Month: June 2021

The biggest bummer about legal weed is that it’s expensive. Depending on which city or state you live in, you can expect to spend up to 35% more on top of the retail price, thanks to sales taxes. Additionally, all sorts of taxes levied on growers and manufacturers require them to bake increased costs into their final product prices, pushing the retail price above what’s sold on the illegal market before sales taxes are even applied.

That said, consumers have also gained a lot thanks to weed going legal. Quality control, strain and product variety, and accessibility are all greatly improved from the days when everyone was relegated to buying from “a guy.” Still, at the end of the day, if people can’t afford it, they won’t buy it. Which has led to a boom in “value brands” or “value strains” to meet the cost-conscious cannabis consumer. It’s important to note that — like with booze — some of the cheap stuff is just flat-out crap. But the best in the business have figured out creative ways to make the supply chain work in their favor so they keep high quality alongside lower prices.

Brett Fink, who today runs the cannabis branding and consulting agency GRTR, was once a founding member of California brand Old Pal. Old Pal was the first value brand on the market, basically inventing the to-go packs of pre-ground weed, which comes in a pouch along with attached crutches and rolling papers. He says Old Pal broke the mold by going after “smalls,” which refers to bud size. Smalls, or popcorn buds, typically sell at a lower price compared with larger buds from the top of the plant.

“From the launch, Old Pal’s specific focus was the value shelf,” Fink says. “We started the brand as a response to a large dispensary partner we knew, who was looking for a value product on their menu. Another friend who had a manufacturing license helped put it together.”

With that, Fink says, a new category was born, one that “didn’t really exist” pre-2018. He explains that the brand uses “premium, lower canopy product from high-quality growers” — referring to the spot on the plant where they pull buds from. Though general potency and quality are there, value flowers don’t look like the dense, chunky nugs that have become highly prized in the cannabis market, so they sell for less money — savings that are (hopefully) passed down to you.

The only way the quality value brands could be considered “less than” is when compared directly to top-shelf designer cannabis. Potency-wise, there will never be a value bud that clocks in over 30% THC. But there are still some fantastic products out there that definitely perform as well or better than far more expensive products. Here are the eight best “value weed” brands on the market — no sacrifice in quality required.

Stone Road

Price: $45 for a 1/2 ounce

The Product:

Perfect for every kind of summer hang, Stone Road’s Roll Your Own kit comes with a 1/2 ounce of biodynamic, sun-grown California flower and is available in three fruit-tasting and smelling strains. The packs come with natural rolling papers and tear-and-use crutches. The package is 100% recyclable.

Smokes Like:

The quality of this flower is quite good for a pre-ground pack — the pack I tried was sticky, rather than dry, and the taste and smell showed through all the way from sniffing the bag to lighting up. Color me impressed. My favorite is the Banana Split strain, which is an energizing mix of Tangie and Banana Sherbet and clocks in at a chill 23.11% THC.

Bottom Line:

Perfect for daytime smoking.

Old Pal

Price: $50 for a 1/2 ounce

The Product:

The OG of value brands, Old Pal takes high-quality small buds, grinds ’em up, and throws them into a handy pack that now serves as a model for other value brands in the game. Standard with every stylish 1/2 ounce Ready to Roll pack are rolling papers and disposable crutches.

Smokes Like:

Old Pal’s Ready to Roll packs come in three designations: Indica, Sativa, and Hybrid. The Hybrid pack is a nice middle-of-the-road option with neither too strong of a head or body high, but for me was more cerebral and less couch lock.

Bottom Line:

It clocks in at around 20% THC, so it makes for a super functional high that is good for prefacing any activity.

Roots

Price: $19.50 for an eighth

Smokes Like:

Roots is a value brand under the umbrella Flow Cannabis Co. brand (formerly known as Flow Kana), which sources all of its sun-grown weed from Northern California’s Emerald Triangle. In addition to ounces, eighths of flower and pre-rolled joints, Roots also makes live resin carts and dabs.

The Product:

One of the benefits of smoking sun-grown cannabis is that plants grown fully or partially outdoors (with greenhouses) get their energy from the sun, which provides the plant with a greater opportunity to produce different terpenes, cannabinoids, and flavonoids. This results in a more dynamic and multi-faceted high.

Bottom Line:

Roots’ weed delivers, producing a mild, balanced body and head high with exceptionally tasty flower and pre-rolled joints.

Union Electric

Price: $75 for an ounce

The Product:

Union Electric is another value brand with simple offerings: ounce bags of dense, sticky popcorn buds of either Indica, Sativa, or Hybrid. The brand, which bills itself as serving an “underserved market in cannabis,” the working class, sources its flower from three California farms: Natura Life Sciences, Wave Rider Nursery and POSSIBL.

Smokes Like:

Holy gas! I tried the hybrid Chem Driver strain, which clocks in at 24.88% THC and is a cross between Sundae Driver and Chem Dawg. This is a true hybrid: a strong head change eventually settles into a stoney body high.

Bottom Line:

It smells gassy and tastes sweet, which is probably owing to the Myrcene terpene, as well as piney, owing to Pinene.

Baker’s Cannabis Co.

Price: $57 for 1/2 ounce

The Product:

Baker’s is the value brand under the Canndescent umbrella, which is known for producing high-quality indoor cannabis. The Baker’s brand displays similarly high quality — the 1/2 ounce pre-ground packs come with 40 rolling papers, and crutches and are available in Indica, hybrid, and Sativa. Like with all pre-ground weed, it’s a mechanical grind, but Baker’s isn’t quite as fine as the grind from other brands, which I think helps retain good texture, smell, and taste. In addition to 1/2 ounce pre-ground packs, Baker’s also sells 1/2 ounces of whole flower, as well as shake packs.

Smokes Like:

I tried the Sativa pack, which in this case is the Peach Ozz strain. The resulting feeling is concentrated right in the head — a cerebral hit that centers in the face, almost like an electric cloud. At 14.62% THC, it is quite literally perfect for the daytime or active smoker.

Bottom Line:

I’ve kept this pack on hand for a little toke throughout my days since I first tried it.

Weed

Price: varies

The Product:

San Diego-based, aptly named Weed uses that classic tagline that anyone who has bought off the legal market will remember: “buy a pound, break it down.” Like other value companies, Weed buys in bulk from large indoor cultivators to sell 1 gram, eighth, and 1/2 ounce Indica, Sativa, or hybrid flowers, as well as pre-ground packs of sugar trim, and pre-rolled gram joints.

Smokes Like:

The Sativa pouch produces an upbeat, effervescent high that isn’t too overpowering.

Bottom Line:

Overall, the weed sampled from the flower, pouches, and pre-rolls is good quality — it’s not too dry and smells and tastes potent.

Cloudious9

Price: $110 for either a grinder or vaporizer and three grams of flower

The Product:

Cloudious9 has released a product bundle that combines gear with low-priced flower. There are two options for the Gravi7y bundle: one with a battery-powered grinder (it’s great) or a portable dry flower vaporizer. Either option comes with three grams of indica, sativa, and hybrid flower from either indoor or mixed-light cultivation facilities.

Smokes Like:

Cloudious9 is a leader in low-cost cannabis tech and, purists be damned, their automatic grinder is a pleasure to use. Their portable vaporizer is a good buy, too, especially if someone doesn’t already own one and is looking for a low-cost way to enter the market.

Bottom Line:

The flower is potent, not too dry, and a good product to kick off using one of the brand’s tech products with.

Jetfuel

Price: $32 for an eighth

The Product:

Jetfuel is Airfield Supply Co’s in-house value brand. It is small-batch grown and craft cultivated and sells in eighth jars.

Smokes Like:

Jetfuel’s most popular strain, Jack Herer, is a powerful cross between Haze, Northern Lights, and Shiva Skunk. Named after the lifelong cannabis activist, Jack Herer lives on with a euphoric high and herbal flavor with punchy citrus zest.

Bottom Line:

This strain is a particularly social one — expect to get chatty.

Ahead of season two of I Think You Should Leave, Netflix released a “previously on” for the first season of Tim Robinson’s triumphantly funny sketch show. No show has ever needed a “previously on” less than I Think You Should Leave (yes yes, that’s the joke), but it’s a good excuse to laugh yourself silly at “oh my god, he admit it” all over again.

The recap video highlights just how many great lines came from those six episodes. “You talked about how their bones were money like four times.” “F*ck you, Harley Jarvis.” “Ah! Gazpacho soup just burned my lips.” “There’s is no mud pie” — Oscar nominee Steven Yeun. “YOU’RE NOT PART OF THE TURBO TEAM.” (To be fair, every line from I Think You Should Leave could be in all-caps. There’s so much yelling.)

“[Co-creator] Zach [Kanin] and I just found ourselves writing a lot of scenes like that, where the person is refusing to admit they’ve done something wrong, or lying, and will do anything to cover that up,” Robinson told GQ about his thought process behind many of the show’s funniest moments. “So it became the theme of the whole show because we kept gravitating towards writing those scenes.

I Think You Should Leave returns on July 6 with guest stars Sam Richardson, Tim Heidecker, Patti Harrison, Bob Odenkirk, Julia Butters, John Early, Mike O’Brien, and Paul Walter Hauser. You can revisit our ranking of every sketch here.

While it shouldn’t be a surprise to see hip-hop acts getting in on the NFT craze at this point, the latest rappers to announce their non-fungible product have attached some real value to it. A Tribe Called Quest is selling an NFT through Royalty Exchange which will grant holders access to a 1.5% share of the royalties from the iconic rap group’s first five albums: People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm, The Low End Theory, Midnight Marauders, Beats, Rhymes And Life, and The Love Movement.

The NFT is being auctioned on the Royalty Exchange website using Ethereum, beginning today and running through the next 27 hours as of press time. The starting price was 16.500 ETH (or $35,000) and so far, that number has gone up to 16.659 ETH ($35,921), with just two bids. Expect that number to jump as the deadline nears You can watch the bids in real-time, and the winner can expect a biannual distribution of around $3,000, provided that CDs, vinyl, streams, and sync licensing hold steady.

The site describes Tribe’s catalog as “celebrated by critics and fans alike as the most intelligent, artistic rap group of the 1990s.” Some of the places their music has appeared include the 2021 live-action Tom And Jerry film, the 2020 Pixar film Soul, the fan-favorite Apple+ series Ted Lasso, and tons of video games, movies, shows, and advertisements.

George Romero, the father of the zombie genre, famously hated The Walking Dead, essentially writing it off as a soap opera and blaming it (and World War Z) on his inability to finance smaller, zombie-driven movies with sociopolitical messages like his Night of the Living Dead trilogy. The no-frills, minimalist Black Summer from John Hyams and Karl Schaefer, however, is the perfect antidote, and precisely the kind of zombie television series George Romero would appreciate.

Black Summer is light on plot, but heavy on action, although there’s also a surprising amount of depth to its characters, even if most of them aren’t long for this world. There are no lurching, shambling walkers who are deadly only in hordes. In Black Summer, the zombies are rabid, ferocious, fast-moving, and lethal. They can’t be corraled and led over cliffs to their demise. They’re heat-seeking and unrelenting. In a war between the Black Summer zombies and those in Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, I’d take the Black Summer zombies in a heartbeat. In fact, the only thing they seem to have in common with zombies of The Walking Dead is an inability to turn a doorknob. No matter; they just beat down the door and rip their prey to bloody pieces.

The zombie apocalypse of Black Summer is bleak, and there are certainly no communities that have banded together to take on the undead threat. In Black Summer, everyone has turned on each other because safe spaces and supplies are limited, so in addition to taking on the empties, the entire world has been pitted against each other. To wit: One of the major storylines in Season 2 of Black Summer centers on a crate of supplies that has been dropped from a plane in the sky. It seems like a humanitarian mission, but it’s just one more thing to give the remaining survivors something to kill each other over, and that is precisely what they do. Not that it matters who comes out on top because in Black Summer, victory is fleeting, and death is around every corner.

Season 2 picks up several months from where the first season ended. When we last saw Rose (Jamie King) she had finally found her daughter, although we were left uncertain as to whether it was real or a hallucination. The second season answers that question: Rose is accompanied by her teenage daughter, Anna (Zoe Marlett), and the two of them are a formidable duo. Anna is great with a shotgun, while Rose dispenses parental advice as needed, things like, “Never let them take you alive.” There aren’t, however, a lot of conversations in Black Summer. Most people speak in nods, grunts, and shotgun blasts, at least when they’re not letting out their final piercing screams.

That is even more true for Sun (Christine Lee), who speaks Korean and has to navigate the apocalypse with the additional challenge of a language barrier. She gets caught up in the factions warring over the crate of supplies, although she’s largely used as a pawn or a human shield. That she has survived as long as she has is purely a testament to luck. That, plus the fact that she doesn’t pose much of a threat, so she’s usually the last target. In Black Summer, characters are rarely alive long enough to take out their last targets, and so Sun is passed around from one faction to the next, surviving almost by accident.

Spears (Justin Chu Cary) is the third holdover from the first season, and he is a mess. He may be alive, but in his condition, it’s hard to see the point. That, however, is the nature of Black Summer. In true Romero fashion, it’s hard to imagine the long-term prospects of any of the characters. They’re living not for the future, but for their next meal.

If that sounds grim, it’s because it is. There aren’t any laughs or romantic pairings or meet-cutes. There’s no exposition, either. The series just drops us into these stories and asks us to orient ourselves and figure out where we are. Black Summer, which is told in a series of short vignettes, is pure, unending horror. It is intense, and certainly not a show for everyone. For those who like their zombie shows pure, uncut, and undiluted, however, Black Summer continues to do the trick in season two.

Season 2 of ‘Black Summer’ is currently streaming on Netflix.

LA electro indie-pop duo Magdalena Bay gained a cult following with their synth-laden 2020 EP A Little Rhythm And A Wicked Feeling. Composed of musicians Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin, the duo now unveil details about their debut LP with the charged track “Chaeri.”

Magdalena Bay’s Luke Orlando-directed video alongside “Chaeri” coaxes listeners into the otherworldly universe the duo have built around their upcoming album, Mercurial World. The song itself reflects the visual’s enticing nature and is reminiscent of Grimes’ Art Angels era of music. “Chaeri” stitches together Tenenbaum’s saccharine vocals with dynamic synths and a hurried beat to craft a memorable tune about the complexities of friendship and mental health.

About the LP, Lewin says they were inspired by the isolated world they’ve lived in this past year. “We spend all of our time together, and in some ways Mercurial World is about that particular sense of madness in containment. We live together and make art together; this immerses you in our creative, insular universe.”

Watch Magdalena Bay’s “Chaeri” video above and find their Mercurial World album cover, tracklist, and tour dates below.

1. “The End”
2. “Mercurial World”
3. “Dawning Of The Season”
4. “Secrets (Your Fire)”
5. “You Lose!”
6. “Something For 2”
7. “Chaeri”
8. “Halfway”
9. “Hysterical Us”
10. “Prophecy”
11. “Follow The Leader”
12. “Domino”
13. “Dreamcatching”
14. “The Beginning”

10/08 — Los Angeles, CA @ El Cid
10/12 — Boston, MA @ The Sinclair *
10/13 — Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere (Zone One)
10/14 — Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church *
10/15 — Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg *
10/16 — Washington DC @ Songbyrd *
10/17 — Charlottesville, VA @ The Southern *
10/19 — Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle – Back Room *
10/20 — Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade – Purgatory *
10/24 — New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa #
10/27 — Dallas, TX @ Deep Ellum Art Company #
10/28 — Houston, TX @ The Satellite #
10/29 — Austin, TX @ Levitation
10/30 — El Paso, TX @ The Lowbrow Palace #
11/01 — Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress #
11/02 — San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar #
11/10 — Berkeley, CA @ Cornerstone #

* with George Clanton and Vitesse X
# with George Clanton and Negative Gemini (DJ Set)

Mercurial World is out 10/8 via Luminelle Recordings. Pre-order it here.

There’s a lot going on in Britney Spears’ life right now (to put it lightly), so it’d be understandable for her to want an escape. Sure enough, she went ahead and made a couple of them. Last week, she revealed on her Instagram that she was vacationing in Maui, then yesterday, she told her followers that she decided to quickly fly out to Maui once again. So far, unfortunately, it seems like her second trip isn’t as peaceful as her first: Yesterday, she shared a charged message directed at paparazzi who are following her. She’s so annoyed, in fact, that she went ahead and told them to “kindly F*CK YOU AND F*CK OFF.”

Spears made the proclamation in an Instagram post. In the caption of her video, she wrote, “So being here in Maui is pretty crazy now … the paps know where I am and it’s really not fun !!!! It’s pretty hard going anywhere cause these silly faces keep popping up to take my picture … but not only do they take my picture … they distort my body and mess with the image and it’s embarrassing !!!!! I know my body is not perfect but I definitely do NOT look like how they portray me. It’s rude and it’s mean so paps kindly F*CK YOU AND F*CK OFF [lip emojis] !!!!”

As for the video, it makes similar points, but with the added bonus of being set to Lily Allen’s ‘F*ck You.’

This all comes amid recent news from other members of the Spears family: Jamie Lynn spoke out in support of her sister and Jamie insists he’s not the one intruding upon his daughter’s personal freedoms.

Smallville actress Allison Mack has been sentenced to three years in prison for her role as a “master” in the NXIVM sex cult. After pleading guilty to racketeering charges, Mack was looking at 14 to 17 years in prison. However, court documents recently revealed that she had secretly provided prosecutors with evidence that led to the conviction of NXIVM founder Keith Raniere, who was sentenced to 120 years in prison.

In exchange for her cooperation, Mack was granted a reduced sentence during a court appearance on Wednesday. She was also requesting house arrest in lieu of jail time, which she was not granted. Via the Associated Press:

Under advisory sentencing guidelines, Mack would face between 14 and 17 1/2 years behind bars, but her defense team argued in court papers that probation or a sentence to home confinement is more appropriate. Prosecutors had agreed that any prison term should be below the guidelines range because of her cooperation.

“The NXIVM saga and the story of Ms. Mack’s descent have been a tragedy for all involved. But that need not, and should not, be the end of the story for Allison Mack,” her lawyers wrote in court papers.

While Mack provided prosecutors with an audio recording of Raniere concocting the branding ritual that would be used on the cult’s “slaves,” Mack was also involved in that process. When she was initially slapped with charges back in 2018, Mack also made the bizarre admission to New York Times Magazine that the branding ritual was her idea. Although, at the time, she was still deeply devoted to Raniere. That was not the case during her sentencing hearing on Wednesday.

“I made choices I will forever regret,” Mack told the judge while denouncing Raniere.

(Via Associated Press)

The selling point is simple for Philadelphia power pop outfit Hurry: they just make beautiful, entrancing music that’s perfect for a carefree summer day. Their latest LP Fake Ideas is no exception, delivering what is perhaps the band’s strongest collection to date. The ten-track effort boasts shimmering guitars and Matt Scottoline’s distinct vocal to create a world unto its own.

To celebrate the new album, Scottoline sat down to talk Pet Sounds, Adam Schlesinger, and more in the latest Indie Mixtape 20 Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Easy, contemplative, whistful, pop

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

The future humanoids will hear my records and pine for a reunion tour. I will be 80 years old or whatever, and hopefully by then there will be some kind of implant I can get to reverse some of the effects of aging / augment my physique. I’ll return to the stage in my new form, and nobody will need to remember, as the past will become the present. My newly disfigured cyber-body will continue to tour until the end of time.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?

I’ve always enjoyed playing abroad because it feels like vacation. Paris, London, Prague. Even if the show is bad, at least you’re somewhere kind of exotic. Otherwise, I like playing any city that has a great coffee shop for me to go to in the morning. I miss that feeling of looking for good coffee in a frenzy the morning after a show when you’re already late to start your drive to the next city.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

Whoever was the music director at Y100 in Philadelphia from like, 1993-1997. All that stuff is just drilled into me. And Adam Schlesinger.

Where did you eat the best meal of your life?

If we’re talking straight up quality, probably Vedge in Philadelphia. But my other, slightly more mythical answer is an Indian restaurant somewhere near Providence, RI that we got a pre-show meal at on tour. I was feeling kind of flu-y all day in the van, was dreading the show, and this meal literally brought me back to life. I don’t remember what the restaurant was called. Maybe I was just tired and/or hungry. But I still think about it regardless.

What album do you know every word to?

The soundtrack to That Thing You Do! Even the songs The Wonders don’t sing. It’s all deeply locked in there.

What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?

My sort of clinical, true answer to this is Brian Wilson doing the Pet Sounds anniversary tour in ~2006. Hearing that album live with full orchestration was completely insane. At the time I lived in a shared apartment with a woman I sort of barely knew, and I had a stereo set up in the common living room. I got on such a Pet Sounds kick around then that I’d throw the LP on most days and blast it really loud. I think she thought I was losing my mind. I was probably annoying to live with. I even drove to New York around that time for a meet and greet thing at a record store with Brian Wilson. I woke up at like 4am to get to the store in time where it was happening. I finally got to the front of the line and said something about how meaningful his music was to me. He was kinda zonked at the time, or at least very disinterested in what I was saying. But I didn’t really mind. It was still cool. That or The Hold Steady at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park right before Boys and Girls In America released. That was kind of an electric night.

What is the best outfit for performing and why?

Ugh, I have no idea. Not what I wear. The real answer is probably like, Under Armor or something. But nobody does that. Do any bands wear athleisure live strictly for the performance of the fabric?

Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?

I love following Gerald Stratford on Twitter. Every time he posts a little update from his garden it’s like a quick dose of Xanax.

What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?

We only listen to Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road” on repeat. It’s terrible for morale.

What’s the last thing you Googled?

I searched the word comeuppance because after I typed it in a text to someone I was just staring at it wondering if I somehow made that word up or not. It doesn’t look real. Look at it.

What album makes for the perfect gift?

Hurry – Fake Ideas. Am I the first person to ever make that joke?

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

One time somewhere in central Italy, a promoter put us up in an apartment for the night. It had two bedrooms, so we offered our driver for the tour to have his own room so he could get some rest, while we all would sleep in the other. Some time around 3am, a group of 5 Italians walked into the apartment with pizzas and burst into the bedroom our driver was in. I guess they had rented that room for the night? Neither of us spoke the other’s language. The promoter never told us any of this would happen. Generally, I feel like any time you’re abroad and there’s a language barrier, you’re going to end up in some unexpected situations. I also slept on the floor of a gas station in Ethiopia once.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

I have no tattoos because I am deeply afraid of commitment.

What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?

Badfinger. They always play “No Matter What” and there’s no way you’re touching that dial.

What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?

Just generally been supportive. I don’t know. I guess I’ve gotten some nice gifts or whatever in my life. I got one of those cool boom boxes with the slot machine graphics on it when I was in like 4th grade. But at the end of the day I’m pretty lucky, and people help me follow my dreams, sometimes in big ways and sometimes small ones. People coming to shows and talking to me about the music after. Buying records. My family and friends never discouraging me from investing so much into music. It’s cool. I’m grateful for that. One time I was at a Phillies game with some friends, and one of them was kind of ribbing me about how nobody listens to my music. Great friend. Anyway, literally 5 minutes later, I got tapped on the shoulder, and there was a group of like 5 college kids in the row behind us who asked if I was in Hurry. It was so triumphant. They had no idea of their impact in shutting up that friend. It would also be very nice if someone bought 500,000 copies of my new record so I could get one of those gold plaques.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Go to therapy right now.

What’s the last show you went to?

It wasn’t specifically a show, but I went to a little talk hosted by Joe Steinhardt at Drexel University with Laura Ballance (Superchunk/Merge Records). Afterwards we all went to a nearby bar and hung out, nervously talking about the coronavirus.

What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?

I don’t ever find myself in this position really, and when I do it stresses me out, because you never catch the movie from the beginning. Something about just casually watching like, the middle of a movie on TV really stresses me out. Like, what are you doing? If we must watch a movie can’t we pick one and start it from the beginning? This isn’t a basketball game. I also don’t really re-watch films. Maybe this is all a personal problem.

What would you cook if Obama were coming to your house for dinner?

I’ve been really into making Indian dishes, so I would probably do this Dal Makhani. He’d probably like it. Or at least he’d be polite. But honestly I kind of feel like he should cook for me.

Fake Ideas is out now. Listen and pick up a copy here.

Only one month ago, a judge denied parole to Bill Cosby after the disgraced TV star and comedian refused to engage in prison treatment programs while serving nearly three years in a Pennsylvania state prison. In a shocking legal twist, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has now overturned his sexual assault conviction — a judge previously sentenced him for up to 10 years (for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand) while labeling him a “sexually violent predator” — on what’s essentially a procedural matter.

In other words, the overturned conviction doesn’t involve the substance of the sexual assault charges but, rather, a technicality. The whole legal process got mucked up during the years-long saga of getting Cosby to his conviction. It’s akin to a defendant escaping prosecution on the grounds of double jeopardy (one can’t be prosecuted multiple times for the same offense in a criminal court), but not quite. The nearly 80-page verdict from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court wades through a lot of background, including Cosby’s 2017 mistrial, which followed his $3.3 million settlement to Constand and his 2005 admission that he’d drugged and raped Constand and other women.

So, how did the overturned conviction happen? Well, former prosecutor Bruce Castor (the same attorney who delivered a My Cousin Vinny-style speech at Trump’s second impeachment trial) made a “non-prosecution agreement” with Cosby. That is, he declined to file criminal charges while aiming to go for a civil case instead. Yet another prosecutor (who picked up the case in 2015) decided to go for it, mere days before the running of the statute of limitations, given that dozens of women came forward with Cosby allegations. Here’s the lowdown from The Philadelphia Inqurier:

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has overturned Bill Cosby’s 2019 sexual assault conviction, ruling that a “non-prosecution agreement” with a previous prosecutor should have prevented him from being charged in the case… But Castor’s successors reopened the case and charged Cosby in 2015, just days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired and amid a barrage of new accusations from women across the country.

At the time, Castor objected to the new prosecution, saying he’d struck a deal with Cosby and his lawyers not to prosecute him for Constand’s assault if Cosby agreed to sit for a deposition in a civil case she had filed against him.

Cosby has, despite his (aforementioned) 2005 admission to drugging and raping multiple women, refused to express remorse or admit wrongdoing regarding his alleged actions. He even declared that he’d rather serve his entire sentence (which won’t be happening now) than make such an admission.

(Via PA Supreme Court, The Philadelphia Inquirer & CBS Pittburgh)

Moneybagg Yo gets trapped in a delusion in his ominous “Wockesha” video. The song, which is an ode to his love-hate relationship with lean, portrays the purple drink as a woman with whom Moneybagg maintains an unhealthy infatuation, so the video makes that metaphor visual. “Wockesha” appears as a beautiful woman with purple hair accompanying Moneybagg on his daily activities, but as in Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, where Moneybagg sees a gorgeous companion, other people just see a man with a toxic attachment to an inanimate object (portrayed here as a pair of giant floating styrofoam cups).

Containing an interpolation of The Notorious BIG’s “One More Chance” remix and a cameo appearance from Lil Wayne, who details his own tumultuous relationship with the drug that has nearly killed him multiple times over the years, “Wockesha” is a heart-wrenching look at the allure of an activity that has entrapped many of hip-hop’s finest, a la Beanie Sigel’s “Purple Rain” or Future’s “Codeine Crazy.” The Wayne intro is excerpted from the New Orleans rapper’s 2009 interview with Tim Westwood, although Wayne’s appearance in the video is new, with Wayne reprising the speech from his own studio.

The subject matter of “Wockesha” prompted Yo’s fellow Memphian NLE Choppa to reach out to him, encouraging him to replace lean with Choppa’s own brand of plant-based products. So far, it doesn’t appear that Moneybagg is all that interested. He recently performed the song at the BET Awards.

Watch the “Wockesha” video above.

A Gangsta’s Pain is out now on CMG and Interscope. Get it here.