Author: GoneTrending

The topic of censorship has been a heated one recently. Making the most headlines is the proposed book ban in Texas, with nearly 100 school districts calling to remove library books that deal with race, racism, sex, gender and sexuality.

NBC listed 50 titles that parents have tried to ban in Texas, and the list includes highly acclaimed works such as “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, “The Perks of Being A Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky and “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison.

But it’s not just Texas. Book bans are spreading across the country so fast, you’d think we’re living out Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451.” Which, ironically, doesn’t seem to be prohibited yet (this time, at least).

One comic shop owner decided to take a stand by sending free copies of a graphic novel deemed “too graphic” for eighth grade curriculums. And because of his actions, others are following suit.

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When Ryan Higgins, owner of Sunnyvale’s Comics Conspiracy (cool shop name), heard the news that Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize winning “Maus” was pulled from the curriculum by the McMinn County Board of Education in Tennessee, he was baffled.

“You can’t teach the Holocaust without showing the most graphic imagery that humanity has ever seen,” Higgins told SFGATE. “[“Maus”] is nothing compared to the actual thing. It’s just mind-boggling that they’d remove it. It’s one of the most acclaimed graphic novels of all time, it’s just a seminal work. It’s been taught in schools and libraries and colleges for decades at this point.”

“Maus” depicts the story of Spiegelman’s parents experiencing the Holocaust and their imprisonment at Auschwitz. In the comic, Jews are represented by mice, Germans by cats, Poles by pigs, Americans by dogs and Swedish by deer. Like “Watchmen” and “The Dark Knight Returns,” “Maus” played a pivotal role in bringing mature comics to the mainstream.

So why was it banned? Over complaints of profanity and nudity. In particular, a dead nude female mouse, in a scene that reflected the suicide of Spiegelman’s mother.

In USA TODAY, Spiegelman himself called the decision a “culture war that’s gotten totally out of control.”

In anti-Orwellian fashion, Higgins offered to donate up to 100 copies of “Maus” to any interested family in the McMinn County area.

As I’ve offered before with other banned comics, I’ll donate up to 100 copies of The Complete Maus to any family in the Mcminn County area in Tennessee. Just DM me your address! pic.twitter.com/ptmdjmwYE5

— Ryan Higgins (@RyanHigginsRyan) January 26, 2022

Though Higgins has made similar offers in the past, this time around, the pledge went viral. And now it’s a full-blown movement. By Sunday, the complete edition of “Maus” had nabbed the No. 1 spot on the Amazon books best sellers list.

Nirvana Comics in Knoxville has created a fundraiser to help provide more copies to students. Its goal was to raise $20,000. So far, it has raised more than $100,000.

On the fundraiser website, Nirvana Comics hailed Spiegelman’s work as a “masterpiece,” and “one of the most important, impactful and influential graphic novels of all time.”

“We believe it is a must read for everyone,” the store stated.

For Higgins, standing up for impactful works of art is more than fighting the status quo. It’s about being a force for good.

The shop owner told the The Washington Post: ”When thought-provoking comic books and graphic novels are banned, this hits my world. Sending out free copies of ‘Maus’ is something I can do. If even one kid reads it and it changes their world, that’s a wonderful thing.”

ASAP Tyy looks like he’s having the time of his life during his UPROXX Sessions performance of the dancehall-inspired “Ting.” The Harlem-raised rapper’s single is imbued with all the jerk chicken-scented energy of the New York summertime, so it’s no wonder he was feeling so good while performing it, kicking his legs up and grinning into the camera like a kid in a candy store.

While the ASAP Mob that Tyy reps is best known for producing father-to-be ASAP Rocky and “Plain Jane” star ASAP Ferg, it’d be a mistake to overlook the less prominent members like Tyy. They’ve secretly been releasing some of the most intriguing, charismatic, and consistent music from the posse over the past few years, even if they seemingly fly just below most folks’ radars. Tyy himself is three mixtapes into his career, which helps to explain his lower profile (for comparison, Ferg has three albums, two mixtapes, and an EP to his name), but he’s been building up his discography with strong singles for the past year, dropping tracks like “100 Rounds,” “1990,” and “Who Ain’t With Me.”

As his catalog grows, so too will his audience, especially with fun summer singles like “Ting.” When he does drop his debut solo album, it’ll be well worth fans’ time to give it a spin.

Teen four-piece band The Linda Lindas launched into the public eye when their song “Racist Sexist Boy” went viral. After making their debut with the 2020 self-titled EP, The Linda Lindas are proving they’re here to stay with the recently announced album Growing Up. Now celebrating the upcoming LP, the young rockers to The Late Late Show With James Corden stage to raise a ruckus with their energetic number “Growing Up.”

This isn’t the first time The Linda Lindas played on late-night TV. After “Racist Sexist Boy” went viral, the group was invited to perform the track on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. But their Late Late Show set was still cause for celebration, as it drummed up excitement for their debut LP’s title track. Infusing the performance with rowdy energy, The Linda Lindas showcased their knack for exciting a crowd with their “Growing Up” performance.

Ahead of The Late Late Show set, the group sat down for an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe to chat about their music. Explaining the themes behind “Growing Up,” the band said they were feeling disillusioned by watching their teen years go by in a pandemic, so they wrote a song about it:

“I was just sitting in our living room, and it was during the pandemic, it was just at a point when I was just particularly missing everyone. I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re at this point in our lives where we’re supposed to be figuring out who we are and what we want to do with our life and stuff.’ But it sucked that I wasn’t able to do that with some of the people that are most important to me. I don’t know. It was like you can’t make growing up happen, but you can’t stop it from happening either. So I was just like, I wanted to sing about it, I wanted to write a song about it because that’s how I found that I wanted to express myself most during the pandemic.”

Watch The Linda Lindas deliver “Growing Up” on The Late Late Show above.

Growing Up is out 4/8 via Epitaph. Pre-order it here.

G4 is back and has been steadily acquiring a mix of old and new talent for its revival. Unlike when G4 was simply a TV channel, this time, G4 is an attempt at a multi-media enterprise. It has a Twitch channel, but so does most of the talent that’s going to appear on the network.

G4’s latest new project is going to involve Twitch streamer AustinShow. G4 brought in AustinShow to host a game show called Name Your Price. It will be a weekly show that features some of the biggest content creators competing to determine prices of rare and interesting items from the internet.

“G4 has done a fantastic job positioning themselves as a breakout name in the space and digital community crossroad with their fresh approach to content and wide-reaching distribution model,” AustinShow said in a release. “I’m excited to partner with G4 in not only utilizing my hosting skillset across their platforms but also join as a creative executive with the goal to develop and grow G4’s presence on Twitch.”

The new show sounds like fun, especially with so many retro game items reaching auctions and selling for increasingly expensive prices. Name Your Price will premiere on AustinShow’s Twitch channel on Thursday, Feb. 10, and G4’s broadcast channels on Tuesday, Feb. 15.

Sasami’s self-titled 2019 debut album established her as a force to keep an eye on, and now, her second album, Squeeze, is on the way. That drops later this month, but ahead of then, Sasami has shared another look at it with a new single, “Call Me Home,” a perfect blend of folk-rock serenity and shoegazing heaviness. The tune is evidence that the new album is going to be a diverse album, as it doesn’t have a ton in common with its preceding single, “Say It.”

Sasami says of the song, “‘Call Me Home’ is dedicated to anyone who has blown up their life just to remember what it’s like to feel something. It’s about the darkness of feeling nothing and the creeping ache of apathy that can swallow you whole if you let it. It’s about skipping town, driving all night and knowing you’ll always have a home to come back to.”

The new project isn’t Sasami’s only big plan for 2022: It was announced back in December that Sasami will be joining Haim on tour this year as part of a stacked roster of openers that also includes Faye Webster, Waxahatchee, Princess Nokia, and Buzzy Lee.

Listen to “Call Me Home” above.

Squeeze is out on 2/25 via Domino. Pre-order it here.

Lin-Manuel Miranda has the number one song in the country this week with “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” but we need to talk about Moana.

The Disney animated feature starring Auliʻi Cravalho as Moana and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Maui, with an earworm soundtrack from Miranda, was the second most-streamed movie across all platforms in 2021, despite coming out in 2016. Luca finished first for the year with 10.592 billion minutes, compared to “only” 8.896 billion minutes for Moana, but “the Moana viewer tended to watch it more times,” according to Nielsen.

So many times, in fact, that Moana is now the most-streamed kids movie ever. It beat out the likes of Frozen, The Lion King, and The Little Mermaid, which — fun fact — was directed by the same animation legends, Ron Clements and John Musker, as Moana.

I hope they get a shiny trophy for the distinction.

The complete 2021 top 10 streaming movies goes Luca, Moana, Raya and the Last Dragon, Frozen II, Red Notice, Frozen, Soul, Cruella, Mitchells vs. the Machines, and Jungle Cruise. That’s a lot of animation and movies starring The Rock. No wonder there are even redder notices coming to Netflix. The TV side is led by Criminal Minds and Cocomelon among acquired titles, and Lucifer and Squid Game for originals.

(Via Nielsen)

For plenty of Kanye West fans, his 2021 album Donda felt like a comeback. Sure, it might not be My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy levels of Yeezus, but it was a start. It felt like Ye was trying again, not wandering around the gospel realm with choirs and Sunday Services in tow. So when word got out that he’s already hard at work on Donda 2, and it will be here in the matter of a few short days, excitement about the project reached a fever pitch. And so naturally, excitement over the release also begged the ever present question when it comes to a Kanye album: Who will he collaborate with? Here’s everything we know so far on that tip.

What Are The Features On Kanye West’s ‘Donda 2’

Luckily, one producer on the new Kanye album has given the media plenty of info on some of the album’s more relevant aspects. So we know that he’s once again working with Nas Digital, who produced “Junya” and “Remote Control,” on Donda part one.
When Kanye announced the album last week, he stated that Future will serve as the executive producer for the album. This creative partnership followed up a surprise New Year’s Eve performance from the pair of rappers, who have rarely worked together in the past.

A recently released collaboration with The Game called “Eazy” takes shots at Pete Davidson, who Ye’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian is reportedly dating. While it’s unclear if this is a Donda 2 track, it seems like The Game and the track’s producer Hit-Boy might be in the mix.

Spotted hanging out at the studio with Kanye in mid-January were The Game (a collaboration we’ve since heard), Moneybagg Yo, Chavo, and his frequent collaborator Mike Dean, so it’s very likely we’ll get a guest verse or something from a few of them. Even weirder? Big Sean, who has continually implied he has beef with Kanye and is no longer signed to GOOD Music was also at the studio hang. Rekindling? We’ll see.

The next day, photos of Kanye, ASAP Rocky, and Pusha T at the studio together surface. I’ll tune in for a song by that trio any day.

A few days ago, Digital also spilled the beans that Marilyn Manson is working very closely with Kanye on the project. “I see Marilyn a lot in the studio,” the producers said. “Like, every day I go to the studio, Marilyn is there working on Donda 2.” Though that particular partnership might upset some fans, at this point, Kanye doesn’t seem to care. After all, doing whatever he wants is basically what he’s best known for at this point.

Cutting the tether to your worst experiences often feels impossible. This is particularly true in an era of prolonged isolation, at a time when the physical comfort of others is bound with the threat of illness. With thoughts a lone companion, it’s easy to navigate the passing days hardwired to the worst things that have ever happened to you, to plumb the depths of the past so often and so deeply that it’s difficult to resurface as a separate being with agency.

To reclaim your future from the past’s oppressors, from the unseen forces with bloodthirst for your failure, is both a triumph and a gift. This is why Allison Russell’s Outside Child is such an achievement. The singer-songwriter-multiinstrumentalist’s newest work is a high statement of craft and a clarion call for liberation, an exercise in tradition, innovation and strength that generously reminds us that we, too, may unwind from the coils of trauma.

It’s a necessary jolt through the framework of roots music that arrives at a time when the face of Nashville is changing. Russell is part of a vanguard of Black women who are making some of the best country, roots, and folk music today, like Valerie June, Yola, Adia Victoria, Rhiannon Giddens, and Brittney Spencer. But her debut solo album stands out for its powerful vulnerability, for its relaying of personal and intergenerational trauma as a means of accountability and emancipation. “It was this awakening, to reclaim a part of yourself that has been just about pain and shame and misery,” Russell told the New York Times last year. It’s a far cry from country radio’s hollow, red Solo cup populism, a work whose resonance is wide ranging, so much that it has topped year-end best of lists, and garnered numerous award nominations.

Russell was born and raised in Montreal, but has been a sustained presence in Nashville for the better part of a decade. She was a member of Canada-based groups Fear Of Drinking and Po’ Girl in her early career, each blending traditional forms like Celtic, jazz, country, and folk for new flavor and sound. In 2012, she formed Birds Of Chicago with her now-husband JT Nero, a Midwestern songwriter with strong ties to the region. The pair financed their first two studio albums via the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, and built a road dog reputation, touring relentlessly, even through Russell’s pregnancy.

A pivotal moment came during the group’s performance at Americanafest in Nashville in 2018, when they captivated the audience and caught the attention of powerful critics like Ann Powers of NPR, who noted: “They come together in a way that makes you feel the dynamic of their artistic partnership and their earnest mission to inspire and uplift the audience.” The following year, Russell stepped out on her own, recording the Songs Of Our Native Daughters album for the Smithsonian Folkways label with Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Amythyst Kiah, each a fellow Black female banjo player. The process helped her work through a period of writer’s block, and she also began writing toward her first solo, the collection of songs that became Outside Child.

At the center of the album are Russell’s candid accounts of the sexual abuse she suffered by her adoptive father, and her escape to the streets of Montreal when she ran away at age 15. “Father used me like a wife / Mother turned the blindest eye / Stole my body, spirit, pride / He did, he did each night,” she sings on “4th Day Prayer,” over instrumentation that recalls the soul sound of Hi Records in Memphis. That’s not to say it’s an album about abuse. As Russell recalls her trauma, she also celebrates the people and places that helped her survive, and the joy that arrives with such liberation. “Left home, I was just a child / Slept in the graveyard, end of the Mile / When the sun came up and found my skin / I rose, I rose again,” she sings on the same song.

“Montreal,” which opens the album, is similarly a paean to the streets and free spaces that sheltered the songwriter, sung in English and French, while “Persephone” recalls a childhood friend Russell ran to in her darkest hours. “Tap, tap, tappin’ on your window screen / Gotta let me in Persephone / Got nowhere to go, but I had to get away from him,” she sings over a spirited country-rock arrangement threaded with pedal steel.

Though its subjects are weighty, its lyrics teetering on the precipice of devastation, the album never feels morose or hopeless, which is one of its many superpowers. Russell, the person, herself, teems with joy, her wide smile casting a light for all who need it. And there is the sense that in relaying her trauma, she acknowledges its place in her story, but also relegates it to her past. In broadcasting those experiences, she has also set them free.

Russell’s breakthrough and success also ushers in the sense that country music writ large, its fans and structures, longs for more substantive and diverse voices, that the bro-ing of the sound and industry is at least partially met with resistance, with a contempt for the executives who insult fans’ intelligence and depth. For this and many reasons, Russell’s diaristic album doubles as a universal reckoning. Soon, she will set more of her stories to the page, via a recent book deal with Flatiron. On January 27, she won two of the UK Americana Awards’ top honors, International Album of the Year and Artist of the Year.

Outside Child is also nominated for three Grammy Awards this year, for Best Americana Album, Roots Song, and Roots Performance, signaling that the Academy members who made the effort to vote in those categories understand this pivotal moment. But it actually won’t matter if Russell takes home any tiny gramophones this April, for she is already a triumph.

Just last week, Flume provided a new mix of a track on PinkPantheress’ To Hell With It remix edition. Now the Grammy-nominated Aussie producer has announced Palaces, his third studio album and first since 2016. Out on May 2oth, Palaces has comes equipped with some high-profile guests, including Caroline Polachek and Gorillaz leader Damon Albarn. There’s also a slew of fast-rising vocalists on board like Oklau, May-A, Kučka, Virgen Maria, Emma Louise, and Laurel.

Most notably, May-A, a fellow Australia, appears on the lead single, “Say Nothing,” and it’s a kick-ass track. Flume’s drum pacing wraps you in immediately before the vocalist delivers vibes. “This song is about feelings of post relationship clarity,” Flume said in a statement. “We wrote the song midway through 2020 while the pandemic was still pretty new. I was really excited about the initial idea but it was only once I got back to Australia in early 2021 and linked up in the studio with MAY-A that the song really came to life.”

Flume is also set to play at Coachella, Governor’s Ball, and Bonnaroo this year.

Watch the video for “Say Nothing” above and check out the album artwork and tracklist below.

1. “Highest Building” Feat. Oklou
2. “Say Nothing” Feat. MAY-A
3. “DHLC”
4. “ESCAPE” Feat. Kučka With Quiet Bison
5. “I Can’t Tell” Feat. Laurel
6. “Get U”
7. “Jasper’s Song”
8. “Only Fans” Feat. Virgen Maria
9. “Hollow” Feat. Emma Louise
10. “Love Light”
11. “Sirens” Feat. Caroline Polachek
12. “Go”
13. “Palaces” Feat. Damon Albarn

Palaces is out 5/20 via Future Classic/Transgressive. Pre-order it here.

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

After starring in an ad for Crypto.com that was unveiled back in October, Matt Damon has been getting ruthlessly dragged for being the latest celebrity to hawk cryptocurrency. While Melania Trump, Reese Witherspoon, and Gwyneth Paltrow have since waded into the crypto waters and seemed to take some of the heat off of Damon, South Park didn’t forget. In its Season 25 premiere, the Comedy Central series repeatedly trolled Damon for his “fortune favors the brave” commercial that arrived just before a massive crypto crash.

Via The Hollywood Reporter:

“What does Matt Damon say in the bitcoin commercial? Fortune favors the brave!” Cartman says while trying to rally the class to fight back against the school principal’s PJs decision. Clyde responds to Cartman with, “My dad said he listened to Matt Damon and lost all his money.” To which Cartman counters, “Yes, everyone did! But, they were brave in doing so!”

There are a few more shots at Damon over the commercial before the episode goes meta and notes that jokes about the commercial are already dated.

Despite South Park‘s notoriously quick turnaround time, it’s surprising the premiere didn’t take aim at Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon‘s now-notoriously cringey promotion of NFTs during a recent episode of The Tonight Show. Then again, the new season is only getting started, and so far, it’s looking like its open season on crypto. Any celebrity hopping on the latest gravy train could be next.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)