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Somehow, there are still people in the world with the nerve to tell Rico Nasty to “tone it down.” It’s almost like those people don’t know that Rico’s loudness — in her personality, her looks, and her music — are the exact reason she’s popping right now. Her brash ferocity is a feature, not a bug, and it’s one that has made her Cardi B’s favorite, a lightning rod around which rebels and oddballs can congregate, and one of the freshest acts on offer in the hip-hop game today.

Fortunately, Rico doesn’t take the protestations of brands and sponsors personally, choosing to see their caveats as a chance to show off even more sides of her colorful, multifaceted personality. Doubling down on that good fortune, some brands are encouraging her to be as loud as she wants to be. For instance, the headphone manufacturer Skullcandy recently recruited Rico for its second partnership with the rambunctious rapper to promote its Mood Boost campaign, the proceeds of which are being donated to a mental health non-profit.

Rico — an Uproxx favorite if ever there was one — jumped on the phone to talk about not just the campaign, but life in quarantine, sticking up for her sisters in hip-hop, and her upcoming debut album, Nightmare Vacation, which has evolved to suit the circumstances, reflecting its creator’s ever-shifting but always authentic personality.

So what can you tell me about this initiative with Skullcandy?

I just love the way they let me be myself. I feel like throughout the campaign, they let me wear whatever I want to, they let me have my hair and my makeup just very Rico Nasty. And I do get requests to tone it down sometimes. So it’s really awesome when you get to go to a place and you know creatively can do whatever the f*ck you want.

But what I can say about this new one that we did this year was, the colors… it was so many different colors, and you guys know this about me, I love f*cking colors. I love neon colors. So when they were showing me all the different earbuds, all the different sh*t that they made, I just felt really involved in it.

That’s great. Who are these people who are specifically signing up to do work with Rico Nasty and asking you to tone it down?

I feel like when you’re a woman, you might have to deal with that more often than men. I tend to be very bold. I make a lot of bold statements. So when I said, “Tone it down,” it probably means like you want to see pastels. We want to see bright eye makeup, we don’t want to see black lines and sh*t like that. I really take it to heart, because I like when people want me to push the way I look. I think it’s cool.

I was on that Zoom call that we did a couple weeks ago about “Popstar.” I think that it was interesting that you said was that you’re learning to cook something new every day. What kind of things are you learning to cook?

So last night, I made turkey wings. Well, my best friend taught me how to make turkey wings. My best friend, she’s the one that would be cheffing it up. I’m good with pastas and stuff, but she knows how to cook real meat. She knows how to cook steak. All the real important type sh*t. So that’s what we did last night. And I felt like every day we’ve just been trying to do something that we don’t know how to do. Like we did baked mac and cheese and it came out pretty good, which was rare because baked mac and cheese is hard to make. Because I’m working on trying to gain weight, we’ve also just been working on meal prep. So it’s not necessarily been I don’t know how to cook. I know how to cook. I’m just lazy.

What’s the latest on Nightmare Vacation? I know you said it was pretty much done, but now you know, it’s more in flux. It’s like a painting and it’s never finished.

Coronavirus, it might have inspired me to actually do what I always wanted to do with the album, which was make it very virtual.

I’m not going to say too much about that, but just I will leave you with that. I always wanted my album to be similar to a simulation, VR. If you get my drift, like as far as the visuals go and sh*t like that. [Right now] you can’t touch me, you can’t come to the show. So that’s what we’re developing right now is giving them that opportunity to really damn near be in the same room as me. No holograms, weird sh*t like that. But some high tech sh*t.

Absolutely. Technology has made things possible that weren’t possible before. For instance, the “Popstar” video, you made that in your basement on a green screen with a designer that you had no physical contact with. 20 years ago, they couldn’t even imagine such a thing happening and now it’s like, “Oh yeah, let’s do it.”

Yeah, it really went from, “Okay, wow, we have Uber. We have video chat and all that cool sh*t,” to now the connection is literally so good that not only was he not here when we were shooting “Popstar,” but he was on FaceTime when we were shooting it and it’s going at the same rate, so he’s able to say “cut.”

That’s fire. Another fun bit of technology is that we have Netflix and that’s keeping us all entertained. I know you loved Tiger King because of the mullets.

Oh my f*cking God. You know what, Tiger King is one of them shows that I hate that I love it. I’m mad at myself that I like that show.

Why? Everybody loves it.

Everybody loves it, right? But I feel like I didn’t… This might be some weird sh*t to say, but I feel like I didn’t walk away with the same message that everyone else walked away with.

And I’m going to let you ask me why.

What was the message you got that everybody might have missed?

I feel like this is going to sound really f*cking crazy, but I’m trying to buy a tiger. Because I can afford that now.

Oh no, don’t buy a tiger, Rico.

Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know. I believe you. I know, I know. But hear me out though.

It sounds cool.

It’s so cute. It sounds great. It sounds great initially. Me and my friends have gone through this like several times. They’re like, “Where are you going to keep it when it gets big?” And I’m like, “You know, if you don’t think Cardi B and Offset can afford a tiger and pay for land to raise it?” Because they can.

Yes. Only thing is, they can eat your arm.

You know what it is though? Imagine you really do love this animal. Swae Lee, they took his monkey. And all the videos I saw of him and that monkey, I feel like he genuinely loved that. And that’s not even the most f*cked-up part about it too. It’s really a relationship with the animal. Like somebody comes and knocks on your door. They’re like, “You can’t f*cking have this.” And that’s like your best friend. That’s scary.

But yeah you cooled me off, I might not get a tiger.

I’m from Compton so there’s a lot of horses around, so I know that once you start getting the bigger animals, the more complicated it becomes to take care of. And a lot of people just don’t have like the time it takes to really put in work. But it’s funny that you mentioned Cardi because I was actually going to ask you about Cardi. I wrote a whole thing about how Cardi may end up being the next Drake in terms of who she puts her blessing on is the next one to blow up. You know, when Cardi was coming in, everybody was comparing her to Nicki, saying, “Aw, you know they got to have beef.” You’re coming in and it’s like Cardi is going, “Nah, I don’t want to have beef with Rico. I want Rico to blow up.”

I can honestly say that when it comes to like the OGs in the female rap, there ain’t none of them ever make me feel like I ain’t belonged, on the competitive sh*t. I think I sat next to Lil’ Kim. She sat in front of me at the Savage X Fenty show and I introduced myself. And Trina is f*cking awesome. A lot of the women that have been doing this sh*t for a while have been awesome. Cardi’s awesome. Nicki’s awesome.

But when you walk in a room and you see legends, you f*cking speak right. Show respect and homage. We’ve seen what happens when you don’t pay homage, you don’t pay respect, and it really looks deliberately done, it looks hella disrespectful. These women work hard as f*ck. And just getting in the game, touring and having a family and having all the sh*t you have to do… Because I feel like that’s part of being a female too. We love when people acknowledge the cool sh*t we do. So I just try to go along putting the energy out and I feel like I genuinely get it back most of the time.

Like with the Birds Of Prey soundtrack. Everybody was yelling at Saweetie over the styling of the “Sway With Me” video.

They were so mad.

She probably had zero input on any of that stuff, but they were mad at her and they were talking down to her and then you stepped in and you were just like, “No, absolutely not. We’re not going to do that today. Let’s talk about something positive.” Where did that willingness to step in and cut things off come from? Why do you think people are still going so hard on trying to create friction when you all are trying to create a wave?

When you’re a pretty girl, and now I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about “we.” We are a pretty girl. People always think you’re a bitch. It’s not even funny how many people probably think Saweetie is a bitch and she’s rude and she’s a snobby person and all that sh*t. And I just don’t see that. I don’t see that from that girl. I feel like she went to the shoot and they put on whatever they had there and she was like, “Okay, okay this is a look.” And a look is a look.

Shout out to Saweetie for not being one of them people that was like, just a smartass or rude about it? Bro, it’s fashion. It’s just clothes and hair.

You’ve always addressed mental health in some way, shape, form, or fashion throughout your music. I mean, whether it’s “Smack A Bitch” or Anger Management, that’s mental health. Why do you think it’s so important for hip-hop and yourself to address that topic?

I feel like I just have a brain. I have a brain so mental health is important to me if my brain doesn’t feel good, then I don’t feel good and then nobody’s going to feel good. You have to be mindful that normally because you have a brain, you attract other people that have a brain and they might need their brain stimulated or their emotions acknowledged. And being a rapper, sometimes we get so caught up in how cool you are that you kind of forget to acknowledge the sh*t that other people might go through. So “Smack A Bitch” or Anger Management, I was going through a lot, getting frustrated about stuff, and feeling like I had to hide it.

I can’t get as mad. If I get mad how I want to get mad, I’m going to look “crazy.” I’m going to look bad, I’m going to look “ratchet.” I’m going to look like stupid f*cking stigmas that people put on you. And making that project was really important. I didn’t give a f*ck if people thought I was angry, I didn’t give a f*ck if people thought I was too loud. I don’t give a f*ck. This is how I feel. And it’s f*cking relative. Who don’t want to smack a bitch? Who don’t?

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

The Class of 2020 has to feel massively let down this time of year. After working so hard to reach the finish line, most won’t be able to attend a public graduation ceremony. They’ll also miss out on traditional graduation events such as prom, banquets, senior ditch day, and baccalaureate.

To help make graduation day feel like less of a drag, California high school senior Lincoln Debenham tweeted Barack Obama last month asking him to give a speech to the nation’s 2020 graduating class to make up for the lost ceremony.

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“I’m saddened by the loss of milestone events, prom & graduation,” Lincoln wrote. “In an unprecedented time, it would give us great comfort to hear your voice. We ask you to consider giving a national commencement speech to the class of 2020.”

Then he started the hashtag #ObamaCommencement2020 .

This created a groundswell on social media for Barack and Michelle Obama to deliver commencement speeches. Who better to send the Class of 2020 out into the real world? According to Gallup, the Obamas are the most admired man and woman in the world.

Well, it looks like Lincoln and countless other graduates are going to get their wish.

The Obamas are set to deliver a virtual commencement celebration for graduates from high school, university or “any other kind of school,” Michelle Obama tweeted Tuesday. The special will take place on YouTube on June 6, 2020, and is called “Dear Class of 2020.”

The special will also feature appearances by Lady Gaga, BTS, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and activist Malala Yousafzai.

“I’ve always loved joining commencements––the culmination of years of hard work and sacrifice,” Barack Obama wrote on Twitter. “Even if we can’t get together in person this year, Michelle and I are excited to celebrate the nationwide Class of 2020 and recognize this milestone with you and your loved ones.”

In addition to the YouTube special, Barack Obama will deliver a virtual commencement speech for graduates from historically black colleges and universities as well. On May 16, he will also appear on a television special for high school graduates that will air across the major TV networks.

Lincoln was understandably excited to hear the announcement.

There hasn’t been similar clamoring from graduates to hear from the current president. A search of #TrumpCommencement2020 yields about five people who think Trump should speak to the graduating class.

As Barack Obama said on Twitter he is pretty fond of giving commencement speeches. Here’s one from Rutgers in 2016 where he gave some advice that’s just as good in 2020.

President Obama Delivers the Rutgers University Commencement Address

www.youtube.com

It’s been over a year since the release of Cass McCombs‘ ninth studio record Tip Of The Sphere. But on Wednesday, the singer returned with a surprise: McCombs shared the haunting standalone single “The Wine Of Lebanon” in partnership with Universal Audio’s brand-new recording system, LUNA.

The single opens with a jarring composition before suddenly unfolding and moving into a poetic anthem. “After the flood, what remains? / The wine of Lebanon,” McCombs sings over a cascade of harmonies.

In a statement, McCombs detailed the inspiration behind his track and described how engineers were still coding LUNA while he was in the process of recording:

“‘The Wine of Lebanon’ is a song that centers around the line: ‘what can I offer you?’ It is about ritual offerings to the departed and wine as an allegory for life. The band comprised of Dan Iead on electric guitar and pedal steel, Frank Locrasto on Rhodes and synth, Noga Shefi on bass, Yoni Shelig on drums and myself on piano. they were still writing the code for LUNA in the control room as we were recording, which was thrilling. It felt a little, I mean very little, like being part of the crew of a space shuttle launch. Everyone’s guts were in knots. The ashtrays were overflowing. A nervous nation watched on live television. Families embraced in anticipation, fearing the worst. I jest. The recording went smooth and was a blast to do.”

Listen to “The Wine Of Lebanon” above.

Italy is still reeling from a long economic and social lockdown. The country went into a full shutdown on March 4th and only started (very slowly) reopening this week. That would have serious repercussions anywhere, but it’s particularly painful for a country that’s heavily reliant on tourism dollars to spur its economy. Tourism is responsible for roughly 13% of Italy’s total GDP and the country is fifth in total international tourism arrivals (the top four — France, Spain, China, and the US — are all significantly bigger, geographically).

With summer rapidly approaching and Italy’s economy in tatters, regional governments are trying to find a way to both open safely in a post-COVID-19 reality and draw people to their hotels, beaches, museums, and restaurants so the country can stay afloat. As part of this initiative, the government of Sicily — the sun-kissed island in the south of Italy — is offering a program to subsidize tourism this summer. The Sicilian government has set aside €75 million ($81 million) to buy hotel rooms and tickets to cultural and heritage sites around the island and give them away to tourists. In short, the government plans to offer people a third night for free in hotels after paying for two. If you book six nights, you’ll get two of those nights covered.

The funds will also go towards handing tourists free tickets to archaeological sites, museums, and other cultural destinations. There’s even talk of using the funds to pay for flight costs to get to the island. The overall plan is to make these deals available via the main Visit Sicily homepage as they become available.

These subsidies come with a strict set of social distancing guidelines that’ll be in place across Sicily (and Italy) for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the country’s lockdown of non-essential business and travel activities is slated to continue until May 18th.

While this initiative is mostly focused on domestic tourism and tourists based in Europe, it offers an interesting model for other regions around the world. How well it will work in Sicily this summer — and whether it will lead to a second wave of the outbreak — remains to be seen. Tourist crowds flocking to the island is a precarious proposition for locals; as is the continued closure of the tourism industry. The nation (and many others) will have to strike a balance while erring on the side of precaution.

(Via The Guardian)

Sad news today as deathmatch legend Supreme, former Xtreme Pro Wrestling champion and two-time winner of their King of the Deathmatch tournament, has died. He was only 49 years old.

Supreme (real name Lester Perfors), known as the ‘Human Horror Film,’ held the XPW King of the Deathmatch Title a total of four times during XPW’s heyday and is generally considered to be their greatest champion. The Hollywood native debuted in 1995, and his tough as nails approach to in-ring violence took him across the United States, as well as Mexico and Japan. His most recent match — a “House of Horrors” match — happened against Matt Tremont at GCW’s Road to Survival in 2017. Supreme’s presence and personality made him a southern California favorite and inspired a generation of SoCal athletes, leading to him being the first inductee into Santino Bros. wrestling’s Southern California Death Match Hall of Fame in 2019.

If you aren’t familiar with Supreme’s work, we’ve included a few videos below (viewer discretion is advised in the strongest sense of the word), as well as memories from his fans and peers. Even most of the well wishes contain brutal violence, just like Supreme would’ve liked it. Our condolences go out to his family and friends, as well. Rest in peace to a SoCal hardcore legend.

Rap retirement announcements have become about as common as clamshells at the beach ever since Jay-Z pump-faked the world with The Black Album in 2003 but that hasn’t stopped rappers from making them. Perhaps it’s owed to rap fans’ propensity for discarding rappers after a few solid years in the game early on in the genre’s history, but even though rappers like Jay himself, Nas, Snoop Dogg, and others have made it clear that there’s plenty of interest in elder-statesman roles in hip-hop, young rappers still dream of bowing out gracefully.

The latest rapper to announce his retirement while still in his prime is Denzel Curry, who told XXL in a recent interview that he’s on the clock with three more albums to go before hanging up his mic. “I always liked my album short,” he elaborated. “Ten tracks is enough. Enough to listen to… I just want you to enjoy my music the way you enjoy a film. It’s meant to be consumed that way. It’s not meant to be like fast food. It’s meant to be like, damn, what did I just have? A full course meal.”

For what it’s worth, the 25-year-old South Florida native has reason to be burned out despite his relative youth. He was, after all, a foundational member in the blog rap collective Raider Klan in 2012, back when Curry was just 17 years old. While many rappers before him entered the game around the same age themselves, many, like LL Cool J, Will Smith, and others, had successfully transitioned to film and TV after a decade in rap. Curry told XXL that in his next phase of life, he’d like to be a cartoonist and a writer.

However, that doesn’t mean he’s in a rush to punch the clock. He says he wants to take his time and “actually use real instruments” on his next project, name-checking André 3000, Flying Lotus, Madlib, and Terrace Martin as collaborators on his wish list. Hopefully, that results in music that will hold up long after he’s done recording new material, although there’s another, more likely outcome — like the many, many rappers before him who said they’d quit, he’ll find that he never really can say goodbye.

Read XXL‘s full profile on Denzel Curry here.

Live sports will return to Europe sometime soon. Following Germany’s federal and state governments deeming it safe for sports to conditionally resume on Wednesday, it was determined that the nation’s top soccer league, the Bundesliga, will resume play sometime later this month. The exact return date of the league, which has not taken the pitch since March 8 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is still to be determined.

The news of the Bundesliga and its second division, 2.Bundesliga, relaunching comes after France’s top league, Ligue 1, called its season, while the top league in the Netherlands, the Eredivisie, cancelled its campaign altogether. Additionally, England is in the midst of trying to figure out what to do with the Premier League, something that applies for Italy’s Serie A, Spain’s La Liga, and the major European competitions, the Champions League and Europa League. In a statement, Bundesliga CEO Christian Seifert said “Today’s decision is good news for the Bundesliga and the Bundesliga 2. It is associated with a great responsibility for the clubs and their employees to implement the medical and organisational requirements in a disciplined manner.”

Due to Germany’s ban on mass gatherings that extends through August 31, fans will not be in attendance for matches, something that Seifert acknowledged is necessary, albeit “not an ideal solution.” Currently, the plan is for the league’s nine remaining matchdays to be played out between now and June 30, an important day in the global football calendar as it is the last day that players are under contract with their various clubs.

There is, of course, serious concern about making sure everyone is safe while these games are underway, even if fans are not around. The novel coronavirus does not discriminate, as evidenced by testing that has recently occurred, but there is no demand for clubs to isolate all of their players should someone test positive.

Via ESPN:

Players and staff have been tested for the coronavirus, and in a first wave, 1,724 tests were conducted on all 36 clubs of the upper two tiers late last week. Ten cases of COVID-19 were identified and reported to health authorities. Not all cases were made public, as the DFL asked clubs not to report cases individually. Full results from a second round of testing have yet to be released, although on the eve of Wednesday’s decision, second-division club Erzgebirge Aue put their entire squad in home isolation after a member of staff tested positive.

Infected people must isolate, but the DFL’s plan does not require full-squad isolation. The league has asked clubs to go into the final part of the season with a squad that can be filled with reserve or under-19 players.

The Bundesliga is perhaps the most compelling domestic league on earth. Many of the teams play an aggressive, up-tempo style of football, while its race to crown a champion has been a joy to watch all year. Currently, Bayern Munich sits atop the table on 55 points, with four teams in shouting distance of taking down the German giants: Borussia Dortmund (51 points), RB Leipzig (50 points), Borussia Monchengladbach (49 points), and Bayer Leverkeusen (47 points).

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown a huge wrench in a lot of album release cycles. Some artists have pushed their albums back, while others have moved their releases up. One big question has been the release of Lady Gaga’s Chromatica, as she has yet to offer a new release date for her upcoming record since postponing it (the album was previously scheduled for April). Now, though, she has, and it’s coming soon: Gaga took to Twitter today to reveal that her next album will be released on May 29.

A couple weeks ago, some big info about the album found its way online thanks to a Target pre-order page that accidentally spilled the beans. Most interestingly, it was revealed that the album will feature collaborations with Ariana Grande, Elton John, and Blackpink. The full 16-song tracklist was revealed, and some editions of the album (like the Target CD release) will have three bonus tracks.

Gaga, who is not a member of the Church Of Satan, is fresh off a huge charity fundraising campaign: He organized the Together At Home livestream concert event, which raised over $125 million for pandemic relief and featured performance from some of music’s biggest names, like Billie Eilish, Lizzo, and of course, Gaga herself.

Chromatica is out 5/29 via Interscope. Pre-order it here.

While many musicians are coping in quarantine by performing their songs in livestreams on their social media accounts, The 1975’s Matty Healy is cooking up something different. The singer instead tapped fellow indie musicians, like Clairo and Phoebe Bridgers, to perform covers of his band’s music for a tribute livestream concert.

Healy is currently staging a takeover of UK’s The Face magazine. For their website, the singer had the chance to interview other musicians like Kim Gordon, Stevie Nicks, and Brian Eno. Now, the singer is teaming up with the magazine to invite some of his favorite artists to cover popular songs from The 1975’s discography for a virtual tribute night.

During the stream, Palewaves, Cavetown, Beabadoobee, and Gracie Abrams will kick off the concert with covers. Clairo will then be performing a rendition of the band’s song “Robbers.” Phoebe Bridgers will follow with a cover of “Girls” and Rina Sawayama will close out the stream by taking on “Love It If We Made It.”

Check out the full schedule above.

Ahead of the livestream’s announcement, Healy opened up to The Face about their upcoming 22-track record, Notes On A Conditional Form: “I think that the question on this record is: can the center hold with all of this sh*t? Politically, economically, climate-wise — it feels like we’re getting under a lot of pressure. So there’s that on the record. And there’s also just a lot of personal stuff about me.”

The livestream kicks off 5/7 at 11 a.m. ET. Watch it here.

In an appearance on Jorge Sedano’s ESPN Los Angeles radio show on Tuesday, Hall of Fame inductee Charles Barkley reminisced on the surreal experience of being part of the star-studded Dream Team at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, adding new details about what it took just for the team to travel from place to place.

The celebrity status of Michael Jordan enveloped all members of the team, as the walk between the hotel and the bus was a circus.

“To leave the hotel and get on the bus was probably about 20 feet, and there was probably 5,000 to 10,000 people out there every single day just screaming when guys would walk to get on the bus,” Barkley said.

Then the team needed a full-blown motorcade just to get through the city, flush with machine gun-using men barreling down the street alongside the team bus.

“Wherever we were going, there was a helicopter above the bus, a police escort in front and in back, and on each side of the bus, there was two guys on motorcycles and each one of them had a machine gun.”

Though fans rarely could get very close to the players, they would line up along the highway to get a look at the squad’s biggest stars, saying that “there was people standing along the highway holding up signs for, obviously Magic [Johnson], Larry [Bird], and Michael got most of the signs, but it was flat-out amazing.”