Culture

Friday Notes: Sports, Jay-z x D'Angelo, 21 Savage

Uristocrat

Jan 12, 2024 — 5 min read

James McAvoy and LaKeith Stanfield in 'The Book of Clarence.' MORIS PUCCIO/SONY PICTURES

This is an edition of Uristocrat Notes, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest cultural stories of the day.

Sports

NFL wild-card round playoff game picks, schedule, guide

Nick Saban Made Alabama Too Big to Fail

Sources: Patriots tab Mayo as Belichick successor

Thunder by 62, Bucks by 33: Huge margins define night of blowout NBA action

Sources: NBA draft to become two-night event

Raheem Mostert Got Here the Hard Way

The new Dolphins single-season touchdown record holder on his journey from the practice squad to the Pro Bowl.

New Music Releases

21 Savage "american dream"

21 Savage doesn’t do small things. His 2022 full-length Drake team-up Her Loss certainly made that clear, and the long-anticipated follow-up to 2018’s i am > i was gives off similar blockbuster energy. Presented in the form of a trailer for a feature film, the Donald Glover-starring “all of me” music video, for example, seems to address head-on the long-standing queries about the UK-born rapper’s origin story and the immigration troubles that ensued in the intervening years. That song serves to set the stage for american dream, his third proper solo album and the apparent soundtrack to said cinematic entry.

Kid Cudi "INSANO"

Scott Mescudi’s ninth LP has an all-star guest list of features and producers.

THE BOOK OF CLARENCE (The Motion Picture Soundtrack)

The writer-director heads up his own soundtrack, exec-produced by JAY-Z.

Business x Finance x Technology

Lugging Credit Card Debt Into 2024? Now’s the Time to Make a Plan

Exclusive: Goldman Sachs quietly shuts down diversity investment program Launch With GS after meeting $1 billion pledge to fund companies led by women and people of color.

Adebayo Ogunlesi's GIP bought by Blackrock for $12.5 Billion in Major Alternatives Push

Media

‘The Book of Clarence’ Rewrites the Biblical Epic

Director Jeymes Samuel does for sword-and-sandal movies what he did for Westerns with The Harder They Fall and lets a Black all-star cast leave their mark on a traditionally white mythology.