I have been writing about The Walking Dead for many years now, but long before the AMC series, I was a massive fan of zombie movies. A decade after The Walking Dead inspired dozens of new zombies series and then seemingly consumed them all, I remain — as ever — a huge fan of the genre. Save for Netflix’s phenomenal Black Summer, however, not a lot of zombie TV shows have broken through in recent years. Nevertheless, one rises above them all: Kingdom.
Like The Walking Dead, Kingdom is also based on a comic book, Kim Eun-Hee’s Kingdom of the Gods, but unlike the Virginia set series and its Texas based spin-off, Fear the Walking Dead, Kingdom is set in Korea during the Joseon period — in the 1600s, to be exact. Kingdom is Netflix’s first original Korean series, and it is stunningly good. Like the best zombie movies and television series, Kingdom would be good even without the zombies. It’s a show about class, about corruption, and about a kingdom’s inability to stop the deadly spread of a disease (some of these themes may sound familiar right now).
The backdrop of Kingdom is this: There are rumors that the King of Joseon is dead, and as these rumors spread, there’s a call to crown his successor, Lee Chang (Ju Ji-hoon). Inside the palace, however, others who want to bypass the Crown Prince and install their own king (a baby soon to be born) manage to keep the King “alive” by feeding him a plant, which turns him into a ferocious zombie. After someone in a poor town uses an infected person as meat in a soup, the outbreak spreads from the King to that small village. Ultimately, the Crown Prince, along with his guard, a warrior, and a doctor, fight to protect the townspeople from the zombies while also protecting themselves from the palace’s corrupt forces.
After the opening episode lays the foundation, Kingdom is a dense and briskly-paced series, but it is something that a lot of zombie series aren’t anymore: terrifying. The zombies are the fast-moving, Zack Snyder Dawn of the Dead variety — feral, ferocious creatures that spring and jump and travel in large hordes. However, unlike most zombies, these lay dormant during the day, and they hide in packs underneath houses. Somehow, they are almost more terrifying during while they are harmless and asleep. However, as scary as Kingdom can be, it can also be brilliantly funny, not just in terms of the characters, but in the physical actions of the zombies, too.
Thematically, like Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, Kingdom explores class inequities, and while the series itself is about a zombie outbreak, it’s based on an actual plague during the Joseon dynasty that killed tens of thousands of people, a period in which the powerful presumably trampled upon those without it. What is also remarkable — and in some ways seems to mirror our current environment — is that even as the disease spreads, the politicians continue to brazenly vie for more power as thousands beneath them die.
Politics aside, however, Kingdom is terrific, terrifying, occasionally funny, and always entertaining zombie series. Especially for those of us who have gone six weeks without our The Walking Dead fix, this Netflix series perfectly fits the bill.
It’s been a few years since Brooklyn rapper Joey Badass released his last album, All-Amerikkkan Badass, but the messages from it resonate as strongly as ever in light of current events. The album finds Joey in full revolutionary mode, speaking to the ills of American society, including racism, inequality, and police brutality, making it one of the timeless albums that bears repeating as the cycle of state violence continues to be publicized on social media. That’s exactly the same quality that Joey believes has DSPs (digital streaming platforms) “censoring” his music.
When some fans reached out to Joey about problems streaming songs from All-Amerikkkan Badass yesterday, the rapper posted screenshots to his story of Apple Music users receiving error messages and complaining of censorship.
Joey himself reacted on Twitter, posting his own screenshot and lamenting, “WOKE UP TO MFS CENSORING MY MUSIC.”
Among the screenshots from Joey’s fans, the common thread appears to be a message that “This song is unavailable in your region.” While none of the screenshots reveal which region those fans are attempting to play their music from, there are plenty of reasons for the error, from licensing rights changes to a simple glitch in the software. On Joey’s own screenshot, the downloaded tracks are also not playing, suggesting that the problem was from Apple’s side, though.
The album in question played just fine as of press date from both my laptop and my phone, so it was likely just a temporary glitch. Besides, other inflammatory albums, like Ice Cube’s Amerikkka’s Most Wanted and Dead Prez’s Let’s Get Free seemed to play just fine in that same time frame so it seems unlikely that there was any concerted effort to silence hip-hop’s political voice. In any event, Joey’s been hinting that he has some new music on the way, so it may be just the right time for an update on his sociopolitical commentary.
But anyways y’all I’m planning something special for y’all real real soon that will be so worth the wait,… until then I’m plotting on these rental properties. Y’all stay healthy and blessed. Good day
Protesters enraged over two unarmed black people killed by police led to a Minneapolis precinct being stormed and the activation of the national guard.
If you’re brand new to TikTok, it’s only a matter of time before you realize that when it comes to everyone’s favorite new social media app, it’s all about style over substance. For me, that moment came when I stumbled across the “pancake cereal” trend that has absolutely dominated the app this month — racking up over a billion views under its respective hashtag. Like March’s whipped instant coffee fad, pancake cereal requires absolutely no skill or special tools to make, and most importantly looks amazing!
Never mind how it tastes, right? Who wouldn’t want to eat a bowl of tiny pancakes? Looking cute, cool, or interesting is all food needs in order to go viral on TikTok.
For non-users of the platform, there’s no crazy recipe for success here. Tiny versions of things are cute, and TikTok loves cute things. This particular trend originated back in April thanks to a post by Sydney Melhoff who “discovered” pancake cereal after she made a batch of regular pancakes, removed some of the batter splashes from the pan and realized the tiny mini pancakes tasted amazing. From there, she made an entire bowl, put a pad of butter on top, poured some milk over it, and set the whole thing to “Over It Chinese New Year Remix” by JohhnyG.
The rest was (supposedly) delicious history. Unfortunately, once you look past how cute pancake cereal is and think about what it might taste like, you’ll quickly realize that the answer is: probably not terrific. First, you make a large batch of tiny little pancakes (okay, those sound good), then you spatula them into a bowl (no problem), then you put a pad of butter on top with a maple syrup drizzle (right, because they’re pancakes), and then you pour milk into the bowl (because it’s implied by the whole “cereal” bit). At which point, you quickly discover that there’s a reason all the videos end as soon as the milk is poured in. No one actually wants a bowl of soggy little pancakes.
With a fair bit of cooking time on our hands in quarantine, we took her Melhoff’s pancake cereal recipe and tested it out. She’s a legend in the tiny food genre (oh yes, it’s a thing), so this was the natural place to start. Once we realized that, adorable as it was, the recipe wasn’t going to work from a taste standpoint, we got creative with it and cobbled together a something that was far more enjoyable (if perhaps slightly less adorable).
Dane Rivera
Everything You Need To Make Pancake Cereal
Pancake mix (you can, of course, make your pancakes from scratch, using real vanilla bean and 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract like our pancake-obsessed food editor, but you don’t need to)
Zip-lock bag
Scissors
Butter
Maple syrup
Like Dalgona coffee, you likely have everything you need to make pancake cereal at home right now. You don’t need to follow a special pancake batter recipe and you don’t need any special tools, just use whatever pancake mix you have in your pantry, pour it in a zip-lock bag, clip the tip, and pour batter droplets the size of a penny all over the pan. [Please at least put a little vanilla extract in there -the pancake-obsessed editor]
Everyone in your house will make fun of you for pretending to be a pastry chef with your piping bag, but the smell of freshly made tiny pancakes will win them over. Once your pancakes are done, put them in a bowl, add a pad of butter, drizzle some maple syrup.
Sounds simple but you mentioned something about it tasting bad?
Dane Rivera
Yeah, it’s absolutely awful. Once milk hits your pancakes, they will instantly soak it up and start to swell to twice their size as they become inundated with milk. Also a pad of butter in milk? What are you out of your mind? The milk will make it cold and it won’t melt. You’ll ignore it until you get wrapped up in a conversation and take a bite without looking only to find a pad of cold butter in your mouth.
Truthfully, there isn’t a single pleasant bite to be had with this dish. If you don’t have plans to film yourself putting it together and setting it to some way-too-loud remix that blows out everyone’s speakers, just don’t even bother. No shade towards Sydney Melhoff — she’s a master at making cute tiny foods. But in no world does this taste good.
But there’s got to be a way, right?
Dane Rivera
I wasn’t about to spend almost an hour making really tiny pancakes just to throw them away. So I got creative with it, not for TikTok fame, not for the sake of this article, but because I couldn’t bring myself to leave pancake cereal in the realm of “a thing that is not nearly as delicious as it sounds.”
Let me set the scene for you:
The time was 10 p.m. A gentle westerly wind blew through the kitchen window. The faint sound of a dog barking at a possum could be heard in the distance over a gentle wash of chirps from the late spring crickets. As the dank smell of freshly smoked cannabis wafted through the house, a lonely man toiled away above his stovetop — drip-dropping pancake batter onto an iron pan radiating with heat. One-by-one, the housemates who had previously criticized the man with his bag-o-batter floated into the kitchen like Looney Tunes characters, enticed by the irresistible smell of pancakes after a weed session. Eyes wide with wonder and stomachs grumbling.
“Ready yet?” they asked.
“No,” said the man, cackling maniacally as he scooped the last of the pancakes into a bowl, tossed them with butter, and arranged them on a piece of foil. “For now, comrades, they must toast.”
“Oh… alright then,” his friends said, eyeing him strangely. “Um… just let us know when you’re done or whatever?”
The man set his ancient toaster oven to 300 degrees and it began to rattle. Its coils took on a menacing red glow. As the man pulled open the toaster oven’s creaking door, the smell of a fallen onion from someone else’s sandwich overwhelmed him.
“Damn, I’ll have to clean this stupid thing first,” he thought.
After a deep clean, the man was back on track. He gave his pancake dots 30 minutes of baking time in the real oven, plus a single toast cycle. At this point, the man’s housemates had lost interest and either gone to bed or ordered pizza. It was better this way. His mad creation was finally complete and was his alone to savor.
And it was actually pretty damn good.
So wait, you did what?
Dane Rivera
The biggest problem with TikTok’s pancake cereal is that it isn’t at all like cereal. It’s just tiny, and in a bowl with milk. That doesn’t make it cereal and if you don’t believe that, just take a look at this sushi iteration (disgusting). So I decided to toast and dry my mini pancakes like bread crumbs in the toaster oven to give them a more cereal-like consistency and more resistant to being soaked. Then I doused them in a cinnamon-sugar blend, and let them cool until they were room temperature. You know, like cereal is.
Once you’ve made mini-pancakes, toss them in a bowl with butter and maple syrup so that you don’t put those ingredients in the milk like some kind of monster.
Arrange pancakes on a piece of foil and place them in an oven set at 300 degrees for 30 minutes.
Remove pancakes from oven and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar to taste.
For an extra toasty crunch, toast your pancakes in the toaster oven with your preferred amount of toast cycles.
Let pancakes cool.
Put pancakes in a bowl, pour your choice of milk, and enjoy your legitimately good tasting pancake cereal.
The end result is deliciously crispy (we’re talking ASMR-level crunch here) and incredibly filling. The butter and syrup toss and extended oven time allowed the flavors to comingle a little and marry with the milk in a way that isn’t totally offensive.
Does this taste better than the actual TikTok pancake trend? Absolutely. Is this better than your favorite cereal? It depends on how much you like pancakes. Is it at all worth the time and effort that it takes to make this? It depends on how much you like the idea of pancakes and cereal or have people over for breakfast you want to impress. But if you’re going to go through the trouble of making over a hundred tiny pancakes, you might as well take another few minutes to truly make something that actually tastes good. Even if it’s not as prone to virality.
Orville Peck is one of the more enigmatic figures in country music, and yet, he has found himself a space within the genre. The 2019 debut album Pony brought acclaim to the mysterious singer, and now he is ready to follow that release up with a new EP, Show Pony. That is set to drop on June 12, and alongside the announcement, he also shared a video for “No Glory In The West.”
The somber tune is accompanied by a trail-faring tune, in which he and his horse search for something across mostly barren landscapes. Lyrically, the tune mirrors the visual as it addresses his restless travels. Peck sings, “Blazin’ on ahead / Burning through it / Coming down the bend / Nowhere left to go, goin’s all we know / Ridin’ past the best / And there’s still no rest / And there’s still no rest / There ain’t no glory in the west.”
One of the biggest takeaways from the six-song Show Pony tracklist is that it features “Legends Never Die,” which is a duet with country legend Shania Twain, so that is certainly something to anticipate.
Watch the “No Glory In The West” video above, and check out the Show Pony art and tracklist below.
Columbia
1. “Summertime”
2. “No Glory In The West”
3. “Drive Me, Crazy”
4. “Kids”
5. “Legends Never Die” (duet with Shania Twain)
6. “Fancy”
Show Pony is out 6/12 via Sub Pop. Pre-order it here.
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This was a joke but actually tasted amazing 
