Michaela Coel joins the Black Panther family as… well, we don’t know who yet. What we do know is that Variety reported Coel is on set at Atlanta Pinewood Studios filming the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Although details of plot and characters are currently being kept under lock and key, the mystery only adds to the excitement, with many fans eager to find out how writer-director Ryan Coogler plans to continue on without the late Chadwick Boseman.  Coel who first hit the scene writing, directing,...

  CHAI’s latest album, WINK, is chicken soup for the pandemic-ravaged soul. Though, in this case, it feels appropriate to swap the soup for the karaage (Japanese fried chicken) that earns a sultry dedication on the Tokyo-based band’s third LP. To help cope with COVID isolation, CHAI “made an album that was like a friend,” lead singer/keyboardist MANA says through the band’s interpreter Rena Tyner. (The four-piece prefers to remain surname-less.) “It’s an album that I can cry to, get mad at, and get happy with.”...

  Karrueche Tran broke the glass ceiling for Asian American and Pacific Islander actors with her recent award win last Sunday. The 37-year-old took home the Emmy for outstanding performance by a leading actress in a daytime fiction program, becoming the first AAPI leading actress to win an Emmy at either the Daytime or Primetime awards.  The Los Angeles native snagged the trophy she did so for her role in POPSTAR TV’s digital drama The Bay. Tran plays Vivian Johnson-Garrett, one of the wealthy residents of the...

Britney Spears has declared on Instagram that she's done with performing until her dad steps down from her conservatorship. "For those of you who choose to criticize my dancing videos... look I'm not gonna be performing on any stages anytime soon with my dad handling what I wear, say, do, or think!!!!” Britney announced in her post. She then went on to say that she would rather dance in her living room than be controlled on stage. Jamie Spears has been left as the sole...

  Fresh off the heels of the final season of Pose, actress, model, and activist Indya Moore is setting her sights on the fashion world with a gender-inclusive capsule collection with clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger.  The collection, released in the US on July 13th and in Europe on July 2oth, aims for inclusivity on all fronts including gender, size, and price. Moore has remixed colors and fabrics recognizable to Hilfiger fans—cool blues, reds, neutrals, and iconic pinstripes—and fashioned casual blazers, breezy shirt dresses, and Tommy Hilfiger branded...

Mannequin Pussy embraces some enormously hard-to-fill voids on Perfect. Freshly a trio, the Philly punk staple parted ways with founding guitarist Thanasi Paul near the end of 2020 and spent most of the pandemic apart. Exploring that emptiness and their evolution as a group, the three-piece powerhouse reunited in the studio to create almost all of the well-rounded tracks for their fourth EP. Diving headfirst into a reinvigorated and fervently vulnerable sound, Mannequin Pussy lyrically lets go without loosening its sonic chokehold too much. The result...

Appearing on Demi Lovato’s 4D podcast, actress, singer, and dancer Jojo Siwa discussed her “gay awakenings” and how Lovato played a role. Reflecting on a Lovato concert she went to several years back, 18-year-old Siwa described “being a little too interested” in the way Demi danced with one of their backup dancers, Jojo Gomez, during a performance of “Cool for the Summer.”  Lovato was clearly thrilled by this information, particularly when Siwa explained that her girlfriend Kylie Prew’s own gay awakening was prompted by the very same...

Pop quiz: What rom-com would Grace Kuhlenschmidt remake with a gay twist? “That’s a tough one,” she says after a beat. “Romantic comedies are my favorite genre and they’re all straight. But I think Meet the Fockers could be fun if it was about lesbian moms dealing with their daughter bringing home a boyfriend.” The choice provides a window into the up-and-coming comedian’s taste—one seasoned with pinches of surprise and satire. Most important, her style is hilariously, unabashedly, almost boastfully queer. Kuhlenschmidt, 26, doesn’t explicitly endeavor to make her videos...

Halsey has unveiled the cover art for her latest album, “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power,” complete with a video tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the 13-minute-long silent film, Halsey is lavishly dressed as she walks barefoot around the famous New York landmark, looking at various artworks depicting motherhood, including Duccio Di Buoninsegna’s ‘Madonna and Child’, as she cradles her own baby bump. The singer, who announced her pregnancy back in February, could have stepped out of one of the...

Midwife, aka multi-instrumentalist Madeline Johnston, captures all the angst and intensity of the past year on one intense recording. Elements of shoegaze, metal, post-metal, pop, and electro-pop commingle on her latest release, Luminol. The name of the record comes from the chemical used by forensic investigators to discover blood and other bodily fluids left behind at a crime scene. And just like its namesake, this difficult-but-important album has a way of dredging up all kinds of forgotten emotions. Themes of depression, confinement, and claustrophobia work...