In the newly shared music video for “Male Fantasy,” Billie Eilish is going through the motions all alone. She moves from room to room, in and out of the refrigerator, back and forth from different sides of the bed in somber fashion. Her wandering moves in tandem with the song’s melodic progression, filling out a whole day inside with nothingness and melancholic lingering.
Eilish directed and edited the video for the folky Happier Than Ever cut.
“And it’s all I think about whеn I’m behind the wheel/I worry this is how I’m always gonna feel/ But nothing lasts, I know the deal,” she sings, settling into the uncomfortable realization. “Male Fantasy” builds on the premise of the unrealistic standards set by pornography and the discomfort that lingers around the topic despite its prevalence.
“It was hard to write because we wanted it to be as revealing as possible. It’s difficult to be vulnerable and honest and open about my life right now. I find it much easier to write about my past and how I used to feel and to find a new perspective on something that happened to me, to take myself out of a situation,” Eilish told i-D of the song earlier this year. “I don’t usually write about what I’m going through in the moment because it’s hard to process it. So this was also about saying how I felt. It was hard and satisfying and revealing and exposing and also incredibly cathartic, too.”
Los Angeles-based designer and recent-ish hip-hop producer Real Bad Man is taking up after Boldy James' prolific work ethic. He is rolling out the red carpet for his next collaborative project with the Detroit spitter titled Conversational Pieces.
Per a press release, the duo will be releasing their third body of work on May 2 via the producer's namesake record label. This will be a follow-up to 2022's Killing Nothing, as well as their debut back in 2020, Real Bad Boldy. The latter also happened to be Bad Man's first LP. As per usual, the tracklist is going to be tight knit.
There's going to be a total of 13 songs and three features. One of them is Conway the Machine, and the other two are a part of the lead singles to Conversational Pieces. Real Bad Man and Boldy James have decided to recruit Washington D.C. artist dreamcastmoe and Run The Jewels' El-P for "Come Back Around" and "It Factor," respectively.
Overall, the vibe we are getting from both tracks is very much "conversational. From the fairly chill production from Bad Man to James' very matter-of-fact deliveries on both cuts, they are definitely following the blueprint they laid out for themselves. See what they are hitting for with the links below.
Quotable Lyrics From "Come Back Around":
Uncle love to smoke and drink, granny on the couch slumped
Needle hanging out her arm, shoot up at least twice a day
Kids damn near starving, cooking noodles in the microwave
Where peoplе slave and don't ever gеt a job promotion
Auntie working two jobs every day but she be closet smoking
Where n****s sick and tired of being tired of hoping