. But there is this phenomenon where people dig into the pasts of musicians and “out” them on social media for having rich parents. It’s happened recently with artists like Mitski and Arca.

That’s how people’s voices get lifted up because that’s how f*cked up our country is. That a black woman from Ohio who’s making rad music in her basement is not going to have the opportunities that someone with a rich dad who lives in New York is going to have. It’s just f*cked up and true. But people always want to take away from women. If Mitski wasn’t good she wouldn’t be famous. That’s just 1,000 percent true.

Getting back to the “punisher” idea: You seem like you have some pretty intense fans. How do you deal with it?

For every punisher there is a sweet teenager that makes my day by giving me a weird homemade necklace or showing me a tattoo, or just having an actual connection with somebody who connected to something I said, which is so special and rad. But then one time I was literally chased by someone who was saying, “I would never chase you.”

Oh my god.

I was trying to get to the hotel, and I couldn’t even really tell if it was a fan, I thought I was just being followed. So I was like, “What the f*ck is happening?” And I picked up my pace and he started running, and then was like, “I would never chase you.” I’m like, “You’re chasing me.”

So yeah, people are intense. I’ve seen it happen to Conor, too. And Julien and Lucy. If you write about depression or whatever, you get people who maybe have never talked about it before. So you’re, like, having just a normal Tuesday night and then you’re holding someone crying, talking about their dead husband. And it’s not bad, it’s just super intense that that’s your job, and that that’s the way that you affect people. You can be less famous and have more intense fans if you write really personal music.

Have you ever considered writing about characters instead of yourself, just to distance yourself a bit from the work?

I mean, it is always me even if I’m pretending. If I’m writing about a friend’s experience I am putting myself there, and I see me in my mind. Songs are like dreams, kind of. I was calling you, but also you were right next to me. But when your mouth opened I couldn’t really hear what you were saying. And then you turned into my preschool teacher. It’s your perspective, but they can be about all sorts of sh*t.

I know better writers than I who have been like, “I’m not going to say ‘I’ or ‘me’ at all on this record.” And I’m like, “I would stop writing.” My world revolves 100 percent around me.

Punisher is out on 6/19 via Dead Oceans. Get it here.

Last week, Jonathan Kuminga, the consensus No. 1 recruit in the class of 2021, appeared as one of the graduates during The Patrick School’s digital graduation ceremony. As such, Kuminga, a 6’8 forward who hails from the Democratic Republic of the Congo but has lived in the U.S. since 2016, reclassified as a member of the class of 2020. The youngster previously put out a top-5, one which included Auburn, Duke, Kentucky, Texas Tech, and the NBA G League select team.

The real question here is what kind of player will one of those programs — or, possibly, the already stacked G League select team — get this fall? Putting it simply, they’re getting one of the best athletes in the recent history of American high school basketball and someone who oozes superstar potential. Kuminga is listed at 6’8 and 210 pounds with a 6’11 wingspan, but he plays bigger and stronger in every way. He’s the architect of some of the most brutal dunks of anyone on the high school or AAU circuit, and he did all of them before turning 18 (which he does in early October).

His defensive potential is obvious as a freight train shot blocker who plays well above the rim on the glass. As a shooter, Kuminga has good balance but questionable touch (he once shot in the 40s from the line for an entire AAU session), but his overall skill is solid enough to overcome some questionable shot selection. As a ball handler, Kuminga is very raw, often not having anything to go to if he’s unable to beat his opponent with sheer speed and strength. Like all 17 year olds, he has trouble switching hands, but like everyone his age, he’s likely to get better at it given time.

The real question with Kuminga as he goes forward is how his in-between game can develop. It’s hard to really evaluate him properly as a high school talent, because he either gets to the rim and scores or he doesn’t and shoots a questionable pull-up. Off ball, he’s a fairly capable shooter, but the difference between stars and role players in the NBA is often self-creation (i.e., the difference between Kawhi Leonard in 2012 and Kawhi Leonard in 2019). He’s not challenged enough by any single defender — unsurprising given he is bigger, stronger, and more athletic than everyone in his age group — to get a real feel for how skilled of an isolation player he is or could be.

The success of a player like O.G. Anunoby in Toronto, who developed as a dribbler and decision maker over his collegiate and NBA career, bodes very well for Kuminga, a player who is certainly farther along than Anunoby was at the same stage. Jimmy Butler is another, more high-end potential comp, another player who got by on overwhelming strength for a wing while slowly growing into a lead role. Whether or not Kuminga is the level of decision maker that has made Butler one of the most efficient players in NBA history is another question.

Kuminga could end up being the kind of player whose overwhelming physicality wins at the lower levels but fails to win out in the NBA — think Harrison Barnes or Michael Beasley — but it’s hard to imagine him not getting bigger, stronger, and smarter regardless of where he spends his last season before going off the to pros. Auburn would be a good stylistic fit for him, Duke and Kentucky are pro factories, Texas Tech is renowned for its physical development of its players, and it seems safe to assume that the G League select team would be given access to the best everything due to the NBA’s investment in the program.

As for where Kuminga fits into the 2020 class, that is tough to answer. He’s certainly a tier behind Cade Cunningham, but after that, things are wide open in this already great class. Players like Brandon Boston Jr., Jalen Green, and Evan Mobley are all vying for that second spot, and Kuminga is as good a bet to win out as any of them. He’s the kind of prospect NBA teams go absolutely crazy for: a young and athletic player with a sky-high trajectory who could find himself as one of those faces of a franchise-type dudes within three years of breaking into the league. His physical profile is something that cannot be taught, and with the refinement that should come with his next step, Kuminga should draw plenty of attention during 2020-21 en route to hearing his name called early in the 2021 NBA Draft.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s HitRecord has been around for more than a decade, prompting collaborative creativity while fostering a community. The endeavor has been a successful one by measures creative (books, music, short films) and financial (for both the company and its community), but now, in the midst of a global pandemic with a side of isolation, HitRecord may be at the height of its usefulness, giving people an outlet to not only develop ideas but to connect. And it’s something Gordon-Levitt is leaning into, teaming with YouTube Originals to produce and host Create Together, a six-part mini-series (the 4th episode just dropped Monday) and feel-good embodiment of the HitRecord platform where members of the community work with Gordon-Levitt to tell their story and create the poetry, art, music, and content that fills the show.

It’s hard to not buy in after listening to Gordon-Levitt talk about the message and the mission at the heart of what feels, at once, like a company and a cause. This despite my own cynicism about… oh, everything? But especially a digital pathway to a kind of fulfillment. To his credit, however, Gordon-Levitt is eyes wide open when it comes to the not always positive power of the internet and how it can misuse the allure of being seen and heard, contorting goals and priorities. HitRecord isn’t trying to be an influencer factory that serves as a gateway to individual notoriety and fat stacks. Instead, it seems more focussed on self-expression and the tangible feeling of accomplishing something for the sake of accomplishing it. Taking the ride, in other words. And, after speaking with Gordon-Levitt about Create Together and his return to acting with the tense 7500 (which is available to stream via Amazon Prime on June 19), it’s pretty clear that that’s his primary creative priority too.

I struggle to create without there being a [sellable] product at the end of it. Obviously, everyone here [on Create Together] is trying to collaborate and create something. Can you talk a little bit about the power of creating and creating as a part of a collaborative effort?

Having the show is, I think, a real incentive to have something that we are all making together, and that’s also a lot of what HitRecord does. It allows people to start a project and find collaborators and finish that project, as opposed to what can sometimes feel like kind of an endless stream of chatter on social media. I would hope that the internet can be a place where people are not just saying “here’s what I’ve made,” but let’s make something together. And that’s what we’ve been doing on HitRecord for years. And so it ended up when this pandemic hit and so many of us were facing this kind of isolation of staying home… not everybody is facing that. A lot of people aren’t able to stay home, but I think with so many people staying home, people wanted to feel a kind of human connection that was a little more substantial than what you can often find online. Online interaction can, not always, but it can often be kind of scatterbrained and disposable. And that is because a lot of it has to do with what you just said. There’s no end goal to a lot of the activity online. And whereas on HitRecord, when people are collaborating and making something together, that’s really intimate and there is a many-layered human connection when you have a common goal… working on something.

You work with directors, other actors. I’m sure you’ve experienced that thing of being star-struck. Yet the interactions here feel pretty effortless and no one seems star-struck working with you. How do you bridge that divide?

That’s an interesting question. I think that a lot of that has to do with the fact that this has been going for years. And there’s a culture that preexists. I think when people arrive in an environment, whether they’re online or in real life, you’re impacted by the culture that precedes you. This culture has evolved over all this time. There’s a real kind of history and a really strong sense of community. I don’t behave like, “hey, I’m a star, and blah, blah, blah.” And people don’t treat me that way. We’ve all made so many things together, and sometimes I can be at the center of a project, but oftentimes, I’m a marginal contributor. I just like being a part of this community. It’s been a rewarding and positive thing for me over the years. That’s why I keep doing it. I feel very fortunate to get to work within the conventional entertainment industry, but Hollywood can be… Hollywood can eat its own tail a little bit sometimes. And HitRecord has always been a way for me get outside of that a bit and collaborate with people I wouldn’t be able to within the context of conventional show business.

How has the collaborative process changed on that side of things over the years?

It’s just different. I mean, being on set is very collaborative, but it’s exclusive. And a very, very, very, very slim fraction of people in the world get to work on a Hollywood movie set.

I would imagine also, it’s going back to what I said before about being sort of product-driven. Obviously, when you’re making a movie, commerce holds kind of a higher place.

Yeah. I mean, that’s definitely true. Certainly. And that can be kind of contaminating to any creative process if you’re too overly concerned with end results. But I actually think that… That’s just as prevalent in online culture as it is Hollywood.

That’s true.

The way that a lot of online platforms work is very results-driven. It’s very gamified. I think this is actually something I’m very concerned about with creative culture in our world, especially amongst younger people. Which is to see the creative process through the lens of how many followers am I going to get? How many likes am I going to get? I think that’s kind of poisonous to the inherent warmth creativity has to offer. And I think, yes, you see it in Hollywood, and now you see it all over. It’s easy to miss what’s so, I think, fruitful and sort of joy-giving about art or creativity, which is the process itself, making the thing. When I think back on the very lucky creative life I’ve been able to live so far, the moments that make me smile the most are not about the end result.

Or the weekend box office.

Yeah, it’s not about box office, the premiere. It’s not about the awards. It’s not even necessarily about the finished thing. It’s about when you’re doing it. Those are the moments that I really, really love. This is why I’m so grateful that I get to be an actor or any of the other things that I get to do. It’s being on a set and doing this with other people. And so that’s what we’re always trying to sort of emphasize on HitRecord. And that’s what we emphasize on our show. It’s not a contest. A lot of shows about art and creativity, they’re like, okay, there’s this many contestants, and they’re going to do whatever creative thing they’re doing. And then there’ll be a winner. There are some judges. And look, it’s not to say those shows can’t be entertaining. They are. I’d be entertained watching those shows, for sure. But I think, ultimately, those shows can be discouraging. They’re discouraging for me. And I’m in an incredibly privileged position as far as the ability to express myself. I think a lot of people feel kind of like, “oh, well, those judges would tear me apart, or I wouldn’t win, so it’s not worth me doing.” The truth is this: the reason to sing or to act or to write or to do any of those things, it’s not so that some judge will call you a winner, or that your record will go platinum. So many artists say this over and over and over again. That’s not the reason to do it. That’s not what’s going to ultimately make you happy.

When I have conversations with people, specifically comedians or actors, so many times, you can see the light that shines in people’s eyes when they talk about performing in front of theaters with nobody in the audience and just finding their way and working through the craft of it. So, I think obviously what you guys are doing is a tremendous way to kind of provide that.

Yeah. And again, to do it together with other people. It’s not obvious that a lot of these creative processes, it helps so much to have some other people. And it doesn’t have to be tons of other people. It could be one or two or three other people that you’re making a thing with. That makes all the difference in the world. I’ve found that over and over again, whether it’s the process on HitRecord, or it’s some big TV show I’m working on or whatever. Having other people is really so fundamental. A lot of online creativity, I feel like, it doesn’t put a lot of emphasis on making stuff together with other people.

I think this is a perfect segue to talk about 7500. I do want to talk specifically about Omid Memar, who was fantastic in this, but so much of the movie is you kind of working in a solitary, claustrophobic environment. I’m curious about the challenge of doing that.

I really loved the choice of setting the whole story just in a cockpit, and you used the word claustrophobic, and I think that’s right. To me, this is a big connection to the central metaphor of this movie. The world is feeling claustrophobic. And I’m not talking about the pandemic. I just think our world is getting smaller and smaller. We’re all closer and closer to each other. We’re all more and more in touch and more connected to each other. And there are so many differences between people coming from different cultures, different perspectives, etc. How are we going to live with each other being on top of each other? There’s no escaping. We can’t all up and leave. We have to figure out how to live together, even though we’re different from each other. And we have to find those commonalities between each other.

To me, that’s a lot of what this movie is about. There’s this tiny little cockpit, and the people involved in the story are coming from very different perspectives. But as the story unfolds, you see they maybe have more in common than you originally thought. And there are prejudices in place on all sides. And those prejudices get undermined and complicated as the story unfolds. And to me, that’s what’s so fascinating about this movie. I mean, yes, it’s a movie about a plane getting hijacked, but it’s not about an action hero beating a bad guy. It’s the farthest thing from it. There aren’t really such simple heroes and villains. People are human. And that’s not to say that the hijackers aren’t doing something terrible. They are, but the movie also asks why are they doing that? Who are they? And when you start looking at people as human, you start asking how did they get themselves to this place where they’re doing this horrible thing?

Obviously, there are films that portray terrorists… Memar is so powerful and human, and yeah, he’s a kid and you see that. I don’t want to spoil it, but he just really comes through. You two played off each other so well.

I’m so glad you brought up Omid. I couldn’t agree with you more. I think for any fans of great acting out there, this is a young actor who is a legitimate artist. He’s incredibly dedicated, so honest and vivid in his performance. I just loved working with him. And I loved being challenged by that. By that kind of… there’s no cynicism. He was just so committed to making it real.
To go back to what you were saying about analogies, the idea of your character basically seeing a lot of these horrors on a screen and having the power to turn away at certain points — I thought that was really powerful. I’m curious when you’re performing in those moments, are you seeing the action on the screen?

Yeah, the whole production of this movie was geared towards the actors being able to immerse themselves in a realistic experience. And this is a big part of why I wanted to do the movie as well. Patrick Vollrath, the director, his approach is very different than traditional Hollywood filmmaking. Usually, you do a scene from the script. You do those lines from one angle. You change angles, you change the lights, you do the same thing. You do it over and over again. And there are all these technical things you have to hit in addition to trying to be genuine and in your character. His whole approach is about trying to strip away all of those technical things. And so on this film, he would just leave the cameras on for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes at a time. And most of the dialogue is improvised. There was a script, but he encouraged us to just… The script wouldn’t provide words for us to say for all that time. We were supposed to use the script as a springboard and just really try to get into the reality of it. And even if that meant just sitting there for long periods of time, he wasn’t trying to make each scene snappy. You know, you can figure that out in the edit. What he really cared about was making sure that the actors could fully immerse themselves in the characters and the story, and it was very, very challenging. I actually don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that this is probably the most challenging acting I’ve ever done.

I actually took a couple of years off from acting, because I had kids. And I knew that when I came back, I wanted to do something that was really going to inspire and challenge me as an actor. That was really what I was focused on — learning things. I didn’t want to pay attention to those voices that were saying like, well, okay, you took a few years off, there’s a career to think about, blah, blah, blah. I really just wanted to focus on my own love for the art of it. And so when this opportunity presented itself, and I watched Patrick’s short film, and he told me about how he made it, he talked about this process that’s so geared towards immersion. I was like, this is exactly what I’ve been wanting to do. This is going to be hard, but this is the challenge that I’m looking for.

‘Create Together’ is available to stream via YouTube and ‘7500’ will be available to stream via Amazon Prime on June 19.

Every so often, social media produces a moment of genuine inspiration and human connection amid all the #artistisoverparty hashtags and Donald Trump tweets. Yesterday, hip-hop hit maker Kenny Beats, who has worked with stars within the genre like 03 Greedo, Denzel Curry, Rico Nasty, and more, provided one of those heartwarming social media moments when he gifted a creative young wannabe producer with a brand new home studio, courtesy of some generous donors.

It all started when a photo meme went viral on Twitter, as one user posted the photo of the pre-teen producer recording himself on a jerry-rigged setup consisting of a smartphone dangling on its cord from the upper railing of his bunk bed. “He supposed to be cleaning his room, not in the damn studio,” read the caption, although the poster was simply sharing the photo, not the person who took it. Within hours, though, the young man had been identified by social sleuths, who shared his YouTube page and his self-shot video, “Black Lives Matter,” which sees him discussing current events through his own inexperienced lens.

That’s when Kenny got involved. “We gotta find him and get him some equipment!” he tweeted. Once the link was shared with him, it wasn’t long before Kenny had gotten in contact with the youngster — and presumably his parents — and arranged to send him equipment, including a computer, microphones, and more. Among the supporters who chipped in to help were Bay Area rapper Guapdad4000, Billie Eilish’s producer/brother Finneas, Dom McLennon of Brockhampton, and popular music vlogger Anthony Fantano.

The best part? Kenny wondered in the tweet announcing the donation whether it could become a monthly tradition. Let’s hope it does and more young aspiring artists can be supported in pursuing their dreams early in life.

Check out Kenny and Ray chopping it up above.

If you log onto Netflix today, you won’t be greeted with the usual home page. Instead, the streaming service is promoting its curated selection of “films, series, and documentaries” about “racial injustice and the Black experience in America.” The Black Lives Matter collection features over 45 titles from Black storytellers, including 13th and When They See Us, both from Ava DuVernay; Best Picture winner Moonlight; and series Orange Is the New Black and Dear White People, as well as Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, which is out Friday.

“When we say ‘Black Lives Matter,’ we also mean ‘Black storytelling matters.’ With an understanding that our commitment to true, systemic change will take time – we’re starting by highlighting powerful and complex narratives about the Black experience,” Netflix wrote in a statement. “When you log onto Netflix today, you will see a carefully curated list of titles that only begin to tell the complex and layered stories about racial injustice and Blackness in America.” Other titles include Malcolm X, Mudbound (be sure to check out Pariah, too), and Best Documentary Feature nominee Strong Island.

Last week, Netflix tweeted, “To be silent is to be complicit. Black lives matter. We have a platform, and we have a duty to our Black members, employees, creators, and talent to speak up,” although to this date, as NBC News points out, they “have not indicated any changes they will make internally, nor any specific donations. The “Black Lives Matter” collection is a good step, as was pulling four of Chris Lilley’s shows due to “questionable depictions of characters” — but let’s hold a bigger wave of applause for when we see real change.

(Via Variety)