ABC/Image Group LABlanco Brown, the singer behind 2019’s viral “TrailerTrap” anthem “The Git Up,” suffered serious injuries in a head-on collision on Monday night. The news came in a statement from his label, BBR Music Group, which added that the crash occurred near the singer’s home in Atlanta.
Brown was transported to a nearby hospital following the accident, where he underwent a 12-hour surgery to address the unspecified traumas he sustained. He’s currently resting in the ICU and is expected to need more surgery as his recovery progresses.
This spring, the genre-blending country and hip-hop star teamed with DJ Diplo for their new song, “Do Si Do.” No stranger to cross-genre collaborations, Brown has also put out duets with country group Parmalee and R&B star Ciara in recent months.
Still, Blanco continues to stay in touch with his country roots. In May, he participated in one of the Country Music Hall of Fame’s virtual programs, leading a session aimed at teaching students of all ages about the craft of songwriting.
Brown’s friends and family are requesting prayers for his recovery and privacy during this difficult time.
Photo by: Robert Trachtenberg/NBCUniversal(NEW YORK) — Lyric Lewis is promising fans will “definitely be satisfied” with the upcoming season of Peacock’s A.P. Bio.
In fact, Lewis, who reprises her role as history teacher Stef Duncan, tells ABC Audio that the new season will honestly make you laugh.
“Season three is so funny. And I’m not even tooting our own horn, but ‘toot toot,’ she says. “What the writers and [executive producer Mike O’Brien] came up with for this season — the audience will definitely be satisfied.”
Lewis goes on to tease that the upcoming season will offer new and unexpected experiences from their characters.
“You get to see Jack in a vulnerable way that we haven’t quite seen him yet,” she says. “We get to see way more Paula Pell, which we all want. Way more Durbin [and] the kids kind of get into just more mischief in a different type of fun way.”
As far as her character Stef, Lewis says it was “a lot of fun” filming since she and her character were actually “pregnant in real life.”
“So Stef Duncan is pregnant on the show [and] the fun thing that’s not too much of a spoiler is that Stef’s baby might be related to somebody in that school,” she says. “OK! So it’s just so fun in a different way and I cannot wait to stream it with everybody else.”
Season three of A.P. Bio, also starring Glenn Howerton and Patton Oswalt, is now available to stream on Peacock.
The Bond franchise released the third preview of its 25th film today. The two-minute clip shows Daniel Craig in the title role engaging in his usual high-intensity stunts and spy missions, matched against villain Safin, portrayed byRami Malek.
Lashana Lynch is also featured in her action-packed role as the newest elite 00 agent.
Secret missions and shoot-outs among sweeping landscapes shot all appear in the trailer as Craig ominously says in the opening line, “The past isn’t dead.”
Among the returning cast are Christoph Waltz and Ralph Fiennes as Blofeld and M, respectively, with Ben Whishaw reprising his role as Q and Naomie Harris as Eve Moneypenny.
No Time to Die marks Craig’s final appearance as Bond. It was originally scheduled for release in April, but the premiere date was pushed back to November due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The theme song, co-written and recorded by Billie Eilish, was released in January.
Jamie Trueblood/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images Family via Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — It’s been three years since Pretty Little Liars wrapped up its seven-season run on Freeform, but sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that a new take on the hit series is in the works.
Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is said to be spearheading the project, which will feature an all-new story and fresh new characters.
No networks are attached to the project as of yet, but sources tell THR that HBO Max is being targeted as a possible home for the revival.
Pretty Little Liars aired on Freeform for seven seasons between 2010-2017, and spawned several spinoffs: Pretty Little Liars: Ravenswood in 2014 and Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists in 2019. Each lasted just one season.
Pretty Little Liars castmates Lucy Hale, Ashley Benson, Troian Bellisario, Tyler Blackburn, Ian Harding, Shay Mitchell, Janel Parrish and Sasha Pieterse held a virtual reunion back in May, and at the time, Hale said she was open to the idea of a PLL series or movie, just not in the near future.
“I feel like we’d need a little more time to pass. I feel like we would get more out of it if we were, like, 10 years down the road,” she she told Entertainment Weekly.
C.J. Stewart and his wife Kelli co-founded L.E.A.D in 2007. (C.J. Stewart)By SHANNON MCLELLAN, ABC News
(ATLANTA) — C.J. Stewart has spent more than a decade hosting high school baseball team tryouts in his former Atlanta neighborhood every spring. But the players chosen are not for an ordinary team. They are students handpicked by Stewart and his wife, Kelli Stewart, with a goal that extends far beyond winning on the field.
The team is part of an organization called Launch, Expose, Advise, Direct, or L.E.A.D., which aims to help Black boys in low-income households break out of the cycle of poverty and incarceration in their neighborhoods through the game of baseball.
Stewart, 44, knows about their neighborhoods because he is a product of them. He grew up in inner-city Atlanta and his love of baseball gave him a reason to stay out of trouble, he said.
“[Baseball] was the goal. It was my reason for living. It was my reason to say no to drugs,” Stewart said. “It was the tip of the spear for me for everything.”
Stewart went on to play baseball for Georgia State University and then played professionally for the Chicago Cubs organization. He’s now a successful batting coach with major league clients such as the Cubs’ Jason Heyward and St. Louis Cardinals’ Dexter Fowler.
When a client asked Stewart about the decreasing number of Black baseball players and what he was doing about it, a lightbulb went off. The percentage of Black MLB players was just 6.7% in 2016, down from a high of 18.7% in 1981, according to the Society for American Baseball Research.
He decided that he would go back to the neighborhood where he grew up to help people using the sport he loves.
“We really use baseball as a vehicle to help Black boys overcome crime, poverty and racism,” Stewart said about the program.
More than just a baseball team
Each year, the program hosts tryouts for young men who attend Atlanta Public Schools. Players, who they call “ambassadors,” are expected to uphold the highest standards in school and in life.
“Grades, attendance, behavior and community service — that’s how our boys earn their opportunity,” Kelli Stewart said. “Pay-to-play opportunities are out of reach for them, but getting good grades, good behavior and attendance in school and completing community service hours [are] well within their reach.”
Stewart likes to compare the program to the Navy SEALs because if expectations are not met, the young men will be cut.
“Expectations [are] an empowering thing,” Stewart said. “We’re saying, ‘We expect you to meet the standard. We believe you can do it. Here are the resources that you need. But if you don’t, the accountability will be swift and clear.'”
With hard work comes rewards and opportunities. On top of playing travel baseball and getting recruited by college coaches for free, the teens also take part in networking opportunities with some of Atlanta’s top business leaders and politicians.
“We need to get away from philanthropy in this country and giving people what we want them to have,” Kelli Stewart said. “We need to make sure are we providing people with the resources and the tools that they need in order to be great in order to break generational cycles of poverty.”
How LEAD changes lives
The program boasts a staggering graduation rate. Since its start in 2007, 100% of the students have graduated from high school, 93% enroll in college and 90% of them enroll with scholarships, according to Kelli Stewart. Several young men have gone on to get college degrees, while some have enrolled in the Army, finished master’s programs and started careers at top companies in the Atlanta area.
“The most rewarding aspect of founding L.E.A.D. is giving these boys the knowledge that they have someone in their corner,” Kelli Stewart said. “Day to day, they’re battling homelessness, battling stability … you can get to a point where you have no hope because you have no help. For the young men who are a part of L.E.A.D., they see people be willing to help make a change in their lives.”
Two success stories from the program come from former L.E.A.D. ambassadors Tyquavious Noland and Kavin Swift. Noland recently graduated from LeMoyne-Owen College, where he played baseball for four years and got his bachelor’s degree in finance. He’s now part of the management training program at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Swift graduated from Benjamin E. Mays High School in Atlanta and will attend the University of West Georgia in the fall where he will work toward a bachelor’s degree.
“I’m not a bad kid, but I like to say I wouldn’t be in situation I’m in today without L.E.A.D.,” Swift said. “I’m from the west side of Atlanta and some parts are in a real rough neighborhood. So that being said, I would have eventually adapted to that environment and not be where I am today.”
Both young men say the opportunities L.E.A.D. has given them would have been otherwise impossible to find in their communities, but acknowledged that it took hard work to earn them.
“They push us to be great and excellent. It’s a life-changing program. It literally saved my life,” Noland said.
“If I’m not on top of my stuff I won’t make it out,” Swift said. “Hope isn’t enough. You have to put in the man hours and put in the time to achieve your dreams.”
Giving back to their community
Noland and Swift are two of the many L.E.A.D. ambassadors and alumni who are working to give back to their community. L.E.A.D. now invites boys starting in sixth grade to try out for middle school teams to instill their values even earlier.
“Statistics show that one of the main reasons that young people join gangs is to feel a sense of family and sense of community,” Kelli Stewart said. “By having our older ambassadors and alumni connect with the junior ambassadors … we’re creating a positive family experience to be a part of.”
To the young men in the program, it’s important for them to share their success with their community by sharing positive platforms and giving the next generation the chance to succeed.
“My community is one of the most dangerous communities in America,” Noland said. “If you’re doing this just to be successful for yourself, it’s no good. We make sure that we go back and give back.”
“We’re much more than a baseball team. We’re brothers,” Swift said. “We come together to help our community.”
Kelli Stewart said sports has become a “liberation tool in the Black community” and hopes that the successful alumni of the program will continue to pass down opportunities to future generations.
“I think we need to make sure we continue along that legacy sports has left,” she shared. “We need to continue to make sure our ambassadors understand the tremendous opportunity they have and the platform sports provides them. They need to know how to use it wisely and how to use it to the benefit of the community and not just themselves.”
ABC/Image Group LABlanco Brown, the singer behind 2019’s viral “TrailerTrap” anthem “The Git Up,” suffered serious injuries in a head-on collision on Monday night. The news came in a statement from his label, BBR Music Group, which added that the crash occurred near the singer’s home in Atlanta.
