Where Do We Go?

Hey.

How are you doing? Between the coronavirus and Super Tuesday coming up, it’s been a pretty anxious week (seems to be a theme for 2020 so far). Wash your hands and educate yourself.

Here’s a few links that I found informative this weekend while going down a rabbit hole on the coronavirus:

• Here's what the virus actually does
• This firsthand account was a little more reassuring
• Things To Look Out For

Ok. Onto what’s new in pop culture.

Oh wait. One quick piece of housekeeping before that.

I put together a running Spotify playlist of each of the weekly song recommendations in this newsletter (the “Our Favorite New Song” section). I’ll keep it updated after each new recommendation. Go ahead and follow it if you want to binge all the songs at once or catch up at a later date. Let me know it would be helpful to have this on Apple Music or other services.

Public Enemy Fired 1

Flava Flav Fired:

Public Enemy announced Sunday they are permanently “moving forward” without Flavor Flav, firing one of hip-hop’s most memorable hypemen after 37 years. The abrupt dismissal comes just two days after the rapper sent a cease-and-desist letter to Bernie Sanders over Chuck D’s concert at the campaign’s Los Angeles rally Sunday.

“Public Enemy and Public Enemy Radio will be moving forward without Flavor Flav,” the hip-hop legends said in a brief statement Sunday. “We thank him for his years of service and wish him well.”

What a wild story to read on a Sunday night. I guess in a sense, musicians and artists are still just coworkers at the end of the day.

Harrison Ford V Ferrari

Indiana Jones 5 NOT directed by Spielberg?

Ford v Ferrari director James Mangold is in early talks to helm the fifth installment in the franchise, taking over for Steven Spielberg, who has directed all of the franchise's other installments.

Star Harrison Ford remains on board for the film.

It’s a bit of a bummer as Spielberg is still the best at creating fun films in almost any genre, but this doesn’t come as a surprise as he’s been directing Indy films for a very long time and I imagine he wants to let other folks take over the franchise for the future.

Logan remains one of the best superhero films (starring an aging hero!) and Ford v Ferrari was very engaging and fun so I have no doubt James Mangold would do the Indiana Jones Franchise proud.

Lady Gaga Returns

Gaga gets back to her roots of catchy, shiny disco-dance-able pop bangers with her new single, “Stupid Love.” It’s been awhile since shes actually released something of the sort with her last couple of albums being more of the contemplative power ballad variety from “Joanne” and “A Star Is Born.” She worked on this song with three superstar electronic pop producers - Tchami (Lil Jon), Bloodpop (Justin Bieber, Madonna), and Max Martin (Taylor Swift, Backstreet Boys, pretty much everything you’ve ever heard) so you know she’s gunning for that pop music crown again.

(Fun fact: the music video for the song was shot on iPhone 11 Pro! It also has very strong post-apocalyptic video game vibes)

👀 of the week:

Jessie Reyez joins Billie Eilish’s Tour

The Colombian-Canadian singer-songwriter will join Eilish in the U.S. starting March 9 in Miami and stretch through April 8 in Sacramento, California. The songstress will then perform at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, before meeting up with the "bad guy" singer again in July for a UK and European run.

Remember when I highlighted Jessie Reyez’s newest song in the very first issue of this newsletter? Just sayin’.

Our Favorite New Song - Gracie Abrams - 21

Gracie Abrams is a precocious young pop singer-songwriter whose sound kinda falls in between the spheres of Billie Eilish, Maggie Rogers, and Joni Mitchell. Her latest single, “21” is both catchy and intimate if you pay attention to the lyrics.

(Fun fact! She’s JJ Abram’s daughter, but you’d have to do some digging to find this fact out. Her talents stand on their own.)

Here’s all of the song of the week recommendations thus far:

In Conclusion

Yes, that’s actual Juvenile performing on stage with him. And yes, Tom Steyer has since backed that azz out of the election.