As it turns out, Metcalf is pretty good at much more than just football. In a new video posted to Instagram by Albert Lee, Metcalf can be seen playing basketball, where he goes up for a massive windmill dunk that completely rattles the rim. The football star gets a massive reaction for the play, and it is very easy to see why.
Metcalf is clearly talented at everything he does, and the above clip makes us feel like the football star should go out and try his hand at the NBA dunk contest. The contest has been a little stagnant over the years and perhaps some celebrity involvement could make the contest that much more exciting.
Either way, Metcalf looks to be in great shape, and we can’t wait to see what he does on the field next season.
The world is congratulating Jay-Z after the massive announcement this morning that his Ace Of Spades champagne brand would be entering a partnership with LVMH, the luxury multinational luxury corporation. It’s a massive deal for hip-hop, specifically, since Armand De Brignac was created after Hov called for a boycott of Cristal champagne after they suggested its association with the culture, and Black artists, would harm the brand.
There’s been an outpouring amount of support and love for Hov today including from his mother-in-law, Tina Lawson, who penned an incredibly heartwarming, yet lengthy, “love letter” to her son-in-law. “Each person that performed Jazmine Sullivan, Her, and the Weekend all slaying their performances and making Black Excellence shine and us all proud,” Tina wrote, before referencing the amount of backlash the rapper faced for teaming up with the NFL.
“Today Jay I salute you and your Latest venture in selling 50% of your Champagne Co to LVMH,” she continued. “You are a bad ass brother and I hope that you continue to pave the way for others like you have in the past !! And I have seen such Ask extreme kindness and generosity so many times that people don’t even know anything about! You are a true man who has admitted publicly when you’ve made mistakes in a very brave and classy way ! I love you so much!!”
Since the ring was on *that* finger, fans immediately began wondering if this meant Khloe and Tristan were engaged. “Is this her way of letting us know she’s engaged?!” one commenter asked. “It’s the ring for me,” another added. Tristan played coy in the comments as well, jokingly writing, “WOW!!!!!!! That grass is cut to perfection.”
According to a source close to the family, however, the ring is not from Thompson. In fact, Khloe has had the ring for quite some time. She wore it during an outing in Boston in December, which also caused an uproar when fans speculated she was engaged. It seems as though Khloe just wanted some additional buzz around her brand Good American’s upcoming shoe release, and she got boyfriend Tristan Thompson to play into the speculation as well.
Exactly 56 years after the day of his assassination, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, alongside the daughters of Malcolm X, asked the D.A. to reopen the murder case, presenting new evidence that they claim implicates the NYPD and the FBI into their father’s death.
In the letter, Wood says that the FBI and NYPD planned for this assassination to occur, and the lack of security surrounding Malcolm X allowed his shooters to easily enter the venue. At the time, Wood says he was unaware that Macolm X was the target.
The letter (below) is dated to January 25, 2011. Wood begins in the letter, “I was a black New York City undercover police officer from April 1964 through May of 1971. I participated in actions that in hindsight were deplorable and detrimental to the advancement of my own black people.”
“My job was to infiltrate civil rights organizations throughout New York City, to find evidence of criminal activity, so the FBI could discredit and arrest its leaders,” he continues. “Under the direction of my handlers, I was told to encourage leaders and members of the civil rights groups to commit felonious acts.”
According to a statement from an NYPD spokesperson, “The NYPD has provided all available records relevant to that case to the district attorney.” The FBI has not issued a comment so far.
We’ll keep you posted on any updates with this story.
The Hi-Fi streaming experience has been touted before, with Jay-Z’s streaming service Tidal initially orienting their messaging around a lossless streaming tier, and of course, there’s Neil Young’s obsession with his Pono player and high-definition digital archives. But today, Spotify announced they will be joining the lossless streaming world too, letting Spotify Premium subscribers upgrade to Spotify HiFi, which will “deliver music in CD-quality, lossless audio format.”
According to Spotify, this has been one of the most-requested additions, and the rollout was announced with the help of Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas. “High quality audio means more info, there are things you will not hear if you don’t have a good sound system. It’s really important just because we make music that [we] want to be heard in the way that it was made,” Eilish said. Her brother added: “Anytime anyone really takes time to sit down with our music and listen to it in a really high quality way it’s very exciting because I know they are hearing everything that we intended them to.”
The service will roll out in select markets later this year, though no pricing info has been released yet. It’s a big day for the streaming platform considering they also announced a brand new exclusive podcast with Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama.
TMZ reports Trick Daddy, who was arrested in Miami on DUI and cocaine possession charges this past January, has pled guilty to cocaine possession in exchange for a reduced sentence. He’ll get credit for time served, while the DUI charge has been dropped. The amount of cocaine was small enough that it resulted in “a very low-level,” third-degree felony, with no additional probation required. There was, however, some community service tacked-on, which Trick was apparently happy to oblige.
Trick Daddy’s attorney told TMZ, “As part of the plea he was also able to give back to the community he loves so much with a donation to Camillus House homeless shelter.” Trick was arrested, according to the Miami Herald, after police responded to reports of a dark Range Rover running red lights and hitting road signs. Trick Daddy failed a field sobriety test, while the cocaine was found on a dollar bill among his possessions. His bond was set at $5,000 for the cocaine charges and $1,000 for the DUI.
Trick was recently the focus of an episode of Uproxx’s React Like You Know that saw up-and-coming young stars like 2KBaby, NLE Choppa, and Shordie Shordie offer their thoughts on the Miami veteran’s classic 1998 video “Nann N****” with Trina.
Shordie Shordie and Murda Beatz‘s Memory Lane EP is slated to drop this Friday (Feb. 26), and they have already unleashed three singles from the project including “Doctors,” “Good Evening” and “Love” featuring Trippie Redd. Speaking with Uproxx, the super dynamic duo shared with us what else fans can expect from their collaborative tape and the special meaning behind its title Memory Lane.
“Memory Lane. It takes us back. It takes us back to memories or real music,” Shordie revealed of the project’s title during a Zoom call. “Because I been picturing bro and hearing bro talk. It brings me back to real music. It brings me back to not really caring about streaming, not really caring about who got higher status this week. Nah, real music. Push out real music to the point that people don’t have no other way to gravitate towards it. They don’t have a choice but to gravitate towards it.”
“There’s not a lot of people who are really storytelling nowadays,” the Grammy Award-nominated hitmaker chimed in. “A lot of music on the project, like even ‘Doctors,’ he’s really telling a story if you really pay attention it’s like he’s actually telling a story of what he did and that’s cool. You got to appreciate a rapper in 2020 that can story tell.”
Needless to say, Shordie’s fans are hungry for the tape, which is sure to be filled with lots of melodies and vivid rhymes.
“It’s going to be something different that people wouldn’t expect from me and Murda,” the Baltimore native said.
“It’s like when you go to the IMAX theatre and you’re watching a movie,” Murda Beatz added before Shordie concluded, “Every song has a beginning to an end.”
Check out the full Shordie Shordie and Murda Beatz interview below.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
For nearly its entire 40-year history, hip-hop has been just as defined by intergenerational conflict as it has its youthful energy and rebellious spirit. It was founded by teens in New York rejecting the constraints of their parents’ music, causing no end to the consternation of elder generations back then — a tradition that continues to this day.
However, as much as those early rap records — and the ones of today — are a repudiation of whatever conventions defined “grown-up” music at the time, they are also influenced by and tied to those standards as well. The first rap records sampled disco, funk, and jazz, even as they strove to create something new and different. Today, modern artists sample their predecessors, borrow their flows, and pay lyrical homage without thinking about it, like it’s second nature.
And as much as the elder generation has been bemused by and berated youth movements, there have also always been those who have sought to guide, instruct, and encourage the “kids.” For every J. Cole, there’s a Jay-Z; for every Kendrick Lamar, there’s a Dr. Dre.
For Queens, New York poet, drummer, and rapper Kumbaya, there’s Pharoahe Monch, the veteran syllable slayer perhaps still best known for his Japanese monster movie-sampling 1999 hit “Simon Says.” Beginning his career in the early ’90s as part of the duo Organized Konfusion, Pharoahe has evolved and persevered through three decades of hip-hop, making him perhaps one of the best-suited artists to mentor an unconventional up-and-comer like Kumbaya.
The rap elder statesman and his protege joined Uproxx via Zoom to talk about the roots of Black music that have always tied generations together, the evolution of Black music through its myriad forms, the legacy both artists hope to leave behind, and the responsibility artists have to the world around them.
So, first of all, I just want to say, thank you both for agreeing to participate in this discussion. We’re talking about the rich history of Black music and its impact on American culture and the roots of Black music and so forth. A great place to start that discussion is when you started becoming aware of the differences between Black music and mainstream music, and what your first experiences with Black music really were.
Pharoahe Monch: I guess my first experience was in a church. With my parents being from the South, it’s like a mainstay. So, very early on, even in that sense, I would notice the patterns and stomp my feet to the various rhythms.
Kumbaya: When it came to church, my family didn’t have a tradition. Sometimes we went. Sometimes we didn’t. So, I think my first experience was kind of just digging through my mom’s CDs. She always had a whole bunch of CDs on deck, and I would just, on my off time, I would dig through them. I didn’t know what I was looking for. I was just looking for the most attractive CD cover, and I just popped it in. And I had no idea what I would, who these people were, but I just knew I really enjoyed what I was hearing.
I remember one time, she came in the house and she gave me a DMX cassette, and she said somebody had given it to her. And it was the one where he had all the blood on the cover [Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood] and my mom said, “Somebody gave this to me in the street.” She goes, “Here you go. I think this is gospel music.” And I was like, “I don’t think so.”
Well… He prays on it.
Kumbaya: I was like, “Ma, this man barking. I don’t think this is ‘gospel,’” but I listened to that front and back. So it was just those hands-off experiences. But as far as the differences, I was always told that it was all our music. All of the genres came from us. So for me, it’s just like, I see the differences as far as who gets to have their music on the forefront more often. I see that. But as far as the sound, it’s ours.
Pharoahe Monch: Even on the DMX joint, it’s intertwined, because he hits those things like a pastor, and then he’s praying on there. And he would pray on stage and sh*t like that. My whole household was just a plethora of different vibes. My mom was the gospel. My pop was jazz. Brother was the rock. Sister was the Jacksons, and so forth. But within all those genres, you can hear the originality and the origin.
I find that interesting because even going back to your time on Rawkus Records, your labelmate Mos Def [Yasiin Bey] made the song “Rock N Roll”: “Elvis Presley ain’t got no soul, Chuck Berry is rock and roll.” He was talking to the roots of where the music comes from. And I’m really interested in how music evolves and how you translate those influences through your own music. For instance, Pharoahe, you have, “Hallelujah, Pharoahe Monch’ll do ya.”
Pharoahe Monch: It’s funny you bring up Mos. I remember one time we did MTV, and his mom was managing him at the time. And he and his mom was telling me how his grandmother liked that verse. She was like, “Oh, he killed it with that ‘hallelujah’ part.” At that moment, in that piece, I am trying to bring about that same vibration and let it resonate on some Martin Luther King sh*t in terms of the tone, and in terms of the power there, with sh*t that moved me.
I used to study what gives you goosebumps. Is it the truth in the words? Is it the tone? Tonality in the line? What was it about the King speech that makes everybody’s hair stand up? What is it about Chuck D that can make your hair stand up when he hits you with a bit of truth? With the tone on that sh*t back then, I would be like, “Yo, this is different.”
All those things are soul to me. And all those things are Black to me. You have to study that sh*t to dig down into the roots of making people feel you beyond the f*cking content, which is why I’m a big fan of Kumbaya. It’s a combination of truth and pocket tone. As an MC, you don’t say somebody is nice unless they can command all of those kinds of elements. I think if you study Black music, you’re constantly chasing the elements.
Kumbaya: First of all, for Pharaohe to say he’s a fan of mine blows me away.
I just really like words, and I knew that from an early age. My mom knew that about me. I like to read, and I like to write. And so, I would just naturally gravitate towards voices that made me feel something. I say to myself, “Oh, I need to study how to be like this.” That’s when I started to realize that you start to take on the elements that you are drawn to, that you’re attracted to. So, if as a rapper, you’re just attracted to the flash, then you’re going to take on the element of the flash and ignore all the other stuff. But if you’re attracted to the tone, if you’re attracted to the presence, if you’re attracted to the look on somebody’s face, you’re going to start to absorb that stuff and put it back out in your own way.
As we’re talking about the impact that hip-hop music or Black music can have on culture and have on a person… knowing that impact, do artists have a responsibility to address that or use that?
Pharoahe Monch: I think for me, my overall feeling about artists is all about freedom. So, if you want to make some f*ck sh*t or some dance sh*t or some good time sh*t, all I want from that is to be inspired and motivated. It doesn’t all have to be revolutionary in the sense of pushing a Black agenda forward. It can be revolutionary in how it inspired me to think about doing that or to inspire the next person to think about doing it.
For me, it’s important to have the total spectrum of freedom but to also focus on leaving gems and continuing the legacy because this is what we come from. This is what we gathered this energy from, so it’s only right to give it back
Kumbaya, I absolutely heard a lot of what he was talking about in the music of yours that I listen to, but it’s being translated through a different lens. Pharoahe’s from a different generation. Kumbaya, you’re of course a little bit younger. What’s your take on the artist’s responsibility, and how do you think your individual lens makes it unique and so important to make sure that that perspective gets heard?
Kumbaya: At a basic level, we’re all the same. We’re all human beings and there’s no feeling that you’re going to feel, there’s no feeling that Pharoahe’s going to feel, that I’m going to be foreign to. There’s no emotion or anything that you’ve experienced, that I’m not going to understand. I may not agree but I’m not going to not understand it.
So I just feel like naturally as human beings, no matter what an artist does, no matter what they portray, whether they even try to be responsible or not, somebody is going to feel them. They’re going to resonate with somebody. So I think an artist’s responsibility is to just project whatever it is that you truly would like to project, which is why it’s important to know yourself and to stick by your stuff.
Pharoahe Monch: And you take the time to find your voice so you can get to those inner places. When you think about it in that sense it still goes back to the ancestors, not to get on some spiritual sh*t…
Kumbaya: No, let’s get on it.
Pharoahe Monch: When you tap into that sh*t, you tap into a vibration that’s undeniable every single time. It might not be for everybody but that sh*t’s going to resonate crazy when you dig that deep.
Kumbaya: I was listening to Ahmad Jamal yesterday and for like two weeks now I’ve been replaying this one song, “Poinciana.”I can’t stop listening to that song. I have no idea why but it makes me feel a way. I don’t even know what the title of that song means.
For a very long time, I was very angry. I was a very angry Black person for a very long time, rightfully so, once I started to learn about this system in place against me. I got very upset and I had to work through that because it started to affect my behavior for a reason that was unhelpful to me. So, I had to address that and I had to go and be on my own and work through that and find that voice so that I could express this in a more palatable way.
So I guess just to kind of wrap things up a little bit. Of course, history is always changing. It’s always moving forward. Right now, we are making history. So, I guess the obvious question is how do you want history to see you?
Pharoahe Monch: It’s simple for me, man. A lot of the joy I’m getting is learning and it’s dope to know that it’s a continuing f*cking thing that’s ongoing. The reason I personally push forward is that you can go back and listen to a verse or a song like Ahmad Jamal and get a whole new interpretation of that sh*t than when the first time you heard it. I think that’s part of the lesson of why you layer shit because the history of our message is that this shit needs to travel beyond our years.
If you look at the Black Messiah joint and Fred Hampton and the Panthers, Malcolm, Martin, at some point they all literally said, “I might not get there with you but this sh*t is going to resonate,” and not in the corny sense. You know, people are becoming more aware of the hardcore harsh reality of how they looked at the ugliness of this country. People always promote the “I have a dream” sh*t, but as we see now, Martin was like, “Yo, this sh*t is f*cked up. It’s f*cking two Americas and y’all need to be called out on that sh*t.”
So, woven into the Black experience of the music that I think resonates with artists like ourselves. That’s what makes this sh*t last and that’s what makes this sh*t a learning experience.
Kumbaya: I feel like I’m kind of new in the game so I actually never thought about that, what I would want to be remembered for. I know that the impact that I want to make is I want to encourage people to remember, as Toni Morrison said, “Words are things”. They’re real and they get into the walls and they get into the clothes and they get into you. I guess I would like to remind people of the power of them — particularly the power of the words that you speak to yourself because those are the most important words, the ones that we don’t hear.
I just want to remind people, “Your ideas are real. They’re real ideas. And if you feel passionate about something, go for it. Make that move.”
Pharoahe Monch’s A Magnificent Day For An Exorcism is out now via Fat Beats. Get it here. Check out Kumbaya on Soundcloud.
Although Jaden’s mostly known for following in his famous dad’s musical footsteps, his latest single is a departure from his old-school influenced raps. “Photograph,” which comes from Jaden’s 2020 mixtape CTV3: Cool Tape Vol. 3, takes an even sharper left turn from that project’s pop-rock-oriented lead single “Cabin Fever,” slowing things way down for an indie-ish guitar ballad about the longing Jaden feels for an ex-flame.
Fittingly, the video for the song, released today, finds Jaden literally and figuratively drowning in his emotions as he wanders along the beach, getting lost in the waves. Several striking underwater shots punctuate the overwhelming melancholy he feels in the song’s lyrics as he croons, “I’m in the middle of the ocean and I need you right now / If I can’t love you, I guess I’ll just drown.”
Imagined as a prequel of sorts to his Syre and Erys albums, Cool Tape Vol. 3 tracks the sort of teenage love affair that does feel as big as an ocean — and just as mercurial. The project found him diverging from his usual style and reuniting with Justin Bieber on a song for the first time in a decade. More recently, Jaden returned to his rap roots to once again celebrate Marvel’s Miles Morales with “I’m Ready” from the Spider-Man: Miles Morales video game’s soundtrack.
In the midst of his new reality, Newton decided to join the “I Am Athlete” podcast where he got to speak to former NFL players Brandon Marshall, Chad Johnson, and Fred Taylor about his predicament. At one point, Newton was asked if he would consider retiring from the sport. Of course, Newton immediately pushed back against that idea, noting that there is no way 32 quarterbacks in the league are better than him.
“Hell no! I can’t go out like that. I hear all of that talk. My pride won’t allow me to do it. There aren’t 32 guys better than me,” Newton exclaimed.
For many fans, Newton still has a lot of gas left in the tank and at 32, he is nowhere close to the end of his career. While it might be hard to find a team for next season, there is no doubt that he can make a massive impact in the right system.
Let us know where you think Newton should go, in the comments below.
