Amber Sampson

1 week ago | lasvegasweekly.com | Amber Sampson

COMPLEX AS EVERLast year’s ComplexCon raised an exceptionally high bar for celebrity-filled festivals. The two-day event, dedicated to fashion, hip-hop, art and sneakers, attracted a whopping 60,000 people to the Las Vegas Convention Center and featured A-list rappers like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Big Sean, Machine Gun Kelly and Offset. Travis Scott and Playboi Carti headlined 2024’s lineup, and this year’s installment has kept that momentum going.

1 week ago | lasvegasweekly.com | Amber Sampson

Tiffany Haddish might be an open book, but she’s far from predictable. She’s a Grammy-winning comedian, a celebrated author and a Hollywood actress who still owes us Girls Trip 2. But she’s also the woman who grew up visiting the rodeo in Brawley, California with her family. She even took a trip to Nashville’s Music City Rodeo and hung out backstage with Tim McGraw. There are layers to Haddish’s famously unfiltered persona.

1 week ago | lasvegasweekly.com | Amber Sampson

Las Vegas and Havana were cut from the same cultural cloth. Both cities experienced a Golden Age of glitz in the 1950s, drawing the likes of Liberace, Nat King Cole and the Rat Pack to their posh nightclubs and luxurious hotels. Havana had the legendary Tropicana cabaret club. Las Vegas had the Copa Room. They both had the mob. With that bit of history to chew on, it’s no wonder Havana 1957 at the Flamingo feels so distinctly like home.

2 weeks ago | lasvegasweekly.com | Amber Sampson

The Pixies’ lead guitarist Joey Santiago has a soft spot for “stupid gambling.” “I’ve bet on the Jets to win the Super Bowl for the past few years now,” he tells the Weekly. “I know I’m throwing my money away, but when you do something it’s like, what if? What if this is the year and they actually won it?”Those same what ifs that drive Santiago could also be applied to the iconic alt-rock band. What if Santiago and frontman Black Francis never met?

2 weeks ago | lasvegasweekly.com | Amber Sampson

Retro video games have a certain muscle memory attached to them. Blowing into a Super Nintendo game cartridge seems silly now, but 33 years ago it belonged to a gaming ritual I’ve come to associate with simpler times. At the click of a power switch, it all comes flooding back in one glorious, 16-bit rush—slicing through the bomb-wielding enemies of A Link to the Past, dodging pesky wasps through the jungles of Donkey Kong Country.