Oba Femi Shares Bold Words for John Cena
John Cena is currently the unimpeded king on top of the wrestling mountain. Even with his entire heel run failing to reach that next gear due to inadequate booking and mindless meddling from The Rock, Cena is still the hottest name in the industry.
Cena looks ready to feud with Randy Orton heading into Backlash, but who else will the 48-year-old square off with before hanging up his dad shoes? A current champion and potential future WrestleMania main eventer is interested in getting in the ring with the living legend but also took a few subtle jabs at Cena in the process.
John CenaGetty Images
During a recent No Contest Wrestling live show, NXT Champion Oba Femi fielded a question about a match with John Cena and gave a blunt response. "I'm young, I'm spry—John is not the same; respect him," Femi said. "He's a champion right now, but I'm still Oba Femi, I'm still the ruler—don't forget that."
Femi is a physical specimen who is one of the most physically intimidating wrestlers on the planet. He is coming off an incredible triple-threat match with Je'Von Evans and Trick Williams at Stand & Deliver, and although he's still so new to the business as a whole, he has done almost everything possible in NXT.
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A bout between Femi and Cena would be a great passing of the torch and instantly establish the former University of Alabama shot putter as a legit star to a broader audience. Cena should be putting over some young talent on the way out, and Femi has to be near the top of that list.
Related: WWE Star Shares Thoughts on Shawn Michaels as a Boss
Related: Bron Breakker Aligns With Seth Rollins and Paul Heyman, Who Might be Next?
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Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
Entertainment World Honors Sly Stone: Funk Legend Dead at 82
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Sly Stone, the revolutionary musician and dynamic showman whose Sly and the Family Stone transformed popular music in the 1960s and '70s with hits like "Everyday People," "Stand!" and "Family Affair," died Monday at age 82. Stone, born Sylvester Stewart, had been in poor health in recent years and died in Los Angeles surrounded by family after contending with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other ailments, according to his publicist, Carleen Donovan. The Context Stone's death marks the loss of an icon for funk rock music and popular culture. As leader of the first major integrated band to include Black and white men and women, Sly and the Family Stone shattered racial barriers while crafting a groundbreaking sound that influenced generations of musicians. The band's brief but profound reign from 1968 to 1971 captured the euphoria and eventual disillusionment of the Woodstock era, speaking for a generation through anthems of community and nonconformity. Sly Stone, frontman of Sly and the Family Stone, is pictured posing in London on July 16, 1973. Sly Stone, frontman of Sly and the Family Stone, is pictured posing in London on July 16, 1973. Michael Putland/Getty Image What To Know Founded in 1966, Sly and the Family Stone created an innovative fusion of jazz, psychedelic rock, doo-wop, soul and early funk grooves. The Bay Area sextet featured Stone on keyboards, Larry Graham on bass, Stone's brother Freddie on guitar, sister Rose on vocals, plus Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini on horns and Greg Errico on drums. The group's breakthrough single "Dance to the Music" hit the top 10 in April 1968, launching an era when traditional Motown polish suddenly seemed dated. Led by Stone with his leather jumpsuits, goggle shades and mile-high Afro, the band dazzled at Woodstock in 1969 and released five top 10 singles, three hitting No. 1, plus a trio of million-selling albums including "Stand!" and "There's a Riot Goin' On." Stone's influence extended far beyond his own recordings. The Jackson Five's "I Want You Back" and the Temptations' "I Can't Get Next to You" mimicked his arrangements, while Miles Davis credited Stone as partial inspiration for "Bitches Brew." Later artists from Prince to the Black Eyed Peas drew from his innovations, and countless hip-hop artists sampled his riffs. By the early 1970s, Stone battled drug addiction and erratic behavior, becoming notorious for missing concerts. The group broke up by decade's end, though Stone was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Questlove featured Stone prominently in recent documentaries "Summer of Soul" and 2025's "Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)." Psychedelic soul powerhouse Sly and the Family Stone poses for a portrait in 1968. Left to right, Rosie Stone, Larry Graham, Sly Stone, Freddie Stone, Gregg Errico, Jerry Martini and Cynthia Robinson. Psychedelic soul powerhouse Sly and the Family Stone poses for a portrait in 1968. Left to right, Rosie Stone, Larry Graham, Sly Stone, Freddie Stone, Gregg Errico, Jerry Martini and Cynthia Robinson. MichaelWhat People Are Saying Statement from the family of Sly Stone: "It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved dad, Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone. After a prolonged battle with COPD and other underlying health issues, Sly passed away peacefully, surrounded by his three children, his closest friend, and his extended family. While we mourn his absence, we take solace in knowing that his extraordinary musical legacy will continue to resonate and inspire for generations to come. Sly was a monumental figure, a groundbreaking innovator, and a true pioneer who redefined the landscape of pop, funk, and rock music. His iconic songs have left an indelible mark on the world, and his influence remains undeniable." The statement continues: "In a testament to his enduring creative spirit, Sly recently completed the screenplay for his life story, a project we are eager to share with the world in due course, which follows a memoir published in 2024. We extend our deepest gratitude for the outpouring of love and prayers during this difficult time. We wish peace and harmony to all who were touched by Sly's life and his iconic music. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your unwavering support." Actress Holly Robinson Peete on X, formerly Twitter: "Rest in power, Sly Stone. You didn't just make music—you shifted the culture. As kids in Philly, my brother played Sly, I was Cynthia on my imaginary horn. We lived your music. You gave us the groove & the message. Thank you, genius." Rap icon Chuck D on X: "Rest In Beats SLY Stone ..and we should THANK @questlove of @theroots for keeping his FIRE blazing in this Century. 2 documentaries and book . GET EM" Entertainment publicist Danny Deraney on X: "Rest easy Sly Stone. You changed music (and me) forever. The time he won over Ed Sullivan's audience in 1968. Simply magical." SiriusXM host Eric Alper on X: "RIP Sly Stone (1943–2025), the funk pioneer who made the world dance, think, and get higher. His music changed everything—and it still does." Writer Keith Murphy on X: "Giant. I can't put into words the impact Sly Stone had on popular music. Blues, soul, pop, rock, funk were just toys in his sandbox. Sly's genius was that it all came together seamlessly without pretentious wonkery. He did it all." Radio Hall of Fame media icon Donnie Simpson on X: "We lost a true legend today. He was 82 years old. Condolences to his family, friends, and fans. Thank you for your music and all that you gave us." Historian Harvey G. Cohen on X: "American musical life would've been totally different without Sly Stone. Bless you sir, and thanks." Sundance Film Festival on X: "Sly Stone changed music forever. A visionary, a rebel, a genius. His sound shaped generations and his spirit broke boundaries." Psychedelic soul pioneer Sly Stone checks out a necklace on March 9, 1969. Psychedelic soul pioneer Sly Stone checks out a necklace on March 9, 1969. MichaelWhat Happens Next Stone's family plans to share Sly's recently completed screenplay for his life story. Memorial arrangements have yet to be announced. A Statement From The Family of Sly Stone: It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved dad, Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone. — Sly Stone (@RealSlyStone) June 9, 2025 Reporting from the Associated Press contributed to this article.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Sly Stone, revolutionary funk rock musician, dies at 82
NEW YORK (AP) — Sly Stone, the revolutionary musician and dynamic showman whose Sly and the Family Stone transformed popular music in the 1960s and '70s and beyond with such hits as 'Everyday People,' 'Stand!' and 'Family Affair,' died Monday at age 82. Stone, born Sylvester Stewart, had been in poor health in recent years. His publicist Carleen Donovan said Stone died in Los Angeles surrounded by family after contending with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other ailments. Formed in 1966-67, Sly and the Family Stone was the first major group to include Black and white men and women, and well embodied a time when anything seemed possible — riots and assassinations, communes and love-ins. The singers screeched, chanted, crooned and hollered. The music was a blowout of frantic horns, rapid-fire guitar and locomotive rhythms, a melting pot of jazz, psychedelic rock, doo-wop, soul and the early grooves of funk. Stone's group began as a Bay Area sextet featuring Sly on keyboards, Larry Graham on bass; Sly's brother, Freddie, on guitar; sister Rose on vocals; Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini horns and Greg Errico on drums. They debuted with the album 'A Whole New Thing' and earned the title with their breakthrough single, 'Dance to the Music.' It hit the top 10 in April 1968, the week the Rev. Martin Luther King was murdered, and helped launch an era when the polish of Motown and the understatement of Stax suddenly seemed of another time. Led by Sly Stone, with his leather jumpsuits and goggle shades, mile-wide grin and mile-high Afro, the band dazzled in 1969 at the Woodstock festival and set a new pace on the radio. 'Everyday People,' 'I Wanna Take You Higher' and other songs were anthems of community, non-conformity and a brash and hopeful spirit, built around such catchphrases as 'different strokes for different folks.' The group released five top 10 singles, three of them hitting No. 1, and three million-selling albums: 'Stand!', 'There's a Riot Goin' On' and 'Greatest Hits.' Sly's influence has endured for decades. The top funk artist of the 1970s, Parliament-Funkadelic creator George Clinton, was a Stone disciple. Prince, Rick James and the Black-Eyed Peas were among the many performers from the 1980s and after influenced by Sly, and countless rap artists have sampled his riffs, from the Beastie Boys to Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. A 2005 tribute record included Maroon 5, John Legend and the Roots. A dream dies, a career burns away By the early '70s, Stone himself was beginning a descent from which he never recovered, driven by the pressures of fame and the added burden of Black fame. His record company was anxious for more hits, while the Black Panthers were pressing him to drop the white members from his group. After moving from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in 1970, he became increasingly hooked on cocaine and erratic in his behavior. On 'Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),' Stone had warned: 'Dying young is hard to take/selling out is harder.' Late in 1971, he released 'There's a Riot Going On,' one of the grimmest, most uncompromising records ever to top the album charts. The sound was dense and murky (Sly was among the first musicians to use drum machines), the mood reflective ('Family Affair'), fearful ('Runnin' Away') and despairing: 'Time, they say, is the answer — but I don't believe it,' Sly sings on 'Time.' The fast, funky pace of the original 'Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)' was slowed, stretched and retitled 'Thank You For Talkin' to Me, Africa.' By the end of the decade, Sly and the Family Stone had broken up and Sly was releasing solo records with such unmet promises as 'Heard You Missed Me, Well I'm Back' and 'Back On the Right Track.' Most of the news he made over the following decades was of drug busts, financial troubles and mishaps on stage. Sly and the Family Stone was inducted into the Rock & Roll of Fame in 1993 and honored in 2006 at the Grammy Awards, but Sly released just one album after the early '80s, 'I'm Back! Family & Friends,' much of it updated recordings of his old hits. A born musician, a born uniter He was born Sylvester Stewart in Denton, Texas, and raised in Vallejo, California, the second of five children in a close, religious family. Sylvester became 'Sly' by accident, when a teacher mistakenly spelled his name 'Slyvester.' He loved performing so much that his mother alleged he would cry if the congregation in church didn't respond when he sang before it. He was so gifted and ambitious that by age 4 he had sung on stage at a Sam Cooke show and by age 11 had mastered several instruments and recorded a gospel song with his siblings. He was so committed to the races working together that in his teens and early 20s he was playing in local bands that included Black and white members and was becoming known around the Bay Area as a deejay equally willing to play the Beatles and rhythm and blues acts. 'A Whole New Thing' came out in 1967, soon followed by the single 'Dance to the Music,' in which each member was granted a moment of introduction as the song rightly proclaimed a 'brand new beat.' In December 1968, the group appeared on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' and performed a medley that included 'Dance to the Music' and 'Everyday People.' Before the set began, Sly turned to the audience and recited a brief passage from his song 'Are You Ready': don't hate the white, if you get bitten, just hate the bite.'
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Funk pioneer Sly Stone, leader of Sly and the Family Stone, dies at 82
Funk pioneer Sly Stone, leader of Sly and the Family Stone, dies at 82 Sly Stone, a onetime San Francisco DJ turned pop and funk music innovator, has died. He was 82. "It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved dad, Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone," a statement shared with USA TODAY on June 9 reads. "After a prolonged battle with COPD and other underlying health issues, Sly passed away peacefully, surrounded by his three children, his closest friend, and his extended family. "While we mourn his absence, we take solace in knowing that his extraordinary musical legacy will continue to resonate and inspire for generations to come." Sly Stone's 5 essential songs: From 'Everyday People' to 'Stand!' After huge chart-topping success in the 1960s and 1970s, Stone had become an enigmatic and largely reclusive figure plagued by homelessness and health issues. He also had endured financial problems amid management disputes, at one point winning a $5 million judgment for unpaid royalties that was later overturned. In one dire period, reports indicated that the Woodstock icon was living in a van in Los Angeles. But despite such misfortunes, the music created by the Texas-born California transplant and his trendsetting multi-racial, multi-gendered Bay Area band, the Family Stone, had never stopped being a touchstone for generations of musicians. Among Stone's oft-covered but never matched hits are "I Want to Take You Higher," "Hot Fun in the Summertime," "Stand!" and the infectious and phonetically titled funk anthem, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)." The statement from Stone's family hailed him as "a monumental figure, a groundbreaking innovator and a true pioneer who redefined the landscape of pop, funk and rock music,' one whose songs 'have left an indelible mark on the world, and his influence remains undeniable.' Stone's family noted that the musician had recently completed a screenplay for his life story and concluded: "We extend our deepest gratitude for the outpouring of love and prayers during this difficult time. We wish peace and harmony to all who were touched by Sly's life and his iconic music." Stone was born Sylvester Stewart on March 14, 1943, in Denton, Texas, but grew up in the northern San Francisco suburb of Vallejo, where he and his siblings quickly mastered a variety of instruments, notably guitar and keyboards. In the mid-'60s, just as the San Francisco music scene was exploding with global impact, Stone served both as a record producer and disc jockey at KSOL, whose listeners immediately took to his deep, resonant voice as he shared an incessant stream of hits being generated from area groups. In 1966, spurred on by the local revolution that was birthing bands such as Jefferson Airplane, Santana and the Grateful Dead, Stone decided to combine his fledgling band with one led by his brother Freddie, forming Sly and the Family Stone. Hits followed in short order, starting with 1968's "Dance to the Music" and "Everyday People," both of which celebrated the sheer and simple joy created when music brings the masses together. But Stone's compositions also frequently plumbed deep depths, with lyrics that pierced as ably as they moved. In "Family Affair," Stone's sensitive growl intones: "One child grows up to be/ Somebody that just loves to learn/ And another child grows up to be/ Somebody you'd just love to burn/ Mom loves both of them/ You see, it's in the blood/ Both kids are good to mom/ Blood's thicker than the mud." By 1969, Stone and his group were among the most well-known bands in the nation, and performed a memorable set at that year's Woodstock festival in upstate New York, a hallmark of which was the band's audience-lifting rendition of "I Want to Take You Higher." The band also performed that year at the Summer of Soul concert in Harlem, an event memorialized in the documentary of the same name by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson. (Questlove went on to direct 'Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius), a 2025 Hulu documentary focused on Stone.) While Stone's band was among the earliest of the '60s groups to feature a mix of genders and races (including founding member and trumpet player Cynthia Robinson and founding drummer Greg Errico), Stone was the leader and visionary who steered the band's direction. Often cloaked in elaborate stage clothing, his massive Afro glowing, Stone's looks and music were an indisputable harbinger of the coming funk revolution that would take the foundational innovations of James Brown and propel it to an otherworldly showboating level as best exemplified by the huge success of '70s legends such as George Clinton and his Parliament-Funkadelic band. But the rocketship ride to fame would quickly come crashing back to earth. By 1971, with the band addled by drug use and internal strife, Sly and the Family Stone would increasingly lose tour bookings and fail to produce music that matched the songs of just a few years prior. While Stone spent the '70s working on new music, often on his own since he played numerous instruments, success proved elusive. In 1983, he was arrested in Florida on drug charges. More trouble and misfortune found its way to Stone's doorstep in the coming years, although in 1993 he did make a public appearance during the band's induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. A decade later, in 2005, Stone, by now almost a legendary ghost, was spotted at a Los Angeles club after driving his sister Vet, who was in a Family Stone tribute band, to her gig on his motorcycle. The next year, Stone shocked thrilled attendees at the Grammy Awards by taking the stage, resplendent in a huge blond mohawk, as his band roared through a number of hits during the show's salute to the seminal group. In 2009, documentarian Willem Alkema released "Coming Back for More," a look at Stone's life and career. The director told journalists at the time that Stone was homeless, but the pioneering musician nonetheless made a number of appearances, however brief, at California festivals. In 2023, Stone released his autobiography, the first book released by Questlove's imprint, which aptly took its title from his song, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)." The book received mixed reviews, as its subject seemed a bit at a loss to recall that epic golden period so long ago that created those unforgettable songs. But one excerpt captures the delightful lyricism that he brought to his hits, and serves as a reminder that genius never really fades. Of many others who over the years tried to tell Stone's story, he wrote: 'They're trying to set the record straight. But a record's not straight, especially when you're not. It's a circle with a spiral inside it. Every time a story is told, it's a test of memory and motive. … It isn't evil but it isn't good. It's the name of the game but a shame just the same.' Contributing: KiMi Robinson
