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asap rocky May 15, 2017
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A$AP Rocky drops ‘RAF’ featuring Frank Ocean, Uzi and Quavo

Rap game done turned into the NBA. Instead of working on their own projects, artists would rather just all jump on a fly beat and just take turns saying fly shit. I ain’t really complaining though.

A$AP Rocky just dropped some new heat on the track “RAF” featuring Uzi, Quavo and a very rare Frank Ocean rapping. I’m pretty sure I hear Playboi Carti wildin’ out in the back too but they all snap on this shit and you definitely hitting repeat.

Right now only the ripped version has been going around and so there ain’t no cursing and the quality is a little shaky. Shit is still tough though.

Frank Ocean premiered the new track late last night on his Blonded radio on Beats 1 but Rocky low key previewed the track at the Rolling Loud festival in Miami recently too.

This was the first version without any features but Carti.

Peep the album art for the single below.

https://twitter.com/pilasaci/status/864069776754302977

Of course Twitter is already fuckin’ with it.

It’s not clear if this is appearing on the next A$AP MOB Cozy Tape or on one of Rocky’s projects but for those of you who though this man was falling off, just know that he’s been cookin’ up.

clippers May 12, 2017
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Kendrick Lamar narrates farewell video to fellow L.A. native Paul Pierce

Although Paul Pierce played most of his career in Boston, dude was a hero back home in Los Angeles.

Pierce went from Inglewood High School, where he was a McDonald’s All-American, to Lawrence, Kansas to play for Roy Williams’ University of Kansas Jayhawks.

With the 10th pick in the 1998 NBA Draft, Pierce was selected by the Celtics, where he played until 2013.

His last couple stops, in Brooklyn, Washington, and back home in Los Angeles, saw an aging Pierce transition to more of a role player, although he still showed brief flashes of the player he once was.

Some newer fans of the NBA may not know just how truly nice Paul “The Truth” Pierce was for years.

Dude averaged 19.7 ppg, 5.6 rpg, and 3.5 apg in his career, was a 10x All-Star, won the 2008 NBA Championship, where he was Finals MVP, and is fourth all-time in made three-pointers.

Every step of the way, Paul Pierce was a star.

Pierce announced last summer that the 2016-2017 season would be his last and was saluted by NBA teams and fans all year, even if Draymond Green had some shit to say about it.

The Clippers released a farewell video to Pierce on Thursday. The clip was narrated by Compton native Kendrick Lamar, who talked about the contrasts of Los Angeles.

On one side of L.A. you have the glitz and glamor of Hollywood, on the other side you have tougher neighborhoods where, as Lamar says, “you can find the grit, the fortitude, the truth.”

This is the part of L.A. that Paul Pierce exemplified, he was one of the realest to ever do it, with Shaquille O’Neal giving him his legendary nickname after Pierce dropped 42 on Shaq’s Lakers back in 2001.

The video concludes with farewells from James Harden (L.A. native), Chris Paul (teammate), Kobe Bryant (probably Pierce’s greatest rival), and Isaiah Thomas (current Celtics star).

It’s a pretty dope clip and for anyone that fucks with The Truth this video will definitely raise some goosebumps.

Kulture May 12, 2017
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Tom Brady continues GOAT status, gets Madden 18 cover

Even if the Madden curse was a real thing, there’s no way that shit would affect my man Tom Brady. The guy has a literally untouchable status in sports and off the field he ain’t doing too bad either.

As he winds down his career in the NFL, it’s only fitting that the man gets his first official Madden cover. The announcement and first trailer of the game was released on Friday.

With Gronk getting last year’s cover for Madden 17, that makes two consecutive Patriots players covering Madden in two years.

Even if you hate New England, you can’t argue that there isn’t a better sports icon to get this year’s cover. You can’t be mad at their decisions but does it seem like the Pats are more like a corporation than a sports franchise?

While this is Brady’s first time on Madden, this isn’t his first video game cover. Who could forget NFL GameDay 2003?!

https://twitter.com/NFL_DovKleiman/status/863032024545845248

Other than that actual gameplay video looks too fire. The game will run on Battlefield’s Frostbite engine which will provide more photo-realistic graphics and a new physics engine that is sure to be stupid lit.

The FIFA franchise transitioned to this same engine for 17 and the results were pretty ridiculous. Considering that the GOAT is on this year’s cover of Madden, it’s safe to put the expectations of the game at an all-time high. The Falcons were deadass up 28-3.

josh gordon May 11, 2017
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NFL continues to be trash, denies Josh Gordon reinstatement

Josh Gordon’s long and winding road to redemption has hit another bump as the NFL denied Gordon reinstatement to the league earlier today.

While Gordon has had his troubles with substance abuse and various run ins with law enforcement officials dating back to his college days at Baylor, the reasoning behind this latest denial is seemingly unclear.

Josh Gordon first broke onto the scene as a rookie in 2012, selected in the second round of the Supplemental Draft after the Houston native had been kicked off his college teams at Baylor and Utah for failing drug tests.

It was his breakout 2013 season in which Gordon showed so much promise, racking up 1,646 yards on 87 catches and scoring 9 touchdowns, despite missing the first two games due to suspension for violating the NFL’s substance-abuse policy.

– 👑-

A post shared by Josh Gordon (@flash) on

Then Gordon’s trouble really started, the electric wide receiver was initially suspended for the entire 2014 season for another violation of the substance-abuse policy. The suspension was later reduced to 10 games, and Gordon played the final five games of the season.

That was the last time he played in the NFL.

Gordon was suspended for all of 2015, but was set to be reinstated after the first four games of the 2016 season; however just before he was eligible to return, Gordon checked himself into a rehab center to, as he said, “gain full control of my life and continue on a path to reach my full potential as a person.”

A glimpse at Gordon’s social accounts and his working out with former Olympian Tim Montgomery, suggest that Gordon is trying to get on the straight and narrow path. He’s obviously dealing with some pretty serious demons and substance abuse issues, both of which the NFL has zero tolerance for.

It’s a pretty hypocritical stance by the NFL, which has allowed domestic abusers and sexual assailants to play in the league, but Gordon is getting the Ricky Williams blackball treatment.

https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/862715789807407109

The NFL’s draconian rules about weed use are even more ridiculous when placed alongside the league’s rampant prescription painkiller problem. In a lot of cases, guys are popping pills before games to mask pain and be able to go out on the field, but risking long term injury.

More alarming than players taking drugs to mask pain is a seemingly systematic operation by many team doctors to pump players up with numbing agents and blood thinners, like Toradol, without players’ knowledge of what is going into their bodies.

This has become the subject of a lawsuit, with more than 1,800 former players claiming that doctors “improperly distributed and administered painkillers, causing long-term organ and joint damage” according to SB Nation.

Last month, Commissioner Roger Goodell said he saw no benefits of allowing players to use marijuana,

“[Marijuana] does have addictive nature. There are a lot of compounds in marijuana that may not be healthy for the players long-term. All of those things have to be considered. And it’s not as simple as someone just wants to feel better after a game. We really want to help our players in that circumstance but I want to make sure that the negative consequences aren’t something that is something that we’ll be held accountable for some years down the road.”

Goodell truly has no shame. He’s claiming he doesn’t want to be “accountable” down the road for harming the health of players when the NFL is currently in a lawsuit because team doctors actively violated federal drug laws and regulations while treating players.

I understand the criticism of Josh Gordon, dude seemingly had it all and threw it away for the piff, but somehow framing him as the bad guy in all of this is severely missing the mark.

As for the Browns and where they stand, Browns executive vice president of football operations Sashi Brown said at the NFL’s owner’s meetings that they’d be open to a reunion, provided that Gordon is healthy.

“Listen, assuming he would play at the level we started to see glimpses of last preseason and certainly in the league before, [Gordon] would be a talent I think no team in the NFL would turn down if he got back in. Our decision with Josh is just understanding where he is in this process and being able to have him. We’re not in position at wide receiver to turn down a guy like Josh if we feel he’s settled himself. Josh is going to have an opportunity to reapply to the NFL and at that time we’ll make a decision when we know what’s going on.”

Gotta love the flaming hypocrisy of the NFL.

Gordon is eligible to apply for reinstatement again sometime in the fall, I’ll be rooting for him to tear the league up.

In the meantime, check out how twitter reacted to the news of the NFL’s decision to deny Gordon’s reinstatement.

https://twitter.com/AndyRuther/status/862700676555587584

10K80 May 11, 2017
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Forbes Five of richest in hip-hop shows importance of brand evolution

Yesterday Forbes released their annual Forbes Five of the richest hip-hop artists in the game and there weren’t exactly any surprises.

The names here are pretty much what we’ve come to expect on these kinds of lists, with the biggest moguls in hip-hop making up the top 5.

Diddy comes in at number one on this list, he’s essentially become a mainstay when it comes to the top of the Forbes Five. As Zack O’Malley Greenburg writes, “the only thing more predictable than a Diddy name change? His place atop our annual list of the wealthiest hip-hop artists.”

But Greenburg also points out that Diddy has found himself some real competition at the top echelon of hip-hop opulence. This competition comes in the form of Brooklyn native Jay Z, whose net worth has spiked in the last year,

“Jay Z’s fortune has jumped 30% in the past year after a $200 million investment from Sprint reportedly put the valuation of his music-streaming service, Tidal, at $600 million, more than 10 times what he paid for the company two years ago.”

Slotting in at third is superproducer and Beats founder Dr. Dre. In 2014 Dre sold Beats to Apple for $3 billion, which puts his net worth at an estimated $740 million.

The top three on this list are in a completely different class, falling just short of the billionaire tag. Diddy is worth a reported $820 million, Hov at $810 million is right behind him, and Dre rounds out this top three.

At number four is Birdman, but to illustrate the sharp drop off from those three mega-moguls, Birdman is valued at about $110 million.

That’s not chump change by any means, but Birdman is not touching those three legends, especially with the chaos going on over at Cash Money Records. Having Drake, Lil Wayne, and Nicki Minaj on your label only works until they leave, which all three have reportedly expressed their desire to do.

Rounding out the top 5 is by far the youngest on this list, Drake. While not altogether shocking, Drake’s place on this list shows the moves he’s been making with a streaming deal with Apple music and sponsorship partnerships with Nike and Sprite.

While the music industry has changed pretty radically in the last twenty years, artists have found different ways to make money, beyond album sales. Whether it’s being at the forefront of streaming services, lucrative sponsorship deals, or making the dankest sounding headphones, these hip-hop moguls have used their entrepreneurial drive to make wild bread despite the changing face of the industry.

big black May 10, 2017
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Rob Dyrdek pays tribute to his late best friend Big Black

Despite all the things they’ve accomplished in their careers, Rob Dyrdek and Christopher “Big Black” Boykins were most known for their unbreakable bond on one of the greatest MTV shows of all time, “Rob and Big.”

From 2006-2008, their story of real-life brotherhood became a huge part of popular culture as two guys who couldn’t be more different had one of the most entertaining bromances ever shown on television. The shit they got into was hilarious and you could tell they were really homies. It was must-watch TV.

Unfortunately, that brotherhood came to an abrupt end yesterday when, at the age of 45, Big Black died suddenly according to TMZ. He left behind a 9-year-old daughter.

Rob is understandably crushed and took to his Instagram and Twitter to publicly mourn and thank Big Black for all of the memories.

Since the show debuted over 10 years ago, Rob Dyrdek has transitioned into a successful business mogul, got married and had a child. While his relationship with Big Black got shaky over the past few years as well, the two finally reunited recently and mended whatever rift they had.

Big Black appeared on a couple of Rob’s shows and their friendship was back in tact before Big’s tragic death. While they both became fathers since their time away from “Rob and Big,” they remained close and have a whole catalog of memories that remain alive thanks to the show. Big Black even threw up this throwback photo of them just a few weeks ago.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSASUs_Ai-n/

Christopher Boykin was an awesome dude and had a heart of gold. That showed every time he appeared on TV and Rob was his perfect partner in crime.

Shout out to both of these men and the friendship they put on display for the world. Salute.

Bruh May 10, 2017
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Cop finds out he’s 18% black through Ancestry.com, sues chief for racism

In the latest installment of What Is Good In America Right Now? a Michigan police officer claims he was subjected to racial abuse upon learning he had African heritage after taking a genetic test on Ancestry.com.

Sgt. Cleon Brown was subjected to a constant stream of abuse by his fellow officers and even the mayor of of Hastings, Michigan.

According to MLive.com, Brown was subject to verbal taunts and jokes about his race,

“Sgt. Cleon Brown said the police chief called him, ‘Kunte,’ a character in Alex Haley’s novel, ‘Roots: The Saga of an American Family,’ while officers whispered, ‘Black Lives Matter’ and pumped fists as they walked past.”

The taunting continued and reached new levels when Brown’s fellow officers decorated the office Christmas tree with racist kitsch.

Twitter

Again, from MLive,

“At Christmas, the department hung stockings with names of the officers on a Christmas tree. A black Santa Claus figurine – with ‘18%’ written on its white beard – was put in Brown’s stocking.”

My dude Cleon is firing back and suing “the city of Hastings, police Chief Jeff Pratt, City Manager Jeff Mansfield, Deputy Chief Dale Boulter and Sgt. Kris Miller.”

Cleon Brown is not fuckin’ around anymore. It’s pretty clear he got this ancestry test and shared the information with his co-workers who thought they could joke around about his race, but took it way too far.

As for the city of Hastings, they are really trying it, saying it’s all Cleon’s fault for starting “the joking and banter”. The city’s statement read.

“Sgt. Brown, in a very joking and jovial manner, informed several of his fellow officers that he had recently taken a DNA test through Ancestry.com and the results showed that he was 18% African American.”

The co-defendants in the case all reportedly unfriended Brown on Facebook and refused to let him play in the charity basketball game after Brown filed a discrimination complaint.

This is some petty bullshit from the whole Hastings Police Department. Poor Cleon got ostracized real quick once he realized he was 18% black, seems pretty representative of law enforcement’s opinion of race in this country.

Shouts out Cleon though, we hope he gets all the money from Hastings and his trash ass co-workers.

It’s safe to say twitter had some fun with this one… maybe Cleon should’ve seen this one coming?

https://twitter.com/fivefifths/status/862313562924085250

https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/862323460332285952

https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/862317151151173632

kanye May 9, 2017
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Kanye apparently posted up on a mountain in Wyoming making new album

It’s been all quiet on the Kanye West front for a minute now. Since his hospitalization in November while on his Saint Pablo Tour, Kanye has mostly stayed out of the public eye.

He surfaced briefly to go chit-chat with human trash receptacle Donald Trump and then posed for pictures with POTUS, proving that his hospitalization was for good reason.

Since then it’s been quiet for Pablo. He did not appear at his own Yeezy fashion show in February and then was absent from the Met Gala last week as Kim Kardashian appeared solo dolo on the red carpet.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTl-VNvFwPk/

Kanye also scrubbed all of his social media on twitter and Instagram, and there were suggestions something was amiss with the 808‘s artist.

But according to a report from TMZ, Yeezus is all good, he’s just chillin’ on a mountain in Wyoming creating his new album.

TMZ even claims to know which mountain he’s on, but don’t want to create any problems for Kanye. From the report,

“We know exactly where he is but hey, we don’t want to ruin his mojo … we like his music, too. But we can tell you he’s been there a week and also went 2 weeks earlier, so he’s smack in the middle of the creative process.”

Kanye has done this kind of thing before. He famously went to Hawaii to record My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Saint Pablo was recorded all over the globe, including stops in Mexico and Italy.

It seems like this strategy of holing up in various isolated locales has worked for Kanye in the past, although ‘old Kanye’ used to make five beats a day in his room for three summers.

Anyways, we hope Kanye is feeling happy and healthy out there on top of a mountain in Wyoming.

Back in February ‘Ye claimed the album was called Turbo Grafx 16, which is a wild name but at this point we expect nothing less. Looking forward to whatever Kanye cooking up out there.

2k May 9, 2017
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Watch Kobe f*ck around with Shaq in new NBA 2K18 commercial

When it comes down to it was there really ever a more legendary duo than Kobe and Shaq? Sure, Jordan and Pippen were up there but the Lakers in their 2000s prime was the best in my opinion, FOH.

While the two stars always had their differences, it’s good to see them put all that petty shit behind them and enjoy retirement together.

First Kobe, showed up to Shaq’s statue unveiling at Staples Center recently and now he appeared in his NBA 2K18 cover debut trailer above where he low key roasts him. It seems as if the two finally f*ck with each other but the bigger news here is that Diesel is gonna be on the cover of this year’s 2K again.

https://twitter.com/NBA2K/status/861551296993607681

This isn’t Shaq’s first time on the cover of 2K, in fact it’s his third. He was the first cover athlete to get the back-to-back honor on 2K6 and 2K7. Now over six years after officially retiring in 2011, the O’Neal brand is still stronger than ever.

With his son Shareef committing to Arizona to play his college ball, it’s only a matter of time before he gets his own 2K cover too!

Of course, the 2K series is known for their amazing gameplay and super realistic broadcast presentation. With Shaq appearing as a digital announcer on last year’s game, who knows what the team over at 2K has in store for this season?

Surely there will be more emphasis on Shaq’s legendary status and with throwback teams, maybe we’ll finally see more of his classic rosters. Don’t forget that this man was also on the Suns, Cavs and Celtics after he had dominated on the Magic, Lakers and Heat! We better just see some crowd diving animations.

While I’m sure we’re all ready to cop, the craziest part is actually the price point as the Legend Gold Edition will sell for $149.99 and the standard Legend Edition will go for $99.99. What happened to 60 cash games?! Sheesh! Either way this shit comes out on September 19 so in the meantime keep playing your 2K17.

Indie rock May 9, 2017
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Mac Demarco’s ‘This Old Dog’ and why this dude is just so hard to hate

I’ve tried to hate Mac Demarco since my little brother showed me “Ode to Viceroy” during my junior year of college. I was both pissed off that I hadn’t heard Mac earlier, that I had been beaten to yet another up and coming artist by my little brother, and that I liked it so much.

I was both pissed off that I hadn’t heard Mac earlier, that I had been beaten to yet another up and coming artist by my little brother, and that I liked it so much.

It seemed so easy to make fun of, “look at this quirky indie Canadian guy with the fake Irish/Italian name making jazzy stoner slacker rock about cigarette brands.”

I tried and tried to resist as I went back and sifted through Demarco’s catalog, eager to find something to prove my thesis that the indie scene was propping up another mediocre white dude. But alas, to my horror I found myself… enjoying it.

The airy guitar melodies, the lyrics about respecting women and chilling really hard, the ever-present cloud of weed smoke, it was all too chill to be true.

Glance at at one of his social media profiles and you’ll see a litany of self-deprecating hashtags and ironic posturing that make Mac Demarco appear as another snarky ass guy in their mid-20’s. Sometimes this persona seemed at odds with his songwriting, especially at its most male ally moments, like on “Treat Her Better” off 2014’s Salad Days, Demarco tells anonymous scene dude to treat his girl with some respect!

“Treat her better, boy/

If havin’ her at your side’s something you enjoy/

If havin’ her in your life’s really so important to you now”

This is obviously refreshing to hear in the hyper-masculine indie scene (the song may have been written in response to a former band member abusing his girlfriend) but coming from the guy who takes pictures in front of Buddha with the hashtag #iloveblowingcock, makes it slightly difficult to take him seriously.

https://www.instagram.com/p/xqrjIvpvqt/?taken-by=macdemarco&hl=en

For every “Treat Her Better” there’s a “Goodbye Weekend” where Demarco sings of all the lost fun of the weekend past (“Macky’s been a bad bad boy”!) and how he doesn’t like Mondays.

The two halves of Mac Demarco, the sensitive guy who wants his friends to treat their girlfriends better and the party dude who just wants to fuckin’ chill and smoke Viceroys and make homoerotic jokes, have been at odds on Mac’s previous work.

Obviously there’s no problem with having both serious and more satirical subject matter, but it was just hard to take Mac Demarco completely seriously on his earlier work, even if it was catchy and cool as hell.

So when Mac released his third studio album This Old Dog last week I thought maybe this was my last opportunity to jump off the Mac Demarco bandwagon.

Mac was just gonna make a carbon copy of Salad Days and I could safely make fun of him from my perch on contrarian mountain. To put it plainly, I was fully ready to not fuck with this album.

This is not what happened. Mac Demarco released an interesting, complex, extremely well-written, and different album with This Old Dog. I should’ve known when I heard the single “My Old Man” as Mac uses a synth and acoustic guitar while singing about his relationship with his father.

Mac revealed in a long feature from earlier in his career for Pitchfork that his father was an addict and his mom booted him out of the house when Mac was five.

On “My Old Man” Mac Demarco takes a look in the mirror and isn’t exactly thrilled with what he sees, someone that resembles his own dad.

“Look how old and cold and tired and lonely he’s become/

Not until you see/

There’s a price tag hanging off of having all that fun“

Mac sings over a metronomic xylophone-sounding thingy and stripped-down acoustic guitar. Mac Demarco has never let us in like this and frankly it’s moving stuff.

On This Old Dog, there’s no doubting Mac as a serious artist. In terms of lyrical content, there’s no battle between two sides of his personality, no odes to the weekend, no sponsored content for cigarette brands.

There is much more raw emotion on this record. “Sister” is a really somber (I had to make sure I was still listening to Mac Demarco) song running just over a minute describing the sudden pain of a breakup.

This breakup, or at least relationship troubles of some sort, pops up a lot on this record. After making his girlfriend cry, Mac muses “never thought some silly songs could go and hurt someone” on “Still Beating”.

Mac Demarco is making a record about getting older, the discontents of partying too much, and hurting the person you love, and it all sounds really good.

Musically, Demarco switched it up on this record as well. It’s the most stripped-down version of Mac Demarco we’ve gotten so far.

There’s more acoustic guitar, more synthesizers and keyboards, less of that surfy, Jimmy Buffet on a pound of weed style guitar melodies that we’ve become familiar with throughout Mac’s catalog.

With his stripped-down sound and more personal lyrics, Mac Demarco has made an incredibly real album about being in your mid-20’s in 2017.

There’s crazy shit going on out there, but Mac urges us,

“Don’t let the world outside the windowpane get to your head/

Hopefully make some sense of all this shit before you’re dead”

Hopefully.