Category: News

While 2020 turned out to be much different than many of us expected, for some like Jack Harlow, they saw their dreams come true over the course of that year. The Louisville native saw his career rise to new heights thanks to his breakout single “What’s Poppin” which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Later that year, Harlow released his official debut album That’s What They All Say which delivered 15 tracks and contributions from Adam Levine, Big Sean, Lil Baby, Bryson Tiller, EST Gee, and more. After spending 2021 enjoying his newfound success, Harlow seems set on starting the latest chapter in his career.

Harlow returns with “Nail Tech,” his first single of 2022. The track is a classy and flashy effort that finds the rapper bragging about all things in his life. He flaunts the trust he has with his nail tech, his wealth, the woman he finds himself with, the talent in his hometown, and much more. The track’s accompanying video also features an appearance from Yung Miami. It comes after he released a promotional video for the track that captured him in the middle of a meeting with a therapist as he admits to his struggle to select a new single for his next album. Well, at long last, it’s here and it features a verse from Yung Miami.

The song arrives after Jack Harlow concluded his Crème De La Crème California Tour which saw him perform in multiple cities in the Golden State.

You can watch the video for “Nail Tech” above.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Next month, designer and producer Nigo will release his first album in nearly two decades with I Know Nigo. The project was announced at the end of last year and it is being handled by Steven Victor, who manages Pusha T and Pop Smoke. So far, fans have heard one single from I Know Nigo, “Ayra” with ASAP Rocky. Now, they can enjoy a second release as Nigo teams up with Kid Cudi for “Want It Bad.” The track is a hazy release that seems Cudi glide on production that becomes more and more energetic and chaotic as he progresses through the song.

The new song concludes quite the up-and-down week for Kid Cudi. It began when Kanye West declared that Cudi would not appear on Donda 2 because of Cudi’s friendship with Pete Davidson, who is currently dating West’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian. Afterward, Cudi launched his new live music app Encore after securing $9 million in funding. “My number one priority has always been inspiring others and providing them the space to tell their own stories in an authentic and meaningful way,” Cudi said about the move in a statement.

Afterward, Cudi shared a concerning message on Instagram, which sought support from his fans from all over. “God… please watch over me and keep my mind sane,” he wrote. “I could use it right now. To anyone who feels alone, I’m with you and I love you.” Many of his supporters sent him love, including Kanye, who reshared his message on Instagram and wrote, “Love you family.”

You can listen to “Want It Bad” in the video above.

The Trump family’s penchant for skirting the law and behaving as if no rules at all apply to them might be finally catching up with them. Maybe… On Thursday, New York State Judge Arthur F. Engoron ordered Donald Trump and two of his spawn, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, to appear in front of investigators and answer questions.

A two-hour hearing turned into what onlookers might have called the Trump Circus when the former president’s lawyer dragged every tool out of his legal toolbox in order to prevent his client and his kids from having to recount their various possible shady dealings. As The Daily Beast wrote:

Trump, Don Jr., and Ivanka must now “appear for a deposition within 21 days” and “comply in full” by turning over documents, Engoron wrote in his order. He found the Trumps’ legal arguments “unavailing,” and affirmed the New York AG’s ability to continue investigating “copious evidence of possible financial fraud.”

But just because the judge issued his order (which you can read here) doesn’t mean that the Trumps won’t continue fighting it. According to The Daily Beast, Ronald P. Fischetti—Trump’s lawyer—has already signaled that he will appealing Engoron’s decision. In the meantime, this is just one of many cases against Trump and his family.

“The former president and his family are fighting an increasingly fierce legal maelstrom,” The Daily Beast writes. “Local prosecutors in Atlanta, the District of Columbia, and Manhattan are investigating abuse of power and shady business deals. All of the cases are heating up.”

The courtroom histrionics are apparently all at the behest of Trump. “Trump has said he wants bombast [from his attorneys] as they’re defending him against this New York ‘witch hunt,’” a source who has spoken with Trump about the New York City probes shared with The Daily Beast. “This is something he usually expects from his higher-profile lawyers and the ones who don’t deliver on that usually don’t stick around that long.”

Which might explain why The Daily Beast reported that Fischetti was “later seen squeezing a stress ball at his desk.” Does that count as a write-off?

(Via The Daily Beast)

Once again, Chris Brown finds himself in potential trouble with the law. According to Miami’s NBC 6, the singer is being investigated for allegations of battery by two women for separate incidents that occurred more than a year ago in Miami. The investigation comes after the first woman sued Brown for $20 million for allegedly drugging and raping her on a yacht. He also has a copyright infringement case on his lap for “No Guidance,” his 2019 collaboration with Drake.

The first woman, who is a choreographer, dancer, model, and recording artist, claims the drugging and rape took place on December 30, 2020, and that it occurred during a party on a yacht that was docked near Diddy’s home. The second woman says she was uncomfortable on the yacht and decided to leave the party. However, two days later, the second woman and her friend were invited to meet Brown at his Miami Beach hotel suite.

According to the police report, during her time there, the second woman says that he approached her and shoved two of his fingers into her mouth. She alleges that his fingers had a white powdery substance on them and that she blacked out for several hours and woke up in the suite without her friends or her cell phone. She later filed a report with Miami Beach Police after learning about the lawsuit that the first woman filed against Brown.

Miami Beach Police confirmed to NBC 6 that both incidents are under investigation and that once it is complete, it will be up to prosecutors to decide whether or not to file charges.

On Wednesday night, the Lakers saw star big man Anthony Davis exit in the first half with a nasty-looking ankle injury that caused him to be carried to the locker room as he could not put any weight on his left leg.

The initial diagnosis was an ankle sprain, with an MRI set for Thursday after X-rays returned negative, and the Lakers and their fans were holding their breath hoping that the injury wasn’t as severe as it seemed. On Thursday night, the team announced that Davis would unfortunately miss at least four weeks with a “mid-foot sprain,” meaning Davis won’t be back until mid-March at the earliest.

That the timetable given is only for when his next re-evaluation will be suggests he could miss more time beyond that four-week window, which is obviously concerning for the Lakers who are currently ninth in the West at 27-31, six games behind the Nuggets for the final guaranteed playoff spot as the 6-seed. What was already going to be a significant task to turn this season around now becomes all the more difficult, as Davis goes back on the injured list just 10 games after returning from his sprained MCL that cost him more than a month earlier this season.

The Trump Organization’s house of cards is beginning to fall, but its namesake is either pretending not to notice or truly doesn’t sense that financial ruin could be on the horizon. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s business associates (both current and former) have a different view of the situation.

Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that Mazars USA, the former president’s longtime personal and business accounting firm, has severed all ties with Trump and The Trump Organization after determining that 10 years of his financial statements—from 2011 to 2020—could not be trusted. In the wake of that announcement, The Daily Beast spoke with several sources close to Trump who claim that they have urged Trump and those close to him to take the situation much more seriously—and that it has been a surprise to some people.

“I have said for years that this whole thing is one big fishing expedition,” one source said of the ongoing investigations into Trump and his companies. “I’ve expected it to just fizzle at some point, or to turn up ticky tacky shit that can score prosecutors big headlines. The Mazars news was the first time I started thinking, ‘Hey, this might be serious.’ Could Donald Trump [and his business] be screwed? I don’t know, but I’m not as confident as I once was in saying, ‘No.’”

Three people who spoke directly to Trump said that his outlook was positively sunny and that he claimed his businesses were doing “great.”

“But notably,” according to The Daily Beast, “all three predicted that this latest Mazars development would likely strengthen Trump’s resolve to run again for the presidency in 2024.” At the same time, it will scare off both accounting firms from taking Mazars’s place and banks from taking any further risks in loaning the former-turned-wannabe president money.

“This explodes the national security risk by a factor of 10, because now he’s going to be desperate for new loans,” Joseph Cirincione, a fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft think tank, told The Daily Beast. “Legitimate banks are not going to touch him. So it expands the universe of shady characters who could offer him loans in return for favors that might include disclosing U.S. national security secrets.”

All of which is, well, terrifying.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Francis Ford Coppola has always been a risk-taker. Even after making three of the finest films of the 1970s (and beyond) with The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, and The Conversation, the studios weren’t willing to take a gamble on Apocalypse Now, the five-time Oscar winner’s surreal fever dream of a Vietnam film, loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. So he invested every cent he had to get the budget where it needed to be, and made one of the most celebrated war films of all time. “I invested all my money and own the film,” Coppola told The Washington Post in 1979. “I think I’ll get it back.”

But for as long as Coppola has been making movies, he has really wanted to make one movie: Megalopolis. And now, at the age of 82, the filmmaker told GQ that he’s ready to risk it all again and drop some seriously mad cash—likely more than $100 million—on finally seeing his pet project through to completion.

As GQ’s Zach Baron writes:

It is a film called Megalopolis, and Coppola has been trying to make it, intermittently, for more than 40 years. If I could summarize the plot for you in a concise way, I would, but I can’t, because Coppola can’t either. Ask him. “It’s very simple,” he’ll say. “The premise of Megalopolis? Well, it’s basically… I would ask you a question, first of all: Do you know much about utopia?”

The best I can do, after literally hours talking about it with him, is this: It’s a love story that is also a philosophical investigation of the nature of man; it’s set in New York, but a New York steeped in echoes of ancient Rome; its scale and ambition are vast enough that Coppola has estimated that it will cost $120 million to make. What he dreams about, he said, is creating something like It’s a Wonderful Life—a movie everyone goes to see, once a year, forever. “On New Year’s, instead of talking about the fact that you’re going to give up carbohydrates, I’d like this one question to be discussed, which is: Is the society we live in the only one available to us? And discuss it.”

It’s certainly a tall order, but given that this year marks the 50th anniversary of The Godfather, maybe it’s not so far-fetched to believe that if anyone can make the next great classic film, it would be Coppola. Even so, no studio in Hollywood seems ready to make that gamble.

After more than four decades of talking about Megalopolis—which he says is as ambitious as Apocalypse Now—Coppola understands that, “the more personal I make it, and the more like a dream in me that I do it, the harder it will be to finance. And the longer it will earn money because people will be spending the next 50 years trying to think: What’s really in Megalopolis? What is he saying? My God, what does that mean when that happens?”

Still, the situation feels like déjà vu to the director. “Do you know why I own Apocalypse Now? Because no one else wanted it,” he says. As for casting? Oscar Isaac and Zendaya are just two of the stars Coppola is eyeing.

You can read Coppola’s full GQ interview here.

For the fourth straight year, J Balvin graced his fan base with a project to enjoy in 2021. The Latin singer released his sixth album Jose last summer and it arrived with features from Skrillex, Tokischa, Ozuna, Myke Towers, Yandel, Dua Lipa, Khalid, Bad Bunny, and more across 24 songs. It continued a streak of releases that includes 2020’s Colores, 2019’s Oasis with Bad Bunny, and 2018’s Vibras. As for what J Balvin has in store for 2022, that remains to be seen, but he gets things rolling with his new single “Nino Sonador.”

His new track arrives with a new video that shows off the intimate side of his artistry. J Balvin also includes footage of his family and friends in the new visual. The video for “Nino Sonador” arrives after J Balvin released a deluxe reissue of Jose. The updated added eight new tracks to the album, four of which were remixes of “In Da Ghetto” which the remaining four being a remix of “F40” and three new songs.

J Balvin’s new single also comes after he shared a video for “Una Nota” with Sech. He was also recently announced as a headliner for Chicago’s Sueños Festival which features an all-Latinx lineup.

You can watch the video for “Nino Sonador” above.

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

Pusha T has been signed to GOOD Music since 2010, shortly before the release of Kanye West’s fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy where he appeared on two tracks: “So Appalled” and “Runaway.” During his time with GOOD Music, Pusha T has released three albums: My Name Is My Name, King Push – Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude, and Daytona. Pusha will also release his upcoming fourth album, rumored to be titled It’s Not Dry Yet, on the label, but before that happens, he revealed a special thing that Kanye did for him.

During an interview with Complex’s Speedy Morman, Pusha T revealed the purpose of the contract between him and Kanye that he shared on Instagram last month. “Actually, the contract was just [Kanye] signing over my profits from my back-catalog and the profits for this album as well,” Pusha said. “Just straight to me. It wasn’t anything bad… He was just like, ‘Nah, you take the money.’ If that don’t show you that that’s your bro, I don’t know what else gon’ show you… It was very honorable.”

The interview came as Pusha prepares to release his fourth solo album It’s Not Dry Yet. So far, we’ve only received the project’s lead single, “Diet Coke.” The song was released with a music video that featured Kanye West who produced the track with 88-Keys.

You can view the contract and watch Pusha T speak about it in the posts above.

Charli XCX didn’t keep us waiting for very long. Just yesterday, she told Rolling Stone that she was bumming out over her cancelled performance in late 2021 amid the Omicron variant surge. “This would have been my best TV performance ever,” she said. “When it couldn’t go ahead, it was crushing. I was going to have a main pop-girl moment. Hopefully something can happen in the future. Fingers crossed.”

Today, she has been announced as the musical guest for the March 5th episode hosted by Oscar Isaac. That was fast! And the timing couldn’t be more perfect, as her hotly-anticipated album, “Crash,” is set to drop two weeks later. With killer early singles like the banging “Good Ones” and the incredible collaboration with Rina Sawayama, “Beg For You,” the prospects are bright for her performance.

Also announced today, Spanish flamenco-pop queen Rosalía will be the musical guest for the March 12th episode hosted by Zöe Kravitz. Rosalia’s upcoming album Motomami arrives on the same March 18th date that Charli XCX’s does and it’s a really strong back-to-back episode slate of musical guests for SNL especially when you consider that LCD Soundsystem are the musical guests for the February 26th episode hosted by John Mulaney.

Charli XCX is a Warner Music Artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.