Rolling Stone USA - 08 2019 Compressed

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AUGUST 2019
ISSUE 1330
BE ST N EW
A R T IST S
OF THE YEAR
BOARD THE
A
CRA T S ’
DEMO AR
LOWN C
C Matt Taibbi
By
KAM AL A
HARRWIISN
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194
BILL IE
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Contents
50 ISSUE 1330
‘ALL THE
NEWS THAT
Billie Eilish’s FITS’
Triumph
Pop’s biggest new star is a
17-year-old who doesn’t care what
you think — even if she still calls
for her mom after a bad dream.
By Josh Eells
56
The 10 Best
New Artists
Philly hip-hop phenom Tierra
Whack, Brit next-big-thing Sam
Fender, and eight more artists
shaping the sound of tomorrow.
66
Dr. John’s Joy
and Mystery
The wild life, private demons,
and Mardi Gras sound of
a New Orleans saint.
By David Browne
70
Kamala’s
Moment
Inside the California
senator’s surging campaign.
By Jamil Smith
74
JACOB BLICKENSTAFF/REDUX
Arming the Dr. John (page 66), at

Louis Armstrong’s home in
Cartels Queens: “He was always
How the American gun industry spreading his juju whenever
fuels bloodshed in Mexico. it was necessary,” says
By Seth Harp Robbie Robertson.
The Mix
17 A Boogie’s Quiet
Domination
How Bronx rapper A
Boogie Wit Da Hoodie
scored 1.7 billion streams.
BY CHARLES HOLMES
THE GARDEN
18 The Making of
Woodstock ’69
A new 50th-anniversary
coffee-table book details
the legendary festival.
BY PATRICK DOYLE
SET LIST
24 Noel Gallagher
Oasis’ songwriter breaks
down a recent Dublin set.
BY ANGIE MARTOCCIO
DOCUMENTARY
32 Ken Burns’
History of
Country Music
Inside the making of
the filmmaker’s epic
documentary series on
American roots music.
BY WILL HERMES
Q&A
37 Maren Morris
The country-pop star on
her love of hard rock, her
supergroup, and posing
topless for Playboy.
BY BRIAN HIATT
National
Affairs
MATT TAIBBI
43 The Iowa Circus
An overstuffed field of
candidates is in danger
of repeating the
Republicans’ 2016
primary-season errors.
48 Fighting Fox News

How Media Matters is
taking on the extremists
at the network and
costing Rupert Murdoch
83
and Co. millions.
BY BRIAN HIATT Reviews TV Movies On the Cover
Billie Eilish photographed in
88 Re-Watching the 90 Pulp Hollywood
Los Angeles on May 21st, 2019,
Music Detective Quentin Tarantino’s dark
by Petra Collins.
In the Veronica Mars Manson-murder fantasia
TAYLOR HILL/WIREIMAGE
Departments 83 Sleater-Kinney’s reboot, our favorite set in 1969 L.A. Plus: The
Produced by Holly Gore at Rosco Production.
Set design by Nicholas Des Jardins at
Letter From the Editor 12 Radical Rage high school P.I. is all Bruce Springsteen-themed Streeters. Hair by Joseph Chase at Exclusive
Artists. Makeup by Robert Rumsey. Styling
Correspondence 13 One of America’s greatest grown up — but the Blinded by the Light, The by Samantha Burkhart at the Wall Group.
Playlist 23 rock bands battles apathy series stays true to its Nightingale, and Brittany Shirt and shorts by Problem Boy. Choker by
Bitchfist. Bracelets by Chrome Hearts. Rings
Random Notes 38 on a thrilling LP. noir roots. Runs a Marathon. by Chrome Hearts and Souvenir Jewelry.
The Last Word 98 BY WILL HERMES BY ALAN SEPINWALL BY PETER TRAVERS Shoes by Vandy the Pink.
8 | Rolling Stone | August 2019

In this bathroom, Los Lobos

recorded “Mas y Mas,” an
electrifying mix of guitars,
horns and sink.
In 1996, the legendary East LA band Los Lobos used this
bathroom at the Sound Factory studio in Hollywood to record
the baritone saxophone for their mambo rock jam “Mas y Mas.”
With lyrics in English and Spanish, the song blended guitar and
sax riffs with Latin percussion to create a bold, multicultural
expression of American music that mixed well in the human ear.
This is B Studios, the untold story of the famous music

recorded in bathrooms.
©2019 S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Delight in every layer of Peach Green Tea,

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Editor’s Letter “One of the most important ingredients in trust is truth, but speaking
truth can often make people quite uncomfortable.” —KAMALA HARRIS
Rebel With Cartel

guns
a Curfew
seized in
Mexico
INSIDE THE STORY
A FEW WEEKS after Billie Eilish became the first artist born
Detained for
in the 21st century to release a Number One album, ROLL- Reporting
ING STONE contributing editor Josh Eells pulled up to the GOT A HOT “Welcome back to the USA,” a CBP
L.A. bungalow where she’s lived with her parents her en- NEWS TIP? officer told RS writer Seth Harp
WE WANT
tire life. He didn’t know what to expect. “I was apprehen- W H E N contributing editor Seth Harp left
TO HEAR IT.
Mexico, where he was reporting on how the
sive,” says Eells. “I don’t interact with 17-year-olds very Email us, American gun industry is helping to fuel cartel
often, and I certainly don’t have thoughtful, stimulating confidentially, violence, a U.S. Customs and Border Protec-
at Tips@
conversations with them about their lives and work.” tion officer flagged him in the Austin airport.
RollingStone
Harp, a Texan, was held for four hours while
It didn’t take long for Eilish to put him at ease with her .com
agents searched his phone and laptop. Similar
openness, easy humor, and reflections on what it’s like incidents happened to 33,295 Americans last
year; there’s been a 300 percent increase of
to become one of the most famous pop stars in the world when you still have a warrantless border searches since Trump took
1 a.m. curfew. He sat with Eilish as she packed for a tour and, per her mom’s or- office. “It was intentional harassment from
beginning to end, based on my occupation,”
ders, cleaned her room. Later, he shadowed her on the road from Salt Lake City says Harp. “It shows that an armed agency
to Denver. “In her downtime, Billie was playing card games or driving around on permitted to abuse migrants and refugees
also abuses its powers with citizens.”
her scooter,” reports Eells. “The only person I saw have a drink backstage was
her dad, when he had a beer after one of her shows.”
Eilish’s ROLLING STONE cover comes exactly 20 years after another 17-year-
old, Britney Spears, first appeared on the cover, but the similarities stop there.
Spears started as a Disney Mouseketeer and recorded in a Swedish studio with
CHART BEAT
producers and songwriters twice her age; Eilish made her album in her broth-
er Finneas’ bedroom, where they created a wild fusion of pop, trap, and EDM Introducing ‘RS Charts’
unlike anything else in the Top 40 universe. “The pop machine is not a part
of her music whatsoever,” Eells says. “It’s just her and her brother doing
what they think is cool.”
Since joining ROLLING STONE in 2010, Eells has written some of the maga-
zine’s most memorable cover stories — immersive, adventure-filled narratives,
like going skydiving with Miley Cyrus or sitting courtside for a Miami Heat game
with Lil Wayne. “We went back to Wayne’s mansion afterward, and I watched
TV on the couch while he had a dinner date a few feet away,” Eells recalls. “I was
still sitting on the couch while he and his date went upstairs to the bedroom,
then I tagged along to the studio at 2 a.m., then flew to New York with him the T H E R E’S never been a charts update weekly;
next morning. I think at a certain point he literally forgot I was there. Which,” he more fascinating time ours refresh daily, and
to cover the music we give data and analy-
adds, “is the best-case scenario.” business. Streaming sis to find meaning
is changing the way behind the rankings.
we listen, and industry (Why did the Black
mavericks are reshap- Keys LP debut high
TOP: LUCAS CASTRO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
ing the industry. As on our albums chart?

part of our commit- Largely because their
ment to covering these fans still buy albums
JA S ON F I N E changes, we recently — almost 35,000 in its
EDITOR announced “Rolling first week.) It’s another
Stone” Charts (page way to accomplish our
34), a look at today’s core mission: bringing
biggest artists, albums, you the most interest-
and songs. Traditional ing stories in music.

Correspondence + L OV E L E T T E R S & A DV IC E
Is America Ready
for Mayor Pete?
No, but that’s on America. Pete is
wholly capable and prepared, it seems,
and would make a damn fine leader.
Unfortunately, he’s ahead of his time.
—John, via Twitter
The question really should be is Mayor

Pete ready for America? We can say the
jury is still out, but that’s being polite.
—Bob, via the internet
Halsey: A Rebel I think the question should be:

at Peace Is America ready for an intelligent
president again?
Thank you, Halsey, for standing up for
what you believe in and being so hon- —Jeff, via the internet
est. It gives me hope. I have bipolar II
and was raped a few years ago; I wasn’t
able to overcome it and it almost ended
my life. I’m now trying to get better —
you help me believe. I truly admire you
“He looks just
and your music. like JFK standing
—Laurie, via Twitter
outside that
Totally awesome R OLLING S TONE cover
featuring Halsey and her un-airbrushed bookstore, ready
underarms. I’m all about it.
#womenhavehair #getoverit to make America
—Mayim Bialik, via Twitter the place the
I mean, that’s just some five o’clock
shadow under there. It’s not like it looks
world will want
as though she’s got Zach Galifianakis
in a headlock or something. Buttigieg in South Bend in May
to call home.”
—Todd, via the internet
—Jason, via Twitter
Screw anyone who tries to deny her

and take her mixed card away. Us
mixed kids are never accepted by
anyone. It’s almost as if we don’t even
have a race; we aren’t this enough or TRIBUTE
that enough for anyone. Screw the
negativity, Ashley. We are our own race.
—Nikkita, via the internet
James Henke, 1954-2019
JA M E S H E N K E , a R OLLING S TONE was one of U2’s earliest support-
Now you have to request “Pop’s Queen Henke and
writer and editor who worked at ers in the American press, before
of Chaos” to be the name on your his sons
the magazine from 1977 to 1992 they even released their 1981
Starbucks cup! It’s a must. with Bono
and wrote groundbreaking stories debut LP, Boy. “Jim increased our
—Dre, via Twitter on U2, Bruce Springsteen, the faith in ourselves with encourage-
Smiths, Neil Young, the Clash, and ment and suggestions like, ‘Here’s
FROM TOP: LYNDON FRENCH; COURTESY OF AMANDA PECSENYE
My Bella is eight years old and used to others before leaving to become a copy of Stephen B. Oates’ Let
be so self-conscious about her freckles! chief curator at the Rock & Roll the Trumpet Sound: The Life of
After seeing how you embrace yours, Hall of Fame, died on July 8th from Martin Luther King, Jr.,’ ” Bono told
she’s stopped hiding them. Thank you! complications related to demen- R OLLING S TONE after learning of
tia. He was 65. Henke not only Henke’s death. “ ‘I think you might
—Ashely, via the internet
played a pivotal role in assembling like this. Find similarities with the
the Hall of Fame’s permanent arti- civil-rights struggle in Ireland
fact collection, but he also ran the and the Deep South here in the
CONTACT US curatorial department for 18 years and spearheaded U.S.’ It was an important stop on the journey into U2’s
Letters to ROLLING STONE, 475 Fifth numerous exhibits, including “From Asbury Park nonviolent protests. And without that book, I doubt
Avenue, New York, NY 10017-0298. to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce there would be a ‘Pride (In the Name of Love)’ and the
Letters become the property Springsteen,” “Lennon: His Life and Work,” and “Roots, chorus of voices that sing it louder than any PA we
of ROLLING STONE and may Rhymes and Rage: The Hip-Hop Story.” The latter was hang. For such a soft-spoken fella, he had us make a
be edited for publication. the first major museum exhibit devoted to hip-hop. He lot of noise.” ANDY GREENE
Email: letters@rollingstone.com
Subscriber Services:
Call 800-283-1549.
August 2019 | Rolling Stone | 13

Opening Act
Sheeran’s
Calm
Before
the Show
EVERY NIGHT BEFORE Ed Sheeran
plays a concert, security clears out
his dressing room and he heads
over to the stage, where he puts
on his guitar and ear monitors and
tests everything out. “It’s quite a
nice moment before he goes out
to 65,000 people,” says Sheeran’s
touring photographer, Zakary
Walters, of this image taken in Lyon,
France. “He’s very much in thought.
He’s not talking to anyone.”
When Sheeran’s Divide tour ends
August 26th with hometown shows
in Ipswich, England, he will have
sold 8.8 million tickets and proba-
bly surpassed U2’s record for the
highest-grossing concert tour ever.
“I asked him the other day, ‘Do you
know how you’re going to feel when
it’s done?’ ” Walters says. “He said,
‘I really don’t know if I’m going to be
happy or sad.’ ”
Walters has known Sheeran since
high school; they once shared a bill
at a Baptist church. A few years later,
Walters was working as a graphic
designer in New York and Sheeran
asked him to come on the road for
two years as his touring photogra-
pher. “He doesn’t mind me pointing
a camera in his face,” says Walters.
“I think there was one time when
he was stressed out, and he said,
‘No photos.’ ” Though the tour will
be over soon, Sheeran’s radio rule
isn’t likely to slow down; his new
album, No. 6 Collaborations Project,
featuring songs with Bruno Mars,
Camila Cabello, Justin Bieber, and
others, was just released. PATRICK DOYLE
PHOTOGRAPH BY Zakary Walters | 15

7 .
EVERY
HERO
S W E A T S.
(SOM E J UST N EVER SH OW IT )
GILLETTE DEODORANT 48 HOUR PROTECTION

A Boogie’s
Quiet
Domination
The 23-year-old scored 1.7
billion streams and became
rap’s hottest new star by
writing about his dark past
“It’s a fast life, being famous,”

says A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Dana Scruggs

The Mix
VOODOO CHILD
Sally Mann Romano,
who was profiled in
RS’s 1969 story “The
CANNED BEATS Groupies and Other
Canned Heat’s Adolfo Girls.” She later married
de la Parra (who is still Jefferson Airplane’s
in the group). The band’s Spencer Dryden.
“Goin’ Up the Country”
became an anthem of the
Woodstock generation.
The Making of
IT’S ALL ON
THE LINE
Lang with his
assistant Ticia
Bernuth. “Pay
Woodstock ’69
phones were
very popular
that weekend,”
says Lang, who
details in his
book how “for
WOODSTOCK 1969 HAS BECOME so legendary, it’s easy to forget how nine months or
doomed it seemed at the time. The new 50th-anniversary coffee- so, we all lived
table book Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music details the harrow- and breathed
Woodstock.”
ing planning process, like how Michael Lang and his team lost their
They built the
festival site just four weeks out, before Lang drove by a 600-acre festival site in
farm in Bethel, New York, and persuaded the owner on the spot to 28 days, and it
let them use the site. The team scraped by, enlisting police to work rained for 18 of
under the table and the Merry Pranksters to help teach kids how them: “When
to build tents. Lang’s book compiles Henry Diltz’s historic photos people started
arriving 10 days
and papers, going inside the booking plans (the Plastic Ono Band at one point offered
before the
to play). “We wanted more personal stuff that wasn’t just about the artists but about the festival, we put
experience,” says Lang. The book is a wonderful reminder of a time when you could still some of them
carry on a historic event while facing such setbacks. PATRICK DOYLE to work.”
So how does the rapper feel about his FAST FACTS (the same neighborhood where Cardi B grew
A BOOGIE surprise smash? “The creative process of up), all in a melodic flow that has already
NAME GAME
Hoodie SZN was . . . not my best,” he says with He almost took his earned plenty of imitators. (“I don’t think
L
ATE LAST YEAR, when A Boogie Wit a sigh on a recent afternoon. “I don’t know name “Artist” as they’re taking my style, because I have a
Da Hoodie released his album, Hood- what to tell you.” He elaborates by saying the a stage name, but really, really, really, really unique style,” he
ie SZN, it sold just 823 physical cop- album is too dark — dwelling too much on is- it sounded “R&B.” says of the competition. “Nobody can really
ies. But in a sign of how radically the indus- sues like infidelity and his conflicted feelings THANK ME LATER copy that.”) A Boogie is appearing at several
try has changed, that low total didn’t stop it about success. “It’s a fast life, being famous,” His 2016 mixtape major summer festivals alongside fellow
got the attention
from soon becoming Number One, thanks he says. “My next album is going to be two, hitmakers such as Childish Gambino, Migos,
of Cardo, his
to wild streaming numbers. Since then, the three, four times better.” producer, who
2 Chainz, and Cardi B, who just announced
LP has been streamed a staggering 1.7 bil- This sort of bleakness is what fans have had worked with she has a collaboration with A Boogie on the
lion times, according to BuzzAngle. That’s come to love about A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Kendrick Lamar way “very soon.”
enough to earn A Boogie the third-most- 23, who raps in vivid detail about navigat- and Drake. A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie’s real name is
streamed album of the year, trailing only re- ing the poverty, drugs, and violence of the Artist Julius Dubose — his dad worked with
leases from Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish. Highbridge area of the Bronx in New York a company that sold high-end artwork;

HIPPIE HARMONY
Lang was worried about how locals in Bethel, New York, would
react to the hippies. “It turned into a big lovefest,” he says.
WOODSTOCK WARRIORS
Clockwise from top left: Jimi Hendrix, who
played to a dwindling crowd of 20,000 on
Monday morning; the Who’s Roger Daltrey,
who said their set “made our career [and]
cemented us to the historical map of rock &
roll”; Joan Baez, who performed in the rain
while she was six months pregnant.
HELP IS ON MUDDY WATERS

THE WAY IN BETHEL
Woodstock featured “I wasn’t aware of
“freakout tents,” [the mudslides] till I
where doctors saw the movie,”
helped acid-trippers says Lang. He
calm down. “Kids recalls “high school
would be taken in kids from the Bronx
and talked to and [mingling] with LAW AND ORDER
told, ‘This is gonna hippies. When
“They’re the most courteous . . . well-
pass, it’s not segregation was
behaved kids I have ever been in contact
forever,’ ” says Lang. still tolerated . . . at
with in my 24 years of police work,” said
“After a couple of Woodstock, it didn’t
Monticello chief of police Lou Yank.
hours, they’d be matter what color
cool and calm.” you were.”
the rapper says art was “a big part” of his “I don’t He always wrote about heavy topics: “No to have kids.” He’s been keeping an eye on
dad’s life. After he started rapping at age 12, think they’re Promises,” the first song on his first album, his money more than he used to when he
friends started calling him A Boogie after recalled an early show where a female con- first got signed, when he spent too much on
taking my
© HENRY DILTZ, 3; © DAN GARSON; © HENRY DILTZ, 4;
Ace Boogie, the character played by Wood certgoer was accidentally shot and killed. A jewelry and clothes. “I was overexcited and
style. I have a was spending a lotta, lotta, lotta, lotta, lotta
Harris, in the 2002 cult classic Paid in Full. Boogie said the sadness in his music “comes
His parents moved to Florida when he was
really, really from the pain in me. I let it come out when money,” he says. He now has homes in two
unique style,”
© TOM MINER/TOPFOTO; © HENRY DILTZ
a teen, but he stayed behind to go to school I’m in the studio. . . . You always gonna feel states: “New York is one of them. . . . The
THIS SPREAD, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:
in New York — until he got busted for weed A Boogie says me. That’s my main thing.” other one is private.”
and his parents made him join them down of rappers A Boogie says he’s feeling more upbeat For all his success, A Boogie lacks the
South. That turned out to be for the best. imitating these days. He’s a father now — influencer fawning coverage and name status of his
After arriving, he met a local producer, who him. “Nobody Ella Rodriguez gave birth to their daughter commercial peers. It doesn’t bother him:
brought him into a studio for the first time: can really in 2017 — which was a surprise he’s taking in “Most artists have the same stage where you
“ ‘Damn, I never knew I could sound like copy that.” stride. “You can’t ever say you’re not ready,” have to climb up the hill. Once you make it
this,’ ” he remembered thinking in 2017. he says. “Most people in life wasn’t ready through there, it feels so much better. No-
“It was just magic.” — I’m in a better position than most people body can tell you nothing.” CHARLES HOLMES

50 YEARS AGO,
AN EVENT DEFINED
A GENERATION.
© 2019 Tyson Foods, Inc.
JIMMY DEAN
RELEASED HIS
HIT SAUSAGE.
Jimmy Dean sausage in 1969 being enjoyed by Davey Metcalf,

a bass tech, at a festival in Bethel, New York. A pivotal moment
in American history, this photo was captured shortly after the
up-and-coming, multitalented meat took the stage. It was three
days of peace, music and better breakfast.
QUALITY SAUSAGE SINCE 1969

The Mix
Lynyrd Skynyrd
This long-awaited ac-
count of the pioneering
Southern-rock band and
its tragic 1977 plane crash
was held up for years in
court, as director Jared
Cohn battled several band
members’ estates, which
opposed the film’s release
(based on a “blood oath”
taken after the crash).
When the filmmakers
finally won the case on an
appeal last October, Cohn Ono and
says he was “weeping Lennon, 1970
tears of victory.”
ASK ARTIMUS Street
Survivors: The True Story John & Yoko
of the Lynyrd Skynyrd This love story — tackling John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s relation-
Lynyrd Plane Crash is largely ship from 1966 to 1980 — is set to be directed by Jean-Marc Vallée
Skynyrd’s based on the new memoir (Dallas Buyers Club), and is being written by Anthony McCarten
Allen Collins of longtime drummer (Bohemian Rhapsody). Producer Nathan Ross describes it as an
and Ronnie Artimus Pyle. Cohn says “intimate portrayal. We wanted to bring the right kind of intimacy
Van Zant, 1977 he also spent years poring to this storytelling.” Shooting is planned for the first half of 2020.
over conflicting accounts DOUBLE FANTASY Producers lobbied Ono before she eventually
in order to tell an accurate gave her blessing. “It’s the first time Yoko is allowing her story to
Inside the Rock

historical story. “I read be told,” says Ross. Her support is helping them attain the couple’s
every book, every inter- tricky music rights. “There are films that have authorized music and
view,” he says. “It was like films that don’t — and you’d rather be the former,” says Ross. “There
was pressure to do right on the part of the artists and their families.”
Biopic Boom
a thesis project.” The film
cost $1.5 million to create.
Elvis Presley Boy George
R
OCK BIOPICS have been a Hollywood Director Baz Luhrmann is Sacha Gervasi, the director
mainstay since 1978’s The Buddy Holly tackling Presley’s story, of 2008’s metal doc Anvil, will
Story, but the genre is enjoying an un- reportedly splitting it into tell the story of the Culture
precedented resurgence, thanks to the success two sections: one covering Club frontman. “It’s going
of Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman. “It’s a Presley’s wild rise to fame and to be extremely irreverent,”
the other picking MGM president
bit of a biopic arms race,” says producer Nathan
up in his drug- Jonathan Glick-
Ross, who’s working on a John Lennon and Yoko addled thirties. man says of the
Ono film. Here’s a look at what’s in the pipeline. CAST AWAY approach.
While the cast- CULTURE
ing of the lead SHOCK Boy
role hasn’t been George, who
Aretha Franklin announced, sev- called the film
FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: IAN DICKSON/SHUTTERSTOCK; GEORGE KONIG/SHUTTERSTOCK; KENT/MEDIAPUNCH/SHUTTERSTOCK;

This Queen of Soul biopic, titled Respect, had eral big names “thrilling,” said
been in the works long before the singer died, — including he’d love to see
with Franklin herself picking Jennifer Hudson Harry Styles, Sophie Turner
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES; GLASS HOUSE FARMS; GAS CANNABIS CO.; MIND YOUR HEAD; SHABOINK
to star. “You have no idea how humbled I am,” Ansel Elgort, play him: “[Peo-
Hudson said. Directed by Liesl Tommy (Jessica and Miles Teller ple say], ‘She
Jones), it’s set to debut in August 2020. — have already The King and can’t play you,
TIGHT FOCUS Respect is expected to center auditioned to the Colonel, 1957 she’s a woman.’
on the singer’s late-Sixties explosion and end play Elvis. Tom But when I was
in the early Seventies. “[We asked ourselves], Hanks is set to play Presley’s 17, I would have loved to have
‘How does her story reflect those times?’ ” controlling manager, Colonel been her.” Turner replied, “I’m
says Jonathan Glickman, president of MGM. Franklin, 1967 Tom Parker. so down.” JONATHAN BERNSTEIN
TREND
2 CHAINZ MICKEY HART POST MALONE
ARTISTS GET IN THE WEED GAME

GAS Cannabis Mind Your Head Shaboink

The rapper The Grateful The hitmaker is going
From Jenny Lewis to Post Malone, the best new bud launched a Dead drum- big with his new com-
line called mer is selling pany, launching on his
“I’m a pothead,” Jenny Lewis says. Example: GAS, which mini-joints 24th birthday, which
Once, when her bus was about to cross into stands for called Mind will sell weed, pre-
Canada, she buried the pot in a park and “good-ass Your Head, rolls, rolling papers,
drew a map so she could find it. Now, Lewis shit.” “It’s an old strain that helped spawn and merch in Califor-
has released her own brand of weed, the Atlanta lingo Sour Diesel and OG Kush. “It’s nia. “Weed is good for
Rabbit Hole, a low-THC Sour Diesel she says – this is a stronger type of the great mother to many elite everybody,” Malone
is “very light but also very creative.” She’s not flower,” he said. “You’ll know it strains,” said Hart. “Now it’s has said. “Ain’t nobody
the only artist entering the pot business. when you experience it.” having a gigantic comeback.” die from that shit.”

PLAYLIST ROCK & ROLL

9 OUR FAVORITE
SONGS AND VIDEOS
RIGHT NOW
CAMPS
TAKE OFF
Want to write songs
like Steve Earle or play
guitar like J Mascis?
Head to upstate New
York this summer,
where the Full Moon
Resort is hosting these
cool music camps.
CAMP COPPERHEAD
Steve Earle, Anders Osborne,
2
Tift Merritt
SEPTEMBER 3RD-6TH
For the sixth year, Steve

Earle leads a retreat in Big
Indian, New York, holding
songwriting workshops
where he analyzes great
writing from Shakespeare
to Townes Van Zandt. He
also plays a concert in a
tiny roadhouse with friends
1
Anders Osborne and Tift
Merritt, while students can
6
play open mics. “I love
this camp because I like to
teach,” says Earle. “As long
as I’m teaching I never stop
learning.”
CAMP FUZZ
J Mascis, Lou Barlow,
1. Lil Uzi Vert Kevin Shields
8
JULY 30TH-AUGUST 2ND
“Slayer”
Lil Uzi Vert returns to This “all-inclusive adven-
the bombastic genius ture” offers classes with
of his 2017 emo-rap indie-rock heroes J Mascis
supernova, “XO Tour
6. Rosalía and Lou Barlow of Dinosaur
Llif3,” wailing with freaky, “Aute Cuture” Jr., and other “counselors,”
forlorn intensity about a No one is making tradi- like My Bloody Valentine’s
landed on a song that
bad girl he can’t resist, 4. Shawn Mendes tional sounds echo into Kevin Shields. Barlow
nails the golden mean
over a track that sounds and Camila the future like Spanish between hungry-hearted
teaches a four-string guitar
like Maggot Brain-era Cabello singer Rosalía; as with and ukulele class, and
Bruce Springsteen
Funkadelic playing an her astounding 2018 you can also sign up for
“Señorita” heroism and Eagles-style
after-hours spot on Venus. album, El Mal Querer, her intriguing activities like
The strummy heartthrob California gold.
FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: LOGAN WHITE; ROGER KISBY; OLIVIA BEE; SPIKE JORDAN; ELISE TAYLOR
latest single mutates a “Financial Planning With

and the pop princess have
2. Kesha lilting flamenco melody Fred Armisen.”
an infectious good time
into something that can
9. Bat for Lashes
“Rich, White, on their latest collabora- “Kids in the Dark”
detonate the club. CAMP CRIPPLE
Straight Men” tive hit, going from will- “Let’s take it down/To
With wit and pissed-off they-won’t-they flirting where the loving starts/ CREEK
passion, Kesha flips to dancing for hours to 7. Sheer Mag
Where we’re just kids Former members of the Band,
the bird to patriarchal full-on window-steaming “Blood From a Stone” in the dark,” goth-pop Rick Danko Group, Levon
corporate oppression, rapture in three chill min- This Philly retro-rock band conjurer Bat for Lashes Helm Band
big-upping free college utes. The chemistry they proves that dirty-denim sings. Sounds like a AUGUST 19TH-23RD
for all and common-sense have in the video adds an guitar grit never goes plan. And this gossamer
immigration reform in the extra level of “ooh la la.” out of style. But it’s Musicians who used to
synth-gusher is the sound
process. This ought to be singer Tina Halladay’s play in the Band’s orbit host
of knocking boots in the
this gathering. Nineties
Elizabeth Warren’s new 5. Jay Som hard-boiled introspection graveyard.
Band member Jim Weider
walk-out music. that really makes this Kiss-
“Superbike” gives guitar tips, and for-
tinged strutter hit home. 10. Lil Nas X
We fell hard for the mer Levon Helm sideman
3. DJDS and Dijon gorgeous bedroom pop “Panini” Brian Mitchell leads a New
“Magic Loop” of Som’s 2017 debut,
8. Night Moves For Turns out the Old Town Orleans piano seminar. This
L.A. production duo DJDS Everybody Works. Her “Strands Align” reviews, Road is going to roll on year, Little Feat members
(who’ve worked with new album, Anak Ko, is Night Moves make music premieres, a little longer than we Paul Barrere, Fred Tackett,
Kanye and Khalid, among just as good, especially with the casual vibe of and more, expected. Nas switches and Kenny Gradney return
many others) team up “Superbike,” which evokes stoners messing around go to up his game, rips a to teach and play a con-
with R&B crooner Dijon for Exile in Guyville Liz Phair with some new home- Rolling melody from Nirvana, and cert. Says Barrere, “Spend-
a subtle, radiantly pretty on a killer Eighties dream- recording gear in their Stone.com/ whistles himself another ing the days with a small
summer jam. pop binge. basement. Yet they’ve music cute little tune. group of fans is special.”
23
The Mix 1
PICKS
3 ARTIST
4
RESIDENCIES
Springsteen on
Broadway was just
the beginning
5
Madonna
BROOKLYN,
CHICAGO,
AND MORE
ON THE ROAD
Sept. 12th–Dec. 19th
6
After decades of ex-
Noel travagant arena tours,

Madonna wanted to
pull things back. So
she’s booked resi-
Gallagher’s 7 dencies in Chicago,

L.A., and her beloved
New York, where she’ll
Set List
hold down the storied
Brooklyn Academy
of Music for an epic
17 nights. Promoter
Secrets
Arthur Fogel said the
shows will focus on
music more than the-
8 atrics: “It’s important,
over a career, to
change things up.”
Ahead of a 9
U.S. tour, Oasis’
10 David Byrne
songwriter
breaks down a NEW YORK
Oct. 4th-Jan. 19th
recent Dublin set 6. Whatever 1994 Byrne’s brilliantly
By ANGIE While it was never a U.S. hit, staged and widely
MARTOCCIO this early single is “a huge praised American
fucking song in England.” It’s Utopia tour sets up on
the beginning of what he calls Broadway for a three-
1. Fort Knox 2017
“the karaoke section”: “I really to have put the work in all month run at the his-
Gallagher kicks off with a
don’t have to do a great deal — those years ago when the rest toric Hudson Theatre.
mostly instrumental rocker he
just strum the opening bars of of Oasis were frankly fucking A bonus: The devoted
wrote with hopes Kanye West
trying to rewrite ‘Wonderwall,’ a few songs and let the crowd drunk most of the time.” New York cyclist will
would record it. “It came out
people are going to go, ‘It’s take over.” have a short ride home
that good,” Gallagher says. “It 9. Don’t Look Back
disco!’ ” he says. “Actually, it’s from work: “Fifteen
was like, ‘Fuck giving it to that 7. Wonderwall 1995 in Anger 1995
the most successful single I’ve to 20 minutes, tops,”
guy.’ ” He likes opening with “You play the opening first
ever had. I’m raising my middle The Oasis hit became an he says.
it: “You’re not throwing a big three seconds and everybody
finger to the audience.” anthem of unity after the
hit away. Usually the sound is goes, ‘Right, this is what Manchester bombing in 2017.
quite shit for the first song.” 4. The Importance we’ve fucking come for,’ ” says “It’s a fucking extraordinary New Order
of Being Idle 2005 Gallagher. “All the great artists song in the sense that it’s
2. Holy Mountain 2017
The latter-day Oasis singalong have one of those songs. I’m brought people together after MIAMI
Gallagher wrote this
gets a wild reaction from lucky to have five. And it’s tragedy,” Gallagher says.
psychedelic stomper as a nod Jan. 14th-18th
the audience. “It’s incredible funny, in no fucking way is it
to the obscure Sixties band Ice 10. All You Need Is Love
seeing kids in the crowd,” says my favorite song.” The post-punk
Cream: “I knew it was gonna
Gallagher. “You think, ‘Hang on 1967 legends, celebrating
be a single and fucking brilliant 8. Half the World Away
a minute. You were fucking 10 “To do that without any irony a massive box set and
live — and it’s proved.” 1994
years old when we broke up!’ ” is amazing,” he says of John live album, will wrap
3. Black Star Dancing Gallagher wrote this sweet Lennon’s classic. “If I was ever up a long tour by
ANDREW SMITH/SHUTTERSTOCK
2019 5. Dead in the Water 2017 ballad with Burt Bacharach in in any doubt of what a genius staging a run at
This is a bonus track from mind, and he’s still proud of it that guy was, you just got to the Fillmore Miami
This new, INXS-inspired groove
Gallagher’s latest LP, but to his 25 years later: “I feel so lucky read those words back. Who Beach. Expect them
has disappointed some of
surprise, “everyone’s gone mad else comes up with that shit?” to play more Joy
his longtime fans. Gallagher
for it. It’s a complete accident. Division songs and
doesn’t care. “If you’re not
I always say, journalists aren’t Noel Gallagher’s summer tour recently revisited
the fucking world. They don’t with the Smashing Pumpkins classics like 1979’s
decide — the people decide.” kicks off August 8th. “Shadowplay.”

Anya
Taylor-Joy
gives a
Gelfling
her voice.
ASK
CROZ
Real-life advice from a guy
who’s seen, done, and survived
just about everything
I’m a 63-year-old grandmother who

is very worried about the future of our
country in light of the current administra-
tion. How can I stay hopeful?
TV —Patti, via the internet
Take a handful of sleeping pills every 15 min-
The Long Journey utes. The country is in a lot of trouble. Our

democracy is in a lot of trouble. But I am in-
spired by human beings. Human beings can
of ‘The Dark Crystal’ make it better. I’m inspired by Mayor Pete

and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I do know
my grandchildren are pissed. They feel like
they’re being handed a broken world.
How Jim Henson’s flix, they’re about to get their “this weird UFO of a movie”
as a kid and asked to take a
wish. The Dark Crystal: Age Any tips for a 64-year-old learning to
fan-favorite of Resistance, a 10-episode crack at a film sequel; mean- play guitar? I started lessons 10 months
fantasy finally got prequel series, revisits the while, Henson was devel- ago and never dreamed it would be so
late Henson’s fantasy world. oping an animated prequel
a Netflix prequel And with characters voiced series. When she pitched
hard. Any advice or avenues of learning
would be greatly appreciated!
By DAVID FEAR by Taron Egerton, Andy Sam- Netflix on the toon, execs
—Debbi, via the internet
berg, Awkwafina, Sigourney asked, “Well, why can’t you
O
NCE UPON A TIME, Weaver, and many others, do it like the original, with Smoke a joint and then play until your
Jim Henson found the new project has a serious puppets?” The projects were fingers hurt, because you have to put in your
himself stranded in A-list pedigree. combined. Leterrier spent six 10,000 hours. There’s no other way to learn.
the middle of a snowstorm. For years, Jim Henson Co. months filming a live-action And 64 isn’t too old. I learned new stuff in
To pass the time, the Muppet CEO Lisa Henson had been chase scene as a test, and my sixties. You can learn. We aren’t dead.
Show creator began to dream trying to get a new Dark Netflix was sold. We’re just creepy-looking.
up an elaborate story of Crystal off the ground. “I Set long before the 1982
mystics, monsters, and two remember going on set as a film’s story, Age of Resistance I’m a 17-year-old, and it’s my dream to
different races — a vulturelike child and seeing it develop follows three young Gelflings work in the show-business industry as a
aristocracy called the Skeksis over the years, seeing the — a royal guard, a scholarly musician or film director. Should I pick a
and a kindhearted, elfin puppets being built,” she princess, and a member profession that is a bit easier to get into?
people known as Gelflings — recalls. “I remember talking of an agrarian clan living I’m very lost.
battling over the fate of their to a roomful of people at underground — as they learn
—Hannah, Nowra, Australia
planet. By the time the storm Comic Con and there being that their Skeksis masters are
ended, Henson had a 25-page tremendous excitement using the life-giving totem of I would love to tell you some nice conven-
FROM LEFT: KEVIN BAKER/NETFLIX; ILLUSTRATION BY LARS LEETARU
movie treatment. He called it about another Crystal story.” the title to gain immortality. ient lies, but show business is hard and it’s
The Dark Crystal. Samurai Jack creator Genddy They need to expose the plan getting harder. If you are compelled to sing
When his passion project Tartakovsky had begun in time, or else. or write or play, then I guess do it. It would
finally hit theaters in 1982, working on a sequel in Like the original Dark be good for your heart, but understand it’s
audiences were confused: 2006, only to have financing Crystal, the show retains the an insanely difficult thing to make a living at
Why was the man who gave fall through; the storyline Grimm’s Fairy Tales feel of now. I’ll tell you this: I do it because it’s the
the world Kermit the Frog inspired a graphic novel, The Henson’s storytelling com- most fun I know how to have. When I’m sing-
telling such an intense, too- Power of the Dark Crystal. bined with a childlike sense ing, it’s like having my own rocket ship. I can
scary-for-kids tale of corrup- Other ideas came and went. of imagination. “It was the go anywhere with it.
tion and genocide? Henson Then French filmmaker most political thing he ever
was heartbroken. But over Louis Leterrier took a meet- did, talking about abuse of
the years, the movie began to ing with Lisa Henson in 2011. power and distrust of the rul- GOT A QUESTION FOR CROZ?
find an audience. Fans have His one question: “So what ing class,” Leterrier says. “It Email AskCroz@Rollingstone.com
been clamoring for a sequel are you doing with The Dark took years to make, but I’m
for decades. Thanks to Net- Crystal?” He’d obsessed over glad it’s coming out now.”

The Mix
SPOTLIGHT
Vanessa Kirby:
Fast and Furious
The ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ star Growing up in Wimbledon,
on going from period- Kirby was more likely to be
drama royalty to summer buried in a book than catching
a blockbuster, claiming she
action-movie heroine
“preferred Chekhov to action,
‘I
’M SO NOT an action- really,” before groaning,
movie type,” Vanessa “That sounds so pretentious.
Kirby says. “I’m a the- What a wanker!” She caught
ater nerd from London! Then the theater bug early on,
you find yourself hanging on as an outlet and an escape;
the edge of a cliff, a helicopter Kirby has talked about being
is spinning around you, and severely bullied at school and
you think, ‘What the hell is suffering from giardiasis as a
going on?!’ ” teen. After years of doing plays
For an actress whose break- in the U.K., she nabbed the
through came playing Princess Crown role. One of the show’s
Margaret on The Crown, the fans, Tom Cruise, recruited
31-year-old Kirby’s corona- her for M:I duty; soon, the
tion as a running, jumping, self-proclaimed homebody
ass-kicking heroine in Hobbs was dodging explosions and
& Shaw — co-starring Dwayne trading blows with Johnson
“The Rock” Johnson and and Statham.
Jason Statham — may be the “I wanted to make the
surprise of the summer movie Fallout character quite weird,”
season. Her turn in Mission: Kirby admits. “But with this
Impossible — Fallout as a femme one, I wanted 13-year-old girls
fatale hinted she could handle to have the experiences that
herself in a fight, but her role their brothers have when they
in this Fast & Furious spinoff go to action movies.” Which,
(she plays Statham’s sister, she says, means seeing a
who works for MI6) suggests female character stand toe-
she could also be the female to-toe with male co-stars. “I
Bond we deserve. “They gave get to fight Dwayne Johnson,”
me a lot of Parkour and fight Kirby says, giggling, “and
training,” she says. “I loved it!” I get to win.” DAVID FEAR
Kirby in London
The Mix
PROFILE
Tanya Tucker: Return

of a Country Hell-Raiser
After some serious
battles, the outlaw
returns for a soulful
comeback LP
By JOSEPH HUDAK
T
ANYA TUCKER WALKS
into a bar — or “my
office,” as she calls it.
The 60-year-old singer, who
shot to fame with the gospel
stomper “Delta Dawn” in 1972
at age 13, is unmistakable with
a neon-pink hairdo as she holds
court for the next two hours
at one of her favorite spots in
Nashville. She reflects on every-
thing from the time Elvis tried
to kiss her (“My father said, ‘He
can have any girl he wants, but
he can’t have you’ ”) to current
country phenomenon Mason
Ramsey (“He’s a yodeler? Bet-
ter have another gig too”). The
conversation
is interrupted
after Tucker
finishes her
second dirty
martini and “She should be lauded with songs she had written with
spies Miranda the same way so many her bandmates, with a plan to
Lambert of these outlaw men produce alongside Jennings.
leaving. Tucker are,” says Brandi Carlile. Just days before sessions were
hustles out to to begin in L.A., Tucker pulled
pitch her a song of these amazing out of the project. “I said,
written by her w men are.” ‘Shooter, I don’t think these
oldest daughter, Presley. Tucker has been known as a songs are right for me.’ ” But he
Tucker is feeling extra-moti- hell-raiser for most of her life. talked her into it, and soon she
vated to score a hit lately, now She became a teen star with the was belting heartbreaking tunes
that she’s back in the music support of her dad-manager, like “Bring My Flowers Now,”
game. She just completed While Beau, scoring 13 Top 10 country where Tucker says she wished
I’m Livin’, her first album in hits in the 1970s. But by age 22, she was a better daughter to
10 years, produced by Brandi Tucker was a tabloid fixture her mother, who died in 2012:
Carlile and Shooter Jennings, for dating Glen Campbell, who “Bring my flowers now, while
which sets Tucker’s tough was twice her age. “If we’d met I’m livin’,” she sings.
country tenor against spare later, when I realized what kind Tucker is hesitant to describe
Americana arrangements. of love we had, we’d probably While I’m Livin’ as a comeback.
Carlile hopes it revives her have died together,” she says. “My least-favorite word,” she
legacy: “She hasn’t been given She got hooked on cocaine, and says. But she can’t help but get
the respect she deserves,” says entered rehab in 1988. sentimental when presented
Carlile. “As she fell on hard After 2009, Tucker stopped with her first RS cover, from
times, I don’t think she was releasing music, instead travel- 1974, with the cover line “I’m
given the same grace an artist ing the country with her daugh- Tanya Tucker, I’m 15, You’re
like Waylon and Willie and ter, Layla. “For a while there it Gonna Hear From Me.” “It
Cash were given for the times felt like no one gave a damn,” should be, ‘Forty years later,
DANNY CLINCH
that they didn’t live up to their Tucker says. She was initially I’m Tanya Tucker,’ ” she says,
own standards. She should be reluctant to record again, even “ ‘and you’re still hearing from
lauded the same way so many after Carlile approached her my ass.’ ”
The Mix
Loretta
Lynn at the
Grand Ole
Opry in the
Sixties
Johnny Cash at home

FILM in California, 1960
Ken Burns’ Dolly Parton

with writer-
Country Epic
producer
Dayton
Duncan
and Burns
The filmmaker’s 16-hour Country Music (which premieres on in the genre will have to think again. in 1927. Their stories weave through the
PBS on September 15th) is Burns’ first Country Music might well be the most series — part via the Carter-Cash dynas-
documentary is a major release since 2017’s unsettling, ambitious, culturally resonant music ty, beginning when Johnny Cash falls in
journey into the nation’s highly acclaimed The Vietnam War, and documentary ever made. love with June Carter; part via Rodgers
his second deep dive into American As the series notes, all four Beatles acolyte Merle Haggard, whose own
rowdy, sentimental, music, following 2001’s Jazz. It’s scarce- were country fans; so was Charlie life intersects with Cash’s when Hag-
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: SONY MUSIC ARCHIVES; HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; PBS
multicultural soul ly less exhaustive: At 16.5 hours spread Parker. Figures outside the country gard sees him perform at San Quen-
across eight episodes, Country Music ecosystem — Jack White, Paul Simon, tin State Prison while Haggard is an
By WILL HERMES
distills 101 interviews, more than 700 Wynton Marsalis — supply perspec- inmate there. That was a life-chang-
K
EN BURNS was in Dallas hours of archival clips, and 100,000 tive, along with an estimable historian ing encounter, spurring Haggard on a
some years ago visiting a still photos into a story as complex and (Bill Malone, author of the recently up- path to become one of America’s great-
good friend, philanthro- multifaceted as the nation it mirrors. It dated 1968 cornerstone Country Music est songwriters, and his account of it
pist Cappy McGarr. The takes a sweepingly broad view of the USA). But mostly the story is told by is one of the series’ many wrenching
filmmaker was working on his 2012 genre, from so-called hillbilly songs (in the music’s own stars and side people, moments. “Merle is in virtually every
Depression-era miniseries, The Dust truth a stew of Anglo-American folk, many of whom are passionate histori- episode,” notes writer Dayton Duncan,
Bowl, and as usual for a workaholic African American blues, and multicul- ans themselves. “We went in assuming the series’ co-producer with Burns and
who often has six or seven films brew- tural spirituals) to Western swing and we’d have a more substantial represen- Julie Dunfey. A longtime Burns collab-
ing, Burns was turning over ideas bluegrass, cowboy and honky-tonk tation from ‘experts,’ and from outside orator, Duncan spent several hours
for his next project. When McGarr tunes, countrypolitan ballads and out- of country,” says Burns. “We didn’t with Haggard, who served, in some of
suggested tackling country music, “it law jams. There are also detours into need them. [The country people] the final interviews of his life, as both
just exploded in my brain — like, of the styles that country music irre- know their story really, really well.” subject and ad hoc history consultant.
course,” Burns says. “And as we got ducibly informed: rock & roll, rock- That story begins with the music’s Rosanne Cash was also among the
into it, we saw that it was as real, im- abilly, country rock, and Americana. so-called big bang: The Carter Family first artists Burns and his team ap-
portant, and emotionally compelling Country fans will be gobsmacked. And and Jimmie Rodgers recording at the proached. She had initial reservations
as any film we’ve made.” those who think they have no interest legendary Bristol Sessions in Tennessee about how the music’s story would be

presented, especially the sections that

involve her dad, Johnny Cash, whose
Stuart was impressed by how
Burns’ film engaged with country’s di- KEY TRACKS is a queer black rapper from Georgia,
these lessons couldn’t be more timely.
FROM THE
death in Episode 8 is effectively the versity issues. “Women have had to Ultimately, the core power of Burns’
series’ end point. “The more [the film- fight — and at this minute are having documentaries is their emotional
to fight — for their equal share in the
SERIES
making process] went on, the more re- potency, and Country Music is no
assured and impressed I was with what world of country music,” he says, al- different. Its single most stirring mo-
they were doing,” she says. “They went luding to the gross underrepresenta- ment might be Vince Gill choking up
as deep as you could go.” tion of women on country radio. That during a rendition of “Go Rest High
Cash was also among the first to see fact is especially outrageous given Jimmie Rodgers on That Mountain” at George Jones’
the finished film. “They connected how integral Maybelle Carter’s sig- “Blue Yodel #8 funeral. “It was hard to be the one to
every dot,” she says, “from Appalachia nature “scratch” guitar style, Sara (Mule Skinner Blues)” completely fall apart,” says Gill, look-
Carter’s vocal approach, and the lega- This 1931 recording — an ing back with a faint chuckle, “but it
to Bob Wills to Bakersfield to my dad.
African American-rooted
It was artfully done, and so moving.” cies of Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly kind of gave everybody the license to
folk blues — has echoed
Parton, and others are to the music, as fall apart too.”
down the ages of country.
B
URNS IS A CHILD of the Sixties — Country Music makes plain. Bill Monroe did it for his There’s also the scene where
by his own description, a hippie The film also points out how many Opry debut, and Dolly Rosanne Cash, after a backstage dis-
in Ann Arbor, Michigan, who country greats had African American Parton and Merle Haggard agreement with her dad, describes
sold the first issue of ROLLING STONE musical mentors, and how little-known cut memorable takes. The watching him walk away from her, as
as a clerk at Discount Records on South their contributions are. Hank Williams Byrds’ Clarence White’s he’d done “so many times before,”
University Avenue. His mom died when learned from Rufus “Tee Tot” Payne, supergroup Muleskinner most notably when he abandoned
he was 11, and his dad was an academic Bill Monroe from Arnold Schultz, was even named after it. her and her mother. It’s heartbreak-
ill-served by the academy, a legacy no Johnny Cash from Gus Cannon. Lesley ing, but she was willing to go there.
doubt informing his son’s path. Riddle helped the Carter Family col- The Carter Family “By that time, I trusted [Ken and his
“Can the Circle Be
Burns has been living in rural New lect and learn songs; Rodgers learned team],” Cash says. “And you know,
Unbroken”
Hampshire since 1979, not long after he to sing and play the blues from black This song of grief for a
what’s the point of not going there?
finished at Hampshire College. In 1991, musicians as a railroad water boy, and mother’s death, reworked Truth is powerful.”
flush with the success of The Civil War, made one of his most famous record- from an English hymn, was The series coda is a slide show of
he bought a rambling Victorian house, ings, “Blue Yodel No. 9 (Standin’ on released by the Carter modern artists — Taylor Swift, Little Big
which would become the editing hive the Corner),” with Louis Armstrong. Family in 1935 and went Town, Sturgill Simpson, and others —
of his company, Florentine Films. One The film doesn’t sidestep racism in the on to be perhaps country’s but it effectively ends in the Nineties,
day this spring, a team there was fo- music’s history. DeFord Bailey, one of greatest spiritual. The Nitty Johnny Cash’s death notwithstand-
cused on a six-hour Ernest Heming- the Grand Ole Opry’s biggest stars, was Gritty Dirt Band named ing. Those who want framing on the
their 1972 hippie-hillbilly
way documentary. Lined with posters fired for dubious cause. Johnny Cash, Dixie Chicks’ mid-2000s blacklisting,
LP after it. And the Opry
of musicians and baseball players, with thanks in part to his progressive poli- the gender politics of modern country
begins every show with it.
dog beds, imperfect wooden floors, tics, was the target of a proposed boy- radio, or the cultural ramifications of
and employees in T-shirts, the building cott by the Ku Klux Klan, which circu- Patsy Cline “Old Town Road” may be frustrated.
is like off-campus housing tricked out lated fake news stories that his Italian “Crazy” But Burns, whose Jazz series was crit-
with cutting-edge postproduction gear. American wife, Vivian, was black. Prior Willie Nelson wrote and icized mainly for its final episode’s
The rest of the New Hampshire site, to a Seventies CMA broadcast, Loretta recorded the song that be- reductive run-up to the present, de-
including the 66-year-old filmmaker’s Lynn was warned of the optics of get- came Cline’s signature, but murs. “We’re in the history business,”
home, is perched on top of a hill about ting too close to African American his oddball phrasing made he says. “This modern period, 20, 25
1.5 miles outside town. Burns’ office country legend Charley Pride when it a commercial outlier. years out, is nothing I can touch. I
With Cline’s resplendent
is a museum of American history and presenting him with an award (she don’t know who in our gallery of con-
voice and Owen Bradley’s
his own work. He likes to show people made a point of both hugging and kiss- temporary stars is going to be as dura-
lush production, it became
around; in a gesture you sense he’s re- ing him). Pride is one of the film’s most a hit in 1961, and it’s still
ble as a Merle Haggard, or as important
peated a few times, he hands a visitor profound commentators. considered the most popu- as a Johnny Cash or a Loretta Lynn.”
an iron manacle, dating to the days of lar jukebox song in history. Stuart is pragmatic about what
‘I
American slavery. “This is the United T’S REALLY IMPORTANT people Country Music might accomplish. “I
States also, you know?” says Burns. know country music is a hybrid, Kris Kristofferson don’t expect this to affect contempo-
Among Burns’ past visitors is a creolization that comes out of “Me and Bobby McGee” rary country music radio,” he says. But
Marty Stuart, one of Country Music’s African and European cultures mix- Many rank Kristofferson he does believe it “will bring aware-
secret weapons. He’s something of ing,” says singer Rhiannon Giddens, among country’s best ness and understanding about where
a genre Zelig. As an 11-year-old, he an early-American-music scholar who writers. Proof is in country music comes from, and how
recordings like Johnny
met hit singer Connie Smith at a con- drove that point home earlier this year deep it goes. And I think for any cul-
Cash’s “Sunday Mornin’
cert he attended and told his mother on a concert program with Burns, turally minded contemporary coun-
Coming Down.” But
he’d marry Smith someday (he did). Marsalis, Stuart, and the Jazz at Lin- he made his biggest
try singer or songwriter — a star or a
Stuart hit his career stride at 13 playing coln Center Orchestra. “Also, most im- mark with this song, would-be — it will help them under-
virtuoso mandolin with bluegrass ar- portantly, it comes from working-class immortalized by stand what they’re really a part of.”
chitect Lester Flatt; he joined Johnny people mixing. That’s the thing that’s Janis Joplin. “This is a history of an art form
Cash’s band (and married his daugh- often forgotten, that where people whose roots are dark and complex and
ter Cindy) in the Eighties, became made these interactions musically Dolly Parton part of our collective unconscious,”
a solo hitmaker in the Nineties, and was in the fields, on the riverboats, “I Will Always Love You” says Cash, “rooted in our migration
an Americana standard-bearer in the or wherever — and that this music is Written as a farewell to col- and history and who we became as
2000s. Stuart is also one of the world’s our music, all of us together. It’s very laborator Porter Wagoner, Americans. It’s all there in this story.
Parton’s 1974 hit is one of
foremost country archivists; he owns dangerous to subscribe to it as ‘white All these songs that came from Scot-
the genre’s greatest vocal
Jimmie Rodgers’ guitar, Cash’s first music,’ or as this monolithic thing, be- land and England and Ireland into Ap-
performances, with its spi-
black performance suit, a handwrit- cause it’s not. And that’s the beauty of raling high notes. Whitney palachia, and the slave songs and work
ten copy of Hank Williams’ “I Saw the America, I think — all the positive stuff Houston’s cover made songs that came from Africa, the meld-
Light,” and the boots Patsy Cline was comes out of that aspect of the mix.” it one of modern R&B’s ing of that: That’s our history. And it’s
wearing when she died. In a year when country’s biggest story greatest vocals too. W.H. important to know your history.”

CHARTS
Top Songs
THE BIGGEST ARTISTS,
ALBUMS, AND SONGS
OF TODAY
The ‘Rolling Stone’ 100 ranks the most popular songs

in the United States, using both sales and streams
1
Lil Nas X
SONG UNITS
Old Town 271.4K

Road
Columbia
SONG SALES
RIDE ON Barring a major
surprise, we already 19.8%
know what the most AUDIO STREAMS
popular song of 2019 is. 80.2%
Lil Nas X’s country-rap
monster continued its
dominance into July,
racking up 62.1 million
streams for this week
alone. It’s been streamed
1.3 billion times so far this
year — tops by a mile. “Señorita”
Pairing two of
SONG UNITS
pop’s brightest
Sean Mendes young stars?
2
and Camila Cabello Good idea. This
Señorita 184.7K duet about a tor-
Billie rid affair earned
Island
Eilish, Dan 33.3 million
Auerbach, streams in its
and Taylor Drake feat. Rick Ross second week
Swift
3 Money in
the Grave
170.9K on the chart.
Republic
Welcome to 4
Lizzo
Truth Hurts 161.4K
“Truth Hurts”
The singer-
rapper-flutist
finally has a
the ‘Rolling
Atlantic
breakthrough
hit — a trap-pop
Chris Brown smash where she
Stone’ Charts 5
feat. Drake leaves a series
147.4K of unworthy part-
No Guidance ners behind.
RCA
We’ve launched in-depth, in-the-moment Lil Nas X
6
“You Need to
music charts to take you inside the stories Panini 138.2K Calm Down”
Singles charts
of the top artists, songs, and albums Columbia
are dominated by
newcomers, but
Billie Eilish Swift has contin-
WHAT DOES IT MEAN to be popular? That’s a question
fans and artists are asking with more urgency than ever, 7 Bad Guy 135.9K ued to stake her
claim with her
SHUTTERSTOCK, MICHAEL BUCKNER/”HOLLYWOOD LIFE”/SHUTTERSTOCK, AND

as streaming services cause listening patterns to shift and splin- Interscope two 2019 singles
ter. And it’s a question ROLLING STONE tries to answer with
SACHA LECCA; RICHARD SHOTWELL/INVISION/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK

— “ME!” and this
our new music charts, which offer an in-depth, real-time look at anti-hater, pro-
FROM LEFT: PHOTOGRAPHS IN ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTOPHER POLK/

Swae Lee and
LGBTQ anthem.
8
music listening in the U.S. Most charts update weekly; ours up- Post Malone
date daily. We also offer unprecedented transparency and tons 128.0K
Sunflower
of detail, including streaming statistics and visibility into the Republic
decisions and formulas behind the chart positions. The ROLL- “Suge”
DaBaby’s single is
ING STONE Charts are powered by independent analytics firm Taylor Swift
one of the break-
Alpha Data, which operates under our shared parent company,
Penske Media Corp., and collects data from dozens of retailers, 9 You Need to
Calm Down
110.4K out rap hits of the
year, a relentless,
streaming services, and other suppliers on a daily basis. We’re Republic bottom-heavy
thrilled to have you join us for this new chapter in our history. celebration of a
Stay tuned for further updates — including new charts. new record deal.
DaBaby
Up from prior week To check out the full

“Rolling Stone” Charts,
These postitions
reflect the “Rolling
10 Suge
Interscope
109.8K
Down from prior week read about our meth- Stone” Charts for the
odology, and more, week spanning Friday,
NEW First time on chart visit RollingStone.com/ June 28th, through SONG UNITS is a metric combining audio streams and physical/digital sales using a
Charts Thursday, July 4th. custom weighting system. All data on these pages from Alpha Data, unless otherwise noted.
34 | Rolling Stone | August 2019 ILLUSTRATION BY Sean McCabe

Top Albums Top Artists

The ‘Rolling Stone’ 200 ranks the most popular albums The ‘Rolling Stone’ Artists 500 ranks the most in-demand
in the United States, using both sales and streams artists in the United States by total audio streams
1 1
Chris Brown
ALBUM UNITS
Drake AUDIO STREAMS
Republic
Indigo NEW 100.4K 110.8M
RCA UNSTOPPABLE,
AS USUAL
LONG PLAYER Drake has barely put
In the past 18 months or out any music in 2019,
SONG SALES
so, shorter albums have but listeners devoured
become a hot trend. 2.8% “Omertà” and “Money in
Apparently, no one told AUDIO STREAMS
the Grave,” the two songs
Chris Brown, as his ninth 66.2% he released to celebrate
LP checks in at 32 songs. the Toronto Raptors
Still, most fans were PHYSICAL ALBUM SALES winning the NBA cham-
seemingly content to 18.9% pionship in June. Thanks
listen to it from start to Black Keys especially to the latter
DIGITAL ALBUM SALES
finish, helping it debut at Fans of the duo song, a collaboration with
12.1%
Number One on the R OLL - still buy albums — Rick Ross, the Canadian
ING S TONE 200 with more the LP sold nearly is the most-streamed
than 90 million streams. 35,000 in its artist in America.
debut week.
ALBUM UNITS AUDIO STREAMS
Billie Eilish
2 When We All
Fall Asleep . . .
50.9K Billie Eilish
The 17-year-old’s
2 Chris Brown
RCA
110.6M
Interscope
fans continue
to stream her
The Black Keys music like crazy:
3 NEW
‘Let’s Rock’
Nonesuch
47.6K Her 76 million
weekly streams
easily outpace
3 Billie Eilish
Interscope
76.0M
more seasoned
performers like
Lil Nas X
4 4
Post Malone and
42.8K Lil Nas X 58.0M
7 Ariana Grande.
Columbia
Columbia
J Balvin and
Khalid
5 5
Bad Bunny
37.3K Post Malone 56.2M
Free Spirit Eight songs from
Republic
RCA this team-up of
Latin titans hit the
Top 50 on Spotify.
Mustard
6 NEW
Perfect Ten
Interscope
34.9K
Juice WRLD
6 Khalid
RCA
53.8M
Listeners keep
returning to the
FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: PRINCE WILLIAMS/WIREIMAGE; FRANCESCO CARROZZINI; JESSICA
LEHRMAN; CHRISTAAN FELBER; ADAM DEGROSS; GRACE PICKERING; DAVE MEYERS; ANDREW
BENGE/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES; MICAIAH CARTER; CHRIS SCHEURICH; VALHERIA ROCHA
rapper’s March
J Balvin, Bad Bunny Ariana
7 NEW
Oasis
UMLE
33.9K LP, Death Race for
Love, despite no
recent huge hits.
7 Grande
Republic
51.5M
Jonas Brothers
8 Happiness
Begins
27.6K 8 Juice WRLD
Interscope
50.5M
Republic
DaBaby YoungBoy
9 Baby on Baby
Interscope
Never Broke
Again
Atlantic
48.6M
Various Artists
10 Spider-Man: Into
the Spider-Verse
24.3K 10 Taylor Swift
Republic
48.0M
Interscope
ALBUM UNITS is a metric combining album sales, song sales, and audio streams, ARTISTS on the Artists 500 are ranked by audio streams, which are the most reflective
using a custom weighting system. metrics of today’s music landscape.

The Mix
Breakthrough Trending
Artists Songs
The ‘Rolling Stone’ Breakthrough 25 highlights The ‘Rolling Stone’ Trending 25 ranks
the fastest-rising new artists the fastest-rising songs in the United States
1 1
Brandon UNIT GROWTH
Y2K and BBNO$
WEEKLY GROWTH
Ratcliff 2.9K Lalala 118%
Monument Columbia
COUNTRY ROOKIE TIKTOK TUNE Earlier this

This Louisiana singer- Lewis Capaldi year, the video app Tik-
songwriter’s bummed-out This Scottish Tok helped propel Lil Nas
ballad “Rules of Breaking singer-songwriter X’s “Old Town Road” to
Up” scored on country is well-known in Number One. Since then,
radio, and the airplay the U.K., where it has helped boost other
translated to more than “Someone You idiosyncratic tracks,
33 million streams this Loved” went including this onomato-
year. A debut album, Number One poeic single from pro-
co-produced by Shane zearlier this ducer Y2K and Canadian
McAnally, is in the works. year. Now the rapper BBNO$.
track is picking
UNIT GROWTH WEEKLY GROWTH
up momentum Gucci Mane
stateside. feat. Justin Bieber
2 Isaiah Rashad
Top Dawg Entertainment
2,500 2 Love Thru
the Computer
96%
Atlantic
“Backwards”
On this standout
from Gucci’s Sam Feldt feat. Rani
3 Only the Family

Empire
2,300 new LP, he and
Meek Mill trade 3 Post Malone
Spinnin’
51%
tales of run-ins
with the law.
R3HAB and A Touch of Class
4 Marc E. Bassy
Republic
1,500
Young Nudy 4 All Around the
World (La La La)
29%
In May, the CYB3RPVNK
Atlanta rapper
released Sli’merre, Mark Ronson
5 5
an impressive feat. Camila Cabello
Jay Critch 1,100 collaboration with 24%
Interscope
Pi’erre Bourne
Find U Again
Columbia
that has more
than 60 million
streams to date, Jon Pardi
6 Lewis Capaldi
Virgin EMI
1,000 helping him
step out of the
shadow of his bet-
6 Heartache
Medication
24%
Capitol Nashville
ter-known cousin,
FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: MATTHEW BERINATO; ALEXANDER BORTZ; ED GUMUCHIAN; PARAS
21 Savage.
Gucci Mane feat.
GRIFFIN/GETTY IMAGES; INTERSCOPE RECORDS; ALEXANDRA GAVILLET; NICK KARP; RMV/

7 7
Meek Mill
Chelsea Cutler 900 23%
Republic Backwards
Atlantic
Chelsea
Cutler
Mabel
8 Prettymuch
Columbia
861.2 8 Mad Love
Polydor
22% SHUTTERSTOCK; CLYDE MUNROE; JACK MCKAIN; ORIENTEER
Lizzo
9 Smino
Interscope
824.8 9 Good as Hell
Atlantic
22%
Old Dominion
10 Young Nudy
RCA
780.2 One Man Band
RCA Nashville
22%
UNIT GROWTH refers to gains in audio streams compared with the previous month. ‡ WEEKLY GROWTH refers to percentage growth in audio streams compared with the
Eligible artists must have released their debut in the past five years. previous week. Eligible songs must have been released in the past three years.

I
N A WORLD where Lil mattered. And the beauty for
Nas X has an unbeatable me was that she didn’t have
country smash, it’s hard to choose between artistic
to blame the likes of Maren integrity and being commer-
Morris — who was performing cially viable and catchy.
in Texas honky-tonks at the How hard was it to make
age of 10 — for branching all the different genres
out. In the wake of 2018’s work together on your new
ubiquitous, super-poppy album?
Zedd collaboration “The “The Middle” made me less
Middle,” Morris, 29, drifted afraid to hit every nail on the
far from the twang of her head. But I didn’t know until
debut album on this year’s we got to the mixing phase if
Girl, delving into R&B and the album was going to feel
pop, and even showing a cohesive, because it was so
hint of reggae. But she also many genres in the melting
just completed an altogether pot. We did that on my first
rootsier album with her new record, but this one felt like
supergroup, the Highwomen more of a pressure cooker —
(with Brandi Carlile, Amanda I have fans this time around!
Shires, and Natalie Hemby) — So I, initially, was a little
even if they weren’t sure the afraid that all of these colors
experiment would work until and sounds weren’t going
their sessions with producer to fit, but the amazing players
Dave Cobb. “It was so nice to helped it all make sense. And
realize in the studio that we I think that especially in the
all sound great together,” she streaming era, I don’t want
says. “We were joking that we to hear the same thing over
got married — and then got to and over again. I want to see
know each other.” the bounds and leaps that an
artist can convey in a single
Everyone loves the line record.
“What’s your time machine/ When you moved to
Is it Springsteen or is it Nashville, you thought you
‘Teenage Dream’?” from “A were just going to be a
Song for Everything.” How songwriter, not a performer.
did you come up with it? Where was your head at
I was on the bus, writing and that point?
thinking of the bands that My only experience of touring
really were the soundtrack was in Texas at bars, where
to our youth. I grew up on a I was background music for
lot of Springsteen because of
my dad, and [Katy Perry’s] Q&A people getting hammered.
That was the only context
“Teenage Dream” is one of I had for being an artist
the greatest songs of all time onstage. So when I moved
— a perfectly written pop
song. It’s hard to choose a fa-
vorite Springsteen song. I saw
the River tour twice, and I
Maren Morris to Nashville, I was like, “The
Texas circuit was enough for
me, so I’m going to be behind
the scenes and hopefully
love that whole album: “Hun- The country-pop star on her new supergroup, posing for write great songs for major
gry Heart,” “Point Blank.” ‘Playboy,’ and her time as a Nashville songwriter artists.” And it wasn’t until a
Your parents played a lot few years and clocking a few
of classic rock. Was there By BRIAN HIATT hundred songs that I realized
any band you flat-out hated? I did miss being the voice.
Luckily, I was never exposed people thought that when You were a young country be in a genre where it’s not And writing your future
to any crap. My dad loved the magazine comes out, I’m fan when the whole Dixie cool to ever air that opinion. hit “My Church” made you
Zeppelin and Pink Floyd; gonna be completely nude, Chicks backlash happened. Sheryl Crow was one of realize you had to become
my mom was obsessed with which is hilarious. I’m cool How did it affect you? your heroes growing up. a singer again, right?
Fleetwood Mac. I listened to a with my body, but I wouldn’t I remember not fully grasping What’s it been like to record My publisher brought me
ton of Aretha Franklin and do that. I hear, “You’re my what it meant. But even and perform with her? to L.A. to team with writers
Chaka Khan and Carole King. daughter’s role model and at 13 or 14, I knew it was She’s such a lovely, calm there. Ironically enough, I
There were a lot of influences I won’t be bringing her to really gross that people were presence and has so much wrote “My Church,” which
before I ever heard country your shows anymore.” I’m running over their CDs and wisdom. There wouldn’t is a very country song, out
music. like, “How about you be making bonfires of them. It be the Highwomen without there. And I had a panic
You posed for a tasteful your daughter’s role model?” just didn’t feel right. It was Sheryl Crow. Her music was attack at the thought of
topless photo in Playboy I mean, Dolly Parton was completely unfair treatment so impactful in the Nineties, someone else recording it. I
and people freaked out. on the cover of Playboy in of a group of women just when there weren’t a ton felt like I would break out in
What was your reaction? the Seventies. If you think voicing an opinion, like any of female voices that were hives if someone else sang
I mean, I think everyone country’s going to hell, well, dude has in the history of writers and musicians and those words. That had never
needs to calm down. Maybe Dolly did it! time. They just happened to were saying something that happened to me before.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Nick Karp August 2019 | Rolling Stone | 37

Party in the U.K.

Glastonbury is one of the world’s largest music festivals, drawing
200,000 people to a farm in Wales. Headliners tend to go all-out,
and Miley Cyrus was no exception. Between her own hits, she
covered Amy Winehouse and Zeppelin, and brought out Lil Nas X
and her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, for “Old Town Road.” “I ask the
universe every day, ‘Give me something that scares the fuck out
of me,’ ” she said. “Today’s that motherfucking day.”
ROOKIES OF THE YEAR

Juice Wrld (below) threw the first pitch at a
Twins-White Sox game in the rapper’s
hometown of Chicago. Selena Gomez (right)
also took the field, playing in a charity softball
game in Kansas City. Gomez recently told
Jimmy Fallon that she has finished her first LP
since 2015: “I’m just relieved. It took me four
years now to even feel at a good place with [it].”
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: SHIRLAINE FORREST/WIREIMAGE; JIM DYSON/GETTY IMAGES;

STEPHEN LOVEKIN/SHUTTERSTOCK; DAVID BANKS/GETTY IMAGES
FESTIVAL KILLERS
Brandon Flowers has called the Smiths one of his favorite bands, so he was
psyched during the Killers’ Glastonbury set to welcome “guitar hero Johnny
fuckin’ Marr” (right). Marr unleashed guitar fury on the Smiths’ “This Charming
Man,” before soloing on a glorious “Mr. Brightside.” The band also welcomed the
Pet Shop Boys onstage. Expect new Killers music soon: Flowers recently said
the band has been in a Utah studio, working on a new synth-influenced album,
which should be out by early 2020.

WORKING
ON A DOG
Bruce Springsteen
enjoyed a hot dog
at Max’s Bar and
Grill, a Jersey spot
he’s been visiting
for years. “I fed
them onion rings,
fries, sodas,” says
owner Jennifer
Maybaum. “He and
[wife Patti Scalfia]
were so cool. They
said, ‘This is a
really nice ending
to our day.’ ”
RATED X
Charli XCX was a big presence
at London’s Wimbledon
tournament. The singer is
stepping back into the spotlight
to release her first album in five
years, Charli, on September 13th,
featuring tracks with Lizzo and
Haim. “I just listened to my
album in the car and cried,”
she said. “It’s so good. I’m so
talented.”
Pride (In the Name of Love )

Hayley Kiyoko rode a float in New York at the World Pride Parade, an experience she called
“a sea of emotions.” Kiyoko, who scored a hit last year with “Expectations,” first came out in
the sixth grade, and released the LGBTQ anthem “Girls Like Girls” as an early single. “World
Pride was an unbelievable experience,” she said. “The entire city was buzzing with energy,
full of hope toward making the world a brighter place.” She wore pasties and jewelry for the
occasion: “If I’m gonna be extra, today’s the day.”
WHITE LIGHTNING
Jack White played a wild
club show in Brooklyn
with his longtime band the
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: TREVOR FLORES; KARWAI TANG/GETTY IMAGES;
Raconteurs days before

they scored a Number
One album.
JENNIFER MAYBAUM; KIRSTEN THOEN; COEN REES
THERE’S A RIOT GOING ON

Pussy Riot played a rare U.S. show in New York for Pride Week. The band — who
were sentenced to two years in a Russian prison in 2012 for performing anti-
Vladimir Putin music — just released a new song, “Black Snow,” along with an open
letter to Putin, criticizing him for “rivers of blood, black snow, toxic waste, and acid
rain” that pollute Russia. Singer Nadya Tolokonnikova (above) was recently jailed in
Russia after running onto a field during the World Cup dressed as a police officer.

Random Notes
Lizzo’s Bridal Breakthrough

After years of underground fame, Lizzo blew up in the first half of 2019 with an excellent album and a
Top 10 hit, “Truth Hurts.” But it wasn’t until the BET Awards that the world got to see her greatness on
full display: “Do you want some cake?” she asked the crowd, before staging a blissful wedding-themed
performance that culminated with her soloing on a flute and twerking, as Rihanna clapped along. Lizzo
(seen here backstage afterward) just announced more dates for her Cuz I Love You Too tour, which
includes two shows at Radio City Music Hall. “When did I become mainstream?” she tweeted recently.
“I was an indie rapper for 10 years!! Nobody knew who I was. . . . I’m popping a bottle.”
RICHARD YOUNG/SHUTTERSTOCK; JASON KEMPIN/GETTY IMAGES

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: RICH FURY/VMN19/GETTY IMAGES;
MUSEUM
MATERIAL
Kacey Musgraves
(and her nephew)
attended the
opening of her
own exhibit at the
Country Music
Hall of Fame. “I
didn’t know that THE PUNK MEETS THE GODFATHER AT WEMBLEY STADIUM
it would make me Eddie Vedder wrapped up his European summer tour by opening for the
emotional,” she Who at Wembley Stadium. He came out near the end of their set to sing
said. “I was just the Quadrophenia classic “The Punk and the Godfather.” Earlier in the
losing it.” evening, the Who debuted “Hero Ground Zero,” from their in-progress
studio album, the band’s first since 2006’s Endless Wire.

ONLY TEAM (IN THE WORLD)

Rihanna cheered on the West Indies
cricket team as they competed against
Sri Lanka at the 2019 Cricket World
Cup. Her team lost, but they did get to
hang with Rihanna after the game.
THE STONES AND GARY CLARK: LOVE IS STRONG

The Rolling Stones invited opener Gary Clark Jr. onstage in Massachusetts for a blistering cover
of Eddie Taylor’s blues shuffle “Ride ‘Em on Down.” Clark has played with the Stones regularly
since 2012, and Keith Richards has called him a “very tasteful player.” “Love playing with these
guys,” says Clark. “Legendary.” The show also included rarities like “She’s So Cold.” “This is our
29th show in Boston,” Mick Jagger said. “Thank you for coming to see us all these years.”
RANDOM QUOTE
“Could WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS
someone tell A decade ago, Ringo Starr asked his fans to say, or think, the words “peace
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ROBERT E KLEIN/INVISION/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK; STU FORSTER-IDI/
and love” when the clock hit noon on his birthday, July 7th. The movement has
GETTY IMAGES; KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES; SPLASH NEWS; BRUCE GLIKAS/WIREIMAGE
me which spread around the world, and this year, Starr celebrated outside in L.A. with
fans, plus wife Barbara Bach, David Lynch, Jenny Lewis, and more. Ringo hopes
it catches on: “Maybe one day it will be the ‘peace and love’ world,” he said.
airport
George IN THE ZONE
Britney Spears went
Washington’s jet-skiing in Miami
Beach with boyfriend
forces Sam Asghari, a
welcome break from
took over — court hearings

surrounding her
father’s 11-year
Kennedy or conservatorship
of the singer.
Teterboro?”
YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND —Cher on Donald
Vanessa Carlton made her Broadway debut as the lead in Trump’s Fourth of
Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, and her friend Stevie
July speech
Nicks was in the audience to cheer her on. “Nothing
compares with the power of sisterhood,” Carlton says.
“Stevie sets an example for us all.”

The Iowa
Circus
An overstuffed field of
candidates is repeating
the Republicans’ 2016
primary-season errors
By MATT TAIBBI
T
RAVELING HUNDREDS of miles in part because she’s not Biden; Warren, be- The Democrats had years to come up with
across Iowa, passing cornfields cause she isn’t Bernie. Bernie’s best argument an answer to Trump that is fundamental, pow-
and covered bridges, visiting is the disfavor of the hated Democratic estab- erful, and new, solving the problem the elder
quaint small town after quaint lishment. The Democratic establishment chose George Bush once called “the vision thing.”
small town, listening to the Biden because he was the Plan B last time and What’s mostly been shown instead is more of
stump speeches of Democrat the party apparently hasn’t come up with any- the same. Literally more, as in three times the
after would-be Donald Trump-combating Dem- thing better since. Nothing says “We’re out of usual suspects. The sequel even Hollywood
ocrat, only one thought comes to mind: ideas” quite like pulling a pushing-eighty ex- would never make is now showing in Iowa.
They’re gonna blow this again.
Imagine how it looks to Republicans. If that’s
vice president off the bench to lead the most
important race in the party’s history.
READERS’ Clown Car II: The Democrats. God help us.
POLL
T
too difficult or unpalatable, just look at the The same kind of circular-cannibalism act in HE QUADRENNIAL ASSAULT upon Iowa
swarm of 24 Democratic candidates in high the Republican field four years ago created an of presidential candidates and na-
school terms. opportunity for one Donald J. Trump, whose tional press is now as entrenched a
The front-runner — the front-runner! — is sep- carnival-barker personality smashed the bick- Do you piece of Americana as Independence
tuagenarian gaffe machine Joe Biden, who start- ering competition like peanuts under a ball- think Big Day fireworks or booing Roger Goodell. The
ed running for president in the Eighties and peen hammer. Trump’s appeal was negative Tech com- state’s status as the first nominating contest
never finished higher than “candidacy with- but elemental. He pulled votes from sick Amer- panies like is a byproduct of the last schismatic fiasco in
drawn,” with a career delegate total matching ica like a lion ripping organs from an antelope. Facebook the Democratic Party, the 1968 nomination of
John Blutarsky’s grade-point average, i.e., zero He told voters: They’re politicians, I’m not. and Am- doomed placeholder-candidate Hubert Hum-
point zero. The summer’s “momentum” chal- They’re paid lackeys offering slogans, while I’m azon are phrey. Reforms after that convention forced
lenger is California Sen. Kamala Harris, who the boss and I’m telling you what I’ll do. monopo- states to space out their political calendars,
spent all year sinking in polls but surged when You need something stronger than anoth- lies that and Iowa — thanks in part to a paucity of Des
she hit Biden with “I don’t think you’re a rac- er political rap to beat this, but if Iowa is any should be Moines hotel rooms during its planned conven-
ist . . . but . . .” on national TV. judge, just a rap is what many Democrats are broken tion week in 1972 — was forced to move every-
A third contender is Sen. Elizabeth Warren, bringing. With a few exceptions, all the can- up? thing up in its schedule. The state soon passed
FROM LEFT: BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; JOHN MINCHILLO/AP IMAGES; TTSTUDIO/

SHUTTERSTOCK; JABIN BOTSFORD/”THE WASHINGTON POST”/GETTY IMAGES; DOMINIQUE
A. PINEIRO/DOD; AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK; BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
a famed red-state punchline who already has didates here are giving a version of the same a law requiring its caucuses to stay first in line,
75%
10,000 Pocahontas tweets aimed at her head stump speech, which by itself is a problem — and Iowa has been in the catbird seat for decid-
should she make it to the general. Her “I have voters tend to notice this sort of thing. ing nominees ever since.
a plan for that” argument for smarter govern- Then there’s the content, which, to para- Over the years, so many presidential candi-
ment makes her a modern analog to Mike Du- phrase Lincoln, is thinner than a soup made Yes dates have shown up with their hats in their
kakis — another Massachusetts charisma ma- from the shadow of a pigeon that starved to hands that Iowans now talk to them the way
25%
chine whose ill-fated presidential run earned death. The Democrats’ basic pitch reads like New Yorkers talk to cabbies. (Biden’s already
him a portrait alongside the Hindenburg in a a list of five poll topics: kids are in cages; let’s had a “Where’s your walker?” heckler.) It’s hi-
Naked Gun movie. close the gun-show loophole; this administra- No larious to watch. That it may not be the best
A fourth challenger, Bernie Sanders, is a tion’s policies are an existential threat; some- place to pick the candidate of a party whose
self-proclaimed socialist born before the Pearl thing something Mitch McConnell; and Trump voters live mostly in cities is beside the point.
Go to Rolling
Harbor attack who’s somehow more hated by is (insert joke here). Friday evening, early summer, a park in
Stone.com
the national media than Trump. A fifth, Pete There are truths there, but in baseball terms, for next northwest Des Moines. Washington state gov-
Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has it’s weak cheese Trump will swat into the seats. issue’s poll. ernor and “climate change candidate” Jay In-
never earned more than 8,515 votes in any Our walking civil war of a president reached of- slee is standing near a nest of covered picnic
election. The claim to fame of a sixth, Beto fice on a promise to burn it all down, which, in- benches, stumping to a group small enough to
O’Rourke, is that he lost a Senate bid to the cidentally, he’s doing. A core psychological ap- be a Webelo meeting.
world’s most-hated Republican. It goes on. peal to destruction needs a profound response. A cute brown puppy chews a table leg, while
The top Democrats’ best arguments for office Slogans won’t work. Poll-and-pander won’t a suspendered old gent sits with his wife on
are that they are not each other. Harris is rising work. True inspiration is the only way out. lawn chairs they’ve brought with them. He
TIMELINE
THE LONG VIEW: JARED KUSHNER’S SHADY BUSINESS
2016 2016 D E C. JAN. 2017 MARCH APRIL APRIL
THE MEETING DATA WHIZ BACK CHANNEL GOOD INVESTMENT CONFLICT OF BAD DEBT
Kushner attends the Kushner oversees In a meeting with Kushner is named INTEREST Kushner Cos. seeks
infamous Trump Trump campaign the Russian am- White House senior Right after Kushner funding from Qatar
Tower meeting with digital operations, bassador, Kushner adviser, steps meets with a LARGE PORTFOLIO for its debt-ridden
a Russian lawyer to hiring consulting suggests setting up down as CEO of his Citigroup exec to A 36-year-old with no government 666 Fifth Avenue
get “dirt” on Hillary firm Cambridge a secret direct line family’s real-estate discuss trade policy, experience, Kushner is put in charge of property; Qatar
Clinton, which he Analytica, which of communication firm, but gives hold- Citigroup lends criminal-justice reform, fighting the opioid rebuffs and Kushner
later omits from his illegally harvests between Donald ings to family rather $325 million to crisis, reforming the VA, acting as liaison backs a blockade
security-clearance data from millions Trump and the than placing them Kushner Cos. and to Mexico, China, and Saudi Arabia, of the country
application. of Facebook users. Kremlin. in a blind trust. a partner firm. and brokering Middle East peace. a month later.

whispers, “Where’s he from Inslee is the kind of candidate who does well
again?” Like tornado chasers enough in the intimate format of Iowa, but the
or recreational trial watchers, first national debates didn’t do him any favors.
some Iowans attend political His signature issue, the climate crisis, wasn’t
speeches as an offbeat hobby. mentioned for more than 80 minutes, and when
Presidential politics is another he was asked about it, the question was, “Does
thing to do on a Friday night, your plan save Miami?” (As if “We’re planning
instead of maybe a ballgame. on sacrificing Miami” were a possible response.)
If you leave the donor- Moreover, he committed what campaign re-
repelling environmentalist porters call an “unforced error.” He said he was
politics out of it, Inslee is the the only candidate onstage “who has passed a
kind of candidate the press law protecting a woman’s right of reproductive
would have loved 20 years health and health insurance.”
ago. He’s tall and silver-haired, This led to Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar in-
and looks vaguely like a Fif- terrupting with a peal of soon-to-be-viral laugh-
ties film star, a cross maybe ter. “I just want to say there’s three women up
of Van Johnson and Richard here that have fought pretty hard for a woman’s
Widmark. There’s a trace of right to choose,” she said, referring to herself,
left-coast surfer dude in his Warren, and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.
SHUTTERSTOCK; ALEX BRANDON/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK; SHEALAH CRAIGHEAD/THE WHITE HOUSE; ABIR SULTAN/
voice that’s endearing; he One can’t fault Klobuchar for seizing the
orates in question form, as opening, but much of what has passed for the
in, “We need to reinvigorate Democratic Party debate to date has involved
TOP: MATTHEW PUTNEY/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK. BOTTOM, FROM LEFT: MARY ALTAFFER/AP IMAGES/
EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK; AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK; ARUN GIRIJA/ENEC; TIM ROOKE/SHUTTERSTOCK
the union movement? So the people who gave BERN NATION or six biofuels — if that’s what you call them — what campaign commentators call “moments,”
us the weekend? Can give us a raise? After 25 Not just that will solve the energy crisis. Number two, like this.
Sanders but
years . . . ?” (Applause.) also his ideas
tell me how far along they are in development. There was Klobuchar dunking on Inslee,
Up close he emits an odor of baseline decen- are on the Number three, tell me what percentage of the Harris thrashing Biden over his past stance on
cy, not a common political quality. He’s doing primary ballot energy market they occupy today.” school busing, former Housing Secretary Ju-
fine with his climate-crisis message, even if he’s this election There are smiles from onlookers. Iowans like lián Castro walloping O’Rourke for not doing
season,
overdoing the simple country-guy persona can- and deserve their rep as a tough crowd. Inslee his “homework” on section 1325 of the immi-
as many
didates often trot out in farm states. candidates handles it well, though, giving overviews of the gration code, and O’Rourke providing an anti-
“I like to be in an agricultural state because are embracing prospects for wind, solar, and biofuels. moment of his own in an agonizing marathon
this is kind of where I came from,” he says. He policy “I watched the debates, every minute of effort at speaking Spanish in his introductory
proposals
mentions he’s the only candidate to have bailed them,” the older man explains after the event. debate segment.
he popularized
hay. “I take that back,” he says quickly. “[Mon- in 2016, like “Nobody gave any specifics. They never do, not The gambit inspired hundreds of vi-
tana governor] Steve Bullock might have. But I Medicare even in the [general] election. Because of that, cious Twitter memes. Someone forgot to tell
do it a lot faster than Steve. . . .” for All. the average person doesn’t know. I don’t think O’Rourke and fellow en-Español adventurist
The crowd is chuckling when an elderly man anyone’s against renewable energy, wind and Cory Booker that the debates were already
in a pale-blue T-shirt stands up. “Yeah, I’ve got solar. But we don’t have specifics.” translated into Spanish on NBC’s broadcast
a question on climate,” he snaps. He has bent He seems to like Inslee, though, who’s poll- partner, Telemundo. Stephen Colbert called
posture, egret-white hair, and dime-size liver ing under one percent nationally but has a pow- it an “Español-off” and joked that the remarks
spots covering sun-baked forearms. He faces In- erful argument for continuing: the inability of “really got through, really penetrated.” Trevor
slee in an accusatory posture. any of the leading Democrats to seize the par- Noah of The Daily Show and Jimmy Fallon of The
“You’ve espoused some generalities I agree ty’s imagination. Tonight Show also hammered the effort, lead-
with,” he says, and proceeds to lay a three- “Only 24 people know who they’re voting for ing to an approving recap of late-night comedy
stage question on the governor. “Name the five next year, and they’re all running,” Inslee says. by Breitbart, never a good sign for Democrats.
N OV. FEB. 2018 MARCH M AY AU G. FEB. 2019 JUNE
JOB HUNT MBS BROMANCE ALL ACCESS DOUBLE DEAL? GOING NUCLEAR RUSSIA AGAIN
Apollo Global Saudi Crown Prince Trump reportedly Brookfield Asset It’s reported the FBI begins inves-
Management lends Mohammed bin orders Kushner be Management bails White House has tigating Deutsche
Kushner Cos. $184 EASY TARGET Salman reportedly given top-secret out Kushner Cos. been trying to ar- Bank for not
million after Apollo’s The Washington Post reports at least four claims to have clearance, against by taking out a range a deal selling reporting Kushner
Josh Harris visits countries have privately discussed manip- Kushner “in his advice of advisers lease on 666 Fifth nuclear reactors to Cos. transactions
Kushner several ulating Kushner because of his “complex” pocket.” concerned about Avenue. The same Saudi Arabia. The with Russia that
times to discuss business arrangements, i.e., his family his business inter- month, Brookfield proposed purveyor were flagged
a White House job begging foreign investors for money. ests and potential buys Westinghouse of the reactors? by anti-money-
for himself. foreign influence. Electric Co. . . . Westinghouse. laundering experts.

There are real, heavy ideas underlying the ter, “America America America America Amer- He goes on to propose that from birth to
Democratic primary — more on those in a bit ica . . .” And we’ll vote for him. age 65, all Americans be covered by “a federal
— but few of them are coming through in these The problem is that he’s got almost a year of health care policy, for free, as a right of citizen-
melees. Mostly the Democrats are taking tweet- Democratic primary left, and has to keep say- ship.” This plan, he says, would allow Ameri-
size bites out of one another’s hind parts in ing actual things until he wins. He seems en- ca to avoid a fully government-run health care
Heathers-style putdowns, or engaging in vir- gaged almost daily in cleaning up verbal mess- program. “Look, maybe in 20 years, people
tue-signaling contests, like they’re running for es. When Harris oar-smacked him with her will like their government health care so much,
president of Woke Twitter. “that little girl was me” busing story (T-shirt they’ll drop their private insurance and we’ll
The presence of human scratching post now on sale for $29.99 at store.kamalaharris get to the same place in the end,” he says. “But
Biden atop the field has contributed to the .org!), Biden’s response was the debate equiva- we have to live in the real world.”
not-undeserved impression that the party does lent of “Check, please,” saying, “My time is up.” At the end of his speech, a therapy dog in
not know what the hell it is doing. Biden has His awesome vulnerabilities on the woke the crowd barks. Delaney flashes a look like he
not only been battered by nearly all of his Dem- front have him saying things that sound like can’t catch a break. He did fine here, and may
ocratic rivals, he’s also been drawn into flame Trump quotes, like his response to Booker on have won a convert or two from health care
wars with Trump, reanimating the 2016 pattern working with segregationist senators: “There’s skeptics, but the “Why not me?” tone of his
of TV networks giving Captain Orange masses of not a racist bone in my body.” campaign captures something. It’s a familiar
free airtime to flail rivals for sport and ratings. Biden’s early front-runner flubs are rem- narrative: Republican state governments and a
In a mid-June appearance in Iowa, Biden iniscent of Jeb Bush’s $150 million failure to THE CEO-friendly administration are hacking away
tipped off reporters that he’d be making re- handle Trump tweets. There are many such CAUCUS at policies dear to working people, while Dem-
marks about Trump. Dressed in dark-wash dad parallels. Biden is Jeb. O’Rourke, running in Iowa is now
ocrats can’t seem to settle on an electoral for-
jeans and blue shirt, he became the 10,000th what the Times calls the “younger face” lane, is one of only mula to stop them.
Democrat this year to call the president an “ex- Marco Rubio. Unseen Steve Bullock is unseen six states — They’re paralyzed by Delaney’s question: Do
istential threat.” Jim Gilmore. Bill de Blasio is the same “Why is including we really have to make radical changes? The
Trump wasted little time laying into Biden. he running?” New Yorker George Pataki was. Kansas, Maine, centrists want the progressives to step aside for
Nevada, North
“Joe’s a loser,” he quipped, adding Biden was a And this election’s version of John Kasich, the the sake of “unity,” while the progressives be-
Dakota and
“dummy” who was “even slower than he used embittered realist barking, “What are we doing Wyoming — to
lieve they’re the new mainstream and are the
to be.” Saying he’d rather run against Biden than here?” from the literal edge of the debate stage, use a caucus better bet in a world where traditional notions
anybody, Trump said, “I think he’s the weakest is former Maryland Rep. John Delaney. system for of electability are upside-down. While this ar-
mentally. . . . I like running against people that selecting gument rages, traditionally Democratic con-
N
are weak mentally.” He then ripped Biden for OON ON A WEEKEND, Room 103 of the nominees. In stituencies are taking losses all over the place.
the Iowa Dem-
keeping a light schedule, saying, “Once every Statehouse, Des Moines. John Del- Mark Rocha, a Communications Workers of
ocratic caucus,
two weeks . . . he mentions my name 74 times in aney is addressing Iowa’s Asian and voters are
America official, liked that Delaney grew up in a
one speech. . . . That reminds me of crooked Hil- Latino Coalition. Stocky and bald, organized into union household, but he seemed more focused
lary. She did the same thing.” the co-founder of a health care lender is the roughly 1,100 on the idea that whoever the nominee was, that
Next thing you knew, we were right back umpteenth Democrat to address the influen- precincts. To person needed to stop the bleeding quick.
in 2016, with reporters dutifully conveying tial group, which is full of local small-business choose a nom- Noting that Iowa’s Republican leadership
inee, precinct
Trump’s insults and even kinda-sorta suggest- owners. I will later hear this is one of the small- has passed laws attacking the right of public-
members gath-
ing they were true. “There’s been a lot of ques- est turnouts of this group any Democrat candi- er and publicly
sector unions to organize, he says private-sector
tions about your schedule, and that it’s been a date has yet attracted, a list that includes self- announce unions are dying too. His CWA once had 1,200
little lighter than some of the other candidates,” help author Marianne Williamson. their support members statewide. Now it has 525, and the
a reporter asked Biden in Ottumwa, Iowa. Delaney seems to sense this and looks for candidates new members can’t pay much in dues.
MSNBC gave Trump more than a minute of peeved, not with the Asian-Latino coalition but and try to “If they even come in the door, if I even get
persuade one
airtime for “Joe’s a loser,” while The Washing- with the Almighty. In a normal campaign year, ’em to sign, they’re the lower-paid workers,
another to
ton Post and The New York Times put the ex- he’d be the “crossover” candidate, praised for switch. Since
they make $15 an hour,” he says. “We’re get-
change on the front page. This is how things being a straight talker — he’s already gotten 1976, only two ting beat up.”
went in 2016. Trump would taunt an opponent, accolades from both George Will and David Democrats
the opponent would face-plant the effort at re- Brooks, usually a sign of media love to come. who have won IN THE 2020 RACE, a succession of Democrats
turn fire, ratings would go up, and the cycle Yet the love hasn’t arrived. Delaney, wheth- the Iowa cau- have already taken star turns as darlings-for-a-
cus went on to
would repeat. er on TV or in person, throws off the same “I news-cycle, only to splat in polls right after. The
win the gen-
The logic of the Biden candidacy is a fac- can’t believe I’m losing to this field” vibe Ka- eral election:
pattern is incredible.
simile of our last memory of normalcy, like sich often exuded. Jimmy Carter Harris is on her second run up the hill
if Barack Obama were on vacation, or sick, Like Kasich, Delaney just wants the Amer- and Barack (her first was a “dazzling” debut in January).
maybe. Biden’s labors to remind us he was ican people to get along, and if it’s not too Obama. O’Rourke earned the death-knell “Kenne-
the understudy of the last president are pain- much trouble, elect him president. But nobody dyesque” title, and raised a record $6.1 mil-
ful. His launch speech contained 35 uses of is complying. lion in the first 24 hours of his campaign, but
the word “folks.” This included a rare double- Flipping through Delaney’s book, The Right cratered in polls even before his 8,800-word
folks (“Folks, I know some of the really smart Answer, it’s clear he is genuinely saddened by Vanity Fair springboard profile officially hit
folks say Democrats don’t want to hear about the state of American politics. The epigram in newsstands. “How About Pete?” asked New
unity. . . .”). He constantly references the the opening pages is from Kennedy, and begins, York magazine, atop a backlit cover photo that
“Obama/Biden administration” and chides au- “Let us not despair. . . .” About what is Delaney made the 37-year-old look like a Midwest Jesus;
diences that “we don’t say often enough as a despairing? Mainly, it seems, that Bernie Sand- a South Bend police scandal later, Buttigieg
party or a nation” that Obama was awesome. ers is pulling 15 percent on a promise to give ev- was polling at zero percent with black voters.
Biden on the trail will spit out the campaign eryone Medicare. Then came Biden, who soared to 41 percent
equivalent of clip art, e.g., “America, folks, is “Why do we have to go further than Ger- after launching to become what CNN called
an idea, an idea that’s stronger than any army, many and France and Sweden and the Nether- the “clear front-runner.” He’s lost a third of his
bigger than any ocean,” or, “America has al- lands, and throw out the entire U.S. health care support since then and is struggling to keep
ways been at its best when America has acted system?” he pleads. “That doesn’t make sense the lead.
as one America.” By the end of the campaign, to me. We should attack the problems, and fix Reporters show up at events with anxious
Biden will be plunked behind podiums to mut- those. And not mess with what’s working.” smiles on their faces, like parents looking for

a child at a department store. Maybe this one? anything to “retroactively” address the prob- were telling all Americans to do at the time:
How about her, or him? This is an extension of lem, i.e., help people who’ve already lost jobs She retrained for the post-industrial economy,
a phenomenon that began in the second half of due to this program. getting an IT degree at a local college. She got
the last GOP primary, when the press tried lav- Klobuchar shakes her head. “Yeah, I’ll have a tech job with a financial-services company
ishing compliments on the “real” candidates to look at that. I just know that we’ve been try- whose pitch was “We’ve never laid anyone off,
they hoped would stop Trump. The internet ing very diligently to put in some checks and not even in the Great Depression.”
remains littered with the wreckage of these ef- balances on that program.” She reiterates that When Sue met Morgan, the two made a deal.
forts, in headlines like SIGNS OF ‘MARCO-MEN- Democrats have already introduced protec- Sue would be the breadwinner and health-in-
TUM’ FOR RUBIO IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. tions to make sure companies don’t give jobs surance-holder. Morgan, with just a high school
Then as now, in their zeal to find someone, to foreign temp workers unless there’s a qual- education, would work a farm. This worked out
anyone, to beat Trump, the press is once again ification issue. fine until Sue got cancer and lost her job to an
too focused on the candidates themselves, ig- Moreover, she says, Democrats have pro- H-1B visa worker in India making 1/20th of her
noring warning signs that are almost always sit- posed raising fees for H-1B visas to use the pro- salary. “My company said, ‘She’s old, she’s sick,
ting right there in front of them, in the crowds. ceeds to retrain those who’ve lost their jobs to and she’s expensive,’ ” she says. This forced
Winterset, Iowa, a Monday afternoon in July. more-skilled workers overseas. Even better, Morgan off the farm and into the only job avail-
AMY AMY AMY read the alternating green and there’s an opportunity to strengthen the law able to a lot of people in the area. He works at
blue signs on cafe walls, as a packed house Walmart for $11.50 an hour.
awaits Klobuchar. Gently spinning ceiling fans Sue and Morgan say they have been ask-
mark the passing time in this classic Iowa cam- ing presidential candidates the same ques-
paign stop. The Northside Cafe was founded tion about H-1B visas for five election cycles.
in 1876, in the heart of Madison County — yes, They’ve been getting the same answers over
that Madison County, the one with the bridges and over, with promises for better enforce-
— and its comfort food, saloon walls covered in ment and smart-sounding speeches about
handmade quilts, and entranceway portraits of right-minded legislation that will fix things.
hometown hero John Wayne are familiar scen- This pattern — of politicians who think
ery for campaign journalists. they’ve given a good enough answer being met
The rear of the cafe buzzes. Reporters love with still more questions from disgruntled au-
Klobuchar. She cracks jokes, gives good quotes, diences — isn’t uncommon. The dynamic that
and reminds everyone of a relative. Maybe her? popped into view in Winterset is one that might
“She’s great,” someone whispers from the nest hold back Elizabeth Warren.
of tripods. “And funny too!” Some are repeating Papers like The New York Times, The Wash-
their favorite Klobuchar lines, like her bit about ington Post, and the Boston Globe ran stories
Trump being “all foam and no beer.” This is the suggesting Warren’s campaign might be fatal-
Minnesota version of “all hat and no cattle,” a ly “wounded” before it even began in January,
standby that holds the record for being told because of her too-liberal politics and her infa-
the most times by the most politicians without mous claim to Native American heritage. But
earning a genuine laugh. she persisted and suddenly looks like one of the
Klobuchar plunges into her speech. It’s BE THE through comprehensive immigration reform, favorites. Numerous stories about the Iowa race
CANDIDATE
border crisis, climate crisis, and jokes about which all Democrats are for, she says. point out that she has the largest paid organiza-
2020
Trump. “All foam and no beer” takes a turn as contender The original questioner, Sue Baethke, tries tion in the state, with 50 staffers here.
a metaphor for Trump’s tax plan: “All the beer and self-help to point out that H-1B visa holders aren’t immi- Her policy prescriptions are detailed and
went to the wealthiest people.” author grants, but Klobuchar ignores her. “It was really bold, including a two percent overall “ultramil-
Williamson in
A 55-year-old cancer survivor named Sue a big deal that we had comprehensive immigra- lionaires tax” that measures by net worth in-
Des Moines in
Baethke stands up and asks Klobuchar what June. “The tion reform,” Klobuchar says. “It would solve so stead of income (theoretically closing a giant
she thinks about H-1B visas. Such visas are for political much of our problems right now at the border, loophole), along with the cancellation of stu-
“specialty” positions, and are supposed to be establishment if we’re able to give a path to citizenship to peo- dent debt and the breakup of Silicon Valley
has the veneer monopolies.
used only if companies can’t find a qualified ple that are following the law.”
of a deep
local hire. In practice it’s an insidious loop- conversation,” She turns to the audience. “That’s where this In late spring, the same media outlets that
hole that corporations use to replace high-pay- she says. “They president has completely failed us economical- pummeled her in winter began swooning over
ing American jobs with cheap foreign labor — think their ly, that we don’t have comprehensive reform.” a Warren “surge,” in a lovefest that frankly was
a kind of government-enabled offshore temp dialogue is Klobuchar by now has completely changed the just as phony as the previous reports of mo-
sophisticated.
program. But it’s very subject, but no one in the room seems to no- mentum for Harris, O’Rourke, Mayor Pete, and
“Under current law,” Baethke asks, “can unsoph- tice. She moves on. Biden. But at least the pundit predictions of her
American companies lay off American high- isticated.” The event ends. In the Des Moines Register campaign dying before birth were wrong.
tech workers and replace them with H-1B visa the next day, Klobuchar will get excellent re- The problem for Warren is “I’ve got a plan
workers, and pay them less than U.S. wages?” views, in a story titled ALL FOAM AND NO BEER: for that!” is a dubious strategy in an era in
“Well, they shouldn’t be able to do that,” says BACK IN IOWA AFTER THE DEBATES, KLOBUCHAR which the campaign promise itself is a declin-
Klobuchar, losing eye contact momentarily to DOUBLES DOWN ON TRUMP. It cites audience ing currency. On paper, she’s done just about
take a swig of coffee. She mentions that she’s members at multiple Klobuchar events saying everything right. But if she advances, voters
working on legislation with Sen. Dick Durbin, she’s “steady,” “believable,” “thoughtful,” “in- will soon be introduced to the fact that plans
and says, “You have to have these qualifications telligent,” and “down-to-earth.” It even quotes and promises similar to the ones Warren is
in place if you’re going to continue to have H-1B an attendee from the Winterset event as say- making have been made many times before.
SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES
visas,” which, she says, “we’ll probably con- ing Klobuchar is like a “female Joe Biden with- It’s not a referendum on her but on how much
tinue to have.” out the baggage.” belief is left out there.
Thinking the matter settled, Klobuchar starts After the Winterset event, the Baethke cou- Her “economic patriotism” plan, which envi-
to look to the other side of the room. But Baeth- ple, both old-school liberals, open up. Sue’s sions the government using levers like the Fed
ke’s husband, Morgan, a lean, bright-eyed man first husband was a farmer who died in the and the Treasury to protect jobs, has earned
with a farmer tan and close-cropped hair, inter- Eighties. Widowed at the dawn of the NAFTA praise from left and right (Tucker Carlson gave
rupts. He asks the senator if she’s going to do era, Sue did what members of both parties it an “attaboy” on Fox). But the [Cont. on 94]

MEDIA WATCH
The Fight Against Fox News

ist on-air banter with shock jock
On the front lines Bubba the Love Sponge (in one
with Media Matters clip, Carlson called Iraqis “semi-
— the conservative literate primitive monkeys”). He’s
been losing advertisers ever since,
network’s worst which was the goal.
nightmare Media Matters has been at war
with Fox News since May 2004,
By BRIAN HIATT when the watchdog was found-
ed by David Brock — the singular
I
F YOU BELIEVE former Fox D.C. fixture who went from right-
News host Bill O’Reilly, wing anti-Clinton muckraker to
Media Matters for America left-wing Clinton insider. He en-
is the nation’s “most dan- visioned MMFA as a fact-based,
gerous organization,” which progressive counterweight to the
would be quite a feat for a mod- Media Research Center, the con-
estly funded nonprofit whose 80 servative group that spent dec-
employees spend a lot of their ades claiming to find liberal bias
time quietly watching cable in the media. Working the refs
news at their desks. The 15-year- paid off for the right in credu-
old, left-leaning news-watchdog lous coverage of everything from
group’s mission of combating the Iraq War to Paul Ryan’s pur-
“conservative misinformation” ex- ported policy prowess: “The right
tends to minute-by-minute scru- wing . . . has dominated the debate
tiny of right-wing media — Fox over liberal bias,” Brock said at the
News, in particular — and its stars, time. “They’ve moved the media
who do not, as a rule, enjoy the itself to the right and therefore
attention. Sean Hannity accused they’ve moved American politics
MMFA of “liberal fascism,” and to the right.”
said it’s pressuring his advertisers Brock stepped back in the
to drop his show; the second part wake of the 2016 election and
is entirely accurate. accusations that Media Matters
Jeffrey Lord, the mega-MAGA had transformed itself into a Hil-
former CNN personality who extent to which Trump’s tweets, Fox News in a random two-week TOP WATCHDOG lary Clinton fan site, to the point
once inspired Anderson Coo- many of them policy-setting, are period in April (the answer: 299). “I don’t think of bringing on James Carville as
per to blurt that if Trump “took direct responses to Fox News seg- On a spring afternoon, Media [Fox News] is a guest columnist. But the orga-
wrong to be a
a dump on his desk, you would ments. “This is not some sort of Matters’ president of three years, nization’s core battle is more ur-
little scared,”
defend it,” called Media Matters sinister act. This is pretty basic.” Angelo Carusone — a trim, fast- says Angelo gent than ever, to say the least.
“anti-free press . . . the tip of the Media Matters’ headquarters talking law-school grad who Carusone, The Trump presidency is argu-
spear in the arsenal of the Leftist is a single floor of a downtown comes off as a light-side-of-the- president of ably the end result of years of re-
Media Matters,
State Media” in a screed published Washington, D.C., office building. Force Michael Avenatti — is gath- ality manipulation by Fox News
which is taking
after CNN fired him for sarcastical- Its rows of desks, under exposed ering a group of senior staffers aim at the and its ilk, with Trump’s support-
ly tweeting the phrase “Sieg Heil!” ductwork and fluorescent lights, for a six-month planning meet- network’s ers convinced he’s rescued them
at Media Matters’ president. The could belong to any media coming. In front of each attendee is a advertisers. from migrant caravans, Obama’s
organization’s staff can’t help roll- pany or tech startup, as could the box lunch from Jimmy John’s and assault on American values, and
ing their eyes at it all. “They ei- youngish, earnest, business-casu- a printed list of 2019 organization- the war on Christmas, while
ther think we’re in our parents’ al staff. A Pride flag decorates one al goals. One top goal couldn’t be any contrary information is, of
basements,” says senior research- workspace, an American flag an- clearer: “Successfully execute and course, fake. Trump, once a sup-
er Andrew Lawrence, “or we’re a other. By the windows, a life-size complete Phase 2 of campaign to posed Democrat, seems to have
nefarious group trying to control cardboard cutout of Chris Evans neutralize/undermine Fox News’ reshaped much of his worldview
the world.” Much of the right is as Captain America keeps watch. destructive power.” That’s where over the past decade to conform
also convinced that MMFA is sub- The employees work in actual the “dangerous” part comes in. “I to Fox News’ opinion hosts, even
sidized by left-wing billionaire shifts monitoring the media, don’t think they’re wrong to be a as they now adapt some of their
George Soros; though he has con- with the morning crew logging little scared,” says Carusone. views to match his heterodox
tributed, it relies on a network of in at 6 a.m. and the evening team In addition to monitoring ideas. (Talking to dictators with-
donors and constant fundraising coming in around 4:00 and leav- broadcasts in real time, Media out preconditions, for instance, is
for its $14 million annual budget. ing at 11. A “media intelligence” Matters has a history of unearth- now double-plus-good.)
“We are reporting on commen- team tracks just about everything ing damning past comments by “Fox News’ prime-time hosts
tary happening on national news broadcast on cable news; its di- conservatives. Fox’s Tucker Carl- are Trump’s advisers,” says Law-
outlets,” says senior fellow Mat- rector, Lis Power, can tell you son became the latest target in rence. “It became extremely im-
thew Gertz, who won attention how many times Alexandria Oca- March, when MMFA published portant to keep up with what
for documenting the astonishing sio-Cortez’s name was uttered on his early-2000s sexist and rac- they’re saying, because the presi-
48 | Rolling Stone | August 2019 PHOTOGRAPH BY Gabriella Demczuk

dent of the United States is watch- at rallies — or the time a voter is pushing news organizations to than preaching to the converted.
ing this shit. And MSNBC and CNN asked if he would “get rid” of Mus- stop putting Trump’s false claims Never-Trump Republicans who
are just not as important. Like, the lims and he responded, “We’re into headlines and tweets, unchal- spent years bashing Media Matters
guy with the nuclear codes isn’t going to be looking at a lot of dif- lenged. According to a May MMFA now admit to finding it useful.
taking advice from Don Lemon.” ferent things” — but Carusone felt study, “Outlets amplified false or And once in a while, an unexpect-
most reporters went into reflex- misleading Trump claims without ed source will use Media Matters
C
ARUSONE WAS ON his way ive denial. After November 8th, disputing them 407 times over the info in culture-shaking ways, as
to a law career circa 2010 2016, the days of underestimating three weeks of the study, an aver- when podcaster Joe Rogan cited
when he found himself ob- Trump were over, and Carusone’s age of 19 times a day.” its data to pin down Alex Jones on
sessed with Glenn Beck, then a ris- history with him helped fuel his Social media is another target. his Sandy Hook denialism. “You
ing star on Fox News whose rat- rise to the top of MMFA. (Caru- Media Matters argues that Face- might disagree with our point of
ings seemed to climb the more he sone faced his own scandal when, book and Twitter are facing view,” Power says, “but you can’t
pushed toward the conspiratorial, ironically enough, right-wingers the same bad-faith accusations disagree with our data.”
Obama’s- FEMA-camps fringes. found racial and transphobic of bias from the right that the
Carusone, a college debate cham- slurs on his old blog; he’s repeat- mainstream media always has SPENDING YOUR EVENINGS log-
pion, recognized Beck’s rhetori- edly apologized and claimed they — witness how much time Mark ging cable news is a weird job.
cal skill. “He was dangerous and were satire.) Zuckerberg spent in his 2018 con- Media Matters’ night-shift crew
effective,” Carusone says. “And Media Matters’ efforts to ham- gressional appearance addressing is a younger and looser group, at
there was a perverse incentive for mer away at Fox News’ advertiser Facebook’s apparently accidental least by D.C. standards. There are
him to get worse.” base picked up speed after found- ban of the right-wing personalities some baseball caps, and among
Part of it, Carusone admits, was the button-downs, two
pure procrastination — anything dudes wearing P-Funk
to put off law-school homework. T-shirts. And there’s
But he also found Beck “uniquely Madeline Peltz, 25, in a
terrifying.” He started a @stop- gray sweater and gothy
beck Twitter account and began lipstick. She watches
publicly shaming advertisers, be- Carlson’s show every
coming so obsessed with the cru- night and argues he’s
sade that he quit a Wisconsin slipped into full-blown
Supreme Court clerkship to focus white nationalism (a
on it. In May 2011, Media Matters label he has vociferous-
made Carusone its director of only rejected) — she’s also
line strategy; by that point, more FOX & ENEMIES er Roger Ailes left in 2016. For all Diamond and Silk. The platforms the one who dug up the Bubba the
than 300 advertisers had dropped Fox News hosts the extremism he allowed, Ailes end up working so hard to avoid Love Sponge recordings.
Laura Ingraham
Beck’s show, and he would be off also kept the network on message, perceptions of left-wing bias that At 8 p.m. it’s airtime for Tucker
and Tucker
the air the next month. Carlson are and periodically pulled the reins they make nonsensical decisions, Carlson Tonight. Peltz and her col-
In 2012, Carusone found anoth- among the in on his hosts. Without him, they e.g., reports of Twitter declining league Rebecca Martin are at their
er extracurricular mission. Ap- network ran wild. Hannity provided grist to algorithmically remove racist desks, ready to watch. Tonight,
personalities Carlson has a guest who claims
prentice host Donald Trump had for a boycott by pushing the dis- accounts because some Republi-
targeted by
become a vocal Obama birther, Media Matters. credited theory that the DNC hack can politicians could be flagged. polar bears are doing just fine;
and Carusone launched a cam- was an inside job by the late Seth Far more daunting is the broad- two seconds of Googling reveals
paign for Macy’s to drop his cloth- Rich, victim of a still-unsolved er internet. Fox News, with its that her work has been widely dis-
ing line. Trump would prove a murder; Laura Ingraham com- shareholders, corporate struc- credited by experts. “That hap-
more formidable opponent than pared detention centers for child ture, and advertisers, is an easy pens all the time,” Peltz says. “An-
Beck. Carusone says Trump’s migrants to “summer camps.” target compared with an entire other extreme example was when
reps accused him of forging peti- Media Matters estimates that universe of disintermediated dis- O’Reilly brought on someone he
tion signatures and threatened a Fox News has lost as much as information, from QAnon You- said was a member of the Swedish
$25 million lawsuit, leaving Caru- $200 million in potential ad reve- Tube videos to alt-right Twitter government, and he was literally
sone struggling to find a lawyer nue since 2017. (Fox News denies personalities. “It’s terrifying,” just some random guy.”
willing to take the case. “It was a it, providing data that show some Carusone admits. Media Matters No one at Media Matters admits
really good lesson in how effective year-to-year growth in their ad has a department coming up with to much psychological wear and
Trump was,” Carusone says. “And revenue.) Carusone hopes share- strategies to at least monitor the tear from their immersion in an
how scared he made people.” holders will sue Fox for breach threat, with, for instance, a new ocean of alternative facts. “Since
Macy’s kept its deal with Trump of fiduciary duty, arguing its pro- tool that archives posts on 4chan the 2016 election, I’ve felt like
until 2015, when his comments gramming is so irresponsible it and 8chan. “Having the technical we’re on the front lines,” says dep-
about Mexicans at his presidential represents inadequate steward- capability to scrape those boards, uty editorial director Pam Vogel.
campaign launch finally crossed ship of the business. “Fox doesn’t and then search that content “I’m coming to work every day
the line for the company. Caru- have their entertainment side to makes a huge difference to our and I’m doing something. That
sone considers it a victory and has bury these losses anymore,” says ability to track the food chain,” helps. And a lot of us have a sort
a huge framed article on the bat- Carusone, referring to the March says Cynthia Padera, who leads of warped sense of humor about
tle in his office. “Not many people sale of Fox’s movie and TV assets those efforts. “And the food chain it. It’s like a coping mechanism.”
beat Trump, truly, in a head-to- to Disney. “If I’m a shareholder, is no longer just a ladder — it’s a It all might be more amusing, if
head fight,” he says. “And so I take I don’t want to subsidize Rupert circle.” A right-wing narrative, she not for the bizarre importance of
great pride on a personal level.” Murdoch’s political agenda.” says, will “start on 4chan, then these shows in our current reality.
In the 2016 campaign, Caru- Media Matters also monitors hit Facebook, and then end up on “Fox News not only regained its
sone became convinced that few the mainstream media, which Tucker. And that’ll start a second agenda-setting role in the conser-
in the media were taking Trump it views as highly susceptible to wave of it back on Facebook.” vative media,” says Martin. “Fox
FOX NEWS
seriously enough. MMFA would right-wing story lines — one of the All of this data collection and News has become the agenda-
flag calls to violence from Trump goals on the 2019 planning memo scolding may add up to more setter for everyone else.”

Billie
Pop’s biggest new star
is a 17-year-old who rose
to fame on her own terms
and doesn’t care what
you think — even if she
Eilish
still calls out for her
mom after a bad dream
and the
Triumph
of the
Weird
BY JOSH EELLS
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
PETRA COLLINS
50 | Rolling Stone
BILLIE EILISH
sad type . . . might-seduce-your-dad type.” You get the are spiked with silver rings (“She’s a pain in the butt
sense that she’d love to be a “Parents Beware” seg- at airports,” says her tour manager), and her nails are
‘H
ment on the 11:00 news.) Her vibe is both semi-nihil- tipped with frightening two-inch acrylics that look
ist and joyously defiant, a perfect soundtrack for a like dragon’s talons. “They’re supposed to be skin
generation that faces a half-dozen existential threats color, but they’re turning pink, and I hate it,” Eilish
before first period. But she’s also playful, mischie- says. “I tried to re-color them, but I don’t know what
vous, vulnerable, alienated, melancholy — in other the fuck I’m doing.”
words, a teen. Eilish’s fame has jumped exponentially this year,
Unlike previous generations of pop idols — your and she’s still figuring it all out. It’s a pretty steep
Nickelodeon alums and Simon Cowell constructs — learning curve. Recently she came down with multi-
Eilish also got where she is more or less organically. ple rashes, and a doctor said it was her body’s way
Four years ago, she uploaded to SoundCloud a gor- of telling her she needed to rest. Her home address
geous ballad called “Ocean Eyes,” which she sang also leaked online, and three fans showed up in a sin-
and her older brother, Finneas, wrote and produced. gle day, including a creepy older guy who’d driven all
The song was meant for Eilish’s dance teacher, who’d the way from San Diego. For a time, they had a body-
EY, BILLIE?” says Billie Eilish’s mom, standing in the asked for a song to choreograph a routine to. But guard sleeping in the living room. “It was really trau-
kitchen of their Los Angeles home. “Are you going to when it went viral essentially overnight, the industry matizing,” says Eilish. “I completely don’t feel safe in
clean your room?” came calling. She had a billion streams on Spotify be- my house anymore, which sucks.”
“Yeah,” says Eilish, 17, stretching her reply into fore her album was even out. This afternoon, the family is hectically pack-
two no-duh syllables. Even from the couch, her eye Not that Eilish is impressed with it all. The first ing, getting ready for a month on the road. Her dad
roll is audible. sound on her album is the adolescent slurp of her runs to their storage space to pick up Eilish’s elec-
Her mom turns to me. “Can she clean her room taking her Invisalign out, and that kind of zero-fucks tric scooters, while her mom does her laundry and
while you talk? Is that OK?” authenticity sums up her style. Her music — still makes her lunch in between packing Eilish’s suitcase.
The Eilish home is on a leafy block in L.A.’s High- made by two siblings in their bedrooms — stands out At one point she comes over with a portable Blue-
land Park, a gentrifying semisuburban neighbor- in a pop universe where everything is made by the tooth speaker. “Honey, are we taking this?”
hood. The two-bedroom bungalow is cramped and same seven or eight pros, and her lack of pretense “No,” Eilish says, “I’m taking my backpack.” (She
homey, with overflowing bookshelves and, currently, and disregard for bullshit surely have a lot to do with has a backpack with built-in speakers.)
five occupants: Eilish’s mom; Eilish’s dad; their cat, her success. “We often have to tell Billie why some- “Well, do you want this one as a backup?”
Misha; their dog, Pepper; and the biggest, most excit- thing is important,” says her mom. Her dad — who “No,” Eilish says again.
ing new pop star of 2019. says Eilish “has no tolerance for people she’s not in- “You’re 100 percent sure?”
Eilish’s debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, terested in and doesn’t give a shit whether you like Eilish sighs. “You can bring it,” she says. “But I
Where Do We Go?, was released this past spring, and her or not” — recalls a day recently when a bunch of don’t need it.”
has already been streamed more than 2 billion times. execs from her label gave her a plaque. “A different “OK,” her mom says, “so I’ll bring it, then?”
Last week she was on tour in Australia, and tomor- artist would be completely gassed to get a gold record Eilish throws up her hands. “Oh, my God.”
row she leaves for a festival in the U.K., and for the with their name on it,” he says. “But Billie’s response Truth be told, Eilish isn’t really looking forward
next month she’s playing amphitheaters and are- was, ‘What am I gonna do with a fucking plaque?’ ” to this tour. In fact, she’s kind of dreading it. She al-
PREVIOUS SPREAD: SHIRT AND SHORTS BY PROBLEM BOY. CHOKER BY BITCH FIST. BRACELETS BY CHROME HEARTS. RINGS BY CHROME HEARTS
nas across the U.S. — every one sold out. But this af- In photos, Eilish rarely smiles, but in person, she’s ready has virtually no freedom in the world, on ac-
AND SOUVENIR JEWELRY. OPPOSITE PAGE: SWEATER BY DIOR FROM NEIMAN MARCUS, BEVERLY HILLS. NECKLACES BY SYDNEY EVAN AND SHAY
ternoon is a rarity for Eilish: a day at home with not funny, goofy, and entertainingly dramatic. She makes count of being 17. She hates being away from her
much to do. So she’s doing what any good 17-year-old great faces, and even when she’s being bratty, it’s friends for so long — she knows when she gets back,
would, and wasting time on the internet while not usually with a wink. Her hair, often blue, is today they’ll all dress differently and have new inside jokes.
cleaning her room. dyed a deep espresso, and her signature streetwear “It’s annoying,” she says. “I have this amazing thing
JEWELRY. BRACELET BY SHAY JEWELRY. EARRINGS BY STEFERE JEWELRY AND LOREE RODKIN. HAND CHAIN BY LOREE RODKIN.
“Did you know broccoli is a man-made food?” says look — hoodie, basketball shorts, Air Jordans — is in front of me, and I don’t want to hate it — and I don’t
Eilish, staring at her phone, to no one in particular. fashionably oversized and androgynous. Her fingers hate it. But I hate certain parts of it.”
“It doesn’t grow naturally.”
E
“Well, I picked broccoli as a kid,” says her mom. ILISH’S BRAIN HAS always worked a little
“No, you did not,” counters Eilish. “I’m looking at differently. As a child, she was diagnosed
it on Safari.”
Eilish was born in December 2001, making her the
Eilish isn’t really with Tourette syndrome, which for her
manifests as barely noticeable tics: a slight
first artist with a chart-topping album to be born this looking forward to bulging of her eyes, a twitching of her head to one
millennium. She’s so Gen Z, she makes twentysome- side. She’s usually able to suppress them, though
things feel ancient. She’s never bought a CD. She says her upcoming tour. certain things seem to trigger attacks (e.g., math).
things like, “I’m never gonna be 27 — that’s too old.” She also experiences synesthesia, the neurosensory
She’s also probably the only pop star who still sees a “It’s annoying,” she wire-crossing in which senses blend together. “Every
pediatrician. (“It’s weird,” says her mom. “There’s a
waiting room full of four-year-olds, and then there’s
says. “I have this person I know has their own color and shape and
number in my head,” she says. Finneas, for example,
Billie Eilish.”)
Eilish has conquered the music world in part by
amazing thing in is an orange triangle (though the name Finneas is
dark green). Her song “Bad Guy” “is yellow, but also
doing everything you’re not supposed to. Her music
is darker and weirder than that of most teen pop
front of me, and I red,” she says. “And the number seven. It’s not hot,
but warm, like an oven. And it smells like cookies.”
stars, with a gothy, punkish edge and nary a hint of don’t want to hate Eilish is actually her middle name. Before she was
bubblegum. For her core teen-girl fan base, she’s born, her parents, Maggie Baird and Patrick O’Con-
like the cool senior in art class who dresses and acts it — and I don’t nell, saw a documentary about conjoined Irish twins,
the way they wish they could: stylish, outrageous,
maybe a little dangerous. (As her hit single “Bad hate it. But I hate Katie and Eilish Holton, and decided if they ever had
a daughter, they would name her Eilish. But when
Guy” puts it, “I’m the bad type, make-your-mama-
certain parts of it.” Maggie was pregnant, her father, Bill, passed away,
so they named her Billie after him instead. Eilish
Contributing editor JOSH EELLS profiled Lil Nas X never liked her actual last name. “It sounds like if a
in the June issue. goat was a person,” she says. “Billie Goat O’Connell.”

BILLIE EILISH
Eilish was a sensitive kid with severe separation way to beautiful, hushed ballads over a minimalist lease,” which would give her access to a horse when-
anxiety. She slept in her parents’ bed until she was bottom end. “Billie has this specific vocal range, sort ever she wants. The cost would be $1,000 a month.
10. Her dad says that until she was 12, one of them of between a whisper and a hum,” Finneas says. “If “We can’t really afford that,” her mom says. “But
was literally with her around the clock. Maggie and you play a lot of instruments in that range, her voice she can.”
Patrick, “mostly unemployed” actors (his words) sounds foggy — but things like bass, kick drums, and Afterward, Eilish walks through the barn to visit
who put their careers on hold to home-school the low, clocky snares can co-exist and not conflict.” the horses. She remembers most of them: Rosie, Clo-
kids, had no formal curriculum. Instead, they let A few months ago, Finneas bought himself a new ver, Frenchie, Captain America, the ponies Jellybean
Billie and Finneas, who turns 22 on July 30th, ex- house. It’s only four minutes away — but his bedroom and Tinkerbell. She nuzzles each one, letting it smell
plore whatever interested them that week: art class- studio is still here, untouched. “If my parents were her head. Eventually she gets to a gorgeous black
es; museums; science programs at Cal Tech. “Our like, ‘We need the room, take out all your stuff,’ I’d mare named Jackie O, and Eilish practically swoons.
whole stance was, general knowledge is all,” her dad be like, ‘That makes sense. I have a house now!’ ” he “I was literally in love with this horse,” she says.
says. “You need to know why the sky is blue, but you says. “But their very kind argument is: ‘If Billie still For a while she took lessons on her — “but then this
don’t need to memorize a bunch of esoterica you’ll lives at home, and she still wants to make music with other girl with more money wanted to ride her,” and
never use.” (Eilish passed her high school equivalen- you, we want you to be able to do that here.’ ” since she could afford to pay, she got priority. Eilish
cy exam and graduated at 15.) was so crushed that she quit riding altogether. She
W
Eilish tried acting a few times, but it didn’t take. HILE SHE’S HOME, Eilish wants to couldn’t bear to see someone else on Jackie O. “But
“I went on, like, two auditions,” she says. “So lame. see about a horse. even after I stopped riding,” she says, “I came here
This creepy, cold room. All these kids that looked ex- There’s a stable near her house just to be with her.” Eilish strokes Jackie O’s neck and
actly the same. Most actor kids are psychopaths.” She where she learned to ride as a little grins. The horse seems to remember her, too.
had more fun looping — recording background dia- girl. Her family couldn’t afford to pay, so she worked Back home, Eilish sits on the couch and gazes out
logue for crowd scenes. “I did Diary of a Wimpy Kid, in exchange for lessons — bridling the horses and the window while Maggie brews her tea. “Mom,” she
Ramona and Beezus, X-Men,” she says. “It was fun — brushing them afterward. But she stopped coming says, “can you get my notebook?” Her mom brings it
a bunch of kids in a room yelling random things, and around after a couple of years because she “couldn’t in, and Eilish flips it open to show me. “For a while
then we’d have a break and get snacks.” In a way, not take being the poor girl around the stable.” “I made a I wrote literally everything I was thinking or feeling
too dissimilar from what she does now. couple of friends,” she adds. “But otherwise nobody in this book,” she says. “I haven’t actually done any-
There was always music. The family had three pi- was very nice. Horse people don’t like poor people.” thing in it for a while, because I’ve been hiding all
anos in the house, including a junky old grand that But now that she has some money, she wants to my emotions.”
Patrick scavenged for free off the internet. Maggie have access to a horse when she’s home. “It’s more Eilish flips through pages of drawings and sketch-
played guitar and taught both kids the basics of song- for my mental health than, like, a hobby,” she says. es — optical illusions, spiders, the Babadook. There’s
writing: This is a verse, these are chords. “We kind Outside, her new car is parked on the curb: a a scary creature she sometimes dreams about, a kind
of had a rule that no one would ever make you go to matte-black Dodge Challenger she’s nicknamed the of cross between a snake and the xenomorph from
sleep if you were playing music,” Maggie says. Dragon. “Look at her fine ass,” she says. “I love this Alien. (“It’s kind of what I imagine I look like in my
If they were trying to create an incubator for mu- car so much.” Her dream car since she was 13, it was head,” she says.) But most of the book is filled with
sical prodigies, it worked. Finneas asked for his first a 17th-birthday gift from her label. But up until five words: snippets from her favorite rap songs, draft
drum kit for Christmas at age three and taught him- days ago, she wasn’t allowed to drive it without one lyrics for songs she never put out, lyrics for ones she
self piano at 11. As for Eilish, she wrote her first song of her parents. She just passed her driver’s test Fri- did. Plus, she says, “some stupid 14-year-old shit.”
on the ukulele at four, started performing in home- day; today is Wednesday. “Check this out,” Eilish (On one page: “You really know how to make me
school talent shows at six, and joined the L.A. Chil- says. She opens her wallet and proudly shows off her cry.” On another: “I just want to hold you,” with the
dren’s Chorus at eight. As they got older, she and Fin- license. (Name: Billie Eilish O’Connell. Eyes: Blue. “hold” crossed out and replaced with “fuck.”)
neas started writing together, eventually recording Hair: Other.) Eilish turns the page. “And this page . . . oof. This is
their songs on an iMac that Finneas — a former child Outside the stables, the owner greets Eilish with just me depressed,” she says. “Scared, broken, and
actor who had small roles on Modern Family and Glee a hug. Then they go inside and discuss her options. alone,” it says. And: “I’m sad again.” “Yeah,” says Ei-
— had saved his paychecks for. When Eilish signed The owner says she can do something called a “half- lish. “This is when I was . . . not good.”
her record deal, her label tried to move her into a Eilish says it started with a dance injury when she
real studio to collaborate with more seasoned pro- was 13. She’d been dancing seriously for a few years
ducers and songwriters. She was not a fan. in a more well-to-do part of town: ballet, tap, jazz,
“I hated it so much,” she says. “It was always these
50-year-old men who’d written these ‘big hit songs!’
“When anyone hip-hop. When she was 12, she joined the competi-
tive-dance company. A lot of “really pretty girls,” all
and then they’re horrible at it. I’m like, ‘Ugh, you else thinks of in school together, all friends. “That was probably
did this a hundred years ago.’ Also no one listened when I was the most insecure,” she says. “I couldn’t
to me, because I was 14 and a girl. And we made Billie Eilish at speak and just be normal. At dance you wear really
‘Ocean Eyes’ without anyone involved — so why are tiny clothes, and I’ve never felt comfortable in really
we doing this?” 14, they think of tiny clothes. That was probably the peak of my body
When it came time to record her album, Eilish
stuck with the formula she knew. She and Finneas
all the good things dysmorphia. I couldn’t look in the mirror at all.”
Then catastrophe struck. “Basically, before you’re
co-wrote 11 of the 13 songs, while he wrote the other
two solo and produced them all. They worked in
that happened,” 16, the cartilage in your hip isn’t firm yet,” she says.
“It’s still growing. I was in a hip-hop class with all the
spurts, for 45 minutes or all night long, just sitting in
each other’s bedrooms trading lines. Eilish recorded
she says. “All seniors, the most advanced level.” She was already
injury-prone, and one day, she ruptured the growth
her vocals on Finneas’ bed, singing into a mic while I think is how plate in her hip.
surrounded by flower pillows. They kept a progress The injury was devastating. She had to give up
chart scribbled on his wall, right above where they miserable I was. dance altogether. “I think that’s when the depression
used to mark their heights as kids.
Sonically, Eilish’s music is genre-omnivorous: post- Thirteen to 16 started,” she says. “It sent me down a hole. I went
through a whole self-harming phase — we don’t have
Lorde confessionals, bouncy Benny Blanco pop, skit-
tering-808 trap beats and Yeezus-era-Kanye abrasion.
was pretty rough.” to go into it, but the gist was, I felt like I deserved to
be in pain. I was just so not OK with who I was.”
Vocally, she recalls everyone from Lana Del Rey to Ironically, it’s also when her career started to take
early Eminem, her singsongy nyah-nyah raps giving off. “It’s funny,” she says. “When anyone else thinks

LIVE WIRE “You look good as fuck!” As each girl leaves, Eilish
Left: Eilish at says she loves them and to take care of themselves.
Coachella in Eilish’s dirty little secret is that, for all her boasts
April. Gen X rock about villainy and dad-seducing, she’s actually . . . a
stars like Dave
pretty good kid? She doesn’t drink, she’s never even
Grohl, Eddie
Vedder, Billie Joe tried drugs, and her song “xanny” is about how she
Armstrong, and thinks pills are dumb. True, she curses like she’s
Thom Yorke have auditioning for Veep, but improbably, her album
been taking their doesn’t have a single curse word. Finneas says it’s by
kids to see Eilish design. She’s an antihero who’s still safe to listen to
perform and
with Mom and Dad in the car.
stopping by to
say hello to the
Eilish’s tour manager, Brian Marquis, is a vet of
pop star. “Yorke the hardcore scene who used to work production at
was a little Warped Tour. Eilish’s music reminds him of some of
tough,” says her the bands he loved in the Nineties: Portishead, Nine
tour manager, Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson. For him, touring with
Brian Marquis.
her is especially cool because so many Gen X icons
“He was just as
you’d expect:
have kids who are just the right age to be huge Billie
curmudgeonly, Eilish fans, and they’ve come backstage to say hi and
perturbed.” be hero dads for a night. Dave Grohl. Billie Joe Arm-
Marquis says strong. Thom Yorke. “Yorke was a little tough,” Mar-
Yorke told Eilish, quis says. “He was just as you’d expect: curmudgeon-
“You’re the
ly, perturbed.” Marquis says Yorke came up to Eilish
only one doing
anything fucking
and mumbled, almost grumpily, “You’re the only one
interesting doing anything fucking interesting nowadays.” Eil-
nowadays.” ish’s response: “. . . thank you?” (Said Finneas later,
“That’s the coolest thing anyone’s ever said to you.”)
Eilish is familiar with all these guys, but she’s not
exactly star-struck. Her dad says that when Eddie
Vedder came backstage at the Seattle show, “Billie
was nice to him and nice to his daughter. And then
got out of there as fast as she could.”
It’s a far cry from Eilish’s first tour, two years ago,
which was six of them in a van, with Patrick doing
the lights and he and Marquis taking turns driving.
Their hotel budget was $100 a night. Eilish, her par-
ents, and Finneas usually shared one room, and fre-
quently one bed. “It was fun, sort of,” says Patrick. “It
was miserable,” says Eilish.
But even now that they have four buses and a
crew of 37, it’s still a family affair. Patrick — who be-
tween acting jobs used to work in the wood shop
SIBLING CONNECTION THE FAMILY O’CONNELL at Mattel — is a kind of utility man, using carpen-
Left: Billie and Finneas in Above: Eilish with her dad, try know-how to do whatever needs doing. And
2005. The siblings recorded mom, and brother. The Maggie is a cross between tour den mom and Eil-
all of Billie’s debut album parents home-schooled the
ish’s actual mother, passing out dried mangoes to
in Finneas’ bedroom. kids with no curriculum.
the crew and generally being a warm, maternal pres-
about Billie Eilish at 14, they think of all the good flats in head-to-toe neon green: neon-green T-shirt, ence. Most important, she’s Eilish’s psychological
things that happened. But all I can think is how mis- neon-green shorts, neon-green sneakers, and a ne- gatekeeper, running interference on everything peo-
erable I was. How completely distraught and upset on-green Spring Breakers-style balaclava. She comes ple want to bring her. “I just understand how things
and confused. Thirteen to 16 was pretty rough.” in for soundcheck, then recruits her dad and Finneas will fit into her mood better,” Maggie says, “and not
Eventually, she got better. “I haven’t been de- and a few crew guys for some Frisbee on the grass, fuck up her day.” Both Patrick and Maggie get a sala-
pressed in a minute, which is great,” she says. “Sev- which quickly devolves into a hip-hop dance party. ry on the road. It’s not a lot — just enough that they
FROM TOP: KOURY ANGELO; COURTESY OF THE O’CONNELL FAMILY, 2
enteen has probably been the best year of my life. She heads inside to cool off and down a gluten-free don’t go broke not doing their other gigs for months
I’ve liked 17.” But the sadness is still with her. “Some- vegan burrito (a lifelong vegetarian, Eilish has never at a time. But neither earns a commission or profits
times I see girls at my shows with scars on their arms, eaten meat, although she did once accidentally swal- off Eilish’s success in any other way.
and it breaks my heart,” she says. “I don’t have scars low an ant in a glass of soy milk). She washes it down They worry about her sometimes. Of course they
anymore because it was so long ago. But I’ve said to with sparkling water, because her mom doesn’t like do. “When it first started, my biggest fear was that
a couple of them, ‘Just be nice to yourself.’ Because I her drinking soda. The Stones in ’72 it is not. they would exploit her fast and be done with her,”
know. I was there.” A couple of hours later, a few dozen fans are ush- says Maggie. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, but Pat-
ered backstage for a meet-and-greet. Almost all are rick says they’re always vigilant. “Her teenage years
A
ND THEN, JUST LIKE THAT, Eilish is on teen or preteen girls, plus their parents. Several are were wrested from her,” he says. “She was being
the road. dressed like mini-Billies in high-viz neon and multi- shuttled all over the country at 14 — that’s really
She starts in San Francisco, makes her colored hair. There’s lots of nervous giggling and tug- young. So although this has all been pretty wonder-
way through the Pacific Northwest, and ging at sleeves; several of them cry. When they get to ful and extraordinary, we try to put a buffer between
eventually arrives in Utah, where I catch up with the front of the line, they hand Maggie their phones, Billie and the ravenous industry.”
her at a venue called the Great Saltair, on the banks and she films them as Eilish gives each a big hug and At one point, Eilish and I sit down in her dressing
of the Great Salt Lake. She’s running around the salt a compliment: “You’re so pretty!” “Your hair is fire!” room to talk. She says that when we [Cont. on 95]

10
ARTISTS
YO U
NEED Tierra
Whack
TO
HOMETOWN Philadelphia
Childlike creativity channeled
SOUNDS LIKE
into shape-shifting 2019 hip-hop

N ANYONE ELSE’S HANDS , Tierra
Whack’s Whack World would have
I been a gimmick. The 23-year-old Philly
rapper’s 2018 album was made up of
15 one-minute tracks, each distinctive and assured,
despite their bite-size length. The record started as an
K N OW
experiment, but became a calling card. “It just keeps
growing!” she says of the fan reaction.
The release led to world tours, a friendship with
André 3000 (“He just had his birthday — he’s doing
really good”), and a meet-up with Erykah Badu in Paris
(“That’s my dog — she’s cool as hell”). In June, Whack
finally quit her day job as a doorman at a luxury condo
building. Now, she says she’s ready to move on. “I just
wanted to get people some more music that was longer
than a minute,” she says of the five songs she has
released this year.
Whack is currently back in Philly, working on her
next LP and dreaming up new ideas for her increasingly
ambitious stage show, in which she traverses Nickelo-
deon-by-way-of-psychedelics landscapes. “I’m like, ‘Yo,
I need to give these people an experience — I need to
bring them into my world,’ ” she says. “That’s all I think
about.” BRENDAN KLINKENBERG
KOURY ANGELO

R O L L I N G S T O N E
Sheldon
Shepherd (left)
and Everaldo
Creary of
the No-Maddz
58
ROLLING STONE
A R T I S T S T O W A T C H
The No-Maddz YK Osiris

HOMETOWN Kingston, Jamaica HOMETOWNJacksonville, Florida
SOUNDS LIKEGolden-age reggae with an ear toward Smooth Nineties R&B gets a gritty
SOUNDS LIKE
today’s pop mainstream modern makeover

N A RECENT VISIT to New York from their native Jamaica, the K OSIRIS BELIEVES contemporary R&B needs a little more
No-Maddz pop into a record store and seek out the reggae sec- romance. “People don’t like talking about love songs no more,”
O tion — only to find a few scant bins near the back. “They treat
Y he says. The 20-year-old has taken it upon himself to fill that
it like it’s niche,” Sheldon “Sheppie” Shepherd says with a sigh. void, delivering some of the most heartfelt crooning to hit the
Everaldo “Evie” Creary, his bandmate, nods: “Who is the new Bob or Tosh?” charts since Usher’s dominant run in the early 2000s.
Lofty ambition has always been key to the group’s MO. For nearly two dec- YK Osiris’ shows, typically packed with screaming teenage girls, attest to
ades, culminating in the eclectic upcoming LP, tentatively titled The No-Maddz the strategy’s success. He’s used to the environment, having grown up with six
Heaven on Earth, the group has been pushing the boundaries of reggae while sisters. “I had to be the man of the house,” says the artist, born Osiris Williams.
honoring its roots. In 1998, Shepherd and Creary met in drama club at Kingston He earned his nickname when a math teacher who heard his raspy-voiced
College, the renowned Jamaican high school; by the early 2000s, they began singing in class dubbed him “young king.” He’d eventually channel his talents
performing their self-styled “dub poetry.” Along the way, Shepherd and Creary into 2018’s “I’m Next (Freestyle),” which combined tender wordless vocals with
kept expanding their reach. They appeared in a Puma ad, which used their bub- crude sexual boasts, and quickly racked up millions of streams.
bly chant “Puka Poo,” and then cut a debut studio album with Sly and Robbie. Within months of the song’s release, he signed with Def Jam. Now he’s being
Co-produced by Major Lazer MC Walshy Fire, Heaven on Earth ups the cross- managed by Jas Prince, the same man who helped make Drake a megastar.
over ante, blending in hip-hop (“Beat Dem Down,” a collaboration with friend Last September, Osiris tweeted a photo of himself standing next to the Toronto
and actor Idris Elba) and old-school disco (“Wretched of the Earth”). “Some- rapper, but he hesitates to draw any easy parallels between them. “Nobody
how people still see reggae constantly from the past,” Shepherd says. “But it can put people in Drake’s position — if it happens, it happens for you,” he says.
needs international eyes on it. We’re going in the right direction.” DAVID BROWNE “I know that I’m raw.” CHARLES HOLMES
WAYNE LAWRENCE MERON MENGHISTAB
59
ROLLING STONE
Roddy
Ricch
HOMETOWN Compton, California
A whole new strain
SOUNDS LIKE
of West Coast hip-hop sadness

HE FORMULA that
has made Roddy
T Ricch one of the
most exciting
rappers on the planet is simple —
so simple he seems baffled when
asked to explain it. “Shit, I just
rapped and put a li’l harmony to
it,” says the 20-year-old MC.
What his description omits is
the oddly poignant quality of his
voice. Spectral and heavily Auto-
Tuned, with elements that recall
both Atlanta trap and Chicago
drill, it makes the Compton native
stand out in a region dominated
by gangsta-rap braggadocio.
As a teen, Ricch fell in with
local Crips and eventually did a
stint in county jail — an experi-
ence he cites as a turning point.
“When I first got out of jail, that
was my whole thing,” he says.
“Like, I’m going to just stay in
the studio instead of being in
the streets and really try to make
something [of] myself.”
His breakthrough came with
2018’s “Die Young,” a team-up
with hitmaking producers London
on da Track (Young Thug) and
Rex Kudo (Post Malone) that intro-
duced Ricch’s key lyrical theme:
running from death in pursuit
of wealth. His most popular
collaboration to date has been
Marshmello’s “Project Dreams,”
a rare example of a convincing
EDM/hip-hop crossover that’s
been streamed more than 125
million times. “He was telling
me he wanted to jump into my
world,” Ricch says. “But I was like,
‘Don’t discredit yourself. Let’s
really make it a Ricch-Marshmello
record.’ ”
Ricch speaks about his home-
town with reverence, calling it
“very, very cultured” and running
down the city’s lush hip-hop
legacy. But he’s quick to note
that family visits to Atlanta and
Chicago, along with inspiration
from cult figures like Speaker
Knockerz and Future, also shaped
his sound. “I just wanted to start
a whole ’nother foundation in my
city,” he says. CHARLES HOLMES
SAMUEL TROTTER
61
ROLLING STONE
R O L L I N G S T O N E
Sam Nasty Cherry

Fender HOMETOWNS
SOUNDS LIKE
London and L.A.
Sassy Eighties-MTV girl pop guided
by Charli XCX’s rebel spirit

HOMETOWN Newcastle, England ’VE ALWAYS and sent Charli a clip. “I was
Bruce Springsteen wanted to floored,” Charli says. “She has
SOUNDS LIKE
if he was a millennial from

‘I work with a this gorgeous, sultry voice.
the U.K. girl band,” It sounds so bruised and
Charli XCX says. “Not a beautiful, and I was just like,

ROWING UP classically pop girl band, but ‘OK, Gabbriette’s the shit.’ ”
in Newcastle, a girl band who have a rock & The group's bassist, Georgia
G England, Sam roll-type energy.” Enter Nasty Somary, was also new to her
Fender ob- Cherry: a new four-piece outfit instrument. “I loved music and
sessed over Bruce Springsteen. with members from both Lon- performance, but it never felt
“Newcastle is a coastal town don and Southern California. like an option for me before,”
that’s like a rundown theme park, Not an actual member, Charli she says.
like Asbury Park,” the 23-year-old instead played the role of The musicians moved into
says, drawing a parallel between old-school impresario. a house and began practic-
himself and the man he calls a “She had her birthday party ing. On the first night they
“superhero.” In the years since, in Palm Springs with about shared an “awkward pizza,” as
the singer-songwriter’s own fu- 50 people, then the next day Somary describes it. “It felt
sion of Brit-pop and early-2000s we went out to a Mexican very natural even though it’s
indie rock — heard on his upcom- restaurant and she said, ‘I have a ‘manufactured’ band, as it
ing debut, Hypersonic Missiles this idea,’ ” says Nasty Cherry were,” Knox-Hewson recalls.
— has taken him from tiny clubs guitarist Chloe Chaidez, who Nasty Cherry debuted in
to massive fests like Reading, first met Charli XCX when her March with “Win,” a wiry punk-
and earned him the Brit Awards’ other band Kitten opened pop song with tinges of Sky
coveted Critics’ Choice honor, for the “1999” singer on tour. Ferreira and gothy Eighties
previously won by Adele and Charli also recruited her own New Wave. Charli helped write
Sam Smith. He’s still a club act touring drummer, Debbie the track, but in general, she’s
in the States, but he can’t wait to Knox-Hewson, and singer keeping her distance as the
get back. “I fucking love playing Gabbriette Bechtel, a model band works on an upcoming
there,” he says. “It feels like start- and photographer who, EP. “If they need me, they call
ing over again.” ANDY GREENE Charli says, she was “basically me,” she says. “Otherwise, I
Instagram-stalking for visual like to watch them do their
JACK WHITEFIELD
references.” thing.” BRITTANY SPANOS
Bechtel had never sung
before but recorded herself MUNACHI OSEGBU
Caroline Spence
HOMETOWN Charlottesville, Virginia
A lifetime of weary memories distilled
SOUNDS LIKE
into shockingly pretty roots-country tunes

FTER MOVING first time I wrote the type of songs,” she says. “And [that
to Nashville song that I love.” person] was me.”
A from Ohio, Growing up in Charlottes- She’s also had to grow com-
where she ville, Virginia, Spence idolized fortable with her near-angelic
attended college, in 2011, songwriters like Patti Griffin croon. “I would love to be able
Caroline Spence spent her and Lori McKenna more than to rock a little bit, but there’s
first couple of years in the city singers. When she first heard no denying the tenderness
nannying, waiting tables, and Faith Hill sing one of McKen- and softness of my voice,”
writing songs every day. In na’s songs on the radio, she she says. OPPOSITE PAGE: HAIR BY STARILINA. MAKEUP BY MEGAN KELLY.
STYLING BY INDIANA PIOREK. CLOTHES BY THE MARC JACOBS.
2013, she finally came up with had an immediate realization: Spence’s quietly potent, un-
one she felt was good enough “I want to do that.” flashy sound feels like part of
to play around town: “Whiskey But Spence’s plan to a movement, also exemplified
Watered Down,” a gently sav- remain in the background by Kelsey Waldon, Erin Rae,
age kiss-off to a flaky musician. didn’t quite pan out. After and Michaela Anne, fellow ris-
“You think you’re a big deal two self-released albums, she ing artists who share her mis-
with that guitar in your hands,” recently signed to Rounder, sion of stripping country back
she sings. “But you’ll never be which put out her third LP, to its core elements. “That’s
Parsons, Earle, or Van Zandt.” Mint Condition, a gorgeously the greatest joy of living here,”
“I had been making myself rendered reflection on finding says Spence. “Seeing anybody
a student,” says the 29-year- peace amid upheaval and con- rise up always feels like a vic-
old, a key voice in the next fusion. “The artist thing kind tory.” JONATHAN BERNSTEIN
wave of roots-leaning Nash- of just grew out of the need
ville country. “That was the for someone to be singing my MOLLY MATALON
62
ROLLING STONE
Nasty Cherry
members (from
left) Somary,
Knox-Hewson,
Chaidez and
Bechtel
R O L L I N G S T O N E ’ S
Omar Apollo Hobart, Indiana

HOMETOWN
A Mexican American kid

SOUNDS LIKE
on an epic Prince binge

WO YEARS AGO , Omar Apollo sat down with his guitar and laptop He traces the intense emotion in his work to his family background. “I think it’s
in the attic where he was living in small-town Indiana. Soon, he’d just Mexicans being mad dramatic,” he jokes. “My mom, as soon as she watches
T recorded “Ugotme,” a two-minute marvel of achingly tender R&B. her novelas, she starts turning into that. . . . I’m like, ‘Ma, I know you’re just acting
A friend persuaded him to upload the track to Spotify, and mil- like this because you just saw La Rosa de Guadalupe or something.’ “
lions of streams later, the 22-year-old son of immigrants from Guadalajara, Mexico, Growing up, Apollo had trouble finding role models from his own culture, but
has become a DIY pop auteur, churning out lovelorn songs that reconcile the sultry now he’s inspiring a new generation. “Some of my little Mexican homies that I met
sounds of D’Angelo and Prince with Mexican soul and traditional corridos. at church, they hit me up on Instagram,” he says. “They’re like, ‘Bro, I just got a
Born Omar Velasco, the singer started out by learning guitar via YouTube. He guitar.’ It just makes me so happy.” JON BLISTEIN
says that being self-taught gave him the freedom to experiment. “I was just able to
be like, ‘Oh, what happens if I move one finger here and one finger here?’ ” he says. RYAN PFLUGER
64
ROLLING STONE
A R T I S T S T O W A T C H
Crudo
Means Raw
HOMETOWN Medellín, Colombia
Dance-party protest pop
SOUNDS LIKE
from Colombia

N JUNE 2018, with the big baseball hats
an unusual and the Yankee jerseys. It
I song rocketed was different times; now
to the top we have our own style here
of Spotify’s viral chart in in Colombia.”
Colombia: “La Mitad de la He become obsessive
Mitad,” which paired a smooth about beatmaking, studying
beat with a terse lyric that the work of Pete Rock and DJ
decries the country’s strict Premier. But he soon realized
new anti-drug laws. “All over he needed to hone his lyrical
Medellín, they were banging perspective. “I didn’t want
that track in nightclubs,” says to rap back in the day; it was
Crudo Means Raw, the man so much easier to just make
behind the single. “It would beats,” he says. “Then reality
be the 2 a.m. part of the party checked in: You’re gonna keep
where it gets really grimy and hiding under the beats?”
ratchet, and they would play Restrictive new cannabis
my song.” laws inspired him to speak
The track fuses the sounds his mind on “La Mitad de la
of Colombia with the tech- Mitad.” “I was probably angry
niques of American hip-hop, with the whole prohibition,”
a blend Crudo Means Raw Crudo says. “Smart people are
has been refining since high listening. Now I gotta clean
school. There, he met future up my act and say substan-
reggaeton superstar J Balvin. tial shit. The song might
“We would download beats have a catchy hook, but the
from the internet and just substance should turn a light
rap — that was the beginning,” on.” ELIAS LEIGHT
he says. “Trying to emulate
the whole baggy-jean flow T Y SNADEN
Sir Babygirl
HOMETOWN Hanover, New Hampshire
SOUNDS LIKE Carly Rae Jepsen if she were a DIY queer punk

IR BABYGIRL , as Top 40 anthems (crushes, her realize she could combine
the hyper-real parties) and dials it all up to her entire performing life into
S pop alter ego 11, with sputtering pop-rock one act. “I was like, ‘Oh . . . I
of 26-year- production and histrionic, wanna be in that world,’ ”
old Kelsie Hogue, started out Broadway-style vocals, all she says. “It took me back to
as an Instagram art project, while underscoring a uniquely all the music that they were
a way for the musician and queer point of view. (She’s inspired by: Aqua, ‘Barbie
comedian to find her place been known to take the stage Girl,’ amazing cartoonish shit
in the world. “At first it was wearing a pink strap-on har- that has always had a sense
very much me making memes ness.) “I’m a boy and a girl, I’m of humor.”
that were about my life, and a man and I’m a woman, I’m Still, she stresses that her
gender, and trying to figure funny and I’m serious,” Hogue work as Sir Babygirl isn’t a
out how to be bisexual in a says. “My girlfriend always satire of mainstream mores
world that still doesn’t believe says that when I go and perso much as a refraction of our
in bisexuality a lot,” she says. form as Sir Babygirl, it’s like I’m wildest tendencies. “I know
But soon she channeled the going into nonbinary drag.” I’m very absurd, but my sexu-
garish imagery of her posts Hogue grew up playing ality isn’t any more crazy than
— which featured musings guitar, piano, bass, and Britney walking around with a
on her daily life and selfies saxophone but transitioned snake on her neck, singing ‘I’m
covered in pixelated emojis to stand-up comedy after col- a Slave 4 U,’ “ she says. “You’re
and glitter — into a new breed lege. Hearing the over-the-top, just not used to seeing a strap-
of postmodern performance self-aware pop of artists like on onstage.” CLAIRE SHAFFER
art. Her music covers the Charli XCX and “When I Rule
same teen-friendly territory the World” singer Liz helped RACHEL CABITT
65
ROLLING STONE
The
Joy and
Mystery
of a New
Orleans
Saint
Dr. John
By D A V I D B R O W N E
OBBIE ROBERTSON has seen a lot in six decades of rock & roll, but nothing quite
like what happened at the Toronto Pop Festival in 1969. He and the Band were on
R a bill that included the New Orleans studio musician and songwriter Mac Reben-
nack, newly reinvented as Dr. John, the Night Tripper. “This guy I’m talking to, he
has strands of beads and shit coming off his head and powders coming out of his
ears and rags hanging down,” recalls Robertson. “He’s got a walking stick that looks like some-
thing you perform magic tricks with.” When rain began to pour down on the grounds, Robert-
son watched as Dr. John, playing an incantatory style of swamp pop dubbed “voodoo rock” by
a baffled media, raised the stick to the sky, and held it for a moment. Just then, the rain stopped.
As Robertson remembers, “We’re like, ‘Man, the doctor is really a doctor!’ ” ¶ Dr. John was al-
ways modest about his place in the history of New Orleans music. “Everything I’m about, the
old-timers showed me,” he once said. “Nothing I got is nothing original.” He’d be the first to
admit that he picked up his spry, rolling-river piano-playing from predecessors like Professor

GOOD DOCTOR
“This guy has the
whole history of
New Orleans music
in his head,” said
David Simon, who
cast the Doctor in
HBO’s Treme.
DR. JOHN, 1941-2019
POWER TRIO THE FULL EFFECT

Above: With Above right: In his
saxophonist Fathead headdress, 1973.
Newman (rear) and “I was just tryin’
drummer Art Blakey, to hustle money,”
1990. The three he said, explaining
formed a group, the origin of his
Bluesiana Triangle. character.
PRE-MED GOOD-TIME GUYS

Left: As a young Right: With Keith
NIGHT TRIPPER guitar player in Richards in 2001.
“He always spread 1958. By his teens, “We played together
juju whenever Dr. John was playing a few times,” Rich-
necessary,” says sessions and writing ards said. “He liked
Robbie Robertson. songs for New to have a great time,
Orleans acts. and so do I.”
Longhair, Fats Domino, and Huey “Piano” Smith. But From Bob Dylan to Lana Del Rey, musicians have teen years, he was playing sessions and writing songs
few embodied the spirit of New Orleans, or helped regularly wiped their slates clean, but few did it with for local acts. “We called him ‘the ratty dude,’ ” says
take it to strange new places, the way Dr. John did. as much style as Rebennack did when he became Neville, who sang on an early Rebennack session.
Even though he scored just one pop hit, 1973’s “Right Dr. John in the late 1960s. He always carried him- “He was hip. Instead of ‘How you doing?’ he’d say,
Place Wrong Time,” his impact on modern music self with a sense of mystery, addressing the world ‘Where you at?’ He was a bad dude on guitar.”
was huge, beginning with murky-swamplands mas- through witty pronouncements from behind his mo- In 1961, Dr. John was on the road with soul singer
terpieces like 1968’s Gris-Gris and 1972’s Dr. John’s lasses-thick swamp-rat drawl. Where did Mac Re- Ronnie Barron when a motel manager pulled a gun
Gumbo (a tribute to New Orleans that helped intro- bennack end and Dr. John begin? As he would say on Barron, who may have been sleeping with the
duce rock fans to standards like “Iko Iko”). Eight- in one of his unique phrasings, “I got some confuse- man’s “old lady.” Rebennack reached for the weap-
ies kids know him from his theme song to the sitcom ment here.” on and it went off, leaving part of his left ring finger
Blossom; Gen Z recognizes his voice from animat- “hanging by a thread,” as he wrote in his 1995 mem-
ed films like The Princess and the Frog; and anyone ALCOLM REBENNACK JR. wasn’t neces- oir, Under a Hoodoo Moon. The shooting was a pivot-
M
who remembers The Muppet Show knows the dap- sarily destined to become Dr. John. As al moment in Dr. John’s life, forcing him to switch to
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES; EBET ROBERTS/REDFERNS/

per bandleader Dr. Teeth, modeled on Dr. John. “He a baby in New Orleans’ Third Ward, a bass and then piano. But the injury also accelerated a
wasn’t just New Orleans, he was worldwide,” says middle-class neighborhood, Mac was heroin habit that had already begun. “At the moment
Aaron Neville, who met Dr. John when both were so adorable that he was featured in an I was shot, I saw not just my life, but my career, pass
teenagers. “He brought New Orleans everywhere.” Ivory soap ad. Harry Connick Jr. had a relative who before my eyes,” he wrote. “To get through it all, I
And with Dr. John’s death near New Orleans at lived next to the Rebennacks, and, in light of Dr. tried to make myself as null and void as possible — a
age 77 on June 6th, of a heart attack, rock lost one John’s mangy image, was surprised to find out how state I achieved through a heightened habit.” Busted
of the last links to its Wild West days. He witnessed conventional young Mac’s house was. “It’s in a pret- for possession, he wound up serving time in a federal
the grimy, gangster-ridden underbelly of early rock ty nice part of town,” Connick says. “It was hard for prison. According to Neville’s brother Charles, during
GETTY IMAGES; GILLES PETARD/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES
& roll, coming away with a heroin habit, a prison me to imagine that neighborhood would be his.” an earlier prison stint, Dr. John became known as the
sentence, and half a finger blown off in the pro- Yet the late-night side of town proved irresistible “zuzu man,” selling cigarettes and sweets.
cess. His surly-tomcat rasp conjured the Southern for Rebennack. His father owned an appliance store Upon his release in 1965, he wound up in L.A.,
Chitlin Circuit and funky bars where R&B and rock that carried records — what his son later called “gos- home to many relocated New Orleans musicians.
were birthed. “He was a human melting pot, grow- pel, bebop, real filthy party records, and hillbilly stuff (He would long blame district attorney Jim Garrison,
ing up with different races and experiences,” says like Hank Williams” — and repaired sound systems at played by Kevin Costner in JFK, for clamping down
the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, who produced Dr. local venues. Tagging along with his dad on club vis- on New Orleans nightclubs and depriving local musi-
John’s 2012 comeback album, the Grammy-winning its, Mac glimpsed legends like Professor Longhair. cians of steady work.) He became a session player for
Locked Down, “and it made him the most incredi- His aunt gave him piano lessons as a kid, but he soon Sonny and Cher, Buffalo Springfield, and other pop
ble mutt ever.” switched to guitar. “New Orleans produced a lot of acts, but he also wanted to make his own music. With
good piano players and some good drummers,” he other New Orleans transplants, he recorded his first
Senior writer DAVID BROWNE wrote about Hootie said, “but for some reason there weren’t a lot of gui- album, Gris-Gris, in 1967. It was named after the term
and the Blowfish in the June issue. tar players around, so I kind of filled the need.” By his for the charms, amulets, and incantations used by

MARDI GRAS LOCKED DOWN

EVERYWHERE Below: With Dan
Left: Backstage, Auerbach in 2011.
1973. “It’s always To persuade Dr. John
been my feeling that to record with him,
when someone Auerbach showed
goes to a show,” up unannounced at
he once said, “they the duplex shared
should get all their by Dr. John and an
senses pleased.” ex-con buddy.
voodoo believers that were meant to fend off evil. As their home. He was baptized Catholic, but as a teen, album, he saw they were nervous and sprinkled mys-
shadowy and murky as the swamps, Gris-Gris — and he sometimes played at the Guiding Star Spiritu- terious powder around a hotel room. “He said, ‘It’s
its centerpiece, eight minutes of eerie, lurking chants al Church, which welcomed Christians, Jews, and gonna be OK now,’” says Robertson. “He was always
called “I Walk on Guilded Splinters” — embodied the voodoo practitioners. “I dug the spiritual and hoo- spreading his juju whenever it was necessary.”
way Dr. John took his hometown’s musical heritage to doo-church people because their bag wasn’t like or-
new outer-space dimensions. Dr. John mixed in funk, ganized religion,” he said. ITH “RIGHT PLACE WRONG TIME,” Dr.
psychedelia, field hollers, Latin rhythms, and rock To cast a spell on anyone he didn’t want around, John brought his gris-gris funk to the
& roll, a template that would continue for decades.
While working on the album, Dr. John came up
with a plan for his live shows that would transport
Dr. John would make “goofer dust,” a combination of
graveyard dirt, gunpowder, and grease from the bells
of a graveyard chapel. “He believed in [voodoo ritu-
W Top 40. But the Night Tripper perso-
na proved too expensive and contro-
versial to maintain, and he soon re-
Mardi Gras to the stage. Working with producer Har- als] — it was not a shtick,” says Bill Bentley, one of his placed it with a more urbane style and wardrobe,
old Battiste, he concocted the idea of a “Dr. John,” publicists. “He had all these herbs he would carry embodied by his appearance at the Band’s Last Waltz
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY IMAGES, 2; ERIKA GOLDRING/WIREIMAGE;
named after a 19th-century Louisiana voodoo priest around with him. He once said this lady put a spell show in 1976, when the Doctor played “Such a Night.”
and jack-of-all-mystical-trades. “I was just tryin’ to on him and something bad happened to him.” “That song was the feeling of the evening,” says Rob-
hustle album deals, just tryin’ to hustle money,” he When Dr. John visited the Band before the 1971 ertson. “His presence was so warm and beautiful,
said in 1997. “The Dr. John thing was just a concept, New York shows that resulted in their Rock of Ages and that performance projected that as much as any-
a one-off thing.” Barron was supposed to play the thing that happened the whole night.”
character onstage, but when he declined, Rebennack By then, Dr. John had relocated to New York,
donned the headdresses, feathers, and beads him-
self. “Nobody else could have done it like he did,” “He was a human where he befriended Doc Pomus, the wheel-
chair-bound tunesmith who had co-written “Save the
says Neville. “He brought it to life.”
How authentic was the character? “I don’t believe
melting pot,” says Last Dance for Me” and an array of classic Sixties hits.
The two quickly became friends and collaborators.
Mac had nothin’ to do with no voodoo,” says Neville.
“It was all part of his shtick. He had a good heart.”
Dan Auerbach, “It blew my dad’s mind that Mac knew so many of
the songs my dad wrote,” says Sharyn Felder, Pomus’
Dr. John himself demurred as to whether he was an who produced daughter. “He said he never felt as musically connect-
actual voodoo practitioner or not (“I don’t have voo-
doo dolls or anything like that,” he said at the time).
‘Locked Down.’ ed to anyone since the early days as he did with Mac.”
The two would huddle in the bedroom of Pomus’
“There’s a lot of the Mardi Gras spirit in many areas “It made him the Upper West Side apartment, drinking root beer and
KEVIN MAZUR/WIREIMAGE
of show business,” he said. “It’s always been my feel- cranking out songs, including “There Must Be a Bet-
ing that when someone goes to see a show, they most incredible ter World Somewhere,” which B.B. King covered.
should get all their senses pleased.”
Yet his fascination with hoodoo rituals was also mutt ever.” But Dr. John remained a heroin user and often shot
up in the family bathroom. Girlfriends and ex-wives
sincere. Dr. John once said his grandmother, in some (he was married three times, most recently to song-
sort of trance, had lifted a heavy wooden table in writer Cat Yellen, and had six children) [Cont. on 97]

Kamala’s
Moment
The California senator is rising
fast in the polls — will her past as
a prosecutor sink her campaign
or be her biggest strength as she
makes her case against Trump?
By Jamil Smith
M
ANNY’S, A POPULAR RESTAURANT and community space in San Francisco’s Mission District, is
packed on Pride Weekend, just two days after the first Democratic debates. A perspiring crowd
pours out of the doors and bay windows, buzzing about the homecoming of a Bay Area daughter
who triumphed on the debate stage and is suddenly the talk of the political world. But the guest
of honor is making them wait. She’s huddled with the owner of the place, Manny Yekutiel, in an office that lit-
erally used to be a broom closet — not the most picturesque setting for a heart-to-heart with a potential future
president of the United States. ¶ Sen. Kamala Harris listens to Yekutiel, the son of a Brooklyn-born lawyer and an
Afghan Orthodox Jewish rabbi, as he tells his story about how his family reacted to his coming out. ¶ “She held
SHAYAN ASGHARNIA/AUGUST
my hand, and we had a very powerful moment,” Yekutiel tells me later. “Like a lot of politicians, real emotional
connection is what fuels her. Selfies and stump speeches, that’s not what gives them energy. What does is being
in a broom closet with a small-business owner who is disowned by his father, and being able to look him in the
eye and say, ‘I got you. I’m Kamala Harris, I’m running for president. I’m one of the most powerful women in pol-
itics, but I’m here for you.’ ” ¶ Since the first Democratic debate, something different is happening with Harris.

KA M A L A H A R R I S
After months of a campaign that was stagnating in contrary to my beliefs,” she said in January. ACLU day dinner. “I start planning dinner days in advance,”
the polls, her performance on the Miami stage edged staff attorney Chase Strangio argued in Out magazine says Harris, who is an accomplished cook. “I love
her into the top tier. For an electorate rightfully ob- that he isn’t ready to trust Harris, since she “has con- putting my day into it — and putting my foot into it,”
sessed with defeating Donald Trump, Harris made tributed to some of the most violent conditions faced she adds with a laugh.
herself look like the best person to stand opposite by trans people, particularly trans women of color, in Running for president is exhausting, and all the
him — and she did so by weakening the front-runner, California and across the country. It is going to take a more so when you face steep odds along a narrow
Joe Biden, in an unforgettable exchange about his op- lot to undo that damage.” path to victory. To win the nomination in 2020, Har-
position to school busing in the Seventies. Now, she is asking the Democratic electorate — in- ris has to win or place high in Iowa and New Hamp-
“And you know,” Harris said as the former vice creasingly swayed by an activist base that feels con- shire before likely winning or placing second on Feb-
president looked away from her, “there was a little stantly let down or even targeted by that system — to ruary 29th in South Carolina, where she has spent
girl in California who was part of the second class to send her to the White House. To let her fix the flaws more time than any other candidate. Danielle Vin-
integrate her public schools, and she was bused to from inside the Oval Office. son, a professor of politics and international affairs
school every day, and that little girl was me.” Biden’s It is a fascinating sell, and a difficult one. From at Furman University, believes that Harris has been
head snapped toward her. The entire primary had her very first speech of the campaign, in front of using her time in the state wisely. “She’s probably
changed. 20,000 strong in her native Oakland, Harris has em- doing the right thing by spending time in the part
“There are people who have come up to me, al- phasized that not only does the nation need a whole- of the state where she’s campaigning,” Vinson says,
most like it’s a secret society, [saying], ‘I was bused. sale change at the top, but it needs a prosecutor in pointing to areas like Orangeburg and Richland coun-
I know what that was like. I’m glad that you said the White House to properly revamp the system in ties, heavily populated by African Americans and
that,’ ” Harris says later during Pride Weekend as the wake of Trump. A candidate who actually be- known for some of the highest turnouts in the Dem-
we drive through San Francisco. “There are a lot of lieves in law and order — which she undoubtedly ocratic primary. “If she can catch on, word will trav-
young women who are saying that they’ve not seen does — rather than just using it as a marketing slogan. el. It’s not a big state, so you don’t have to hit all parts
an image of a woman of color on a stage like that with “The outcome of November 2016 has led a lot of of it to be engaged.”
a certain level of confidence.” people to question the premise of everything they The all-important Super Tuesday, with 1,321 del-
Harris’ life experience and political skill may give took for granted,” Harris tells me. “Over the past egates up for grabs, is only a few days after South
her the unique ability to pull together the broadest two and a half years, people have been throwing Carolina. And this time it includes California, which
possible Democratic constituencies — the fabled mul- things at that inanimate object called television and moved up its primary in 2017, ensuring that the state
tiracial Obama coalition that seeks both progress and going through individual and group therapy. But let’s that hosts the fifth-largest economy in the world and
pragmatism, and a far left that has moved beyond remember that the founders crafted a beautiful, 40 million people will play a bigger role in deciding
“hope and change” to focus on bold and concrete beautiful design for our democracy: three indepen- who the Democratic nominee will be. (As of press
policy goals. But almost immediately after her tri- dent, co-equal branches of government, and a free time, even after her debate surge, the highest Harris
umph over Biden, she faced a series of birther-style and independent press. And they presupposed there has polled is third.)
character assassinations from bots and conserva- would be a moment when an executive might abuse “I’m not taking it for granted,” Harris says of her
tives that echoed what President Obama faced from his authority.” home state’s primary. “You know, it’s funny — I al-
Trump during his administration. (Donald Trump Jr. ways tell people who are not from California that
A
briefly took part in this racist rumormongering, shar- FEW WEEKS EARLIER, we sit inside a Los An- their perception of California is usually off, and I
ing, then deleting, a tweet that falsely claimed Harris geles law office, where her campaign had set will remind them California voters voted for [Propo-
isn’t an “American Black” because she’s “half Indian up a temporary headquarters. She and her sition] 187. California voters voted for the most dra-
and half Jamaican.”) husband, entertainment lawyer Douglas Emhoff, live conian criminal-justice law ever, which was Three
But Harris, 54, may have to overcome an even big- in the area, so that meant nights in her own bed and Strikes. California voters voted for Prop 8. California
ger obstacle, one that also happens to be one of the waking up knowing which city she’s in, for once. And produced Ronald Reagan and Nixon, right? So let’s
central selling points of her candidacy: her career in she’d get to pick through her herb garden in prepa- be clear about the history.”
the criminal-justice system. Her decades as a pros- ration for the thing that brings her the most joy: Sun- Harris was first confronted with how conservative
ecutor — including seven years as district attorney parts of California are when she was in college, on
of San Francisco and six as the state’s attorney gen- her way to a court hearing. “My cousin was getting
eral — arguably make her the perfect person to take married in L.A.,” she recounts. “We were all living in
on our lawless president and restore order. Nobody
that has seen her grilling the likes of William Barr or
“People have come Oakland. He needed to take a bunch of stuff for the
wedding, and he said, ‘Kamala, come drive with me.’
Brett Kavanaugh in Senate hearings can deny her up to me, like it’s And I rented this car. You remember the Beretta? It
ability to outmaneuver an adversary. But that she is
a black woman who chose to work within a system a secret society, went really fast.”
The young Harris figured: Why should it take
that’s proved time and again to be biased against Af-
rican Americans means she needs to earn the trust of
[saying], ‘I was seven hours to go from one part of the state to an-
other? Vroom. “So I’m driving, and I got stopped in
black and progressive voters. It’s a compelling quan- bused. I’m glad that the Grapevine in Kern County doing 115,” she says,
dary that no other candidate faces, and decisions she able to laugh about it now. “And when they pulled
made around wrongful convictions, truancy, and sex you said that.’ There me over, the CHP officers were like, ‘We been chas-
work are now being given a hard look by voters.
It was impossible to learn of Harris expressing em-
are a lot of young ing you for miles.’ ”
On the way to her mandated court appearance in
pathy for a gay man’s struggle and not consider one
of the first apologies she issued after launching her
women who have the middle of the state, she says, “I remember see-
ing all these Confederate flags. I’ll never forget it.”
campaign. During her time as California’s attorney not seen a woman It’s still true today: Anyone who drives the 5 free-
general, from 2011 to 2017, Harris argued that she
was beholden to write multiple legal briefs oppos- of color on a stage way north from Los Angeles to San Francisco or Sac-
ramento will see their share of Trump signs, anti-
ing court-ordered surgeries for incarcerated trans
women. “There are, unfortunately, situations that
with a certain level abortion propaganda, and such alongside the road.
Harris knows that to win such a vast state she needs
occurred where my clients took positions that were of confidence.” broad appeal. “Californians are going to pay atten-
tion to the issues,” she says. “And they’re going to
Senior writer JAMIL SMITH interviewed Georgia make their decisions based on a number of things
Congressman John Lewis for the May issue. that are not just about where you were born.”

cries of “Kamala is a cop!” and other similar phras-

es and headlines that erupted thereafter. As much
as Harris’ record should be examined, it should be
noted that outrage itself can be exploited for politi-
cal gain by the opportunistic.
But what if the white middle-class voters who
Biden would so desperately like to secure would ac-
tually like a former prosecutor behind the Resolute
Desk? And what if Democrats trust Harris with the
job? Maybe even because her argument proves to be
fundamentally correct: The American system of juris-
BERKELEY CHILDHOOD prudence — and, perhaps more broadly, our society
Harris was raised along
— was built to undermine people who look like Kama-
with a younger sister by her
mom in Berkeley. “They got la Harris, and it would be best to have someone who
that political ire-and-fire has her experience in charge of changing it.
from following their mother
L
to campaigns on campus,” ATEEFAH SIMON, an Oakland community or-
says a family friend. ganizer and self-described radical, was a
Kamala Harris skeptic who “had spent my
whole career fighting the DA.” Simon met Harris at
the start of the senator’s prosecutorial career in Ala-
meda County, “which was notorious for doing all the
ON THE TRAIL Harris campaigning in Iowa, making
wrong things with our people.” Black people, young
her case that she’s best able to prosecute Trump. “The
founders presupposed there would be a moment when women, folks who were marginalized. If Simon was
an executive might abuse his authority,” she says. us, Harris was them.
That is why it surprises some to learn that Simon
came to work alongside Harris for years in the San
Francisco district attorney’s office in 2005, helping
create Back on Track, a nationally recognized pro-
gram that offered an alternative to incarceration for
low-level, nonviolent drug offenders.
Now a Bay Area Rapid Transit board member and
the president of the Akonadi Foundation — an orga-
CAMPUS ACTIVIST LAW AND ORDER nization that supports social-change movements —
Harris attended historically She served as attorney Simon says Harris convinced her what good a prose-
black Howard University general of California cutor could do within the criminal-justice apparatus.
in Washington, D.C., for six years: “I believe
“ ‘The DA is not the devil. What we can do in here is
where she protested people want to know
South African apartheid that when you have that try to make some structural change,’ ” she recalls Har-
almost every weekend kind of power, you are ris telling her early on. “I know what we changed in
of her freshman year. respectful of it.” the office, I know what we couldn’t change. And still,
to this day with my policy-activism credentials, I ride
For Harris, it’s her record that could be an issue. those other people were so interested in saving those with her because she knows, more than anybody,
She has been under fire for policies that she cham- children, why weren’t they helping to save those chil- the dualities of wrong and right and racialized strife.”
pioned during her time as San Francisco DA, and dren? Don’t come at me now and talk to me about Harris has embraced her blackness in a conspic-
later, as California’s attorney general. The state law, that. Where were you then? And where are you now? uous way that candidates running for any office, let
which went into effect in 2011, made parents liable Are you looking and paying attention to what’s going alone the presidency, do not often do. A proud alum
for a $2,000 fine or up to a year in jail for their chil- on in communities around this country?” of the historically black Howard University and an
dren’s truancy. She saw the role of prosecutor, and The complications for Harris arise when she notes Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sister, Harris is greeted
OF KAMALA HARRIS; KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF KAMALA HARRIS
of governance, in an activist light. “When I took on that even as she tried to use the system to change with frequent chants of “H-U!” and “skee-wee!” at her
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: HILARY SWIFT/”THE NEW YORK TIME S”/REDUX; COURTESY
an issue like truancy, I’m going to tell you why,” Har- things for the better, her inability to control that sys- events. File “presidential candidate enters a conven-
ris says matter-of-factly. “Because there are a bunch tem led to negative consequences. People were ar- tion hall advanced by a fully decked-out drum line”
of black and brown babies who are being neglected rested, folks did go to jail, and Harris later offered a under things I thought I’d never see. But that is pre-
by a system because nobody expects anything from mea culpa for those jurisdictions in which district at- cisely what Harris does in late June at the South Car-
them anyway. Children are missing 50, 60, up to 80 torneys have criminalized parents, telling CNN that olina Democratic Convention, before letting loose a
days of a 180-day school year. Beautiful, smart chil- it “was never the intention.” But what matters more: message that dramatically departs from her prosecu-
dren with great capacity. If that had been in some intent, or effect? torial rhetoric and ties civil-rights progress to the for-
rich neighborhood, the alarms would’ve been going University of San Francisco law professor Lara Ba- tunes of the United States as a whole.
off. So I decided to take the issue on, because I know zelon wrote a damning critique in a New York Times “We have in this White House a president who says
what those babies are capable of.” op-ed published just days before the Harris cam- he wants to make America great again,” Harris told
Eight years after the fact, the senator still feels that paign launched in January, accusing Harris of hid- the crowd in South Carolina. “Well, what does that
the law, though it went awry, was rooted in noble ing a regressive record on wrongful-conviction cases mean? Does that mean he wants to take us back to
purpose. “It was all about putting the attention on under her “progressive prosecutor” image. (Harris before schools were integrated? Does that mean he
the system,” she continues. “Not one parent went to says that Bazelon “never contacted us” prior to pub- wants to take us back to before the Voting Rights Act
jail. I would’ve never let that happen. It was about lishing the op-ed. “It was my opinion,” the professor was enacted? Does that mean he wants to take us
saying that these children going without an educa- tells ROLLING STONE. “Harris has not been able to back before the Civil Rights Act was enacted? Does
tion is tantamount to a crime being committed by factually refute a single claim in my piece. That’s be- he mean he wants to take us back before Roe v. Wade
the whole system and society. I’m not going to stand cause what I wrote is true.”) However, Bazelon’s spe- was enacted? Because we’re not going back. We’re
by and just watch something like that happen. If all cific critique was soon buried under the reductive not going back!” [Cont. on 97]

ARMING
THE
CARTEL S
How a Texas gun-smuggling
ring made a fortune selling
weapons south of the border,
and almost got away with it
BY SETH HARP
ILLUSTR ATION BY LINCOLN AGNEW
74 | Rolling Stone
A R M I N G T H E C A RT E L S
gun. Unlike assault rifles, which are perfect-

ly legal, machine guns are banned for civil-
A few years ago,

ian ownership without a federal license, like
the one Fox held. Miniguns are exclusively
manufactured by a pair of defense contrac-
tors located six blocks from each other in
Scottsdale, Arizona. Their primary buyer is
a retired police
the Pentagon, but under State Department
supervision, they also export to a number of
foreign customers, including the government
of Mexico.
In 2016 and 2017, videos emerged of Mexi-
officer named
can soldiers in Black Hawk helicopters using
miniguns to unload on Gulf Cartel safe hous-
es and convoys in and around the border city
of Reynosa, across the river from McAllen,
Texas. In February 2017, Mexican marines
Mike Fox found

used a minigun to kill a cartel boss named
Juan Francisco Patrón Sánchez, along with
11 of his sicarios, who were bombarded by
what looked in the nighttime video like an
onslaught of explosive laser beams. It was
himself badly in
the closest thing yet to the Mexican govern-
ment using airstrikes on its own citizens, and
according to an affidavit filed in federal court
in Austin, as confirmed by officials from the
Department of Homeland Security, the Gulf
need of money.
Cartel responded to the Mexican govern-
ment’s tactical escalation by seeking to ob-
tain miniguns of its own.
Carlson was tall and heavyset, with light-
brown hair and blue eyes, and spoke flu-
ent Spanish. Fox didn’t know much about
The Vietnam veteran, overweight and ailing, garage and selling it to people he met online him except that he was from Austin, drove
was nearly 70 years old, and his wife, Diane, or through word of mouth. The ammo busi- around in a black Tacoma loaded with guns
wasn’t much younger, but they had recent- ness was especially profitable in Texas during and money, and was married to a woman
ly taken custody of their grandsons, a pair the Obama presidency, he says: “Hoarding is from Mexico. Carlson had already acquired
of rambunctious two-year-old twins. “We a thing.” a handful of minigun parts, but to finish as-
found out our daughter was a heroin addict,” One of his clients was Tyler Carlson, a sembling the weapon he needed the help of
Fox says in a tired, raspy voice. He’s seated 26-year-old solo operator who seemed to a gunsmith like Fox, who knew how to forge
at his kitchen table in Georgetown, Texas, a make a living buying and selling guns and and cast components working from blue-
middle-class suburb of Austin, holding a mug ammo on a website called Texas Gun Trader. prints in his garage. Fox claims to have taken
of coffee in both hands. The end of one fin- “He had this route from here to Dallas, and Carlson at his word when he said he want-
ger is missing from a lawn-mower accident. he always dealt in cash,” Fox says. “He was ed the weapon to hunt wild hogs on a family
“We had no idea heroin was so bad,” he says. connected out the ass. You never knew what ranch in South Texas. He knew Carlson was
“I’d been a cop, and I couldn’t even spot it in he was going to show up with.” Carlson had not licensed to possess a machine gun, and
my own kid.” Their adult son had also fallen already bought tens of thousands of rounds that transferring one to him would be a felo-
victim to heroin, and would later commit sui- of ammunition and eight .50-caliber sniper ny, but he agreed to take on the job anyway.
cide. “I had cancer on top of that,” Fox says. rifles from Fox when he approached him in “Ty had a lot of money,” Fox says. “We start-
“Malignant melanoma.” All of this happened the summer of 2015 with the idea of build- ed talking numbers.”
after he had to take his only living relative, a ing a military weapon known as a minigun. Over the next year, Fox built a total of four
sister in Louisiana, off life support. “It was Despite the diminutive name, a minigun miniguns for Carlson. Each one cost $14,000
like a soap opera,” says Diane, her eyes filled is a heavy, six-barreled rotary cannon that to build, and could be sold for $240,000
with tears. The legal and medical bills, plus can fire up to a hundred bullets per second. apiece. Fox won’t say how much he earned,
the expense of raising two toddlers, quickly “If there was ever a most dangerous weapon but according to a knowledgeable source,
depleted their savings, which led Fox to look put on the face of the Earth, it’s a 134,” Fox a minimum of $500,000 changed hands
into a certain side business. says, meaning an M-134, the U.S. military’s between Carlson and Fox. “I was receiving
Fox had been a licensed gun dealer since nomenclature for the weapon. It’s powered so much cash I didn’t know what to do with
2007, and had acquired additional federal li- by a motor that runs off an external power it,” Fox says.
censes to manufacture ammunition and pos- supply, and is typically found mounted on Then, one afternoon in June 2016, “Ty
sess machine guns. To qualify for the per- attack helicopters and fixed-wing gunships, shows up and says, ‘We got a problem,’ ” Fox
mits, he had to have a physical storefront, where it’s used to support ground troops in recalls. A few days earlier, American border
but his was just a rented metal warehouse combat. With a minigun, a door gunner can guards had stopped a vehicle attempting to
that he hardly ever used. He made most of saturate an enemy position with bullets in a cross into Mexico near Reynosa, and found
his money manufacturing ammunition in his matter of seconds, or mow down a squad of a small arsenal of weapons in the back seat.
soldiers with a single push of the trigger. The driver had been arrested, the guns and
Contributing editor SETH HARP wrote about The M-134 is a descendant of the Gatling ammo seized, including components of one
Mexico’s gasoline mafias last September. gun, and is legally classified as a machine of the miniguns Fox had built.

According to Fox, it was the first he had sult, there are more firearms in this country Peréz Esparza, Mexico’s newly appointed
heard anything about the guns being smug- than there are people. Nearly 40,000 Amer- information minister. “Probably we are the
gled to Mexico. He calls drug traffickers “evil icans died from gunshot wounds in 2017, the ones who should build a wall.”
sons of bitches,” and says “never in a million highest number since record-keeping began Peréz tells me that in 2004 Mexico had the
years” would he have built the guns had he 50 years ago. A mass shooting takes place in lowest number of homicides in its recorded
known they were being transported across America, on average, once a day. history. In those days, the cartels were un-
the border. His family has “paid the price on derground smuggling syndicates in the mold
drugs,” he says. When I ask the Foxes how of the Italian Mafia, content to bribe offi-
Carlson could have gotten mixed up with cials and carry out hits on rivals while most-
such dangerous people, they both give me ly leaving innocent people in peace. But
the same look. “Have you seen Ty?” Diane the increased availability of military-grade
says. “Nobody messes with Ty,” says Fox. guns coincided with the rise of a new breed
Carlson, who was drunk when he showed of paramilitary cartel, led by Los Zetas, a
up at the house, wanted Fox to keep his group of special-forces veterans who used
mouth shut about his role in the minigun their elite training to take over all forms of
scheme, and didn’t hesitate to threaten the crime in northeastern Mexico. “To do what
older man. “Ty let it be known to me that these criminal organizations do, you need
with a couple of phone calls, there’d be two high-powered, lethal weapons,” Peréz says.
guys on an airplane,” Fox says. “Profession- The number of homicides committed with
al killers.” Carlson mentioned darkly that the a firearm doubled, then tripled, and had qua-
driver of the vehicle “had been ratting every- drupled by 2012, as the military failed to beat
one out like an idiot,” and had since turned back the insurgent criminal militias that de-
up dead south of the Rio Grande. veloped in the Zetas’ mold. The bloody cycle
Fox says he wasn’t intimidated. Both he and of street battles and executions has left a
Diane had been police officers, and he had a staggering number of innocent people dead,
vault full of semiautomatic weapons in the ga- the countryside pitted with mass graves. The
rage. He cut off all contact with Carlson, and overall death toll is in the realm of 200,000,
says he has not spoken to him since. “He’s a making the ongoing cartel wars the sec-
con man,” says Fox. He and Diane didn’t let ond-deadliest conflict of the 21st century,
the boys out of the house for a while, and and one of the most traumatic eras in Mex-
kept watch for strange cars. At the time, they ican history. Peréz, who studied the illegal-
were still hoping it would all blow over. arms trade at University College London be-
fore joining Mexico’s government, doesn’t
T
HOUGH IT GETS far less attention deny that other factors, including the failed
than undocumented immigration War on Drugs and the notorious corrup-
or drug smuggling, running guns tion of the Mexican police, have contribut-
to Mexico is big business, a south- ed to the crisis. Still, “it would be impossible
bound black market worth hundreds of mil- to imagine this scenario without American
lions of dollars. According to the best esti- guns,” he says.
mates, gunrunners move 700 to 800 guns Peréz’s office collects detailed confisca-
into Mexico every day — about a quarter- tion data from every city and state in Mexi-
million guns every year. co. “More interesting than the numbers,” he
“It’s a booming industry,” says Jack Riley, says, “is that when you ask traffickers why
a retired DEA agent who tracked cartel boss they are not using the ports, why they are
Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán for 20 years. BORDER BUST What is less well known is that U.S. gun not using the border with Guatemala, their
“To the cartels, smuggling guns and ammo Law enforcement laws have also been a catastrophe for Mexi- response is basically, ‘Because I’m not stupid.
across the border is just as important as cash seized parts from co. Until relatively recently, Mexico had one Why will I buy a Chinese gun that is more ex-
PREVIOUS SPREAD: IMAGES IN ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW CHITTOCK/STOCKTREK IMAGES/GETTY
one of Fox’s miniguns

IMAGES, 3; DLEWIS33/GETTY IMAGES; LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES. THIS PAGE,
coming back from the dope they sell. It’s of the lowest rates of gun ownership in the pensive and not as good as the American
(top) at the
something no one’s really talked about, and world. Very few firearms are manufactured ones, or why will I buy a gun from Central
Anzalduas bridge
certainly the American people don’t know.” border crossing in Mexico, and in general private citizens America that is 40 years old, when I can go to
The most striking thing about this black (above). aren’t allowed to possess them. But since Walmart, or I can go to a gun show in McAl-
market is how few gunrunners are caught. 2004, when the George W. Bush administra- len, and buy as many guns as I want, new
Most of them are U.S. citizens, and in America tion allowed the federal ban on assault rifles guns, the best, with no questions asked?’ ”
there is no comprehensive federal law against to expire, a flood of military-style weapons The estimated 250,000 guns smuggled
firearms trafficking, making investigations from Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona has into Mexico every year are only a fraction of
difficult and the penalties relatively light, equipped Mexico’s criminal class with fire- the millions sold annually in America, but
especially compared with smuggling drugs. power equivalent or superior to the army the black market has an outsize impact on
Lawmakers have repeatedly introduced an- and police. The rate of gun ownership per the southern border, where gun stores are
FROM TOP: ATF; JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES
ti-trafficking bills in Congress, only to see capita in Mexico has increased by a factor of concentrated. A 2013 University of San Diego
them torpedoed by gun-industry lobbying. 10 over the past 15 years, and murders have study found that nearly half of all gun stores
More generally, the National Rifle Association surged in proportion. The deadliest year in in the United States would go out of business
has spent decades successfully pushing for a Mexico’s recorded history was 2018, with were it not for the sales boost provided by
legal environment in which gun owners are 33,000 killings, almost all of them perpetrat- the carnage in Mexico. “It gives you some
almost untouchable, giving hundreds of mil- ed by government security forces armed by idea of the gravitational pull,” says Topher
lions of dollars in campaign contributions to U.S. weapons manufacturers, or by cartels McDougal, the study’s lead author.
Republican politicians, and more than a few armed by American gun smugglers. “For the Smugglers usually farm out the acquisition
Democrats, who can be counted on to vote first time in the last century, Mexican life ex- of firearms to “straw buyers,” who get paid
against any and all gun restrictions. As a re- pectancy is actually declining,” says David something like a hundred bucks to go into

a gun store and buy one in their own name. try lobbying. When I finally manage to pry Solis was just a student who had been paid
“Gunrunners are very well organized,” says the border-seizure numbers loose through $600 to drive the truck across the bridge,
Michael Bouchard, formerly an agent with a Freedom of Information Act request, I can and knew little about the people who had
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms see why CBP isn’t bragging. American border hired him. But an informant pointed inves-
and Explosives and now president of the ATF guards seized a paltry 102 of the estimated tigators to a house in McAllen where the
Association. “They have specific people who quarter-million illegal guns that passed their cache of weapons had been stored prior to
handle each of these activities. They rely on checkpoints in 2018. The most confiscated transit. Parked out front was a vehicle be-
anybody they can find to buy guns for them. in recent years was 242, in 2017. In 2016, the longing to a 35-year-old U.S. Army veteran
They’ll buy three at a time and hold them at number was 86. In 2015, it was a mere 50. named Jorge Quintero, described as a big,
their house for a while to see if anyone comes Peréz laughs when I read him the figures. tall pelon — Spanish for a man with a shaved
knocking. If they get caught selling to some- “That’s like what the Mexican army can con- head — whom the informant had identified as
one, they can say, ‘I just needed some cash. fiscate on a daily basis,” he says. a heavyweight gunrunner.
I don’t need a license. I’m selling part of my According to Cottrell, Quintero was the
A
collection.’ Even if they get stopped on the T 9:40 p.m. on June 3rd, 2016, ringleader of a gunrunning cell centered in
way to Mexico, they can say, ‘I wasn’t going at the Anzalduas International McAllen that reached as far north as Dallas.
to cross.’ It’s a cat-and-mouse game, and it’s Bridge south of Mission, Texas, “Quintero was the main coordinator,” Cot-
more than any one agency can handle.” CBP agents waved a black GMC trell says. “The head of the trafficking organi-
Smugglers also traffic in military parapher- Canyon pickup into a secondary screening zation. He would take purchase orders from
nalia of the kind sold in sporting-goods stores area illuminated by powerful halogen lights. his people in Mexico, who were associates or
across the Southwest. “Scopes, magazines, members of the Gulf Cartel. He would then
camo uniforms, knee pads, elbow pads,” says coordinate the purchase of weapons through
Jerry Robinette, the former special agent in straw buyers. Then he would coordinate the
charge of the Texas border region for the De- smuggling to Mexico.”
partment of Homeland Security’s investiga- With the increase in Cottrell says that Quintero admitted,
tive arm, HSI. “All the things you need to arm under interrogation, to selling three mini-
these paramilitary cartels.” There’s no end to guns to three separate Gulf Cartel captains.
the ways gunrunners have of hiding their il- gun violence, “Mexican Though now badly fractured, the Gulf
licit merchandise, he says: “Trucks with an Cartel is the original Mexican crime syndi-
inside and an outer shell. An inner and an
outer fender. A flatbed with a false bottom,
life expectancy is cate, with roots going back to the Prohibi-
tion era. “The company,” as it’s known lo-
holding 15 or 20 guns. They’ll hide them in- cally, is involved in all kinds of illicit activity
side oil pans, inside manifolds, inside tank-
ers, in the bilge — no one wants to look in
actually declining,” says but mostly profits from drug trafficking, oil-
and-gas theft, and human smuggling. It’s a
there because it’s so fricking nasty.” gangster capitalist enterprise with probable
Mexico has the primary responsibility of a government official. revenues in the hundreds of millions of dol-
stopping guns from entering its territory, but lars, equipped with armored vehicles, under-
at many ports of entry, vehicles coming from ground bunkers, its own network of cellular
the U.S. are simply waved through without “Probably we are the towers, and a small army of lookouts and
even slowing to a stop, owing to the volume spies, in addition to platoons of assassins.
of traffic under the North American Free
Trade Agreement. The personnel that would
ones who should The Gulf Cartel’s home base is Matamoros,
situated on the mouth of the Rio Grande in
be needed to search the hundreds of thou- the state of Tamaulipas, a hot, green, muggy
sands of cars and trucks and buses and trains
doesn’t exist, especially in northern Mexico,
build a wall.” coastal region south of Texas. At the border
crossing with Brownsville, every Mexican
where unprecedented violence has stretched vehicle with commercial cargo has to pay a
state resources thin. The Mexican military tax, or piso, on the goods. “When I first got
seizes tens of thousands of American weap- into business, I didn’t know about the piso,”
ons, but only after battles and raids, when The driver, a 21-year-old dual citizen named an oilman from Matamoros tells me. “The
the damage has already been done. Luis Solis, must have known right away that company kidnapped four of my drivers and
American border guards do try to stop he was busted. Barely concealed in the back $500,000 worth of product. They brought
guns from entering Mexico, but U.S. Cus- seat were four semiautomatic pistols, 15 AK- one of the guys to my office with a hood on
toms and Border Protection is primarily fo- 47s, 4,000 rounds of 7.62 ammunition, and his head and his hands bound and threat-
cused on stopping drugs moving north and 32 high-capacity magazines. All of the weap- ened to shoot him right there. I paid $15,000
with seizing drug money, which the agen- ons had their serial numbers obliterated. The for each employee, $60,000 total, and they
cy gets to keep. Every year, CBP releases a border guards also found a big military-style let them go.”
report touting its seizures of narcotics and battery with a heavy-duty electric cable. It The Gulf Cartel has been at war with the
currency, but conspicuously absent from was the power supply for one of the mini- notoriously violent Los Zetas since the two
the reports are statistics on firearms. “The guns that Fox had built. organizations split nearly 10 years ago. Re-
structural restriction of information the gun “At first we were trying to figure out what cently, both the Gulf Cartel and what’s left
lobby has been able to achieve at almost it was,” says Duane Cottrell, the lead HSI offi- of Los Zetas have badly splintered internal-
every level of government is unbelievable,” cer on the team of federal agents assigned to ly, warring especially fiercely over Reynosa,
says Kris Brown, co-president of the Brady the case. The officers suspected the work of a which has become one of the most murder-
Campaign. “No other industry in the United major gunrunning cell. They found the mini- ous cities in the world. All criminal factions
States is protected from the facts in the same gun parts especially worrisome. “I’ve never are also at war with the Mexican marine
way.” Indeed, some agencies, such as the seen anything comparable to miniguns at the corps, which has been deployed to Tamau-
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, border,” says Mike Weddell, who led ATF’s lipas for nearly a decade. Not surprising-
are forbidden from even studying the social side of the investigation. “It’s a mass-casual- ly, the state is probably the largest consum-
and health effects of guns, thanks to indus- ty weapon.” er market for illegal guns in all of Mexico.

“Ta-ta-ta-Tamaulipas,” people call it, imitat- he’s serving a nearly six-year sentence, he
ing the sound of an assault rifle. It’s all made denies being the major gunrunner depicted
possible by a steady supply of military-grade by Cottrell. “I didn’t even know there was a
guns and ammo from Texas. ring,” he says. “Now I’m supposed to be the
To the agents investigating him, Quinte- MADE IN THE USA leader? I didn’t know I had, like, subjects and
ro fit the profile of a cartel-connected gun- shit.” He won’t say anything specific about
runner. He was born and raised in Reynosa, While U.S. politicians have raged about the his case because the call is being record-
drugs coming north from Mexico, American
and became an American citizen by served, but he tells me he did tours in Iraq and
guns have been flowing south, enabling the
ing 10 years in the U.S. military. Cottrell and carnage of the cartel wars Afghanistan as a Black Hawk crew chief. That
Weddell say they didn’t profile him for being is precisely the military occupational special-
a veteran, but there is evidence that Mexi- ty that would have given him maximum train-
can drug-trafficking organizations actively ing on the M-134 minigun. Still, he insinuates
recruit American servicemen, and several
ex-soldiers have been arrested for gunrun-
11 ,497,741 a police conspiracy against him. “The fed-
eral government is corrupt as shit,” he says
The number of guns produced in the United States in 2016,
ning in recent years, including two California which has climbed from 3 million in 1986, according to the before hanging up. “These motherfuckers
National Guardsmen who were caught steal- Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are dirty.”
ing from an armory, and an Army recruiter in Weddell says that cases like these are
San Antonio who funneled dozens of assault more complicated and time-consuming for
rifles to the Gulf Cartel. law enforcement than they should be. “A fire-
It had been three months since Solis’ ar-
rest, and the feds were still keeping an eye on
250,000 arms-trafficking bill is what we need more
than anything else,” he says. “It would nar-
The estimated number of guns smuggled into Mexico each year
Quintero when ATF got a tip: A Mexican na- row things down to where we’re not look-
tional known as Saul was set to buy a sniper ing for technicalities, paperwork violations,
rifle from Quintero’s 51-year-old uncle, Alfre- that don’t go to the merit of what we’re ac-
do Arguelles. Unbeknownst to Saul and Ar- tually investigating. Not hanging cases on
guelles, their go-between was an informant. 0.048% pieces of other statutes that we patch togeth-
ATF set up a sting operation for the morn- The approximate percentage of the illegal er.” Indeed, neither Solis nor Arguelles nor
ing of September 7th. As a team of federal firearms trafficked from the U.S. to Mexico that Customs Quintero was convicted of smuggling, though
agents watched from a distance, Arguelles and Border Protection seizes that’s the activity that brought them to the
pulled his white Ford Expedition into a park- attention of police. Solis was convicted for
ing lot on the corner of Daffodil and Ware in the essentially regulatory crime of not hav-
McAllen, where the informant was waiting ing a State Department export license and
for him. A large black parcel changed hands.
Inside was a Barrett sniper rifle, an extreme-
47 % sentenced to two years in prison (contrary
to what Carlson told Fox, he was not killed in
The percentage of American gun dealers whose
ly powerful weapon that fires a .50-caliber Mexico). Arguelles pleaded guilty to an im-
stores depend on the U.S.-Mexico arms trade, according
round the size of a carrot. “I personally made to a study by the University of San Diego migration-based offense, being an “alien in
sure it was clean,” Arguelles said. “I put possession of a firearm,” and sentenced to
gloves on and wiped it down with oil myself.” 26 months in prison. The best prosecutors
Invented by a Tennessee businessman did was to oblige Quintero to sign an “accep-
named Ronnie Barrett in the 1980s and made
exclusively by his company, Barrett Firearms 70% tance of responsibility,” in which he acknowl-
edged, “I knew the weapons were going out
Manufacturing, the .50-caliber is one of the The percentage of guns recovered from crime scenes of the USA to Mexico.”
most popular weapons among Mexican car- in Mexico and sent to the U.S. for tracing that are determined “The current laws against gun trafficking
to be American in origin are absolutely worthless,” says Rep. Carolyn
tel fighters, surpassed only by the ere quince,
or AR-15, and the cuerno de chivo, or AK-47. Maloney (D-N.Y.), who recently introduced
In the U.S. military, the awesome power of an anti-trafficking bill in the House of Rep-
the Barrett is the stuff of legend. It can shoot resentatives. The proposed law, H.R. 1670,
through a wall of concrete block as if it were 3 0,0 00 would increase the penalty for straw pur-
chasing and make it a federal crime to buy a
made of sheetrock, and has a range of more The number of illegal firearms recovered between
than a mile. Incredibly, this weapon is unre- 2000 and 2015 in Tamaulipas — more than any other firearm with the intent to deliver it to some-
stricted for civilian ownership in the United Mexican state one prohibited from owning one. The cru-
States. You can buy one in cash, with no pa- cial word there is “intent.” Under current
perwork whatsoever, without breaking any law, there is no statute under which police
laws. You can own as many as you like. can take action, such as obtaining a war-
Arguelles, however, was a Mexican citi-
zen who had overstayed a visa, and foreign-
12 1 ,035 rant, if people are merely stockpiling guns
and ammo, even if there are clear indications
The number of Mexicans murdered by a firearm
ers, like felons, are banned from owning fire- that they intend to smuggle them to Mexico.
between 2006 and 2018
arms in the U.S. Arguelles was arrested, and “Say an informant tells you people are
the ATF agents were able to trace the Bar- going into Mike’s Gun Shop and buying 10
rett to a local gun store, where Quintero had AR-15s at a time, and you see a fair amount
purchased it in his own name. It was enough
to arrest him too. He was led away in hand- 33,000 of them turning up in Mexico,” the ATF’s
Bouchard says. “You can follow people
cuffs the next time he tried to cross the bor- The number of homicides registered in Mexico in 2018, back to their house and watch them un-
der. He would plead guilty to “unlawful- the highest number since record-keeping began load 10 long guns into the garage, but then
ly disposing of a firearm to an alien under a what? Do you go knock on their door? If you
nonimmigrant visa.” don’t have a warrant, they’ll tell you to hit
When I reach Quintero by phone at the the road. If you want to sit and wait and see
federal penitentiary in Beaumont, where what they do, you’re going to have to sit on

B
it 24 hours a day. If you see them driving to ACK IN 2015, when Carlson first the materials from Garwood to build four
the border, you can reach out to CBP, and approached Fox about building a miniguns for Carlson, who supplied all the
they’ll make the stop based on reasonable minigun, he had already acquired money needed to acquire parts. Once a gun
suspicion. But until all that happens, you a rotor, some barrels, and a power was complete, Fox and Carlson would take
can’t stop the person.” cable. “But he didn’t have the receiver hous- it out and test it. If it worked, Carlson would
Maloney’s bill is one of a number of ing,” Fox says. “That’s the part that’s regis- pay Fox a bonus of $25,000 and take pos-
gun-control bills now on the legislative agen- tered,” the crucial component engraved with session of the weapon. Once, when loading
da, thanks to the new Democratic majority a serial number. Without it, the weapon can’t a finished minigun into the back seat of his
in the House. Most of the measures are con- function, and Fox couldn’t fabricate one on truck, Carlson mentioned that he had a long
cerned with limiting mass shootings here in his own. Enter Tracy Garwood, the graying, drive ahead of him, but Fox still claims not to
America, but some of the regulations would mustachioed, 63-year-old CEO of Garwood have known that the miniguns were bound
also help tamp down on smuggling to Mex- Industries, which sells miniguns to the U.S. for Mexico. In January 2016, Carlson sent
ico. Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.), for in- military and NATO forces worldwide. (The Fox another $50,000 in a FedEx envelope.
stance, has sponsored a bill that would re- other manufacturer, Dillon Aero, sells to “Don’t spend it all in one place,” he texted.
quire purchases of multiple assault rifles to the Mexican military.) Fox found Garwood’s What to do with all the cash was quickly be-
be automatically reported to ATF. number online, and after one phone con- coming a problem for Fox.
Such proposals, while massively popular, versation, they agreed to meet at Garwood’s A few months after Trump took office, the
are almost certainly doomed in the Repub- headquarters in a nondescript office park on Justice Department ended an Obama-era ini-
lican-controlled Senate. Even if passed by the periphery of suburban Phoenix. tiative called Operation Choke Point, an anti-
the Senate, the bills would likely be vetoed money-laundering program that discouraged
by President Trump, who took $30 million banks from taking large deposits in cash from
from the NRA in 2016. Among the many fa- payday lenders, escort services, coin dealers,
vors Trump has done for the gun industry, and other shady businesses. That gun dealers
he has refused to appoint a director to the “To the cartels, were added to the list was a bugbear for the
ATF, leaving the agency under acting depu- gun lobby and right-wing press, which cele-
ty directorship, a status it often languishes in brated the program’s 2017 demise — but not
under Republican presidents. smuggling guns is before it tripped up Fox, and ultimately led
“ATF is the bastard child of federal law en- to his arrest.
forcement,” says Robinette, the former HSI
agent. “They’re understaffed. They have
just as important as “The Obama regime in its infinite wisdom
passed a law,” Fox says. “They didn’t want
no resources. Their wings are clipped. It anyone in the gun and ammunition world
has to do with politics, lobbyists. Gun con-
trol is a toxic subject. But we’re not pro or
the cash coming back to expand their horizon.” His wife explains:
“If you go down to the bank and open an ac-
against guns. We’re about illegal trafficking.” count, and say, ‘I’m going to bring you cash
He points to a provision in the 1986 Firearm from the dope they sell,” every day,’ if you tell them you’re a gun busi-
Owner’s Protection Act — the NRA’s signature ness, they won’t let you do it.” Turned away
legislative achievement — that prohibits the from Austin-area banks, Fox had to find an-
ATF from keeping an electronic database of says a DEA agent. “It’s other way of stashing the piles of cash accu-
gun sales, which makes the process of trac- mulating in his house.
ing weapons absurdly laborious.
“Say law enforcement wants to trace a
something no one’s In late 2016, Tim McElligott, an HSI agent
in Austin who specializes in financial investi-
Smith & Wesson that turned up at a crime gations, got a call about Fox from a colleague
scene in Mexico,” says Bouchard. “They send
the make, model, and serial number to ATF’s
really talked about.” at the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. “Fox
was going to different post offices,” McElli-
National Tracing Center. It goes to a clerk gott tells me, “sometimes four or five differ-
who has to actually call Smith & Wesson and ent post offices on the same day, and buying
get someone on the line and give them the up money orders.”
info. ‘Who’d you sell it to?’ ‘XYZ distributor.’ The two men weren’t far apart in age and “He was laundering hundreds of thou-
Now ATF has to call XYZ and get someone on had a lot in common. They both loved guns sands of dollars,” says the postal inspector
the line. ‘Who’d you sell it to?’ ‘Mike’s Gun and hated the Obama administration, and who first noticed the transactions and asked
Shop in Texas.’ Now you have to call Mike Garwood was having money troubles of his to remain anonymous because he wasn’t au-
and ask him to go through all his paper rec- own. He had developed an improved mini- thorized to speak on the record. “Basically
ords, which could take days to a week.” gun design with a lightweight titanium re- converting cash to money orders, then fun-
In the Quintero case, though, the agents ceiver, but the guns had been failing, costing neling them into investment accounts, back-
had something more to go on: the minigun him business with the U.S. government. “He tracked with fake paperwork, to make it
parts. Weddell says the team’s top priori- was almost broke,” Fox says. “He couldn’t appear as though those funds were tied to
ty was figuring out where such a powerful make his house payment.” invoices. I knew that Mr. Fox was a retired
weapon had come from, and whether addi- When Fox headed back to Texas, he was law-enforcement officer, and that he was a
tional miniguns were bound for the border. carrying with him two housing receivers with firearms-license holder. It began to develop
They managed to trace the battery to Gar- the serial numbers machined off, as well as into a picture. My belief was that he was like-
wood Industries in Arizona, one of only two detailed schematics. In exchange, Fox had ly engaged in underground firearms traffick-
minigun manufacturers in the United States. given Garwood $50,000 in an ammo box. ing. That’s a common thing to see.”
But before they had identified Carlson or “He didn’t ask any questions about that,” Fox According to prosecutors, Fox purchased
Fox, a break in the case came from perhaps says. To cover his tracks, Garwood submitted a total of $272,000 in money orders. All of
the most obscure of all federal law-enforce- paperwork to the ATF falsely stating that the them were for less than $3,000, suggesting
ment agencies, the U.S. Postal Inspection components had been destroyed. Fox was guilty of a federal crime known as
Service. As it turns out, guns are less tight- Fox made several trips back to Arizo- structuring, or breaking a larger purchase
ly regulated in America than money orders. na during the following months, and used into a series of smaller purchases so as not

to have to show identification, intentionally straw buyers that spanned the state of Texas, position. In it was an innocent family, three
keeping the funds anonymous. The U.S. at- but it’s unclear how a kid from Austin could of whom were slain in the whirring onslaught
torney’s office in Austin greenlighted an in- have gotten into business with an organiza- of bullets. In photos taken at the scene, the
vestigation. They found large wire transfers tion as secretive and dangerous as the Gulf father and mother lie in the front seats, cov-
to Garwood, who had already been flagged Cartel. “There was digital evidence that he ered in blood and broken glass. The woman
in the minigun-smuggling scheme because sought this activity out,” says the postal in- is still holding her four-year-old daughter,
his company’s markings were on the bat- whose cranium has been impacted by a min-
tery seized on the Anzalduas bridge. Phone igun round. In the back seat, a six-year-old
calls and text messages tied Fox to Carlson, girl lies facedown on the floorboard, her
who had also been flagged in an ATF data- pink shirt and white sandals splattered with
base after an AK-47 purchased in his name blood. It looks like she was trying to hide.
had turned up at a crime scene in Mexico. At For Fox, the ending was anticlimactic. “I
that point, “We were like, ‘OK, our suspicion was never really arrested,” he says. “They
was correct,’ ” McElligott says. just asked me to show up one day and get fin-
On February 8th, 2017, federal agents gerprinted. I knew I was in deep shit then.”
served a search warrant on Fox’s home. In July 2018, he pleaded guilty to conspira-
Had it been a drug case, a platoon of police cy to defraud the United States, based on his
commandos in body armor might have bro- structuring of money orders. He was not con-
ken down the door and tossed a flash-bang victed on any gun charges, but the facts of
grenade in the living room. But this was a the minigun scheme weighed heavily against
gun case, and plainclothes agents politely him in court. He was hoping to get proba-
knocked. “They came in real quiet,” Diane tion, but the judge told him he didn’t deserve
says. “They sat down at the dining-room leniency because he had been a police offi-
table and said, ‘These are the issues, can we cer and should have known better. Though
look around?’ Mike said, ‘Sure.’ ” he likes to gripe about Obama, Fox doesn’t
In the garage, the agents found a fully as- blame his fate on liberals or gun control. “I
sembled minigun with an obliterated serial CASUALTIES spector, who obtained Carlson’s phone rec- did it,” he says. “I told everybody I did it. It
number, along with detailed schematics and OF WAR ords by subpoena. “He sought out gun traf- was illegal. I get it.” In January 2019, he was
Three people were ficking. He was not approached by some
a slew of minigun parts. Although Carlson sentenced to three years at the minimum-
killed by a minigun
had warned Fox to lay low after the Anzaldu- when an innocent mysterious person.” security penitentiary in Beaumont, but has
as seizure, Fox and Garwood had embarked family was caught When Carlson writes me from the feder- not yet started serving time on account of
on a joint venture of their own. The idea had in the crossfire in al prison in Bastrop, he doesn’t want to talk complications from a recent foot surgery.
been to build 10 more miniguns using Gar- a battle between about the facts of his case, but he does offer In April 2018, Garwood was allowed to
the Mexican military
wood’s access to parts and the money Fox and a cartel in 2018.
some thoughts on the conflict in Mexico. His turn himself in to U.S. marshals in Austin,
made from Carlson. It’s not clear to whom handwriting is extremely neat, his gram- and was released on bond. He was the only
they’d intended to sell the miniguns, but in mar and composition surprisingly formal. “I person involved in the case who refused to
order to drum up business, they’d gone to have spent time in Reynosa, Quecholac, Te- be interviewed, but he pleaded guilty to a
the 2016 SHOT Show, the firearms industry’s peaca, and Acatzingo,” he writes, referring single charge of conspiracy to unlawfully
annual extravaganza in Las Vegas. “We made to one of Mexico’s most perilous cities, and transfer machine guns. He got off with pro-
a bunch more contacts,” Fox says. “Even a string of insular little bandit towns in the bation and a $50,000 fine.
Saudi Arabia was sending a guy over to talk state of Puebla. “I have been to San Martín Incredibly, both Fox and Garwood got to
about 600 miniguns for their military. I took Texmelucan many times, and I have traveled keep their federal firearms licenses. Both are
out all my retirement money, like $85,000, across Veracruz and Guanajuato. Personal- still listed by the U.S. attorney general’s office
and gave Tracy another $100,000 on top of ly, I believe the term ‘cartel’ is misused. Mex- as gun dealers in good standing. This may be
that. We were going big-time.” ican crime syndicates don’t have a monopo- because of a loophole buried in the applica-
Fox told much of this to the agents who ly on anything, hence the current chaos and ble statute, obviously the handiwork of the
searched his house. He basically admitted ev- violence.” He goes on to say that the word gun lobby. Pursuant to Section 923(f )(4) of
erything he’d done, as well as what he knew cartel might better be applied to the United Chapter 18 of the United States Code, if a gun
about Carlson and Garwood. “I hadn’t slept States government, for its monopoly on the dealer is charged with a crime, ATF is “ab-
in two years,” Fox says. “It’s been hell just “petro-dollar,” and that the bloodshed afflict- solutely barred” from revoking his license if
trying to hold everything together. Once they ing Mexico “stems from the so-called War on he is acquitted. At the same time, the stat-
came to the door, that was the end of it.” The Drugs.” About that, he’s not wrong. ute gives ATF exactly one year from the time
agents confiscated the minigun, but left with- To date, there have been no media or of indictment to initiate any revocation pro-
out making an arrest. law-enforcement reports of the Gulf Cartel or ceedings. So there’s no way of revoking a li-
More than six months passed and all three any other criminal organization making use cense if the court proceedings last more than
suspects remained free men. When Carlson of Fox’s miniguns, but in March 2019, Mexi- a year, as is common. “We didn’t try to hold
learned he was under investigation, he fled co’s National Commission on Human Rights on to them,” Diane says, referring to her hus-
to Mexico, but ATF agents called Mexican im- released the results of an investigation into a band’s two licenses, including the one to pos-
migration authorities and he was deported to gun battle that took place last year on a high- sess machine guns. “Mike tried to give them
the U.S. for having an expired visa. He would way a few hours north of Reynosa along the the original copies. They kept saying, ‘We’ll
eventually plead guilty to unlicensed posses- Texas border. Mexican marines were tak- get them from you next time.’ ”
sion of a machine gun, as well as conspira- ing heavy fire from a splinter element of Los As for the miniguns themselves, Cottrell
cy to export firearms without a State Depart- Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, and called for he- and Weddell say that American authorities
ment license — the same stopgap statute used licopter backup. The Black Hawk — armed have no jurisdiction to reclaim them from
to convict Solis. In November 2018, he was with a Dillon Aero minigun — took off from Mexican territory. When I last speak to Quin-
sentenced to nearly six years. a military base in Reynosa. When the chop- tero, I ask him where, in theory, he imagines
Cottrell described Carlson as Quintero’s per arrived, the door gunner opened fire on they might be. “Who knows?” he says. “They
“main man,” who oversaw a network of a pickup that was driving past the marines’ could be anywhere.”

ON NEWSSTANDS NOW
Wherever Magazines Are Sold
Music
SLEATER-
KINNEY’S
RADICAL RAGE
One of America’s
greatest bands
does battle with
modern apathy
on thrilling LP
By W ILL HER MES
Sleater-Kinney
The Center
Won’t Hold
Mom + Pop
S
LEATER-KINNEY deliver
the goods almost
immediately on their
new LP, on a title track
that begins with industrial
clangs, then explodes into
rock fury rivaling anything
in their catalog, a barrage of
Nevermind-grade guitar blasts
pacing Corin Tucker’s ca-
thartic, paint-peeling howls.
She paraphrases the famous
“Things fall apart, the center
cannot hold” line from
Yeats’ “The Second Coming.”
Tucker might be describing
a psyche, a relationship, or
planetary climate change:
Pick your nearly lost cause.
The Center Won’t Hold is
S-K’s first studio set since
No Cities to Love, their 2015
comeback, and their first of
the MeToo era, which
ILLUSTRATION BY
Goñi Montes
Reviews Music
S L E AT E R - K I N N E Y
Tucker invokes potently on the torch-song
THOM YORKE GETS DARKER
closer, “Broken.” Producer Annie Clark of The Radiohead frontman’s solo LP is the perfect
St. Vincent, who was 12 when S-K’s 1996
breakthrough, Call the Doctor, was released,
response to our dystopian times By ROB SHEFFIELD
makes it a summit between tag-team genera-
T
tions of rock heroines. Given No Cities’ lean-in HOM YORKE describes wave percussion loops. He’s
to Seventies New Wave and Clark’s pivot into his excellent new solo tapping into anxieties both
’10s meta-pop on Masseducation, it’s a perfect album, Anima, as geopolitical and personal.
match, made most explicit on the single “dystopian,” which isn’t the It’s “woke,” but in the sense
“Hurry on Home.” Splashed with St. Vincent hugest surprise in the world. of “sleep-deprived so long
sonics, it’s a psychodrama of sexual-power With or without Radiohead, the fluttering of your eyelids
dynamics. (Guitarist Carrie Brownstein’s past he’s spent his career mapping booms like kettle drums,”
romantic links to both Clark and Tucker add out the dystopia we’re living and that realm of insomniac
backstory, as does a brilliantly weird Miranda in. Yorke could have spent body-freezing angst is the
July booty-call video.) the entire record freestyling zone where Yorke feels right
If there’s a through line to The Center Won’t Thom Yorke at home.
Hold, it’s social media alienation and all it The music has none of
engenders. Sleater-Kinney have always made
Anima the uplifting rock-band rush
meaning in physical spaces where we can XL of last year’s acclaimed
experience sweaty liberation from dated rock 4 Radiohead tour. Instead, he
tropes. Here, physical connection feels more strips down for the old-school
essential than ever. “Reach out and touch beatbox claps of “The Axe,”
me/I’m stuck on the edge. . . . The darkness is muttering, “Goddamn ma-
winning again,” Tucker sings on “Reach Out,” chinery, why won’t it speak
part girl-group lover’s plea, part synth-pop to me?/One day I am gonna
suicide-at-the-beach fantasy, with a sly nod to take an ax to it.” It builds to a
Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus.” “The Fu- very Yorke-ian question, as he
ture Is Here” gives voice to someone who be- queries his computer screen:
gins and ends her day “on a tiny screen” and “Where’s that love you
confesses, “Never have I felt so goddamned promised me?”
lost and alone.” On “Can I Go On,” every last A typical highlight is
person “is wired/To machines, it’s obscene.” the superbly titled “I Am a
It’s a status quo that makes the group’s con- Very Rude Person,” with its
tinued existence — especially given drummer sinuous twist-and-crawl bass
Janet Weiss’ post-LP departure — a big deal. line under a Gregorian-chant
They don’t take it for granted. “Do you feast choir. “I have to destroy to
on nostalgia?” asks Tucker with a wink on create,” Yorke sneers. “I have
“Ruins,” a dubby march conjuring vintage PJ to be rude to your face/I’m
Harvey and the nightmare of 2019 America. breaking up the turntables/
But nostalgia correctly weaponized is a Now I’m gonna watch your
mighty thing. See “LOVE,” the set’s most party die.” His voice fades
affecting song. A Kraftwerk-ing jam that reads under a guitar loop that
as intra-band mash note, it chronicles small- over “Old Town Road” and it Anima is 48 minutes of builds like Robert Fripp
town punk rage, broke-ass van touring, and still would have turned out abstract electro confession- filtered through Sonic Youth’s
the cleansing fire of art. And it ends in a blood dystopian. But nobody could als, written and produced in “Karen Koltrane.” The party
oath to one another and to fans: “There’s accuse him of overreacting. close collaboration with Nigel dies, but not without a fight.
nothing more frightening and nothin’ more At a moment when the world Godrich. Within the first few “Runwayaway” is a swirl of
obscene/Than a well-worn body demanding to is in even scarier shape than minutes, Yorke’s digitally Byrds-ian guitar jangle, as
be seen.” Brownstein follows it with a hearty the last time Radiohead took warped voice is gulping, Yorke repeats, “This is when
“fuck!” — a “fuck” that, in its enraged glee, its temperature, on 2016’s “I can’t breathe” and “No you know who your real
sums up everything that makes the band A Moon Shaped Pool, he’s water,” over “Idioteque”-style friends are.” As if to imply:
great, now and forever. moved on to new nightmares. synth swerves and glitch- Better hope you have some.
The prize is “Dawn
Chorus,” a title that’s well FROM TOP: GREG WILLIAMS; JOHN LAMPARSKI/GETTY IMAGES
known to Radiohead fans
as a bootleg track the band
BREAKING never recorded. It’s complex
but sparse, with a lonesome
Meet Modern R&B’s Smooth New ‘King’ phased keyboard drone while
Yorke murmurs, “I think I
Jacquees LAST YEAR, Atlanta crooner Jacquees dubbed himself the “king of R&B.” The boast made missed something, but I’m
headlines, and elders from John Legend to Diddy weighed in with responses. On Round not sure what.” Yorke sounds
2, Jacquees’ first LP since attaining royalty status, the singer shows he certainly has one scared, anxious, helpless,
of the great voices in his genre right now — glinting but pliable, skimming over beats with
enraged — yet he also sounds
guileless, melismatic charm as he expertly channels classic R&B from the Nineties and early
unmistakably alive. And on
2000s. “Who’s giving you all your love?” Jacquees asks on the innocently yearning “Who’s,”
an album as bleak as Anima,
wholly confident he’ll win you over. You’d be foolish to bet against him. ELIAS LEIGHT
that’s a very welcome sign
of hope.
84 | Rolling Stone +++++Classic | ++++Excellent | +++Good | ++Fair | +Poor RATINGS ARE SUPERVISED BY THE EDITORS OF ROLLING STONE.
Freddie Gibbs MAD BEATS Elusive producer Madlib and

and Madlib
4
rapper Gibbs’ second LP is one of the
Bandana
year’s most striking hip-hop albums, with
Gibbs’ crime rhymes cutting through
DAVID FRICKE
RCA Madlib’s transportingly gritty haze. FRICKE’S PICKS
Banks
EMO DIVA The stunning third album from
Ronnie
4
goth-pop master Jillian Banks, full of men-
III
Harvest
acing bass distortion, suspended silences,
and digitally abraded vocals. She creates
an eerie sense of dark lust.
Lane’s
Long Ride
Spoon INDIE HITS A best-of LP from one of the
One of rock’s true
4
sharpest rock bands of the past 20 years.
Everything Hits Every song is a concise gem, including
bar-band heroes
at Once their new, perfectly taut expression of
Matador existential anguish, “No Bullets Spent.” gets a must-hear,
deep-dive box set
Slipknot MOODY METAL The sixth LP from the Iowan
#
crew of misfit clowns is ripe with head- When the English singer-bassist
We Are Not banging nu-metal fury, but the scariest Ronnie Lane died in 1997 at 51
of Your Kind numbers are the more serene ones, like
the New Wave-y “Not Long for This World.”
after a long battle with multiple
Roadrunner sclerosis, he was rightly eulo-
gized for his impish spark and
the depth of his songwriting for
The Hold Steady STEADY AS EVER Brooklyn rockers get Sixties mods the Small Faces
#
back to basics, with huge riffs and front- and their rowdy Seventies
Thrashing Through man Craig Finn dropping lines like “I got resurrection, the Faces. A new
the Passions caught in a mosh/With this dude who box set, Just for a Moment:
Frenchkiss said he used to play with Peter Tosh.” Music 1973-1997, picks up the
lesser-known story of Lane’s
creatively rich years leading his
SYNTH-Y SWEETS With nods to Nineties own band — dryly named Slim
Shura
#
R&B and Eighties pop, Aleksandra Denton Chance — with a unique brand
intimately explores the intricacies of de-
Forevher sire on lush, private-feeling tunes like the
of spiritually questioning country
rock grounded in early rock &
Secretly Canadian
cross-Atlantic hookup epic “BKLYNLDN.” roll values and village-pub vibes.
Good friends abound on the
six CDs, including Eric Clapton,
PASSIONATE POP Clairo is a post-teen who Faces mate Ron Wood, and the
Clairo treats indie rock and pop as one musical
#
Who’s Pete Townshend. But the
language, confessing queer attraction constant revelations are the
Immunity and a My Bloody Valentine obsession over warm beauty and sturdy comfort
Fader
beguiling R&B groove sketches. in Lane’s songs — the mix of
JASON SHELDON/SHUTTERSTOCK; ANDREW BENGE/GETTY IMAGES; TIM MOSENFELDER/GETTY IMAGES
classical poise and dirt-road

stride in 1974’s “The Poacher,”
FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: VALERIO BERDINI/SHUTTERSTOCK, 2; BROADIMAGE/SHUTTERSTOCK;
Various Artists ISLAND TRIP American blues, soul, and the gather-round smile beaming
through 1979’s “Kuschty Rye” —
3
R&B chestnuts get remade by Jamaican
Red Gold legends. The best moment is Toots Hibbert and his eternally boyish singing.
Green & Blue giving Fleetwood Mac’s early ballad “Man
of the World” a tasty rub-a-dub makeover.
The final CD focuses on his last
years in America as the inevita-
Trojan Jamaica
ble wear on his voice is poign-
antly countered by his natural
NEW TOWN ROADS Lil Nas X proves he’s fiber and defiant cheer.
Lil Nas X
3
more than a one-hit wonder, flipping from
country rap to rap rock. Nothing is as
7 good as “Old Town Road,” but the Nirvana-
Columbia
indebted “Panini” is a fun detour.
FLAT LIPS The venerable psych-rock icons’

The Flaming Lips 15th album is a less-than-fully-baked
concept LP with meandering spoken-word
King’s Mouth bits from the Clash’s Mick Jones and some
Warner
nice ethereal moments lost in the fog. Banks
CONTRIBUTORS: JONATHAN BERNSTEIN, JON DOLAN, KORY GROW, WILL HERMES, DANIEL SCHWARTZ, BRITTANY SPANOS
Rolling Stone | 85
Reviews Music
GUIDE Hurts”), apathy (“Ignoreland”), or

the fragile dream of making our
own destiny (“Find the River”). Lifes Rich Pageant
The mostly acoustic melodies ra- 1986
diate midsummer bliss, as Stipe
Buck compared their fourth LP,
delivers his finest lyrics, medita-
helmed by John Mellencamp
Must- Document
tions on the pleasures and pains
of this all-too-fleeting life.
producer Don Gehman, to Eight-
Haves
ies cornball Bryan Adams. From
1987 pleaful environmental anthems
“We’re the acceptable edge of “Fall on Me” and “Cuyahoga” to
the unacceptable stuff,” Buck
said of the band’s status as Further the back-porch sermonizing of
“I Believe” and “These Days,” its
underground ambassadors. Ac-
ceptability finally came on their Listening earthy directness was a perfect
neo-traditionalist rejoinder to
fifth album, thanks to the big- Reagan-era slickness. And the
riffed radio hit “The One I Love.” slamming take on the Clique’s
But Document was a brilliantly Sixties garage-psych obscuri-
weird commercial breakthrough, ty “Superman” stands as this
with its cryptic takedowns of phenomenal cover band’s finest
right-wing politics, its beer-o’- cover tune ever.
clock cover of ’77 punk heroes
Murmur The arty Wire, and “It’s the End of the
1983 little bar World As We Know It (And I Feel
Fine),” a motormouth vision of
Coming out of the college-rock
hothouse of Athens, Georgia, band that partying at the apocalypse.
R.E.M. landed in producer Mitch blew out Chronic Town
Easter’s North Carolina studio to 1982
craft their monumental debut LP. of Athens,
Before they became an odd
Michael Stipe’s mumbled lyrics
felt like secrets shared, blurring
Georgia, staple of the streaming era, EPs
with Peter Buck’s pastoral to invent were Eighties indie rock’s killer
app, and R.E.M.’s five-song debut
guitar poetry, bassist Mike Mills’
reassuring rumble, and drummer alt-rock rivals the Replacements’ Stink
Out of Time
and Hüsker Dü’s Metal Circus
Bill Berry’s empathetic thwack to
create music that felt post-punk
and among the greatest. With a 1991
arty yet folk-rock friendly. The influence cover that sums up the band’s
knack for cleverly mutating
R.E.M. opened the Nineties
sounding like a band that could
result — from the mysterious
sleekness of “Radio Free Europe”
decades’ Automatic familiar art forms, Chronic Town do anything. They collabo-
to the elusive grandeur of “Per- worth of for the People
hot-wired Byrds-y beauty to cre-
ate taut, haunting dorm-kegger
rated with New York hip-hop
philosopher KRS-One (“Radio
fect Circle” — was alternative
rock’s foundational statement, artists 1992 bangers that perfectly split the Song”), excavated desire and
and a code to crack for a jillion “I will try not to burden you,” difference between ruminating rage (“Country Feedback”), and
jangling imitators. By JON Stipe sings on the elegantly and rocking out. tapped Athens buddy Kate Pier-
DOLAN lifting “Try Not to Breathe.” But son of the B-52’s for Stipe’s foray
their most powerful LP is about into children’s music (“Shiny
helping us carry our burden — Happy People”). Mills sang the
be it depression (“Everybody Beach Boys-buoyant “Near
Wild Heaven,” and “Losing My
Religion” took a mandolin-driven
tune about embarrassed lust into
the Billboard Top Five.
R.E.M.,
Reckoning
1983: Berry, 1984
Buck, Mills, Murmur’s artisanal allure had
and Stipe a lot to do with Mitch Easter’s
(from left) atmospheric production. For its
second album, the band wanted
a tougher sound and got it, with-
out losing a bit of exotic mystery
(see “7 Chinese Bros.”). Stipe
Monster
PAUL NATKIN/GETTY IMAGES
showed off his country-singer 1994

chops on “(Don’t Go Back to) In late 1993, Kurt Cobain told
Rockville,” Buck peeled off glori- ROLLING STONE’s David Fricke
ously cascading leads on “Pretty that R.E.M. were “the greatest,”
Persuasion,” and Berry was an adding, “They’ve dealt with
agrarian-disco groove machine their success like saints.” A few
on “Harborcoat.” months later, Cobain was gone,
and R.E.M. responded with their

angriest LP. Buck deployed loads FURTHER READING
of punk-rock distortion, and
Stipe sang with critical rage on
songs like “I Took Your Name” Perfect Circle: “RADIO FREE EUROPE”
and “Crush With Eyeliner.” The Story of R.E.M. Single, 1981
What emerged was a hard- By Tony Fletcher Recorded about a year after
nosed assessment of celeb-
It’s to R.E.M.’s credit that their first show, R.E.M.’s debut
rity, with Stipe singing at
their story lacks the ego “Supernatural Superserious,” single (collected on the 1988
his most adventurous;
and excess that make for a while “Hollow Man” is a dose Eponymous comp) is a sharper,
on “King of Comedy,”
splashy rock bio. Fletcher’s of Reckoning-level jangle porn. speedier animal than the ver-
he played a growling
thorough treatment is Secret highlight: “Houston,” a sion they cut for Murmur.
anti-corporate rocker,
the best account of their mordant travelogue from the
and ascended into a sassy “AGES OF YOU”
tasteful career, with espe- perspective of a refugee fleeing
falsetto during the feminist
cially revealing passages in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Dead Letter Office, 1987
soul entreaty “Tongue.”
on the band’s struggle A crisp song about knotty feel-
to move on after Berry’s ing, this early fan favorite never
departure and the emo- found an album (finally showing
tional recording of up on their 1987 outtakes and
their final albums. B-sides set, Dead Letter Office).
“CRAZY”
Dead Letter Office, 1987
R.E.M. were always excessively
bright, Reveal, with cool about giving shine to small-
slashing Stipe unfurling Pet er bands; here they do a moody
Buck highlight, and Sounds-worthy whimsy cover of a classic by Athens
the fun New Wave boogie “Can’t on “Summer Turns Too High” dance-punk heroes Pylon.
New Adventures Get There From Here,” their first and writing one of his most Collapse Into Now
in Hi-Fi unguarded shot at a radio hit. luminous ballads, “Beat a Drum.” 2011 “AT MY MOST BEAUTIFUL”
1996 “Imitation of Life” was their final “We’re going out on a high Up, 1998
classic hit, taking its title from a note,” Mills said of R.E.M.’s
Recorded on the road and The peak of the first post-Berry
film by Fifties director Douglas swan-song LP. Collapse Into
inspired (in part) by their 1995 LP, Up; it’s their version of the
Sirk, a Stipe-level master at Now is a sweet survey of their
tourmates Radiohead, the last LP Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows,”
lushly subverting gender norms vaunted career — bright, bracing
of R.E.M.’s golden age took Mon- rendered as a pick-me-up from
and societal straitjackets. garage rock (“That Someone Is
ster’s heavy sound into darker, one sad tomato to another.
craggier emotional and musical You”), autumnal acoustic beauty
territory. “The Wake-Up Bomb” (“Überlin”), heart-heavy balladry “ALL THE RIGHT FRIENDS”
embraces chaos for its own (“Walk It Back”). It takes balls for In Time, 2003
sake, and on the opener, “How Stipe to sing, “Let’s show the One of the first songs R.E.M.
the West Was Won and Where It kids how to do it,” on the raging wrote, brimming with sulky
Got Us,” they make sadness feel “All the Best,” but the music AM-radio innocence; it sat for
hymnlike. But there’s tenderness
Green backs him up, more than living years until Cameron Crowe used
too; “New Test Leper” big-ups 1988 up to his promise on the darkly it in the 2001 movie Vanilla Sky.
T. Rex’s Marc Bolan and earnestly lovely “Blue” to make his pal
Released on Election Day 1988,
quotes Jesus, hungering for their major-label debut cut
Patti Smith proud. “LEAVING NEW YORK”
solace in a fallen world. against the Bush-win bummer, Around the Sun, 2004
with the optimistic tone of “Get Opening their lackluster 2004
Accelerate
More Gems
Up,” the mandolin ballad “You LP, Around the Sun, this soaring
Are the Everything,” and “Stand,” 2008 folk-rock tune might be Stipe’s
Going in which Stipe tapped his love

of Sixties bubblegum for a hit
R.E.M. once rivaled U2 as the big-
gest band in the world, but their
Highlights and rarities from
finest breakup lament.
Deeper ode to human solidarity. Their

second LP with producer Scott
profile plunged in the post-Berry
era. Fans who thought they’d
the rest of their catalog “MIKE’S POP SONG”
Automatic for the People:
Litt, Green is a little on the never rock again were pleasantly “PERMANENT VACATION” 25th Anniversary, 2017
dinky side sonically, and it gets surprised by Accelerate, their Unreleased, 1980 Most bands would kill for a song
dour as it progresses, until the first LP after a four-year break. An image of the future giants as pretty as this Mills-sung demo
album-ending “Untitled” turns They sound a touch rusty on “I’m as infant bar band, playing wiry, from Automatic for the People;
things around as Mills and Stipe Gonna DJ,” but Buck leveraged Elvis Presley-tinged rock & roll for R.E.M. it was an afterthought.
sing beautifully about music and a Monster-size riff on the single at Ramones velocity. We mortals can only marvel.
love as a guiding light.
Fables of the
Reconstruction
1985
The band traveled to London to
MICK HUTSON/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES
make its third LP, with Joe Boyd,

who had produced folk-rock
classics for Nick Drake and
Fairport Convention. The watery
guitars started getting murky,
Reveal
which ended up being a pretty 2001
nice fit for the beleaguered In 1997, Berry left the band due Stipe and
Southern Gothic mood of “Driver in part to health issues, depriv- the band
8” and “Green Grow the Rushes.” ing R.E.M. of its unwavering onstage in
The brooding spirit is broken engine. After 1998’s rudderless England,
for “Life and How to Live It,” a Up, they righted the ship on 1985

The setting works even better

amid our present-day class
warfare, and the plot involves
a series of bombings that may
be connected to a movement
to drive out the city’s few
remaining mom-and-pop
businesses. Chief among the
early suspects: “Big Dick”
Casablancas (David Starzyk),
a real-estate mogul (and hold-
over from the original series)
publicly insisting that “we
need to get back to a better
time.” There’s a healthy mix
of new faces, including Patton
Oswalt as a fame-mongering
amateur sleuth; J.K. Sim-
mons at his most charming
as an ex-con now working
as Big Dick’s enforcer; Kirby
Howell-Baptiste as a bar
owner Veronica befriends;
and Izabela Vidovic as a teen
reminiscent of Veronica back
in the UPN days. And Veron-
Bell and ica of course works the case
TV
Colantoni with her beloved father, Keith
search for
(Enrico Colantoni, appealing-
clues.
ly relaxed as ever), while still
trying to make things work
Veronica Mars with high school flame Logan
NETWORK Hulu ( Jason Dohring, who appar-
AIR DATE Available now ently lives at the gym now).
Kristen Bell This is the second time
RE-WATCHING THE DETECTIVE

STARRING
Francis Capra Bell and Co. have returned
Enrico Colantoni
Jason Dohring
to this world: A 2014 movie
Patton Oswalt introduced us to Veronica as
J.K. Simmons an adult. Perhaps because the
In the ‘Veronica Mars’ reboot, our high school P.I. is all 4 film was funded by Kick-
grown up — but the series stays true to its noir roots starter, Thomas and Diane
Ruggiero-Wright (who also co-
wrote the new season) leaned
belated-sequel seasons is that old enough to vote. When her back to television. And Bell is hard into fan service, with a
they try to act like nothing high school frenemy Weevil just as charismatic, vulnera- mystery that was largely an
has changed for any of those (Francis Capra) asks what’s ble, and slick with the banter excuse to bring back as many
groups when, say, a 32-year- wrong with her, she cracks, as she was when she could favorites as possible. It was
old Rory Gilmore shouldn’t “You know, there are a range pass for an 11th-grader. fun in spots, but a violation
still be acting like a 20-year- of opinions.” She spends as Veronica creator Rob of the bleak noir ethos of the
old. This issue should be much of her narration beating Thomas presciently set the original series, which was at
especially acute for Veronica herself up for mistakes and series in a California beach its best when it denied the
Mars, which in its original character flaws as she does town with no middle class audience what it wanted and
ALAN SEPINWALL run drew much of its power helping us follow the compli- — only the ultrarich and the gave them what the story
and verve from presenting cated case that’s brought her people who work for them. demanded. The Hulu version
a hard-boiled gumshoe who also features a host of familiar
E
ARLY IN this revival looked like she had just quit faces, like Max Greenfield as
Oswalt
season, Veronica Mars the school dance team. (She seeks a Veronica’s ex Leo (now an
(Kristen Bell) visits had, actually, in the wake of crowd. FBI agent looking into the
one of the many men she put her best friend’s murder.) bombings), but they turn up
behind bars as a teenager. Re- But the new eight-episode only when the plot calls for
alizing that she’s still working Hulu season is keenly aware them. And the ending to this
as a private investigator, he that its heroine is stuck in new mystery feels satisfying
snipes, “That was your job in neutral. It’s less surprising for both to the narratives and to
high school, right?” her as an adult to be doing the themes of Veronica’s life
MICHAEL DESMOND/HULU, 2
Television shows are a stakeouts and fending off as a woman who can’t stop
product of a particular time gangsters at gunpoint. But it’s looking for the truth, no mat-
in the lives of their charac- also sad and self-destructive — ter how much it hurts. It’s a
ters, creators, and audiences. in a very film-noir kind of way terrific return to form for one
One of the biggest problems — that she’s retreated to the of television’s all-time great
with the recent trend of role she had before she was underseen gems.
88 | Rolling Stone | August 2019 +++++Classic | ++++Excellent | +++Good | ++Fair | +Poor

WATCH LIST LAST CALL
What to stream, what to skip this month

A Beacon
Fades to
‘Black’
As Orange Is the New Black
heads into its seventh and final
season, we look back at how it
changed the course of TV
THOUGH “HOUSE of Cards”

preceded it, the women’s prison
drama Orange Is the New Black
feels like the first series explicitly
designed for the streaming era:
a sprawling, fluid story with a
seemingly endless, varied supply
of female characters. We began
our journey with Piper (Taylor
Harris confronts Schilling), a privileged white
the Soviet woman meant to stand in for
government’s the average Netflix viewer. But
failures. as she struggled to stay afloat
and figure out what to do about
the ex who ratted her out (Laura
CHAIN REACTION duration of World War II. Their only

crime: being Japanese in the wake
of Pearl Harbor. As this shameful
LONDON CALLING Prepon’s Alex), Orange explored
and empathized with women
of color and/or varying sexual
Chernobyl period of national history repeats Pennyworth and gender identities, people
itself with the Trump administra- to whom neither Piper nor tele-
NETWORK HBO NETWORK Epix
tion’s border detention centers, vision had given much thought
AIR DATE Available now Takei makes a timely return to AIR DATE Sundays, 9 p.m.
in the past. Early on, Piper feels
$ the subject with a supporting 3 terrorized by “Crazy Eyes” (Uzo
role in AMC’s horror anthology Aduba), who would soon be re-
With our present-day world on The Terror: Infamy. Like the first vealed as a mentally ill but kind
fire, you might think a miniseries season, the new tale — created person named Suzanne. There
revisiting the 1986 meltdown of by Alexander Woo and Max Born- was Taystee (Danielle Brooks,
a Soviet Union nuclear reactor is stein — is a mix of historical and magnificent) and her doomed
too much added horror to ponder. supernatural horror. It’s December best friend, Poussey (Samira
Chernobyl doesn’t flinch from the 1941, and college student Chester Wiley), whose crush on Taystee
gruesome realities of the situation, Nakayama (Derek Mio) feels fully went unrequited. Everywhere
particularly for the first respond- assimilated into the American you looked — trans hairdresser
ers who had no idea how terribly dream. When his fisherman father, Bannon as Sophia (Laverne Cox), junkie
they’d die from radiation. But Henry (Shingo Usami), cowers in a pre-butler Nicky (Natasha Lyonne), prag-
rather than a miserable wallow, it fear of racist treatment by white Pennyworth matic Gloria (Selenis Levya), re-
is a thrilling, often inspiring tale authorities, Chester assures him, formed bigot Pennsatucky (Taryn
of the heroic sacrifices made to “People don’t think that way Manning), deceptively brilliant
prevent the tragedy from swallow- The world needed a series about
anymore.” Then bombs drop on Blanca (Laura Gómez) — the
ing Eastern Europe whole. As a sci- how Alfred Pennyworth (Jack Ban-
Pearl Harbor, Henry is interrogated characters proved complex and
entist butting his head against the non) grew up to be Batman’s butler
tragic. With so many people to
ignorance of the Soviet empire, as much as it needs one about the
Takei goes follow, it was easy to ignore the
Jared Harris has never been more tailor who sells Bruce Banner all
more annoying figures (Piper in-
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: LIAM DANIEL/HBO; ALEX BAILEY/EPIX; CARA HOWE/NETFLIX; ED ARAQUEL/AMC
back in those purple pants. But to its cred-

sorrowfully noble. Stellan Skars- time. cluded). At times, Orange grew
gård nearly matches him, as a it, Pennyworth — from Gotham
too ambitious for its own good.
bureaucrat shocked to realize how creator Bruno Heller and director
But this final season (July 26th) is
little he knows. Each of the five Danny Cannon — doesn’t partic-
a wonderful farewell, particularly
episodes skillfully balances the ularly care about filling in blanks
in dramatizing the monstrous
ghastly effects of the meltdown of the Bat mythos, even though
partnership between ICE and
with the ingenious methods de- Bruce Wayne’s father, Thomas (Ben
privatized prisons. No one else
vised to minimize its impact. Don’t Aldridge), keeps crossing paths
would have tried Orange before
flinch from this one. Run toward it as a spy, and the family is packed with his future manservant. Rather,
Netflix got in the game. It casts a
with reckless abandon. off to sleep in filthy stables while it’s using the connection to a
long shadow over the shows that
the government figures out what brand as an excuse to tell spy sto-
have followed. A.S.
to do with them. As Chester dis- ries in a cracked-mirror vision of
US VS. THEM covers that American citizenship Swinging Sixties London. Military
doesn’t guarantee American vet Alfred — Alfie to his friends,
rights, the community is beset by lest you miss the echoes of young
The Terror: Infamy shape-shifting spirits from the old Michael Caine — gets caught
country who’ve chosen an oppor- in the middle of rival plots to
NETWORK AMC
tune time to stalk new prey. In the overthrow the British government,
AIR DATE August 12th, 9 p.m. early going, the real-life nightmare complete with public executions,
# is the more compelling one. But one villain missing a nose, and
two seasons in, The Terror has another who’s a dominatrix. The
George Takei was five when his proved a potent combination of series is heavier on style than on
family was forced from their Cal- what scares us in our imaginations substance, but at least it’s trying
ifornia home and sent to live in a and what should scare us in the something new in a saturated
series of internment camps for the world outside our windows. comic-book TV market. A.S. Dascha
Polanco (left)
and Brooks
ing irony, Rick receives the

best reviews of his career
playing the heavy. Success
also follows when he heeds
his agent’s advice to star in
spaghetti Westerns abroad,
like Clint Eastwood and Burt
Reynolds. (A side note: Reyn-
olds himself was cast to play
George Spahn, the owner of
a movie ranch used by the
Manson cult as a hideout.
Bruce Dern took the role after
Reynolds’ death.)
All the actors, in roles
large and small, bring their A
games to the film. Two hours
and 40 minutes can feel long
for some, but I wouldn’t
change a frame. Tarantino
laughs at a lot of things in his
movies, especially his own
leap through genres in films
as diverse as Pulp Fiction,
Django Unchained and Kill
Bill. But not for a minute does
Pitt and he fake his love for the Holly-
DiCaprio wood of the late Sixties. With
play it as it the help of master cinematog-
lays in L.A.
rapher Robert Richardson,
costume designer Arianne
Once Upon Phillips, and editor Fred
a Time in . . . Raskin, the period of backlot
Hollywood Hollywood is painstakingly
recaptured. You can feel in
TARANTINO DOES PULP HOLLYWOOD

STARRING
Leonardo DiCaprio every shot Tarantino’s mad
Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie love for movies in all their
DIRECTED BY disreputable dazzle and sub-
Quentin Tarantino versive art.
Set in 1969 Los Angeles, Tarantino’s all-star fantasia links the $ This doesn’t mean that vi-
movie biz and Manson-era violence with explosive results olence is absent. The Manson
era is just one reflection of
the rise of American blood-
a second of what’s onscreen his flagging career. Rick’s biggest and most likable stars lust. It’s one of the Manson
in this new pulp classic. It’s only friend is Cliff Booth in Hollywood as losers. But girls, Pussycat (Margaret
Tarantino’s ninth film, and he (Brad Pitt), his stunt double DiCaprio (Django Unchained), Qualley), who gets Cliff to give
claims it will be his next-to- and confidante who lives in 44, and Pitt (Inglourious her a ride to the Spahn ranch,
last. If so, he’s going out with a trailer near the Van Nuys Basterds), 55, do him proud where helter-skelter reigns.
a bang. There is no movie Drive-In with a rust-colored working against type. They’re And when the cult gets closer
around right now that can Rottweiler named Brandy. a landmark screen team to home, no opportunity for
match this triumphant fable Cliff is a Vietnam vet and has whose explosively funny, splatter is spared.
for pure adrenaline rush. been largely unemployable emotionally complex perfor- What is most shocking
PETER TRAVERS As ever with Tarantino, the

action jumps off the screen
since rumors started swirling
that he killed his wife and got
mances stand with their very
best. Pitt is flat-out hilarious
about the film is its open
heart toward innocence,
while setting up psycho- away with it. when Clint gets a stunt job on Sharon in particular. Robbie
O
N A HOT August night logical provocations with a It’s a ballsy Tarantino The Green Hornet and goads plays her like a point of light
in 1969, four murder- reverb that won’t quit. move, casting two of the an arrogant Bruce Lee (Mike undimmed by cynicism. She
ous members of the Tarantino gives Sharon Moh), starring as Kato, into a enters a theater to watch an
Charles Manson cult invaded (Margot Robbie) a fictional battle that ends badly for the audience watch her in a
the Los Angeles home of neighbor on Cielo Drive. Fists of Fury legend. Dean Martin spy caper and
pregnant actress Sharon Tate. He’s Rick Dalton DiCaprio also wins big stays to revel in their joy.
Her husband, director Roman (Leonardo DiCap- laughs trying to disguise Rick feels nurtured in his art
ANDREW COOPER/SONY PICTURES, 2
Polanski, was in Europe on rio), a star of TV Rick’s woe when his by a fellow thespian, who is
business. What happened Westerns who’s career hits the skids. A blunt, honest, and only eight
next made headlines. You boozing away high-powered agent (Al years old. As played by the
might not remember every- what’s left of Pacino, having a ball) mesmerizing Julia Butters,
thing the way that Quentin tells Rick he’s killing the kid is another source
Tarantino remembers it in Robbie, as Tate, his career doing guest of incandescence in a film
Once Upon a Time in . . . Hol- walks hand in spots as villains in TV where Tarantino gives hope
lywood. But you won’t forget hand with danger. shows. In a satisfy- the last word.
90 | Rolling Stone | August 2019 +++++Classic | ++++Excellent | +++Good | ++Fair | +Poor

BIRD ON A WIRE
I T’S I N ST RU CT I V E
The to point out that The
Nightingale Nightingale is not for
STARRING the faint of heart.
Aisling Franciosi Rape scenes abound,
Sam Claflin
including one where
DIRECTED BY
Jennifer Kent
the rapist violates his
victim while her baby
4 screams in his ear. For
those made of stron-
Bell takes
ger stuff, The Nightingale is a potent, artistic
a run at
triumph that refuses to traffic in coddling. reinvention.
In her second film, after 2014’s scarily
GLORY DAYS RUN FOR YOUR LIFE

haunting The Babadook, Australian writer-
director Jennifer Kent pursues a more literal
kind of horror. Set in the 1825 Tasmanian Out-
back, the film stars Aisling Franciosi in a tour
FO R S O M E people, de force as Clare, a young Irish convict who’s I A F U N R I D E , spiked
Blinded Bruce Springsteen kept as a sex slave by the virulent Lieutenant Brittany Runs with touching gravity,
by the Light doesn’t just write lyr- Hawkins (Sam Claflin). Having served her a Marathon is not a shabby way
STARRING ics — he sings words to seven-year sentence, Clare longs to break free STARRING to end the movie
Viveik Kalra live by. That’s the case with her husband (Michael Sheasby) and baby. Jillian Bell summer. Thanks to
DIRECTED BY for Javed (dynamite When Hawkins brutally ends that dream, DIRECTED BY Jillian Bell, a comic
Gurinder Paul Downs
newcomer Viveik Clare vows revenge. She pursues him into the force of nature with
Chadha Colaizzo
Kalra), a no-hope wilderness with only an Aboriginal tracker, real dramatic chops,
# British Pakistani teen Above: Kalra Billy (a superb Baykali Ganambarr), to guide # that’s what you get
feeling the financial finds religion her. As Kent shows their mutual hostility at Brittany Runs a
in Springsteen.
squeeze of Thatcherism in 1987 Luton. Then soften into a fragile bond, she uses Clare to Marathon. Bell (22 Jump Street) plays the title
Below:
he hears Springsteen for the first time, and Franciosi deconstruct the complex nature of a woman’s role, an aggressively upbeat twentysomething
the words of “Dancing in the Dark” jump exacts bloody retribution. Kent never loses sight of the psy- who gets a medical wakeup call about weight,
out of his headphones and onto the screen. revenge. chological wounds that fester underneath. P.T. high blood pressure, and Adderall addiction.
He’s exhilarated. Look for this exuberant gift There’s a downside to being the plus-size best
of a movie to have the same effect on you. friend to her skinny, narcissistic roommate
Directed by Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like (Alice Lee). And it’s not pretty.
Beckham), from a memoir by the Javed-like It’s running the New York City Marathon
Springsteen fan Sarfraz Manzoor, Blinded by that reps Brittany’s impossible dream. Luck-
the Light is a joyous antidote to cynicism. Cyn- ily, debuting director Paul Downs Colaizzo
ics, of course, will hate it. But as Javed finds doesn’t build his script for easy sitcom
a teacher (Hayley Atwell) to inspire, a friend miracles. For Brittany, it’s all baby steps, and
(Aaron Phagura) to brace him, and a girl the same goes for the movie, which refuses
(Nell Williams) to kiss, the movie becomes an to leave Brittany’s demons unexplored. It’s
irresistible blast of pure feeling. Is the music the backsliding that gets to the roots of her
of Springsteen, who gave the film 15 songs and self-loathing. Brittany and Colaizzo do it the
his blessing, really “a direct line to all that’s hard way, creating a character to root for
true in this shitty world”? Go ahead and argue. without glib shortcuts. When you cheer at the
But from Thatcher’s England to Trump’s end — and you will — the laughs and the tears
America, it sure as hell couldn’t hurt. P.T. feel honest and richly earned. P.T.
AMAZON STUDIOS; IFC FILMS; GEMMA LA MANA/COLUMBIA PICTURES
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: NICK WALL/WARNER BROS. PICTURES;
Walk Hard
RECONSIDERED 2007
AVAILABLE ON
YouTube, Amazon
‘Walk Hard’: Faux-hemian Rhapsody Video, iTunes,
Google Play,
T H E G R E AT E ST musical biopic of the past 20 years isn’t about Johnny, Reggie, or Freddie —
Vudu
it’s all about Dewey. A hard-livin’, hard-lovin’ country singer with his share of childhood trage-
dies and career detours, Dewey Cox is the quintessential 20th-century chart-topper. So what if he’s
Jenna not real? Jake Kasdan’s comedy mercilessly skewers every cliché, from the “eureka!” moment to the drug-in-
Fischer duced downfall. Thanks to John C. Reilly’s musical chops and Method approach — he went on tour in charac-
and Reilly
ter — what could have been the Scary Movie of biopics morphs into a parody even better than the real thing.
(His “Dylan phase” song could be a Blonde on Blonde outtake.) Our current wave of rock-star melodramas
only makes Walk Hard sharper with age. Thanks to bad timing, it tanked upon release. Meanwhile, the
unintentionally hilarious Oscar bait Bohemian Rhapsody became a hit. The wrong film died. DAVID FEAR

Books
JIA TOLENTINO’S FRACTURED REALITY
A wide-ranging essay collection from a young writer who takes
on our warped modern sense of self By BR ENDAN KLINKENBERG
J
IA TOLENTINO is only 30, against the way the internet
but she’s already being has emboldened the bad-faith
hailed as a “voice of her
generation.” She got her start on
right-wing ideologues.
In tackling foundational as-
How the King
the internet, writing for sites like pects of modern life, Tolentino Made Sin City
the feminist blog Jezebel. Now, has drawn comparisons to
at The New Yorker, she’s become great essayists of the past, most His Empire
a must-read cultural critic, an notably Joan Didion. For To-
artful, concise stylist with a lentino, the distortion of our ELVIS PRESLEY performed
knack for bringing her own common experience can be 636 concerts at the Las Vegas
story to bear on the works she traced to one element: Every- Hilton International show-
engages. That’s all on display in one seems not just willing but room between July 1969 and
Trick Mirror, her tour de force of determined to delude them- December 1976, a staggering
a debut essay collection. selves. “The pipe dream,” she achievement that played a huge
“I wrote this book between writes, “is becoming the dom- role in rebooting his career
the spring of 2017 and the fall of inant structure of aspiration.” after years of B movies and
2018,” she tells us early on, “a It’s what makes us easy marks schlocky soundtracks. The star
stretch of time when daily ex- for the likes of Mark Zucker-
perience seemed both like a berg or the promoters of Fyre Elvis in Vegas
stopped elevator and an endless Fest or Donald Trump. Tolenti- Richard Zoglin
state-fair ride, when many of us no isn’t being judgmental; she’s SIMON & SCHUSTER
Trick Mirror
regularly found ourselves think- as capable of self-deception as anyone: “When I feel #
ing that everything had gotten Jia Tolentino confused about something I write about it until I turn
as bad as we could possibly RANDOM HOUSE into the person who shows up on paper: a person power and extravagance of that
imagine, after which, of course, who is plausibly trustworthy, intuitive, and clear.” historic run also ushered in a
things always got worse.” To ex-
4 That desire to find a real self is one reason her new era of entertainment in
cavate that sense of chaos and depletion, she dives writing gets better as she moves into more autobi- Las Vegas, setting the stage for
into everything from YA fiction to SoulCycle, as well ographical territory. In “Ecstasy,” the collection’s Celine Dion, Elton John, Brit-
as social media, religion, and marriage, evoking our centerpiece, she writes about growing apart from ney Spears. “Elvis’ comeback at
fractured reality from the inside. the Houston megachurch she was raised in; the story the International established a
“Reality TV Me,” a recollection of Tolentino’s becomes a woozy epic about drugs, Houston’s semi- new template for the Las Vegas
time as a teenager on the reality show Girls vs. Boys: nal chopped-and-screwed hip-hop music, and trying show,” entertainment historian
Puerto Rico, is less about the vagaries of early-2000s to discover what spiritual devotion really means. “I Richard Zoglin writes in Elvis in
television than the ways we choose the stories to tell don’t know if I’m after the truth or hanging on to its Vegas. “No longer an intimate,
about ourselves. “The I in the Internet” morphs from dwindling half-life,” she writes. Watching her grasp sophisticated, Sinatra-style
a history of first-person writing online into a polemic for it can be a thrilling experience. nightclub act, but a big rock-
concert-like spectacle.”
Zoglin places Elvis’ concerts
at the pinnacle of the city’s rise
as the capital of American en-
FROM LEFT: FERNANDO DECILLIS/NPR; BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

DEEP LISTENING tertainment. While the section
on Elvis’ shows is surprisingly
abbreviated, what emerges is
Re-Reporting a Civil-Rights Atrocity a fascinating history of Vegas
as “gambling capital, celebrity
White Lies On March 9th, 1965, civil-rights worker James Reeb was playground, mob hangout,
CREATED BY NPR beaten to death by a mob in Selma, Alabama. His attackers entertainment Valhalla,” with
were acquitted by an all-white jury who bought the prepos- cameos by everyone from
# terous claim that the murder was orchestrated by activists Abbott and Costello to the Rat
to create a “martyr” for their cause. On the podcast White Lies, hosts Chip Pack, whose boozing excess is
Brantley
Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace ask Alabama to reckon with its history. The hosts chronicled in detail. The book
(left) and
track down a witness who admits to lying on the stand, and uncover other
Grace in culminates with Elvis’ pivotal
Selma, darker secrets. They also find many locals who still cling to the defense’s
shows, energetically rendered
Alabama theory. “I always will believe it,” says one juror, proving the show’s point that
using firsthand accounts of
some pasts, no matter how ugly, never die. ANDREA MARKS
people who were there. “Every-
one,” says one woman, “was
dumbstruck.” ANDY GREENE

MARC
ON THE CARPET
RED CARPET COVERAGE WITH MARC MALKIN

WATCH ON VARIETY'S SOCIAL MEDIA OR VISIT VARIETY.COM/MARC
can we maybe have a million dollars in the budget Decades later, this is no longer just a marketing
N AT I O N A L A F FA I R S for all this?’ ” formulation. About 20 of the candidates exist some-
Heads are nodding all over the place. where on the spectrum of traditional Democratic pol-
[Cont. from 47] catchphrase was used not only by “They say, ‘I can get you a cookie.’ ” itics, with Klobuchar, Mayor Pete, and Biden on one
Obama, but also by two other Massachusetts Dems This elicits a few yeahs from the crowd. side, and Warren on the more progressive end. Sand-
Warren resembles: 1992 presidential contender Paul Christ, I think. This woman is going to win the ers is the revolutionary. His election would mean
Tsongas, and Dukakis. The Duke’s 1988 message of nomination. a complete overhaul of the Democratic Party, forc-
“new economic patriotism” included proposals for Trump, she says, can’t be beaten by conventional ing everyone who ever worked for a Clinton to look
universal health coverage, a higher minimum wage, thinking. “[He is] not just a politician,” she says. toward the private sector. That’s what a vote for
scholarships for students committed to teaching ca- “This man is a phenomenon. . . . The only way we are “change” would mean in 2020.
reers, etc. going to defeat a phenomenon at the polls in 2020 is
A
Politicians often sound great. They may sound like by creating a phenomenon.” MES, IOWA, A HOUSE PARTY. Reporters love
they understand issues up and down. They may even She stumbles a bit in Q&A, especially when a this tradition, standing in the home of a real-
have passed laws that ostensibly address problems. woman asks what she would do about the credit- life actual ordinary person.
But for a lot of Americans, speeches never catch up score system. Williamson frowns, seeming genuinely House parties for me bat about .250. A major dan-
with reality. Legislation designed to prevent pollu- perplexed. She clearly doesn’t know what having bad ger is ending up sardined in a room with insufficient
tion, contractor corruption, sexual assault, preda- credit is like, and promises to look into it, in the tone air conditioning and no during-speech egress. This is
tory lending, and countless other abuses may earn of voice of a person who promises gamely to try a jel- the case at the gathering for Robert “Beto” O’Rourke.
approving headlines — but create few results on the lied-eel appetizer. After his dicey debate performance, O’Rourke was
ground. This gap between reality and political proc- Still, she gets a rousing ovation at the end of her called to the carpet by his biggest donors, includ-
lamation is what opened the door for Trump in 2016. speech. After, she takes a few minutes to talk. ing Louis Susman, the former investment banker
“I work at Walmart, along with 1.5 million other “The political establishment has the veneer of a and Obama bundler. Susman reportedly ordered
people,” Morgan Baethke says. “Those employees deep conversation,” she says. “They think their polit- O’Rourke to unfuck himself before the next debates.
are used to the idea that if the Walton family says X ical dialogue is so sophisticated. But it’s not sophisti- It’s bad enough when the money people are
will happen, X happens. If a businessman says X will cated. It’s very unsophisticated.” bossing around the candidates. It’s worse when
happen, X will happen.” He pauses. “But if a senator That lack of sophistication, she says, is what made one of those backers actually tells the story to the
says it, who knows?” Trump possible. Young people, in particular, have no media; Susman went so far as to be quoted saying of
more patience for the phoniness. “I see it especial- O’Rourke, “The needed improvements are purely
C
EDAR RAPIDS, IOWA, a Sunday morning, just ly in people who were born this century,” she says. stylistic.”
after services at the Unity Center, an alter- “They’re tired of the nonsense.” After O’Rourke became a social media meme for
native church that preaches a “practical ap- Williamson belongs to a category of candidate you his gringo Spanish, and got walloped in the debate
proach to Christianity.” It’s a place you might expect might call the Ignored. They’re candidates blown off on his pet issue, immigration, the campaign’s solu-
to buy healing salts or take hypnotism lessons. The by national political wizards who don’t believe, or tion was to send him to Ciudad Juárez, across the Rio
crowd is younger and more female than at most cam- don’t want to believe, they can win. How anyone can Grande, for an emergency session of Looking as Con-
paign stops. think this way after 2016 is mind-boggling. cerned as Julián Castro. Now the poor guy is back in
Marianne Williamson, the self-help author made The list includes Williamson, entrepreneur and Iowa reporting on his adventures and delivering a
famous by Oprah Winfrey, is speaking to about 50 Universal Basic Income proponent Andrew Yang, speech entirely about the crisis. He describes the bor-
people. “When we get bad news, when we learn that Hawaii congresswoman and regime-change oppo- der scene in horrific, Boschian detail, down to the
something really terrible is going on, so many super- nent Tulsi Gabbard, and, most conspicuously, Ber- “little kiddos” who are “pooping in their pants” and
ficial concerns drop away. And we become very intel- nie Sanders. on the floor where they will sleep and eat.
ligent,” she says, glaring and pausing for emphasis. It’s unseemly, the degree to which the press is Most are listening intently, but there’s some winc-
Williamson is a small, almost ethereal figure with rooting for Sanders to get his socialist tuchis out of ing in the heat. There’s no way to avoid wondering
silver-streaked hair and intense eyes that 19th-cen- the race. This is an actual headline from Politico how this would play in a general-election setting. One
tury authors would have described as being “like after the first set of debates: HARRIS, WARREN TIE FOR can already hear what Trump would say about his
coals.” Her superficial eccentricities and occasional THIRD IN NEW POLL, BUT BIDEN STILL LEADS. emergency Juárez trip: If it was Susman’s idea, why
incautious statements (she once said “there’s a skep- The Washington Post/ABC poll showed Biden drop- isn’t Susman running?
ticism which is actually healthy” on the issue of vac- ping to 25 percent nationally, with Harris and Warren Four years ago, the rank inadequacy of the Lind-
cines) have caused reporters to chortle at her run. jousting for third at nine percent. Where’s Waldo? sey Grahams and Scott Walkers and Jeb Bushes who
But her speech is not a lifeless collection of policy The missing data point is that Sanders doubled both tumbled into the pastures of Iowa made great sport
positions. It’s an interesting, tightly written diagno- Harris and Warren in said poll at 18 percent. He also for snickering campaign journalists, myself includ-
sis of the American problem. Precisely because socio- has the highest number of unique donors, and is the ed. We dubbed the field of governors, senators, and
economic stresses have pushed them into heightened leading fundraiser overall in the race. congressgoons who couldn’t beat a game-show host
awareness, she says, the American public sees what That doesn’t mean Sanders is going to win. He’s the “Clown Car,” and laughed at what many of us
she calls “a transition from democracy to aristocra- the only candidate with a more or less insoluble thought was the long-overdue collapse of the Repub-
cy,” and the corporate sector’s “insatiable appetite” base of voters, but unlike Warren, who seems really lican Party. The joke turned out to be on us.
for money that dominates American life. to want this, Bernie has sometimes seemed dispirit- The GOP error was epic in scale. The Republicans
Williamson is not a traditional orator, with a voice ed. Still, the undeniable truth is that the Democratic sent twice the usual number of suspects into the buzz
that fills the room. You can barely hear her without a race is about Sanders. Most of the candidates either saw of a Throw the Bums Out movement they never
microphone. But she grabs crowds. Nobody is check- support Medicare for All or try to sound like they do. understood, creating the comic pretext for the Clown
ing sports scores or Twitter. They’re in. They also tend to support a $15 minimum wage and Car: twice the canned quips, twice the empty prom-
Williamson goes on to say that most Americans are call for wealth taxes, a Green New Deal, antitrust ac- ises, double the rage, frustration, and eye rolls.
aware that their government is now little more than tions, and some rejection of corporate donors. Even Nobody will want to hear this, but Democrats are
a handmaiden to sociopathic forces. She describes a Joe Biden, he of the lengthy career deep-throating repeating the error. The sense of déjà vu is palpable.
two-party system that, at its worst, operates in per- credit-card-industry bucks, has parroted Sanders’ It might and should still work out, according to the
fect harmony with the darkest impulses of corpo- anti-corporate themes, noting that the Constitution polls. But a double catastrophe seems a lot less im-
rate capitalism, and at best — presumably she refers reads “ ‘We the People,’ not ‘We the Donors.’ ” possible than it did even a year ago. Lose to Donald
more to Democrats here — sounds like institutional- There is an irony in the fact that Sanders has be- Trump once, shame on the voters. Lose to him twice?
ized beggary. come the bête noire of Clintonian politics, given that It’s glue-factory time for the Democratic Party, and
“ ‘Pretty please, can I maybe have a hundred-thou- Sanders represents the culmination of Bill’s 1992 elec- another black eye for America, which is fast turning
sand-dollar grant here?’ ” she says. “ ‘Pretty please, toral formula: “Change versus more of the same.” its electoral system into a slapstick reality show.

But in the middle of the night, Eilish wakes up and

BILLIE EILISH stumbles over to Maggie’s bunk. “Mom?” she whis-
pers in the dark. “I had a bad dream. Can you come
[Cont. from 55] met at her house, she was having a sleep with me?”
much harder time than she let on. “I’m fine now,” she
T
says. “But that was one of the hardest weeks I’ve ever HE NEXT MORNING, everyone wakes up a little
had. I’ve never felt more hopeless in my life.” rough. Today’s show is at Red Rocks, the leg-
She says she’s never been one to suffer anxiety or endary amphitheater outside Denver, and it’s
panic attacks. “But that week, I had a panic attack overcast and chilly. Eilish shuffles into the greenroom
every single night. I cried for two hours every night. and microwaves herself a burrito, then plops down
It was really, really bad.” into a massage chair, a little queasy with a headache.
Eilish says it all came back to the tour. “I couldn’t Patrick thinks it’s the altitude; Maggie goes off in
take the fact that I had to leave again,” she says. “It search of aspirin.
felt like an endless limbo. Like there was no end in Someone brings Eilish an oxygen tank, and she
sight. And, I mean, it’s true: There really is no end in holds the mask to her face. Marquis comes in and
october 25-27, 2019

sight with touring.” She has shows planned all over tells her she looks like an old lady, and she laughs.
the world, well into next year. “Thinking about that Then he tells her there might be storms tonight, and
literally made me throw up,” she says. “And I’m not a Eilish perks up. “Really?” she says. “I hope it rains.”
throw-upper, but I threw up twice, from the anxiety.”
Eilish says she often gets this feeling before a tour.
“But it’s never been that bad, ever. There was a mo-
One of her closest friends, Zoe, is here. She flew
in from L.A. this morning. Eilish and Zoe have been
inseparable since they met at a home-school park
new
ment when I was sitting on my bathroom floor — this
sounds depressing, because it was — but I was sitting
on my bathroom floor, trying to think of something
day as toddlers. Now Zoe is here for the next three
weeks — the rest of the U.S. tour. She says her job is
just to hang out with Eilish and make her feel good.
orleans
I could look forward to. And I could not think of one “I’m like her therapy dog,” she jokes. “Her emotion-
thing. I thought for a long time, too. I was like, ‘There al-support human.”
has to be something.’ But there was nothing.” Eilish and Zoe spend a few hours riding scooters
She was also scared to be by herself. “Every time I and playing Uno. Then Eilish gets her wish. The skies
was alone, I would break down and kind of crumble,” open up; there’s lightning and dangerous winds; they
she says. “It got to the point where my friend would have to evacuate the venue. By showtime, it’s been
say, ‘I’m going home, see you,’ and I’d get this feeling raining on and off for hours.
in my stomach like a knife being twisted around.” She Eilish takes the stage in a white hoodie, white
mentions her history of self-harm. “I felt unsafe with gym shorts, and white Air Jordans, her cheeks ap-
myself, even for an hour,” she says. “I don’t trust my- ple-red in the wind and cold, looking like a Hype-
self when I’m alone.” beast Snow White. She opens with “Bad Guy,” and
Eilish knew she had to get better before she left. the fans scream every word so loud you can’t even
She’d tried seeing a therapist a few times last year hear Eilish. It’s one of the loudest crowds I’ve heard
and found it so-so, but she forced herself to go again. at a concert, ever — until the chorus hits, and it’s
“I don’t ever want advice, because I’m not going to twice as loud.
take it anyway,” she says. “I just want to be heard.” Eilish bounds around the stage slick with rain, as
Slowly, she felt better. Other things helped: She Patrick scurries behind her mopping up wet spots.
spent time with friends; she drove the Dragon; During one song, she slips and nearly breaks her
she rode Jackie O. “It’s funny,” she says, not laugh- neck, then laughs and keeps dancing. As the rain in-
ing. “It was literally just a week — but it was so in- creases, more and more crew guys try to keep things
tense that it feels like a whole year of my life I’m dry with rags and towels, but it’s a Sisyphean task.
talking about. It was just a completely random week Eventually Eilish abandons the stage entirely and
of bursting misery.” moves to a railing a few feet from the crowd. The
But to her surprise, she’s been enjoying the tour kids go crazy, and she’s loving it too. “Red Rocks,
so far. “The shows have been amazing,” she says. watch this!” she says, before moonwalking across
“We brought the scooters, so we’ve been scootering the stage. Then she cackles with delight and quotes
around. We played Ultimate Frisbee and I beat every- a Vine from a few years ago: “I’m a bad bitch, you
body’s ass. So, yeah. I’ve been pretty happy.” can’t kill me!”
When it comes down to it, Eilish knows how lucky Maybe it’s the weather, or the setting, or the
she is. “I have an amazing job, dude. I really do. The crowd, but the whole vibe is pretty magical. Eilish
things I get to do in my career have just been unbe- feels it too. Near the end of the show, she gets sin-
lievable. Like this shit, bro? Can you believe this is cere. “I just want to thank you,” she says. “This has
real?” She pulls out her phone and shows me a photo been one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever
of the crowd at her Portland show — 20,000 scream- experienced. I keep wanting to cry, but that’s dumb.
ing fans. “Are you kidding me? Like, that’s what I get I’ll cry afterwards.”
to do? Come on, bro! So I do love it. And, like, fame is
pretty cool. If I’m putting on my third-person cocky
After the show, the greenroom is full of industry
hangers-on who flew out from L.A. for the night.
halloween
hat, the shit is fucking amazing. Going anywhere and
being looked at, because everyone knows who you
are? That’s crazy! So I really cannot complain.” She
As they schmooze and talk shop, Eilish and Zoe run
around giggling, playing Frisbee with gluten-free tor-
tillas. Eventually they disappear into the bathroom,
weekend
grins. “But I do anyway.” singing to themselves as Eilish takes a shower. Gradu-
After the show that night, Eilish takes a few min-
utes to be alone and drink some water. Then she
ally the entourage trickles out, and it’s just Eilish, her
mom, and Zoe left. tickets at
spends a while choosing her outfit for the next day.
Eventually she retires to the bus, where she curls up
The girls gossip and reminisce for a while. Then
they crawl into a recliner together, curled up like kit- voodoofestival.com
on the bed with Patrick and debates which pictures tens, and silently scroll Instagram on their phones,
to post to Instagram. Then, sometime around two, while Maggie, smiling, sits at their feet, packing Eil-
the bus starts rolling, and the family turns in. ish’s suitcase for another day on the road.
says Morrow. “Even if you’re sober for years, you

DR. JOHN still have that guilt or doubt you carry around with
you. He didn’t think he really deserved the fame, the
[Cont. from 69] would call Pomus to ask where his wealth, or whatever it is that he could have had.”
songwriter partner was. “Don’t tell ’em I’m here!” Dr. He remained tied to his city and its traditions in
John would tell Pomus. “My dad loved Mac as much other ways. He still dined occasionally on local deli-
as he loved his own, but he would drive him crazy,” cacies like possum and raccoon. During walks, he’d
says Felder. “He was always worried about Mac and pick up only certain-colored leaves for some type
would get angry and upset at him.” of home altar (when leaving on tour, he would light
After his commercial heyday, Dr. John survived by candles and ask that they burn out on their own for
touring, singing jingles for Popeyes chicken, and ap- good luck). Another friend, local bassist Jeff Benina-
pearing on soundtracks. He released solo piano al- to, looked on as Dr. John boiled a squirrel, removed
bums that revisited the barroom style of his youth, the bones, and affixed them to one of his canes. At
and in the 1980s he helped pioneer the concept of various times, one or another of his walking sticks
# l o v e a l l w ay s rock stars playing pre-rock standards on In a Senti- would include a yak bone and a pouch made from a
mental Mood. Along the way, he developed a casual kangaroo’s scrotum.
fatalism about the music business. “I’ve seen the re- When a Twitter account was set up for him a dec-
cord business from a lot of ways, and don’t nothin’ ade ago, he’d announce an idea for a post with “I got
surprise me anymore,” he said in 1997. “I’ve been a Twizzler for the computer machine!” “Characters”
dropped by a lot of labels, and the only thing that sur- were “care-actors.” Even his “textiles” (texts) — no
prises me is that they don’t drop me sooner.” spaces between words — captured his swamp-frog el-
Around 1989, he finally cleaned up, checking into ocution. “I hope someone does a glossary of his lan-
rehab for his drug abuse. At Pomus’ funeral in 1991, guage,” says Bonnie Raitt, a friend since the 1970s.
Dr. John played organ and gave a eulogy referring to “There was no possibility of auto-correct, ever.”
himself as “a guy who used to be a scumbag dope But as he entered his seventies, health issues
fiend” who was saved by Pomus. Recalls Robertson, began to overtake him. Due to cirrhosis of the liver,
“Years later, when I would see him I’d remind him he could no longer eat his beloved New Orleans shell-
of one of these stories, and he would say, ‘Oh, yeah, fish. He began spending more time with his kids,
man, I try to put that shit behind me.’ ” splitting time between his son’s house on Lake Pont-
Disaster brought him back home. Newly clean, Dr. chartrain and daughter Karla’s house in New Orleans.
# l o v e a l l w ay s John began recording and touring regularly, and at- Karla would watch her father crack up watching re-
tending recovery meetings in New York. But after runs of The Carol Burnett Show. “He loved Tim Con-
Hurricane Katrina, he found a new mission. His way and Harvey Korman,” she says. “He would laugh
2008 album, City That Care Forgot, expressed his until tears were falling down his face.”
anger over the neglect of New Orleans. Soon after, He continued performing despite increased phys-
he moved back to his native city. “He wanted to see ical discomfort. “He had this outward appearance
this city rebuilt and people come back to New Orle- of being old and slow, but, man, you talk about
ans,” says his daughter Karla Pratt. He played a chari- eagle eyes,” says bassist Roland Guerin, his last mu-
ty concert for displaced musicians in the Ninth Ward; sical director. “He knew exactly what everybody
later, he personally went to a Walgreens to buy medi- [in the band] was doing.” Starting around 2017, he
cations the musicians required. began making what would be his last album, record-
In 2010, Auerbach felt the time had come for Dr. ing country covers and remakes of older songs like
John to return to the mood of his swamp-rock work. “Such a Night.” Neville appeared on a cover of the
After tracking down his phone number, Auerbach Traveling Wilburys’ “End of the Line,” a jolly song
called but could barely decipher anything, thanks about accepting one’s life and fate. “Mac liked it,”
to Dr. John’s “smokescreen, extra-thick” accent. “I says Neville. “He knew he was on the way out, and
# l o v e a l l w ay s found out later that this was his defense mechanism he was at peace with it.” Karla begs to differ: “I do
for strangers,” says Auerbach. “He’d been ripped off not believe he knew he was about to die. He was
by so many different people over the years.” looking forward to getting out of there and getting
Getting his address, Auerbach flew to New Orleans back to his old routine. He never gave up.” (The
and showed up, unannounced, at a duplex Dr. John album, completed before his death, does not yet have
shared with a newly released ex-con friend. When Dr. a release date.)
John opened the door, Auerbach recalls, he looked Last year, Dr. John was diagnosed with aphasia, a
“incredible . . . He was dressed in a guayabera shirt condition that impedes speaking; he eventually re-
and wearing full beads, hair perfectly braided. Not ceived speech therapy and moved into a rehabilita-
necessarily a stage costume, but the most incredi- tion center. On June 2nd, he was visited there by Jon
ble thing you’ve ever seen.” Dr. John agreed to make Cleary, a British musician who’d toured with him.
the album, although trombonist and producer Sarah Cleary brought along a portable record player, and
Morrow, one of Dr. John’s collaborators, recalls some the two listened to records from Dr. John’s youth, like
initial anxiety. “He really liked Dan, but I remember New Orleans singer-guitarist Smiley Lewis. Dr. John
Mac calling me and he was very uncomfortable,” she held Cleary’s hand and, despite his inability to speak,
says. “He was being pushed out of his comfortable sang along as best he could.
# l o v e a l l w ay s territory. But what Dan did for him was amazing. After Dr. John’s death four days later, New Or-
That album was a modern-day Gris-Gris.” leans gave him a traditional second-line funeral,
Released in 2012, Locked Down came in the middle with revelers and a brass band snaking through the
of a comeback for Dr. John. He had just been inducted city of his birth. Transported through the streets by
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and the album took a horse-drawn carriage, his casket was trailed by
home the Grammy for Best Blues Album — which, mourners, including one holding a poster with dual
Auerbach recalls, “meant the world to him as vali- photos: one of the young Night Tripper; the other,
DI SCOV ER MORE @ LI BERA TOR.CO M dation.” Those who got to know the real man could an older, more dapper version. Right to the end,
understand why. “Mac was surprisingly insecure for the devilish and the debonair were always one and
someone who was this icon and beloved by so many,” the same.
cause when I say something, I know that there are policy proposals yet offered by a Democratic candi-
KAMALA HARRIS people who are trusting me.” date: modeling a reproductive-rights bill on the Vot-
That “heavy burden,” as Harris puts it, is one she ing Rights Act. Her idea would mandate that states
[Cont. from 73] When I ask Harris about the new knows from experience. “Look, you have to under- with a history of restrictive anti-abortion laws get fed-
rhetoric, she says, “It’s about: We’re not going to go stand that when I hold a microphone in front of me, I eral permission before enacting new ones.
back to a state of mind, for example, that says that am acutely aware of the power that I have,” she says, “Go back to Bobby Kennedy, when he understood
certain things can’t be done or certain people can’t locking eyes, her demeanor serious. “From the day I the power of law enforcement through the Depart-
do it.” became a prosecutor in my early twenties, I learned ment of Justice to enforce civil rights. Remember
One of the reasons Harris’ debate performance that with the swipe of my pen, if I charge someone when he sent those U.S. marshals down?” Harris
resonated is it was something that we hadn’t ever with a misdemeanor, they could be arrested. They says, referencing James Meredith’s integration of the
seen before. No other black presidential candidate, could sit in jail for 48 hours. They’d be embarrassed University of Mississippi. “It’s about the checks and
not even Obama, experienced busing the way that in their community, in their family. They might lose balances, and knowing the power within these insti-
Harris did. We hadn’t seen someone who had been their job. All because I charged them with a crime. tutions to create that. We don’t only have to be on
subjected as a child to the federal remedies for sys- “So I do believe that people want to know that the outside. I guess the point is, and maybe this is a
temic racism confronting a white legislator who im- when you have that kind of power, you are respectful theme of how I have approached issues and my ca-
plemented — or in Biden’s case, opposed — those of it and you are appreciative of the fact it will have reer — I prefer to be on the offensive.”
remedies. During the debates, as Biden was making an impact on real people.” It’s an attitude that Harris has had since her earli-
his cases against busing in the 1970s, how could he Harris speaks about these responsibilities in a slow est days of retail politics, when she ran for San Fran-
have ever imagined that a little girl who got bused to and solemn cadence. “My perspective was, ‘Let’s go cisco DA in 2003. “I would campaign with my ironing
Berkeley’s Thousand Oaks Elementary would grow on the inside, where we have the ability to be at the board,” she says. “I would grab it out of my house —
up to challenge him for the office that he has always table, where the decisions are being made.’ It’s one and a roll of duct tape, my posters, my literature, and
wanted? of the reasons I ran for district attorney, because I my handouts. And I would put them all in my car and
Simon, who has the practical experience of work- know I’m not so good at asking for permission.” Har- drive to a grocery store.”
ing with Harris, believes she can be a transformation- ris laughs to herself. But she still isn’t kidding. “I’m Then Harris would get out, open up shop in front
al figure as president, even though Simon agrees it’s just not. I’m not.” of the store, and begin selling her candidacy to
a major ask to get black folks to believe that in the whomever passed by. “The ironing board makes a
Trump era. “You don’t need somebody to give you great standing desk,” she says. “I’d tape my post-
permission to be your brilliant self,” Simon says, not- “My perspective was, ers on one side, flap them over. And I would require
ing that it was Harris who pushed her to go to college.
“And I feel that’s why she decided to run for presi-
‘Let’s go on the inside, people to talk to me as they walked in and out of the
grocery store.” Require? “Oh, some would not. But
dent. Nobody is going to give permission for a black where we have the I was not going to be denied — without really being
woman who wants to make incremental change in
this country.”
ability to be at the table.’ too forceful. That’s how I campaigned.” We drive past
bus stops in San Francisco’s Chinatown, street cor-
This is a theme of how I ners that Harris recognizes readily. “I would cam-
H have approached issues

ARRIS WAS RAISED by strong women, and paign at these bus stops starting at six in the morn-
pragmatism ruled the day. Her “second ing until 8:00 at night,” she says.
mother,” as Harris still calls the late Regina and my career — I prefer At one point, I tell Harris that she is asking for a lot
Shelton, came to Berkeley from Louisiana. Shelton
was running a child-care business in the early 1970s.
to be on the offensive.” of trust when she asks black people and other Amer-
icans who have been marginalized to believe she can
Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher, and her change the system. “You’re totally right,” she says,
T
two little girls, Kamala and Maya Harris, lived just HE VERY EXISTENCE of Kamala Harris as a can- noting that she tries to address this in her stump
two doors down from the Sheltons, in the apartment didate isn’t an incremental change; one can speeches. “One of the most important ingredients in
above the child-care center. (Harris’ father, Donald, only hope that her policies wouldn’t be, ei- trust is truth, but speaking truth can often make peo-
emigrated from Jamaica to do his graduate studies in ther. Thus far, Harris has stayed inside the bounds ple quite uncomfortable, right? Often, at least a few
economics at Cal. The couple divorced when Kamala of Washington politics while still pushing innovative of those truths that I speak, people are not prepared
was seven years old, and Gopalan was granted cus- ideas that have a chance of realization. “She’s not to hear, but they do not deny it. Nobody wants a lead-
tody of the girls. Kamala and Donald are not close.) a progressive,” says Vinson, the Furman professor. er who’s walking around selling dope.”
Until Kamala was 12, when Gopalan moved the girls “She is very squarely in the mainstream of the Dem- Walking in San Francisco’s Pride parade down
to Montreal after accepting research and teaching po- ocratic Party. And that’s something that will appeal Market Street alongside the Harris car, a red convert-
sitions there, the two mothers were fast friends and to South Carolina voters because there are a lot who ible Ford Mustang only outshined by the senator’s
bonded over their local activism. don’t want the progressive wing to prevail.” rainbow-bejeweled denim jacket, I suddenly find my-
“They got that political ire-and-fire from following At the Essence Festival in New Orleans, Harris self walking next to her husband.
their mother to campaigns on campus,” says Sharon teased a forthcoming slate of policies focusing on The Brooklyn native is fairly experienced at cam-
McGaffie, Shelton’s daughter, of Kamala and Maya, black uplift while introducing a $100 billion plan to paigning by now, having been in every Pride pa-
who went on to become a civil-rights attorney in her help communities affected by the racist practice of rade with Harris since he married her in 2014, after
own right. (Maya’s daughter, Meena, is now an at- redlining that shut out potential black homeown- a year’s courtship that began with a blind date. “I’ve
torney, activist, and entrepreneur, who credits her ers from building equity in their own communities. had a good, unique view over the past several years
grandmother for showing her, her mother, and her Harris also joined forces in July with first-year Rep. to see her in action,” Emhoff says. “And I’m im-
aunt Kamala how to be diligent. “I don’t know any- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on a bill that would change pressed to see how she’s evolved and how really good
thing else but to work my ass off, to know that I have eviction and screening policies to help people with she’s gotten at communicating — the substance, but
an obligation and a duty to do good in the world,” criminal records apply for housing assistance. While also the personal. And now you’re seeing the conver-
Meena says.) some observers claim Harris is latching on to AOC gence of who she is: who I fell in love with, and who
That appears to be a value Harris picked up as for progressive cred, this bill actually hearkens back I get to see every day.”
well. “People over the years have learned to trust to her own work with the Back on Track program in Like her hero, Shirley Chisholm, Harris is staging a
that what I say will be well thought out, well rea- San Francisco. presidential run as a woman unafraid to be herself.
soned, accurate — and that it will be practical,” the Harris also promises to continue fighting for the She is an educated black woman who carries an un-
senator says. “And this is where sometimes people LIFT the Middle Class Act, the basic-income-style bill flinching belief in law and order and the American
on my communications team get upset with me, be- she proposed last fall that offers, with income restric- project, however flawed. Fortunately for her, in this
cause I’m like, ‘I’m not going to just say that because tions, $250 to singles and $500 to married couples race, you don’t get much more anti-Trump than that.
somebody came up with a talking point for me. What monthly. In May, as Republican states were trying to She now has the momentum. It is time for her to
does that mean? Has anyone done the research on outdo one another for the cruelest piece of anti-abor- make her case, fascinating and complicated though
this? What are the unintended consequences?’ Be- tion legislation, Harris presented one of the smartest it may be.
August 2019 | RollingStone.com | 97

LL Cool J
The hip-hop icon on success, ‘Accidental
Racist,’ and calling yourself the G.O.A.T.
What are the most im- I learned that not everybody’s can’t change. It taught me
portant rules you live by? going to get what you’re say- how not to let rough times
I treat people the way I want ing. You know, fuck it — I’m ruin my hopes and dreams
to be treated. And I don’t not apologizing for it; I be- for the future. I think I’ve in-
let anybody come between lieve in what I said. If some- stilled that in my kids.
me and what I’m trying to body is crazy enough to think Your song “I Need Love”
accomplish. You know, put I was suggesting we do some was one of the first rap bal-
your oxygen mask on first, tap-dance, Amos ’n’ Andy shit, lads. Where did you get the
then help the person next then that’s on them. nerve to write something
to you. You’re from Queens like that?
and Long Island. What’s the The majority of men don’t
most New York thing about want to be that vulnera-
LL Cool J hosts ‘The you? ble, but at the same time,
Influence of Hip- You can’t get past that New it’s what I was feeling at
Hop’ on SiriusXM. York hustle. It’s that idea of the time. Many people
turning an idea into some- feel like they need love —
thing you can actually now, whether or not they
What do you wish some- touch. The other thing is, wish to be vulnerable is a
one had told you about the I have enough belief in whole ’nother conver-
music business before you myself as a black man sation, but I was will-
got into it? to not be overly sen- ing to go there.
I don’t know if I would’ve be- sitive to everything You titled your
lieved anybody giving me ad- that’s said on a racial 2000 album G.O.A.T.
vice. I got into the music inside. In New York, and now everyone
dustry at 16 years old. That’s people are always uses that acronym
different from somebody who making some kind for Greatest of All
gets into it in their late twen- of politically incor- Time. How do you
ties. I had people telling me a rect joke. If you know when to call
thousand things, but I didn’t grow up in that yourself that?
listen to none of that shit. type of environ- You got to believe
Your first big check was ment, you’re not as in yourself and speak
for $50,000. What was the sensitive to some of it into existence. Every-
first expensive thing you that. In New York, peo- body ain’t going to agree. Mu-
bought? ple just talk crazy. hammad Ali said he was the
I got my mother a car, and You had a rough Greatest of All Time. Peo-
I got some sneakers, a gold childhood. You wrote in ple like to pretend they don’t
chain, and a VCR in my your memoir that your fa- know that my G.O.A.T. album
room. I bought my mother ther shot your mother and is when that term was intro-
a house, I think, with the grandfather. They survived, duced, but at the end of the
second check. and your mom started a re- day, I stamped myself with
You’re famous for your lationship with another man that and turned around and
battle raps. What did taking who beat you. What did made that the title of excel-
on Kool Moe Dee and Cani- those experiences teach lence for our entire country.
bus teach you? you about fatherhood? While it’s debatable wheth-
Sometimes you’ve got to de- They taught me that er or not people believe I am
fend your ground and some- your kids should the G.O.A.T., they are so im-
times it’s a waste of time, so always feel safe pacted by that term that they
you’ve got to pick your bat- and that you call Michael Phelps, Michael
tles wisely. can do any- Jordan, LeBron James, and
What did you learn from thing you put Biggie the G.O.A.T., all be-
the backlash to “Accidental your mind to. cause I made that album.
Racist,” your 2013 collabo- Without chal- I look at that as a
ration with Brad Paisley? lenges, you victory. KORY GROW
98 | Rolling Stone | August 2019 ILLUSTRATION BY Mark Summers


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