The NFL and Roc Nation selecting Kendrick Lamar to headline the Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show next February ruffled some feathers in hip-hop, but apparently, the Compton rapper’s chief rival, Drake, isn’t sweating it. In fact, according to one source, Drake’s claim to be “big as the Super Bowl” turned out to be true in more ways than one.
On the latest episode of the New Rory & Mal podcast, Mal made the audacious — and largely unsupported — claim that not only has Drake had the opportunity to headline the halftime show multiple times, but that he’s also turned it down every time. “Drake has been offered the Super Bowl show for some years now and has turned it down,” he said. “Probably four years, he’s been offered to perform at the Super Bowl, said no for whatever reason.”
Now, whether this is true or just damage control on the part of one of Aubrey’s most loyal angels remains to be corroborated by any other authority. However, it wouldn’t be a surprise to learn that Drake’s been offered the show — although, the timing of this reveal is made more suspicious by Drake’s recent lashing by the future headliner.
Meanwhile, due to the Super Bowl taking place in New Orleans, some folks believe that the headlining gig should have gone to Drake’s former mentor Lil Wayne — despite the show only being headlined by a local act four times in its near-60-year history. You can check out the full episode of New Rory & Mal below.
LL Cool J just dropped his latest album, The FORCE, last week, and the headlining song has been his Eminem collaboration “Murdergram Deux” (which was also co-produced by Q-Tip, to further add to the hip-hop credibility). Now Em and LL have gone ahead and given the song a new video.
The clip notably serves as a tribute to some of the hip-hop that preceded present day: As Complexnotes, the visual features re-creations of LL’s cover for his 1987 album Bigger And Deffer, the art for Big Daddy Kane’s 1988 project Long Live The Kane, and Death Row Records’ 1996 cover of Vibe.
The song sees Em engaged in some of his classic wordplay. For LL’s first new album in over a decade, Eminem busted out lines like, “What? A supa-dupa switch / I can’t understand a single word you’re saying / I think you have syrup brain, ’bout to finish you like polyurethane / All that molly probably sure to drain your spinal fluid from your vertebrae / This the Murdergram and I brought my murder game / My sh*t fire, that is why you log on it like Duraflame.”
Watch the “Murdergram Deux” video above.
The FORCE is out now via Def Jam. Find more information here.
(WARNING: Spoilers for Power Book II: Ghost will be found below.)
Things are getting out of control in the second half of Power Book II: Ghostseason four. In last week’s episode, Diana was beat up by a dirty cop who was upset that Diana enlisted Tariq to complete a job rather than doing it herself. Later on in the episode, Detective Kamaal Tate, Rashad Tate’s brother was shot and killed by Detcetive Carter after Tate learned that Carter is running a dirty operation with his team. This is all while Tariq and Brayden figured out a way to get back in the drug game and work with Noma after taking care of a problem for her.
So, what happens next? Find out out this week’s episode and here’s everything you need to know about it:
When Does Power Book II: Ghost Season 4, Episode 7 Come Out?
The seventh episode of Power Book II: Ghost season four, titled “I Can’t Fix This,” will arrive on September 13. The episode will be available on Friday, 9/13 on the STARZ app starting at midnight EST/PST. The episode will later air on the STARZ TV channel that same day at 8 pm ET/PT. A synopsis for “I Can’t Fix This” can be found below:
When tragedy strikes, Tariq and the Tejadas are set on a mission to avenge what they’ve lost. Dru must take out a threat to Carter’s organization in order to protect his family.
You can also watch a teaser for Power Book II: Ghost season four, episode seven below:
‘Power Book II: Ghost’ season four, part in now streaming on the STARZ app Season four, part two debuts on September 6.
At this point in the year, many artists are announcing new tour dates for 2025. Destroy Lonely, though, still has some fun planned for the rest of 2024: Today, he announced a 14-date North American tour, dubbed the Forever Tour.
The run starts on November 30 in Detroit and wraps up in Washington, DC a few days before Christmas. Pre-sale tickets are available starting today at noon ET, while the general on-sale begins September 13 at 10 a.m. local time. Find more information about that here.
Destroy Lonely is fresh off the release of his latest album, Love Lasts Forever, which dropped on August 30.
Check out Destroy Lonely’s upcoming tour dates below.
Destroy Lonely’s 2024 Tour Dates: Forever Tour
09/29 @ Halifax, NS @ Magnetic World Music Festival
11/24 @ Sattahip, Thailand @ Rolling Loud Thailand
11/30 @ Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore Detroit
12/01 @ Chicago, IL @ Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom
12/03 @ Denver, CO @ The Mission Ballroom
12/04 @ Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union
12/06 @ San Francisco, CA @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
12/07 @ Los Angeles, CA @ The Shrine Expo Hall
12/09 @ San Diego, CA @ SOMA – Mainstage
12/12 @ Dallas, TX @ South Side Ballroom
12/13 @ Houston, TX @ 713 Music Hall
12/15 @ Miami Gardens, FL @ Rolling Loud Miami
12/17 @ Atlanta, GA @ Coca-Cola Roxy
12/19 @ Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore Charlotte
12/21 @ Washington, DC @ The Anthem
Love Lasts Forever is out now via Opium/Interscope Records. Find more information here.
Shannon Sharpe found himself trending on social media on Wednesday, but it had nothing to do with anything the Hall of Famer said on First Take or his Club Shay Shay podcast. Unfortunately for Sharpe, he was a trending topic because of an Instagram Live on his account where fans that clicked on his Live were suddenly presented with what certainly sounded like two people having sex.
There was nothing to be seen, as the phone was pointed towards the ceiling, but it was a very NSFW mid-morning IG Live that no one was expecting, leading to plenty of clips being passed around Twitter and elsewhere. Later in the afternoon, Sharpe released a statement on Instagram claiming he was hacked and that his team was “working vigorously” to find out what happened.
Instagram
Because Sharpe is never seen on camera, the hacked excuse certainly is plausible, although it’s fair to wonder why someone would hack an Instagram to do this on a Live, but people have done stranger things. Not appearing on camera certainly helps Sharpe’s case, especially when it comes to handling this with his ESPN and Disney bosses, because we have seen how a Hall of Fame player can get ousted from ESPN for a wild IG Live — just ask Paul Pierce.
The “First Person Shooter” rapper showed his support for Lil Wayne by sharing five photos of his mentor to an Instagram Story on Tuesday night, a likely reference to the controversy over the Louisiana native not being selected for the New Orleans-set game. (Nicki Minaj has a lot of thoughts.) Instead, the honor went to Lamar, who will likely perform Drake diss track “Not Like Us” for an audience of 125 million people and countless owls.
Earlier this year, Lil Wayne expressed his desire to headline the Super Bowl halftime show. “I will not lie to you, I have not got a call,” he said on YG’s 4HUNNID podcast. “But we all praying, we keeping our fingers crossed. I’m working hard. I’m going to make sure this next album and everything I do is killer, so I’m going make it very hard for them to… I want to just make it hard for them not to highlight the boy.”
Considering how well the New Orleans Saints played during a week 1 win against Carolina, maybe the Derek Carr-led team will make it to the Super Bowl and invite Lil Wayne to perform the National Anthem. Dream big!
Since early 2023, Pharrell has been the Men’s Creative Director for Louis Vuitton. After the screening incident, PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman issued a statement after the incident, saying, “We would be happy to stop disrupting Pharrell’s appearances but despite a lot of lip service, he’s yet to ditch fur and exotic skins. Pharrell can decide in a heartbeat, today, to use his power for good and stop being complicit in cruelty — it’s quite easy to be kind.”
The statement also notes the protestor “blasted” Pharrell “for his disgraceful use of wild-animal skins and fur.”
After the protester was removed from the screening, Pharrell said to the audience:
“Let me address that. You know, Rome wasn’t made in a day, and sometimes when you have plans to change things and situations, you have to get in a position of power and of influence, where you can change people’s minds progression. That’s not necessarily the way to do it, and sitting in my position, when I have conversations on behalf of organizations like that, unbeknownst to them, they come out here and do themselves a disservice. That’s OK: When that change comes, everybody in this room, will remember that I told you we’re actually working on that, and if she would have just asked me, I would have told her. But instead, she wanted to repeat herself.”
It must be nice to see a familiar face on set when you start a new gig. Surely, Ben Affleck feels comfortable on his sets when his pal Matt Damon shows up because the two work well together, and we all know how much fun Ryan Reynolds had when bringing his friend Rob McElhenney to the Deadpool set (even if his part was cut). So when Harry Lawtey joined the cast of Joker: Folie A Deux, he was understandably relieved when he learned that his Industry costar Ken Leung is also entering Todd Phillips’ Joker-verse.
Lawtey was cast as Harvey Dent in Phillips’ highly-anticipated sequel to Joker. Leung also appears in the film in an undisclosed role, though Lawtey didn’t know about it until the day before he began filming. The actor told I-d: “Oh my god! I only found out the day before because [Industry co-star] Myha’la told me!” Lawet revealed. While he mentioned hsi first scene was opposite star Jauquin Phoenix, his first speaking role was addressing Leung.
“My first shots were with Joaquin but my first line of dialogue was [spoken to] Ken. It made such a difference because the stakes were so high,” he expressed. Having a familiar face helped make the jump a lot less scary, Lawtey said. “The first time I had to speak on camera, I was speaking to someone I really, really love and have a huge amount of trust and admiration for. They just felt like safe eyes to look into. That’s always the case with Ken.” It’s nice that somebody feels comfort when looking into Ken’s eyes because the man has played some seriously disturbing characters.
You would think that Phillips would know about this beforehand, but he seemed surprised to know that his stars had worked together before. “Halfway through the scene, [Phillips] comes up to me and says: ‘Apparently you guys are in a show together?’”
On the other hand, going from Pierpoint and Co to the gritty streets of Gotham is pretty intimidating, though not as intimidating as working with Lady Gaga. “There were a few occasions when I got to be a metre away from her while she sang. I had a front-row seat to that experience. I kept thinking, how many people would pay loads of money to have that?” How much money would you pay to see Ken Leung explode at you about incorrect budgets?! Something to think about.
Joke: Folie A Deux dances into theaters on October 4th.
Despite the fact that we are at the deepest point of the NBA offseason, a month removed from the Olympics and a month still to go before training camp starts, we have had a few bits of controversy still pop up. We’ve seen Shaq continue his beef with Rudy Gobert (and Ben Simmons), while Anthony Edwards reignited the seemingly never ending war of words between NBA generations.
While we typically see older players criticizing the current generation for being soft, Edwards spun it around and said players from the 80s and 90s didn’t have any skill — with the exception of Michael Jordan — in a somewhat bizarre, one-off answer to a question in a wide-ranging Q&A that never followed up or built off that statement. Unsurprisingly, that led to plenty of push back and ruffled feathers, with Magic Johnson offering the most scathing rebuttal, noting he didn’t feel the need to respond to someone that’s never won a championship at any level, from high school to the pros.
On a recent episode of Podcast P, Paul George and DeMar DeRozan discussed Edwards remarks (video above), and, while trying to give Edwards the benefit of the doubt that maybe some context was missing, noted that they didn’t understand why he’d say something like that. DeRozan, in particular, seemed taken aback by the comments, explaining that “I would never undermine anybody that came before me because they built the foundation for us to be where we was at today.” DeRozan also points out that he hopes the game keeps growing to where players in 20 years look more athletic and more skilled than the players now, but that he wouldn’t want those players trashing guys like Ant — who he also said is his favorite player right now.
In an age where top streaming TV shows (Wednesday, Severance, and Peacemaker come to mind) are taking three years to return for second seasons, it’s nice to realize that certain genuinely bingeworthy series do achieve followups at a steady clip. Those would include Reacher on Prime Video/Amazon, and on a not-entirely-dissimilar similar note, The Diplomat on Netflix. Heck, some ongoing series don’t even get renewed faster than these these two series can turn around new seasons.
An even better part of this budding rapid-fire release pattern: Keri Russell has been a TV mainstay for much of her life for good reason. Her Mickey Mouse Club days were followed by success on Felicity (including a fateful haircut) and The Americans (including butt kicking and wigs), and now, The Diplomat‘s appeal has been resting mainly on her shoulders.
This is no slight against her co-stars (including Rufus Sewell), of course, but let’s also admit that Russell is almost uniquely able to tackle this show’s hefty blend of suspenseful drama mixed up with some sardonic, even at times straight-up funny, flair. With that said, let’s get down to business on what to expect from more of The Diplomat.
Plot
Alright, so Netflix’s teaser trailer drop answers the most prominent question that was on viewers’ minds: does Hal Wyler live?
The answer (unless he somehow enters into another life-or-death situation) would be “yes.” And choosing to reveal his fate in the trailer is a clear signal that showrunner Debora Cahn would like us to focus elsewhere going into the season. For starters, Kate and Hal are also shown in the trailer while displaying a united front against the onscreen debut of Allison Janey as Vice President Grace Penn giving straight-up lethal looks to the married diplomats. However and as Cahn revealed to Entertainment Weekly, Hal is “shaken,” and “[a]lmost dying like that can shake a lot on every level.”
This will likely yield more personal-life disaster because, according to Cahn, this experience will throw Kate and Hal back together again despite the budding Dennison (David Gyasi) situation:
“Kate was ready for this new relationship. She was really ready to move on, and there’s nothing like a near-death experience for you to just cling to somebody and forget all of the stuff that was driving you apart. It was over. They had reached a conclusion, so when suddenly she’s like, ‘I’m back. I’m here now.’ Do you trust it? Do you trust her? A lot of the season is about trust and there is a line that comes later in the season, where Kate says to Hal, ‘Of course, I don’t trust you. This isn’t built on trust.’”
Additionally, the show juggles the matter of Kate realizing that Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) was surely behind the attack that nearly killed Hal, but there’s the difficulty of not being able to spy on him due to U.S.-U.K. relations. As Cahn describes the matter, “So how do you prove it? And then if you prove it, what the hell do you do about it?”
“I think the people around them in the story don’t know what’s happening. They don’t know what to make of them. It’s unnerving because they’re fighting cats and dogs or they’re completely backing each other up in this fierce way. And it’s unnerving because people don’t know where they stand.”
These Kate-Hal developments might have disappointed David Gyasi, who previously followed up on the first season finale by telling Town and Country his hopes for the second season: “I’d love to explore what that relationship is with Kate. I mean, maybe they’d just gotten to a place when she makes that choice for that beautiful red dress. It’s the first time that they touch—they touch hands.” Well, damn.
In other words, expect the personal and professional relationships of this series to be even more intertwined than within the first season. And as Vanity Fair has reported, a Netflix consultant, ex-CIA official Kari Amelung, believes that the show does well at portraying how married diplomats will often stay married because filing for divorce causes them “to forfeit coveted overseas assignments to return to the States.” So, they will “just live in hatred [with each other].” God, this is so irresistibly messy.
Cast
Keri Russell returns as Kate Wyler with Rufus Sewell as Hal. Allison Janney appear to be ready to shake up everybody’s little world, and David Gyasi will return as Austin Dennison. Presumably, we will also see Rory Kinnear as PM Trowbridge and Ali Ahn as Eidra Graham.
Release Date
The Diplomat will return on October 31, 2024.
Trailer
Behold the return of Hal, even though he never left:
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