Fetty Wap Released From Federal Custody, Transferred to Home Confinement

Fetty Wap has been released from federal custody and transferred to home confinement, bringing a quiet close to one of the most dramatic legal arcs faced by a mainstream hip-hop star of the 2010s.

The rapper, born Willie Junior Maxwell II, was released today and placed on home confinement under federal supervision, according to Bureau of Prisons confirmation and reporting by TMZ. He will serve the remainder of his sentence under strict conditions in Philadelphia, including ongoing oversight by U.S. Probation.

Fetty wap is home from prison.
I’ve confirmed he’s been released —

Here’s a statement I received from fetty wap on his release:

“I want to thank my family, friends, and fans for the love, prayers, and continued support—it truly means everything to me. Right now, my focus is… pic.twitter.com/JE0QiYiaXL

— BROWN GIRL GRINDING⭐️ (@LorenLorosa) January 8, 2026

Fetty Wap was sentenced on May 24, 2023, to six years in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess controlled substances in a multi-state drug trafficking case tied to Long Island and New Jersey. The sentence also included five years of supervised release following incarceration.

At the time of sentencing, federal records projected a release date of March 2027. That timeline was later revised, with reports in late 2025 indicating his expected release had been moved up to December 2026. His release this week came even earlier, after he served approximately four years of his sentence.
 
According to TMZ, Fetty Wap’s transfer to home confinement carries strict conditions, including regular drug testing, financial disclosure requirements, restrictions on travel and employment, and continued monitoring by federal authorities. The Bureau of Prisons has not publicly detailed which specific credits or provisions led to the earlier-than-expected transfer.

Following his release, a statement attributed to Fetty Wap was shared by Brown Girl Grinding, the media platform that first circulated his remarks.

“I want to thank my family, friends, and fans for the love, prayers, and continued support—it truly means everything to me,” the statement read. “Right now, my focus is on giving back through my community initiatives and foundation, supporting at-risk young children by expanding access to education, early tech skills, and vision care for young kids and students so they can show up as their best selves. I’m committed to moving forward with purpose and making a meaningful impact where it matters most.”

The release marks a stark contrast to Fetty Wap’s rapid ascent a decade earlier. In 2015, he emerged as one of hip-hop’s most dominant breakout artists, propelled by the No. 1 single “Trap Queen” and follow-up hits including “679” and “My Way.” His melodic delivery and raw regional sound helped define a specific moment in radio-driven rap, where street records could still cross cleanly into pop dominance.

That momentum proved difficult to sustain. Personal loss, inconsistent releases and mounting legal issues gradually eclipsed his early success, culminating in his arrest in October 2021 and eventual conviction.

Bruno Mars Signals Next Chapter With New Album and 2026 Stadium Tour

Bruno Mars is pictured in promotional artwork for “The Romantic Tour,” which coincides with the completion of his first solo album since 2016’s “24K Magic.” The tour marks a major return to stadium stages for the Grammy-winning artist.

Bruno Mars has never been prolific by modern standards, but his absences have often mattered as much as his releases. That pattern continued this week when Mars confirmed that his long-awaited fourth solo album, “The Romantic,” is complete and that a large-scale stadium tour is planned for 2026 — his first full album-and-tour cycle since “24K Magic” reshaped pop, R&B and live performance nearly a decade ago.

The announcement arrives after years in which Mars remained visible but deliberately peripheral to the solo-album churn that now defines mainstream pop. Since “24K Magic” produced era-defining singles such as “24K Magic,” “That’s What I Like” and “Versace on the Floor,” Mars has resisted traditional follow-ups, opting instead for tightly controlled collaborations, residencies and selective appearances that preserved his profile without exhausting it.

That strategy reached its peak with Silk Sonic, his collaborative project with Anderson .Paak. Songs like “Leave the Door Open” and “Smokin Out the Window” leaned heavily into classic soul and funk aesthetics, drawing from a lineage that predates streaming metrics and algorithmic trends. The project earned critical acclaim and multiple Grammy Awards, but it also functioned as a detour — a side chapter rather than a replacement for a Bruno Mars solo statement.

“The Romantic” is positioned as that statement.

Mars first hinted at the album’s completion with a brief social media post confirming it was finished, offering no additional context. In an era dominated by extended rollouts and constant content, Mars’ approach suggested confidence in the music’s ability to speak without prolonged preamble.

The accompanying “Romantic Tour” places him back in stadiums across North America, Europe and the United Kingdom, environments that have historically separated hitmakers from true performers. Mars’ reputation was built not only on chart success but on command of the stage — live bands, disciplined choreography and an understanding of Black American performance traditions that stretch from funk and soul revues to early-2000s R&B tour culture.

Tour dates for Bruno Mars’ upcoming “The Romantic Tour,” his first full global stadium run in nearly a decade, which will take the singer across North America, Europe and the United Kingdom in 2026.

Anderson .Paak’s presence on all dates, performing as DJ Pee .Wee, reinforces that grounding. Their creative relationship has been defined less by novelty than by shared musical fluency, rooted in rhythm, musicianship and showmanship. Select dates will also feature Victoria Monét, RAYE and Leon Thomas, artists whose work emphasizes craft and vocal presence over spectacle alone.

What remains unresolved is how “The Romantic” will position Mars within a pop landscape that has shifted dramatically since his last solo release. In his absence, the center of the charts has moved younger, faster and more fragmented. The question is not whether Mars can still produce hits, but whether he intends to engage the current moment directly or continue operating just outside it, as he has in recent years.

That tension gives the announcement weight. Mars has rarely chased relevance, but he has consistently understood timing. His most durable work has arrived when the culture was receptive, not when demand was loudest.

For more information on the tour, or to purchase tickets click here.

Late Rapper DMX to Receive Posthumous Ordination in New York

DMX, born Earl Simmons, was known for blending raw street realism with unfiltered prayer throughout his music and public life. The late rapper’s spiritual legacy will be formally recognized this week with a posthumous ordination as a minister in New York. (Photo courtesy of UMusic)

For most of his career, DMX never asked for permission to pray.

He did it on platinum albums. On festival stages. In interviews that veered from chaos to confession without warning. Long before faith became a branding lane in hip-hop, Earl Simmons made his belief unavoidable — raw, imperfect and public.

That lifelong tension between devotion and struggle will be formally acknowledged this week, when Simmons is posthumously ordained to the office of minister nearly five years after his death.

The Gospel Cultural Center announced this week that Earl Simmons, the Yonkers rapper known globally as DMX, will be posthumously ordained as a minister during a ceremony scheduled for Saturday at Foster Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church in Tarrytown, New York. Simmons died in April 2021 at age 50.

Founded in 1860, Foster Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church is recognized as a historic Underground Railroad “Safe House,” a designation organizers say mirrors the themes of refuge, struggle and deliverance that ran through Simmons’ music and public life. The ordination is being framed as a symbolic acknowledgment of what the Center calls Simmons’ lifelong ministry — one carried out not from a pulpit, but through microphones, stages and records consumed by millions.

“Earl Simmons wrestled with God in the public square, turning his pain into a ministry of raw truth,” said Bishop Dr. Osiris Imhotep, founder of the Gospel Cultural Center, in a statement announcing the service. “This ordination recognizes the divine calling he fulfilled every time he spoke a prayer into a microphone.”

The Gospel Cultural Center is a faith-based cultural organization that focuses on the intersection of Black history, spirituality and contemporary art. While it is not a traditional denominational authority, the Center has previously organized public ceremonies and educational programming intended to reinterpret cultural figures through a spiritual lens. Organizers emphasized that the ordination is not meant to retroactively position Simmons as a conventional clergy member, but rather to formally recognize the spiritual leadership he exercised in public view.

That leadership was never subtle.

From his 1998 debut “It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot” through the height of his commercial run and beyond, DMX made prayer inseparable from his artistic identity. Nearly every studio album included a spoken or sung prayer — moments of vulnerability that stood in stark contrast to the aggression and volatility surrounding them.

Those prayers weren’t ornamental. They were confessions.

On “Prayer (Skit)” from “It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot,” “Ready to Meet Him” from “Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood,” “Prayer III” on “And Then There Was X,” “Prayer IV” on “The Great Depression,” “Prayer V” on “Grand Champ,” and later “Lord Give Me a Sign” from “Year of the Dog… Again,” Simmons repeatedly returned to the same themes: fear, accountability, temptation, mercy.

He prayed on record the way others flexed — publicly, imperfectly and without reassurance that redemption was guaranteed.

That tension reached its most vivid expression in the “Damien” trilogy, a three-part narrative spread across albums in which Simmons dramatized conversations with the devil, temptation embodied, and the internal war between faith and self-destruction. Rather than resolve the conflict, the songs left it open — a refusal of tidy salvation arcs that made his spiritual struggle feel uncomfortably real.

Off record, the pattern continued. DMX frequently broke into prayer during concerts, award appearances and interviews, moments that disarmed audiences and confounded expectations of what a rap superstar was supposed to sound like. His faith was not performative piety; it was confrontation.

The ordination announcement has been met with reflection rather than spectacle — a response that mirrors Simmons’ complicated legacy. For many fans, the idea of DMX as a minister feels less like reinvention and more like acknowledgment of something already present.

In April 2021, following Simmons’ death, Black Westchester published a tribute issue examining his cultural and spiritual impact. In an essay titled “DMX Was a Modern-Day Paul the Apostle,” the argument wasn’t that Simmons was righteous, but that he was relentless — unwilling to separate belief from brokenness.

That refusal is what made his prayers resonate then — and why they still do.

The upcoming service does not resolve the contradictions that defined Earl Simmons’ life. It doesn’t erase addiction, violence or failure. It doesn’t pretend faith fixed what suffering didn’t.

What it does — carefully, symbolically — is place those contradictions inside a longer Black spiritual tradition: one that allows testimony without triumph, prayer without purity, and ministry without perfection.

For an artist who spent his career asking God for strength rather than forgiveness, that framing may be the most honest recognition of all.