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Lady Gaga was met with some distressing news yesterday, when it was reported that thieves shot her dog walker and made off with two of her three French bulldogs. Gaga has yet to offer a public statement about the dog-napping, but now her father, Joe Germanotta, has spoken out about it.

Talking with Fox News, Germanotta said, “Our whole family is upset and praying Koji and Gustavo are not harmed. Help us catch these creeps.”

It was previously reported that Gaga is offering a $500K “no questions asked” reward for the return of her dogs and information about the situation can be sent to [email protected].

Germanotta says the dog walker is a 30-year-old family “friend,” and at the time of the interview, he was unaware of their current condition. It was previously reported, though, that the dog walker was taken to the hospital and is expected to fully recover.

Germanotta continued, “Horrible people in LA. Shooting someone in order to steal dogs is wrong.”

LAPD Public Information Officer Jeff Lee told Fox News that the department is treating the case, which detectives are currently investigating, as “assault with a deadly weapon.” Lee added, “The suspect was last observed in a white vehicle northbound of Sierra Bonita Avenue towards Hollywood Boulevard. No arrest has been made yet.”

(Spoilers from Marvel Studios and Disney+’s WandaVision will be found below.)

We’re now in Week 8 of WandaVision. It’s the penultimate episode in a series that’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and yet, Kevin Feige is using the show to lay much more groundwork for Phase Four and beyond, even going so far to deftly combine two superhero universes, that of 20th Century Fox and the MCU, and that’s only one of the reasons why this show’s been a hit. A lot of the love for the series has to do with its flat-out weirdness and refusal to adhere to one genre, one tone, or even one decade (oh, there have been many). This week, however, a lot of the nerd-ery got temporarily shelved to strip the show back to its emotional bare bones and made it less weird, but that weird will possibly come raging back in the finale.

What we ended up with this week was Elizabeth Olsen and Kathryn Hahn giving us two incredible performances. After learning about “Agatha All Along,” we saw a bit of an Agatha Harkness origin story, but what really matters is how Agatha relates to Wanda Maximoff. Through a flashback-heavy exploration of the moments when Wanda and Pietro’s parents were killed, we truly got to see the roots of her trauma. We saw Wanda’s love of sitcoms from an early age, and all of these revelations easily flow into this series’ marvelous structure. And we saw Agatha — a sorceress from the comics who helped Wanda come into her powers while training with HYDRA — declare that Wanda is much more dangerous than she could possibly understand. She’s using her powers to manipulate energy and matter to cook up “breakfast for dinner,” which doesn’t sound all that evil to us in the audience. Yet Agatha’s characterization of this as “chaos magic” does come close to a “We’re not so different, you and I”-type declaration from villain to hero, and it does sound like Scarlet Witch is being set up as the biggest bad here.

Yep, Wanda recreated her perfect house and perfect husband and perfect life, despite all of the sadness that it now brings her. And we’ve definitely got Scarlet Witch now, baby.

So, next week is finale time. Guessing where we go from here feels like a shot in the dark, but it’s worth discussing how we have not seen Mephisto at all despite all of the hints that we’d be seeing the MCU’s version of the Devil). There were suggestions that Evan Peters’ Pietro could secretly be Mephisto, but a member of the WandaVision team shut down that theory. Fan theories abounded that Mephisto was Agnes’ husband and would be played by Al Pacino, but that never materialized. In fact, it sure doesn’t seem like we’re going to be seeing Mephisto at all?

Nor do we know if we’ll see Pietro next week, or what will happen to Wanda’s (fabricated-in-the-comics) kids, who are now in Agatha’s clutches. We don’t know if Agatha and Wanda will team up (can they go there, after Agatha killed Sparky?) and both go on to spread chaos magic in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (Elizabeth Olsen has what’s thought to be a significant role in the film). Darcy and Jimmy Woo and Monica Rambeau (who’s got the Photon vibes doing as of last week) might be on deck again for finale time (all of that post-credit Hayward business about the true manipulation of Vision will go somewhere else, no doubt), but probably no Mephisto!

Unless…

Alright, so we did get one bit of weirdness this week. Bryan Cranston showed up, ever so briefly, while Malcolm In The Middle flashed onscreen as Wanda and Vision watched TV. This blip happened amid a bittersweet conversation, and it’s all very emotional as Wanda attempted to grapple with all of the devastating loss that she’s experienced in her life. All of this could build toward the kind of power we saw when Wanda took on Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, but for now, we’re also left with one parting thought: Bryan Cranston is technically now part of the MCU. Yet it’s too bad that this didn’t happen with him as Walter White. Let’s call it now: Walter White is Mephisto.

Disney+’s ‘WandaVision’ streams new episodes on Fridays.

While today’s Republicans are predominantly Evangelical Christians, they clearly missed the part in The Bible about building false idols. In a move that truly captures the apocalyptic vibes of his presidency, Bloomberg’s William Turton captured footage of a golden statue of Donald Trump being wheeled around CPAC on Thursday, and people are having a blast dunking on the graven image. Shortly after the footage hit Twitter, “Golden Calf” started trending as religious leaders and others pointed out the awkward (and hypocritical) Biblical implications of turning Trump into a golden idol, which is a big no-no, according to Christian scripture. And, yet, that’s definitely a gilded Trump wearing American flag shorts.

After the initial shock of watching Republicans worship a golden idol off, people started noticing that the statue looks like Bob’s Big Boy, which unleashed a new buffet of jokes. The restaurant mascot is still trending as of Friday morning.

Folks also notice that the golden Trump statue resembles Bart Simpson thanks to being wheeled around on what looks like a skateboard and the weird blocky cartoon feet. If you can’t tell by now, the whole thing is a comedy gold mine.

While the golden idol jokes are hilarious, there is a serious side to the whole production. According to Axios, Trump will attend CPAC and declare himself the “presumptive 2024 nominee” for the next presidential election in a show of his “total control” of the GOP. And, frankly, Trump’s plan might of off without a hitch. However, the former president is currently facing significant legal trouble after the Supreme Court ruled this week that New York state prosecutors can access his private tax records. He didn’t like that.

(Via William Turton on Twitter)

When Vic Mensa hops on Zoom with me, he’s riding in the back of an Uber as he heads to his next destination in Chicago’s South Side. It is a slight change of plans, as the rapper was meant to be just arriving from Oklahoma City after visiting death row inmate Julius Jones. But the extreme weather conditions halted plans.

Nevertheless, Mensa is adamant about rescheduling the meeting. “The prison system is the burning hell-fire of America’s death machine,” he explains of advocating Jones and others who are wrongfully convicted. “It’s the nucleus of all oppressions that we talk about, from economic exploitation to and the denial of women’s rights, everything is magnified in the prison walls, you know what I’m saying? So it’s just become a real focus of mine to advocate and dedicate myself to using my energy in any way that I can to bring freedom, especially to those who are incarcerated.”

This determination to shed light on this country’s injustices isn’t new for Mensa. While it may be rare for musicians to truly express themselves in such an explicit manner (and on a mainstream level), last year’s protests (a trigger response to America’s ongoing racism-driven murders) gave many the fuel to speak out. For Mensa, he dropped August’s V TAPE that explored redemption while displaying his masterful emcee skills.

He is following it up with I TAPE (expected soon), a project about the rapper’s quest to help others. Below, Mensa reflects on self-healing, activism, and what’s missing from Black History Month.

When you first started out, you didn’t necessarily show this side of your activism on a major level. When was the moment where you stopped caring about what the mainstream may think?

You know, the things that I rap about now, those are the same things that I was rapping about when I started at 16 years old. I think that it’s just the trajectory of growing up, being in the public eye, and reaching an international level all while being a kid. I started making music feeling the responsibility to really bring truth to the people

Where would you say that came from?

I think it came from my upbringing in Chicago and from the artists that I idolize. The way that I grew up in Chicago, I existed between two realities: I had a lot of privilege, but I was surrounded by the underprivileged. So it was blatantly obvious to me that sh*t was f*cked up. (laughs) I got two parents in the house and I’m blessed like that. My best friend who lives right down the street from me ain’t got a father and his mother’s on drugs, you know. Chicago is just a place that shows you the truth about America. It’s very segregated and there’s no sugar coating.

So in conjunction with the artists I love — Common, Lupe [Fiasco], Kanye [West], Tupac, and Black Star — they instilled in me the value of exposing the cracks and America’s broken meaning with their art, you know what I’m saying? Common taught me about Assata Shakur with “A Song For Assata.” When I was 12 years old, Talib Kwali was rapping lyrics from The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and Kanye West taught us about diamonds from Sierra Leone. Studying those artists in the way that I did, it made me feel not only like a responsibility, but it was fresh. I aspire to inform and open people’s minds with my music.

I’m curious if the rebellion in your music comes from your love for punk rock.

You know what? One of my biggest inspirations is Rage Against The Machine. Just one of the greatest groups. Rap is punk in a lot of ways. I mean, it’s a counter-culture depiction of working-class realities. They share the fact that generations before them denied the musical value of either one. Rappers are undoubtedly the new rock stars. What categorizes the rock stars? Newspaper headlines, the drugs, and the dying young. I don’t see a distinction between the two. I mention Rage Against The Machine, because Zack de la Rocha is literally just one of the best rappers to me.

He comes from a hardcore background and is rapping over Led Zeppelin riffs. When he’s like [raps 1996’s “People Of The Sun] “Since fifteen hundred and sixteen, Mayans attacked and overseen.” Or [raps “Down Rodeo”] “A thousand years they had the tools, we should be takin’ ’em. F*ck the G-ride, I want the machines that are makin’ ’em.” He’s rapping about socialism, communist ideas, and Marxism. He’s making references that I haven’t heard anybody else make. I take inspiration from all that sh*t.

I think the beauty of Black music is that it’s “ours.” But then when you look at it from an industry perspective, executives may frame our struggles and our culture as something marketable.

There’s a Ghanian writer, one of the best, a woman named Ama Ata Aidoo. She has a quote that I’ll paraphrase: Since we met you people 500 years ago, you’ve accumulated our wealth, our culture, and what do we have to show for it? Your diamonds, your gold, your music, your dance — everything you are is us.” And it’s the truth. The proliferation of Black culture has created the modern-day pop culture. Pretty much all forms of music and just every turn of culture. I think that’s being accepted as being true more, but it is what it is. You know, I think that hip hop is like specifically, I was talking to Lupe [Fiasco] and Royce Da 5’9’’ about this the other day. Hip-hop is Black pain marketed for white America and the world at large. Obviously we consume hip-hop, but we’re a fraction of the population. Hip-hop is our trauma, but with a publicist behind it.

They’re trying to sell records at the end of the day.

I also feel like hip-hop, oftentimes represents this deep American fantasy, although it at the same time it’s reality. America has a fascination with the fear of Blackness and the Black men as this —

He’s basically seen as boogeyman.

Yeah. The Black man has been this violent criminal and the Black woman is this hypersexual deviant, you know? It’s funny sometimes to just look at hip-hop. I was listening to Mystikal the other day and oftentimes what the lyrics are portraying is what white America has been afraid of the whole time. And you can look at female rappers right now. I ain’t gonna say no names, but think about those archetypes that white America has created in their mind and then listen to the lyrics.

But would you say it’s different because it’s coming from a Black voice who’s owning their agency? Or do you think they’re still perpetuating those stereotypes?

I think both are possible. You know what I’m saying? Hip-hop undoubtedly perpetuates stereotypes. How much of rap music is like [starts rapping], “I’m a cold-blooded killer and no one could top me!” (laughs) Or, “I could pop my p*ssy on a n**** face!” I’m not saying that in judgment of anybody. I’m just saying it as an observation. You could look at Bigger Thomas in [American author] Richard Wright’s Native Son and this idea of an uncontrollable rage of the Black man. You can literally turn on the radio at any moment and hear that exact archetype in rap music. It’s just an observation.

I’m thinking of last summer with all of the protests for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. June was such a moment for reflection, but also a moment of rage for Black people. So much music that stemmed from that, including your “No More Teardrops.” Outside of your scope, do you think activist-based music will continue or remain a marketable trend?

I think everything moves in cycles and hip-hop is cyclical. There have been moments in time when it was in style to comment on the real-life conditions of other people. And then there have been other moments in time when it was way more in style to just shuck and jive. I mean, I do feel that things are not going back to any sense of normal. Not that there ever was really a normal because the entire existence of Black people in America is just abnormal.

But now they’re just waking up to it all of a sudden like racism wasn’t around before.

Like this sh*t wasn’t going down. But I feel like certain curtains have been pulled back that I don’t know if they can be reinstated and people can pretend that it’s all good again. I think that in hip-hop there’s always going to be people that are talking about real sh*t. It was definitely dope in the past year to see artists that you usually wouldn’t expect to make those types of songs doing that. I thought that that was fresh. I don’t know, I can’t predict the future. But I know that hip-hop will always be like a form of journalism for our real experience, amongst many other things.

I often wonder how do we balance the line of not being too performative, but also being genuine in our messages.

That idea really started to occur to me in the last year. I’ve been dedicating my energy towards revolutionary causes and social initiatives for years. And more recently — obviously there has been a huge community of people doing these things for 60 years, 70 years — it’s become more popular. Five years ago when I was popping up in Flint, Michigan handing out water and doing music about that. I wasn’t dealing with people’s accusations of being performative. But now it’s definitely become more trendy. I’ve had to think about those things a lot more. Because in the activism spaces in Chicago I’ve gotten a lot of hate more recently and had to like think twice and three times: “Is this gonna look like performative? Like I’m doing something for clout?”

It’s like you said, you’ve been doing it for years. So it’s coming from a genuine place. But people may look at Vic Mensa as just a celebrity.

I ain’t going to lie though, no good deed goes unpunished too. I’ve definitely learned that whatever you do, especially as a person with some type of social capital or impact, you’re going to be met with criticism. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing at all. But being a cis-gender male artist in these spaces you definitely just gotta be cautious of the optics. It’s something I’ve just tried to learn through my experiences. How do I shed light on the people that may be doing work and not getting the same exposure or celebration that I might get? How do I shed light on those people that don’t get posted on The Shade Room when they do something positive? People that are really doing this sh*t in the streets, living this sh*t day in and day out.

Your SaveMoneySaveLife initiative helps give people who don’t have a social platform a space to share. Like the Street Medix program, for example, where people can learn how to recover from tear gases at protests.

I was in Palestine and I met a kid who was part of an organization that was doing the exact same program. They raised X amount of dollars and were able to train and provide equipment for, I don’t know, 50 medics in Gaza because the Gaza Strip is obviously a f*cking war zone. It made me think instantly of another warzone: Chicago. I want to bring this program back to Chicago. So I went back to the crib and I started making moves to put the program together.

There’s organizations all over the world doing it. But I learned that there was an organization that was only one degree of separation away from me [in Chicago]. Shout out to them, their name is Ujimaa Medics. There’s a woman named Amika Big Tree Tendaji who has been doing amazing work in that space. So I tried to see, “How can I collaborate with y’all? How can we expand this?” The collaboration didn’t work out and next thing I know I’m being dragged and accused of co-opting someone else’s movement. I’m like, “Yo, I got this idea from halfway across the globe, man. I had no intention of co-opting anybody.”

Again, it goes back to having that celebrity platform.

That’s what I’m saying. I was just trying to address a need, you know what I mean? But I found myself getting sh*tted on for literally for trying to do something good, ‘cause that’s how this goes. But shout out Ujimaa, they have amazing sh*t and continue to do so.

Shifting a bit here, watching your “Shelter” video made me very emotional. When you put all your pain, frustration, and sadness in your music, it can feel confronting. How do you maintain that balance of processing trauma in a healthy way?

I believe that the intention that you put into art has immense significance and impacts the way that people are affected by it. When we made the “Shelter” music video it specifically has that healing property. So something like that doesn’t weigh on me emotionally, it helps me. I think any music that I make that’s emotionally impactful, it helps me to process pain.

Speaking of healing, I know you recently went to Ghana for a trip. Your dad is from Ghana, so did it help you find answers?

I’m blessed that I have a great connection with my ancestors, which has been stolen from a lot of Black Americans. As I grow, I just become more aware of the necessity of keeping in touch and the power of that. America so f*cking stressful, you know, and it don’t matter if you on the Southside, Brooklyn, South Central. So I do believe I was going there searching for a sense of peace. I felt far more peaceful when I was there. Communication with ancestors is like a big part of my culture and my Ashanti people [an ethnic group in Ghana]. It just ingrained in me how important it is that I be there regularly. There’s a lot more soul searching to do. I should have somewhere that I can go to be outside of this chaos and that is great.

Our chat is running at the end of Black History Month, but I know a lot of Black people have different thoughts about the month. Do you think it matters anymore or should we be celebrating it differently?

100 percent, we should be celebrating Black History Month. It reminds me of public school. I went through 12 years of public school and there was one class that I had to opt into. It was the one elective where I learned about African-American history or anything. And I went to school with at least half — if not more than half — Black people. But we spent the whole time learning about Eurocentric things. We had British literature class, obviously that’s all white people. AP literature, all white people. We’re learning about Rome, England, France and even go down to South America and Asia.

But they skip an entire continent.

They skip Africa entirely. I resented school for that for as long as I could really remember being cognizant of these things. I was acutely aware of their omission of my history. Even the Black history that we’ve learned begins with slavery and ends with the civil rights movement. Being Ghanian, I’m like “You motherf*ckers are finessing us!”

It’s all revisionist history.

Yeah. ‘Cause I’m learning about this history in my house. You know, Mansa Mussa of the Mali Empire.

Those are things this society doesn’t want us Black people knowing about.

That’s what I’m saying. They don’t want you to know about the medieval castles that were built in Zimbabwe. They want to depict it as being [made by] white people. They want Cleopatra to be Angelina Jolie. They don’t want you to know that the first pyramid builders were Black men. So Black History Month reminds me of public school because we got 12 motherf*cking months. And during one of them is there any emphasis put on our history. And even then it’s like, I haven’t heard much discussion of African history in Black History Month. By 2050, one out of four people on planet earth are projected to be African.

How do you fit damn near a quarter of the world’s population and their history in one month? I hate seeing schools say, “Tell children’s parents they can opt out of Black History Month. Shaun King said something I liked: “If they could opt out of that, then let us opt out of theirs.” I recognize that denial of people’s history and people’s contributions to civilization is a tactic of oppression and white supremacy. So any opportunity in which we get to share our narrative, I think it’s important.

I TAPE is out March 26 via Roc Nation.

Fans caught a bit of a new Leon Bridges on TikTok this month, as he and Keite Young debuted a cover of “Like A Ship” on the platform as part of its Black History Month program. Now, the pair have debuted the full track, and given that Bridges already has a soulful throwback sound, this cover works out fantastically. The track was originally recorded by Pastor T.L. Barrett in 1971, but Kanye West fans might recognize the tune as being sampled on The Life Of Pablo.

Bridges recorded the song as part of the Truth To Power Project, which is described on its website, “Dallas-based Eastwood Music Group has joined forces with the Dallas Mavericks and FirstCom Music UMPG to curate a ‘Soundtrack For Empowerment.’ The Truth To Power Project is a creative endeavor working to engage people with inspiring new music and multimedia content to encourage community involvement. Let’s bring truth to the light so that we can heal, grow, and prosper together. […] A percentage of the revenue generated from this project will support the next generation of emerging musicians through the Music Forward Foundation. This national nonprofit organization is dedicated to transforming young lives, inspiring careers, and championing a more inclusive music industry. ”

Young wrote on Instagram, “Thank you brother @skinwade and the @dallasmavs @mcuban and the @nba for making social justice a mission for your organizations. A VERY special thank you goes to my brother @leonbridgesofficial who answered the call with me along with the amazingly talented artist and musicians who gave of their talent and time to make this happen.”

Listen to “Like A Ship” above.

Aside from Billie Eilish herself, the most important person in her career is probably Finneas, her brother and her songwriting partner. That doesn’t mean their time collaborating always goes perfectly, though. In the new documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry, Finneas discusses some of the difficulties of working with his sister.

In the film, Finneas says (as ET notes), “It feels like kind of a minefield to me, because I feel like I’ve been told to write a hit, but I’ve been told to not tell Billie that we have to write a hit. And Billie hates writing songs in general, and is so woke about her own persona on the internet that I think she’s terrified of anything she makes being hated. I think her equation is that the more popular something is, the more hate it’s gonna get.”

After an emotional conversation with her parents about the direction of her career, Eilish says, “I hate writing songs. Every time that I’ve written a song that I actually like, I’ve hated the process.”

That said, in Eilish’s most recent annual Vanity Fair interview from November, she said, “I feel so much more confident in my writing. I feel like I know myself better, I’m better at advocating my opinions and communicating and I think Finneas and I have just seriously gotten in the groove.”

Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry is streaming now on Apple TV+. Watch a couple trailers for the film below.

Earlier this week, QAnon-obsessed and space laser-fearing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) sunk to a new low when she hung an anti-trans sign outside her office door, directly across the hall from another politician with a transgender child. “There are TWO genders: male and female,” it reads. “Trust the science.” Taylor Greene put the sign up to troll Marie Newman (D-IL), whose daughter is transgender, and to protest the Equality Act, an “anti-discrimination bill that would extend civil rights protections to LGBTQ people by prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.” But mostly, she did it because she’s a terrible person (Oreo agrees).

Maybe the worst person of the year so far, according to Jimmy Kimmel.

“The frontrunner for worst human of 2021 is working to defeat the Equality Act right now,” the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host said during Thursday’s episode. “This is an act that would ban discrimination against Americans based on sexual orientation or gender identity.” He then played a clip of Newman displaying a transgender flag, only for Taylor Greene to respond with her hateful sign. “Now she trusts the science,” he cracked. Kimmel also called her a “Karen in Congress” and “so awful.” You can watch the clip above.

Well, temperatures are a little warmer this week across the United States, but Netflix knows that we could still use some heartwarming shows. To that end, there are plenty of options for people who enjoy those types of stories about both humans in animals. First up, there’s a fresh take on a Gilmore Girls-type dynamic for a new generation to enjoy. Then there’s a kooky romantic comedy that puts a new spin on “crazy in love.” And finally, some dogs get a second chance at love and life thanks to a wicked-good trainer who knows that canines are only as good as the people who have been treating them. No matter which type of project will give you the right gut punch, there’s something here to redeem your faith in humanity this weekend.

Here’s everything else coming to (and leaving) the streaming platform this week.

Ginny & Georgia (Netflix series streaming 2/24)

This one’s got some heavy Gilmore Girls flavor (although it’s very different in both good and not-so-good ways) with angsty and awkward Ginny feeling far more emotionally mature than her mom, Georgia Miller. They’re putting down roots for a normal life, but there’s plenty of bumps along the way, and apparently, there’s a lot of carpool and Kombucha to be had.

Crazy About Her (Netflix film streaming 2/26)

An enigmatic woman has a “magical one night stand” (those are Netflix’s words, and they’re impossible to make better in this context), and she lives in a mental institution. That’s not the strangest thing that happens here. Rather, her one-night-stand partner is so taken with this lady that he decides to admit himself too. Ain’t love grand? Naturally, the dude gets a lot more than he bargained for after making his decision, so enjoy the romantic hijinks.

Canine Intervention (Netflix series streaming 2/24)

Bridgerton, this ain’t, and it certainly differs from most of Netflix’s other offerings of late. I didn’t even expect to be reeled in by this series about a California-based K9 dog trainer, Jas Leverette, as he helps owners with their “problem dogs.” Instead, I imagined that this would be an unbearable watch that would make me weepy while wishing that I’d never clicked, but something about this trailer made me suspect differently, and I’m glad to have given it a chance. The charismatic Jas transforms the lives of several dogs, beginning with Lady MacBeth, a three-legged survivor who suffered a gunshot and stood as the very essence of Jas’ motto, “It’s never the dog’s fault, it’s always human error.” These are uplifting journeys for this dog and many others, who received their second chances and worked tirelessly to achieve stunning transformations in the process. Jas’ holistic approach to training works surprising benefits for the humans involved in these stories, too.

Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:

Avail. 2/23
Brian Regan: On The Rocks
Pelé

Avail. 2/24
Canine Intervention
Ginny & Georgia
Two Sentence Horror Stories: Season 2

Avail. 2/25
Geez & Ann
High-Rise Invasion

Avail. 2/26
Bigfoot Family
Captain Fantastic
Caught by a Wave
Crazy About Her
No Escape
Our Idiot Brother

And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:

Leaving 3/3
Rectify: Seasons 1-4

Leaving 3/7
Hunter X Hunter: Seasons 1-3

Leaving 3/8
Apollo 18
The Young Offenders

Leaving 3/9
November Criminals
The Boss’s Daughter

Leaving 3/10
Last Ferry
Summer Night

The artist formerly known as Big Baby DRAM began 2020 by launching a new chapter of his career, one that with a name change. The Virginia native now goes by his legal first name of Shelley. While the change may have signaled that new music was on the way, fans failed to receive that last year. The only piece of content he delivered was a jazzy cover of “Feliz Navidad” with Young Rog for LVRN’s Home For The Holidays compilation album. However, with a new year comes new opportunities and it seems like Shelley will make his presence felt this year as he returns with a new single.

Shelley enters 2021 with “Exposure,” a track that comes just before the love-themed month of February comes to a close. On the track, he asks his love interest to allow him to explore what lays beneath their physical features. “Let me love you inside-out and outside-in,” he begs on the song. “Let me touch your soul before I touch your skin.” The track also holds a double meaning of sorts with Shelley wanting to learn more about her personality at one point while hoping to engage in a moment of naked intimacy at other points of the song.

In case you’re a bit behind on Shelley’s music, make sure to revisit “The Lay Down” with H.E.R. and his That’s A Girls Name EP.

Give the new single a listen in the video above.

Bryson Tiller once said, “I’m back and I’m better,” and those words couldn’t be truer at the moment. After more than three years without music, the Louisville singer seemed to find his footing in the music world as he returned with his Anniversary album back in October. For those who believed the project would lead to another lengthy break, the singer is back to prove otherwise. Tiller returned with the deluxe version of Anniversary on Friday, one that adds five new songs and a guest appearance from Big Sean to the album. In addition to that, fans have also received a vibrant video for “Like Clockwork.”

Tiller uses the visual to take viewers through what a normal day looks like for him. From signing autographs for fans and making business decisions with his team to photoshoots and well-deserved downtime with friends, the singer gets through it all “like clockwork.” Further into the video, Tiller flaunts an impenetrable shield of confidence while taking direct shots at his haters and doubters. The track itself sends a clear warning to his opposition that his down days are over and he’s back to make up for the time he was gone.

The Anniversary deluxe will most likely be the last release fans of Tiller receive before he drops his long-awaited Serenity album. Early this month, the singer confirmed that the project would be a triple-disc effort featuring a rap side, an R&B side, and a pop side.

Watch the “Like Clockwork” video above.

Anniversary (Deluxe) is out now via RCA. Get it here.