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Rajon Rondo appears set to return to the Los Angeles Lakers. After a busy offseason in which Rondo was traded from the Los Angeles Clippers to the Memphis Grizzlies, the NBA champion point guard was expected to receive a buy out and have the flexibility to pick wherever he’s going to play next.

According to Shams Charania of The Athletic and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the buy out has happened, and as a result, the Lakers have moved into pole position to acquire their former point guard’s services.

Rondo originally joined the Lakers ahead of the 2018-19 season, then played a major role in their run to a championship during the NBA’s Orlando Bubble a year later. He ended up leaving the team in free agency before the 2020-21 campaign when he opted to join the Atlanta Hawks, but returned to L.A. ahead of the trade deadline as a member of the Clippers.

His time with the team didn’t reach the highs they did during his first stint in the City of Angels, and he was eventually part of the trade that saw the Clippers reunite with Eric Bledsoe. Now, he’s headed back to Los Angeles, presumably with an eye on adding some depth to the team’s backcourt behind new point guard Russell Westbrook.

Kanye West’s premiered his upcoming tenth album Donda for the third time this past Thursday. The rapper brought the long-overdue unreleased project to his hometown for a performance at Chicago’s Soldier Field. The listening event did not require attendees to be vaccinated or present a negative COVID-19 test, but instead, they offered vaccinations against the virus for those who arrived to hear the latest version of Donda.

But according to reports, that effort wasn’t nearly as successful as many hoping to help end the pandemic would have hoped. According to TMZ, a representative for the stadium said that 1,500 doses would be available. And the publication has shared the official count for vaccination given at the venue and it’s quite low.

TMZ reported that a spokesperson from the Illinois Department of Public Health told them that just 13 vaccinations were given out at the rapper’s event on Thursday. Since a vaccination or negative COVID-19 test was not required to attend the event, there’s no telling how many of the 38,000 people that were present at Soldier Field were actually vaccinated. However, with 65% of Illinois residents confirmed to have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccination, it’s hard to not imagine that a decent amount of the Soldier Field attendees were not vaccinated.

While the 13 vaccinations may seem like a low number, it’s a bit of a jump than the number that was given at the rapper’s second listening event for Donda, which concluded with just 4 vaccinations for the 40,000 people in attendance.

Jack Harlow’s rise to fame seemed to happen in a matter of weeks, as the rapper’s “What’s Poppin” single, pushed him from an underground act at the end of 2019 to one of rap’s biggest names in 2020. Despite this, the Lousiville rapper’s rise came after years of hard work and consistent mixtape releases that captured his improving artistry.

During a recent episode of HBO’s The Shop: Uninterrupted, Harlow shared a conversation he had with his idol — a name he refrained from revealed while noting that they are a fellow musician — that was centered on the importance of self-awareness.

“I was talking to one of my idols that I won’t name, but somebody that I grew up idolizing in the same genre, and I asked him you know, ‘What do you attribute your success to? How have you stayed refreshed and why do you think you’re on this run?’” Harlow said during the episode. “He said, ‘You know one thing about most of these rappers when they’re hot, they can tell you everything about what’s going on, they’re tastemakers right? But the one thing most of these guys can’t do is hear themselves. They don’t have the self-awareness to say, ‘Mmm… that’s it or that isn’t it.’”

He added, “So for me it hasn’t always been so much about every shot has to go in. It’s discerning when I missed. I know when I make a record, I know when I sound compelling and I know when I don’t. There’s ego involved in that but I can look at myself, I can hear myself, I’m in the studio, I know when something’s special, and I know when it isn’t.”

You can watch the clip in the video above.

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

The college football season kicked off on Saturday afternoon, and the Big Ten decided to get in on the fun. The Illinois Fighting Illini played host to the Nebraska Cornhuskers in a matchup of programs that are looking to build towards being contenders in the Big Ten West.

Unfortunately the game featured a pair of rather unique injuries, although it’s fair to wonder why this does not happen more often. On a pair of occasions, the Huskers called plays that involved their receivers running crossing routes, and on both of those occasions, someone on the Illini defense flattened the referee standing in the middle of the field.

Having to stand in the middle of a football field is certainly not an enviable task, because in addition to all the stuff you have to be on the lookout for — namely when the big fellas on the opposing lines are battling with one another — you have to make sure you do not get obliterated by everyone who goes flying in the middle of the field. It was unclear if either of the officials were seriously injured, but as a result, the game had to go with any officials in that part of the field for a brief period.

Earlier this month, Nas and Hit-Boy reconnected for King’s Disease 2, the follow-up to their 2020 effort, which earned the former his first-ever Grammy award. The new project is packed with guest appearances from Eminem, Lauryn Hill, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, EMPD, YG, Blxst, and Charlie Wilson. Some argued that it was even better than the first. During a recent interview with Apple Music’s Ebro Darden, Nas spoke about his chemistry with Hit-Boy, who executive produced both King’s Disease and King’s Disease 2.

“He’s like my Quincy [Jones], you know what I mean?” the rapper said. “So I feel like the next thing I do, if I was to work with Hit-Boy on the next thing I do, I think that we might do something that is going to be magical.”

Considering how successful the series has been so far, it’s no surprise that talk about a King’s Disease 3 came up. “I think what we have is magic,” Nas added. “I think if we do another one, I’m excited about that idea, but you know, we’re celebrating this one now.”

Nas’ comments come after he joined Belly and The Weeknd in a video for their collaboration, “Die For It.”

You can watch the full interview on Apple Music here.

King’s Disease 2 is out now via Mass Appeal. Get it here.

A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

James Corden is an oddly controversial public figure: an entertainer who seeks only to bring joy to the world. But sometimes he goes too far. (Then again, sometimes he gets texts from Tom Cruise about landing a helicopter in his yard.) An example of this happened recently, when he and three cast members from the forthcoming musical movie take on Cinderella — in which he plays one of the mice turned into a footman — ran into a Los Angeles street, all for a flash mob stunt meant to advertise the film. But for some, the move did the opposite of delight.

Footage disseminated on social media Saturday showing Corden, star Camila Cabello, Billy Porter, and Idina Menzel dancing and singing in traffic to Jennifer Lopez’s “Let’s Get Loud,” in costumes as their characters. (Porter plays the gender-neutral fairy godparent while Menzel is the evils stepmother). And what better way to make the throngs aware of this than to stop traffic in one of the most car-clogged cities on earth?

Indeed, rather than charmed, some people on social media found themselves livid. They pointed out that Corden and company probably made people late for work.

Others questioned the logic of the happening in the first place.

And there were lots of movie and TV jokes.

For what it’s worth, Cinderella — which comes a mere six years after Disney’s live-action stab, which starred Lily James and Cate Blanchett — hits Amazon Prime on September.

Kevin Love doesn’t want to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers if it means he has to negotiate a contract buyout. Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN spoke to Love’s agent, who informed him that the two sides haven’t sat down to discuss a way out of the remaining two years and $60 million on his deal, nor is there any real desire from Love’s camp in doing that.

“There have been no talks with Cleveland on a buyout, nor is there any interest from Kevin in doing a buyout,” Jeff Schwartz told Woj.

Love and the Cavaliers agreed to a four-year contract extension that kicked in during the 2019-20 season. The deal was signed in the aftermath of LeBron James leaving Cleveland for the Los Angeles Lakers, and the thinking was Love could help the team stay afloat in a way that didn’t happen after James departed the franchise for the first time. That hasn’t happened — the Cavs have gone 60-159 over the last three years, while injuries have played a major role in Love’s productivity tailing off considerably. Last year, Love appeared in 25 games, with his 7.4 rebounds and 24.9 minutes a night the lowest marks of his career, while his 12.2 points per game were the fewest since he was a rookie.

It’s hard to fault Love for wanting to make sure he gets this big payday over the coming two seasons, and while he’s had a few incidents where he’s shown his frustration over how things are going in Cleveland, he has said that values helping the Cavs’ young core. Perhaps this is posturing, or perhaps the team will be able to find a trade that involves getting off of his contract and letting their sudden surplus of young big men not have to worry about playing time getting allocated to Love, but for now, it seems like Love’s next two years will be spent in Cleveland.

HER is a woman of many talents, and she’s looking to expand to a different part of the entertainment world. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the singer will appear in her first Hollywood film, namely director Blitz Bazawule’s new adaptation of the musical version of The Color Purple. HER will play Squeak, who progresses from a juke joint waitress to an aspiring singer. HER is working with the filmmakers to possibly create an original song for the movie as well. As for Bazawule, he was also the filmmaker behind the Beyonce-led film Black Is King.

Corey Hawkins from In The Heights will also star in the film. Oprah Winfrey, who earned an Oscar nomination for the 1985 (non-musical) film version will produce the film through her Harpo Films banner while Steven Spielberg, who directed that movie , is also listed as a producer. The Color Purple is set for a release on December 20, 2023.

While the film will be HER’s first acting role, it will continue the recent success she’s had in the film industry. Earlier this year, she landed her first Oscar for “Fight For You,” which appeared in the Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Steinfield-led film Judas And The Black Messiah. The win brought her halfway to the coveted EGOT award as she already has four Grammys to her name.

Back in June, fans of the NBC show Manifest were dealt quite the blow: The show had been cancelled after three seasons. That left things hanging, the story not yet resolved. The hope was someone else would swoop in and either save it or grant it a fitting farewell. And some two months later, that’s exactly what happened.

As per Variety, the supernatural show will get a fourth and final season, a whopping 20 episodes long, thanks to Netflix. (That’s longer than any previous season. The first ran 16 episodes while the remaining two clocked in at “only” 13.) It is not clear if all 20 episodes — presumably some 20 hours, maybe more — will be dropped all at once, as is the Netflix way, or if they’ll space it out in some fashion, à la Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max.

Manifest began with a simple premise: Passengers aboard a flight from Jamaica to New York experience a bit of turbulence, and when they land they discover five and a half years have passed. What’s more, they have the ability to glimpse events in the future.

When the news of the return broke, those who had campaigned to save it — fans of the show, as well as cast members — were beyond words.

(Via Variety)

For the third time in just a month, Kanye West held a listening event for his upcoming tenth album, Donda. Unlike the first two editions that were held in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, West held it at Solider Field in his hometown of Chicago. While the event made headlines for plenty of reasons, most of them being controversial, an interesting moment from the night came when the rapper’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian appeared in a wedding dress during a performance of “No Child Left Behind.” The duo left the stadium hand-in-hand after it ended.

According to TMZ, West and Kardashian are reportedly working to repair their relationship despite their ongoing divorce. Sources close to both parties say there is a small chance the two could continue their marriage. Still, the two have reportedly been privately spending time together while “working on rebuilding the foundation of their relationship.” The publication adds that Kardashian’s main goal ensure a healthy foundation of love and support remains present for her four children with West.

As for the latest listening event, it featured Marilyn Manson’s controversial appearance (as the singer is also set to feature on the album), West lighting himself on fire, and his decision to replace a Jay-Z verse with one from DaBaby.