Mike and the Moonpies had just finished their gig at Antone’s in Austin last Thursday when the city began to freeze. The country band had plans to rendezvous at their producer’s studio in Wimberley, about 45 minutes southwest, to work on a new album. All five Moonpies, along with their …
Read More »Rina Sawayama Has No Time for Pop's Old Borders
Given all the strange, terrifying, and unexpected events of the past year, it may not surprise you to learn that a pop star chose to mash up Christina Aguilera-style Y2K melodies with Disturbed-ish nu-metal on her debut album. Even so, Rina Sawayama’s SAWAYAMA still felt like an unlikely – and …
Read More »The Photographer Behind the Bernie Sanders Chair Meme Tells All
A picture is worth a thousand Berns. And in this case, more like 100,000 memes. Two weeks before the inauguration, Brendan Smialowski, a former sports photojournalist from Connecticut who documents politics for wire service Agence France-Presse, had been outside the Capitol when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building. …
Read More »Lenny Kravitz on Love, Anger, and Music
After the pandemic began spreading in early March, Lenny Kravitz left his Paris home and decamped to his retreat in Eleuthera, a small island in the Bahamas. Rather than touring the world and promoting his new memoir, Kravitz has been living the simple life, growing his own food and using …
Read More »Jaime Harrison Is Ready to End Lindsey Graham's Career in Congress
Jaime Harrison is a storyteller. Ask the 44-year-old Democratic candidate for Senate in South Carolina just about anything and he’s likely to respond by way of a real-world example, either from his own upbringing in rural Orangeburg or from the lives of those he’s encountered throughout his career in politics. …
Read More »Black Exotic Dancers Demand Better Treatment With 'Stripper Strike'
At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when strip clubs across the country were shuttering and dancers found themselves abruptly out of work, the Portland, Oregon strip club the Lucky Devil Lounge started a food-delivery service called Boober Eats in order to provide some of its employees work. The concept …
Read More »Four Ideas Shaping the Conversation About Reimagining the Police
In 2015, 24-year-old Jamar Clark was shot in the head by a Minneapolis police officer. The officer said Clark grabbed for his partner’s gun; witnesses said he was handcuffed at the time. Black Lives Matter demonstrated outside the police precinct for 18 days, and the Hennepin County attorney announced with …
Read More »Why Policing Is Broken
Years ago, while working on a story for Rolling Stone about why so few white-collar offenders went to jail, I realized I needed to better understand why the criminal-justice system worked with such monstrous efficiency to put poorer people in prison. What I thought would be a short detour to …
Read More »The Disgrace of Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s astounding incompetence in recent months — worsening the effects of the lethal COVID-19 pandemic, mishandling the ensuing economic disaster, and maliciously inflaming racial tensions — has affirmed that he is without question the worst president in American history. None of the other contenders for the dishonor, including James …
Read More »'RS Interview: Special Edition' With Killer Mike
Michael Santiago Render, known to the world as the Atlanta rapper Killer Mike, is half of the so-chaotic-it-works rap duo Run the Jewels, whose excellent fourth effort, RTJ4, debuted last week. For a group that is arguably ahead of its time, it only seems appropriate that lines like these — …
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