Tank To Make Broadway Debut, Joining ‘Hell's Kitchen' Cast
The crooner is making his Broadway debut, joining the cast of Alicia Keys' Hell's Kitchen in the role of Davis in a limited 13-week engagement. Tank is replacing Tony Award nominee Brandon Victor Dixon, who will take his final bow on Mar. 9.
'Stepping onto the Broadway stage is a dream come true,' said Tank in a statement. 'Music and acting have always been a part of my journey, and now, I get to bring them together in a whole new way. The energy of live theater is unmatched, and I'm honored to join this incredible cast and be part of telling this powerful story through Alicia Keys' music. This transition is both thrilling and humbling, and I can't wait to give audiences everything I've got!'
Tank is a seasoned actor with notable roles in BET's The New Edition Story and The Bobby Brown Story, Preacher's Kid with LeToya Luckett, Lifetime's Seven Deadly Sins: Lust, HBO's Togetherness, and VH1's Born Again Virgin.
Hell's Kitchen is a loose interpretation of Keys' life. 'The characters are definitely inspired by the city, inspired by my experiences of individuals and people,' she told VIBE when the play first opened. 'I think that's what gives it the richness and the relatability that you experience when you come. To me, that's why it feels so good, how art does imitate life because you're able to take the experiences, those fundamentals, those emotions, those connections, those layered, complex behaviors of humanity and put it all together into these stories that really, really hit you.'
Tickets are available on the Hell's Kitchen official website, via Telecharge.com, and in-person at the Shubert Theatre box office.
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Tank Calls Out Homophobia, Addresses The "Gay Agenda"
Tank Comes Out Of Retirement With R&B Version Of "Dreams And Nightmares"
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Newsweek
3 hours ago
- Newsweek
Laufey Is an 'Anxious Cinderella' on New Album 'A Matter of Time'
"Dark sarcasm" isn't something that one would expect to hear in the jazz- and classical-influenced pop of Laufey. The 26-year-old Icelandic-Chinese musician is known for her romantic and dreamy tunes inspired by the Great American Songbook—a canon of classic pop songs, Broadway numbers and jazz standards from the first half of the 20th century, including works by such composers as George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hammerstein—and rendered with a Gen Z perspective. Yet several songs on her upcoming new record, A Matter of Time (August 22), take a more candid—and at times, sobering—tone that contrasts with her earlier material about growing up and being in love at a young age. Album announcement Album announcement Emma Summerton "I'm a very sarcastic person," Laufey (pronounced Lay-vay) tells Newsweek. "With the last album [2023's Bewitched], I showed the light, and I wanted to show a little bit of darkness on this album. I had a lot of fun doing it. It's kind of like an anxious Cinderella." A Matter of Time, Laufey's third studio record, marks another step in the career of the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter, whose story reads like a fairy tale come to life. Since her 2022 debut album, Everything I Know About Love, Laufey has played sold-out shows; performed with such artists as beabadoobee, Norah Jones, Barbra Streisand and Billy Joel; and won a Grammy Award in 2024 for her second record, Bewitched. Her music attracts nearly 19 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and her TikTok account has 8.7 million followers. Larger and Bolder Sound For A Matter of Time, Laufey says she wanted to make a work that sounded larger and bolder. "But at the core," she adds, "I didn't want to move too much away from my own sound. There's definitely more sonic exploration on the album, which was really important to me." Helping Laufey achieve that vision were her longtime producer Spencer Stewart and, for the first time, The National's Aaron Dessner, whose production credits include albums for Taylor Swift and Gracie Abrams. "I've always wanted to work with Aaron," Laufey says. "I'm such a big fan of his and The National. I worked with Aaron [on] a session, and something felt really right about it. It brought a level of speed and shine to the album that I was looking for." An example of Laufey branching out stylistically for this record is the country-inspired track "Clean Air." "It's about letting go of something toxic from the past, whether it's a job, a relationship or a friend," she says. "It immediately landed in this dreamy country world. I love the harmonies of Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. I wanted to have that sound in some way, and it felt like it wasn't a far toss from my world." The song "Silver Lining," the first single released ahead of the new album, recalls early 1960s pop music; Laufey wrote it while she was at Electric Lady Studios in New York City. "I found this vintage electric guitar in a corner and was like, 'I want to write a '60s song with the fun strings and this mid-century vibe and reverbed-out kind of sound.' I wanted it to be a love song, but sarcastic. Icelanders are not good at saying things very directly. We find these side ways of saying it. And I think 'Silver Lining' was kind of my way to do that." Yet A Matter of Time isn't a drastic stylistic left turn from Laufey's first two albums—the lush and elegant arrangements and her sublime torchy singing voice remain the cores of her work, such as on the bossa-nova-styled "Lover Girl" and "Clockwork." But her perspectives about love and the world around her have matured. "It's definitely more bold as well," she says of the lyrics. "It's more honest. It's more raw. It was a fun challenge finding growth within myself." Snow White lead Snow White lead Emma Summerton The feisty "Tough Luck," which finds Laufey throwing shade at a rotten boyfriend, is a notable counterpoint to her usual romantic perspective. "I just wanted to write a mean song," she says. "I had this experience, and it was so funny to me. I was like, 'This is a song.'" On the lush and heartbreaking "Snow White," she critiques idealized beauty with the ironic lyric: "A woman's best currency is her body, not her brain." "I was frustrated with beauty standards and myself for needing to compete with those standards," she says. "Like, 'Why can't I just remove myself?' The lyrics are about how the world has kind of set us all up to need to fit into those standards to compete." "Sabotage" is the album's final and most dramatic track, featuring a dissonant-sounding coda that seems more appropriate for an indie rocker than a pop song; Laufey calls "Sabotage" the album's thesis statement. 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Born Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir, she was introduced to classical music through her Chinese violinist mother, and her exposure to jazz-pop standards came courtesy of her Icelandic father's record collection. At a young age, she played both cello and piano. "I was like listening to orchestra rehearsals in my mother's womb," Laufey, who was raised in Reykjavík and Washington, D.C., says. "I was given a violin when I was 2. Classical music was what I've heard at home my whole life. But also, it was a lot of jazz music and the Beatles." Although she harbored the idea of becoming a singer in addition to being a musician, Laufey initially didn't think it was realistic for her to forge a career in the vintage music that she grew up with. "I didn't have any example of success from somebody who looked or sounded like me in current times. My favorite singers were from the '40s, '50s and '60s. So I just didn't believe it. I knew that music was always going to be a huge part of my life. I was just too scared to jump into it. Laufey later attended Berklee College of Music in Boston on a scholarship, which was a turning point for her. "There were so many people writing around me, and it kind of empowered me to explore my sound and try things. So I started writing in a way that reflected my favorite music, which was songs from the Great American Songbook. I realized that if I wrote in that form but used modern experiences, it could create something that people would be interested in." Her breakthrough came when she wrote and released a single, "Street by Street," in 2020 that topped the Icelandic radio charts. Laufey's fame grew around this period when she started posting popular videos online of her performances of classic standards by jazz legends such as Ella Fitzgerald and Chet Baker, as well as her original compositions. 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"There are so many artists who have styles that don't fall into a certain box, but are applauded because we are a generation of mixture. So many of my fan base are mixed race like me or from different cultural backgrounds. I think that's a part of it." Laufeyperforms with Gustavo Dudamel & LA Phil at the Coachella Stage during the 2025 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 19, 2025 in Indio, California. Laufeyperforms with Gustavo Dudamel & LA Phil at the Coachella Stage during the 2025 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 19, 2025 in Indio, Coachella Laufey will be touring large arenas in support of the new album—further evidence of her growing popularity—including two nights at New York City's Madison Square Garden. Yet she has stayed mostly grounded through all of the attention. 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Yahoo
11 hours ago
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Y&R's Bryton James is Ready for Another BTG Crossover
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