Bunker Material: Five Promising Upcoming Pieces of Pop Culture Premiering in an Incredibly Bleak April
While many spent the past few stressful quarantined weeks scouring IG Live for themed marathon DJ sets, or super-producer “beat battles”, before Zuck (who SUCKS) put the kibosh on it (until he figures out how to better monetize others’ creativity beyond simply getting more eyeballs onto one of his already omnipresent platforms), The Wudder kept six feet of distance from these things.
This does not mean that we’re unaware of them happening.
Nor do we begrudge any dearly needed diversionary joy they may bring.
But nah, this ain’t the place to come for a dissertation on Tiger King.
If any of yoūse need to see more crazy white folks in Florida than you could catch on a standard news day, or inside the governor mansion, or talk up Scott Storch being a better producer than Mannie Fresh because he can play piano and didn’t have a career hijacked by Birdman, then, well…in a pandemic? Have at it, I guess.
That being said, there are some things we have noted on our calendar, in between working doubles as essential personnel, during what promises to be one of the grisliest months we’ve ever witnessed.
With no sports to watch, no concerts to attend, no bars to hit, nor safe places to congregate with friends, we still need to find things we’re interested in to keep from driving each other crazy at home, perpetually scrolling social media, or morbidly watching minute by minute as the gruesome numbers mount.
Here are five by our count, arriving between now and the end of April, to be excited about.
Season Three of The Last O.G.
(Premieres April 7th, TBS)
The Last O.G. is the return sitcom vehicle for Tracy Morgan, following nearly losing his life in a 2014 six-vehicle pileup after his touring van was struck by a Wal-Mart truck whose driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel. Morgan, a former cast-member on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock in addition to being a stand-up comedian with a plethora of other credits, spent a few weeks after the accident in a coma, and then the next three years on the mend. The crash also took the life of his friend and comedy collaborator, James McNair. After settling a lawsuit with Wal-Mart, Morgan returned to series TV, in 2018 with The Last O.G.
In addition to Morgan, the show boasted an all-star cast, including comedians on the come-up (like Allen Maldanado, or the now-omnipresent Tiffany Haddish) and established kings of comedy (such as Cedric the Entertainer, or producer Jordan Peele). Its fish-out-of-water concept, of a well-intended but irresponsible man named Tray, returning home from a 15-year drug-related prison sentence, to a post-gentrification Brooklyn he doesn’t recognize, and discovering he has become the father to twins born shortly after he went upstate, works as a perfect backdrop for Morgan returning to entertainment after a three-year-absence from being seen in public, which felt a bit like coming back from the dead, never mind a 15-year-bid.
It’s been good to see Morgan doing his thing again, aided by one of the strongest lineup of comedic actors on TV, some inspired guest star choices (Method Man & Rakim last season, JB Smoove & Mike Tyson in this upcoming one), plus a crack writing team captained by former Scrubs scribe (my O.G. internet writing mentor, co-founder of Okayplayer), author (The Broke Diaries, Mixed) and Philly-native-now-L.A. mover-and-shaker Angela Nissel. Some wait to watch every series on Hulu or NetFlix nowadays. Do you, but rather than waiting for the season to end, to binge it in one fell swoop six months from now, we’ll be DVR-ing TBS on Tuesday evenings at 10:30 PM, for a dependable 30-minute dose of funny, compliments of the aforementioned talent teaming up on The Last O.G.
Fetch The Bolt Cutters, Fiona Apple’s first album in 9 years
(April 17th Digital Release)
It’s been stated here, as well as on other outlets, that singer-songwriter/pianist Fiona Apple is the best lyricist of a generation, or two, excluding nobody.
Fiona has released four studio albums so far, in what is somehow already almost a quarter century old career.
For those thirsty musical souls scoring at home, that’s 4/24, aka Sade (6/36) pace.
Much like that legendary lady, Fiona is well worth the wait.
In fact, she’s currently sitting at 4-for-4.
A few Hall of Fame level acts have come out the gate with an Unfuckwitable First Four:
OutKast.
Led Zeppelin.
De La Soul.
The Velvet Underground.
A Tribe Called Qu-(wait, I can’t in good conscious count the fourth, even tho it has “Get A Hold” on it).
Jimi Hendrix if you include the live Band of Gypsys (we were really shooting for studio releases but I mean, these were new songs & new band, plus Hendrix did all four in question within the span of three-and-a-half years, plus toured relentlessly and left enough extras to be repackaged for decades).
Steely Dan (some quibble with Can’t Buy A Thrill, not us).
Public Enemy (Apocalypse ‘91 is pushing it).
5 straight great albums in a row to start a career tho? Not sure that’s definitively happened before.
Fiona has certainly taken her time, especially with this one, while putting off any official release date despite speculation on this album being done, with minor tweaking and re-tooling, for a year or two according to many, most recently in a March 16th piece in The New Yorker written by the great Emily Nussbaum that reads as the best profile ever done on the not-always-accessible-Ms-Apple.
But as she mentions in “Werewolf”, a lyrical tour-de-force from the last album, “in the end, I’m a sensible girl, I know the fiction of the fix”.
A teasing “should I release it? Like, soon? Like, really soon? I think I’m gonna” came in March.
On April Fool’s Day, with the world in the throes of this pandemic, she released this 30-second-clip featuring her rescued pit puppy, and an April 17th digital release date.
But if you think this was an April 1st prank, you must not know her very well.
Count us among those who will be checking for this as soon as the clock strikes midnight on 4/17.
Further thoughts to follow on the album in an upcoming episode of Streaming Consciously.
The Last Dance: Michael Jordan Documentary Mini-Series
(Premieres April 19th, ESPN/ABC)
Michael Jordan has been retired from basketball for 27 years.
Or has it been 22 years?
No wait, maybe it’s 17.
Technically, it’s all three, one for each time he hung ‘em up, first to try to play baseball, next because Jerry Krause was breaking up the Bulls, and lastly because he probably should have never come back to play for the Washington Wizards in the first place.
Since then, His Royal Airness has seemed at times to be searching for things to do.
And at times, particularly in the first two years of his absence post-’98, and a couple lean years in the mid-2000’s, professional basketball has been too.
With the game now proven to be in the capable hands of LeGOAT, among others, while basketball’s international presence has risen post-Dream-Team to a level that has basketball #2 behind only soccer in global popularity, with the NBA being indisputably the most competitive league to find work in the world, it has been wild to watch how important Michael Jordan’s presence has been in the first quarter of 2020, facing the first cancelled playoffs in league history.
MJ first proved critical after the shockingly tragic death of Kobe Bryant, along with his daughter Gianna, and seven others, in a helicopter crash in late February.
The speech Mike gave at Kobe’s memorial was the most heart-felt, vulnerable and self-effacing moment we’ve seen in four decades of public life.
Kobe, along with almost any other even tangentially related luminary you can name, is featured in recently shot interviews in the upcoming ten-hour documentary mini-series on Jordan, centered around his final 1997-98 season with the twice three-peating Chicago Bulls, using footage originally intended for release sometime shortly after that second retirement, which has been in purgatory without MJ’s blessing for use until the past year or so. Perhaps Jordan felt enough time had passed that the things in the documentary he didn’t care for no longer feel like they’d defile a carefully constructed brand he and Nike had been building since the eighties. Or maybe at age 57, he realizes there’s an entire generation who barely remember what a life without smart phones or high-definition television is like, let alone remember Michael Jordan actually playing. Or maybe, because it’s Mike, the most competitive, at times to a pathological, or occasionally ridiculously petty degree, Mike didn’t like the growing heretical narrative that LeBron might be in the process of passing him.
Whatever the case may be this documentary was slated to run in conjunction with the NBA Finals in June, which LBJ threatened to be factoring in, bidding to win a 5th MVP, plus become the first to lead three franchises to championship glory, this time in Los Angeles while representing the NBA’s marquee franchise.
That season, like everything else in our world, has been put on hold.
So back, by a popular demand so strong that fans convinced ESPN/ABC/Disney to move it from June/July up to mid-April, is some exclusive-old-and-brand-spanking-new Michael Jordan gold, unspooled at a clip of two hours at a time, across five straight Sunday Nights, from April 19th thru May 17th.
Live From Badubotron: Erykah Badu’s Quarantine Concert Series
(Part 3 TBA mid-to-late April)
While Fiona Apple has spent the past 20-25 years as its premiere lyricist, the most consistently great live performer over that span, has been Erykah Badu.
They released their debut albums within six months of each other, Tidal came in July 1996 and Baduizm in February 1997), during that same Women Artist Renaissance era that brought you Lil Kim & Foxy Brown’s debut in addition to things like Lilith Fair.
Badu has toured so consistently, been a regular contributor with creating online content, collaborated on other artists’ records, and done other things like hosting the Soul Train Awards three or four times, that you almost forget she hasn’t released a proper album in even longer than Apple, with her last being 2010’s New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh, unless you count 2015’s But You Cain’t Use My Phone mixtape (love it, but nah).
Now we can add the innovate Quarantine Concert Series to the list. For the price of $1 for Apocalypse One, $2 for Apocalypse Two: The Rooms, and (presumably) a $3 Apocalypse Three installment, Ms. Badu has set up a full-scale interactive show with production values streamed live from her home, with members of her band the Cannaboids, rocking along at a distance, a chat room, voting options for the arrangement of different songs (Apocalypse Two’s songs could be performed in a fan’s choice of the “Bossa Nova Room”, “The Experimental Room”, or “The Bedroom”.
Last Sunday night’s $2 show (anyone remember MTV’s old two-dollar-bill tours back in the day?) doubled as a ten-year-anniversary celebration of New Amerykah Part Two. Can’t say we enjoyed a Bossa Nova arrangement of the dreamy Paul McCartney-and-Wings-assisted “Gone Baby, Don’t Be Long” more than the OG or some of its other live incarnations, but the way Badu provided a “Window Seat” to her and the band’s creative process to make something new during our new normal, was a joy to witness, as was her between show banter among family and friends, while comfortable in her home confines, but also being watched by fans around the globe, at the same time. And while lines like “I don’t need no one to clap for me” hit different in this context, the chat room if you take it out of theater mode, along with being a part of a democratic song-selection process in real time, made for a memorably ambitious home concert experience.
The funds from everyone’s $2 goes directly to paying the out-of-work lighting, video, sound engineers, set design people, and musicians who may not be listed on the marquee, but who bring these concerts together, back when attending shows was something we could still do. There is a tip jar for charitable relief donations as well.
Sunday’s show was the best $2 spent since this virus madness began. Looking forward to the next one, most likely the weekend of the 18th-19th, we will update this once the date/time are official.
The Wire: Way Down In The Hole, a podcast episodic re-watch by The Ringer
(First episode set to drop in the end of April)
We’ll peel back the curtain here: finding a fifth April event worth watching or listening to was tougher than anticipated.
One of the fall-back possibilities was the NFL Draft from April 23rd to April 25th.
But honestly, watching Trey Wingo interview Justin Herbert on Skype about how he feels about being a Jacksonville Jag sounds underwhelming.
Not to mention, there’s an increasingly legitimate chance that this upcoming season is not happening.
Another possibility is Thundercat’s It Is What It Is, the legend-in-the-making bassist/singer-songwriter’s first album since his BFF Mac Miller’s passing.
That came out on April 3rd and is still being processed.
Which brings us to this podcast.
From the folks at The Ringer, who brought you the way-more-entertaining-than-it-should-be-old-movie podcast The Rewatchables, comes this slated episode-by-episode breakdown of one of (if not the) greatest television shows of all-time, The Wire.
This pod, hosted by Van “The Dude That Checked Kanye Live On TMZ When He Was Spouting That ‘Slavery Was a Choice’ Mess” Lathan and former ESPN lightning-rod Jemele Hill host. I can’t really speak to how great a job they’re going to do with it yet. What I can say is they give the perfect excuse to re-watch this series for the first time in a decade while bunkered down. And you won’t find many better ways to spend time in this climate than that.
