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Best New Tracks: NBA YoungBoy, Shenseea x Megan Thee Stallion and More
As the week in music comes to a close, HYPEBEAST has rounded up the best projects for the latest installment of Best New Tracks. This week’s list is led by releases from YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Shenseea and Megan Thee Stallion and 2 Chainz with Moneybagg Yo and Beatking, who dropped the mixtape Colors, the collab cut “Lick” and the single “Pop Music” respectively. Also joining this week’s list are offerings from Fred again… with Romy and Haai, Fly Anakin and Madlib, Guapdad 4000, Che Noir, Lana Del Rey, Brahny and Honey Dijon with Dave Giles II, Cor.Ece and Mike Dunn. YoungBoy Never Broke Again – Colors [embedded content] Less than a month after dropping From the Bayou with Birdman, YoungBoy Never Broke Again is back on his grind with the mixtape Colors. His first proje...
How Zedd and a Nurse Teamed Up to Surprise a Critically Ill Superfan In the Hospital
EDM Twitter is a digital hellscape where dignity goes to die—but sometimes it can be a source of magic. Such was the case with Jessica, a 31-year-old registered nurse tasked with the care of Angie, a patient in her intensive care unit and a superfan of leading electronic music artist Zedd. From the moment she used Twitter to make an emotional plea on behalf of her ailing patient, Jessica experienced a snowball effect that proved the electronic dance music community is greater than the sum of its parts. Jessica, who spoke with EDM.com via Zoom and asked us not to include her or Angie’s last names for privacy, said Angie is in her early 40’s and has been critically ill in the ICU for over three months. Despite dozens of major surgeries, she remains very sick. “My role...
“By Artists for Artists”: How The Funk Hunters’ Nick Middleton Evolved From DJ to Music Exec
As a member of celebrated electronic music duo The Funk Hunters, the CEO of Westwood Recordings, and the co-founder of Midnight Agency, it’s not hard to tell that Nick Middleton has a passion for the music industry. Covering everything from music production to marketing and more, Middleton is involved in every step of the process. But that wasn’t his initial aspiration. In an interview with EDM.com, Middleton tells us that he “never really had music as a dream career” and he believed his passion was in film. Throughout high school and progressing into college, Middleton worked in film. He made documentaries, taught post-production, and even ran a film school on Galiano Island called The Gulf Island Film & Television School (GIFTS). It was his work at GIFTS...
For Instructor Manolo Vega, Teaching Golf Is No Laughing Matter
Manolo Vega, pro golf instructor and content creator, became an overnight sensation on Instagram, largely due to his comedic approach and jovial instructions. His friendly persona was first revealed when he started helping his friend Jimmy Tropicana with his game, and the simple advice and suggestions ultimately led to a content series beloved by golfers, new and seasoned. Vega’s popularity continues to grow at a remarkable rate. Luckily, HYPEGOLF was able to witness his charisma and talent on the course firsthand as an invited guest to our Miami Beach Golf Club, during our first ever HYPEGOLF Invitational. With his trademark catchphrases “Dassssit” and “Nasty” turned the event’s guests in veritable Manny’s Maniacs. Recently, he was appointed as one of the hosts for Tito’s Vodka, the first...
ICE FM: The World’s Most Remote — and Coldest — Radio Station
In pictures, it’s difficult to say whether or not McMurdo Station is actually on the remote, icy planet Hoth from Star Wars. A cluster of low-lying dwellings sprout out from volcanic rock and are surrounded by miles and miles of snow and ice. But it is indeed located here on Earth, in Antarctica. The American research base has been operating since 1955. In that desolate, frozen, isolation, scientists perform vital astrophysics, biology, geology, glaciology, geomorphology, ice core, ocean, and climate systems research. The station currently hosts a large staff of 600, which blossoms to around 1,000 during the “summer” season. That’s practically a small town, and like any small town, they need everyone from cooks, to welders, to police officers, to artists and writers. There’s a bit of...
69 Most Anticipated Albums of 2022
2022 is just barely underway, and already, this year is looking to be a legendary one for music. There are dozens of acts both big and small making a grand return in 2022; whether it be indie icons like Mitski and Animal Collective, legends of the ’80s and ’90s like Tears For Fears, Spiritualized and Eddie Vedder, or pop phenoms like Charli XCX and Cardi B, there will be plenty of marquee album releases. Not only that, we’re in a new era of releases entirely. During the initial lockdowns of 2020, many artists hunkered down and used that time to create — meanwhile, many others let themselves off the hook and waited until the pandemic began to wane to even record new music. Since then, genres and traditional labels have blurred even further, TikTok became the one of the most dominant music p...
Going the Distance: How CAKE Taught Me to Be Unabashed in My Musical Taste
In our endless appetite for the consumption of culture, to loudly have disdain for something is worth as much as earnest appreciation for the form. When you’re young it’s often especially important to find communion amongst others that share the same contempt for things you detest. Hating something easily becomes a personality, it’s important to like and dislike the right things, lest our tastes stray us too far from the most populated path. No band tested this theory for me like CAKE. I discovered the Sacramento-based band while working in a grocery store. A song came on the radio sometime after 8 pm, just before closing. This was when we would clean our departments, but more importantly, it was our chance to let loose a bit. We’d party a little and do our best to maintain our spirits as ...
The Afterparty Review: Apple TV+’s Comedic Murder Mystery Might Be the Most Inventive TV Show of 2022 (So Far)
The Pitch: For those familiar with the work of 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord, there are a few constants, a major one being their talent for taking a premise and making it simultaneously very clear and simple and also deceptively complex. Apple TV+’s The Afterparty is a perfect example of this, presenting itself initially as a fairly straightforward murder mystery out of the pages of Agatha Christie, with Tiffany Haddish in the Hercule Poirot role. On its own merits, that’s an idea that would be enough to inspire interest, and then Miller (who created the series and directs every episode; Lord serves as an executive producer) adds an additional layer: Every episode, which focuses on one potential suspect’s version of events, also utilizes a different...
Joss Whedon, Spilling Your Guts Doesn’t Mean You’ve Done the Work
Sometimes, the best profiles are the ones that know when to let the subject speak for themselves, and Monday we received a great example of this in Vulture writer Lila Shapiro’s lengthy examination of where Joss Whedon is at in the year 2022. The profile’s answer: not great, on a lot of levels, due to years of controversy stemming from allegations of bad behavior across multiple projects, and Whedon’s not likely feeling much better, given the current online reaction to his statements. There are no shortage of pull-out quotes in the Vulture piece. Whedon refutes Ray Fisher’s allegations by saying the Cyborg scenes in Justice League “logically made no sense” and that’s why he wanted to cut down Fisher’s role. He then uses the sort of terminology that Giles might use to introduce one of Buffy...
The Outsider
I know, it sounds heretical to question or in any way impinge the credibility — or, by now, sanctity — of Anthony Fauci. Somehow, Fauci has become the Greatest Living Human Being, a corporeal blend of St Francis, Mother Teresa and the Buddha. I, personally, am not buying that, and, most demonstrably, Robert F Kennedy Jr, a one-time hero of the liberal faith and now a fallen angel, has not bought into it, and has published a remarkable, scathing, monumentally and meticulously researched take down of America’s head doctor. (Actually, even that’s a myth, he’s not the top medical official in the government, his boss until this past December, Francis Collins, was, and now Lawrence A. Tabak is. But Fauci has quietly allowed the mantle to be placed on his shoulders, never claiming it himsel...
Bridget Everett and Jeff Hiller on Their Infinitely Relatable New HBO Comedy Somebody Somewhere
Once you know the premise, you realize there’s no other possible title for Somebody Somewhere. The new HBO comedy, executive produced by the Duplass brothers and directed in part by Jay Duplass, stars Bridget Everett as Sam, a 40-something resident of small-town Kansas who’s mourning her deceased. sister, working a dull job, and in general feeling a bit lost in life — until, that is, she becomes closer to Joel (Jeff Hiller), an old high school classmate who helps reawaken in her a passion for music. The show is a sometimes sweet, sometimes sad, and more often than not very funny look at what it means to try to reawaken after years of sleepwalking through life, anchored by the deep and complex friendship between its central characters. During a recent press day, Consequence was lucky enough...
Peacemaker’s Steve Agee on Dancing For James Gunn and Hating His Beard
Every superhero, even one as unconventional as John Cena‘s Peacemaker, could use a little back-up — which is where Steve Agee comes in. The comedian and actor appears in the HBO Max comedy Peacemaker as John Economos, first seen working for Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) in The Suicide Squad and now investigating the strange goings-on that happen to coincide with Peacemaker’s escape from prison. “I tend to have parts where I’m in a scene and I say a line at the very end where we cut to the action,” Agee says about his past work on projects like New Girl and You’re the Worst. But while Economos is the sort of part that Agee plays nimbly as a character actor, he did value the opportunity to get a little deeper with the role in Peacemaker‘s eight episodes. Agee, as he explains in this one-o...
