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In the promo for this weekend’s Saturday Night Live, Dave Chappelle tells cast member Ego Nwodim that he doesn’t have big plans for Thanksgiving. “I’m just gonna be on the farm with the wife and the kids and not watch football, you know, have a little pie, that kind of stuff,” he says.
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But when Nwodim invites herself to join the comedian for his chillsgiving, he has second thoughts about sharing his address on national television. Chappelle’s third SNL hosting gig will once again coincide with a major national election and will feature musical support from his Midnight Miracle podcast brethren in Black Star, Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli.
In fact, Chappelle says in the second promo, this weekend’s episode will be “so Black it’s gonna be on BET,” causing the hip-hop duo to crack up until Dave adds, “just kidding, it’s gonna be right here on NBC.” For the third spot, Nwodim questions whether it’s a good idea to have the unpredictable stand-up do it live. “In this news cycle?” Nwodim asks. “… Yup,” Chappelle assures her.
Chappelle is slated to join Chris Rock for a run of December arena dates that will kick off with a two-night stand at Viejas Arena at Aztec Bowl in San Diego (Dec. 1, 3), followed by a Dec. 5 gig at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, as well as shows in Anaheim, San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento and Thousand Palms, California before wrapping up at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, WA on Dec. 16.
Watch the SNL promo below.
Comedian Mike Birbiglia has steadily climbed from playing college cafeteria gigs to comedy clubs, off-Broadway theaters, starring in films and, currently, playing Broadway with his latest one-man show, The Old Man & the Pool. But despite spinning his warm-hearted tales in TV shows, movies, his Working It Out podcast and the stage, nothing could prepare the frequent This American Life contributor for an unexpected phone call he got a few months ago from Taylor Swift.
“I’m in the ‘Anti-Hero‘ video… it’s just a fluke-y thing,” Birbiglia told Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night’s (Nov. 8) The Late Show about his stunt casting alongside fellow funny folk John Early (Search Party) and Mary Elizabeth Ellis (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia) in the video, where they play Swift’s battling heirs. Mike and Taylor happen to share a friend in common, producer Jack Antonoff, who Birbiglia explained he met at Bonnaroo 15 years ago.
“It just so happened she was writing the music video the day that we happened to meet and we were having pizza with Jack and a bunch of folks and she thought, ‘Oh, you,’” Birbiglia said. “Apparently in her mind she thought this is the dystopoic, nightmare version of what my son would be. And that’s my dream come true.”
Birbiglia wasn’t sure his fantasy would become reality at first, though. He said he got a text from Swift a month or two later and, if he’s being honest, he was pretty sure he was being catfished. “I thought, ‘it’s either Taylor Swift… that would be cool,’ or it’s someone catfishing me who’s an excellent writer,” he recalled thinking when the call came in. “Because she sent the script to the video, that’s wonderful and very funny… so I thought, ‘either way, sort of a win-win.’ And I go, ‘count me in… either Taylor Swift or catfish person!’”
Swift will notch another major career milestone this week she she becomes the first artist to spend a full year at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart.
Watch Birgiblia tell his Taylor tale on The Late Show below.
James Corden got emotional on Tuesday night (Nov. 1) while remembering the Migos‘ Takeoff, telling viewers that he was “utterly devastated” to hear the news about the rapper’s killing on Monday morning. “It’s heartbreaking to anyone who knew him and to all of his fans around the world Takeoff was… oh man, he was funny and kind,” the Late Late Show host said of the 28-year-old MC who was gunned down at a Houston bowling alley by an as-yet-unknown assailant on Halloween night.
Corden said his most vivid memory of the time he spent with the rapper was “how much he loved music. He lived for it and it was that love of much that essentially willed Migos into existence,” he said of the drive that helped the Atlanta trio rise from cooking up early tracks on Windows Movie Maker video editing software to landing a string of Billboard Hot 100 hits with such indelible songs as “Stir Fry,” “Versace” and “Bad and Boujee.”
He noted that bandmate and uncle Quavo himself said that Takeoff was the strongest member of the group, which also includes Takeoff’s second cousin Offset. “They called him Takeoff because he’d record his verses often in just a single take,” Corden said, calling the trio one of the “most influential” rap groups of their generation. “Takeoff helped define trap music and he put it on a national stage.”
Counting himself lucky to have spent time with Takeoff over the past few years, Corden recalled that the “warm and generous” rapper even had a personal nickname for his late night pal: Big Drip. “We have lost someone incredibly special today,” Corden said. Migos made a number of appearances on the Late Late Show over the years, including a classic 2018 visit for a “Carpool Karaoke” segment (see below).
The trio’s label, Quality Control Music, took to Instagram on Tuesday to mourn the loss of the rapper. “It is with broken hearts and deep sadness that we mourn the loss of our beloved brother Kirsnick Khari Ball [Takeoff’s given name], known to the world as Takeoff,” a statement posted to the label’s social media read. “Senseless violence and a stray bullet has taken another life from this world and we are devastated.”
Takeoff was at a private party at 810 Billiards & Bowling in downtown Houston with Quavo around 2:35 a.m. when investigators say shots rang out during an afterparty attended by around 40 people. Takeoff was pronounced dead at the scene, and two other victims — a 23-year-old male and 24-year-old female — checked themselves into a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Houston police said the incident is still under investigation, encouraging anyone who was there or has any information to come forward to help authorities crack the case.
Check out Corden’s monologue and the Migos’ “Carpool Karaoke” episode below.
Add Stephen Colbert to the increasingly lengthy list of people who are banning Kanye West. The embattled rapper (who now goes by Ye) has seen his once-formidable music and fashion empire crumble to dust, and on Thursday night (Oct. 28) he got the bad news that he will never be invited to visit the Ed Sullivan Theater, either.
In the midst of the outrage over West’s repeated amplification of hateful antisemitic tropes, Colbert tried to inject some levity into what is otherwise a not-at-all funny story about hate speech in the monologue to last night’s show. “After much thought and soul-searching I, Stephen Colbert, am banning Kanye West from the Ed Sullivan Theater,” the host announced grimly to hearty applause from the studio audience.
“Have to. I have to. Line in the sand,” Colbert said before getting serious for a moment and running down a list of completely fake “high profile collabs” the two men have (not) released. Among them: their collection of “spreadable jams” entitled “Strawbeezy Jelleezy,” as well as the now-cancelled release of their duets album, Ye & Phen: Sing Fiddler on the Roof.
“I know this has been too long in coming, I have no excuses for why I didn’t do this before,” Colbert said of the action he took to ban the rapper. Well, maybe one very good one. “Except, perhaps, that he has never been on the show, had no plans to be on the show, we’ve never asked him to be on the show and I am not sure he is aware that I have a show.”
But, Colbert said, he had to take immediate action for fear that Ye might “show up at any moment,” kind of like West did earlier this week when he arrived uninvited at Skechers headquarters and was summarily escorted from the premises. That move came after Ye lost his mega-lucrative deal with Adidas due to the company’s disdain for his hate speech against Jews, a decision that former billionaire West has claimed cost him nearly $2 billion.
“In five years the idea of an unannounced visit from Kanye has gone from ‘Amazing!’ to: ‘sir, you need to leave this Skechers,” Colbert joked. “It gets worse. Unlike with Adidas, Kanye never had any deal with Skechers, apparently Kanye is so desperate he’s just driving around searching Google maps for ‘shoes near me.’”
Watch Colbert’s monologue below.
Kelly Clarkson, she’s like most of us. Well, in that she can’t get enough of Jimmy Eat World‘s signature 2001 hit “The Middle.” Which is why it made sense that the daytime talk show host and pop idol took a power pop swing at the oft-covered song on Thursday’s Kelly Clarkson Show during her “Kellyoke” segment.
Clarkson and her house band nailed the song’s chugging urgency, with the singer yelping the “everything will be alright” refrain before a brief, fleet-fingered guitar solo in an arrangement that layered in some tasty Hammond organ and punchy drums.
The beloved song from the Mesa, Arizona emo pop band’s Bleed American album was originally released in Oct. 2001 and hit its chart peak a few months later when it climbed to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Not for nothing, but when Clarkson released her 2015 single, “Heartbeat Song” critics couldn’t help point out that eerie similarity between the two song’s verses and choruses, so Kelly covering the track for “Kellyoke” makes good sense.
“The Middle” has long been a favorite go-to cover, including in an apocryphal story about Prince covering it at the 2009 Oscar after-party, footage of which resurfaced this summer to the band’s utter delight. It also got covered by Taylor Swift in a 2016 Apple ad. “Hearing that Prince had covered it at whatever Grammy afterparty he did or Taylor Swift hand-picking it to use for an Apple commercial? It’s like what?! What is that? I don’t know. I still freak out anytime I hear ‘The Middle’ or anything we’ve done, like, on the radio,” singer Jim Adkins told AZ Central earlier this year.
Check out Clarkson’s cover below.
Jack Harlow is pumped and totally ready to pull double-duty as host/musical guest on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live. In the promo for the show Harlow runs into SNL long-hauler Kenan Thompson and new guy Marcello Hernández who seem kind of confused about the “First Class” rapper’s sartorial style.
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In the bit, Harlow is waiting by an elevator while dressed in a full length white shearling coat when Thompson and Hernández excitedly roll up. “I’m so hyped to host this week,” Harlow says as Thompson assures him that he’s gonna kill it. “Looks like you’re already in the Halloween spirit,” Kenan says while pointing to the jacket and Jack’s all-white outfit for the 2022 Halloween edition of SNL. “Yeah, bro, costume goes crazy,” Marcello laughs.
The two then begin a riff-off guessing what Harlow is dressed as, tossing out a variety of options, from a box of Kleenex to a cotton ball, “the whole White Lotus,” sanitary napkin, pimp on a cruise ship and sexy yeti. Harlow thinks a second on that last one, but says the answer is still no, it’s none of those things.
The hits keep coming, though, including MC Teddy Roosevelt, Fluff Daddy, Almost Historically Accurate Jesus and, sigh, Macklemore. “Guys, this is just my outfit!” Harlow assures them before getting into the elevator and whispering the real inspiration behind the ‘fit.
Harlow follows fellow artist Megan Thee Stallion, who also recently pulled double duty as host and musical guest; while it’s his first hosting run, Harlow performed on SNL last year and appeared in a bit about NFTs that parodied Eminem’s “Without Me.” And, earlier this month, Jack got some late-night television practice time in with Jimmy Fallon when he co-hosted The Tonight Show.
Check out Harlow’s SNL promo below.
There’s a killer on the loose in this week’s episode of Atlanta.
Titled “Crank Dat Killer,” the season’s sixth episode revolves around Soulja Boy’s 2007 hit single and dance craze “Crank That (Soulja Boy).” That song, which earned the rapper his first and only No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, is played at the very beginning of the episode — just before Young Thug’s “Tick Tock” is heard over the opening credits. Later, when Earn reveals that the eponymous Crank Dat Killer — a serial killer operating in the Atlanta area — preys on people who have previously recorded themselves dancing to the song, Al remembers that he, too, made a video to the hit and could be the killer’s next victim. He then calls Soulja Boy, whose cameo is backed by the rapper’s 2021 song “Whip It,” to ease his nerves.
Meanwhile, Earn and Darius try to buy a sold-out pair of sneakers from a local reseller who it turns out is not interested in taking their money. K-Ci & JoJo’s “All My Life” soundtracks that encounter, as the two men put aside their dignity for the shoes.
As Atlanta has evolved, music synchs have played a big role in the overall scene-setting of the show. Throughout the seasons, music supervisors Jen Malone and Fam Udeorji have chosen a variety of songs by old and new artists from various genres including OutKast, D4L, Gunna, Troye Sivan, Dua Lipa, Kodak Black, Jennifer Lopez and many more.
Atlanta airs on FX Thursday nights at 10 p.m. and is available to watch on Hulu the following day. Check out all of the songs used in season four so far below.
Episode Six, “Crank Dat Killer”
Soulja Boy, “Crank That (Soulja Boy)”
Young Thug, “Tick Tock”
Soulja Boy, “Whip It”
K-Ci & JoJo, “All My Life”
Episode Five, “Work Ethic!”
Anita Baker, “Sweet Love”
Janelle Monae, “I Like That”
Little Simz feat. Obongjayar, “Point and Kill”
Coco & Clair Clair, “Wishy Washy”
Episode Four, “Light Skinned-ed”
Dorothy Norwood, “Somebody Prayed For Me”
Chicago Mass Choir, “God Is My Everything”
Yolanda Adams, “The Battle is the Lord’s”
8Ball & MJG, “Top of the World”
The Ebony’s, “I’ll Try”
The Chi Lites, “I Want to Pay You Back (For Loving Me)”
Fivio Foreign & Polo G, “Bop It”
Gil Scott-Heron, “Save the Children”
Episode Three, “Born to Die”
Megan thee Stallion, “Money Good”
Al Green, “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart”
Kodak Black, “Let Me Know”
Episode Two, “The Homeliest Horse”
Ciara, “Ooh Baby”
Japanese Breakfast, “Kokomo, IN”
Young Stoner Life, T-Shyne, Lil Keed feat. Big Sean, “Warrior”
PinkPantheress, “Attracted To You”
Rick James, “Cold Blooded”
Episode One, “The Most Atlanta”
Chief Keef, “B—h Where”
Deborah Cox, “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here“
Pell, “Tew Much”
Sly & The Family Stone, “Runnin’ Away”