Carrie Underwood and John Legend are getting into the holiday spirit with the music video for their new duet “Hallelujah.”

In the Randee St. Nicholas-directed clip, which premiered through Facebook on Thursday (Nov. 19), the country singer and R&B crooner join forces in a dimly lit, snow-filled room where they beautifully deliver the powerful track.

“This song and its message is much needed right now and I’m honored to have it on my Christmas album, My Gift,” Underwood said on Instagram earlier in the week. “I hope you like it.”

“Hallelujah” appears on Underwood’s latest album, My Gift, which marks her first full-length holiday project. The set was produced by Greg Wells and includes eight traditional and three original songs.

Released on Sept. 25, My Gift recently earned Underwood her eighth total and consecutive No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart.

“It has been in my heart to do a Christmas album for years, and we started planning this last year when we finished the Cry Pretty Tour 360,” Underwood tells Billboard. “Who would have known what would happen in the world since then, and how much we would all be ready for the hope and joy that Christmas music embodies this year more than ever.”

Legend will also appear on Underwood’s upcoming music special My Gift: A Christmas Special From Carrie Underwood, which will be available for streaming through HBO Max on Dec. 3.

Watch the “Hallelujah” music video below.

Jeremih, who was hospitalized due to complications of COVID-19, has been moved from the ICU as he recovers.

According to a statement obtained by Billboard on Saturday (Nov. 21) from a spokesperson for Jeremih’s family and team, “Jeremih has been transferred out of ICU. He will spend the rest of his recovery time in a regular hospital room. The true healing begins. Thank you all for your continued prayers and wishes.”

The R&B singer had reportedly been on a ventilator in a Chicago hospital while battling the novel coronavirus.

Earlier in the week, a representative for Jeremih’s family told CNN that the virus had “viciously attacked his body,” and that they wanted to remind others that “COVID-19 is real and not to be taken lightly. It’s important for people infected to quarantine and let their families and friends know ASAP. There’s no shame in contracting COVID-19, and people that have it need to be responsible and considerate of others.”

“Please if you can take a second to pray for my friend Jeremih, he is like a brother to me and he’s ill right now,” Chance the Rapper wrote on Twitter last Saturday afternoon (Nov. 14) when the news of Jeremih’s condition first broke. “I believe in the healing power of Jesus so if you can for me please please say a prayer over him.”

“pray for my boy Jeremih he’s not doing good this covid shit is real,” 50 Cent said on the same day.

A long-lost trove of Bob Dylan documents including the singer-songwriter’s musings about anti-Semitism and unpublished song lyrics has sold at auction for a total of $495,000.

Boston-based R.R. Auction said Friday (Nov. 20) the collection privately held by the late American blues artist Tony Glover, a longtime Dylan friend and confidante, was sold as individual lots Thursday, with a majority of the key pieces going to a bidder whose identity was not made public.

The collection included transcripts of Glover’s 1971 interviews with Dylan and letters the pair exchanged. The interviews reveal that Dylan had anti-Semitism on his mind when he changed his name from Robert Zimmerman, and that he wrote “Lay Lady Lay” for Barbra Streisand.

Dylan, 79, was close with Glover, who died last year. The two men broke into music in the same Minneapolis coffeehouse scene. Glover’s widow, Cynthia Nadler, put the documents up for auction online.

The reclusive Dylan won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2016 after giving the world “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “The Times They Are a-Changin’” and other anthems of the turbulent 1960s.

Included in the auctioned items were lyrics Dylan penned after visiting folk legend Woody Guthrie in May 1962. The lines, never made public until last month, read:

“My eyes are cracked I think I been framed/ I can’t seem to remember the sound of my name/ What did he teach you I heard someone shout/ Did he teach you to wheel & wind yourself out/ Did he teach you to reveal, respect, and repent the blues/ No Jack he taught me how to sleep in my shoes.”

In a 1971 conversation with Glover, Dylan discussed why he changed his name, saying: “A lot of people are under the impression that Jews are just money lenders and merchants.”

A federal judge has ordered a start date in the trial of singer R. Kelly, according to information provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. In a schedule set down by U.S. District Court Judge Ann M. Donnelly, jury questionnaires will be distributed between March 15 and March 25, 2021, jury selection begins April 6 and the trial kicks off on April 7.

Kelly is facing charges in New York of racketeering, coercion of a minor, transportation of a minor and coercion to engage in illegal sexual activity relating to six different victims. The indictment alleges that for over two decades, R. Kelly was the leader of a racketeering enterprise made up of managers, bodyguards, drivers, personal assistants and runners who recruited women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity with the singer. The sexual activity was often filmed and photographed by Kelly, according to the court filing by the Department of Justice. He is also awaiting trial in Illinois regarding separate sexual abuse allegations and is currently being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago.

Kelly has been incarcerated since July 2019 after being arrested in Chicago while walking his dog named Believe by Homeland Security officers and members of the New York police department. He has made repeated requests to be released on his own recognizance pending trial, but his requests have been repeatedly denied.

In October, Donnelly also granted the prosecution’s request for Kelly’s case to be heard by an unnamed/anonymous jury that would be partially sequestered for the duration of the trial. The government requested that “the identities of all prospective jurors, including their names, addresses and places of employment, not be revealed to either party or their attorneys,” and that “from the time each juror is empaneled until the conclusion of the trial, the jurors eat lunch together and be accompanied in and out of the courthouse by members of the United States Marshals Service each day,” according to court records. Prosecutors argued that these precautions were necessary because of the trial’s expected media attention and because of Kelly’s “incentive and means” to interfere with the jury.

“He is charged with leading a criminal enterprise that paid out large sums over the past two decades to bribe witnesses and cover up his misconduct, and he faces a significant prison term if convicted,” wrote Donnelly in her order granting the request by the prosecution.

Kelly’s attorney Michael I. Leonard tells Billboard that extra jury precautions are “bizarre” and “inappropriate,” as anonymous juries are typically reserved for dangerous defendants such as a “Mafia kingpin or drug cartel leaders” where there is a realistic and legitimate reason to fear for someone’s safety.” He claims this kind of protective measure does not fit the facts of Kelly’s case and hinders his ability to prepare for a fair trial.

He also says that Kelly’s isolating incarceration, with constant lockdowns in prison due to COVID-19, has affected his client mentally.

“In terms of his mental well-being, I think he’s suffering under these COVID conditions because they had an enormous outbreak previously,” Leonard says. “It’s not a good environment to be in.”

Despite all that, Leonard says his client is looking forward to having his day in court.

“It’s been long and onerous, but on the other hand I think he is eager to get to trial,” says Leonard.

Shawn Mendes spent the majority of 2019 on his 109-show, world arena tour. The nine-month trek, which grossed $96.7 million and sold 1.3 million tickets, was his biggest yet.

But a tour of that magnitude came with its fair share of highs, lows, mental pressure and physical demands. Netflix’s upcoming documentary, In Wonder, follows the 22-year-old superstar’s journey to self-discovery over the past year, and how he channeled it all into a creative new album.

To capture his story, Mendes enlisted director Grant Singer, who is best known for his work on high-profile music videos such as The Weeknd’s “The Hills,” Lorde’s “Green Light,” Zayn and Taylor Swift’s “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever,” Troye Sivan’s “My My My” and countless more. “It’s interesting because I come from a world of music video directing where the role of a director is very visible and my imprint aesthetically is large, conceptually and in terms of my role on set,” he explained of filming In Wonder. “Whereas, when you’re making a documentary, the intent is the inverse, to be invisible and just let the moments unfold and witness them without having a hand guide them.

“It was a learning experience for me to really disappear when I was present to make him comfortable so he can live his life without feeling like we were filming,” he added.

The director certainly accomplished that sense of authenticity. In Wonder covers massive musical milestones like Mendes’ sold-out show at the Rogers Centre in Toronto and his sultry “Señorita” duet with girlfriend Camila Cabello at the 2019 VMAs — weaving in how the pop star felt at every turn and his more vulnerable, human moments.

In one of Singer’s standout scenes, Mendes is forced to cancel his Nov. 30 show in São Paulo, Brazil after struggling with a vocal strain. “I felt like I was witnessing something very intense unfold in real time,” he said of the devastating moment. “That is a powerful thing to witness and document, and I felt privileged to be able to be there for that.”

“We build up pop stars to be super human beings, but one of the things this film does is—they’re just like us,” he continued. “They have fears, insecurities, desires as we all do. This film focuses more on Shawn as a person and less on Shawn as the mythology of him as an artist, and I think that’s what I like about it.”

Singer feels that the “In My Blood” star is very much in “the first chapter” of his career, and therefore, spotlighting his journey is more important now than ever. “What you really want to capture is something real, an honest moment,” he shared. “I really wanted to strip things away, where we really get to the heart of who Shawn is and what he’s about and his passion and his character.

“Even if you’re a massive fan of someone, there’s only so much content you have and it’s through a certain lens, through the albums themselves, interviews, press things, photos,” Singer concluded of what he hopes viewers will take away from the documentary. “But I hope this film gives fans access to a very intimate, off-the-cuff way to see him for who he is and who the real Shawn Mendes is in a way that gives them a terrific, expansive scope.”

In Wonder is available to stream on Nov. 23 on Netflix. Watch the trailer below.