Sandra Crouch, the late Andraé Crouch’s twin sister who co-wrote “Jesus Is the Answer,” has died. She was 81.

Sandra Crouch passed away on Sunday, March 17 at Northridge Hospital in Northridge, California, following complications from radiation for a non-cancerous brain lesion, Billboard has learned.

Sandra and Andraé were born on July 1, 1942, in Los Angeles to parents who went into ministry and founded Christ Memorial Church C.O.G.I.C. in 1951. The siblings began performing music together around 1960 as The COGICS, alongside friends who were active at church.

Andraé went on to form the group Andraé Crouch & The Disciples, and Sandra worked as a percussionist in Hollywood. As a percussionist, Sandra’s credits included playing on notable projects like The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” Neil Diamond’s Tap Root Manuscript and Janis Joplin’s Pearl album.

In the 1970s, Crouch joined her brother with The Disciples, singing, playing and co-writing songs including “Jesus Is the Answer,” which became a mainstay on gospel radio.

Among the twins’ musical accomplishments together was backing Michael Jackson on several songs on History – Past, Present and Future Book 1, and on “Man in the Mirror” when Jackson performed it live at the Grammys in 1988. Both Andraé and Sandra also worked on film soundtracks for 1985’s The Color Purple, 1993’s Free Willy and 1994’s The Lion King.

Sandra released three of her own albums in the 1980s, all of which resulted in Grammy nominations — and collected a Grammy for one of them.

Her first solo album, We Sing Praises — featuring singles “He’s Worthy,” “There’s Power in the Blood” and “We Need to Hear From You” — was released in 1983. The set earned Crouch three nominations and won the award for best soul gospel performance, female at the 26th annual Grammy Awards.

We’re Waiting, Crouch’s sophomore solo album, arrived in 1985 with the song “Completely Yes.” The album and track were nominated for best soul gospel performance by a duo, group, choir or chorus at the 28th annual Grammy Awards, though Crouch did not take home an award this time around.

Crouch’s third and final solo album, With All of My Heart, was released in 1992. It received a nomination, but did not win, for best gospel album by a choir or chorus at the 35th annual Grammy Awards. She went on the road in support of the album with Daryl Coley and the Richard Smallwood Singers on the Gospel: Good for the Soul Tour.

Sandra won two GMA Dove Awards for traditional gospel album, first for We Sing Praises in 1984, and then for With All of My Heart in 1993.

Andraé Crouch had taken over their parents’ church, Christ Memorial COGIC in San Fernando, California, in 1998 and ordained Sandra as a co-pastor, which defied the COGIC denomination’s policy against female preachers. They gave the church a new name: New Chris Memorial Church.

Sandra assumed the role of senior pastor beginning in 2015, when her brother passed.

The church’s assistant pastor, Kenneth J. Cook, released a statement about Sandra’s death last week via social media, writing, “It’s with a heavy heart that I announce that at 12pm today, March 17, 2024, our beloved Senior Pastor Sandra Elaine Crouch transitioned into the arms of the Lord. We as believers know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We will forever cherish the memories and teachings we received from her.”

Crouch’s life will be celebrated with an April 16 viewing and musical tribute at New Christ Memorial Church, followed by a homegoing service on April 17.

Selena Gomez gave fans a glimpse at her natural beauty on Instagram this weekend.

The pop singer, actress and Rare Beauty founder uploaded a series of photos to Instagram Stories, including what appears to be a completely makeup-free selfie.

With tousled hair and wearing a gray robe or cardigan, a bare-faced Gomez winks and gives a playful look in the snapshot.

Gomez also posted a more professional portrait showing her natural look on her Instagram grid on Saturday (March 23). The intriguing black-and-white headshot has the star peering into the camera — in a way that caught the eye of fellow artist Camila Cabello, who voiced her reaction in the comments.

“Good god woman have mercy,” Cabello wrote, complimenting the striking shot, which Gomez had simply captioned with “Real.”

In a sweet post on Wednesday (March 20), the singer-actress shared a sweet handmade card beau Benny Blanco sent her, noting that they have entered a long-distance phase in their relationship. “Happy first virtual date!” he wrote. Gomez captioned the photo, “#longdistancerelationship vibes.”

The couple have been public about their romance since December.

“I’d have to say overall, it’s the safest that I feel and it’s been really lovely,” said Gomez of the relationship in an interview with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe in February.

Check out Gomez’s makeup-free selfie on Instagram Stories, and embedded in a fan tweet below. See her new closeup portrait on her Instagram grid.

Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine spends a second week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated March 30), after debuting atop the tally a week ago. The set earned 100,500 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the tracking week ending March 21 (down 56%), according to Luminate. It’s the third Grande album to have logged a personal-best two weeks at No. 1. Her last two full-length studio sets, Positions (in 2020) and Thank U, Next (2019), both spent their first two weeks at No. 1.

Eternal Sunshine debuted at No. 1 on the March 23-dated list with 227,000 units earned.

Plus, Kacey Musgraves’ Deeper Well starts at No. 2 with her biggest week ever by both equivalent album units and traditional album sales, while Justin Timberlake’s Everything I Thought It Was launches at No. 4.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new March 30, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (March 26). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.

Of Eternal Sunshine’s 100,000 units earned in the tracking week ending March 21, SEA units comprise 87,000 (down 41%, equaling 115.05 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs), album sales comprise 13,000 (down 56%) and TEA units comprise 500 (down 84%).

Kacey Musgraves’ Deeper Well makes a splash, as it debuts at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 97,000 equivalent album units earned — her biggest week, by units, since the chart began ranking by that measurement in December 2014. Further, of the album’s first-week units, traditional album sales comprise 66,000 — Musgraves’ biggest sales week ever.

Of Deeper Well’s first-week unit sum of 97,000, traditional album sales comprise 66,000 (it’s the top-selling album of the week), SEA units comprise 30,000 (equaling 38.06 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs) and TEA units comprise 1,000.

Deeper Well is Musgraves’ highest-charting album since her debut effort, Same Trailer Different Park, debuted and peaked at No. 2 in 2013.

Deeper Well is the fifth top 10-charting effort for Musgraves, and all of them have started in the top four of the ranking. She previously visited the region with Star-Crossed (No. 3, 2021), Golden Hour (No. 4, 2018), Pageant Material (No. 3, 2015) and Same Trailer Different Park (No. 2, 2013).

Deeper Well’s first-week unit sum surpasses Musgraves’ previous high, by units earned, when Star-Crossed debuted with 77,000 units. And, Deeper Well’s first-week sales figure is her best sales frame ever, beating the 55,000 that Pageant Material sold in its first week.

The new album was led by a pair of charting tracks on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart: the title track (reaching No. 26 in February) and “Too Good To Be True” (No. 41 earlier in March). Deeper is Musgraves’ first album since 2021, while in 2023 she scored her biggest chart hit ever on the Hot Country Songs and all-genre Billboard Hot 100 charts, when Zach Bryan’s “I Remember Everything,” on which she’s featured, topped both tallies. The song, her first leader on both lists, was released on Bryan’s self-titled 2023 album, but is not on Deeper.

Musgraves supported the album launch with appearances on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (March 14), NBC’s Today (March 15) and SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show (March 18). Prior to the album’s release on March 15, Musgraves was the musical guest on the March 2 episode of NBC’s Saturday Night Live.

Deeper Well’s first-week sales were supported by its availability across nine vinyl variants, including eight different-colored versions and exclusive editions for Amazon, Spotify and Target. In total, the album sold 37,000 copies on vinyl — the top-selling vinyl set of the week, Musgraves’ biggest sales week ever on vinyl, the largest vinyl week of 2024, and the fourth-largest week for a country album on vinyl since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991. (The only bigger sales weeks on vinyl for country sets were all registered by Taylor Swift’s re-recordings.)

Deeper Well was also issued in four different CD versions, three different digital editions (two were exclusive to her webstore — one with a bonus track, and another with the same bonus track an alternate cover art) and as a cassette tape.

Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time slips 2-3 on the new Billboard 200, pushed down with a 3% gain to 70,000 equivalent album units earned.

Justin Timberlake returns to the Billboard 200 with his first album in over six years, as Everything I Thought It Was starts at No. 4. The set opens with 67,000 equivalent album units earned and marks Timberlake’s sixth consecutive top five-charting effort — the entirety of his solo releases, which includes four No. 1s.

Of Everything’s first-week unit sum of 67,000, traditional album sales comprise 41,000, SEA units comprise 24,000 (equaling 31.13 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs) and TEA units comprise 2,000.

The new album was led off by the single “Selfish,” which peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated Feb. 10. The track has also reached the top 20 of the Radio Songs, Pop Airplay, Adult Pop Airplay, Adult Contemporary and Rhythmic Airplay charts.

Everything’s release was ushered in by a much-buzzed-about one-off concert at The Wiltern in Los Angeles (March 13). The show featured a surprise reunion with his *NSYNC bandmates, with the group playing a medley of hits and the new Everything track “Paradise.” Timberlake also turned up on NPR’s Tiny Desk series on March 15 for a half-hour-long concert. Earlier in the week, on March 11, he performed the album’s “No Angels” on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Everything’s first-week sales were aided by its availability across four different vinyl variants (including exclusives for Amazon, Target and his webstore), four different deluxe CD boxed sets (each with a piece of branded clothing and a CD) and a standard CD.

Noah Kahan’s Stick Season falls 3-5 on the new Billboard 200 with 46,000 equivalent album units earned (down 5%). Five former No. 1s round out the rest of the top 10, as SZA’s SOS dips 5-6 (43,000; down 4%), Swift’s Lover climbs 9-7 (41,000; up 6%), Bryan’s self-titled album falls 6-8 (40,000; down 2%), Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) descends 8-9 (nearly 40,000; up 3%) and Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 1 drops 4-10 (39,000; down 13%).

Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.

Twenty-five years have passed since anime song singer Hiroshi Kitadani released “We Are!,” the first opening song of the ONE PIECE TV anime series and the first of many opening songs he would go on to sing for the show. “UUUUUS!” the opening theme for the Egghead Arc, with its rapid shifts and changes, is the creation of Kitadani, composer Kohei Tanaka, and lyricist Shoko Fujibayashi — the golden trio known as the “‘We Are!’ Pirates.” “UUUUUS!” means not only “us” but sounds similar to the Japanese pronunciation of “earth” and the Japanese word for “tomorrow” (Asu), pointing to the future of the series. Hiroshi Kitadani talked with Billboard Japan about what went into the creation of this stunningly densely-packed song and what lies beyond.

You debuted “UUUUUS!” on-stage at the BANDAI CARD GAMES Fest 23-24 World Tour in Los Angeles, held in late January. What was the atmosphere like?

Hiroshi Kitadani: I sang “We Are!” “OVER THE TOP,” and ” UUUUUS!” With “UUUUUS!” I was a bit worried about debuting it in L.A. I felt like it might be safer to start the song off with a bang in Japan first… But now, because of video streaming sites, overseas viewers can watch the latest episodes at the same time as in Japan, so the crowd went wild. On stage, we were playing the opening animation to ONE PIECE, and the lyrics were also shown on-screen, written phonetically in the English alphabet, so the audience sang along.

When we were kids, we’d learn old anime songs from reruns on TV, but now, with subscription-based streaming services and streaming sites, it’s easy to hear “We Are!” which was released 25 years ago. So not only do people who were kids back then know it, but even modern kids know it. I think that’s why people around the world love “We Are!” even 25 years later.

Why do you think ONE PIECE is so popular worldwide?

Hiroshi Kitadani: Talking with people overseas, I often hear that “In Japanese anime and manga, the main characters and their friends always get completely thrashed by their enemies, but they usually come back stronger, which really gets you in the feels.” That’s true of Luffy, and also of Goku from Dragon Ball. Overseas heroes like Batman or Superman are incredibly strong right from the start, so I think Japanese anime and comics resonate with audiences because of how the characters turn their frustration into power.

You’ve performed five of ONE PIECE‘s theme songs. Could you reflect on what each of those songs meant to you? Let’s start with “We Are!” the first opening theme song for ONE PIECE, which came out in 1999.

Hiroshi Kitadani: “We Are!” was my debut song as Hiroshi Kitadani. The director I worked with when I first debuted under a previous stage name, later joined an agency called Imagine, who Kohei Tanaka was with. Because of that connection, one day I was approached and told, “They’re going to make an anime version of the most popular manga in Weekly Shonen Jump. Kohei Tanaka is going to submit a song for the opening song competition, and we’d like you to do a temporary vocal track for it.” Then they made the decision to go with “We Are!” for the theme song, but they still hadn’t yet decided who would sing it. Due in part to Kohei’s prompting, the staff began saying “Why not just have it sung by the singer who did the temporary vocal track?” My record company had just told me that they didn’t really see a future for me with them, so I was wondering what to do, career-wise. So this “We Are!” offer came out of the blue. That was the start of my rags-to-riches story.

In 2011, 12 years after releasing “We Are!” you sang “We Go!” which was used in the Fish-Man Island arc, when the crew reaches the New World.

Hiroshi Kitadani: Kohei wrote “We Go!” as a response song to “We Are!” At the time, I was really concerned with what people thought about me, so I was reading a lot of 2channel (laughs). I was worried I’d go on there and see people saying “Hiroshi Kitadani is back, but this song is terrible.” But, instead, when “We Go!” was broadcast, there were a lot of comments like “Dani’s back!” and “Cool!” and “That’s the One Piece sound!” I was so happy I cried.

Then in 2016 you sang “We Can!” with Kishidan.

Hiroshi Kitadani: The offer from Kishidan was totally unexpected. It was the first time I’d sung with someone else as solo artist Hiroshi Kitadani, but we had great chemistry. Kishidan wrote the song, instead of the same trio that had started with “We Are!” but even now there are fans who say they love “We Can!” which makes me really happy.

Then at the start of the Wano Country arc, in 2019, you sang “OVER THE TOP.”

Hiroshi Kitadani: “We Are!” began without anyone knowing who would even sing the song. “We Go!” was a response song to “We Are!” So “OVER THE TOP” was the first song that Kohei wrote to-order, just for me. We’ve worked together a long time, so he was able to write a song with the vocal range where I do my best singing, where I could give the song a distinctive appeal and bring out its flavor. The pandemic started after I released the song, so I haven’t had many opportunities to perform it on stage, but it’s a song that I wish even more people would have chances to hear.

How did you feel when you first heard “UUUUUS!” the current opening song?

Hiroshi Kitadani: To be honest, my first response was “Huh?” Like “It’s not bad…but I prefer music more like ‘OVER THE TOP.’” But Kohei said “It grows on you,” and, sure enough, the more I heard it the better and better it sounded. The show opening is on YouTube now, and it has over 10 million views. One of the comments on the video said “It’s the best song so far.” I know Kohei must always be under a lot of pressure, so I’m amazed that he suggested this song, which is so ambitious but risky.

I feel like “UUUUUS!” must have been harder to sing than any of the past songs. Do you have any basic advice for anyone trying to sing it?

Hiroshi Kitadani: It’s hard to come up with any kind of succinct advice (laughs). However, for all five of the ONE PIECE songs, not just “UUUUUS!” I’d say it’s important to sing it with a smile on your face. When you sing while smiling, that smile comes out in your voice, making the song brighter and more exciting. When I was recording “We Are!” there were a lot of important people in suits at the recording. It was my first time recording in that kind of atmosphere, and I got really tense. On top of that, every time I’d finish recording a take, they’d be whispering to each other. I was in the recording booth, so I had no idea what they were saying. I was starting to get into a negative mindset, thinking “Was that a bad take?” when Kohei said “This is a song that’s going to give hope and inspiration to people around the country, so smile when you sing it. When you sing with a smile, your voice will have a smile.” That snapped me out of it. I sang while smiling, and they said it was a good take. I’m really glad for the advice Kohei gave me, and it’s something I cherish in my heart even now.

—This interview by Harunoto first appeared on Billboard Japan