This is The Friday Post, Hung Up’s weekly roundup of celebrity mess and miscellanea. If you like this kind of thing, why not subscribe?
Stop what you’re doing right now and listen to “Cuff It.” Girl, fuck my drag — close out of here right now and listen to “Cuff It!”
It has been a hard few years in Hive Nation — “Black Parade,” it’s quiet, that tennis song … I’m not talking about it. Renaissance is disco, ballroom, funk, house, dance — it is the mother 4 never had … it is the sister B’Day would want … the friend self-titled deserves! Renaissance is Beyoncé at her most idiosyncratic. Drake’s (great) Honestly, Nevermind was downbeat house, where the rapper finds a wave in each beat and tries to ride it. The music overpowers and sometimes supplants him, in an interesting way. Renaissance is Beyoncé as mutha, as master: she’s singing on top of layered, intricate compilations. Sounds jump out and over one another. And she’s singing these songs downnnn. The least conventional Beyoncé album gets the most conventional roll-out.
Anyway “Cuff It.” I don’t like day-of or day-after music reviews anymore. They are almost always hyperbolic, a rush to capture a moment as we’re still in its first act. I will have thoughts for you next week. But in the meantime, listen to “Cuff It.” Lord forgive me, because they’re not ready for what I’m about to do under the influence of this song. I’m gonna have my ass out. I’m gonna spill some drinks. I’m in desperate need of a roller rink? I’m about to spend money and speak in tongues??
And after you listen to “Cuff It,” listen to the rest of the songs in this order:
I’M THAT GIRL
COZY
ALIEN SUPERSTAR
CUFF IT
ENERGY
CHURCH GIRL
PLASTIC OFF THE SOFA
VIRGO’S GROOVE
MOVE
HEATED
THIQUE
ALL UP IN YOUR MIND
AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM
PURE/HONEY
SUMMER RENAISSANCE
Yes that is just the tracklist, minus “Break My Soul.” Lol.
“Blow”-hards, we’ve won! My community of “Turnt” stans, our patience has paid off in full! If the function is not playing “Cuff It” I will not be in attendance. This is a horny album! Who is blowing Beyoncé’s back out like this? Because I know it’s not grandpa Shawn Carter.
What Paying Subscribers Got This Week
On Thursday morning I woke up at 5 AM (cold brew on Tuesday) and pressed play on FBoy Island. Peter! Tom! Danny! Limbro! This is the greatest reality show on HBOMax.
You can read here and subscribe here.
You Come to Me … on the Day of Renaissance …
Today … and I mean on the very day of Renaissance’s release … Will Smith has reemerged.
It is the third-ish apology from Smith, after approximately one thousand four hundred and twenty-nine days of the Oscars slap knocking the world off its axis. (He previously apologized to Rock in a statement posted the next day, and apologized to the Academy in his Best Actor speech.) “I've reached out to Chris and the message that came back is that he's not ready to talk, and when he is he will reach out," Smith said. "So I will say to you, Chris, I apologize to you. My behavior was unacceptable, and I'm here whenever you're ready to talk." He also apologized, to his own family, Rock’s family, and lamented that maybe there’s no longer a future where he and Tony Rock can be friends, too.
The video has a decidedly hostage-y composition, but his words seem genuine. Why, then, was this released same-day as Renaissance? The general consensus seems to be that he wanted to bury it — but this isn’t a typical reactionary, tail-between-your-legs apology. This is an educated, vetted mea culpa. He’s talking about trauma and healing. This is Will Smith as we’ve known him, Will Smith: Business As Usual. He’s even doing that relatable pastor voice he does. Shouldn’t he want people to see this? Very unserious.
And Something Else About Renaissance:
“Energy” samples Kelis’s “Milkshake.” After a stan account praised the inclusion ahead of the album’s release, Kelis said she wasn’t given any kind of heads up and was offended, especially given her history of feeling slighted and robbed by Pharrell: “My mind is blown too because the level of disrespect and utter ignorance of all 3 parties involved is astounding,” she wrote. “I heard about this the same way everyone else did. Nothing is ever as it seems, some of the people in this business have no soul or integrity and they have everyone fooled.”
Kelis continued speak out in two videos addressing the matter. She has complained about Pharrell and his producing partner Chad Hugo for years, and they’ve remained silent. Kelis was the blueprint for almost every girl today, and gets nothing for it.
News Briefs
You have to, have to, have to read Usher talking to Vulture’s Craig Jenkins: “‘Confessions Part II’ is the one for me. ‘Confessions Part I’ was almost like — you know how Star Wars tells stories that happen before the beginning of the series?” Usher said. “That was the idea. We started with ‘Confessions II.’ You had to come back to get ‘Confessions I.’ ‘Part II’ came first.”
Adele’s Vegas residency has been rescheduled: “All previously postponed ‘Weekends With Adele’ performances have now been rescheduled,” she announced on her site this week. The residency will now run from November 2022 through March 2023.
JoJo Siwa and Candace Cameron Bure fussed, made up, and the Bure daughter decided to still fuss some more.
“Maybe a month or two before a movie comes out, Marvel will have us change the entire third act. It has really tight turnaround times.” Simply not making any kind of sense! A VFX director on the hell that is working with Marvel. (Vulture)
Girl, turn those books the right way!
Bennifer: Choose Your Adventure
In that well-lit dressing room talking about Let’s Get Loud: J.Lo has been wearing Reformation throughout her honeymoon. This is iconic and amazing to me, as someone who wears Reformation to write about J.Lo.
Batfleck, Revisited: After retiring from Batman in 2019, Affleck will suit up again for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
(Hilarious, per Entertainment Weekly: “Affleck, who earned the reputation of being ‘Sad Batman,’ will have appeared in more Batman movies than any actor before him when James Wan's Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom hits theaters March 17, 2023.”)
Ex-Factor: Gwenyth Paltrow, another Affleck ex, has announced that she is “very happy for them.”
Speaking of Gwyneth…
GP was the guest on a recent episode of Hailey Bieber’s YouTube series “Who’s In My Bathroom.” Full disclosure I did not know about this series before today, but they have these women making smoothies in the damn bathroom. A mess!
The least shocking thing about this conversation is that GP says that the children of famous people have to work twice as hard for half as much two hundred times as much: “As the child of 'somebody,’ you get access that other people don't have. The playing field is not level in that way,” she begins. “However, I really do feel that once your foot is in the door, which you unfairly got in, then you have to work almost twice as hard and be twice as good, because people are ready to pull you down and say 'You don’t belong there' or 'You are only there because of your dad or your mom.” I know I’m not hearing this from the woman who won her Best Actress Oscar for Shakespeare in Love … but anyway! Let me pipe down and watch Two Lovers again, because I am a stan after all.
The most shocking thing about this conversation is that at the very beginning, like at the 0:57 mark, Paltrow makes an offhand joke and Bieber seems to say that she’s heard stories about her dad fucking in bathrooms?? Lol.
Hoe in Chief
Every summer Barack Obama releases his summer playlist — it’s like a version of Steven Soderbergh’s annual Soderblog, but for hoes, because Barack Obama is a Leo. On rotation this summer: The best new Harry Styles song, the best new Maggie Rogers song, Lil Yachty??, and … the Views Rihanna-Drake collab “Too Good.” Like I said: a hoe!
I for one have never stopped thinking about the year that “Broken Clocks” was Ctrl song that went triple platinum in the Obama house.
They Put Him in a Tomb For Three Days And…
Todd Field, who I guess has not wanted to *Kim voice* get his fucking ass up and work, has finally made another movie. In The Bedroom … Little Children (the dishwasher scene alone is clearing!) … him acting in two of my favorite movies, Eyes Wide Shut and Walking and Talking …!
He is risen!
That’s all this week! Thank you for reading. This weekend I will be listening to Renaissance and watching more of the Ethan Hawke Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward documentary on HBOMax and also … girl I haven’t even started the Maggie Rogers album, chile. Next on my queue!
can't BELIEVE i forgot this but go look at emrata's likes on twitter right now
Love love the idea that Renaissance is 4’s spiritual mother, I still don’t think y’all appreciated that album enough (minus Rather Die Young because...I’d rather not 😐). I think it’s a mistake tho to skip “Break My Soul”! The transition from “Energy” is seamless. Someone compared the single version and album version to a 2 liter Sprite versus McDonald’s Sprite (iykyk) and they’re right!