Year: 2022

“Proud” Ukrainian Mila Kunis and her husband Ashton Kutcher are raising money to help families in Ukraine who are being impacted by the Russian invasion.

“I have always considered myself an American, a proud American. I love everything that this country has done for myself and my family, but today I have never been more proud to be a Ukrainian,” the Family Guy actress, who was born in the Ukraine before moving to the United States when she was seven years old, said in the video above. From ABC News:

The couple said that the money they are seeking to raise will go to relief that will have “an immediate impact in supplying much-needed refugee and humanitarian aid to the area.” Donations raised through the GoFundMe page they set up will go to Airbnb.org and Flexport.org, which are providing free, short-term housing and organizing supply shipments to refugee sites.

Kunis and Kutcher vowed to match up to $3 million in donations to the Stand With Ukraine fund — in less than 20 hours, the GoFundMe page is already up $3.3 million. “The people of Ukraine are strong and brave, but being strong and brave doesn’t mean you’re not worthy of support,” Kunis said. “We need to support the people of Ukraine. Please help us.” You can donate to Stand with Ukraine here.

(Via ABC News)

Last month, folk/rock sensation Kurt Vile announced his next album Watch My Moves, the follow-up to 2018’s Bottle It In. He also released the synthy, laid-back lead single “Like Exploding Stones,” and now he’s back with the next single, “Hey Like A Child.” The track abides by his signature style, which is unhurried, mellow, and full of twang and poetic lyrics sung with playful pronunciations: “In a dream I drew my blueprint / And it was you on every page that I drew there.”

The album is self-produced alongside Rob Schnapf, who’s known for working with monumental artists like Elliott Smith and Beck, and it was recorded predominantly in Vile’s home studio in Philadelphia. He invited his longtime band The Violators but also a throng of collaborators including Chastity Belt, Cate Le Bon, and notable percussionists Stella Mozgawa (of Warpaint) and Sarah Jones. The album features 14 original songs and a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Wages Of Sin.” Vile will be heading out on several tours this spring in the US and in Europe alongside acts like Chastity Belt, Natural Information Society, and Sun Ra Arkestra.

Listen to “Hey Like A Child” above. Watch My Moves is out 4/15 via Verve. Pre-order it here.

To promote the return his new Apple TV+ series, Jon Stewart stopped by Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast for a lengthy and fascinating interview where he tackled everything from his recent remarks on Joe Rogan to Russia invading Ukraine. The latter of which prompted Stewart to tear into Fox News host Tucker Carlson who, up until very recently, had been airing impassioned defenses of Vladimir Putin on the air.

After calling Carlson a “dishonest propagandist,” Stewart cut right to the heart of the issue: Nothing Carlson says it’s real, and the incendiary Fox News host has admitted as much. Stewart also called out Rupert Murdoch for putting a “sh*thead” like Carlson on the air and “trying to destroy the fabric of this country.” Via HuffPost:

“There’s nothing you can take out of context” with people like Carlson “because none of it is real,” comedian Stewart said on the latest episode of New York Times reporter Kara Swisher’s “Sway” podcast released Thursday.

“You know, he’s admitted when he’s cornered, he lies. It’s all a game and a performance,” Stewart continued. “I mean, honestly, I have no idea what the f*ck that guy believes, truly.”

In addition, Stewart was surprisingly active on Twitter on Thursday where he promoted the newest episode of The Problem with Jon Stewart and took another shot at Carlson in the process.

“My last tweet pester of the day (most likely) join us tonight. Watch the episode and then twitter space it… and bring your LSAT scores… because that matters…” Stewart tweeted in an obvious jab at Carlson’s recent demand to know SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson‘s LSAT scores.

The Problem with Jon Stewart is currently streaming on Apple TV+.

(Via New York Times)

Chuck Berry didn’t need a No.1 pop hit.

By 1972, when he finally reached that pinnacle, he was already a legend. His early singles like “Maybellene,” “Too Much Monkey Business,” and “Johnny B. Goode” had stormed the R&B charts and came tantalizingly close to hitting the top of what was previously called the “Top Sellers In Stores” chart. He had been covered by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Wanda Jackson, and Jimi Hendrix. As Bob Dylan put it in an email he wrote when Berry was handed one of the first PEN New England’s Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence Awards in 2012, “If Beethoven hadn’t rolled over, there’d be no room for any of us.”

Berry knew how highly he was esteemed. So much so that, starting around the mid-to-late ’60s, he would go on tour all alone, playing with whatever pickup bands were available at the time and trusting that they knew his music well enough to follow his lead.

That was the case when Berry, in early 1972, played at the Lanchester Arts Festival about 90 miles outside of London. Joining him onstage were a quartet of seasoned players including future Average White Band guitarist Onnie Owen McIntyre and pianist Dave Kaffinetti, aka Viv Savage of Spinal Tap — who had come of musical age listening to Berry’s hits. As heard on the three live recordings plucked from that performance included on The London Chuck Berry Sessions, the 1972 album that yielded Berry’s sole No. 1 pop hit, they settle into the grooves of “Reelin’ And Rockin’” and “Johnny B. Goode” with a studied ease.

Strangely, it was the other live cut from that album that took Berry to the top of the pops in both the U.S. and U.K. For as powerful an impact as Berry had, and continues to have, on the world of music, his biggest commercial hit was, of all songs, “My Ding-a-Ling.”

If you know the song, you likely have the nursery rhyme-like chorus of “My Ding-a-Ling” jingling through your mental jukebox right now or are chuckling quietly about the novelty song’s puerile lyrics. If you’re unfamiliar, it hopefully won’t take you long to catch on that, while Berry starts off singing about the “silver bells hangin’ on a string” bequeathed to him by his grandmother, the “ding-a-ling” quickly devolves into pure innuendo. “I remember the girl next door / We used to play house on the kitchen floor,” Berry sings, “She’d be the queen, I’d be the king / Together we’d play with my ding-a-ling-a-ling.”

While “My Ding-a-Ling” will never be what Berry is most remembered for and only came up in passing in the memorials and obituaries written about him when he died in March 2017, the song’s success is such a strange footnote to his illustrious career. So much so that, after I decided to write this piece, I reached out to my colleague Stephen Thomas Erlewine, senior pop editor for AllMusic and noted Chuck Berry obsessive, to get his thoughts on the matter.

“I’d never claim it’s among Berry’s very best records… but I do think its success was earned,” Erlewine said, via email. “That it became a smash is somewhat bizarre to me because it’s such a spare recording and it doesn’t sound like anything else on radio in 1972. That just makes its success more impressive: the old huckster figured out a way to sidestep the rock revival fad and contemporary music and land his only number one. Even if you don’t like the single, it’s hard not to admire that trick.”

So, how did “My Ding-a-Ling” manage to hit the pop pinnacle that “Sweet Little Sixteen” and “School Days” couldn’t? The “rock revival fad” that Erlewine refers to surely played a part. There was a renewed interest in the early days of rock, fueled by the arrival of oldies radio in 1971 and the success of the Broadway musical Grease the next year. Berry happily took advantage of the rising tide, leading to his notorious appearance with John Lennon and Yoko Ono on The Mike Douglas Show in early ’72 and the Lanchester Arts Festival gig where he was booked along with Pink Floyd (who performed all of Dark Side of the Moon), Slade, and Billy Preston.

Helping the cause of “My Ding-a-Ling” was that the song appeared during a particularly fallow time in radio pop. While great strides were being made in worlds of soul, glam, and heavy rock in 1972 — the year of “School’s Out,” “Let’s Stay Together,” and “Supernaut” — it seemed that a healthy number of record buyers were seeking out musical comfort food in a post-Pentagon Papers, post-U.K. Immigration Act world. 1972 was also the year that cutesy fare like Donny Osmond’s “Puppy Love,” Hot Butter’s “Popcorn,” and The New Seekers’ “I’d Like to Teach The World To Sing” cracked the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic. “My Ding-a-Ling” was a comfortable fit for radio playlists of the time.

None of that is to say that everyone adored the tune. With lyrics as knowingly juvenile as “Every time the bell would ring / They’d catch me playin’ with my ding a ling,” complaints were sure to follow. In the U.S., some radio programmers refused to play the song, even as it climbed the charts in Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 program.

In England, the song raised the hackles of Mary Whitehouse, the conservative activist who waged a campaign against the country’s supposedly overly permissive broadcast standards. In early 1973, Whitehouse wrote a letter to Charles Curran, then-director general of the BBC, to complain about “My Ding-a-Ling” being presented on Top Of The Pops, the weekly TV show celebrating the hits of the day. According to her missive, parents and teachers alike were aghast at what the song was bringing out of the poor innocent youngsters. “One teacher told us of how she found a class of small boys with their trousers undone, singing the song and giving it the indecent interpretation which… is so obvious,” she wrote. “Parents too were very upset by the stories their children were bringing home about the actions which were accompanying the singing of this song amongst their friends.”

As unintentionally hilarious as the letter is, Whitehouse was probably telling the truth. Of course, young snickering schoolchildren were going to love the heck out of that song. And Berry knew that inside all of the adults that came to see him tear into his classic repertoire was a little bit of that immaturity. That’s why he was attracted to the song in the first place.

“My Ding-a-Ling” was originally written and recorded in 1952 by Dave Bartholomew, the New Orleans jump blues artist who co-wrote dozens of songs for Fats Domino, and it was even more direct in its earliest incarnation: “Have a li’l girl, her name is Sing / She like to play with my ding-a-ling / My ding-a-ling is the cutest thing / When Sing plays with my ding-a-ling.” By the time Berry got around to recording a version of it in 1968, he hedged his bets, re-writing the lyrics to be about “My Tambourine.”

When he brought it into his setlists in the early ’70s, Berry made no bones about what he was really singing about. That’s as clear as anything in the full 11-minute version of the song on The London Chuck Berry Sessions. He introduces the song to the rowdy British audience as a “4th grade ditty” and a “beautiful song about togetherness, and believe me, I do mean togetherness,” and walks them through helping him sing the chorus with plenty of bawdy asides and winking double entendres. “It’s all about Chuck Berry telling dirty jokes,” Erlewine writes. “It’s a stand-up gig as much as a performance, a dumb playground joke that works because the old pro knows how to land the laughs.”

Ultimately, that’s really why the song drew people in when Boston DJ Jim Connors put it in heavy rotation on WMEX in 1971 and it began its slow spread onto stations throughout the U.S. and beyond. It’s dumb and pointless and infantile, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun to sing along with. You can hear that every time the English concert crowd shouts out the chorus — the girls on the “my,” the guys on the “ding-a-ling.” No matter how many times they sing it, they sound like they’re having a blast.

For as much as Berry’s death in 2017 was lamented by top-tier musicians like Bruno Mars and Questlove, his true impact can be felt in the work of underground punk and garage rockers like Shannon and the Clams and Ty Segall. Those artists and their contemporaries continue to embody a lesson that Berry continues to impart: rock, at its core, and sometimes at its best, is a ribald, absurd, racy, and boisterous enterprise that should be undertaken with a sure hand and a light touch whether you’re singing about a little country boy with a guitar in a gunny sack or your ding-a-ling-a-ling.

Despite Cardi B winning a $4 million defamation lawsuit against gossip blogger Tasha K, the YouTuber has yet to delete her videos and posts insinuating Cardi B had contracted an STD (among other things), prompting Cardi B to seek a court order to force Tasha to do so, according to Rolling Stone.

According to documents filed in court Thursday, “Not all of the videos and posts containing the defamatory statements have been removed from defendants’ social media accounts… Despite the overwhelming evidence entered at trial and a unanimous jury verdict against (Kebe and her company) on all of plaintiff’s claims, they continue to insinuate that the defamatory statements are true. Plaintiff is only seeking to require defendants to remove any videos and posts that contain the defamatory Statements from their social media accounts and to enjoin defendants from republishing those same statements.”

The request also notes that trial transcripts even show that Tasha K, real name Latasha Kebe, verbally refused to do so. Rolling Stone quotes the transcript:

“So the only way at this point these videos are ever going to come down is if this court forces you to [remove them]. Is that right?” the lawyer pressed.

“That is correct,” Kebe replied.

“Are you essentially saying that to stop you from calling my client ‘Cold Sore B,’ my client needs to get a gag order?” the lawyer asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Kebe replied.

Tasha promised to appeal the court’s decision and even bragged on social media about her inability to actually pay the $4 million.

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

Rumors of a toxic working environment on the set Euphoria have been swirling even before Season 2 began, and now, background extras are coming forward with detailed accusations of a “hellish” shoot thanks to creator Sam Levinson‘s “off the cuff” shooting style. According to a new report, Levinson would often arrive at work with no shot list, which would result in extras being left sitting for hours, often in the cold, as he constantly reset the cameras and rearranged scenes. Making matters worse is that the extras would allegedly not be allowed to use the restroom and they began “dropping like flies” as the production continued to rack up SAG-AFTRA violations like not providing them meals on time or having 18 hour workdays.

Via The Daily Beast:

“I understand that I’m doing background work,” one background actor told The Daily Beast. “I’m not the most important person there, I know where I am on the totem pole. But it got to a point where I was like, I’m still a person, I’m still human. Please let me go to the restroom, don’t tell me I can’t go for 30 minutes or tell me I can’t get a snack when you’re not going to feed me and it’s 4 a.m. It just very much felt like we didn’t exist as people.”

As Euphoria continues to be the most-watched show on HBO, the network defended the on-set conditions and cited COVID protocols as a potential cause of things not going smoothly. Otherwise, HBO said the production was in full compliance with union mandates.

“The well-being of cast and crew on our productions is always a top priority,” HBO said in a statement. “The production was in full compliance with all safety guidelines and guild protocols. It’s not uncommon for drama series to have complex shoots, and COVID protocols add an additional layer. We maintain an open line of communication with all the guilds, including SAG-AFTRA. There were never any formal inquiries raised.”

(Via The Daily Beast)

Madi Diaz has released Same History, New Feelings, her new EP to follow up last year’s History Of A Feeling. This EP is made up of newer versions of songs from that record, and she recruited Waxahatchee, Natalie Hemby, Courtney Marie Andrews, and Angel Olsen, the latter of whom is on the poignant new “Forever (New Feelings Version).” The pair take turns singing each line, the emotion building up with every cutting word: “Now that the war is over / How can you still make love?”

“I fell in love with this song when Madi first shared the demo with me a long time ago, and I feel so honored she let me share it with her this time around,” Olsen said of the song. Diaz added, “I’ve been listening as a fan to these four women for quite awhile now. I’m honored to call them my friends and to have their voices singing these songs with me is something that I still can’t quite fathom. I’m so thankful for their artistry and their stories giving these songs a whole new world and a whole new life. To share this earth and make music with them in this lifetime is a treasure and a gift from beyond the beyond.”

Listen to “Forever (New Feelings Version)” above.

Sometimes the best new R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm-and-blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the best new R&B songs that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.

This week features Kehlani’s new single, “Little Story,” which serves as the latest offering from her upcoming album Blue Water Road. Robert Glasper returns with Black Radio III his first full-length project since 2019’s F*ck Yo Feelings while British singer Tiana Major9 prepares to release her upcoming EP with “2 Seater” featuring Smino.

Kehlani — “Little Story”

At the end of last year, Kehlani announced that her third album Blue Water Road was on the way. With its lead single “Altar” still in rotation, you can now enjoy “Little Story” her second offering from the album that aims to add more context to what’s to come on Blue Water Road.

Robert Glasper — Black Radio III

Just shy of ten years after he released his fifth album Black Radio, a project that granted him the award for Best R&B Album at the 2013 Grammys, Robert Glasper returned with the third installment in the series. Black Radio III arrives with 13 songs and contributions from Killer Mike, BJ The Chicago Kid, Ant Clemons, HER, PJ Morton, India.Arie, and many more.

Tiana Major9 — “2 Seater” Feat. Smino

Later this month, British singer Tiana Major9 will release her second project Fool Me Once. It’s her first release since 2021’s At Sixes And Sevens Remixed which brought new voices to songs from her 2020 project At Sixes And Sevens. To prepare for the release of Fool Me Once, Tiana calls on Smino for its romantic lead single “2 Seater.”

Dylan Sinclair — “Suppress”

Toronto singer Dylan Sinclair is ready to take things to a new level as he prepares to release a new EP to the world. The JUNO Award-nominee returns with “Suppress,” a moody single that finds him having empathy towards his girlfriend’s struggle to cope with his growing fame. The song arrives after he released “Regrets” last fall.

Taylor Belle — Out Of Body

Following a consistent stretch of singles that dates back to 2019, Los Angeles-based singer Taylor Belle has finally arrived with her debut project. She returns with Out Of Body which offers eight songs and a lone feature from Tank God for a body of work that she describes as captivating, unique, and ethereal.

Thuy — “Figured U Out”

Last fall, singer Thuy released her debut project I Hope U See This which dropped off eight songs focused on heartbreak, love, empowerment, and self-confidence. In her continued effort to promote the project, she returns with a new video for “Figured U Out” which watches her discover the deceitful ways of her partner.

Maeta — “Frank For You”

Indianapolis singer Maeta is less than a year removed from her debut project Habits which she delivered after landing a deal with Roc Nation. With the hope of new music on the way, she returns with “Frank For You” which finds her admitting to her ability to make the pains of a relationship go away with her sweet vocals.

Che Ecru — Pain Pack 5

If there’s one thing that Boston native Che Ecru will do, it’s release more than enough music to keep his fans happy. In 2020, he dropped three projects, Still Single, Projection, and Til Death (which he gave a deluxe for last year). This year, he gets the ball rolling with Pain Pack 5 which grants eight new songs for listeners to enjoy.

Starrah — “222”

Last year, Starrah, who has earned plenty of success as a songwriter penning hits for Rihanna, Normani, Drake, Nicki Minaj, and more, arrived with her lastest project The Longest Interlude. It was her first project since 2017’s Starrah X Diplo with producer Diplo. It looks like they’ll be more from Starrah on the way as she kicks off her 2022 year with her laid-back single “222.”

OHenry — “Belong With Me”

Nigerian-American and Oakland native OHenry will surely catch your ear with his recent single, “Racin,” a sultry anthem that saw him sprinting at the speed of light to reconnect with his lover. If that isn’t enough his latest single might do the job for you. OHenry arrives with “Belong With Me” is a heartfelt number that sees him deep in regret for the pain he caused towards his lover.

Reminisce — “Hustle” Feat. Buju & D Smoke

After kicking off the year with “Alaye Toh Se Gogo,” Nigerian rapper keeps his momentum alive with his new single “Hustle” alongside D Smoke and Nigerian singer Buju. The track is dedicated to putting in your all to reach your goals and be the very best you can be.

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

Pusha T’s newest single “Diet Coke” has some legs, and he’s using them to go the distance. Last night, the Virginia rapper stopped by the set of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to deliver a snow-capped performance of his latest track. Decked out in all-black from his puffer coat to his climbing boots, Pusha delivered his performance in front of a screen depicting a wind-blown, snow-covered landscape as faux flakes fell from the ceiling of the studio. To add to the effect, the camera begins with a tight shot on Pusha’s face, only revealing the full tableau toward the end of the song.

“Diet Coke” is Pusha’s first new solo single since 2018, when he released his Grammy-nominated collaborative album with Kanye West, Daytona. The song appears to be the first from Pusha’s upcoming fourth studio album, which he says is due sometime this year. While details remain sparse, he has revealed that the new album will contain a collaboration with Jay-Z. Also, last night, he released another new single with Nigo, “Hear Me Clearly.” Whenever the new album actually does drop, it appears there’s a strong possibility it’ll live up to his promise to top Daytona.

Watch Pusha T’s snow-capped “Diet Coke” performance from The Late Show above.

(Spoilers for Netflix’s Bad Vegan will be found below.)

Bad Vegan tells the story of Sarma Melngailis, the celebrity restauranteur who fell from grace and became a fugitive of the law. Sarma got sucked into a cult-like mentality by Anthony Strangis (who used the pseudonym of “Shane Fox”), who she eventually married and who apparently persuaded her to drain her business accounts for, well, reasons. He had promised to make her dog immortal, among other things, and the smart and successful Sarma — the founder of the wildly popular One Lucky Duck and Pure Food and Wine eateries in NYC — ended up in a bad situation. She served four months in Rikers after pleading guilty to grand larceny. Investors got the shaft, her staff had long since walked out after not being paid, and the eateries shuttered forever.

It’s a sensational true story, for sure, to became known as “the vegan Bernie Madoff.” But there’s a strange Alec Baldwin connection here, so let’s dig into that gossipy tidbit.

Alec and Sarma were friends, and he may have wanted to be more than friends, and one doesn’t even have to watch Bad Vegan to see that suggestion. Alec was a huge fan of Pure Food and Wine, and on July 26, 2011, he tweeted, “… when in NY, folks, go to Pure Food and Wine on Irving Place. Even if just to stare at @Sarma.”

Well, Sarma and Alec never actually got together (for reasons disclosed in Bad Vegan), and Alec actually met the woman who would become his wife (Hilaria) while dining at Pure. In 2019, Alec posted an Instagram tribute to how he met Hilaria: “8 years ago, I wandered into Pure Food and Wine on Irving Place, on an unseasonably warm February evening… I turned to my left I saw a woman who would change my life. Entirely.”

Sarma had continued to exchange banter on Twitter with Alec, and she soon noticed a man joking around with Alec and asking him for advice. In 2020, The Daily Beast characterized this man, who was Anthony Strangis, as a hustler, and yep, that’s about right. There’s no real sense that Alec actually knew the guy beyond exchanging tweets, and Sarma began talking with Strangis online. Soon enough, she fell under his spell, and she was giving him money and generally falling under Anthony’s spell. Bad Vegan details what came next and how, eventually, the law came for both of them.

Bad Vegan (from executive producer Chris Smith of Tiger King and Fyre: The Greatest Party) will stream on March 16.