Trap music impresario Jeezy has gone from encouraging a “Trap or Die” mentality to providing political thug motivation in recent years, endorsing President-Elect Joe Biden in the 2020 election, tweeting support for Hillary Clinton in 2015, and giving fans on both sides of the tracks the unforgettable song “My President …
Read More »Musicians on Musicians: Roddy Ricch & Future
G rowing up in Compton in the 2010s, Roddy Ricch listened more to the Atlanta rap hymns of Future than to his iconic West Coast forebears. (“I was born in ’98,” he has said. “What do you expect me to rap like?”) He’s since become one of the most popular …
Read More »No Matter What Lawsuits He May File, President Trump Is an Epic Loser
Donald Trump is having a terrible November. First, he loses the presidential election as an incumbent in historic fashion. Then, in his much-hyped litigation explosion to show the world that he really won on November 3rd, he has lost in court repeatedly. There’s just no two ways about it: Donald …
Read More »Five Exchanges That Defined the Final Debate of 2020
The first debate was pandemonium. The second was canceled after the president was hospitalized with Covid-19. The third and, mercifully, last debate was a relatively sedate affair. It took place a week and half before what we call Election Day, but already 50 million Americans have locked in their votes …
Read More »Joe Biden's Moment
W e’ve lived for the past four years under a man categorically unfit to be president. Fortunately for America, Joe Biden is Donald Trump’s opposite in nearly every category: The Democratic presidential nominee evinces competence, compassion, steadiness, integrity, and restraint. Perhaps most important in this moment, Biden holds a profound …
Read More »Trump Endorsed Voter Suppression. Poll Watching Is Something Else Entirely
One of the easiest questions President Trump was asked during Tuesday night’s debate was if he would commit to not declare victory until the election results were independently certified. If the president were wearing an earpiece (and if he and his campaign weren’t actively trying to steal the election), this …
Read More »Inside TikTok's Hidden Hit Machine
This spring, Curtis Waters was bored out of his mind in quarantine in North Carolina. So he did what millions of other teens and young adults in America were doing: He went on TikTok. The 20-year-old indie-pop singer and his brother made a goofy dance video to Waters’ vibey tune …
Read More »The Remarkable Rise of Lil Baby
L il Baby has four pockets stuffed with cash, and he’d like to keep it that way. The 25-year-old rapper has spent the past 15 minutes teaching me to play cee-lo, a dice game that helped make him famous in certain Atlanta circles long before he reached legal drinking age. …
Read More »Alanis Morissette on Her Wrenching New Album, 25 Years of 'Jagged Little Pill,' and More
As with the rest of humanity, Alanis Morissette’s big plans for 2020 haven’t quite worked out. With the hit musical of Jagged Little Pill running strong on Broadway as the year began, she was going to release her first album in eight years, the wrenching Such Pretty Forks in the …
Read More »U.S. States Have Been Trying to Criminalize Protests for the Past Five Years
This article was originally published by Grist and is republished here as part of an ongoing collaboration. The Minnesota legislature has spent the last five years preparing for the kind of protests that have rocked the city over the past week in the wake of the police killing of George …
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