Gaga, Doechii, Laufey, Anitta, & Ravyn Lenae: Liner Notes
New music, deep cuts, fresh notes: April 14, 2026 edition.
I love when circuitous interests and observations become shared experiences. Frankly, that’s my biggest motivator for creating a platform like Underliner. So it really was just a matter of time until music found its way into this new project, too. That much I knew.
Introducing… Liner Notes! A recurring roundup of lyrics, titles, themes, attitudes, and ideas that stand out in the music I am listening to. This is primarily about exploring new music (which I do, and love to do, anyway), but there will always be room for fresh notes on songs that I revisit, rediscover, and maybe even reimagine.
Sometimes, it’s also helpful to remind yourself of old clichés that still ring true about a song that comes up on shuffle when you least expect it, but often when you needed it the most.
It’s all fair in sound, time, and space, which are all constructs. Let’s have some fun and tear them all apart.
“Madwoman” — Laufey
This week was kicked off with Laufey releasing a music video for “Madwoman” starring Heated Rivalry star and heartthrob Hudson Williams. The new song is fresh off A Matter of Time: The Final Hour, the deluxe edition of her 2025 studio album A Matter of Time, right on schedule for Coachella weekend.
Though she is unlike most musicians orbiting the pop culture sphere at the moment, Laufey is way more familiar to people I introduce her to than they first realized. Yes, she is a Chinese-Icelandic singer-songwriter and instrumentalist best known for fusing jazz music and pop sensibilities… which, I understand, sounds like a lot. But it’s not that complicated. I promise.
Laufey reminds me of the early-days (and West End Girl-revived) energy of Lily Allen: a soft and soothing voice navigating what appears to be a formulaic story — except that it goes awry. It’s odd to hear such a voice saying certain things, going off-script, and knowing more than you assumed. To me, that’s always felt like a queer-ish sensibility that draws me to artists, and Laufey is a great example.
I remind myself how he’d question everything ‘bout me
Called me stupid as a mindless joke, he hypnotized me as we spoke
Purely mythological, with the ugliest soul
You would think that he is holding me for ransom
In the music video, Laufey plays the titular Madwoman, of course. Williams plays The Man. Alysa Liu (the Olympic-medalist figure skater), Megan Skiendiel (a member of Katseye whose back injury has been debated as a potential departure from the girl group), and Lola Tung (an actress best known for portraying Belly Conklin in The Summer I Turned Pretty TV series) play the Madwoman’s Besties.
As a song and video, “Madwoman” is a great starting point for The Final Hour deluxe extension of the original LP. It immediately communicates to any new fans that the concept of a fairy tale, in Laufey’s work, is more like a WandaVision situation: a familiar setup for a genre-defying story that calls back to traditions only to eventually break them.
“Runway” — Lady Gaga and Doechii
Besides being one of many celebrities with filmed cameos for this highly anticipated sequel (a long list of names indexed by W Magazine), Lady Gaga is reportedly working on a few potential tracks for the official soundtrack of The Devil Wears Prada 2.
A song by Gaga and Doechii, “Runway,” was first teased in the movie’s final trailer and then officially dropped last Friday. As a huge fan of the original film and of both of these artists, I’m still pinching myself about this song actually existing in the real world, as opposed to just in a fever dream of mine.
Hate all you want, but I’m dangerous
You gon’ burn your tongue on this tea
Gaga and the gays have maintained a bulletproof relationship of 18 years. In gay years, that’s an estimated 244 years. Still, Gaga’s fluency in gay culture, particularly when dished out artistically, is of utmost importance to the pop culture universe. (It just is, and you can ask any scientist about that.) It is also not an exaggeration to say that hearing “Runway” even just once helped me relate to what straight men felt leaving movie theaters after watching Top Gun: Maverick.
This paparazzi routine
Bitch, I came to be seen
Last year, Gaga was still reckoning with a not-so-great period of her life. “When I was younger, I had this dream of being a star,” she told Vogue about “Perfect Celebrity” while promoting Mayhem. “Because my life changed so much when I was in my early 20s, it took some of the realness of life away from me, and that really changed my songwriting.” To hear Gaga being witty, and campy, and playful in these “Runway” lyrics is cool, and fun, and also healthy, which matters when considering those reflections from not even 12 months ago.
Click, click, click, click, everywhere I go
Get it, can’t get me, face card froze
Doechii has been working really hard on her craft for many years. Given that many folks are still behind on the Doechii lore, it’s worth noting that her YouTube channel (@iamdoechiiTV) is a real-life epic saga of work-in-progress vlogs from an aspiring musician still finding new talents, losing her way, working through things, setting new intentions, and becoming the Grammy-winning, chart-topping superstar that she already is.
Referencing a quasi-overused pop culture saying (“face card”) through an angle that feels new and exciting is one of the longest-standing signifiers of a great hip hop artist. Doechii is the most exciting rapper of our time, and has been running that game for a few years now. When asked about Doechii’s work, Gaga told British Vogue: “You don’t often see someone come out of the gate with a pen that feels immediately legendary.” To casually brag that not even Getty Images can get a bad picture of her — and to be right! — is what Gaga meant.
“Reputation” — Ravyn Lenae (ft. Dominic Fike)
The fun and bubbly “Love Me Not” turned Ravyn Lenae’s voice into a viral sensation in 2024. But a quiet and unassuming new ballad, titled “Reputation,” released two weeks ago, is set ablaze by Lenae’s vocals. Here, that voice is majestic, lived-in, and confessional. It has clarity and perspective.
The song opens with musician and Euphoria star Dominic Fike, who introduces himself as Lenae’s “three-letter word,” and grouches about being “loyal to a fault, like a dawg, just like a dog.” I’ve been grooving to Fike’s music from 2018’s “3 Nights” to 2025’s “White Keys.” He’s great in “Reputation,” too. But when Lenae takes over, you know you can’t deny.
Lately
You’re holding on to me
Like there’s something you’re not saying
It’s taking over me
Now, baby
This ain’t a fantasy
There’s no smoke without a fire
That’s always burning me
Lenae isn’t the first person to sing about Fike’s charms and complications, but her lines and delivery burn through “Reputation” with brutal self-awareness, undeniable command, and even a sweet disposition that reveals strength rather than fragility. It’s a fantastic song for a female singer in her 20s to pull off given how much pressure is placed upon those musicians to force relatability over anything else that dares to be even slightly more complex. More often than not, that directive generates one-dimensional personas that just sound ditzy, or angry, or tragic, or above-it, or helpless, or vengeful. Not Lenae, though, who only wrestles playfully with her feelings in the chorus. It bears repeating how these choices make a record so much more interesting, and rich, and even tense.
You look so good, boy, when you lie
I don’t know, maybe I’m just in denial
Don’t wanna change your reputation
When I’m thinking of you
Guess I’m the type of girl to give you time
But I know it keeps you up at night
Now you hate your reputation
When I’m thinking of you
This man is outlined by Lenae as a separate entity from her feelings for him, which are acknowledged as misplaced but still worth sitting with for a bit longer. She sounds steady, strong, and resolute. Fike communicates, toward the end of “Reputation,” that he has now actually hurt her feelings. Lenae’s response is a witty new version of the chorus — one that, let’s say, is closer to the actual wakeup call that this man deserves — but that is remarkably delivered just as steady, just as strong, and just as resolute as the original, kinder version.
You look so good, boy, when you lie
You said you didn’t mean to make me cry
Guess you made your reputation
When I’m thinking of you
Guess I’m the type of girl to waste my time
But I know it keeps you up at night
Now you hate your reputation
When I'm thinking of you
Fike, who opens the song and introduces himself, doesn’t get the chance to say goodbye. Lenae gets the last laugh — and even the landing sounds gorgeous, despite being objectively savage parting words to hear from an ex-lover.
You can save your reputation
When I’m thinking of you
Absolute cinema, if you ask me.
“Choka Choka” — Anitta and Shakira
The liner notes for Anitta’s “Choka Choka” are less about the actual lyrics of the song and more about what it represents.
📌 In case this wasn’t clear yet: I was born and raised in Brazil. I had an entire life there, for 18 years, before moving to the U.S., which explains my deep connections to Brazilian culture, people, politics, culture, and beyond.
Anitta is the biggest global pop star that Brazil has ever had. We’ve had huge stars with a wide reach into the U.S. market, of course. Names like Carmen Miranda, Roberto Carlos, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, and Ivete Sangalo were (and in most cases are) all formidable musicians that left their mark on Brazilian culture being recognized on an international level. I was a teenager when I attended Ivete’s sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It was all so iconic.
But I would still argue that Anitta has indeed eclipsed them. Her ability to efficiently and sustainably operate within the pop culture industrial complex on a global scale is remarkable. She’s also been doing this now for several years. Anitta has been the No. 1 pop act in Brazil for decades while also building out a legitimate international career that resembles the early-days success of artists like, well, Shakira — the Colombian superstar who’s featured in “Choka Choka.”
This past weekend, Anitta debuted as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live and became the first-ever solo Brazilian act to perform on the NBC series, which is notoriously on its 51st season right now. (Which I only know off the top of my head because SNL went all-out last year to celebrate its 50th anniversary.) Her first SNL performance was to “Choka Choka,” a great song that centers Anitta’s spiritual awakening to Afro-Brazilian religions. The track blends upbeat Brazilian funk beats but stays rooted in the more organic sounds associated with macumba.
“Choka Choka” is a sample of Anitta’s new studio album, Equilibrium, being released this Friday, April 17. The new LP is wholly about this new spiritual chapter for Anitta as a person and as a singer. In that sense, Equilibrium feels analogous to Madonna’s 1998 album Ray of Light, in which the Queen of Pop’s embracing of Kabbalah, Hinduism, and Buddhism was now also present in her music.
It’s a banner year for Latino musicians in the U.S. who have chosen the unlikelier path of finding success without letting go of their identities. It used to be an absurd notion that a Latino could succeed in the U.S. without singing in English and only using their roots in very specific contexts. That notion is officially being torn down in 2026 — from Bad Bunny headlining the Super Bowl to Karol G becoming the first-ever Latina headliner at Coachella to Anitta’s historic SNL debut for a Brazilian artist.
I’m excited to see the response to Anitta’s Equilibrium as it comes out this Friday. If you ask me, our Girl From Rio will keep beating the odds, and I’ll be thrilled to see it.