Hip-hop is moving as fast as ever. Luckily, we’re doing the work to put the best new rap music in one place for you. This week, there were visuals from Gunna, Jpegmafia, and Lil Yachty. There were also new songs from Flatbush Zombies, and Brockhampton. Here’s rest of the best new rap music of the week:

Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist — Alfredo

After Freddie Gibbs, Currensy, and The Alchemist’s Fetti topped many people’s best of 2019 lists, Alchemist and Freddie Gibbs are back with another one entitled Alfredo. Currensy isn’t involved this time, but Gangsta Gibbs is more than capable of handling the lyrical duties alone on the 10-track pyrex parable that features guest spots from Tyler, The Creator, and Griselda MCs Benny The Butcher and Conway.

Joell Ortiz & Kxng Crooked — H.A.R.D.

Joell Ortiz and Kxng Crooked’s H.A.R.D. collaboration album is finally here. They’ve been steadily dropping lyrical exercises over the past few weeks in prep for the project, but now their cult fanbases (especially Slaughterhouse fans) have the full album to bump for the rest of the summer.

UFO Fev — “Fentanyl Flow” Feat. Fat Joe

Fat Joe has been in his “Joprah” bag while holding online interviews during the quarantine, but the bars are still there. He lent some bars to UFO Fev’s “Fentanyl Flow,” showing off his admirable ability to still get busy over modern production 30 years into the game.

Dave East — “My Loc”

Dave East released a melancholy ode to his “best friend” and labelmate Kiing Shooter, who tragically died on May 5 of liver failure. On the Dee C-produced track, Dave East bemoans, “We asked each other questions, and I wished i woulda asked more.”

Fivio Foreign — “Fully Focused”

Fivio Foreign is still “Fully Focused” and letting us know on his latest track. The track is true to Fivio’s burgeoning trademark sound pairing eerie synths with drill percussion as he rhymes, “They say I’m the GOAT / I still look in the mirror like go harder.”

NLE Choppa — “Different Day” (“Emotionally Scarred” Freestyle)

On “Different Day,” a remix of Lil Baby’s “Emotionally Scarred” track, NLE Choppa proclaims, “If I ain’t hard on a b*tch that mean I don’t give a f*ck,” offering a glaring but honest account of the toll that trauma has taken on his ability to have healthy relationships.

Jackboy — “Go” Feat. YFN Lucci

This week, Jackboy released the video for “Go” from his self-titled album. The juxtaposition of he and Lucci going expensive shoe shopping and relaxing in the lap of luxury while rhyming about “hella smoke we gon’ smoke his ass like he medical / vegetable we gon’ turn that boy into a vegetable” is a chilling reminder of the costs that some pay to enjoy opulence.

Duckwrth — “Find A Way”

Duckwrth’s “Find A Way” merges classic synths and two-step worthy percussion into a sonic tuft that hits your ears like a breeze on a summer day. If “Find A Way” is any indication, his upcoming SuperGood album is aptly titled.

The Kickdrums — “The Power Of Ideas” Feat. Blu

This week, The Kickdrums released the lead single from their latest EP, which will be released this summer. On the cheerful soundscape, Alex Fitts ponders, “Would you still do your thing without the crowd?” while Blu impresses in his guest verse, getting equally inquisitive by asking, “Am I a hollow man, or am I someone’’s role model?”

Kenny Mason — “Angels Calling”

This week, Atlanta rapper Kenny Mason dropped off more visuals to support his Angelic Hoodrat album. The Nasser Boulaich-directed video shows Kenny rhyming over an acoustic version oF the stream-of-consciousness track, giving more weight to bare lyrics like, “My dogs that ride for me in darker times finna get all the shine.”

Domani — “The Truth”

Domani’s “The Truth” single is a poetic homage to the phrase “drunk words are sober thoughts.” He uses the jazzy, piano-driven beat to ponder the possibilities of love with an admirable vulnerability, and also seemingly pays homage to his father by rhyming “for her I cross my Ts and dot my Is.”

Skooly — “Go”

Multitalented rapper-vocalist Skooly explores the full range of his talent on “Go,” unleashing his velvety vocals on the track’s unforgettable hook before rhyming seductively over glitzy synths. The track is from his recently released Nobody Likes Me album.

Preservation — “I-78” Feat. Mach Hommy

Today, DJ/Producer Preservation released Eastern Medicine, Western Illness, a sonic memoir of his time in Hong Kong. Earlier this week he debuted one of the songs from the project, the scintillating “I-78” featuring Mach Hommy, who delves into a reflective, braggadocious verse over an Asian-flavored soundscape.

Max B — “Goodman”

Any active rapper dragging their feet on releasing music is being put to shame by Max B. The cult hero is still incarcerated and is set to release his third project in seven months with his Charly EP on June 5. “Goodman” is a soulful track where the renown hookman shows off his underrated lyrical ability.

History — Middle Man

This week, Brooklyn rapper-producer released his two-track Middle Man EP. “Tension” is buoyed by a spooky soundscape that sets the mood for History to rhyme about the trials of his native Brooklyn, surmising that all these ills are “just another war we endure / gettin’ profit off the pain we endure.” On the other end of the spectrum, “Water My Wrist” is a bouncy track where History proclaims himself “the voice of the streets” and trades self-assured bars with Connis.

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

In what could be a sign that the return of Amazon‘s brutal superhero bashers is just around the corner, The Boys has dropped a new promotional poster for season two that pretty clearly spells out what Karl Urban and his ragtag crew are all about: Sticking it to The Seven.

The hit Amazon series that pulled in record numbers for the streaming service stars Urban as Billy Butcher, a tough-as-nails Brit who’s obsessed with getting his revenge on the seemingly heroic group called The Seven. While the public adores these superhero saviors, who are pretty clearly a satirical riff on the Justice League, the “heroes” got their powers from perverse drug experiments, and they’re not exactly the most stable or wholesome group. In fact, thanks to an evil corporation cleaning up their messes, The Seven basically do whatever they want without any concern for the consequences, which puts them squarely in the sights of Butcher and The Boys who also have some very personal axes to grind.

Judging by this latest poster for season two, The Boys are ready to tear things up:

As of this writing, there is no definitive release date for season two of The Boys, but showrunner Eric Kripke recently provided an optimistic update on Twitter. Filming for the second season had fortunately wrapped before the pandemic started shutting down productions left and right, and according to Kripke, post-production has still been chugging along remotely, which should be a good sign that the second season will debut some time during Summer 2020.

The Boys season one is currently available for streaming on Amazon.

(Via The Boys on Twitter)

Turning dreams into reality is an arduous road, full of pitfalls. No one knows this better than Greg Koch — who helped usher in the craft beer movement as we know it in the United States. Back in ’96, Koch and brewer Steve Wagner opened up Stone Brewing in San Marcos, California with the now-retired but still iconic Stone Pale Ale. It’d be easy to say “and the rest is history” given the explosive growth craft beer has seen across the U.S. and the rest of the world in the decades since, but it’s never that easy.

We caught up with Koch recently to talk about a documentary that was made about the push to open Stone Berlin back in 2016. The two-year endeavor to build one of the largest craft breweries in Europe — in a country with a staunch view of what beer should be — was meticulously documented in The Beer Jesus From America. (The film’s name was derived from local Berlin tabloid headline that mocked Koch’s long beard and hair.) The documentary covers everything from the ground-breaking of Stone Berlin to the actual opening of the massive brewery, beer garden, and restaurant in the southern reaches of the city.

Beer Jesus — which is available to stream on Amazon Prime — does a good job handling the trial and errors of an American trying to open a massive beer-related project in a very-regulated German city. The film also touches on a moment in time when the perception of craft beer changed dramatically across Europe and became a little more mainstream, in many ways thanks to the work Koch and his team put into the region. Unfortunately, the film ends when Stone Berlin opens, which isn’t the whole story. By 2019, Stone decided to sell their brewery to Scotland’s Brewdog and retreat back to the U.S. with the brewing of Stone’s beer being carried on through a partnership with Brewdog. (I remember being there when Stone Berlin had their last weekend. I was also there when Brewdog reopened the doors with all new branding, menu, and beers a few months later, a fascinating story all its own.)

My conversation with Koch gave me a chance to check in on how his world has changed since the struggle to launch Stone Berlin. We hit on everything from the documentary to beer trends to the realities of a world shaped by COVID-19.

Since we’re a year out from the sale and this film stops at a precarious point, how do you feel about watching the film now?

It’s really interesting watching it. It takes me on a rollercoaster every time. There’s a point in the film that I just want to turn it off out of frustration. Just like, “Okay, I’m done with this.” It’s like feeling this well of tightness around your neck and shoulders. And then the story arc breaks and the clouds began to part and the sun begins to shine a bit. But I find it interesting that it really takes me on that emotional journey every time, even though, not only do I know the story well, I lived the story.

I was around during the opening of Stone Berlin and it felt like a really positive time. But, man, re-watching the film, it feels like there’s almost a sense of PTSD. I kept thinking, “Wow, that was a hard couple of years.”

Yeah. There’s that frustration I was talking about, that tightness and just that feeling of, “I just can’t take this anymore.” And then the opening day was one of the best days of my entire life. It was just such a wonderful day in every respect. Not only what it symbolized, but just the day itself and the people that came out.

Looking at the film from a pure beer perspective, what did you see change over the course of your time in Berlin and Europe overall in the beer scene?

Well, I could feel a tremendous amount. It went from a very small scene in Berlin with a few notable players like Rainier Werth with his beer shop and then the guys at Vagabund. And that was now seven or eight years ago at this point. It was already starting to slowly transform when we arrived. And, I had already been a part of that transformation in Southern California and in the greater in the U.S. So, it was very exciting to be in Berlin and Europe in those founding stages again.

I was just rereading the interview you did with Joe Stange right after the sale. One of my favorite parts is when he asks you if you would change anything if you had had it to do over again, and you rebuffed him and said, “Are you kidding me?” I took that as, “Don’t look back, look forward.” Now with the gift of both space and time from the sale of Stone Berlin, what have you taken with you from the experience?

I think that the conditioning in Germany was stronger. In the US, we broke through the conditioning. People were conditioned to expect a beer to be that industrial, fizzy yellow stuff of the MillerCoors and Budweiser corps, and that was it. Maybe they were aware of the existence of a beer called Guinness. The beer could be dark, but they mostly didn’t think they’d like it. But now, the expectation in the United States is that there’s going to be variety. There’s going to be a range of styles and characters and ABVs and producers and all this. And it surprised me — for the beer country that Germany is — how disinterested the average population is with the conversation of beer.

Beer is not something that they talk about. It’s something they just do. It’s more a commodity. How much talking about your bottle of sparkling water do you engage in? How much talking about a package of deli meats from the store do you engage in? And that’s how beer is looked at too. Sure, it’s changing, but there’s — I don’t want to make too strong comments about the German culture because some of it’s born out of a bit of frustration — but, man, people just weren’t interested outside of what they’ve been sold already.

You still find that in the States too. People still reach for the cheap and easy.

Of course.

What I find interesting though is that you did survive through a partnership with BrewDog. You still have the Stone beer brewing here and a popular beer bar, so it’s not like it was a full retreat. You still have a foothold here in Europe. Hell, I still buy six-packs at my grocery store in Berlin.

Well, the truth of the matter is that we sold more beer in 2019 than we did in 2018, and we’ll sell more in 2020 than we did in 2019. So it continues to look up. And we are continuing to grow. But yeah, for me personally, the Berlin thing was a bit of a setback. But you’re right, as a company, let’s not forget that things continue to go well.

It feels like craft is always growing and yet on the edge. The margins are always razor thin and just the understanding of what beer can be is always a struggle. I can’t tell you how many people still tell me, flat out, they don’t like beer. And, I’m always asking, “well, which kind of beer are you even talking about?

I think that we were in business at least eight years before craft beer started to become popular in the United States. Before that, we endlessly heard things like, “What is it you do? Oh, you make that weird beer. It’s too fancy.” That kind of thing.

So we can look back at the sepia-toned, earlier days in the United States craft brewing movement, and think of how it was clear and all the signs were there for a craft beer boom. But the fact of the matter is, it was and still is pushing a boulder up a hill every day, and that’s just part of being an entrepreneur.

The passion of an artist as they say. I was actually at your Shanghai bar last year before everything.

The sad news that you may not have heard is that we have actually closed the Shanghai operation. The weird paradox of that is that it had been extremely successful. We had won all the awards: Best beer place in Asia, one of the top-rated Western restaurants in all of Shanghai, top 2 percent, all of that. But COVID-19 has just delivered such a sucker punch.

I imagine that had to be a tough decision.

It is really a combination of a lot of things. We were running on thin margins — even though very successful — based upon all this trade war nonsense. And then COVID-19 made it more than we could handle.

I’m sorry to hear about that.

Yeah. It’s crushing blow after crushing blow. That’s entrepreneurism. There you go, that’s back to the movie again.

Yeah, exactly. I know this is a cliche, but you’ve got to get up and keep going, right?

Absolutely.

The documentary feels resonant now, since it shows that you can get through hard times. So how are you dealing with this pandemic now that months have passed and it’s touched every part of the world?

I have a stoic philosophy and try to understand what things you can and cannot control. What you can control is how you react. Life constantly throws curveballs. COVID is especially unique in that it’s a giant curveball that we’re all getting at the same time.

What changes have you had to make to deal with the pandemic in the short term compared to the long term?

I think our changes aren’t so very different from all the stories out there. We’re all learning how to be apart, yet staying connected as best as possible. We’re learning how to operate safely.

It’s also a time just to pay attention to your core business. We’re continuing to brew beers as best and as safely as we can.

I’ve read some headlines that suggest that consumers are retrenching to major global brands. This is challenging for craft brewers, as many have had their businesses gutted with the loss of on-premise sales at bars, restaurants, sporting venues, hotels, and so on. It’s quite possible that some may not survive, which is sad. This is a story that’s not unique to craft beer, of course. Small businesses in just about every category are being challenged right up to, and past, the breaking point.

What do you think is the best thing a beer lover can do right now to support local craft?

The best thing a craft beer lover can do right now is to be intentional with their beer purchasing. Pick the breweries and brands that you really really want to survive, and support the hell out of them. Shout about them on social media or even to the person hanging out on their balcony across the street!

Let’s shift back to beer for one last question. It feels like — and I don’t mean this in a shallow way — but trends come and go. Whether it be some craft beer style or hard seltzer or bourbons or whatever. As a business in this world, you ride the wave and, hopefully, you get off before the wave crashes into the beach. Then you wait for the next wave. Is that right?

Right. Yup.

I’m a huge fan of smoked beer. You were one of the first craft brewers to produce a smoked beer back in the day, alongside I think just Alaskan in the U.S. Why do you think that beer has never really had its hazy NEIPA or sour beer moment?

So here’s the thing, if some famous person proselytizes about a smoked beer, then it’s entirely possible.

I remember hearing this likely apocryphal story when I was younger that Clark Gable tanked the t-shirt industry in the 1930s. He took his dress shirt off in a scene and he didn’t have an undershirt on underneath. And, that tanked the industry. Because overnight, it went from all men wearing undershirts underneath their dress shirts to all men not wearing undershirts underneath their dress shirts.

Holy shit. I’d never heard that.

So, yeah, you’re right. We made Stone Smoked Porter in 1996. It was the second beer we ever produced. We made it up until about six years ago but the sales just weren’t … enough. I love the style too, by the way.

You can stream ‘The Beer Jesus From America’ on Amazon Prime for $1.99.

The results of a survey sent out by the NBA to its 30 general managers arrived on Friday in the form of a report from Shams Charania of The Athletic, and it shows a majority of league decision-makers prefer a more expansive structure when the season resumes this summer in Orlando.

A whopping 83 percent wanted 20 or more teams to be included, and it’s worth considering why there’s such widespread support for a bigger bubble. More games means more television revenue, and a negotiated expansion of the league’s TV contracts could help offset the loss of ticket and local TV revenue. There is also probably an aspect of fairness, as the race for the eighth seed in the Western Conference was set to be among the top storylines in the league this spring. Cutting those teams out would be hard.

Along those same lines, Charania reports that non-playoff teams are split on resuming the season. Likely the teams that want to come back are younger and value the competition more. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski recently listed the Atlanta Hawks as one young, non-playoff squad that would be eager to play again this summer.

On the matter of playoff seeding, with much discussion among fans this week centering around reseeding or using a World Cup-style group stage, Charania reported 53 percent of GMs want to maintain usual playoff seeding.

The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor provided further clarity on the structure of the back end of the playoffs when he reported that 75 percent of NBA GMs supported a play-in tournament for the final playoff seeds, compared to just 25 percent for a group stage. This would mean sending 3-5 extra teams from each conference to Orlando to play out a mini-tournament for the respective eighth seeds.

The NBA is not due to make a firm decision on the structure of its July bubble season until next week, according to Wojnarowski, but it’s likely that the results of this survey will hold weight when commissioner Adam Silver and the league office ultimately make a proposal to the players.

Following the devastating murder of Floyd George in Minneapolis, many musicians have offered their support. Noname recently challenged her celebrity followers to match a $1,000 donation to a nonprofit organization that assists immigrants and low-income individuals to pay bail. Musicians Cardi B spoke out about the atrocity and pledged donations on social media. Now, Taylor Swift is the latest celebrity to speak out, and the singer directed her words towards the president following a particularly insensitive tweet.

Swift took to Twitter to call out Trump for a tweet that essentially condoned the use of violence against protestors. The singer slammed the president for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism” over the course of his presidency. “you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence?” the singer wrote, continuing to say: “We will vote you out in November.”

Trump’s tweet in question was even censored by Twitter, which labeled the tweet as “glorifying violence.” Trump referred to those protesting police violence in Minneapolis as “THUGS,” and insinuated that he would direct the military to begin shooting civilian protesters if they pose a “difficulty.”

This isn’t the first time Swift has been vocal about her disapproval of the president. Over the course of her career, the singer infamously remained quiet about politics until Trump was elected. In 2018, Swift called for fans to vote blue in a Tennessee midterm election, and Trump said in a press conference that her call to action made him “like Taylor’s music about 25% less now.” More recently, Swift has been upfront about being proactive in the upcoming election, admitting that she regrets not endorsing a candidate in 2016.

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

Lil Wayne wants to see less talk and more action to prevent police brutality. During an Instagram Live chat with Fat Joe, Wayne spoke to the ways in which protests often fail to effect lasting change, saying, “We have to stop placing the blame on the whole force and the whole everybody or a certain race or everybody with a badge… And if we want to place the blame on anybody, it should be ourselves for not doing more than what we think we’re doing.”

In Wayne’s mind, much of the issue of continued police violence against people of color — especially Black people — comes from lack of follow-through. As he told Fat Joe, “Some people put a tweet out and they think they did something. Some people wear a shirt and they think they did something. What you gonna do after that? Did you actually help the person? Did you actually help the family? Did you actually go out there and do something? So, if I ain’t about to do all that, then I ain’t about to do nothing. I’ll pray for ya.”

He elaborated on his view by pointing out that, “What we need to do is we need to learn about it more. If we wanna scream about something, know what we’re screaming about. If we wanna protest about something, know what we’re protesting about. Because if we wanna get into it, there’s a bunch of facts that we think we know that we don’t know. … We scream about things that, sometimes, they really ain’t true.”

Although awkwardly worded, Wayne’s words reflect another rapper’s statement about the ongoing uprisings. Earlier today, Cardi B posted a video to her own Instagram explaining her point of view and while she initially seemed more empathetic than Wayne, she also called for more direct political action. “Another way for the people to take power… it’s by voting… We can vote for mayors, we can vote for judges, and we can also vote for D.A.s (district attorneys)… They have the power to prosecute these cops.”

Wayne says that he’s educating himself on the subject, so if a hip-hop political awakening is on the horizon, there may be no better leader than one of the most influential figures the culture has had for well over two decades. However, should Wayne be on his way to encourage direct political action, he may want to work on that presentation a little.

Watch Wayne’s full interview with Fat Joe above.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — Congrats to everyone

You can be forgiven if Mythic Quest slipped by your radar when it debuted earlier this year. The show is an Apple TV+ original and it got way less initial buzz than some of the new streaming service’s other offerings, like the star-packed but mostly underwhelming The Morning Show, or the shows with Jason Momoa or Chris Evans. Apple pushed those pretty hard with big fancy pictures of the big fancy stars and they all kind of scooted right on by. It happens. There are a lot of streaming services and a lot of shows to choose from. There will be collateral damage.

But Mythic Quest is very good. It is a comedy from the Always Sunny brain trust that stars Rob McElhenney as the massively narcissistic creative director of a massively popular video game called, you guessed it, Mythic Quest. The rest of the cast is great, too. Danny Pudi from Community is in there as the deranged monetization guru. F. Murray Abraham plays the drunken head writer. Charlotte Nicdao, who I was not familiar with before this series, plays Poppy Li, the brilliant but overlooked head coder who ends up being the beating heart of the whole thing. The show is very silly and sometimes sweet and might end up surprising you with an emotional wallop here and there. Again, it’s very good. I dig it a lot.

Which brings us to this week, when the show released a special quarantine episode. We’ve seen a few of these now, most notably the Parks & Rec reunion. That was fun. I enjoyed it. But it wasn’t really an episode of television as much as it was a neat diversion to check-in on our old friends. That seemed to the general vibe of most of these specials: a feel-good glance at familiar faces doing goofs into their iPhones. It could be worse. It could also be better. Mythic Quest was the first show I saw that figured that out.

The plot of it all was pretty simple. McElhenney’s character, Ian (pronounced Eye-an), was terrified to leave his compound. Poppy was burying herself in her work. Everyone else was trying to figure out how to deal with a socially-distanced work and personal life through video calls. It all seemed very much like any other quarantine special, with slightly more hot tubs.

But then the back half of the episode hit, and hit it did. Things got real. Cut between silly gags about shaving eyebrows and the development of a multi-person, multi-screen, Rube Goldberg-style chip-eating system, we discovered why Poppy had been burying herself in her work: because, like a lot of us, she was depressed and scared and not sure what to do or how to start once all the distractions peeled themselves away. It all culminated in an emotional moment that I won’t spoil for you except to say this: I watched the episode at about 2 a.m. this week and found myself lying in bed afterward for about 45 minutes, just blown away, staring at my ceiling. It was an emotional hammer, in the best way possible, in the way television and movies can be when they invest in their characters and the story. It was gutting and hopeful and kind and one of my favorite episodes of the year, period, not just quarantine-related.

And then it all ended with the Rube Goldberg reveal set to the Rocky music. I suspect it marked the first time I have ever cried a little while watching someone eat a single chip. The whole thing was a triumph of storytelling and capturing a moment in a human way. If you can find your way into yet another streaming service and can find time for yet another show, seek out Mythic Quest. It’s a good piece of business.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — What a shockingly good week it was for the song “Kokomo”

“Kokomo” is a song by The Beach Boys that was released in 1988. It is famous for two notable reasons: One, it is played at every tourist-y beach bar in the Western Hemisphere every hour on the hour, all day and night, or at least it feels like that; two, yes that is John Stamos on drums in the music video. It was a whole thing. You can look it up if you want to. I don’t have time to get into it right now because we are here to talk about the present, not the past. And in the present, here, this week, somehow, “Kokomo” is having a bit of a moment.

First, Space Force, and yes, there will be some mild spoilers in the next few sentences. Nothing that will ruin your life or potential enjoyment of the show. The short version goes like this: In the first episode, Steve Carell’s character, the head of the titular Space Force, is having a very bad day. He needs to calm down. So, he takes a deep breath, stares out the window, and…

… sings a substantial chunk of “Kokomo” to himself in his office. It was pretty funny and I enjoyed it when I watched my screener a few days ago and I was pretty sure it would be the last time I saw a reference to “Kokomo” on a television comedy for a while. Months, at least, if not years. But then I flipped on this week’s episode What We Do in the Shadows — a very good show — and blammo.

“Kokomo” again. This is… this is still just a coincidence. Barely. For now. But if another television show starts hitting the steel drums and a character starts singing about Key Largo… if, say, Wags from Billions gets drunk and starts belting it out at karaoke… I’m going to look into it. I’m going to figure out why. I’ll take it all the way to the top if I have to.

It’s not the only 80’s song that is popping up in multiple shows this year. Earlier in the same episode of What We Do in the Shadows (again, a good show), in the event that triggered all the musical goofs in a goof-filled episode, a car passed by blasting “Come On Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners.

And that’s notable because the song also played a prominent role in the premiere of Hulu’s — also good! — reimagining of High Fidelity.

It’s a good thing I have this column to dump these thoughts into. Otherwise, I’d just be shouting them out my window at people in the parking lot. My neighbors would hate me so much.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Sure, crash a plane, who cares

I understand very little about Tenet, the upcoming movie from Christopher Nolan. I think that’s the point. I’m in this weird space where I’m both excited about it and already kind of exhausted by it even though it doesn’t come out until mid-July. I’ll tell you what would get me a little more pumped, though: some completely nutso story from the set. Something just wilder than a sack of wasps. Something like “Christopher Nolan purchased and crashed a real commercial airplane because it was cheaper than doing it in CGI.” From Total Film:

“I planned to do it using miniatures and set-piece builds and a combination of visual effects and all the rest,” Nolan tells TF. However, while scouting for locations in Victorville, California, the team discovered a massive array of old planes. “We started to run the numbers… It became apparent that it would actually be more efficient to buy a real plane of the real size, and perform this sequence for real in camera, rather than build miniatures or go the CG route.”

Yes. Yes, this will do just fine. I hope this starts a trend. I hope the 10th Fast & Furious comes out in a few years and Vin Diesel says “At some point, we realized it would just be cheaper to film on the actual moon rather than do it with computers.” I hope he’s wrong, too, and the exorbitant price tag of sending the entire cast and crew into the cosmos bankrupts an entire studio. That would be fun. I mean, for me.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Snack chat

Adam Horovitz, better known as Ad-Rock from Beastie Boys, is one of my favorite people in the world and has been for some time. There are a bunch of reasons for this, many of which I’ve documented in this very column in the past few weeks as the press tour for Beastie Boys Story kicked into high gear. One of the biggest is his refusal to take interviews seriously. The man is impossible to nail down, in large part because he refuses to give more than two straight answers in a row before he starts screwing around. He did it again this week, in the prestigious pages of The New Yorker. The interviewer tried to talk about the movie. Ad-Rock obliged, for a while. But then he wanted to talk about snacks.

When I was kid, my aspiration was to have snacks—to be able to have whatever snacks I wanted. That’s not what my house was like. My friend Neil and I talked about success, like, what success really is. And I was, like, “If you have a washer/dryer in your apartment, you’re fucking big time.”

This is not the first recent interview he yoinked off the rails with Snack Chat. He did it on Desus & Mero, too. The man really loves snacks. And shopping for them at the grocery store. As you can see.

Maybe I’ll continue writing and talking about all the stupid shit that I’ve done. The whole thing is so weird. That I’m fifty-three is fucking weird. I have money; I can buy whatever I want at the supermarket. I’m very lucky.

So, two things here:

— This is actually a very deep point. Food insecurity is a real issue for a lot of people and there’s something profoundly comforting about knowing you can just grab anything you want off the shelf and bring it home. I remember being very broke in my early 20s and making hot dog quesadillas for dinner because all I had in my fridge were hot dogs, tortillas, store-brand cheese slices, and a few barbecue sauce packets. They were actually kind of good, but that’s not that point. Maybe it is. I’ve admittedly lost the thread a bit here.

— This quote also cracks me up because he’s a Beastie Boy and could probably buy a small-to-midsize island if he wants, and he’s probably talking about, like, Dunkaroos here.

It also led to this follow-up exchange.

Right. That makes sense, given that you once thought that making it meant you could get a lot of snacks.

Like Shane, my friend in junior high. He had fucking Mountain Dews. He had so many snacks.

This is what I mean, man. Stuff like this from your childhood sticks with you. This is why he loves snacks so much. That and all the weed he cops to smoking at another point in the interview. Probably a little of both.

Anyway, big shouts to Shane.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — MURDER DOG

MURDER DOG HAS A TRAILER.

REMEMBER MURDER DOG?

HERE. LOOK AGAIN.

The film centers on Maggie (Judy Greer), a woman who gets an emotional support dog to help quell some of her anxiety. Only, she finds him to be even more effective than she could have imagined because, unbeknownst to her, he kills anyone who adds stress to her life… [Steve] Guttenberg [plays] Don, Maggie’s “misanthropic but at times soft around the edges” boss, while Wong is Annie, a former baby-sitting charge of Maggie’s who recently moved to Los Angeles and rekindles their friendship.

MURDER DOG.

MURDER DOG.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Seth:

I started watching What We Do in the Shadows on your recommendation the other week and I love it. I don’t think I’ll ever get over Laszlo going on the lam as a bartender named Jackie Daytona. I gotta ask, as an expert in the fake name department, what name you would choose if you had to go on the lam. I think I’d go with Rex Telluride. It’s no Jackie Daytona, but it’s a decent start.

REX TELLURIDE!

That’s terrific, Seth. I can picture him now. He definitely has a cowboy hat. He chooses his words carefully. He’s basically Raylan Givens from Justified but for some reason, I’m picturing a mustache. And maybe he loves to play craps. Rex Telluride, mustachioed dice-thrower. Yes, this definitely plays.

As for me, my answer remains the same as always: I will become Mitch Casino. I still need to work on the rest of the cover identity, but I feel like the name gets me at least halfway there. I imagine I just need to say “My name is Mitch Casino” into a mirror a few times and the rest will fall into place.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Vermont!

Like any politician, humans aren’t the only ones in the middle of an election cycle. One small town in Vermont appoints a mayor of the four legged variety. Meet Lincoln, a Nubian goat and the first pet mayor of Fair Haven, Vermont, elected to office in 2019.

Oh hell yes. We have an incumbent goat mayor up for re-election. And there are other candidates. There are so many other candidates.

“A lot of students in the Fair Haven grade school wanted to nominate their own pets, so we had a bunny, a hamster, a horse. I think there were five or six dogs. Five cats. There were 18 candidates, but were three main candidates that stood out to voters: Lincoln, the incumbent goat; Sammy, the police canine; and Murfee, the therapy dog. Lincoln had a very successful first term as mayor and, being an incumbent, a lot of people knew her name already so she was definitely a front runner.”

How funny would it have been if that sentence listing the dozens of animal candidates and the three front runners ended with “and a human named Doug Jenkins, the longtime town treasurer who has made it his life’s goal to clean up the town’s finances after decades of frivolous spending by its animal mayors”?

I’ll tell you. It would have been very funny. Classic Doug. But I’ve buried the lede here: A new candidate captured the hearts and minds of the populace and rode that wave to an upset victory.

“They were a little disappointed, but it didn’t take long for them to start cheering and applauding for Murfee. They were very excited that passing the torch on and it’s a new year. I think they’re looking forward to seeing what Murfee will do with his mayoral seat.”

This is great. The only thing that could ruin it is if there is another paragraph that makes it all less fun. Like if they reveal that the animal mayor is just for show and is not allowed to govern.

“I don’t think that Fair Haven will have a human mayor anytime soon, because Fair Haven has a human town manager, which is essentially sort of the same thing as a mayor. He makes a lot of the big decisions. He oversees that select board. So I think the town government is comfortable with just having a town manager. But I think they also really love having a pet mayor.”

Ugh, fine.

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.

Jeff Rosenstock wasn’t planning on releasing a soundtrack to a global pandemic. In fact, Rosenstock’s latest punk rock opus was completed in February, close to a month before stay-at-home orders were issued across the United States. A surprise release date was set for July, echoing the strategy employed for Rosenstock’s last album Post-, which fell out of the sky on New Years Day in 2018. But the release was pushed up a few months in light of the current reality of the world. “Once it became really clear that this sh*t is all completely f*cked, we were like, ‘Okay, well, what’s the earliest day on the Polyvinyl release calendar that has some space so I can put this out?’” Rosenstock tells me over the phone from his new home in Los Angeles.

No Dream is a record that finds Rosenstock diving head-first into his own psyche, as well as the psyche of the world at large. The music is heavier and faster throughout than it was on Post- or 2016’s Worry, both of which were broken up by more laid-back, introspective numbers. When asked whether this shift to a heavier sound was intentional to accompany the weight of the lyrical material, Rosenstock quickly demurs. The reason is actually much more simple: “There were no slower or quieter songs I was writing that felt particularly interesting to me… I think I was just craving a fun punk record to listen to.”

It was also important for the band as a whole, which has been on the road tirelessly since 2016, to go as hard as they could on a recording. “When we’re on tour in America I’m driving a lot of the time,” he says, “so I wanna listen to some f*cking punk, I wanna listen to some ska, I wanna stay up, I wanna listen to some loud sh*t, I wanna listen to some rap sh*t where rappers are going super hard, that kind of stuff. And as a band we’re always trying to do things that we think are sick and that feel fun to do. It makes me smile personally anytime we’re doing super heavy stuff or super chuggy stuff.”

While working on the record in Oakland with producer Jack Shirley, Rosenstock would often wonder if he and the band were going too far on their quest for the heaviest and chuggiest sound. It was not uncommon for him to turn to Shirley and ask something along the lines of, “Does this guitar sound like it’s actually playing notes or is it just all fuzz and all distortion?” To Shirley’s credit, he was able to take the band’s cacophony and channel it into something deliberate and truly enveloping. Rosenstock notes, “It’s fun recording with Jack because we’re all in the mindset of all the time just being like if it’s gonna be loud then it should be f*cking loud and you should blow it the f*ck up, you know?”

With No Dream, Rosenstock has once again outdone himself and officially cemented his position as a punk rock savior for a generation disenfranchised and left to dry by the American establishments. Our conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

I’m used to seeing you around the Brooklyn scene. What’s it like living in LA?

It’s really hard to say because we moved out here, I caught up on a bunch of work that I missed since we were packing. Then like the first week of March, I thought, “Okay, this is where my schedule clears up and I’m gonna get to see what everything is like.” As far as like the f*ckin’ pandemic report, we have the stay-at-home order indefinitely passed for right now, so I don’t know. It’s great. Nothing but more hope and good times on the horizon, definitely.

Everyone’s happy and nothing’s gone wrong.

Why aren’t they putting that in the news?

I’ll put it in the news, why not? I’ll write it down: everything is great and nothing is going wrong.

Yeah! Good! Finally.

So, going to the music, thank you for releasing an album that made me feel some semblance of energy. I’m sitting here listening to Big Thief all day thinking, “This is what my life is like now.” And then No Dream comes out of nowhere and it was the first time where I was like, “Sick, this is exactly what I needed to hear” and it made me sit up. So thank you for that.

Oh, thanks, man! Thank you for listening to it. Thanks for caring about it.

So, what does it mean to you to be releasing this album that a lot of people, myself included, are treating as the soundtrack to their existential dread?

This might just be a self-fulfilling f*ckin prophecy by me saying it out loud, but I just hope that once we’re all through this, this record doesn’t have the effect of looking at an old picture of an ex or something and being like, “Those were dark times, I can’t f*ck with this anymore.” I don’t know. I feel bad that any of us are experiencing existential dread, I think that is how I feel.

Even though the album was completed before this pandemic really hit, it seems like some of the themes that you’re talking about are even more applicable viewed through the lens of our current moment. Have current events shifted the way you hope someone will approach this record?

I just want anybody to approach anything that I do however they feel is appropriate. Like, I haven’t re-contextualized anything cause I know what the songs are about for me. But it was very surprising once I started showing this record to people who were like, “Holy sh*t this relates to all this stuff happening with the pandemic.” It never dawned on me that would be the case. When we decided to put it out early, I kind of figured it might not even resonate with anybody at all. But, at the same time, the fact that it even relates at all can be a little frustrating, in a larger sense.

I feel like I’ve been talking in my songs for the last few records about these systemic issues that just keep getting worse and worse. It’s frustrating that that kind of sh*t is still relatable. I would love to have put this record out in a world where it’s kind of anachronistic because we’ve actually passed gun control measures and people don’t go into schools regularly with f*cking assault weapons and kill people. I would prefer that to having it resonate, of course.

So what do you think is the role of punk rock, protest music, and political music in 2020?

I think more about ’70s reggae records that I listened to, Jimmy Cliff songs and Toots And The Maytals. Motown stuff too, like Stevie Wonder records and sh*t. It was stuff that was political and they were talking about strife but in a way where you can feel less alone while you’re listening to it. I think the stuff that I listen to is kind of ingrained in me — ska and reggae and political pop stuff from another era. Stuff that will hopefully get people to open their eyes and pay attention to things that are going on, but also you can hopefully just be there for somebody who sees what’s going on and can listen to a thing and be like, “F*ckin yeah! Right!”

This record especially seems like it’s a balancing act handling struggles that are both internal and societal. How do you strike that balance to make the songs personal, but also worldly?

I don’t really think about it like that. It’s kind of like a thing I figure out later when other people hear the record and tell me that I did it. I think that they’re all one in the same. I kind of changed the way I wrote lyrics a little bit when we started working on Worry because I really did focus mostly on my internal sh*t and treating it entirely as a journal for what I was feeling. I wanted to get to a point where I could express what I believe, which is that we experience the systemic failures of our countries and people full of hate, at the same time we’re experiencing whatever personal things we’re going through, whatever personal growth we’re trying to reach, whatever personal way we’re just trying to figure out how to be happy.

I think I’m trying to approach it all as one thing, because that’s how it feels to me. It feels like one big jumble of emotions all the time. They try to corral you into that jumble via how things are reported to keep your attention moving onto different tragedies so that you can’t even f*cking process anything! We’re in this sh*t storm, man, and within the sh*t storm it’s unclear. I think that’s where there appears to be a balance between these things, when it’s really a tornado of what the f*ck is going on.

Are you able to distill what the dream is that you’re saying there is none of?

There’s a bunch of dreams. If I told you an answer to that question it would be whatever I thought of within these ten seconds, and it would be a lie. So I’ll say, it’s intentionally open-ended, much in the way that Post- was.

Personally, I hear “no dream” as “no American Dream.” The album, too, seems to reflect something that I’ve been thinking about a lot, especially during the pandemic, which is the narrative that our generation is the new Lost Generation. I read an article the other day on The Atlantic with the literal title “Millennials Don’t Even Stand a Chance”.

Yeah, but a chance to do what? To buy a house? You could rent a house. You could live in an apartment. Whatever they dangle in front of you as the thing that you should aspire to, could be a thing to just distract you from what your own personal feelings are, and what you would like to do, and how you would like to treat other people. There’s always something super expensive put in front of you that’s like, “If you don’t get this then you’re a f*cking failure, and you can’t grow up.” In my mind, I feel like the last however many years have been set up to prevent our generation from getting ahead in a lot of ways. I think this is a symptom of a system that was set up to increase income inequality.

That f*cking headline is there to get you anxious and look at it, then look at the ads that are there accompanying it so you can be like, “I don’t stand a chance, unless I get this f*cking weighted blanket, and then I’ll be great!” It’s scary in a time when our only interactions with each other, because of this pandemic, are often through media. Are often through these channels that will have ads there for you. That sh*t is f*cking scary.

And I bet when I hang up on this call with you I’m gonna get a targeted ad for a weighted blanket.

And you’re gonna get that weighted blanket because it’s gonna fix it all!

No Dream is out now on Polyvinyl Records. Listen and pick up the album on vinyl here.

View Entire Post ›

Inglewood rapper D Smoke puts his multiple talents on full display during an at-home NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert, rapping, singing, and playing piano throughout a soulful, stripped-down, four-song set featuring selections from his debut album Black Habits. While past hip-hop Tiny Desk Concerts have seen rappers play their beats from sound systems, D Smoke instead plays the instrumental sections, sans drums, on his piano as he raps his way through “No Commas,” “Closer to God,” “Seasons Pass,” and “Black Habits II.”

Smoke, who won the inaugural season of Netflix’s competition show Rhythm + Flow, also speaks to the family background that inspired his debut album, as well as admitting that his performance of “Black Habits II” was his first ever live performance of the song. He also addressed the effects of COVID-19 quarantine on the community around him, closing businesses and affecting his own ability to go out and touch fans in person. However, he remains positive and hopeful, showing the resilience and defiance that made him one of Snoop Dogg’s favorites on Rhythm + Flow, even when he stumbles in some points of his performance. The Tiny Desk demonstrates all of the reasons why D Smoke earned his win and everything that comes after it.

Watch D Smoke’s At-Home Tiny Desk Concert above.