Kamala Harris, the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, has said some rappers “should stay in their lane”. The politician spoke about her favourite rappers during the NAACP’s virtual convention yesterday (September 25). Harris was asked who she thought the best rapper alive was, to which she responded Tupac. When CNN’s Angela Rye, who was moderating the event, reminded her that the rapper had in fact been dead since 1996, she replied: “I keep doing that.” Advertisement Rye then asked Harris to pick another rapper, to which she responded that there were “so many” she liked. “There’s some I would not mention right now because they “should stay in their lane”,” she added. Kamala Harris asked, who’s the best rapper alive? She answers @2PAC Then says “Not alive, I know, I keep doing that.” Tries to think of another living rapper. “There’s some I would not mention right now because they should stay in their lane.” pic.twitter.com/MZJ5FZC4qP — Emily Larsen (@emilyelarsen) September 25, 2020 Although she didn’t confirm who she was talking about, viewers have speculated that the comment was aimed at Kanye West who is running for President in the upcoming election. The rapper faces a big challenge to become the […]

When SZA announced her breakout album Ctrl in 2017, the first single she revealed from the album was “Drew Barrymore.” Later that same year, she released the official music video for the song, which featured a brief cameo from the actor. Now, SZA and Barrymore are set to reunite again on October 1, when the singer is set to appear on an episode of the new daytime talk show The Drew Barrymore Show. SZA will perform the titular song in addition to sitting down with Barrymore for an interview, according to a listing. The show airs weekdays on CBS; check your local listings for times. SZA recently returned with “Hit Different,” a new song featuring Ty Dolla $ign that came with a self-directed music video, though she has yet to reveal any details on her next album. Revisit our 2017 interview with SZA. [embedded content]

Jeremy Scott, Moschino’s creative director, has taken fashion innovation to a whole new level in 2020. In a year where gathering models for a runway show is a health hazard, Scott decided to debut his Spring 2020/2021 collection on marionette-models created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Here are a few examples: Moschino Moschino Moschino Moschino Moschino The clothes reflect 2020 even further in their design: “Edges, seams, corsetry boning, panels, darts, trims, and more” show up on the clothes, Moschino shared in a press release. Here is the fashion show in full, complete with an Anna Wintour marionette: This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. The press release says that Scott’s collection was inspired by the kind of upside-down year we’ve had (in my words; 2020 is a garbage fire): “In short order, the world has flipped,” the press release reads. “It hasn’t capsized, but we are certainly living in the upside down, inside-out. The topsy-turvy. Everything is surreal but somehow also too real, altogether, all at once. It’s a recognizable place, but it feels foreign, […]

It’s pretty easy to understand that a cleaner car is likely to sell than a dirty one, but do you also have paperwork to back up your claim that the car was only serviced at the dealership? You want to get the best price, sure, but “aggressive negotiations” work better in Star Wars than with a dealer whom you want to buy your car. There’s a special kind of vehicle history report you can get if you’re selling an EV, thanks to a new startup called Recurrent. Used cars continue to be in high demand these days and, as we mentioned last week, that can give sellers the upper hand. But if everyone knows that they can get a good deal for their old car right now, then how can you make your ride stand out? Most sellers can name the basics, like having good, clean pictures of the car if you’re listing it online, but Joe Neiman, chief customer success officer at ACV Auctions, says you can sell that sizzle a bit more by showing off the work you’ve done to keep the car in good shape. If you’ve only ever had the car serviced at the dealership, bring […]

As over a thousand Amazon employees prepared to walk off the job last September, CEO Jeff Bezos announced a series of lofty promises. Not about salary increases or more vacation time, but about climate change. Bezos said that Amazon would become carbon neutral by 2040, meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement 10 years early. It was an ambitious commitment, especially for a logistics giant that relies on planes and trucks to deliver packages right to customers’ doors. The next day, Amazon workers still marched out of the company’s Seattle headquarters as part of a global climate strike led by teenage activist Greta Thunberg. But the walkout’s organizers, a group called Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, said that Bezos’ Climate Pledge was a step in the right direction. Since then, Amazon has followed up the commitment with other efforts, including a $2 billion investment fund for companies working on decarbonization. This week, Amazon announced a new Climate Change Friendly program to help customers choose more sustainable products. One year after the walkout, current and former workers who spoke with WIRED say Amazon should still be doing more to reduce its impact on the environment. Amazon Employees for Climate Justice […]

Sideloading platform SideQuest is taking $650K in early investment from BoostVC, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, and The Fund. The relatively small preseed funding will help SideQuest’s Shane Harris and Orla Harris build a testing service and other tools for virtual reality developers. “I am investing in SideQuest because I believe in their vision for VR development and distribution,” Luckey said in a prepared statement. “No HMD manufacturer should have a stranglehold on the VR ecosystem or unilateral control over what people run on their VR headsets, and when I look at Sidequest, I see the spirit of Oculus Share.” When the initial wave of consumer VR interested began to crest in 2016, some developers used a startup called Fishbowl VR as a testing service. That startup, however, didn’t survive as the market transitioned toward Oculus Quest. SideQuest, meanwhile, sprang up after developer Shane Harris realized in 2019 there was need for an easy to use tool for uploading or downloading content from Facebook’s otherwise highly curated Oculus Quest standalone. Since its release, lots of Quest owners have turned to SideQuest to find cutting-edge experimental content while developers use it as an early access distribution system for testing and feedback. It […]

The Beastie Boys’ last-ever set—a headlining performance at Bonnaroo in 2009—has been released in its entirety. The show was originally aired as part of the Tennessee festival’s “Virtual ROO-ALITY” streaming event on YouTube, but the group tweeted that the set will be available separately “through the weekend.” Check it out below. The band brought their 1995 punk EP Aglio e Oglio to digital streaming platforms earlier this month. They’re set to release the greatest hits compilation Beastie Boys Music October 23, intended as a complement to the 2020 Spike Jonze-helmed documentary film Beastie Boys Story and 2018’s Beastie Boys Book Read Pitchfork’s 2012 “Afterword” feature with the Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch. [embedded content]

Beastie Boys’ final live show will be streaming for free online throughout this weekend (September 26-27). The New York rap group gave their last performance at Bonnaroo 2009, when they headlined the festival. Shortly after the event, Adam “MCA” Yauch was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer and the band cancelled all promotional activities. Yauch died on May 4, 2012. Advertisement Footage of the performance streamed on Bonnaroo’s YouTube page on Thursday night (September 24) but, due to demand, will now be available to watch until Monday. “We’ve heard from so many fans around the world that were unable to tune in last night, so our friends at Bonnaroo are letting the set live online through the weekend,” Beastie Boys tweeted. The last gig..We’ve heard from so many fans around the world that were unable to tune in last night, so our friends at @Bonnaroo are letting the set live online through the weekend.Check it out here: https://t.co/IEXboJhtAl pic.twitter.com/OgedhHkloH — Beastie Boys (@beastieboys) September 25, 2020 You can watch the performance in full below. [embedded content] Advertisement Earlier this month, Beastie Boys uploaded their 1995 hardcore EP ‘Aglio E Olio’ to streaming services for the first time. The record was put […]

With very few exceptions, new cars start losing their value as soon as you sign the purchase paperwork. While that’s bad news for new-car buyers, it’s good news for used-car shoppers because depreciation eventually makes once insanely expensive cars affordable. This Window Shop episode looks at those kinds of cars, ones with high initial prices that are now available for less than $10,000. We intended to name the person who found the car with the highest original manufacturer suggested retail price (MSRP), adjusted for inflation, as our winner. But we got a bit distracted by the opulence of the vehicles. You’ll see. In searching for these kings of depreciation, we discover that some big Mercedes-Benzes, Bentleys, and Rolls-Royces are readily available for less than $10,000. And we learn that the original $149,500 price of a 1989 Bentley Turbo R is equivalent to about $320,000 in 2020 dollars. This week, freelancer Basem Wasef joins the Window Shop crew for the first time. Turns out Wasef is perfect for this challenge since he’s seriously considered purchasing an “affordable” Bentley and Rolls-Royce and has researched the many potential problem areas plaguing unloved examples. (For reference, so have we: We studied the potential folly […]

Electronic Arts still hasn’t revealed Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and that’s for a reason. The publisher originally planned to launch the remastered trilogy, that I first reported on back in May, with an October reveal and release. But now EA and developer BioWare are pushing that release into early 2021, according to people familiar with the development. The primary factor holding up development, beyond the pandemic, is the original Mass Effect game. It currently does not live up to the quality of the rest of the package. It would make a poor first impression for new players, and it might disappoint fans who then won’t go on to play and experience the impressive upgrades for Mass Effect 2 and ME 3. This is a problem with both the visuals and gameplay. The people working on the game understand the issues, and they want to do right by the franchise’s fans. But one aspect those fans won’t get to experience regardless of how much time BioWare gets is the multiplayer. EA doesn’t plan to include the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer in this package. Something like that would turn this remaster into a live-service game, and that is likely not worth the […]

Pascal Le SegretainGetty Images Valentino will debut its spring-summer 2021 runway show live from Milan on Sunday, September 27 at 2:00PM CET (8:00AM EST). Experience the collection from your own home’s front row seat, below. This content is imported from Third party. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Savannah Walsh Editorial Fellow Savannah Walsh is an Editorial Fellow at ELLE.com. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

At an appearance at a tech conference last September, Facebook’s Zuckerberg expressed his disgust. “The government blew it,” he said. But the consequences of the government’s actions—and the spectacular leak that informed the world about it—was now plopped into the problem set of Zuckerberg, Page, Tim Cook, Marissa Mayer, Steve Ballmer, and anyone else who worked for or invested in a company that held customer data on its servers. Not just revenue was at stake. So were ideals that have sustained the tech world since the Internet exploded from a Department of Defense project into an interconnected global web that spurred promises of a new era of comity. The Snowden leaks called into question the Internet’s role as a symbol of free speech and empowerment. If the net were seen as a means of widespread surveillance, the resulting paranoia might affect the way people used it. Nations outraged at US intelligence-gathering practices used the disclosures to justify a push to require data generated in their countries to remain there, where it could not easily be hoovered by American spies. Implementing such a scheme could balkanize the web, destroying its open essence and dramatically raising the cost of doing business. Ask […]

Arlo Parks has performed as part of BBC Radio 1’s annual Live Lounge Month, sharing a cover of Billie Eilish‘s ‘My Future’ – watch the performance below. The annual celebration has been taking place throughout September, beginning on the first of the month and running through to the 30th. Prior to being announced as one of the performers, Arlo Parks said: “Dang another dream coming true!! I’m playing the Live Lounge for the first time in September – 16 year old Arlo would be proud I think – I used to watch these on YouTube till 3am.” Advertisement During her performance, the ‘Black Dogs’ singer-songwriter performed a gorgeous, stripped-back cover of Billie Eilish’s recent single ‘My Future’. Alongside the ‘My Future’ performance Parks also played her own song ‘Hurt’. Watch the pair of performances below. [embedded content] [embedded content] Last week, Arlo Parks created her home-made version of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert for the online performance series. 19-year-old Parks’ set up was more pared back than the usual NPR office, with a simple desk, some plants, laptop and amp surrounding her as she played new and old tracks. Advertisement The West Londoner opened her 16-minute set with latest single ‘Hurt’, released in August, […]

Today, Amazon rolled out more than a dozen new devices and services, including more dynamic ways to speak with Alexa and a cloud gaming service named Luna. The highly-produced showcase has been held every September for a few years now, and as the biggest Alexa event of the year, it tends to make Amazon’s ambitions clear. Last year a major theme was that Amazon wants you to use its recommendation engines, and this year the message couldn’t be clearer: Amazon is in the business of selling surveillance-as-a-service. Each of these features and products, from live video of your car’s interior to home surveillance is designed to lead down a rabbit hole to a paid service. For example, Alexa Guard, which turns Echo speakers into listening devices when people are away from home, was free at launch a few years ago, but today Amazon launched Alexa Guard Plus, a paid $5 a month service. These products and services reveal an orchestrated strategy to slow walk people into normalizing surveillance of virtually every aspect of people’s lives at a cost, this in spite the fact that normalization of surveillance can lead to Amazon flipping a profit at all points, from partnering with cities […]

Following last year’s The Sound of My Voice, Linda Ronstadt is the subject of another documentary due next month. It’s called Linda and the Mockingbirds, and it follows the singer with the Bay Area performing arts group Los Cenzontles (and Jackson Browne) on a 2019 trip to Mexico. It arrives on iTunes on October 20. Watch a trailer for Linda and the Mockingbirds below. James Keach, who produced The Sound of My Voice, produced and directed Linda and the Mockingbirds. The documentary explores Ronstadt’s roots in Mexico and her connections to its traditional folk cultures. Her 1987 album Canciones de Mi Padre, a collection of traditional Mariachi songs, is one of the best-selling non-English records in the United States. After The Sound of My Voice premiered at the TriBeCa Film Festival last April, Ronstadt was awarded Kennedy Center Honors alongside Earth Wind & Fire, Sally Field, Sesame Street, and San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas. Read “The New Linda Ronstadt Documentary Proves Just How Underrated She Is” on the Pitch. [embedded content]

The 2021 Volvo S90 and V90 get freshened styling and a few equipment changes. Prices rise by between $350 and $1000, and the S90 plug-in hybrid is cheaper than before. These 2021 Volvo models are at dealerships now. Volvo has announced pricing for the updated 2021 S90, V90, and V90 Cross Country models. They each benefit from freshened styling and a few equipment changes, and base prices rise by between $350 and $1000 depending on model. The 2021 S90 sedan starts at $52,545, the 2021 V90 wagon starts at $52,795, and the 2021 V90 Cross Country wagon with standard all-wheel drive starts at $55,895. Volvo The S90 plug-in hybrid is now called Recharge to align it with Volvo’s broader electrification efforts, and it’s gotten a price cut as well. The 2021 S90 Recharge starts at $61,045, $3150 lower than last year’s S90 T8 model, and it remains available in either R-Design or Inscription trim levels. As was the case before, you’re much more likely to find a V90 Cross Country on a dealer lot than a standard V90, as the cladding-less wagon with lower ride height is special order only. But we’re just glad that Volvo offers both wagons in […]

When Amazon released the Echo smart speaker in 2014, people still marveled at the convenience of voice-controlled computing. Now that the novelty has worn off, they are more likely to grumble about how often Alexa gets confused. Now, Amazon has a plan to make Alexa smarter—with you as the teacher. For some commands, Alexa will soon seek clarification if it gets confused. Ask to set the lights to “reading mode,” for example, and the device will politely inquire what that means. You might specify that you want the lights set to 40 percent intensity. Alexa will then “learn” this preference and store it away for future reference. Amazon says the feature will be made available “in coming months.” It might not seem like much, but figuring out when to seek clarification requires considerable artificial intelligence, and it’s a step towards having machines learn from humans on the fly. “The ability for clarification will be a fundamental property of any good conversational artificial agent,” says Roger Levy, a professor at MIT who specializes in AI and linguistics. He says knowing when to ask questions—and knowing what questions to ask—will be crucial for more advanced AI systems. However Levy notes that making […]

Kanye West has revealed that he’s giving all artists signed to his label, G.O.O.D. Music, the 50 per cent share he holds in their masters. West has spent the majority of this month advocating for artist ownership over their own masters, as well as calling out major record labels like Sony and Universal for restrictive contracts. On Twitter, West announced that “I’m giving all Good music artist back the 50% share I have of their masters”. I’m giving all Good music artist back the 50% share I have of their masters — ye (@kanyewest) September 23, 2020 Advertisement He later shared a screenshot of the text message conversation with Elon Musk where they discussed making the change, with Musk saying “this will be powerful”. READ MORE: New bands: own your masters, it’s more important than you think West seems to have referred to the contracts of his own label, saying “I don’t think those contracts are good either”. West captioned the screenshot with “Now let’s have Universal match me”. Now let’s have Universal match me pic.twitter.com/ui7D8kyPQR — ye (@kanyewest) September 23, 2020 Some artists signed to the label have already begun to thank West for the change, including Desiigner who was […]

Matthew SperzelGetty Images Despite announcing its departure from a traditional fashion show calendar, Gucci is still making headlines in the middle of fashion month. With a short video clip posted to Instagram and TikTok, the Italian house has announced that a collaboration with The North Face is underway. The teaser features both brands’ logos on a flag pitched on a summit. Let the literal and figurative foghorn sound, because this is a collaboration we didn’t know we needed. This content is imported from Instagram. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. While The North Face is familiar with high fashion partnerships—they’ve previously worked with Supreme, Sacai and MM6 Margiela, to name a few—this marks Gucci’s first collab under Alessandro Michele’s tenure. Gucci has taken on its own variation of hiking boots in the past, so it only makes sense for them to pull directly from the source with the outdoor brand. It’s peak gorpcore, alps-related pun intended. The North Face is known for its lifelong efforts in reducing its carbon footprint, so this alliance falls in line with Gucci’s recent steps toward […]

The French singer, actress, and cultural icon Juliette Gréco has died. She was 93. “Juliette Gréco died this Wednesday surrounded by her family in the house she loved so much,” her family said in a statement to the Associated Press. “Her life was one like no other.” Gréco was born in Montpellier, France, in 1927 and performed chanson française, a French lyric-driven genre of popular music. She rose to prominence in post–World War II Paris when she released her first single, “Je Suis Comme Je Suis,” in 1951 and put out her debut, Juliette Gréco — Chante Ses Derniers Succès, the following year. Gréco’s music career spanned seven decades, including famous hits such as “Soul le ciel de Paris” and “Parlez-moi d’amour.” She met Miles Davis in 1949 when he performed in Paris, and went on to maintain a lifelong relationship with the trumpeter. “We saw each other regularly until his death,” Gréco told The Guardian in 1991. She was married to French actors Philippe Lemaire and Michel Piccoli, as well as French pianist Gérard Jouannest. Gréco appeared in numerous films throughout the ’50s and ’60s, including Jean Cocteau’s Orphée and the 1957 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also […]