Five years after the death of modern troubadour Leonard Cohen, director Daniel Askill is out with a haunting video for “Puppets,” off Cohen’s 2019 posthumous album, Thanks for the Dance.
Shot in black and white, the video follows a lonely figure kitted out like Cohen — played by actor Bobbi Salvör Menuez — as they fall to their knees in the New York City streets, self-immolating as loose papers litter the cobblestones.
“Cohen has an incredible ability to create a bridge between the sublime and the prosaic — the metaphysical and political,” Askill said in a statement. “In ‘Puppets,’ he does that while addressing dark themes with a poetic insight. This video for ‘Puppets’ has been born out of a wonderful ongoing dialogue with [his son] Adam Cohen. … This film follows the symbolic journey of a single figure through darkness toward a transcendence. In many ways, it is visually pointing to the idea that Leonard often beautifully evokes in different ways — that the darkness and the light of our experience is deeply entangled — and maybe at a fundamental level they are in fact one and the same.”
“Puppets” — which Rolling Stone deemed a Song You Need to Know in 2019 — is an iteration of a poem Cohen published in 2006’s Book of Longing. Predicting Trump’s infamous “no puppet” quote 10 years before, the song mediates on good, evil, and control (“German puppets burnt the Jews”), war and government (“Puppet presidents command/Puppet troops to burn the land”), and all manner of darkness and light.
Monaleo has steadily built a strong connection with listeners over the past few years. She is an MC known for sharp lyricism and a high level of energy that shows up on every record. 2026 is shaping up to be an important year for her, with growing speculation that a larger project may be coming soon. That idea feels even more likely with the arrival of her latest release, “Crossroads Freestyle.” The brief, one minute track landed on YouTube on Tuesday and has already been getting a lot of positive reactions. Once again, Monaleo leans into her confidence, delivering tight verses over a smooth, consistent beat. It is a solid release that fans will definitely want to tap into.
Release Date: April 14, 2026
Genre: Hip-Hop
Album: N/A
Getting cake by the pound, I'm greater than britain
I'm greater than Alex on top like a attic (Uh-uh)
You pushing for Clipse I'm peeping a Malice
But fear ain't a factor I'm up for the challenge
The queen of my palace from Houston, not Dallas
