michael-jordan

Kendrick Lamar Channeled Michael Jordan For His New Album Announcement And Fans Love It

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Kendrick Lamar 60th Annual Grammy Awards 2018
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For most of the day so far, the music world was focused on looking back at the first weekend of Coachella. Everything changed this afternoon, though, when Kendrick Lamar came out of nowhere and announced that his next album is called Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers and it’s set for release on May 13.

Lamar shared the news via a tweet and almost immediately after doing so, he became the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter. While most of the conversation consisted of excited knee-jerk reactions to the news, some fans took a minute to observe how Lamar’s announcement bears a striking resemblance (intentionally, it appears) to an iconic Michael Jordan moment.

Lamar shared the news via a simple letter that plainly states the news of his album, with the formatting of the note seemingly modeled after the famously minimalist fax MJ sent in 1995 to confirm he was ending his retirement and returning to the NBA. Journalist Andreas Hale also observed that Lamar’s announcement comes almost exactly 27 years after Jordan’s: MJ’s note was dated March 18, 1995, while Lamar’s is from today, April 18.

Imitating the Jordan fax has actually become a bit of a trend in hip-hop lately: Migos did the same thing last May and Logic followed suit the next month.

Check out some more Lamar reactions, to both the Jordan similarities and to the album news more broadly, below.

Michael Jordan Grabbed Mary J Blige’s Backside At NBA All-Star And 50 Cent’s Got Jokes

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michael jordan mary j blige
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The NBA’s All-Star weekend is often a star-studded event, as both the league’s athletes and other entertainers get the chance to come together to enjoy the host city’s festivities as well as a low-stakes run of basketball games that allow for more socializing than the average in-season game. This year’s festivities were no different, as the league’s 75th anniversary brought out even bigger stars than usual, including retired players like Michael Jordan, who was honored as one of the 75 best players in league history.

But basketballs weren’t the only thing Jordan palmed over the weekend, which led to some pretty amusing memes from social media. When MJ encountered one of those celebrities, Mary J Blige — who’s fresh off her own big performance at the Super Bowl which included a surprise appearance from 50 Cent — their friendly hug apparently turned out a little more than that when cameras caught the hooper resting his hand on what looked to be the singer’s backside. Naturally, Twitter achieved liftoff from sheer reaction energy as fans noted the exchange and took great delight in pointing it out.

One of those fans was none other than 50 Cent, who never misses a chance to weigh in on a viral moment with a meme or two of his own, and in this case, he had the perfect gag, courtesy of his Starz drama series Power. Posting a pretty big spoiler for the recent season finale of Book II: Ghost (which stars Mary as Monique, the matriarch of a drug-dealing family that includes an NBA prospect basketball player, Zeke), 50 shared a fan’s screenshot with the comment “See just when we thought it was all f*cked up.” Of course, if you haven’t caught up on the show, you can click away, but if you’re not that pressed about the shocking ending — which, yeah, I hollered a bit when it aired — scroll on down to see 50’s reaction.