It’s been 10 years since Bruno Mars‘ seminal record, 24K Magic — and now, his highly anticipated fourth solo album, titled The Romantic, is finally ready.
On Wednesday, Jan. 7, Mars revealed the album’s Feb. 27 release date, as well as its cover. He also said new music would arrive on Friday, Jan. 9.
Mars confirmed The Romantic just a couple days after revealing that he had completed his upcoming record. At the time, he shared few details about the LP to come, writing only on X: “My album is done.”
While this will be his first solo album since the 2016 classic that featured hits like “That’s What I Like,” “Versace on the Floor,” and “Finesse,” he also linked up with Anderson .Paak to form Silk Sonic and dropped the 2021 duo LP, An Evening With Silk Sonic.
24K Magic was unequivocally one of the most successful modern albums, winning the star seven Grammys, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year for the title track, and Song of the Year for “That’s What I Like.” The Silk Sonic record also received acclaim, especially with lead single “Leave the Door Open,” which won both Record and Song of the Year at the 2022 Grammys, along with two other trophies. (The duo decided not to submit the album itself for consideration, despite being a top contender. “We thank the Grammys for allowing us to perform on their platform — not once but twice — and awarding us at last year’s ceremony,” Mars told Rolling Stone at the time. “We’d be crazy to ask for anything more.”)
After the Silk Sonic era, Mars returned with several massive duets including “Fat, Juicy & Wet” with Sexyy Redd and “Die With a Smile,” the smash hit with Lady Gaga, which won a Grammy at the 2025 awards show. He also linked up with Rosé for “APT” at the end of 2024 and the collab gained three Grammy nominations at next month’s awards show, including Record and Song of the Year.
Drake attends a game between the Houston Rockets and the Cleveland Cavaliers
Earl Sweatshirt Is Right: ‘Don’t Worry’ Is a Great Drake Song
Even the staunchest Drake hater can probably name at least one song that does it for them. For better or worse, Aubrey Graham has spent nearly two decades giving voice to the millennial subconscious more skillfully than any mainstream musician not named Taylor Swift, soundtracking the fears, insecurities, and romantic delusions of a generation raised on reality-TV melodrama and the first wave of social media’s main-character ethos. It should come as no surprise, then, that Earl Sweatshirt, underground rap’s poet laureate, has singled out the deep Iceman cut “Don’t Worry,” singing the song karaoke-style to close out his recent live sets. The track is the purest distillation of Drake’s appeal since the Take Care era, and a quiet reminder of why it’s hard to imagine him going away any time soon.
In the clips, which first started circulating around late May, during Earl’s Home on the Range Tour with MIKE on the heels of their Surf Gang-produced project Pompeii // Utility, it’s the song’s final turn that has Earl & Co. the most hyped up. “I just wanna see that boy beg on the pavement,” Drake coos, the type of revenge fantasy he’s built a career out of conjuring. Drake goes on. “I just wanna see that boy struggle with the phone bill,” he sings, getting specific. “The light bill/That’s how I feel.”
It’s PhD-level pettiness with a weirdly relatable spin. One must know the more treacherous depths of being broke to pinpoint the humiliation of struggling with the phone bill, and here Drake is wishing such luck onto anyone “trippin’ with the gang.” Whereas his entire catalog is fueled by this kind of anonymous sense of betrayal, it hits harder here. You can feel the sting of 2024’s rap beef in the glee with which Drake sings his imagined get-back, landing on an infectious melody all while basically giving a speech you’d expect from the Joker. “I might just get that boy hit for entertainment,” he sings.
This is classic Drake, turning the darker inner thoughts most people would be ashamed to admit into something almost beautiful. He is, in a way, rap’s Lena Dunham, finding art on the other side of cringe.
More recently, clips of Earl singing the song at the end of different tour stops — an ongoing bit at this point — went viral thanks to the never-ending stan wars between Kendrick and Drake fans. Some, unable to deny Earl’s bona fides as a rapper, assumed the whole thing must be an act of trolling, while others saw it as proof that Drake “won” the beef. The third option, of course, is that it’s a really good song, the type Drake is especially skilled at making.
At the height of the beef, like any millennial amidst a friend-group falling-out, Drake appeared to be rewatching The Sopranos, posting pictures from the show to his Instagram Stories. (Iceman’s hit single “Janice STFU” samples Tony Soprano uttering the infamous phrase to his sister, Janice.) “Don’t Worry” has the Machiavellian feeling of a classic mobster flick, a resolve for vengeance at any cost. A desire to see your enemies suffer. Across an entire album, it’s a mood that can feel heavy, but you’ve got to admit, when it hits, it hits. And that’s why Drake remains a fixture within not just hip-hop, but pop culture at large. He reconstructs embarrassingly human impulses as irresistible melodies. “Don’t Worry” might very well become the sleeper hit from Iceman, as clips from Earl’s concerts have already started to boost the song’s presence across feeds.
As he often does, Earl Sweatshirt simply speaks the truth.