Aurelia Butler

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    Drake and PartyNextDoor’s ‘Some Sexy Songs 4 U’ Is No. 1

    Their collaborative album “Some Sexy Songs 4 U” opens atop the Billboard 200, unseating his foe Kendrick Lamar’s “GNX,” which surged after the Super Bowl halftime show.News flash: Drake’s music is not dead.Although the Canadian rapper, the longtime prince of streaming, was badly pummeled in a diss-track war with Kendrick Lamar last year, and two weeks ago Lamar performed Exhibit A of that fight — the vicious “Not Like Us” — at the Super Bowl halftime show, Drake’s latest album has sailed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.“Some Sexy Songs 4 U,” a collaborative album with the singer and producer PartyNextDoor — with scant reference to Drake’s feud with Lamar — was released on Valentine’s Day and opens at the top of the latest chart. It had the equivalent of 246,000 sales in the United States, including 287 million streams and 25,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to the tracking service Luminate.It is Drake’s 14th title to go to No. 1, counting collaborative releases, which ties him with Jay-Z and Taylor Swift for the most albums by a solo act to reach the top of Billboard’s chart. (The Beatles have more No. 1 albums than anybody, solo or group, with 19.)The release of “Some Sexy Songs” also came after Drake sued Universal Music Group, the giant label behind him and Lamar, for defamation in “Not Like Us” (which was lightly censored at the Super Bowl). His joint album was released by Republic, a Universal label, along with OVO Sound, a Drake imprint, which is distributed through Sony Music, a Universal competitor.The numbers for “Some Sexy Songs” are modest for Drake, whose knack for taking over streaming services has made him one of the top-selling artists of the last decade-plus. Its 246,000 “album equivalents” last week — a composite figure that combines popularity on streaming with old-fashioned unit sales — is considerably lower than the opening-week totals for Drake’s last two releases, “For All the Dogs” (402,000 in 2023) and “Her Loss,” a joint album with 21 Savage (404,000 in 2022). But it is better than the 204,000 he had for “Honestly, Nevermind” in 2022 — still his lowest opening-week number for a studio LP — and the 109,000 for “Care Package,” a 2019 collection of non-album tracks.Also this week, Sabrina Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet” rises five spots to No. 2 after the release of an expanded version, and Lamar’s “GNX” falls two to No. 3, after it returned to the top slot in the week following his triumphant Super Bowl appearance. SZA’s “SOS” is No. 4 and Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is in fifth place. More

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    Jane Fonda’s SAG Awards Speech: ‘Empathy Is Not Weak or Woke’

    While some stars have been less politically outspoken this awards season, she issued a call to action as she accepted a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild.Jane Fonda, who has been politically outspoken since the Vietnam War era, urged people “to resist successfully what is coming at us” as she accepted a lifetime achievement award Sunday night during the Screen Actors Guild Awards.“Make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke,” said Fonda, 87. “And by the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people.”She never explicitly mentioned President Trump or his administration, but she seemed to allude to them as she warned of bad things to come.“A whole lot of people are going to be really hurt by what is happening, what is coming our way,” Fonda said. “Even if they are of a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy and not judge but listen from our hearts and welcome them into our tent. Because we are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what is coming at us.”Fonda, a two-time Academy Award winner, has long been known for political activism, particularly her support for the civil rights movement and Indigenous rights and for her opposition to the Vietnam War. A 1972 visit to North Vietnam led some critics to call her “Hanoi Jane”; she has since apologized to soldiers and veterans for being photographed there on an antiaircraft gun. In more recent years, she has fought to draw attention to the climate crisis.In her acceptance speech, she expressed her strong support for unions and noted that when she was starting out in the late 1950s, some leading Hollywood figures had been prominently resisting McCarthyism. She also said that she believes Americans are currently facing the same kinds of challenges that have been captured in historical documentaries about social movements, including apartheid, the civil rights movement and the Stonewall Rebellion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    RZA Talks About Wu-Tang Clan’s Final Chamber Tour

    Few groups have had more impact on the shape and evolution of hip-hop than Wu-Tang Clan, the Staten Island supergroup that helped define the sound of 1990s New York rap and transform the industry.And yet seeing Wu-Tang Clan perform a full-length concert in the flesh — all of the members onstage together — is a privilege not many have experienced. Even in its golden era, the Wu-Tang Clan was never a reliable touring unit. Its smaller shows were often unruly, and by the time the group graduated to bigger stages, performances were often undone by competing egos and unreliable artist attendance, to say nothing of the limits on the opportunities available to rough-edged rap stars in the 1990s and 2000s.“There’s so many places we really haven’t been,” RZA, the chief architect of the Wu-Tang Clan, said in an interview on Popcast, The New York Times’s music podcast. “We had some successful touring, right? But not at the level of what the brand is.”He’s aiming to fix that with Wu-Tang Forever: The Final Chamber, billed as the group’s last tour, and the biggest road show it has undertaken as the headlining act, which will begin in June. All of the surviving original members — RZA, GZA, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, Inspectah Deck, U-God and Masta Killa — are slated to participate, as well as Cappadonna and Young Dirty Bastard, who will perform in place of his father, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, who died in 2004.“Jay-Z was like, Yo, I got the blueprint from you,” RZA recalled.Andre D. Wagner for The New York TimesThe tour, RZA told Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, is the culmination of a five-plus-year plan of legacy-building for the Clan, including a multipart documentary series, a dramatized mini-series, several individual biographies and a Las Vegas residency, the first for a hip-hop act.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Roberta Flack’s 11 Essential Songs

    One of the supreme voices of the 1970s and a master of revelatory reinterpretation has died at 88.At a New York concert in 1997, Roberta Flack referred to her voice as a “blessed instrument.” For generations of listeners it was just that, a spellbinding force that could be cool, or luxurious, or swell with suggestive power, often in the same song.Flack, who died on Monday at 88, began her career as a schoolteacher with a solid grounding in both classical music and Black church singing. She ended up one of the supreme voices of the 1970s, scoring multiple No. 1 hits that established her as a star of interpretive pop-soul, capable of stunning radio listeners and critics alike.She was a master of the revelatory reinvention. Her first hit, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” was originally a folk ballad by Ewan MacColl. Peggy Seeger’s 1957 recording of it is a brisk, warbling take with arpeggiated acoustic guitar — a classic example of the kind of carefree-songbird tunes from the early folk revival. In Flack’s hands it is slow, stirring eroticism, with a controlled range of vocal dynamics that moves from whisper-delicate to a kind of power that feels like a carnal memory.She did it again in 1973 with “Killing Me Softly With His Song” — originally by Lori Lieberman, another folkie — which Flack transformed into a hypnotic meditation. Two decades later, Lauryn Hill and the Fugees shifted its shape again with their own remake.With those tracks, Flack became the first artist to take record of the year at the Grammy Awards two consecutive times, with “The First Time” winning in 1973 and “Killing Me Softly” in 1974.Those are just two of Flack’s most familiar recordings, in a career that also included hit collaborations with singers like Donny Hathaway and Peabo Bryson, and later explorations into jazz standards. Here are 11 of her essential tracks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Michael Tilson Thomas, Facing Brain Cancer Recurrence, Scales Back Concerts

    Michael Tilson Thomas, who led the San Francisco Symphony for 25 years, said, “Now is the time to wind down my public appearances.”The renowned conductor Michael Tilson Thomas announced on Monday that he would scale back his engagements because of a recurrence of brain cancer.Thomas, 80, who has been grappling since 2021 with glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive form of the disease, said in a statement that his doctors recently told him the cancer had returned. Thomas, who was music director of the San Francisco Symphony for 25 years, said there were still treatment options available, but “the odds are uncertain.”“Now is the time to wind down my public appearances,” he said in the statement.Thomas, an eminent figure in the music industry, said he still planned a few more engagements. In late March and early April, he will conduct the New World Symphony, a Miami ensemble that he helped found in 1987. And in April, he will join the San Francisco Symphony for a celebration of his 80th birthday.“At that point,” he said, “we all get to say the old show business expression, ‘It’s a wrap.’”Thomas will withdraw from a planned appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra in early March, his representatives said.Thomas has defied expectations since his diagnosis, appearing with top orchestras even as he underwent treatment. He opened the New York Philharmonic’s season in September with Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. And in October, he led the London Symphony Orchestra in performances of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony.At the same time, he has had a difficult medical journey. He underwent surgery at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center in 2021 to remove a brain tumor and had a second surgery in 2023. He said in the statement on Monday that he had also had to “manage complications from the treatments that have held the tumor at bay.”Even as he kept performing, Thomas reduced his administrative commitments. In 2022, he stepped down as artistic director of the New World Symphony, a prestigious training orchestra.Thomas said on Monday that he was passing the time at home in San Francisco with his husband, Joshua Mark Robison, and making occasional trips to Bolinas, a small township about 20 miles northwest of San Francisco.”Our home is filled with memories of a full life,” he said. “There’s a keyboard on each floor and occasionally a piece by C.P.E. Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Schumann, a Broadway melody or one of my own tunes seem to emerge. Sometimes I can share these moments. Other times I find my own personal peace and solace.”Thomas said having the chance to work with some of his favorite ensembles after his diagnosis had been “very special.” He compared this part of his life to a musical coda, the concluding passage of a piece.“A coda can vary greatly in length,” he said. “My life’s coda is generous and rich. Life is precious.” More

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    Test Yourself on These Screen Adaptations of Popular Books

    Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about books that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions, video games and more. This week’s challenge is focused on books with a sharp comic edge that were adapted for the screen. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the books and their filmed versions. More

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    SAG Awards 2025’s Unforgettable Looks: Selena Gomez, Pamela Anderson & More

    It has been a busy weekend in Hollywood. On Saturday, stars paraded down carpets at the Film Independent Spirit Awards and the N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards. Less than 24 hours later, they were at it again for the 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards.The ceremony, held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, honored acting achievements in television and film. Like other events this awards season, it also recognized those whose lives have been upended by the Los Angeles wildfires, including members of the Los Angeles Fire Department, some of whom walked the carpet in their dress uniforms.Other attendees’ attire was more flamboyant. A handful of actresses — Mikey Madison, Brooke Shields and Moeka Hoshi among them — chose silvery gowns that glimmered like disco balls or freshly minted coins. Actors like Jeff Goldblum and Colman Domingo accessorized their formal wear with scarves and sparkly jewelry. But of all the looks seen on the carpet at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, these 14, for various reasons, stood out more than most.Cynthia Erivo: Most Space Blanket!Allison Dinner/EPA, via ShutterstockThe “Wicked” star’s ensemble, which was made of woven silver fabric that fringed at the edges, resembled a fancy version of the foil blankets worn by runners after marathons. The piece, in fact, was archival Givenchy from the label’s Alexander McQueen era.Pamela Anderson: Most Angelic!Richard Shotwell/Invision, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Singular Charm of Parker Posey

    One January morning, I arrived at the East Village studio of a “sound facilitator,” prepared to heal. The facilitator introduced himself as Gary. He led me past a refrigerator cloaked in an Indian tapestry and into an emptied living room, where I found Parker Posey perched cross-legged on a mat, facing a row of gongs. She appeared cozy and at ease, as if she had known the gongs for many years. Posey had invited me there to experience a sound bath, a New Age therapy that she first tried in Thailand, where she filmed the third season of the HBO anthology series “The White Lotus.” During a sound bath (according to Gary’s website), various chimes and bowls are played in an intentional therapeutic sequence; the treatment may uplift the spirit, release stuck energies and rouse engagement with the surrounding environment. Or it may not, but Gary seemed nice anyway.I joined Posey on the floor. The room filled with sounds that resembled the wait music for a planetarium. Gary then advised us that we were approaching the first full moon of the year, which he called “the wolf moon.” Posey turned to face me with spooked eyes, her mouth pulled into an arc of wry expectation. Then she stretched her legs high in the air, laid flat on the mat, and piled a sweater atop her face.Ninety minutes later, the two of us burst onto the street as if from a saloon door. When I arrived at the appointment, we were both wearing flowy black pants and black sweaters, and I was pleased I had guessed the correct attire for our encounter. But by the time we left, she had applied her Parker Posey costume over the base layer: earrings like glass shards, a pearl hair clip in the shape of a vine-picked berry, a slippery high-necked plaid overshirt, a prismatic silk scarf and a pair of round rose-tinted glasses. We walked in woozy circles around the village. Occasionally she produced her phone and waved its digital map in front of us as if it were a homing device. Whatever had happened up in Gary’s studio — brain-wave entrainment, or maybe just a permission structure for taking a film-length nap — my spirit was in fact uplifted, and Posey was engaged with her surrounding environment.To walk alongside Posey is to be reminded that a New York City sidewalk is a habitat still teeming with life. “Ha ha ha HA,” she said as we closed in on a poodle in a little sweater. “Yeah, I speak poodle!” she trilled to another. Manhattan’s pedestrians typically navigate its steroidal landscape in a dissociative state, but with Posey, every poodle is acknowledged, every commotion registered. A car drove up beside us and stopped at a light, blasting an accordion-forward Latin track. “I love this song!” she screamed to its occupants, craning her head toward the open window. Once she squatted on the sidewalk to greet a familiar dog, then crept over to retie both of my sneakers in double knots. “That was so fun, tying your shoelaces,” she said as she sprang up. “I’m a little mommy.”In the coming weeks, whenever I told anyone that I was profiling Parker Posey, they invariably had a story about her impish appearance in their own life. A journalist colleague said that as she reported to work on Sept. 12, 2001, Posey drifted past her, roller-skating through Lower Manhattan. Seemingly everyone below 14th Street has had a pleasant encounter with her at a dog run. Walton Goggins, Posey’s friend and co-star in “The White Lotus,” told me that when he first met her, at a friend’s barbecue in the Catskills, he felt instantly drawn into her world. “She has this fairylike quality about her,” he said. “She’s a person capable of doing what Emerson said so long ago — to see the miraculous in the common. And she uses phrases like, Isn’t that a gas?” Natasha Rothwell, who plays the weary spa manager, Belinda, on “The White Lotus,” said in an email that when Posey first approached her on set, Posey said she had lost her wallet and had just said a prayer to Saint Anthony, before asking Rothwell if she wanted to be her neighbor at the hotel. “She then gave me a hug and seemed to float away.”Parker Posey with Sarah Catherine Hook and Sam Nivola in the current season of the HBO series “The White Lotus.”Fabio Lovino/HBOWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More