Category: Worldwide

Self-care, as it relates to Black women, is best defined by poet and writer Audre Lorde. “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence,” she wrote. “It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

The implications of Black women caring for ourselves above all else are, as Lorde said, political. As the world continues to expect more and more from us, we owe it to ourselves to take care — whether we are given the room to do so, or have to create it from nothing. The rise of self-care gave way to three records in the last decade of R&B music: A Seat At The Table by Solange, CTRL by SZA, and Shea Butter Baby by Ari Lennox. These records carved out three distinct paths in the same lane, creating space for Black women in the idea of preserving the self.

Solange’s A Seat At The Table, released right before the 2016 election, remains a monument of the time. The record’s centerpiece songs, such as “Don’t Touch My Hair” and “Weary,” were instantly topical, acting as a comfort blanket to protect against the increasingly fraught energy surrounding, well, everything. Originally conceptualized as an homage to her family’s Southern roots, and taking up space through documenting Black personhood, Solange lays out all of her failures and triumphs on her fourth record, giving way to truths that are ultimately universal. Her pillowy voice, warm bass, and delicate neo-soul keyboard sounds provide a soft place to land as we confront all of the things that are ugly in this world.

Solange gave the Black image a distinct place in the self-care movement as we know it today: the album cover features her best Mona Lisa, smiling slyly with multicolored hair pins holding the perfect waves framing her face. She presents the idea that before we can care for ourselves, we have to be sure that we are safe. Solange asserts this idea on “F.U.B.U” (which stands for “For Us By Us”), envisioning a world in which it is safe for Black women to rest, to live.

Establishing self-care as both a political and artistic act set the stage for SZA — Solange’s protege of sorts, and the adored singer behind CTRL, her well-loved debut and one of 2017’s most successful albums.

SZA’s video for “The Weekend,” directed by Solange herself, was a beautiful, slow-moving affair. The sleek, minimal track is about a mixed-up love affair, with multiple people vying for the time and attention of one person. This sounds like normal R&B fodder: a relationship gone wrong, a narrator who is upset at the way they’ve been treated. But, “The Weekend” became a beacon of sorts (and a platinum hit without being a single) — it is an admission of weakness if you look further. SZA admits that she is lonely, wanting to replace all of the someone elses in question.

CTRL was not a planned concept. After signing a major deal, SZA wrote and recorded as much material as possible, condensing it down to fourteen songs. And this is evident in the way it plays out; CTRL is a confessional booth, a diary, the ear of a best friend.

On “Supermodel,” the album’s show-stopping, sparse opener, SZA lets us know that she wants to be beautiful for us, and she has a hard time believing that she can. This admission of her lack of confidence establishes honesty as another important tenet of self-care. The album’s closer, “Pretty Little Birds” is a beautiful manifestation for good after everything that SZA has told us went wrong. She has covered the good, the sensual, the messy. She tells us that everything that she needs from her lover, and from us is to see and to be seen. When SZA sings, it is deeply about the self, with feelings examined from each angle with a goal in mind: to grow.

By the time Shea Butter Baby arrived in 2019, Ari Lennox was gaining attention for being the first woman to be signed to J Cole’s Dreamville label. Self-care had been largely established as a worldly, commodifiable interest, rather than a way to create comfort. Shea Butter Baby served as a balm to this concept, a reminder that the journey to self is messy.

Shea Butter Baby is distinctly feminine, the album’s title track featuring Cole himself serving as an ode to the beauty that is Black self-care on a physical level, silk sheets and soft, shiny skin. But, self-care is more than skin deep and Lennox makes sure that we do not forget this. On “Speak to Me,” Lennox is at her most vulnerable, wishing to know the truth about where she stands with someone who she loves. The delicate punch of “I Been” tackles the allure of escapism, Lennox so desperately wanting to be somewhere else while everything is going wrong. On “Static,” the album’s closer, Lennox implores us to save ourselves from drowning beneath all that is unimportant — reminding us that we are in control of our own destinies. Shea Butter Baby finds and cherishes the freedom that it takes to care for the self.

These three records charted distinct journeys for each of these artists on the same course to understand the self. The portraits of Black womanhood that each of these records paint represent different people at distinct points in time, striving to understand what it is that makes us who we are. That quest for closeness to the self is what makes self-care so important, and what makes each of these records a crucial snapshot of what that means for us. These records highlight the need to seek community, growth, and comfort: all necessary pieces to the self-care puzzle.

Showtime’s Yellowjackets is already planning next season’s soundtrack, including Tori Amos and Nine Inch Nails, and it sure seems like either of those artists would do well in a scene featuring Melanie Lynskey’s badass housewife character, Shauna. The Castle Rock actress is taking a scorched-earth view, too, of bodyshaming that has come her way since the show’s mid-November debut.

The show spawned plenty of fan theories, of course, but there’s no lack of clarity from the show’s stars after Lynskey told Rolling Stone about how crew members remarked upon her body, saying “I’m sure the producers will get you a trainer. They’d love to help you with this.” Lynskey detailed how her co-stars (including Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci, and Tawny Cypress) expressed concern about this behavior to producers. And Lynskey has now pushed back *hard* at body shamers while quoting a (now-deleted) tweet from bestselling author and body-positivity advocate Ashley C. Ford.

“The story of my life since Yellowjackets premiered,” Lynskey wrote on Twitter. Most egregious are the ‘I care about her health!!’ people…b*tch you don’t see me on my Peleton! You don’t see me running through the park with my child. Skinny does not always equal healthy.”

The “b*tch you don’t see me on my Peleton!” is a nice touch. And as much anguish as the spin-bike maker has received over the past few months from TV shows, I’m pretty sure Shauna could crush tons of rides with no issue if a bike miraculously popped up in Yellowjackets Season 2. Just a thought!

If you’d told me 20 years ago that 50 Cent would become one of the hottest producers in television with a veritable cinematic universe to his name… Actually, I would have believed you. At the time, he was the biggest thing in rap music, a world-class superstar who had promised to put the radio game in a chokehold — and then did it.

Now, he’s done the same with premium TV; again, if you told me his Power franchise (with three spin-offs plus an unrelated but thematically relevant Black Mafia Family bio series) were majorly responsible for a big boost in Starz subscriptions for the past three years, I would definitely be inclined to believe you.

The story that began with Ghost St. Patrick and Tommy Egan way back in 2014 in the original Power is, in 50’s own words, coming full-circle with the upcoming spin-off, Book IV: Force. Following Tommy’s exploits when he leaves New York for his hometown, Chicago, Tommy will once again get wrapped up in criminal enterprise and intrigue as he gets caught between two of the city’s rival organizations.

With Book IV: Force set to premiere on Starz on February 6, executive producer 50 Cent sat down for a Zoom call with Uproxx to discuss the show’s cultural impact, its catchy theme music, and why he would actually prefer if his cinematic universe was a little more family-friendly.

What modern-day social issues do you hope to address with the show with the story of Tommy in this new city?

Coming into the town, he interacts with who he would just run into. It turns into a whole different thing, but in the future, you should expect him to see more of that culture that we are aware of coming into the show, but it comes in as a resource that he sees. When he’s under circumstances where he gets into something and he involves them to come as muscle.

I’m not trying to fix the world with television. I’m trying to entertain people with it. And I think when you look at everything else that’s there, when you look at the news, all you see are things that speak to the graphic nature of premium television. So this is where we make a connection that network television doesn’t. I think people connect with that, having really flawed characters that people could relate to. I think that’s what makes them watch the show with a different intensity. They feel like they could have played the character.

How much of yourself do you see in your characters when they make choices on the shows? Do you find yourself going, “Well, I would do that differently”? Every time Cane [In Book II: Ghost] does something, I’m just like, “This dummy.”

I definitely do that. “What is he doing? Why are you doing that? I get into it too. I’ve seen the material. I’ve read it. Even when I’m not on set, I still get a chance to see the pieces of it. I watch it, complete it before everybody else watches it, and I’m still not excited until I’m watching it and everybody else is watching it because I’m thinking what everybody else is thinking when they watch it.

How hard is it as the producer not to jump in and be like, “Don’t do that! No. Change that.”

It is very hard. Look, I’ll call the writers or the showrunners of the shows, I’ve called each one of them at points and said, “Why? Why is this like this? Why does it have to be like this?” There are certain scenes that they’ve done in Ghost. I look and go, “Yo, could we tone that down a little bit?”

So, when you put that with younger characters… Also knowing some of the audience is not as mature. I like the sex scenes and stuff but some of it can be insinuated, you don’t have to see it. The fact that we can do it, they feel like, okay, cool. We just don’t want to go from watching television that ended up in soft pornography.

How many spinoffs do you think this universe can support? What would an Avengers-like crossover look like between the shows?

Whew, you said Avengers, that’s crazy. Look, I already took this far enough. If you looked at Power, Ghost, Raising Kanan, and now, Force. finishes the story. Because it was Ghost and Tommy in the beginning.

It’s just, his lady would help him with things. She was the right woman for the journey and the wrong woman in the story because she’s only seeing him one way. So she just wants him to be the biggest drug dealer. Remember that line, “When you look at me what do you see?”, “Biggest drug dealer in the city.”

Right. Right. Right. And it’s like, don’t encourage me to be this. Encourage me to be better.

Something different. And then while he’s having to change a heart no one knows.

And that’s kind of like where every gangster show goes, right? The guys want to go legit and the city won’t let them. The game won’t let them.

At the point that you decide that “I have enough. I’ve made enough. I experienced enough.” Right. This is when you go, “maybe I could have did it legit or did it a different way.” And at that point, the irony of it is you’re under investigation.

Yeah. Because you’ve gotten too big. That’s the danger of being the biggest is that you become a target. When you’re recording the theme music what inspiration do you take away from the show itself and how does it differ from writing music for yourself?

When you get into the theme songs, it’s fun to make those records for me. It’s like each one of them is a separate energy, a separate piece. I’ll go in the studio. I’m like, “Yo, this last one was forced.” It was easy. I had to make something that felt like Chicago and no matter what I write about Chicago, it’s going to feel like New York.

So look, there’s two vocal versions of the song. So when you hear the television show, it’s slightly different from when it’s on the song and it’s because I’ve really set the vocals once I heard the tones in Durk’s verse and what Jeremih the chorus felt like finished. Because we’ve done it several times. He’s done the hook two, three different times before we got it all the way right.

Durk recorded one time and then sent it back and then we heard it and then we had everything, all the pieces to put the song together. And I didn’t want it to feel like a collage because I’m here, they’re there and we just put it together. So I matched the tones of everything else so it’ll feel like a cohesive song.

How do you find angles to play off each individual style out from the collaborators like with NLE Choppa and Lil Durk?

Look, you have with NLE and these guys, these are the new guys, bro. The “hip” part of hip-hop is youth. You know what I’m saying? So what they’re thinking and doing, you got to watch them and see how to wave for what’s coming next. It’s going to go.

Do you think you can ride that wave into the future?

The cadences that they using is not difficult at all. If you listen to the music, you could just go, “Okay. I could write that.” If I was coming right now, I’d be on fire. I think once you’ve been, let’s say seasoned, right? I sold over 35 million records, bro. I have a whole 12 years, 13 years of dominating hip-hop culture. Nobody wants to remember that time period though because it was not comfortable.

When you represent things that are street or that have the energy, it’s on the artist without him even saying anything. The NBA YoungBoy, these kids is coming from different territories, but they have street on them. They can’t help it. It’s already there. You don’t have to have Instagram or Twitter or any of that stuff because once it connects it, it’s just there.

Power Book IV: Force premieres February 6th on Starz.

Zendaya won an Emmy for Euphoria. Is it Sydney Sweeney’s turn next?

The actress was dubbed “the season’s acting MVP” by Vanity Fair following Sunday’s anxiety attack of an episode, in which her character, Cassie, gets worryingly wasted and ends up puking in a hot tub. It was a great performance, if not the most fun thing to film.

“During the hot tub scene, during the throwing up, I got really grossed out,” Sweeney told Decider about filming the scene. “They had this invisible tube that looked like a horse bit and they put it in my mouth and I had to somehow hold and make it look semi-normal and then throw up over everyone which was… It was so gross.”

Sweeney recently gave an interview where she expressed concern that she doesn’t get the recognization she deserves because she’s appeared nude on screen (“I’m very proud of my work in Euphoria. I thought it was a great performance. But no one talks about it because I got naked”). But it would be tough for the Emmys to ignore her now, either for Euphoria or The White Lotus (she is so good, and so scary). Or at least get her on another HBO show, like Succession or Barry. She’d make a good assassin.

Her fans are ready for that Emmy:

It’s not all that unusual to see celebrities at big sporting events but in Los Angeles, it’s apparently such a common occurrence that it’s easy to get them confused for one another — even when they look nothing alike. That’s what happened during Sunday’s NFC Championship game between the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers at SoFi Stadium, where Big Sean and Jhene Aiko were misidentified on the Jumbotron as Buffy The Vampire Slayer herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and her husband Freddie Prinze Jr.

On the Jumbotron, a closeup of Big Sean and Jhene Aiko was captioned “Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr.,” prompting Gellar to joke on Instagram, “@bigsean do you get mistaken for me as often as I get mistaken for you? (Swipe right to see my actual date at the #ramshouse).” In her post, she compared a selfie with her and her husband to the photo that appeared onscreen at the game, then added a photo of her and her friend Elsa Collins, with whom she actually attended the game.

Sean and Jhene also seemed tickled by the mishap, with Sean posting a photo of the two staring in confusion at the Jumbotron to his own Instagram Story.

As The Batman draws closer to bringing Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson‘s new version of the Dark Knight to screens, the film’s official Twitter account has released a new promo video announcing the start of ticket sales: February 10. In the new preview, Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is called out for failing to use his family vast wealth’s to help the city. Of course, unbeknownst to the citizens of Gotham, he’s been waging a war in the shadows as Batman, which has put him in the crosshairs of The Riddler.

As the new teaser ominously shows, The Riddler knows Batman’s secret identity and has no trouble outsmarting the vigilante at every turn. Pattison’s Bruce Wayne can’t punch his way out of this one, and it looks to be one heck of a battle of wits. The film also has Jason Momoa‘s seal of approval, so what more do you need?

Here’s the official synopsis:

When a killer targets Gotham’s elite with a series of sadistic machinations, a trail of cryptic clues sends the World’s Greatest Detective on an investigation into the underworld, where he encounters such characters as Selina Kyle/aka Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), Oswald Cobblepot/aka the Penguin (Colin Farrell), Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), and Edward Nashton/aka the Riddler (Paul Dano). As the evidence begins to lead closer to home and the scale of the perpetrator’s plans becomes clear, Batman must forge new relationships, unmask the culprit, and bring justice to the abuse of power and corruption that has long plagued Gotham City.

The Batman swings into theaters on March 4.

Every month, Uproxx cultural critic Steven Hyden makes an unranked list of his favorite music-related items released during this period — songs, albums, books, films, you name it.

1. The Weeknd, Dawn FM

We’re only in January, and it’s ludicrous to talk about any album released this month as the record of 2022. But Dawn FM… is the record of 2022. At least it is well on the way to being my most listened to album of the year. The highest compliment I can pay this album is that even the spoken-word parts are worth hearing. (Quincy Jones describing how his dysfunctional childhood derailed his adult relationships is the most harrowing track to appear on any Weeknd album that also happens to explain every Weeknd album.) But I’m honestly just swept up by the sound and scale of Dawn FM, how each song seems like it cost $1 million to make and came out sounding like $10 million. Go beyond the extremely 1980s signifiers — the synth tones, the Thriller vibes of nearly every chorus, Jim Carrey’s ‘luded-out DJ (his best performance since Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind!) — and it’s this quality that makes Dawn FM feel like such a throwback. This isn’t an album that simply alludes to the era of massive albums in a nostalgic way. It’s actually able to embody what it is referencing in the present moment.

2. Father John Misty, “Funny Girl”

It’s been four long years since God’s Favorite Customer, the heartfelt song cycle in which Josh Tillman confronted the dark night of his marriage’s soul by venturing wistfully into the poem zone. The album cycle for Customer was practically nonexistent, with FJM implementing a media blackout after the nonstop provocations of the Pure Comedy era. It appears that he’s following a similar playbook for the forthcoming Chloë And The Next 20th Century, which was previewed this month by the first single, “Funny Girl.” Lyrically, the song finds Misty in familiar territory, as he paints a portrait of a distant starlet from the point of view of a lowly observer with some dryly hilarious details. (“Funny girl, your schedule is pretty crazy / doing interviews for the new live-action Cathy.“) Musically, however, he pivots from his usual melodic folk rock to a debauched pop crooner pose, sounding like a Mad magazine parody of Harry Connick Jr. Does this represent the sound of the rest of the record? We’ll talk more about that soon.

3. The Smile, “The Smoke”

Radiohead hasn’t put out a new album in five years, but in the meantime it looks like Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood are returning to their band’s rocking roots with the new side project, The Smile. Their first single released this month, “You Will Never Work In Television Again,” is their hardest hitting music in years, with an undertow of sinister malevolence that recalls the pissed-off Bush-era rants on Hail To The Thief. The second single dropped by The Smile in January, “The Smoke,” is more laidback and slinky, sounding like Yorke’s prior side project Atoms For Peace with a serrated edge. My only reservation thus far with The Smile: Why didn’t they invite Ed O’Brien? This seems like exactly the kind of music he’s been dying to make in Radiohead since the late ’90s.

4. Good Looks, “Almost Automatic”

The publicist for these newcomers from Austin, Texas reached out to me back in September about their forthcoming debut album, Bummer Year, which was finally announced publicly this month. “I thought to myself that Steven Hyden would like this,” he said. Guess what? He was right! Good Looks have have been described as “socialist heartland rock.” I can’t speak to the socialist part, but in the video for their new single “Almost Automatic” you do them playing in the middle of a cow pasture, which is certainly heartland rock-y. But it’s not heartland rock in the way it’s commonly defined now, which is basically “reminiscent of Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A.” period. This is like the forgotten side of heartland rock, with the small-town narratives of John Mellencamp’s mid-’80s records set to the rousing county-fair anthems of The BoDeans.

5. Melody’s Echo Chamber, “Looking Backward”

This modern master of psychedelic pop naturally slots in with acts like Tame Impala and Dungen, though the music of Melody’s Echo Chamber has an ethereal quality that enhances both the trippy and poppy aspects of the music. The forthcoming Emotional Eternal, due April 29, is the first MEC album in four years, though it’s not all that far removed from 2018’s winning Bon Voyage. If you like the sound of harpsichords set against boisterously syncopated drums, this music will feel like bathing your eardrums in honey.

6. Jana Horn, Optimism

This Texas-based singer-songwriter aspires both to the rich tradition of literary Americana singer-songwriter music her state is known for, as well as the atmospheric vibes of Velvet Underground-inspired indie rock. The result is a beguiling debut effort in Optimism, in which Horn relates in an affectless, conversational tone a series of short stories about characters who arrive at small moments of catharsis and dissolution. While I’ve only experienced Optimism as music, I suspect the album would also work just as well on the page. (Horn is a post-graduate fiction writer.) I look forward to these songs revealing deeper secrets the more I play this record.

7. Guerilla Toss, “Cannibal Capital”

This upstate New York band doesn’t like to sit still, literally or figuratively. They combine a high-energy punk ethos with strains of funk and dance music, along with a free-wheeling live show that frequently delves into jams amid a constantly shifting setlist. (They even encourage fans to tape their shows.) Their new album, Famously Alive, due March 25, is loaded with bangers, including the album’s first single, which boasts perhaps the best bassline of the month.

8. M.J. Lenderman, “Hangover Game”

I regrettably slept on Twin Plagues, the 2021 album by the Asheville, North Carolina band Wednesday that somehow combines thick shoegaze riffs with wistful old-time country accents. So I’m determined to get on the bandwagon early for Boat Songs, the forthcoming solo record by Wednesday guitarist M.J. Lenderman due out April 29. On his own record, Lenderman plays a more straightforward kind of choogle, favoring funky country licks and leaning into his back-porch vocal twang. The first single from Boat Songs, “Hangover Game,” is one of the album’s best tracks, with Lenderman singing the praises of Michael Jordan over chunky guitars that recall A.M.-era Wilco .

Neil Young has been in the process of breaking up with Spotify and moving on to greener pastures in recent days: He took his music off the platform due to it being home of The Joe Rogan Experience and has started pushing Spotify competitors. Now, Joe Rogan himself has finally addressed the Young situation (and the Joni Mitchell situation, as she followed Young in removing her music from Spotify).

In a near-ten-minute video posted on Instagram hours ago, Rogan starts by discussing the “distorted perception of what I do,” the alleged “misinformation” that has been shared on his podcast, and hosting people who have a variety of perspectives on the show. Then, at 3:29 into the clip, he addresses Young and Mitchell, saying, “Now, because of this controversy — and I’m sure there’s a lot of other things going on behind the scenes with these controversies — but Neil Young has removed his music from the platform of Spotify, and Joni Mitchell, and apparently some other people want to as well. I’m very sorry that they feel that way. I most certainly don’t want that. I’m a Neil Young fan. I’ve always been a Neil Young fan. I’ll tell you a story at the end of this about that.”

He later told his Young story:

“I’m not mad at Neil Young. I’m a huge Neil Young fan. I’ve always been a Neil Young fan. When I was 19, I was a security guard at a place called Great Woods in Mansfield, Massachusetts. It’s an outdoor concert amphitheater and Neil Young was playing there, and it was the last day I worked there. I quit during the Neil Young concert. The job was kind of crazy because a lot of times, fights broke out and stuff and I think I probably got like 15 bucks an hour, and I was not about to get beat up for 15 bucks an hour. So I would bring a hoodie with me whenever I worked, so in case the sh*t hit the fan and it got too crazy, I would just put my hoodie on and leave and cover my security outfit, my security shirt.

So one day during a Neil Young concert, […] it got a little rowdy, it was cold out, and [the audience] started bonfires, so they had these raging fires on the lawn and we were supposed to go and put these fires out and stop them. So we tried for a little while but then brawls started breaking out and it started getting crazy, and I was like, ‘F*ck this.’ So I put my hoodie on, I zipped it up, and I left, and I drove home. And as I was driving home, I was singing, ‘Keep on rockin’ in the free world.’ That was my last day on the job, I don’t even think I collected my last check.

So, no hard feelings towards Neil Young, and definitely no hard feelings towards Joni Mitchell. I love her, too. I love her music. ‘Chuck E’s In Love’ is a great song.”

Watch the full video above.

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

After years of mostly unfounded rumors and speculation, it has finally happened — Rihanna is pregnant with her first child. Go figure, it’d take a pandemic to finally fulfill every gossip blogger’s dream — and every R9 hopeful’s worst nightmare. People magazine confirmed the pregnancy, posting a photo of Rihanna and her partner ASAP Rocky out on the town in New York, with Rihanna sporting a cropped top to show off her baby bump. You can check out the photos below.

Naturally, the news has Rihanna fans going ballistic on Twitter. Rihanna herself shot down pregnancy rumors as recently as a month ago, joking, “Y’all breed me every year dammit,” on Instagram. However, it looks like this time, the fans were right and they aren’t being shy about celebrating — and lamenting that she may have finished making a whole human from scratch before her long-awaited follow-up to Anti, which crossed its six-year anniversary over the weekend. And some fans just seemed distraught that they have “missed their chance” with the singer — insomuch as that number was very technically non-zero in the first place.

Meanwhile, poor Drake is catching the worst of it, considering how long he openly crushed on Rihanna. Their relationship was short-lived, but that isn’t stopping fans from flaming him up too over the news.

Former MTV VJ and ex-Katy Perry spouse-turned actor, podcaster, and comedian Russell Brand has been on quite a journey over the past few years. His long-time left-leaning points of view (and Fox News opposition) appear to have been transformed into dust while he’s veered to the right. This has included hopping aboard with Matthew McConaughey’s recent toeing of the political line and expression of empathy for Big Lie supporters. Russell also’s gone on an anti-vaccine crusade during the pandemic, which has left people wondering if he’s “officially lost his mind.”

Rusty’s still dangerously (especially because he’s such a prolific and persuasive speaker) cranking away on his YouTube channel (where he posts rants titled “Vaccine Mandates: An ASSAULT On Your Bodily Freedom?” and “SHOCKING Wuhan Evidence: Did Fauci LIE?”). He’s currently shouting for joy over the convoy of Canadian truckers who are protesting requirements to get the jab or find new jobs, and he’s worked up about what he says is the “mainstream media not reporting” the protests. Here’s a taste of him (taken from a YouTube video from Russell’s page) making a “honk” gesture and shouting, “Here’s to the Canadian truckers! Here’s to standing up to freedom!”

Hmm. Countless mainstream outlets, including the New York Times, BBC, and Business Insider, are certainly covering this story. In addition, about 90% of Canadian truckers are vaxxed, but these kinds of truths (including a trucker declaring, “You want a job? Get vaccinated”) don’t sell YouTube clicks.

Instead, Russell’s pointing toward the convoy while hoping it makes the Guinness Book of World Records, and railing against the Man, and so on.

This led people to wonder, “When did Russell Brand come on over to the right side?” as well as “What happened to you?” and lamenting at how “community responsibility” has fallen by the wayside for those shouting “freedom!”

Here’s some perspective on Russell’s, uh, needle-related history in comparison to him declaring that vaccines are a bridge too far for him.

And even though the trucker convoy is being widely reported upon, here’s a Twitter user with a parting sentiment: “Tantrums don’t need to be indulged every time.”