THE LATE SHOW

Run The Jewels Stage A Rebellious ‘Late Show’ Performance Of ‘A Few Words For The Firing Squad’

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When Run The Jewels dropped their fourth album in June 2020, they closed the album with the rambunctious “A Few Words For The Firing Squad.” It was a bold and fitting choice; the album was released at the height of several uprisings against police brutality, particularly against the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The punishing track stressed their distrust of the system and commitment to fighting back by any means necessary.

It has been a couple of years and a whole heap of new problems has appeared to burden the average American citizen with worries about pox viruses, inflation, and the loss of bodily autonomy, but “A Few Words For The Firing Squad” remains as poignant and timely as ever. El-P and Killer Mike stopped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to remind viewers that there’s still a fight for justice going on even amidst the slog of daily life during a pandemic.

With a stripped-down that highlighted the lyrics and message in lieu of an elaborate light show, Mike and P rap their verses without a drum track. Only a lone saxophonist accompanies them, growing more urgent and frantic as their rhymes do. You can catch the boys performing the song — and others — on their tour with Rage Against The Machine.

Watch Run The Jewels perform “A Few Words For The Firing Squad” from their fourth album on The Late Show above.

Chance The Rapper Returns To ‘Colbert’ With An Artful Performance Of ‘Child Of God’

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Back in 2017, Chance The Rapper debuted his song “First World Problems” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, marking one of the Chicago MC’s most renowned live performances. To this day, he still hasn’t given the song an official release, but that hasn’t stopped fans from ripping and reuploading it due to its popularity in his catalog. Fortunately, they won’t have to do as much work now that he’s returned to Colbert, which he did last night with an artful rendition of his newly released single “Child Of God.”

Chance performs the song with an orchestra, blowing out the stripped-down, mellow production to include a passionate crescendo as he delivers the uplifting lyrics. Speaking of those lyrics, in true Chance The Rapper fashion, the song’s heartfelt text appears on the screen as it has in many of his recent music videos such as “The Heart And The Tongue.” It’s actually been a pretty flourishing trend among other independent rappers like Kota The Friend and Tobe Nwigwe, and it’s pretty cool that they’ve found a way to combine the best of both worlds, mashing up the lyrics videos that often accompany new single releases with their creative visuals. In addition, he highlighted Naila Opiangah, the emerging artist who created the painting in the background of the performance, by bringing her onstage with him at the end.

The Rapper has yet to announce a new album but it has been nearly three years since his last one, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if he did sometime this year. In the meantime, watch his performance on The Late Show above.

Jon Batiste Breaks Down His Confused Reaction To Winning The 2022 Grammy For Album Of The Year

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Last weekend’s Grammy Awards were relatively tame when it came to surprises, as most of the award winners didn’t seem completely unexpected. Of course, there was one major exception, as Jon Batiste’s We Are won Album Of The Year over projects by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Doja Cat, Billie Eilish, HER, Lil Nas X, Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, and Kanye West. Batiste himself looked surprised when he won, holding a confused expression and a shrug for a good while before approaching the stage.

The Late Show bandleader returned to his show last night for the first time since the Grammys, where he broke down his response to his big win in a conversation with Stephen Colbert.

He started with context, noting the day was busy for him, since he was nominated for 11 awards, both during the pre-show and the televised ceremony. On top of that, he performed during the broadcast, too. So, by the time the show as coming to an end, Batiste said he was ready to just chill out.

Colbert showed the clip of Batiste’s reaction and commented, “The most surprised person in that room might be you.” Batiste responded, “Oh yeah.”

Batiste continued by noting the people seated at the tables around him, including Billie Eilish and Finneas, had a good supportive energy, saying, “Well, at least everybody’s going to be on a good vibe. Whoever wins, we’ll be all just clapping for this person. It won’t be me. And then they said, ‘We…’ And the people were so loud. It was so loud that I almost didn’t really know it was me because they didn’t say my name until after the title. I was like, ‘Maybe that’s somebody else’s album that sounds like We Are [laughs].”

Watch the full interview above.

‘The Late Show’ Imagines A Hilarious Eminem Response To Rudy Giuliani’s Super Bowl Rant

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Ever since his official debut in 1999, Eminem has been a lightning rod for controversy. He’s mellowed out a lot since then, but it appears he still has the juice to get the establishment all riled up, 23 years later. While many folks agreed with Britney Spears regarding his performance during Dr. Dre’s Super Bowl halftime show, some more conservative viewers freaked out, with one coining the term “sexual anarchy” to describe the largely sexless performance.

One, Rudy Giuliani, went on a baffling tirade against Eminem specifically for kneeling after completing his set, presumably in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick’s 2016 protests against police brutality. Giuliani, popping up on a conservative talk radio show, seemed to equate Eminem’s action with a (nonexistent) rise in crime in Los Angeles, and said that the NFL “made a mockery out of law enforcement.” Yeah, I don’t know what world this guy thinks he lives in either… I kid. I know he’s just shilling to his paranoia-ridden base.

And while Eminem himself has yet to respond to the bad-faith, disingenuous rant, it looks like Stephen Colbert was more than happy to take over some of that workload on last night’s episode of The Late Show, employing a soundalike — similarly to when he lampooned Nicki Minaj’s “cousin’s swollen balls” tall tale — to imagine Eminem’s frankly hilarious response to Giuliani. Set to Em’s “Lose Yourself,” the song that the rapper performed at the Super Bowl (and one of his least offensive songs ever), the remixed track takes aim at Rudy’s many (many) missteps over the past couple of years, from his Borat embarrassment to his stumping for the failed January 6 coup.

Watch “Eminem’s” response to Rudy Giuliani’s Super Bowl halftime show rant above.

2 Chainz’s ‘Lost Kings’ Performance On ‘Colbert’ Pays Homage To Nipsey Hussle, Pop Smoke, And Young Dolph

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With 2 Chainz dropping his new album, Dope Don’t Sell Itself, today, the Atlanta rapper dropped by The Late Show for a stirring performance of “Lost Kings” featuring Lil Durk and Sleepy Rose. The song addresses America’s prevalent problem with gun violence — particularly when the victims are young Black men — while the performance was offered as a tribute to several of the rappers who were slain in the past few years, including Nipsey Hussle, Pop Smoke, and Young Dolph, photos of whom are projected behind the performers.

Along with last night’s performance, the rollout for Dope Don’t Sell Itself included the release of videos for “Million Dollars Worth Of Game” featuring 42 Dugg, “Pop Music” with Beatking and Moneybagg Yo, and the “Laffy Taffy”-sampling “Neighbors Know My Name,” as well as an eyebrow-raising freestyle over Pharcyde’s “Passin’ Me By” on the LA Leakers radio show. The album itself has already received rave reviews on Twitter, and features guest appearances from Lil Baby, Roddy Ricch, Stove God Cooks, Symba, Swae Lee, and more. Before the album’s release, 2 Chainz claimed that it would be his last trap-focused album and if that’s true, he’s bowing out at the top of his game.

Watch 2 Chainz’s “Lost Kings” performance on The Late Show above.
Some artists mentioned here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Genesis Owusu Delivers An Imposing Performance Of ‘Gold Chains’ On ‘The Late Show’

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Last March, 23-year-old Ghanaian-Australian singer Genesis Owusu released his debut album Smiling With No Teeth, which earned him great success in Australia as it landed him trophies for Album Of The Year, Best Hip Hop Release, Best Independent Release, and Best Cover Art at the 2021 Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards. After releasing a deluxe edition of the album, titled Missing Molars (SWNT Deluxe), last summer, Owusu is seeing some success in the US. Now he’s on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, performing his song “Gold Chains.”

The performance found Owusu standing in front of the mic in a regal bright red suit with a beautiful chandelier hanging above him and his band. In addition to being a standout on Smiling With No Teeth, “Gold Chains” also made an appearance on Barack Obama’s list of favorite songs from 2021.

The Late Show appearance comes after he shared a video for the remix version of “Waitin On Ya,” which features some help from Jagwar Ma’s Jono Ma. Owusu also revealed the dates for his first headlining tour in the United States. He’ll hit the road starting on January 13 in Los Angeles and continue for a little over two weeks before bringing things to an end on January 30 in Austin, TX.

You can watch Genesis Owusu perform “Gold Chains” in the video above.

Smiling With No Teeth is out now via House Anxiety / Ourness. Get it here.

Killer Mike And Stephen Colbert Celebrate The 20-Year Anniversary Of The ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Films With A ‘Late Show’ Rap

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It’s pretty well known that Stephen Colbert is a huge nerd who absolutely loves the Lord Of The Rings film trilogy but not as well known is the apparent fact that so is renowned Atlanta rapper Killer Mike.

Wait, what?

Yep, that’s right. Killer Mike joined Stephen Colbert on last night’s episode of The Late Show to celebrate the film series’ 20th anniversary with an elf-laden rap video in which Colbert, dressed hilariously in an old-school hip-hop get-up that LL Cool J would have loved back in the ’80s, Late Show bandleader Jon Batiste, and Mike rampage through a Blockbuster-like video store set, putting down other film trilogies like Star Wars and The Godfather as vastly inferior.

Then the hobbits themselves show up. Yes, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, and Sean Astin show up as raptified versions of their mischievous film characters to continue the song along with Elijah Wood, who poses in front of a Benz with “Baggins” on the license plate. The music video even gets meta, as Wood disses the Pitch Perfect trilogy, prompting a quick interlude of that series’ star Anna Kendrick looking very confused and kind of disgusted.

Method Man shows up to replace Gandalf actor Ian McKellan, Killer Mike slates Back To The Future, Indiana Jones, The Mighty Ducks, Twilight (another Kendrick cameo!), and The Dark Knight trilogy. Andy Serkis — aka Gollum — plays the flute as Hugo Weaving raps in freaking Elvish. This video has everything. You should really check it out.

HER Brings Her Soaring Heartbreak Ballad ‘For Anyone’ To An Intimate Performance On ‘Colbert’

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It’s been a few months since Academy Award and multi-Grammy-winning artist HER released her swooning album Back Of My Mind. She’s currently on tour across the country supporting the album’s release, but she managed to stop by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert to share an intimate rendition of her emotive track “For Anyone.”

The performance opened with HER seated at a bedazzled piano and sporting her signature round glasses. Though she was joined by some backup singers and accompanying musicians, her room-filling vocals alone were enough to mesmerize as she sang of closing herself off to love after a particularly painful heartbreak.

Ahead of her performance on The Late Show, HER gave an interview with Vulture where she talked about how many people perceive her as an “industry plant,” a word that’s meant to call out nepotism, but is oftentimes used to discredit the hard work a woman has put in to get where she is in the music industry. “With social media, people think they know everything about success. People see my success now, and they don’t understand the sacrifices, the 15-hour days in the studio, the pressure from my parents to go to college,” she said.

HER went on to explain the work she put in to reach her level of credibility: “For me, I grinded it out kinda like a rapper: I dropped a mixtape, nobody knew who I was, it was a very slow build, and here we are now. The awards shows and all that stuff, that was surprising to me. But I realized, Oh my gosh, I’ve arrived, and in a different way. You don’t need some No. 1 radio single — even though I got that!”

Watch HER perform “For Anyone” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert above.

Back Of My Mind is out now via RCA Records. Get it here.

Brockhampton Performs ‘Don’t Shoot Up The Party’ On ‘The Late Show’

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If Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine really is Brockhampton’s penultimate album as a group, they’re going out with a bang. The group appeared on last night’s episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to perform the album’s pensive but electrifying cut “Don’t Shoot Up The Party.”

Wearing matching jumpsuits — as per usual for the extremely coordinated, self-professed “boy band” — the group performs from a tiered platform surrounded by massive LED screens projecting their performance back at them. The effect is suitably trippy for the glitched-out, magnetized VHS look they’re fond of embracing, and as always, their energy is unmatched, despite being sort of constrained by the small set.

Kevin Abstract, the group’s de facto leader, informed fans ahead of Roadrunner‘s release that their next two projects would be their last. With Roadrunner out now, that leaves one album to go — although Abstract later offered a glimmer of hope in explaining the band’s oncoming dissolution. Writing, “we all love each other and we wanna continue making the best music we can everybody just getting a lil older and got a lot to say outside of group projects,” Kevin revealed that the band may have a bonus project on the docket — the previously postponed Technical Difficulties, which he says has “hella samples to clear.”

Watch Brockhampton’s Late Show performance of “Don’t Shoot Up The Party” above.