Jada Pinkett Smith tells Will Smith that her affair was an “entanglement” so August Alsina wrote a song about it.

Jada and August’s relationship was/(is?), let’s just say, complicated. But you may have already heard a different word for it, since the debacle has been known publicly to many now as an “entanglement.” 

A few days ago, August Alsina dropped a new song called, wait for it, “Entanglements,” that speaks to his true feelings about what’s going on. Aptly titled, the track, which features Rick Ross, stemmed from the drama that started with Alsina admitting to his relationship with Jada from several years ago. This led to Jada and her husband, Will Smith, recording a special Red Table Talk interview to clarify exactly what had happened. While Alsina previously stated that he did not have any issues with anyone in the Smith family, the song’s lyrics and tunes beg to differ. Clearly, Alsina has very strong feelings about this “entanglement” and decided to use his art to make the issue public.

It’s pretty clear that it’s not really a laid back situation that unfolded, especially when his lyrics state “Girl I know that we don’t call it a relationship […] Entanglements is when you tangled in them sheets.” Reading through the rest of the song lyrics, it is clear that there are many specific references to Jada, clearly directly the song at the current situation.

This is not the first instance of celebrities and musical artists using their music to air their grievances. In fact, celebrities feud all the time. The drama with Jada Pinkett Smith and August Alsina is one of the milder ones that’s playing out in real time. It’s certainly not the more charged drama we’ve seen with J.Cole and Noname. Over the past couple of months, the rappers have been battling over their respective approaches to the Black Lives Matter discourse. Cole was heavily criticized for the patronizing tone on his “Snow on Tha Bluff” track, which supposedly takes aim at Noname’s activism.

To continue in this tradition of artists using their music as comeback, Noname responded with “Song 33,” coincidentally her first solo of the year. The lyrics referenced J. Cole’s comments while also highlighting the murders of 19-year-old Oluwatoyin Salau, George Floyd and the killing of trans women like Dominique Fells.

It is interesting to think of musicians and artists as time capsules, making music as a way to deal with feuds and social/political commentary.

Photo via Shake the World/Empire