This is an updated Tier List—find the previous version here.
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We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.
AV
More than half of the 2025 NBA Playoff First Round match-ups have already been sorted out. In less than ten days of scheduled playtime since the official kick-off of the ‘postseason that counts’, five teams across the Eastern and Western Conferences have already taken care of business, securing a landlocked spot in the Second Round. Two series sweeps, seeing each Conference’s top seed flat-out ridicule their fellow lowest-seeded Play-In Tournament hopefuls (Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers versus the Memphis Grizzlies and the Miami Heat, respectively), one giant upset (sixth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves dethroning the LA Lakers), as well as a couple predictable verdicts, albeit not without late clutch play drama (here’s looking at you, Indiana Pacers—more on this in a jiffy). Amidst it all, there isn’t even a need to front here: our predictions have so far left a lot to be desired—see bracket below; the 19th April Bluesky timestamp is proof…
Were the Nuggets, Rockets, and Knicks to go on to win their respective series tie in the next couple days, that would leave our bracket accuracy attainment rate at a measly 3/8 correct guesses. That’s a laughable 37%. Achieved by guessing that OKC, the Cavaliers, and the Celtics would win their charitable trips to the Semis, no less—wow. Geniuses. What’s troublesome too here are two deadpan implications from these first ten days of Playoff action: our presumptive NBA Champions Lakers are already on their way to Cancún as of 1st May, and this year’s wishful Cinderella story—the unlikely thrusting of the living-breathing scaffolding Milwaukee Bucks all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals—well, ain’t happening either. Nostradamus would be proud of us.
When your biggest postseason’s brag is that you predicted that the defending NBA Champions Boston Celtics reach the Eastern Conference Finals again, you should definitely stay away from sports betting. Frankly, even a 100% correct bracket guesses should, but that’s a story for a different day. And yet, we really believe(d) in our earnest predictions when we first filled them out. Did we go out on a few limbs here and there, just for fun? Of course. Comment this post if you also had the Lakers making it all the way to raising the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy this year. Or if you too were hopelessly optimistic that Damian Lillard’s miraculously unprecedented return from his blood clot issue would be the decisive X factor that could bring a somewhat disgraced franchise to unthinkable heights this season, only to capitulate in a seven-game series loss against the reigning champs.
Yes, they were both stretches, but not entirely unfounded. The Lakers won seven out of their ten final Regular Season games—including a marquee triumph against the top Western seed Thunders—and finished third with their best record in six years (50-32, .610 win percentage). Oh, and they low-key pulled off the biggest blockbuster NBA trade of this century, acquiring Slovenian superstar guard Luka Dončić in a multi-pawned deal that sent veteran center Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks. Also, Austin Reaves was on a sensational ascent. And this might be LeBron James’s last season, so why wouldn’t he do everything in his power to tip it off with at least one last Finals appearance? It all kind of made sense.
Not dissimilarly, the Milwaukee Bucks wrapped up the Regular Season with eight straight wins, that arithmetically pulled them out of the Play-In relegation slump, and officially set them apart enough to lock in the official fifth seed vis-a-vis the unlikely All-American success story of the Detroit Pistons. Considering how brutally disappointingly the 2024/2025 season started for the Giannis Antetokounmpo-led franchise, there was a great deal of new wind in their sail that would have allowed us to fantasize about them at the very least making it past the fastidious Indiana Pacers in the First Round (yup, even we’d have to acknowledge that beating the Cavaliers four times out of seven was perhaps too prohibitive and likely not on the cards for this year…). So, about that Bucks-Pacers series…
On Tuesday 29th April, Tyrese Haliburton and co. officially took care of business by eliminating Milwaukee 4-1 in a frankly pretty one-sided best-of-seven series. Pacers in five. The game ended 119-118 in dramatic fashion in overtime, and while the Bucks would probably have deserved to win the game and force a game six back in Indianapolis after blowing multiple double-digit leads, it’s what transpired in the moments immediately following the final buzzer that took on a whole other life of its own. To recap the succession of events for the uninitiated—right after Indiana clinched the series, Tyrese Haliburton’s father John Haliburton, sitting courtside, entered the floor during the celebrations. He then walked up to a petrified Giannis Antetokounmpo and proceeded to wave a towel featuring his son’s face, before directing provocative remarks at the Greek Freak. Giannis then confronted John, leading to a brief but tense exchange before teammates intervened to dissuade the situation.
There is so much that can, has been, and will be written about the altercation. For starters, the public embarrassment expressed by Tyrese over his father’s actions, indicating in a postgame press conference that he had had a conversation with his father to address the situation while also planning to speak with Antetokounmpo at a separate time. Tyrese’s awkwardness was followed by John’s too, who took little time to issue a forced public apology on social media, acknowledging how his behavior did not reflect well on himself or his son. As if it were not enough, it’s news as of 1st May that after conversations with John Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers front office saw fit to ban Tyrese’s father from attending the team’s home and road games for the foreseeable future. And yet the teachable, noble moment here comes from the former NBA MVP and Champion himself. Let us unpack the complete answer Giannis gave during his own presser after the game, when asked to speak on the incident:
All I’ll say is that I believe in being humble in victory. That’s the way I am.
Now, there are a lot of people out there that can say, ‘No. When you win, you gotta talk shit. It’s a green light for you to be disrespectful towards somebody else. I disagree. I have won a championship. They haven’t. That doesn’t say anything. I’m not trying to minimize their effort, but I remember when I won, my mom, she’s never missed a game from February 11th or 13th when she came to Milwaukee against the Knicks, she’s never missed a game. When we won a championship, I remember my mom was scared to cross. She was like, ‘Am I allowed to come and hug my son?’
Except now my brother does media this year. He wants to come back and play, but like, except Thanasis, you’ve never seen my family sit in a courtside seat. This is not something that we do. We don’t. I try to keep my family away from the game.
But losing the game emotions run high. Having a fan, which at the moment I thought it was a fan, but then I realized it was Tyrese’s son, which I love Tyrese – I think he’s a great competitor – he was his dad, sorry.
Coming in the floor and, um, showing me his son a towel with his face. ‘This is what we do. This is what we f**king do. This is the f**k we do.’ I feel like that’s very, very disrespectful.
You know, my dad, my dad if you guys go and ask and learn my dad’s not with us no more. My dad used to come in the family room and was the most respectful person ever. You know when you come from nothing and you’ve worked your whole life to sell stuff in the street and your whole life you’ll be scared of the police of deporting you and sending you back to your country. You have to protect your kids with all means. You create this mentality of being humble your whole life.
To not kind of disrespect anybody, not make the tension high, the emotions high, so anybody can you know snitch on you, say something bad about you. So when he came here I remembered I was like, ‘Dad, why are you so humble? Why are you going to the family room? You don’t even say a word. You sit in the back. Why, why, why are you like that?’ ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry about it. Don’t worry.’ That’s how I grew up. That’s what I had around.
So when I see other dads, which don’t disrespect, maybe if my son play basketball, I might be in the court. I might be the one on the court and like 20 years later you can play this interview and say ‘Giannis, you’re contradicting yourself.’ But we’ll see in 20 years, but I’m talking about right now how I feel. You know having somebody’s that which I’m happy for him and I’m happy for his son and I’m happy that he’s happy for his son. That’s how you’re supposed to feel.
But coming to me and disrespecting me and cursing at me, I think it’s totally unacceptable – totally unacceptable. OK, and … I’m not the guy that points fingers because in my neighborhood snitches get stitches. So I don’t want to say something you know for him to say to get fined or anything, but it’s not respectful. I talk with him at the end and we huh, I think we’re in a good place.
For the record, John Haliburton’s social media handle is @PapaHaliburton. Please. Like, who does that? How much more obvious can the familiar vestibule guised as genuine grassroots support get? While it’s evident that the Haliburton-Antetokounmpo incident has sparked welcome discussions about appropriate conduct for family members and fans during professional sporting events—highlighting the importance of sportsmanship and respect—we claim no better metaphor could be realized to capture the modern day’s delusion of spoiled nepotist entitlement. The kind that involves parents as chief architects of it. And honestly, the Haliburtons embody so much of that. Incidentally, 25-year old guard Tyrese, a two-time NBA All-Star, just won the Most Overrated Player in the NBA award this year in a recent anonymous player poll by The Athletic, receiving 15% of the votes (ironically, good guy in this story Giannis Antetokounmpo finished tenth on the same list).
This story basically writes itself—Haliburton is a non-factor Olympic gold medalist, too. Last summer, he was drafted as part of Team USA’s men’s basketball roster at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where the selection managed to secure the highly coveted gold medal (all the while this season’s NBA Clutch Player of the Year, the New York Knicks’s Jalen Brunson, stayed home to record podcasts…). However, unsurprisingly, Haliburton’s on-court contributions were limited. He merely appeared in three of the six games, totaling 26 minutes—the fewest among all players on the roster. He did not step foot on the hardwood floor in either of the games past the group phase (the semifinal against Serbia and the gold medal game against France). Granted, he was a good sport about it all, tipping off the experience with legitimately funny humor on social media (posting ‘When you ain’t do nun on the group project and still get an A‘). But this also kind of makes sense. Doesn’t it?
Go back to Giannis’ integrity lesson for a second. Re-read it in full. This doesn’t all happen in a vacuum. John Haliburton doesn’t walk up to Giannis with hostility at the buzzer, before even hugging his own game-winning shooter son, had he and Tyrese not perfected the gold digging upwards mobility of ‘take your dad to work’ models. Heritage, respect, and sacrifice typically don’t fail people in moments of need. They don’t get washed away by ’emotions’. They either pre-exist, or they don’t. The Nigerian-Greek power forward is obviously one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Arguably the greatest and most incisive player of the last decade. Since his 2013 debut, the guy has been sporting a career average 24 points per game (accompanied by a 55% field goal percentage), with a peak 31.1 points-per-game registered during his 2022-2023 season. As he reminded the audience during the press conference, he is the one with NBA Championship and three MVP titles, not them. Still, Giannis’s most honorable achievement to date might just have come off the court. Yes, Giannis Antetokounmpo is a gentleman, and a damn good basketball player whilst at it.
We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time. Oh and yeah, we do root for the Knicks over here at EMS, but these Pistons man…
AV
As of Friday 28th March, with less than ten games left in the 2024/2025 NBA Regular Season, the Detroit Pistons have officially established themselves as franchise basketball’s America’s Team. Michigan’s Motor City team currently sits as the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference, sporting a .562 winning percentage and an overall net record of 41 wins and 32 losses hitherto. Not only would this ranking translate in the Pistons clinching direct playoff access for the first time since 2019, but the existing match-up picture would see them face the certainly not-unbeatable Indiana Pacers in the first round. All of a sudden, the Eastern Conference Semifinals aren’t a pipedream anymore. Granted, there are another nine games left in the regular season—incidentally, tonight Detroit is slated to face the projected Eastern Conference champions and undisputed season revelation Cleveland Cavaliers, at home—and lots can still change between now and mid-April. Yet, their performance so far this season reflects a historic and unprecedented improvement, transforming the franchise from the league’s lowest-ranked team to unwavering playoff contenders.
As a refresher, it’s worth reminding that last year, during the 2023/2024 NBA Regular Season, the Pistons finished dead last with a measly league-worst record of 14 wins and 68 losses (.171 winning %). Two seasons ago, same thing—they closed off with 17 wins and 65 losses (.207 winning %). This year alone, the club has already tripled the amount of wins from last year, with another nine attempts to go. Earlier in February, they even recorded their longest winning streak (eight games) since the golden franchise era of the 2006/2007 season—and as of their 73rd game of the season, they improved their average points per game by 6 (up from 109 last year), their field goal percentage by more than 1% point (47.8% compared to 46.3%), and elevated their three-point field goal percentage by nearly 2% points (36.3% over last season’s 34.8%). And although their free-throw percentage is dipping slightly compared to twelve months ago (a current 77.6% vis-a-vis 78.5% in 2023/2024), they are tracking better stats than in previous years across the whole front and backcourt: steals per game, blocks per game, total rebounds per game, and assists per game.
What’s not to love obsessively about this? How can the country not root for them? For those needing more convincing; so far this season their effective field goal percentage (adjusted field goal % to better account for three-pointers) jumped from 52 to 55%, while their offensive rating—ergo, points scored per 100 possessions—improved by more than 5. Defensively, they are par for their reputational Bad Boys course again, having ameliorated their defensive rating (points conceded per 100 possessions) bringing it down from 118 last year to this season’s 111, not unlike their opponents effective field goal percentage, which has seen a near 2 percentage points drop from last year (decreases mean good, in the latter two cases). All from a team that has consistently finished in the bottom three of the Eastern Conference in the last five years, with a meager all time high of 23 wins in a single season (2021/2022). A proverbial all-American redemption tale if we’ve ever seen one.
From blowout red carpets, to serious Eastern Conference Semifinal contenders. From near laughing stock of the league, to top ten NBA team in rebounds per game and field goal percentage. All in less than twelve months. But what’s to thank for this remarkable transformation? Well, quite a bit. First and foremost, re-signing core talent during the offseason. Securing a contract extension with franchise cornerstone and legitimate Most Improved Player-candidate Cade Cunningham in July last year ensured dexterity, leadership, and continuity on the court. Secondly, placing a few strategic free agency acquisitions on the chessboard: scoring veteran forward Tobias Harris as well as signing sharpshooter and living-breathing mascot Malik Beasley provided offensive versatility and experience. Moreover, absorbing Tim Hardaway Jr via a trade with the Dallas Mavericks ensured consistent perimeter shooting and yet more veteran presence, further addressing the team’s need for reliable scoring options. Similarly, the recent addition of reigning FIBA World Champion and tournament MVP, Germany‘s Dennis Schröder, increased depth at the point guard position, dishing solid experience and facilitating mad ball handling movement.
The Michiganian franchise also showcased and proved their sharp ability to grow in-house talent and draft promising prospects. Sourcing small/power forward Ron Holland II as the 5th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft infused young incisiveness with significant potential into the roster, while the definitive explosion of young center Jalen Duren as well as evil twin Ausar Thompson as Swiss-army-knife small forward this year are other significant contributions to the team’s unlikely success this season. All this notwithstanding the fact that one of their most impactful players between October and December, former Purdue shooting guard Jaden Ivey, has been sidelined since 1st January after sustaining a season-ending injury in a nasty collision with Orlando Magic guard Cole Anthony. Last, but definitely not least, appointing former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach JB Bickerstaff to lead the team in the offseason—someone known for his effective communication and leadership skills—introduced a new strategic vision and leadership style, enriching the team’s improved impact. And although it’s harder to gauge, Trajan Langdon’s hire as the new President of Basketball Operations before last summer surely enhanced a front-office overhaul able to respond to a multi-year Playoff drought.
As Detroit Bad Boys reports, the Pistons will officially finish the season above .500 for the first time in a decade with just one additional win in their final nine games. While that win might not come tonight, against projected title contenders Cleveland Cavaliers, were they to eke out four more before the postseason, Detroit will go as far as securing their best regular season record since 2007-08. Not to mention the fact that so many of their wins happened in clutch time (final 5 minutes of the fourth quarter with a score differential of 5 or less). We haven’t checked this, but the Pistons have got to be a top five NBA team in terms of clutch games this year. What’s even more impressive, as the same article puts it, America’s team miraculous turnaround “is already among the biggest in NBA history. If Detroit wins just three more games [before the regular season ends], they will have the seventh-biggest jump in wins from one season to the next“. Before adding important context: “if you look at the top six turnarounds in NBA history, they are all built on major talent infusion and return from injury“.
We would be remiss not to finish off singing the Pistons praises by focusing on their best player, former NBA first overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft Cade Cunningham. The 23-year old point guard was deservedly named an NBA All-Star for the first time this past February, and makes for a more than plausible All-NBA Second Team hopeful, when this season is in the books. The Texas native is basically a walking averaging double-double, with a current trading of 25.7 points, 9.2 assists and 6.1 rebounds a game. These numbers are up from 17, 19, and 22 points per game in his first three seasons, respectively. He’s already played more individual games than in any single season before (66), averaging 35 minutes a match up on a roster not exactly devoid of options and bench depth. He’s even managed to turn around his +/- ratio for the first time in his professional career, recording a net 2.7 points when he’s on the floor after three years in the minus. Plus the guy’s hella likable, plays with unique calm, collection, and poise, and makes it look like he’s having a lot of fun while at it. That, and so much more, is why the Detroit Pistons are America’s Team.
We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.
AV
When it comes to spitting dexterity on the mic, one would be hard-pressed to name anyone with more natural lyrical prowess than Columbus, GA-native rapper Brandon ‘BEZ’ Evans (B Easy). One half of the recently minted experimental/electronic hip-hop duo Revival Season, jointly with beatmaker Jonah Swilley, the gifted wordsmith has been at the rap game for about a decade at this point. Sporting a five-project strong solo discography of his own—with 2023’s Trap Sabbath as the clear standout amongst it—the MC managed to turn industry heads in spades at the beginning of last year, as he and Swilley dropped the exceptional Golden Age of Self-Snitching.
Revival Season’s 14-track debut LP clocks in just shy of forty minutes of runtime, and it’s an all-killer no-filler exercise in alternative hip-hop, with several indebted nods to electronic, funk, and dub music. Handily one of the most exciting rap debuts in the first half of the 2020s decade, Golden Age of Self-Snitching introduced the erratic duo to the world by way of zany, catchy, and carefree rap cuts more akin to cypher-like streams of consciousness, than cohesive label concept tapes. Owing their creative footprint to Linkin Park, Kendrick Lamar, Fever 333, Black Thought, and Mach-Hommy all in equal measure, the record pierces through the listeners’ sonic membranes like the warm hug of an earwormy fire alarm sound.
The project was puzzle-pieced together entirely self-sufficiently, written both remotely and in person, and recorded in different makeshift locations—including a health centre and an ad-hoc setup in Swilley’s house. BEZ’s bars take your breath away, precisely because he is low-key delivering them breathless himself. Sample “Barry White” at number two on the tracklist, a joint that has the MC dish out one 16 after another like his literal life depended on it—not without subdued Kanye West hat tips (“penitentiary chances”, “Brandon”)—on top of what sounds like Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” iconic six-string lick. The grandiose and spacey “Message in a Bottle“, on the record’s same front-end, carries more unhinged Yeezy worship (peep the “ultralight beam” refrain), but mostly turns into what’s perhaps the most immediate and irresistible groove on the whole album.
By contrast, the feet-swinging and heavenly “Last Dance‘ at number five would stand the test of time as a Petri dish of how to finally get the exhilarating EDM/rap crossover right—in spite of all the many kitsch attempts out there. If you only source one tune off Self-Snitching, we implore you to make it this one. In a different vein, the following “Boomerang” brings all the funk to the fold, and then some. Whether intentional or not, BEZ’s delivery on the tune seems to harken back to an early BROCKHAMPTON-era Merlyn Wood flow. The defunct boy band’s influence is immeasurable and contains so many multitudes at this point, we wouldn’t be shocked to find out that some of its ethos might have bled into Jonah Swilley’s DAWs and record plates. In the same breath though, switch your ears and attention to “Propaganda“, and you’d be forgiven to think that you’re hearing Mach-Hommy spitball over a lost Bob Marley instrumental—all the while A$AP Rocky jabs loose ad-libs from the other side of the studio.
Yes, Revival Season is that left-field. Testing never seems to come at the expense of social consciousness or thematic poignancy, though. It’s evident that BEZ holds Philly’s finest The Roots’ Black Thought in the highest of regards, and nowhere is that inspiration more present than on the gorgeous penultimate track “Eyes Open“. Flat-out lead rap hit material. Speaking of which, Heavenly Recordings, the PIAS-distributed UK imprint earmarking Revival Season’s debut full length, must have struggled big time when combing through potential lead singles for this thing. As a matter of fact, none of those that ended up chosen as part of the official rollout in 2023 (“Chop“, “Everybody“, and “Pump“, featuring Shaheed Goodie on guest vocal duties), actually received any mention in this piece yet. Talk about an embarrassment of riches.
What I came up listening to turned out to be so pivotal. I was in Georgia during the time of Dungeon Family coming up, and that turned out to be a big shifting point in hip-hop. We heard a lot of this stuff before the world, the way of thinking, the way of dress, the movement, the sound, we were there for it… Prior to that the South was really gated out, and as time has progressed it’s become more of a dominant sound, where almost everything in the genre comes from that time period and the sound and the attitude that was built there. All that stuff was on the back of really strong principles, on the back of the home-cooked, country-fied, soulful background that was added into the hip-hop formula from the South.
So the spitter-in-chief, with respect to how the duo continues to forge its singular sound. Since dropping Golden Age of Self-Snitching in February of last year, the outfit has further kept pushing the envelope by teasing new music—presumably leading up to their next yet-to-be-announcet exploit. Last summer they released the deliciously addictive standalone single “Dim Sum“, and followed it up later in October with a collab joint co-signed by Japan-born, Los Angeles-based alternative rapper Shamon Cassette, titled “WHITE HOUSE BLACK“. Since then, the USA and the Western world have, well, changed materially for the worst in too many ways. Revival Season are hereby officially being summoned to return to the scene, continuing to strike while the iron (and the planet) is hot.
Yet, outside of a one-off show scheduled in Oregon this summer, little is known about the 2025 plans of self-ascribed “non-religious rap entity“. In times of slim pickings, we’d be remiss not to resort to the clue in the band’s own name. More than ever before, there is no time like the present to reanimate spirits, re-mobilize civic action, and reclaim human rights. If it’s true that the coming together of Brandon Evans and Jonah Swilley was a “a divine appointment … [f]oreseen by oracles and foretold by angels”, then such protracted Godsend intervention is of the utmost urgency. After all, it’s no secret that B Easy and his DJ were religiously moulded by Georgia׳s slew of Pentecostal churches—if Self-Snitching is the deliverance right out of the gate, we can’t imagine how good the New Testament is going to sound. 2025 has got to be Revival Season.
We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.
AV
This site started a decade ago because of Taking Back Sunday. For God’s sake, its name is literally a portmanteau of two songs off their 2009 studio LP New Again, “Everything Must Go” and “Swing“. As Mark O’Connell, the muscular longtime drummer of the band, announced his departure over ‘creative differences’ and a ‘lack of support’ earlier this month, it felt like a proper watershed moment for the Long Island outfit. Following the similarly unceremonious split from founding rhythm guitarist Eddie Reyes back in 2018, Mark’s quitting strikes as the kind of coup de grâce that would do in any mainstream group. That said, not only did Taking Back Sunday not yet comment on the fan-favorite stickman’s breaking news, but they instead doubled down by announcing a 2025 North American co-headlining tour with Coheed and Cambria in the ensuing days.
This turn of events leaves lead singer Adam Lazzara as the sole member having been present on every single major studio album since their seminal emo-rock debut Tell All Your Friends in 2002. Harkening back all the way to the band’s founding in 1999, a whooping eleven musicians have been in Taking Back Sunday in some official capacity at one point or another. And this excludes staple touring members such as Nathan Cogan—accompanying the band as live guitarist since 2010—as well as one Mitchell Register, who incidentally stepped in to sub Mark on percussions for most of last year’s live dates. Yet what’s worse than the New York alt rock veterans’ silence over O’Connell’s exit, are the looming slights and innuendos peppered throughout the drummer’s Instagram profile, leading to assume plenty of resentment and unfinished business toward the remaining members.
What’s more, Mark’s mention of the group’s lack of support on his journey to sobriety lurks back to similar sentiments expressed by Eddie Reyes in the years following his own departure, citing multiple times the need to step away from the band’s environment in order to stay true to teetotalism. A particular recent instance that comes to mind—and one that might’ve tipped the scale for Mark, considering he was still part of the official line up then—was Taking Back Sunday’s surprising partnership with whiskey manufacturer Three Chord Bourbon for a special edition blend just in time for the holidays. In truth, that was only the last of a recent spat of questionable business decisions the outfit had been making. It all started with that Steve Aoki collab and remix stunt a few years ago, followed by getting billed for a host of cringeworthy nostalgia-stricken festival appearances. Even the choice of mainstream pop vagabond Tushar Apte as executive producer for their latest eight studio LP 152 raised more than one eyebrow among the fanbase. Luckily, that bet pan out better than expected.
Another loaded and duplicitous move the band made recently was the decision to reunite with former cult lead guitarist Fred Mascherino for the first time in 17 years at their latest Holidays shows at Starland Ballroom, New Jersey. Obviously, speculation runs amok as to what such an olive branch might mean—and one’s to wonder whether it was another one that foreshadowed Mark’s decision to quit a couple weeks later. Mascherino notoriously split from the line-up in acidic terms back in 2007, while Taking Back Sunday was arguably at their peak mainstream fame, following the release of their Billboard-charting record Louder Now. As of this writing, no official announcements have been made by the TBS entourage to back such theory up; their line-up is presently being broadcast as only featuring Lazzara, lead guitarist John Nolan, and bassist Shaun Cooper. Yet, considering that the second guitarist spot has been vacant since the departure of Eddie Reyes—only made worse by the unjustifiable lack of promotion of Nathan Cogan as core member—bringing Mascherino back into the fold wouldn’t be so unthinkable anymore.
No more Mark O’Connell hurts, though. He was not only the longest running member of the band, but also one of its most important songwriting contributors. Often unsung and underrated, in spite of his indispensable role behind the drum kit, the 43-year old Long Island native was actually the author of some of the outfit’s most iconic opening guitar riffs, such as “Cute Without the E” and “This Is All Now“. It’s thus no surprise to learn that he wasted little time to announce his new solo venture—having released his hardcore punk debut single “Brain Dead” on New Year’s Eve, off a yet-to-be-announced project titled When I Grow Up. On it, the former TBS member appears to be playing every instrument and even lend vocal duties to tape—in a twist of creative fate that would make a young Dave Grohl extremely proud.
Mark appears to be serious in his new solo endeavor, too. He’s been spotted shopping around for label representation in recent days, and even seen recording new music with Reyes himself as part of a few Stories shared on Instagram. On top of the aforementioned “Brain Dead”, he’s also already shared either full recordings or teaser snippets of a number of additional records already in the can. These include one titled “Crazy“, “Follow the Money“, a not-so-veiled diss addressed to Taking Back Sunday frontman Adam Lazzara (…), a slower ballad called “Better“, as well as a catchy earworm dubbed “Same Old Story“. Withholding judgment on the inherent quality of these recordings, this feels like something Mark needs to do now, in order to work through the motions that leaving a successful rock and roll band after a quarter of a century entail. We’re here for it, and genuinely happy for him.
With regards to Taking Back Sunday, well this ain’t their or our first rodeo. Half a dozen different official band formations over the span of a little over twenty years are a lot to take in, but at the same time they have also provided for a consistently excellent and varied back-catalog. The assumption is that their recent deal with Fantasy Records—the Concord-distributed California imprint that issued their long-awaited 152 album after the dissolution of their previous agreement with Hopeless Records at the turn of the 2020s—might stipulate the fulfillment of multiple studio albums as part of its terms. However, if we’ve learned anything as fans of Lazzara and co. over the past couple decades, it’s that Taking Back Sunday is a pretty monolith band. When they tour, they just tour. When they meet up in the studio to write new material, they just write new material. Considering the previously mentioned time on the road in the USA starting this summer, it’s unlikely Adam, John, and Shaun can find the time to dish out something concrete in terms of new sound recordings before then. It’s not exactly smooth sailing over at the TBS camp right now.
As far as we’re concerned, the best we can hope is that regardless of whether it’s coming from Taking Back Sunday or Mark O’Connell, it’s the music that will do the talking. That’s what this rotating group of individuals has always done best. They and their management are most welcome to take all the time they need. Hell, we’d happily wait another eight years for their next release, if that meant that’s what’s right for the music. We’ll even go ahead and chalk that recent string of corny decisions up to the collective derangement brought about by the 2020 global pandemic. All is forgiven. The next time we’re writing about the whole entire reason this website even exists in the first place, it better be with some new tunes.
We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.
AV
As we’re typing this on 21st December, planet earth is celebrating its second ever World Basketball Day. A momentous and historic observance not only reflecting the global significance and impact of what is for all intents and purposes the fastest growing mainstream game, but also its power to unite people worldwide. Crucially, basketball is the first ever team sport to get such a UN recognition. At the time of writing, the 2024-25 NBA season has officially completed around a third (27-28) of its regular season games (82), which provides as good a round-up checkpoint as any to start drawing some insights about what to expect next year.
The New York Knicks, reinvigorated and with plenty of wind in their sail after the blockbuster summer trades of Karl-Anthony Towns aka KAT and Mikal Bridges—as well as a new-found blue collar captain hero in Jalen Brunson riding on the coattails of his explosion last year—are currently faring with an encouraging 17-10 record (.630%). This places the group in solitary third seed in the Eastern Conference, behind this year’s unlikely revelation Cleveland Cavaliers (24-4!), and the predicable arch enemy Boston Celtics at number two (21-6). After a perhaps slower and rockier start than most would’ve predicted through mid-November—rendering a below .500 record going into their 15th-17th November double header against town derby rivals Brooklyn Nets—coupled with struggling performances from the aforementioned Bridges as well as Josh Hart, the Knicks managed to course correcte over the subsequent thirty days.
Since those Nets games, Brunson and co. managed to win twelve out of the following sixteen match ups, including statement victories against the Phoenix Suns (122-138), the recent NBA champs Denver Nuggets (118-145), as well as two times versus fellow Eastern seed rivals Orlando Magic (106-121 and 91-100). Such performance tightening and renewed focus allowed them to climb into reputable top 10 league averages as a team in terms of points made per game (7th), points conceded per game (8th), as well as assists per game (9th). During the same time span, the Manhattan franchise also succeeded in winning its NBA Cup Group A in the East, with a perfect record (4-0), only to capitulate to the Atlanta Hawks in a disappointing loss at home in the quarterfinals (100-108).
Now, it’s prohibitive to assess whether these first two months of Knicks basketball are more encouraging or cautionary to fans. While it is true that at the end of December last year, coach Tom Thibodeau’s line-up had a more meager 17-15 winning record, it was also plagued by more intermittent injuries and, crucially, had not yet traded for franchise-changing small forward OG Anunoby. At the end of the regular season, thanks in no small part to their unprecedented January run (14-2), the The New York Knickerbockers saw fit to level up to a comparably robust .610%—not to mention their commendable playoff exploit reaching the Eastern Conference Semifinals for the second year in a row (ended by a surprising effort by the Indiana Pacers).
At this point in the year, pound for pound we should be somewhat content and satisfied with the team’s current trading—yet let’s be honest how many of us would have signed for a 43% average field goal percentage after a two-day rest before the season kicked off, knowing four out of our five starters (Brunson, KAT, Anunoby, and Bridges) carry legitimate All-Star ambitions this year? Any year? Lest we forget, in less than thirty games hitherto, the Knicks have managed to lose to the Hawks twice, the Houston Rockets, Chicago Bulls, as well as last year’s laughing stock Detroit Pistons. Not exactly playoff contenders if you asked your pedestrian NBA fan. Nonetheless, knowledgeable hoops pundits seem to keep emphasizing process over results with this team, yet somehow not without incongruously acting shy of the realization that anything less than the Easter Conference Finals would be considered a flat out disappointment, considering the squad assembled this year.
To run the appraisal a smidge deeper than surface-level analytics, let’s talk about Thibs’s six/seven-man rotation for a hot second. How much longer exactly does he, can we, think we can get away with it? Mikal Bridges—who mind you hasn’t missed a professional basketball game since high school!—is averaging 38.3 minutes on the floor per game, in cold DECEMBER. I guess if anyone was to bet on which season would break his streak, make it the one in which Tom Thibodeau coaches him… Unrestrained floor demon Josh Hart follows suit with 36.8 minutes played each game, followed by OG Anunoby (36.6), KAT (34.5), and finally Brunson (34.3). By comparison, Sixth Man of the Year-hopeful Miles McBride averages a virtual ten minutes of fewer playtime than Brunson (25.3), whereas the only other notable second unit subs Cam Payne and Jericho Sims can only dream about even reaching twenty minutes a game (Precious Achiuwa does have better odds, although he just came back from hamstring injury and has only played in six games so far).
*Knocks on wood*. Granted, key chessboard pawn Mitchell Robinson is still yet to announce any comeback horizon from his fastidious ankle woes, and in 20/20 hindsight we really did not need that Landry Shamet’s shoulder injury against the Hornets in pre-season. Yet Thibs’s propensity to play with fire is beyond us. Are Hukporti, Kolek, and Dadiet that not worth giving Bridges and Hart an additional 2-3 minutes of benchtime each game? This is probably a good time to switch gears and focus on the joyous and celebratory topic currently on each Knicks fan’s mind: Bodega KAT. The Big Bodega. That is, in less than two months, the former Minnesota Timberwolves power forward has unequivocally proven to be the real NBA unicorn, putting in a significantly higher incisiveness than even captain Jalen Brunson at this point in the season.
This brand of Karl-Anthony Towns #32 is not only a guaranteed All-Star and All-NBA pick, but a genuinely realistic Top 5 NBA player contender, eyeing that coveted MVP title at the end of the season. He is currently leading the big men league in total rebounds per game—14.2, a whooping 1.2 more than the second ranked tie Sabonis-Jokić—and ranks an impressive third overall in efficiency rating (33.3), behind, guess what, two former MVPs; the aforementioned Jokić (42) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (36.6). The latter stat is presently faring a remarkable ten metric points higher than his 2023-24 season-end index of 23.4, placing him 28th in the league. Similarly, scoring-wise, so far this season Bodega KAT is cutting it just outside of the NBA’s top 10, sporting 25 points a game on average, compared to his 21.8 points at the end of last season. In this regard, Robinson’s absence is a blessing in disguise for the 29-year-old Dominican-American, as it enables him to act as false center in Robinson’s stead—except in a more positionless way, allowing him to alternate spaced out three-pointers with ruthless pick and roll screens, courtesy of Jalen Brunson.
As we all look to cut loose over the holidays here in the Western hemisphere, we’re inevitably being ushered into calling some sort of prediction over how far these New York Knicks can really go this year, with such a mob of talented hoopers. People are pointing at this team and this season as the kind of Godsend alignment of stars—pun intended—that could set a whole Big Apple on fire, heightening the hype and embrace to a level the city only last experienced in the 90s. In actuality, that might just mean making it to a best-of-seven game series in the Easter Conference Finals. Current NBA champs Boston Celtics still remain a notch above the rest league-wise, while these Cavs do not show any wavering sign whatsoever approaching their thirtieth game this season. On the other side, the Oklahoma City Thunder of former Knick center Isaiah Hartenstein seem to have constructed the kind of defense that could checkmate KAT and Brunson, whereby Ja’s Grizzlies are hella rancid scary too. Process over results, folks. Process over results. To the chagrin of all feline delicatessen mascots in New York City.
We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time. And happy holidays this time around.
AV
Okay, then tell me the truth
Every individual is only a version of you
How can they forgive when there’s no forgiveness in your heart?
Kendrick Lamar Duckworth low-key stole Thanksgiving by surprise-releasing his highly-anticipated sixth studio album Grand National Experimental, GNX in short, halfway through the day on the Friday prior. Such an act of Congress evidently recalibrated the mainstream music discourse to its core, riding on the coattails of a momentously triumphant year-to-date for the 37-year-old Compton, CA native. Congruently to being unveiled without much fanfare, GNX is a relatively short and sticky musical affaire, considering the existing discography of the pgLang co-founder. Yet, its immediacy and appeal don’t come at the expense of its inherent messaging. One’s gotta dig though. It’s no spoon-feeding. What else did we expect, after all?
The opening salvo above, lifted from the LP’s pièce de résistance, “reincarnated“, which in turn tastefully and carefully flipped Tupac’s 1997 “Made N****z”, is a short sequence of bars that not only essentializes his creed, but goes as far as triaging one of the highest teaching from the Book of Kendrick (New Testament). In a late-stage capitalist climate that commodifies antagonism and seeks prize fighting, in a complete symbiosis with the rap game celebrating K.Dot as the undisputed heavyweight champion, he hits us with the softest, most passive-aggressive jab he can. After all, he’d already employed a whole double-album real estate to imperfectly sketch it all out raw for us, on Mr Morale & the Big Steppers.
By admitting that battling your competitors equals to battling yourself—not unlike Lacanian understandings of self-liberation perhaps best captured in mainstream through Fight Club—Kendrick exhumes a surprisingly inclusive message of universalism. Call it the law of our identity averaging those of the five people we spend most time with, chalk it up to affable Christianity; the cause here matters less than its effect. Here’s a tiny monition though: the former Top Dawg Entertainment recording artist can afford to seemingly contradict himself precisely because he’s the winner, not in spite of it. The implicit equity of a king admitting the peoples into the castle and telling them they’re all the same is outright superior to that of a moribund going out in spiritual style.
GNX is about agency and structure. It’s both an albatross and its excommunication. “wacced up murals” is its best tune, “squabble up” and “tv off” easily the funnest and stickiest, “heart pt. 6” perhaps the most gorgeous; yet if you only intend to press play on one of the cuts on this thing, make it “reincarnated”. It’s the study notes to Kung Fu Kenny’s whole entire career message. In our hyper-normalized, globalized, mediated landscape, most people can sure use shortcuts. The 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music winner stands as a symptom, as a reaction to the erratic world, the one agent purported to help dismantle its structuralism. We all know panaceas are not known for being pretty. They’re far from unblemished.
On that note, what a distinctive and subtle way to silence detractors, hypocritically pointing at the inherent contradictions of parts of his gospel reconciling with Kodak Black and Dody6 features, as well as Dr. Dre mentorships. Desertion from pretentious yuppie outlets abound—he who is without sin cast the first stone, anyone? Jealousy is presumably a big one, too. With some internalized racism sprinkled on top, just for good measure. How is any pundit to keep a straight face lamenting GNX‘s self-esteem as ghastly, while Post Malone and Taylor Swift win their umpteenth meaningless award? As fellow contemporary heavyweight crown contenders resort to puffy and sterilized exculpatory devices, Kendrick Lamar lays it all out bare.
The very notion of reincarnation comes up several times within the latest batch of Lamar oeuvre. It features in the creative powering through the literal half-hour of promotion before GNX dropped on the 22nd November—mind you, on a snippet for a record that didn’t even make the final cut on the official tracklist. It’s of course the titular theme on the aforementioned standout, but it’s also mentioned prominently on the “squabble up” bop. The Los Angeles rapper spends the whole of track number six dishing out the inevitability of death and rebirth (one could canvas this as “soul pt. 6”, to reference its heart-centric companion on the album’s back-end). The transformative cycle of life as the only trustworthy upcycling process—devoid of specific allegiances to preconceived cloths, in spite of its biblical references (“You fell out of Heaven ’cause you was anxious / Didn’t like authority, only searched to be heinous / Isaiah fourteen was the only thing that was prevalent / My greatest music director was you“).
What the former Black Hippy ringleader is telling us is that he contains multitudes, which in turn include a part of all of us (who here remembers the ‘I Am. All of us.’ from “The Heart Part 5“?). The good thing is that we are a version of him, too. I could tell you where I’m going / I could tell you who you are. Although it’s clearly him who’s at the steering wheel of our daily journaling 1987 Buick GNX, there’s plenty of room for all of us to ride shotgun. On two Kendrick world conditions; one, that shall remain the sole reference to weapons throughout. Two, he’s condignly in charge.
We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.
AV
Putting socio-economical urges and indomitable vox populi to the side, the world needs JID‘s new album. Kind of… now. Regardless of how one might interpret the artist born Destin Choice Route’s multi-year teasing of a next project—be that the highly-anticipated final album trilogy installment Forever & A Day, or his joint Metro Boomin exploit—the truth of the matter is that the necessity exists. The fact that around three weeks from now a whole entire US Presidential election is on the line, is only partly coincidental. America is hurting. The world of hip-hop is in its most frail, fragmented, and existential juncture in decades. And in spite of what certain sheepish media gatekeepers will have you believe, we aren’t necessarily better off than our parents. What’s certain, is that there seem to be so many externalities that precede our reputations, walking down the street of one’s neighborhood. Affluence, status, class, ethnicity, creed, attire—that’s neither how we build a never nor a forever story.
At this point, we all know JID is the type of rapper who takes his time to perfect his craft and packaging. Not for nothing his discography only sports three full length studio albums in the span of a near fifteen-year career as a recording artist. Yet, it’s been feeling like the 33-year-old Atlanta wordsmith has had material in spades couched in his holster for a while; which in a way makes the wait hurt even more. Amidst the slew of IG Live bombshells and scattered loosies dropped over the past couple years—with the brilliant “31 (Freestyle)” as just the most recent case in point—the hip-hop community from sea to shining sea has been salivating for more pretty much since the day his pièce de résistance The Forever Story came out in 2022. And honestly, JID, we can only take so many palate cleansers. If we add on the string of both high and low-brow features the Dreamville act has been rocking with during the same timespan, that’s adding insult to injury…
Textual, cinematic, integrated—ever since his stunning and revelatory 2017 debut LP The Never Story, JID has always required the main player joystick on the full creative canvass in order to deliver his most accomplished and consequential work. Look at his stupendous DiCaprio 2 (2018) as canonical living proof. Yes sure, his Dreamville and Spillage Village mixtapes peppered throughout the years are all fine and dandy. Good filler content for all intents and purposes, but they’re no solo JID project. That type of work reaches higher powers, and it’s three for three from downtown so far. That’s a 100% 3-point field goal percentage. Don’t get us wrong, we’ll also take all the contractually fulfilling one-offs and check-ins in the form of featured guest slots (or even that rumored collab album with Denzel Curry), but if one thing’s for sure is that JID needs his own inherent and native wireframe from within which to upcycle his art.
As a viable map for the lost to navigate the prism of the former American Football prodigy’s next big thing, one could unpack the aforementioned Hollywood Cole-produced “31 (Freestyle)” throwaway released earlier this month. “Gun in hand, I ain’t threatin’ it, ’cause it’s a promise / Gonna plan, you ain’t takin’ nothin’ I’ve accomplished / Come in, step outside, it’s all violence / I should resurrect Abe and get slavery abolished“: is this not a statement of masterful intent? Is this not a complete embrace of the industry hype and critical acclaim surrounding the Georgian artist? JID knows all too well that hip-hop is the most necessarily competitive industry of all music genres and styles. While one might maintain that this is no different than any dime-a-dozen album roll out anticipation; there’s something to be said about the stakes being higher if your name is JID.
On the same cut, the Atlanta native reveals how “[…] I don’t politic with the policies of the parliament / Pardon JID, part of my ni**as comin’ from all sides / Place your top five in the archive / Besides all of the rap guys findin’ another rapper dick to ride / Bunch of sperm bank workers and y’all been drinkin’ on the job / Oh God, try offer him tides for a peace of mind“. Now, to regroup both mentally and spiritually ahead of an allegedly huge album drop with not-so-veiled allusions to both rap battles to crown the best in the game (“Place your top five in the archive“), as well as ambulance chasing trend-followers (“[…] all of the rap guys findin’ another rapper dick to ride“), is a sight to behold. It’s relevant stuff. Again, everyone can and will trash talk during the game, yet the only tapes we play back for posterity are Jordan’s and Bryant’s. It’s different when the kid does it.
Because everything Destin dishes out is so minutely thought through, layered, and intentional, there is more to dissect from this freebie number. There’s a sense that the MC is speaking to us in tongues and subliminals, fanning the hungry flame for new material through a strategic deployment of auditory samples. The opening recording on “31 (Freestyle)”, lifted from a song by the 1960s Harlem poetry collective The Last Poets, recites “Ni**as and negros, y’all and all better get right / At this time, while the time is good / ‘Cause it might not be no next time“. That lends itself as another a groovy tautological aid to our pledge here. Through it, JID lets us know that he feels the urgency, the poignancy, too. Peeling back the source sample even further in its original recording, “Time”, one can’t but notice additional second-degree references to the climate the American rapper, singer, and songwriter finds himself within.
Stop us if you feel like we’re edging off the deep end here, but in it we find allusions to his own government name (“Time, time is a ship on a merciless sea / Drifting toward an abyss of nothingness / Until it can be recharted for its own destin[y]“), forlorn descriptions of our dystopian technocratic times (“Time is being caught up in a web of fetal self / Until you become inhuman, something to be controlled“) as well as flat out nihilist incursions into the abhorrently vapid entertainment industry complex: “Like Hollywood ni**as who ain’t got nothing better to do with their time than keep their heads glued between the thighs of some Hollowwood bitch who has gonorrhea of the mouth and syphilis dripping from their mind“. This is JID for you, in a nutshell—just by placing the right seconds-long sample in a free giveaway track to pass the time, he invites you to trojan-horse yourself into a multi-leveled solar system of lyrical puncturing. This is why, to this day, there is still no shortage of perspectives and vantage points being shared and deliberated online about his nine-year-old debut album.
Whether JID’s next project comes in the form of Forever & A Day, or a joint record with Metro—just go listen to “Danger” off their Across the Spider-Verse (Soundtrack from and Inspired by the Motion Picture) collab right now—or even that Denzel Curry mash up, one need not really have to worry. We should just worry about getting that a lot sooner rather than later. Rumor has it JID could’ve made a career in American football. Lots of rap pundits say JID could have been much bigger than he already is. That he should have been much bigger than he is. God willing, JID could’ve been President. Yet, where he’s from, JID could have also been so much worse. Life’s tragicomic inertia is balanced on a fine lever, but it tends to bend toward justice. On his next project, we just ask him to be himself—the rest will fall into place.
We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.
AV
Things are heating up something fierce in the United States of America. With just two months separating the country from a decade-defining election, it’s only right that multi-hyphenate artist-activist Jason Aalon Alexander Butler throws a monkey wrench into the puffy and sterilized political timeline ahead. On Friday 4th of October—pretty much one month before the 2024 US Presidential election to the day—the 38-year-old Inglewood, CA-native will be releasing DARKER WHITE, the second studio full length by his insurrectionary creative collective FEVER 333. Since its thunderous 2019 LP debut STRENGTH IN NUMB333RS, the former letlive.-messenger in Chief has gone through a tempestuous five-year juncture, including founding his own 333 WRECKORDS CREW label, side-gigging for Southern Californian hardcore outfit Pressure Cracks, dropping the socially-conscious and racially-loaded EP WRONG GENERATION (2020), as well as disbanding and then getting the band back together—albeit under a new and improved guise.
The hardcore-rap extraordinaire has been warning people that the fever has been coming since their incendiary presentation to the world in 2017, incubated by a makeshift U-Haul truck stationed at famed Los Angeles establishment Randy’s Donuts parking lot on Independence Day. Highlighting and elevating the tripe C-mantra of community, charity, and change ever since—C being the third letter in the English alphabet—his artistic vessel of FEVER 333 is now locked and loaded, ready to come back with a whole entire new backbone. Now a quartet, including Brandon Davis on guitars, April Kae on bass duties, and Thomas Pridgen on percussions, the project is about to be back in the saddle just as their home country needs it most. Not that the political soul punk band ever really stayed quiet, though; since their Grammy-nominated 2018 first collection of statements, Made an America, FEVER 333 has been putting in the grassroots work, sweating it and hustling from sea to shining sea. In the midst of it all, Butler even found the wherewithal to debut a straight up hip-hop record of his own, the racial gun violence-condemning “Bulletproof” (2020).
DARKER WHITE is the highly-anticipated 14-track socio-political proclamation the Californian project has chosen to materialize at such a critical time, not just for their motherland, but most parts of an ideologically scavenged West too. This latest iteration of FEVER 333, finally rocking a stable studio and live bass constituency, first re-introduced itself in May last year with the standalone at-the-time-unannounced-LP teaser “$WING“. They followed that abrasive helping of distorted catchiness with another non-album single, “READY ROCK“, this past February—an outing putting back some respect on the often-ignored Black rock pioneers’s name. Although not having made the final cut on DARKER WHITE‘s tracklist, the record offered another expression of savage rage and sonic grooving, that stands to encapsulate the quartet’s brand new audio imprint.
Things really started to get seriously official with the announcement of “NEW WEST ORDER” the day before Juneteenth. The number is an anthemic signature soundtrack doubling as the definitive musical manifesto for where the collective is at in 2024 and beyond. The gospel-indebted hard-rock sermon of “HIGHER POWER” followed suit about a month later, very much sticking to Butler’s racially-celebrating script since before FEVER 333 ever became a realization: “To all my people, my beautiful black skin people / If we are born equal, how can someone be illegal? / Black, Brown, Asian, don’t forget who built this nation/ They done broke the foundation, but won’t pay for the reparations“. Yet the big headline came with the release of sticky-singalong punk-rap cut “NO HOSTAGES“, proudly accompanied by the announcement of the full-length project’s unveiling in early October. Lest the lead gets buried in the bells and whistles, with it the Los Angeles-band best proved how it’s not lost its penchant for incisive songwriting—repurposing and retooling an old right-wing, NRA-bred adagio with a subtle twist: “Guns don’t kill people / People kill people / Guns don’t kill people / Cops kill people“.
In a similar vein, on account of the initial dozen of minutes sampled off DARKER WHITE hitherto, it’s safe to say audiences are in for a poignant and momentous benefaction, touching on themes of ethnicity, politics, marginalization, and bottom-up emancipation. All soaked in wet layers of distortion, bouncy funk grooves; this is going to be rage music in spades. What else did we expect? Whether that’s “NO HOSTAGES”‘s umpteenth stark reminder that law enforcement doesn’t protect us, as “I wasn’t worried ’til I came across the news / A black father was murdered by some killers dressed in blue“, or the opening track’s era-defining refrain chanting “Pulled up outside in an all-black ride / Screaming “333” til’ the day we die / There’s a fever coming / Let them know there’s a fever coming“, the spectrum-pigmented group’s timing choice as to when to release their first album in five years can’t be coincidental. They too understand how much is at stake this November; curtailed by political, technological, and climactic forebodings bestowing extinction-like gravitas to how the world’s next five years will pan out.
A gargantuan, and essential, part of how FEVER 333 preaches its message of community, charity, and change has always been through their blitzkrieg live shows. Formerly known as demonstrations, these are now officially elevated to faith-like functions. Incidentally, a few weeks after their second LP drops in October, the quartet is to embark on a worldwide tour that will keep them busy on the road through the rest of the year. Considering both letlive.’ and FEVER 333’s storied global appeal, we wouldn’t be surprised if the itinerary were to extend onto additional corners of the planet in 2025, such as Russia, Asia, Australia, and Latin America. Although the explicit cardinal geographical reference might be pointing in the Western direction, the message of inclusion, unity, and mutual support conveyed by Butler’s pen retains a universal application at heart. That’s what has always made him so earnest and believable. Whether that’s through his DIY entrepreneurial ethos manifesting in GIRL, his seminal and influential output with post-hardcore fixtures letlive., or just how he generally keeps it a buck. This is the type of election interference we need.
We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time. And don’t forget to let them know… there’s a fever coming.
AV
Having it made past the preliminary round of the group phase at the Paris 2024 Olympics men’s basketball discipline, it strikes us as just as good a time as any to draw some initial reflections on what has gone down hitherto on French hardwood floor. Of the initial crop of twelve qualified countries, only eight are left. Spain, Japan, South Sudan, and Puerto Rico all have already boarded their respective flights home. With only one somewhat unconvincing win against a surprising Greece—ironically qualified for the knockout stages as one of two best thirds of the group phase—Spain is the obvious disappointment at this point in the tournament. While certainly no longer the global basketball powerhouse it once was during the past two decades, the Iberians bid adieu to the 2024 Summer Olympics with a lukewarm 1-2 record, and the second lowest amount of points scored amongst already eliminated nations.
Conversely, youngest country on the block South Sudan can be proud of the fluid and defiant ballin’ performance they showcased in Lille—netting a high scoring 3-game run (261 points made, the fifth best overall), peppered with relative low-margin losses against Gold medal favorites USA (103-86) and Serbia, the reigning Silver medalists at the 2023 FIBA World Cub (96-85). Generally, the shorter quarter clock limitations and spatial constraints of FIBA courts compared to the NBA’s have kept overall game scores between a moderate range—with a low of 66 (set by Brazil against France) and a high of 110 in the impressive US Basketball team’s debut against Serbia. What’s more, as many as eleven games out of a total of eighteen within the preliminary round ended with a scoring margin smaller than a twelve point-differential; just three games had a score spread higher than twenty points at the final buzzer. This is well-fought balling.
With four nations represented in the quarter-finals—Germany, Greece, France, and Serbia—Europe funnels into the knockout rounds with the most teams still in the race, followed by North America (USA and Canada), as well as South America and Oceania with one country each; Brazil and Australia, respectively. Reigning World Champions Germany and Tokyo 2020 winners USA have so far emerged as distinct favorites to snatch the most precious metal by quite a margin, playing the most spotless and dominant basketball of the bunch. Considering how the knockout rounds bracket locked in, one shouldn’t be surprised to find them tête-à-tête in the grand finale this coming Saturday 10th August. The Germans will go at length to honor their World Champion title, and surely are thirsty for revenge after the close game verdict of their spectacular exhibition game in London on 22nd July (88-92), leading up to the Summer Olympics kickoff.
The US-German folie à deux is followed a few miles behind by the ever promising young guard of Canada—third ranked at the latest FIBA 2023 World Cup in the Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia—yet perhaps a tad bit inconsistent throughout its three group wins. Granted, it got the job done and then some, but paradoxically each of its victories not only came by virtue a thin margin, but also highlighted concerning game lapses that could cost them dearly in a more unforgiving prize fight situation. Tournament host France is going to prove a hostile and arduous opponent for the Gilgeous-Alexander-led contingent, incidentally rounding up the cluster of suitable winners at this point into the competition, alongside Serbia. Australia, Greece, and especially Brazil all seem too flawed and talentless to aspire to make it all the way to Gold.
To go out on a limb, our premature prediction sees Germany cruise somewhat comfortably over Greece on the upper left corner of the bracket, only to meet a debilitated Canada having needed to move heaven and earth to knockout home country darlings France, in what might be the biggest upset of the elimination rounds. On the right hand side of the bracket, we reckon the Serbians will come away victorious over a disgruntled and downcast Australia, with an obviously rested and made up USA awaiting them in the semifinals on Thursday 8th August. On Saturday, before USA and Germany will face off at 9:30p CET in the prize fight and a revenge of their contested friendly match up a few weeks prior, Canada will probably huff and puff through multiple hounds of hell to deservedly repeat their bronze accolade from last year’s World Cup, edging off a worthy opponent in current NBA regular season MVP Jokić’s Serbia.
At the summit, it’ll be the shovel and lunch pail team spirit of Germany versus the indomitable talent of the American Dream Team—we’re tilting savagely on our limb, but we’ll co-opt an infamous Gary Lineker soccer quote to adorn our Gold medal prediction: “[Basketball] is a simple game: [ten] men chase a ball for [40] minutes and at the end, the Germans always win”.
We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.
AV
Everything Must Swing 