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FX When Are Trans Actors Allowed to Act?
The FX drama Pose is the rare example of a show that actually gives trans actors top billing—an effort made all the more urgent by a recent controversy that saw Scarlett Johansson cast as a transgender man.
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Annapurna Pictures Sorry to Bother You Has an Eerily Familiar Villain
In Boots Riley’s directorial debut, Armie Hammer portrays Steve Lift, the quirky, megalomaniacal CEO of a company that takes exploitation to a ghastly extreme.
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Danny Moloshok / Reuters The Cathartic Symphony of Future’s Beast Mode 2
The long-awaited sequel to the rapper’s 2015 project with the superproducer Zaytoven finds the duo mining familiar territory—self-loathing, wealth, drug use—to nearly ecstatic effect.
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REUTERS/Steve Marcus/File Photo Drake’s Scorpion, as Explained by an Astrologer and an Entomologist
Who better to analyze the beleaguered rapper’s 25-track double album?
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REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz Ty Dolla $ign Isn’t Just a Feature Artist, He’s a Star
The energy the singer brings to his collaborations is the same he carries into his own work: studied, versatile, contagious.
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Richard Drew / AP Terry Crews and the Discomfort of Masculine Anxiety
The responses to the Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor’s personal testimony in D.C. in support of a sexual-assault bill reveal the persistence of narrow definitions of manhood.
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Ser Baffo / Stringer / Getty Teyana Taylor’s Music Has Matured, but Has Her Label?
K.T.S.E., the new record from the most prominent female artist on Kanye West–fronted G.O.O.D. Music’s roster, buzzes with promise despite recent controversies stirred up by West, Pusha T, and Nas.
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mpi04 / MediaPunch / IPX How Will XXXTentacion Be Remembered?
The rapper, who died at 20, was a tragic hero to some young fans and artists, even while allegations of violence piled up against him.
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YouTube Do Beyoncé Fans Have to Forgive Jay-Z?
The Carters’ surprise collaborative album, Everything Is Love, insists that past grievances are buried. Will the Beyhive feel the same way?
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Freeform The Bold Type Delivers on Its Leads
Season 2 of the Freeform dramedy, which follows three women working in journalism, tackles its protagonists’ backstories with a refreshing complexity.
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Warner Bros. The Sweet Revenge of Ocean’s 8
Debbie Ocean’s subplot to ensnare her ex-partner is the most gratifying, true-to-life element of a movie that sells itself on the fantastical.
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Chronicle Books Lorna Simpson Maps the Complex Galaxies of Black Women’s Hair
The artist’s new book of collages incorporates magazine clippings, watercolor, and geological formations.
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HBO / Getty Long Live Samantha Jones
Through six seasons and two movies of Sex and the City, no love story could supersede the one in which Samantha was the object of her own affection.
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Patrick Harbron / AMC Dietland Envisions a World of Female Revenge
The new dark comedy from Marti Noxon explores women’s physical and psychological pain with an intriguing, if heavy-handed, premise.
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Mario Anzuoni / Reuters The Trumpian Dissonance of Kanye West's ‘Violent Crimes’
On Ye, the album he premiered Thursday night, the rapper speaks of his daughters (and wife) with a disturbingly voyeuristic tone.
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Erika Goldring / Bennett Raglin / Getty / ... Pusha T, Drake, and the Limits of Rap Beef
Four Atlantic staffers discuss hip-hop’s vicious and messy brawl of the moment and how the art of the diss track has evolved.
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Atlantic Records Cardi B’s ‘I Like It’ Is the Song of the Summer
Sorry, Drake.
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BBC America Killing Eve and the Riddle of Why Women Kill
The show’s assassin, Villanelle, insists on being taken at face value. To search for a noble motivation is to trap oneself in her psychological labyrinth.
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Kevin Winter / Getty Actually, Kissing Is Good
A hot(ter) take
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Jason Merritt / Getty Is It Futile to 'Dissect' Frank Ocean's Work?
The new season of a beloved podcast series smartly seeks not to taxonomize the monastic artist’s discography, but to contextualize it.
